Maybe he was a nervous guy. If I ever expected an employer to give me a chance despite my lackluster work history, Monty deserved a chance too.
Chapter 9
Monty
“BABIES, HUH? YOU LOVE babies,” James said with a snicker as he sat on the corner of my desk.
“Rock told you?”
I knew it wouldn’t be long before my younger brother found out. He lived for that sort of thing. He loved making fun of us any chance he got.
“No, Laura.”
I rubbed my face. I left the party on Saturday soon after that. There was no point being at a baby’s birthday when I freaked out the mom. Yes, I was the father, but no one knew that but me. I wondered if I should ever tell anyone.
I’d take care of them. Maybe be an anonymous person mailing big checks to Julia every year.
I groaned. I had turned into a Dickensian character. A benefactor from afar.
“Don’t worry, Bro. We all know you aren’t a perv. Except for Julia. I’m sure you’ll never be invited back into her house.”
He was right. As much as I wanted to meet little Nathan, that would not happen.
I thought I’d be relieved, but my heart hadn’t stopped twisting my chest since I left the party. I hardly slept for the past two days.
It was so bad I was considering confessing to James, the same guy with a prank channel.
“I wanted to see Nathan,” I mumbled.
My brother lifted his phone, tapping at it a few times.
“Why? A baby is a baby is a baby. They cry, poop, and pee.”
I thinned my lips. “Does Marika know your views on babies?”
His eyes widened, and he ran to the door, closing it quickly.
“Shh. Keep it down. I don’t want people knowing about that.”
I shook my head. “Rock already knows.”
“But not everyone else. Anyway, I’m not here to talk about Marika. I heard you were looking for investors for your computer geek start-up.”
“Social Glass. It’s virtual reality.”
“Then, yes, sign me up. VR gaming is amazing.”
I shook my head. “It won’t have anything to do with gaming. It’s to help special needs kids understand their environment. Something they can work with teachers and therapists to help them navigate the world without the distractions that are currently around them.”
His eyes glazed over, and I knew my brother had stopped listening.
“I’m glad you want to help, but I’m looking for investors. Big investors.”
“Call Hamish. I don’t think they make them bigger than him.”
I tapped the desk with my finger. This office was small, but I didn’t require a big office. My brother was nice enough to lend me the room in his resort while I worked on my new venture.
I had a company out west working on apps to handle business efficiency. Different apps for different parts of a company that could be tailored to the specific company’s needs, ranging from helping HR to improving sales.
But the VR technology was advancing, and I wanted to use it differently and in a way to help people. Just about everyone in VR was looking at it for gaming and other entertainment purposes. A few were even looking to help doctors learn medicine.
But I wanted to push it further. To do more. I needed investments to research and develop a few ideas of mine. If I were back at my company out west, I’d have to focus on current projects and not getting the time I needed to work on VR. I let the CTO run things while I took a break in Virginia to work on my idea and seek investors.
“I thought about reaching out to him, but we do that with everything. He helped you and Rock and was even one of my first investors. Sure, he has all the money in the world, but I don’t want him to think the only reason we have him in our lives is for money.”
I met him at university. I had landed a scholarship to MIT. He had gone to Harvard, which was right down the road. We got to talking at a few parties and struck up a friendship.
I introduced him to Rock, and sometimes I thought Rock liked Hamish Blackwell more than me. Even James had a little man-crush on him.
“I see your point. Maybe we could come up with some ideas over lunch. I hear Laura’s making steamed blue crab.”
My mouth watered.
“I can’t. I have an interview that Rock set up for a new assistant.”
“Reschedule. I know how much you love crab.”
Why did I have to love food so much? I rolled my lips over my teeth and shook my head. “Stop it. Stop tempting me.”
He meandered toward the door and said, “And she’s making chocolate chip cookies for dessert.”
Ugh.
“I hate you.”
“Love you too, Big Brother.” He winked before opening and then closing the door as he left.
My stomach grumbled as I stared at the closed door. I was hungry. Maybe I could run over to the kitchen of The Blue Chip, the in-house restaurant, and grab a cookie. Laura wouldn’t mind.
I got up when I heard a knock at the door, the same moment my phone buzzed with a text message. Glancing at my phone on the desk, the message said my interviewee was here.
No time for a cookie.
“Please, come in,” I called out as I sat back down.
The door opened, and as I glanced up, I stopped pulling my chair into the desk.
It was Julia.
She stared at me, holding something behind her back.
“I’m, uh . . . here for the interview.”
She wanted to be my assistant? That was a bad idea. I couldn’t work next to her every day and not blurt out that I was the father of her child.
I nodded and waved for her to come inside. I wasn’t going to hire her, but I had to perform the interview.
She wore a short sundress and looked adorable. It wasn’t appropriate for me to stare at her legs, but it also wasn’t right that I hadn’t told her I knocked her up back in early December.
What could I say? I was a big jerk.
I lowered my gaze and pretended to be busy typing on my laptop as she made her way into the room.
Once she sat, I looked up to face her. Her cheeks were flushed, her blond hair tousled, and as she licked her lips, I wondered, Did she look like that after I fucked her?
My cock twitched.
She leaned over and handed me a piece of paper.
“What is this?” I grabbed the paper and lifted it in front of my face so I wouldn’t look at her.
The more my eyes focused on her face and those plump lips, the harder my cock became.
“It’s my résumé.”
“The Chicken Digs?” I read one of her previous employer’s name.
“Yes. I didn’t work there very long. It was more of a summer gig to earn a little extra cash.”
“You didn’t seem to work much of anywhere very long.” I lowered the paper.
It was obvious I shouldn’t hire her. I knew it, and based on the frown she had, Julia knew it too.
She forced out a laugh. “What can I say? I have been biding my time to work for the man.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “The man?”
Julia sighed. “Look, I’ll be honest with you. After the way you acted on Saturday, I didn’t want to come here. But Laura insisted.”
Now I was getting irritated. If she didn’t want to work for me, she shouldn’t have come.
“I apologize for my behavior. I was told to be there by Rock for a certain reason, and then when I got there, that reason vanished. He looked at me as if I shouldn’t have come. I felt weird and awkward, and I guess it showed in how I acted.”
“I guess I can understand that.” Julia bit her lower lip.
She had to stop doing that. My irritation was melting into arousal.
“If I’m so bad, then why did you come?”
That was when I heard a cooing noise. She bent over and lifted something that was gray and blue and large. It had a handle and appeared heavy. Turning it, I saw Nath
an nestled inside, surrounded by blankets and a small plush rooster.
“He’s why I’m here.”
I couldn’t keep my eyes off that little bundle of cuteness. He had a small patch of black hair, and I swore he looked just like my father.
I had a powerful urge to run around the desk and hold him in my arms. And that thought did something to me.
This wasn’t about my attraction to Julia, or what we did together in a dark closet at a holiday ball. It wasn’t even about her not being qualified for this job.
It was my responsibility to take care of this little boy. If Julia could work hard to make sure Nathan was happy and healthy, take a job she didn’t want, all so he would be provided for, then the least I could do was get over my feelings for his mother and do the right thing.
It was time to tell Julia that I was the man in that closet with the candy cane dick.
I opened my mouth, but right at that moment, the phone buzzed. Reaching for it to turn it off, I noticed it was Hamish.
I groaned.
“Jilted ex calling?” Julia asked.
I chuckled. “No, an important potential investor.”
“Let me talk to him.”
I glanced up in surprise. “What?”
“You don’t want to talk to him but need his money, right?”
“Well, no. It’s a little more complicated than that.”
She placed Nathan’s carrier back on the floor and stood. Coming over to my side of the desk, she held out her hand.
“With money, it’s usually never complicated. People need it to live. That’s it.”
Still in a bit of shock, I handed her the phone.
“I’m friends with him. So, please don’t—” I said before she held up her finger to stop me while raising the cell phone to her ear.
“Mr. Montgomery Diaz’s phone. How may I help you?”
I heard Hamish’s voice but couldn’t tell what he was saying.
“He’s indisposed at the moment. I suspect you’re calling about that exclusive investment opportunity. I’ll let him know—”
She stopped but nodded a few times.
“You don’t know about the investment? That’s strange . . . He told me he was only letting his most trusted friends know about it. I hope I haven’t made a mistake in telling you . . .”
I squirmed in my seat. The last thing I wanted was to piss off Hamish. He was a great guy. Even if he didn’t want to invest, I’d still consider him a close friend. But I suspected after this call, he wouldn’t be speaking to me anymore.
“Oh, please, Mr. Blackwell. Don’t tell my boss I told you. I just got this job as his assistant. I don’t want to be fired. Maybe he was planning to tell you later.” Julia sounded distressed.
I rubbed the back of my neck. Hamish was mad. He was yelling at Julia. This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have let her answer my phone.
“Right. I’ll let him know you called,” she said and then tapped the phone before handing it back to me.
She walked back to her black leather padded chair and sat.
“That did not go as—”
“He wants to invest. Mr. Blackwell told me that whatever it is, he wants in.”
My eyes widened. It usually took me several dinners and a night of getting drunk to slowly get Hamish used to an investment. He may have had all the money in the world, but he was choosy where he put it.
“But you sounded so upset on the phone.”
She shrugged. “I wasn’t. Don’t tell him that. People believe you more if you throw emotion into your plea. I could tell he wasn’t buying the whole ‘it’s exclusive bit,’ so I pretended to be a naïve new hire who just made a big mistake in letting him know about something he shouldn’t know about. He has money. No offense, Mr. Diaz, but the wealthy are oblivious to the intelligence of people without money.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. While her tactics were manipulative, they produced results. Hamish was a smart guy. When I described the venture to him, if he didn’t want in, he could easily back out.
Looking over at Julia, I wondered if she would make an excellent assistant. She may not have had the background I was looking for, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t smart. She proved that she could take direction and run with it.
“You’re hired,” I said, and a shiver ran down my spine as she broke out into a gorgeous, wide smile.
Perhaps me telling her I was Nathan’s father could wait. At least for a few days.
Chapter 10
Julia
“MRS. JULIA DIAZ WITH a heart,” I said as I scribbled on the small white pad of paper at my desk.
It was my third day as Monty Diaz’s assistant, and there wasn’t much to do. I had the interview on Monday, started on Tuesday, and now it was Thursday.
They filled the first day with HR paperwork and a tour of The Blue Spot. That day was nice but boring. I thought since I was now making more money than I ever had in my life, the work would be hard. I was wrong.
The day was like the last day of high school, just busy work and distractions while teachers would show movies all day in class.
I sat in on my first meeting yesterday. It was in the conference room, and Rock was there. James Diaz was there too. Everyone kept telling me he didn’t work for The Blue Spot, but since he was an investor and Rock’s brother, he wanted to keep abreast of what was happening.
The meeting was about a contest they had going on here, something about dating a billionaire. I wish I had heard about that because I would have totally entered.
At one point, Monty asked for my opinion on a topic they were discussing. It surprised me how much I enjoyed giving input. I thought I would panic and make something up, but I didn’t. And the people in the meeting debated my idea.
It was thrilling having a say at what went on here.
“Mrs. Julia Diaz with a skull and crossbones.” I smirked as I colored in the eye pits of the skull.
I had resorted to pretending I was married to Monty and practicing my name like a teenager. But really, what was there to do?
“Working on something exciting?”
I gasped and quickly threw the pad of paper in the top drawer upon hearing Laura’s voice.
“Yes. And Mr. Diaz really doesn’t want anyone to know until he’s ready to announce it.” I leaned back in my swivel chair, tapping the pencil’s eraser against the tip of my nose.
Laura was in her chef’s coat and a navy pencil skirt. Her blond hair was pulled back in her typical tight French twist.
“I wanted to check on you and see how everything is going.” She clasped her hands together, and excitement filled her eyes.
When I told her I got the job, I swore she had an orgasm. My sister believed everyone should have a “career” position. Something with the potential for promotion. A job that filled you with excitement and made you jump out of bed in the mornings. She had that, so why shouldn’t everyone else?
The Blue Chip, where she was the head chef, was on the other side of the resort, making it easy for her to visit me every day this week.
“Like I told you yesterday, it’s great. I sit here and do computery things.” I tapped at the sleek, silver laptop keyboard on my desk. Solitaire popped up on screen.
Her lips puckered. “I see you’re working on something very difficult at the moment.”
“That was from an hour ago during my break, which reminds me . . . Do you know a place where I can pump?” I waved my hand around my chest. I didn’t dare touch a boob for fear it might leak.
I had been sneaking to bathrooms around the resort that didn’t have people in them, but it just wasn’t sanitary. One of these days someone would walk in and do their business, and I’d have to dump what I pumped.
Laura tapped her chin. “I don’t even know. I’d ask HR about that.”
I groaned. Troy, the HR guy I had to deal with this week, was rude. At one point I asked where the restrooms were located, and you would have thought I’d asked him for a
kidney. He told me it was above his pay grade, whatever that meant.
“I don’t want to bother them.”
“But you need a place to pump. It’s the twenty-first century, Julia. It’s not too much to ask.”
I waved my sister off. “I’ll figure it out. Mr. Diaz has a private bathroom, and he won’t be here until after lunch. I’ll just use that for now.”
She sighed. “If you’re okay with that. But I think if you speak with HR, they’ll be of some help.”
I stared up at my sister and wanted that innocent hopefulness for myself. There were people in this world who held power, not even extensive power. It could be as small as someone who worked at the job a few months longer than you. But they could make work an enjoyable experience or the most miserable time of your life.
I had found through the many jobs I had worked, some of the people in HR pretended like they cared about your wellbeing, but really, they only cared about the bottom line. A new hire complaining she couldn’t find a place to pump breast milk seemed like something they’d offer for cost-saving measures to make their bottom line more attractive for their bosses.
I couldn’t lose this job. Once I saw how much it paid and the benefits, there was no going back. Nathan would be easily cared for on what I made at The Blue Spot.
No more hourly jobs that required me to wear uncomfortable uniforms. I would tolerate hiding in executive bathrooms while they weren’t around to pump if it meant I kept my place here.
“That’s a temporary solution, Julia. Keep that in mind. Talk to Monty about it.”
My eyes widened. “The man nearly had a heart attack when I showed up to the interview with Nathan. I couldn’t imagine how he’d act if the words ‘breast’ and ‘pump’ came out of my mouth.”
My lips curled into a smirk. It would be fun to watch him squirm, but not enjoyable enough to lose a job over.
When his eyes fell on Nathan in the car seat, I thought he froze to death. The man wouldn’t move. He stared at Nathan as if he was witnessing a corpse at a funeral suddenly sit up and wave hi to the crowd.
Surprising the Billionaire with a Baby (Blue Ridge Mountain Billionaires Book 2) Page 6