My Boss, the Billionaire
The Billionaire Kings Book 2
By
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Copyright 2019 Serenity Woods
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter One
Nix
“Do you realize you bark more than the dogs?”
I pose the question—with some exasperation—to my boss, after he yells at a group of teenage volunteers, leaving them red-faced and flustered.
It’s eleven a.m. on Wednesday, the first day of May; it’s a crisp, clear morning, and we’re standing in the large square that fronts Noah’s Ark Animal Sanctuary. Today, the Ark is in chaos. At one p.m., New Zealand’s Prime Minister will arrive to open the newly refurbished veterinary center and the brand-new petting farm. At least half the community will also be here. We’ve set up a refreshment stall selling vegetarian rolls—it seemed a bit crass to have a barbecue in front of the field where pigs, cows, and sheep hang out—and a local band is warming up.
It’s going to be amazing. If I make it to this afternoon without being beheaded.
Leon King turns to me, hands on his hips, and throws a glare in my direction. I stand my ground, even though he might have reduced a lesser mortal to a pile of ash with his bright blue eyes, which throw out more heat than a Bunsen burner.
“What?” he snaps.
I huff impatiently. “Stop shouting. Haven’t you heard Aesop’s thing about the north wind and the sun?”
“Aesop’s thing?” Now I think he’s amused, although it’s hard to decipher through the scowl.
“The fable, Leon, about getting a dude to remove his cloak. It’s about the superiority of persuasion over force. Basically, it means yelling at people doesn’t make them work better.”
He studies me for a moment. “It’s an important day,” he says carefully, “there are about a million people coming to the Ark in less than two hours, and I have a thousand-and-one things to do. Do you really think now is the right time to lecture me about the tone of my voice?”
I scratch my nose. “Look, I get that you’re stressed—”
“I’m not stressed.”
“Right.”
He runs his tongue over his top teeth. “I’m busy.”
I decide not to argue with him. “Okay, I get that. I’m just saying you’re not helping with the general air of panic by raising your voice.”
He blows out a long breath, still studying me.
Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of the time, when Leon looks at me, it’s with exasperation.
But sometimes, and only for a millisecond, this glint appears in his eyes. It’s brief and bright, like a camera flash, but it appears now, an emotion I can’t put my finger on. Amusement? Curiosity? Desire? I can’t tell. Whatever it is, it makes me blink, and my heart beats that little bit faster.
Then the exasperation is back, strong as ever, and I wonder whether I imagined it.
“Am I about to get fired?” I ask.
He rolls his eyes. “Will you stop making my life a misery and do something useful, like taking these four pains-in-my-ass and tying them up somewhere?” He gestures at the dogs tearing around the square, who are hyped up from the atmosphere of mayhem pervading the place.
“Why didn’t you leave them at home?” I try to catch one of the Dalmatians and fail as it neatly dodges my grasp.
“Because I didn’t want to have to put up with them sulking for the rest of the day.” He scolds the Dalmatian, whose tail wags in response.
That makes me laugh. Leon can wither a person with one icy glare, but his dogs, while not usually badly behaved, never seem to be affected by his grouchy temperament.
“Nicola!” he says, his voice a growl.
“Yes, sir.” I only ever call him sir when I want to wind him up.
The camera flash appears again—ooh, twice in as many minutes! Then he glowers, turns, and strides off in the opposite direction, no doubt to turn his ire onto another unsuspecting individual.
My gaze lingers on him as he walks away. Like all the King men, he’s tall—six-three-ish, broad-shouldered, and annoyingly handsome. I say annoyingly because I wish he wasn’t. I wish he had a hooked nose, warts, and a hump. It would make my job a whole lot easier. Because it’s really hard when your boss features repeatedly in your most erotic fantasies, but he sees you as nothing more than a colleague.
It doesn’t help that he wasn’t the one who hired me as his PA. I know the sister of Stefan, one of the vets at the sanctuary, and two years ago when I was looking for a job, she got me an interview at the Ark. Leon was away somewhere on business so I ended up interviewing with Hal, Leon’s cousin. He was recruiting for a whole bunch of positions that day, and it only took him thirty minutes to finish the interview, shake my hand, and ask me when I could start.
The following week, on my first day, I was convinced Leon didn’t like me. When Hal introduced me, Leon just stared at me, unsmiling.
“This is Leonardo,” Hal said.
“Oh, do all the other Ninja Turtles work here too?” I replied.
Leon ran his hand through his hair, walked off into his office, and closed his door.
Hal just laughed and said, “That was my fault. I’m not supposed to tell everyone his full name. Don’t worry, his bark is worse than his bite.”
But I was convinced I’d gotten off on the wrong foot. Even though I apologized to Leon immediately and offered to make him a coffee, he remained brisk and businesslike, and he’s stayed that way ever since. He’s exasperatingly professional. He’s never flirted with me, not once. I’ve never caught him looking at my breasts or my butt. And my breasts and butt aren’t bad, so that’s saying something.
Apart from the occasional camera flashes, only once have I had a hint that he feels something more. It was back in January, and we were working late trying to transfer finance reports from every department into a complicated spreadsheet, and when the columns finally tallied, Leon cheered and held up his hand for a high five. As my hand clapped against his, our eyes met, and for the first time, he didn’t look away. He held my gaze and hesitated, and for a moment I was convinced he was going to either ask me out or maybe even kiss me. I wanted him to. I’m sure my eyes begged him to.
He didn’t. He asked me to wash his coffee cup and then went into his off
ice. But that look stayed with me. I was sure something was going to happen.
A week later, on Waitangi Day in February, he had a party at his place, one of the few times I’ve been inside his house. In the evening, when everyone had had a few drinks, someone suggested we try to describe the person sitting next to us in one word. I was sitting next to Leon, and I awaited our turn nervously. I wondered whether he’d say beautiful, sexy, or some other synonym to suggest he found me attractive.
Instead, he came out with, “Competent.” I’d been going to describe him as gorgeous, but when it was my turn, in retaliation I said, “OCD.” To his credit, he did laugh, but at that point I knew that even if he did feel something for me, he would never let anything happen between us.
I know that’s a good thing for a boss, and he should be complimented on it. I respect him for it. But it’s as if shutters come down over his expression whenever he talks to me, and I can’t shake the feeling I irritate the hell out of him. I have no idea why. I spent the first six months waiting to get sacked. But even though he hasn’t changed his attitude toward me, I’m still here.
I’ve never told him how I feel about him. The main reason is because I don’t want to make a fool of myself. Another reason is because he’s very vocal about his opinion on relationships in the workplace. When Hal broke up with Rosie, one of the veterinary nurses, and she caused a scene in the veterinary center, Leon went ballistic. He didn’t say much to Hal—the King cousins are very tight, and Leon respects both Hal and Albie. But after he informed Rosie she’d better quit before he fired her, he came back to our offices, and I asked him how it had gone, and he snapped that Hal had been extremely unprofessional, and that he was a fucking idiot and should be shot, which is unusual because he doesn’t swear in front of me, and then he went into his office and slammed the door.
So no, I’m not going to tell him how I feel about him.
My gaze lingers on him as he stops by the door to the office block to speak to Hal. Despite the laid-back atmosphere at the Ark, Leon wears a suit every day. Today he looks amazing in a tailor-made, obviously expensive, navy suit, with a white shirt and a light-blue silk tie. His shoes are handmade. He wears an aftershave called Silver Mountain Water that makes him smell like a misty morning in the bay, fresh and clean. It’s three hundred and fifty dollars a bottle. I know because he asked me to order some for him.
Oddly, although we rarely talk about anything other than work, I’m sure I know him better than almost anyone else at the Ark, bar his cousins. His name is Leonardo, because his father, Matt King, is an artist who loves Da Vinci’s work. Leon loves Harry Potter, owns all the movies on DVD, and has read the books at least five times. Everyone knows he has four dogs, a Wire Fox Terrier called Wishbone, a Boxer called Bullseye, and two Dalmatians he’s nicknamed Zig-Zag and Polka-Dot, but I’m sure I’m the only one who knows that Ziggy is actually named after the Bowie song, and Polka is actually Poker, because Leon is an amazing poker player.
I know his favorite food is Chicken Madras, and he loves spearmints, and his favorite alcohol is Laphroaig whisky, although he rarely drinks. He can cook, and he occasionally holds dinner parties for his family and close friends, but I’ve never been invited. He plays fly-half in rugby, is a reasonable bowler in cricket, and a fast swimmer. Everyone says he has a great sense of humor, but I don’t see much of it as he’s always serious in the office, and he never teases.
He’s dated three women since I started at the Ark. I haven’t met any of them, but none of them have lasted. I imagine them to look like Ingrid Bergman or Grace Kelly because he likes elegant women—I can tell that from the way he frowns when I swear and how he rolls his eyes when I drop his folders or knock over a glass of water. His Breguet Classique watch cost him a cool thirty thousand dollars, and his F-TYPE convertible Jag cost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, more money than I’ve ever owned or am ever likely to own in my lifetime.
I sound like a stalker. I’m really not. Being a man’s PA is a weirdly intimate role. I book his dental appointments and pick up his dry cleaning. I organize his business lunches, keep his diary, transcribe his reports, and decipher his handwriting. I’ve driven his cars, walked his dogs, and dropped items off at his house, although he’s never invited me in alone. I deal with his personal accounts as well as his business ones. I read his mail—with his knowledge—and on the rare occasions I’ve gone to his house, I’ve taken the opportunity to look around and glean what I can.
I think the only thing he knows about me is my name. And even that’s odd, because he doesn’t call me Nix. My name is Nicola Dixon, but during my interview Hal called me—on purpose—Dicola Nixon, and then shortened that to Nix, and the name stuck. Everyone up here in the Bay of Islands calls me Nix, except Leon. He calls me Nicola.
I like that.
He also calls me Ms. Dixon when he’s irritated with me, which is most of the time. My name is like a weather gauge; I can tell how cross he is by what he calls me.
He glances over his shoulder now as Wishbone, the ringleader of the pack of dogs, charges past him with the other three in tow, and I run after him before Leon can yell at me, and finally catch the dog’s collar.
“Izzy!” I yell to my best friend as she exits the veterinary center. “Can you give me a hand?”
She comes over and grabs the collars of the two Dalmatians, who are more docile now Wishbone has been restrained. “What do you want to do with them?”
The boxer comes up and nudges me as if to say, “Don’t forget about me!” and I take his collar. “Let’s get them into my office.”
I try to ignore Leon as we usher the four dogs past him into the office block and through to our offices at the end. I breathe a sigh of relief once we’re inside. “Jeez. If he glared any harder his eyes would fall out.”
“Leon?”
“Yeah.”
Izzy laughs. “It’s a big day for him. He’s a bit stressed.”
“He’s always like that with me.” I go over to the small kitchen in the corner of my office, fill up a bowl with water, and put it on the floor for the dogs. “I swear he looks as if he’s constantly trying to come up with imaginative ways to murder me.”
I sit on my chair and turn to look out of the window. Our offices face east, across the fields, and past Noah’s house I can see the Pacific Ocean, a brilliant blue on this bright morning. It’s a gorgeous view, but I feel suddenly dispirited and low.
Izzy sits beside me, obviously spotting my mood. “What’s up, honey?”
I shrug and drop a hand to ruffle Ziggy’s ears as he nuzzles me for a fuss. “I don’t know. Don’t mind me. I’m tired—it’s been crazy around here the last few days because of the visit. I just feel… melancholic, for some reason.”
“Is this about Leon?”
Of course it’s about Leon.
“No,” I say. We’ve never discussed my feelings for my boss, and I’m not about to start now. Izzy and I are good friends, but she’s with Hal now, and they’re all pretty close, and I don’t want anything I say to get back to Leon.
“It’s not the job?” she asks. “You still like working at the Ark?”
“I adore working here.” It’s true; it’s busy and full of life, and I love being around the animals. I’m really happy here, in general. But it’s tough being ten feet from Leon all day every day and knowing he has no feelings for me.
Izzy leans forward, her elbows on her knees, and clears her throat. “I know Leon has this thing about relationships in the workplace, but look at me and Hal—it can work. He likes you, Nix. I know he does. He’s just refusing to acknowledge it.”
I’ve tried so hard to hide it, but she’s picked up that I like him. I hope it’s not as obvious to him. But anyway, she’s wrong. I’m convinced he doesn’t feel that way about me. I’d have had some sign. And the thing is, even if he did like me, it wouldn’t work anyway. I’m not even remotely his type. Leon is the sort of guy who would never park on double-yellow lines,
who always pays his bills on time, who hardly swears, who is a perfect gentleman, and who would expect his girl to be respectable. I might not look it at first glance, but I’m the complete opposite of every part of that sentence, and I’d only end up disappointing him, which I couldn’t bear.
“I miss you,” I say to her, partly to distract her from talking about Leon, and partly because it’s the truth. I haven’t seen her so much over the past two months since she moved out of the house we shared with Albie, and in with Hal. She calls into my office most days, and we occasionally catch up for lunch, but I do miss her.
“Aw,” she says. “I’m sorry I haven’t made more time for you. I know I’ve been caught up with my own life for a while, and I’m sorry about that.”
“Oh God, no, it’s absolutely right that you should be with Hal. I’m thrilled for you, Izz. I really am.”
She leans forward and hugs me, and I hug her back. The truth is that I’m a little jealous of what she has with Hal. Not enough to make me resentful, but it has made me wistful. I want more out of life than the series of haphazard dates I’ve been on since I moved to the bay. Seeing Izzy so happy has made me realize I want to settle down. I want to buy a place of my own, and I want a husband and children. I want it all, and I’m not going to get it while I keep hoping that Leon is going to notice me.
I can hear music, the band getting in the swing of it as more people turn up, and I flash Izzy a smile and rise from my chair. “Come on, let’s get going. I’m sure there are a million things Leon wants done before the PM turns up. Gold-plating the flower pots or something.”
Izzy laughs as we walk out of the office. “It’s a real coup that she’s coming up here today. Leon did well to get that sorted. It’ll bring some invaluable media exposure for the Ark.”
“Yeah,” I mumble. “He’s a real saint.” I ignore her wry look and head out into the sunshine. There’s more to life than the Lion King, as I like to call him privately. And it’s time I moved on.
Chapter Two
Leon
I’m not great with chaos. By twelve p.m., every member of our staff is here, and so are hundreds of our clients, most of them with their pets, as well as representatives from local businesses and the community in general, and a class of kids from the primary school who are here to sing the national anthem when the Prime Minister arrives.
My Boss, the Billionaire (The Billionaire Kings Book 2) Page 1