My Boss, the Billionaire (The Billionaire Kings Book 2)

by Serenity Woods

  “That’s great,” he says. “So… maybe we can work on that after lunch today? I’ll try to clear the decks this morning and get whatever else I can out of the way.”

  “Of course.” I chew my bottom lip, and eventually he looks up at me.

  “Do you want me to come?” I ask. I’ve flown to Wellington with him a couple of times when he’s had important meetings, so I’m there to hand out copies of reports, take minutes, organize any tech issues, and sort out any last-minute problems. We’ve taken the Kings’ private plane, which should have been more exciting than it actually was, because he spent the whole journey both times working on his laptop. It didn’t stop me eating the exquisite food and having a glass of champagne, but it’s not as much fun on your own, especially when your boss is looking at you as if you’re a twelve-year-old embarrassing her parents by getting over-excited at a fairground.

  Leon’s been staring at me for a long time, and suddenly I realize how my words could be misconstrued—do you want me to come? Holy shit. It’s the first time our conversation has ever turned sexual, and my eyebrows slowly rise.

  He drops his gaze back to the desk. There’s a long silence.

  I clear my throat. “What I mean is… Do you need my help on the day?”

  “I don’t know that’s a good idea,” he says eventually. He looks back at me.

  I feel a wave of frustration and a little panic. “We’ve got to be able to work together, Leon.”

  His expression softens at that. “I meant because it’s your birthday on Wednesday,” he says.

  “Oh.” I hadn’t realized he’d remembered.

  “I’m sure you have something interesting planned,” he says softly.

  “If you include a cheese-crust pepperoni pizza all to myself with additional Buffalo wings, you could be right.”

  He looks lovely when he smiles, especially when it’s a little impish and reaches his eyes, the way it has now.

  “We have to put the Ark first,” I tell him. “If you’d feel better if I was with you to make sure the presentation was cued and in case anything goes wrong, I’m happy to go. I honestly don’t have anything planned, and this is a really important day for you, and I want you to look uber-professional.”

  He’s smiling now. “All right.”

  “Want me to book two rooms at Rutlands?” That’s the hotel he normally stays at.

  He purses his lips. Then he says, “Leave it with me. As it’s your birthday, I’ll book us somewhere special.”

  I feel a brief wave of excitement. Ooh, a treat!

  “Strictly business, though,” I clarify.

  His eyes meet mine and, for the first time, there’s a touch of hardness in them. “Of course,” he says.

  I get to my feet. “Okay, I’ll get those photos from Poppy and start a framework for the presentation.”

  “Thanks.” He picks up his coffee and returns his gaze to his iPad. “Close the door behind you.”

  “Yes, sir,” I mumble, doing just that as I go out of the room.

  I return to my desk and sit there for a moment. I feel a complicated mixture of emotions. I’m excited at the opportunity to spend a night away, to fly down in the plane, and to stay somewhere nice. But what’s the point if we’re strictly going to play boss/secretary—and not in a kinky ‘please take dick-tation for me Ms. Dixon’ kind of way?

  It’s good, it’s the right thing to do—the only thing, if I’m going to carry on working at the Ark. But despite that, I feel a tad depressed.

  For the rest of the morning, when I do see him he’s polite and reserved, and he calls me Ms. Dixon. I don’t think he’s angry, though; I think it’s more to make a point either to me or to himself that we’re colleagues, and that’s all.

  At lunchtime, I make my way to the break room, buy a chicken sandwich, and take it outside to the garden overlooking the bay, somewhat despondent, although I know there’s no answer to how I feel.

  It’s only minutes before Izzy joins me. We occasionally meet up for lunch, but she’s so quick that I wonder if someone saw me and told her I was on my own.

  “Hey you,” she says, straddling the bench beside me and opening her own sandwich box. “How’s the head?”

  “It’s fine. Even the headache has gone. Just a bit tender.” I’ve taken off the pad, and my hair covers the wound and the bruise. I was lucky I got off so lightly. It could have been a lot worse.

  She nods and takes a bite of the sandwich, studying me. “And how’s everything else?”

  I open the box, take out the sandwich, then put it down without eating it. “I’m a bit… muddled. I’m going to Wellington on Wednesday with Leon.”

  “Oh?”

  I tell her about the presentation to the PM. “It’s great news for him, and I said I’d go with him to help out. But it’s going to be awkward. I hoped what happened on Wednesday wouldn’t affect our working relationship, but everything feels weird.”

  Izzy wipes a crumb off her lip, then rubs her nose. “Look, I’ve got something to admit to you.”

  “Okay.”

  “You might not like it, and I apologize in advance, but we meant well.”

  I frown. “What do you mean?”

  She takes a deep breath. “Hal and I know that Leon has a thing for you, but that he was refusing to admit it to himself, so we came up with a plan.”

  “Oh no.”

  “We thought if we could make him jealous, he’d realize how he feels about you.”

  “Albie.” I realize it immediately.

  “Yeah. We asked him to pretend his feelings for you had turned into something more.”

  I glare at her. “Izzy…”

  “I know. And that’s not the worst part.”

  “Jesus. There’s more?”

  “Last night while they were watching the game, apparently Albie set Leon up…”

  “How?”

  “Um… he talked about how the accident had made him realize he was into you, and how… um… he wanted to get you into bed…”

  I close my eyes.

  “Leon hit him,” Izzy says.

  I open my eyes and stare at her. “What?”

  “Gave him a right hook. Hal said Albie’s got a bruise on his jaw this morning the size of a fifty-cent piece.”

  “I saw that. Holy shit.”

  “Yeah. It took Stefan and Fitz together to drag Leon off him.”

  My stomach knots. I have no idea what to make of that information. “What happened then?”

  “They admitted they’d done it on purpose. Hal apologized, but Leon was fuming apparently, and he walked out.”

  I put my face in my hands. No wonder he was odd with me this morning.

  “I’m so sorry,” Izzy tells me, “I thought we were helping.”

  “It’s all right. It’s not your fault. It’s all a terrible mess, and I don’t know what I’m going to do.” I sit back and give a heavy sigh. “You know what he’s like—he’s so moralistic and principled. So upstanding. It doesn’t matter what he feels about me—he’d never let himself put a foot wrong at work.” Izzy’s lips twist, and I frown. “What?”

  She smiles. “Nothing.” Then she shrugs. “It’s just… he wasn’t always like that.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “He wasn’t?”

  “God, no. He was quite the rebel when he was young.”

  I stare at her. “Seriously?” Leon and rebel are two words I would never have used in the same sentence.

  “He was eleven when I first met him. We all started at the high school together. He was a lot different back then. More like Albie, I guess—mischievous, naughty. He was always getting into fights.”

  I give a short laugh. “Oh my God.”

  “He smoked, both tobacco and marijuana, partied, got drunk. He was bright, but he never applied himself, and he failed his Level One exams. I don’t even know if he sat half of them. He left school at sixteen.”

  “I never knew that,” I say softly.

  “His
parents wanted him to go to uni, but there was no way Leon was going to be able to apply himself. He bummed around, travelled for a bit, worked in bars. And then eventually Matt and Georgia sat him down and gave him a stern talking to, and told him if he wasn’t going into further education, he needed to get a proper job. They helped him get a place at a large company in Auckland, working in the offices. He hated it, apparently. I don’t know much about what happened—I was at vet school by then and up to my eyes in work. I remember Hal talking about some kind of scandal, although he never went into detail. Not long after that, Leon turned things around. He finished his schooling, went to uni, got his business and finance degree, and the rest is history.”

  I look out across the fields. Hector, the horse who used to live there, has gone to his new owners, and now the field is inhabited by a couple of sheep that Stefan found wandering along the state highway a few weeks ago. Jemima, a Russian Blue cat that Hal rescued back in April and who has decided to make the Ark her home, sits in the shade by the fence, swishing her tail and smiling at us.

  It’s funny to think of Leon being a rebel. Some kind of scandal… I wonder what it was. I can’t imagine we’ll ever be intimate enough for him to tell me something that personal.

  And that’s fine. Stay professional, I tell myself. I’ve worked with the guy for two years; I’m sure I can put the memory of his brief kisses to the back of my mind.

  “Are you okay?” Izzy asks. “Is your head all right? The sun’s really bright, isn’t it? Your eyes are watering.”

  I clear my throat. “I’m fine. I’d better get back to work.”

  “You sure you’re up to it?”

  “Yes, thanks, Mom.”

  She laughs and holds out a hand to help me up. “Good luck with the presentation.”

  “Yeah. Have a good afternoon.”

  She wanders off to the veterinary center, and I head back to the office and sit at my desk. Professionalism is going to be my mantra. If I can keep some mental, emotional, and physical distance between us, everything is going to be fine. I’m just his secretary. He’s just my boss.

  My boss, the gorgeous, principled, stubborn billionaire.

  I lean forward and put my head on the desk.

  Chapter Eight

  Leon

  “Sit still,” I scold good-naturedly. “You’re like a kid who’s had too much ice-cream.”

  It’s one p.m. on Wednesday, and we’re flying in the Kings’ private plane down to Wellington for the presentation. We’re sitting in cream leather seats, across from each other, with a table in between. I’ve tucked my legs beneath me so there’s no chance of us bumping feet.

  It’s Nicola’s birthday, and I gave her a quick kiss on the cheek when I picked her up this morning. The memory of her soft skin beneath my lips has lingered. I have to stop myself lifting my fingers to touch my mouth.

  She sticks her tongue out at me, proving my point about being like an over-excited child. “We’re in a private plane!” she exclaims. “Clearly you’ve never flown cattle class.”

  “Of course I have.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, when I was a teenager. I did my OE the same way every other kid does, via cheap flights, trains, and hitchhiking.”

  I lean back as Rob, our flight attendant, arrives to place Nicola’s latte in front of her. I told her to have a glass of champagne because it’s her birthday, but she refused, saying she wanted to keep her wits about her for the presentation.

  I didn’t say anything, but it warmed me through that she cares enough about me to want it to go well.

  Okay, so maybe she’s only concerned about the Ark’s reputation, but I’m a guy—I like to pretend it’s all about me.

  Rob places my coffee on the table, along with a plate of mini muffins that smell amazing, and retreats to his spot at the other end of the plane.

  “You’re not on your laptop,” Nicola remarks, peeling the wrapper off a chocolate mini muffin.

  I choose a savory one. “I’ve gone over the presentation so much I’m just going to make myself nervous now.” It’s a partial truth. The main reason I’m not working is that I’ve finally got her to myself, and I want to make the most of the short time we have together.

  I know I’m being dumb. When she offered to come with me, I should have given an emphatic no, and declared I’d be fine on my own.

  Honestly, though, her presence does calm me, as I know if, for example, something was to go wrong with my laptop, she’d immediately procure another one from someone in the building, she’d have a copy of the presentation saved in the cloud, and before I knew it, she’d have me ready to go. I don’t have to worry about anything when she’s by my side.

  Equally, I’m fooling myself if I think that’s the only reason I agreed she could come. I like being with her. She makes me laugh; she makes me feel good about myself.

  And that makes me sound like something out of a self-help book, so I concentrate on getting the wrapper off the muffin.

  I end up tearing it, and she tuts, takes it out of my hands, and does it for me with her nimble fingers before handing it back.

  It’s difficult not to imagine those nimble fingers sliding between the buttons of my shirt to touch my skin. Or closing around my erection and giving it long firm strokes.

  Jesus. I’ve got to calm down or I’m going to give myself a coronary before the plane’s wheels even touch down.

  I pop the mini muffin whole into my mouth, while she bites hers delicately in half and chews it, picking up a crumb from her lip with her finger. I try not to stare.

  “Where did you go on your OE?” she asks.

  “Europe. England, Spain, France, Italy, and Germany.”

  “I know how much you like luxury,” she says, gesturing at the plane, then at my suit and watch. “I’m surprised you didn’t travel around like some European prince, with an entourage and someone to carry your bags.”

  “The OE was kind of an act of defiance against the money.”

  She sips her coffee, and studies me with her gray-eyed gaze. “Oh?”

  I lick my finger and pick up some crumbs from the plate. I don’t normally talk about my youth. Guilt and shame have formed a large part of my life, and it’s taken me a long time to claw my way back to feeling good about myself.

  But it’s a beautiful day, the sky’s the color of the blouse Nicola is wearing beneath her navy pant suit, and she looks gorgeous, with her blonde hair in its eight braids twirled neatly into a bun, her immaculate makeup, her long eyelashes, and her bright smile.

  She could so easily have been taken from me with that stupid accident, and yet here she is, like a Greek goddess, looking at me as if she wants to unwrap me like a muffin and eat me up.

  I’m only human, for Christ’s sake.

  I sigh. “As a teen, I didn’t cope well with the fact that my family is wealthy. It didn’t seem fair that so many in the world have so little. I know you’ll find this hard to believe, but at first it made me arrogant…”

  She grins.

  I smile back. “…And then rebellious. For a while I refused to take any money from my father.” I pick up another muffin, a lemon-and-sultana one this time, and hand it to her so I can watch her unwrap it.

  She does so and hands it back. “You obviously got over your dislike of wealth, though.”

  “I did. I grew up, for a start. I watched my father, and Charlie and Brock, and saw how they were able to balance being wealthy with also being altruistic. Once I started working at the Ark and was able to do some good with the money, I didn’t feel so bad about spending some on myself.”

  “Oh Leon, seriously?” She’s scolding me. “I’ve seen your accounts—I know how much you give to charity and invest in the Ark. It’s more than Hal and Albie put together.”

  I frown.

  “Don’t glare at me,” she says, “you’re the one who gave me access.”

  “That wasn’t why I frowned. I wasn’t aware you paid such close att
ention to my finances.”

  “It’s difficult to ignore the numerous transactions to foundations and charities that pass through the account.”

  “Well, I’m not doing anything with it.”

  “But one day you’ll have a family, won’t you? A wife and children. You can’t give it all away. You’ll want to provide for them.”

  “It’s not going to run out anytime soon,” I scoff. “It’s surprisingly difficult to get through a billion dollars.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” she says tartly. “There’s always too much month left over at the end of the money.” Then she gives me a guilty look. “Sorry. I forgot you were my boss for a moment.”

  “Are you asking for a raise?”

  “Jeez, no. Maybe at my next job appraisal. I wonder how many pay scales I’ll have to go up to get to a billion dollars.” She winks at me.

  I give her a wry smile.

  “I am kidding,” she adds. “I know that’s the very definition of nepotism. You can’t go giving raises just because you like a girl’s legs.”

  I give her an exasperated look. She has gorgeous legs, but I can’t compliment her on them.

  “Oh stop glaring,” she says. “I know where the line is, Leon. I’ve read our policy on acceptable behavior in the workplace.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Oh.”

  “And I know you wrote it. It doesn’t say that relationships are banned.”

  “No…” I reply slowly, “that’s true, because it’s not right for a company to control who a person can and can’t spend time with outside of work.”

  “It says that personal issues and discussions should happen out of the workplace.”

  “It’s standard wording for the industry, to protect our employees.”

  “I know,” she says. “And there are rules for bosses and employees. ‘Romantic or sexual relationships between employees where one individual has influence or control over the other’s conditions of employment are inappropriate. If such a relationship develops, the employee with influence over the other has an obligation to disclose the relationship to their line manager.’”