Heart Thief (Black Market Billionaire Book 1)

by Skylar Sweeney

  Okay, that was likely not a legitimate question and was one that I wouldn’t be trying to take to employee services anytime soon.

  Oh, God, what if he masturbated at work?! That seemed a lot more likely than me trying, though considering how turned on the idea of him being turned on made me…

  Ugh. And to think Luke was all I had to go home to.

  Rex led the way over to the desk. It was small, with a computer, a phone, and a pair of filing cabinets next to it. The office had obviously been evacuated in a hurry, as there were still post-it notes scattered about, along with a half empty Strawberry Shortcake coffee mug on the desk.

  “Sorry about the mess. We had to get rid of my last assistant after we caught him stealing coffee filters from the supply cabinet,” Rex said, shaking his head. “Not that I give a damn about the filters, considering I make millions of dollars a year and the things came from Costco. But Mrs. Cho is in charge of monitoring office supplies.”

  I winced at the memory of the little Asian woman from hell.

  Rex held a hand to his mouth, and I had a feeling he was trying not to laugh. “Mind you, she gave herself that job. And she doesn’t take it well when things disappear.”

  “Uh-oh, is the guy still alive?” I joked, and Rex gave a dark chuckle.

  “I refused to let her shoot him for stealing the filters.” He sat down on the edge of the desk, giving me a serious look. I stiffened, a little worried about what he was about to say. “I’m going to give you a very important warning that could have a serious impact on your future at this company.”

  I nodded, stomach twisting. “What’s that?”

  “Never use more than three sheets of toilet paper at a time. Last week I made the mistake of using four—apparently Mrs. Cho marks them like they’re dirty money—and she barged into my office while I was meeting with a general from the Department of Defense. I was informed that if I ever use more than three sheets at once again, she will remove all the rolls from the restroom and place laxatives in my tea.”

  I couldn’t hold back my laughter, curls falling into my face as I covered my face to hide my giggling. “Wow,” I finally said as Rex chuckled along with me. “What did the general think of that?”

  Rex shrugged, not looking the least bit embarrassed by this story. “General Wong said she reminded him of his ex-wife.” He stood and nodded toward the door. “I have to get back to work, but I’ll have someone who is not Mrs. Cho meet you tomorrow to help you get settled in.”

  Rex headed toward the door, and I held up a hand, making him pause. “Hey, do I need a security pass or something? I notice you have a lot of security. And a lot of guns, too.” I grimaced at the words, not particularly fond of the pocket size devices known to blast parts of people’s heads off.

  Rex nodded, looking amused. “Yes, you will. There are a lot of high security areas in the Brotherhood Building, so we have top of the line security.” He pushed his jacket aside, and my eyes widened as they dropped to the very large, very manly gun hanging at his hip. My attention might have diverted to other ‘guns’ for a moment, too, but I swear there was no lingering. (Total bullshit.)

  Seriously, though, Wesley hadn’t said anything about my new boss carrying a gun! Okay, sure, he’d used a gun when he stole my brother’s heart, but that was planned and it was ten years ago. I hadn’t expected him to carry one every day. What had I gotten myself into?

  “Also, Sonny has a small case of paranoia and a massive love of firearms,” Rex added, “No worries, though. Everyone who carries here is very well trained and licensed. You have nothing to worry about.” He laughed, then said in a teasing tone, “Unless you’re planning to rob us of our supply of Xanax or kidnap my favorite lab tech.”

  Gee, that was comforting. Real comforting.

  I sucked in a sharp breath as Rex suddenly began to stroke his gun with long, seductive caresses.

  “You want to touch it?” There was a teasing tone to his voice, and I had a feeling the double entendre was more than intended.

  I shook my head slowly, eyes locked with his, and he gave a dark chuckle, stepping closer to me.

  “No,” I whispered. “I… I’m afraid of guns.”

  Rex’s eyebrows shot up. “Afraid of guns? Oh, you are a sweet girl, aren’t you?” He reached out, and my body tingled as those same fingers began to caress my cheek in that oh-so-sexual way. “How long has it been since you touched a gun?”

  “I’ve never touched a real gun,” I replied, throwing the ‘real’ in there to make sure there was no misunderstanding regarding what topic we were on.

  He nodded slowly. “You’re sure you don’t want to touch it?”

  I held back a moan of disappointment as his fingers left my cheek and returned to the gun at his side.

  “I’m good,” I managed to croak out, leaving him looking disappointed. Good, bastards like him deserved to be disappointed.

  But it really would be hot to stroke his gun.

  How come the sexy, powerful, rich ones are always the heart stealing bastards?

  “Okay then,” he said with a shrug as he stepped back, a smile spreading across his face. “I’ll have your security pass made. Feel free to dream of my gun tonight.”

  I didn’t know whether to lick my lips or grit my teeth as the asshole turned on his heel and walked out the door. He was the biggest fucker I’d ever met… yet working for him was the hottest thing I’d ever done.

  I was here to steal the man’s heart, but, boy, did I want to touch his gun.

  - REX -

  “And here be your tea. Spill on carpet, I dump whole kettle on your manhood.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Cho,” I said dryly, taking the cup from the former CIA agent now heading up Brotherhood security and keeping the King Corp front desk in check.

  “I say you welcome, but you not. I know you use more than one teaspoon cream yesterday. This why I miss China. There you be shot if you steal cream from boss.”

  “Technically, I am the boss, so…”

  Mrs. Cho ignored me, no surprise there. Back before the indie black operatives of the Brotherhood jumped on the white collar crime train, we’d shared our intelligence and extermination jobs. I was definitely regarded around the world as the weakling for not being willing to go as far as it takes for my contracts. I’d kill a man but not get my hands bloody doing it. I’d blow up a building but not set a man on fire. I’d torture a bad man but not a good woman. I was the pussy of the Brotherhood, and Mrs. Cho had no respect for wimps like me. But hey, at least I was tall, right?

  Mrs. Cho paused at my door, turning back with a bored face which meant she had critical info to divulge, but she didn’t want anyone listening in to notice. Not that anyone would likely be interested in watching me drink tea and file papers. But having been raised as part of the Family, an affectionate name for independent black ops contractors, I’d been taught there was no such thing as too much paranoia. As former CIA, Mrs. Cho was equally suspicious when it came to, well… everything.

  “Also, serial killing janitor call and say tell you that Manson Danson is coming to interview for job that do not exist.”

  “You mean Mason Dansley? The Mason Dansley?” My gut twisted at the name, my already weak heart starting to pound way more vigorously than was comfortable or safe. This was precisely why so-called ‘paranoia’ paid off. No doubt Val had noticed Mason during his daily routine of sweeping the entire building for bugs while simultaneously scrubbing the floors with a toothbrush. My Brother was paranoid and OCD—double the fun.

  Mrs. Cho shrugged. “Manson, Mason, whatever. She climb stairs now, and taking hour to do it. Apparently lifting foot and put it in front of other is real challenge. You two have that in common.”

  I didn’t even bother responding. Mrs. Cho was literally two feet shorter than I was and could still outrun me.

  “She be here in few minutes, though. Ten at most if she sit down in stair and gasp for air like you do. If you want, I can put her in jan
itor closet under stairs and pretend that it be Harold Potty Day, and I psycho-fan. Then you can ‘find’ her when you ready.”

  I grimaced, really hoping she hadn’t actually done that to any clients before. I didn’t need a lawsuit from JK Rowling on top of a kidnapping and assault charge. “No, thanks, but that won’t be necessary.” I glanced around my messy office. “Maybe you could stall her for a few minutes while I clean up here and give Sonny a call?”

  “Sure, why not?” she said with a shrug. “I do all things around here, anyway, mostly because you too much of wimp to announce layoff or stab corporate spy in spinal cord.”

  The tiny woman turned on her heel and stalked out of my office, leaving me alone with what little was left of my masculinity. If I had to choose between spending life in prison and living with Mrs. Cho, I would absolutely choose prison. My asshole would hurt less.

  I grabbed the phone off my desk, tapping in Sonny’s extension and sitting back as it rang, stomach feeling queasy. There was no scenario I could imagine where Mason Dansley would be seeking employment at my office that didn’t somehow end with my balls separated from my body.

  “Harrison Wentworth speaking.”

  “Hey, Sonny,” I said, leaning forward and shuffling through the papers on my desk, dividing them into neater stacks. “I suppose you heard the news about Mason being in the house?”

  “Affirmative,” he said in his usual monotone, and I could practically see him glaring at her on one of his many security monitors. “You have any idea why the love of your life is visiting us?”

  “She is not the love of my life,” I snapped, sick of this joke. “I just feel bad about stealing her brother’s donor heart all those years ago, and I also happen to think she’s beautiful. So when she does stupid things, I don’t always press charges. And sometimes I also do nice things for her in secret then watch to see if it makes her happy. That does not make her my lover.”

  “No, that makes you her stalker,” Sonny said dryly. “Or it would if she didn’t also break into your house all the time and piss on your things. You’re really both at fault here. But that’s a discussion for another time.”

  “Or not,” I muttered.

  “I talked to Valentine, and he says that even though he hasn’t finished tracing the origin of the job listing she’s interviewing for, he’s fairly certain that it was created by the same hacker who’s been trying to crack our security for the last two months. The one trying to get into Angela’s Lab.”

  I groaned, rubbing at my forehead. Not this again. “Please, tell me you’re joking.”

  “Well, I’m assuming you didn’t put it up?”

  I sighed. “No, I most definitely did not put it up. After the mess with Joey Schumer, I decided to take a break from assistants. I can check my own email.”

  “Oh, yes, the coffee filters,” Sonny said, the amusement in his voice clear.

  I snorted. “You realize that’s actually the real reason Mrs. Cho wanted me to shoot him, right? For stealing coffee filters.” I shook my head. “Dude, the things came from fucking Costco. They cost, like, three dollars.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Sonny replied. “If you hadn’t refused to terminate him, Mrs. Cho would never have decided to make an illegal search of his apartment to prove he was a filter thief.”

  “And then we never would have caught him having sex with his eight year old niece,” I finished. “I really do hope Mr. Jones took his time with that job. The bastard deserved to suffer.”

  “Oh, he suffered,” Sonny said, sounding quite cheerful about the idea, considering he was referencing the kind of things that would make most men quiver with fear. Of course, he did have a daughter himself, so I’m sure he took quite a bit of pleasure in knowing my sicko assistant wouldn’t ever be seen again. At least not without a SCUBA tank since he was deep in the Hudson.

  “Do you really think that Mason is working with whoever is trying to infiltrate Angela’s Lab?” I said, directing the conversation back on track. The disbelief was clear in my voice. The only real suspects we had right now were international terrorist groups, and I had a hard time seeing her running around in a burkah spouting off about how nice Iran is in the spring.

  “I don’t know,” he said, voice growing hard. “But we are going to find out.”

  I sighed. “I get that. But we need to be certain that Mason is actually a part of this before doing anything… extreme, okay? The girl doesn’t know about the kind of world we run in, and I don’t want her to know. I like what we have now, where she thinks I’m your everyday jerk with a few criminal convictions who was lucky enough to be born a billionaire.”

  “So basically, you don’t want your imaginary girlfriend knowing you’re a killer,” Sonny said, and I shrugged, not caring that he couldn’t see it.

  “Would you? And stop it with the girlfriend stuff. I just think she’s a nice girl, and I don’t want her hurt because someone recognized that pulling her into this would mess with my head.”

  “You make a good point,” Sonny said. “Considering I can’t imagine what she’d want with a room full of biological weapons of mass destruction, it is likely she’s been brought into this by someone else. Either way, you need to hire her. If she’s in on the security breaches, we can draw the information we need out of her.”

  “If she’s not, we can protect her,” I finished.

  Sonny chuckled. “And you say you don’t have a crush.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Meeting after the interview?” Sonny said. “At Charming’s?”

  “I’ll be there. I—”

  “I. HAVE. AN. APPOINTMENT!”

  “Shit,” I muttered, sitting up straight in my chair. If that was coming from the front desk, this was not going to end well. Neither Mason nor Mrs. Cho had the calmest of tempers. “I’ve got to go, or Valentine is going to be rushing to scrub the blood off Mrs. Cho’s desk before CSI arrives. Later, bro.”

  I hung up the phone before he could reply, hitting the button for the front desk.

  “King Corp, Mrs. Cho speaking,” Mrs. Cho said in the perfectly calm voice that meant she was about to surgically remove someone’s eyeballs from their sockets while they pleaded for mercy.

  I slammed my hand down on my chest, where my weak heart was palpitating in a very disconcerting manner. I squeezed my eyes shut, taking a deep breath.

  “Since my office currently sounds like a junior high girls’ locker room, I’m assuming that my appointment has arrived?” I said, hoping Mrs. Cho could hear my irritation. Not that she’d give a damn, but it would be nice for the woman to at least know that she was driving me insane. When I’d said to stall, I hadn’t meant to push the poor girl into a screaming fit.

  “Affirmative,” Mrs. Cho said in a flat tone, sounding like I’d just asked if her bowel movements were well and her period was on time. “She stinky and sweaty, but she have large breast and is not underage, so you probably like.”

  I covered my face with my hands as Mason gave a shriek of outrage in the background. “I’ll be right there. Please don’t kill her,” I said, not sure if I was talking to Mrs. Cho or Mason. “You know how I get about blood on my carpet.”

  I hung up the phone, knowing damn well Mrs. Cho was calling me a wuss right then, but not giving a shit. I jogged down the steps toward the front desk, ignoring the stare of the FBI agent undercover in my office as I raced toward Mrs. Cho’s desk. Let the bastard wonder.

  I dashed around the decorative bullet proof glass behind the reception desk (you can guess which part Mrs. Cho insisted on), wincing at the way the sexy girl was glaring at Mrs. Cho, her long, black fingernails held out like she was going to slice the woman’s jugular. In return, Mrs. Cho looked as if she was going to shoot the girl in the head with the Glock I knew well was tucked into the back of her trousers.

  Oh, dear Lord, please don’t let this end in bloodshed. I really wasn’t good with blood. At all. Even a little. Seeing your own mom stab herself in the h
eart when you’re six will do that to a man.

  Mason was sweat soaked and tomato faced, her jaw clenched in fury and her luscious red curls sticking to her forehead… and she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life. There was something about a girl looking as though she’d just had her brains banged out that made a man desperate to fall at her feet.

  At five foot six, maybe seven, Mason was a little over a foot shorter than my Goliath ass, which meant the top of her head hit just above my collarbone. Her D-cups were pressing against her green silk blouse, cleavage peeking erotically through the V-neck collar in a way that made my breath catch. Mmm, the way her hips curved away from her tiny waist made me want to wrap my oversized hands around that little middle and squeeze, and the endless line of her legs in that skin tight black skirt held me hostage as I ran my eyes downward.

  Her skin was so pale, no surprise there considering those waist length, natural red curls of hers, and she had light freckling across her petite nose. Her lashes were long and her eyes were nearly as brilliant a blue as Conner’s. Okay, no one’s eyes were as blue as my Brother’s—his looked like a Caribbean sea—but they still shone bright against her fiery red locks.

  Oh, that hair. Redheads: My greatest weakness. It was probably Mason’s fault, too. I wanted so badly to run my hands through those primary red curls with their streaks of orange and gold. She was a Celtic goddess standing in my office, begging me to come and offer sacrifice. Oh, how I wanted to rise to the occasion. Aw, fuck, I already was rising to the occasion.

  I cleared my throat, and when Mason simply continued to glower at Mrs. Cho like she was Death in a pencil skirt and a red wig, I began to walk toward her with a big smile on my face and my hand extended.

  Considering the circles I ran in, I usually approached those who declared themselves my ‘enemies’ with more caution, but Mason really wasn’t from my world. The woman had broken into my house more times than I could even try and count, but the worst thing she’d ever done was slipping a plastic snake under my sheets and putting itching powder in my underwear. In her place, I’d have injected arsenic into the sealed water bottles inside the fridge.