The Billionaire From New York City

by Simply BWWM

  “You knew there was something there, though,” Brianna said, making it not quite a question.

  “I mean—she invited me to lunch, and more recently to dinner,” Ethan said with a dismissive shrug. “I thought she was being a teacher’s pet, you know?”

  “Yeah, but that…” Brianna shook her head. “What are we going to do?”

  “I told the HR investigator that there’s no way you made a move on me specifically to get the job you got,” Ethan explained. He outlined the conversation in more detail at Brianna’s prompting, and watched her go from irritated to focused. She was working out the problem in her mind, too. If we can’t find a way out of this between us, we don’t deserve to get out, Ethan thought.

  “So we stick with the story that the relationship happened organically, that the first dinner wasn’t anything more than—basically—an offbeat job interview,” Brianna suggested. “I mean, no one has any proof of anything else.”

  “True,” Ethan said, nodding. “I’m just wondering how the pregnancy is going to play into things.”

  “I’m not going to abort,” Brianna said quietly. “I mean—I don’t know how you feel, in general or specifically about this...but I’ve made up my mind that I’m keeping the baby.”

  “I had figured as much,” Ethan said with a gentle smile. “And I told you before—and I still mean it—that I’ll support your decision no matter what it is. Whatever you need to make this happen.” He reached out and took her hand in his, and gave it a careful squeeze.

  “Will you still be able to do that—and willing to do that—if we both end up losing our jobs?” Brianna raised an eyebrow, challenging him a bit. Ethan laughed.

  “Sweetheart, I could lose this job twice over and still have enough to support you,” he said. “And I will be willing to do it no matter what our professional situation is.” Brianna smiled slowly, and even though Ethan wasn’t yet ready to tell her that he loved her, he knew that he felt it; and he knew that it was only a matter of time before they had to decide what that would mean for both of them.

  Chapter15

  Brianna felt her stomach lurch as she rode the elevator up to the office she shared with Cassidy and Jennifer, and at first she tried to convince herself that it was just the movement of the elevator itself; that it was the same kind of reaction she would get if she’d been riding the elevator without being pregnant.

  But then the nausea rolled through her as she tried to breathe through the reaction, and the smell of stale coffee and someone’s breakfast sandwich—eggs, the sharp-salty smell of bacon, and the stomach-churning scent of grease—filled her nose. She pressed her fingers against her lips, swallowing hard against the feeling of her stomach trying to push its way up through her esophagus. She wasn’t alone in the elevator until the last few floors, and she knew that she only had a few more minutes before she’d be off the elevator, and then hopefully able to get to the bathroom for some privacy.

  The elevator stopped and Brianna’s stomach seemed to leap up into her throat once again, and she felt her muscles rippling as her gag reflex tripped off. She clenched her teeth as the elevator doors opened and plunged out of the car, ignoring her desk and even the presence of the other two women in the front area of the office as she hurried to the bathroom, choking back the dry heaves and trying to keep them down long enough to get to a toilet in privacy.

  Brianna barely checked to make sure that the door behind her had closed before she threw herself down in front of one of the two toilets in the little bathroom. She felt tears flowing from her eyes as wave after wave of nausea ripped through her, forcing the mindful breakfast she’d had only about an hour before out of her body.

  Brianna shook and sobbed, her body no longer under her own control, gripped by the inevitable force of her morning sickness. As the waves began to ebb, she shuddered, sniffing, tears still sliding out from underneath her eyelids. She waited to make sure that she wouldn’t throw up anything more and then reached for the flush lever, pulling her face back from the toilet seat so none of it would even have the chance to splash her face.

  Jennifer stood in the main area of the bathroom when Brianna emerged. “You okay?” Brianna nodded.

  “Just...some kind of stomach thing,” she said. She shuddered, walking towards the sinks.

  “Do you need to go home?” Brianna shook her head. “No—I can’t, actually, even if I wanted to,” she said. She turned on the tap and washed her hands quickly, rinsing all the soap off before she scooped up a mouthful of water to clear out her mouth. Brianna swished the cold, faintly minerally water around her teeth and tongue and then, gracelessly, spat it into the sink before scooping up another handful of water.

  “Why can’t you?”

  Brianna swallowed the second handful of water and reached blindly for the paper towels. Her makeup was a mess. “There’s the meeting with the HR people today, with the board and all that,” Brianna said. She didn’t quite dare look at Jennifer.

  “Oh, right, and you’re going to make such an impressive showing, talking about how there’s nothing unprofessional between you and Ethan when you’re trying to fight morning sickness,” Jennifer said matter-of-factly. Brianna’s eyes widened and she turned to look at her coworker.

  “What?”

  Jennifer raised an eyebrow. “You can’t be that far along, but I know morning sickness when I see it—especially when it comes with a little more oomph in the ladies,” she said, gesturing vaguely at Brianna’s chest. “Other little things too. What are you, maybe a month, six weeks?”

  Brianna stared at the woman in shock. “I—you—what?”

  “Look, I won’t say anything,” Jennifer said. “But I mean—really. The only person on this floor who didn’t know about you and Ethan was Cass, and that’s only because she’s convinced that there’s no way that Ethan could possibly love anyone but her skinny, blue-eyed ass.” Brianna couldn’t help giggling at that.

  “So you knew?”

  Jennifer rolled her eyes. “Considering how often you two had meetings that would last over an hour, or how often you went to lunch with ‘different clients’ just happening to show up back in the office within about fifteen minutes of each other?” Jennifer shook her head. “Did Ethan force you?”

  Brianna shook her head. “No,” she said. She was confident saying that now.

  “Did he ever make you think that if you didn’t sleep with him, he’d punish you for it?” Brianna shook her head again.

  “He was always clear on the fact that if I didn’t want to I didn’t have to,” she said. “He kind of insisted on it.” Jennifer chuckled.

  “So I’m assuming the pregnancy was an accident—or, to put a positive spin on it—a surprise, right?” Brianna nodded.

  “I was on the pill and everything,” she said wryly. Jennifer took a deep breath and sighed, looking off into space for a moment, and Brianna wondered what was on the other woman’s mind.

  “Cassidy tried to throw you under the bus,” Jennifer said. “I mean—I assume you knew that already, right?” Brianna nodded when Jennifer glanced at her to confirm it. “She wants you out of the office so she can seduce Ethan—who, let’s be real, never had any interest in her whatsoever.” Jennifer rolled her eyes.

  “So what do you think…” Brianna wasn’t even certain she knew what she wanted to ask her coworker.

  “I think you should redo your makeup, and keep mum in the meeting, and figure out between you and Ethan how you want to handle you having his baby,” Jennifer said matter-of-factly. “Even if Cass suspects the same thing I do, you’re not obligated to share anything about your medical file with the board or HR.” Brianna nodded.

  “What do you think Ethan and I should do about…” Her hands drifted to her abdomen and she made herself stop.

  “I think you need to figure that out between the two of you,” Jennifer replied. “But if I were you, and it were an option, I would use this as a reason why you could step back—at least towards the end
of the pregnancy. Even if you get through this particular hurdle, the scandal isn’t going to end.” Brianna thought about that.

  “What do you mean use it as a reason I could step back?” Jennifer shrugged.

  “Ethan’s got a ton of money, and he obviously has feelings for you,” Jennifer pointed out. “As much as you love working here, I’m sure you’ll probably want to take a nice long maternity leave, and Ethan can make that happen.” Jennifer looked at her for a long moment. “What have you two talked about, with that kind of thing?”

  “Nothing, really,” Brianna admitted. “Mostly just that we need to figure out what we’re going to do.”

  “Well, I can’t tell you what the best situation is,” Jennifer said. “But for my money, I’d at least insist that Ethan pay the bills for this. He can afford it, after all. And if you two don’t want to be parents together, you should be able to see something from the whole ordeal.” Brianna looked at Jennifer in shock. She had never been that mercenary; the idea Jennifer seemed to be hinting at was beyond her.

  “But maybe you’ve got feelings for him too? Who knows?” Jennifer smiled slowly. “Maybe it’ll end up great for both of you. But for now, lie your ass off about any pregnancy, and get clear of this investigation.” Jennifer stood up straight and turned away. “I’ll do what I can to throw Cass under the bus. She’s been getting on my nerves anyway.” Brianna snorted and went to rinse out her mouth again as Jennifer left the bathroom. It was good, at least, to have one ally in the whole rotten mess.

  She finished cleaning herself up and touching up her makeup—fortunately, the lack of any good foundations in her skin tone under about $50 in price meant that Brianna rarely wore more than eye makeup, a little color on her cheeks, and lip color, so it was quickly done—and took another drink of water before stepping out of the bathroom. Brianna emerged to the sight of Cassidy glaring at her from behind the other woman’s computer monitor, but the fact that Jennifer had promised to back her made Brianna feel much better about the situation.

  Brianna settled in to get as much work done as possible before she would be called to talk to the HR investigator. The atmosphere in the office area was grimly quiet; and of course, given the situation, she and Ethan had already agreed not to have any meetings—or “meetings”—before the big conversation with HR.

  Just when her anxiety was reaching a point that made Brianna worry that she would be physically ill yet again, her desk phone rang. The number on the screen was Human Resources.

  “Hello, Brianna Evers speaking,” she said, keeping her voice as clear and level as possible.

  “Ah yes, Ms. Evers, this is Mark Loewy,” the man on the other end of the line said. “I’m in charge of an ongoing HR investigation—you’ve probably heard.”

  “I have,” Brianna said. “I was told you would probably want to speak with me today.”

  “I do, if you could make time—about forty minutes—to come down to my office?” Brianna looked at the time, on the bottom right corner of her computer screen.

  “I could come right now,” she said. The big meeting of the board would be just before lunch—a little over an hour away. Forty minutes would give her just enough time to meet with Mark, and then come back to her office and maybe talk to Ethan briefly before he had to go into the conference and face the board.

  “That would be excellent!” Mark sounded much more cheerful—and much less formal—than before, and Brianna tried to take some confidence from that. She took a quick, deep breath.

  “I haven’t been to your level since I started—could you tell me where I should be going?” Mark gave her instructions, and Brianna scribbled them down; she didn’t intend to take the notes with her, but writing the directions down would make sure they stuck in her memory so she wouldn’t get lost in the labyrinthine HR level. “I will be right down,” she told him, after confirming the directions a final time.

  “I’ll meet you at the conference room door,” Mark told her. Brianna hung up after a quick goodbye and took a few seconds to gather her dignity and courage around herself. She wasn’t about to let things go pear-shaped the week of Thanksgiving, when she planned to see her family for the first time in months.

  Brianna stood and smoothed her skirt down over her legs, and then instinctively smoothed her braids back from her face. She’d made an appointment to get her hair done on Wednesday morning, before she had to catch a plane to go home; but her hair was far from ragged-looking, and she knew that she looked as well as she could have expected to.

  She gave Jennifer a nod, ignored Cassidy, and made sure she had her phone with her as she went to the elevator. Remembering her earlier bout of morning sickness, Brianna almost contemplated taking the stairs instead, filled with a sudden intense dread that some smell she encountered would trigger the overwhelming nausea once again; but then she thought that if she took the stairs, it would take longer—and it would create questions.

  Fortunately, when the doors to the elevator opened, Brianna was greeted not with stale food smells but instead with the perfume-like reek of the cleaning agents the janitorial staff used. It would give her a headache—but that was better and easier to deal with than the nausea.

  Brianna went over the story that she and Ethan had rehearsed over the weekend in her mind: they had met by chance the evening of her first day in the Creative Department—that much was the honest truth. From there, things pretty much just kind of happened… There was a part of her that rebelled at the idea of not even mentioning what Ethan had done to—subtly—coerce her into accepting the new position.

  But even bringing up the contract, or mentioning that he’d put one of her former coworker’s jobs, or even a few of her former coworkers’ jobs, on the line would just ruin everything. Not to mention the bullshit that Cassidy came up with to try and throw me under the bus, she thought bitterly.

  For a moment, hormones rampaging through her veins, it was tempting to imagine snatching Cassidy’s hair out by the roots; but Brianna dismissed the image, and pushed the thought of any kind of direct revenge against Cassidy out of her mind. That wasn’t important now. Besides, hadn’t her mother always told her that “the best revenge is living well”?

  Brianna fully intended to live the best life she could possibly attain, if that would give her the revenge she wanted against Cassidy in that moment. But for the time being, Brianna told herself, as the elevator reached the floor for the HR Department, she would focus on just not letting Cassidy screw her over—or Ethan, either.

  She went through the mental directions that Mark had given her and followed them from her first step out of the elevator, looking up and over the cubicles and office doors as she made her way towards the conference room where the HR investigator would meet her. Brianna didn’t make eye contact with anyone, instead focusing in on what she would have to say, and how she would have to say it.

  Standing in the doorway, just as he’d promised, was a middle-aged man whose hair was starting to thin at the top of his head and along his temples. Brianna guessed that he was Mark, and she pulled a smile onto her face from somewhere, taking a surreptitious breath to calm the last of her nerves. She had always performed well under pressure; now was the time to prove that she was able to get the job done.

  From the slight widening of his eyes, Brianna knew that Mark hadn’t expected her to be black—or maybe not as dark as she was, or maybe not as good-looking as she was. Certainly, Brianna thought, there was something unexpected about her. Her smile became more relaxed as she realized that, all things considered, she had the upper hand in the meeting she was about to attend.

  “You must be Mark,” Brianna said, holding out her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Pleased to meet you as well, Brianna,” Mark said, recovering some of his composure. “I hope we can clear a few things up together.” Brianna nodded and shook the man’s hand firmly but not too hard.

  “I would love to help you out in the investigation, and I’m definitely ready
to answer whatever questions you have for me,” she said. And it was actually true.

  Chapter16

  Ethan waited until after he knew Brianna had left for her talk with Mark to call Cassidy into his office. He knew that the brunette would cause a scene, and he wanted to minimize the risk of her creating more problems than she already had. He sent her an email with no body contents, just a subject line asking her to come see him immediately. She is in for a very rude surprise if she thinks she can do something like that and get away with it, Mark thought as he waited for the woman to respond to his summons.

  A moment later, the door buzzer went off, and Ethan pressed the button on his desk to let Cassidy into his office. He’d given a lot of thought to the problem of the assistant over the weekend, over and beyond what he’d discussed with Brianna; he’d known Cassidy longer, and the fact that she had some kind of feelings towards him hadn’t escaped his notice—even if he had, mentally, downplayed the significance of those feelings. It was therefore his fault that she’d caused so much trouble to Brianna. It was his mess to clean up.

  The brunette came into his office looking faintly excited, her eyes bright and her cheeks a little flushed, her notepad and pen in hand, smiling timorously at him. “Busy day today, isn’t it?” Ethan nodded, keeping his expression neutral.

  “You aren’t going to need to take notes, this is a personal meeting,” he said quietly. He listened for the sound of the door locking behind Cassidy, giving them both privacy. The woman’s eyes almost gleamed at the suggestion that the meeting between them was personal, and Ethan felt his irritable anger at the woman rise up even more strongly.

  “I know Brianna’s meeting with HR right now,” Cassidy said, her voice slyly innocent. “Is that something to do with what you want to talk about?” Ethan considered the question for a moment—and its obvious implication—and nodded, fighting back amusement at how deeply Cassidy would be disappointed in a matter of only a few moments.