How to Lasso a Billionaire

by Katharine Sadler

  "Sure. It's just . . ." He shrugged. "Honestly, I've never known Jude to care about anything other than work enough for it to affect his moods."

  Bri found that hard to believe. Surely Jude had a personal life as glamorous as his working life. Although, his relationship with Pauline hadn't sounded glamorous at all. How much of a social life did he have? There was so much she didn't know about him. She and Raymond went back to discussing Jude's calendar and Bri did her best not to glance over at Jude's office more than once every ten minutes. She and Raymond took turns getting lunch, and Jude's office was dark when Bri got back from her lunch break.

  "Did Jude leave for the day?" she asked, trying to sound like she was just curious.

  Raymond nodded, his brow creased. "Said he's going to work from home."

  Her stomach sank. Jude was too much of a control freak to work from home often. She suspected his absence and his mood had everything to do with her. She forced a smile and tried to brush it off. So what if Jude never wanted to touch her again? She had just been looking for a fling anyway, there was never going to be any future for them. Any sadness she felt was just disappointment that she wouldn't get to be with Jude again, that she'd never get to see him naked.

  She relaxed a bit, though, knowing Jude wasn't in the office right next door, knowing he wasn't watching her.

  "I think you're really getting the hang of this," Raymond said after she'd successfully answered a call and put a new appointment in the calendar later that afternoon. "Maybe I shouldn't teach you anymore. I can't have you stealing my job away from me."

  She sighed and rolled her shoulders, stiff from sitting in an office chair for eight hours. "Believe me, there's no chance of that. Even if I didn't have to get back to Towle, Jude would never want me here for the long haul." She smiled at the other man, who she'd found to be a kind and thorough teacher. "Besides, I may be able to answer the phone, but you've got years of knowledge and understanding about this casino that I could never pick up in just six weeks."

  "You make a good point, Miss Mason." He stood and stretched. "I'm going to get out of here before Jude shows up and manufactures some more work for me to do."

  She shut down the computer and switched the phone over to the afterhours message. By the time she was done, Raymond was around the desk, bag over his shoulder. "Big plans tonight?"

  "Nope," she said, standing. "It's just me, a good book, and a PB & J tonight."

  He shook his head. "Six weeks in Vegas, and you're not going to head out and see the sights?"

  "I think I need a break from all the sights." The last thing she needed was to go out and run into Jude again.

  He smiled. "My fiancé doesn't get off work for another three hours. Why don't you let me take you out? There's nothing like seeing Vegas with a local."

  She sighed. The truth was, she was tired, body, mind, and soul. She'd been looking forward to a quiet night with escapist literature since lunch, when she'd realized Jude wasn't going to sweep her away for more romance. Even so, Raymond had a point, and she'd have more than enough time for reading when she went back to Towle.

  "That would be awesome, but you should know, I'm pretty much broke at the moment, so I can't commit to anything that costs money."

  He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "That's not a problem. I know how to do Vegas cheap, and I've got friends in all kinds of places."

  "Sounds perfect."

  Instead of walking Bri through the casino and to the strip, Raymond took her straight to the parking garage. He led her to a standard four-door car and opened the passenger door for her. "You aren't taking me out to the desert to kill me, are you?" She tried for a jovial tone, but she wasn't in a joking mood and her words fell flat.

  He frowned. "Why would I do that? You're my ticket to a vacation."

  She shrugged. "Jude's moods might improve if I'm not around."

  His confused expression disappeared. "Only because you scare the shit out of him, Miss Mason."

  She waited for him to laugh or admit he was joking, but Raymond walked around to the other side of the car and sat in the driver's seat. He started the engine and backed out of the parking garage. "Jude said you like art."

  Not many people knew how much she loved art, she'd always been an athlete, a bit of a tomboy. She'd thought only Isla knew her secret. "I love to look at it. I'm not any good at it." Back home, Isla's photographs filled Bri's walls, but her own art, silly sketches, were stuffed in drawers, hidden away. She'd taken an art class during college. Her teacher had even liked some of her work. It had been a fun way to pass the time, but she'd never be good enough to make any sort of career out of it.

  "That's not what Jude said," Raymond said in a sing-song voice. "He even showed me a drawing you'd done of him. It is amazing. You have real talent, Mason."

  "But I never . . ." She sighed. Damn Isla. After Jude and Max's falling out, Bri had given all the drawings she'd done of Jude to her best friend. Her cheeks heated at the idea of Jude seeing them, of knowing how many times she'd drawn him. "I can't believe he has it."

  "He keeps it in his desk. Showed it to me before you started, wanted me to understand he wasn't just pushing an untalented, incapable twit on me out of nepotism."

  She snorted. "Like a lame drawing I did of him ten years ago would prove anything."

  "Jude seemed to think it did. I agree with him. That drawing showed me your soul."

  She laughed full on that time. "Now you're just pulling my chain."

  He didn't crack a smile. "Nope. You see people. That drawing showed a relaxed, easy side of Jude most people never see. You captured his essence and that takes talent, but it also takes empathy and understanding and insight. You feel a lot more than you let on, don't you?"

  "I guess," she said, not at all convinced. "Where are we going anyway?"

  "You'll see," he said with a grin.

  She squeed with excitement when she saw a huge sign announcing they were entering the arts district. "I didn't even know Vegas had an arts district."

  "Oh, honey." He patted her hand. "You have so much to learn."

  #

  Bri yawned for the fifth time in twenty minutes and tried to focus on the computer screen. After taking her to three different art galleries the night before, Raymond had treated her to dinner in the kitchen of his fiancé’s restaurant. They'd gotten a delicious, gourmet meal for free, and she'd loved watching Raymond's fiancé at work. He was a serious, almost somber, gorgeous guy who ran the kitchen like a drill Sergeant, but who was all smiles and sweetness for Raymond.

  "What did you get up to last night?" Raymond asked. He took a seat next to her behind the desk, glancing at Jude's dark office in a meaningful way.

  Bri rolled her eyes. Raymond had invited her out for drinks with friends after dinner, but she'd begged off, claiming she wanted to get to bed early. "All that art inspired me." She paused to answer three phone calls before she got to complete her thought. At that point, Raymond was deep into Jude's emails, but she continued anyway. "I stayed up until three sketching." She'd also ignored two texts and a phone call from Jude, first because she was out having fun with Raymond and then because she'd been happy making art. His texts had only asked her to call him and he hadn't left a voice mail. She hadn't wanted to ruin a good night, and she'd figured he was likely calling to tell her why he couldn't see her outside of work or that she was fired.

  Raymond looked away from the screen and smiled. "I'm so glad."

  She dug into her bag and pulled out a sheet of paper. "I did this for you. It would be so much better if I had decent supplies, but I got rid of all that stuff when--"

  "Oh, my god." He stared at the picture with something like awe. "This is him. This is . . . You just captured . . ." He looked up at her, his eyes glistening. "Thank you."

  She hadn't thought her sketch of Raymond's fiancé, in his kitchen shouting orders, was worthy of so much emotion, but she couldn't deny the swell of joy Raymond's appreciation brought her. "T
hank you. I'd gotten so caught up in life, I'd forgotten how much I used to love drawing. If you hadn't taken me to the arts district, I might never have remembered."

  "You'd have remembered. Talent like this won't allow itself to be forgotten."

  She bit her lip to hold back her own tears. Honestly, the joy on his face was better than any accolade or any amount of money. "I tried to enter a new appointment in Jude's calendar," she said, desperate for a subject change. "But I couldn't get it to save."

  He fixed the problem, and explained why it had happened, in less than thirty seconds.

  "Where the hell is the grumpy lug anyway?" Raymond asked, staring at the empty office.

  "There was a message from him on voice mail when I got in." She hated the way the sound of his voice had affected her, hating that she'd hoped . . . "He said he's got a meeting at Stratosphere with their head of operations. Something about an advanced security system they've installed."

  "Right," Raymond said. "It's not like him to veer from the calendar. Something happen between you two?"

  She hadn't been expecting the question, so she couldn't quite manage to keep her cheeks from flaming. "Um, why would you ask that?"

  His smile twisted into a wicked smirk. "Maybe because you look at each other like you're trying to imagine the other person naked?"

  Her cheeks heated even farther, and she forced a laugh. "When was the last time you had your eyes checked?"

  "Quit deflecting. What happened?"

  Bri would never betray Jude by badmouthing him to his employees, no matter how much his cold shoulder the past couple days had hurt her, but she also couldn't take a risk that whatever Raymond conjured up in his imagination between the two of them might be even worse than the reality. "I kissed him," she said. "It was entirely inappropriate, and I never should have done it, but I had a crush on the guy once upon a time."

  "Really? I wish I'd known that eight years ago."

  Bri spun to see Jude in the hallway, leaning casually against the wall like he'd been standing there all day. She was doubly glad she hadn't said anything negative about him, but her cheeks felt like they might melt off her face. Not to mention the heat spreading to her chest and . . . Other places, with Jude looking so damn sexy. Except for his somber expression. "All in the past," she said, ignoring Jude to face Raymond. "Our relationship is completely professional."

  "Good to know," Raymond said, glancing back and forth between Bri and Jude like he expected one of them to do something fascinating at any moment.

  "Please send my messages via email," Jude said, walking past without looking at either of them. He closed his door gently behind him, but he might as well have slammed it for as final a period as it put to the conversation.

  "Very interesting," Raymond said.

  Bri ignored him and pretended to focus on work, willing her mind to stop dwelling on the man on the other side of the door, willing her cheeks to cool. She would be professional. She would not lust after her boss, no matter how temporary their professional arrangement might be.

  It took a little while, but Bri eventually got back into the flow of her work. Together she and Raymond attacked old tasks, like filing and cleaning up Jude's inbox, that Raymond hadn't had time to get to before he'd had Bri to help. The end of the day arrived quickly, and she packed up her stuff, in a hurry to get away from that desk and back to her quiet, temptation-free apartment for the weekend.

  Raymond took off for a date with his fiancé before she could sneak out, leaving Bri alone when the phone rang after hours. Since she hadn't yet set the afterhours message, she answered the call with a forced smile in her voice. She assisted the caller and quickly set the after-work message. Raymond said most employers expected their assistants to work as long as they did, but Jude insisted his assistant leave every day at a reasonable hour, unless a crisis or unforeseen problem occurred. Raymond thought it made Jude a prince among bosses, but Bri suspected Jude's leniency had more to do with his need for control and his difficulty delegating.

  She grabbed her bag and stood, just as the most beautiful woman she'd ever seen, tall and lithe, with thick flowing brown hair, and a bone structure to die for, sashayed into the office. She gave Bri a warm smile. "Hi, I'm here to see--"

  "Tessa," Jude said. He stepped out of his office, his smile wide, his gaze warm and welcoming. "It's so good to see you."

  "And you," Tessa hugged Jude.

  "Come on in," Jude said.

  Bri watched the two of them disappear into Jude's office, the door shutting on their conversation or whatever it was they might be doing. She scowled at that closed door. Clearly she had been nothing more than an ill-advised hook-up for Jude. And if a woman like Tessa was his type . . . Well, Bri didn't stand a chance.

  And that was a good thing, she reminded herself. She had no future with Jude, no matter how hot the attraction between them sparked. Tessa was just the wake-up call she needed to remember her priorities. Addy and Maureen.

  In fact, she ought to spend the weekend looking for work she could do every Saturday and Sunday. She wouldn't ruin Raymond's vacation by leaving Jude in the lurch, but she could find a way to bring in more money on her days off. Her focus had to be on money, not on herself and how much fun she could have.

  Even with that resolution firm in her mind, she couldn't help reading over Isla's billionaire plan on the ride back to her apartment. The next step after the first date was a chance encounter where she would learn her billionaire had more to offer than just a fat wallet, washboard abs, and a pretty face. Bri smiled at Isla's description. Isla had made notes on the next part of the plan, but Bri couldn't focus on them, her thoughts lost in a memory of a different Jude, a Jude who'd set the standard for what she'd expect from all other guys.

  She'd been seventeen and he'd been home from college for Thanksgiving break. Max and Bri practically lived at the Cassidy house during any kind of break because they had a bigger yard and a big screen TV. Jude had brought a girlfriend home to visit for the holiday, so Isla and Bri had holed up in her room to watch TV.

  Bri had a boyfriend at the time, so did Isla. They'd been on a couple of double dates and Bri's boyfriend wasn't a bad guy, but he was pushy, always wanting Bri to stay longer, to go farther physically than she was ready to go.

  When they'd heard crying outside Isla's door, the two of them had gone out to see what had happened. Jude's arms had been around his girlfriend as she cried into his shoulder. He'd rubbed her back, whispering sweet things to her. "It's okay," he said. "Of course, you miss your family. It's because you're a kind, loving person."

  Jude had left to take her home moments before his mother had put Thanksgiving dinner on the table. He'd driven more than three hours one way to take her back home because her little sister had cried on the phone. She'd wanted to be there for her little sister who missed her, and Jude had taken her home, no hesitation.

  The way he'd treated her was so kind, so understanding. He didn't even complain about having had to make the drive after he got back. Didn't complain that she hadn't asked him to visit with her family. Bri's pushy boyfriend never would have done that and she realized she wanted a boyfriend who would do what Jude had done. It seemed so simple, even back then, but she'd known it wasn't. Many people would have convinced Jude's girlfriend that her little sister would get over it, or that her parents could pick her up, but Jude had insisted she let him drive her home.

  Bri had dumped her pushy boyfriend the very next day, and she'd yet to find a guy who could live up to the standard Jude had set.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Tessa glared at Jude from the other side of the desk. "Want to explain why you didn't want to introduce me to your new assistant?"

  Jude considered lying, but he'd heard Brianne when she'd shouldered the blame for his distance and his bad mood. He wouldn't throw her under the bus to save himself. "I needed to remind myself that my new assistant is off-limits. I haven't quite figured out how to be around her." At least during off
ice hours. At least until he could figure out how to control himself when she was in the same building as he was.

  At least until he could get his emotions back to normalcy. A level at which he wouldn't spend the evening in a jealous snit, wondering who she was with and why she wasn't answering his messages. He'd been a bit short with her the day before, because he hadn't trusted himself not to touch her, not to drag her into his office and kiss her if he really looked at her, if he heard her voice soften when she said his name.

  He'd planned to take her out after work, but she'd been gone by the time he'd gotten back to the office and he'd spent the evening imagining all kinds of steamy scenarios between her and some other man. He'd even called Mark to make sure she wasn't with him.

  She wasn't Jude's. She was free to do whatever she wanted with whomever she wanted, but the idea of someone else with his hands on her, kissing her... The mere thought had made it impossible for him to focus on a damn thing.

  Bri could destroy him without even trying and that was more control, more power, than he could ever feel comfortable with anyone having over him.

  Then he'd gotten a message from accounting about an irregularity in the numbers and his first thought had been Max. Even if Brianne was innocent, Max could still use her, unknowingly, to get to him again. That had been his first thought, and he'd hated himself for it. He believed Brianne had known nothing about Max's theft, and he trusted her. At least, he wanted to trust her, but his subconscious wasn't quite there, yet. The irregularity appeared to be a one-time thing, possibly a mistake at the cashier level at one of his restaurants, but he'd called in Tessa anyway.

  Tessa narrowed her eyes. "It's not difficult, Jude. You introduce your cyber security expert to your assistant, and we all make polite niceties. It's not like you had to tell either of us all the filthy things you want to do to her."

  "It doesn't matter. It won't happen again. How is Nicholas?"

  "He'll be very interested in the fact that you are human after all and so entirely befuddled by the opposite sex."