The Hot Billionaires Box Set

by Nella Tyler

  “Who is it? Is it Dexter?” Nina sat up again.

  “Jason,” I said. The name carried an aftertaste of distress, and I instantly felt like I was trapped in my apartment again, unable to leave, subject to shouting and smacks. I felt responsible to pick up the phone. It would be wrong if I didn’t; I was supposed to answer when he called. “I have to take it.”

  “No way in hell,” Nina said firmly. As if she didn’t trust me, she grabbed my phone from the counter and hit ‘Deny.’

  I didn’t get angry. It was the right thing to do. I sucked my cheeks in and took a deep breath. Over the last few days, I’d gotten so carried away with Dexter that I’d almost forgotten my troubles. Vacation was working, it seemed, but at the expense of repression instead of dealing with my problems. I wondered if it was irresponsible of me to expect to go and party for a week and return to everything being fine the way I’d left it.

  “He’s nothing but bad news,” Nina reminded me. “Nothing but bad news and shitty behavior.”

  I nodded. Some part of me believed her, and another part of me wanted to answer the phone or call him back. I’d been with him for three years. That wasn’t something that I could just throw away without a second thought, right? Except, I had given it a second thought. And a third, and a fourth, for years and years.

  “Repeat it back to me.”

  “He’s bad news and shitty behavior.” The mantra didn’t make much sense, but the meaning carried over. I sighed and folded my arms. I felt like I wanted a drink. If I could have six drinks, maybe then I wouldn’t feel the way that I felt. I just wanted to unwind; that’s why I’d come to Florida in the first place, right?

  My phone started to go off again in Nina’s hand. She looked down and smiled. “Oh, it’s your dad.” She handed my phone back to me.

  “Thank you, secretary,” I quipped, and she wrinkled her nose at me. Nina had spent about three months working as a secretary at a law firm before getting fired for refusing to show up to work on time.

  “Hello? Briella, are you there?” My dad’s voice interrupted me making a face back at Nina, and I stepped outside onto the patio to have a bit more privacy than I did sitting in the room with Nina. She would probably still hear, but it would make me feel better.

  “Yeah, hi. Nina had my phone. How are you?”

  “I’m doing just fine. I wanted to check in on you.” I could hear the laundry machine tumbling in the background. “Are you doing all right?”

  “Of course,” I reassured him. “Everything’s great. I’m already feeling less stressed, and there’s still time left here.” I wondered whether I should tell him about Dexter, and decided against it. My dad would be suspicious at best and overprotective at worst, and besides, this thing with Dexter probably wasn’t anything more than what it was now.

  Besides, considering I’d just broken up with Jason, it would look like a rebound—extremely unhealthy and likely to fail. It would only upset him. And it would worry him, and I really didn’t want him to be worried about me. I didn’t want to think that he had a reason to worry about me.

  “I’m glad to hear it. You still think you’ll be coming back when you said you would?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

  “Okay. And you let me know if you need anything.”

  I smiled. As if there was anything I could need from him in Florida. “All right. Thanks, Dad. I love you.”

  “I love you too, sweetheart. Bye.” He hung up, and I sat outside for a second, savoring the crisp ocean air.

  After a bit, I went back into the room. Nina and I spent the evening watching movies on TV and ordering room service, talking about just about anything we had in our brains. When she finally passed out, I was left awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking about where I was now in my life. I was in an unbelievably strange place, both literally and in my life, and things were happening in a strange and exciting way.

  I was excited. For the first time in a long time, I was genuinely excited about a love interest. I thought about the day I’d spent with Dexter on the boat. He was kind, he was considerate, we’d talked for ages. I had a hard time thinking now about the conversation. My mind drifted to the collarbone that his button-down exposed, the way his arms looked when he rolled up his sleeves.

  The set in his jaw when he smiled at me.

  His mouth on mine. Jesus, that kiss. I closed my eyes and wished that I could relieve that feeling of complete and total vulnerability, overwhelming helplessness in strong, capable arms. I pulled my lower lip between my teeth and wondered what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped him. Would he kiss my neck with that much confidence? Would he hold me tightly or would he grip my shoulder, offering an anchor so he could better—

  Nina snored next to me, and I sighed. I turned my phone off and rolled over, yanking the blanket over my head. I wanted to block her out and continue where I’d left off in my fantasy, but now I couldn’t; the moment was over.

  Maybe having Dexter’s body on mine wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

  Chapter 11

  Dexter

  When my father had given me time off, it was supposed to be for the full week. When I woke up to an email from him instructing that I come in for few moments, I knew that I was in at least a little bit of trouble. Judging by the events of the last few days, it didn’t take much guessing to know what he was upset about. It was Thursday now; the news about Monday evening had probably gotten around to him, and now I was probably in for it.

  As I got dressed, I considered not turning up. I could pretend I didn’t receive the email. Sure, I’d see him at work the next week, but that almost didn’t matter in my mind. I didn’t want to explain to him that I couldn’t marry Tiffany DuBois. I’d been perfectly polite to her—I doubted she even knew that I was disinterested in the first place.

  I didn’t want to sit through a lecture, especially not one concerning my own failure to comply with his standards, but despite what I wanted, I got in the car and drove.

  At work, people looked at me a bit resentfully. I didn’t blame them. I’d been given a week off to wine and dine the daughter of one of America’s most successful enterprises. They probably all had to pick up the work I’d left behind. I would hate them, too, if they were me. I walked past the offices of glowering coworkers and made it to that grand, glass-walled office of my father.

  He was at his desk already, sitting up and at attention. With his alert gaze and his suit hanging off his skinny shoulders, he wasn’t unlike a scarecrow. “Dexter, good, come in.”

  That wasn’t what I’d expected. Leonard Mason wasn’t one to beat around the bush. I walked into the office and took a seat in front of his desk, bracing myself for the nearly eternal sink that the cushion gave. “You called me in?”

  “Yes, I emailed you.” He sat back in his chair and looked down at me from over the tops of his wide-rimmed glasses. “How did Monday go? With the DuBois girl?”

  He couldn’t even remember her name. I swallowed and took a breath. “Well, um, it wasn’t horrible.” There hadn’t been any crimes committed or feelings wounded. “Have you heard something about it?” It would do me well to at least know what I was getting into if I was going to try to lie.

  “I called Harold DuBois to ask about the affair before I got in touch with you. He said that you hadn’t scheduled a second date.” He looked at me with a poker face, and I couldn’t tell whether he was furious that I’d not scheduled or whether he was checking on something he already knew.

  This was true, and perhaps the only glaring indication I’d given that I wasn’t interested in Tiffany. I’d behaved myself, I’d been courteous, and I hadn’t voiced a single complaint despite my objection to the situation. Still, I hadn’t set up a second date, and it was that setup that was probably the most important indicator. I couldn’t lie to my father. I could, rather, but he would see through it.

  So I sighed, shoulders slumped. “That is true,” I admitt
ed. “I didn’t, um, I didn’t set up a second date.”

  He raised his eyebrows and let the next question hang unspoken in the air.

  “I couldn’t sit through another conversation with her,” I said. I leaned forward, hoping to connect with him on some empathetic, human level. “I couldn’t bear it. She didn’t have anything to say of substance, she was awful to the waiter, and she hated everything I liked. I’m certain that plenty of men out there are great suits for her, Dad, but I’m not one of those men.”

  “She didn’t insult you?” he asked. “She didn’t do anything to you?”

  “No, not… technically.” I frowned.

  “The conversation was just bland?”

  “Bland is… political sciences courses are bland.” I regretted telling him the truth at that moment, and I could feel a lecture coming on.

  Sure enough, he settled back in his chair in a way that signaled he wasn’t going to get up for some time. He set his hand on his knee and set his jaw. “Dexter, in all honesty, I can’t say that I’m surprised. In fact, I understand.”

  Understanding was not in my father’s vernacular. I was immediately suspicious.

  “These marriages, these setups, if you will, they’re rarely easy. We don’t go into them expecting some sort of fluid, fairytale romance, or even a decent relationship. Have you heard of arranged marriages in Eastern cultures?”

  I shook my head.

  “Commonly, they find that in arranged marriages, the people put in them don’t like one another at first. They’re opposed to the idea of the marriage and to one another. They’ll spend a good amount of time in opposition. Then, after a time, they begin to develop affection.” My father had never looked so foreign as he did saying the word ‘affection.’ “And so, love follows. Marriage comes first, and the consequence of it is a rather substantial bond.”

  I disagreed. I knew that that arose out of necessity—people in those situations came to feel love for one another because it was the easiest thing to do without going completely insane. In a place where people couldn’t escape the other, they would turn to affection. It was almost like Stockholm Syndrome.

  “So it is with these marriages, too,” he went on. “For example, your mother and I.”

  I hadn’t heard him mention my mother in a very, very long time, and I dreaded the implication of bringing her up now.

  “She and I hardly got along when we were introduced. She was the daughter of an oil salesman who had gotten rich quickly when he found oil in his backyard, essentially. She’d come from Texas, a small town, an affluent family but little to no name recognition.” He sounded every bit as detached speaking of her as he did speaking of accounts. It made my skin crawl. “We had little in common when we met. Still, we went through with the marriage. It wasn’t always easy, but over time, we managed to come to terms with the situation.”

  I couldn’t stand to hear this. It made me want to shove up from the table and leave the room. My mother didn’t deserve to be spoken about like a technicality. She deserved to be spoken of with love, as an equal partner, not as an asset to a corporation.

  “Do you follow what I’m saying, Dexter?”

  The condescension in his tone grated in my ears. Still, I didn’t argue with him. It would be a lost argument from the start, especially as angry as I was. “Of course,” I managed to tell him. “I, um, I simply can’t imagine that Tiffany and I will settle our differences.” The attempt to stick up for myself was weak at best.

  It was so weak, in fact, that he completely ignored it. “You’ll see in time. That’s all I needed you for.”

  I stood up and started to make my way out. I wanted to go home and take a nap since it was still too early to have a drink.

  “Oh, Dexter,” my father called.

  I turned around. “Yes?”

  “The account you approved last week, the one before you’d closed the other account, do you remember?”

  “Um, yeah,” I tried to recall. I’d approved several accounts the last week. “Why?”

  “I had to deny it,” he said. “It looked suspicious and unreliable.”

  I thought about the account I’d approved immediately before closing the account that had gotten me praise, and remembered. It had been a middle-aged black man asking for an investment on something, either a building or a car or something to that effect. I remember how quick and trivial the process had been; we approved dozens of investments of his sort. “I don’t recall it being particularly suspicious,” I said.

  “Well, you didn’t pay much attention, it seems,” he said.

  I raised my eyebrow. My father had approved an investment to many men who had less favorable deals than that man had. I considered, briefly, that perhaps this was an issue of race. Florida had issues with systemic racism, ones that reflected in the types of people who applied for investment loans. Most of our business came from wealthy white people.

  Had my father made a blatantly racist business choice? “I did pay attention,” I returned. “And there was nothing shady about it. What did you find?”

  He sat up in his chair, appearing a bit stiff, like he hadn’t expected me to retort. “I merely suggest that you look more carefully into the situations our clients are in before approving their investments. It’s something you should be doing for every client. I have an appointment coming in; you’ll need to be on your way.”

  I was more than eager to get on my way. The conversation about my mother was enough to boil my blood; this unabashed racism made me want to punch a wall. I couldn’t believe that my father would be so abruptly horrible to someone. Terminating an account could do serious damage to a person’s business, and to do it with no basis whatsoever was a stupid business choice. My father was a businessman.

  In the car, I finally realized my conflict and groaned. I looked up to my father. I did everything for the company, sure, and for its prosperity, but wasn’t that ultimately for my father’s benefit? I didn’t know how to cope with these flaws in his character. I’d always assumed he did what he thought was best.

  When I got back home, I wanted to take a nap. I remembered that I’d scheduled a date for later that evening, and decided it would be better to prepare for that. I needed desperately to get the conversation with my father out of my head, whether that meant drinking or cooking or cleaning.

  Briella would help, I was sure of that. She made everything else go away. I’d developed a sort of dependency on her company in a very short period of knowing her. She’d made me hope for a bond with someone that came from love, not that might grow love after already pledging alliance to one another.

  Yes. This night with Briella would ease my conscious. I got my tablet out of my room and started looking for recipes to make dinner.

  Chapter 12

  Briella

  “You’ve got a date! You’ve got a date! Girl, get the hell up!”

  Despite the full-grown woman who had jumped onto my bed and cheered in my ear, I only groaned. “Yeah, yeah, in a few minutes,” I groaned.

  “Come on, come on. You’ve gotta get up. We have a lot to do today,” Nina explained.

  I sat up and ran a hand through my hair, cringing when I realized how dirty it was. I needed a shower, and a bit more sleep, but I could tell that Nina wasn’t going to relent. “I don’t follow,” I said. I had clothes, I had toiletries, and I couldn’t think of anything we needed to do. Maybe it was because I was so tired that all I could imagine was sleep.

  “You need a new dress,” Nina argued.

  “I don’t think I do,” I mumbled. I pushed myself out of bed and started getting together an outfit to wear during the day. I needed to do laundry, but I still had some underwear and leggings left. “I think I’m fine. I have the skirt we bought last time we went out.”

  “Yeah, but you need something that shows off your curves. Give him a little waistline, a little cleavage—”

  I grabbed a pillow off Nina’s bed and tossed it at her. “You’re impossible
.” There was a mall nearby, though, and we didn’t have any other plans during the day. I liked shopping well enough. “But we can still go. Let me shower first.”

  After a long shower and a few moments getting ready for the day, Nina and I went off to the mall. We didn’t need to take a cab; it was a pretty short walk to get to there, and if we walked, we had to limit what we bought to what we could carry back.

  After getting distracted by some amazing gag gift stores where Nina nearly purchased a box of macaroni and cheese where the noodles were cut out to look like penises, we found some dresses in a department store. Nina treated it like she was my mother and I was about to go to prom. Or, perhaps a stage mom directing her daughter in a beauty pageant was a bit more accurate.

  “This is one is nice. This one has a low back. Are you okay with low backs?”

  I rolled my eyes and found a simple black dress with a low cut and defined waist. I held it up, and Nina sighed. “I mean… look, if you’re going to go for a black dress, make it more exciting. I get that simple goes a long way, but that’s more… business formal?”

  I had no idea what business formal even meant, but I put the dress back. In the changing room, burdened with about 20 million different articles of clothing, Nina started badgering me more specifically about Dexter.

  “You know, I’m kind of surprised about you with Dexter,” Nina remarked.

  I laughed and stepped out of a dress that didn’t quite fit me. “Um, excuse me? You’ve been up my ass about sleeping with him for the last 24 hours.”

  “Yeah, no, I still am, but I mean, I’m surprised you’re into him.”

  “You told him, to his face, that you thought he was hot.” I picked up another dress, this one obviously not my color, but I was willing to buy a little time in the dressing room before stepping out and back into the whirlwind of dresses and getting shoved into racks by an overenthusiastic Nina.