Game of Love: A Bad Boy Billionaire Romance

by Lulu Pratt

  “Sure! I look forward to it.” Effie smiled amiably and then got up and left the papers she had carried in with her on my desk before slipping back out into the main office.

  “Why’d you do that?” I rounded on Mick as soon as she had left.

  “Do what? You’ll need an assistant to keep you right at the opening, no?” he grinned.

  “No!” I cried, my vision of a work-free break back home in Ireland rapidly evaporating.

  “She is bloody gorgeous, Keegan,” he scolded me like I was a child. “And if Lucy isn’t working out…”

  “It’s not that she isn’t working out…” I again struggled to explain. “It’s just she’s a little bit empty…”

  Effie had come back into the office, knocking, I noticed peevishly, as she added to the paperwork she had left before.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Mick groaned. “I find you the perfect woman and she still isn’t good enough for you?”

  “I’ve gotta go!” I widened my eyes to silently communicate to Mick to shut up – something that he found hard at the best of times.

  “Get the travel details sorted! I’ll even get the first round in!” he shouted before ending the call.

  I turned to Effie apologetically. She was making a point of sorting through the paperwork as if she were oblivious to what had been said.

  “Mick is a very old friend of mine. We were teenagers together. We don’t always talk professionally to one another…”

  “I’m not offended by swearing.” She was unfazed.

  “Okay, good, and you’re happy to attend the opening as my assistant? Mick thinks it might be useful to have someone liaise with the press, et cetera.” I waved a hand. “But I totally understand if you can’t – it’s a big ask when you haven’t been here long. And it’s in two weeks.”

  “Should be fine,” she answered. She looked totally calm, like I had just asked her to fetch coffee, not fly across the world for a black-tie event. She left the paperwork with me, and made her way out again.

  She was always so measured, so careful, with her neat black suit and pulled-back hair. And yet sometimes she showed a glimpse of some other personality. Like when she had basically destroyed Sean, or just now when she had let Mick know in a few seconds that she completely understood why I had hired her – and by extension of that, what an idiot I was. She was a bit of a conundrum. I reminded myself how lucky I was to have Lucy. Beautiful, uncomplicated Lucy, who would never reveal a sudden unexpected feisty side.

  Mick was right. What was wrong with me?

  I played back my interaction with Effie, and suddenly realized that I hadn’t said the opening was in Ireland. She probably thought it was at some fancy hotel across town. I got up to let Effie know where she would be going, but the phone rang with Sean’s name flashing on the screen.

  Fuck.

  Chapter 10

  FREYA

  WORKING AS KEEGAN’S assistant was the same as working as an intern; I just became a kind of go-between from the team to Keegan. He didn’t really know what to do with me, so I made myself useful sorting files and juggling things. The whole point was to get my head around what files he kept, both physically and on his computer system. Taylor had been horrified by my sudden promotion.

  “You actually agreed to be his assistant, and now you gotta talk to him every day,” she shook her head. “Are you some kind of masochist?”

  “He doesn’t seem that bad,” I replied, but her expression had me worried.

  “Well, okay,” she raised her eyebrows. “He might seem all right, compared to his creep brother, but you know, dude has a past.”

  “What kind of a past?” I had to laugh at her dramatic tone. Secretly, I was interested.

  “A criminal one,” she said, lowering her voice and continuing to work at her computer so as not to draw any attention to herself.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, my voice lowering to match hers as my heart began to pound.

  “All I know is Sean was the boss, then not much more than a year ago, suddenly Keegan arrives. Sent here from Ireland, where he got himself into some sort of trouble. And they hate each other,” she shrugged.

  “How do you know this?” I asked.

  “Sean let it slip to a couple of the ladies in HR,” Taylor said with a roll of her eyes. “So, basically it was around the office before the end of the day.”

  “Keegan’s only been here a year?” I asked, my mind racing. So the troubled criminal son arrives here right before Clover House starts stealing from other companies. Very interesting.

  “Yep. His buddy works at the Ireland office. He was mixed up in the same shit too. Daddy Callahan rescued them, but for some reason Keegan had to get out of Ireland.” Taylor winked at me, and I wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted me to infer from it.

  “Is the friend Mick?” I asked, the pieces suddenly clicking into place. “I spoke to him on Zoom.”

  “You ain’t seen nothing until you see him in the flesh,” she pretended to mop her brow. “I’d like to be his assistant – I would give him all the assistance he needs…”

  “Stop it!” I laughed. “I will be seeing him in the flesh soon enough, and I’d like to be able to keep a straight face! I’m going to the opening of a new office or something next weekend, and he will be there.”

  “Get out!” she was shocked. “Keegan Callahan is taking you to Ireland?”

  “What!? Ireland?” my laughter stopped abruptly. “No…”

  “You’re going to the opening of a new office. Next week. Where you’ll meet Mick…” she said slowly, and I nodded my agreement.

  Taylor quickly brought something up on her screen. “You’re going to Ireland, babe!”

  I looked at her screen – it was a press release for the opening of a new office building. In Dublin. I must have looked as horrified as I felt, because she put a hand on my arm and patted me consolingly. I thought back over how I had played the opening down, just blithely agreed I’d be there. I’d been trying to pretend I hadn’t heard about his ‘perfect’ girlfriend, so I hadn’t thought it through; I had just assumed the opening was local. As if to confirm my stupidity, Keegan himself chose that moment to walk past, letting me know that he would email me the details for the ‘Ireland trip.’ Taylor didn’t even try to conceal her giggle of delight at my stricken face.

  Taylor might have found it hilarious that I was stuck in this unexpected predicament, but she didn’t know the real reason for my dread. After work, I had to get through a dinner with my family, who definitely would know why I felt sick at the thought of it. I hadn’t even told them about my ‘promotion.’

  “You’re Keegan Callahan’s assistant?” Beatrix had stared at me, a forkful of spaghetti halfway to her mouth. “And you’re going to…”

  “Ireland,” I said as if it was somewhere shameful.

  “Do you have to go?” Mom looked concerned, and I was glad that her reaction was of worry and not anger. I felt a frisson of guilt for the trip – it was one thing to work for the enemy; that seemed like a sacrifice. But this, this was different.

  “I think so,” I said. “This job – being Keegan’s assistant – gives me access to his files. I’ve been watching him. He doesn’t lock his laptop, and he keeps his passwords written down.”

  “Shit, Freya!” Beatrix looked half impressed and half terrified.

  “Dad?” I glanced at him. He hadn’t said a word.

  “If you think you can do this without getting into any trouble, then I trust your judgment. But I’m not happy about it,” he said.

  “None of us are happy about it, but right now, it’s our only hope,” Beatrix said.

  The rest of the meal was awkward. We ate, talked small talk, avoided any discussion of money or lawyers, and smiled reassuringly at one another. When we had all eaten, Mom and Dad disappeared back to the studio. They were looking at options to save the company, and the dark circles under their eyes spoke of late nights and unshared worries. Beatrix a
nd I cleared the dishes, an old ritual that felt somehow comforting at a time when everything felt quite surreal.

  “Drew was in the studio today,” Beatrix casually remarked.

  “Okay,” I tried to sound casual, but I knew her tone. Drew worked for my parents. It was a workday, therefore Drew was at work. The only time Beatrix sounded casual was when she was working extremely hard at sounding casual.

  “He said you’d been out together,” she added, glancing at me.

  “Yeah, we had a drink,” I replied, turning my back as I reached for more pots.

  “He seems very… preoccupied,” she smiled. “Very distracted, like there is something on his mind.”

  “He’s worried about his job,” I reminded her.

  “Or thinking about something else,” she suggested.

  “I have no idea what is going on inside Drew’s head,” I sighed. I was tired of trying to second guess everyone, what they were thinking, what they would do next. Combined with trying to be one person at home and another at work, it was mentally exhausting. I had had a few friendly texts from Drew since our night out, but they were just that – friendly. No mention of the ‘unfinished business’ he had referred to that night. I should have been pleased – life was complicated enough. I felt slightly disappointed that he still seemed to have this inability to act. It was one of the reasons we didn’t ever really become a proper couple; he was always so chilled out about it, never willing to express how he felt or actually do anything.

  “You deserve some fun, and so does he. He’s a good guy.” Beatrix interrupted my train of thought, and I looked up at her in surprise.

  “You were totally against us getting together back in high school!” I reminded her.

  “That was different. You were friends. I didn’t want you to ruin that. But now, you’ve both grown up a little. You have more experience.”

  I winced. The experience she was referring to was my short but intense relationship with Jason. Jason was an artist. He was passionate, but mostly about himself. He was completely self-obsessed, and I had worshipped him. In fact, that was the main thing we had in common – we both loved Jason. It had ended explosively when I found out that he was sleeping with so many women that it required two phones to manage his busy schedule. I’d found the extra phone in his apartment, and he hadn’t even denied it. He couldn’t see why I wouldn’t understand that he had ‘exceptional needs.’ And yet it had never occurred to him that I might have needs too. I shook my head to get rid of the memory and continued to move around the kitchen, wiping down the surfaces and pretending I couldn’t see Beatrix leaning against the table eyeing me with suspicion.

  “Has there been anyone else since Jason?” she asked, coming straight out with it as only Beatrix would.

  “Nope.” I kept my tone brisk in the hope she would leave it there and not interrogate me further.

  “But he was your first… proper boyfriend,” she said.

  “Well, if you mean am I a virgin, then no, I am not.” I stopped and looked up at her, daring her to ask me more.

  “And you never…” she searched for the right word, and I let her squirm for a moment before rescuing her.

  “No, I never…. And there hasn’t been anyone since. Is there a point to this?” I gave her a small smile and watched as she got more and more uncomfortable.

  “God, Freya. I’m sorry, but you need to get laid.” She looked so earnest that I had to laugh.

  “Thanks for that, but I’m good.” I smiled and folded the towel in my hands, placing it neatly on the side.

  “I’m serious,” she said.

  “So am I!” I replied, trying my best to seem like I had it all together.

  The truth was, I was incredibly embarrassed. After high school, I had met Jason and I thought he was the love of my life. My obsession with him had absorbed almost three years of my life. One of those years was before we finally got together, and one was after we had split. And in the year we were together, I had been so in love with him that I hadn’t cared that he had sex the same way he did everything else – with his own pleasure in mind. Stupidly, after a bottle of Prosecco and a weep-fest of romantic comedies, I had confessed to Beatrix that I had never managed to orgasm with Jason. Oh, I’d been close, tantalizingly close, many times, but I couldn’t quite get there. I even blushed a little remembering one time when I said I was close and he seemed to finish instantly just to spite me.

  She had been astounded. Jason was so charming, so conventionally handsome, and so sensitive to everything that a woman said to him, that he had seemed to be made for giving pleasure. I regretted telling Beatrix about his weird sex rituals – always a shower together to begin with, where we would soap each other all over, then he would ask for a massage, and then he would turn out the light, roll on top of me and thrust slowly and silently until he was done about two minutes later. I guess I didn’t know any better, or if I did I was so happy that he had chosen me that it didn’t matter. What I couldn’t explain to Beatrix was that it wasn’t just not being able to come, it was about all the other things the relationship with Jason had stolen from me. My creativity and confidence, for a start.

  I just lost my passion for art, my interest in design. After him, I was just going through the motions to get through college. I’d placed all my hopes in my plans for traveling – there I would become inspired again, I would draw, I would have ideas, I would learn who I truly was. It was a cliché, and if I let myself think too deeply about it, I knew that traveling wasn’t going to rid me of my issues. But hey, I’d rather be unfulfilled in Italy or Spain, so it was worth a shot, right?

  “I’m sorry,” Beatrix apologized, and I was inwardly glad of something else to focus on other than the memory of awkward sex with Jason. “I’m not trying to tease you, just give some sisterly advice!”

  “To get laid?” I laughed. “With some rando?”

  “Not some random guy, no. But you need to find a safe pair of hands, if you know what I mean, to get you over the whole Jason thing, so you can move on.” She smiled meaningfully, and I suddenly realized what she was getting at.

  “Drew?” I gasped. “You want me to just… fuck Drew?”

  She looked slightly shocked at my wording, but then shrugged. “Why not? You’ll be out of here soon enough, and he is clearly up for it…”

  “You are losing it, Bea.” I smiled and shook my head, making my way to the door.

  “Think about it!” she called, laughing.

  I didn’t think about it. If Drew wanted to see me before I left, the last thing I needed was a mental picture of us in bed together as I tried to make small talk with him. I made my way into the studio, where he was just packing his things into his backpack. He gave me a wide grin as I entered and rummaged through the bag, picking out a book and handing it to me.

  “This is yours,” he said as I took it off him and opened it. It was a sketchbook, and I hadn’t seen it in years. I flicked through it, and hundreds of old sketches that I had long since forgotten suddenly became alive to me again.

  “I can’t believe you kept this!” I laughed, trying to ignore the lump in my throat.

  “There’s space,” he said, showing me empty pages towards the end of the book, his hand brushing mine and sending a little tingle of electricity through me. “So, maybe you can find the time to add to it.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “See you around.”

  Chapter 11

  KEEGAN

  IT WAS JUST before noon, and I was frantically trying to learn as much as I could about some virtual reality enterprise that was apparently going to be pitching us their ideas at two. I was completely sure that I had never had any email about a meeting, but Sean insisted that one had been sent through two weeks ago.

  “There is no damn email. I have searched my email, all folders. Junk. Spam. Nothing was sent!” I complained to Effie, who sat calmly on the opposite side of the desk. I had given her my laptop and she was engrossed in the information I
had found on this new virtual reality technology presentation.

  “What do you want me to look for in this?” she asked.

  “Just get a feel for it,” I said, trying to get my brain to focus on what I was reading.

  “But I won’t be in the meeting?” She looked unsettled.

  “You will. I’m sorry to throw you in at the deep end, but I could do with a second opinion on this stuff. Between the two of us we might at least be able to bluff our way through.” I was embarrassed that she was seeing me like this – struggling, bullshitting everyone around me that I knew what I was doing, or cared about it. It was exactly what I did not want, and exactly why I refused to hire an assistant. She didn’t appear to notice.

  “Okay,” she agreed, and went silent.

  If I was ever worried about an assistant being a distraction, I needn’t have. She barely said a word. What was it with me lately that I seemed to be surrounded by these meek and mild, subservient women? I smirked at myself – surrounded? I was hardly surrounded. In fact, the only two people I saw regularly were Lucy and Effie. Even Sean seemed to be avoiding me. Lucy with her small, pasted-on smile, as if she were always posing for a passport photograph. Effie with her serious expression and lack of personality. Well, maybe that wasn’t strictly true. I had caught her a few times lost in a daydream, and she looked nothing like her usual professional self. And then there was the incident in the coffee shop yesterday.

  The previous day I had gone out before lunchtime. I’d had a call from my mechanic that it was time to pick up my bike from the repair shop, and had taken the opportunity of a sunny day to test it out, getting out into the suburbs to get a bit of speed up. It felt good to be riding again, and the tune-up was everything the bike had needed. It was faster, sure, but more responsive, the power easier to control. It had felt incredible. I’d stopped to grab a sandwich before going back to work, choosing a coffee shop near the office.