Five Minutes Late: A Billionaire Romance (6 page)

The smile that broke across his face was like the sun coming up. How did he manage to be angry, crazy, and adorable, all within seconds of each other? And which one of those Devon Killanes was the real guy?

“By the by, Ms. Daniels, you never answered my question – why did you put up such a valiant fight for such a miserable job?”

Just as fast as he’d given me hope, he jerked it right back out from under me again – the past tense he used made it clear the question was entirely academic. But damn, when he smiled, it felt like …

Whatever, Ashley – stop mooning over this batshit guy and answer his question so you can get out of here. The exciting world of unemployment awaits, and hey, Jerry and the guys will probably be happy to school you in the finer points of panhandling. You need to put this handsome asshole in your rearview mirror and move on, and you need to do it right now.

“Well, not that my situation is any of your concern, sir, but in the real world where I live, real people like me have bills. I have student loans I took out to pay for a degree that turned out not to be worth the fake parchment it was printed on, at least in terms of getting a job with any kind of future – I’m only twenty-five, but I’ll probably be paying on those loans for the rest of my natural life. I pay rent on a studio apartment that’s probably smaller than your bathroom, I pay for the privilege of keeping the lights on in said apartment, I pay through the nose to keep the internet connection up and running, and then there’s the money I throw away on foolish luxuries like food and clothing.”

“And let me guess, there’s a shiftless boyfriend who won’t help you and perhaps a couple of adorable hungry moppets with huge, soulful eyes to complicate this situation of yours?”

I glared at him – my nonexistent social life is none of your business, you infuriating jerk – and he looked back at me with what seemed like nothing more than mild curiosity … until I noticed his shoulders were just a bit tight, his arms were crossed, his jaw was clenched, and hey … did he actually care if I was with somebody? Why? 

“I know it’s shocking and all, sir, but my last boyfriend dumped me six months ago when he said he was tired of being seen with a girl who didn’t care enough about him to ‘diet all those pounds off that huge ass’ – his exact words. No kids, no dog, no cat, not even a bird or a hamster – it’s just me and a few plants, which is handy, seeing as how those are all the occupants my apartment has room for.”

The tension eased out of his shoulders, he uncrossed his arms, and his jaw relaxed. He did care. Oh, shit.

Ashley, whatever this is, it just got a whole lot more complicated, mysterious, and scary. Walk carefully, girl – this is a dangerous neighborhood.

“This ex-boyfriend of yours sounds like a ghastly excuse for a human being – would you like me to have him killed?”

“Sure, Mr. K, you get right on that.” I tried to deliver the words with snarky sarcasm, but even I wasn’t buying it. Move on, Ashley, keep talking …

“For what it’s worth I also help out my mom with her bills. I pay most of the utilities for her place, I put gas in her car, and I try to keep her in groceries. She fusses at me about it, but she needs the help, so I don’t give her a choice about taking it. Mom is all I have, when you get down to what’s really important – not that you’d understand, but whatever.”

“And might I ask about your father? Is he in the picture at all?”

Oh, this is
not
a subject you want to get into with me, Mr. It-Amuses-Me-To-Take-An-Interest-In-The-Little-People-Today.

“What makes you think that’s any of your business, Mr. Killane?”

“Again, humor me, Ms. Daniels.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “Please?”

That single ‘please?’ undid me – it wasn’t so much the fact that he probably rarely bothered saying it to anybody, but more that the tension was back in his shoulders, his arms were crossed again, and he apparently very much cared about the answer to his question. 

“Well, you would have liked Dad – he was another rich, arrogant prick who floated through life without a care in the world other than how his hair looked and what woman was next on his fuck list. Mom fell for him, he rode her like a pony for a few years, and then he took off when I turned five and he got tired of playing at being a family man. Oh, and his stable of lawyers made sure she never saw a dime of support, either, so all we have to remember him by is one picture on Mom’s dresser. Sweet, huh?”

“You never saw him again?”

“No, and good riddance.”

“He never came back for you?” He leaned forward, staring at me with frightening intensity.

“Um, no. He never came by, never called, never even sent a lousy card on my birthday.”

“Lucky you.”

My jaw dropped. I stared.

“Sir, pardon me, but I don’t see his total abandonment of me and my mom as anything other than negative, okay?”

Do not cry, Ashley. Do NOT.

I forced the tears back, I watched my former boss, and I saw the tension drain away from him again. I sniffed, he smiled, and somehow I no longer hated him for prying.

How could he flip from deadly to sweet in the blink of an eye? How did he manage to have such an effect on me? It wasn’t even a matter of the physical attraction I felt for him anymore, it was that … well, he understood. Somehow he understood, and yet I suddenly just wanted to get away from him and back to what was left of my life.

How did this day go so bizarrely wrong?

Mr. Killane sighed. “Trust me, Ms. Daniels, matters could have been so much worse for you.”

He turned away from me then, and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window. Once more he stood with his back to me, staring down at the little lives filtering through the streets below. Lights winked on as evening fell.  The silence between us drew out, stretched to one minute, then three, then five minutes as I glanced over at the international clocks on the wall off to the left.

I wanted nothing more than to go home, cry my eyes out, eat some Ben and Jerry’s, and fall asleep to a Netflix movie with as many car crashes and gun battles as possible – anything but human relationships.

But I also didn’t want to leave him alone.

“Ms. Daniels?”

I jerked, startled out of my thoughts. As the echoes of his voice faded away in the silent, darkening room, I looked up to see that he still stood at the window, his back still to me as he stared down at the people far below like an astronomer studying a distant planet.

“Yes, sir?” My voice was tired and small.

“Ms. Daniels, report for work promptly at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow.”

My heart stuttered through a few rapid beats. My breath caught in my chest. I still worked here? The apocalypse was postponed? Why?

And staying meant going back to main reception, where I’d never have the chance to speak another two words to a lofty creature like Devon Killane. I couldn’t decide if this was good or bad news.

Ashley, you know perfectly well it’s terrible news. It’s also nothing new, and no big deal, really, and you also need to grow up and stop being such a weepy little bitch, okay?

“Thank you, Mr. Killane.”

He turned away from the window and smiled at me with his mouth, but not his eyes.

“Don’t thank me yet, Ms. Daniels.”

***

I knew I was going to regret this, but I couldn’t help myself.

I don’t like not being able to help myself, but around Ms. Daniels control was impossible. It was quite the most terrifying thing.

Why was I letting her do this to me?

4. Sink or Swim

The next morning I made sure I got to work early. I left my apartment thirty minutes ahead of my usual out-the-door time, the traffic wasn’t too catastrophic for a Tuesday, and I even had enough minutes to spare to run into a doughnut shop and pick up a dozen glazed crullers, so that Jerry, Bob, Eduardo, Michael, and any of their street buddies who happened by could help me celebrate my non-demise. For once, life was sweet.

All I had to do now was hustle into the Killane Corporate Holdings and General Insanity building, get behind my desk, paste on my company-issued smile, and make it through eight hours without meeting or having to think about Devon Killane.

With any luck, he’d come in via his private, no-peasants-allowed entrance, and I’d never even see him. I was grateful he’d deigned to let me keep my job and all, but something about the man just got under my skin and stayed there, like a splinter that refused to be ignored. If I didn’t see him today, so much the better.

If I didn’t see him today, I’d be thinking about those haunted blue-violet eyes and that elusive smile and that body and that weird personality every minute.

It was going to be a long eight hours.

I swept through the main entrance at 8:50 a.m., with my purse slung over my left shoulder and the little box of doughnut heaven clutched under my right arm. I slipped through the crowd of busy worker bees in the lobby and headed for my post at main reception, already planning a day of answering calls, directing the lost, brewing coffee, and surfing the web until my fingers fell off.

At 8:50 a.m. and thirty seconds, that whole ‘life is sweet’ thing blew up in my face.

A stranger was sitting behind the reception desk.

Some bitch with a pipe cleaner figure and inch-thick makeup was sitting behind my reception desk, and my stuff was in a box. My picture of Mom, a few magazines and paperbacks, an old Kindle, and my swinging-chrome-balls thingie had all been dumped into a standard guess-what-sucker-you-don’t-work-here-anymore box. Atop them all slumped Lester the dead jade plant, looking more depressed than ever.

That bastard Killane had fired me after all. After staging that bizarre little scene for me the day before, after waving his psychosis in my face, after teasing and taunting and mystifying me until I didn’t know which way was up and whether I hated him or was crazy about him, the bastard had fired me. He let me think my job was safe, and then he fired me anyway – probably two seconds after I left his office, the asshole.

Christ, I was going to kill him. I was going to murder him in front of God and everybody, and then I’d call in the paparazzi to take pictures of his body.

“Ms. Daniels?”

I snapped out of my murder fantasy and realized I’d wandered over to my ex-desk on automatic pilot, and that Ms. Skinnyass was trying to get my attention.

“Um, yes, I’m … well, I feel like I’m the former Ashley Daniels, but whatever.”

She displayed her best sparkling, professional, glad-I’m-not-you smile. This girl would go far.

“I apologize for any inconvenience, Ms. Daniels. Please feel free to collect your things,” – she nudged the box toward me, undoubtedly eager to get my raggedy-ass crap off what was now her desk – “and report to Mr. Killane’s office immediately.”

What the …?

Was I ever going to understand anything that happened in this madhouse?

“Excuse me? If he’s, ah, if I’m fired, why would they want me up there?”

“I’m afraid I have no idea, Ms. Daniels – I was just transferred to main reception this morning, and I only know that I was told to have you report to Mr. Killane’s office as soon as you came in.”

She beamed her perky smile at me, and I wanted to slap it right off her bony little face. As far as she was concerned, the minor problem known as Ashley Daniels was now solved, and I could just get off her turf and out of her life.

Two things occurred to me.

First, the doughnuts. I hurried over to the lines of seats in the lobby’s waiting area, and left the box of glazed goodness in one of the chairs. If I dropped off the doughnuts with Thin Slut, the guys would never have a chance to get them – hell, she’d probably dump all those delicious calories in the trash, just of out of spite.

Once I was back at the desk, I asked about Thing Two. “Ma’am, I believe there’s a keycard I’ll need to get up to Mr. Killane’s floor?”

“I’ll let his receptionist Dana know that you’re coming, Ms. Daniels, and she’ll be more than happy to access his private elevator for you.” The slightly less brilliant smile she now aimed my way made it clear that my time in her life was now at an end and that I needed to move on.

Once more, I rode the elevator up from the main lobby, climbing steadily toward the upper floors where serious employees who had a future here did their thing – but unlike yesterday, I wasn’t alone as I rose toward whatever doom Mr. Killane had planned for me. This time it was the beginning of the work day for most people, and as I clutched the box of my workplace belongings to my ample chest, I was surrounded by a changing cast of coworkers – well, former coworkers, if I actually was fired.

As the floor numbers ticked past on the readout over the doors, I edged to the back of the car and pressed my shoulders against the stainless steel wall as more people crowded in and out each time the elevator stopped. The stops were frequent, executives and tech support and administrative staff getting on and off as they chattered about their endlessly fascinating little lives with each other – but I noticed that the talk changed to whispers when they saw me.