The Billionaire and the Cleaner

Evernight Publishing

www.evernightpublishing.com

Copyright© 2013 Sam Crescent

 
ISBN:
978-1-77130-475-7

Cover
Artist: Sour Cherry Designs

Editor:
Karyn White

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

WARNING:
The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is
illegal.
 
No part of this book may be
used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission,
except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

This is a
work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any
resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or
dead, is entirely coincidental.

DEDICATION

I want to thank Evernight and my editor
for their continued support and help in bringing my stories to life.

THE
BILLIONAIRE AND THE CLEANER

Sam Crescent

Copyright
© 2013

Chapter One

Lana Hawkins stared through the glass door to watch the
owner of the building as he typed up some document on his computer. Kent
Anderson was the sexiest man she’d ever seen and far out of her league. He
owned the entire Anderson Corporation and was worth billions. Looking like a
sex god meant there were many women begging for his attention, glamorous women
with the time and money to make themselves available to him.
Kent
had been
seen with many super models and actresses. When she’d been waiting for the bus
she’d read the article in a glossy mag that linked him to several porn stars as
well.

Way out of her league in every way.

She worked in his office from seven at night ‘til twelve.
The late shift money helped pay her rent, while the diner she worked in during
the day gave her the money to eat. The latest recession hit her hard. She
wasn’t smart and didn’t have the qualification to get any better paying job.
Being a cleaner and waitressing were fun. She loved making places clean, and her
small apartment was immaculate.

His blond hair caught the light of the lamp by his desk
side. The golden strands looked silken, and she wanted to run her fingers
through his hair to see if they were as soft as they looked.

You’re going
insane. Working this job has built up a fantasy inside your head.

Ignoring the impulse to speak to him, she picked up her
dusting cloth and started working throughout the top floor of the office. On
several of the desks lay empty sweet wrappers. Lana picked them up,
then
threw them into her trashcan. She didn’t know how some
people could work in mess or even function.

Humming to herself, Lana worked through each desk making it
spotlessly clean for the next day. She loved cleaning. There was no chance of
her getting emotionally attached to anyone. The cleaning company she worked for
required one person on each floor of the building to clean that one floor at
the Anderson Corporation. She worked on the top floor after the staff had gone
home. The job description saved her from getting her heart-broken again. Her
last boyfriend of two years had left her over a year ago. Frank had taken two
years of her life and crushed her heart as well as what little ego she’d kept.
There was no way she’d ever let another man get inside her heart or her head.
When she’d first been with Frank, he’d been a caring, loving boyfriend. In the
last year of their relationship he’d changed. Frank started getting angrier,
and he’d lash out. Lana hated being one of the women who made excuses, but she
ended up finding reasons for his behaviour. Fortunately, Frank never put her in
the hospital as otherwise she’d be in trouble. Since Frank had worked his magic
on her while dumping her, she refused to allow another man inside her heart or
her body. She liked living alone in her spotless apartment with nothing to look
forward to other than her weekend ritual of baking. Her neighbours loved her
baking, and that’s how her life was going to remain. Careful, organised, and
peaceful, the three words were her motto.

Baking, reading, cooking, cleaning, and
work.

She let out a sigh then grabbed the vacuum cleaner to start
cleaning the floor. During the summer months she kept the windows open to allow
dust and fresh air to permeate the office. It was the middle of fall going into
winter. Opening the windows would only freeze her.

Going back to her humming, she started cleaning around each
desk.

Every so often Lana looked up to see
Kent
reading in
his office. Sometimes he typed on his computer. He didn’t look her way at all.
She didn’t mind. Cleaning ladies were supposed to be invisible to everyone
else. The company she worked for held a standard that she prided herself in
keeping. Lana may not hold any qualifications, but she could make the places
she worked at shine.

None of the customers she served in the diner complained
about her service. She took pride in being able to excel at what she did. Lana had
graduated from high-school at eighteen and had worked every day since to keep
herself alive. Her mother had lived in a trailer park, and she’d moved out the
moment school finished. College was a big fat no. Lana got by on what little
she knew. She could read, write, and spell, but everything else had been really
difficult for her to deal with.

It was hard for her to concentrate during high-school
because of her mother’s drinking and late night callers. Even though her mother
denied being a whore, there were plenty of men willing to pay her for services
rendered.

At school she’d been the fat daughter of the drunken, town
whore. Lana had vowed to get away. She hated the men who tried to sneak into
her bedroom late at night when her mother was passed out.

To be safe, she’d climbed out of her window and gone down to
the lake where an old ratty sofa lay. She’d curled up in a blanket she kept in
her backpack. Those nights were only during the summer. When it was too cold to
leave the trailer, she’d wedged a chair against the handle stopping anyone from
coming in.

Her mother was a light sleeper, so anyone banging on her
daughter’s bedroom door would wake her up. None of the men would risk her
mother’s wrath to get to fatty Lana.

Shaking her head, Lana put more effort into vacuuming. She
hated thinking about the past. The past left a bad taste in her mouth. Her
mother wasn’t a bad woman, but she wasn’t a great one either. She preferred to
drink and sleep with plenty of men rather than help her daughter graduate with
a decent education.

Lana didn’t know who her father was or what he looked like.
She figured he was one of the numerous men to go inside her mother’s trailer.
Shaking off the negative thoughts, she wheeled out a chair and vacuumed
underneath the desks. She occasionally glanced at the family photos on people’s
desks, and envy struck her big time.

After the Frank betrayal, she wasn’t going to chance it
again. She’d always wanted a family, but family came at a cost she refused to
pay.

Glancing up at
Kent
in his office, lust hit her
square in the gut. He was another man who’d never look at her twice.

Stop it,
Lana. Get your work done, and go home.

****

Kent Anderson watched the cleaner working outside his
office. He’d noticed her from the moment she started working in his building.
Phoning the firm, he’d gotten her moved up to his floor. He liked watching her
work, and he’d taken it upon himself to care for her. They’d never spoken a
word to each other. She’d smiled at him, and he’d smiled back but nothing
beyond that. He’d seen her nerves and understood the reason she held herself
back. Every employee underwent a background check. When he’d employed the
cleaning firm he’d gotten detailed background checks done on the men and women
the company sent over to him. Lana Hawkins was a thorough worker and sexy as
hell.

She wore the pale blue cleaning uniform that hid her curves
from his view. Watching her bend over to clean or pick something up was the
highlight of his day. She’d never ventured inside his office because he’d given
the cleaning company strict orders to leave his office alone.

Being a successful businessman had created many enemies.
He’d encountered a lot of people who were willing to do whatever it took to
make money, even if earning money meant stealing files from him.
Kent
didn’t
trust anyone. They were all bad news. The only person he trusted was himself.

Lana Hawkins, however, was a problem to him. Her file gave
him everything he needed to know about her. She didn’t have anything but the standard
high-school education, and she worked two jobs to make ends meet. Her apartment
was small in a good part of the city.

There was nothing fascinating about her. When he’d dug a
little deeper, he’d discovered her mother was a drunk with loose morals and
Lana had used to live in a trailer. The woman before him looked like she’d had
a hard life, and for some reason that bothered
Kent
.

What was it about her that hit him in the gut?