Resisting the Billionaire Collection (3 page)

She felt tears coming to her eyes and fought
to hold them back. Alex nodded his head.

"Bad day?" He ventured. The plane banked
sharply and both of them let out a gasp of surprise. The aircraft
steadied again and they exchanged another smile.

"Something like that." She said. Alex drew a
brilliant white handkerchief out of his pocket and offered it to
her. She laughed again.

"You're kidding me, right?"

"Well, at least it put a smile on your face,
right?"

"What are you, the last living gentleman in
the United States of America?"

"Maybe. I hope not. Look, seriously, if you
need it, take it. I always carry a spare and its brand new."

Melanie looked incredulous. The florid
initials AD were in the corner. She smiled again and took it from
him, then dabbed her eyes, and handed it back.

"Don't be silly." He said. "I can't possibly
take it back; just use it until you need it."

"You really are a smooth one." She said. He
smiled and held her gaze until she smiled again. Melanie didn't
know what the gallant stranger was doing to her, but she liked
it.

"So come on Melanie, tell me: What's wrong
with you today? You never know, maybe I can help?"

"Do you always offer help to complete
strangers?"

"Never." He said firmly. "But I've never met
a complete stranger like you before."

He watched a slight blush come to her pretty
face.

"You stop it now." She said. "Before I get
the wrong idea."

"How do you know it would be the wrong
idea?"

"Oh, you are good. Really good. Too good.
Way too smooth for me."

"Look, why don't you just try me? It never
hurts to share a burden."

“Okay." She sighed. "Have you got a million
dollars?"

"Well, not on me." He laughed.

"I didn't think so."

"What do you need a million dollars
for?"

"It's my mother. She's in a nursing home in
Florida. But it turns out her care and medical bills have been
unpaid for the last year and the debt has been mounting up and now
we owe them nearly a million in total and on my salary as a flight
attendant, that might as well be a billion dollars. If she can't
pay $10,000 by the end of the month, they're going to evict her."
Melanie began to tear up again.

"God, Melanie. I'm sorry to hear that. Isn't
there anywhere your mother could stay?"

"She could stay with me, but she needs
round-the-clock supervision and I'm hardly on the ground half the
week with my schedule." She stopped abruptly. The seat belt sign
had gone off. She released her buckle and stood up.

"Sir, I'm very sorry. I shouldn't have
talked about my personal life like this. It's very unprofessional,
and I should know better. I'd be grateful if you didn't mention
this to anyone."

"Don't worry; I won't mention it to a soul.
It'll be our secret."

"Thank you. I appreciate that." She turned
from him to go towards the galley.

"On one condition." He said. Melanie froze.
Drummond Airlines were strict on crew etiquette and the cabin crew
manager on duty was the Nazi version of a flight attendant. She
turned back to the man whose name she still didn't even know.

"What is it?" She asked nervously. He looked
at her and smiled.

Chapter Four

"Little bro, I'm telling you I think I may have found
the one."

"Sure. You mean the next one."

"No way. I mean The One."

"So what's different about this girl?"

"You know I flew to Columbus on Drummond
Airlines yesterday, right?"

"Yeah. Why, I can't imagine, not when we
have three luxury private jets at our disposal. I call that
masochism at best, stupidity at worst."

"It's a good airline, Sebastian. You should
step outside your comfort zone sometime and try it."

"There's stepping outside your comfort zone
and then there's stepping into pure hell."

"Well, if that was hell then, why did I meet
an angel there?"

His brother guffawed on other end of the
line.

"What are you doing? Trying to get into bed
with me? Even if I was one of your girlfriends, do you think I'd
fall for a corny line like that?"

"I'm serious Sebastian, you and I have been
looking in all the wrong places. These socialites and debutantes
are all just about appearances, money, what you have, and what your
family does. I don't know why I didn't think of it before. There's
a whole world out there of normal, ordinary people who don't live
life from one gala dinner to the next."

“Okay, so go on then, tell me. You met some
cute girl at the Burger King in the airport and she was so down to
earth, you took her home with you?"

"It was a flight attendant."

“Okay, I'll admit I've done my fair share of
those."

"With Drummond Airlines."

There was a silence on the other end of the
line.

"Please tell me you're not serious big bro.
Please, because you know if you did anything with her and it gets
back to the old man, then you are in big trouble."

"I'm serious."

"Oh Jesus Christ, Alex. Come on. You're a
big boy. What the hell are you doing? The world is full of gorgeous
women and you have to pick the one, single class of female that is
forbidden to you by our extremely wealthy, extremely powerful, and
extremely irrational father?"

"That last one is the key: irrational."

"No way. It's the first two that count and
if he finds out you did anything, I mean if you even thought about
it in your dreams, then you can kiss your share of $35 billion
goodbye."

Alex took a deep breath.

"I know the risks. You don't have to tell
me."

"I'm not so sure. It seems like that's
exactly what you need for me to do, because it looks like you just
don't get it."

"I get it, I get it. Now stop lecturing
me."

"Weird, huh? Normally I'm the one doing the
crazy stuff and you're the one lecturing. How does it feel?"

"If you could feel what I'm feeling now,
you'd be the happiest guy on Earth."

"Did you fu--"

"Don't say it. And no, I didn't. Nothing
happened."

"Thank God for that. You aren't a complete
fool. Now just consider yourself lucky and never take that route
again for any reason. Go hang out at one of the airport hotels and
have some fun with the crew of Swedish National Airlines--"

"I asked her out on a date."

"Oh, Jesus Christ."

"But she point-blank refused."

"Huh? I mean, thank God for that, but also,
huh? Did she even know who you are?"

"No. No one did."

"It was Drummond Airlines, right?"

"Sure, but I bought the ticket with my
British passport under Mom's maiden name, so no one knew I was a
Drummond. I was doing field work, you know; checking out the
quality of service undercover."

"Undercover field work. So that's what you
call it these days?"

"Trust me, all I wanted to do was check out
the customer service but when I saw Melanie--"

Sebastian snorted a guffaw into the phone.
"Awesome name. Now I get the down to earth bit. Was she chewing
tobacco as well?"

"What the hell is wrong with the name
Melanie?"

"Can't you see it? Jesus, you really are
love struck."

"Melanie Hutchinson."

"It only gets better. Melanie Hutchinson.
Just rolls off the tongue -- like a fur-ball."

"Shut up, you dick. This girl could be your
sister-in-law one day."

"You shut up. Stop right there. That will
not happen. Ever. But tell me anyway, why did Melanie Hutchinson
turn LA's second most eligible bachelor down?"

"Well, it may have been my fault."

"Impossible." Sebastian said ironically.

"We got into a conversation and she told me
some things about herself that I kind of tried to use to make her
go on a date with me. I thought it would be just fun."

"Amateur. Even after all these years. One
day you will follow the master, Sebastian Drummond, and learn the
true art of seduction."

"She told me some of her personal problems
and then she felt embarrassed, as though she had acted
unprofessionally."

"Which she clearly did."

"Don't be so officious Sebastian; it was
just two people sharing. So what if I own the company she works
for?"

"HR doesn't see it that way. The labor
courts probably wouldn't see it that way, and sure as hell the old
man won't see it that way."

"She asked me to keep it between me and her,
and I said I would, but only on the condition that she has dinner
with me back in LA."

"When will you ever learn?"

"She said she didn't want to make things
worse. She was sorry she had been so unprofessional and that she
had to decline."

"Great. End of a sad and clumsy story."

"So I upped the ante."

"Oh crap. What did you do? Tell
Sebastian."

"I offered to pay for her mother's medical
bills if she would have dinner with me."

"Whoa, didn't see that one coming. Was it a
wild guess on your part? A stab in the dark kind of thing?"

"That was some of the personal stuff she
told me. Her mother is being evicted from a nursing home and she
needs $10,000 by the end of the month. On Drummond Airlines flight
attendant salary, she'd need ten years to put that much
together."

"There are other jobs out there if you're
qualified."

"So I offered to pay it."

"And did she make you a member of the
Melanie Hutchinson Mile High Club?"

"Are you kidding me? I thought she was going
to throw me out of the plane. I'm lucky she didn't set the Air
Marshal on me."

"I'm not surprised. What a sap. I keep
telling you that you don't need to ask, you need to take. Why can't
you get it into your head that people like us don't have to play by
the rules that other people do?"

"I know you don't believe that Sebastian, so
come on. Stop pretending to be the arrogant rich kid and give me
some advice here. There's no one I trust in the whole world more
than you."

Sebastian sighed.

"It's true, Big Brother. That's one thing
that'll never change. Now you have to trust me on this one. Just
let this Mildred--"

"Melanie."

"Melanie Huddersfield."

"Melanie Hutchinson."

"Yeah, on LA to Cincinnati--"

"Columbus. What the hell is wrong with you
today?"

"With me? It's you who's about to throw away
$10 billion on a fling with a flight attendant. Take my advice and
forget about it."

Alex gave a long, resigned sigh.

“Okay, little bro. I guess you're right.
I'll see you tomorrow in the executive lounge. Maybe Tahiti will
help get this off my mind."

"You betcha. Those island beauties will cure
anything that ails you."

"Why don't you swing by later and stay over
at my place? We can have a few beers and get into vacation
mode."

"Sounds good, little bro. I'll see you about
8:00 or so."

"It's a date." He laughed.

Alex put his phone down and opened the
folder on his lap. The file inside was marked with the Drummond
Corporation logo, Human Resources Department. He opened the file
and looked at the digital picture of Melanie Hutchinson printed on
the upper-left corner of the resume.

"No one says no to me, Melanie Hutchinson."
He mumbled and then took in a deep breath. "That's not how things
work in Alex Drummond's world."

Chapter Five

It had been a hard week for Melanie, a hard month
even, and she was feeling it more than ever on this particular
morning. Since the breakup with Mitch, she hadn't been herself.
Normally she would have been up at 3:30 on a day like this one in
order to look her best for the morning flights. But today she had
barely made it out of bed by 6:00. Her personal routine was coming
apart at the seams.

She put on her best smile as the
well-dressed man in his early thirties approached her to check in.
Her smile disappeared when she saw who it was.

She had spent the return flight yesterday
from Columbus, Ohio yesterday avoiding him. She even asked Richard
if she could switch to economy in order to stay far away from him.
Strangely enough, the normally unhelpful cabin crew manager was
happy to oblige. Normally he wouldn't be that accommodating

Alex stood in front of her smiling
lecherously and staring brazenly right at her. He was as
good-looking as the impression he had made on the plane. In fact,
he was insanely good-looking with a square jaw, tanned skin,
perfectly manicured dark hair, and intense brown eyes. But the
stupid grin was a total turn-off. Whatever kudos he had originally
gained with her had disappeared when he tried to pressure her into
a date and then arrogantly offered her charity to pay her mother's
medical bills. How dare he use her financial situation to force her
into a date with him!

Now with that disgusting grin on his face,
he was into definite negative territory.

"Can I help you, sir?" She said as
professionally as she could muster.

He continued to stare at her and although he
was tall, he stood up a little higher on his toes to peer over the
desk, arrogantly looking down at her, taking it all in. Melanie
felt exposed. She positively didn't like this man and dreaded
having to serve him later on the plane. If there was any funny
stuff this time, she would have no hesitation in having him hauled
away by the Air Marshal in a heartbeat. His dark eyes seemed to
undress her as he took a good long look, just helping himself as
though she were the breakfast buffet at a five-star hotel.

She repeated, "Can I help you, sir?"

"Nah." He said. "Just came over to see what
eye candy at the Drummond desk is like today."

Very little shocked Melanie at this point.
She’d had crazy people, drunks, and even suspected terrorists on
flights. All in all, this guy was small change. Just an asshole.
Good-looking as hell, but still just a jackass.