Shopping for a Billionaire 4 (18 page)

“No, honey. It’s because your mom and Jessica publicly blew your cover and the client basically needs to save face. It’s all public relations. They need a fall guy. And that’s...you.”

“
I’m
the fall guy?”

She sighs. “Yes. I’m so sorry,” she adds in a rush. “Greg feels awful about it and argued with the client forever, but they are absolutely adamant. The credit union called the client and it’s turned into a nasty mess.” 

“Have you talked to my mom?”

Amanda pauses mid breath. “She, uh, didn’t really understand what a see-you-next-Tuesday Jessica could be.”

My jaw drops. “She didn’t realize that? After everything we’ve dealt with?”

“I think your mom just turned into a Mama Bear and went crazy.”

“Like that’s different from...what?” Declan crawls on the bed and starts massaging my shoulders, which are two big lumps of granite right now. Fired. I’m fired.

Fired for doing my job.

Fired for nearly losing the man who is right behind me, touching me with tenderness and compassion, trying to massage the crazy away.

Fired for being loved by a mother who has the business skills of a sno-cone salesman in a blizzard. 

Bzzzzz.
I haven’t even reached for my phone to look at the Twittermess. I can only imagine. But Declan reaches across me, smelling like sex and spice and mmmmm, and hands me my phone.

Greg.

“Is that Greg on your phone?” Amanda asks with a pitying voice. 

“This is real. You’re serious,” I whisper.

“I wish I weren’t. Trust me.”

Declan peels the receiver from my fingers carefully. “Answer the phone, Shannon. Get it over with. It’s like ripping a Band-Aid off. It’s better to just do it.” The look he gives me is no-nonsense, but understanding at the same time. 

I take a deep breath, hit Talk, and say, “You don’t have to say it, Greg. I already know.”

Declan heads to the bathroom to give me some privacy. I hear the shower turn on as Greg blusters and apologizes, rants and overexplains. His words pour over me as I wonder how my life could pivot like this in less than twenty-four hours.

I get my (ex) boss off the phone quickly so I can go shower with my (ex-ex) boyfriend. Just as I knock on the door the water stops. Great. He’s one of those people who can take a three-minute shower.

Freak.

“Come in.” I open the door a crack and poke my head in. He’s toweling off. His face softens into a look of compassion.

“You okay?”

“I’m fired.”

“Come here.” He opens his arms and I walk into his embrace, still in a state of shock. Even my libido is stunned, because the press of his clean, wet wall of skin against my body isn’t making me hump his leg. 

“I have more student loan debt than you could ever imagine. Plus credit cards, and now I won’t have a car because I have to give the Turdmobile back. And as bad as it was driving that piece of—” 

“Shhhhhh,” he urges. “It’ll be fine.”

“Fine? No, it won’t! You try finding a good, steady job in this economy. I have a marketing degree. I’m lucky I haven’t spent the last year handing out new product samples at Costco for $15 an hour!”

“You’ll find a better job,” he says with confidence.

For some reason, his reassurance is annoying. “I hope you’re right.” 

“I know I am.” He rests his chin on my head. “Because I want you to come work for me.”

My laughter makes my breasts bounce against his chest. “Ha ha.”

He pulls away, eyes dead serious. “I mean it. Come work at Anterdec. Assistant Director of Marketing.”

“I really don’t need you to make fun of me right now.”

“I don’t joke about business. We’ll pay you more, Anterdec has great benefits, and you’ll get stock options, bonus, and a great maternity leave package.” He winks.

“I can’t believe you’re saying this.” I feel numb. 

“Did I overdo it on the maternity comment?” He makes a sheepish face. “Didn’t mean to over play my hand.”

“No, I mean that you’d think I’d just jump right in and take a job working for you, that you’d ride in on your white horse and rescue me.”

“That’s not what I—”

I start to shake. Can’t control it, can’t mute it. Just...shake. It’s all too much, from Guido being Terry to my confrontation with James to reuniting with Declan and now I’m fired?

And Declan wants to wrap me up in gauze and make me his little porcelain doll.

Nope.

“I, um, need a shower. Don’t you have a business meeting or something you need to get to?” I mutter as I turn on the water and climb in. I couldn’t hint any more if I shoved him out the door and threw his clothes at him.

Declan’s face appears between the tiled wall and the shower curtain, like Jack Nicholson breaking through the door in the old version of The Shining. Okay, not quite that bad, but...

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” he says, and climbs on in with me.

“You just showered!” I protest. The slick feel of his skin against mine as he holds me from behind is at odds with my righteous indignation, which I’m holding onto by a thin thread.

“I can get wet again.” He turns me around, the hot spray glorious against my back, my hair hanging in limp strands against my cheekbones and shoulders, Declan’s second head definitely not limp. “And my eyes are up here,” he coaxes.

I raise mine. “Oops.”

“You’re ogling me.”

“Yes.”

“Good.” He kisses me so deeply I think my toes have curled into themselves. “Don’t be mad. I really mean it about the job. I thought about offering it to you a while ago.”

“How long ago?”

“The day you showed up at that meeting after the toilet incident.”

“That long ago?” I eye him with suspicion. “Why?”

“Because you’re smart.”

“Pffft. That’s not a good enough reason! No one gets a great job with a huge megacorporation because they’re
smart
,” I say, making a dismissive sound with the back of my throat.

“Then how do you get a great job with a megacorporation?” he asks.

“By knowing someone—” I groan. “Networking.”

His hands squeeze my ample ass. “Is that what they call this?” He kisses the hollow at the nape of my neck. “Networking?”

“You can’t give me a job just because you’re sleeping with me! What kind of feminist would I be if I did that?”

“An
employed
feminist?”

I stop and consider that for a moment as his hand does unspeakable things. Really. He’s making it hard for me to speak. “Would I work under you?”

He makes a suggestive sound.

“How about we conduct a little employee orientation right now?” he whispers. 

And then he schools me.

Chapter Twenty

“Check out that headline,” Josh crows as he slaps a morning paper on my desk at work. Um, former work, technically. I’m here to clean out my desk. 

Unidentified Flying Orgasm
screams the newspaper headline, with a giant picture of a crushed vibrator on the ground next to the bumper of a taxi, two men arguing over it.

“Nice.”

“Funny how that happened at the exact hotel where you were working,” he adds with a sly look.

“The world is made up of unremitting coincidences.”

“And you have an awful lot of them following you around.” He walks out of my office and into his. Keyboard keys click furiously in the distance.

I make a dismissive sound in my throat and continue putting my personal stuff in a box. Greg isn’t here today, but he’s called me three times in the past two days to apologize profusely. I get a month’s severance and can continue to mystery shop for him, but he can’t chance losing the second-biggest client for Consolidated Evalu-shop.

I get it. I really do understand. And there’s a silver lining. A big one.

Carol’s taking my job. She screamed in my ear after Greg interviewed her, and Mom and Dad can fill in for child care during the occasional non-school hours she has to work. It’s a relief to know that even as my own career turns to shambles, at least my sister and nephews are in a better place.

“Hey,” Josh whispers, carrying his laptop with him. I’m about to hand mine over and he’ll back up all my personal files, then wipe it clean for Carol. “I need to show you something.” 

He clicks on a tab with Twitter open. On Jessica Coffin’s profile. I groan.

“No, no, just look,” he assures me. His eyes are lit up and he’s so animated, which means I’m about to learn all about Linux sftp protocol scripting or he’ll explain some intricate detail about how the darknet will take over the world when the Millennial Illuminati gain power.

“I really have no desire to even think about Jessica Coffin again.”

“She’s getting completely trashed online. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumbler—you name it. There’s a long, long thread on Reddit calling her out.”

Now I’m interested. “What happened?”

He waves his hands in front of him with glee, face consumed by the glowing screen. “Someone,” he says in an arched tone, “appears to have hacked into her Twitter account and is posting all of the direct, private messages she’s been receiving for the past year.”

“Huh?”

“Basically, people have been feeding her gossip and now they’re all being outed by her. Her Twitter stream, that is.”

“Why would she do that?”

“She’s not doing it. A cracker did it.”

“A cracker?”

His harsh sigh makes me feel stupid. “A hacker.”

“So do I know this ‘someone’?”

Pride shines through in his upright posture and he strokes his chin. “I can’t imagine knowing anyone who would do such a thing, but you never know. Could be 4chan, or...” He goes on and names a bunch of groups I’ve never heard of.

I stare at the screen and read some of the messages.

Many are from Steve. Busted! 

A wide smile stretches my face as I turn my own computer off and hand it to Josh. “Thanks.”

“For what?” He looks at the ceiling and pretends to be innocent.

I stand on tiptoes and kiss his cheek. “For helping to balance the world a little more fairly.” My keychain rattles in my hand as I palm it off on him. 

“Company car?”

“Yep. You can take the Turdmobile and hand your car off to my sister when she starts working here. Though my nephew, Jeffrey, would be disappointed. He wants to drive around in a ‘pieth of thit car’.”

Josh laughs, then swallows, hard. “I’m going to miss you.”

“I’m not disappearing.”

“But you won’t be here. You and Amanda are this amazing duo. Someone has to huddle with me in the winter to stay warm.”

“Carol’s a big girl like me. You’ll do fine.”

We hug.

My phone buzzes. It’s Declan, outside, in a limo. Josh walks me to the main doors and peers out at my mode of transportation.

“What the hell am I worried about,” he declares. “You’re leaving this place and the Turdmobile to get into that?” A low whistle and a high five ends my visit, and I turn to Declan with my personal belongings in a box, walking away from the very job that made me meet him.

Car tires screech in the parking lot as Amanda arrives. She parks across two spaces and jumps out, running to me. Josh stands in the doorway, gawking. 

“Wait! Stop!” Breathless, she leans over and puts her hands on her knees. Declan climbs out of the limo and takes the box from me, a curious look passing between us.

“Mystery shopping emergency? Did someone fail to deliver a drive-thru order in ninety seconds or less?” I joke.

“No.” She’s in tears. “I just didn’t want to miss you before you left.”

“You could just text me,” I say slowly, trying to keep the joke going because if I don’t, I’ll dissolve into a puddle of tears, too. “You didn’t need to pull a Hollywood moment where you rush in and—” 

Too late. We’re sobbing. Two strong, masculine arms wrap around me and Amanda and then we hear the whimpering sound of Josh crying, too.

“It’s not going to be the same,” he wails.

Declan unbuttons his suit jacket, crosses his arms, and leans back against the limo. His eyes roll skyward. “It’ll be a few minutes, Gerald,” he says to the driver through the open window.

“That’s right!” Amanda squeaks, flashing indignant eyes at my boyfriend. “You get her for the rest of her life. We only have her for a few more minutes.” 

“We’re all going to that tapas bar in Waltham at 7 p.m. tonight, remember?” Declan answers dryly. “If you can suffer through five hours of not seeing Shannon.”

“That’s not the point!” Josh gasps, wiping his eyes. “It’s just the end of an era. You don’t get it.”

Declan nods slowly. “You’re right. I don’t.” He gives me a warm grin and cocks an eyebrow like he’s saying
WTF is up with your friends?
 

“He’s right,” I say to Amanda and Josh, laughing through tears. “It’s not like you’ll never see me again. We’ll have chevre-stuffed pimentoes in a few hours.”

The three of us compose ourselves, give final hugs, and they walk into the building while I climb into the limo with Declan, where he’s sitting, waiting for me.

Arms outstretched and tissues at the ready.

The drive over to Anterdec involves a lot of hitched sobbing and, fortunately, no eyerolling.

“I’m fine! And no, I haven’t officially decided.” For the past week Declan’s been pestering me to just say yes and come work for him.

And for the past week I’ve dug my heels in and told him I hadn’t made a decision.

My terms: a meeting with James to make sure I can tolerate working here.

In Declan’s mind this is a done deal.

In my mind it’s an open case. Nothing is settled. Putting all of my emotional and financial life in the hands of one man is a risk that involves an extraordinary amount of trust, and while we’re back together and it’s clear—so clear—that we’re meant for each other, I’m a pragmatist at heart. 

A little OCD, even. Which is great when it comes to managing 34,985 details for marketing campaigns, but not so great when it comes to taking flying leaps of faith and love.

Working for Declan means working for James, and I didn’t exactly leave off on a good note the last time I saw him.

I’m fairly cleaned up and halfway decent by the time the limo pulls in to the Anterdec private garage. Unlike the main entrance, this is a quiet, subterranean section of the parking labyrinth that I would never know existed if it weren’t for Declan.