Shopping for a Billionaire 4 (19 page)

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Authors: Julia Kent

Tags: #Contemporary Fiction, #New Adult, #Contemporary Women, #bbw romance, #Humorous, #romantic comedy, #Contemporary, #Fiction, #Romance, #New Adult & College, #General, #Genre Fiction, #Literature & Fiction

BOOK: Shopping for a Billionaire 4

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I say so.

He looks at me, eyebrows crowded, and shrugs. “Isn’t that the point?”

I laugh, the sound like ping pong balls being dropped on a trampoline. “You really have no idea how real people live.”

“Your mom is taking me thrifting, remember? I’ll be sure to have Jeeves scuff my shoes just so and to forget to shave.” His pretend British accent and locked jaw make me laugh harder. Sweat covers my palms, my makeup’s long been cried off or kissed off (I much prefer the latter), and I wonder just how raw I must appear.

An audience of James McCormick in this kind of fragile state is really not appealing.

“Mom will make you dumpster dive if you’re not careful,” I warn him.

Very real horror fills his face. “What?” He looks a bit sick. “I thought that chicken tasted a bit odd when she had us over for dinner last night.”

I punch him. We get out of the limo and board the elevator. “Not food. She goes behind florist shops and card stores and comes home with a mountain of stuff to add to the mountain of stuff in the basement.”

He pauses and reaches for my shoulders, locking eyes on me. “Are your parents okay financially? Do they need—”

I press my index finger against his lips. “The fastest way to wind up dead and decomposing in a 55-gallon drum in Dad’s Man Cave is to offer financial help to my parents.”

He gulps. “Understood. But—dumpster diving?”

“It’s a hobby. Mom does this. Wait three months and she’ll get over it. Last year it was the whole Extreme Couponing thing.”

We ride up a few floors in silence and he turns to me with a look of dawning recognition. “Extreme Couponing. Is that why you have what looks like hundreds of deodorants jammed in the drawers of your bathroom.”

I wink. “You connected the dots.”

“I just thought you were obsessive about not having smelly armpits...”

“She goes crazy on triple coupon day. You should see her stash of sex lube.”

With that the elevator doors open.

And there stands James McCormick, who clearly heard my and Declan’s last words.

“Make her take the job, Dad,” Declan announces, face impassive as he leans over and kisses my cheek. My fingers grope for his arm but he’s slick and eludes my attempt.

“Not if she has smelly armpits,” James jokes. We walk quietly to the private door to his office where he motions toward two enormous wingback chairs pointed toward the windows.

“Please. Sit. Coffee?”

My hands are shaking. Don’t need to add a caffeine injection. “No, thank you.”

He sits next to me and leans forward, forearms on knees, eyes perceptive. “Declan tells me you are hesitating on taking the Assistant Director of Marketing job.”

“Yes.”

“Because of me.” It’s not a question.

Honesty is best here. “Because I don’t want to be too dependent on Declan.”

One eyebrow slowly rises. “Go on.”

“There isn’t any more to it.” I shrug. “It’s that simple. We’re together, and I am concerned about mixing business with...” I frown.

“With life.” He nods, rubbing his hands together slowly.

“Yes.”

“Declan tells me you’re good.” He clears his throat. “With marketing.”

He
really
didn’t need to elaborate. Now I’m self-conscious.

“And he is willing to take a larger risk than you, Shannon. I think you need to take that into consideration.” There’s a hard edge to his voice, but it’s encased in a velvet tongue.

“What?”

“Not in business. But in choosing to love you. To stay with you. To—perhaps—build a life with you.”

Love.

“I’m not in a pity relationship,” I answer bluntly. “He’s not offering me a relationship, or a job, because—”

“That is evident.” James McCormick doesn’t listen to extraneous words. “My point is that Declan, who has one of the smartest, most rational minds I know, has decided that giving his heart to you is worth the risk that you may not be around to share it.”

A cold rush pours through me.

“What does that—”

“While you dither and pretend you don’t know whether to take the job, Declan is living his choice every day. He’s taken a much bigger risk already than you would take if you accept the job at Anterdec.”

I just blink.

“Take the job, Shannon. Worry about what-if later. You can’t spend your life worrying that the devil you don’t know might turn bad when the devil you do know already is. Unemployment doesn’t suit you.”

No. it didn’t. I’ve gotten so bored this week that Chuckles now has painted toenails and you can eat off my dad’s Man Cave floor.

“Why are you urging me to do it? Take the job?”

“You make Declan happy.”

“Nope. Not enough.”

“Because you’re Marie’s daughter and it feels like karma.”

“Still not enough.”

He sighs. “Because of all the women Declan has dated, you are the first one I’ve met who is remotely interesting. And challenging. I don’t surround myself with yes men and I’d prefer not to be surrounded by yes daughters-in-law.”

Daughter in law.

“Therefore, I ask you to take some time to decide, and—”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“That was fast.”

“When you know, you know.”

James looks over my shoulder and I follow his gaze. He’s looking at a picture of his late wife. She’s on the beach with all three boys; I’m guessing Declan is about twelve in the photo, braces on his teeth and a layer of baby fat in his face that says the long stretch of puberty hasn’t hit yet.

It’s a happy photo. A joyous one, even.

“Yes, Shannon. When you know, you know.”

Chapter Twenty-One

I spend the next few hours in Human Resources, kept busy on an assembly line of managers and coordinators, never once seeing Declan. The Associate Director for HR gave me my salary proposal, benefits information, and when my eyes bugged out of my head at the salary, she was polite enough not to tell me to shove them back in my head.

We’re taught in business classes to negotiate. Always. But when someone offers you more than twice your old salary and a benefits package valued at nearly a year’s pay—you just say thank you profusely. I’m sure Steve would argue the opposite, but Steve can go suck a box of rocks.

My phone buzzes in the middle of signing paperwork. Mom. I keep it to text.

You okay?
She texts.
Need a chocolate intervention?

Nope. Signing my new hire paperwork at Anterdec.

The phone rings. “You’re coming to my yoga class on Saturday still, right? And bringing Declan.”

“You cannot use him to sell more spots in your class, Mom. He’s not a side show like a sword swallower or The Bearded Woman.”

She makes a tsking sound. “We already have that! And Corrine is trying to get it under control with electrolysis, so stop making jokes about her.”

“I wasn’t!” The HR coordinator who is explaining my health insurance package comes back with her photocopies. “I have to go.”

“Congratulations, honey! What’s your salary?” The coordinator takes my empty coffee mug and motions, asking if I want more. I nod yes.

“Shannon?”

I tell Mom my salary.

“You make more than Jason!” she squeals.

“Will he feel emasculated?” I ask, worried.

“
Pffft
. If that man can stay married to me for nearly thirty years, he can handle this. Your father doesn’t do emasculation. Well, not in public, anyhow.”

“Mom,” I growl.

“Fine, fine. I’ll make a celebratory dinner tonight! Bring Declan over! We’ll play Cards Against Humanity and I’ll break out the new candles I found in the dumpster.”

“Living it up!”

“I’m so proud of you, Shannon.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

The HR person comes back in and after two more hours, I have a photo ID, a start date, and a raging case of missing Declan.

Bzzzz.

Meet me where the limo is
, he texts.

The receptionist guides me to the right elevator and I ride it down, completely drained. A happy kind of drain. The kind of exhaustion you feel when your entire paradigm about how to live your life has changed.

The elevator doors open and there’s Declan, holding two epipens and a dozen long-stemmed chocolate covered strawberries (a mix of dark and milk, of course) in his arms.

And he’s wearing a grin that makes my heart do jumping jacks.

“Do you, Shannon Jacoby, promise to be my Assistant Director of Marketing so long as your stock options may vest?”

“I do.”

He kisses me with a freedom and abandon that makes the world disappear.

And I swear, somewhere, my mother is banging a spoon against a wine glass, finger ready to dial Farmington Country Club to reserve a date in 2016.

Someone get Steve’s mom some smelling salts. And a dose for him, too.