Investigating the Billionaire Page 2

  When she stumbled over the edge of the rug.

  And landed right in the arms of the billionaire with intense, green eyes and a carved jawline.

  2

  Beck cradled the woman in his arms. Her wide, blue eyes were charming even though she looked terrified. Soon, they softened, which only made their charming effect intensify. Which, for some reason, made his arms tighten around her more.

  “Hi,” he said, feeling so lame. “I’m Beckett.”

  “Tessa,” she replied breathlessly. “Thank you for saving me.”

  All he could do was nod. He was captivated by her lips.

  Until Gwen cleared her throat and brought him back to reality.

  Beck straightened and brought Tessa upright. “Wait,” he said, going over what had just happened in his head. “Isn’t your name Jamie?”

  She tensed and gulped. But then she relaxed, fixing the bag she had over her shoulder and smoothing her coat out. “My friends call me Tessa. I like that better than Jamie. I hope that’s okay.”

  For a moment there, he’d thought he’d caught her in a lie. He didn’t tolerate lying, but as a businessman, he could discern the difference between lying and asking for one’s privacy. He protected his fiercely, so he understood. That answer worked for him.

  “Of course.” He put his hands in the pockets of his dress pants. “If we’re going with nicknames, mine’s Beck.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he inwardly rolled his eyes at himself. He never said that to anyone anymore. Beckett was his name. He had no idea why he’d felt the need to tell her that.

  As he rebuttoned his suit jacket to appear busy and not entirely embarrassed, he flicked his gaze to his assistant.

  “Do you still want me to let the agency go?” she questioned, saving him from that awkward moment.

  When he glanced at Tessa, he had a split-second moment of feeling unsure. The company screwed up too many times already. That had been their last chance and they’d blown it. He wanted to put her in their pro column, but that was the only thing on that list. So he nodded.

  Tessa opened her mouth to protest, but he held a finger up in the air to stop her.

  “Yes, Gwen. Fire them. But you,” he said, turning his gaze to Tessa. “I’ll hire you directly. You’ll work for me instead of the agency. Would that work for you?”

  She licked her lips as she thought about it. Then her eyes lit up and her eyebrows rose. “Does that mean I’d have health insurance?”

  He chuckled under his breath. “If that’s what you need to accept the position, sure.” He didn’t want to find another agency to help him staff his home. With pressing business to attend to, he couldn’t afford to waste more time. And it wasn’t like he didn’t have the pocket change to make that happen for her.

  There was something sweet and earnest about her. Something he thought he could relate to. Beck hadn’t felt those attributes come from a person who knew who he was in a long time—ever since he’d taken the company over for his father and his net worth had skyrocketed. But he had a rule about dating: It just didn’t happen for him. He was married to his work and that suited him just fine.

  He could manipulate business dealings to his liking. The same couldn’t be said for love.

  Tessa’s expression made him feel like he’d just handed her the world. He couldn’t believe that it was over something as trivial as health insurance. She hadn’t even asked how much the salary would be now that she was his employee and not the agency’s. Healthcare was her only concern, and that made him wonder…

  Was she sick? Or was it someone she cared about?

  Beck knew that pain all too well. It was part of why he protected his privacy so much. He’d chosen to live a public life when his father had handed the reins over to him. His sister had wanted nothing to do with it after she’d started a family, and he wanted to help honor that.

  This only endeared Tessa to him more.

  Which was not a good thing. He needed to focus. With his deal so close to being complete, he had to keep his eye on the prize. As soon as this was done, he could move on with his life. But for now, the pressure to finish it—and keep it a secret—was on.

  Beck cleared his throat and straightened his spine. “Did they do a background check already?” he asked Gwen.

  She flipped through the papers in her hand. “Yes, sir. All clear.”

  “Okay, then. That’s settled. I’ll have my lawyer write up the contract and get that over to you. Leave your address with Gwen and it’ll be at your home no later than noon tomorrow.” Then he fixed his tie and settled in behind his desk. He had calls to make and deals to seal.

  “Thank you,” Tessa uttered. It was so quiet, but he’d heard her.

  He lifted his gaze to her but kept his head dipped low. “You’re welcome,” he replied, ignoring the way his heart liked the way she looked at him.

  Gwen ushered Tessa out of his office and closed the door behind them. His privacy was restored and he could get back to the matter at hand. He’d finalize the plans for the new project and go over the costs one more time. Everything seemed to be in order, but he was a perfectionist and wouldn’t rest until this deal was complete.

  After, of course, he called his lawyer about Tessa’s employment.

  “Beck,” Steve said when he answered the phone. “What can I do for you today?”

  “I’m no longer working with the agency I use to find staff. Gwen’s about to make that phone call and end that partnership,” he said. “However, I need a contract written up for the latest employee they sent me. I’ll have Gwen send you the documents.”

  “Gwen could have called for all of this,” Steve replied. “How come you called me?”

  Beck leaned back in his chair and tapped his pen on his desk, wondering the same thing. “I need to make sure you include our best health insurance as part of her employment package.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “Thanks,” he said. Then he hung up.

  His hand hovered over the phone though. All of this talk about health insurance made him think of his sister again. Cindy had struggled since Caden was born ten years ago. Not just because she had two other kids, but because of his diagnosis at two years old and her husband’s death a year after that. And even though Beck’s father had had plenty of money to make things easier on her, he’d refused.

  He’d always refused.

  “The Stones are self-made,” he’d said. “We don’t rely on anyone else to support us.”

  That’s how his father had grown his multibillion-dollar company—the self-made way. He’d never put up with excuses or heard arguments he couldn’t sway the other way. Right up until the day he died two years ago, he’d insisted that Cindy could have been a part of the legacy. But she’d chosen to have a family instead and not work for the company. The business life was not for her.

  Lately, Beck had been wondering if it were for him anymore. He had more money than he knew what to do with, which made what he was doing with it easier. By stepping into the leadership role at Jack Stone Enterprises, he’d been able to follow in his father’s footsteps of at the consumer loans company. Of course, Jack hadn’t simply left the company to his son. That would have been cheating. Beck had had to prove his worth, and he’d done just that.

  He’d led the company to even bigger growth than his father had. They were helping more customers all over the world. And the employees were happier people now because of him. He had to agree that he was what was best for the company. Just like with his father, he had the same knack for business. He could make money hand over fist. He could admit to enjoying the power his name wielded. And he could read people.

  What had he been able to read when it came to his new chef though?

  Beck shook his head. There was no sense in thinking about that. Her background check had cleared with the agency, and even though they were incompetent when it came to directions, they never fooled around with the quality of people they
brought him. He’d been sad to see Carlos, his last chef, go. But his wife was about to have a baby and he needed the time home with his family.

  Though Beck couldn’t relate exactly, he understood family.

  And he wondered about Tessa’s.

  Then he wondered about his own mental health. If everything kept coming back to that woman with the beautiful smile, he’d be in big trouble. He had important business to finish. He’d keep his head in the game to see this through to the end. For Cindy. For Caden. For Marty. For everyone else counting on him.

  Beck picked up the phone again and dialed his sister’s number.

  Cindy answered on the third ring, sounding out of breath. “Beck? Is that you?”

  “Yeah,” he replied on an exhale. He put his elbows on his desk and held his head up with his palm.

  After a short pause, she said, “Everything okay?”

  He nodded even though she couldn’t see him. Then he cleared his throat and scooted his chair forward to sit up straight. “Yeah. I just wanted to check in.”

  “Oh, okay.” Cindy’s voice cracked and she started sniffling. “Okay,” she repeated, but Beck could tell she was anything but.

  “What’s going on?” he pressed, knowing she wouldn’t tell him unless he asked. “Everything okay with you?”

  “You know I hate bothering you with this stuff,” she told him in a watery voice. “It’s not your burden to bear.”

  Ugh. Beck couldn’t stand when she said that to him. He’d told her a million times that that was their father’s philosophy, not his. In his eyes, family banded together. They were one unit that took care of each other. Maybe that was his way of making up for the way their father had treated them, but he didn’t care. Cindy didn’t deserve a burden on her shoulders any more than he did. So he’d help her however he could for as long as she needed.

  “Cindy,” he warned in a soft tone. “What can I do?”

  After a few sniffles, she finally relented. “Just tell me how, you know… How’s it going?”

  Immediately, he bristled. “We shouldn’t talk about this over the phone.”

  His sister sighed. “I know. I just… It shouldn’t get harder, but it does.”

  “I know. I’m doing everything I can. There is only one thing standing in the way, but I promise you…” His breath caught as he pictured all of his hard work and secretive meetings falling through. He couldn’t let that happen. “I’ll do whatever it takes, okay?”

  “No one can find out though,” she insisted. “If anything gets out…” Her sniffles broke his heart.

  “I know. I promise. No one will find out.”

  Beck could only imagine how it felt for a mother to want her son to get the care he deserved. Autism was tricky, and proper knowledge and care could make a huge difference in the life of someone on the spectrum. Caden might never live the life Cindy wished for him. But Beck would do every single thing he could to help his family however he could.

  Nothing would stand in his way.

  Not even the law.

  3

  When Tessa got back to her apartment, she closed the front door and took her first breath since she’d left Beck’s office. Beckett Stone, she meant. Not Beck. They weren’t friends.

  Oh, this was so strange.

  This morning, she’d been terrified of trying to redeem herself after the last debacle. Mitch could have fired her completely. He’d chosen to give her an assignment he knew she’d see through to the end though. But now, just hours later, she was instead terrified of disappointing a billionaire with her (lack of) cooking skills.

  So much about life could change in the blink of an eye.

  The rain had stopped too, which felt like a good omen. Like maybe things were going to work out after all. One could hope.

  Tessa tossed her keys inside her bag and placed it on the ragged armchair she desperately needed to replace. The cloth was torn in approximately two hundred places, and she was pretty sure the spring she’d found on the floor beside it last week had been a necessary component. Plus, she’d had to duct tape on the lever that turned the chair into a recliner, which was quickly becoming a theme in her life.

  With the day she’d had, she needed a drink. It was too bad she’d given all of that up the moment she’d become Sarah’s sole guardian. For now, she’d have to settle for some deep breathing and a few quiet moments before her sister got home from school.

  Those quiet moments turned out to be three seconds.

  Sarah burst through the front door and slammed it shut, rattling it on its hinges. “Sorry,” she called out as she marched to her room, her favorite after-school spot.

  Then a second door slammed down the hall.

  “Sorry!” she repeated more loudly through the door.

  One of these days, Tessa would have to expand her duct tape skills to more than just handles with the way Sarah handled things. But Tessa didn’t mind. She understood that Sarah was just plain rougher with things sometimes. She just wished she could help her sister more.

  Tessa followed her down the short hall to the second bedroom of the apartment. A knock on the door produced nothing, and she knew better than to open it without Sarah’s permission. She’d learned her lesson the one time she’d tried to do that and hadn’t repeated that mistake.

  “Sarah?” she called through the door. “Want to talk about it?”

  “No!” her sister shouted back.

  If Tessa weren’t used to that by now, she would have been startled. But this was par for the course. “Okay,” she said. “Well, I have good news.” She waited a few moments to see if that would get Sarah’s attention.

  Luckily, it did. Slippered feet padded over the worn carpet until the knob jostled and the door opened.

  “You do?” Sarah asked, keeping her face neutral.

  “I do,” Tessa confirmed. “I’ll tell you over dinner.”

  Sarah’s eyes flashed wide. “You’re not cooking, are you?” She spun around and went back to her bed, but she left the door open.

  Tessa took that as a good sign even if her words stung a little bit. “Actually, I could use your help,” she replied, twisting her fingers. “I got a new job today that requires me to cook, but as you know—”

  “You can’t?” her sister finished for her in her usual deadpan manner. She didn’t take her eyes off the video game she was playing in her hand though.

  Even though she was sometimes hurtful, she never meant to be. She was just honest to a fault. Always straight to the point. And Tessa could respect that, especially in her profession. People usually wanted to embellish their achievements or deceive Tessa when she was asking questions. Sarah’s honesty was refreshing, no matter the consequences.

  “Wait,” Sarah said, pausing her game and letting the tablet fall to her chest. “Does that mean Mitch fired you? Because that’s not fair. You were just prote—”

  “No,” Tessa interrupted. She wished she hadn’t told Sarah the truth about that, but they were a team. And Sarah was exceptionally smart—she would have figured it out somehow. “He didn’t. He gave me another assignment.”

  This was when things got tricky. She didn’t want to lie, and Sarah would sniff the truth out anyway. But she didn’t want to admit that she’d lied to someone else. “It’s part of my job” had only gotten her so far. Sarah looked up to Tessa, and she didn’t want to let her sister down. So they’d made a pact—no more lying, even for her job. She would stick to it. This one wasn’t her fault though, and she’d told Beck her real name. Plus, she was going to bring a criminal to justice. It just so happened that he had a ton of money and the vindication would feel satisfying.

  She hoped that counted for something.

  “Then why do you have to cook?” Sarah pressed. “Are you interviewing a chef for this new assignment? A restaurant owner?” She raised an eyebrow. “Or are you doing one of those how-to columns now? Someone should have warned Mitch that you should not be teaching anyone how to cook.”

>   Tessa could only chuckle. She’d gotten used to Sarah’s dry manner. An outsider might have been offended, but this was why Tessa worked hard to afford everything she could for Sarah—so, one day, outsiders wouldn’t think Sarah was different because she had autism. So Sarah could life a happy, healthy life in a world that better understood her and other kids like her.

  She sat at the end of the bed near Sarah’s slippered feet, placing her hands in her lap. “No how-to column,” she laughed lightly. “Just a slight misunderstanding that has me working as someone’s personal chef.”

  Sarah hit her with a dubious stare. “That doesn’t sound like a slight misunderstanding to me.”

  “Trust me—it was.” Tessa raised her right hand in the air. “I didn’t lie. I promise. I’m just going to see where this goes because it comes with health insurance that I’m sure is better than the crap Mitch hands out at the paper.”

  Even if it was just for two weeks. After that, she’d have her story written and ready to be published. At least she hoped she would. Otherwise, she’d have no insurance at all.

  At that, Sarah’s expression changed from dubious to concerned. “So you’re doing this for me?” She started shaking her head rapidly.

  Tessa worried that she was losing her sister’s focus, so she quickly refuted that. “No. No, no, no,” she gently told her, daring to place a hand on Sarah’s leg. Sarah didn’t like to be touched, but Tessa was one of the very, very rare exceptions, and only on very, very rare occasions.

  Luckily, this seemed like one of them. Sarah slowed the shaking, but her chest rose and fell with deep, full breaths. Too many breaths, so Tessa needed to act fast.

  “I’m doing this for us. It sounds like it could be fun,” she explained, though the twinge in her stomach said otherwise. That was just worry, and she could tamp worry down. She did it all the time. “It’s a new experience and a better way for me to take care of us. It’s for me, too. Okay?” She lifted her hand from her sister’s leg and waited for her response.