A Double Dose of Billionaire (Part One) Page 4

  Riley propped himself up. “Why not? Don’t you have to pay the rent? We were the ones who got you fired, anyway.”

  “The press will make things pretty bad.”

  “We’ll get you a job at another company. It doesn’t have to be directly related to us. You’ll be safe.”

  “Really?” I perked up, excited at the new prospect. “That’d be great. I can do anything related to business. Basic accounting, financing, marketing is my specialty, or even just filing things will do.” It felt weird trying to pitch myself to my new bosses while completely naked.

  Ryan grinned. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll get it settled.”

  We started up small chat. I learned that Ryan was an adrenaline junkie and spent a lot of his time at the race track. He went parasailing, bungee jumping, and skydiving, too. Riley, on the other hand, didn’t like thrills as much as his brother. He could appreciate the occasional roller coaster and even followed his brother skydiving, but he preferred the finer, less dangerous things in life, like watching theatre or simply going to one of their vacation homes to relax.

  “Being so different, the two of you seem to be very close,” I said.

  “We’re the most comfortable around each other,” Ryan said. “That’s how we were raised. We need some alone time once in a while, but I can’t stand being apart from him for too long.”

  “Why me, though? There were so many girls at the club who would have willingly slept with you. Why get a drunk girl?” That question had been lingering in my mind for some time, although it went more along the lines of ‘why couldn’t they find another girl to bother?’ I thought that they just picked a girl at random and I was, in some strange way, their type.

  Riley snuggled his face into my neck. “Because you can tell us apart.” His breath tickled me and sent a tingle down my back.

  Confused by his unexpected answer, I said, “Huh?”

  “No one can tell us apart. It confuses people, which is fun, and it throws the paparazzi off. That’s why we keep our hairstyles this way.” He pointed to his hair. They both wore the same trim cuts. “Not even our own mother can do it. She used to make us wear our hair differently but when we changed to this, she had trouble.”

  “And then you came,” Ryan continued for this brother. “That day at the club, after we introduced ourselves, you ran to us calling out our names, gesturing to us correctly.”

  I assumed that he toned down the details a lot. I doubted that I did only that when drunk. A more likely scenario was me running after them while puking at the same time, and when I gestured to them, my gesture was quite possibly a middle finger.

  “How do you do that?” Riley asked.

  “Tell you apart?” I wasn’t sure. Come to think of it, I could easily tell them apart since the very beginning. “It just feels natural, I guess.”

  They laughed. “Unbelievable,” they said in unison.

  “Well, on top of telling us apart,” Ryan said, “we really like this butt of yours.” He slapped my ass again.

  I didn’t think that I’d ever get tired of that.

  ***

  Apparently, the twins did more than just laze around and make smartass comments all day; they actually had to go to work. I was in slight disbelief when they mentioned it. Then I thought about it—they were grown men. Sitting on their butts all day fooling around probably wasn’t very healthy, regardless of how rich they were.

  They tried to convince me to stay at their place, but I wasn’t going to linger around like some forsaken wife waiting for her husband to come home. They called in another one of their drivers to fetch me home.

  When leaving their mansion, I had to face the paparazzi.

  They camped outside the gates like a pack of wolves, cameras ready and flashes set to standby.

  I had a pretty lame ‘master’ plan. My first idea was to put myself in the boot as the driver drove me through the gates, but I wasn’t quite ready to let myself fall so low yet. So all I did was duck beneath the car’s windows when we crossed.

  “Ma’am, we passed,” the driver said. I poked my head out and glanced through the rear window. The paparazzi continued to stand at the gates, acting bored and docile.

  I couldn’t believe my plan worked.

  The driver dropped me at Kristie’s house. She couldn’t have been home from work this early, but she told me she left an extra pair of keys in her potted plants that one time she forgot her keys. I wanted to avoid the paparazzi, and I figured I wouldn’t bump into any if I went to her house instead. Another horde of them was probably waiting at my doorstep.

  My apartment was a pigsty compared to Kristie’s.

  Everything in her apartment gave off a cozy feel. She decorated her windows with pink, spotted drapes, filled random corners with synthetic roses, and kept her cute stuffed toys on her couch. She named her unicorn, teddy bear and piglet Ms. Pinky, Mr. Teddy and Oinky, respectively. Who did that after growing past the kindergarten stage anyway?

  It was too lovely for my liking. Too clean and pretty. But then again, that’s what I loved about my friend—that caring, beautiful, love-till-you-bleed side of her.

  I took off my heels and neatly placed them inside the shoe cabinet, knowing that Kristie would complain if I didn’t put my shoes away properly.

  Bored, I went to her bookshelf and chose one of her DVDs to watch, ignoring the classic literature she had on there. Kristie was an English Literature and Business Administration double major. She had always wanted to become a playwright, but life’s circumstances brought her into sales. She told me she didn’t think she’d use her business degree at all but took it to have a safe alternative. Unfortunately, she ended up having to use it after finding out the only job opening related to her English Literature degree was an English teacher.

  I chose a comedy chick flick and slid it into the player.

  After what seemed like ten minutes later, I felt someone nudge my shoulder. I woke up to Kristie looking at me with a puzzled face. “What are you doing here?”

  I yawned. I had to get past this habit of sleeping at random places all the time. Life was just so exhausting. “Waiting for you. How was work?”

  “Oh, don’t get me started.” She sat down. “I thought I was done with the accounts, and then stupid Albert came over with all the boss’s receipts and went like, ‘we need returns for all this.’ I mean, who does that? I specifically told them not to give me all their receipts last week… Oh, but never mind about me.” She elbowed me lightly in the waist and grinned. “Tell me all about your night with the twins. I want all the details—all of it.”

  I sighed, not really sure what I thought about last night. “Well, the sex was amazing. But then I think that I shouldn’t have done it.”

  “Why not? I mean, it’s not like you’re dating anyone. Go have fun.” She got up. “But remember to use protection. Who knows where their dicks have been. Coffee?”

  I gave her a guilty look.

  Her eyes widened. “You didn’t?”

  “I kind of forgot to… but it’s okay, I’m still on birth control.”

  “I’m not saying that they are the kind to sleep around a lot. Okay I am, and have documented proof from the ever-accurate media. But STDs? Ever heard of them?”

  “I know.” I sighed and then smiled. “But the sex was so good.”

  “Better than Damien?” She waved her hand and rolled her eyes at herself. “Oh, why bother asking.”

  “Way better. Damien couldn’t even last five minutes.”

  “Thank goodness you broke up with that asshole. I told you about him, didn’t I? That man was up to no good.”

  I nodded. “I just really wanted to settle down. You know, with my parents nagging at me to find a husband all the time.”

  “Well, don’t settle down for any random guy.”

  “I’ve learned my lesson.” When I found Damien in my bed with some strange blonde chick, my heart got crushed on the spot. I spent the whole night getting mys
elf wasted in the club. Thinking about it now, I realized I wasn’t sad because I was losing Damien in particular; I only got depressed because I felt betrayed. My life was perfectly fine without him, especially with the twins around.

  She handed me a cup of coffee. We shouldn’t have been drinking coffee so close to bedtime, but caffeine lost its effect on me years ago.

  “So have you thought about what your next job is going to be?” she asked.

  “The twins actually offered me one.”

  She took a sip from her cup. “Really? The three of you are getting awfully chummy for sex buddies.”

  Sex buddies. I forgot to remind myself we were nothing more than that. Making waffles, becoming their employee, thinking about spending the next night warm and cuddled up in their arms. Sex buddies—we’re just having fun with each other until we get bored. Me, to simply rebound back from my chain of failure boyfriends, and them because they liked to sleep around.

  My mind shot back to this morning when they told me about telling them apart. Did that make me special in any way?

  I laughed to cover up my uneasiness. “They’re decent enough human beings to feel sorry about causing me to lose my job.”

  “Meanwhile you better start looking for another one. Because when one of them gets bored, it’ll suck to be you.”

  She stirred her coffee and beamed as if her words hadn’t felt like daggers to my heart.

  “Yeah… I should.” Eager to change the topic, I said, “You know what? I fancy myself another movie.”

  “I’ve watched every single one of those on that rack.”

  “Don’t care. How about this one?” I said, choosing a DVD without really looking.

  She scowled. “That show is so old. I’m subscribed to Netflix, you know?”

  “Oh, yeah.” I slipped the cover back onto the shelf. “I thought maybe watching it on DVD would be like old times.”

  “Stupidest excuse ever.” She started scanning through her movies on her laptop. It was connected to her TV so we had a nice, large screen to watch from. “Now get your sexy butt over here and help me pick a movie.”

  We ended up picking a horror show. They weren’t my cup of tea but might as well. The suspense managed to get my mind off the twins, if only for an hour.

  Tyrone, my new driver, dropped me off at my new office. I had myself completely neatened up today—as neat as I possibly could have been borrowing Kristie’s clothes and bathroom.

  My visit to her house ended up becoming an unplanned sleepover. I fell asleep toward the end of the movie—movies were so difficult to stay awake to—and she was too sweet to wake me up and kick my butt out the door in the middle of the night.

  I woke up the next day to Riley calling me on the phone, asking me to show up at the workplace in two hours.

  I had to scramble for clothes. Kristie was a size skinnier than me so we had some trouble finding some professional-looking clothes that actually fit. I had to settle for a very dull gray skirt and a plain white blouse.

  I was going to kill those twins.

  I was thankful for the new job, but they could’ve given me at least a day’s notice. What if some unfortunate circumstance prevented me from waking up to my phone’s ringing and I arrived to the office late? My new boss would hate my guts and I’d have to suffer hell for the next few months, at least.

  A busty girl tended to the reception. She was chewing gum—I didn’t think it benefited the company's image much.

  “Uh, hi,” I said, “I’m Scarlet, I’m supposed to be…” Then I realized that I didn’t even know what my job position was. I blushed. “One of my contacts asked me to report here.”

  She looked up and gave me a once over. “Ms. Fontaine? You’re the new secretary. Our CEO is waiting for you at the top floor.”

  The secretary? So I was being reduced to doing administrative, boring work. My skill sets were equipped for better things. Still, with the economy like that, I didn’t have much to complain about.

  Throughout the whole journey to the top floor, the receptionist chewed on her gum. It sounded like fingers scratching a chalkboard to my ears. I wanted to smack her head so the gum would pop right out.

  I did some rough research on the company using Google this morning. The company was called Treston Holdings. It was a subsidiary company of Crawford, though not many people knew that. Its profit margins were phenomenal, owning one of the top hotel chains in the world.

  “Mr. Crawford is a busy man; I’m surprised he’s freed his schedule to meet you.”

  Mr. Crawford? Wait a minute.

  When the wooden doors of the CEO’s office swung open, I stood there agape in disbelief.

  They lied to me!

  Riley stood there looking charming yet obnoxious in his business suit. “Scarlet, I was expecting you.”

  I smiled, trying to hold my rage in. I didn’t want to punch my new boss in front of the receptionist. “Mr. Crawford. I definitely wasn’t expecting you.”

  “Thanks, Jess, you can leave us,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied. She strutted off and closed the door behind us, still chewing her gum.

  I turned back to face the devil in front of me. He had a cocky grin on, seemingly happy that he had outsmarted me. Those lying cheats! “I thought I said we were not to have any contact in the workplace? You promised.”

  “Did I? Ryan and I changed our minds.”

  I clenched my teeth together. “What about the paparazzi I talked about? You’re the Crawford brothers. There’s protection for you guys. That big mansion with the gates, lawyers, and the already preconceived notion that you switch girls like you change socks.” I pointed to my chest. “What about me? I’m just some ordinary girl and if the press finds out we’re this close, I’ll be humiliated after you ditch me on the roadside.”

  He sighed. “We’re not going to ditch you, Scarlet.”

  My hand fell to my side and my heart tightened as I heard him say that. I didn’t think those words would affect me so much. But he most likely meant them in a different way, like they’d let me off lightly and make sure the paparazzi didn’t completely destroy my life first.

  Yes, that was it. It didn’t have anything to do with them not leaving me.

  “Even then, I don’t want to go home every night to a house crowded with those ‘reporters’,” I said, my tone returning to normal and sounding less like a crazy, infuriated person.

  “You don’t have to. You can meet up with us at our place after work. We’ll prepare a room for you. I’ll ask Gordon to move your things over and—“

  “You’re asking me to move in?”

  “I suppose I am.”

  “Isn’t that for people with a… a closer relationship than us?”

  “Well, under ordinary circumstances, yes. But it seems like a more practical option.”

  I rubbed a palm over my forehead. “A more practical option would be finding me a company that isn’t directly related to you.”

  “But we really want you around and close.”

  Heat rose to my cheeks. I reminded myself that he meant that in sex-buddy terms. I scanned the room. “Speaking of which, where is Ryan?”

  “He leads the management division of this company. It’s at a different block.”

  “Oh, I thought you couldn’t stand to be apart.”

  “We need some alone time, too. Sometimes, I just want to have you all to myself.” Without me noticing, Riley had come close. He bent down and kissed me gently.

  All my frustration and confusion seeped away like liquid. My knees turned soft and buckled under my weight; Riley held me up with his strong, muscular arms. I wrapped my arms around him and buried my hand in his hair.

  His kiss became deeper and rougher, and soon it felt like he was fighting to take control of all of me.

  An erection began to form and pressed against my thigh. The sensations of our last sexual encounter flooded back in. I wanted him in me again.

  “Riley,”
I said as we took a breath.

  “You’re so beautiful, Scarlet.”

  A knock on the door interrupted us.

  Frantically, he pushed me away from him and straightened his shirt. “Come in!”

  I darted to the side cabinet and pretended to sort through files.

  A mousy, middle-aged woman walked in. “Mr. Crawford? These are the documents you asked for.”

  “Put them on my desk,” he replied.

  We gave each other side-glances as she sauntered across the room. He poured himself some water in a fancy glass cup and took a sip.

  She picked up a document and showed it to him. “These are the info sheets for last year’s data, and this one is—“

  “Yes, yes, I got it. You can leave.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Oh, on second thought, Scarlet here is new. Can you show her around and tell her what she’s supposed to do as a secretary?”

  He had no idea how deflated his suggestion left me. I was hoping for a continuation of our rendezvous.

  “No problem,” the mousy lady said. “Follow me, Ms. Scarlet.”

  She led me out of the office.

  So much for being more than sex buddies. Kristie was right; there wasn't supposed to be any commitment in this relationship.

  ***

  My job as a secretary turned out to be pretty basic. All I had to do was keep track of Riley's schedule, answer his calls, type some emails that followed common protocol, and take care of Riley's needs, like food and drinks.

  I was quite certain that those 'needs' of Riley’s include something more taboo than those elementary aspects.

  I was running through his schedule when he rang me up on the telecom.

  "I need you in my office," he said.

  "I'll be right there," I replied.

  "Now."

  The matter sounded urgent, so I scurried over in haste. I closed the door behind me. "What do you need, boss?"

  The Riley that I faced wasn't the Riley I was familiar with. His eyes were steelier than usual, and he carried a certain air around him that screamed dominance. The new side of him sent a jolt to my core—it was insanely sexy, yet terrifying.