The Billionaire Affair (In Too Deep)

I wondered what it felt like to be Mr. Jance Williams, infamous New York billionaire. He probably never had to worry about his card declining. “He’s so fucking wealthy it’s not funny.”

“True,” Tiana agreed. She tapped her lip thoughtfully, her eyes widening as she thought of something. “You should go work for him.”

“As what? A secretary?” I had a fucking business degree, and yet I was working in a bookstore, surviving paycheck to paycheck. I was ready to stop living that way, but jobs weren’t exactly a dime a dozen in this city—despite what movies tried to make you believe. “I have no experience in anything that would mean a thing to him.”

Tiana shrugged, taking my card from the sales assistant and handing hers over instead. “Working for him, even as a secretary, would be getting a foot in the door.”

She slid it back over to me, adding. “The dress is for your birthday. I’m the one who wanted to go out, and I wanted to come shopping, so let me get it for you.”

“Thanks,” I said. I was lucky to have a friend like her. Not because she bought me the dress, but because she knew me well enough to know that in these circumstances, I would be okay with it when I normally wouldn’t be.

The gesture of goodwill, however, wasn’t enough to convince me that getting any one of my body parts into any door at Williams Inc. would turn out well for me. “Get my foot in the door only to get my butt stuck in it on the way out as he kicks me to the curb when he realizes I’m not a skilled secretary?”

She was quiet for a second, and I thought she was going to give me a break and drop it before she turned to me. “When did you grow feathers?”

“Excuse me?” I scrunched up my nose, trying to figure out what she was talking about.

“I’ve never known you to be a chicken.”

“Nope. Come on, don’t do that,” I objected. Scratch ever having been thankful she knew me so well. “You know I hate being called scared.”

Tiana got her card back from the sales assistant and tucked her hands under her arms, miming flapping wings. “Chicken. Little chicken shit. Chicken, chicken.”

“Fine. Damn. Okay, okay. I’m getting a job there. Never let it be said you don’t know what buttons to push.” Truth be told, I appreciated her pushing them. And she knew it.

Linking my arm with hers, I picked up the bag the sales assistant put the dress in and walked out of the shop. Tiana’s brown eyes, flecked and swirled with green, met mine. “So this job you’re getting, any ideas on how?”

“Who the fuck knows. I’ll figure it out on Monday.” And come Monday, I would be figuring it out. I was done with just surviving. I wasn’t a damn tree, if I didn’t like where I was, I could leave. And I really, really didn’t like where I was.