An Accidental Date with a Billionaire
“What’s on your mind, Sammy?”
Her shoulders stiffened at the nickname. Not because she didn’t like it—because she did. It had seemed a fluke before, just a nickname pulled out while staring at the beauty of the stars, but he’d used it several times since. “Just some work stuff. I met with that client again, Mr. Harper—”
“Mr. Harper?” he asked, his tone tight.
“Yeah. And he’s thinking about taking the offer some cutthroat asshole of a consolidator gave him.” She tilted her head and offered him a slight smile. “No offense.”
He flexed his jaw. “Maybe he’s taking it because it’s a good offer and it’s his best option. There’s a good chance he’s tired of trying to save something that is impossible and he needs a way out. Have you ever thought about that?”
She lifted on an elbow, her heart picking up speed at his argumentative tone. She hadn’t mentioned work since he’d gotten upset when she called him the enemy, but now that she’d opened up and talked to him, he was angry?
His anger spurred her own, and she clutched at it desperately.
“No, I haven’t, because losing your dream is never a good thing.” She pushed off his chest, tugging the sheet with her. If she was going to argue with him about whether he was doing something good by ending companies, it wouldn’t be with her naked boobs (along with red chafing from his five o’clock shadow) hanging out.
He let his hand drift away from her back and sat up against the headboard, settling what was left of the sheet over his lap. “Maybe some dreams need to die, Sam.”
“Maybe they don’t need help getting there,” she gritted out.
His nostrils flared. “Maybe they do and you just refuse to see it.”
They stared at one another, breathing heavily.
She won the unspoken contest they’d been having, because he spoke first.
“I don’t like the way you talk about my job, like it makes me a bad guy.”
When she opened her mouth, he held a hand up, glowering at her. “I swear to God if you say it does make me a bad guy, I’ll fucking explode.”
She pressed her mouth into a thin line. “It doesn’t make you a bad guy, but you basically swoop in when people are at the lowest point in their lives, when they’re desperate for a solution—any solution—that makes sense, and you offer them an out that not only ends the very thing they’re fighting for, but which, when everything is said and done, is tailored to make you a pretty profit and make your portfolio nicer. You’re not looking out for them—you’re in it for you.”
“It’s my job to take unprofitable companies and either make them profitable, and save some jobs in the process, or to know it’s impossible to save a sinking ship, and to close it altogether,” he said through gritted teeth. “I’m the guy who is best equipped to make that call.”
“Why? Because you’ve become rich off of other people’s failures?”
He shook his head. “No. Because I’m not too emotionally attached to the company to see what’s dragging it down in the first place, and not too naive to think I can overcome it if I just try hard enough.”
The way he said that last part, all high-pitched in a poor imitation of her voice, left no doubt in her mind he mocked her—which she might have found funny if rage wasn’t pounding through her body.
She stood, ripping the sheet off the bed with her and wrapping it around her body—leaving him naked and vulnerable. “Or maybe you’re so cold and dead inside that you’re too quick to ignore the whole picture, and you don’t even try to see a way to save the company before you rip it apart, bone by bone, and feed it to the dogs.”
He got out of bed, his motions jerky. “Cold, huh?”
She wasn’t sure if he referred to her current status and her hogging of the sheets, or her interpretation of his emotional status. Either way: “Yep.”
“That’s real funny, coming from you.”
She hugged herself, holding the sheet in place. “I’m not cold. I try to save people. To help them. You—”
“Oh, I wasn’t talking about your work,” he snapped. “You’re all about the warm and fuzzy shit there. Saving unicorns and building rainbows, or whatever the hell it is you do in your office that definitely doesn’t include facing the realities of life and the fact that your clients are fucked before they ever step foot in your office.”
She bit her tongue. “
At least I’m not the frigging grim reaper—”
“I’m talking about here, with me, in this room,” he continued, standing there completely naked and clearly perfectly content to do so.
How could she argue with him when that glorious body was on display?