Yours Truly (Billionaires and Brides 2)

“He is,” Renee pouted. “He has to work late this week to make up for us being gone. But, that means I get to stay here and help you!”

“Help me, right.” Kat wasn’t sure how Renee telling her three times about malasadas was helping. “Did you finish that spreadsheet I asked you for? I need it for page three of the report.”

“I think so,” Renee replied. She stopped spinning in her chair and focused on her computer for what felt like the first time in ages. “I thought I already sent it to you. I replied to one of your silly emails that you signed ‘Yours Truly, E. Ryder.’”

Kat sighed. “I didn’t get it.”

“Well, it’s around here somewhere. Let me send it to you again.”

Kat took a deep breath. This project was her best idea yet. Shoesy, Inc. was the largest online retailer of designer shoes, handbags, and clothing. The company was booming, yet there was always left over merchandise sitting in the warehouses. Kat’s idea made that idle merchandise profitable.

She wanted to rent out the unused merchandise. For a small fee, a customer could rent a thousand dollar pair of shoes or a dress

. If they wanted to keep their item, they could purchase it. If not, they could return it. She’d even found a system of shoe inserts that made the shoe basically new for each patron, even in strappy heels. She’d done months of research to find out how to rent these items so that every person got “new” items. She had it all together.

And as long as she got to present it tomorrow, she knew Shoesy would only grow in market share. This could even combat the negative press going on with the current sex scandal. It not only utilized the company’s excess warehouse space, it created a new revenue stream and marketing opportunities.

Kat knew the problem with designer shoes was that most people didn’t want to spend thousands of dollars on a pair of shoes. Even with her employee discount, Kat still hated spending that much money on something she only wore occasionally.

This would change that. Women and men could use this and get designer label things at a fraction of the cost, and it would negate some of the warehouse issues the company was currently facing. It was perfect.

Thinking of designer shoes reminded Kat of her silver Louboutins. She was missing one. Her beautiful, perfect shoes were short one. She knew she had to have left it in AJ’s suite, but when she had called to ask if the staff had found it, the room was empty.

The shoe, and the man she had left it with, were gone.

“Oh, did you see that Andrew Jacobson came to the wedding?” Renee asked, pulling her back into reality.

“You mean the CEO of the company?” Kat asked, surprised. “The one I’m meeting with as long as you get me my spreadsheet?”

“I just sent it to you, and yes, that CEO,” Renee said, rolling her eyes as she clicked a button on her computer. “Can you believe it? How many people get to say that a billionaire came to their wedding?”

“Not very many, I imagine,” Kat replied, letting Renee revel in the moment. Renee’s world was all about status. To her, having a billionaire at the wedding was probably as big a highlight as the actual getting married part.

“It was so wonderful that he came,” Renee continued, starting to spin in her chair again as she played with the giant diamond on her finger. “Especially when he’s so busy with all the sexual harassment lawsuit stuff.”

“Yes it was,” Kat agreed. “Although, he isn’t the one with the lawsuit. It’s his business partner. From what I’ve read, Jacobson wants to stay out of the papers and actually seems like a fairly normal guy. They usually don’t even have a picture of him in the articles. It’s always the other guy.”

“A fairly normal guy?” Renee set her feet down hard on the floor to stop her spin. “Katy, he’s a billionaire. He’s practically royalty. I would have married him if I had known he was there.”

“I’m sure Bob would have appreciated that.” Kat smiled at her friend and was rewarded with another exasperated eye roll that just made Kat laugh. “I hope he gave you a nice present.”

“Oh, he did,” Renee assured her. “I wish I would have known, though! I mean, I sent him an invitation but I never expected him to show up! I guess my wedding was a bigger deal than I thought.”

“So you didn’t get to talk to him at all?”

“I saw him in the receiving line, but I didn’t know it was him at the time,” Renee explained. “It wasn’t until Bess told me that he was there and refused to dance with her, because he was too busy with some other girl, that I even put it together.”

“Bess? Steve’s daughter? The one who teaches tennis at your country club?” Kat asked. Steve was one of the managers in a different department, always speaking glowingly about his daughter at the water cooler. Kat had never met her, but Renee was always talking about how pushy the woman was during lessons.

Renee nodded. “He apparently looked smitten.”

“Well, it certainly was a beautiful and romantic wedding,” Kat replied, thinking of her own handsome date. “It was an affair to remember.”

“Thanks.” Renee beamed. “It was perfect, wasn’t it?”

Kat murmured something that sounded like a yes, but her thoughts were elsewhere. She pulled out her phone and checked it. No messages. No calls. She set her phone back down on her desk. She wasn’t really expecting her mystery man to call her right this moment, but she had been hoping he would call her sometime.

But she hadn’t heard a word since she’d left him the note.