The Billionaire Boss Next Door

The company was established back in the late seventies when my father opened his first hotel in New York. A boutique hotel, at that. It began with a two-hundred-thousand-dollar debt, a second mortgage on his and my mom’s house, and an insane amount of stress and failures from what I’ve been told. But within ten years, he’d turned that debt into a million-dollar profit and ten more hotels across the country.

And with Turner Properties’ last evaluation as a solid twenty-billion-dollar company, it’s safe to say the momentum hasn’t stopped since.

No matter how big his company got, no matter how many employees he acquired, he’s always kept an ear to the ground and a hand to the work. As a kid, I went with him everywhere he would let me, and I have to admit, that meant I went a lot of places.

He flourished under my attention, and I worshiped the ground he walked on.

All in all, that foundation for our relationship is probably the reason why I am the way I am. He is a self-made man—something, as his son and employee, I’ll never be able to say I am—but he’s the man who made me.

I work long hours, and the ones I don’t spend at the office, I usually spend plotting and dreaming about new ideas to implement when I’m there.

But all of the hard work isn’t for naught.

One day soon, I want my father to be able to retire. He’s reached the age where he shouldn’t be spending the majority of his days and nights in the goddamn office. He should be at home with my mom. Spending time with her. Taking care of her. Enjoying the time he has left with her.

But getting to the point where he trusts me enough to take over Turner Properties currently feels like a nearly impossible feat. One I’ve been trying to overcome for the past decade.

I’d never personally label myself a workaholic, but it’s a term I’ve heard thrown around more than once or twice among my friends.

I don’t have to wonder where I got it.

In addition to hardworking and dedicated, my father is also incredibly loyal. When he finds an employee he loves, he makes sure they never have a reason to leave.

Which probably explains why I’ve known my dad’s assistant, Helen, since I was a baby.

The shine of her hair glints in the bright recessed lighting as she completes numerous tasks behind the shield of her white-marble-topped and gold-legged desk.

She’s a hard worker and even thicker-skinned, and she runs such a tight ship, sometimes I wonder who’s really running the company—her or my dad.

“He’s ready for you,” she says, touching her ear with a nod, but I hesitate.

Is she talking to me?

Someone else?

God, Bluetooth technology is fucking unnerving. I never know if people are talking to me or the person in their ear.

“Trent,” she says, and still, it doesn’t really clear anything up.

My dad and I share the same name, and ever since we started working together, it’s been a point of confusion on many occasions.

She snaps her fingers and points at me, clear as fucking crystal, and I feel like a fool for not responding earlier. “Get in there, kid.”

Only Helen and my mom can get away with calling me “kid” without it boiling under my skin. At thirty-three years old, I’m not exactly old and gray, but after a decade in the business, I feel like I’ve earned my stripes. Anytime anyone says anything to suggest I haven’t, it grates.

Confident and quick, I stride into the office and shut the door behind me with a click.

My dad is going over a report and retucking his shirt into the waistband of his pants. He’s always worked sloppy, but he’d never let that show to anyone else. Not even me.

Look put together, feel put together, he always used to say. I apparently took the words to heart because my black suit is one of twenty just like it hanging in the master closet of my loft in lower Manhattan, and I’ve never worn flip-flops in my life.

“Have a seat,” my father orders, and I do. I’d rather stand, since I don’t know the nature of this meeting and being on my feet makes me feel quicker on them, but I’m not in control here.

My dad’s obsessive need to control everything is the ultimate trump card in every conversation or meeting I have with him.

And that’s exactly what he’s trying to tell me as he rounds the desk and leans into the heavy wood so I have to look up at him. His stormy gray-blue eyes sparkle behind his glasses, highlighting the silver flecks in his black hair. We don’t look particularly alike other than our bodies—slender hips and broad shoulders—because as far as my features are concerned, I heavily favor my mother.