The Billionaire's Assistant, page 1
Also by Z.L. Arkadie
LOVE in the USA
Find Her, Keep Her: A Martha's Vineyard Love Story
There's Something About Her, A Manhattan Love Story
Say You Love Her: An L.A. Love Story
Know Her, Love Her
Still In Love With Her: Maggie & Vince, #1
He's So Bad, A San Francisco Love Story
Made To Love Her: Maggie & Vince #2
He's So Good: Robert & Carter
Say You Love Me: Charlie & Angel
Adore Her, More of Her: Daisy & Jack, #2
LOVE in the USA, The Hesters
Taming The Shrewd
Waiting On You
Playing with Fire
Tempting Fate
The Deception
Soul Mates
The Blackstone Brothers - Asher
Seduction
Embrace
The Blackstone Brothers - Jasper
The Billionaire's Uninvited Guest
Desire
Claimed
The Blackstone Brothers - Spencer
The Billionaire's Assistant
Impulse
Bliss
Exposed
Vampire Saviors
Parched
Warrior
Quenched
Slayer
Ignite
Light and Speed
Vanquish
Standalone
The Sterlings Billionaire Family Saga (Books 1-3)
Destined
Watch for more at Z.L. Arkadie’s site.
Copyright © 2019 by Flaming Hearts Press LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
ISBN: 978-1-952101-84-7
Created with Vellum
Author’s Note
As of May 7, 2022, this book has been updated. The POV is now first-person present tense to improve readability and pacing. Also, story elements have been refined.
* * *
Also, as of August 15, 2022, the last name of the main family has been changed from Christmas to Blackstone.
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And on September 13, 2022 the title of the book was changed from Intrigued to The Billionaire’s Uninvited Guest. The new title better reflects the content of the book.
* * *
Enjoy!
Contents
1. My Arrival
2. Settled
3. The Lonely Day
4. Table Talks with Mr. Blackstone
5. Pay Day
6. Flirtatious Notes
7. A Session
8. For Two
9. The Book
10. He’s The Man
11. Shower Scene
12. Moms the Word
13. Eeny-Meeny-Miny-Moe
14. Chiseling Away
15. It’s Just the Lonely
16. Next Session
17. Only Pleasure
18. Sister Love
19. In the Aftermath
My Arrival
JADA FORTE
Drained and left with sticky skin, I have officially experienced the worst two and a half days of my life. I haven’t showered since the night before my flight from New York to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. But finally, I’m on the brink of reaching my final destination.
I’m hardly able to keep my eyes open as I stare out the window from the back seat of my new billionaire boss’s hired car. I’m trying desperately to keep up with the alien environment, but my eyelids grow heavier by the second. Thankfully the driver is not a talker. I don’t have the energy for conversation. I hope my sleeping quarters are comfortable though, because all I want is a good night’s sleep in a heavenly bed.
I was scheduled to arrive in Jackson Hole, Wyoming on Monday, but today is Wednesday. Why the delay? Three days ago, while on a layover in Salt Lake City, a small fire ignited in one of the terminals, and because of that, all flights were grounded until an investigation could be completed. The ordeal put me in a perilous position. I was flying on standby and only had six dollars in my wallet and a hundred and thirty-three dollars in my bank account, which I couldn’t touch because the minimum payment on one of my maxed-out credit cards is due, and I need those funds to stay in my account to cover it.
But travelers kept pouring into the terminal, seeking flights to Jackson Hole. Ten hours later, travel was back on and all the real ticket holders got to go first. By the last flight of the day, I still hadn’t gotten a seat, which forced me to sleep in uncomfortable airport chairs. After the first night, I pondered three options. The first was to call my mother, Congresswoman Patricia Forte, and ask for help, but dealing with her is like making a deal with Rumpelstiltskin. I couldn’t ask my dad, either, because he would’ve called my mom, even if I asked him not to, and I’d still end up making a deal with Rumpelstiltskin. Option number two was to call my new employer, a billionaire named Spencer Blackstone, and ask him for help. And my third option, the one I almost succumbed to, was to say “Screw Wyoming,” head back to New York, and take my best friend, Hope up on her offer to move in with her until I’m able to find a job in the city.
But the pay… oh, the pay…
I haven’t had a steady salary since a major media conglomerate absorbed Caldwell Jamison, the PR firm I used to work for, and my position was deemed redundant. I was let go in January and had been living off bountiful savings since then. Even though I hadn’t been wasteful, only spending money on bills, groceries, and other essentials a girl needs, I’m now broke—like, scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel broke.
I came across a job listing from Spencer Blackstone of Blackstone Family Enterprises months ago. Even though the listing was for an executive assistant, the pay—five thousand dollars a week—was substantially more than my previous job. I was so surprised by the amount that I checked to make sure I hadn’t accidentally found my way to a phishing site. I hadn’t. The listing was on the official Headhunters Deluxe website, and it was one of those positions that was only shown to a handful of candidates who possessed special keywords in their résumés. I have no idea what those special keywords were but I’m glad my resumé had them.
The Blackstone name is in the same category as DuPont, Carnegie, and Rockefeller. If anyone could afford to pay an assistant that much money, it would be someone with that last name. So, just for the hell of it, I clicked the apply button. I never expected to hear back from anyone because I’m not a trained executive assistant, but on Friday, I received a call.
“Is this Jada Forte?” the man asked in a lifeless voice.
I frowned. “It is, and to whom am I speaking?” I asked, remembering to sound professional.
“This is Spencer Blackstone. I find your experience valuable. Could you start in three days?”
The Spencer Blackstone, I thought—no way. I didn’t know much about the Blackstones other than that the patriarch died last year. I also knew that the brothers were hot—like, JFK Jr. hot—and rich and probably too damn important to make hiring calls to potential assistants.
“Is this Hope screwing with me?” I asked, even though I knew she’d never do anything like that. But Hope playing a prank on me felt more plausible than receiving a phone call directly from the Spencer Blackstone.
He remained silent for a beat. “I am not Hope, and I am not screwing with you.”
My muscles tensed, and a flare of adrenaline fired up my brain. “Are you really Spencer Blackstone?” I asked, clutching my suddenly queasy stomach as I recalled how much the job paid.
“Yes, I am,” he said curtly. “And are you Jada Forte?”
I picked my jaw up off the ground. “Um, yes, and I’m sorry. It’s just hard to believe someone of your stature would make this sort of call himself.”
“I understand,” he whispered. “This job requires a sizeable amount of discretion. You will be working for me personally, not for my company. I’ve read your résumé and checked your background. As I said, I would like to hire you for this job.”
I felt the tension in my body deflate. He had effectively put my mind at ease. Holy hell, I thought. I was on the phone with an actual billionaire. “Yes, I’m sorry, but is the salary really five K a week?”
“Yes,” he said in the same lifeless voice.
I opened my mouth, silently screaming as a thrill raced through me, even though I knew my mom would not be pleased with me taking an assistant job no matter how much it paid. I could hear her lecturing me. “Jada, why would you make the asinine decision of taking a professional position that’s so beneath you? An assistant? This will ruin your upward trajectory.” I pictured her shaking her head at how pathetic my decision made me.
But screw pleasing my mom—in one month, I will be able to pay off all my overextended credit cards and save up again for another rainy day. And I won’t be under so much pressure to find just any job. I could make the perfect career choice for me.
“Yes. I will take the job,” I had said, masking my excitement.
“Fine. Are you able to relocate to Jackson Hole, Wyoming in three days?”
And that was when my happiness fizzled into distress. I paused as my mind calculated all those miles between Wyoming and Manhattan. I would miss m
“Ten thousand a week,” he said as if realizing my long pause was about to end with me declining his job offer.
I nearly knocked my lukewarm coffee off my desk after hearing that number. “I’m sorry, did you say ten thousand a week?”
“And I need a commitment of six months,” he added.
My brain did the math. I would make nearly a quarter of a million dollars. And so I said, “yes.” I took the job.
Initially, he was going to fly me to Wyoming, but he called me back an hour later to mumble that the account he’d been planning to use wouldn’t work. He asked if I could find my way to the ranch and that he would reimburse me upon arrival. I’m still kicking myself for letting my pride get in the way. I said, “Okay.” But I should’ve admitted that I couldn’t afford a plane ticket. I didn’t want him to sense my desperation, I guess.
With my last two hundred bucks of disposable cash in the bank, I bought a standby ticket for $191. Hope drove me to the airport, so I didn’t have to pay to ride the subway. Luckily, I was able to get a fast flight out of New York and didn’t hit a snag until Salt Lake City.
On night one of being stuck in the airport, I came close to securing a flight, but the late party showed up at the last minute, and I was bumped from the only available seat on the small airplane. The next day, I was bumped from every flight that was heading to Jackson Hole. The ticket agents kept apologizing, promising that what was happening was unprecedented.
By day three, everyone who worked behind the counter was pulling for me to hook a flight and not get bumped. But it was looking like I was going to be forced to sleep on those uncomfortable chairs again, so, I forced myself to choose option number two and call Spencer Blackstone and ask for help.
I frantically relayed my experience of the last forty-eight hours. Once I finished gushing, I squeezed my eyes shut and took a breath. He remained as silent as a church mouse for way too long.
“Hello?” I finally asked.
“You’re in Salt Lake City,” he said in the same lackluster voice he’d used when he offered me the job.
“Um, yes,” I replied, half hoping he would just fire me. Then it hit me. The only reason why I hadn’t called him on day one was because I wanted to sabotage my job. I wanted him to fire me.
“I’ll call you back.” He hung up.
The chilling remnants of his voice haunted me. I thought, there’s something certainly wrong with a man who had no variation in his tone. I was an intuitive person, and I could feel his unhappiness seeping into my mind and infecting my soul. I twisted my neck to ease the soreness, which came from sleeping on the seats. But almost a quarter mil? Could I really let that kind of cash get away from me?
Just come back home where you belong, I heard my mother’s voice say.
But where is that? New York or California? I asked the Patricia who lived in my head.
With me, she snapped, and I quickly stiffened.
Thank goodness my phone rang again. It was Mr. Blackstone, and he said a car would be waiting for me at Arrivals within an hour. He ended the call in the same abrupt manner he’d used earlier.
“Wow, what a…” I whispered, looking at my phone. I didn’t want to say it. If he turned out to be an asshole, that would be the worse-case scenario—no one wanted to pack up, talk her landlord into allowing her to vacate her apartment without notice, accept her friend’s offer to pick up her things and put them in storage, and travel way across the country, all to work for an asshole.
It took nearly an hour to get my luggage from the standby area. They had to find it. I was sweating with every step, feeling as if my feet were made of cement, by the time a car took me to another airport in the vicinity. This time, I boarded a small private airplane and left Salt Lake City for Jackson Hole. The flight was bumpy with no frills or thrills. I prayed the whole way and prepared to die, especially after the aircraft took a sharp dip. At twenty-nine years old, I was probably too young for a heart attack, but for a little while, I thought I was having one. Then the pilot’s voice came over the loudspeaker, apologizing for the drop and telling me not to worry and that the turbulence was worse than usual. I took my inability to secure a flight out of SLC for almost three days, the stress of getting my luggage, and the latest encounter with deathly turbulence as signs that greed had probably made me make the wrong decision. I should have stayed in New York.
But now I’m here, being driven past more fields of wild grass. Goodness gracious, I really don’t want to be here. I’ve been visualizing Mr. Blackstone telling me that our arrangement isn’t going to work. It had been difficult to get a solid grasp on what he looks like in person. In photos, he’s tall, in great shape, and has a head of floppy but perfectly combed hair. He has the sort of mysterious, uninhibited gaze that belong to men who know they have the world at their fingertips. Hope told me that she’s seen him in passing once and that I’m in for the surprise of my life.
“Then he’s cute?” I asked.
We had this conversation on the night I accepted the job. I met her at a bar in the East Village to tell her all about my new position.
That wicked, amused look came to her eyes. “Here, I think we should look together.” She whipped out her cell phone and placed it face up in the middle of our table as she called up photo after photo of my new boss. The clips made it abundantly clear that he was a playboy with a cocky grin and a slouchy devil-may-care posture, carrying himself as though he was the rich douchebag crown prince of the universe. And in just about every photo, his arm was around a beautiful lovestruck woman. However, I also noticed that all the pics were from over five years ago.
“You see him?” Hope asked before darkening her display screen. “Your new boss loves the ladies.”
My smile wavered as I thought about how much his tone hadn’t matched the man depicted in the Internet images. “Well, let’s read some of the articles,” I said, tapping her phone.
“Nope. Don’t read anything about him. Go into your new situation with no judgment.” She cocked her head in a curious manner. “I take it you haven’t read the book, have you?”
“What book?”
“Forget about it. The less about him you know, the happier you’ll be in Montana.”
I rolled my eyes. “Wyoming.” The fact that I had to correct her irritated me. I couldn’t say why—it just did.
“Right,” she replied glibly and raised a finger in caution. “As I said, don’t read the book. And don’t worry about him either. If he wants to bang you—and I’m sure he’s going to want that from someone who has your face and body… I mean, boobs…” Hope put her hands together in prayer. “If only I had been so blessed.”
“Oh, gosh, please somebody, make her stop,” I said.
She chuckled. “Whatever… But for forty thousand a month, just say no—or yes, depending on how you feel. I mean, that’s if…”
I turned my head slightly. “If what?”
She wrinkled her nose as if cautiously broaching what she planned to say next. “Jada, aren’t you a virgin?”
My mouth fell open as my skin tingled. Yes, I’m a virgin, but I never told her that. As a matter of fact, I made up some past sexual experiences designed to convince her I wasn’t a virgin. Of course, I felt horrible about lying to my best friend, but she was one of those sexually free women. I’m five-eight, but she’s two inches taller, so guys always see Hope first when we walk into a room. And she’s very beautiful, cover-shot beautiful. So lots of men want to sleep with her, and she doesn’t mind sleeping with them too. I’m a different animal from Hope. The last thing I need from a man is his penis inside me. The first thing I want from any man who will be my lover is a sharp mind and a kind heart, and of course chemistry matters.
