“Okay,” I say, brushing hair from her face. “Time for bed, Piglet. Get ready while I check on Maggie.”
She nods, cheeks flushed, and I step out.
No amount of money compares to spending time with my daughter. Not the empire I’ve built, not the penthouse views or tailored suits, or even the boardroom wins that keep piling up like trophies on a shelf I no longer admire.
I don’t know who I’d be without Brianna.
Probably some lonely, bitter billionaire screwing his way through meaningless nights.
I find Maggie in the kitchen, rummaging through the pantry.
“What are you doing?”
“Feeding your ungrateful arse,” she replies without looking up. “Even though you tackled an old woman.”
“Oh, piss off,” I grumble. “You’re notthatold.”
She laughs and gives me a little shove on the shoulder. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
After bedtime routines and dinner, Maggie leaves and I head to my office in the back of the house, pour myself a glass of whiskey and sit at the desk, staring down the mountain of résumés.
The junior designer interviews start in two days and I haven’t even looked at any of the interviewees.
I down the drink, take a breath, and dive in.
It’s almost midnight when I spot a name: Mya Dessen-Jones.
Barely any experience, but top of her class. 4.2 GPA. Excellent recommendations.
HR must’ve flagged her for her academics alone.
I linger on her file a little longer than I should, wondering if she might be the right person to finally fill the role. We need someone hungry who can execute.
Then I leave everything on the desk, check on Bri one more time, and head to bed.
2
MYA
“MYA DESSEN-JONES!” A familiar voice shouts from my left.
My hand jerks and boiling hot coffee splashes from the reusable cup all over the expensive machine. I hiss in pain as it hits my skin, dropping the cup and scrambling for a rag.
“Shit,” I mutter, patting the mess frantically.
I didn’t even realize I was still holding the lever. I was in another dimension entirely until my best friend-slash-manager-slash-sister-from-another-mister snapped me out of my trance. Tiana stares at me, tilting her head to the side toward the client in line.
I glance up, flustered, only to meet the impatient silence of the man waiting for his double shot Americano mist. He doesn’t say a word, just grunts and goes back to scrolling on his phone like I’m some glitch in the matrix he can’t be bothered to acknowledge.
“Sorry about that.”
Of course, he doesn’t look up.Prick.
He’s tall and broad-shouldered, in a tailored charcoal suit that looks like it was stitched directly onto him by a very expensive Italian man, with a very precise measuring tape.His hand, still gripping the phone, has perfectly manicured nails. Not a hangnail in sight.Who even has time for cuticle maintenance?I bite back a scoff as I finish remaking his drink.
Then I catch a glimpse of his profile as he leans forward, enough for the overhead light to graze the sharp edge of his jaw and the striking contrast of his salt-and-pepper beard.
I don’t even need to see his entire face to know that he’s stupidly handsome. Like,rude-level handsome. His hair is just as perfect as the rest of him.