Page 11 of Chosen By a Billionaire (Rags to Romance #24)

The CEO and COO of Bainbridge Capital Trust got into their chauffeur-driven limousine and left the restaurant together. Carter, who rode over with Harrison, was seated inside Harrison’s limousine waiting for him to end his conference call. And that was when Raymond knocked on the window.

Carter frowned when he saw who it was and pressed down the window. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“She said no.”

“Who said no?”

“Jayda. The girl you want for the party.”

Harrison looked over at Raymond. “I’ll get back with you shortly, gentlemen,” he said into his car phone and ended the conference call. He looked at Raymond.

“Why on earth would she say no?” asked Carter him.

“She said she’s got a bad feeling about it. Like she don’t trust y’all. Like y’all are gonna abuse her or something, and she ain’t that kind of girl.”

“Oh for crying out loud!” said a flustered Carter. “Nobody wants to abuse that child.”

“She ain’t a child, Mister.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” said an even more flustered Carter.

“How can she be persuaded?” Harrison asked Raymond.

Raymond thought about it. “Her old man dumped her and left her holding the whole rent bag by herself. Which she can’t pay on her own. She’s gonna be evicted by next month if she don’t be able to pay her full rent. Maybe an advance would help.”

“An advance ?” Carter was livid. “Who pays a waitress an advance?”

But Harrison wasn’t so dismissive. He’d already made up his mind that she was who he wanted. “It would force her to show up at least,” Harrison said to Carter. Then he looked at Raymond. “Are you sure that will do the trick?”

“I’ll be honest with you. She’s scared. She need the money, but not like that.”

“Like what?” asked Carter. “Why do you keep insinuating that we’re sex traffickers or something?”

“Where is she now?” asked Harrison.

“She’s working. Where else she gonna be?”

Harrison began unbuckling his seatbelt.

Carter frowned. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Harrison didn’t want to be bothered with this any more than Carter did, but he felt he needed to intervene.

She was the only woman he was going to consider taking to his father’s estate.

She was the only one he wanted to consider.

And she was also, if he were to be honest with himself, the only woman at present that he wanted in his bed.

“She needs to be persuaded. I’m going to persuade her,” he said as he got out of the limousine.

Vincent, his bodyguard, hurried out from the front passenger seat, suddenly caught off guard by the boss’s quick move.

But Harrison was already out and heading for the restaurant’s entrance by the time he made it in front of him and opened the restaurant door for him.

Carter hurried out behind them, and he and Raymond hurried inside too.

Inside, Raymond escorted Harrison, Carter, and Vincent to the employee break room, and then went and got Jayda.

“Some breakroom,” Carter said as he looked at the cheap table and chairs and the microwave and snack machine. He ran his fingers across the table and dust appeared. “Filthy too.”

Harrison sat sideways at the small table and crossed his legs. He couldn’t care less about the state of that breakroom. He just wanted to get her onboard and then get the hell out of there. His usual evening headache was coming on.

Although Vincent remained standing against the wall so that he could see who was coming and going out of that breakroom, Carter finally sat down too.

“I can see your point about impressing your old man with a move like this. I can see where you’re going with it.

But why this girl? Why not a black woman in a social status more like ours?

There’s plenty I can recommend. And I’m talking some foxy ladies. Why this nobody waitress? Why her ?”

Harrison exhaled. It was a feeling, that was why. It was his reaction to her. But that was his business. “Why not her?” he responded.

“Okay. Maybe her low social status is a part of your scheme. I can get that too. But there’s other black women in this place who won’t pull all this diva shit she’s pulling.

The black lady bartender for instance. That manager said she was down for whatever.

Why don’t you go with her? She might not be so hard to get as this nobody waitress appears to be.

We don’t need a hard-to-get. We need a willing participant. ”

When Harrison said nothing, Carter continued.

“Why did you single her out anyway after what she did to your car? And it wasn’t like she was some superstar waitress at our table.

To me she kind of sucked. Wouldn’t flirt.

Wouldn’t joke around. Just all business all the time.

But you seemed smitten with her even while you were looking at her on that security monitor in your office. ”

“I’m not smitten with anyone,” Harrison quickly pointed out. “My interest in her is strictly business.”

Carter inwardly sneered. Strictly business his ass. But that was Harrison.

“She’s a means to an end,” Harrison continued.

“No more, no less. You said it yourself. For Father to choose me, I need to get the upper hand. Given my father’s affinity for the African American race, I’m inclined to believe she may be able to give me that advantage.

My father wants the head of Bainbridge Oil to be a married man.

It’s ludicrous to me, but I accept that.

Once he sees who I’m engaged to marry, he very well might be quite pleased. ”

“I agree with that,” said Carter. “In theory, anyway, I agree. But the way you were looking at her seemed less about your father’s needs or interests, and more about your own.”

Harrison gave him a hard look, but he didn’t deny it. Which was always the tell with Harrison. If he didn’t immediately deny something, it had at least a kernel of truth.

And then the door to the breakroom opened, and Jayda walked inside.

She was surprised to see that the man they referred to as the boss, and the one she referred to as the perv, was in the breakroom too.

And the way he was sitting at that little table made him look even more imposing than he did in the restaurant, or in front of that office building.

Why would he be in their breakroom? “My manager said you wanted to see me?”

Harrison was floored when that rush of emotions overtook him again as soon as she walked into that room. It floored him so that he didn’t even hear her question.

But Carter heard it. “Why did you turn down the job? It pays very well.”

“But what am I being paid to do?” asked Jayda. “I’m not participating in any nonsense.”

Carter was offended. “Neither are we! What’s with you people? It’s a dinner party. Didn’t your boss tell you that?”

Now Jayda wasn’t as surefooted, given how offended the shorter man seemed. “Well, yes, he told me that. But . . .”

“But what? Where is this fear coming from?”

Harrison could feel her distress, and oddly enough it distressed him. He decided to help her. “I wish to offer an advance to assure you that I won’t stiff you, or abuse you, or allow you to be abused, in any way.”

Jayda knew that abuse part was coming from what Raymond had told him, but it still felt reassuring to her. “I’m not saying that I thought that you’d do something like that,” she felt a need to say.

“That’s not entirely true,” Harrison said to her. Then he looked at her. “Now is it?”

Jayda felt exposed, but rightly so. “No. Not entirely.”

Harrison stared at her. There was an honorableness about her that fascinated him. And that made him even more certain that he just might have stumbled upon the absolute right one for the job.

He pulled out his checkbook, wrote a check, and then tore it out and handed it to her.

Although he left the pay to the order of line blank, he did sign it. But it was the amount of the check that had Jayda’s full attention. She looked at that amount, and then looked at him. “ Four-thousand dollars ?”

Even Carter was shocked by that figure.

“It’s an advance,” said Harrison, closing his checkbook. “You’ll get at least double that amount at the end of the evening.” Then he stood up and extended his hand. “Do we have a deal, young lady?”

It was more than enough to cover her rent next month. Her entire rent, not just Kenny’s half!

She knew she should question it. Were rich people that frivolous with money that he would pay a server that much for one evening? Or was it more to it than that? She knew she should question it.

But as she looked into the eyes of the man that had given her that check, she saw a softness there, a kindness, that made her feel as if he would never harm her.

Although she knew it could be the money that had her feeling that way, money she so desperately needed, she still felt that way.

But regardless of where that feeling was coming from, she was nobody’s fool.

No way was she giving back a bird in the hand!

That was why she shook his massive-size hand.

When they touched, both of them felt a jolt.

So much so that Jayda looked into Harrison’s eyes to see if he felt it too.

He seemed so different than he did in front of that office building.

He came across as a mean, intimidating sort of person when they first met.

But he didn’t come across that way to her in that breakroom.

He seemed kind and considerate: a caring person standing in front of her.

She didn’t know why she felt that way, but that how she felt.

They held each other’s hand longer than everybody in that room knew was necessary, but then Harrison released her hand so abruptly that she didn’t get a chance to register why she was suddenly feeling so definitive about him.

Maybe that was money-driven too. But it was money she couldn’t refuse because it was in her possession now.

It stood between her and homelessness next month. She was keeping that cash.

“You have a deal,” she said to him, “but on one condition.”

Carter and Vincent glanced at each other with that check her out look on their faces.

Harrison should have been irritated with her, too, but he was too intrigued. “What condition?”

“You have to promise me that no clothes will come off at your party.”

Carter couldn’t believe this girl. Vincent either.

And although Harrison wasn’t exactly smiling either, Jayda could see a kind of relief wash over him too.

As if he really wanted her to serve at his party.

As if he really wanted her in that capacity.

Which still baffled her. “No clothes will come off,” he said to her and in that moment he meant it. “On that I promise you.”

Jayda smiled. And they shook hands again. But this time very briefly. And then Harrison gave her a slight nod of his head, which was reassuring too, and left the break room. Vincent hurried behind him.

“Be there seven-thirty sharp,” quipped Carter, snapping her out of her reverie, as he left too.

When they all were gone, Jayda quickly went to a cabinet above the microwave, found a pen with black ink, and wrote her name on the Pay to the Order of line.

Then she signed her name on the back of the check too.

Then she pulled out her phone, went to her bank app, and immediately online-deposited that check into her dismal bank account.

She knew it could bounce. She knew he could try to put a stop payment on it before the bank approved it.

But at least she had hope again. At least she could pay her rent if all went well next month again. At least that.

After she deposited that check through her bank app, she looked at those digits again and exhaled. And then she smiled a smile of undeniable relief. Then she hurried to her locker and put the actual check in her big shoulder bag in case she needed it later. She locked it back up.

She leaned against the locker thinking about that tall handsome man that had given her that money, and why he would have chosen her of all people.

And just the thought of it made her smile again.

She wasn’t accustomed to being singled out in a good way, and it felt so different, but so great too.

Because maybe he liked her. Maybe it was as simple as that.

And because he liked her, perhaps he wanted to give her that opportunity to make big money fast, and not give it to somebody he didn’t like.

Maybe.

But why would he like her? She was the one that called him a pervert.

She put a dent in his limousine. Why would she be so convinced she was singled out in a good way?

But that was how she felt. Looking in his eyes, and shaking his hand, convinced her.

And the fact that he gave her a four-thousand-dollar advance convinced her pocketbook.

The party was two weeks away. That was plenty time for that check to clear, and for her to purchase some Mace and pepper spray.

If they tried any funny business at that party, she was going to spray the shit out of them and get out of there.

But somehow she felt that wasn’t going to be necessary.

She could have been deluding herself, she knew, but that was how she felt.

Then she realized she wasn’t living over the rainbow somewhere, but was still in the real world, and still on the clock, and still had a job to do. She forgot about that handsome stranger who could write a big check and hand it over as if it was chump change, and hurried her butt back to work.