Page 1 of Taming the Billionaire Cowboy (The Billionaire’s Bidding #3)

OLIVER

A cross the long boardroom table, a partner waves his hand at a scale model of a massive building. He fires questions that hit my ears like bullets. His team scribbles down answers I don’t have. When I steal a glance at the clock, it is still eleven. Or eleven again.

Or maybe my head is stuck and can’t move forward with the time.

Wait… does that even make sense?

We’re supposed to be talking numbers, timelines, and details of the building materials. But instead, I hear him asking different questions. I hear him saying we’re not ready.

The room tilts with all these people around the table, so many of them looking straight at me. Dave, my COO, sends a hopeful glance my way, and I try to send one back. Marie’s eyes dart up, back to her laptop, and then up again. I open my mouth. My throat feels tight.

“That’s a big risk,” someone — what’s his name again? — says, shaking his head. “We’re gonna need something more.”

His tie has purple stripes. I don’t know why I notice that. It’s loose round his neck, while mine feels like a noose.

“Absolutely,” Dave says. “We hear you loud and clear.”

The man — the potential seller — leans back, rocks in his chair so far that I think it might break.

He turns to his team, and I hear a murmur of agreement ripple through them.

I wipe sweat off my brow and stand. I’ve never lost a deal like this, not one this big.

The room is swimming, and I should be able to swim right along with it, but I can’t. I’m drowning.

Why can’t I hear what people are saying? I see their mouths moving, clear as day, but it’s like nothing is coming out of them. Have I lost my hearing?

There are silent goodbyes. Handshakes. Everyone is looking at me, their brows etched with confusion.

“Thank you,” I manage. “We’ll be in … uh — we’ll talk more about the deal.”

“Oliver, are you okay?” It’s Marie, my assistant.

“Peachy,” I say. My voice is strangled and sounds far away.

It’s hard to stand, my knees are trembling and weak. At least everyone is walking out of the boardroom, leaving just Dave, Marie, and me behind.

“I’m good,” I say, because the two of them are still staring at me.

But I know I’m not. I’m breathing hard. Too hard. It’s haphazard and quick. My lungs can’t fill, and it feels like they’re being crushed by some invisible weight.

“That’s it,” Dave says. “We’re going to the hospital. No more messing around.”

“I’m fine,” I insist, even as the room spins.

“Right,” Dave says, all business. “That’s why you’re three shades of white. Marie, bring the car around.”

“On it.” She’s already on her feet, her heels clicking on the floor like a typewriter as she hurries away.

Dave puts his hand on my shoulder and steers me like he steers every meeting he’s ever been in. “Oliver,” he says, “do us all a favor. Don’t be an idiot about this.”

“I’m fine,” I insist, even though my chest is hurting.

Somehow — I don’t even know if we take the stairs or the elevator — Dave and I end up outside Mid Coast Realty. Marie is already parked at the curb, the passenger door open and waiting for me.

“Take him straight there,” Dave tells Marie. He points a finger at me. “I’ll cover for you here, and you cover yourself by staying alive. Got it?”

I try to respond, but I can’t. All of the colors are wrong, all of reality twisting and pulsating in ways that it shouldn’t. I flop down into the passenger’s seat, feeling the shame of losing control in front of clients washing over me.

Marie puts the car into gear, and we’re off. I can’t stop seeing the partners as they walked out the door, as the project collapsed like an empty paper bag. With every repetition of the memory, my chest tightens a bit more.

“There’s no time for this,” I say. “I should go back?—”

“There’s plenty of time,” she insists. “And think of how many deals you’ll lose if you end up in a coffin.”

My chest feels like it’s hollow, like I’ve been scooped out and filled with air. “I just need a minute.”

“No. What you need is a doctor.”

We pull up to the hospital, and Marie hops out of the car and flags down a nurse with a wheelchair, insisting they get me checked over right away. She says something about a heart attack, and I try to protest, but it’s like my tongue is all tied up and I can’t loosen it for the life of me.

In a small room with fluorescent lights a nurse hooks me up to an EKG and tells me to breathe slowly. I try, but it’s not slow. It’s not easy.

Marie sits in the corner, my young assistant, who is usually so confident, now looking at me with eyes as big as dinner plates. I’ve let her down. I’ve let everyone at the company down.

An eternity later, the doctor finally comes in. I almost tell him not to bother, that it’s nothing. Obviously, I’m still alive, so whatever happened to me, it couldn’t have been that big a deal… right?

“How are you feeling?” he asks.

“I’m… better.” I only realize this as I say it. The world, once tilted, seems to have gone back to normal, and my chest no longer hurts.

“You had a panic attack.”

I blink at him. “I… I don’t have panic attacks.”

I swear I can actually see Marie’s ears perk up.

“You’ve been lucky this time,” the doctor says.

He talks in a way that makes me think he’s spent a lot of time with people like me - people who think they’re invincible until the day they fall apart.

“But you’re headed for real trouble if you don’t take it down a notch.

Based on your results, you’re under a lot of stress.

It needs to be managed, or next time it could be a heart attack. ”

I nod and say something like I understand . What I really understand is how impossible it all sounds. I’m strong. I always have been. I was on swim teams through high school and college, and I still lift weights and play tennis on the weekends. I eat healthily, thanks to my private chef. And sleep…

Well, that could be better, but who couldn’t stand to get more rest?

The doctor gives me some informational handouts and sends me on my way. I leave the hospital, Marie at my side, my face burning in shame. A panic attack.

A stupid little panic attack… and it nearly brought me down.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Marie says as we leave the hospital parking lot.

“Yeah,” I mumble. “Me, too. but what the doctor said… I can’t take it slow. Not when?—”

“Slow is good. Your heart likes slow.”

“Slow is expensive,” I tell her. “Do you know how much we lose in a week of not working?”

“I know how much you lose if you’re not breathing.”

The problem with Marie is that she’s right more often than I’d like her to be.

She’s not much more than a kid, only in her early twenties, but she’s the most intelligent assistant I’ve ever had, and there’s a good chance that one day she’ll be running this country.

So, I know I should listen to her. I just don’t want to.

And yet a year ago, a scare like this would have rolled off my back, like everything else. I’d have been straight back in the office, chomping at the bit like some crazed thoroughbred. But this feels different. It suddenly feels like my joints are made of creaky old wood.

I nod. My throat is dry and feels full of rust. “I hear you. The doctor hears you.”

“Good. That means the world will keep turning.” She stops for a light. “What are you gonna do? Say it out loud.”

“Take it easy,” I say. It sounds fake, even to me.

Marie’s tapping on the steering wheel and smiling. “Even a long weekend will help. Or you know what? Take a real vacation.” She eyes me up and down, like I’m a used car and she’s thinking of buying me. “You can manage, Oliver. Really.”

I remember a few years back when I ended up staying overnight in a hospital bed with pneumonia.

It was a lot like this, but my body bounced straight back.

I was twenty-seven then, practically immortal.

Not anymore. Now I worry there’s less bounce, and if I don’t watch it, I might fall down one of these days and not be able to get up.

“I’m serious,” Marie says. “I want to see you chill out a little.”

“And miss the thrilling deadlines?”

She frowns. “Yes, even those.”

I groan. She acts like I’ll get used to this. Like I’ll enjoy it. She doesn’t get what it’s like to be the one at the top. “It’s hard,” I say, “to slow down when everyone’s counting on you.”

“They can count on you for a much longer time if you chill out now. It’s worth it.”

The car moves smoothly, and Marie is taking turns without missing a beat. I can’t stand how young and carefree she is. I should be doing all this, should be taking care of her, not the other way around. But I’m in no shape for it. Not now.

“Ever been on a ranch?” she asks.

It’s a weird, random question. “Does my lawn count?”

She laughs. “My family used to go on a ranch vacation every summer. It’s good for you. Slower pace, fresh air, that whole thing.”

I try to picture myself sitting on a porch, nothing but time and grass. It makes me dizzy, or maybe I’m still dizzy from the panic attack earlier. “What’s the point?” I ask. “Chase chickens, rope cattle?”

She shakes her head. “Being bored, not really having much to do… it helps you figure stuff out. Like how to chill. How not to have panic attacks and die of a weak heart.” Her turn signal ticks as we wind around a corner. “You’d like it more than you think.”

“I bet it’s as boring as it sounds.”

“That’s the idea.”

I grumble and feel another tightness in my chest, this one born of lists and tasks I can’t attend to, lists that are suddenly as long as my life feels short. It’s nothing I can go to a doctor for. There’s no pill for a type A personality.

“I’ll put it on my calendar,” I say, pulling out my phone.

“Put your calendar away.” She nabs my phone from my hand and tosses it onto the back seat. “I’ll book you a stay somewhere.”

But I’m shaking my head. I already know that I don’t want to be around other people, even if they’re only staff catering to my needs. If I’m going to do this vacation at all, I want to do it properly.

“I have a better idea,” I tell her, suddenly feeling the best I have all day.