The Billionaire Next Door (Billionaire Bad Boys #2)(96)

Not that he was Isa’s type. Business guys in suits for clients, yes. Business guys in suits for dating potential, no thanks. She’d been there, done that, and picked up the dry cleaning.

“Mr. Crane, I’m sorry we aren’t speaking under better circumstances.”

“So am I. You promised me you’d found the ideal PA for Eli this time around.”

Melanie hadn’t exactly been second string, but Isa had already sent her top choices. Elijah Crane had chased off every last one of them. They were down to her assistant Chloe or a new hire named Joseph. No way would he last thirty seconds.

Isa refused to pull her other PAs off current assignments to cater to Elijah Crane. If she lost the Crane business, she’d need her current clients or they’d all starve.

“Solve my problem.” Reese’s commanding tone brooked no argument, nor should it. Isa was at his beck and call for one simple reason: his seal of approval would boost her budding business or, if she continued to fail at finding a suitable assistant for his brother, could tank it. She wanted a foot in the door with the elite in Chicago, and Reese held the key.

“I have a solution,” she said. “A PA who has over three years’ experience at my company, a decade prior to that working as right-hand woman at Sawyer Personal Finance, and I guarantee your brother absolutely will not succeed in scaring her away.”

“And who is this maven?” he asked, but the lilt of his voice suggested he already knew.

“Me.”

A quiet grunt that could have been a laugh came through the phone. “I take it you’re not much of a wilter.”

“No. I’m tenacious and stubborn.”

“An exact match for Eli.”

“Once I convince him to get more involved in Crane Hotels, I’m sure I can place one of our many qualified assistants in my stead. I do have a company to run.”

She cleared her throat, her mother’s scolding voice in the back of her mind. Be polite, Isabella. No man likes a woman who disrespects him.

“My foray as his assistant will be brief,” she continued. “But there’s no need for him to know I’m top brass. I’ll act as if I’m number eleven and give him a run for his money.”

“Eleven,” Reese repeated, and Isa could have kicked herself for reminding him how many assistants they’d run through already.

“I apologize for the lack of follow-through you’ve seen so far. I appreciate you giving Sable Concierge another chance. My company is one I want you to lean on any time you’re in need of help.”

“Your company came highly recommended, Ms. Sawyer,” Reese said, his voice softening some. Isabella knew why. Reese’s voice did that whenever the topic of his wife came up.

“Thank Merina for me again,” Isa told him.

“I will. Your success is imminent, I presume.”

“You can bank on it.” She said her goodbyes and hung up the phone, pulling in a steady breath. One more shot. She had one more shot to pull this off. No, Reese hadn’t said it, but he hadn’t needed to. She’d fire her if she were him. Wife-recommended or no.

Last fall, Isa randomly scored a position for one of her assistants at the Van Heusen hotel with Merina Crane. Merina had suggested Isa’s company for Elijah’s transition from the military to Crane corporate. In comparison to what Merina’s brother-in-law had been through already, placing a PA should’ve been easy. Eli had already been through the physical hoops to regain his mobility using a prosthetic leg, and his warehouse home was equipped to accommodate his working at home.

The assistant’s job was to help him field conference calls, answer and forward emails, and tend to the light load of work Reese had handed down to Eli to oversee.

Eli had done none of it.

Isa had sent in seasoned help each time, and a startling number of her employees left either in tears or so angry Isa nearly lost them altogether. Elijah, regardless of the team’s sensitivity training and the day they’d all spent with a rehabilitation expert for amputees, was not an easy guy to feel sorry for.

He was “mean,” according to one of her employees, “miserable” according to another, and to poor Melanie, who unfortunately had turned in her notice after her first and only day at Eli’s, had referred to him as a “monster” on her way out the door.

Isa wasn’t having it. If Eli sought misery, he could ruin his own life, not her company’s future. She’d expected Melanie to last two days. She lasted half that. Isa believed in always being prepared, so she’d been training Chloe to run the office in case of just this circumstance. Isa could run Sable Concierge after hours, answering emails and returning phone calls during lunch or early in the morning.

As owner and operator, Isa was willing to do what it took to shove her business to the next level. If she had to work two jobs, so be it.

Elijah Crane hadn’t given her much of a choice.

*



Eli sat at the kitchen table and watched the hubbub in front of him, chin resting in his hand, scowl on his face. His sister-in-law, Merina, was bustling around, setting the table. She paused in front of him.

“You look like your brother when you do that.” She hoisted an eyebrow and dropped it.

“The one you married or Tarzan?”

“I heard that,” Tag said, loping into the room with three bags from Chow Main, the best Chinese food joint in town. Eli’s mouth watered at the sight of the generic paper-inside-a-plastic bag. On it, a yellow smiley face, and beneath that red lettering that proclaimed HAVE A NICE DAY!