Tapping The Billionaire (Bad Boy Billionaires #1)(100)

Wrinkles formed between his eyes as he concentrated and read.

“Are you serious right now?” Thatch asked, shaking the paper in front of him and looking deep into my eyes. He’d never looked at me that seriously. I was obviously scaring him.

“As a f*cking heart attack,” I confirmed.

“K—”

“Just do it!” I snapped, rolling my neck from side to side and blowing out a deep breath to calm down.

Fuck, I was tense. More so than I’d ever been in my entire goddamn life, and my nerves were shot. If people didn’t start doing what I said, right when I said it, I was liable to lose my f*cking mind.

He shook his head disdainfully, but either my totally f*cked up head was playing tricks on me or the curve of his smile was growing with each pass.

“You are one crazy motherf*cker, you know that?” he asked, his lips turned up in a full-on smile. I knew I wasn’t making it up now.

I nodded a few times before the intensity of his happiness had me shaking my head. “Why are you smiling like a goddamn lunatic?”

“Because,” he said in another uncharacteristic display of seriousness. “I’m f*cking thrilled to see you this happy.”

Happy? Was he high? I’d never been this f*cking heartbroken.

“Dude, I’ve never been this miserable.”

He nearly choked on a laugh. “Yeah, but see, that’s the flip side. Crazy in love can only mean one of two things.” He ticked each option off on his fingers. “Maniacally happy or butt-f*ck desolate. It’s one or the other, and it all hangs on the notion of said person loving you back.”

He shook the paper in his hands. “I admire you. Fucking up but f*cking doing something about it. This is what makes a man. Buried to shit in the weeds so he takes out a machete.”

I cracked a smile for the first time in two days.

“Just make sure it doesn’t take me four f*cking years to cut my way out, okay?”

“I’ll have the contract ready by Friday at the latest. There’s some red tape, but you can thank me again for stopping you from caving to a structure with a board of directors. If you had, you’d have been f*cked.”

I shook my head.

He turned an ear toward me, cocked a brow, and waved a hand in invitation.

I rolled my eyes but played along. “Thank you, Thatch, for having the foresight to make it possible to make a last-ditch grand gesture in the name of love without being completely f*cked.”

He bowed slightly, tucking one hand to his stomach and the other to his back. “You’re welcome.”

My office phone ringing had me rounding the desk and meeting his eyes in question. He waved his permission.

“Brooks,” I answered shortly.

“Kline, Kline, Kline.” Wes tsked in my ear.

Jesus. I didn’t know if I had the energy for both of them.

“This really isn’t a good time, Wes.”

“It never is—”

True enough.

“But I think you’ll want to hear this,” he taunted.

Like a starving fish, I took the bait on the line without question.

“What?”

“We just interviewed a new employee—”

Goddamn, everyone was making it their f*cking mission to annoy me today. New conquests from one and new hires from the next, I had no desire to hear any of it.

“Wes—”

“Pretty little thing. Can’t be more than five one, five two, but by God, she’s got a body on her.”

My stomach jumped with excitement and roiled with sick all at once. He sat silent on the line, just waiting.

“You saw her?”

“Nope, not me. She’s in with the GM now. He wanted me to call and look into her references while she’s in there, though, seeing as he liked the girl so much and didn’t want to waste time getting an offer together.”

The words burned my throat as I said them. “You’re a f*cking moron if you don’t hire her.”

“No kidding.”

I’d never wanted to slit the throat of a friend before, but I guessed there was a time and circumstance for everything.

Thatch looked on as I worked hard to compose myself. Sure, I had a plan, but I had no idea how she’d react. I could very well still be royally screwed.

If that was the case, I still wanted the very best for her.

“Just…look out for her, okay?” My voice didn’t even sound like my own, and Thatch looked away. The big f*cking ox couldn’t stand it either.

“You know I will, dude.”

I nodded at the phone, too choked up to speak, and when it made me think of her, a single tear broke through the last goddamn barrier.





“Girl, it’s pandemonium here! Where in the hell have you been? Do you even know what’s going on?!” Dean shouted into my ear, not even offering a simple “Hello” or “How are you?”

I yanked the phone away from my face, my mouth contorting in pain.

Jesus, he was worked up about something. I could picture him pacing, his body vibrating with the need to tell someone whatever gossip he’d grabbed ahold of. If there was one thing Dean was great for when I was at…yeah, that place I’d rather never speak of again, it was keeping his ear to the ground and getting the down and dirty scoop on everything.