At The Billionaire's Request (The Billionaire's BBW Series)

Chapter One

Kirsty sat by her hotel room window, watching the sun go down over  London. Surely Tyler should have called by now. He had said he would meet her for dinner after a meeting he had at work. She checked her phone. No missed calls. Not that there was any chance she could miss a call anyway, the way she was constantly looking at the damn thing.

She hoped there wasn’t a problem. Tyler never usually stood her up when he said he was going to call. A dark thought entered her mind and she pushed it away but it returned stronger than before.

He’s had what he wants from you. Did you really think he could have a relationship with someone like you?

Kirsty held back tears at the thought that Tyler could have just been using her for sex. She tried to refuse to believe it. They had travelled around the country together for a month. He had told her he loved her.

That’s what they all say.

‘He’s probably just held up at his meeting,’ she said aloud, startled at how loud her voice sounded in the quiet room. It also lacked any conviction. She had endured being called cruel names ever since she had put on weight during her teenage years and although she had shrugged it off at the time, she carried the internal, emotional scars. Any confidence she had built up with Tyler was always fragile, threatening to crumble at any time.

She stood up and smoothed her skirt over her large thighs. Maybe she should get a cab over to Inception Publishing and wait for Tyler there.

A light rain started to fall as she climbed into the back of a taxi outside the hotel and it reminded Kirsty of the first time she had met Tyler. She had looked like a drowned rat. So much had happened between her and Tyler since then and she couldn’t bear it to come to an end. As the cab wound its way through London’s streets, she punched Tyler’s number into her phone again and waited as it rang on the other end.

No answer.

‘Isn’t there a quicker way?’ she asked the taxi driver as they got caught up in heavy traffic.

‘Sorry, love, it’s like this all the way to Clerkenwell Green because of the road works.’

This was no good. She could feel a panic rising within her and even though she knew she was being irrational, she couldn’t calm herself down. She dug in her purse and pulled out some notes and coins which she passed over the seat to the driver. ‘I’ll walk from here, thanks.’

He shrugged and took her money a she slid across the seat and climbed out into the pouring rain. Just her luck. And she didn’t have an umbrella. Pulling up her coat collar, she strode down the pavement past the department store windows. A few shoppers rushed past her, shielding themselves from the rain with umbrellas.

By the time she reached the Inception Publishing building, Kirsty felt foolish. She was going to turn up in Tyler’s office soaking wet and worried and he was going to laugh at her for being so silly. Sometimes his meetings ran late. She couldn’t expect to be the girlfriend of a billionaire CEO and not have him work late at the office some nights.

The receptionist smiled at her as she entered the building and Kirsty noted a slight hint of sympathy in the smile. ‘It’s raining,’ she said as she walked to the elevators, as if to explain her appearance and as if the receptionist couldn’t see the rain lashing down beyond the glass doors.

She tried to fix her appearance in the elevator but all she could do was wipe the rainwater from her face and push her soaked hair from her eyes. The door slid open with a familiar dinging sound on the seventh floor and Kirsty stepped out, expecting to see Ruth Masterson at her post outside Tyler’s office but surprised to see the desk empty. Kirsty walked to the office door and knocked.

‘Come in.’ The voice was a woman’s but it wasn’t Ruth’s.

Confused, Kirsty entered.

The woman sitting on the edge of Tyler’s desk was beautiful, leggy and slim. She had lustrous dark hair that seemed arranged perfectly and framed a pretty dark-eyed face. She wore a gray pencil skirt with a ruffle up the front and a white blouse that clung tightly to her sleek figure. Her long legs were crossed and she sat in Tyler’s office as if she owned the place. She looked at Kirsty with the ghost of a quizzical smile playing over her full lips.

‘Who might you be?’ she asked.

‘I’m...Kirsty. Kirsty Moore. I’m looking for Tyler. Is he here?’

‘Ah, so you’re the infamous Kirsty I’ve heard so much about.’

‘Heard about? I don’t understand.’

The woman nodded as if she was talking to a small child. ‘Of course you don’t. But your name has been mentioned quite a lot lately...behind Tyler Blake’s back, to Tyler Blake’s face...in board meetings.’

‘Board meetings?’

‘Especially in board meetings.’

‘But I don’t have anything to do with...’

‘TGA Enterprises?’

‘That’s Tyler’s company.’

The woman chuckled. ‘My dear, hasn’t he ever told you what the company name stands for?’

‘Tyler...Gerald...’

‘...and Anastasia. That’s me, by the way. Anastasia Golde. I’m sure Tyler told you all about his adventures buying up run down factories and turning them into profitable companies. He probably even showed you the photos he took of all those abandoned factories. But did he mention the two partners he started TGA Enterprises with? Gerald Gorman or myself? No mention of the Board of Directors?’

‘No. He never really spoke about work in detail.’

‘Hmm, no. I expect he was busy doing...other things.’ She looked Kirsty up and down like a cat inspecting a sewer rat. Kirsty suddenly felt very cold and damp and ugly and fat. She felt like she was back in school being picked on by the pretty girls.

‘I don’t have anything to do with TGA Enterprises,’ Kirsty said.

‘Oh, but you do. Just over a month ago, Tyler was in Milan trying to acquire an automotive parts company for TGA. I say ‘trying’ because he failed. Miserably. His assistant Keith Harmon tried to seal the deal but by then Tyler had already messed it up. You know why your boyfriend did such a poor job?’

Kirsty shook her head. She knew Tyler had been in Milan when he called her to say he was taking a month off work but she didn’t know he had messed anything up.

‘He failed because of you,’ Anastasia said. ‘He virtually told Keith Harmon as much after the deal went out of the window. You distract him, although I can hardly see why.’ She flashed another disgusted look over Kirsty.

‘He needed a break,’ Kirsty said, immediately jumping to Tyler’s defence. ‘He was tired.’

‘Well he can have a long break now,’ Anastasia replied. ‘He took a month’s vacation to be with you, disregarding all his business commitments. That isn’t how TGA works. The business comes first. We held an emergency Board meeting in Tyler’s absence and commenced a takeover of the company. Gerald and I together hold more shares than Tyler. The Board agreed. A vote of no confidence was passed.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Anastasia smiled patronizingly. ‘Of course you don’t. Let me put it simply. Tyler Blake is no longer in control of any of TGA’s assets. That includes this publishing company, his apartment in Chelsea, and his little love nest in Cornwall.’

‘His home?’

‘It’s a TGA asset. If you hear from him, tell him he needs to arrange a date to collect his belongings.’

‘But where is he? Where is he living?’

‘No idea.’

‘I need to contact him,’ Kirsty said, making for the door. Tyler needed her support. Why hadn’t he called her?

Anastasia slid off the desk and walked to the window overlooking London. ‘I must say, Kirsty, I’m very surprised.’

Kirsty stopped, her hand on the door handle. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m surprised that Tyler would go for someone like you. I knew he was crazy when he insisted on taking a month’s vacation. I assumed this ‘Kirsty’ I had heard about would be some irresistible , gorgeously hot woman. But...you...look at you.’ She shook her head. ‘Tyler really is slumming it.’

Kirsty felt anger and pain rise within her. ‘You...you have no right to talk to me that way. Who do you think you are?’

Anastasia smiled and sat in the big chair behind the desk. ‘I’m your new boss,’ she said.

Chapter Two

Kirsty left the Inception Publishing building, letting the rain hide the tears that streamed down her cheeks. She felt like she had lost everything. With Anastasia Golde in charge of Inception, there was no way Kirsty’s book s would be published. Her career was going to be swept down the drain like the rainwater that coursed through the gutters.

She felt a little selfish worrying about herself when Tyler had not only lost his career, he had also lost his home. TGA had taken everything from him. Everything.

She took shelter in a shop doorway and as water soaked through her clothes for a second time that day, she punched the button on her phone to dial Tyler’s number. It rang and rang until his answering service kicked in. After the tone, Kirsty said, ‘Tyler, it’s me...Kirsty. I just went to your offices and there was a woman called Anastasia there and she told me about TGA and the Board of Directors and what happened in Milan.’ She had to slow down, she was rambling. ‘I’m just calling to say I want to see you. I don’t know where you are. They took your flat. I’m so sorry, Tyler. Please call me back.’ She terminated the call and stood in the shop doorway for a moment, feeling anxiety grip her stomach and twist it. Tears came again and she set off into the rain, welcoming the cold lash of the unforgiving downpour.

Where was Tyler? Where would he go? A sudden thought seeped into her cold mind and she fished her phone out of her pocket as soon as she entered the tube station. She found the phone number for Darkmere House and called it, hoping it would be Tyler’s father that answered and not his mother.

She listened to the ringing on the other end of the line and imagined it ringing out in the dark, brooding house .

No one answered.

Had Tyler gone away with his parents? She got on the tube for the hotel and decided she was going to check out of her room as soon as she got back and drive up to Darkmere. She had to do something and calling Tyler constantly was getting her nowhere. For all she knew, TGA had taken his phone. They seemed to have taken everything else. If Darkmere House was empty, she would find a place to stay in the nearby village and come home the next day. But surely Darkmere would be the logical place for him to go if he had nowhere to live.

Why hadn’t he come to her for help? She pushed that thought out of her mind.

She found a seat and checked her watch. Eight thirty. By the time she got out of London and arrived at Darkmere, it would be around 3 a.m. Too late to find a place to stay. Oh well, she would sleep in the car if she had to.

She got back to her room and changed out of her wet things and packed hurriedly before checking out. As she pulled out of the hotel’s underground parking garage onto the rainy London streets, she thought about what Anastasia Golde had said. ‘He failed because of you.’

Was that true? Was she the cause of Tyler’s downfall? She felt stupid for arguing with Tyler just before he flew to Milan. She had virtually forced him to take time off work and it now all this had happened.