The Billionaire's BBW Secret (2 page)

“Thanks,” she said when she reached
the open door, sliding her way past the proffered arm and into the cramped
capsule of an elevator.  Denny never liked elevators.  She was always afraid
they would break, and that it would somehow be her fault.

“No problem,” the man said.  He was
attractive, or at least the glimpse Denny got of him was attractive, with
short, unruly blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes.  “What floor are you headed
for?”

“Fourteen,” she said.

“Same as mine,” he commented. 
Denny continued to stare at the floor.  She couldn't stare at the walls – they
were shiny mirror-like silver, and she didn't want to be confronted with her
dumpy figure and round face.  Her self-confidence was teetering at the brink as
it was.  She was one look in a mirror away from running right back to her
apartment at the moment.

The elevator whirred and dinged
with each passing floor before opening to a less grand surrounding than the
lobby.  The floors here were still marble, but these were hallways, not the
wide open space that the first floor had been.

Denny stepped out of the elevator
and stared at the office directory.  She still had no idea where to go.

“Do you need any help?”

Denny jumped when she heard the
man's voice again.  She'd assumed that he'd gone his own way behind her, but he
was lurking just a few paces away at her elbow.

“S-sorry,” she said, stammering and
flushing slightly.  She cursed herself; why did she have to be thrown off so
easily?  “I was looking for office 14014.”

“Oh?”  The strange man raised a
thick brown eyebrow.  “It's right over here.”  He touched her arm, and led her
down the hall.  Fluorescent lights flickered as they walked together, and Denny
felt her flush deepen.  She couldn't even find an office on her own.  How
useless could she get?

It wasn't too far down, only a few
twisting hallways away.  The man opened the door for Denny, and followed her
in.  She blinked.  He didn't have to go quite as far as this.

“Um, thank you,” she said, turning
around.  “I can find my way from here, I'm sure.  I'm already in the office I'm
looking for, after all.”  She laughed awkwardly.

The man joined her in her laugh,
his sounding far more natural.  “What a coincidence, so am I.”

Denny's eyes grew round.  “Are
you...?” she asked, her voice growing thin and then trailing off.

“Brandon Larson, at your service,”
the man said.  Denny's eyes grew even rounder.  Larson was a playboy
billionaire, one of the wealthiest men in the country, and he made news
headlines for more than just that.  He was constantly doing dare-devil stunts
and shocking the public.

This was the man who was supposed
to be interviewing her?  This was who the personal assistant job was for?

“G-good morning sir,” Denny said,
cursing her stammering voice once more.

“Yes, yes,” Larson said in a
businesslike manner, striding past Denny now and into the office proper.  They
were in a front room, and an opulent one at that.  Another nameless
receptionist sat there, another rail-thin woman who glared at Denny as she
scurried past, following Larson.

What could he possibly want with
her?  This must be some sort of mistake.

She followed Larson into his own
office.

“Shut the door,” he instructed, and
Denny gripped the gold knob of the heavy maple door, her palm slick with
nervous sweat.

“I'm here for the personal
assistant job,” she said as she pushed the door shut, hoping that there had
been some sort of mistake.  Perhaps Larson had mistaken her for someone else? 
Perhaps she was in the wrong office, and the job was for someone much less...
public.

“Of course, I know what you're
here,” Larson said in a short, clipped tone.  “I put the ad up myself after
all.  Or at least, I had Lola out there do it.”  He slipped around behind the
vast mahogany desk, and slid into the leather office chair.  “Do have a seat.” 
He gestured at the smaller leather wrapped chair on the other side of the desk.

Denny blinked, swallowed, and then
obeyed.  Clutching her satchel close to her, trying to hide her weight, she
wedged herself into the chair.  It was just a touch too small for her.

She wanted to groan.  She wanted to
jump up and just flee the room.  Why, why had she done this?  Why had she even
thought she could do this?

She took another deep breath, and
braced herself.  Whatever the outcome, this would be good interview
experience.  She was unlikely to get the job anyways.

It was strange, but that knowledge
seemed to help her.  Knowing there was nothing at stake eased her nervousness,
at least a little bit.  She took another breath and Larson began.

“So, you want the job as my
personal assistant,” he stated, shuffling through papers on his desk.  “Ah,
here we are.”  He pulled out a stapled bundle of paper, presumably her resume,
and began leafing through it.  “Denise Richardson, is it?”

“Yes,” Denny said.  She didn't much
care for her first name, and preferred Denny, but she wasn't about to correct
him.

“Interesting resume.”

Denny flushed.  She knew she listed
some things that weren't exactly standard – caring for Rob, namely – but she
had to pad it somehow.  “I have a fair amount of experience with this kind of
work,” she said.

“I can see that, but I'm a little
different from most men.”  He looked up at her as he spoke, and his white teeth
flashed in the light.  His eyes didn't just sparkle now.  They blazed, and
Denny battled to keep his gaze, despite her rising flush.

He won, of course.  She looked down
at her satchel after a few moments.  She felt a shiver run through her body,
and not just from his eyes.  He really was an attractive man, with his blue
eyes and that sandy hair, and a masculine squared chin, a strong nose...

She gave her head a slight shake. 
She was interviewing for a job, not speed dating.  Besides, it wasn't like
Larson would ever have any interest in her, professional or otherwise.

They continued on in the
interview.  It was fairly standard, as interviews went.  He asked her questions
and posited scenarios, and Denny answered as best she could.  She even felt
like she was doing a half-decent job, considering she wasn't feeling pressured
to perform at all.

“Here's a scenario,” he said,
leaning forward and templing his fingers as his eyes seemed to burn holes right
into Denny's skull.  “I've got an important meeting in an hour, but Lola out
there hasn't done any of the prep work for me, as usual.  My suit isn't even
pressed.  What do you do first?”

Without skipping a beat, Denny
confidently said, “I run your suit to the dry cleaners, one with one hour
turnaround service, then rush to the office to get your things.  I have a car
lined up for you before I start looking for the files you need.”  She had a lot
of experience in these matters, as her ex-husband usually made her run around
like that as well, chasing after him and smoothing out the rough edges to
whatever plans he made.  She was made for this kind of job.

Too bad she probably wouldn't get
it.

Still, Larson leaned back in his
leather chair with a blink.  He seemed a little thrown off by Denny's
competence, something she enjoyed.  She almost wished she could get the job
just so she could keep throwing him off.

As the interview drew to a close,
Denny found herself feeling a little confident despite the obstacles she
faced.  She knew she was a competent woman after all.  She might be overweight,
and perhaps not the prettiest person in the world, but she was a good worker,
and she would never hide or fail to flaunt that fact.

“Well,” Larson said, standing up. 
Denny echoed him, lifting herself out of her chair was well.  “This has been an
interesting interview, to say the least.”

Denny felt her heart leap up into
her throat at that comment.  Was that good, or bad?  She honestly didn't know. 
Larson was such a hard man to read.  As he reached over the vast desk to shake
her hand, she second-guessed herself.  Perhaps she had done a good job. 
Perhaps he'd invited her to interview on a lark, just for fun, but found her to
be every bit as competent as any other young, beautiful woman.  Perhaps he
found her to be even more able than those women.

Perhaps she had a shot at this job
after all.

She didn't want to get her hopes up
though.

*****

A few days later, after Denny sent
out her thank yous for the last round of interviews she went to, she found her
emotions in a downward spiral yet again.  Here she was, doing so much work in
trying to get a job, trying so hard to be independent, and she was failing
miserably.

Why had she come to this city?

It was a ridiculous idea in
hindsight, but Denny had assumed that finding a decent job in the city would be
a simple matter.  After all, there were so many businesses here, and so much
turnover that jobs flew up on search boards daily.  She must have applied for
hundreds, but she'd only gotten interviews for a handful of positions.  And she
knew what each and every interviewer thought of her the moment she walked
through the door.

She was fat.  And fat meant lazy. 
Lazy meant she wouldn't get any work done, and that would be a terrible
investment to the company.  She hated the damned prejudices against her.  She
was a harder worker than anyone else in her old company, she got glowing
reviews, but people couldn't seem to look past her weight.

It had always been like this.  Ever
since she was a child, Denny struggled with her weight.  She ballooned up to a
tub of butter in middle school, but then the teasing and peer pressure urged
her into a diet.  She did all right on the diet, but she'd never truly been
thin.  And food was always a struggle.  Every day, every meal.  And she lost
the will to struggle against it many years ago.

She sighed and stared at the phone
in her shabby studio.  She wasn't going to let this get to her.  She was much
more than a number on a scale.

But she didn't know how to convince
prospective employers of that.

For now she set up her laptop on
the ragged coffee table she'd gotten from a thrift store for a whopping eight
dollars, and worked her way through various menial tasks on the internet. 
Denny had been able to scrape up a couple hundred dollars a month on referral
websites and human intelligence tasks, but it wasn't enough.  It didn't even
pay for the rent on this dump.

She had to do something about
this.  She had to get a job.  Any job.

Denny glared at the phone once
more, willing it to ring.  And to not be another damned interview for her to
flub, but an actual job offer.

She nearly leapt out of her seat
when it did ring.  The harsh bell on the phone cut through the air like a
knife, piercing her ear drums.

“Shit!” she hissed, and jumped up
from her low seat on the dingy couch – another thrift store find – and grabbed
the formerly white, now dirty beige phone off its cradle.

“Hello?”

“Denise Richardson?” a man's voice
came through the phone line, tinny, but familiar.  She couldn't quite place him
though.

“Yes, this is she,” Denny replied.

“Ah, good.  This is Brandon
Larson.  I want to extend to you a job offer on the position you interviewed
for.  The personal assistant position.”

With every word that Larson spoke,
Denny could feel her pounding heart climb higher and higher.  It felt like it
was going to crawl right out her throat.  This couldn't be happening.  After
all the work she did, things were finally paying off.

“Y-yes,” she stammered.  “I
remember the position.”

“So, do you want the job?”  Denny
could almost imagine Larson raising an eyebrow and looking at her quizzically.

“Yes.  Yes!”  Denny clamped a hand
over her mouth to keep from screaming into the phone.  She had a job!

“Good.  I need you to come by the
office tomorrow, bright and early.  Dress professionally.  Lola will fill you
in on what you need to be doing.”

“Yes.  Yes, sir,” Denny said, then
heard a click on the other side.  Larson must have hung up.  She blinked,
confused.  Was this a prank or a trick?

But no, that just must be how
Larson was.

She had a job.

*****

The next morning, Denny was up with
the songbirds.  At least, what few of those there were in the city.  She tried
to make herself look presentable, she really did, but she was still feeling
nervous about this so-called job.  What if Larson had made a mistake and called
the wrong person?  But no, he addressed her by name.  Unless he somehow got the
files mixed up, she was the right girl.

So she made her way back to the
extravagant office building back up to Larson's opulent office.

She blanched at what she saw.

As she stepped off the elevator and
pushed her way through into the reception area of his office, she saw Lola
perched behind her own smaller wooden desk, glaring daggers at her.  “He's
right inside,” she said coldly, pointing with one thin, cruel finger.  Denny
already didn't like her.

She pressed her much pudgier hands
against the double doors, and pushed, opening them to find Larson literally
surrounded by bikini models.

“Are you serious?” she blurted
out.  This was ridiculous.  This was worse than the worst Lifetime movie she'd
ever seen.  She felt like some enormous, elaborate prank was being played on
her, and she just wanted to turn around and go straight home.

“Hmm?” Larson said, barely tearing
his gaze away from the obviously much more attractive girls.  “Oh, you're
here.” He stood and smiled at each girl in turn.  There were twelve, and even
though the office was expansive, it felt more than a little cramped at the
moment.  “I'll see you girls in the photo shoot.”