The Billionaire's Secrets

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel ar
e either products of the author
’
s
imagination or are used fictitiously.

The Billionaire’s Secrets
.
Copyright © 2012 by Meadow Taylor.

All rights reserved.

For my darling husband

“All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence forever.”
 
 

―
 
Charlotte
Brontë
,
 
Jane Eyre

Chapter 1

The fog was so thick Chloe didn’t see the car until it was almost on top of her. Certainly she didn’t have time to react. One moment she was slogging along
the road bent under the weight
of her bags and suitcases, and the next moment she was eye to eye with a
Rolls-Royce
hood ornament!

The car ground to a halt inches from her, and she could feel the warmth of the engine against her face. Blinded by the headlights, frozen with shock, she stood rooted to the spot, not even sure for a moment whether she had been hit or not. Then, she heard the car door open and a man’s voice yelled out of the darkness. “What are you doing? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

His voice penetrated the shock. Finally able to react, she let out a cry. She dropped her bags and staggered back from the car, only to trip over one of her suitcases and fall on her behind. “I...I didn’t see you,” she gasped. She raised her arm to shield her eyes from the glare of the lights, but still she could not see the owner of the voice.

Suddenly she became aware that while he wasn't visible, she was definitely in the spotlight.  Her coat and skirt were bunched up around her hips, her legs spread at an immodest angle. She felt a
hole
open up in her stocking over her knee. One of her cases had sprung open
,
and bright white bras, slips, and panties spilled onto the road. Feeling her face flush with embarrassment, she grabbed at the escaped lingerie and stuffed it into her old suitcase as she scrambled to her feet.

With the lights no longer in her eyes, she
was no longer blinded, though what she saw
almost made her fall over again.

He was standing by the side of his car, fashionably dressed in a long black cashmere coat. He was not wearing a hat, and his hair was black and thick.
Hair to run your fingers through
, she thought absurdly.
The dense fog and the dark night suited him. Sexy, dark, mysterious, he was so handsome that she wondered for a moment whether the car really had hit her. Maybe she was dead. Only was he some heavenly angel or the devil himself?  He looked angry enough to be the devil. His eyes flashed fire, his movie-star features set in hard lines. “What the hell are you doing here anyway?” he
asked,
his voice low and cold.

Nervously, Chloe took a step back. “I’m looking for Widow
’
s Cliff,” she stammered. “It’s the name of a house.
.
.,” her voice trailed off.

“I know it’s the name of a house,” he interrupted her impatiently. “It happens to be my house. And who are you?”

“You’re
Gaelan
Byrne?” she asked in dismay. Perhaps she would have preferred him to be the devil. Preferable to meet the devil on a dark country road than to find out that this man - so good-looking and yet so
rude
- was her new employer!

“And who wants to know? You’re not some damned journalist
,
are you? I’m sick and tired of you people - why do you think I live way the hell out here?” The night was cold
,
and his words came out in clouds, merging with the fog.

“No, no, I’m Chloe.” She wondere
d if she should extend her hand
but decided against it, putting them both instead in her pockets. He didn't look like he wanted to shake her hand. The interviewer had told her he was a widower, so she had expected someone older. Not even the fact that he had a six-year-old child had deterred her image of him as grey-haired. Old enough to be her father, old enough that a romantic relationship would be completely out of the question. After her last experience, she
wasn’t sure she ever
wanted to be involved with another man again. “I’m the new tutor,” she said unsurely.

He said nothing, his expression morphing from anger into distaste. Maybe she didn't need to worry - his bad manners were very quickly making up for his good looks. But then bad manners were not very appealing in an employer either. She felt a premonition of impending disaster. 

“For your little girl,” she explained with a sigh. “I thought someone was supposed to meet me at the St. John’s airport. Nobody came. I figured maybe the car had broken down or
something,
and I didn’t have your phone number...
I had to take a bus...” She was on a roll now, reciting the litany of disasters that had occurred since leaving her apartment
in Boston
that morning. The nerve of
him getting
angry with her! She was the one who had stood around the airport all afternoon
before catching a shuttle to Puffin’s Cove
. Then the
local
bus driver had dropped her on the side of the highway, telling her the house was still a mile down a dirt road. Then this man almost runs her over with his fancy car. Her stockings were torn, she was freezing…

Suddenly he started to laugh, but there was no warmth in it
, and his eyes still shot light
ning bolts at her. He was definitely laughing at her, not with her.

“It’s not funny,” she protested, feeling a slightly hysterical edge creep into her voice.

He stopped laughing. “You’re right, it’s not funny,” he said soberly. “It’s infuriating." He threw up his hands. “I can’t believe my assistant hired you. Not only do you walk down the centre of dark roads not paying any attention, you can’t even arrive on the right day.”

“It’s the right day,” she said defensively. “It’s April the seventh today.”

“And you were to start on the seventeenth.”

“No, the seventh,” she insisted. “The man in
Boston
who interviewed me told me the seventh.”

“That man in
Boston
is my second-in-command. I can assure you he has never made a mistake in his life.” He leaned against the car and crossed his arms. He looked her up and down as if he had never seen anything that disgusted him more. Chloe wouldn't have been surprised if he found the squashed bugs on his windshield more appealing. “Let me correct that.
Never made a mistake until he hired you.
What did you do? Flash those sexy legs at him?” Well, at least she had scored points for having nice legs. Or had she? Wasn't he accusing her of seducing his assistant?

She opened her mouth to make some sort of retort in her defense, but no words came to her.

He looked pleased that he had rendered her speechless. He opened the car door,
then
turned to her. Chloe was very aware of his dark, smoldering eyes locked on hers. “You’ve got half a mile more," he said coolly. "I have a meeting tonight
,
and you’ve made me late. The housekeeper will let you in. Now, pay attention to where you’re going. If you miss the house, you’ll walk right off the cliff. And you wouldn’t want to do that - it’s a three-hundred foot drop onto the rocks, and it’s been done before.”

It was obvious he was waiting for her to get out of his way. Mortified, Chloe grabbed her bags and struggled to the edge of the road. And while he had sounded as if he would be delighted if she fell off a cliff, the least he could have done was offer to take her bags!

“Consider it a chance to redeem
yourself
," he said, watching her impassively. "If you get to the house alive, I’ll reconsider my decision to fire you on the spot.” He got into the car and put it into gear. She stood among her bags and watched helplessly as the huge silver car rolled past her. He didn't even look at her, and within moments the taillights were swallowed by the fog.

The sound of the car soo
n faded too, and in the quiet
she could hear the distant roar of the ocean. Angry tears pricked at her eyes as she arranged her bags in her arms and continued on the road to the
house. It was so dark and misty
she couldn’t see more than a foot in front of her. Conscious now of the threat of cars, she walked on the edge where the gravel met the grass. She wasn’t too worried about dropping off a cliff - the bus driver had said to keep to the road and it would lead her right to the door. As she walked, she thought back to
Gaelan's
words.
You'll walk right off the cliff
,
and you wouldn't want to do that.
It was pretty obvious that if she did, it wouldn't bother him in the least.