The Heir & I: Taming The Billionaire (4 page)

“My favorite!”
I praised her, patting her shoulder with tender affection.

Ellie nodded.

“I thoug
ht that in anticipation of your chat with your father, you’d need all the energy you could muster,” she told me, shooting me what seemed to be a sympathetic glance.

As if on cue
, we were joined in the dining room by a stone faced Harry Clark; issuing a quick “Thank you” to Ellie as she set his dinner plate at the head of the table and made a hasty retreat for the kitchen.

“Hey, Dad!”
I greeted him cheerily, taking up my silver utensils between fingers that seemed to be trembling, just slightly. “This food looks absolutely delicious!”

I froze as my father sat down in his seat with a hard, forceful flourish; leaning across the table to sear me with a gaze that nearly killed my appetite.

“And you won’t eat a bite of it before listening good and close to everything your father has to say,” he barked, adding as he pointed an accusing finger in my direction, “You, Son, are a highly intelligent, very personable and inordinately striking young man.”

I shook my head.

“Is this your own special way of telling me off?” I blinked, adding with a defined s
mirk, “If so, then by all means, heap on the abuse. I do believe I can take it!”

“You do indeed have a great many natural gifts,” Harry continu
ed, searing me with a hard look. “And you are constantly abusing them, using them to cut corners, take shortcuts and make excuses. Measures you need to take quite often, as you’re constantly running late for meetings, that is, when you’re not missing them altogether. Your work reports are thin on substance and brim with filler; and your team members, including myself, are constantly having to cover for you as you continuously shirk your job duties and underperform on projects, that is, when you’re not bailing on projects altogether.” He paused here, stroking his chin in thought as he added, “And after a great deal of thought and consideration, I do believe I’ve discovered the reason for your behavior.”

I shrugged.

“My innately rebellious nature, which just screams of
restless youthful insolence?” I offered.

“Women,”
Harry corrected me, and quick. “If you spend all of your time chasing around every pair of surgically enhanced breasts you see, then how can you concentrate on your work?”

I shrugged.

“Well what do you expect?”
I looked him straight in the eyes. “I’m young, I’m healthy, and women happen to be drawn to me.”

Harry nodded.

“Indeed they are,” he allowed, adding as he shook his head slowly from side to side, “I’m finding, though, that our colleagues and clients at Clark Industries are not quite so drawn to
you. I’m beginning to hear complaints about your apparent lack of interest in our projects as demonstrated by your tardiness and inattentiveness during meetings and work sessions.”

I shook my head.

“That’s just not true, Dad,” I objected, adding as I li
fted my chin to prideful effect. “You saw our colleagues at that meeting today. They were eating out of the palm of my hand.”

Dad sighed.

“I did some follow
up calls after the meeting, Son, and while our clients and co-workers do adore you as a person, they really didn’t learn all that much from the presentation,” he revealed. “And what little they did learn, came from the information that Lily provided.”

He paused here, adding with a heavy sigh, “You’re the vice CEO of my company, son, and you approach your job with all the dedication and seriousness of a lackey jus
t hired in the clerk’s office. Now, Oliver, I know that I’ve been going a little soft on you since your mom died five years ago. And believe me, losing my dear Irene took an incredible toll on my life as well…”

I had heard enough.

“Mom has nothing to do w
ith this, leave her out of it!” I ordered him, adding more softly, “I’m just having some fun, that’s all.”

Harry sighed.

“I’m not saying that you should live like a monk,
” he told me, adding with a shrug, “You just need to give up all the bimbos and find one good woman; someone who can help you get on track, who can give you focus and purpose in your life. And to help you along this new and sure to be difficult path… I’ve arranged for you to see a relationship counselor once a week.”

I rolled my eyes.

“As thrilling as that sounds, Dad, I do believe I’ll take a pass on that idea,” I told him, adding as I rose from the table, “I will make an effort, though, to make it in earlier each morning, and to concentrate more on our goals and projects.”

Harry shook his head.

“I’d love to believe you, Son, but unfo
rtunately I don’t,” he sighed. “I’ve heard so many of your empty promises, and you manage to break them every time. So this time I’m going to have to force the issue. I’m going to have to insist that you see the relationship counselor, a wonderful lady named Ann Goldman, once a week. And until you get your personal and professional life in order, I’m also going to have to insist that you give up your late nights and your wild overnight dates.”

Clutching the back of my chair with frustrated hands, I looked my father straight in the eyes and said, “And what if I don’t?”

Breaking our gaze, my father cast his gaze to the table and said, “If you fail to comply with my request, son, then I’m afraid I’m going to have
to take it all away from you. Your job, your inheritance, your future in our company… I will strip you of your job title and all of your benefits, including your credit line. It will all be gone.”

I looked at him for a long moment, then nodded.

“Fine,” I said finally.
“I’ll talk to whoever you want, and I’ll show up for work on time, every day, and ready to work.”

And when I go home at night
, I added silently.
I’ll continue to lead my life exactly as I damned well please.

Chapter T
hree

~

Lily

After a fairly uneventful weekend, I trekked back into the office at 9 a.m. Monday; my mind already
formulating a comprehensive to-do list that would carry me through the week.

When Oliver comes in at 10, I’ll have to remind him yet again to file that report on the McKenzie account
and to return those phone calls to Ms. Fisher and Mr. Bingham; otherwise we just might lose those accounts. I rolled my eyes heavenward. Of course, the very assumption that Oliver Clark will arrive at work any time before noon may in itself be overly optimistic, if not downright far reaching in scope.

As I cleared the entrance to my office space, I started to hum just a few relevant bars of that old
chestnut ‘The Impossible Dream’; pondering as I did just how many items on my comprehensive to-do list would actually get ‘to-done,’ so to speak; and sometime in the next century, preferably. Honestly, I was just about to give up on that man; and judging from the reports that I was hearing about his performance, or lack thereof, at Friday’s meeting, his father was about to surrender the cause as well.

When will Oliver ever learn?
I mused, shaking my head from side to side in a show of sheer resignation.
When will he learn that life isn’t a game and that his foolish actions, that is, when he even bothers to ‘act’ are putting our jobs and his company in danger?

My musings were disrupted by the sound of a loud, sharp bump resounding from an adjoining office; one that just happened to be the private office of my previously mentioned boss, Oliver Clark.

Of course, calling the place an office
is only cautiously optimistic. I gritted my teeth as I considered just a few of the sights that I had witnessed upon scaling the confines of those four walls. The room more aptly could be defined a napping or, upon occasion, a trysting spot.

One thing was for sure; no one opened the door to Oliver’s inner sanctum much before 10 a.m. at the earliest; and even this was an optimistic prediction for a Monday morning, given the usual, downright chaotic state of his weekend social schedule.

On Monday mornings, from what I understand, he generally d
oesn’t make it out of bed by 10, let alone into the office, so unless the cleaning lady is making her rounds early this week, I’m guessing that the person currently rustling around in his office is not, in fact, him.

So
just who is making that noise?
I pondered, freezing in my place as yet another loud bump resounded from the confines of Oliver’s office.

Fearing the worst, I grabbed hold of a cast iron, silver polished horse statuette that sat at the edge of my desk; hoisting it high in the air as I walked with slow, cautious steps in the direction of Oliver’s office.

My breath
ing suspended as I stepped through his doorway; and when I saw Oliver Clark standing at his filing cabinet, clearing the cabinet of dusty old folders and tossing them on the floor, I was pretty darned sure I’d never breathe again.

“Oliver,” I sputtered, shaking my head slowly from side to side in a show o
f complete and utter disbelief. “What are you doing here?”

Oliver shrugged.

“I work here, Lily,” he replied, pinning me with anoth
er one of his dazzling smiles. “And since I managed to net us a new account this morning, I thought I’d better make some room in our cabinet for some new client files.” He paused here, those dark eyes narrowing in what seemed to be a quizzical look. “It turns out I have a question for you, as well. Why are you standing there with your favorite horse statue poised oh so gracefully above your head?”

Glancing upward, I wondered at the vision of my own outstretched arms; holding up a statue that I’d obviously intended to double as a deadly weapon.

“Um,” I bit my lip, adding as I began to wave and shift the sculpture back and forth in the air, “Actually I just washed and polished The Sterling Stallion here, so now it
looks even more, um, sterling. Now I just have to air dry it.”

Oliver nodded.

“Well when you’re done, please take a moment to step into my office so we can have a bull session,” he asked, using a phrase that I’d only hear
d pass the lips of his father. “I have to discuss this new account with you, as well as update you on the status of some of our other projects; we really need to get moving on a few of these cases. I know I have a billion phone calls to make, e-mails to answer, and memos to write, so I need your advice on what to do first, so I can catch up as quickly as possible.”