Yes, Mr. Van Der Wells (Not Another Billionaire Romance) (9 page)

Nonetheless, I’d rather take my chances with Sexy Demon than go back to Andrew.

It’s 7:33 when the cab finally drops me off outside Wells Height Apartments. The doorman does his job and I shuffle in, amble to the concierge’s desk and stare at him like a buffoon.

“How may I help you, Miss?”

“Ah, I’m supposed to be meeting here with…someone…”

Adam, as is read on his name-tag, cocks his head ever so slightly. Judging me by appearance, no doubt. Surely, the residents, or associates of this complex, don’t wear old, washed-out jeans, ratty Chucks, or unraveling denim jackets. Nor stink of cheap perfumes. I don’t belong here; his winged eyebrow says as much. 

“Who might this ‘someone’ be, Miss?”

I adjust my bag on my shoulder. I don’t have a name. I’m half-an-hour late, and I don’t have a name. I do have a description, but in an uber-cautious, well-secured place like this, I’ll get nowhere with just a description. I’d been a rich kid long enough to know the effort and caution that goes into providing residents the peace of mind they pay for. “You know what, never mind.”

Turning away from the concierge, I walk over to one of the lofty, beige sofa-chairs and plop down. If I have to wait all night in this lobby until I see that man, then that’s what I’ll do.

I’m sitting there for eight minutes and thirteen seconds, watching the door and the elevator like a hawk, deflating at every face that passes through that’s not Sexy Demon’s, when the elevator pings open for the umpteenth time. I perk up again, waiting, hoping to see his face this time and not some skinny socialite with a shaved puppy.

A sigh of relief whooshes through me, and I’m instantly on my feet, when the door parts and he walks out. Except he has a stunning redhead by his side, her delicate hand on his bicep as she titters daintily, batting her eyelashes at him.

His steps are sure and tall, his posture arrogant and secure. In an impeccably fit charcoal suit, he’s sharp and suave and downright delicious. Groomed hair. Shadowed face.

Seeing him fully clothed for the first time, I can’t decide if I’m more attracted to him with clothes on, or without.

The statuesque beauty beside him is all smiles and flirts, but he seems distracted as he glances down at his watch, and then at his phone screen.

His strides are long, eating up the distance toward the exit. My legs aren’t long enough to catch up without jogging, so I call, “Abercrombie!”

He immediately stops moving and turns, as if his ears had been perked and listening out for that call. 

Hurrying toward him, I offer a wave and a smile. “Hey. I’m so sorry I’m late. Rush-hour traffic—”

“I’m sorry, but did this…er, person just call you
Abercrombie
?” scorns the redhead at his side, scrunching her face at me like I’m a dirty diaper.

Sexy Demon turns to the woman and gives her a closed-mouth smile. “It was nice catching up, Marlene. But I’ll have to take you up on that offer some other time. As it is right now, I have a momentous meeting scheduled with this young lady.”

As the woman begins sputtering something in disbelief, he takes me by the elbow and steers me to the elevator. “Come with me.”

“Wow, you weren’t kidding when you said 7 PM
sharp
. Half-an-hour late and you’ve already got a model on your arm.”

“She wasn’t on my arm.” One long finger reaches out to push the call button. “She joined me on the elevator on my way down.”

“Huh. Well, she seemed more attached than that.”

“I waited. For thirty minutes. I went up to my apartment only for a few minutes to make some arrangements.”

“Arrangements?”

“I was on my way to—”

“Mr. Van Der Wells!” 

At the interruption, we both turn to see a stout middle-aged man with a receding hairline rushing towards us, waving a manila envelope.

“Not now, Richard,” Sexy Demon grits out.

The elevator doors slide open just then, and I wait for him to take the lead, but he doesn’t. He is, instead, looking down at me with a strange expression. One of…expectation? Like he’s waiting for something from me. What? Is there something he told me to bring with me that I forgot about? Maybe he had. Unfortunately, whatever it is, I can’t go back to get it. Although I’m certain every important piece of document I have is packed in my bag. So, feigning ignorance, I step into the elevator.

With a slight frown, he watches me for a moment longer before stepping in with me. A swipe of his keycard, and the doors begins to close.

I return to our interrupted conversation, “You were saying you were on your way to…?”

Relieving me of my handbag, he stares disturbingly hard at the safety pin holding the strap. “Find you.” That stare is then transferred to me. “Like I said would.”

“You weren’t leaving with that woman?”

“I just told you I was on my way to come find you.”

“With the woman?”

He releases an audible sigh, offering no more words.

What he said and what I saw don’t coincide. But hey, what do I care if he’d been heading off to bang the redhead? I’m just glad the job is still mine.

I’m about to ask him his name, finally, when I remember the man in the lobby calling him Van Der Wells. A surname I’m familiar with.

Remember that third crush I mentioned earlier, the chubby one? Well, he was a Van Der Wells. A billionaire. From an insanely wealthy and influential family.

“Hey,” I break the silence, “are you by any chance related to Nate Van Der Wells?”

With both hands, he clutches the straps of my bag, letting it dangle in front of him. Seconds cruise by before he answers, “As a matter of fact, I am.”

I laugh as I pry, “What’s with the long, dramatic pause? You two don’t get along?”

He makes a disgruntled sound in his throat. “As far as I’m concerned, Nate no longer exists.”

‘
Drama Queen, much
?’ Rational Lotty snorts.

“Pity,” I mumble, shrugging. “I was hoping you could tell him howdy for me. I knew the family growing up. Yes, yes, I was an Upper East Sider like you once upon a time. But shit happens. How about his mother, Gloriel? You on the outs with her, too?”

“If you knew Gloriel, then you’d know no one can be ‘on the outs’ with her. She’s a nettlesome pain in the ass.”

“Yep, that’s Gloriel.” I grin fondly at this, remembering Nate’s insistent mother. And then Nate. “Don’t tell Nate I told you this—well, of course, you won’t. You hate him. Though I can’t understand why because Nate’s one of the realest people I’ve ever known—but when I was young, I had a
monumental
crush on him. I’d stalk him in the mornings like a creeper. Tried to bait him into noticing me, but he wouldn’t bite. Jesus, thinking back, I was an errant, perpetually horny little teen.”

“You’re still a teen,” he points out.

“Thanks for the reminder.” 

“And Nate was married.”

“I said crush, not affair.”

“Not to mention repulsively fat.”

“Repulsive to
you
, maybe,” I defend, put off by his meanness. “And is it a sin to be attracted to a man who doesn’t look just like every other guy in the city? Also, as far as I can remember, he was married to Sienna Sullivan.
Sienna Sullivan
who was dubbed the sexiest vixen in the city. Obviously, she had good taste in men.”

“Sure.
That’s
why she cheated on him,” he mutters, laying on the sarcasm.

Ping!
goes the elevator doors, and I turn to glare at him. He’s studying me hard, and try as I might, I can’t decipher the emotion behind those eyes.

“Is that why you hate him much? Because he’s ‘repulsively fat’ yet still managed to score Sienna Sullivan? What, was Sienna your dream girl? Didn’t think he deserved her? Jealous that he got the vixen and you—the model-hot relative with the roguish smile—got the…cheating Japanese whores?” 

Flattening his lips, he shakes his head and steps out of the elevator. “You’re quite defensive of Fatty Nate. It’s been how long since you last saw him?”

“Three years and change,” I fill in, following him into the apartment. “And yes, I did grow to care about him. After Sienna, he always seemed so…lonely.”

Tension stiffens his broad shoulders as he leads me through the apartment. Maybe there’s more between him and Nate than my wild and baseless assumptions. I can’t make that my problem, though. I’ve got too much crap going on in my life to worry about rich people squabble.

Therefore, lest I cost myself this job, I decide to shut up about Nate, and follow where he leads.

He takes a left off the left gourmet style kitchen, which leads into an all-glass area with a wet bar, a roulette table, a blackjack table, and a pool table.

Off this fun area, he takes a right down an abbreviated hallway with a door at the end. An isolated yet intimidating black door which perfectly reflects its owner. Turning the handle, he pushes it open, and I’m hoping it’ll make even a slight creak, so I’ll know for sure I’m not following the Devil straight into hell.

There’s no creak.

I follow him in.

An office.

If this is hell, it sure has a heavenly view. The entire room is of floor-to-ceiling spotless glass, without as much as a smear. No bookshelves or decoration of any kind. Smack in the middle of the room is the biggest, longest office desk I’ve ever seen. On each end are a number of compartments which serve as limited bookshelves and stationary storage. Must be customized. There’s a wingback office chair, and two boxy gray chairs in front of the desk. And that’s it. Nothing else is in the room. Consequentially, this renders a completely unobstructed view of the city from all angles. Genius.

Cold and clinical, it does stand apart from the rest of the penthouse which is warm and homey with its exposed bricks and dark-wood floors.

Moving behind his enormous desk, Van Der Wells eases down in the chair.

“Weird office,” I comment as I clap down into of the comfy boxy chairs.

Wordlessly, he opens a drawer—this, too, makes not so much as a squeak—and takes out a manila envelope, plucks a pen from its holder, and then slides them across the desk to me.

I watch him for a second too long. He looks different. Half familiar, half stranger. He’s not the same man I got on the elevator with. Something I said earlier must have his panties in a bunch. Just my luck. I’m the type who never knows when to shut the hell up. I tend to push and pry until I get my ass blacklisted.

“You seem upset with me. I’m sorry if I said anything to—”

“Read. Sign,” he clips, nodding at the envelope.

Nope. Nope. Nopety Nope. I’m desperate, but nope.

With an abrupt push to my feet, I grab up my bag from where he’s placed it on top of the desk and throw it over my shoulder. “Hey, buddy, I really wanted this job, and I honest-to-God don’t have a clue where I’m gonna go when I walk out of this building right now, but this right here is sign number one. So I’m running. Out. Done before it’s begun. Have a nice evening, Abercrombie.”

I’m across the room and almost out the door when he asks, “Sign number one of what?”

Stopping and turning in the doorway, I tell him, “The whole bossy, tyrannical thing. The cutting off my sentences. The oblique castigations that I am woman, you are man; therefore I amount to nothing, and you amount to everything.”

A dozen heartbeats of silence, and then the face I’m familiar with returns, as the hard, impassive dominant fades.

“I’m sorry to have wasted your time,” I go on. “But I just don’t think I can endure being barked at and bossed around.” My voice drops to a pathetic whisper, my eyes closing briefly, as I mutter to myself, “Not anymore.”

He steeples his hands under his chin, a contemplative expression before responding, “I understand if you need to…run. But please consider this before to you do: I’m signing up to be your
boss
, not your boyfriend. If I’m not happy with you, I’ll fire you, not hit you.” He removes his hands and folds them in his lap his gaze, like laser beams, burns right through me. “I’m a very wealthy businessman with far too much fish on my plate than I have time to fry. As a result, I have mood swings. Unpredictable. But based entirely on
stress
. At times I’ll be snappy. I’ll be impatient. I’ll bark. I might get bossy. But again, this is based
solely
on whatever the hell’s going on in my
head
. Not because I think you’re nothing, or weak, or a woman. If you can’t separate this from whatever it is you’re running from, then I agree, maybe you should go. Because I’m human, so I can’t promise you I’ll always be in a good mood.”

Lingering by the door, I think his words through. His honesty is brutal. In no way is he being unreasonable. I’ll be living in, and he’ll be my boss. I can’t expect him to tiptoe on eggshells around me in his own home just because I’m scarred from a year of abuse. Besides, where on this earth am I going to find a job where I don’t get bossed around?

If I intend to survive life, then I’ll have to learn to face my fears, and trust that not
everyone
is out to hurt me.

It’s on the heels of this thought, that I remember Dan’s words:
Be careful, Lotty. But also be brave
.

Resolving not to let fear control me, I redirect my steps back to the desk. Setting my bag on the ground, I sit and pick up the envelope, sliding out a contract and a personal form requesting my full name, date of birth, account number, email address, etc. 

After filling out the form, I lean back, cross my legs, and peruse the contract, tapping the bottom of the pen on the desk as I do. I depend on music to concentrate, so when there’s no music I create my own with whatever is available—hence the pen-tapping.

The contract is practical. And boring.

Employer is to provide employee with meals, where applicable, and adequately ventilated living quarters, yada yada. Employee is forbidden to discuss private matters witnessed within the employee’s residence, yada yada. Already bored less than halfway through, I begin to skim, humming along to my pen-tapping.

The one thing my eyes keep flicking back to, at the top of the page is his name:
Noah Van Der Wells
.