The Billionaire From Philly Page 5

  The women at Nordstrom and at Sak’s, had been so eager to help, asking what style she wanted, asking if she wanted to look at “foundation garments” too, talking to her about her choices—it was a level of care and concern that Danielle had never experienced in her life. They were, she thought, willing to spend as much time with her as she might have felt like taking, confident in the possibility of her spending money.

  And those same women would be happy to see her again when she went back the following month to take advantage of her clothing allowance; they had given her their cards and told her how to schedule her own shopping appointment with them. Of course, if they’re getting a ten percent commission on two thousand dollars, that’s a good $250 on their next paycheck, Danielle reminded herself. That was nothing to sneeze at.

  And since she was making three times what she had been earning before, she would be able to—maybe once in a while—visit them on her own, buy a few things for her non-work life, as well. Danielle smiled to herself, remembering the pair of boots she’d tried on but decided not to buy, since they would have been more suited to going out than the office.

  She had gotten a firm hold on how her actual job worked in the week since she’d started with Victor, in between their in-office flings: most of the day, she sat at her computer, researching different fundraising campaigns, community projects, and charities. She made notes about what looked likely, and looked deeper into the circumstances of each one, so that she could add them to what she mentally called “the list.”

  Already, Danielle had developed a kind of system, a schedule that she intended to follow, just to make sense of things and make her work a little more routine and less scattered. She decided that for each day of the week, she would have a theme: Mondays were for individual need-based fundraising drives, like people who were trying to get out of debt from hospital bills, or from student loans, or who needed funding to get out of an abusive home—things like that.

  Tuesdays, she would look at scholarship funding opportunities, not just for colleges and universities but also for preschools and grade schools, starting in Philadelphia.

  Wednesdays, she looked at community projects: shelters, soup kitchens, pantries, youth centers, senior centers—all of them, for the moment, in the greater Philadelphia area, but Danielle had already made plans to expand out into Pennsylvania, and later the rest of the country, targeting the lowest-income areas first.

  Thursday was for entrepreneurial funding, as she considered it: small businesses in Philadelphia that needed funds to open, organizations for artists and creatives, things of that nature that needed a hand up to get established.

  Fridays, she had more to do—not only would she come up with something for that day of the week, but also the weekends: the day itself was dedicated to “bigger” projects: hospitals that served the community on a not-for-profit basis, legal aid organizations, things of that nature.

  For the weekends, Danielle had already figured out how to allocate the money without having to put as much thought into it, in a way that her new boss would approve of: at the end of Friday, she would have a list of ten people who would get tax-free trust funds of one hundred thousand dollars each, most of them either elderly or disabled.

  That would be—to start with—more than five hundred people who would have an extra ten thousand dollars a year for the next ten years. It wasn’t a lot, but it was something that, Danielle knew, would change those people’s lives. When she went up to a million dollars a day, that would mean that she could give the same small change to twenty people a week. And Victor had hinted that he would eventually—depending on how much more money he started to make a year—move up to two million to spend per day, maybe even up to five million, eventually. That was a lot of people and organizations she could help.

  Danielle’s phone buzzed and she thought—for a moment—that it was Victor letting her know his meeting with the shareholders had ended early. She grabbed it up from the drawer she kept it in, but the notification showed that the text message had come from her brother, Sam. Hey sis—when’s your lunch break? Danielle frowned.

  She hadn’t told Sam about her new job, and she didn’t want to tell him about it—not really. Even if Victor wasn’t involved with the Sokolovs anymore except on a social level; she didn’t want to deal with any lecture on loyalty or anything like that. She was pretty sure that Sam would want her to be his cover for something going on later in the week—and she didn’t want to do that, either. She was making enough working for Victor that she didn’t need the extra cash that Sam would give her for it, and she just flat-out didn’t want to have any involvement in Bey family business at all anymore.

  I’m out at 12:30, but I might have to work through lunch, Danielle replied. I’ve got a project the boss assigned me. Technically it wasn’t a lie; it was just not what Sam would immediately assume it meant.

  I wanted to take you out to lunch! Come on, you can take 20 minutes, can’t you? That was another perk of her job, Danielle thought with a smile: her lunch breaks were one hour, minimum—and that was if she was having lunch by herself. If she and Victor were having lunch together it might last two hours.

  Her previous job had had a “generous” forty-minute lunch break, most of which Danielle generally spent at her desk anyway. She sighed. Sam would know that something was up if she didn’t meet him for lunch like usual.

  Where are we going? I’ll meet you there. Danielle thought—hoped—that she would be able to put off Sam finding out about her new job for at least a little while longer that way. She made a mental note to tell Victor that she wouldn’t be available for lunch, whether or not he was looking for her.

  Let’s meet at Bud & Marilyn’s, Sam suggested, and Danielle knew that he planned to ask her to cover for him on some project or another; it wasn’t a quick bite to eat to catch up—which would have been at Sonny’s or Buena Onda. It was a slightly pricier meal he wanted to treat her to, which meant he would want a favor.

  It was closer to Danielle’s old job than it was to her new one—but that would work to her benefit, ultimately. She could keep to her story of needing to leave in twenty minutes or so and have plenty of time to get back.

  Then again, apart from having a “meeting” with Vic, it’s not as though he’s strict about my hours on the clock. There was not even, technically, a clock for her to use to keep track of her hours; she was salaried, and between coming in a few minutes early, and already—even one week in—staying late a few times, it wasn’t as though she was shirking her duties.

  I can just about swing that, but you’d better order for me before I get there—I’ll only have about twenty minutes, she wrote her brother back. Danielle knew that he knew what she would want: the fried chicken sandwich with fries, a share of the crispy cheese curds, and a Wile E. Coyote to drink. He could easily order for her, so that her food would be ready to come up when she arrived. That—she hoped—would ensure that the visit was fairly short.

  That brought her back to the problem of why her brother wanted to see her: she was certain that it would be a request for her to act as his cover for some activity—dealing, or selling something else, or casing some business, she wasn’t sure and it didn’t really matter—and she would need to find a way to turn him down without making him aware of the big change in her circumstances.

  She had no doubt that Victor would disapprove of her having anything to do with one of the syndicates; and even if she wasn’t necessarily interested in having her private life dictated by her boss, she had jumped at the opportunity as much because it would keep her from needing the extra cash that Sam offered her as anything else.

  “I’ll figure it out,” she told herself, setting her phone aside when Sam had confirmed that he would put her order in before she met with him, and turning her attention back to the work at hand. She tried not to lie to family, but there were certain things she had to keep separate. She had taken the job to make the final, complete move away from doing anyt
hing with the Bey family—so she would tell Sam that she wasn’t willing to take the risks anymore, even as minimal as they were. He would probably be disappointed, but he couldn’t blame her.

  Chapter8

  “Who’s that new girl you have working for you?” Victor shrugged off Nikolai’s question, reasoning—mentally—that it wasn’t really the man’s business.

  “Someone I found to help me spend my money,” he said with a smile. Nikolai chuckled.

  “You don’t need to hire someone to do that,” Nikolai said. “Find a good Russian girl, or—hell—find some promising woman from any of the countries you like, sponsor her to be a citizen, and marry her. She’ll spend your money faster than you could imagine.” Victor rolled his eyes at that suggestion, knowing where it came from—Nikolai’s wife was an immigrant who had been looking for a green card, and Nikolai and she had an “understanding.” She was okay with his mafia activity, he only good-naturedly griped about her spending all his money.

  “I just thought that I have more money than anyone could ever use,” Victor said. “And I decided there’s no point in being a rich corpse.” Nikolai looked at him more seriously.

  “You’re not going to leave the business or anything, are you?” Victor shook his head.

  “The more money I make the more I can put back out there into the world,” he said with a grin.

  “I guess,” Nikolai said with a disbelieving shrug. “I can’t even imagine feeling guilty about being successful.” Victor laughed.

  “It isn’t guilt about being successful,” he told the man. “It’s knowing that there are tons of people—people who were like me before I got here—who could be just as successful as I am, maybe. If they could get the chance. The Sokolovs took a chance on me, didn’t they?” Nikolai considered that for a moment and then nodded.

  “From that angle I can see it,” Nikolai said. “Though we’re more in the business of loans, not just giving people cash. You’re gonna put us out if you go at that too hard.” Victor shook his head, smiling still.

  “The poor are always with you,” he quoted—the Sokolov family patriarch was a very devout man. Nikolai raised an eyebrow, but he caught the point.

  “Anyway, that girl you’ve got doing things,” Nikolai said. “What about her?”

  “You tell me,” Victor suggested. “You have a problem with who I hire?” Nikolai tilted his head to one side then the other, just slightly, a faint almost-grimace coming over his features.

  “None of us would tell you how to run your life,” Nikolai said. “Least of all me—you’ve returned everything we’ve ever done for you and then some. But she’s got connections.” Victor sighed.

  “Yeah, I know—she used to be a background player,” he said. “She isn’t anymore. Been clean for a while now.”

  “Her brother’s still in, and with the Beys,” Nikolai countered. “Gotta be careful about that.” Victor rolled his eyes.

  “She has nothing to do with him, outside of him being her brother,” Victor told the other man firmly. “She got out of the Bey family games before she and I even met.” That wasn’t, strictly speaking, entirely true—she had, after all, been working as cover for her brother that night—but it was true enough.

  “I’m just saying,” Nikolai told him. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

  “What don’t I know?” Victor raised an eyebrow.

  “Maybe she hooked up with you for a reason,” Nikolai suggested.

  “Yeah, she hooked up with me because I offered her a job,” Victor said. “She didn’t come to me—I found her.” Nikolai shrugged.

  “In any case, just be on the lookout,” Nikolai said. “Now—let’s get to the point of me coming by to see you.” Victor nodded and listened, as Nikolai delved into the business matter he’d wanted to discuss with him, the night of the raid on Vagabond; it had taken the man a little over two weeks to get back to him on it, and Victor was sure that the raid had done more damage to the family business than the Sokolovs had let on.

  The business that Nikolai wanted him in on was legitimate—a rare situation, considering the source—and Victor considered the possibilities of taking part in it. He’d started thinking about it before, without the full details, and while he was extremely careful of his “legit” standing in the eyes of the world and the organized crime counterpart alike, he wasn’t averse to making more money, expanding his own interests. “All it would need from you is some mentoring and some investment,” Nikolai finished.

  “And there’s nothing dirty in it?” Victor raised one eyebrow slightly to underscore his concern.

  “One hundred percent legit,” Nikolai said. “Some of us like having clean enterprises on top of the usual, you know?” He half-smiled and Victor returned the expression.

  “Nothing falling off of trucks, no laundering—it’s totally an independent business?” Victor knew that if Nikolai were a more egotistical boss, he would be offended by his insistence. Fortunately, Nikolai knew where that insistence came from.

  “I understand you’re precious about your legit status,” Nikolai said. “I wouldn’t put you at risk like that without telling you, giving you the choice to do it or not.” Victor nodded slowly.

  “As long as it’s something that’s fully clean, and you’re not setting it up as a front for something else, I think I could chuck some money and brain power at it,” Victor told the man. Nikolai was a curiosity in the Sokolov family: he genuinely did at least seem to want to run some legitimate businesses, things unconnected to the crime that he and his fellow Russians engaged in.

  Maybe, Victor thought, it was just to insulate himself if things ever went pear-shaped with the rest of the family; whatever the case, it was refreshing to deal with someone who was willing to ensure that there was no risk to him.

  “I can have my guy get the paperwork to you after the weekend,” Nikolai said.

  “Sounds good,” Victor told the man, smiling slightly. “I look forward to it.” He wanted Nikolai gone as soon as he could get him to leave; he was waiting to send Danielle a message for a long lunch together—one that, he hoped, would end with a tryst. He’d planned on taking her to Davio’s, where he had a standing reservation—somewhere beautiful, somewhere with amazing food.

  So far, they’d set up something of a routine: twice a week they went out to lunch together, and in the two weeks they’d already worked together they’d managed to eat lunch in the office, ordering in, another time during the week. Of course, Victor had lunch meetings the rest of the time—even on weekends—but his lunches with Danielle had been his favorite ways to spend that time, especially since all six of those lunches had ended with some of the best sex of his life.

  As Victor exchanged pleasantries with Nikolai, waiting for the man to finish up and get up to leave, images of Danielle flashed through his mind, and memories of how she felt, smelled, and tasted hit him from all sides of his brain, it seemed. He saw Danielle perched on his desk, legs spread wide, her vulva slick with her fluids, ready for him to devour. He could almost feel the way her inner muscles flexed in erratic spasms as she became more and more turned on, while they moved together.

  Victor felt the heat pooling along his groin at the memories and tried to dismiss them—it wouldn’t do for Nikolai to see him getting turned on—but it was difficult. Danielle, bent forward, her weight resting on her forearms and her ripe, peach-shaped ass in front of him, her soaking wet pussy peeking out from between her thighs—it was almost too much to handle, remembering it.

  “I should get going—lots of projects to manage,” Nikolai said finally, and Victor rose to shake the man’s hand. “Think about what I said about that girl.” Victor snorted.

  “Dude, she’s legit,” he said, finally and firmly. If he had even entertained any doubts, the work that Danielle had already done would have convinced him: she already had given him the first reports on how to manage the charitable end of his wealth, come up with a system for spending the money as eff
iciently as possible, and he had given her the go-ahead to start spending.

  He was doing it anonymously—and so far, it was only the smaller-scale project of funding in full various projects on crowdsourcing sites—but it felt good, knowing that there were people in the world who would be able to make their rent, pay off their mortgages, or their student loans, things like that without having to worry about it for years to come.

  The rest—finding charities and organizations to support—would fall into place more fully later, but Victor was already pleased with the small amount of results they’d managed to accrue in just two weeks. “If you say so,” Nikolai said. “Last thing I’ll ever say on the topic—unless she turns out to bite you in the ass. Then I’ll only say ‘I told you so’ maybe five times.” Victor snickered and shook his head.

  “Don’t hold your breath for your chance at that,” he advised the other man, and finished shaking his hand before releasing it. Nikolai raised an eyebrow for a moment and then turned away, giving him a final, brief goodbye. Victor waited for the man to leave and sat back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling. There was no risk with Danielle—that much Victor knew.

  She was interested in staying legit, she was a good worker, and he was sure that if she had anything to do with her brother’s business, she would have told him. She’s trustworthy, Victor thought, remembering their time together—short as it had been. He had made his fortune in no small part from his ability to read people, to assess risk. If Danielle were someone he couldn’t trust, he never would have given her so much discretion over his wealth. He’d come to the conclusion after their first night together, but he had made much more reckless choices in the past and come out on the other side of them richer for the chance.