The Billionaire From Philly Page 9

  “You can have something to drink, but considering you rolled up here to lecture me on my life just because I didn’t tell you about my new job, I am not offering to feed you,” she told him. Danielle rose to her feet and went into the kitchen, grateful for—if nothing else—the opportunity to regain some of her composure and have some space to keep her mind going, to stay ahead of Sam’s questions.

  “So who are you working for?” Danielle grabbed her brother a beer and got one for herself as well before coming back to the table.

  “You don’t know him,” she said.

  “Give me his name, sis,” Sam countered, his voice a little firmer.

  “His name is Victor Andersson,” she replied, unable to see a way out of the question without getting more interrogation as a result. Sam frowned.

  “You’re sure he’s not connected to anyone?” Danielle shrugged.

  “He isn’t connected directly to any of the families, that’s all I know,” she told him. Sam’s eyes narrowed and he sipped his beer.

  “So, he’s giving you a good living, and you met him that night a month ago?” Danielle nodded.

  “Lucky thing, I guess,” she said, sipping her own beer.

  “Okay, he’s not connected to any of the families—what was he doing there?” Danielle once more felt her heart beating faster in her chest and tried to think quickly.

  “He was out, what do you want? People go to that club for legit reasons too,” she pointed out.

  “How did he end up offering you a job?” Danielle shrugged.

  “We both got out ahead of the raid, and went for a drink and started talking,” she replied. “He mentioned that he was looking to hire someone to oversee his charity stuff, and we talked some more and he ended up offering me the job the next day.” That was as close to the truth as she was going to get with Sam; besides, Danielle reasoned: he didn’t need to know any extra details. It was her life.

  “What did you say his name was again?” Sam frowned, and Danielle felt her throat tighten a bit.

  “Victor Andersson,” she replied, keeping her voice carefully level.

  “Son of a bitch,” Sam muttered. “I know who that guy is.” Danielle raised an eyebrow. How had her brother heard of Victor? Had her new boss been lying to her? There’s no way that he should know about Victor having anything to do with the Sokolov people in the past—Vic only got some funding from them.

  “I mean, he’s a billionaire living in the city so I would guess he’s pretty well-known,” Danielle said, trying to cover her sudden sense of trepidation.

  “About five years ago he was looking for funding to start his business, and we made him an offer,” Sam said. “I was low-rank then, but I heard about it—because he rejected us.” Sam looked at Danielle steadily. “Word on the street was that he got some money from the Sokolovs back then—and that he paid it back fast.” Danielle shrugged again.

  “He doesn’t have anything to do with them now,” she pointed out.

  “He’s still friends with them,” Sam countered. “He was at their club that night.”

  “So were you,” Danielle pointed out. “Does that mean you’re connected with the Sokolovs?” Sam rolled his eyes.

  “I was there on business,” he told her firmly. “And now I find out you’re cozy with someone who knows them—who’s worked with them after rejecting our bid.”

  “What the hell does that matter? He isn’t laundering money for them or anything,” Danielle said firmly. While she couldn’t be absolutely sure that that was true—after all, she wasn’t his accountant—she did trust that Victor had been honest with her. Hadn’t he given her the job specifically so that she could make a bigger step away from the syndicate her brother belonged to? Hadn’t he insisted that she look and come across as someone who had never been involved in any way with the Bey family?

  “It matters because he snubbed us,” Sam replied. “And you’re in a position to give us some intel on him.” Danielle set her beer down and stared at her brother.

  “I don’t know who the hell you think I am, Samuel,” she said slowly, “but I got out of family business a long time ago and I’m not about to get involved in it now.”

  “If he’s still having shit to do with the Sokolovs, he might be open to new investment opportunities,” Sam said. “And we have just as much a right to his time on that as they do, even if he turned down our funding five years ago.”

  “He might have a personal relationship with one or two members of that family,” Danielle said dismissively—she knew good and well that he was still on fairly good terms with Nikolai Sokolov. “But that’s between him and them. I’m not there to manage his investments. I’m there to work on his charity giving. You want an audience with him? Talk to his accountant.” Sam scowled at her.

  “You’re making a hundred grand a year, and have extra money coming to you just to buy clothes and get your hair done, but you won’t do your own brother a solid and try and get your new boss interested in a business opportunity?” Danielle shook her head.

  “I am not going to jeopardize my job by getting him involved in something that might bring him down,” Danielle said. “I don’t trust you to bring him fully legitimate business.”

  “You don’t trust me?” Sam’s scowl deepened and he rose to his feet. “How many times have I tossed you some cash so you could stay legit? How many times have I helped you out?”

  “How many times have you nearly gotten me arrested? How many times have you tried to drag me into Bey family business after I told you I don’t want to be?” Danielle rose to her feet as well, knowing that if she let Sam keep the height advantage he’d taken, he’d try and use it to bully her.

  “Think about it, Dani,” Sam said, suddenly changing tactics. “I wouldn’t get you in trouble—and I wouldn’t put you in a position to end up on the street because your new boss suddenly gets arrested.” Danielle rolled her eyes.

  “You’ve almost gotten me in trouble a dozen times,” she pointed out. “I love you, Sam—but you’re a criminal just like everyone else in that family you run with is.”

  “I get paid to do a job, just like you,” Sam countered. “I get paid well—unlike the jobs you used to get before this one.” He sighed and shook his head. “You know I’ve taken care of you before in the past—and if you did end up getting fired from the other job, instead of getting this new one, I would have made sure you had money for food, that your rent was covered. You know that, right?”

  Danielle met her brother’s gaze. She did know that he was right about that; if she went to him, desperate and broke, he would make sure she was able to eat, and he would help keep a roof over her head. But he would also expect her to help him out in return. If she were desperate, it wouldn’t be that difficult.

  “I don’t want to jeopardize my job, Sam,” she said. “It’s the best job I’ve ever had and might be the best one I’ll ever have in my life. I have millions of dollars at my disposal to help out in the community, to make things happen for people who could never dream of it otherwise. Don’t ask me to do something that could fuck that up.” Sam held her gaze and then nodded.

  “Just think about it,” he said again, his voice calmer, quieter. “I promise you that if we did approach him with something specific—if I approached him with something specific—it wouldn’t be laundering or anything like that. It would be legitimate. I wouldn’t go risking your job.” Danielle sighed.

  “I wish I could trust you on that,” she said. “But considering the company you keep and the people you work for, I just can’t.” Sam shook his head slowly.

  “Promise me you’ll think about it,” he insisted. Danielle knew that he wouldn’t leave the apartment until she did.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said. She was tired; even before the situation with her brother had come up, she’d had a busy day. “Now don’t you have somewhere you need to be? Work you need to do?” Sam grinned and stepped around the table to hug her and give her a kiss on
the cheek.

  “Let me know what you decide,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.” For one of the few times in her life, Danielle wasn’t looking forward to hearing from her brother again; but she told herself that maybe—in a day or so—it would occur to Sam how crazy his request had been. He might text her to say that he was sorry for trying to get her involved in things that could bring trouble to her. She could only hope for that.

  Chapter14

  “My brother knows I’m working for you now,” Danielle said as she sat down across from Victor, on the other side of his desk. Victor raised an eyebrow at her pronouncement.

  “What brought that about? Or were you just ready to tell him?” He didn’t suspect that was the case.

  “He went to see me at my old job and found out I hadn’t worked there in a month,” Danielle admitted, smiling wryly. “He doesn’t know about...anything else. Just that I’m managing your charity work.” Victor nodded.

  “What was his reaction?” Danielle grimaced.

  “He wanted me to try and get you involved in business dealings,” she said distastefully. “I told him no, but he made me promise to think about it.” Victor mirrored her dismayed expression.

  “I appreciate you being upfront about it,” he said with a little smile. “It couldn’t have been easy for you to deal with him.” Danielle shrugged.

  “He can’t make me do anything,” she said. “He’s my brother—he’s not my dad. He might have helped me out from time to time, but he did it because we’re family—and I’ve helped him out too. So we’re on equal footing as far as I’m concerned, and I don’t owe him anything like that.” Victor nodded approvingly.

  “I’m glad you don’t feel obligated to him,” Victor said. “Are you worried something else might come up?” Danielle considered that for a moment and then shrugged again.

  “If it does, I will just have to deal with it,” she replied. Victor smiled a bit more broadly.

  “I wanted to talk to you about something,” Victor said; his heart beat a bit faster in his chest as he spoke. He had hoped to talk to Danielle about the revelation he’d had before, but her news for him had forestalled the mission. Over the weekend they’d been apart, he had thought about what he had in mind, and what he should do about the situation between them—and he had decided that the only way to resolve the situation was to confront it head on.

  “What’s up?” Danielle picked up her notebook and pen, ready to take notes. “Did you get a tip on a charity or something?” Victor shook his head.

  “It’s about us—I’d hope you don’t need to take notes,” Victor said, keeping his voice as light as he could. “I want to talk to you about the other part of our working relationship.” Danielle’s eyes widened slightly, and she put her notebook aside, looking at him with a bit of trepidation.

  “What did you want to talk about?” Victor pressed his lips together and tried to think of all of the good sentences, phrases, words he’d come up with to handle this particular moment between them—and for a moment his mind went blank. He took a quick breath and decided that it was stupid to even plan the conversation anyway.

  “I like you,” Victor said. It sounded so simple—so juvenile—and yet it was the simplest way he could say what he wanted to say. “More than as my employee, more than as someone I have fantastic sex with pretty much daily.” He smiled slightly and saw Danielle’s cheeks light up with a blush. “I want to see you outside of work—more than just on the anniversary of the day you started here. On a normal basis.”

  “You want to...to start dating me?” Danielle looked at him and Victor couldn’t read the expression on her face.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “I want to see you regularly.” Danielle raised an eyebrow, smiling slightly.

  “You see me five days a week, usually several times a day,” she pointed out.

  “I want to see you more than that,” Victor said. “If you don’t want to—that’s fine.”

  “It isn’t that I don’t want to—not exactly,” Danielle said. She pressed her lips together and looked down at her hands for a moment, before meeting his gaze once more. “I just...where is this coming from?”

  “I realized I had feelings for you,” Victor replied. “I actually realized it when I stayed late the other night, and I was about to go home...and I was bummed about how lonely the apartment was going to be when I got there.”

  “Because you’re lonely outside of work, you want to see me outside of work, too?” Victor shrugged.

  “I’m lonely for you,” he said. “I sound like a total idiot saying this I guess...but I haven’t felt this way about anyone that I can remember.”

  “You’re into me,” Danielle said, making it not quite a question.

  “I am,” Victor said. “You’re smart, you’re gorgeous, you’re talented and funny...what’s not to be into?” Danielle smiled shyly. Victor paused for a moment to let his compliments sink in and tried to think of how to say what it was that he wanted to say. “If you aren’t interested in me, that’s fine. But I had to say something. I had to at least see if you might be into it.”

  “I’m not...not into you,” Danielle said. “I just don’t understand why you want to spend more time with me. Or what that would look like.” She bit her full bottom lip and Victor wondered if she knew what effect that had on him. “What happens if you get sick of me?” Victor laughed.

  “First of all, I don’t think I’m at risk of getting sick of you anytime in the next year or two,” he said. “Second of all, if it doesn’t work out romantically, you still have your job. There’s no reason why you can’t keep managing my charity work without having sex with me.”

  “You’re absolutely sure that if we keep going like this—getting more serious—and then end up breaking up, you’re still going to want me to work for you?” Danielle looked skeptical. “I kind of feel like the whole reason you even gave me this job in the first place is because you wanted ready access to sex with me.” Victor shook his head.

  “That was a nice perk,” he admitted. “And as long as you keep wanting to have sex with me, and when you keep wanting to have sex with me, I’m happy to keep going. But I like what you’re doing with my money. I like giving back, and I like having someone on staff who can focus on just that.”

  “If I decided that I don’t want to date you, nothing changes?” Victor nodded.

  “If you still want to have sex but don’t want to see me outside of the office, we won’t do it,” Victor confirmed. “If you don’t even want to keep having sex with me, you can keep working and we won’t even discuss it unless you get a craving for some office-hours fucking again.” He smiled slightly.

  “But if I want to date you, how does that go?” Victor had to think about that. The journalist who had come up to him a few days before, asking about his love life, asking about the raid—that had, he had to admit, changed the way that he thought about the situation. Neither he nor Danielle could ignore their pasts; while they were both legit, and neither of them—at least to the best of his knowledge—had gotten very deep into anything with the syndicates, they both had connections within them.

  “We go out together,” Victor said slowly. “We’d want to keep it quiet—I probably should have mentioned that before. Someone saw us together at the show the other night. But we’d keep it quiet, just between us.”

  “Someone saw us?” Danielle’s eyes widened, and the color drained from her cheeks. “What makes you think that?” She was more stunned by it than he had been.

  “A journalist hit me up as I was leaving, asking if I had a new girlfriend,” Victor said, shrugging it off.

  “And you didn’t think to mention that to me?” Victor frowned.

  “I didn’t think it would be relevant to you,” Victor said. “I mean, I told him I was just out with a colleague.”

  “Okay,” Danielle said. “I...if we do go out together, it’s going to need to be very quiet. I didn’t tell Sam about the other side of this.”


  “What does he need to know about your sex life for, anyway?” Victor smiled.

  “He doesn’t, which is why I didn’t tell him about that part,” Danielle replied. “But he knows you have some connection to the Sokolov family, even if it’s just that they invested in you.”

  “And you think that him knowing we’re dating is going to change something?” Victor raised an eyebrow. Danielle looked away for a moment, shrugging.

  “He wants intel on you,” she said quietly, before meeting his gaze once more. “He wanted me to spy on you, and I told him I wouldn’t. But if I’m dating you he’s going to insist on it—or maybe try and get it out of me by manipulating me.” Victor sat back in his chair.

  “That’s...why would he want intel on me? I only have the barest possible relationship with Nikolai—not even anyone else in the organization.” Danielle shook her head, indicating she didn’t know.

  “I think he just thinks that any intel is worth having,” she said after another moment. “If we do date, we’re going to have to be really careful about it—not go anywhere we might be seen.” Victor considered that.

  “We could have some quiet dates,” he pointed out.

  “That just makes it sound like you want nothing more than more opportunities for sex,” Danielle countered. Victor chuckled.

  “Okay—we can meet up places, instead of going there together,” he suggested. “We can make this work; but only if you really want to do this.” Danielle met his gaze and Victor could see the doubt in her eyes. He thought, in that moment, that she might tell him no; that she would say it was too hard, or too complicated.

  “I want to,” Danielle said finally. “But we’re going to have to keep it really quiet.” Victor smiled slowly.

  “It took him a month to find out you weren’t working at your old job,” he pointed out. “I think we can keep him from finding out we’re doing this—don’t you?” Danielle smiled back at him, but Victor could still see the doubt in her eyes. More than anything, he wanted to get up, walk around the desk, and kiss her—but he held himself back. They had to settle this between them, figure it out, without distraction.