The Assistant (Clear View Country Club)

1. Dawson

Dawson

Some things never change. Death and taxes. Having entrees show up at the table as soon as you make it to the bathroom. The scent of bullshit in the air as soon as I cross through the front gate of my father’s estate.

It gets stronger once my driver has pulled up in front of the imposing front porch, set atop a set of wide, brick steps.

“Welcome back, Mr. Price.” A kid who doesn’t look like he’s old enough to shave gives me a wide smile after opening my car door so I can step out onto the circular courtyard at the base of the steps. “You’re looking well.”

I’m sure I’ve never set eyes on him, and vice versa, but he talks to me like we’re old friends because that’s what he’s paid to do. To serve and to kiss ass.

I’m not like my dad. I don’t appreciate too much ass kissing. “You should see me on a good day,” I murmur, nodding toward the pair of guards flanking the double front door under a sloping porch overhang. Them, I recognize. When Dad finds trustworthy people, he doesn’t let them go.

He is who I’ve come to see. My first visit to the house since flying in after a year overseas.

I suppose a year isn’t long enough for any real change to take place.

The inside of the house hasn’t changed at all, even if Dad is no longer the only person living here besides the full-time staff who have their own rooms downstairs.

The gold digger Dad married six months ago hasn’t wreaked havoc yet, but I got the feeling it’s only a matter of time before her tacky taste infects the estate’s old-school grandeur.

She must be around here somewhere. Probably sleeping at nine in the morning.

Trophy wives don’t get out of bed before eleven at the earliest. I’m sure she figures now that her acting career has dried up—what little there was—she deserves a rest. The thought of a gold digger getting her hands on what Mom poured her attention and love into is a lump of burning coal eating a hole in my gut.

“Is that my son?” I’m halfway down the hall leading through the east wing when Dad’s voice booms out.

When I was a kid, I really believed he had eyes everywhere.

I was too young to notice the cameras placed throughout the house.

I’m sure he has the feed pulled up on his laptop, anticipating my arrival.

Rounding the doorframe of his study, I find him sitting behind his desk, surrounded by his collection of memories. Souvenirs from trips around the world, rare books he tracked down and paid fuck only knows how much for.

For the first time, I spot a glaring difference in the décor.

Instead of the row of old photos sitting in silver frames on the credenza behind him, Dad now displays six months’ worth of photos of him and his new wife.

For fifteen years, he’s chosen to memorialize my late mother, and it took all of six months to wipe her out.

Instead of Mom’s soft, dark curls and gentle smile, a plastic-faced woman with bleached hair and an almost-orange tan beams cheesily at me.

“I see you enjoyed your honeymoon,” I murmur, studying the photos after shaking his hand. Shots of Dad and Diana on a tropical beach, in front of the Taj Mahal, even on top of the Eiffel Tower with Paris spread out behind them.

“Diana had never traveled extensively. It was gratifying, sharing the experience with her.” Right, and I’m sure it was gratifying when she sucked his dick once they got back to the hotel.

There’s no way this relationship is built on anything real.

It’s a transaction, pure and simple, the way it was with Diana’s previous three husbands.

If Dad thinks I didn’t look her up the minute he told me her name, he’s never known the first thing about me.

Really, would that be a surprise?

The thing is, if he didn’t look so damn happy in those pictures, I might throw it all in his face.

Her divorces, the allegations her ex-husbands made.

Infidelity being the chief point, of course.

Their relationship is still new enough that she’ll be a good girl for a while—I’m sure she’s learned a thing or two by now about discretion.

“And where is the wife?” I ask, looking over Dad’s shoulder out the windows behind the desk, where the pool sparkles. “I figured she would be outside on a beautiful day, getting some sun.”

“She’s not the early riser we are,” he explains, and his voice drips with indulgence that sets my teeth on edge. “I didn’t ask you to come in to meet her, anyway. There are bigger issues we need to discuss.”

If anything, I’m glad. Business, I can handle. “Let’s hear it.”

He gestures for me to take a seat in one of the two chairs opposite the one he sits in now.

I can’t help noticing he didn’t bother with the usual pleasantries people exchange after they haven’t seen each other for a year.

Nothing about how well I’m looking or how good it is to see me, not that I would expect it.

If anything, the fact that he hasn’t bothered blowing smoke up my ass is reassuring.

I know where I stand. This is the same man who tried to tell me to shake off what turned out to be a broken arm when I was eight years old.

Light footsteps fill the air behind me, out in the hall, and I watch as Dad looks over my shoulder and waves someone in. “Right on time. Harper,” he says, gesturing toward me. “My son Dawson. Your stepbrother.”

Looking at me, he adds, “Your new boss.”

Hold the fuck up. “Boss? As in she works for me?” If there’s one thing I cannot fucking stand, it’s the sense of walking in on something halfway through and trying to catch up to what everybody else already knows.

It’s all I can do not to sputter in confusion while he sits there, practically beaming with satisfaction.

“That’s right,” he tells me like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Now that you’ve established yourself as a billion-dollar tycoon, you’ll need a good assistant.”

I can’t help hearing the way he says it. Like he’s jealous. Am I supposed to feel sorry for doing in one year what he hasn’t been able to do in decades? The pieces were already there. All he needed to do was put it together, but he has never had the vision.

Yet he has the balls to sit there and almost smirk at me.

Now I take a serious look at this Harper person for the first time since she walked in.

She might have rolled out of bed a few minutes ago, dressed in a baggy T-shirt and a pair of leggings.

Strands of blonde hair hang around her face, but most of it is pulled into a bun on top of her head.

Has she seen a brush today? Her peaches-and-cream complexion is a contrast to the olive skin Dad handed down to me, and it adds to her aura of fresh-faced youth she gives off.

“You could at least have found somebody pretty,” I decide, and the way her features shift makes it worthwhile. Color blooms in her cheeks, and her nostrils flare while small fists clench at her sides.

The fact is, she’s very pretty. Pouty lips, wide blue eyes that narrow in response to my criticism. She’s very easy to set off but knows she needs to be a good girl in front of Mom’s new meal ticket. This could be a lot of fun.

Her shoulders rise and fall in a deep breath before she looks at Dad. “You want me to work for him? I don’t know anything about being an assistant.”

“Then you’re going to learn,” Dad fires back.

I could’ve told her all the common sense in the world wouldn’t make a difference.

Not to Henry Price. He’ll do anything to keep her gold-digging mother happy and faithful, but her daughter?

He’s never exactly been great when it comes to empathy.

If anything, the more she digs her heels in, the more determined he’ll be to bend her to his will.

Looking her up and down, that hourglass figure of hers has me wanting to bend her, too.

Her baggy T-shirt can’t hide her tiny waist any more than it hides her full tits and hips.

I can imagine enjoying looking at her every day, especially in the right clothes.

She’ll need them. Preferably something short, tight, and low-cut.

When she looks down at me, eyes blazing, I’ll be damned if my dick doesn’t twitch a little. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I am totally unskilled.” I hear what’s under her words, even if Dad doesn’t. She’s practically begging me to back her up and agree this isn’t going to work.

Before I can say a word, Dad snaps, “You will learn. You’ll have to excuse me if I made this sound optional. It isn’t. If you expect me to pay for your art school, you’ll put in one year of working for your stepbrother because I said so. Understood?”

Art school. The disdain dripping from his voice tells me what I need to know about his feelings on that one. I don’t even think I could blame him for setting rules for what she has to do if she expects him to pay.

“Is there anything else you want to say?” Dad asks.

Fuck, she’s seething. I would swear in court there’s heat radiating from her.

It practically singes the dark beard I trimmed close to my skin just this morning.

“I don’t think so,” she grits out. She is almost choking on rage, fighting for every word.

Fighting to keep her dignity, too. I know how that goes.

Hell, when I look at it that way, there’s a chance the two of us could get along well. We have enough in common.

But no, because it’s almost fun to watch her fight to hold it together. It’ll be fun to make her squirm once she’s in my face every day, too. “We’ll have to touch base,” I murmur, smirking at the way she clenches her jaw and tightens her fists again.

“Whatever you say.” That’s all she manages to grunt before turning on her heel and marching out of the room. I don’t mind the view of her ass as she leaves, that’s for sure.

There’s one thing we have in common, and it’s what makes me turn to Dad as soon as her sharp footsteps fade to silence. “Thank you for guaranteeing I’m going to have a surly employee for the next year.”

“Oh, she’ll get over it. And if she doesn’t?” All I get is a lifted shoulder.

“It’s not going to work out. You know that, right? She doesn’t have the first clue what it takes to be an executive assistant to a man in my position.”

“A man in your position?” When his face goes hard, I have to brace myself.

Here I am, twenty-nine years old, officially a billionaire after the time I spent overseas expanding my holdings, but he still scowls at me like I’m the same kid who used to bounce a ball out in the hallway outside his study and disturb his work.

“It could be my advanced age playing tricks on my memory, but exactly who put you in your position?”

Before I can open my mouth and give him the answer he’s looking for, he slams his hands on the desk, then stands, thinking he’ll intimidate me by looming over me. “Who started this company? Who is responsible for every success you’ve had in your life?”

He won’t be satisfied unless he gets a response. It means swallowing back a lifetime’s worth of resentment. That’s the only thing that makes it possible to nod and murmur, “You.”

“You are goddamn right,” he growls. “And I’m also the reason you made the acquaintance of the man who made it possible for you to scale up, aren’t I?”

Some introduction. Yes, Xander Rossi is a valuable partner, though it might be nice if I didn’t have to weigh every word I use in front of him.

Not to mention the impulse to look over my shoulder half the time, expecting one of his armed associates to be watching.

Making sure I’m trustworthy. “That’s true,” I murmur.

“I thought so.” Slowly, he lowers himself back into his chair and leans against the high leather back. “Anyway, we’ll call this repayment for the many favors I’ve done for you.”

“What about the girl? You’re inflicting me on her for a year. What did she do to deserve it?”

“It’s not what she’s done. It’s what she’s going to do.” Rather than give me an explanation for that one, he continues, “I have a few ideas for how to make her useful, but in the meantime, I need someone to keep an eye on her. Keep her out of trouble.”

I’m supposed to keep her out of trouble? All I can do is sit here and remember that luscious body and come up with ways to get her in trouble.

Though something tells me it’s the kind of trouble she won’t mind.