Chapter 3 #2
He chuckles low in his throat, the deep timbre reminding me of an animal’s growl. “Apparently you didn’t know your father as well as you thought.”
I shoot out of my seat. “I knew my father! I loved him.”
Asher Voss, slowly, like a predator readying to strike, stands from his chair and sets his palms on his desk, leaning toward me. If there weren’t a desk between us, he would tower over me. “I’d gather there’s a lot you don’t know, Miss Boudreaux.”
My hands fist at my sides at the censure in his eyes and the way he’s talking to me as though I’m beneath him. “If what you say is true, I demand to see the paperwork my father signed. He’d never put Oak Haven Estate at risk. I don’t believe you.”
He pushes off his desk, standing to his full height, smoothing his tie down his chest. Although he’s clothed, the way the suit has clearly been tailored for him shows off his broad shoulders and narrow waist. I assume under the suit is a magnificent body.
“I’ll have my assistant at headquarters have it couriered to you as soon as you leave.
Which is now.” He gestures toward the door behind me.
“That’s it?” I don’t know why I’m so stunned he’s dismissing me so easily.
“That’s all.” He nods once. When I don’t move, he stalks around his desk toward me, standing tall in front of me. His nostrils flare. “You need to leave. Now.”
Something flashes in the depths of his blue eyes, but I can’t decipher what. For a moment I think it might be panic, but would a man like him ever panic?
“I’m not leaving here until you tell me what I can do to keep the estate.”
“There’s nothing you can do. Now go.” He grips my upper arm.
The feel of his large hand wrapped around the bare skin of my upper arm causes me to gasp. He, however, is unaffected as he drags me toward the door. But as he reaches for the handle of his door, I wrench my arm from his.
“There has to be something I can do.” I look up at him with pleading eyes.
“There’s nothing you can do. Not unless you have the funds to pay off the entire balance of the loan now that it’s in arrears.”
“How much is that?” Maybe I could sell my car… I only rent my place… maybe I could get a loan for the amount myself if I—
“Three million dollars.”
My stomach bottoms out, and my legs shake, causing me to almost collapse. My father gambled away three million dollars.
As if he can read my mind, Asher says, “A lot of it he gambled. Some of it he had to use for the distillery and the farm because he was also a shit businessman.”
My gaze whips up to meet his in outrage. Who is this man who can so callously speak about a man to his daughter after he was killed only months ago on his property?
I recall all the opulence as I walked through this mansion.
The needless displays of generational wealth.
Three million dollars is like pennies to a billionaire like Asher Voss, and yet it’s as if he’s taking pleasure in causing this pain.
He could work something out with me if he wanted.
It would make no difference to his bottom line.
“My father might have been a gambler and a poor businessman, but he was a thousand times the man you are!”
A patronizing chuckle ripples out of him. “Please stop trying to flatter me, Miss Boudreaux. It doesn’t change the fact that in less than two weeks, I’ll be the new owner of Oak Haven Estate.”
Nausea coils in my stomach, but I refuse to throw up on his expensive leather shoes. We can’t lose the only tie we still have to our father and his memory. My mother… I don’t even want to know how she’d react if we were forced off the estate. She’d never recover.
“Tell me what I can do. There has to be something. I’ll do anything, Mr. Voss, please.” I’m a prideful woman, and I hate the desperation in my voice, but I am exactly that—desperate.
He studies me. It’s almost impossible not to shrivel up within myself, but I hold my ground. Then he steps closer to me, and I step closer toward the door.
“Why should I do anything other than what the contract your father signed dictates? I did nothing underhanded. He knew what he was signing, and he didn’t live up to his end of the deal.
Therefore, I have every right to make Oak Haven Estate mine.
Yet you’re here looking at me like I’m the villain, rather than your precious father who put your family in this position in the first place. ”
It’s not lost on me that his words ring true, but I don’t care. He’s the one who holds the loan. He can put a stop to this if he wants.
“I can’t lose the estate. It’s all I have left of my father. My brother is in charge of the farm and the distillery now. He can get things running more profitably, and we can work out a payment plan. Please.” I put my hands in front of me in a prayer pose. “I’ll do anything.”
He shoves his hands in his pockets and is silent. I don’t dare take a breath.
“Okay then… I’ll make you a bargain.”
My heart speeds up. “Anything.”
Whatever interest rate he wants us to pay back the loan is going to be ridiculous, but it doesn’t matter. It’s worth it if we can keep the estate.
Without warning, his hand wraps around my wrists where they’re still raised in front of me, and he wrenches them above my head, using the leverage to walk me back a couple of steps until my back is pressed against the door.
My breath heaves in my lungs, and my eyes widen as fear seizes control of my limbs, leaving me frozen in place.
His gaze dips down between us before his blue eyes meet mine again. “You come to work for me for a year, and I’ll consider the debt paid. You can keep your precious estate.”
I blink at him in confusion. He wants me to work for him? “Wh… what would I be doing?”
He takes a long, leisurely look down at my body before our eyes meet again. “Whatever I want.”
Something about the way he says that sounds inherently sexual, but there’s no way that can be what he means. He’ll probably have me filing paperwork for eight hours a day or fetching him coffee.
Gathering my courage, I raise my chin, even though it’s more than obvious that he has the advantage of me pressed up against the door. “Do you always work from your home office?” Will I have to relocate to work from Voss Enterprises’ head office?
“I don’t. But you will work from here. In fact, you’ll live here.” He sounds as if he’s coming up with these rules as we stand here chest to chest, so close I can smell the mint on his breath.
“Here? At Midnight Manor?”
He arches a dark eyebrow. “Afraid all those urban legends are true?”
I remember all the stories I’ve heard over the years.
How the manor is haunted, cursed even. How more than one person has died suspiciously on these grounds—my father included.
How no one knows much about the Voss brothers.
How one Saturday night a month, expensive vehicles with blacked-out windows make their way through town and up the hill to Midnight Manor.
How can I possibly live here for a year?
But how can I not?
Thoughts of my family and memories at Oak Haven Estate take over all the fearful questions about Midnight Manor.
To work here, I’ll have to give up my internship in Nashville.
But I can start over trying to get a foothold in publishing once the year is up, and I know for certain that Oak Haven Estate will remain in the possession of my family.
“I want it in writing that we’re free and clear if I come to work for you for a year.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“Not even a little.”
He smirks and releases my hands but stays only inches away from me. “You’re not as na?ve as I thought.”
“I’m under no illusion that you’re going to make anything easy for me.”
“Smart girl. You can bet I’ll make it very hard and unpleasant.”
My neck cranes to stare up at him. The predatory gleam in his eyes mixed with the sexual innuendo has my nipples pebbling in my dress. What kind of reaction is that for me to have?
“Good.” I nod, and he backs up a few steps, allowing me to finally breathe normally. “When do I start?”
“Be here at eight tomorrow morning.” He turns and walks back to his desk, his tone dismissive.
“Your lawyers or whoever can get something together that fast? I’m not starting until I have a contract.”
He doesn’t bother to even glance in my direction as he sits at his desk, picking up the papers he was reading before I arrived. “I pay people generously to make sure I get whatever I want, whenever I want it, Miss Boudreaux. Marcel will see you out now.”
The door behind me swings open, and I whip around, meeting Marcel’s patient smile.
Without another word from Asher Voss, I walk out of his office.
Only as I’m following Marcel through the manor do I question why Asher Voss would even want me to work for him.
Surely whatever kind of work I’m doing for him isn’t worth a three-million-dollar salary.
But who am I to question a man like Asher Voss? He must have his reasons.
All that matters is Oak Haven Estate stays in the family.