Faking It with my Small Town Billionaire (Faking It with the Billionaires #1)

1. Orson

1

Orson

My grandfather sits behind the huge mahogany desk in his no less lavish study. He’s a gnarly old man who, in my opinion, has become more bitter with age. But hey, maybe that’s my fate. I’ve heard people say I’m already gnarly, though I don’t have the white hair and wrinkles.

He’s been watching me with those piercing brown eyes as I pace back and forth over the thick plush carpet. A family trait, apparently. The brown eyes, not the pacing. He may be hurtling toward his seventy-third year, but he’s still as sharp as a knife. And I don’t mean your dollar store cheap and nasty one, either. We’re talking Master Chef here.

“Why don’t you sit, Orson? You’re making me dizzy.” The old man gestures to a leather chair across from his desk.

“I don’t feel like sitting,” I reply.

“No. You just want to wear a hole in my carpet.”

I doubt if I paced for all the years he’d been living, I could manage to do that. It has a pretty thick pile.

“You’ve brought me up to the house, Pops. What is it you want to talk to me about?”

I say “house.” What I mean is the sprawling hundred-acre estate that incorporates a huge mansion, a golf course, stables, a training ground for the horses, a collection of classic cars, pools, tennis courts, and a whole lot of other things the average Joe doesn’t have in his backyard. It takes me five minutes to get up the driveway.

This is the family home. The place where my grandfather, mother, and father live permanently—when my parents are not jet-setting around the world, that is. You see, my family has a legacy that will soon be handed down to me.

Donovan Enterprises was my grandfather’s vision when he was in his early twenties. Life wasn’t as easy back then, and he worked tooth and nail to get his business off the ground. When my father was old enough, he joined the business, expanding it further than my grandfather ever could have imagined possible.

I’m thirty-four and already a billionaire. Contrary to what everyone says, I didn’t get a cushy job the minute I walked out of university. My grandfather believes a man ought to earn his stripes, and that I did, and more. I did what everybody else had to do and started at the bottom.

I now run a large department that deals with restructuring and plenty of other things people don’t fully understand. The business is huge, with more departments than I can count. I love my job.

“We need to talk about your next project,” my grandfather says. “There’s been a change of plans.”

I stop pacing and frown at him. “What do you mean, a change of plans?”

A moment ago, my hands were stuck in the trouser pockets of my five-thousand-dollar suit. Now, they’re placed confrontationally on my hips.

“Will you just sit down so I can talk to you properly, son?”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to sit. I drove for two hours to get here. I’m tired of sitting.”

The old man screws up his face. “You’re as stubborn as your father.”

“I wonder where he gets it from,” I quip back.

The old man chuckles. “It’s that tenacity that made this company, Orson. Don’t knock it.” He heaves a sigh and looks at me for a long moment. Then he says, “You’re not taking the Wilson account. I have another job for you.”

“But I’ve already put all the details together,” I counter.

“I don’t care. There’s something else I need you to do. In fact, it’s a requirement if you want to inherit everything I’ve built.”

I hate it when he says that. He didn’t do it alone, and he knows it, but he takes every opportunity to tell me that, like I’m being handed this business on a plate. Like I haven’t worked every hour God sent for the last two decades to get it where it is.

“So?” I press, wanting him to just get to the point.

“You’re going to Willow Creek,” he says, his eyes locked on mine.

“What?”

I must be hearing things because I know my grandfather did not just tell me I’m going back to the place I hate with a passion. Willow Creek is the last place God made. I should know. I was raised there. My grandfather was born there. The Donovan name is well known there, which is the very reason I hate it.

Why do I hate it? Well, it’s simple. The townsfolk don’t like people who succeed. My grandfather made a name for himself, by himself. Try growing up in a town where the people hate you because you happen to be the grandson of the guy who made it. My life was miserable there. I swore that once I left it, I would never go back.

“I won’t do it,” I say plainly.

“Then you can kiss your inheritance goodbye,” Pops says, his lips curling into a smirk.

“Why?” I bark. “Why would you make me go back when you know how much I hate the place?”

“You ran away, Orson.”

“I did not run—”

“You ran away, and you’ve never been back. This family doesn’t produce cowards. You’re going back, and you’re going to show those people what you’re made of.”

“This is ridiculous.” My angry voice trembles slightly on the last word.

“You see, this is the very reason I’m doing this. Your father is like me. He’s a hard man who does what is necessary to get the job done. You’ve always been more like your mother. There’s a soft side to you. There’s nothing wrong with that,” he adds quickly. “Your mother is a fine woman. But no relation of mine is going to get away with being a coward.”

“You’re wrong.”

“I’m not, and we both know it. You’re fierce when you need to be, Orson, but this will be a final test to see if you’ve got what it takes. There’s no compromise here. It’s this, or you spend the rest of your life working for whoever the board decides will run the company.”

What am I supposed to say to that? Stubbornness doesn’t run in this family, it gallops. He isn’t going to change his mind, so there’s no point in me trying. Whether I like it or not—and I don’t—I’m going back to Willow Creek. That tiny town in the middle of nowhere.

“What do I have to do?” I say, heaving a sigh of defeat.

Pops grins with the smugness of someone who knew he was going to win before the battle had even begun. “We’ve agreed to come on board as investors. There are a few companies involved, but we’ll be doing the heavy lifting.”

I frown because I don’t understand why Willow Creek needs investors.

“The town has suffered over the last five years, Orson.” Pops lifts a file and tosses it across the desk. “All you need to know is in there. It’s no longer the place you remember with such affection.” He smirks.

I grab the file with the enthusiasm of a slug in a puddle. It’s thick and, no doubt, heavy reading. Great. Just what I need to start off my weekend.

“Is that it?” I say, hardly able to believe he brought me all the way up here for this.

“That’s it.” He shrugs.

“Fine. I’ll read it when I get back to the city,” I growl, turning on my heel and heading toward the door. I open it and turn to say goodbye.

“Oh, there is one other thing,” Pops says, a mischievous look in his eye.

“Uh-huh?” I say, just wanting to leave and drown my sorrows in a bottle of bourbon.

“It’s another stipulation to your inheritance, so listen carefully.”

“All ears,” I say impatiently.

“You need to get married before you’re thirty-five.”

I burst into laughter and throw him a comical look. “Oh, yeah. Good one.”

But Pops isn’t laughing, and as my laughter fades, he’s looking at me with the seriousness of a car accident.

“You’re not serious?” I blurt.

“Oh, but I am, Orson.”

I’m already angry at having to go to Willow Creek, but I can now feel a rage bubbling inside me. “This is insane.”

“Why?” the old man asks as if we’re discussing the color of his drapes.

“I’m already thirty-four and a half. There’s no way I’ll be married before I’m thirty-five. I’m not even dating.”

“And therein lies the rub, son,” he says smugly. “Look at you. You’re a fine specimen of a man. You’re handsome, tall, athletic, and rich. Tell me, why are you still single?”

I ignore the question.

“There must be some compromise,” I counter. “Surely it can wait until I’m thirty-six.”

“Thirty-five or no inheritance,” the old man says bluntly.

“This is bull, and you know it,” I spit. “If you don’t want me to inherit the company, just come out and say it instead of having me jump through all these ridiculous hoops.”

“Oh, but I do want you to inherit the company, Orson,” Pops says in this serene voice. “You just have to meet the requirements. In all honesty, I thought you would have been married by now. It is you who has forced my hand.”

I have no words. Well, actually, I have plenty of words, but none that I would say in front of my grandfather. While there are times I could wrap my hands around his throat and give him a good shake, I still respect the old goat.

“Now,” he says, grabbing a pile of papers on his desk and shuffling them into a neat pile, “I’m sure you need to get going. You have a long drive ahead and plenty of reading to do when you get back to the city.”

He looks down at the papers he’s shuffled and carries on like nothing has just happened. Like I’m not even in the room. Like he hasn’t just twisted my arm so far up my back, I can now scratch the back of my head.

Without a word of goodbye, I walk through the door, slamming it closed behind me. I’m reeling from a ten-minute conversation that has turned my world on its head. I’m angry that I’m being blackmailed by a member of my own family.

I’ve worked darned hard for this company. Pinned to my desk, my days have slipped into nights, and on some occasions, I’ve woken up in the office, disheveled, disoriented, and wondering what day of the week it was. Many of my ideas have propelled the company forward, not least of which were in-office day care and better holiday pay, which has lowered sick days by over sixty percent.

I don’t have children, but I respect the female workforce and the struggles they have trying to manage full-time jobs with their families. Maybe that’s the soft side of me Pops was referring to.

Who knows? Who cares?

My main concern now is the fact that I’m being thrust back into a past I thought I had left behind, and just to make things interesting, I have to find myself a wife.

Great!

I wonder if I can get free delivery if I order one off Amazon? Knowing my luck, Pops will track my purchases and send her right back. I don’t need a wife. I’m happier on my own. My job is my life, and I love it. I don’t need a woman complicating everything.

And yet, what choice do I have?

I jump into my Mercedes and throw the file onto the passenger seat. Taking a long look at it, I scowl.

“Darn you, Willow Creek. I hate you now more than I hated you as a kid.”