Jennifer Greene
The Billionaire’s Handler
© 2010
Dear Reader,
I was thinking about my daughter when I wrote this book. She came out of the womb knowing how to handle men-she had her father doing anything she wanted before she could even talk. Of course she’s beautiful…and kind…so that was part of the picture.
The story idea came from that premise… The hero initially thinks he’s handling the heroine (of course). He comes into her life when she’s in trouble, pitches in like the true hero he is. (He was so fun to write!) But even though he didn’t know it-and probably still doesn’t-my heroine was really doing all the handling.
He rescues her…but she rescues him right back.
I hope you like the story! And please feel to write me, either through my website, www.jennifergreene.com, or the Facebook page for “Jennifer Greene Author.”
Jennifer Greene
To Jennifer Jeanne
You have the biggest heart of anyone I know
Love you.
Prologue
Maguire climbed aboard, wasting no time before kicking off his shoes and sinking into the white leather couch. Maybe he was stuck suffering through a Puccini opera tonight, but there were advantages to being the lone traveler on a private jet. Not only did he own the escape vehicle-which was mighty convenient-but on the long-hour flight to New York, he could bank a serious snooze.
That was the plan.
But he closed his eyes, expecting to hear the door close and the engines start up. Instead, he heard a kid’s breathless voice, yelling all the way from the tarmac.
“Mr. Cochran? Mr. Cochran!”
The boy wore a courier uniform, and bounded into the cabin with a flushed face and a self-important air.
“I was told to deliver this to you immediately, sir.”
“Thank you.” Maguire tipped him and sent him on his way. The pilot had already stepped out of the cockpit to see if there was a problem. Maguire asked him to hold up for two shakes until he had a chance to find out what was so critical in the ordinary manila envelope.
The return address warned him, but the picture that spilled out brought an immediate scowl to his forehead.
He’d seen the photo before. The young woman was sitting on a carpet with a half-dozen children. The kids all appeared to be disabled in different ways. They were clapping hands with her, playing some kind of game or song. She was sitting on her knees, just like the kids, her pale hair wisping around her cheeks, her eyes full of laughter. Everything about her looked as fragile as powder.
“The situation has deteriorated,” was the opening line in the report from his investigator.
Maguire read on. Some of it, he already knew. The job she loved was in jeopardy. Her place was constantly hounded by strangers. She’d tried a change in phones, which was like plugging a finger in a dike. Then she’d tried security, but what she knew about security measures wouldn’t fill a thimble. A second photo showed an exhausted woman with shadowed eyes, who looked as if she’d been eating a nonstop diet of nerves and stress.
The break-in was the recent development.
“The police are looking into it,” his investigator reported, “but this could be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Last night her brother visited her. He called an ambulance. At this time, I’ve been unable to substantiate what the medical problem is.”
Maguire put down the envelope, his mind spinning a hundred miles an hour. None of this should have anything to do with him. He hadn’t caused the crisis, didn’t even know the damn woman.
Even though his father had died, it seemed Maguire was still stuck cleaning up the man’s messes.
“Sir?” The pilot hovered in the cockpit doorway, waiting for instructions.
“See how fast you can change flight plans. We’re canceling the New York trip. I need to fly into South Bend, Indiana.”
He put a dozen things in motion within minutes, as if he’d been prepared for this contingency for some time-which, of course, he had. He’d known this could happen. Known he might have to become involved.
Sometimes there was a problem that only a billionaire could handle. The irony was that money had nothing to do with it.
Chapter One
When Carolina Daniels opened her eyes, she seemed to have dropped into someone else’s life.
Nothing in her vision was familiar.
The blue blanket comfortably snuggled under her chin wasn’t hers. The pillow under her head was flat instead of poofy and the serene blue walls and contemporary decor had nothing in common with her bedroom. The room wasn’t just tidy; there wasn’t a single mess in sight-no open books, no shoes, no sweaters draping chairs, no half-opened bag of Oreos by the bed.
The lack of Oreos was proof positive. Either someone had given her a character transplant, or she really was living someone else’s life.
That thought almost struck her as funny, except that her mind was groggier than glue. Someone had given her some heavy-duty drugs, judging from her woozy mind. Still, there seemed no reason to be afraid, exactly. The room was peaceful, silent. Sleeping on a comfortable bed, cuddled in a warm blanket, hardly portended a dangerous situation. It was just that her mind was so murky she really couldn’t grasp where she was or why.
But then she spotted the man. Her heart abruptly hiccuped. A major hiccup. A major, serious hiccup.
The crazy dream had taken an immediate dramatic turn, but whether it was evolving into an erotic fantasy or a nightmare, she couldn’t tell. At least not yet. She tried closing her eyes. Reopening them.
The stranger was still there, prowling the perimeter of the room like a caged-up lion, a cell phone pressed to his ear. Carolina didn’t know him. He wore a dark gray suit, of a cut and fabric that looked European. A stark white shirt and charcoal striped tie were both yanked loose at the throat. A guy could go to the opera in Paris wearing clothes that expensive and distinctive.
But it wasn’t his clothes that had her heart suddenly pounding like a trapped bird’s. It was him. Something about him.
Everything about him.
Still talking on his cell phone, he turned on his heel, about to face her way. Instinctively she closed her eyes so he wouldn’t realize she was awake, but her mind had already cataloged his features.
Only pale daylight seeped through the lone window, just enough to reveal his face, his stature. She guessed he was a few years older than her twenty-eight, but not many, maybe five or six. Although he was dressed for a formal night out, his blond hair looked hand shoveled, his chin peppered with whiskers, his sharp blue eyes shadowed with weariness. He was tall. Of course, everyone was annoyingly tall compared to Carolina’s five-four…but he was really tall. Easily a couple inches over six feet. He was built long, lean and mean, with shoulders wide enough to fill a doorway.
He wasn’t a next-door-neighbor type. He was more the kind of someone who ran things. Big things. Someone who made people jump and events happen. Energy and power charged the air around him, in the way he stalked about, the way his muscles bunched, the way his jaw squared off as he spoke into the phone. Maybe he was an extraordinarily compelling hunk…but she sure wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of an argument with him.
But those were just more reasons why she wouldn’t, didn’t, couldn’t know him. Her circle of people-from her fellow special ed teachers to family to all her neighbors in the new South Bend condo complex-just never crossed paths with anyone like this man.
Her muzzy mind processed more information. The monitors and equipment off to her right suggested she was in a hospital, even if the silk-blue walls and couch and flat-screen TV hardly resembled standard hospital decor. Again, she tried to recall why she was here, how she’d gotten here, but it was as if there was a door in her mind. On one side of the door was something huge and upsetting and exhausting, something so overwhelming that she couldn’t gather the strength to force that door open.