The Dis-Graced: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Beguiling a Billionaire Book 5) Read online

  Elliot gives me a wry grin that I suspect is hiding a chuckle behind it. Coming from a long line of lawyers and politicians, Elliot decided to abandon the family trade and go into the tech industry, taking a position as Dallanger Tech’s chief operations officer.

  “Ah, Luke, so this is your sister you’ve been telling us so much about.” Elliot’s words are benign, but he makes no attempt to hide his condescending gaze.

  My cheeks blush crimson, but there’s little I can do to defend myself. Instead, in the friendliest voice I can muster, I say, “Mr. Conway, I presume. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “I hope you enjoy your tenure here. I told Drake not to work you too hard, but I have a feeling you’ll aim to please,” he says with a wink.

  At this point, my whole body goes numb, and it’s a miracle I can even stand upright.

  Elliot steps from the office, walks past me, and to the elevator.

  Don’t let them see you cry.

  “I hope you found the accommodations to your liking,” Drake says, but the words sound as foreign as Farsi.

  “I helped furnish the place myself,” Luke cuts in when I fail to respond.

  I clear my throat, realizing just how disjointed I’m coming off as.

  Pull yourself together, Grace. This is your last shot.

  “The accommodations are more than adequate. You have my thanks.”

  Drake smiles, revealing two deep-set dimples I remember from when I was just a girl dreaming of him. He steps aside, gesturing for me to enter.

  I cross the threshold into his massive office. He’s a minimalist, his modern furnishings and decor each seeming to have a function, leaving a lot of open space.

  “I’m sorry, Luke, but I’d like to meet with Grace on my own,” I hear Drake say from behind me.

  Oh, yes, please!

  But as much as I’d love for our encounter to turn from business to pleasure, with the hot water I’m in, that is NOT an option.

  “Okay, I have some reports I was going to get to anyway—”

  “Actually, why don’t you head back home to Amanda. You can network in if you need to.”

  “Wow, that really would be great, but I feel like I’m never around anymore.”

  “Luke, little Annabelle isn’t going to be little forever. Enjoy this time with her. I’ll call you if there are any fires.”

  Wow—Luke really has all the luck.

  “Thanks,” Luke says, following with, “I’ll see you around Gracey.”

  I smile and wave goodbye to him, but the anxious butterflies in my belly refuse to allow me control over my vocals.

  Once Luke’s gone, Drake shuts the door and turns to me.

  “Where shall we begin?”

  I don’t know…on the desk, bent over a chair, on the plush rug, against the floor to ceiling windows…

  “How about we discuss the project I’ll be working on,” I reply smartly.

  “Not yet.” Drake smirks, taking on a relaxed stance. “Instead, how about we get reacquainted? Gosh, it’s been what? Ten years?”

  He steps towards me, holding out his arms for a hug.

  Holy Jesus, I don’t have the willpower for this…

  I step forward into his embrace, my body coming fully alive when his arms wrap around me.

  I breathe in his the woodsy aroma of his cologne, which does nothing to abate my want. How is he clueless to the effect he’s having on me? Or maybe he knows.

  He pulls away, his large hands still gripping my shoulders. “God, look at you. I was eighteen when I last saw you at the dorms, you were so shy.”

  I smile awkwardly.

  “I hear you did well at SU, graduating with honors.”

  “As you did yourself,” I reply back, “at Stanford.”

  He chuckles lightly. “Yeah, but I have a feeling my parents’ generosity had more to do with that than my studies.”

  At least he’s honest.

  “I didn’t recall you wearing your glasses in the interviews I’ve seen you in,” he says. “I had figured you got LASIK.”

  “Oh, no,” I say, taking the clunky black frames from my face and looking down at them. “The last couple days have been chaotic, and I wore my contacts for too long. I decided to give my eyes a rest.”

  “Well, you look good.”

  “Thanks, so do you,” I return.

  And that is no lie. Not only is Drake genetically gifted, with sexy dimples, a strong jawline, and a six-foot-four frame, but I can practically see his muscles bulging under his three-piece suit.

  “Why don’t we take a seat.”

  I sit at a small table, setting my portfolio down in front of me while Drake prepares two cups of coffee for us.

  Drake sets a sugar caddy in the table’s center, then offered me a cup, which I thanked him for.

  “So, Grace, I see that you’ve done a lot of impressive work over the past three years.”

  It’s not an exaggeration. I graduated from Syracuse University with my bachelor’s when I was twenty-one, a year ahead of schedule, and worked on my master’s while I took odd jobs with various public relations firms. Eventually, I struck gold when I covered for a journalist while he did a stint in rehab. I finished his work, fact-checking for him and doing video edits, and as a reward for my discretion, he got me work I would have never gotten on my own.

  “I’ve been blessed with a fruitful career.”

  “What has been your favorite project?”

  “It’s hard to say. I loved covering the Olympics, but to be honest, sometimes small-town stories are more satisfying.”

  As we speak, he sips his coffee, his eyes never leaving me. His cup, although normal-sized, seems to disappear in his grip, and I wonder how much of my ass it would cover.

  “So, I’d love to hear some of the details of the project I’ll be working on,” I say. “Care to divulge?”

  “Well, first, I’d like to get one thing straight. You will not be working for me, and I am not your boss. You are being hired to document a project, and you won’t be expected to put a ‘spin’ on it. After all, I think it’s important we get back to the days of true journalism,” he says in an icy tone.

  I feel the color drain from my face, and my breath quickens. It would have been naive to assume that he wouldn’t mention the scandal I’m embroiled in, but I hadn’t expected it to be addressed in such a crude fashion. Especially after his warm greeting.

  Finally, after taking a full minute to digest his brutal words, I say, “I agree with the importance of fair and accurate journalism and look forward to working with you.”

  I lift the coffee cup to my lips, taking a long sip, so I have an excuse to break eye contact.

  “During your tenure with the project, you will have access to privileged information and intellectual property that I must assure stays confidential. Legal is preparing some documents for you to sign as we speak.”

  “Yes, I am familiar with the practice of signing non-disclosure agreements and have done so several times in the past.”

  “Furthermore, you may be called upon to work with others by either interviewing them or learning from them. It’s important that you maintain your professionalism with these men…and women…at all times. Have I made myself clear?”

  A seething rage grips me, an emotion so strong I’m unable to control my response. I slam my cup down, the coffee splashing over the rim to the fine, white surface of the table.

  “Listen here, Mr. Dallanger. I know how to do my job, and I’m damn good at it. Maybe, instead of jumping to conclusions, you might want to—I don’t know—ask probing questions!”

  Drake cocks a grin and returns with, “You’re the journalist, it’s your job to ask the probing questions.”

  I want to slap the condescending grin from his face, but I know he has me by my metaphorical ‘balls,’ so I’m forced to play nice.

  “Mr. Dallanger, I assure you that I know how to separate business from pleasure and that I have no interest in banging you, one of your employees, or any of your associates. Perhaps you should be having this discussion with your mommy, who was waiting for me at my apartment last night.”

  Well, I guess playing nice just got thrown out the window.

  Drake rises from his seat and looks down at me from his towering position.

  “Well, Grace, it’s been great catching up, but I have business to attend to. I’ll call you in the next couple days, and we can discuss the project.”

  He smiles a smile I do not like, one that makes me feel small and insignificant.

  Well, that’s exactly what you are to him—small and insignificant. You always have been, even as children.

  Drake was never a peer of mine. In fact, the only reason I even know him is because my parents signed my brother up to spend a summer with a host family from within the city. Rich, affluent people take in disadvantaged, low-income children so they can learn valuable life skills that poor-ass parents like mine couldn’t teach them themselves.

  No one expected that Drake and Luke would become inseparable to the point where even during the school year, Luke spent more time with the Dallangers than he did with us.

  I didn’t understand it, at first. I missed my brother, but my parents seemed pleased with the arrangement. The Dallangers brought him clothes and even switched him over to a pricy, elite private school so he could attend classes with Drake.

  I, of course, was left attending a school with a fifty-percent graduation rate, wearing rags.

  I rise from my seat, disallowing myself from showing just how ashamed I feel.

  “Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Dallanger. I look forward to not fucking any of your employees and acquaintances.”

  “And me?”

  “Huh?”

&nb
sp; “Previously, you stated you had no interest in banging me, my employees, or any of my associates, but just now you said you look forward to ‘not fucking’ my employees and acquaintances. Have your feelings for me changed over the course of our exchange? Oh, look! A probing question!’”

  Are you fucking kidding me?

  “No, Mr. Dallanger, I assure you, I have zero desire to fuck you.”

  ❦

  Drake

  Watching Grace leave sends adrenaline coursing through my veins, triggering a drive to hunt.

  And I have to admit, I can think of no finer prey than Grace Anders’ sweet ass.

  God, she looks so different than when I last saw her, dropping her brother off at college. She was a rail-thin girl with oversized glasses and a nest of mousy brown hair. When we were children, she was always asking all kinds of questions about everything, annoying her brother to no end. It came as no surprise that she went into journalism.

  Now, she’s a curvy-in-all-the-right-places, sexy librarian type that I want to slap me on the knuckles with a ruler.

  And that smart mouth of hers—hot damn. I can think of better things for her to do with it than lecture me, but I guess that’s what I deserved after where I took the conversation.

  The door closes behind Grace, and I slump back into my chair.

  Damn it!

  Belittling Grace was the last thing I wanted to do, and it seemingly came out of nowhere. The truth is, I feel terrible about what’s happened to her. When I was younger, I thought only of Luke, my best friend. My father thought it was good that I had a friend who was from the working class. I do believe my mother called him a peasant on more than one occasion, but she suffered his presence. We had him over, sometimes for weeks on end. He became a true brother to me.

  On occasion we hung out around Luke’s place, Grace was always there, tagging along.

  My father thought nothing of it when I asked him to cover Luke’s tuition and fees so he could attend school with me. We even paid Luke’s college tuition, and when we graduated, he accepted a position at Dallanger Corporation, eventually becoming the chief financial officer of Dallanger Tech.

  I never gave a second thought to Grace, and the whole while Luke had me to help him, Grace had to claw her way out of the slum, put herself through college, and make a name for herself in the world of journalism.

  And now that her affair with Mr. Brigger Steele has come to light, I know exactly how she did that.

  My heart aches, knowing what she must have gone through. The poverty she grew up in was one straight out of the Great Depression. More than once, I quietly paid their electric bill when I was only fourteen. I just couldn’t stand the thought of my best friend growing up poor.

  But my thoughts never extended to Grace. I hung out with her a few times in my youth, but I never really got to know her. I think I remember Luke taking a week off to attend Grace’s graduation, but it never so much as occurred to me to get her a gift. I think I sent her flowers, but even that I’m unsure of.

  I wish I could tell her how sorry I am that I wasn’t there for her too growing up. If I could turn back time, I’d insist my father pay for her education as well, and assist her with college. I’d be a brother to her, just as I was to Luke.

  Except being a brother to her is the last thing you want to be.

  I exhale a heavy sigh.

  I fully intended to welcome Grace warmly, and by God, I almost succeeded. Except, she had this effect on me. It’s hard to describe because I’ve never felt it before. It was this feverish longing, like a man craving water in the desert.

  She was dressed professionally, modestly even, but something about her made me want to throw her across the table, slide her panties down that plump ass of hers, and sample her sweet pussy.

  Fuck me!

  I had to make her hate me. I had to make her so repulsed by me, that she loathes our every interaction. It’s the only way I can help her put the pieces of her career back together, because if we get too friendly…well, it’s best we not go there.

  But you want to go there.

  I pull out my phone, bringing up Luke’s contact info, and enter into the text box.

  Drake: Meeting went well. She’ll be signing documents with legal soon.

  Luke: Thanks. I owe you! Oh, and can you keep Elliot on a leash? I know my sister fucked up, but she doesn’t need his shit on top of that.

  Drake: I’ll say something to him, but it’s Elliot. She’s going to have to learn to grow a thick skin if she ever wants to work again.

  Luke: Yeah, I know. I just don’t like seeing her mistreated.

  Drake: Have you thought up anything for her to do? I still haven’t found a project for her to take on.

  Luke: Maybe you could initiate a charitable cause?

  Drake: I already have so many.

  Luke: How about a lifestyle-tech piece?

  Drake: Architectural? Like a Home Digest?

  Luke: No, like the AI we’ve been developing.

  Drake: ALAN? That will prove to be way too controversial. And Elliot wouldn’t want word of it getting out.

  Luke: I kind of think it’s perfect. At some point, you’re going to have to go forward with the information, and what better time is there? Eventually, someone else will come out with their own version of AI, and you’ll be seen as a knock off. Plus, if Grace does a fluff piece, people will dissect other aspects of your association. By doing something huge, everyone’s going to be focused on the technology. They aren’t going to say anything negative because they’ll be scared to lose out on future interviews.

  It’s not a bad idea. The more they want information from me, the less critical they’ll be.

  Drake: You know what, that might work. Give her a project that’s so big that no one will care who’s presenting it, and they’ll be too scared to write a slam piece.

  Luke: Do you want me to draw up the talking points?

  Drake: Talking points? No. This is going to be so controversial that I want her to draw her own conclusions. I’ll have her spend some time with ALAN, and she’ll alert us to any blind spots we may have missed. Then we can decide how to address them.

  Luke: Great, when are you going to tell her?

  Drake: Give me a few days. I’m going to strip part of ALAN’s code and give her a watered-down version. I want to make sure we go about this the right way, safely. I’m going to make it a bigger test, outfitting cameras in all the areas ALAN will have access too, the most advanced ones we have, ones that can detect a pulse. I want you to know that if word of this gets out, I’ll have her ass.

  Any excuse to have that sweet ass…

  Luke: You have nothing to worry about. I know what the headlines say, but my sister is trustworthy. I promise.

  Drake: Well, even if it does get out, it will just be the concept and not the tech. I’m doubtful anyone else will be able to replicate ALAN anywhere close to where he’s at now.

  Luke: Shit, the baby’s crying.

  Drake: Go to little Annabelle, I’ve got this covered.

  Chapter 3

  Grace

  I want more than anything to build a time machine, go back two weeks, and slap a little common sense into me. But life doesn’t offer do-overs.

  I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve hit the snooze button. I don’t even know why I bother to set my alarm. It’s been three days since I’ve signed my non-disclosure agreement, and Drake has yet to contact me. I still know nothing about the project I’m supposed to be working on, that is, if Drake hasn’t decided to renege on his offer after our blunt conversation. A small part of me actually wishes he would because the last thing I want is to be stuck in a room with Drake Dallanger ever again.

  If that’s true, why have you been dreaming about him?

  Oh, fuck you, Inner Monologue!

  It’s not a lie, though. Drake must be exhausted from all the laps he’s been running in my mind. Wow, that’d dad joke-level cringe. If he had been nice, my desire would be completely justified because he’s capital H-O-T—HOT. But he’s a jerk that doesn’t deserve any of my mind space.