Seducing the Billionaire Nerd

Chapter 2-The Wrong Candidate.

The holding cell was indeed terrible. It smelled of bleach, sweat, regret and despair. Reggie sat on a hard bench, her head in her hands. The booking process had been a humiliating one. They had taken her purse, her phone, her nostril ring, and stripped her bare of every other accessory. The bail amount they’d stated was unbelievable, a number that she had never seen nor held in her hands before. Panic-cold and sharp, gripped at her throat. Her mother couldn’t know. Max couldn’t know. This could send them into a panic coma.

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Meanwhile, across the city, in a penthouse that seemed to float above the glittering night lights of Manhattan, Ren Davids was fighting a different kind of battle.

He sat on a rolling chair before the city’s view. His back to the expansive, but minimally furnished living space. His moderately muscular figure swallowed by a black hoodie, and his crossed legs in grey pants, his black hair slightly unruly and his grey eyes distant. In his hands was a glass of fizzy beer and by his side, a finished bowl of ramen.

“It’s a risk, Ren.” His cousin, Kai Lee, leaned against the kitchen island, a picture of relaxed concern in his appearance. “You saw her record. It’s not bad, but it’s… uhmm… there is just too much going on with her…it’s almost chaotic, definitely not the best personality for the job...

I mean a public fight with a guest at the resort she worked at last year? Numerous reports of ungraceful actions…She’s a ticking bomb, I must say.”

“I am aware, although still trying to see the problem in that,” Ren said, his voice quiet, measured but unwavering. It was the voice he used in boardrooms when people underestimated him, and tried to take advantage of his calm outlook.

“That’s a really funny thing to say, and you know that. Okay, what about the bizarre answers she gave to some questions when I tried to test her level of thinking…

'What would you do if you had a surprise pay of a million dollars?' I ask, and she goes, 'Buy my mom a house she would love and throw a block party to send a message to my haters? Kelsey in particular…' who the hell is Kelsey? And how is that an answer you give to your potential employer??

“It was an answer a human could give,” Ren countered, finally turning. His gaze was intense, showing focus on the conversation a tad bit more. “The others gave textbook responses about making investments and buying stocks but she…she was the only one who didn’t treat it as a trick question, and I loved that,” Ren finished with a little smile, remembering how much he had loved to watch every minute of her interview on the private CCTV monitors in his office with a sound transmitter to his ears.

Kai sighed, running a hand through his hair. “You haven’t hired a direct assistant for a while now…Hell, you haven’t even worked or stayed close to a woman in years… Why her? And don’t give me that ‘human answer’ crap. There has to be some other reason… I am almost certain.”

Ren’s fingers tightened on the glass. The reason was a flicker of memory from the CCTV feed. Not her confident smile or her maybe slightly rehearsed answers. It was a moment just before the interview started.

An applicant seated next to her had gotten way too tense and her hands trembled. Every other candidate was too bothered about themselves to notice, but Regina had noticed and simply held her hands with the most reassuring smile he’d ever seen before mumbling some inaudible words to her ears, and then sat that way for a while like they were long lost friends. A tiny, unscripted act of unperformed humanity in a room full of performative tension. It had healed something in him.

He couldn’t explain that. Not to Kai. He would simply assume he was projecting, so he said nothing.

“Just… give your approval to run a deeper investigation on her, or rather a second interview if the first idea which is actually what we did with other employees, seems too much,” Kai pressed.

“No.” Ren stood up, walking past the sliding doors onto the balcony with Kai following closely, still trying as hard to stress his point, giving way to an eager housekeeper who approached with a bow to zealously tidy up.

“Inform the HR to initiate the process of employment,” Ren paused. “As usual, the thirty-six-hour response window must be stressed in the mail.” His voice had a hinge of finality to it.

He was the CEO and it was decided.

However, thirty-five hours and ten minutes after the email was sent, there had been no response from Regina.