Her Billionaire Hero

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Sloan

One, two, three, four, five—deep breath.

Hands on the steering wheel, stomach in knots, brain on fire—and all because I was about to start my very first job as a structural engineer.

Whispers Resort and Spa would be my premier project—one I prayed would lead to a prestigious career. Proving my ex-husband wrong about women belonging in the engineering field was one of my top goals in life.

Preston Rivers and my father were into some sort of business venture together and Dad brought him to the house for dinner one evening years ago. I was only eighteen. I’d just started as a freshman at the University of Texas in Austin where I’d grown up.

Preston found it hard to hide his interest in me, a thing my father didn’t like at all. Who could blame him? The man was his age, after all—twenty-four years my senior.

Preston tried to hammer into my head that I was wasting my time by taking engineering classes in college. He had no trouble letting my dad know that my current goal would never be attainable, and he should make me change majors. Lucky for me, Dad didn’t care what I majored in, as long as I went to college.

Preston and I had already begun dating a few months before Dad moved away to Greece to help his company with a start-up there. My father was extremely unhappy about our relationship though. But just like my college major, he kept his nose out of my personal relationships as well. Plus, Preston always seemed to have my best interests at heart and treated my father and me with the utmost respect.

Not that our relationship moved fast enough to freak my father out anyway. It took Preston four years to decide that he wanted to ask me to marry him. I said yes, of course. With my mother out of the picture and not having a soul to claim as my family anywhere near me, I was eager to make one of my own. So, Preston and I became husband and wife only a month after I received my degree.

I was ready to start looking for a job shortly after we returned from Greece where we took our honeymoon and visited my father for a couple of weeks. But Preston nixed the idea, as he thought we’d be starting a family and he wanted me to stay home with our babies. Working away from home wouldn’t be in the picture for his wife and the mother of his children.

When our first anniversary rolled around a few months later, he fully expected me to surprise him with news of a pregnancy. When I wasn’t able to tell him the news he sought, he let me know how very disappointed he was with me. Guilt bore down on me like a load of bricks. The one thing he wanted from me I didn’t seem able to give him.

Another year came and went with no baby, and then he gave up on that dream altogether. His dream for me changed. Now he wanted me to go back to school—but I needed to change to a degree that made sense for a woman. Accounting was his grand idea.

Since Preston never paid much attention to the things I did, including my classes, I’d pay the tuition with our joint checking account without him ever knowing that I was well on my way to becoming what I wanted to become—a structural engineer, instead of an accountant.

It wasn’t until graduation, when I was twenty-seven, that he learned of my deceit. And that was the beginning of the end of our five-year marriage. Only a couple of months after I had earned my degree and found a job as an apprentice engineer at a construction company, Preston told me something that shook me to my very core.

He’d had an affair with my mother for two years. I’d been ten years old when it started. It only ended when she went missing a couple of years later. And what was worse, my father had found out about the affair when the authorities told him about Preston Rivers’ role in my mother’s life. Yet, he’d never told me a thing. Not even when he’d brought Preston home that fateful evening years later.

So, of course, I called Dad before I let Preston go on with his story. “Honey, he had no idea that your mother was married or had a child. I saw no reason to doubt his word. And I saw no reason to bring that up to you—even when you began dating him. I figured that was his place to tell you a thing like that. I’m sorry if that hurt you. But the past is the past and there’s nothing we can do about it now. Your mom left us all—even Preston.”

With my father on speaker so Preston could hear what he said, I didn’t know what to say. But Preston managed to come up with something. “Her leaving devastated me too, Sloan. And I had no one to share my grief with like you and your father did. Audrey’s sudden disappearance worried me to no end. And when the cops came to me, after your father reported her missing, my head was on the chopping block for quite a while. I had to deal with that alone. Richard understood the hardships I’d been through and when we ran into each other again, there were no hard feelings. He and I moved past it all. I don’t see why you and I can’t.”

The idea of my husband and my missing mother having had an affair did something to my gut that nothing ever had. And the knot in my stomach felt as if it might never go away. “I need to be alone.” Withdrawing to our bedroom, I found Preston coming in to talk and knew I couldn’t let him do that. So, I moved my things to another bedroom, and we stopped sharing a bed. I couldn’t let him touch me. Not while knowing that those same hands had been all over my mother.

Each time I looked in the mirror after that, I saw remnants of my mother. Her long dark hair, plump cheeks, rosebud lips, and her big brown eyes looked back at me each time I saw my reflection. It made me sick to think that Preston had once loved her and now he claimed to love me. But maybe he only loved me because of who I reminded him of.

She’d left. At first my father and I had thought the absolute worse. But as time went on and the police did a thorough investigation, it became clear that she’d just left us. Even though Dad hadn’t told me about her affair, he had told me that Mom hadn’t been happy for quite some time and she must’ve decided to move on with her life in a direction that didn’t include us. With no sign of foul play, both of us thought she’d simply taken off with another man.

The distance between Preston and I grew and grew until one day I came home to find divorce papers. On the table too had been a short note from Preston telling me to leave the car he’d bought for me and to put the keys to the house and the car into the mailbox before I left. He’d put my things in boxes in the backyard and had made temporary arrangements for me to stay a week in a hotel in downtown Austin. Things just weren’t going to work out for us. He was deeply sorry and couldn’t bear to face me.

Just as I began melting into a puddle of hopelessness, my cell phone rang. Hoping it was Preston telling me he’d reconsidered, I found it was an Uber driver letting me know that she was on her way to pick me up.

Somehow, after all that, I managed to get on my feet without my father’s financial help. He was still in Greece and I told him that I wanted to handle things on my own. I had the internship, which didn’t pay much, but it was enough for me to get a tiny efficiency apartment on the outskirts of Austin. Plus, a bus pass to get back and forth to work.

When Preston and I had to meet to sign the divorce papers at his attorney’s office, guilt got the best of him and he gave the car back to me. I’d always loved the Lincoln MKZ he’d given me as a birthday gift the year before. To have it back made me feel a lot better.

Not long after that, my boss told me that a new resort was about to go up in downtown Austin. He’d gotten a call from the owners about hiring someone new to the construction world. The place was being built by brothers from Houston and they specifically wanted to hire people who needed a chance to get their foot in the door with their new careers. So, with my boss’s recommendation, I got the contract to be the structural engineer for Whispers Resort and Spa.

I hoped like hell that starting this new job would bring great changes to my life. I’d worked hard to get my degree and was willing to work hard to prove I could do the job. I didn’t want my feminine assets winning me any points, so I had on khaki slacks, a white button-down shirt tucked in, a tan belt, and tan loafers. My dark hair was cut into a short bob and I wore no makeup at all. I wanted to be treated like any other engineer.

With another deep breath, I got out of the car, my laptop bag in hand, and headed to meet the man I’d be working under. Baldwyn Nash would be the man in charge of things—my boss until the project was finished.

The worksite was nothing more than an empty lot with one trailer on it that housed the offices of the people who would build this great facility.

Stepping through the door, I smelled coffee but saw no one in what looked like a tiny, makeshift reception area in what would’ve been the living room. “Anyone here?”

“Yeah,” came a man’s deep voice, which got closer as he went on, “the receptionist is late.”

My eyes went wide as he stepped around a partition. “Uh, hello.”

Tall, dark, and extremely handsome, the man had a muscular build that his expensive black suit clung to as if it had been made to show off that exquisite body. Green eyes shone brightly at me as a smile curved his lips. A strong jaw, square and covered in a dark, neatly trimmed beard made him appear powerful. The dark curls on top of his head were unruly. “Baldwyn Nash.” He extended his hand.

I took it, shaking it as I prayed silently that my palm wasn’t sweaty. It wasn’t easy to pretend his appearance hadn’t affected me in a s****l way. He was the hottest man I’d ever had the pleasure of meeting. “Sloan Rivers, your structural engineer. Here and ready to serve you in any way you need.” I clamped my mouth shut tightly. You are in i***t!

As our hands slipped apart, his smile made me shiver, a thing I hoped he wouldn’t notice. “The air conditioning was left on last night. It’s like sixty degrees in here. Come on, I’ll turn it up some.”

Well, crap! He did notice.

“Yeah, it is cold in here.” I followed him, my eyes glued to his a*s. Ogling men wasn’t a thing I often did. But when a man has a butt that just wouldn’t quit, I couldn’t help but notice. “Is this where my office is going to be?”

“For now, yeah.” He turned up the temperature on the thermostat then turned to look at me. “You and I are going to have to share an office for now. But not for too long. More trailers are scheduled to be delivered next week. You’ll have one of them at your disposal as lead engineer. That way you can give offices to the people who will work directly under you.”

The idea of sharing an office with him, even for a short time, made me happy in a way I couldn’t describe. “Good deal, Mr. Nash.”

“Baldwyn,” he said with a grin. “And may I call you Sloan?”

“Oh yeah, sure, of course you can.” My brain wasn’t firing on all cylinders with him so close to me in the narrow hallway. He smelled like a forest full of evergreens mixed with the ocean. It was intoxicating. “So, where’s this office?”

“I’ll show you to it. It’s at the other end of the trailer.”

“Okay then.” My throat went dry and I hated that I’d come to work without bringing so much as a bottle of water.

“I took the room all the way at the end of this hall. It’s the largest one. I figured since we have to share, I’d grab this one for us, so we don’t get in each other’s way.”

You’ll never be in my way, handsome.

Shaking my head to clear it, I couldn’t understand why I was thinking that way. It wasn’t like me to react like this. “Good thinking. We don’t want to fall all over each other.”

His deep chuckle made my heart skip a beat. “Yeah, we don’t want that to happen.”

Following him into the large room, I saw two empty desks at opposite ends of it. “Have you picked a desk yet?”

“Nope. You can pick first. It doesn’t matter to me at all.” Leaning back against the doorframe, he stayed back as I moved into the room, our arms grazing as I moved past him.

Another shiver ran through me with the simple touch. “Still a bit cold in here.” I placed my laptop bag on the desk to the right. “Okay, I’ll take this one.”

“We’d like to make fast progress on this. Will it be a problem for you to work late hours?” He grabbed the chair from the other desk and took a seat, crossing his long legs.

“No, it’s not going to be a problem at all. I live alone.” The laptop slid out of the bag onto the desk and I smiled for no reason at all. “My divorce became final last month.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

I looked over my shoulder as the desks faced opposite walls, to find him looking a little sheepish. “Don’t be sorry. I’m glad it’s over.”

“It seems like you’re doing well on your own, Sloan.” Nodding, his lips pulled up on one side in a half-smile. “But if you need a shoulder to cry on, I’ve got a couple of broad ones for you. And don’t take it the wrong way. As a friend, you know what I mean? You’ve got a friend in me.”

“Thank you.” I’d never felt so lucky to have a new friend in my life. “Just getting my career going is such a boost. I’m hoping to buy my own home soon. My tiny efficiency apartment is feeling sort of crowded.”

He nodded his head in understanding. “My brothers and I aren’t from Austin. We’ve left our homes in Houston to come build our dream here. We’ve rented high-end apartments about ten minutes from here. If you’d like, I could get you one too. You can call it a perk. It would be nice to have you close by. You know, so we can work even more hours. But from the comfort of home. It’s my understanding that traffic can be a b***h here as well. Having you closer just makes sense.”

“I don’t know.” I was shocked but thrilled by the offer. I wasn’t used to getting the star treatment, so figuring out what to say wasn’t easy for me.

“They’re completely furnished. All you’d have to do is pack up your clothes and personal items and bring them over. Two bedrooms too. That way you can invite friends and family over.” He seemed to be trying to entice me into taking his very generous offer—as if I needed to be convinced.

“I don’t have any family here.” I didn’t want to get into the whole story, so kept it short. “Mom’s out of the picture and Dad lives in Greece.”

“That’s rough.” His green eyes never left mine and I saw compassion fill them. “I won’t take no for an answer. It’s about time you began a new chapter in your life.”

Wow, someone who wants to help me start all over again. This is some good luck for once. I wonder how long it’ll last …