3 BOOK BUNDLE: Flown By The Billionaire I, II, & III Read Free

moving over Alex’s perfectly-fitted charcoal three-piece
suit with white dress shirt, maroon tie, and a crisp white pocket square.
    “So, umm, Melissa,” he said, turning to face me. “If you
wouldn’t mind greeting the other passengers at the door, they should be
arriving,” he paused long enough to lift his left arm with a jerk that tugged
his sleeve away from the black leather-strapped watch he wore, “in around five
minutes.”
    “Okay,” I eagerly responded, keen to make a good first
impression. “Will Mr. Race be with them?”
    A strange lopsided grin pulled at the right side of Alex’s
face. His eyes moved from me to Mr. Joice, who was laughing softly. Finally,
his gaze shifted back to where it had begun. “I am Mr. Race,” he explained,
still wearing the same unbalanced smile.
    “Oh,” I mumbled. “I’m so sorry, I just assumed that…” I
babbled. “I mean, I thought that Mr. Race would be….I’m really terribly sorry, sir.”
    “You’ve got nothing to apologize for,” he chuckled. Slipping
his hands in the pockets of his pants, he shrugged. “And there’s no need for
the ‘sir’.”
    “But Mr. Race-” I began to protest.
    “I told you,” he good-naturedly interjected, “call me Alex.”
    “I’d rather not,” I quietly admitted, realizing as the words
slipped from my mouth that if my goal was to make a good first impression,
arguing with the boss within five minutes of meeting him probably wasn’t the
best way to go.
    He was no longer smiling. Instead, he studied me curiously.
“Listen,” he said. “I like to keep things informal because I’d like you to view
me as an equal. But, at the same time, I keep things professional. John will
tell you,” he added, nudging an elbow toward Mr. Joice.
    As it happened though, Mr. Joice’s testimony wasn’t actually
called for.
    “If it makes you uncomfortable to address me by my first
name, I’ll accept that,” he continued smoothly. “But you were happy to call me
‘Alex’ before you knew who I was.”
    That was a rationale I could not argue with. When I thought
he was just another employee of Mr. Race’s, I would have been content to be on
first-name terms. So what was my problem; some kind of inverted snobbery? No,
it wasn’t that. But at Blue Rock, I had always called senior members of staff
Mr. or Ms. so-and-so. It was embedded in the company culture and seemed
disrespectful to do anything else.
    “So,” he softly sighed, when several seconds swept past
without my reply. “What’s it going to be, Ms. Cannagh or Melissa?”
    “Melissa is fine,” I offered quietly, nodding. I wasn’t
comfortable, but if it was the way he preferred things, I’d just have to get
used to it.
    Thankfully, the rest of my first day went much more
smoothly. The plane flew from Teterboro Airport to Chicago, where Alex Race and
some of his board members had a meeting with a company they were in merger
talks with. The flight took a little under two hours, and I was simply on hand
to provide snacks and make cups of coffee. The five men and two women discussed
business matters openly, but I tried to make myself as discreet as possible,
drifting in and out and making a conscious effort not to listen to the details
of their discussions.
    I also tried not to stare too often at Alex, who was an
incredibly attractive man. At a little over six feet and muscular without being
too bulked up, he was the very definition of tall, dark and handsome. It became
apparent as I got to know him better, that he was more than just physically
attractive. He was polite to everyone and endearingly lacked an ego for someone
of his success level; he was also intelligent and humorous.
    Trying to deny that I was attracted to him would have been
ridiculous, but I did repeatedly attempt to push the feelings aside.
Nevertheless, I’d find myself blushing when I caught him looking at me from the
other end of the plane, and I felt painfully shy when he was flying alone