Bought: A Billionaire Romance Read Free

see, Kyan, seventy-thirty just isn’t an acceptable split for us. The absolute lowest I’m willing to accept here is a seven percent annual return. What split would be required for that, Clara?”
    “sixty-forty,” she replies, quick as a flash.
    Man, this girl is really something. I pause for a moment to consider my position. I was expecting this to be easy, but it’s turning out to be more difficult to hardball Greene than I thought with Clara here.
    Wait. An idea is forming in my mind. Oh yeah, this should be fun. What is the point of being a billionaire if you can’t have some fun? It isn’t all about the money. I know Greene would probably accept a fifty-five/forty-five split, but I’ll give him that extra five percent if he’s willing to give me something.
    “OK, sixty-forty, I can agree to that. We’ll get the contracts drawn up over the next few days.”
    I can see Greene breathe a sigh of relief. He thinks he has me beaten.
    “Just one condition,” I continue, “I want something from you.”
    “What is it?”
    I look at Clara, all wide-eyed and nervous on her first day. I know it’s a problem, but when you’re as rich as I am, when you see something you want, you just have to buy it.
    “Her.”

Chapter 5
Clara
    “Her!?” says Greene.
    “Me!?”
    What the hell is he doing? This is the twenty-first century. You can’t buy people.
    “I want her to come and work for me as part of the deal. You know, a secondment. At least until the project is all up and running, say, two years.”
    TWO. YEARS. With this jerk? Kyan Ellis, the number one investor in fossil fuels, the man that Economy magazine called ‘the king of pollution’. Two years with the man that stands against everything I believe in. I can’t believe I thought he was hot when he sat down opposite me in the coffee shop.
    “Deal,” says Greene as the two men stand up and shake hands like I’m not even there, “err, assuming you’re OK with it, Clara?”
    “No Clara means no deal,” emphasizes Kyan.                           
    How is this happening? I thought I was going to mess up and make a fool of myself on my first day but this is somehow infinitely worse than that. Do I betray all my values and go work for Kyan Ellis or do I let down the company I really want to work for and screw up this whole deal?
    “I…can I have some time to think about it.”
    “You’ve got twenty-four hours,” says Kyan, “I’ll get the contracts drawn up and we’ll meet back here this time tomorrow.”
     
    ****
     
    I slam the door to my apartment and press my back into it, sliding down to the floor with my eyes closed. I hear footsteps and open my eyes to see my roommate Kelly in pajamas and an old hoodie with our college logo on it.
    “Bad day, huh?” she asks.             
    Five o’clock couldn’t come round fast enough. I had spent my lunch break crying in the toilets but I thought I had fixed my makeup well enough. Kelly could tell, though. Kelly could always tell.
    “I thought you were supposed to be at work this evening?” I dodge the question. Kelly had given up looking for jobs in finance and had decided that, for now, working in a bar would do. How she’s going to pay off the piles of student debt we have accumulated, I don’t know.
    “Yeah but I swapped shifts with Greg,”
    “That guy who’s always hitting on you?”
    “That’s the one. If we head down there tonight he’ll be handing out free drinks to me like candy and you look like you could do with some drinks.”
    “It’s that obvious? I don’t much feel like going out. More like I want to lie on my bed and cry.”
    “It’s pretty obvious.”
    “Well if I look that awful I don’t want to go out.”
    “No, you look great. Kind of sad and cute. Like when a puppy hurts its legs and has to have those wheels so it can walk.”
    She really doesn’t choose her words carefully. Still, I can’t help but smile at her attempt to