Baby For My Billionaire Rival (Billionaire Daddies)

6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Jake

I arrive at Trilby an hour early. I need all the time I can get with Fig to tell her how absolutely ludicrous it is, the idea of me and Caroline working together. This isn’t just a small project. This is the defining moment of our first semester. And I can’t risk our disdain for one another fucking it up.

As I navigate the winding halls of the upper floor of Trilby, I practice my argument to myself over and over.

Fig –

Good start.

If our projects are meant to mimic the real world, this premise is already flawed with how you’ve set the scope.

Might be too many buzzwords, but given how nervous I am, I doubt it will come out like this.

Goldstone and I would never, and I repeat NEVER, get into a situation where we would be partners in business. Consequently…

I approach Fig’s door. It’s cracked just enough to let her office light into the hallway.

Consequently…

There are voices coming from inside.

Consequently what, genius?!

“I refuse to accept this assignment,” I hear a voice say firmly from inside.

It’s Caroline. At least we’re on the same page about something.

“Now, Caroline, I think you’re underestimating yourself,” Fig replies in her droll tone.

“This has nothing to do with underestimating myself. Jake Simmons and I would never be in the same room together if we could help it.”

“I know. You two bring a lot of tension to the lecture hall.”

I can’t just stand here and listen in on a conversation about me. I’ll come back later. Who knows? Maybe Caroline will handle it all on her own. She’s more than capable. I turn around and head a few steps down the hall, but a tug in my gut makes me stop.

Just face it, Jake, it’s not going to go away.

God, I want to fight my own subconscious! Which is it? Stay or go!

The pull doesn’t go away. I sigh heavily. Fine. I’ll do it . I stand up straight, roll my shoulders back, and head back in the direction of Fig’s door.

“…impossible! You’re making it impossible on purpose!”

“You take me for much more of an evil mastermind than I am, Caroline,” Fig says. I can practically hear the grin on her face. I bet that’s pissing Caroline the fuck off.

I knock on the door.

“I thought I closed that,” Caroline murmurs.

“We’re busy!” Fig calls out.

I swallow. Do it . “It’s Jake Simmons.”

“Now, that’s what I call timing! Come on in, Simmons!” Fig cries out.

When I push the door open, it’s apparent that my appearance is not welcome to Caroline. She’s put her hand over her face, trying to hide the flush on her cheeks.

“We were just talking about you,” Fig says, leaning back on her desk, feet where the keyboard should be.

“Yeah, I kinda heard,” I say.

“How much did you hear?” Caroline asks, taking a determined step toward me.

Her passion makes me back up a little. “Easy there, missy.”

“Don’t you missy me. How much did you hear? ”

She has me pressed up against the door with her angry little glare.

“Easy, Gladstone,” Fig says, although she seems rather relaxed considering the situation.

“I heard enough,” I reply.

“Enough to what?!”

“Enough to know that we’re on the same page, now, Lord have mercy, won’t you back up please , Miss Caroline Gladstone?” I say, gently touching her shoulders and pushing her ever so slightly that she couldn’t construe it as an act of aggression.

Fig stands. “Gladstone. Here.” She snaps and points to a chair. “And Simmons –” she does the same to me. “Here, please.”

Caroline and I take our respective seats. The chairs are far too close together and the room is far too small. I can practically smell her and she smells – well, she smells nice. Like a nice department store perfume. Not the kind you walk through that feels like toxic fumes in your lungs.

But that’s not the point, is it? We don’t get along, no way, no how.

“I get it. I hear you both. You don’t think you’ll be able to accomplish this project together.”

“No,” I say.

“Definitely not,” Caroline says.

I look at her. “I don’t know about ‘definitely.’”

Caroline gestures to me. Her nails are the color of a crunchy, orange leaf. “Oh my God. He always disagrees with me. Always .”

I have to keep from saying, “Not always.”

“You don’t think you could possibly find a way to align your business goals and ethics to come up with a business model that would be acceptable to present in front of your peers and the faculty, is that what I’m hearing?”

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” I say.

Fig rolls her eyes. “I’m sure, Simmons.”

“Fig, it’s clear to everyone, especially us,” Caroline looks at me and for once, her eyes are pleading for help. Like I can somehow aid her in this argument.

For once we’re on the same side. Go figure. “Yes, especially us,” I echo.

“That we have very different standards of practice when it comes to our family businesses and our own goals,” Caroline continues. “Right, Simmons?”

My gut turns molten. Don’t tell me you’re horned up over a woman talking business to you, Simmons. I clear my throat. “Right. There would be no world in which the two of us would find a business venture that would suit both of our interests, our business objectives –”

“Our value statements!” Caroline adds.

“Yes! Our value statements.” How could I forget that ? We’ve been forced to write and rewrite these since the very beginning of our tenure in the program. It’s been hellish for someone like me who is fond of the written word, but not my own written word.

“Have you read each other’s value statements?” Fig asks, cocking her eyebrow.

Caroline and I exchange a look. There would be no reason to have read one another’s statements. We aren’t each other’s critique partners. “Um –” I start.

“Yes,” Caroline says firmly.

I resist smiling. Damn, she’s just going to lie straight in the face of our professor. That’s… another reason why she and I just wouldn’t work well together. I’m honest to a fault. However, if she perhaps was a different woman and not Caroline Gladstone, her audacity would be pretty sexy.

“Gladstone, you’re full of shit,” Fig says with her signature devilish grin.

Caroline sinks lower in her chair, looking into her lap like a kid who has been sent to the principal’s office. I almost feel kind of bad for her. “She’s – we did. Share,” I say, shifting in my chair.

Am I seriously lying for this girl right now?

“It was, you know, we didn’t trade, but we passed them between people and they just ended up in our hands.” You’re going to hell, Jake. Straight to hell. “I mean, why do you think I gave her such a hard time about her thoughts on organizational culture.”

I swear I feel Caroline smile at me and dammit that feels good. What’s happening to me?

“You’re a worse liar than Gladstone, Simmons.” Fig tilts her head to the side. “You know what this tells me?”

Caroline nearly leaps out of her seat. “You’ll reassign us?”

“No. We’re beyond reassignment at this point.”

The coffee with heavy cream I drank on the way here curdles in my stomach.

“Besides, I did this on purpose. You don’t always get to work with people you align with in the real world.”

Caroline and I both sit there for a moment, totally stunned by what she’s just done. Put us on the same side of an argument. Made us allies. I think I’m going to be sick.

“Plus, you’re clearly already working together much better than you’ve given yourself credit for,” Fig says.

I suddenly deeply regret trying to cover for Caroline’s lie. Stupid, stupid, stupid .

“I suggest you two take this time before class to figure out how you’re going to sort things out between yourselves. This is an important project and you should both want to give yourself as good a shot at it as possible to really get this right,” Fig says. “I have faith in both of you.”

Neither Caroline nor I move a muscle.

“Now, go.”

Caroline and I both mutter profuse “thank yous” despite the fact we’ve just been handed a relative death sentence to our academic careers, and both head for the door at the same time. Our shoulders careen together and we both gasp.

Fig laughs. She must be some evil sorceress who enjoys our pain.

“After you,” I say with a tight jaw.

Caroline exits first and I follow, shutting the door behind me.

The two of us walk in silence, side by side. I keep thinking of things to say and then deciding against it.

Suddenly, Caroline stops. “Okay, we have to figure this out.”

“I agree,” I reply.

“Like immediately,” she says, a very serious expression on her face.

“Like, okay.”

Caroline looks at me with disgust. “Seriously? You’re going to make fun of me right now?”

“It was…” A poorly-timed joke. I sigh and click the heels of my work boots together. “I’m sorry. I haven’t gotten used to the idea we actually have to get along yet.”

“Yeah, well me either,” she grumbles before heading off down the hallway.

My eyes catch on the way her jeans cup her ass cheeks and that horniness I was trying to avoid earlier creeps up again. No, no, no, no, I chant to myself as I jog to catch up with her. “Okay, okay, truce.”

Caroline stops but doesn’t look at me.

“Truce. Seriously. “I hold my hand out to her.

She eyes it. “You’re not going to mean to me again, are you?”

I frown.

“The last time you gave me a handshake you said you weren’t here to make friends.”

“A handshake doesn’t mean we have to be friends. We have to be business partners . That’s different.”

“What could be more intimate than being business partners?” Caroline asks, her loose waves bobbling like she just asked the most innocent question in the book.

I can think of several things more intimate than being business partners. I will my brain not to imagine her fingernails digging into my bare shoulders.

“That came out wrong.”

Came .

Oh my God, I have to get laid. Soon. “Just shake my damn hand, Gladstone.”

She huffs, lips pouting, but grabs my hand eventually. We shake. “No more being assholes to each other.”

“Great.”

“At least until Christmas.”

“Then on Christmas –”

“We can let it all out. Our gift to each other,” she says with a proud smile.

“Deal.”

“Deal.”

Our hands drop. Much too soon for my liking. In the gap left by our handshake, neither of us knows what to say. Once again.

“How about we spend this week brainstorming –” Caroline says.

“Sounds good.”

“And we can, I don’t know, maybe meet up this weekend and present to each other.”

And inevitably duke it out until one of us is dead. “That sounds good to me.”

“Good is generous,” Caroline snorts.

I don’t want this tension with Caroline. I guess I’m the one who prolonged it after that first unfortunate interaction. I can’t help it though. All my worst fears manifested before I even walked into class. Being seen as someone who doesn’t belong here.

It’s been two months… and we have to work together.

I may as well give her a chance.

“Tell you what,” I say, sliding my hands into my pockets. “How about you come out to my family farm on Saturday? I can show you around, you can get an idea of how I usually run things and why I am the way I am. And we can talk things through with the project.”

Caroline’s eyes widen, her lashes practically touching her eyebrows. “Seriously?”

I shrug. “Yeah.”

“You want me to come out to your farm?”

I blush. Maybe it was a stupid idea. I mean, it’s clear her standard of living isn’t suited for the farm. She might get one sniff of manure and faint. “It’s a little far, you’re right, that was a silly suggestion.”

Caroline grabs me by the arm. I feel faint. “No, that’s not what I meant. I’d…” A grin spreads across her face. “I’d love to see your farm.”

Her enthusiasm is as confusing as it is welcome. “Okay! Great. Well… great.”

For the briefest second, her eyes glimmer in mine. I hold my breath.

Okay, I’m done pretending. Caroline Gladstone might just be the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. No amount of disliking her can change that.

I’m totally screwed.