The Billionaire and His Driver

CHAPTER NINE

Nearly an hour-and-a-half after Tex returned the empty tray to the wait staff of the Windale Golf and Country Club, Ronny walked out of the club with Oscar and Fallon and all three stood a few feet from the Mercedes still in conversation. But it was surreal to Brina. She even leaned over the steering wheel and squinted her eyes. “Am I seeing who I think I’m seeing?” she asked Tex.

Tex, who was buried in his phone once again, didn’t bother looking up. “You mean Governor Grisham?”

“So that is him?”

“That’s him, yeah. He’s no longer in office though.” Tex looked at her. “Why are you so surprised? This is Windale. This is where the rich and powerful come to retire after ruining the nation.”

Brina laughed. “He was an ultra-conservative governor, that’s for sure.”

“Ultra my ass,” said Tex. “He was so far right wing there’s nobody left on the right beyond him.”

Brina smiled, but her attention floated back to their boss. Standing there with his suit coat unbuttoned and his hands in his pants pockets, he had those sunglasses on once again, even though the sun by now was minimal. But although she couldn’t see his eyes, she could clearly see his body. He looked to be on the big side to her with very muscular biceps that could barely be contained within the suit that covered them, a flat stomach that she just knew had to be at least a six-pack, and a face that seemed unconcerned with even the conversation he was having. She noticed he didn’t talk. She noticed Governor Grisham didn’t stop talking. She noticed the woman beside the governor, a pretty white woman, was staring at the boss the entire time.

Except when she glanced inside the Mercedes and saw the pretty black woman behind the wheel. She gave Brina such a nasty look, and even shook her head like she just couldn’t stand the sight of her, that it puzzled Brina. That chick didn’t even know who she was. Why was she coming for her? “What’s her problem?” she asked Tex. “She don’t like black people?”

Tex smiled. “I know we white folks have a bad reputation in that department, but that’s what you think that look was about? Your race?”

“Since she doesn’t know me from a hole in the wall, yes.” Then she looked at Tex. “What else could it be about?”

Tex stared at Brina. Did she not know how good-looking she was? How a man like Ronny Bradshaw would have designs on her? How a woman like Fallon Grisham would hate her guts? Was she that na?ve?

But if she were, it was so refreshing to Tex given the leeches and gold diggers the boss had to deal with on a regular basis, that he didn’t want her to change. He didn’t want her to realize her gift. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s it. Who knows?”

Brina found his response odd and unnecessarily layered, but she didn’t pursue it. Their boss was an ultra-conservative Republican if the company he keeps was any indication, and that fact alone made her even more wary of him. That fact alone made her know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Tex was wrong and she was right. Her days as a woman with a job, at least at Bradshaw Manor, were numbered.

It would be nearly five more minutes of conversation before Oscar and Fallon finally made their way to their limousine, and Ronny made his way to his Mercedes.

When he got in the back and Tex told Brina to head to Bradshaw Manor, it was Brina who was constantly looking through the rearview and staring at her boss as she drove.

Ronny, instead, was looking out of the side window during the entire ride home. But if she thought that meant he was already over her, or still holding her in contempt because of her refusal to take his money, she was mistaken. The problem for Ronny wasn’t that he was over her. His problem was that he couldn’t stop thinking about her. About the hopefulness in her eyes seven months ago when she talked about getting that job with a non-profit. The way she gave him half of all she had, which was nothing more than a biscuit. How that hopefulness was gone from her eyes when she told of not getting that dream job she had hoped to get, and was now a maid instead. How she defied his order and refused to take his money. He didn’t tolerate insubordination of any kind. He’d fired others for far less. But then why, he wondered, was he thinking about taking her to his bed rather than kicking her out of his house? Why would he even consider such a crazy idea?

That was why he took a peep at her on that rare occasion she wasn’t peeping at him. Could she really be different than all the others? Or was this an act, too, but on a more sophisticated scale? Did she find out who he was and decided to take advantage of that knowledge by finding employment in his household? Other women had done worse than that to get next to him. Could she be in that category?

He didn’t know. But what he did know he didn’t like. Because what he knew was that every single time he laid eyes on her, even seven months ago and again this morning, his heart squeezed in a way he didn’t understand. He felt something for her seven months ago during their brief encounter, and it stumped him even then. What he knew now was that he still was feeling that exact same thing. And it still mystified him just as powerfully.