P.A. to the Billionaire Read online

  She rolled her eyes and put her hand on her temples to give them a slight massage.

  “Erm, okay,” she said and then she crossed her arms over her chest.

  “Stay where you are,” he snapped. “I’ll be down in ten minutes.”

  He clicked off and the line went dead and she looked at it with a complete look of disgust.

  Was he actually for real?

  He was going to make her stand outside because she was ten minutes early.

  She rolled her eyes, turned around and leaned back against the doorway with so much irritation she wanted to scream. The workmen all continued doing their thing and not one of them acknowledged her or what they had no doubt just heard over the intercom, and Amanda had the feeling that things were just going to be like that around there.

  Russell would be a prick, and people would pretend not to notice. No wonder he acted however the fuck he wanted to. No one had the nerve to try and stand up to him or answer back.

  This made Amanda bristle even more.

  She could take a lot of stuff in the workplace, and she knew she was there to assist and not manage, but if he was overly rude to her, she knew that eventually she would snap, and it wouldn’t be pretty.

  As the minutes passed by, she found herself wondering if this was actually going to be worth it. Yes, she needed the money, and yes, she had been determined not to waiver and let him get to her when he so obviously thrived on putting people through their paces, but she was starting to feel like a bit of a fool. She was standing there and just waiting for him to come and let her in.

  It was humiliating.

  She was about to turn and get the hell out of there when suddenly she heard the door behind her click and open. Russell came out in a whirlwind, with his hands full of paperwork and files which he dumped straight into hers and looked down at her with a sense of slight irritability.

  “We have to be quick,” he said as he began to stride away from the warehouse, around the corner, and toward a big, black Range Rover with completely blacked out windows that was waiting, almost hidden, at the side of the warehouse where Amanda hadn’t even noticed it.

  She followed behind him, not wanting to question too much and give him any reason to snap at her. He hadn’t kept her waiting too long, in fact, the clock hadn’t even struck eight-thirty.

  He opened the back door and nodded inside.

  “They can all go along the back seat,” he said as he wandered around to the driver’s door and climbed in.

  Amanda placed the files down along the seat and then she closed the door. She took a deep breath before she went to the passenger side, and just hoped that he wasn’t going to order her to get into the trunk or something.

  She stood there looking at him, waiting for his instruction.

  “Come on then,” he said with a grin on his face, and his mood a lot lighter than it had been only seconds before. “Jump in.”

  He patted the passenger seat and Amanda warily climbed inside and closed the door. Russell started the engine and hit the car into gear before he flew out from around the side of the warehouse, past all of the workmen, and out onto the dock roads.

  Amanda dug her nails into the black leather of the seat and gritted her teeth. He was driving so fast, she was nervous that he could crash at any given moment.

  “So,” Russell said as he finally slowed his pace as they joined the main stretch of road that led toward the suburbs. “First day on the job. Hit me with any questions you’ve got.”

  He said it so matter-of-factly and casually, it was becoming more and more clear that he must be well rehearsed in this, and that he probably had gone through quite a few assistants.

  Amanda tried not to smirk.

  “Well, maybe you could start by telling me where we’re going?” she said it bristly and with an air of superiority. She wasn’t about to let this guy walk all over her and treat her like a fool. If he was going to give her shit, she was going to give it right back.

  Russell’s lips curled into a smile and his eyes widened as he looked across at her knowingly.

  “The new girl does have balls,” he said with amusement. “And here I was thinking we weren’t going to get along.”

  “Well, don’t get ahead of yourself just yet,” she said wryly.

  He threw his head back and laughed and then he swung the car around a corner and started to drive fast again. He was clearly in a good mood, but it was edged with something she couldn’t quite place.

  “So,” he said. “Questions, questions…”

  “Where are we going?” she reminded him.

  He nodded and reached down into the center panel and pulled out a packet of gum. He slid a piece into his mouth and then offered one to Amanda. She politely declined and waited for him to continue.

  “Right,” he said through big, minty, chews. “Well, we’re heading to my real office.”

  “That isn’t your real office?” she asked him with a furrowed brow.

  Russell looked down at her and smiled and then he shook his head.

  “Nope,” he said. “That’s a new project, it’s a work in progress, and one day it will be my HQ. But, for now, I still work out of a set of cabins at the end of my garden.”

  He said it so easily, as if she was crazy for not knowing that would be the case, and so, she just nodded her head and let him continue.

  She had obviously assumed the warehouse was up and running, even considering that it was totally empty. And now she was even more intrigued as to what Russell Newport did with his day to days. She had been expecting to be given a room and a desk at the warehouse where she would attend to his every whim, but it was rapidly beginning to appear as if they were going to be out and about and working from somewhere else entirely.

  “So, what’s with the warehouse?” she asked. “And the girl on the desk? I just assumed it was in use properly.”

  Russell smiled and nodded his head.

  “Well, it is if I want it to be,” he said. “But my end vision is something exceptional. I’m developing the entire dockside, turning all of the old warehouses into something incredible.”

  His eyes glinted as he spoke of it, but he didn’t offer anything more.

  “It’s the first big project I’ve undertaken on my own, the scale of it is huge and it’s something that is very close to my heart. There’s a lot of people out there that I am sure would like to see me fail, and that think I wouldn’t be able to pull it off. But I’m determined to make it work, and that’s why I need someone around me to help keep my head straight.”

  He cocked his finger like a gun and pointed at Amanda, and she laughed and nodded.

  “Well, I’m glad to be of service,” she said.

  “The party is definitely over,” he sighed as he took a left and sped on down another road that was taking them further away from the city and more toward expensive residential areas. “I’m done with chasing skirt across continents, I need to just stay in one place and focus on my work for a while. I need make sure that I do the best I can on this project. I have a lot of people to prove wrong.”

  A dark cloud seemed to cross over him and Amanda opened her mouth instinctively to ask him what he meant, but then she closed it quickly. She didn’t want to pry, it was only her first day. She was sure if she was a right fit for the job, then Russell would eventually open up to her and tell her what was going on. The photographs she had seen online came flashing back across her mind. She had seen a drunk and aggressive Russell leering at paparazzi, she had seen him falling out of cabs with models, and now she was sitting next to him in his car, being taken to his house. It was all so surreal. And it was most certainly going to go down as the most interesting, if not fucked up, job she had ever been given.

  He slowed, and they turned down another street that was flanked by gates and security. Even though the windows on the Range Rover were blacked out, the security guard raised his hand and seemed to wave at them both inside. It was clear that he knew the c
ar, and he had been expecting them.

  The road was long and lined with trees, and on each side, Amanda could see the driveways for different houses, all hidden well away and behind big, wrought iron gates of their own. She felt her heart pound a little harder, and she had to stop herself from looking too closely. Everything seemed so over the top and opulent, and it was clear that this gated community was small, exclusive, and home to the very, very wealthy. She swallowed and tried not to fidget with her hands in her lap, while Russell kept on driving until they reached the very end of the street and he pulled up to the biggest set of gates yet. On the front, where the two intersected, there was a large N in a scrolled font, which parted down the middle and opened when the gates did.

  “Home sweet home,” Russell said as he pulled slowly through the gates, waving to another security guard who was wandering around the insane grounds of the house and holding a gun tightly in his fist.

  “Oh,” Amanda whimpered when she realized that he had armed security men there. This was turning into a whole new level of insane.

  Russell didn’t bat an eyelid as he pulled up toward the most incredible house she had ever seen. Amanda had watched TV shows where wealthy families let cameras film their every move, but this place had nothing on any of the homes she had seen on any of those shows. This place was another level altogether. It was so big, it could have been a hotel, and its opulence was awe inspiring.

  She felt her mouth sag a little and Russell looked down at her with a blank expression.

  “Let’s get the paperwork out of the back, I want to take the files straight down to the offices.”

  Amanda nodded, not knowing where to look first. The house was vast, as was the grounds. It could have been a stately home in England for all of its glory, and she couldn’t help but gasp a little with each new little part of it she saw and noticed.

  She stepped out onto the graveled driveway and heard the distinct sound of running and splashing water. When she turned and looked closely toward the grounds, she could see a massive and ornate fountain spilling out crystal blue and making the place feel even more decadent than it had done even a few moments before.

  Russell opened the back doors and pulled out a stack of files, before he stood back and waited for Amanda to do the same. She reached in and grabbed the rest, stacked them up quickly so she could carry them all at once, and scooped them into her arms. There were other luxury cars parked up outside the house, but she couldn’t see or hear another soul. It was so quiet out there, the only sounds were that of the birds in the trees that lined the driveway and spilled out into the forest that seemed to be guarding the entire piece of land like another security wall.

  “Come on,” Russell said, as he kicked the door to the Range Rover closed with his heel and began to walk around the side of the house and away from the front door.

  Her heart was pounding, and she was feeling the nerves rise within her. The warehouse had been intimidating enough, but this place was like somewhere you would find royalty.

  Sure, she had googled the Newports, but she hadn’t expected to be thrown into the bosom of their home on her first day working on the job. Now, as she was there and walking into what felt like a lion’s den, she knew she was going to have to remain calm and rise to the challenge. They may have been rich and powerful, but they were just people. She had a job to do, and she had to think of her children. She wasn’t about to let herself be deterred because they lived in a goddamn palace and had millions of dollars’ worth of cars on the driveway.

  Russell walked around the side of the huge home, away from the walls and out onto the grounds. The sun was shining overhead and the whole place looked so idyllic it was enchanting. As they began to take another gravel path which led toward the forest, the ground began to slope down, and as Amanda looked ahead, she could see the set of cabins nestled down within the trees.

  “The offices?” she asked him as she nodded her head in their direction.

  “Yep,” Russell said as he kept on walking and she struggled to keep up. “This is where the magic really happens. Buckle up.”

  Amanda smiled and kept on walking. After seeing the house and the warehouse, she was looking forward to getting inside somewhere that at least looked as if she couldn’t get lost inside.

  “Oh, the buckle is well and truly fastened,” she mused.

  5.

  As they approached the cabins, Amanda quickly realized that she had been wrong. They weren’t as small and simple as they had appeared from the top of the hill; the closer she got to them, the more she could see the vast size of them, and the fact that several of them had all been joined together.

  Russell was still marching forward, and his cellphone began to ring again and again in his back pocket, which he repeatedly ignored.

  She skipped forward a little to keep up with him and as she tried not to gasp from her shortness of breath, she managed to say, “Would you like me to screen your calls?”

  Russell’s eyes shot up to meet hers from the side and he nodded his head. Behind his eyes, she could see that he was thinking about something else, that his mind had wandered elsewhere, but she could also tell that he had heard her, and he did actually want her to help him. She had heard the phone ring countless times since they had gotten in the car and made their way out to the Newport house. And he had ignored it every single time. She had no idea who was calling for him, but it sounded as if he was a man very much in demand, and he was never truly on his own. If he wasn’t surrounded by workers, then his phone was ringing non-stop and people were vying for his attention.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that it had to be exhausting, and it also looked as if he were reaching the end of his patience with it.

  He slipped his hand into his back pocket as he balanced the files on the top of his knee and passed her the cellphone. Amanda looked at him with wide eyes, not wanting to drop everything in her grip, but he just smiled and placed it down on top of her file stack too.

  “I’m sick of that fucking thing,” Russell said as he glared at the cellphone. “I’ve been debating going off the grid for some time.”

  “I know the feeling,” Amanda agreed as they reached the middle doors of the cabins and Russell managed to bend down slightly and open the handle with the edge of his elbow.

  The doors to the office space opened, and once again Amanda was awestruck. The cabins had been all joined together so well, it was hard to believe they were all separated units. Inside, they were long, bright, airy, completely huge and arranged in different little sections. The back walls were long, bi-fold doors, and half of them in the middle were open and were letting in the crisp air from the forest and the sounds of another fountain close by.

  “Wow,” she said. “These are certainly deceiving from the outside.”

  Russell looked down at her and shrugged, and then she slammed the files down on the first desk he could find. Amanda did the same and looked around. In each corner, much like in the warehouse, there were lush plants, and artworks adorned the walls. She tried not to look too impressed, but with each place she was seeing with him, it was kind of hard not to be. This whole thing was totally insane.

  There was rich… and then there was Newport rich.

  And up until that day, Amanda never would have known there was a difference.

  “Okay,” he sighed as he ran his hands through his hair. “The assistant’s desk is right outside my office.”

  He turned and looked up to one of the farthest ends of the cabin. She could see a door that led off to a separate room, and out the front, as described, was a desk that was easily the one he had earmarked for her.

  “Could you sort me some coffee, divert that fucking phone to your cell so you can answer them when we’re on the move, and then come in to see me.”

  “Sure,” Amanda said.

  She watched as he blustered off and slammed the door to his office, and she was alone in the cabins, looking around herself and from one end to
the other, desperate to explore and see more of the place.

  The desks were all new and expensive looking, as were the chairs and every single piece of furniture in the place, but with the wooden walls and the rustic surroundings, it was certainly a lot more welcoming than the cold and sterile nature of the warehouse.

  She wandered over to the desk that he had dubbed hers, and she sat down and looked at the two cellphones in front of her. She began to set up the divert and as she was waiting, she looked around the room to try and spot a coffee machine.

  In the other corner, there looked to be a break area, with lots of plush looking floor cushions, quirky arm chairs, a flat screen on the wall showing images of forests and beaches, and then to the side of that a small kitchenette, complete with a fancy looking coffee maker.

  “Bingo,” she smiled as she crossed over the room and started to root around in the cupboards for some instructions or sachets to use, and when she finally got some, she set to work at making Russell Newport the first of what she was sure would be many coffees that were to come.

  The cell phone rang nonstop from the second she sat back down, and Amanda got her first taste of what it felt like to be someone so wanted and in demand. She screened the calls effortlessly, taking notes, sending them via email to Russell and then scribbling them down on a pad in front of her too. She wanted to cover all bases. She had the feeling he may not be the kind of man who wanted to be bothered with each individual message, if she could just speak them aloud to him and give him the option of replying, she thought maybe that would be a better fit for him.

  He was volatile and unpredictable, but she had the feeling that if she read his body language and made the right calls when it came to what he wanted and didn’t want out of a PA, then, hopefully, she should be okay.

  The buzzer on her desk phone started to trill and she picked it up.

  “Hello?” she asked demurely.

  “Come into my office,” Russell said shortly, and Amanda bounced straight to her feet with her notepad in hand.

  She knocked on the door warily and waited a moment before she stepped inside.