The Undercover Billionaire (18+)

Prologue

"The minutes, you can expect to have waiting for you on Monday afternoon but, with the way things are piling up on me right now, you might need to give me until Friday." Listra said. She'd barely looked up from the clipboard she'd been carrying.

"Yeah, that's no problem. Not that I necessarily need a recap of this meeting," Natasha replied with a small smile in the girl's direction. They were moving so fast down the hallway that she was sure the girl hadn't seen it though.

"Alright—oh, we have the candidates coming in this afternoon so I'll have their applications on your desk as soon as I can when we get back. Truth is, they're probably already waiting for us. We're like twenty minutes late."

"Listra, watch where you're go—"

In the process of flipping the clipboard, Listra apparently happened to block her own view and managed to run into Mr. Khan.

The man turned around with a swift motion. But his eyes didn't land on Listra. No, they went straight for Natasha. She tried to stay still beneath them. The last thing that she needed was for him to think that he made her uncomfortable.

Listra's eyes were wide when she opened her mouth to defend herself. "Sorry, I—"

"Is your secretary blind?" His aged voice was louder than Natasha knew was necessary in the small space.

Nat didn't take her eyes off of him. Grinding her teeth, she instead turned her attention back to Listra and squinted her eyes at the girl, like she was inspecting something on her face. "Well, I don't think she wears glasses, so I doubt that she's blind but she was busy." She turned her attention to the man dressed in the white thobe before them and cocked her head to the side. "And you were in the way. My apologies, though."

He smiled humorlessly at her before turning his whole body. "Your speech in there wasn't half bad." He jerked his grey-bearded chin in the direction she had just emerged from, the conference room.

"Thank you," she replied. "Now—"

"But I'm afraid that it doesn't change anything." He took two steps closer to her, completely ignoring Listra. She realized that his accent was much thicker now than when she'd heard it in the conference room, giving her the impression that his speech had been practiced.

Natasha didn't balk. She was as tall as him in the heels that she wore. So, she crossed her arms and raised her chin slightly higher.

"I hate to be the one that breaks it to you. But good intentions rarely gets you anywhere in this industry."

Natasha studied the older man with a dry smile on her face. He might have been attractive when he was younger—no. She knew that he'd been attractive when he was younger. But age and time had worn down those features that she'd once known to be sharp. He was much shorter in person than she thought he might have been.

"That's funny," she replied and folded her arms. Not because her fists were trembling, but because she needed to show some resistance. "I recall there was a time when you preached the exact opposite of those words."

He jerked his neck back and furrowed his brows like he was taken aback.

"Oh, you can't remember? Let me jog your memory." Nat was aware of the multiple people in this hall who were trying their hardest not to eavesdrop on their conversation. She continued regardless. "2008, you were a guest on the 'Make Your Mark' talk show. Do you know what you said in that show? You said that people who led with good intentions were who ensured that there was still some good left in the world. You also said that if there ever came a time where you didn't stand by that motto, you'd already be in your grave." She looked him up and down. "Guess that makes you a dead man walking."

Listra chuckled—or choked—beside her. When it came to this girl, she could never tell.

Had he not been bearded, Nat knew that he would've been clenching his jaw. "Times change. And principles along with it."

She breathed a scoff and unfolded her arms to hold her hands before her. "And have your principles changed that much that you're willing to go to the mat—with someone like me—for a chain of hotels that you have intentions to demolish in the first place?"

His head snapped to the door down the hall where the seller still stood going over something with her accountant. He was lucky that the woman had been too occupied to hear that.

"After thirty years of talking about honesty when it came to business," Nat brought his attention back to her. "I'm almost ashamed to say that I was raised heeding those fake ideals."

Asim walked closer to her, a plastic smile wide on his face. "Careful now, girl. It would be a shame to make an enemy of me over this little ...misunderstanding."

She smiled at him, genuinely this time. "It's no misunderstanding. But you're right. It would be a shame for us to hate each other over this. After all, you were once my role model." She sighed. "Guess now I understand why some people prefer not to meet their heroes."

He squinted his eyes at her.

She grabbed Listra's arm and hooked it through her own. "Love to stay and prove to you why my company will inevitably be the one that gets this deal sold to us but, quite frankly, I have an assistant to look for and we're already late." She pulled Listra along, passing Asim like he was nothing more than furniture in her way, and continued their trek to the car. "Be-al-tawfek!" She didn't turn around to see if he acknowledged the fact that she knew Arabic or if he was surprised that she still wished him good luck.

Instead, she opened the double doors and made her way down to the parking lot with Listra's arm still through hers.