The Billionaire’s Girlfriend Bet - Leslie North Page 0,60

say as much out loud. He had learned early on that when it came to family, talking in strictly business terms wasn't exactly smiled upon.

But surely even William could see, from his lofty vantage as CEO, that bringing Eddie any closer in the family business was a mistake. Their father had certainly thought so. The youngest Jameson simply wasn't cut out for more than wining and dining clients.

Inviting the family screw-up back into the fold didn't seem like a wise move to Sam—but who was he to protest it? He would get in, do the job to a more than acceptable degree, and get out, the same as he always did. William wouldn't be able to argue with the results, and then Sam could get the hell back to L.A. and move onto better things.

The door opened and Sam rose, applying one last swipe to the wrinkle. He raised his gaze, expecting to find Eddie's lopsided grin and ridiculous eyebrows waggling a greeting.

Instead, it was his own ex-wife he found staring back at him.

"Trinity." He hated how out of practice he suddenly sounded saying her name out loud. Not a day had passed since their separation that it didn't enter his head on a repeating loop, always in threes: Trinity. Trinity. Trinity. "What are you doing here?"

His ex-wife blinked her gorgeous doe eyes like he had her caught in a crosshairs. Obviously his presence in the room wasn't a surprise to her, but maybe seeing an estranged spouse in the flesh shook her as much as it shook him. His eyes dropped at once to take in the form-fitting pencil skirt and matching blazer. Only Trinity could make such an uninspired shade of gray look borderline sultry. Not a wrinkle in sight. He noticed she was parting her hair differently; the line combed into her scalp was off-center, and her honey-brown hair spilled in one thick wave down the left side of her face. The asymmetry should have bothered him more than it did, but all Sam could think in that moment was how strikingly well-suited she was to the style. The elegant curl hugged her cheekbone while exposing the other one, making them appear even more pronounced than usual.

"Where's Eddie?" He hadn't expected himself to be the one to break the silence. Trinity blinked again, and shook her head to dispel whatever thought it was that had frozen her in the first place.

"Hello, Samson. Your brother asked me to meet with you. Not Eddie," she qualified. "William."

"I see."

"He wants me to assist you in onboarding Eddie. William, that is. But I guess you knew which of your brothers I was referring to that time."

Sam nodded. Trinity's sudden appearance had thrown him into turmoil on the inside, but he was used to masking pressure indicators in high-stress situations. There was a reason his coworkers all called him a machine. "Where is Eddie these days?" he asked her.

"Barbados. Last I heard." Trinity swept her clipboard toward the conference hallway, and Sam rose at her invitation. He followed behind her, despite knowing the way, and watched her graceful balancing act. If she wore silk stockings with her heels, Sam couldn't perceive them at this distance. Only running a hand up one of those elegant calves would reveal the truth to him….

"In here." Trinity waved him on into one of the rooms. Her face looked a little flushed, and Sam wondered how loudly he had been broadcasting his thoughts…then again, maybe they were simply on the same wavelength, as they had so often been when they were married.

In those first years, anyway.

He would never show it, but Sam was still reeling from the divorce. It had been almost a year since he signed the papers Trinity wordlessly pushed across his desk, and he still didn't know what the hell had happened between the two of them. Hadn't they always shared ambitions? Work ethic? Not to mention great, great sex? He knew from all the divorce studies he had read that he should have at least started entertaining the idea of dating other women by now, but he couldn't even bring himself to set up a simple online dating profile…and the Millennials at the L.A. office had certainly volunteered to help.

Sam took a seat at the head of the table out of habit. He pulled out the chair beside him, and Trinity's mouth quirked a little in wry amusement. She bypassed Sam's offered chair to pull out her own. She sat down, and began