Damaged Billionaire Daddy Bear - Leela Ash Page 0,10
skipping a beat. He was even more handsome in the light of day. He had this easy grace to his carriage; he was clad in a simple, ash-colored t-shirt and black jeans, and his hair had been carefully brushed backward. He was drop-dead gorgeous!
As he passed her, he didn’t even spare a glance in her direction, but the warm musky smell of his perfume hit her nostrils and Jessica tried not to inhale too deeply in appreciation.
He looked around at the gathered people in the room as he announced, in his deep rich baritone, “I am Theodore Cooper, and I would like to welcome everyone to Exotic Rescue. Please, let’s all grab a seat and get this show on the road,” he added with a smile warm enough to melt butter.
Then, he calmly sank into the seat at the head of the table and everything made sense at once. She had taunted him about his clothes and he had made certain to have her dressed like some snob. How sneaky and underhanded and terrible of him, she thought wrathfully.
She shifted in discomfort. She couldn’t very well call him out; he was the boss. Besides, the entire meeting was filled with people who already thought poorly of her and who were all but fawning over him in admiration. If she became crass toward him in front of his adoring fans, she would damage her reputation beyond recall.
Jessica grit her teeth at the quaint term. She really needed to cut down on all those Regency romance novels, she decided.
“Well, what do you think?” his deep voice demanded just then, the question obviously aimed at her.
One glance into his piercing green eyes and she knew he had put her on the spot on purpose, even though he stared at her without the least hint of recognition in his eyes. Obviously, he’d known she wasn’t listening, and now, he was making her look like an even bigger idiot.
Well, she wasn’t going to fumble and pretend, she decided, putting her chin up as she stared him down. “You’ll have to pardon me, Mr. Cooper. I’m afraid I drifted for a bit there and didn’t hear whatever was said.”
“You don’t seem prepared for this meeting,” he observed, passing a telling gaze over her out-of-place clothes.
“I am certain the meeting will survive regardless,” Jessica murmured under her breath, just low enough to reach his ears alone.
Reluctant respect warred with amusement in his eyes, but then, he blinked and his gaze became shuttered as he flicked that piercing gaze to his Personal Assistant, “Maria? Any thoughts?”
Maria Henley beamed at him with almost maternal pride as she began to commend the merits of the exchange program and argue a case for its extension to some other locations across the USA. Maria was the name of the person who had sent her the email, Jessica recalled, and she was obviously his Personal Assistant. But when she glared at the woman, she was met with a look of clear-eyed innocence. No, Maria had merely been the messenger. She would wait to kill the entitled ass who thought it was funny to play a prank on her simply because she had made a jibe at suits at their meeting last night.
The rest of the meeting passed in a blur.
As soon as the meeting was over, Jessica erupted from her chair and made a beeline for Theodore, determined to flay him alive for daring to play such a prank on her. But before she could reach him, he was swarmed by a bevy of women and ushered out the door in the midst of them.
With a sigh, Jessica contented herself with planting her butt in the reception area of his personal office. She was spitting mad at him for pulling such a childish prank on her, and on her first day too. She would have her say, if she had to tie him down and make him listen. And when she was done, she would shove his exchange program back up his ass and head on home. She didn’t have time for pranks or adults who loved them.
Two office worker types strode past, murmuring in low voices, but some of what they were whispering about drifted to her ears, and Jessica stiffened.
“…animal experiments because what else could explain those occasional pain-filled howls in the dead of night?” one of them asked rhetorically.
“Keep it down,” the man with him hissed. “There would be hell to pay if he heard us talking like this.”
Jessica’s blood