The Tycoon's Baby Revelation - Elizabeth Lennox Page 0,5

something about…well, she needs a place to live.”

Jefferson nodded. “Done. Wilma?” he called out.

Of course, Wilma appeared in the doorway, already nodding her head. She heard all that went on in this house and anticipated her men’s needs, usually before they even realized they needed something. “I’ll have the carriage house cleaned up and ready for her.”

“Thanks,” Josh said with deep sincerity. “I don’t like the idea of someone as young and vulnerable as this Ms. Abbot living in a city shelter.”

“Agree.” Jefferson stood up and walked around his desk, downing the rest of his scotch before Wilma took his glass away. He had a hidden stash of cigars too.

Over dinner, Josh and Jefferson discussed business and went over Josh’s next step. By the time he stepped into his car at the end of the night…a huge cotton bag on the passenger seat overflowing with plastic containers filled with meals he could easily pop into the microwave for dinner because Wilma knew that he forgot to eat when he was working …he was going over everything he’d learned over the last few hours.

So, it was a surprise when he pulled back into the parking lot of the fast food restaurant with the gaudy colors. Even from the parking lot, he could see the smiling face of Sloane Abbot as she greeted a late night customer. He should head home and get some work done, but instead, he remained in the parking spot and started making calls from there, getting his next business step in place. Already, his net worth was in the multiple million dollar range. He’d done that all by himself through shrewd investments. Now, he was ready to expand his investment goals, but needed to hire a staff to get there. His first hire on this next phase of his career was to get a good assistant in place.

Was he making a mistake in hiring someone so young and inexperienced?

Thinking about Jefferson, about how the old man had taken a chance on him, a nobody, a teenage criminal…Josh shook off his doubts about Sloane Abbot. She was young, but the fire in her eyes…it reminded him of how he’d felt all those years ago when Jefferson had miraculously stepped into his life.

Research, he told himself. Pulling out of the parking lot, he headed back to his home. At twenty-five, he preferred a condo to a house, not wanting the hassle of maintaining a yard. Walking through the door, he tossed his keys into the crystal dish in the foyer, then headed through the great room and down the hallway to his office. His condo was spacious, with four bedrooms, a large kitchen, great room, and an office. He didn’t need four bedrooms, but figured he’d grow into the space eventually.

He sat down at his computer and logged in, entering the complicated password and the other security measures. Already, he’d fouled several attempts of someone trying to steal the secrets to his financial success. He’d created a security system that guarded the algorithm for his investment strategy and the firewalls he’d put in place rivaled Fort Knox. His strategy worked better than anything anyone had yet developed. When the Dow Jones Index rose by five percentage points, his investment portfolios rose by nine to twelve percentage points. And it was all in the mathematical system he’d created and formatted.

Tonight, he wasn’t researching new companies he might invest in. Instead, he researched a certain young woman with startling blue eyes and a hungry anger that caused her pale, too-thin body to radiate with energy and righteous fury. Damn it, she’d been magnificent! He could still hear her haranguing him for the two and a half hour tardiness of her interview and her small hands fisting at her sides when she’d told him that she’d figure out anything that he threw at her. With a chuckle of admiration, he thought about her absolute certainty that she wouldn’t ever be in his bed.

That was good because he wanted an assistant, not a lover. Business and pleasure were separate and, by the time the fiercely-determined Sloane Abbot had sat down for her interview, Josh had been completely fed up with women trying to entice him. How could so many mercenary women have heard about his job opening…and how the hell had they all thought that they could simply saunter in and seduce him?

An hour later, Josh wasn’t at his computer any longer. He paced the length of his office, furious at what he’d