Cassie Storms.
He’d been shocked when Becky told him she’d called and asked to meet. Derek had thought of her over the years for many reasons, none of them good. The Storms family was responsible for a shit ton of pain and heartache for Derek’s parents, both his father who had passed away, and his mother. Derek had never forgotten.
And Cassie, well, she’d set the bar for how he viewed rich girls for most of his life. Which made dating complicated since he’d become wealthy himself. It was hard to be himself around women. He didn’t believe that they didn’t want him for his money, and if they were well off, he immediately had his guard up, distrusting what kind of bitchy personality lay beneath the façade they presented to the world.
Cassie couldn’t have been sweeter the night he’d kissed her, but she’d had no problem humiliating him in front of her friends the very next day. His cheeks still burned with mortification when he thought of it.
He hadn’t shown up that night as planned, and he hadn’t expected her to be there either. Curiosity had him watching from his bedroom window though, and she had waited for him out by the pool. He couldn’t imagine why, nor did he care. He’d gotten some small consolation knowing she was waiting in vain, maybe feeling an ounce of the humiliation she’d dished out to him.
As he’d watched her shoulders slump and she seemed to curl in on herself, a part of him had felt bad. Until he’d remembered her friends’ laughter at their cruel comments about him being fuckable but not good enough to take home to their fathers.
Bitches. He’d turned away from the window and never looked back.
He’d left for college a few days later, where life had changed. He’d busted his ass on his scholarship and worked jobs to have money to live. But while there, he’d met Kade and Luke, his best friends, his brothers.
And they’d developed Blink. His life had taken a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn from his poor roots. He’d been too late to help his father, but he’d been able to improve his mother’s life. He just couldn’t bring his father back. Too little, too late, for which he blamed the Storms family.
These days, Derek considered himself as much an entrepreneur as a technology guru, and he often purchased failing businesses with the goal of either setting them back on their feet or dismantling them and selling off the pieces. Either option worked, whichever made him the most money. So when he’d heard that Storms Consolidated was in trouble, he’d set his sights on acquiring it and put in a generous offer under a shell company name.
No way would Christopher Storms ever sell his beloved company to his ex-gardener’s son. A man he’d fired after accusing his wife of stealing family jewelry. The son of a woman he’d had arrested. A family he’d turned on after they’d given him years of service, leaving them with no references, no place to live, and no health insurance. The latter was something Derek would never forgive him for.
Needless to say, he didn’t want to buy the company in order to right the ship. He wanted to run it into the ground and destroy anything with the name Storms. But even with Derek’s name hidden, Christopher Storms had turned down the offer.
That was fine. Derek had tried to acquire the thing on a lark. A shot at taking the man down, but Derek wasn’t ruled by revenge. If the opportunity came again, he’d give it another chance, but he’d moved on. And then he’d heard from Cassie.
In the last year, her name started turning up on some damn fine articles on people who ran in Derek’s world. He wasn’t stupid. He figured she wanted to interview him. Many had tried, but he rarely granted access because he didn’t want anyone digging into his family or his past. He was a private man.
He’d agreed to meet with Cassie out of curiosity. What kind of woman had she become? How far would she go to get what she wanted? Would she beg? He knew the company wasn’t doing well, and an interview with him would be a coup nobody else had succeeded in obtaining. He wouldn’t mind seeing her grovel before he said no.
Petty? Maybe. Definitely. But he’d looked her up on social media and was still intrigued enough by the woman to want to see her one more time.
“Derek, you haven’t heard a word I said,” Becky chided. They ran a casual office, first names, jeans and tee-shirts, except for Kade’s wife, who, when she was in the office as his assistant, liked to dress up.
He shook his head, knowing Becky was right. His head was elsewhere. “Sorry, I have a lot on my mind. But I have a ten o’clock appointment, Cassandra Storms?”
“Yes.”
“Please have her wait exactly ten minutes before sending her in.” No reason to see her immediately.
Let her sweat before they faced each other again.
Ironically he was the one who sweat when Becky announced Cassie had arrived and he counted down the minutes until ten after the hour. The time ticked past slowly.
He glanced at his watch. Finally he could get this show going, he thought and rang for Becky to send Cassie in.
He pushed himself to his feet just as she stepped into his office. He thought he was prepared, but online photos and social media profiles hadn’t done her justice. She’d filled out, her curves more that of a woman than a young girl. Her long brown hair was thick, made for him to wrap around his hand as he tugged her head back and had his way with her, kissing her everywhere.
She was fucking hot. Sexy and alluring in a way she hadn’t been when she was eighteen. And he was just as attracted to her now as he’d been then. More so, even. That was something for which he hadn’t been prepared.