The Billionaire's Intern, Book One: Life in a New City Read online

  Chapter Two

  “This doesn’t taste like soy.”

  “It is, sir, I promise. It’s soy.”

  The man stared at Emily, as if she was truly lying about soy milk being in his coffee or not, before he thrust it back at her, “I want another one. I want to watch you make it.”

  Emily’s breath caught and for a second she had a vivid mental image of throwing the coffee back into his face. New York Yuppie Burnt by Coffee Filled with Soy Milk, Emily thought, seeing it as a newspaper headline.

  Instead she said, “Of course.”

  Emily got back to work on remaking the same exact coffee the man had been drinking seconds ago. It had been two weeks since she had moved to New York and Emily had been working at this local coffee shop for the past week. She felt like a walking stereotype: a writer working at a coffee shop. How horrendous. Coffee here was a lot different than back in Missouri, where the extent of Emily’s coffee knowledge had been whether she should put cream and sugar in it.

  Here were unlimited options. Varying types of milk, types of whipped cream on top of iced coffee, hot coffee, lattes, and other fancy types of coffee she had never heard of before. Making the drinks wasn’t even the hard part. Dealing with the jerk customers was. It seemed as if for every one customer who ordered a coffee and left, there were five who ordered something complicated and then complained the whole time.

  “I want extra foam, too.”

  Who the hell wants extra foam? Emily thought to herself, sloshing coffee on her arm and wincing with the sudden heat.

  “Here you go, sir.”

  She slid the coffee over to the man, who snatched it up and took a sip, eying her the entire time. Then he nodded and left the store without another word. Emily scowled.

  “Fun, isn’t it?”

  Emily turned around to see one of her coworkers, Mike, smiling at her. Mike had been helpful since she’d started, and she was already relieved whenever she had to work with him.

  “Yeah, he was a real sweetheart.”

  Mike walked over to the register, looking at the store. Thankfully, it was almost empty. Emily had ten more minutes in her shift and couldn’t wait to leave. She had plans to meet up with Sareh after, who had told her she wanted to try to cut her hair and make her look like she belonged here, instead of from the Midwest.

  “How long have you worked here?”

  “About a year. You just move here?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  Mike laughed, “You look very overwhelmed.”

  “Plus my clothes, right? My roommate said I look as if I walked in directly from Amish country.”

  After two weeks, Emily still didn’t know too much about her beautiful roommate. She had been gone on a shoot yesterday but had come back in a foul mood. Emily hadn’t seen her since. Sareh seemed to spend her days sleeping in late, and then leaving for clubs at night and stumbling back in in the early morning. Emily didn’t think it was any of her business what Sareh was doing with her life, but she couldn’t help but wonder.

  There had been a couple of things that had taken Emily by surprise. For example, the other day, when Sareh realized they didn’t have a dishwasher, she’d freaked out. Emily, having never had a dishwasher in her life, had said they just would have to wash the dishes. They had ended up having to buy gloves for Sareh to wash the dishes with because she had been too disgusted to clean them with her bare hands. What sort of person freaks out over no dishwasher and having to wash dishes by hand? Emily had thought as she had bought the gloves.

  When Sareh had mentioned she was going out to buy yet another upscale coffee from the shop down the street, Emily figured that she had spent $120 in the last week, on coffee alone. Was Sareh that well off or just terrible with money? In any case, it wasn’t any of her business.

  “I don’t know about Amish country,” Mike was saying, snapping Emily back to the present day. “But you look…from out of town.”

  Emily was going to say something back when the door to the coffee shop opened and in walked the most gorgeous man she had ever seen in her entire life. Was that melodramatic? Probably, Emily thought, but then realized she didn’t care. She was too busy staring at the most handsome thing ever.

  He was tall and wearing a well-tailored suit. It seemed to fit to his body perfectly. There wasn’t an extra inch of fabric going to waste on him. His dark hair was slicked back with a face that was seemingly able to look sharp and on edge as well as gentle and teasing, all at once. His eyes were a deep, dark brown, like swirls of chocolate mixed with caramel. He had a phone gripped in one hand as he walked confidently over to Mike and Emily at the register.

  “Hi, Mr. Richardson.”

  The man smiled, showing perfectly straight and white teeth, “Hello, Mike. You new here?”

  Emily realized belatedly that the gorgeous man was speaking to her and not Mike. Her mouth opened and closed. She probably looked like a dying fish. Sexy.

  Mike jumped in, “This is Emily. She just started.”

  “Nice to meet you, Emily. I’m a regular here.”

  “Mr. Richardson owns the magazine down the street.”

  Emily found her voice to squeak out, “Magazine?”

  “Mike is being too kind. We haven’t even had our first issue yet. I’ll take my regular coffee.”

  Mike nodded and turned to the other side of the counter to make the drink. Emily found herself still staring at Mr. Richardson. He wasn’t just hot, she thought; it was as if he was perfectly carved out of marble. A work of art. She felt warm all over and stupid, like a schoolgirl seeing a boy for the first time. If he noticed, he didn’t say anything.

  “Where did you move from?”

  “Missouri.”

  “Long way from home.”

  Emily nodded, dumbly, unable to think of anything to say to keep the conversation going. Mike leaned over the counter and handed the drink to Mr. Richardson.

  “Thanks, Mike.” His eyes fell on her, “Hope to see you around.”

  Emily nodded again as he left the store. Mike turned to look at her, a bemused expression on his face. She felt her entire face flush a deep red, probably making her look like a tomato.

  “Don’t.” She begged.

  He laughed, “Okay. I’ll let the fact you acted like a high school girl just now slide.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Mr. Richardson? I told you, he owns the magazine down the street. But he has more than that going on. He’s a real estate tycoon. A total billionaire.”

  “Billionaire?” Emily squeaked.

  “That’s right. He made a ton of cash and made a ton of smart choices when the recession hit. He could buy and sell you and me a million times. Mr. Richardson kept all his cash and actually made money off of investing. He owns various companies now, or has stock in a lot of well-off companies. This magazine of his is his first venture on his own.”

  “What sort of magazine?”

  “A men’s magazine. Supposed to be aimed at the super elite. The powerful man.”

  Emily’s mind whirled. She couldn’t help but still be floored by how totally hot he was, completely unlike the boys at home who seemed to still think fart jokes were funny as they all came close to twenty-one years old. This was a true man. Even if he had been poor, she still would have been knocked over by him.

  “He comes in a lot, I take it?”

  “Oh yeah. Almost daily when he’s in town. Yup, get used to seeing him.”

  Emily didn’t mind the sound of that.