The Academic Bride: Billionaire Marriage Brokers Book One Read online

  The Academic Bride

  Millionaire Marriage Brokers Book 1

  Copyright © 2015 Pepin Publishing

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, names, places, incidents, and dialogue are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without prior written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles.

  Pepin Publishing

  http://LucyMcConnell.wordpress.com

  [email protected]

  Interior design by Christina Dymock

  Cover design by Christina Dymock

  Other Works by Lucy McConnell

  Undercover Engagement

  Blue Christmas

  A New Dance

  The Godmother Chronicles

  The Academic Bride

  Billionaire Marriage Brokers Book One

  Chapter 1

  Janel’s multi-grain pancakes stuck in her throat and her heart sank as she read the text from her department head, Dr. Ford.

  Budget cuts went through. The trip is cancelled. Sorry. May have to cut your hours too.

  Janel let the phone clatter to the table. Stupid university funding issues.

  Once again, the Powers That Be had pulled funding from an academic program and pumped it into athletics, because “that’s what makes the alumni happy.” What she wouldn’t give to sit down with some of those highfaluting contributors and explain the importance of the archeology department.

  Drizzling more syrup on her pancakes, Janel heard the girl in the booth across the aisle crying quietly. She wasn’t the only one having a bad day.

  Janel glanced over. Two women talked in hushed tones. The older of the two was put together, like a thousand-piece puzzle in an old folks’ home. However, it was the younger woman who caught Janel’s envious attention: she had gorgeous black hair that hung so long it was pressed between her back and the booth’s leather seat.

  The older woman leaned across the booth. “I’ve dropped him as a client and I promise your next—”

  The younger woman cut her off. “I’m done.”

  “But you could do two, maybe three more contracts. Think of the money you’re throwing away.”

  Janel perked up. If someone was throwing away money, she’d love to take out the trash. A heap of cash could come in really handy right now. At this point, the only way to get to Guatemala and finish her degree was if she paid for the trip. Unfortunately, her checking account resembled a jack-o-lantern—full of holes and a wicked smile. She didn’t dare get her hopes up. The trip would cost more than she could ever make working part-time.

  There was a sigh. “It’s not about the money. My mom’s sick; I need to be with her. They don’t know if ... she might not ...”

  “Oh, darling, I didn’t know.”

  Janel took a sip of orange juice. No matter how hard I think life is, there’s always someone who’s got it worse.

  Finishing off her breakfast, Janel pushed her plate to the edge of the table. Her server, an adorable kid who looked like he belonged in a high school classroom instead of waiting tables on a Tuesday morning, smiled. “I’ll be right back with your check.”

  “Thanks.”

  He moved across the aisle to the women at the next booth. “Can I get you anything?”

  The older woman said, “I need a hot chocolate. Kiera?”

  The girl shook her lovely hair. “No, I’m leaving.”

  “I’ll be right out with that.”

  The boy hustled off, and the conversation between the women continued. Janel kept her head down and her ears tuned in.

  “I’m sorry, Pamela. I hate to leave you in a lurch.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll find someone else. It takes a special person to do this work, but there are wonderful women out there who are looking for a career with these kinds of benefits. You just take care of your mom.”

  Janel threw back the last of her orange juice. This sounded like an opportunity. Even if she couldn’t pay for her dig, she could at least increase her income. As long as the job was flexible enough to work around her classes, she’d be happy to quit her job in the lab cataloging other people’s work and doing data entry for minimum wage.

  “Thanks.” The girl with the gorgeous locks gathered her jacket, one of those fitted ones in a flashy pattern that Janel always looked at but passed over because they only went with two outfits.

  After the two hugged goodbye, the blonde sank back down in her chair and rested her chin on her hand and her elbow on the table. When her hot chocolate arrived, she gave the server a grateful look and stirred in the whipped cream as it melted.

  Janel took her check, figured an exact twenty-three percent tip—she didn’t have a dime to spare, but the server needed to make a living too—and left the fake leather book on the table. As she stood, the woman sighed again.

  Janel paused midstep, remembering. For the first three months of her senior year of high school, she’d watched the Wall of Fame fill up with pictures of the Students of the Month, secretly disappointed she never made the cut. One cold December day, she’d asked her math teacher how students were nominated. He’d told her the students get the form from the front office and ask a teacher to fill it out and turn it in. She’d stared at him, her mouth dragging across the floor. That was it? Come January, her picture was on the wall, and she never forgot the lesson: If you want something in life, you have to make it happen.

  She took off her glasses, cleaned the lenses on the hem of her T-shirt, and put them back on.

  What’s the worst that can happen?

  She crossed over the center aisle. “Excuse me?”

  The woman looked up and smiled politely. Her lipstick, the perfect combination of gloss and color, had left a mark on the cocoa mug. Remarkably, she still had full color coverage. Effortlessly stunning in her tailored navy-blue suit and silk scarf, she carried herself with a sense of confidence Janel envied.

  “Yes?”

  “I couldn’t help but overhear that you’d just lost an employee. Might I enquire about the position?” Janel swallowed. Might I enquire? The phrase felt right when talking with a woman who looked like she was born in a power suit, but it sounded funny coming out of Janel’s mouth.

  The woman stood up and looked Janel in the eye, and Janel found herself straightening under the scrutiny. She held still, feeling like she was going through an MRI machine, exposed and x-rayed. Her skin tingled. She didn’t think anyone had looked at her that closely in a long time. It was a little unnerving, and yet she didn’t feel judged, just read.

  The woman smiled as she offered her hand. “I’m Pamela Jones.”

  “Janel.”

  Pamela gestured to the empty booth. “Have a seat. Are you dating anyone?”

  Janel sat, thinking of Alfred. Were they dating? Two dates in as many months didn’t constitute a relationship. “Not at the moment. Why?”

  “This job is not conducive to preexisting relationships.”

  “Oh, okay.” What did that mean?

  “Tell me about yourself,” said Pamela.

  “I’m working on my PhD in archeology. I teach two entry level classes and work as an aide to one of my professors.”

  “Are you local?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s your five-year plan?”

  Janel tried not to blink too much or too fast; her mom always said it made her look like a fish. These were regular interview questions, but she hadn’t prepped for a job interv
iew this morning. “I was scheduled to go on a dig in Guatemala, but the funding fell through. It was my thesis project, and now I’m going to have to scramble to come up with something else if I want to graduate in the spring.

  “After that, I want to teach in the archeology department and take sabbaticals to follow through on a few theories I have.”

  “Your parents must be very proud.”

  Janel lifted her shoulders. “That’s what they say.”

  Pamela reached over and patted her hand. “I have a good feeling about you.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a card. “Stop by the office later on this afternoon for an orientation. If you’re still interested, we’ll talk.”

  Janel put the card in her coat pocket. She needed a good hour to polish her résumé and review some online tips for the interview. “I look forward to it.”

  As the ding over the front door announced her departure, Janel glanced over her shoulder at Pamela, who took her picture with her cell phone and waved gracefully.

  The whole thing had happened fast, and it was a bit bizarre. Janel wasn’t sure if it was legal to ask questions about an interviewee’s personal life, but she shrugged it off because it wasn’t exactly an interview.

  Having her picture taken bothered her though.

  Was she going to end up on some random web page? Pamela didn’t seem like the shady type, but there was this esoteric aura about her … Janel shook her head. There was no such thing as magic or mystics. Feeling the business card in her pocket, she decided to Google the company the minute she got home. She’d been either smart with a dash of bravery or really stupid to jump into a job she knew nothing about.

  Chapter 2

  According to Janel’s hurried research, the company was real but covert. They worked exclusively by word of mouth, and the only helpful information on the website was a phone number for the main office. Janel dialed it and set an appointment with the receptionist.

  The office was on the third floor of a twenty-five-story building. The people in the elevator were dressed as if they had important meetings with overseas clients—all sleek lines and splashes of color. Janel wondered if her gray slacks and purple button-up top were dressy enough for this job. If she had to buy suits, she’d be out of there faster than you could say “credit limit.”

  The elevator deposited Janel in front of a reception desk, where the same logo from the website—a cursive BMB—hung at eye level on the wall.

  A cute redhead without a single freckle talked on the phone and waved a quick hello to let Janel know she’d be off in a second. Janel wondered if, when they were dishing out freckles in heaven, she’d accidently taken this girl’s smattering. She’d never minded her freckles—she thought they gave her face character—but when she came in contact with someone who had flawless skin like Tina, as Janel read on her nameplate, she wondered if she was missing out on something.

  “That won’t be a problem. We’re the best brokers in the business,” Tina said into the phone.

  Janel worried her bottom lip. Brokers? She didn’t have experience brokering anything. She managed her expenses well, but there was no way she was going to tell someone what to do with theirs.

  Off to her left, three seats and an ornate coffee table waited for clients. The carpet was short and had that new-carpet smell.

  Tina finished her conversation and turned to Janel. “How can I help you?”

  “I’m here for an orientation.”

  Tina checked her computer screen. “Janel?”

  “Yes.”

  “Harrison is expecting you. If you’ll follow me?”

  Harrison turned out to be a thirty-something ex-athlete who looked like he could still play. He had a few smile lines and an office that belonged in a decorating magazine.

  After a quick introduction and the cursory “nice to meet you,” Tina excused herself. Harrison directed Janel to a swivel seat at a small round table with a glass top. He took the chair across from her and grabbed a file and two pens that looked like they had been waiting there for her arrival. In fact, she caught her name typed on the label attached to the tab.

  If nothing else, these people are efficient.

  “You probably have a lot of questions, but if you’ll wait until I finish with the orientation packet, it may answer most of them.”

  “Okay.”

  “Our company is called Billionaire Marriage Brokers. We have a large and extremely private list of billionaire clients who are looking for a spouse. Before we continue, I’ll need you to sign this privacy agreement. Anything we discuss from here on out will be considered confidential information.”

  Janel’s heart rate spiked, and then her jaw dropped.

  Was this guy for real? Why on earth would a billionaire need a dating service?

  She realized she was staring at Harrison like he’d grown horns, and quickly composed herself. She would be happy to file profiles or enter personal information into a dating database as long as it paid better than the university lab. She signed the paper, and Harrison flipped it over and picked up the next paper in the stack.

  “I need to run a background check on you, if you’ll sign this.”

  Janel signed. With billionaire clients, they probably expected a clean staff.

  “This is our code of conduct.”

  Oh great, the dress code. She tucked her scuffed shoes under her seat.

  “I’ll give you the basic run-through. Page one: no drugs, drinking to the point of drunkenness, and no smoking.”

  He looked up, and Janel smiled to reassure him that she wasn’t a drug addict or an alcoholic.

  “Initial here.”

  She did.

  “Page two: You will use clean language, no physical violence, no bad mouthing clients or other employees, you’ll dress appropriately for each outing, and do all in your power to maintain the high standards upheld by Billionaire Marriage Brokers. Initial here.”

  “Do I have to wear suits all the time?”

  “No. Trish will cover your wardrobe at the end of the orientation.” Harrison patted the stack of papers.

  Janel initialed.

  “Page three ...”

  Janel promised all sorts of strange things, including that she would maintain an exercise program (twenty minutes a day or more according to her personal preferences), work to settle differences in a calm voice (that one was strange, she hadn’t yelled at anyone since her big brother threw her in the swimming pool on graduation night), and plan vacations around her client. By the time they were through, she thought her head was going to explode with all the rules bulging out. None of them were really over-the-top, and she didn’t foresee any differences between the way she lived her life and the way they asked her to behave on the job. It did seem strange that they were making her legally promise to keep her area clean, and they hadn’t even told her what she’d be doing.

  She should have asked, but Harrison clearly assumed she knew what was going on and she’d feel stupid saying, By the way, what position am I applying for? Besides, Harrison might be her new supervisor, and she didn’t want to look like a half-wit before she started the job. She decided to ride it out and find an opportunity to ask questions later.

  Harrison flipped the last sheet of paper, one verifying she had a legal driver’s license and that her insurance was up to date, onto the top of the pile. He turned the whole thing over, tapped it on the table to align the sheets, and slipped it all back in the folder with her name on it.

  Checking his watch, he said, “Your next stop is Kimberly in accounting. She’ll be setting up your payroll and expense account. I’ll show you the way.”

  Expense account! Sweet.

  Kimberley’s office was less of a showpiece and more of a work space. She had several filing cabinets lined up along the east wall, each one neatly labeled. There was a traditional cubical desk in light grey with a laptop and printer, as well as a plant that looked like it was watered all year so that it would bloom for three da
ys.

  Harrison tapped lightly on the open door before walking in, Janel a few steps behind. “Hey, Kimberley. This is Janel. Pamela wants her on the Ryburn account.”

  “Will do.”

  Harrison left without glancing back, and Janel turned her attention to Kimberly, who had three pens sticking out of her messy blonde bun.

  Kimberly pushed away from her desk and rolled over to one of the filing cabinets. She pulled a file out of a middle drawer and then another from the drawer next to it. She rolled back to the desk and pulled up a credit card site. Flipping open the first folder, which also had Janel’s name on the tab, she pulled out a sheet of paper with a credit card attached. She removed the sticky rubber things and handed it to Janel. “Sign the back of that, will you?”

  Janel’s palms were sweaty. The deeper she went into BMB, the harder it would be to get out. She hated wasting people’s time. But if she backed out now, she’d leave a mess of paperwork. And BMB’s employees had all been so kind. She could work with them; she was sure of it.

  She took a pen from a coffee mug with a picture of the Grand Canyon on the side, and signed the card.

  Kimberley asked her to create a password, typed the numbers in on three different screens, and wrote them on four separate pieces of paper. “If you ever need to get in and see what’s in the account, this is the place to go. Here’s your opening balance. Anything over this amount will have to come out of your pocket.”

  Janel sucked in. This was more than she made in three months. “What kinds of things am I spending money on?”

  Kimberley put the credit card paper, the credit card, and a blank balance sheet in a blue envelope. “You know, the basics. Gas. Whatever you need. It will be replenished on the fifth of every month.”

  “Do I need to keep receipts?”

  “If you’d like. Your account manager will monitor the monthly statements and let me know if anything is amiss. I need your personal checking account information and a cancelled check to set up the direct deposit.”