Page 8 of The Rebel Billionaire

I took a healthy sip of the whiskey, savoring the smoky fire of it as it ran across my tongue before I handed the glass back. I could blow her off, give her a bullshit answer. I decidednotto.

"Charlotte Winters, twenty-four years old. You live with your brother, Aiden, in Winters House, in Buckhead, where you've lived your entire life. Undergrad in economics at Emory, MBA at Emory. You work as a Vice President at Winters Incorporated, reporting to your brother. No current relationships, but last year, you were photographed with James Conroy and there were rumors you wereengaged."

"You're thorough," she said. "And what would I find outaboutyou?"

I couldn't help my laugh. "If you looked? Nothing. You might be able to dig up that I graduated from high school fourteen years ago and joined the Army, but that's it. Unlike some people, I know how to keep a lowprofile."

Charlotte gave a laugh that was a bitter echo of my own. "Trust me, as these things go, I keep a very low profile. Any lower and I'd have to change my name and disappear. But your info is outofdate."

I raised my eyebrows, waiting for her toexplain.

"As of this afternoon, I no longer work at Winters Incorporated and I no longer live at WintersHouse."

"Your brother kicked you out?" I asked insurprise.

I hadn't bothered with deep research into Charlotte. As a Winters, most of what I wanted to know was right there in the archives of the paper. But everything I'd seen showed me a family that stucktogether.

"He didn't kick me out of the house. He fired me." Her voice went hard as she said the last words, and her eyes narrowed. "That fucking, ungrateful, betraying bastard fired me. Do you have any idea how hard I've worked for that goddamned company? I got a degree in Economics. I hate Economics. I went to business school at night, while I worked during the day, did all those stupid projects andpresentations.

"And I rocked that job. If you look at the reports after I took over, profits were up and we expanded. I was fucking awesome. Since I turned eighteen, I've given it everythingIhave.”

Her eyes flooded with tears, the vivid, watery blue reminding me of the ocean. My gut clenched, instinctively rejecting the idea of this womancrying.

Her even white teeth sank into her bottom lip so hard the flesh turned white. She tilted her head up and blinked away thetears.

As soon as she had herself under control, she raised the glass to her bruised lips and drank every drop of the whiskey. This time, I didn't comment on how much she wasdrinking.

I got the feeling Charlotte Winters would rather pass out drunk than cry in front of anyone, much less a virtualstranger.

Oddly, I knew exactly how she felt. I'd go through miles of hell before letting anyone seemypain.

Who was I to deny her the same right? Giving her another minute to get herself together, I picked up the decanter and refilled herglass.

"So what happened?" I asked when she looked ready to talkagain.

"He said that leaving the company was what was best for me. That I was wasting my life on a job I hated and he wasn't going to let me do itanymore."

I knew better than to say what I was thinking. Firing her was a dick move, but never once when she'd described the job had she said she liked it, much less loved it. But that wasn't my business. That was between Charlotte and herbrother.

None of this was my business. If I were smart I would hand her the decanter of whiskey, offer my apologies, and get the hell out ofthere.

I didn't do any of that. Instead, I took the glass from her, helped myself to another sip of the absurdly expensive alcohol, and said, "So, are you going to getanotherjob?"

She let out another hard, bitter laugh. "I can't. Not unless I want to leave town. And even that might not work. Aiden fuckingblackballedme."

"Shit, that'sharsh."

"Yeah, right?" She took back the glass, brought it to her mouth, and swallowed twice. "He wants me to, I don't know, find myself. I'm twenty-four years old. If I'm notfoundnow. . ."

"What are you going to do?" I asked, hoping I wasn't stepping on another landmine, but I wanted to get her thinking about action rather than dwelling on what hadhappened.

I didn't know her brother, but it didn't sound like he was going to changehismind.

No one got to his position in life, successfully running a multinational corporation—not just maintaining, but expanding—if he was indecisive and emotional. Whatever reasons Aiden Winters had for firing his sister, I'd bet he had no plans to hireherback.

One way or another, she was going to have to dealwiththat.

Charlotte let out a sigh, her eyes scanning the back porch of her house. I'd looked at it before I'd bought my own. It had been on the market for a few years, gradually falling apart while the owners ignored it and hoped itwouldsell.