Page 28 of The Rebel Billionaire

She enters, her face the picture of innocence.

“What the hell is this?” I ask, pointing to my screen.

“I have many skills, Alex, but reading something via the back of a monitor is not one of them.”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” I say, my pulse pounding in my ears.

“Oh, that,” she says after a moment. “Well, Brooke seems nice.”

I shake my head. “No way. No way am I having one of my mother’s spies working for me.”

Callie chuckles. “I really don’t think she is. Or if she is, she’s a bloody good actress.”

I stare at my PA and wonder what on earth is going on.

“Did she put you up to this?”

“Who is she?”

I growl. “My mother.”

Callie crosses her arms, her expression hardening.

“You really think I’d do that to you?”

Some of the shock and tension drains away, and I run a hand over my face, stopping at my mouth.

“Then what the hell?”

Callie moves into the room and takes a seat. “All I did was ask Sue to run one of the company’s psychometric tests on Brooke. Alex, she aced it in terms of detail orientation, rules adherence, and supportiveness. Reliability, adaptability, everything you’re looking for in a PA.”

“But she knows Sophia,” I say with a grimace.

Callie shrugs. “She looked like she’d rather be anywhere but here when they walked in. Almost admitted as much to me in the kitchen, but then realised it probably wasn’t something she should be saying.”

“You want to risk training someone that green?” I ask, knowing this is almost as much Callie’s decision as mine.

Callie shrugs. “I don’t know, there’s something about her. My gut tells me she’s ideal. Maybe she reminds me of a younger me, just someone who needs to be given a chance.”

“And you think she could be that?”

I’m fascinated, as I’ve always valued Callie’s opinion. She also knows my mother inside and out.

“She’s got a fire in her, one she was trying to smother.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?” I ask again.

Is it her fire that calls to me?

I’ve always valued people with an inner drive.

Interesting.

Callie is very perceptive when it comes to people. It’s why I’ve loved having her as my PA. She reads people almost as accurately as I do.

“She’s twenty-four and had just been introduced to the CEO of one of the world’s leading fashion houses. I think she handled herself surprisingly well.”

“You think we should give her a go?”