Page 6 of Meet Jon, the Billionaire

“Ah, you’re only saying that because it’s true.” She thrust out her glass. “Would you be a dear and get me another one of those exquisite Harvey Wallbangers you make so well?”

I grinned. “Sure thing, Petunia.”

As I mixed her drink, I realized something that made me groan.

“What’s wrong?”

I handed Petunia her drink and sighed. “Oh, it’s nothing, it’s just… I can’t do the tennis tournament. The convention center down the street is hosting that robotics competition, and you know how those geeks love them some of our cookies. We’ll be way too busy.”

“Ask Boris to work the weekend.”

“Boris never works the weekend. Boris has his own restaurant to run on the weekend.”

“I bet you can sweet talk him into it. His mother’s birthday is coming up. Offer to make him a cake.”

I beamed. “That I can do, Petunia. Thanks so much.”

I gave her a big hug, and then went downstairs to the bakery level of her building. I dug into the Rolodex and found Yerkov’s number.

Yerkov doesn’t waste or mince words. This is how he answered the phone.

“What you want now, boss lady?”

I explained my situation to him, and then offered my bait; to bake a cake for his mother’s birthday and decorate it myself. Not even Aunt Petunia could say she was as good as me at decorating a cake.

“Okay, is deal, on one condition,” he said in his thickly accented, gravel guts voice. “The cake must be custom.”

“Of course, Yerkov, I’ll decorate it however you want.”

“Good. Must have naked Jason Momoa. Anatomically correct, of course. Mother will love it.”

I almost choked to death on my tea, but I agreed to his terms and got myself into that damn tournament.

Chapter Four

Jonathon

I’ll admit that I’m the kind of predator who enjoys the hunt more than the kill. In particular, I enjoy the hunt far more than I enjoy actually digesting the prey I have stalked.

With a company like Acme, it was a bit simpler to integrate into our existing portfolio because it was, by and large, self-sustaining. Unless I made massive cuts to the staff—and that’s always a bad idea, no matter how many raises the current employees have had—Acme Bread could continue on more or less as it had before I’d acquired it.

I spent hours in the CEO’s office—I nominated myself and the board voted unanimously to instate me. There were ten votes and one abstention. I was the abstention—digging through the Acme financial records to find out not just where they were, but where they intended to be going. If the previous leadership had good ideas, I saw no reason not to act on them.

I was assisted in this task by Darwin Mundy, ostensibly my personal assistant but a lot of the time he’s like a nanny to me. Case in point—

“I’ve brought you a sandwich, Jon,” he said with a definite south London accent. I looked over at the blade-thin, curly-haired sixtyish Mundy and cocked a brow.

“What kind?”

“Chicken salad?”

“Excellent choice. Thank you. You can set it down there and I’ll get to it in a minute.”

“Oh, Jonathon,” Darwin said, settling in beside me and fixing me with a firm stare. “You know that’s not how this works. I’m staying until you finish every bite.”

“I had a big lunch.”

“You skipped lunch.”

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