Big Bad Billionaires [Volume 1] Read online

  “Time to pack it in for another day, Emily,” Jerry said with a friendly smile.

  “Is the shift finally over?” Nathan asked.

  “It is over yes, but you’re going to have to stay for another couple of hours, young man. Grant has asked me to do some additional training with you,” Jerry said and Nathan looked as if someone had punched him in the gut.

  “Well it was nice knowing you, I don’t think I will live through this night,” Nathan said and smiled at me as I took off my overalls and prepared to go home.

  “Oh, I think you will be just fine, see you tomorrow,” I replied and winked at him before walking outside.

  I looked up at the sky and breathed the evening air deep into my lungs. There was a little stir of excitement inside me and I felt almost happy as I walked home briskly to go and see if my little angel had destroyed the kitchen again with his amateur food preparation skills.

  NATHAN

  So, my first day at work on the factory floor wasn’t exactly the tour de force I’d thought it was going to be. It was, to be perfectly honest, a total disaster and I felt like the whole thing might just end up being far more of a challenge than I’d anticipated. I really struggled to figure out the finer aspects of computer component assembly and wondered how the hell I was ever going to get so good at it that my dad would decide to allow me back on the gravy train.

  I’d never imagined that the laptops I’d used all my life and taken for granted were actually so difficult to make. It wasn’t just the fact that the various components were so damned intricate in their design that made the work so difficult, it was also the pressure of wanting to perform well so I could get started on proving myself as a hard worker and just get my old man to restore me to my former lifestyle.

  The one little shiny beacon of light was the girl working at the station right next to mine. Emily was very pretty and I thought that with a little bit of make-up she would actually look stunning. She had a voluptuous body, slightly different from the skinny bodies of the wannabe models I usually hanged out with, but there was just something about the rounding of her full breasts that made me wonder what she would look like naked. I also quite enjoyed the way we quickly developed a rhythm in our banter as we chatted away effortlessly with the conveyor belt running in front of us like some ancient snake.

  The whole experience was turning out to be very, very different from the way I’d pictured it in my mind as I fell asleep there on the seat of the Greyhound bus. I realized that I was in for a true test of my survival skills as I tried to follow all of the instructions Jerry was giving me in an attempt to train me up as a skilled factory worker. He was a very friendly guy and I was grateful that it was him training me and not that ugly fuck face Grant who’d shouted at me earlier. I already had some very interesting things in mind for Grant if I ever survived this whole ordeal and happened to be restored to my previous position in the hierarchy of Edward Electronics. I thought that Grant might enjoy doing some work on the factory floor himself after I’d demoted him from the management position he currently held.

  Over the next couple of days, I discovered that most of the workers on the factory floor were actually very loyal to Edward Electronics and that most of them had been working there for many years. I suddenly started seeing things from a very different respective as I realized how all of the cost cutting measures my dad had introduced so proudly over the years had affected the workers on the ground.

  One of the things my father was very proud of was the fact that he’d been able to replace roughly 30% of his human workforce with robots. Now, as I stood there talking to some of the other workers around the water fountain during our lunch break, I discovered that for some of their fellow workers this had been a death sentence, quite literally. One worker who had been with Edward Electronics for over 15 years committed suicide after being told, one morning as he arrived for his shift, that he’d been replaced by a robot on the assembly line. I felt quite ashamed when I thought of how my father had celebrated the new robotic replacements by having an all-night party at our Malibu mansion, while some people’s lives were absolutely devastated and destroyed by these new changes.

  All my dad seemed to be interested in was continually cutting the cost of production to make more profit. Exactly why this was so important to him I really didn’t know, as he was already making billions of dollars each year from the manufacture of computer equipment, even long before the advent of the robot workers.

  And now these faithful servants of Edward Electronics were all standing to lose their livelihoods as my dad kept working on a deal to move all of our manufacturing capacity to China.

  I saw everything from the opposite end of the spectrum now. No longer was I simply going through the process of trying to get the three month test period behind me; I was also using the opportunity to learn things about the real world that I’d never seen or even considered as the son of a billionaire.

  I discovered that reality was a harsh teacher, as I didn’t even have a TV in my small apartment and hardly had enough money to buy food with on the meager weekly pay I received for working eight hours a day on the factory floor.

  After some time, I finally got the hang of the assembly process and even if I wasn’t the fastest worker in the factory, at least I was no longer the weakest link in the assembly line. Jerry walked over to me one day to tell me that he was quite happy with my efforts.

  “You’re doing just fine, young man, and I want you to know that I’m very proud of your progress.”

  For some reason, Jerry’s words hit me right in the chest, as I realized that my own father had never ever told me that he was proud of me before. I would readily admit that some of the reason for this had been my own fault as I’d never exactly applied myself very diligently before, at least not the way I was working now, but still, these were words that would have meant a lot to me if my dad could have said them to me.

  “Thank you, Jerry, I guess all of those late night torture sessions with you have not been in vain,” I replied jokingly to cover up the fact that I’d been so deeply touched by Jerry’s words.

  “Ah, those weren’t torture sessions! It was no more than light training,” Jerry joked right back at me.

  I found myself wondering how a guy like Jerry with such an obvious talent for bringing the best out of the workers he supervised had been overlooked for higher promotion while a bastard like Grant, who had absolutely no people skills whatsoever, had been promoted to management level already at such a relatively young age. It probably took a lot of backstabbing and ass licking for the unlikable Grant Belmont to progress as far as he had and word around the factory floor was that he was prepared to step over as many corpses as it took to get promoted even further. I thought that it was sad that promotions could be earned this way; by stabbing others in the back rather than by proving that you possessed the true skills required to make a good manager.

  “You look like you have a lot on your mind today,” Emily remarked as I placed another successfully fitted electrical component onto the conveyor belt.

  “Not really, I was just trying to think up a way to finally convince you to go for drinks with me,” I replied.

  “I told you before, I can’t go for drinks with you because I have a five-year-old master chef at home who will destroy my kitchen if I left him alone there for an entire evening.”

  “But you leave him there when you come to work, don’t you?”

  “Exactly. And the mayhem he causes while I’m at work just serves to prove the point I’m making to you.”

  “Then how about me coming over one evening and showing you my incredible pizza making skills?”

  “You, a pizza maker? That I have to see first before I’ll ever believe it!” Emily exclaimed incredulously.

  “Well you know what they say, the proof is in the pizza,” I said and gave her my most convincing smile.

  “Okay, Mr. Italian wizard. Come over tomorrow evening after work and prove to me t
hat what you’re saying is true or lose me forever,” she replied and I felt a sudden rush of blood through my veins. The chase was on and I was finally going to have the opportunity to do something which I truly excelled at; namely seducing a beautiful woman.

  The fact that I had absolutely no idea how to make a pizza didn’t concern me at all. I would simply look it up on the internet later. Then it struck me that I had no internet. I didn’t even have a laptop or a cell phone to use the internet with, as there was no money for any of these luxuries.

  I spent the next hour or so racking my brains for a solution to my unexpected problem of having to find out how to make a pizza before the next evening. I couldn’t think of anything, so I just put the whole problem off till later and tried my best to concentrate on the work at hand and not to let my mind wander too much to the thought of putting my moves on Emily the following evening.

  When the shift was finally over I offered to walk home with Emily, just like I’d done every single day for the past two weeks. She turned down my offer, just like she’d done every single time before and I shook my head in amazement. She was no different from any of the rich girls I’d known in at least this one way. Some of the things she did made no sense to me and I couldn’t understand how her mind worked.

  “Tomorrow evening you can walk with me when you come over to my place,” she simply said and waved me goodbye before heading home.

  I started strolling off to my own little apartment and started thinking again about the question of finding out how to make a pizza. It felt strange to even be thinking about something like that, as I’d been used to just ordering my dad’s private chef at home, Fabio, to make me a pizza whenever I wanted one; back in the good old days before my dad had thrown me out into the cold unfriendly world to go and prove myself. I now wished I’d paid more attention to how Fabio had made the pizzas and wondered if I could perhaps make a phone call home and ask to speak to Fabio. I decided against it, though, as I didn’t want my father to form the impression that I was struggling to cope on my own.

  Eventually, I decided to just wing it the next evening and to slap together some dough and cover it with toppings and see how the whole thing turned out. It would be an adventure and if Emily kicked me out of her house; well it would be nothing new as I was getting used to being thrown out into the cold by now. One more time was not going to kill me. I started whistling a little tune as I turned the final corner before I got to my humble apartment and I discovered that, despite all of the hardship I was experiencing as a poor working man, I was actually feeling quite happy.

  EMILY

  I was feeling the same kind of excitement I’d experienced after the talent scout had spotted me at the school play and invited me to become a member of his theater group.

  Having Nathan over for dinner was the first thing I’d looked forward to in the past five years. I had absolutely no doubt in my mind that Nathan didn’t know the first thing about how to make a pizza, so I stopped at the local grocery to buy some pre-cooked pizza bases and ready-to-use pizza toppings. I also got some cheese and fresh tomatoes and oregano for that real Italian pizza taste. I would simply pretend to watch as Nathan tried to make the pizzas the following evening and end up doing it all for him, just like I’d done when I showed him how to assemble the electrical components on the factory floor.

  I thought about the way Nathan always smiled at me before delivering some of his typical boyish lines and wondered what exactly it was about him that made my heart skip a beat every time I looked into his eyes. It was more than just his boyish good looks; there was something very captivating about him and the way he seemed to have so much energy and lust for life, despite the fact that he was slaving away in a dead end job in a computer factory. I now felt extremely glad that I’d held on for a couple more days and not given in to the crazy thought of shacking up with a guy like Ben Orwell just to fill the emptiness in my life.

  I couldn’t tell what Nathan felt for me, or if he even felt anything for me at all. Perhaps he was just fooling around with me and had no intention of getting serious. Who knows? After all, it was too early to say anything. I was happy just to feel this butterfly feeling again; the vague hope that things might finally be looking up for me and Justin and that I might have found a reason to smile again as I got out of bed to go to work.

  Nathan was a bit of a dark horse, although I could not deny the fact that secretly I was looking forward to every shift with him. I realized that I was perhaps getting my hopes up prematurely and setting myself up to get hurt, but I couldn’t give a damn. I simply had nothing to lose. Even if Nathan and I never became anything more than friends or work colleagues, I would still feel happy to have met him and grateful that he’d restored some of my faith in the fact that life could turn around for the better at any moment and without any warning whatsoever.

  NATHAN

  I felt a little nervous as I walked over to Emily’s apartment and wondered how the hell I was going to convince her that I knew the first thing about making a real Italian pizza. I remembered watching a movie once where a guy took a piece of dough and threw it up in the air while it was spinning around at a dizzy speed and how it ended up as a perfectly round pizza base. Funny how you look at something like that without any true appreciation of the skill it requires until the day arrives that you have to do it yourself, I thought as I waltzed down the street.

  Emily stayed on the second floor of a shabby block of apartments and as I ascended the stairs I thought how unusual it was for me to be visiting a girl in this kind of neighborhood. It was, in fact, more than just unusual; it was the first time I’d ever done something like that. I was used to parking my silver Porsche in front of some luxury yacht or large mansion and handing my keys to the valet parking attendant before entering to the sound of a live band and scores of glamorous people saluting me and shouting my name.

  I knocked three times on Emily’s door and waited for her to open. For some reason, my heart was beating wildly in my chest and I felt like a schoolboy picking up his girlfriend for their very first date. I suddenly started wondering if I should have brought the ingredients for the pizza with me. I’d simply assumed that Emily would have everything needed to make the pizza at home and I realized I was going to look like a real ass if it turned out that she was expecting me to bring it.

  “Well hello, Mr. Italian chef, so glad you could make it to my humble abode tonight,” Emily said with a smile as she opened the door and this just made me feel extra nervous.

  “Hello, am I in the right place? I noticed all of the sports cars parked outside so I just assumed this was where the party was.”

  Emily laughed and I relaxed a little as I walked inside her apartment. It was very neat and the atmosphere inside was cozy.

  “Hello, Mr. Nathan! I’m Justin!” a cute little boy shouted at me as I walked into the living room.

  “Hi there tiger, take five,” I replied and held out my hand for him to shake. The little guy laughed as I shook his hand up and down really fast and we instantly had some kind of bond between us.

  “Would you like to play gin rummy with me?” Justin asked.

  “Just as soon as we’ve made dinner you can deal us all some cards,” Emily sad and whisked me off to the kitchen with Justin following close behind.

  This was setting up to be a double embarrassment for me as I felt like I was now expected to create an Italian culinary masterpiece with an extra audience member watching the spectacle.

  “I know you probably prefer to make the pizza base yourself from scratch, but to save time tonight I bought some pre-cooked pizza bases. I hope you don’t mind,” Emily said and I could have kissed her right then. Perhaps I could still get out of the whole pizza making thing alive if I could just somehow manage to build a decent pizza on the pre-cooked pizza base.

  “It will save time, although it will obviously not be exactly the same as the way the Italians do it,” I said with a broad grin and from the way Emily laughe
d I got a distinct feeling that she knew I had absolutely no idea what I was doing.

  “Are you an Italian, Mr. Nathan?” Justin asked and I bowed down to look him in the eyes.

  “Only in my heart little fella, only in my heart. And you can stop calling me Mister. I’m just Nathan.

  “I assume you always put some liquidized tomato and oregano on the base before adding the shredded cheese?” Emily asked and I nodded my head.

  “That’s the way I always do it in my restaurant,” I replied.

  “You don’t really have a clue how to make a pizza, do you?” Emily said with a knowing smile.

  “Not the faintest idea,” I replied and we all burst out laughing.

  “Nathan has no faintest idea how to make a pizza!” Justin shouted and I picked him up in my arms.

  “Looks like I will have to teach you some respect at gin rummy later!” I said and Justin laughed as if it was the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

  Emily took care of the food preparation and I sat down and played with Justin as if he was my own boy. I told him all about the way we made electrical components at the factory and he listened with wide-eyed wonder as I explained to him that I was by far the fastest worker in the factory. For once Emily let me get away with my fictitious tale and she just smiled as she listened to me carrying on about my prowess as a computer manufacturer.