The Billionaire's Assistant

Chapter 40

"So what do you want to start with?" she asked busily, forging ahead. "The board said a memoir right? So let's just start with mapping out your life, tell me about your past."

"Down to business, I love it," said Jove. "My past," he mused. "My past." He shot her a blank look. "I don't know. College then this?"

Kat laughed. "Start with your childhood," she prompted.

"Ohhh," said Jove, as if understanding. "From my childhood. I get it. Well, that's a different story. Boarding school, then college, then this," he finished simply, causing Kat to burst into laughter.

"You don't remember?" she asked, still giggling.

"I remember," said Jove. "It was just uneventful. Boring."

"You were raised by a billionaire, how could it have been boring?

Jove chuckled. "Easily. Very easily."

"What's your first memory?" Kat asked. "We need a starting point," she explained defensively when Jove shot her a strange look.

Jove looked upwards. "My first memory," he repeated, thinking. He gave her a bit of a lost look. "Is that something I'm supposed to know?" He asked. "Who knows their first memory?"

"I do," retorted Kat. "It was there," she said, pointing behind him out of the enormous picture window. "It was there, at Crefton lake. I was 4 and I was sitting in my moms lap at the very edge of the lake, touching the water." She smiled. "I remember just patting it and watching it ripple, over and over again. It's my first memory cause it's important to me, it tells a lot about who I am. It may not be my literal first memory but it's the symbolic one, the one I hold with me."

Jove nodded.

"So, what's yours?" Kat asked again. "What's the thing you remember that ended up becoming very significant to you, that defines you."

Jove studied her.

"What?" Kat asked nervously.

"Nothing," he said, not breaking eye contact. "I'm just thinking. I don't know what it is, but you help me think."

She fought the smile threatening to spread across her face and looked down so Jove wouldn't see how his words had pleased her.

"I think, swimming," he said abruptly, making her look up.

"I think I was swimming," he went on. "I'm not sure where. We could've been anywhere, any house, any hotel." He paused. "But I remember the water and being in it, feeling like there was nothing else all around but water." He looked at her. "It might be because of what you said," he offered. I don't really see how that relates to my life now.

"It could," said Kat. "Do you still swim?"

"I love it," said Jove. "I try to get a few laps in every morning."

Kat nodded, typing. "And what else do you like to do?"

Jove shrugged. "I like to work," he said with a laugh. "I like when things are going better than last quarter, I like talking to my M&A legal team about a new company we just acquired, that's what I like."

Kat rolled her eyes. "What do you do for fun?" she clarified. "Outside of work."

"Not much. I swim, like I said. I go to the gym." He laughed again. "I sleep."

"Jove, you are not making this easy," Kat said, noting how easily his name came from her mouth. "You asked me to help you, then you want to be all mysterious. I can't write a memoir out of this."

Jove eyed her with the unreadable expression on his face, his look softening a bit.

"You're right Kat. I'm sorry. My childhood right? You wanted to start with that?"

Kat nodded.

"All right. I was born in california. On a house hunting trip actually, my mom wanted to buy a place out there for a home birth and I ended up being born early, at Los Angeles general. My mom loved it. That's why she'd wanted a home birth, she was trying to avoid all the fuss of the private hospital my father had arranged back here, but a regular hospital was just as good. She kept me there for a few years. My dad would come back and visit a lot, but they were long distance after that. And then they broke up, of course. Divorced. I should've seen it coming honestly, but hindsight is 20/20, I guess." He laughed. "Plus I was 5. When they broke up I moved back up with my dad and that was my first year of boarding school, Swiss at first, then Austrian. I'd go home for a few days over Christmas and a week in the summer, two if I was lucky. I'd barely see my dad on those trips and my mom would usually come stay, we would have the best times.

Kat nodded encouragingly.

"Boarding school was fun," he continued. "You hear a lot about bad boarding schools, but I loved it. I started doing winter sports: skiing, hockey, snowboarding. The best skiing in the world is in Switzerland, do you ski?"

Kat shook her head, denying both inquiries. "No, but we're talking about you," she reminded him. "Go on."

He laughed. "Yes ma'am," he said with feigned deference. "So, yea I loved boardinging school, I graduated, then college, then I took over things here."

"You really skipped over the college part," chided Kat. "But we can come back to that. What do you mean by 'took over things here'. What did that entail?"

The interview style format of their conversation was lessening her anxiety further, and she found herself nearly completely at ease around him for the first time, the magnetism of his physical draw weakened by her interest in their conversation.

"I just took over," Jove answered. "You know. Started running the day to day."

"Why?" asked Kat .

"Because my dad wanted me to. He'd always wanted me to, I've known that for as long as I've known anything." He paused, laughed again. "Maybe that's my first memory," he joked dryly.

Kat smiled. "Do you like working here?" she probed gently.

Jove considered, nodded. "I do," he said. I genuinely do. I think a lot of things in my life just look like a duty fulfilled, another checked box on a list of other people's expectations, but," he stopped, his voice becoming more serious. "I like what I do. I like solving problems, I like leading people, I like growth. I always want to get better, be better, do more. I don't think anything else could challenge me as much, could be as captivating. I need high stakes," he finished simply.

Kat nodded, happy to be getting somewhere with him. "What's the biggest challenge you've faced in business?" she asked, the tenets of her journalism 102 course bobbing incompletely to the surface of her mind.

Jove stopped to think. "Probably just doing things my way. Not letting my dad's opinions, or the board's opinion influence what I know to be right." He chuckled. "Maybe don't put that bit about the board in there."

She hushed him with a wave of her hand. "I'm a professional, I got this," she said with a laugh.

"What's your business philosophy?" she redirected, trying to drop her smile.

"Never work on an empty stomach," he said, reaching for his cellphone which lay face down on the desk. "Did you have breakfast? Let's order something."