Chapter 2

 “Because you’re nothing. You’re just a grunting pig.”

And that was the problem. She’d never done anything to him because he was nothing to her.

He looked back into her eyes, and biting down the black shame he felt inside, he smiled evilly.

This got another round of oinks from his friends.

Amara’s face had crumpled, and she’d run.

Like he said, he was an unforgivable asshole. A monster.

It's a safe bet Lyons College didn't teach him a thing about getting girls to notice him, but it did teach him a lesson. It taught him that in this world, the rich get more than the poor. The rich get respect. power. They have their own little secret club that stands head and shoulders above the poor. And he knew, before he left that school, that one day he would be standing among them.

He worked his rear end off through college and university, studying business, and the second he graduated from Unpeopled with a first-class honour’s degree in business and management, he started his own company. Now he's twenty-seven and the CEO of a very successful company and he's a multi-millionaire in his own right.

But the name Amara Denz turns him into the poor boy he once was. He can't tear his eyes off the photo on her application. There she is. All grown up. A breathtakingly beautiful blonde goddess. He should be long over his crush, but here he is, racing heartbeat and sweaty palms. It's like he's a teenager again. Except now it seems Amara is attempting to get his attention now.

And she has it.

He stares at her photo. Her hair is curly and long, her green eyes sparkle, her skin is flawless. He imagines what it would feel like to run his finger over her full lips. To kiss them, and then feel her kiss her way down his body. Or wrap that luscious mouth around his cock. Marking his body as hers. He dreams of burying himself in her cunt, fucking her until she's begging him for more.

His cock twitches and hardens.

Jesus! He banishes the thought. The CEO of the company in front of his desk with a throbbing hard-on is never a good picture.

But damn.

Even simply looking at her picture, brings his fixation to the surface again. Hell, who is he fooling? It never did disappear. When they graduated from school, they went their separate ways, attending different colleges, but she was never far from his mind. He dated girls – of course, he did – but none of them were Amara. He held such a large torch for her, all the other girls seemed like second best. No matter what they did, or how hard they tried.

Amara was always just right for him. She still is.

And. she just fell back into his life and brought up a hundred old thoughts, a hundred forgotten feelings. He knows deep down this is his chance to do two things. First, prove to her he's not the same jerk who made her life miserable in high school. Second, prove to her that now they're both in the same world, maybe, just maybe, he'd be worth her time.

He can't help but question if she would have accepted this job if she knew she was going to work for him. She couldn't have known. He had changed his name when he had departed school. He had wanted nothing of his father. He had left him to his own devices and he had wanted to make his mother proud by using the name that had been altered due to the sacrifices she had made for him. He had gone from Pluto to Joe.

Would Amara have passed along his resume if she had seen the name Leo Pluto instead of Leo Joe? The answer is straightforward: 100 percent. no.

He tears his eyes away from her picture and reads through the rest of her resume. It's not bad. She went to the College of Pinson’s and her background is good too. She's worked as a personal assistant to a CEO at a technology start-up for the last two years, so he can put her resume in the keep pile without having to justify it.

He thinks about throwing some of the other resumes off the stack to give Amara a better shot at getting the job, but some applications going to HR, they'll not be happy. They like to have choice, and they're expecting lots of applicants – this job has a multitude of benefits – and if they have just four or five applicants to choose from, they'll be looking to cast their net wider.

There are other ways of making sure Amara gets this job, and he will stop at nothing to make sure that she does. She's getting this job if it is the last thing he does.

This is his second chance to get the girl of his dreams.

Amara---

Amara Denz was sitting at her kitchen table, staring at Lyons College's email. She had applied for the personal assistant position at the elite company, hoping to get out of her current job. The email informed her that she had been shortlisted for an interview. Her heart was racing with excitement and a bit of nervousness.

She was a diligent employee and always had been, yet her history of being a personal assistant to the CEO of a tech start-up had made her understand that she could do new things. This one, however, was different. This was an opportunity to work with one of the wealthiest companies in the industry, and she could not afford to miss it.

As she prepared for the interview, she could not shake off the suspicion that something was amiss. She had a vague memory of a name from her past, but she could not quite recall. It was a name that had haunted her dreams for decades, a name she had hoped to forget.

She had forever been the girl with old money, the one for whom everything was given. Yet she had strived to make a name for herself, to demonstrate that she was not simply her family's money. She had graduated from the College of Pinson’s and established a lucrative career in her own right.

Nevertheless, the name Leo Joe stuck in her mind. She had heard it in the email but could not figure out why it rang a bell. She had also changed her name when she left school, dropping her maiden name and taking her mother's surname, Denz. It was an effort at starting anew, a way of burying the memories of a tarnished past.

As she reviewed her resume and prepared her interview responses, she couldn't help but wonder if Leo Joe was someone she had known. She had dated boys, of course, she had, but none of them had left any lasting mark. There was one boy, however, who had always been in her mind, a boy who had made her high school life a living hell.

His name was Leo Pluto, and he was the bane of her existence. He teased her, taunted her, and treated her like dirt. Yet he was also the one person she couldn't remember forgetting, the one person who had left a scar on her heart.

She shook her head, trying to clear it. It could not be the same person. Leo Joe was probably just another successful businessman, someone who had absolutely nothing to do with her past.

Yet when she looked at the well-read email again, she couldn't help but feel a sense of dread. What if it was him? What if Leo Joe was the same boy who had hurt her all those years ago?

She took a deep breath and reminded herself that she wasn't that same girl anymore. She'd matured, she'd grown up, and she was ready to deal with anything that came her way.

This was her chance to show him that she wasn't a grunting pig. This was her chance to prove herself.

And she was ready.