Protégé King: Wall Street Empire: Strictly Business, #1

By Lisa Renee Jones

Damion West was the boy who stole my young heart and then broke it. That was a long time ago though and I'm not a girl susceptible to hot boys with big egos who just happen to kiss well anymore. Nor have I kept up with Damion West. Okay, I have. Everyone has. He's the heir to West Enterprises.

Everyone knows Damion West.
Just not like I do.
But that's another story better left untold.

It's hard sometimes to remember that I'm no slouch myself. Confidence isn't exactly my forte but I fake it well. I've worked with my parents' real estate firm catering to the rich and famous for years and I'm now one of the top agents in the country. Blue Enterprises is the name of our firm, which is also my name. Blue. Alana Blue. And now I'm on TV, the star of Selling in New York.

But every family has secrets. Damion's does and mine does as well.
That's why I have the TV show I didn't really want.
Nothing is real.
Except him. Damion. He's real. So is my past with him. But it's the past. 

Then one day I get called to a meeting by the studio head, it's all very secretive.
Because it's not the studio at all, or actually, it is. Because his family owns everything.

That's right.
The meeting is with him. It's with Damion West.
And Lord help me, he's now sexier, and more arrogant than ever.

Also it turns out that what Damion wants from me isn't as simple as a real estate contract.
But it's a contract all right.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Julie Patra Publishing
• Release date: May 16, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215916414

Lisa Renee Jones

Visit Lisa at www.lisareneejones.com

Book preview

Chapter One

Alana

The only bad thing about burning your bridges behind you is that the world is round.

― Anonymous

A sunny day in New York City has the same impact as sunshine splaying across the waterfront.

It blinds you.

I step off the crowded sidewalk and into the street only to be halted by a firm hand on my arm. Stop! Stop now!

A truck flies past me rather than over the top of me.

I gasp and my fist balls over my racing heart before I pant out several heavy breaths and realize that I’m still teetering precariously on the edge of the curb. I almost stepped in front of a truck. It was so close. Too close. The light had turned, I argue in my head. There was no one coming and yet they were, and whoever has my arm just saved my life.

This is when you might think the meet-cute comes, when I look left, and some tall, dark, and handsome guy in a six-thousand-dollar suit pulls me to the sidewalk and a little too close to him.

But nope. That’s not my life.

My gaze swings left where I find an elderly lady holding onto me with a steely grip that defies her wrinkled skin and gray hair. "Honey, that could have been bad for you. And me. I think I’d have croaked right here if you croaked. You must be new to the city. These streets are not to be reckoned with. Get your feet back on the sidewalk."

It’s as if my mother has jumped inside this woman’s body to lecture me. I don’t even defend my long-standing familiarity with New York City. I step backward and fortunately do not get rolled over by a crowd of people. It’s five o’clock. New Yorkers just want to go home, or to their second job they need to pay for an apartment the size of a closet.

Thank you, I say, offering the woman a nod. I’d shake her hand but she’s still holding my arm with a vise grip.

She studies me a moment, as if to confirm my understanding, only to press her lips together in disapproval. Her hand falls away. You didn’t hear a word I said.

I could explain that I’m from the city, that no one was coming—the truck ran a red light—but there really is no point. She saved my life. I have nothing but gratitude. I touch her arm. I hear you and thank you.

The impact is as I’d hoped. Her expression softens. Take care of yourself, honey. It’s a dangerous city.

I will, I promise, turning away from her just as a city bus with my face pulls up beside us. Okay, not just my face. It’s me sitting on a throne, that is really just a fancy chair. My legs are crossed, and I’m wearing this luxurious Gucci dress and heels, my long brunette hair draped over my shoulders. How very Sex and the City of me, only it has nothing to do with Sex and the City. As the words above the photo read, Selling in the City, a new TV show featuring Alana Blue, debuted last week!

The new TV show is all about real estate. And money. And people with money buying real estate from my family. A TV show I never wanted to do, but just finished filming despite my resistance to the spotlight. It’s about diversity for my family, and not having all of our eggs in one basket. And, of course, name recognition.

The old lady is beside me now, pointing at the bus. "Is that you?"

I glance at the photo of the hot woman in the chair, who looks and feels as fake as the TV show it’s advertising, and say, She’s much prettier, and I mean it. I’m just me, a simple girl who came straight here to the big city from not-so-little ol’ New Jersey, and did so traveling on the tailcoats of her parents. How they make me look like—a sexy, worldly woman—I do not know.

The woman glances between the woman on the bus and me and then settles her attention on my face. No, you’re prettier. She winks and turns away, disappearing into the crowd leaving me reeling with her statement.

I blink at the surprise compliment and eye the bus. I don’t know that I’m prettier than her, but I like this me, the real me, better than the woman in that chair, the one I had to become for reasons I can share with no one.

The light turns.

I hesitate, not so quick on the run this time. I look both ways as my mama taught me and start walking. My destination is the towering thirty-floor steel building just across the street, currently glistening in the sunshine. If only I were blind to what is going on inside. I shove aside the thought. I can do nothing about it, at least nothing more than what I’m already doing, and double step. My father would tell me I’m a worrywart, a type A who can’t just let things fall into place, and happen as nature would have them happen.

But nature is a beast and not a gentle one.

Just as time is a monster who doesn’t care if you need a moment to breathe.

***

Once I’m behind my desk, Jenna, my assistant, pops her head in the door, her red, bouncy curls springing about. There’s a man up front who insists I give you this right now. It’s a plain, white letter-sized envelope.

Any idea what it’s about?

She steps into the doorway and sashays toward me. She’s short and slender but curvy in all the rights places. The kind of bombshell that should be the face of Selling in the City, except she hates selling anything. I tried to make her once and she broke out in hives. She sets the envelope in front of me and says, The phones are going nuts. Everyone wants to work with and be on TV.

I sigh. Of course, they do. Have them fill out the online form. Where are my mom and dad?

They left early for some meeting with a guy who looked important. She crinkles her nose. Everyone who comes in here looks important. Money does that to people.

We cater to high-end buyers who mostly look at us as their servants. I don’t like it. It’s not what I wanted us to be, but my plans went right out the door.

Expensive clothes make people feel and look important, I say. It doesn’t make them important.

Your parents were fawning over him, she adds.

That only means he has lots of money.

Open the card, she orders, because I can’t go back out there and face that man until you do. He’s big and cranky.

I do as commanded, for the sake of Jenna, removing a piece of paper with an official studio letterhead.

Ms. Blue,

One of our largest investors requests a meeting this evening. We’ve provided a driver for your convenience who will transport you to and from your destination.

Allen A. Phelps

CEO/President

NYDD Studios

I sigh and drop the letter to my desk. Of course.

What is it? Jenna asks.

The studio requests my presence.

Her brow dips with my obvious exasperation. But that’s good, right? she asks. You’re hot right now. Everyone is talking about you and your ratings.

Yes, I say. It is. And it is, I think to myself. It is. This is a path out of a hole. I was forced into the show, and that’s the only reason it’s negative to me. Had this gone differently, I might be embracing this and I need to work on remembering that important point.

Too many times my family has backed me into the same corner. I’ve begun seeing my life as dictated by them to such an extreme that every moment I live is about them. Everything that happens to me is about them. Everything is simply a different shade of negative. I’m fairly certain that makes me more the girl on the bus than the one I see in the mirror.

I love my family. They love me. My father never meant to bury us all in a hole. He’s not a bad man. He’s just a flawed human and aren’t we all? Right now, I don’t like the girl on the bus or the girl in the mirror, I decide.

I grab my purse. I’m off to see the studio.

Jenna offers me a keen stare. You want to talk? I can come over tonight and bring wine. Or vodka.

I film tomorrow, remember? No vodka for me. I soften my voice. But thank you. Love you, Jenna. And I do. We aren’t supposed to be friends, per my father. She works for me, and all that stuff. But she’s amazing and she needs no supervision. The friendship happened naturally, and I don’t regret it.

Once I’m in the lobby, the tall, broody guy in a suit Jenna told me about, scowls at me and motions me to the door. Who am I visiting? I ask.

I just take orders, he replies, an irritated twang in his remark.

I don’t try again. One thing you learn quickly about Hollywood is that you’re not in charge. They are. At least until you reach a certain level of fame I don’t seek. I’ve always wondered why the bosses in charge don’t consider how the tables turn at later dates. Maybe it wouldn’t cost them so much to convince stars to do things if they did.

The limo waiting on me surprises me a bit. I’m not limo material by studio standards and my heart kicks up a beat. The meeting must be in the backseat of the car. Whoever wants to talk to me can’t be bothered with me in their office. The cranky man who greeted me and led me downstairs opens the rear door. I climb inside to find I’m alone. Maybe ratings really are good? I mean they’re good, I know, but maybe they’re good on a whole other level?

My spirit lifts with this idea. The truth is I tend to downplay opportunities until they prove worthy of celebration. It’s a jinx thing. Every time I’m sure of something, it’s not sure at all. Suddenly this job might feel more important to me, and that’s when I really see things go south. I scold myself, Don’t get excited. This car means nothing.

The window between me and the driver probably means more.

A few minutes later, the driver of my fancy limousine has yet to lower the glass between us, and the car halts next to a high-rise. I don’t know the building though I’ve most likely walked past it at some point. I might have grown up in Jersey where my parents tried to shelter me from the city, but my parents always had Manhattan offices. I was always here, then and now.

The car door opens and I exit. The same broody, grumpy guy who’d led me to the car motions me forward. You know how this goes. He opens the door and I enter the ritzy lobby with glossy floors and fancy lighting dangling from silver poles. He doesn’t talk. I don’t talk. He waves at security and then punches the elevator button. When the door opens, I step inside and he leans in and punches floor thirty. It’s high. Not that I’m afraid of heights, but I could get nervous about the drop going down if I let myself. It’s the whole, everything falls from the bottom, no matter how hard you pull up thing.

It’s a thing my father says. It means—well it means nothing good.

I glance at my watch to find it’s nearly six-thirty pm. Ooh, I’ve also done my ten thousand steps, thank you, New York City and the walk or die in the subway mentality. I’m not really sure what the late hour means for a studio office as far as busyness goes. I’d think most of the office staff would be gone by now. I’d speculate—translated as worry—about some weird casting couch thing, but I already have the job and the program manager is a little old lady. A tough little old lady, but not the casting couch type.

I think. Who knows these days.

The elevator dings and I draw in a breath. I step into the foyer and I glance left and right only to discover there is only one set of double wooden doors. After closer inspection, I realize there is also no bell. I attempt to knock, but it’s a solid door. No one is going to hear me. This is weird, I think, and there’s a warning bee buzzing about in my belly. This feels off. Am I at the wrong place?

I open the doors and step inside a lobby that smells of new leather and I sniff—spice. It smells like winter spice. I don’t really know why I know what winter spice smells like, but I do. It must be my mother’s obsession with all things holiday. The room is a lobby with a secretary’s desk and a seating area, which is decorated in, of course, leather couches and chairs, hence the leather scent. No one is at the desk.

Hello? I call out several times, but it’s crickets in return. My options include one door to the left of the desk or the one behind me I came in through. The bee in my belly is buzzing again, but I ignore it and walk toward the door.

It’s open and I step just inside the entryway.

There’s a man standing at the window and my heart begins a pitter patter in my chest. He’s tall, and dark, and familiar.

A rush of awareness floods me, a full body experience that might as well be me being swept into an icy ocean and pulled under. I can’t breathe. This isn’t happening. This isn’t him. I suck in a breath when I finally discover a bit of air, and he turns. God, he turns to face me. Then he’s all out there, we’re all out there, in a room, together, aware of each other. So. Very. Aware. His jaw is a perfect line, so very handsomely straight, his cheekbones a perfect angle, and the dimple in his chin just as adorable and sexy as I remember, but somehow brutal. Yes, a dimple can be brutal if on this man. And of course, his silk tie is a royal blue that matches his