Despite the Gentleman's Riches: Sweet Billionaire Romance (For Richer or Poorer Book 1)

by Easterling, Aimee

  The words didn't ring true. While I could go back and load up a few more valuables into my car, I was afraid of running into Mr. Reed again, and the more possessions I added to the vehicle's load, the less room I'd have to stretch out in. It was better to just let the past go, the same way I'd been forced to release memories of my parents and dreams of higher education. That sort of baggage just weighed a girl down.

  "Maybe we should start again somewhere new," I told my bird, whose contented beak-grinding noises filled the cooling air. How I wished that my life could be so simple that a few seeds and a drink of water would make me relax into a cheerful doze. Well, food and water and the sound of a beloved person's voice. Unbidden, Jack's face rose up in front of my eyes, and I forced the vision away along with the resultant lump in my throat. If the last few hours had proven anything, it was that no person of my acquaintance loved me unconditionally. So it was a good thing I owned a cockatiel who was willing to fill that niche.

  "What do you think, Florabelle? North, south, east, west?" I'd always wanted to travel, but this wasn't the way I'd envisioned my journeys beginning. And, unfortunately, my first solo adventure wouldn't take me very far due to my limited savings—rather than heading out into the unknown, I'd probably just be relocating to the town down the road. I could barely scrape together first and last month's rent for an apartment that allowed pets, so I couldn't waste my funds simply burning gas. But, while I was willing to put my dreams on hold in other arenas, the idea of finding my cockatiel another home made my stomach ache so badly that I refused to consider it, even if that was the most sensible solution to my current dilemma.

  Finding a place to live and another job should have taken precedence over everything else, but instead I found myself dwelling on the people I'd lost today. There was Lena, who I had no way to get in touch with even though she surely needed me. And Ms. Cooper and Kimberly, who I'd forfeited through my own inability to admit them into my confidence.

  And Jack. Always, it came back to Mr. Fish Sticks, the handsome man who had walked into my checkout line and turned my whole life upside down. I so badly wanted to believe in him, and that fact alone made me distrust my own emotions.

  So I just closed my eyes against the darkness and tried to sleep, ignoring the tears that silently tickled their way across my cheeks.

  Chapter 20

  Perhaps I should have quietly packed up and left town as I'd originally planned, but when I woke the next morning, neck sore from my awkward sleeping position and throat scratchy from lack of water, running away didn't seem like the best option. I was no longer employed by Cuadic (or by anyone else for that matter), but lack of a job didn't mean I couldn't find a way to continue fighting the good fight. If my final gesture as a resident was to make sure that Clean Power wasn't allowed to elevate the cancer rates in my hometown, then I could leave happy.

  Or, if not precisely happy, then perhaps content.

  So I was waiting outside the library doors when the establishment opened, and, leaving Florabelle in a shady car with the windows rolled all the way down, I made a beeline toward the public computers. I needed more data if I was going to find a way to take the Reynolds' plant down, and the obvious first stop was the Cuadic listserv.

  At first, though, that option seemed to be unavailable. With Tom as the sysadmin, I wasn't surprised to realize that I'd been locked out of the organization's email list the instant I left the meeting last night, but it was unexpected to learn that Ms. Cooper had filled that gap by forwarding me all of the intervening messages as they came in. I nearly started to cry as I read through the missives, the earliest emails stating everyone's surprise and horror over last night's revelations, but then later messages shifting in an entirely unanticipated direction.

  "Maybe our Ginny just fell in love, is all," emailed one of the older ladies who seldom spoke up at meetings. I was pretty sure I'd never seen a message from her in my inbox before, and if anyone had asked, I probably would have said that the elderly member didn't even know how to use a computer. Apparently, I'd been wrong about a lot of things lately.

  "If anyone deserves to find a good husband, it's that girl of ours," another member had replied. "Poor little Ginny is always working so hard to make everybody else happy. How can we blame her for thinking of herself just this one time?"

  At first, Tom had retaliated vehemently, spinning a conspiracy theory that accused the Reynolds of hiring me way back when I was in high school in order to undermine Cuadic's cause in preparation for overthrowing the world as we knew it. But this hypothesis was so kooky that it made even me laugh, and clearly none of the other members were taking Tom seriously any longer. Instead, they began planning an in-person meeting to convene this very morning in hopes of "hunting our girl down and getting us back on the right track."

  "Do you think we'll be invited to the wedding?" finished the last email that I read before shutting down the computer and heading for the rust bucket to carry me to my next engagement. It seemed that Cuadic's members possessed more faith in my honor than I'd had in their friendship.

  It was high time to prove them right.

  ***

  "Virginia Beauty! She's here!" The words I'd so longed to hear just fifteen hours earlier were less reassuring now, but only because they meant I was going to have to gather my courage and spit out the words that should have been said months before. Because, even though the members of Cuadic had largely come around to view me in a positive light once again, I knew that I needed to be more honest with them if I hoped for our relationship to continue.

  "There are some things I need to say to all of you," I began, leaping right into an apology in hopes that the lack of a preface would make the words easier for me to bear. But I was quickly cut off by Kimberly.

  "No, me first!" she exclaimed, jumping out of her seat and rushing over to offer up a hug. "I'm so sorry I didn't give you a chance to explain last night." Her words were muffled against my hair, but I could easily make them out, and I responded with a reassuring squeeze before I let my friend go.

  "That's where you're wrong," I said firmly, speaking to the whole group now. "You all would have heard me out, but I ran away before you could give me that chance. How could that not make you suspicious?"

  "But we've changed our minds," one of the older ladies called.

  "I know," I answered. "Ms. Cooper sent me the emails. Or rather," and now I smiled at my mentor, finally accepting the truth of our relationship, "Claudia did." It would take me a while to think of my teacher by her first name, but the way she leaned toward me at the words proved that the effort would be worthwhile.

  "You've all been like the family that I no longer possess genetically," I told them, meeting each member's eyes in turn and hoping that my words would sink in. "I made a huge mistake with Jack. Not because of anything Cuadic-related—I swear to you that I never told him anything he could use against us. But because I should have known that a billionaire-in-training wouldn't be honestly interested in a girl like me. And, maybe, if I hadn't hidden what was going on, all of you would have warned me not to be stupid and I wouldn't have let myself get hurt." I looked away for a minute, fighting the tears that threatened to stem the flow of my honesty.

  "Now, sweetie, he might not be so bad," one of the more romantic old ladies soothed. If I recalled correctly, she was the one who had hoped to be invited to our wedding, and her optimistic words brought a tremulous smile to my lips.

  "Well, that's water over the dam now," I said, firmly moving on. "What I'm trying to say is that each of you has offered to be my friend, and I didn't let you in only because I was afraid. I'm still afraid, but I'm also hoping the position is still open anyway. Not being Cuadic's employee, but being each of your comrade at arms."

  "Oh, Ginny, of course it is," Ms. Cooper—no, Claudia—told me. "You should realize that any one of us would move mountains for you. You're like the daughter I never had." Around the table, heads nodded, and even Tom didn't look quite so dour as
when I'd first set foot in the room.

  "Well, about that," I continued, trying not to get choked up once again at my mentor's words. "There is something I could use help with. My landlord kicked me out last night, and I need a safe spot for Florabelle to stay while I figure out my next move." Even though it was barely ten o'clock in the morning, I was already worried about leaving my pet out in the car, and I definitely couldn't keep her there once the day got much warmer. I wouldn't beg housing for myself, but my cockatiel expected her accommodations to be just so.

  "I drove past your place looking for you this morning," Kimberly interjected. "That bastard moved your whole house out onto the street! Scared me to death. Of course, you can both stay with me until this mistake is sorted out. Where are you going to put your trailer now?"

  "I'll let him haul it to the dump, I guess," I sighed, accepting the inevitable. Buying my own mobile home had been a bad idea from the start, and it was time to grow up and accept that there were some things I couldn't have, at least not right now. "I can't really afford to move it," I explained, wanting to gloss over my poverty and keep this conversation on track.

  "We can take up a collection!" one of the old ladies exclaimed. But...

  "I don't think that will be necessary," said the deep voice rumbling into the room from behind my back.

  ***

  "You!" For a moment, I thought Kimberly was going to punch Mr. Fish Sticks, who had snuck into the room unnoticed. But my friend satisfied herself by poking the businessman in the chest with one skinny finger instead. "What are you doing here?"

  "Looking for Ginny, of course," the romantic older lady offered with a smile. I wished I had her sunny disposition...and such a firm belief in Jack's good intentions. "The real question," the lady continued, "Is: how did he know where to find her?"

  "I read the emails, of course," Jack explained. Then, as the Cuadic members looked at each other in confusion, my ex-employer expanded on his statement. "Clean Power hacked into the server months ago. You didn't really think your messages would stay private when so much money was at stake, did you?"

  Despite myself, I gazed at Tom, who had always warned us to turn off our cellphones when strategizing. We'd thought our sole male member was a crazy conspiracy theorist, and yet, here was proof positive that our kookiest associate had been on the right track all along. Too bad Tom hadn't thought to warn against sharing information over the internet while he was at it.

  Or perhaps that oversight was lucky? Jack's mere presence seemed to fill a hole in my stomach that I'd almost gotten used to having empty, and I couldn't honestly wish him gone.

  On the other hand, I also wasn't so sure that I could really trust Jack to have my best interests at heart. He hadn't swooped me into a kiss and begged my forgiveness the way men do in the movies. Instead, the businessman seemed inclined to parlay with the non-profit members arrayed about the room, completely ignoring my presence. Still, this time around, I resolved to give my ex-employer the benefit of the doubt—he had earned that accommodation just by showing up.

  "That issue aside," Jack was saying, "I've considered all of your literature, and I think that Cuadic has a very valid point. A second coal-fired power plant in your region would exacerbate the current trend toward driving high-wage employment out of the area, and I now appear to have a vested interest in keeping smart young people in this town happy." My ex-employer shot a quick glance in my direction, and I felt his regard warming me down to my toes.

  "So I came up with a compromise." Now Jack pulled out his laptop, and set it on the end of one table. The computer opened to a PowerPoint presentation, in which a photograph of a huge, white wind-tunnel currently filled the screen. "I'm afraid you'll all have to gather around," he continued. "I don't have a projector handy."

  I could just imagine Jack speaking to his investors in this same firm, businesslike manner, and the fact that he hadn't met my eyes except that one time continued to feed my insecurities. Still, if Jack's current speech was anything like his pre-sex proposal, perhaps presenting his facts as unemotionally as possible was my lover's way of dealing with stress, just like I obsessed over statistics when I was feeling unsure of myself. So I moved closer to the computer screen along with the wave of other bodies, although I didn't let myself hope for more just yet.

  "As you can see, there are dozens of experimental methods of creating electricity using sustainable resources," Jack was saying, quickly clicking through a stream of intriguing images. "Opponents would argue that current types of green power are too expensive compared to electricity created using fossil fuels, but others say that if we pumped the same kind of money into research and development for alternative energy, we'd be able to make the switch easily. So, rather than building a coal-fired power plant outside your town, I instead propose that Clean Power create an experimental energy center to start developing the energy source of the future right here."

  "And, let me guess, you want our permission to attach Cuadic's name to the project," Tom said, and I could tell that our most hard-nosed member wasn't won over by Jack's fancy graphics. "It'll just be greenwashing, though, like that 'clean coal' you're always talking about. Nope, we don't want to have any part of it." Since Tom had proven himself right on the electronic spying issue, his increased credibility now set half a dozen heads nodding in agreement.

  "A very valid point," Jack replied, not fazed at all by the initial rejection. "But what I actually wanted to propose is to have Cuadic serve as the board of directors for the new center, while Clean Power is simply the funder. We give you money and you decide what to do with it. What do you think?"

  "We could involve students, hire local people?" Claudia asked, her interest piqued by the outside-the-box proposal.

  "Definitely," Jack agreed. "That would all be up to you. Clean Power could even throw some money at your organization right from the start so you could afford to hire someone to get the ball rolling." Every eye in the room turned to me and I felt my cheeks heating up.

  "It still doesn't make sense," Tom interjected, unwilling to let his suspicions drop so easily, even though the romantic lady was now fanning herself with one hand in delight. "I don't see what you get out of this."

  "You really don't?" Jack asked, as if he couldn't comprehend Tom's lack of imagination. "Clean Power gets good press, Cuadic gets all of the benefits to the region that you've been working toward for years...and I get an excuse to settle down in an area where a very important person lives.

  "Speaking of which," he continued, his blue eyes focusing on mine at last, "You'll all excuse me while I go make sure that Ginny's home doesn't get hauled to the dump."

  Chapter 21

  "Well, go after him!" the romantic lady exclaimed when I stood rooted to the spot, staring after Jack's retreating form. He had transformed from businessman to boyfriend so abruptly that I was having trouble keeping my balance, let alone following in his footsteps.

  "Not by herself, she doesn't," Tom said, and this time the other Cuadic members were in full agreement. They rolled out through the door in a tsunami of activists, and I was pushed along in their wake. As we emerged from the building, my eye immediately met Jack's as he waited for me in the parking lot, the contact nearly as tangible as a physical touch, but there were too many grandparents between us for me to be able to reach his side.

  For once, I yearned to climb into Jack's spaceship of a car, to have the time to talk through everything that had occurred during the last day. I wanted to make sure that my ex-employer wasn't forgetting about Lena in his rush to win me over, and that he would have the ability to make this crazy and wonderful research center a reality.

  Okay, if I was being truly honest, I mostly just wanted to kiss the man standing so gloriously in front of us and to reassure myself that he was really Jack, not Mr. Fish Sticks after all.

  But, instead, I was pushed into Kimberly's vehicle, Florabelle and the romantic lady crammed into the backseat as we carpooled back toward the site of m
y former home. Jack led the way in his spaceship of a car, and behind us I could make out a line of vehicles that would have resembled a funeral procession if the inhabitants hadn't all been talking so excitedly amongst themselves. I even caught Claudia shooting me a thumbs up before I turned back around to face the property that had been the scene of last night's defeat...

  ...The property from which my trailer had already been removed, only to be replaced with a huge piece of machinery that was rolling menacingly toward Pippin.

  And I forgot all about Claudia. I forgot about Kimberly and Tom and the romantic lady, and even about Jack. The loss of my books and home had given me a twinge of regret, but what really hurt was knowing that I was going to have to watch my beloved apple tree be ripped out of the soil right in front of my eyes. Surely even the malicious Mr. Reed would have realized that the huge cone-shaped thing attached to the back of the truck now rolling across my once-perfect garden was overkill. Surely my sweet little tree didn't need fourteen tons of equipment to knock her down?

  Pippin was just a tree, I reminded myself, hardly realizing that I was flinging open the car door and sprinting across my ruined yard to reach her side. Yes, I had poured every dream I possessed into her slender trunk, had spent hours pruning and training and managing her growth. But my rational mind understood that every dream I'd banked within Pippin would still be present inside my body once the apple tree was gone. Pippin had helped to focus my yearnings rather than truly housing them, and I would keep moving forward even without her arboreal pep talks.

  Behind my back, I could hear Mr. Reed's voice raised as he argued with my boyfriend. I couldn't quite make out the words on either side of the debate, but what I picked up of Jack's tone reminded me of his father's sternness, only with a hint of humor underlying the firm words. I suspected that the businessman was trying to save my tree—surely Lena would have let slip my attachment to the plant while she was sharing all of my other secrets. But I was equally certain that Mr. Reed wouldn't budge. My snarky farewell the night before would ensure that his continued ire was too great to allow my ex-landlord to be bought or bullied.