Most Eligible Billionaire

by Annika Martin

  I look up at his gorgeous lips and sparkly golden-brown cheek stubble and enchantingly uneven dimples.

  “Did you just ask Henry fucking Locke if he has a truck?”

  An hour later, we’re rumbling over the Brooklyn Bridge in a heavy-duty diesel pick-up truck with the Locke Worldwide logo on the side.

  It’s loaded with the best stuff from the site, courtesy of the crew that Henry called over. He told me to point out the best bits, then he disappeared.

  He was on the verge of losing the Most Eligible Bastard’s manliness competition at that point for not helping to load…but then he came back in work clothes—a long-sleeved green T-shirt and jeans and boots and gloves—and he started loading with the guys.

  He went for the heavy stuff, like the hunks of concrete. He sometimes grunted, muscles bulging like melons under the light fabric of the shirt. I tried not to stare too hard as he worked. Or when he’d wipe the dripping sweat off his forehead with his big freaking glove, sometimes leaving smears of dust.

  Manliness portion of Most Eligible Bastard unlocked!

  We’re heading deep into Brooklyn, away from the trendy parts.

  “And you’re not telling where we’re going.”

  “Take a left up here on Oakerton,” I say.

  He takes a left. On we go.

  I look at the increasingly decrepit buildings from his point of view, wondering what he thinks. Was I wrong to bring him here? No matter how dirty he gets his hands, he’s a billionaire, a man from another world. He wields a shovel, yes, but some of those shovels have giant bows on them.

  I check my phone. I texted Latrisha during the loading, making sure she’d be around and she hasn't responded.

  This is the kind of reclaimed shit she lives for.

  We pull up at the Southfield makers space. There’s actually street parking in this part of town, of the leave-your-vehicle-at-your-own-risk kind.

  I suddenly dread taking him into the dank and half-ruined warehouse, with industrial lighting and power sources hanging from ropes and duct tape on things. There are plywood partitions between workspaces. Giant welding setups that aren’t entirely legal. Home-cooked venting that is totally not code.

  Even the grungiest Locke fabrication facility is a palace compared to this. Clean and spic and span.

  And then there’s the culture of the place.

  It’s not all well-behaved jewelry makers who just need a soldering setup, or fashion-forward furniture makers like Latrisha. There’s a wild edge to a lot of the people, from the tattoo-and-leather Neo-Renaissance guys over in the blacksmith area to the facially pierced mosaic artisans to the crazy-ass pottery people and neon guys and everyone else. Will the scene be too outlandish?

  “You have an alarm on this thing, right?” I say.

  “I’m not worried,” he says. “Who’s going to steal a load of vintage construction debris?”

  “Um, you’re about to meet them,” I say.

  We hop out and walk up the fractured sidewalk to the entrance. I wince as I unlock the skull-design metal door, made by said blacksmith guys.

  I lead us into the hulking space, like the inside of a Klingon warship. And of course the first thing we see are the potters and blacksmith guys in the lounge area couches around a table loaded with empty beer bottles and some kind of sculpture that might be made out of part of a tractor.

  I smile and wave at them. “Lively today.” I grab his hand and pull him in toward the more subdued side.

  “What exactly is this place?” he asks.

  “Southfield Place Makers Studio. It’s a makers co-op.” We pass the welders and the collective hardware area where tattooed urban beardsmen argue over the schedule for a circular saw. “You have to sign up for some of the larger tools,” I explain. “They’re shared.” I lower my voice. “That guy doesn’t always follow the rules, but things usually go really smoothly.”

  He doesn’t reply.

  My mood fizzles as we go deeper, because I don’t see Latrisha’s bright red hat over the plywood partition of her space. This was a bad idea.

  “You do your jewelry here?”

  “Well, I need venting for soldering. I think I’d get evicted from my apartment if I tried it there.”

  “Damn,” he says.

  Miserably, I lead him onward, past rows of messy workshop tables made of raw plywood. Why did I think he’d like this?

  It’s not just the scene here, it’s him, too. He’s dressed down, but he’s a different species than we are, like he can’t wash the rich off, no matter how hard he might try.

  “It seems a bit low rent, I know,” I say, “but it’s a great deal and the tools here are really good.”

  He doesn’t reply, seeming stunned by the decrepitude.

  I keep going. If nothing else, he can see some of Latrisha’s furniture and maybe hire her, and that would be great. Whatever else he thinks about this place, Latrisha’s furniture is amazing.

  “And it’s not like we let just anyone in, much as it might look like that. People have to pay monthly and we can kick them out if they’re assholes. I mean, it’s hard to do this kind of stuff in the city; it’s not like we all have sheds in our yard, or even yards, and when you look at the start-up capital for like, a woodworker or even someone like me—”

  “Vicky,” he says in his laughing way.

  I turn and walk backward. “We all have lockers for our personal stuff over there,” I say.

  “Watch out.” He grabs my arm just in time to keep me from backing into a couple rolling a cart.

  He smiles down at me, and it’s one of his fake smiles. And that’s not okay. “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Tell me,” I say.

  He lets me go. “It’s a wealthy guy complaint. Trust me, you don’t want to hear it.”

  “I know it seems a little shabby.”

  “You think that’s the problem?”

  “Or…low rent.”

  “Vicky,” he says. “You’re seriously apologizing for the state of the place?” he says. “It’s utterly amazing.”

  Shivers swirl over me. “You think so?”

  “I know so.”

  “I worried you’d think it’s…I don’t know.”

  “One of the little-understood things about having my kind of money is the insulation. It can be great—you’re insulated from tedious chores and time sucks, and I never have to talk to anybody who I specifically don’t want to talk to; other people talk to those people for me. But I’m also insulated from something like this. I literally can’t have this.”

  “You could if you wanted.”

  “Yeah, okay, technically I can, because it’s a free country, but I’d almost have to come as somebody else. Like a poser. Look at me. I could buy an airplane hangar and fill it with the best tools money can buy before dinner. I’d have to take a space from somebody who actually needs it.” He’s silent a bit. “This place is awesome. And I can never be one of the people who belong here.”

  I’m stunned at how I misread him. He wasn’t feeling judgy; he was feeling jealous. Billionaire Henry Locke can’t have this. And he thinks it’s awesome.

  I grin and turn to him, walking backwards. “I wanted you to like it. It’s one of my favorite places in the world.”

  His eyes sparkle. “I like it a whole lot.”

  Heat creeps over my neck, because I feel like he’s talking about me.

  He catches up to me and takes my hand. My heart skips a beat.

  “Do you have a lot of collaboration?” he asks. “Do people walk around and see what each other is doing?”

  “Yeah, people hook up on projects, but it’s not as if we’re walking around all dude, please tell me about this awesome creation of yours! That would be a little dorky.”

  “They hook up from the lounge,” he says.

  “More often than not,” I say.

  I see Latrisha’s head pop up, and I think, Yay! She widens her eyes at me. I
suppress a smile. I warned her I was bringing Henry, but she still looks a little stunned.

  We get to her space, and I see she’s cleaned it up. “Latrisha, this is Henry. Henry, this is Latrisha. She makes furniture out of reclaimed stuff and it’s freaking amazing.”

  “Hey,” he says, taking her hand. “So nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise.” Latrisha’s apron is full of pockets and her hair is wound in a braid on top of her head like a rope crown. She’s trying to disguise her grin, and it makes her look a bit mad. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “I think I might be familiar with one of your recent pieces, actually,” Henry says, moving over to her workbench and picking up a remnant of the polished metal she used on Smuckers’s throne. He goes on to slide his hand over a partly finished stool on her workbench. “I love this burnished effect. How did you get it?”

  She explains her burnishing technique, which I realize would be good with the reclaimed posts and wood. She ends up showing him pictures. They discuss finishes so extensively, it seems like a joke at one point.

  I go to my locker and grab work clothes to put on behind the changing curtain.

  When I get back, she widens her eyes. Yeah, that’s right; it’s Henry Locke, hot Henry Locke, here in our space recognizing the awesomeness of her furniture. It makes me feel ten feet tall.

  He wants to hire her to do the furnishings and they talk about that. And I know he’s not hiring her to appease me. She really is one of the best, and Henry would see that.

  Henry gets this world. It makes my heart swell.

  We head out to the truck, the three of us, and pick through the wood chunks and start matching parts together. We haul a few things out onto the broken sidewalk. Latrisha’s thinking tables and a lobby desk. Henry has measurements on his iPad.

  I get the idea of having Bron, one of our smithy pals, heat and reshape small bits of the rebar to make design elements. Latrisha is talking about an entire lobby desk of chopped and polished construction timbers, fit back together like a puzzle with mostly triangular pieces. It’s an awesome idea, and soon enough, Bron, another smithy friend, and Henry are unloading the truck.

  People don’t recognize Henry right off, though I have no doubt word will spread once somebody figures it out.

  But right now, to everyone but Latrisha, he’s one of us, full of energy and ideas.

  Maybe his work clothes cost more than a month’s rent, but he makes up for it with his passion, not to mention his construction expertise. He and Latrisha and Bron and I take to the collaboration of making a grand lobby desk from the reclaimed materials like we’ve been working together forever.

  A few people drift over and throw out suggestions. He draws the appreciative gaze of most every woman who comes by, but he just keeps rolling with the group, gazing over at me, all sparkly, when things are popping.

  Henry is so full of contradictions. He’s a powerbroker into controlling everything, but he can do brainstorming and teamwork like a pro.

  More smithy guys come over a few hours later and, not coincidentally, beers come out. The smithy guys clink bottles so hard, I think the glass might break. I wince and catch Henry’s eye and he’s just laughing, like he knows what I’m thinking.

  And then he goes off with them, the three of them with armfuls of rebar.

  “Oh, how far we’ve come from the dog throne,” Latrisha says to me, watching them disappear.

  “What?”

  “You’ve done a one-eighty. From wanting to mess with him to quite the opposite.”

  I can’t keep the smile off my face.

  “What happened to the asshole?”

  “His company is his family and, yeah, he’s a complete asshole to anyone who threatens it. Which he saw as me, I suppose—”

  “If he really knew you, he would know you’re the most trustworthy person on the planet.”

  I smile without meeting her eyes. Latrisha doesn’t know I'm Vonda O’Neil, either. I’m lying about my entire identity. But that’s not what she’d hate me for. She’s my age, around twenty-four. She would remember Vonda’s supposedly destructive lies. She could’ve forwarded the news stories and liked the Facebook memes.

  Somebody made a video of strung-together clips of me on the Deerville courthouse steps that made it look like I was dancing up and down the courthouse steps. They spliced in a lot of imagery of pigs rolling in mud and set it to music with violent, misogynist lyrics.

  It got millions of likes. Latrisha could have been one of them. I could still go type Vonda pigs in the Facebook search bar and find the seven-year-old video online, and I could search the likes for her name.

  I’ve done it before with people, like teachers of Carly’s, but I had to make myself stop that.

  Would Latrisha be in there if I hovered over those likes? Would Henry? God, he’d hate me. They both would.

  “We’ve come to a good place. It’s complicated.”

  “Record scratch!” she says. “Did you sleep with him?”

  “Weeeeeell…”

  “Oh-em-eff-gee,” she says.

  “No, we didn’t do it...” I pause, awash in memory of us on the rooftop. And the way his lips felt against my skin, his hands.

  “But you’ve been doing each other.”

  “We have.” I toss a bottle cap into the trash. “And it’s amazing. He’s amazing.”

  “I thought he didn’t trust you. Like you’re this weasely scammer who stole his company,” she says. “What happened to that?”

  “We’ve gotten to know each other—deep down, beneath all the bullshit of this situation. We click. It’s amazing. And I’m giving the company back.”

  “Hold on—what?!”

  “Don’t tell him. I didn’t actually tell him, but I implied it. Carly and I have that twenty-one-day waiting period thing and promising is the same…”

  “Bernadette gave it to Smuckers and you because you two were her only friends in the universe. She wanted you to have it. That is your security. You and Carly. You would give that up?”

  “It doesn’t feel right to keep it.”

  “What part of going from scrabbling along to super wealthy doesn’t feel right to you?”

  “All of it. Carly and I were getting on fine. We have a great life just how it is. And the company was never ours.”

  “So, let me get this timeline straight.” She sets a hand on my shoulder and her eyes bore into mine. “He’s an asshole to you. He plays dirty tricks. It doesn’t work. Then he decides to be charming. And we know the tales of him in the sack. I'm sorry. I know he’s hot. He’s smart and fun. But he’s not one of us. He just wants that company.”

  I’m shaking my head.

  “No, you listen.” She tightens her grip. “He’s spending time with you and he’s all that. And suddenly you’re handing over the company. You—who hate rich, entitled assholes until this one decides to wrap you around his worldwide cock.”

  Something twists deep my belly. “I know how it looks.”

  “Is that or is that not the timeline?”

  My pulse races. “I don’t care.”

  “You need to start caring. This rich boy is playing you,” she warns. “Your first instinct was not to trust him. You need to honor that.”

  “My instinct is to trust him now.”

  Warmth slides over me. I turn to see Henry coming toward me alongside Bron.

  Latrisha swears a blue streak, but I’m not listening.

  Henry’s all sweaty and wearing his big gloves. They’re carrying something they made out of the rebar. Henry smiles at me, and the smile hooks to something deep in my belly.

  “Don’t be a fool,” Latrisha warns, voice hard as steel. “This guy is leading you by the vajeen.”

  Twenty

  Henry

  * * *

  Our eyes lock and she smiles, and hell if that smile doesn’t light up the raw, cavernous space. Her true habitat. Cool as shit.

  Her pink work shirt stretches t
ight over her tits in a way that reminds me of the roof and gets my cock stirring. Though that would suggest my thoughts have left that roof. The way she felt.

  They haven’t.

  Latrisha is so serious beside her.

  I glance down at my watch and back up at Vicky. She rolls her eyes. We’ve developed our own code, way beyond spray-painted scribbles on the ground. The way we click blows my mind.

  Her strange promise in the elevator has me hopeful for the first time in weeks. She asked me to trust her. I do.

  Screw it. I do.

  More than trust her—she’s making me feel things I haven’t felt in years.

  And I trust her on that strange promise. Things will be restored. Made right with the company.

  Was there a side letter from Bernadette? Something binding her to silence? More messing with me from the grave?

  I go right up to her and kiss her. Latrisha doesn’t seem to approve of the PDA, but I do.

  We get to work. I find myself watching Vicky when she’s not looking. Waiting for her to smile. I watch for her face to light up when she likes an idea. When she doesn’t like something, she tips her head and narrows her eyes, like she’s not quite seeing it. Not getting the person’s vision. So diplomatic.

  My favorite is when our eyes meet and she straightens her glasses in that sexy, I’m-looking-at-you way that she uses to put an underline under our silent agreement.

  My phone pings. Brett.

  Can u talk?

  I can. I don’t want to. Being here is like a vacation from myself. The Henry Locke extravaganza. But I see that he’s called a bunch of times.

  I get up and wander to the lounge area, which is the one genuinely shabby part of the place, and call him.

  “I’ve been trying to call for the last hour,” Brett says. “Our PI got back.”

  The PI. “Right.”

  “Listen to this—it’s fake. Extremely professional, extremely expensive, extremely fake identities.”

  I stop and turn. “Does he have proof of this?”

  “He’s getting it. It’s involving bribes at a federal level. There are no photographs of the two of them online prior to seven years ago. He thinks she might be connected. The ID is mob-level good. This is a five-alarm fire.”