Most Eligible Billionaire

by Annika Martin

  I put my arm around her. She snuggles closer and something in me warms.

  It’s strange sitting in the park with Vicky. And it strikes me as strange that it would strike me as strange…until it occurs to me that every activity in my life fits into one of two categories: seduction and business.

  Sitting in the moonlit park fits into neither. It’s just nice.

  How did my life get so unbalanced? Even my beach house in the Hamptons—I use it to entertain clients or I don’t use it at all.

  It’s not there for pleasure, and I certainly never take women up there—I don’t like to give them the wrong idea, which is that our short-term hookups might not be short-term hookups.

  “Hey,” I say. “What are you and Carly doing for Labor Day weekend?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “Nothing special.”

  “You want to get out of the city? I have a beach place in the Hamptons.”

  She sits up, seeming alarmed.

  I brush a strand of hair from her eyes. It’s so sexy when she wears it down. “What is it?”

  “Well…” She stares at a crushed Pepsi can, shining in the grass. “With everything so crazy…”

  No, she means.

  I almost don’t comprehend it. She’s taking the one night, no roles thing seriously. Treating this as a hookup. It defies my understanding of the universe, like water swirling the wrong way down the drain.

  I spent most of my dating career enforcing hookup rules. I recognize it when I see it.

  Three words: No. Fucking. Way.

  I set my fingertips to her chin with the gentle touch that gets her hot. I brush a kiss onto her lips. “Why not extend it?” I say. “Vacation holiday. Who says we can’t extend it? Nothing intruding.”

  Her pulse bangs in her throat. “Just for the record, things will be set right.” She watches my eyes. It’s important to her that I get that. It feels right to trust her on that.

  “I’m not worried about that. I take you at your word. I'm not talking about the company, I’m talking about this.” I lower my voice. “You know you want to. We’re in this far. Let’s keep it going. All the complications. Screw it all. Three more days.”

  This gets her thinking about it.

  “We leave the whole spiderweb of our lives behind,” I say. “We leave it here.” I kiss her again. “Or, actually, in the limo.”

  “I can’t leave Carly.” She puts her hands in her lap. “Not for a weekend. I mean, she’s sixteen. She would probably be fine. She’d love me to leave her with the place to herself but—”

  “I didn’t mean just you, I meant both of you,” I say. “I’d love to meet her and have her up with us. The best beach is just a few blocks away. We have a full staff. She can have her own room. We could leave Friday, early.”

  I can tell she’s thinking about it. “The traffic....”

  “Right,” I say. “If only I owned a strange machine with a propeller on the top of it that could fly right over cars and buildings. Oh, wait, I do.”

  She grins. “Tell me it’s not blue.”

  “It’s blue.”

  She studies my eyes, as though she’s not sure whether to take me seriously. What’s going on? Am I pushing things too fast?

  She pulls out her phone, swipes around, then groans. “Carly has two day-long can’t-miss dates to run lines with her girlfriend,” she says. “They’re trying to get leads in the fall production. I forgot they carved those out for this long weekend.”

  “Have her bring her girlfriend. Trust me, we have the space.” I trace the shell of her ear. She’s caving.

  “Of course, they might not get much studying done. Two of the guys from One Direction have rented the place next to mine. They might be rehearsing for some kind of duet tour. It could be distracting.”

  Her jaw falls open. “Seriously?”

  “Would I joke about something like One Direction?”

  “This feels like blackmail,” she says. “If I don’t say yes and she finds out, she’ll literally kill me.”

  “That would be terrible,” I say.

  Twenty-Seven

  Henry

  * * *

  Carly has Vicky’s laugh, Vicky’s eyes, and definitely Vicky’s spirit.

  But while Vicky has brown hair, Carly is a fiery redhead. It’s amazing to see them together, to see Vicky in girl mode, laughing and pointing with Carly and her sarcastic friend Bess as I take off over the city.

  Carly says soothing words to Smuckers, who’s in his little case in the back and not loving the ride.

  We land on the helipad at the estate garden house.

  It’s fun to see the three of them experience the grandeur of the place, which was built in the 1920s by one of the Vanderbilts. They make me love it all over again.

  Vicky goes to help the girls settle while I give instructions to Francine, the head of the staff. “I know it’s not what you’re used to,” I say to her.

  “It’s a breath of fresh air,” she says.

  “You know how messy teenaged girls are?”

  “It’s thrilling to see you have…friends here. We’re all so pleased.”

  I’m about to protest that I bring friends here. But I don’t.

  The two of them stake out the bedroom on the very end of the south wing. We order in wine and soda and gourmet pizzas. They stay exactly ten minutes. It’s hard to compete with the promise of two guys from One Direction.

  Vicky and I drink wine and talk about everything—even a little business. She wants to make sure we got the software Mandy requested. She changed her mind about it soon after I started taking her on facility tours. I tell her it’s in place.

  Now and then the girls come through with reports that they heard music, and they carry on detailed analyses of whether it was recorded music or if it was the guys in jamming mode.

  And as Vicky and I are fucking that night on the edge of the hot tub on the top veranda, and again as we have slow, lazy sex the next morning, I think to write One Direction a fan letter just for how completely they keep Bess and Carly glued to the other side of the mansion.

  “You take good care of her,” I say that afternoon. Vicky and I sit on the porch overlooking the expanse of lawn, which ends in a pool, a cluster of cabanas, and the beach, edged in sea grass, deep blue-green water beyond.

  Perched under an umbrella at the edge of the actual beach, Bess and Carly are in full teen girl splendor mode, running lines and staking out the neighbors, and Smuckers is a streak of white, running all around the lawn. The umbrellas are Locke blue, a fact that Vicky makes fun of.

  “We’re all each other has,” she says simply.

  I try to get more about her earlier life, but she’s vague, and eventually I find the conversation has circled around to her desire to know why I wear dark suits in the city and beige linen suits in the Hamptons.

  Does she just hate to think about that time? I won’t push her. I pushed her enough. And we’re supposed to be away from it all.

  The four of us walk along the beach for Saturday sunset, a ritual from when I have business visitors, who tend to enjoy the backyard view of the mansions, the lifestyles of the rich and famous, though they rarely admit it. Carly and Bess are no different, but they do admit it, pointing out different displays of excess. Vicky seems unimpressed, if not slightly hostile toward displays of wealth.

  Between houses, the girls run ahead with Smuckers, kicking around in the surf.

  “Back in your town, remember how you told me about being bullied?” I say.

  Vicky gives me a blank look. “Sure.”

  “Was it somebody wealthy?”

  Her brow furrows. “Why would you think that?”

  “Just wondering. You’re not impressed like a lot of people are. And, well, you did call me a rich, entitled jackass at one point.”

  She takes my hand. “You know I don’t think that.”

  I keep my eyes on the horizon, feeling her gaze on my face. I wonder if that’s why my
mother chose her. I hate the question I’m about to ask, but it’s been burning in me. “Did my mother seem…happy in those last years?”

  She squeezes my hand. “Henry—”

  “I just…didn’t know her the last few years. I missed her.” I never say that aloud.

  “She seemed happy…in her way.”

  I nod.

  “I wasn’t sure how much you wanted to know about her. But, yes. She had her routines and Smuckers. She’d terrorize people in the neighborhood, like when they wanted to pet him, she’d act angry. That was kind of her jam.”

  I smile. It’s a bittersweet feeling, more sweet than bitter now.

  “She was such a character,” I say. “I always imagined I could repair things. That somehow I’d break through and we’d have a heart-to-heart.”

  “I’m sorry,” she says.

  I make her tell me all the stories she can remember. We stand in the wet, sucking sand together, the ocean swashing around our ankles, watching Carly and Bess swim, and Vicky tells me little anecdotes. One after another.

  We laugh about it. It feels good. No—it feels utterly amazing.

  “I’m glad she had you around,” I say.

  She kisses me on the shoulder. “I’m glad I could be.”

  “Why do you think my mother chose you?”

  “I don’t know,” she says.

  “Maybe it’s silly to keep wondering about it, but I do. Do you think my mother chose you because she sensed you have an allergy to guys like me? Did you two talk about that sort of thing?”

  “Hmm.”

  “I know she ostensibly chose you on the basis of your being a dog whisperer, but she could’ve done a lot of messed-up things with that will. Yet she chose you.”

  “I really think it was about the dog,” she says. “She loved that dog. Even the last words she said to me…” She stops, clearly regretting going down this road.

  “It’s okay, you can tell me,” I say. “Please. Tell me. They were the last words she said. I want to know.”

  “Well, they were about the dog. Clutching at him, and she goes, I love you, Pokey.”

  My heart stutters. “What did you say?”

  “I love you, Pokey. I don't know why she called Smuckers that, you know, there at the end. I never heard her call him that, but it had to be Smuckers she was talking to. Smuckers is a little pokey, you have to admit.”

  I swallow past the lump in my throat.

  “What is it?” she asks, looking up into my eyes.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  “For what?”

  I pull her to me, dizzy with the whooshing ocean and this beautiful woman and my bittersweet heart. “Just…all of it.”

  That night, Brett begins his texting assault. He has juicy information from the PI to share. I tell him I’m not interested—the last thing I want to do is to shatter the trust between us. Vicky will tell me things when she’s ready.

  Brett won’t let up. Eventually I just block his ass. He’ll be pissed, but I want this time away. My assistant will let me know if there’s a corporate situation to deal with.

  The competency hearing is scheduled, of course. But I’ve decided to call it off.

  She’s assured me things will be made right. I trust her to do the right thing. I trust us to figure out a way forward together. And whatever Vicky’s hesitation is about us being together, I’ll overcome it.

  I’ll call off the hearing when the mediators are back in the office on Tuesday, and then I’ll tell her.

  There’s a fireworks show on Monday night. Carly and Bess go up to catch it at Cooper’s Beach. I’ve arranged a candlelight dinner on the veranda.

  Vicky is stretched out on the bench seat next to me, leaning back against me, feet splayed out to the side. She has on a pink skirt and gold sandals that look good with her yellow blouse. She’s been wearing brighter colors, but this is really different, the result of shopping in town with the girls. She looks good in colors. It seems right for her. The jewelry she makes is colorful. Why not her clothes?

  A boom sounds from up above, followed by some smaller ones. “I'm glad the fireworks are going off behind us,” I say. “Because if they were right out there over the water? I’d have to arrest myself for multiple cliché violations.”

  “The foam on the waves is just as bright. It looks almost neon,” she says, staring out at the water in the moonlight.

  “It’s the phosphorescence.” I toss a piece of steak to Smuckers.

  She pulls on my lapels like she does when she wants me to come close and kiss her. “Come here.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Vicky

  * * *

  We arrive back late. Exhausted. Henry sleeps at my place, because I don’t want to leave Carly.

  I feel sheepish about the state of it, but at least it’s clean. He seems to like it just fine. And who cares?

  This thing is over, anyway. It’s what I keep telling myself.

  His birthday is on Friday. I need to be out of his life before then—that’s the promise I’ve made to myself. And if he’s sad, well, he’ll get the papers to restore his company.

  It’s the right thing to do for Carly.

  And it’s the only way to keep Vonda’s toxic PR from bringing him down. And the people of Locke who depend on him. It’s the right thing for Vonda.

  There’s a board meeting scheduled for the morning—it’s unclear who called it—Henry thinks Kaleb called it, because the agenda is about the timeline for the Ten, and maybe hiring an extra outside team to expedite the redesign, and there’s something about utilities. Because buildings are apparently more complicated than just building a thing—you have to figure out how it hooks up to everything else.

  We drop Carly at school and head to the office in the back of a limo with Smuckers in a flowered carrier on the seat beside us.

  Henry pulls me onto his lap. “Have I told you how hot you are recently?”

  I kiss his lower lip, then his upper lip. They’re little suck-kisses, a technique I pioneered over the sex marathon that was Labor Day weekend. I kiss him again.

  “It’s been so long since I was just happy. Stupidly happy,” I say. I pull back to find him watching me with his very serious Henry face, cobalt-blue eyes dark and serious. “Thank you.”

  “Does it make you a little sad?” he asks.

  Like a wine connoisseur, he hears every note in my voice.

  “Did I sound sad?” I tilt my head, like I have no idea why that could be.

  “I’m happy, too,” he says softly. “But nothing about my happiness feels stupid.”

  Something twists in my belly, spikes of joy and grief, sharp but good.

  I’ll always have this feeling to remember, I tell myself.

  The car drops us at the front of Locke headquarters under the Locke-blue flags emblazoned with the Cock Worldwide logo.

  We link hands and go in through one of the array of highly redundant doors—the double ones this time, held by a doorman. We cross the enchanted five-story-tall lobby dominated by the giant jagged rock with shimmery water cascading down it.

  I’m wearing bright colors again—an orange flowered top with blue pants and sparkly heels, more spoils from one of the high-fashion pop-up shops in the Hamptons that Carly and Bess and I hit.

  But the clothes weren’t entirely their idea—I realized that, looking in the mirror this morning. The bright colors and sparkles are Vonda’s style. It feels good, like I’ve busted out of some sort of shell. Or maybe like I’m home.

  I’ll always have that, too.

  Henry cages me in his arms against the elevator wall as we ride up. The elevator has become one of my favorite kissing places, a stolen window of privacy.

  And for just this moment, things feel like a fairy tale.

  Henry growls when we reach the top floor. He’s in a brown suit and a maroon tie with tiny black owls on it. Carly and Bess bought it for him as a thank-you gift. I knotted it for him this morning.

/>   He grabs Smuckers’s flowered carrier.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “If you think I’m not man enough to carry a flowered dog carrier that looks like a purse, you haven’t been paying attention, baby.”

  I snort and poke him in the side.

  We get out and cross the expanse of corporate grandeur. People have already assembled in the glass boardroom chamber. I hate to be out of our magical private bubble, but I love seeing him back in his habitat, back in the place he so loves.

  Smuckers rides happily in his flowered purse, the picture of dog cuteness in his Locke-blue sequined dog bow tie.

  Henry grabs the handle of the glass door and holds it open for me, gazing down at me. The air between us crackles.

  I practically glide in. I turn to say hi to the other board members.

  And the world screeches to a halt.

  He’s beefier than I remember, with a thicker neck than back in Deerville.

  I tell myself it can’t be him. It can’t.

  But the blond hair is the same, and then he smiles that smug smile.

  My hands go numb. An icy clawing steals up my back, up my neck. Saliva fills my mouth, like I’m really and truly going to puke.

  It’s my body, reacting to what my mind can’t comprehend.

  “Henry, Vicky.” Brett stands, smiling like the cat that swallowed the flock of canaries. “I want you to meet our new leadership consultant, Denny Woodruff.”

  The room seems to tilt, or maybe that’s my world, tipping on its axis with everything sliding off.

  How is it possible?

  “Leadership consultant?” Henry bites out, confused.

  I’m not confused—not when I meet Brett’s eyes. He knows exactly who Denny is. He knows exactly who I am. Vonda.

  “Denny’ll be working closely with us on board leadership and cohesiveness issues,” Brett announces in a friendly, casual way that’s everything fake. “I think this will be especially helpful to you, Vicky. To get you integrated, to get us working in tandem instead of at odds. You’ll be working very closely with Denny. Every board meeting, Denny will be right there, helping you integrate productively.”