Most Eligible Billionaire

by Annika Martin

  “Courier,” she says, shrugging.

  Large as it is, it’s light as a feather. I grab a knife and slit the tape, opening the top.

  My eyes don’t know what I’m seeing at first. My mind interprets everything as packing materials, like a company that doesn’t have its shit together decided to go into the packing peanuts business.

  But my heart sees. It starts racing, dangerously racing. Fear. Happiness. Wonder.

  The box is filled with hundreds of tiny balsawood griffins, intricately carved—I recognize Henry’s hand in every claw, every tiny wing.

  I dig my fingers through them and I draw up a handful.

  “Four hundred twenty-five.”

  I spin around. My eyes meet his. My breath hitches. Shivers skim over me.

  He’s leaning on a partition behind me in a deep brown suit, dark hair tousled and just a little bit too long.

  Smuckers jumps at his legs, tail wagging.

  “Henry.”

  “I carved one every day you were gone,” he says.

  My voice shakes. “You can’t be here.”

  He pushes off the partition and comes to me, defiance sparkling in his eyes.

  I grip the table edge behind me like that might stop the room from spinning.

  He stops in front of me. He stands there, watching my eyes.

  He’s all posh polish in a thousand-dollar suit, but his pulse drums in his throat. When he speaks, there’s the faintest crack in his voice. “I want us back. What do I have to do?”

  My heart aches—it actually aches. “I don’t know if there was an us.” Even as I say it, some little voice in me screams that it’s a lie.

  “There was an us for me,” he says. “There always will be an us for me.”

  Henry’s here. In front of me. “You carved more than four hundred of those?”

  His gaze sears my heart. How many he carved isn’t the question, and he knows it.

  I can barely think. This is everything I didn’t dare want.

  “It feels like too much to believe,” I say finally.

  “I know. I get it. You’ve been burned.” He takes my hand like my hand belongs to him. He knits his fingers between mine, warm and soft. “I burned you when I didn’t tell you everything,” he says. “I should’ve, and I didn’t. I could stand here and give you excuses, but I won’t. I just need you. Give us a chance.”

  “I can’t.”

  His hand tightens, just a bit, like if he doesn’t hold me tightly, I might get away. “Let me love you enough for both of us.”

  “What?”

  “I love you.” His words are calm and sure. “That’s real. Everything was wrong, but that part’s real. It always will be.”

  Instinctively I’m looking for the trick, the lie. But all I see is love, the vulnerability of Henry’s love. Of his coming here. Of his griffins.

  Henry’s gaze is deep-blue honesty and miles-wide loyalty. He’s been burned, too, but he’s showing up.

  Like some things can come true.

  “And of course…” He lifts our joined hands, brushes a kiss on my middle knuckle. “You have to let me design and build your studio share project. I mean, please. You think anybody else can do it halfway as well as I could?”

  I smile. “There’s the Locke Kool-Aid that I know and love.”

  He pauses and everything seems to still. Like, do I mean I love him?

  “It’s just about the Kool-Aid?” he asks.

  I smile so wide, I think I can never stop. “If I tell you I love you, if I tell you how much I love you and how scared I am for it not to be real that you love me, will it stop you from carving more tiny griffins like a psycho?”

  “No,” he says. “I’ll keep carving them for you. As long as I can carve.”

  Thirty-Four

  One year later ~ New York City

  Vicky

  * * *

  Thick red curtains crash to the stage, and Henry and I leap to our feet, clapping. Latrisha springs up on my other side. She sticks her fingers in her mouth and gives an earsplitting whistle.

  It was an amazing show, a super funky musical adaptation of Shakespeare in Love. Carly got the part of Lady de Lesseps—a huge feather in her cap for her age. She even got a duet, which was heart-stoppingly beautiful, though I might be biased.

  After several long minutes of applause, the leads come out, two big Broadway stars. They take their bows, and then the supporting cast all run out, including Carly, who catches my eye and grins wide before taking her bow, holding hands with her scene mates.

  The curtain goes down one final time, the lights go on, and we make our way to the aisle—slowly.

  It’s Locke night at the show, meaning Locke Worldwide bought out half the tickets for employees and vendors as a way to support the show early on. Brett’s idea.

  Things are better with Brett. I came around to forgiving him—it was right around when we got back to the States, once Carly finished her school term in London. I know he was fighting for the company, not unlike Henry. And Brett’s going to be family now—Henry and I got engaged over Christmas.

  Henry was slower to forgive, but they’re on good terms again. Back to their golf and scotch and strategy walks around Battery Park.

  Henry shakes hands, kisses cheeks, and remembers names left and right. And I love him like crazy for it.

  “Vonda!” Mandy comes and squeezes my hands. She’s in a dazzling green dress. “Your sister! So good.”

  I thank her, grinning like a proud parent.

  Other Locke employees are there, as well as some of Henry and Brett’s society set, complimenting my sister. Renaldo asks about Smuckers and I confide that he’s home resting up in preparation for a long day at the Sassy Snout groomer.

  A woman comes up to me wearing a Smuck U necklace—I put them up on Etsy and they’re a huge hit. It’s fun to be back to jewelry designing.

  We also bought the Southfield makers space and we’re making it bigger and better. I got my area back. Right next to Latrisha.

  Coming back to New York publicly as Vonda was a revelation. Naturally, I didn’t want to. I dreaded the attention. Even after the Woodruff scandal broke, even after having long talks with Henry—he felt certain the attention wouldn’t hurt this time—I just didn’t want it.

  But I wanted to be with Henry, wanted to return to New York. The London share studio was on its way by the time Carly finished high school. I had a great person to run it. So we packed up our flat and I steeled myself and we flew back on Henry’s jet.

  He set up a press conference for the day after we returned.

  I wasn’t so sure about that plan, but I trusted his experience with the paparazzi. “Feed them a nice meal and they won’t go following you for crumbs,” he said.

  So I steeled myself. I might have even put on a dark sweater set and slim skirt. “No!” Carly cried, tugging at my sweater. “Noooooo!”

  I grinned and hugged Carly to me. But I needed body armor. Something to cover my heart.

  I stepped out in front of the cameras with Henry, holding his hand in a sweaty death grip, waiting for the insults, the onslaught of hurtful questions. Braced, steeled, pulse racing like I was entering a war zone.

  The battle never came.

  It was just waves of goodwill, stunning and warming me. People empathizing with me. Apologizing. It was beyond cathartic.

  I can’t count the number of people who have come up to me since I got back, telling me their own stories of not being believed, of being scapegoated, pilloried on social media.

  None got to the level of national shaming I did, but I also know that when it’s happening to you, it feels like the whole world is doing it. Sometimes I know I’m the only one listening.

  We finally reach the chandelier-draped lobby. There are vintage posters all around. People are happy—buoyant, even, from the show.

  I’m pulling forward but Henry tugs me back and spins me into a corner, hands curled around my waist. He kisses me har
d. “That dress. God, need you so bad,” he says. “You’re beautiful. You’re like a firebird.”

  I grin and nip his lip. I’ve let my hair go back to red, and my dress is bright orange. Fire doesn’t burn me anymore.

  “Need to strip you out of it,” he grates in a voice that has me wishing that lobby-to-limo teleportation was a thing.

  “Need to get you out of that wristwatch,” I say.

  He pulls me in more tightly against the powerbrokery hard body that I love.

  We do eventually get out of there, but not to the limo. We sneak around the dark side of the building to the cast exit and wait for Carly, which involves making out like teenagers. And then he pushes back into the bricks and fixes me with a serious stare.

  “I love you,” he says, his voice full of wonder. “So much.”

  I gaze up at his beautiful face and lopsided dimples that I like to kiss. “I love you, Henry.” And the stars in the night sky seem to brighten behind him.

  I’m going to be honest—the stars up there still make zero intelligible pictures as far as I can see. But the picture Henry and I make together means everything to me, lines scribbling between our hearts to create an amazing new world.

  Thank you for reading! I hope you love Henry, Vicky, and Smuckers as much as I do!

  And the best thing you can do for them is to spread the word—I so appreciate it when people leave reviews or tell their friends.

  Ready for more sexy fun? (…and maybe even a cameo from Smuckers?)

  The Billionaire’s Wake-up-call Girl is out July 9th! Learn more / Grab it here!!

  * * *

  The Billionaire’s Wake-up-call Girl

  An enemies-to-lovers romantic comedy

  When my manager assigns me the task of finding a new wake up call service for our CEO, I think, how hard can this be?

  Answer: practically impossible. It turns out that no wake-up call company in the world will take him on as a client. They’ve all had enough of his surly personality.

  So in an effort not to lose my job, I secretly start making the calls myself, every day at 4:30 am sharp. OMG yes you read that right—four freaking thirty in the morning.

  Confession: I’m not the nicest wake-up-call girl at that hour. Hello! Who wakes up before the roosters are even crowing? Luckily he doesn’t seem to mind my get-your-ass-out-of-bed attitude.

  Day by day we’re becoming closer, and the calls start turning hot, like pay-by-the-minute hot and oh-so-wild. Snuggled under the covers with the moonlight streaming in the windows, we divulge our secrets to each other, but the one thing that he can never find out is that the sexy vixen who wakes him up every morning is just the lowly assistant who wears frumpy dresses. I can only imagine his disappointment.

  Now he wants to take me out on a date and he’s scouring Manhattan to find me. He’s an overachieving billionaire bent on a mission. How much longer can I keep up this charade?

  Are you ready ? Grab The Billionaire’s Wake-up-call Girl

  * * *

  Or turn the page for a sneak peek!

  The Billionaire’s Wake-up-call Girl - a sneak peek!

  Lizzie

  * * *

  Looking back, maybe I should’ve noticed the red flags.

  The unusually large sign-on bonus, for example—payable only after I lasted thirty days on the job.

  Who can’t last in a job for thirty days? That was my thought when I applied for this position.

  And then there were the strange looks my co-workers would give me when I went around introducing myself as Vossameer Inc.’s new social media manager. “I’m here to jazz up our online image,” I’d explain.

  In the elevator, on the communications floor, down in the sleek and elegant lobby, just these strange looks. Uncertain smiles. One woman’s mouth formed into an alarmed “o” before she introduced herself back to me.

  At first I chalked it up to company-wide cluelessness about social media. After all, Vossameer didn’t even have a Facebook page when I started three weeks ago.

  But now as I watch my boss Sasha fret and frown over the PowerPoint report I created to show how perfectly I nailed my assignment, I’m starting to think a little bit harder about those red flags.

  She clicks to a page that shows examples of my successful, industry-appropriate posts and a graph of my stunning engagement numbers.

  She sucks in a breath. Winces.

  What?

  Trust me, Facebook engagement was no easy feat; Vossameer’s most exciting product is hemostatic gel for use in traumatic wound-care situations.

  Another wince. A frown.

  Was I the clueless one all along? Was I misreading the looks I was getting from my new co-workers?

  Am I like the traveler in Transylvania who excitedly tells all the villagers about finding an awesome free castle to stay in? OMG, I have the whole place to myself because the owner only comes out at night. Isn’t that wonderful? Score! High five!

  I hold my breath as she clicks from page to page.

  Sasha has a severe blonde bob, a love of nautical-looking outfits, and a Cruella De Vil makeup style, though to be fair, it might be a poorly lit home mirror.

  “Mmm…” she says finally. And it’s not a yum type of mmm. It’s an uh-oh type of mmmm.

  “Is there a problem?” I ask.

  She just shakes her head. As though the problem goes beyond words. Like she asked for an interim report and I gave her a handful of peanut shells with the salt licked off.

  She clicks to another graph of positive results and again she furrows her dark and dramatically arched brows—I see it in the reflection on the screen.

  “The engagement numbers are already better than most of Vossameer’s peers,” I point out.

  Crickets.

  Actually, not even crickets. “Crickets” suggests little beings are happily chirping away in a field. What I hear is more like the silent gloom of stones in a forgotten parking lot.

  She clicks to the next page. My website mock-up.

  “You wanted our site to come up on the first page on Google,” I remind her. “Now it does, but we’ll do even better once the new site is up. I think people will stay longer.”

  Trust me, that’s a nice way of putting it. The current Vossameer site looks like it was made by depressed robots in 1998.

  Of course, when you’re Vossameer, a billion-dollar unicorn of a company, you don’t need a nice site. Vossameer could have no site at all, and giant health groups would still pay zillions of dollars for their lifesaving medical gel.

  But now they’re trying to partner with some high-profile charitable foundation—Locke Foundation, part of Locke Construction.

  So they have to look shiny online.

  Which is why they hired me. That was my assignment.

  When you search Vossameer, the top hit is a Forbes article on mysterious CEO Theo Drummond that can be summed up in eight words: he’s an asshole, but his products save lives.

  And it’s not the only one. Tons of articles paint Mr. Drummond as a reclusive genius. A gruff misanthrope. A surly asshole.

  I’ve never met the notorious Mr. Drummond, but the asshole thing is not hard to believe. The evidence is all around.

  The employees here are fearful, as though they’re expecting to be fired at any moment, or maybe beheaded. The environment is sleek gray marble and steel, like an elegant and slightly futuristic prison. No outside decorations are allowed, not even in the deepest recesses of your cubicle.

  Even the outside of the building is unforgiving—a mod gray concrete bunker with rectangular windows arranged in straight rows. A study in harsh geometry.

  Mr. Drummond doesn’t like decorations, Sasha told me once. Vossameer is about lifesaving solutions, not party streamers.

  I’d brought a giant tub of home-baked frosted cookies to share my second day, and people nearly fell out of their chairs. It turns out we can’t bring treats to share. Ever.

  This is a workplace, not a potluck, Sasha s
aid.

  I’ve gotten good at sensing the assholey DNA of Mr. Drummond’s statements, and I’m pretty sure that was one of them. Same with the party streamers comment. It’s something about the sheer jerkiness of it, and also, how Sasha changes her voice to sound breathless and intense.

  Everyone here is obsessed with Mr. Drummond. They seem to regard him the way the ancients regarded the gods that controlled the weather and plagues. Angry and vengeful, yet glorious. Never to be spoken ill of.

  Also, nobody talks about Mr. Drummond without using the word “amazing” at least once. Maybe that’s in the employee manual somewhere.

  Sasha’s obsession goes way further—more into awestruck love territory.

  She speaks his name like she’s whispering hallowed secrets to the Greek oracles atop Mount Olympus—Mr. Drummond this, Mr. Drummond that. Amazing Mr. Drummond.

  “Mr. Drummond is not the most sociable person in the world,” Sasha breathlessly informed me the day I started. “He has extremely high standards—for himself and for his employees—but his amazing breakthroughs save lives every day. The work we do to support him makes that possible.” And then she’d looked me deeply in the eyes and said, This is the most important job you’ll ever have.

  I’d just nodded while making a mental note to stay away from any brightly colored liquid.

  I cross my arms. Wait for Sasha to click on through my doomed PowerPoint.

  “On the next page are the website hits that come from Facebook,” I say nervously.

  Sasha doesn’t want to see the next page. She levels a long red fingernail at the screen, like a blood-red rocket, and taps on the image of an old man holding hands with a baby. She then taps the faces of happy newlyweds. “Why am I seeing these people?”

  “Well, our marketing materials tend to concentrate on the medical effects of our hemostatic gel, but that’s not what we’re selling, is it?” I say. “We’re selling more time with loved ones. We’re selling health providers the ability to grant more time to wounded patients. That’s our true product.”