How to Marry a Billionaire

by Ally Blake

‘Yep,’ he agreed, though she had not said a word out loud. ‘I thought as much.’

  ‘Did you now?’

  ‘I did. Because it’s pretty much the same for me.’

  Cara knew they were talking in circles and she knew what they were talking in circles about. But though Adam was doing his thing, leaving big great gaping holes for her to fill, she could not drag the words from her mouth. Instead she bit at her bottom lip.

  ‘You do that a lot, you know.’

  ‘Hmm?’

  He leaned over and, taking a hold of her chin, ran his thumb over her bottom lip, which grew soft and pliant in his caress. ‘You nibble at your bottom lip.’ His hand pulled away.

  ‘I used to suck my thumb as a kid and since I stopped it has become a sort of makeshift habit.’ Cara’s hand reached up to rub away the tingles Adam’s thumb had left behind.

  ‘Mmm. And there I was thinking that you do it especially when you’re holding something back.’

  Of course she did. And of course he would know it too.

  ‘You don’t have to hold back, you know,’ he offered. ‘Whatever you have to say, I can take it.’

  Cara ached to drag her lip between her teeth. ‘You’re one to talk,’ she said.

  Adam laughed, a low rumbling sound that Cara felt in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘You have a point there,’ he said. ‘It seems we are two very similar creatures, Cara. Obstinate. Opinionated. Closed to possibilities that we might be wrong.’

  ‘Well, I guess there’s no hope for us, then, is there?’

  Cara knew he could have taken it one of two ways. That there was no hope that either of them would ever really change, or that there was no hope for the two of them to come together. Either way she felt she had made her point. He had asked her not to hold back, and that was as close as she could come to telling it as it was without hurting herself or him.

  She waited for his response.

  Would he sigh and say, I guess you’re right? Or would he stare deep into her eyes and promise to show her how wrong she was? The longer it took for him to reply, the harder Cara found it to breathe. And the more she hoped it would be the second response.

  By the time Adam cleared his throat Cara was so stiff with concern she flinched. She looked into his deep dark blue eyes to find them glancing over her face with concern, and with a modicum of humour. A tolerant smile had settled upon his face.

  ‘There’s always hope.’

  He stood up and began clearing the plates and when he reached her side he bent to place a soft kiss atop her head. She bit her lip so hard she drew blood. But she had no choice. She had to stop herself from throwing herself into his dish-laden arms and letting him know the extent of her secret hopes.

  Later that morning Adam helped her from the limo. As they looked up at the beautiful façade of the hotel it looked more like a fortress than ever.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go in there alone?’ Adam asked. His guiding hand resting softly at her back felt so like a brand.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Cara said on an outward breath.

  ‘You do realise Jeff is going to eat you alive. Beneath all that strange hair lives a real-life television executive and a more ferocious beast you will never hope to meet.’

  ‘Even so.’

  As they entered the lift together Cara realised that the job did not mean to her what it once had. There was something more important in her life. Something that had always been there, but only after last night had she realised how important it was.

  Friendship. The people in her life were bigger than the things in her life. If she had nothing, if for some reason she lost St Kilda Storeys, Kelly, Gracie and, yes, even her beloved Adam would take her in and give her the shelter she’d thought she so desperately needed. She waited for that same old sunken feeling to take up residence in her chest, but it never came. A smile eased across her tired face.

  So her parents had fought. So her father had not earned enough money to keep her mother happy. So her mother had spent too much money to keep her father happy. They had had each other. That was why they’d stayed together through the lean years and through the fights. They had known that having each other was more important than anything else. To them love had been enough.

  As they readied to part ways, Cara ached to prolong their time alone together. ‘Thanks again for last night,’ she said.

  ‘Any time.’

  She leaned in and gave him a thankful kiss on the cheek. She could not help herself. It hardly rated against their impassioned clinch the night before but she still felt blessed to be able to feel his warm cheek against her own.

  With a deep intake of breath Adam turned and left her on her own. Cara knocked.

  ‘I could fire you, you know,’ Jeff said, hanging up his mobile phone as he opened the door. Cara almost laughed. His hair was spikier than she had ever seen it. It was almost a parody of itself.

  ‘There is nothing to smile about here, Cara. You broke our contracted agreement. And as such I could kick you out on your bony ass without paying you a cent.’

  She waited for the cold lick of fear to take her by the throat but it didn’t come. Realising that in the grand scheme of things it did not matter made her feel free. She felt peace wash over her. She would pay off her building. Maybe not this month. Maybe not this year. But she would get there. By her own blood, sweat and tears, her own late nights and weekends, she would do it.

  Besides, she had long since proven she was not built to keep her head down and be good.

  ‘So fire me,’ Cara said, eyeing him levelly, and enjoying immensely the look of utter shock on his young face.

  He coughed and spluttered and sought meaner words until Cara cut him off.

  ‘Just hold up there, Jeff. You know I want this gig, or else I wouldn’t have gone after it. I want the exposure that will come from having my name on the credits. And, yes, I want the pay-cheque. But I am the best damn stylist in town. I am highly sought after, I am paid well, and I am as good as it gets. So keep me, don’t keep me. It’s up to you. Keep me so that on the final episode your bachelor, who adores me as I adore him, and would be pretty miffed to know I have been treated badly, will look better than you have ever seen him. Or let me go and see how your precious show turns out without me.’

  Jeff stared her down, but the wind had well and truly gone from his sails. ‘Well, actually, I have just been talking with the station manager and we have decided that your leave of absence was understandable and we would like to keep you on. With full pay.’

  ‘Glad to hear it. Oh, and I’ll need the afternoon off on Tuesday for my friend’s mother’s funeral, OK?’

  Jeff gritted his teeth and nodded. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Well, then, I’d better get back to work. Chris will be wondering where I am.’

  Then she stood, smoothed down her cargo pants and T-shirt, shook his hand, then left the room with as much stature as if she were wearing Chanel couture, not merely the only clean clothes she had managed to find at home.

  The next few days went by in a blur.

  Cara had to prepare Chris for the big day as well as wanting to be on the phone to Gracie as much as she could be. And Adam had disappeared. Cara had no idea if he was even staying at the hotel any longer. She should have been frantic, she was so busy, but her mind was only half on the job. She had all the distance she had so recently craved and it made her feel worse than ever.

  She missed his company, his face, even his argumentativeness terribly. But how could she have been surprised? He had obviously run for the hills the first chance he had. And why not? A guy like him didn’t need to be caught up in the small-time problems of a suburban girl like her. He had gone above and beyond for her and for Gracie. And for that she would love him for ever.

  Tuesday afternoon, Cara left the hotel once more to join Gracie at her mother’s funeral. And she was amazed to find that Gracie, the flippant airhead of the crew, had become a grown-up overnight. Her stepfather w
as inconsolable, and her half-sister and half-brother, who were so much younger than she, were a mess. But Gracie held it all together beautifully. Cara was amazed at her friend’s fortitude.

  She half hoped Adam would be there. But he never showed. Though he did send the most beautiful spray of gardenias, Gracie’s favourite flowers. How he had ever known that, Cara had no idea. Even though she was finding herself becoming more and more desperate to know where he was and what he was doing, the flowers represented a small ray of hope.

  Afterwards, Maya Rampling, the editor of Fresh magazine, insisted Cara accompany her in her town car back to Gracie’s stepfather’s house for the wake.

  ‘So how is the big gig going?’ Maya asked. ‘Is television everything you imagined it would be?’

  ‘Everything and more,’ Cara joked.

  ‘So what’s Chris Geyer like?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Come on, Cara,’ Maya said, a thin silver eyebrow rising in disappointment, ‘Jeff Whatsit from the TV station has already been in touch in a mad panic to make sure I realise the fact that I know every detail means I will not say a thing now, but can have the exclusive in two weeks. He’s like a terrier. Ferocious yet kind of cuddly all the same. I like him.’

  ‘Despite everything, I kinda do too.’

  ‘From what I hear, young Chris took quite a shine to you as well. Did you outshine the other lasses in his eyes?’

  ‘Oh, no. At least one of them has outshone the lot of us.’

  Maya sighed. ‘So true love reigns in the end.’

  Cara bit her lip and nodded. ‘I guess it does.’

  ‘So you haven’t been having a mad fling with a grip? I always liked the sound of that job title: Grip.’

  ‘No,’ Cara laughed. ‘I didn’t have a mad fling with a grip.’

  Maya flicked a telling glance Cara’s way and she fought to smile calmly back.

  ‘Don’t mess with me, darling, I’m too old and too frosty to sit here and pretend to believe your hogwash. If a grip didn’t steal your heart, somebody did. You’re all pale and sickly and it’s not just young Gracie’s loss that has made you look this way.’

  Cara chose her words carefully. ‘You have to admit, my being in that atmosphere for the last couple of weeks can’t have helped the situation any. The whole set-up has been put in place to create the perfect location in which two people could fall in love.’

  ‘Bah! People fall in love in factories, in diners, on tops of mountains. Location is a small part of the story, what matters is the people. So, tell me, my sweet, did somebody steal your heart?’

  Cara shrugged, but not with much effort. Her whole body felt bruised, way more than after she had hurt herself during the baseball game. They were just superficial injuries. For some reason her whole body ached. Maybe she was getting the flu.

  ‘Maybe a little,’ she admitted. ‘But it doesn’t matter. I was there to work and you know me. It’s always about the job. Not about me.’

  ‘Well, it’s damn well about time it is about you, Cara. You don’t always have to play the good girl. You’re all grown up now; you’ve been away from the familial home for nearly ten years. It’s time you gave yourself a break.’

  ‘I don’t think I have it in me to play the bad girl, Maya.’

  ‘Don’t be bad, be true. True to yourself. Not to some perfect vision of yourself. Listen to your heart and do as it tells you. It pumps your lifeblood through every inch of your body, so it certainly should be given a lot more credit than you have given it to date.’

  Cara had nothing to say to that. She stared out the window, watching the trees swaying with the hot, humid wind that had been buffeting the city all the day, signifying a change was in the air.

  That night Cara took her time smoothing down Chris’s tie as he readied himself for the final day of the shoot. She wanted to savour every moment of this, her last day.

  ‘Are you ready, buddy?’ Cara asked him for the final time.

  ‘More than I ever thought I would be,’ Chris said, his voice steady. He turned to her and grasped her hands in both of his. ‘And a great deal of that is thanks to you. Without your support I could very well have been turned to the dark side by my solemn friend.’

  Cara noted he did not use Adam’s name. And she knew that Chris knew exactly what she was going through, a slow, sure but necessary breaking of her heart. Cara braved a smile and clasped a tight hold of his hand, amazed that she had found herself such a firm friend under such unusual circumstances.

  ‘Did you think you would find what you were looking for from this process?’

  Chris thought about it a moment. ‘I did. But in the end I found more than I ever imagined I would.’

  ‘You really love her, don’t you, Chris?’

  ‘I really do.’

  Cara threw herself into Chris’s arms and gave him a huge bear hug. ‘I can tell. You’re glowing.’

  ‘That’s what the power of love will do to a guy.’

  Cara nodded. ‘It suits you.’

  Chris held her at arm’s length, his eyes narrowing as he took her in. ‘Along the same lines, what’s with all the sunken eyes and stooping walk? You look like the world is on your shoulders.’

  Cara moved away and headed over to the clothes rack, and began flicking blindly through the suits and shirts. ‘I think I’m getting the flu. Or something. I’ve got the whole aching-muscle-sleepless-night thing going on.’

  ‘I guess that’s what the power of love can do to a girl.’

  Cara pretended she hadn’t heard him. She picked out a tie and held it up to him. ‘Do you think this would be a better choice?’

  Chris held a hand over hers, and her panicky gaze flickered to him.

  ‘You should tell him.’

  She opened her mouth to ask who but thought better of it. Instead she gave him a weak shrug. ‘Can’t.’

  Chris let forth an expletive that she hadn’t imagined such a sweet guy would have in his repertoire. ‘The two of you are as bad as one another. And here I am, having the most exciting time of my life, yet at the same time caught in the middle, watching the two of you pine away for one another.’

  ‘I’m not pining,’ Cara insisted. But her mind was off and running in a whole other direction. He’s pining? Wherever the guy is, he’s actually pining?

  But Chris glared back at her.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I was supposed to be the one giving you a pep talk.’

  ‘I don’t need a pep talk. I know what I want and I am going out there to get it. Can you say the same for yourself?’

  She couldn’t give him a straight answer so, borrowing a move from someone she knew, she just shrugged and let him fill the silence.

  ‘Just don’t take too long to figure it out, Cara.’

  And then, without a doubt in the world, Chris walked out of the room, more than ready to propose to the woman he loved.

  But he was stopped the moment he hit the hallway by Adam on the fly. Chris held up a hand to fend off his friend and just kept on walking. ‘Where the hell have you been these last couple of days?’

  ‘Working. Wheeling. Dealing.’

  ‘Pfft,’ Chris scoffed. ‘Hiding, more like it. And whatever you have to say can keep until after the filming.’

  Adam settled into a slow walk a few feet behind his friend. Wow. He had never seen Chris so determined. He walked with a purpose. His usually fuzzy edges were clear and crisp. He even looked taller than usual. Adam told him so.

  Chris wasn’t in the mood. ‘I said don’t.’

  ‘But it’s true.’

  Chris stopped only to press the button on the lift and Adam was able to catch up.

  ‘I only came up here to wish you good luck today.’

  Adam flinched under his friend’s silent wary gaze.

  ‘I mean it, Chris.’ Adam placed a hand on Chris’s shoulder. ‘I can see how much this experience has changed you. Helped you. Made you happy. And for that there is no way I can make any s
ort of complaint.’

  ‘Are you joshing me?’

  ‘No, I’m not. I am here to shake your hand and to wish you all the best. Treat her well and I’ll leave it up to you to make sure she does the same for you.’

  Chris was still not completely convinced.

  ‘I can’t complain that you are a total romantic, mate,’ Adam said. ‘You need to be at least a little fanciful to be a really good inventor. And you’re the best I’ve ever seen.’

  Adam held out a hand in conciliation but Chris would have none of that. He grabbed the hand only to pull Adam into a hearty bear hug.

  ‘Thanks, mate. That means the world to me.’

  Adam gave Chris’s back one last slap before pulling away.

  ‘I could offer you some pretty similar advice right now, Adam,’ Chris said with a sympathetic smile playing about his mouth.

  Adam blinked.

  ‘Please,’ Chris said. ‘You can try to pull the strong, silent method on me but it will never work. I’ve known you too long. But you have shown me today you can stay out of my business when it is warranted so I will show you the same courtesy.’

  The lift binged and the doors slid open.

  ‘Saved by the bell,’ Chris said, stepping into the lift.

  ‘Now go get her, mate,’ Adam said, acting the jovial friend again. ‘Make sure one of those kisses she gets is from me. And tell her so.’

  Chris nodded. And as the doors closed Adam could sense his friend leaving him as his thoughts reached out to someone else. A woman waiting for him to reveal himself to her. Adam only hoped that woman knew how good she was about to have it.

  He looked back down the hallway and saw Chris’s closed suite door. He knew Cara would be behind that door. Alone. And after having sat with Chris all evening she must have been thinking along much the same lines that he was.

  They had been thrown together under such odd circumstances and neither had any idea if what they felt would survive in the real world. So he had left. He had gone home. And it had killed him not seeing her.

  He could only wait and see and hope that she had felt the same way.

  CHAPTER TWELVE