by Kent, Julia
Someone cut the power to the television, everyone turning and gawking openly. Murphy’s eyebrows were in his hairline and he shook his head, muttered something under his breath, and left the room.
Finally, the chief took two steps toward him, inhaled slowly, then planted his hands on his hips, shifting his weight to one leg. His jaw flexing with tension, he said, “Stanwyck, you got something you wanna tell us?”
“I thought you’d been promoted. Not that you’re the new owner!” Shelly stormed into Mike’s office with spit and vinegar, looking like a younger version of Madge. It was unnerving. Being yelled at by a teenager wasn’t on his list of expected experiences this morning, so his response was stunned silence.
“Hello? Going to say something?”
“What are you talking about?” Shit. Had someone in the CFO’s office finally leaked the truth? He reached for his travel mug and took a long sip of coffee, buying time.
“The television show. All about you and some hot firefighter bachelor auction dude being billionaires. It’s all over the morning talk shows and even on the radio.”
Spew. He shot drops of coffee all over his desk, choking, the coughs racking his chest as he set down the mug. Oh, my God. Oh, my fucking God. Dylan had been so wrong. Why hadn’t they told Laura? She was going to kill them.
No. Worse.
She was going to leave them.
He jumped up, tipping the travel mug on its side, a pool of tan coffee inching its way to contaminate the papers, the stapler, the tape dispenser. Shelly grabbed the mug and uprighted it, plucking tissues from a box on the desk to mop up the mess. He was out the door as she shouted, “Where are you going?”
Getting to Laura before she heard the news was his only rational thought. If she heard before they told her...Sprinting to his jeep, he frantically searched his pants pockets for his keys before he realized he’d left them back in the office. By the time he got back there, Shelly was finishing her cleanup of his desk. The words “thank you” were about to exit his mouth as he searched for his keys, eyes methodically cataloging the desk’s surface when she tipped her face up with a dismissive expression.
“Looking for these?” The keys dangled from her finger. No words. He grabbed the ring and left as she screamed, “You’re welcome!” to his disappearing back.
Unlock car. Climb in. Insert key. Turn. Reverse. Gas. Thank God for autonomous responses, because he was working on muscle memory right now, the jeep racing down the mountain to go to the city, to find Laura, to—
To what? He had no plan. Punching the steering wheel, he flipped the radio to the channel most likely to be chattering about him and Dylan, a stupid DJ show known for caustic comics and nasty, biting commentary on local sports and characters.
Traffic report. Great. Now he knew everything was backed up before exit eighteen eastbound because a tractor-trailer jackknifed. How critical. And now the sports report. Another football player with CTE. Yet another arrested for abusing his wife. And now someone accused of doping. The miles passed as he balanced speeding with getting caught.
Ding! His phone notified him he had a text. He was guessing it was Dylan. Ignoring it, he just...drove. Wasn’t sure where. Just needed to get closer to Laura.
Ring, ring! If Dylan was using the phone then he must know. Mike reached into his shirt pocket and answered. “Hello?”
“Shit, Mike. Have you watched the morning news shows yet?” He sounded as panicked and sick as Mike felt.
“No, but Shelly just told me everything. Fuck of a day to be there super-early for inventory.”
“We need to get to Laura.”
“Where is she?” The clock read 8:12 a.m. “At work by now?”
“That’s what I’m guessing, too.” The radio DJs started saying something about firefighter billionaires. Mike’s brain couldn’t process driving, talking with Dylan, and their banter. Situation fucked up, though, if this was all over the morning commute. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“I told you we should—”
“You can chew me out later, dude. Let’s work on fixing this.” Steel edged his words, filling in the spaces where panic receded. Don’t fuck with me right now, Mike, he seemed to say. I don’t have it in me.
“Fair enough.” Silence.
“She works at the Stohlman building downtown. Thirty-second floor. Meet me at the reception desk. How far are you?”
Mike ran a quick mental calculation. “Twenty minutes?”
“I’m a little closer. Probably beat you by five.”
“Just get there and try to explain it before she sees it plastered all over the fucking television or hears some disc jockey cackling about it.” Click. He pressed “end” and found himself practically throwing the phone out the window. His ears perked and zeroed in on the DJs’ conversation.
“So this guy is just some muscled firefighter who oils up for these bachelor charity auctions and gives some rich cougar a nice night while underprivileged kids or AIDS patients or earthquake victims get an extra grand to spend on help. And now it turns out his girlfriend dies and leaves him a billion? Where can I find some rich, young woman to leave me a billion?” Mike’s knuckles turned white against the tan steering wheel as he gritted his teeth and sped up.
Different voice, higher and more derisive. “OK, sure, I can see that. It’s like 50 Shades of Fire, right? But why’d she leave another billion to the other dude, the ski resort guy.”
Pause. A woman’s voice. “Maybe she was livin’ the dream?”
Derisive DJ: “The dream?”
Woman DJ: “You know. Two guys.”
First DJ: “That’s our dream!”
Derisive DJ: “Your dream is two guys?” The radio spilled over with giggles and full-throated guffaws.
First DJ: “Haha, no—two women! Two chicks for one dick, man. For a billion bucks, though, I might do two guys. (Laughter). Girls don’t fantasize about threesomes with two guys— ”
Woman DJ: “In what universe? Of course we—”
Mike cut the radio off with a sharp flick of the wrist. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Laura was about to be completely devastated. She had openly asked them to tell her their secrets, and Dylan had told him they should wait. Dylan. God damn it! He’d listened to Dylan and this—this was the end result.
How had anyone found out about the trust? And of course the news station would use the whole firefighter bachelor angle. What a great lead. He knew the brouhaha would die down within days, and soon people wouldn’t talk about it, but that didn’t help him to get through this minute, the next hour, the next day— and he couldn’t predict Laura’s reaction here. She may already be lost. But he had to try.
The highway was packed with the tail end of the morning commute, the pike thick but moving at about forty mph. Better than nothing. What had they been thinking, keeping the whole billionaire thing from her? That night in their apartment, dinner and a movie, everyone coming clean and her open, honest request that they not keep secrets—why had they, then? Her openness had been so damn appealing and they’d flung it in her face (behind her back), still hiding like creeps with a secret that, now that it was out, really wasn’t that bad. How many women wouldn’t like to date someone who could buy their hometown? Who could make it so they never had to work again? What was so shameful about the money that he and Dylan had pretended to be working class saps while cashing trust fund checks?
Their stupid fear. That’s what it all boiled down to. Dylan would never in a million years call it fear, but that was the word for it. He could posture and preen and flex and be Mr. Macho all he wanted and claim he was waiting for the right moment, wanted Laura to get comfortable, wanted the three to bond more before dumping such big news on her, but in the end he was just a big old pussy who didn’t want to confront the emotional landmine the money created.
And it exploded in their faces.
Construction held up traffic near downtown, making him change the channel to AM radio to hear the news report about alternate routes. Ten more minutes of
inching through a mile of traffic and he was free. He hadn’t been downtown that often and was unsure; Boston wasn’t exactly laid out in a grid like his hometown in Indiana, but he was able eventually, with two different circlings of Laura’s financial-district building, to find a parking garage and park.
$35 for a few hours? Doesn’t matter, stupid, his conscience hissed. Oh. Yeah. All his old ideas about life and money didn’t apply any more. Ski Instructor Mike had pinched pennies to buy time and freedom. Billionaire Mike needed to pinch himself and wake up from his stupor of denial. He and Dylan had fucked up so badly by not telling her the truth. And she wasn’t going to handle this well. It’s the lying. Not the actual truth itself.
And Jill never bothered to tell you guys, either.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he raced to the skyscraper’s main lobby, then searched for the right set of elevators to take him to the thirty-second floor. If Dylan had beaten him, he was upstairs already, hopefully with Laura.
Time was their biggest enemy right now.
No, he thought. We are our biggest enemy.
The murmurs coming from down the hallway were loud enough for Laura to come out of her office and poke around. She only shut her door when she needed to make calls or just had to tune out the drone of corporate life to get some actual work done on reports or code. Her half-open beige door allowed sound to travel easily from the reception area, and she heard Debbie, the receptionist, gasp and say, “Oh, that’s Laura’s delivery guy!”
Huh? She fast-walked down the hall to see what on earth the ruckus was about. Her delivery guy? What delivery guy? Then her face flushed hot. Dylan? Did Debbie mean Dylan? He’d posed as a flower delivery dude that day when he’d come to her office and they’d—
She flushed even more. Then her nether regions swelled with heat. Oh, my. Just thinking about hot monkey office sex was getting her—
Laura came to a screeching halt at the sight before her in the reception area, where ten or so coworkers were crowded around the lobby television. Normally set to news, this time was no different, the morning chat show that masqueraded as “news” barking out into the open area.
Except this time, Dylan was the feature of a video clip, dressed in—my, my!
Shirtless Dylan, with an oiled chest and red bow tie, wearing the bottom half of a fireman’s uniform and carrying an ax? While strolling down a runway at a charity bachelor auction. She laughed; she’d seen the same clip on YouTube. But why was he being featured on a morning news show?
“Laura, that’s him, right? The guy who delivered flowers to you a few weeks ago.” Debbie nudged a woman standing next to her. “I could never forget that, uh...face. Yeah,” she said with a low whistle. “That face.”
“With a chest and abs like that, who needs to look at his face?” someone said, her voice older and smoky. The women in the group laughed. The video ended and the scene cut to the co-hosts on comfy couches, two women and a man doing that chat thing that was designed to keep people watching.
“Records show that Dylan Stanwyck, firefighter extraordinaire, former model, and one of Boston’s hottest bachelors, is the heir to shipping tycoon Richard Matthews’ daughter’s estate. Matthews’ daughter, Jillian, died in 2010 and left Stanwyck, her longtime lover, a trust fund of $1.1 billion, with an annual income of more than $50 million.”
Laura’s stomach turned to acid. Debbie’s eyes were as wide as saucers as her head bounced between gawking at Laura and staring at the television. One of the men in the room walked away quietly.
“Holy shit,” someone muttered. “A billionaire?”
“What’s he doing delivering flowers?” Debbie squeaked.
“Sources confirm that her $2.2 billion estate was split between Stanwyck and Mike Pine, a local ski instructor who recently used his inheritance to purchase the struggling Cedar Mountain Ski Resort. Here’s to the lucky lady who finds her way to either man as the billionaire bachelors become the hottest dates in town and Stanwyck can buy himself many times over now in whatever charity auction he pleases.”
Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod, her mind screamed. Rooted in place, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t inhale. Couldn’t feel her fingertips or her lips or her eyelids. Dylan and Mike? Jill? Billions? Money? Why hadn’t they—? What were they doing—? Wha?
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Like a robot, she reached in and mechanically looked. Five texts.
Dylan: “Laura, please call me now.”
Mike: “Laura? Call me.”
Dylan: “I’m coming to see you at work.”
Mike: “On my way to see you.”
and Josie: “Those assholes. I am so sorry. Come to my apartment to hide.”
“Laura!” Debbie squealed, pulling on her arm. “He wasn’t just a delivery guy, was he?” Her expression showed she was very proud of herself to connecting the (obvious) dots. “Oh, my God, you were dating him! Are you still dating him? Holy shit, you landed the most eligible billionaire bachelor in Boston? You’re, like, Anastasia Steele!” The room broke out into a mixture of nervous laughter and derisive murmurs. Debbie’s long, perfect, chocolate-brown hair shimmered down her shoulders and her creamy skin made Laura want to claw her.
“If I had a billionaire boyfriend I sure would quit in a heartbeat!” Debbie couldn’t—wouldn’t— shut up, and Laura was quickly growing faint, her heart rate through the roof and brain spinning out of control. Air. She needed air.
“Do you know the Mike guy? Does he have a girlfriend?” Shut up, Debbie! Her mind screamed. She opened her mouth to say the words when her boss touched Debbie’s elbow lightly and pointed to the phone, which was lit up like a Christmas tree with waiting callers. Mercifully, Debbie sat down and plucked her way through call after call as her boss mouthed the words “go home” and made a shooing gesture.
She needed to escape the Red Lobby of Pain right.this.minute and a flood of gratitude overwhelmed her. “Thank you,” she mouthed back. Shaking Debbie off, she fast-walked back to her office, grabbed her purse, and fled down the back staircase. Thirty-two flights of stairs in a spiral pattern of nausea would take her mind off whatever was coming, right?
Those bastards. Step, click. Step, click. She’d forgotten how hard navigating stairs could be in heels. Tears pooling in her eyes didn’t help, the grey, institution cinderblock walls floating as she descended carefully. Step, click. Step, click.
Billionaires? Billionaires? Really? Seriously? Could they have kept something bigger from her? It had been bad enough that they’d never told her they knew each other, that they were in a committed threesome before meeting her, that they wanted her—and had set up that night in the cabin as some sort of test. She was still raw from that—and had just started to heal from it, allowing herself to trust them slowly, giving herself permission to believe deeply that this was going to work, and that they could overcome convention and find their own, unique path to happiness.
Just. Just barely. She needed more time, more experiences, more of everything to understand how to function as one woman with two men, to be so wanted and craved that she could satisfy them both.
The tears flowed freely now, her nose filling, and she fumbled for a tissue. Step, click. Step, click. She stopped, searching her purse. No luck. Ah, fuck it. Her skirt felt too tight, restricting her calves as she worked the stairs, and finally, in a fit of desperation, she slipped off her heels and walked in her stocking feet, the hose snagging within half a flight and making her foot cling slightly to each step. Nothing was going right today.
She snorted, snot pouring out of her nose, and using the back of her hand she wiped the bubbles as best she could. Who cared what she looked like now? The billionaires? What a spike to the heart that thought was as she reached the twenty-seventh floor. She remembered how Dylan had casually grabbed the check, how she’d wondered how a firefighter could afford such a fancy place. Hah! Joke was on her! He was a fucking billionaire, made stupendously rich by Jill.
Jill. Of course she was a wil
dly rich heiress. Of course. It wasn’t enough to look like she was chiseled by people making a model of beach volleyball players. And it also wasn’t enough that she was this dead, perfect girlfriend Laura could never measure up to.
She was also ridiculously wealthy and had made Dylan and Mike filthy, stinking rich, too?
Sharp, bitter laughter echoed up and down the stairs as Laura cackled, mad with overwhelm. She just couldn’t win, could she?
“I give, Jill! I surrender!” she shouted, her voice carrying like crazy through the stairwell. “You win! Uncle! Uncle! I can never be you. Dylan and Mike can’t even tell me that you left them more money than God. You are perfect from the grave! You even made the balls on the warlock waitress at Jeddy’s! You’re a fucking legend!” Laura’s arms outstretched as she screamed the word “legend,” her shoes flying out of her hand and tumbling down the metal railings, plink, plunk, plonk as they rattled and rolled, landing who knows where.
As she rounded the twenty-fifth floor, retrieving her shoes, a security guard poked his head through the door, then entered the staircase. The older gentleman reminded her of her grandfather, a beer gut and kind eyes crashing through her overwrought sensibilities. “Excuse me, Miss?”
She didn’t stop her slow trek. “Yes?” she called back.
“Are you OK? We’re hearing reports of someone yelling in the stairwell.”
“Oh, I’m fine. Just getting some exercise.” Her voice had that shaky hitch to it she got when she was upset, but she tried to cover it up by acting winded. “And boy, do I need it.”
He followed her, and as she passed him on the spiral one floor down, she saw him pat his stomach. “I’m with you there,” he chuckled. “I’ll walk down behind you if you don’t mind. Just making sure it’s safe here and that there aren’t any troublemakers.”
Great. Just fucking great. She couldn’t even vent without having it ruined. Fuck you, Dylan. Fuck you, Mike. Why would you lie? She thumped and skipped her way down, moving faster now that she had an audience, hoping she could get to the bottom without making herself dizzy. She’d been a tad lightheaded these past couple days and didn’t need the added dose of unreality from spinning around and around as she descended thirty-two floors.
