Billionaire's Secret: The Complete Series

by Simone Sowood

  “Sorry, babe, not tonight,” Collin said touching my cheek.

  I pursed my lips and stood up straight, giving the car room to drive away. The tail lights pulled away, and I watched them until they mingled with the rest of the cars on the road.

  There was a heavy weight in my stomach as I turned the key in the lock and went inside my apartment. Somehow it seemed even emptier than it had when I left it.

  I wish I could contact Abbie, somehow, anyhow. She would tell me to follow my heart and forget about anything else.

  Chamomile tea in hand, I flopped onto my couch and flicked on the television. After listening to some men shout, some different men shout and a low-budget local ad for mattresses, I flicked the television off again.

  Abandoning my tea, I stumbled to my bedroom and collapsed on the bed. As much as I wanted to be asleep, I could not stop the chatter in my mind. Abbie. Mom. Abbie. Mom. Collin. The last time I glanced at my clock, it was after three and I had work in the morning.

  * * *

  I waved at Sam as she entered the bar. Our Friday night drinks were not the same without Abbie. Nothing was the same without Abbie. But I’d told myself over and over all week, that I could not worry about her so much. It was killing me. I couldn’t do any more than I’d already done for her.

  Of course she was my best friend, and I would always be there for her in a heartbeat. As far as I knew she was off on some last-minute trip to Europe with Jay, and I still didn’t know where I stood with Collin.

  “Here, get this down your throat.” Sam stuck a glass of white wine on the table in front of me, next to the glass of red wine that I’d half drunk while waiting for her to arrive.

  “I can’t get over Abbie,” I said.

  “I told you she was in deep with him. I saw them together the day of the email.”

  “Yeah, and now she’s in France with him, living out some dream.”

  “I don’t know what you’re complaining about. You’ve got your own man. Unlike some people sitting at this table.” Sam gestured around the four-seater table, pointing at the two empty chairs and herself.

  “Do I? I haven’t heard from him in a week. He’s gone silent on me.” My voice wavered as I’d said it. For all I knew, he’d up and moved to Cancun.

  “Of course you do, don’t be silly.”

  I chucked the last of the red wine down my throat and started to sip the white, then remembered too much alcohol was how I got in this mess in the first place. I set the glass of white back down.

  “I’m sorry, I’m not feeling very Friday night tonight. I want to go home to bed.”

  “Alone, or with someone?”

  I creased my brow at her and was about to open my mouth to answer when I realized I had no answer.

  “Good night, party pooper,” Sam said as we left the bar.

  On my way home, I couldn’t stop thinking about Collin. Which made me angry at myself, because I should’ve been thinking of my mother, not my trivial boyfriend troubles. Or non-boyfriend troubles, whichever category Collin fit in.

  Rationally, I know thirty isn’t old these days. I know there’s still time to find someone and settle down and get my golden retriever puppy. But my mother’s words echoed through my head. You realize it’s time to settle down. Repeat.

  Was Collin even the person I would want to settle down with? One word smacked me in the forehead: Partier. What kind of a father would a “professional partier” make? Even if he was rich. Especially if he was living in Cancun. Or anywhere I wasn’t.

  Who was I kidding? There was just no way an actual relationship with Collin could ever work. This was a bit of fun with an ex, nothing more.

  He was going to move on to Cancun, and that would be the end of that. I had to stop pretending it might ever be anything more. It had taken me long enough to get over him the first time, I didn’t need to set myself up for that pain again.

  The big question now was how I was going to achieve the goal I’d assigned myself on my birthday of finding a husband. Especially when I couldn’t stop thinking about Collin.

  The whole idea of finding a husband who wasn’t Collin wrenched my heart, no matter how many times I told myself the logic behind it.

  I pushed the elevator button, once, twice. Ten times. More. Why couldn’t life just be simple?

  Collin

  My phone beeped with an email notification. My brow creased. Strange. It was from Raylene. She never emails.

  Hey baby it was a big mistake blocking me from your phone. You better not be fucking me over, I will bring you down and make sure you never see Harlan again. Pay me lots of money now and this will all go away. Does Jenny know about me? Because I can tell her for you, if you want.

  My heart pumped in fury. Paying her fifty million dollars was ridiculous. She must know that. I offered her five, and she said no. Greedy bitch. One year of a sham marriage and a child she doesn’t want custody of anyway and she thinks she deserves one of the highest divorce settlements in history.

  But the last line of her email worried me. Who told her about Jenny? How could I make sure Raylene didn’t contact her? This was a whole new problem.

  “Daniel,” I said into my phone.

  “What’s up?”

  “I just got an email from Raylene. Now she’s threatening to go to Jenny if I don’t pay up.”

  “Fuck, that’s a whole new problem.” I rolled my eyes.

  “No shit. Make this go away.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Make this settlement your top priority. Finalize the damn thing. I’m tired of waiting.”

  “It has been my fucking priority. It’s you not wanting to pay her what she’s asking.”

  “As if I’m going to pay her that much money. Find a solution.” My heart rate sped as I punched the end call button.

  I sat forward on the sofa, my elbows resting on my thighs as I flicked through photos of Harlan on my phone, to calm myself. Him sitting on the beach in front of the house playing with the sand. In the nanny’s arms as she pointed at a bird. On a swing at the playground.

  My finger swiped the screen and I recoiled at the image: Harlan in Raylene’s arms. How did that get in my phone? At first I put my finger on Raylene’s face to blot her out of the image but took it away to examine her.

  Petite, brunette, amber eyes. But nowhere near as beautiful as Jenny. Especially since Raylene always had the glassy drunk look in her eyes.

  How did I ever end up married to her? Unfortunately, most of my life between Paris and Honolulu was a blur. I could remember bits and pieces. Particularly good nights or big purchases. Bits here and there. But not a lot else.

  I remember Daniel taking me aside in Honolulu and telling me one of my employees had filled her phone with compromising photos and that she wanted money for her silence.

  And I remember Daniel and Blake pouncing on me in my Honolulu office and telling me I’d knocked up the same little brunette bartender with the photos.

  Daniel told me to marry her, because I was stupid enough to fuck that same employee and get her pregnant. He said I deserved my fate, that I’d brought it all on myself. So I married her to keep her under control, even though I’d never had a sober conversation with her in my life.

  When I stopped drinking and actually talked to her, I realized how much I hated her. She was a nasty, nasty person who only cared about herself.

  I still went ahead and married her, to buy her silence but also because she was pregnant with my baby and for some stupid reason I thought that’s what an honorable father did. But one day living with her and I’ve been trying to reach a divorce settlement ever since.

  Becoming a father changed something in me. The partying lost its appeal overnight. Instead, all I wanted to do was give the kid a chance in life. And any chance meant getting him away from his mother Raylene, who had somehow managed to increase her partying after his birth. If you can call her a mother. I don’t. No real mother would use their baby as somethi
ng to sell to get rich.

  Instead, I mentally superimposed Jenny’s face on hers, and pretended that she was the real mother of my child. If only. Too bad life hadn’t worked out the way it was supposed to. When I got on that plane to London, I never thought for one second I was leaving Jenny forever.

  The noise of the key in the lock pulled me from my thoughts.

  “Fuck! You scared me,” Jenny shouted.

  “Sorry, babe, I didn’t mean to. I was just waiting for you to come home.”

  Her eyes widened, but she wasn’t angry. I could tell. Or, if she was angry it was from ignoring her all week, not from being here now.

  I stood and pulled her into an embrace and she melted against my body.

  “How long have you been here for?”

  “Not long. An hour.”

  “An hour? You know they do have these things called cell phones now, you could’ve called and I would’ve come home.”

  “I didn’t want to interfere with your plans.” She looked up and me, half her mouth scrunched up.

  “Have you eaten?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Want to order a pizza?”

  I shrugged. “We can go out someplace nice if you want.”

  “Not really. I’m tired, that’s why I came home.”

  “Okay, pizza it is.”

  “Where have you been all week?” She broke away from me to meet my gaze.

  “Cancun.” I wondered if I’d imagined her recoil as I said the word.

  “Your next big place?”

  “First Rio, then Seoul, then Cancun.”

  Jenny pinched her lips together and nodded her head. “Rio. That’s far.”

  I shrugged. She spun on her toes and sat on the sofa, her feet curled under her. I paused for a moment, debating between the sofa and the chair, before taking the sofa.

  “Listen,” I said sitting forward and taking her hands, “I have to go down there for two weeks.”

  “Down where?”

  “Rio. I want you to come with me.” Her eyes flashed before her shoulders slumped.

  “I can’t. We have a big launch coming up and I’m buried. I’m going to be working crazy hours the next few weeks. But thank you. I would’ve loved to come. That would’ve been fun.”

  I’d have liked to tell her to quit her job and come with me, forever, but there was no way I wanted her wrapped up in this. She’d never have said yes to the idea anyway.

  “Next time.”

  “Yes, after the product launches, I have some vacation time I need to use up before the end of the year.”

  A broad smile spread across my face and I moved to sit beside her on the sofa.

  “Excellent. I need a vacation.”

  I put my arm around her shoulders, and she leaned her weight against me. With my other hand, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the perfume I’d bought for her.

  “I forgot to give you this.” I put the little wrapped box in her hand.

  “What’s this?” she asked, cocking her head.

  “I bought it in Houston.”

  Her eyes met mine as she tore off the paper the clerk had wrapped it in. Jenny took the Cartier perfume from the box and sprayed it onto her wrist. Seeing the cheap perfume made me feel silly, I should’ve got her something better. Something more meaningful. She put her wrist to her nose and breathed in the scent.

  I couldn’t resist her any longer and took her wrist and put it to my own nose. The scent intoxicated me, sending a rush of blood straight to my groin.

  She didn’t resist as I pulled her into the bedroom, ripped off her clothes and fucked her until her throat hurt from screaming my name.

  * * *

  Somewhere over the Caribbean, a shitty mood overtook me. I couldn’t figure out how to get my life to be what I wanted it to be, and it pissed me off. Why was I wasting my time sitting on this jet? Even if it was my private jet. I was so tired of doing this. I should retire.

  The new club opened in two days, and I was going to make the VIPs in Rio feel like they were the most special VIPs in the world. Plus, I always liked to look everything over last minute, and make sure it was up to my standards. Except I had no desire to do any of it anymore. I wanted to put the nightclub-owning party-life behind me for good.

  An hour later, the mood still engulfed me. How could I fix my life? All I wanted was Harlan and Jenny. I didn’t need anything else. I had half a mind to turn the plane around and fly straight back to Chicago.

  But I couldn’t. My situation was difficult to extract myself from and would take time.

  “Daniel,” I said into my cell phone in the back of the car on the way to my hotel. To yet another hotel. I wanted my own fucking house.

  “What’s up?”

  “I want out.”

  “What do you mean you want out?”

  “I mean I’m tired of this shit. Get me out of it. I’m retiring.”

  “That’s not going to be easy. Just hang on until the divorce is settled or it will get even messier.”

  “Fucking hell. Seriously?”

  “Unless you’re planning to move in with Raylene when you retire.”

  “Piss off.” I banged my fist against the car door.

  “I’m serious.”

  “What do I have to do to get rid of her?”

  “Drop the idea of getting Harlan.”

  “No, I’m not going to drop the idea of getting my son. Who the fuck would do that?”

  “He’s with his mother. Lots of people would think that’s the best place for him.”

  “That’s because they’ve never met his mother.”

  “Why the fuck did you go and knock her up anyway? You couldn’t use a condom?”

  “Beats the fuck out of me, I don’t even remember any of it.”

  “Asswipe.” Daniel burst out laughing.

  “Yeah, because you’ve remembered everyone you’ve fucked.”

  “Well, it’s the dumbest fucking thing you’ve ever done.”

  “I think I know that, but thank you for pointing it out. Again.”

  “My pleasure.”

  “Whatever. Is there any news on her from the people you’ve got watching her?”

  “Not really. She’s been partying pretty hard but that’s about it.”

  “Perfect, that’s the kind of house I want my baby to be in.”

  “We’ll get him out. Don’t worry.”

  “Work on getting me out too. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  We pulled up in front of the Belmond Copacabana Palace hotel and a doorman opened the car door for me. I stepped out into the dripping wet heat of Rio de Janeiro and was reminded of Hawaii in July.

  I wonder if I could convince Jenny to move to Hawaii with me. We could get a beach house with a big wall around it and hide from the world.

  Jenny

  It was a good thing Collin was in Rio. I was buried in this product launch, and as usual the numbers the accounts analyst gave us didn’t seem right. There wasn’t much I could do, or any of us in our department, because it was a hunch.

  We weren’t spreadsheet jockeys, we knew nothing about numbers. We were the creatives, and we depended on others to give us accurate information.

  “These numbers are so fucked up,” my co-worker Dan said. He always panicked. Except when he had something to panic about.

  “I’ve been to see everyone in that effing department, and they all swear up and down the numbers are good,” Belinda said.

  “Fine, we all agree the numbers are bad. So, what do we do?” I said.

  “I am escalating this,” Dan said, typing frantically on his keyboard.

  “Good,” Belinda said.

  My desk phone rang, startling me.

  “Jenny speaking.”

  “Jenny, there’s an Abbie here to see you. She looks real upset.”

  My heart stopped. It must be bad if Abbie turned up in my reception.

  “Be
right there.”

  I turned to Dan and Belinda. Dan had a look of sheer terror on his face. This was his project, and I shared his frustration and anger. But Abbie needed me.

  “I’ll be right back.” I stood and rushed to reception.

  Abbie was standing but looked as though her legs would give out any minute. I rushed to her and put my arm around her to take her weight.

  I could tell she was about to break down, so ushered her into one of the meeting rooms. I sat in the chair next to her and put my arm around her.

  “Is this to do with Jay?”

  Abbie nodded. He’d better not have hurt her again or he was going to get it from me. Poor Abbie was so naive. But with such a pure heart. She just couldn’t comprehend anyone being anything but genuine.

  She struggled to find a job after the whole city found out she was fucking her boss, the billionaire James McAllister. Except she didn’t know he was the owner of her company, but everyone in Chicago assumed Abbie knew. She started to tell me about how she’d found out Jay bought her company and had them hire her, so she’d have a job. Jay bought a fricking company for her, and she’s pissed about that? Except he also just told her that he’d told everyone in Chicago not to hire her, which sounded absurd to me.

  Dan poked his head in the door and said, “Jenny, we really need you in this meeting.”

  He was stressed and at breaking point too, but I had to help Abbie first.

  “Sweetie, I don’t believe that he told everyone in Chicago not to give you a job. Think about it, that’s impossible, I don’t care how much money he has. Use your head.” Man, that sounded snappy and annoyed. I hoped she didn’t notice.

  Dan reappeared, “Jenny, this is a crisis situation.”

  “Sorry, Dan. I’ll be quick.”

  Abbie blew her nose and I passed her another Kleenex. I rubbed my hand up and down her arm.

  “Sweetie, I know it’s crazy news but I honestly think he was only trying to help you. He owed you anyway.”

  Belinda appeared in the door and said, “Jenny, Dan’s freaking out.”