by Sara Celi
Five. A good start in a city with hundreds of buildings on which to brand my name. And soon enough, I’d own this one.
Not bad, Trevor, not bad at all.
Acquiring Ross Publishing would be the crown jewel of my empire, the brightest diamond in an array of prime real estate and holdings that spanned three states and almost a billion dollars in gross assets. Once I added this company and turned it profitable, I’d be within sight of becoming a billionaire before age forty.
I could get used to that distinction very quickly. Even for all his efforts, my dad had never made that exclusive list.
Besides, this city was full of less successful stories. I knew I should be thankful that opportunity and fortune had tossed me a few bones. But it had been a hollow ride. Why? I tossed back the remainder of the bourbon, frowned, and rubbed at the back of my neck, while the burn of the liquor settled in my stomach like a rock. I’d thought unparalleled success would feel better than it did, and yet an emptiness as vast as the city before me plagued my soul and gnawed at my innards.
Success had made me lonely. Very lonely. It hadn’t been something that I wanted to admit, but since reaching my late thirties it had become obvious. I might have access to all the material things I could ever want, but that didn’t take away the sting of having no one to share any of it.
I turned around when the door slammed.
Ashton rushed into the room after being gone for about fifteen minutes. His pale face glistened with a fine sheen of sweat. “I’m sorry, Trevor, really, I am. I screwed this up. I didn’t handle this one the right way, and it’s my fault.”
“Nonsense.” I gave him a short answer simply to make him feel better about the sad state of his life. Never mind my own self-cesspool of regrets. “We’ve thrown a lot at Ainsley in the last hour. I’m sure she needs time to digest it all.”
I retook my seat and set the empty glass on the conference table.
Ashton followed my lead and sat in Ainsley’s vacated chair directly across from me. He gripped the table’s edge as if to steady his shaking hands.
“She’ll come around,” he assured me, his mouth in a tight line. “We can talk some sense into her. She’ll understand this is the only way.”
“Good.” I pointed my left thumb at my chest. “Because I’m the best you’re going to get. You need me more than I need you.” I let that hang in the air before I stood from the table for the final time. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have another meeting to get to.”
Somewhere, somehow, my brother had gone from mildly strange to certifiably insane. There was no way I was going to marry Trevor McNamara. Not him. Not even to save us from certain downfall. I wasn’t for sale. My body and my happiness weren’t business transactions. Ashton couldn’t sell me to the highest bidder, and my life wasn’t up for auction. Who was he kidding?
No way. Not now. Not ever.
Absolutely not.
Besides, if Ashton knew what had happened between Trevor and me that night at the Whitney Museum, he probably wouldn’t have insisted that I marry Trevor. And he would understand why I was more than just a little suspicious of a man who’d done nothing to earn our trust.
I considered telling him about it, but then decided that I’d use it later if I needed to. Instead, after yelling at Ashton in his office and reminding him of the fact that I controlled my own destiny, I went back to my apartment on the fourth floor. Tiredness and stress dragged my body down, threatening to overtake me. I took off my dress, climbed into bed, and passed out seconds after my head hit the pillow. It felt good to push away the pain with a long nap.
A few hours later, I woke to the sound of incessant buzzing at my front door. I threw on the white-cotton robe I found on a hook in the bathroom and padded over to the door. Behind it, I found Ashton leaning against the frame.
He was drunk. I knew that before he opened his mouth.
“Ainsley, I’ve been trying to call you for hours. You’re not answering your phone.”
“I was exhausted.”
“Me, too. But we need to talk. Now.”
I stepped away from the door, invited him inside with a wave of my hand, and led him to the living room. Ashton threw himself onto my overstuffed, gray couch, not bothering to take off his shoes. I sat across from him in the armchair and saw for the first time just how threadbare and worn his loafers had become. He needed a new pair.
I felt another tiny twinge of guilt about the way I’d been spending money in the last few months. I liked the good life, and I’d made sure that I lived in Palm Beach. Most nights there included dinner at a restaurant, and I attended three to five fundraisers or social events a week. All of those required new outfits, blowouts for my hair, manicures, and makeup application.
It seemed so insignificant—and stupid—now.
“I tried to tell you,” Ashton said, his voice coated in whatever alcohol he’d been downing to drown his misery. “I sent you the emails, the board minutes, and the monthly statements. I had my assistant call you several times.”
“I didn’t bother studying any of it,” I admitted in a soft voice, and some more shame brushed over me. I’d been lazy, and here I was, about to start paying for it. “If my bank account had the regular deposits each month, I trusted that we were fine. They always did, so I saw no reason to worry. Why would that change?”
He groaned. “I knew I should have made you take a more active role in the business. Dad even told me to do so a few months before he died. He said he wanted you to spend at least eighteen months getting to know the full breadth of what we do. He didn’t like that you enjoyed all the benefits without understanding the effort it took to make this happen.” His glassy gaze met mine. “But after he died, I indulged you even more than he did. You were devastated by his death, totally shattered. I thought that I’d give you more time, but a few months turned into years. And that’s my fault.”
The guilt in my stomach grew a little stronger. He was right. Ashton had been generous—perhaps too generous. Maybe all this bad luck was payback for that.
“I know you loved him. You were a good son. You always wanted to live up to his expectations.” I rubbed my hand across my forehead. “And you’ve done a good job of that, Ashton.”
“Hardly.” A hollow laugh escaped his lips. “And said just as we teeter on the edge of bankruptcy.”
“That’s not what I mean. I’m talking about who you are, and what kind of character you have inside. You’re a good man, Ashton. He’d love that about you.”
He shifted on the couch and adjusted the pillow behind his head. “I need you to do this, Ainsley. I need you to agree to Trevor McNamara’s request. Our whole existence is counting on you.”
“I already told you—”
“I’m begging you. Pleading with you. We don’t have another way out.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “Trevor McNamara is asking for almost nothing.”
“No. Trevor is asking for everything.”
His mouth opened as if he wanted to reply, but then it snapped shut.
“You know what this is?” I asked. “This is more than just a merger. We’re talking about a major commitment here. Where did you get this ridiculous idea?”
He shrugged.
“Oh, great,” I replied, drawing the unspoken conclusion. “Trevor came to you with this, didn’t he?”
“He’s a smart man, Ainsley. He said he had a feeling—”
I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “I’m sure he did.”
A deep breath escaped Ashton’s lungs. “Okay, I’ll give you a few days to think about it. I owe you that.” He shifted on the couch, took his phone out of his jacket pocket, and unlocked it. After a few moments of studying it, he said, “Since it’s Friday, what if I give you until Monday to think about this? That’s fair.”
“I already know what my answer is going to be. No.” I surveyed the room, taking in the art on the walls and the decorator-inspired touches that had once made this apartment one of the most c
oveted spaces in the whole building. “I’ve been thinking… what’s in here is worth at least 250 thousand. We could sell it, and the unit. I don’t mind.”
Ashton shook his head. “I’m not doing that. I won’t do that.” He sat up and stared directly into my eyes, as if he wanted the fierceness of it to convince me to change my mind. “I don’t want everything our father built to end up in the hands of people who don’t care about it.”
“And Trevor McNamara does?”
“He knows us. His family has a—a history with us.” Ashton made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “He gets this. He does. On some level, he has respect for it, and that’s why I’m willing to entertain him.”
“Too bad he doesn’t like men,” I said under my breath.
Ashton’s face fell. “I’d do anything to save this company, Ainsley, I would. Anything. I have done that. And if he wanted me, then yes, I’d give myself to him.” He set his jaw. “But he wants you.”
I puffed out a large lungful of air.
“Can you at least consider this?” he pleaded. “That’s not asking too much, is it?”
“Fine.” I raked a hand through my hair. It felt tangled and dirty, just like what had become of my life in the previous few hours. “Let’s say I did agree to this—just as a hypothetical. Let’s say I allowed this to happen. How long do I have to stay married to him?”
“According to the prenup his attorneys presented to me this morning, he wants a six-month engagement, then a two-and-a-half-year marriage. Three years total. Just long enough for it to seem like the real thing to the people outside of our family.”
Thirty-six months. I mulled that over in my head. In thirty-six months, I’d be thirty. Not that old. Still young enough to start over, and to forget this mess. But no—no. I wouldn’t do this.
“I’m going back to Palm Beach as soon as possible,” I told my brother.
His shoulders slumped. “I had hoped that you’d stay the weekend.”
“No. I need air.” I glanced out the window at the gray New York cityscape. “I checked the flights, and there’s a cheap one that leaves tomorrow morning out of LaGuardia. I’m going to book it.”
He sighed. “Fine. I suppose we can spare the expense, considering what I’ve sprung on you in the last few days.”
“Thank you.”
“I should also let you know… Trevor sent me an email a short time ago. He’s extending us an interest-free loan to cover our expenses while we hash out this deal.”
My eyes widened. “He is?”
Ashton nodded. “A very generous gesture. And we need it, so I’ve accepted.” He added a weak shrug of one shoulder. “It allowed me to turn your AmEx back on, for one. You’ll have to watch your spending, but we can cover the basics.”
“That’s very… Kind of him.” I hated giving Trevor this kind of praise, even behind his back, but I couldn’t deny the effort, or how much we needed the money. I paused. “Fine. Given that, all I’m going to promise you is that I’ll think his offer over.”
“Good,” he said.
And for the first time since my arrival, my brother gave me a genuine smile.
Thinking it over meant a few things: long baths with a large glass of wine, ruminating over the collapse of our family’s future, morning walks after sleepless nights, and several hours spent reading the last few monthly reports about Ross Publishing’s future—reports that confirmed what Ashton had said. We didn’t have many options, and it wouldn’t be long before the cashflow slowed to a trickle.
By the time I showed up three days later for my usual Monday class at Namaste Now in Palm Beach, I’d decided to admit at least some of these problems to my best friend. She might have some good advice.
“You’re not serious.” Brooke gasped in the women’s changing room. She sat on the beechwood bench. “You’re broke?”
I nodded as I wiped the back of my neck with a towel. We’d been working out at Namaste Now three days a week for the last six months, and often took morning yoga classes. Brooke and I both knew the owner, Luke Rothschild, so we hadn’t thought at all about the forty-dollars-a-class price tag. But now, that felt like an extravagance.
I’ll probably need to cut this from the budget…
“We can’t pay the company’s bills,” I whispered. “It’s all… it’s all gone. And I… I’m going to have to make some changes. I probably can’t work out here anymore, for one.”
Brooke’s mouth dropped open. “What? As in—you guys are bankrupt?”
“Yes. Finished. Nothing left.” I fished around in my bag until I found my wallet, from which I produced Namaste Now’s punch card of classes. I had one open class on the card. “If I hadn’t prepaid for all those classes at Christmas, I wouldn’t have been able to attend today.”
“But you’re almost billionaires. Your dad was one of the most brilliant people in publishing.”
I shrugged. “Not that brilliant, it seems.”
“How is this possible?” She stared at me. “It’s not. Is it?”
I considered how to answer this question. How much more did I want to confide in my best friend? We’d known each other for more than ten years yet telling her something so enormous felt like laying my soul bare, like revealing a dark corner of my life that no one else knew.
But I’d come this far…
“It turns out that the company made some bad investments. My father failed to see all the changes happening in publishing, and he failed to adjust. We didn’t have a plan.” It was embarrassing to admit, but the more I revealed, the more freeing it felt to let someone else know the truth of what was really going on in my life. She was my best friend, right? She’d understand.
And that’s when the truth of it all rushed out of my mouth.
“Ashton tried to prop up the business when he took it over after Dad’s death, but it was simply too late. We’re hemorrhaging money. He says the company will default on all its commitments. He’s run the numbers, and it’s happening, whether we like it or not.”
“Wow.” She studied the dark floor. “So, you’re going to lose everything? Like—now?”
“If something doesn’t change, it looks like it.”
She turned her attention back to me. “But you sound so… so calm.”
“I’m not calm. I’m numb.” I took a deep breath. “It’s like I’m walking around in a dense fog with no escape It’s been that way for the last few days.”
“That’s awful.” The corners of Brooke’s mouth turned down. “What a mess.”
“Understatement of the year.”
I sat next to her and took the towel from around my neck. That mid-level hot yoga class that day had been more grueling than usual, and I’d found it hard to focus on poses. My mind kept wandering, kept finding its way back to Trevor, and kept distilling his proposal. I still didn’t know what my final answer would be when Ashton asked for it later that day.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m not sure, but there might be an option. Well, it probably isn’t one, but—” I glanced around the changing room to confirm we were still alone. We were. The two dozen or so regulars who made up the noon class had all left. Still didn’t stop me from lowering my voice. “I went to New York on Friday to talk with Ashton about all of this, and we had a meeting.”
Brooke’s attention remained fixed on me.
“And he has an idea… or rather… He and someone else have an idea.”
Brooke lifted a sculpted eyebrow. “Oh, god. I know how your brother is when he has ideas. Nothing stops him.”
“You’re right,” I said, adding a slow nod to accompany my words. “And this time, he thinks he can save the company… with me.” I paused. “He wants me to marry Trevor McNamara.”
Brooke’s eyes widened. “Trevor McNamara? Trevor McNamara?” Her voice echoed through the changing room, and I sent up a silent thank you that we were alone. “The real estate shark? Your father’s biggest rival? He’s not serious.”
“I’m afraid he is.”
My thoughts turned to that night at the Whitney Museum. Brooke didn’t know about that—I’d decided not to tell her. She’d just insist to me that what happened that night was all part of Trevor’s grand plan to dominate our family.
I stood from the bench and decided to try something. “You know, Trevor isn’t all that bad.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, I—I mean not in terms of looks. Have you seen him lately?” I walked over to my locker, unlocked it, and turned back to her. “Like in Forbes or anything?”
“No.” She cocked her head. “Not in a few years.”
I took my phone out of my gym bag and swiped the screen. “We both know that he’s an asshole. More than an asshole.” I opened the internet on the device and ran Trevor’s name through Google. A spate of recent photos, most of them taken by New York photographers, came up in the search. I handed her the first decent photo I found, one taken as part of a profile about him in East Coast Analyst. “But you have to see what he looks like now.”
As she examined the phone, her mouth dropped open, and the color drained from her cheeks. “Wow,” she said when she handed the phone back to me.
Fact was, time had been good to Trevor McNamara. He had the chiseled, hot attractiveness of a Hollywood movie star coupled with the preppy style of a seasoned Wall Streeter. Too bad he was also cloaked in jerkoff fragrance.
“So, yeah, that’s him these days.” I scrolled through a few more photos, then found the one that I wanted. “Check this out.” I turned the screen so she could see the most recent article on him in Tech Savvy.
“He’s gorgeous.”
“And that photo is not Photoshopped.” I locked my phone and put it back in my bag. “Could be worse. He looks pretty good for thirty-nine.”
I didn’t add the obvious—a comment about our twelve-year age difference. Other people might have found that odd, creepy even, but I didn’t. I’d always liked older men, and while I didn’t like Trevor, at least he fit my usual age range.
