The Billionaire Game

by Lila Monroe

  “You know, Grant and I could—”

  “No,” I cut her off. “I refuse to mix business and pleasure. Or business and friends. You know what I mean. I need to do this right, and on my own terms, with real investors, not just my newly loaded friends handing me money because they feel sorry for me.”

  “Need any tips?” Lacey asked. I could see her fingers itching to grab her cell phone and call every bank and every investor she could until she found one that owed Devlin Media Corp. a favor.

  “Nah,” I said, heading her off. “I’ve got an appointment booked this afternoon already.” I grinned. “Wish me luck!”

  #

  Lacey had insisted on giving me a list of potential back-up backers, which I had scoffed at as too big for my needs. Secretly, though, I had been intimidated by the thought of bringing my proposal to such august financial institutions, of trying to present myself in a positive and responsible light to the same people who evaluated loans for Devlin Media Corp., Apple, and the United States government.

  So now I was at Morningstar Bank, the local chain with only about a half dozen locations in the state. This one was run down, with scuff marks on the floor that no one had bothered to rub out for the last years. Security personnel glowered at you when you came in like they thought you might be all of the Jesse James gang squeezed into one dress.

  Wall Street this was not, and yet, somehow, I was still more terrified right now than I had ever been before at any point in my life.

  And I’ve seen Stevie’s feet, so that’s saying something.

  “Ma’am?” The receptionist caught my attention. “Our loans department will see you now.”

  He ushered me into a decrepit office where an older man in a faded blue suit and a mustache that looked like it had seen the other side of the Civil War sat at a desk, sipping coffee as if he had a personal grudge against it. Given that it looked and smelled as if it had come out of the La Brea tar pits, I couldn’t say I blamed him.

  However I could say that I blamed him for the condescending expression on his face as he gestured for me to stay standing, though. He flipped through the folder in front of him and sneered. “I must have misunderstood Daniel. He said you were looking for a loan, but this business is…”

  “Trifles by Kate,” I interrupted eagerly here, wanting to make my pitch as soon as I could before my nerves gave out. “I craft high-end luxury lingerie for women willing to spend extra money for real quality, comfort, and satisfaction. If you’ll look at my tax documents there, I think you’ll see that with the little time I was able to give it before, it still brought in an impressive return. Now that I’m expanding my business and focusing on it full time, I should be able to show even higher profits. But in order to do that, I do need help to start. If you’ll take a look at the timeline I included with my application, I think you’ll see that even a conservative estimate of the current market shows that—”

  “That won’t be necessary,” he said, flipping it closed. “Morningstar will not be accepting your application for a loan. There’s simply not enough guarantee of a return on the investment. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, miss, but women’s underwear is available from a wide variety of locations.”

  “But not like this!” I tried to explain desperately. “This is hand-sewn, using the finest materials, tailored to the body and tastes of each individual client—”

  “Which only ups the cost of your product,” he said, punting the file towards his wastebasket. “How can you hope to compete in the marketplace?”

  “I’m not trying to compete with a Walmart blue light special!” I snapped. “I’m trying to create a luxury product, in a brand-new field with barely any other competition right now! If you could just get me in at the ground floor—”

  “I’m sorry, miss,” he said, not sounding even remotely sorry. Sorry was a foreign country to this guy. Sorry was another goddamn planet. “Your sales are too small, and you have nothing to back the loan.”

  “But—” I spluttered.

  He waved a hand at me dismissively. “You’re a bad bet, and one this bank will not be taking. But we cordially thank you for choosing Morningstar for your banking—”

  “Frack Morningstar!” I may have shouted on my way out the door, which, okay, yes, I may have slammed. Except ‘frack’ might have actually exited my mouth in the form of a slightly harsher word, I can’t quite remember. My brain was a little cloudy at that moment.

  SIX

  Thankfully, even in the toughest of times, we can always count on the support and understanding of our family.

  …are you done laughing now? I know, I know, I’m hilarious, but I think I really outdid myself with that one.

  I shouldn’t be too hard on my folks. They love me, I know—they just don’t take me seriously. And there are some days where I seriously debate whether I’d be willing to trade one of those things for the other.

  But anyway, I guess it was mutual, because I didn’t really understand them either. I didn’t get why they always had to be as formal and stuffy as if they were accepting a Medal of Honor when they were just walking the dog, getting their hair cut, or going out to dinner. I didn’t get why they were so obsessed with appearances, never going out the door without a final check to make sure that a single hair hadn’t drifted out of place or a single strand hadn't come loose from their outfit. And I definitely didn’t get how they were so afraid of taking risks they wouldn’t even try a new brand of salad dressing.

  Yeah, I loved them right back, but for all I understood them, they might as well have spent their entire lives speaking to me in an obscure Baltic dialect. So I might just have been able to forgive them for not understanding me except for—

  “Oh Brian, darling, that is just simply marvelous! Did you hear that, Katherine! Brian’s supervisor told him that his work on the Dunsinane project was ‘definitely his most competent work this week!’ Isn’t that so exciting?!”

  --that.

  I looked around the restaurant, hoping for something to distract me so I wouldn’t have to hear my parents drooling over my brother like he was an extra-rich tiramisu with double fudge sauce on top. It was a classy joint, because heaven forbid you ever catch my parents in a place that wasn’t. Lighting was low, pooling on the red tablecloths tucked into cozy mahogany nooks, and low murmurs of conversation whirled around the room. The air smelled like red wine, perfectly cooked steak, and the kinds of perfumes that if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.

  “Brian’s certainly moving up in the world,” my dad put in, fairly bursting with steak and pride. Mostly pride. “I think this company will really be the right fit for you. Really make use of your talents.”

  “Oh yes, all those others were completely wrong!” my mother agreed. “Do you remember, that simply awful man who told Brian he didn’t even care that Brian had graduated top of his class in Harvard?”

  He’d told him that because Brian had fucked up a business meeting so hard an entire convent of nuns couldn’t have unfucked it, but you’ll notice that little detail got left on the editing room floor of my mom’s story.

  “Always been obvious the boy’s talented,” Dad said with a misty look in his eye. “Ever since he was a little man. I knew we could expect great things from him.”

  I needed a distraction before I puked. Would it be too evil to ‘accidentally’ set a table on fire with one of these crystal candlesticks?

  “It’s just such a pity that Kate hasn’t applied herself to finding her true potential—”

  And yep, there it was, right on schedule. I tried for a tight-lipped smile but I could feel it failing on my face under the harsh glow of their disappointment.

  When I was in elementary school, they told me to take ballet class; I took the money and the permission slip, and signed up for hip hop dance instead. They told me they didn’t see any reason I should have to move out of the house for college; I explained the concept of a party to them and then took on two extra jobs
to pay rent on my own apartment. Senior year they took me aside and told me that they would pay for another two years of college if I would just switch my major from studio art to art history, since that would give me a much better chance of “attracting the right kind of man”—I swear my mom time-traveled that advice right here from the 1950s. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that most of the guys who expressed interest in me were more interested in getting a hand up my shirt than hearing a short discourse on the use of color in Caravaggio canvases. And yet here I was, single and unemployed, with the weight of a lifetime of unspoken ‘We told you so’s heavy on my shoulders.

  “We just want to see you settled,” Dad said, and it took me a second to mentally rejoin the conversation that was going on in the present. Probably because it was so identical to so many conversations we’d had in the past. “Comfortable. Don’t see why you had to break up with that nice Steven boy. He would have seen to you.”

  “Yes, Steven was delightful,” my mother added. “Are you sure he won’t take you back? Perhaps if you explained things and apologized—the male ego is a fragile one, and you aren’t always most delicate, dear, with your words…”

  I couldn’t believe this; I had explained the break-up with Stevie to them a hundred times. “Uh, he was fucking terrible. He showed up yelling at me at work!”

  “Language, dear.”

  “He was the worst!” I edited. “He didn’t trust me around other guys, he whined constantly about his thesis, and he blew up over the smallest things!”

  “Oh, surely it wasn’t that bad,” my mother said lightly. “If you really look back at it, I’m sure—”

  “And he lied! When we first started dating, he said he admired my passion for design and my ambition to start a business, but five months later he was making fun of me to my face and pressuring me to quit so I could work more hours to support him!” And that was what had really stung. That not only didn’t he trust my heart, but he didn’t trust my mind—didn’t believe that I could really make a go of it with my lingerie. “He called it—” I spat the word—“my hobby.”

  “Right, you’re definitely about to put Victoria’s Secret out of business,” Brian began with a chuckle, but my mother shot him a look. I would have been more mollified if that look had been more don’t mock your sister and less Brian, honey, remember what Kate did to the good china last time you made a joke.

  “So how is your little ‘business?’” my dad asked, trying but failing to keep from pronouncing the little quote marks. “People, uh…liking it?”

  “Yes, Dad,” I said, trying not to clench my jaw. “I have several return customers, and word of mouth is increasing them.”

  “Still,” he grunted. “Can’t really meet a man that way. Not the right kind of man.”

  “Now, now, Fred,” my mother interjected. “This will all make a nice story someday. Katherine’s always been rebellious—oh, I remember when I used to dress her up so nicely for church on Sunday, in those little pink frocks with all the ribbons, and she would rip them right off and go streaking through the park in her birthday suit!”

  “Thanks, Mom,” I said sarcastically. “I really appreciate you putting my grown-up business venture on the same level as embarrassing stories from when I was four. That really makes me feel like you believe in me.”

  “I’m so sorry,” my mom said, drawing herself up and trying to look serious. “Do tell me all about your latest—Brian, what on Earth are you doing? You’ll get whiplash.”

  And just like that, we were off the topic of me and my life, and back to Brian. Not that I’d particularly enjoyed being condescended to about all my life choices, but honestly, some days that’s all the attention I can get from my parents. And doesn’t every kid crave their parents’ attention?

  “That’s Asher Young,” Brian was saying, and I snapped back to attention. Brian was craning his neck to watch Asher, who was crossing the room with Brody to their own table. “I heard he comes here sometimes, but I didn’t think we’d really get to see him!”

  Meanwhile, my parents were hanging on Brian’s every word, as if Brian were a naturalist who had spotted a very rare eagle in its natural habitat, and was doing a David Attenborough style narration of its habits.

  “Name sounds familiar,” my father grunted around a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “Didn’t that fella invest in some computer thing? Make millions before he could legally drink?”

  “Billions,” Brian corrected in the awe-filled voice he usually reserved for Bill Gates profiles in Time Magazine. “And he just keeps doing it! They say he has a golden eye; you remember that Schumacher debacle? Nobody thought that company would go anywhere after the investors bailed, but Asher Young had a couple of meetings with the founder and before you know it, he’s invested ten billion and the sales figures are off the charts. Any company he touches, you know it’s going to be a success!”

  “It’s funny you should say that,” I said, turning back to Brian so it didn’t look like our whole table was gawking at Asher like tourists at the zoo. “Because Asher offered to invest in my business.”

  I don’t think anyone has been the focus of such intent looks of disbelief since Moses came down from the mountain with some rocks and said, hey, guys, I’ve got some new rules.

  “Uh, Kate,” Brian said with an amount of fake pity you usually only saw in celebrity photo ops with starving children, “that’s Asher Young. If you’re going to be desperate enough to lie about your business, maybe set your sights a little lower so it’s actually believable.”

  I saw red, every single shade and variation of it. “Excuse me?” I asked, a jagged buzzsaw edge working its way into my voice. “Did you just accuse me of lying? I’ll have you know, Asher has been in my studio twice in the last week offering me business advice.”

  “Business advice?” Brian asked. “Actual advice, really. Or did he see your silly little lingerie line and offer you ‘business advice?’ The kind that comes with a bottle of red wine and an invitation to his penthouse suite?”

  That stung, mostly because it was true.

  “I’ll have you know,” I began in a hot rage, “that some people actually think I show some promise!”

  I didn’t care about the truth anymore, I just cared about wiping that smug little smirk off my asshole brother’s face, and wiping the matching looks of pity and disappointment off the faces of my parents.

  “Asher offered to invest a half million in my ‘silly little lingerie line!’ He thinks I can be in stores within a month, and making a profit within another month! We’re having a meeting this week to see if our goals line up and to work out stock options, so you can take your condescending attitude and shove it so far up your ass it comes out your nose when you blow it!”

  My family’s eyes had been getting wider and wider as I delivered this stirring speech; I assumed because of the combination of wild claims I was pitching out like baseballs and my increasingly unladylike language. But then—

  “Speaking of that meeting, Kate, I’m going to have to reschedule.”

  Asher’s voice, coming directly from behind my shoulder.

  I felt all the blood in my body drain into my feet.

  Shit. Shit. Shit. I’m so screwed. I am more screwed than a cheerleader on prom night.

  There was a scraping sound as Asher pulled up a chair next to me. “Yes, silly me, it turns out that the annual wine-tasting for charity is this Thursday, and I do hate to disappoint Grant, he’s been going on about it for ages. I don’t suppose you could do tomorrow instead?”

  “Tomorrow?” I echoed blankly.

  “Yes, if it’s not too inconvenient. I suppose I could reschedule for the week after, but I’m just so excited about this venture; I don’t want to wait longer than I really have to. After all, if I do, you might find another investor!”

  I felt him kick me under the table, and then he turned to my parents, felling my mother instantly with a megawatt smile as he brushed his dark locks out of h
is eyes.

  “Have you seen Kate’s work? She’s a real artist.”

  Wait, was he…playing along with this?

  “I—ah—I, yes, I suppose Kate has always been artistic,” my mother said, really flustered for the first time that I could ever remember. The words came out slowly, as if she was having to carefully piece together a new worldview, one in which I was not a complete fuck-up, and it was coming hard. “She is always drawing…”

  “I think she could be a major player on the world fashion scene,” Asher said, simultaneously taking the wine bottle and refilling Brian’s glass, thus making Brian close his mouth before he could interrupt and sip the wine instead to be polite. “She has real vision.”

  “Vision doesn’t pay the bills, though,” my father harrumphed. “I still don’t see how frilly little fripperies are enough for a business.”

  “Often in these cases all that’s needed is sufficient capital to get the ball rolling,” Asher said smoothly. “Once Kate and I have established her brand, its reputation will keep it in demand without new infusions of capital needed. Thankfully, Kate has in many ways already set up the framework for what needs to be done. I’m sure you agree, setting up the framework is vital?” he added, turning to Brian.

  Brian was staring at Asher like he had flown down from the heavens on the back of a pure white horse with wings. “Yeah,” he said. “Totally. I agree. Can I just say how much I admire the work you did with Louise Alexovich and her digitization technique?”

  “Thank you,” Asher said, clapping Brian on the shoulder as he stood. “I’ll be doing much the same thing with Kate and her company, so I’m glad you understand how these things go. It’s can be a bit dicey at first, which is why the support of friends and family is so very crucial in these early stages.”