The Billionaire's Mermaid

by Amberlee Day

  Cleo’s attention returned to Lily. “Your new tail? Why do you need a new one?”

  Lily shrugged, but started opening her package. “You have three tails,” she said. “I wanted another one.”

  “But you’ll just be growing out of the first one, and ...” What did it matter, anyway? Cleo thought. Maybe a ka-billionaire doesn’t mind buying things he doesn’t need. Or did he buy it? “Does your Uncle Van know you got another tail?”

  “No, but I bought it from the same website, and it remembered his credit card.”

  Cleo leaned back in her seat. “Whoo-boy.”

  Lily was still working to open the package. “What? He knows I want to be a mermaid. It’ll be fine.”

  “Lily, that’s not honest, using his card without asking him first.”

  “It’s fine,” Lily said dismissively. She’d finally gotten the package open, and held up her new tail. It was rainbow-colored, with tiny, hand-painted scales. She gasped happily. “I love it! Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “It is.” Cleo hesitated to get excited. She didn’t think Van would be very happy about this. Looking closely at the new tail, she said, “How much did this one cost, Lily? It looks like one of the expensive ones.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I just liked it.”

  “I thought we decided you’d wait to get a really nice one until you were older, and done growing.”

  “I think it’s going to look great on me,” Lily said. “Come on, let’s go swimming now.”

  As a mermaid and synchro instructor, Cleo had made her time with Lily positive and fun. That’s why, when she felt now that she needed to be firm with the ten-year-old, Lily’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “We’re not swimming right now,” Cleo said. “It’s almost dinnertime. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Besides, you need to let your uncle know about this tail before you wear it.”

  “Why? He won’t care. He buys things for me so I won’t think about being alone.”

  Cleo studied the girl, who showed more interest in inspecting her new tail than in what she was saying. “Are you serious?”

  “Sure. Look, he bought me one tail already, and now music for when we’re underwater. He bought me you. Why would he care if I got another tail?”

  Cleo flinched when Lily mentioned her. Weren’t they past looking at Cleo as a mermaid, bought and paid for? “That’s not the point,” she said in a gentle voice. “Your uncle needs you to be honest with him. He needs to know he can trust you.”

  Lily wasn’t happy about waiting to wear her tail, or talking to her uncle about it. They spent a few more minutes crafting in silence before they headed down to dinner. Cleo’s apprehension about whatever was going on with Van—and now this concern about Lily—grew by the minute.

  When Van didn’t show up for dinner, Cleo decided to take an assertive approach. Clearly something big was happening with his business dealings, and he was preoccupied. She understood that. What she wanted Van to understand was that she could give him his space when he needed it, but they could still share a few moments of their day together.

  After all, if this is going to last, I wouldn’t want him to think that being busy means it’s okay to ignore me.

  She settled down in the library with Samson and the mystery novel she’d tried to read a few days earlier. Convinced that Van would come soon and things would work themselves out, her mind was at ease enough to actually get immersed in the book this time. Van eventually did come to the library, an hour and a half later. By then Cleo’s eyes were wide and her heart pounding from the excitement of the story. When the door opened, she jumped, and he did, too.

  “Oh! You scared me,” she said, breaking into a giggle. “I’m reading a murder mystery, and the main character just realized she’s in danger.” She put the book on a side table, and scooted to make room on the loveseat. “Come sit with me for a few minutes?”

  The dark expression on Van’s face made Cleo’s stomach instantly sick. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  He shook his head, and moved to the table where he often left things he was working on. Sorting through some loose papers, he said, “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  Cleo went to his side, but he didn’t look up. “Is there something I can help you look for? You seem really worried about something.”

  He gave up going through the papers, and looked at her with a darkness in his eyes that made her draw back. “This isn’t going to work anymore,” he said.

  “What isn’t going to work?” She knew what he meant, but couldn’t understand why he would say it.

  “I can’t spend time with you anymore. It was fun, but I have other things to do now. You can stay on and keep working with Lily, if you—”

  “Wait.” Cleo took a few more steps back. “Just ... wait. What is this about, Van?”

  “We’re going to have to go back to Mr. Rivers, and ... Mermaid Cleo, I guess. Or, Miss Willey.”

  Cleo shook her head. Angry tears were beginning to form, and she didn’t care if he saw them. “I don’t understand. Where is this coming from?”

  “It’s coming from the same place it’s always come from. I tried to tell you before, but you ...”

  “What? I what, Van? Made you care about me?”

  His dark eyes dug into her, but he didn’t answer the question. “I just can’t do this anymore,” he said. “I’ll try to stay out of your way. Goodbye.”

  He turned and left her alone, shutting the door behind him. Not slamming, just shutting it, as if he was keeping even his anger under firm, unrelenting control.

  Tears fell. Cleo couldn’t understand what had happened, but she knew she hurt, and that the happiest time in her life had just come to a hard, fast end. She kept walking backward until she reached the settee by the window. Slowly, she lay down onto it, hugging herself, and wanting with every ounce of her to make Van return and take back every ugly, biting word.

  Chapter 25

  Van kept his word, and managed to stay out of Cleo’s way. It probably wasn’t hard. He knew her schedule, so he’d know how to avoid her.

  As for Cleo, she focused on Lily, and what she’d been hired to do at Eagle Hill. They worked on Lily’s mermaid skills—fluke splashes, core rolls, and diving through hula hoops. Other days they focused primarily on elementary synchro moves. Cleo felt disconnected, like she was just going through the motions, but for some reason Lily seemed to thrive on their new dynamic. All work, all moving her closer to her goals of mermaiding, and possibly moving into synchronized swimming. And Cleo let Lily decide each day whether they would have mermaid or synchro practice, giving the girl a sense of control that she relished. As for Van, even Lily didn’t see much of him, from what Cleo could tell, but the girl didn’t seem to worry much about it. She had her new expensive mermaid tail, she had her mermaid, and for now it was everything she wanted.

  By early March, Cleo would have expected spring to arrive, but somehow the weather around Lake Louise just worsened. Day after day was cold, dark, and stormy. Winds, snow, and ice kept Cleo and Lily indoors, and Cleo was starting to get that cooped-up feeling. She really wanted to venture out cross-country skiing, but knew better than to risk the trails without Van to guide her.

  It was finally a clear night the first time she noticed the light in the woods. It wasn’t very close, but she could see it from her bedroom window. She wondered if someone with a flashlight was out exploring, except it never moved. Could it be that house where she and Samson had waited out the storm, she wondered? She’d never asked Van about it. Was it on his property, or had they wandered far enough that night to reach a neighbor? She thought about asking Mrs. Fortney about it, but never remembered to ask when the housekeeper was around. In fact, she really only felt a vague curiosity about the light, or about anything anymore. If she stopped to think about it, she was probably a little bit depressed.

  Years earlier she felt a similar sense of loss, but at the time she didn’t know what to call it.
Strangely, it wasn’t when either of her grandparents died, or when she was old enough to realize that her mother didn’t live with her because she chose not to. It was when she realized that she needed to leave synchronized swimming, something she truly loved. This time it was Van that she loved, and she had far less choice about letting him go than she did with her favorite sport.

  Maybe it was better this way, she told herself. If Van handled everything that scared him with this cold need to control, it didn’t matter how happy they were together. She didn’t have to grow up around a happy family to know that. Synchronized swimming had taught her that trust and communication are vital in a relationship, and Van had put both aside.

  The long winter allowed plenty of time for introspection, and Cleo tried to make it productive and not self-pitying. She knew Lily really needed the support of a synchro team at this point, and she knew Van wouldn’t give it to her. Cleo also knew that her time in Canada was coming to an end. She’d accomplished what she came to do, and she needed to think about what came next.

  One morning, Kristen brought Cleo’s breakfast to her room instead of Mrs. Fortney. “It’s so exciting,” Kristen gushed. “Mr. Rivers’s friends are coming.”

  A pinprick of curiosity touched Cleo. It stung. “Friends?”

  “Yes, the Jones-Blakelys. Have you met them?”

  “No.” She’d never heard of them, but then she knew nothing about Van’s friends. Except, of course, the Prime Minister.

  “They’ve been here before. The last time was at Christmas.”

  Christmas? Something about Christmas niggled at Cleo’s brain. Hadn’t Mrs. Fortney said something about it?

  “Alyssa Jones-Blakely. She’s the beautiful woman that we thought Mr. Rivers was finally going to marry last year.” Kristen hesitated. She wasn’t the brightest, Cleo had found, and she probably just realized that she may have said something insensitive. Cleo just felt empty, though. Kicked and empty. But Kristen had gossip, and she wasn’t going to let a need for sensitivity stop her from sharing it. “And there’s her friend, Lana something, and her brother, Colin Jones-Blakely. And that friend of Mr. Rivers who works for the BBC, and somebody else, I guess. That’s how many bedrooms we’re getting ready, anyway. Five.”

  Cleo felt like she was following Kristen’s conversation through a fog. Eventually the word bedrooms sunk in. “Are they going to sleep here? In the house?”

  “Sure,” Kristen said cheerfully. “That’s why Mrs. Fortney is busy this morning. She’s got everyone making beds and getting food ready. Gus went into town for supplies. I wish Reva and Loren were still here. They’d be a big help in the kitchen.”

  “Yes, I suppose they would,” Cleo muttered.

  “What was that?”

  Louder, Cleo asked, “How long do you think they’ll be staying?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. At Christmas they were here for a week, but there was skiing then. Things are getting pretty mushy out there now. I don’t know what they’ll do to entertain themselves. Maybe we’ll finally have an engagement to celebrate, though.”

  Clueless Kristen left soon after. Cleo couldn’t even be angry with the girl. Everyone in the household knew that Cleo and Van had been together, at least for a while, and everyone must know that they weren’t now.

  Maybe they all knew what I didn’t. Maybe they knew I was just a distraction, someone for the moment. I wasn’t important enough to be anything more.

  And yet, she knew that wasn’t true. Van loved her, and she knew it. That’s what made everything so hard.

  AT THE POOL THAT DAY, Lily was ecstatic.

  “Wait until you see them!” she said. “They are so stylish, and Miss Jones-Blakely is gorgeous! She has a YouTube channel where she shows what food is popular, and clothes, and fun stuff to do around the world. It’s so cool. Her dad is Miles Jones-Blakely, like the Blakely Hotels.”

  “So she’s rich, then?”

  Lily rolled her eyes. “Well, obviously. She always brings me cute clothes when she comes. You know my favorite pink dress? She gave me that. She found it in Milan, in Italy, and she showed it on her YouTube show before she gave it to me.”

  And so went the rest of the lesson, until eventually Cleo had a headache and ended synchro practice early.

  Dinner was quiet, and for the first time Cleo and Lily were assigned the sandwich room for their dinner. Lily wasn’t pleased; she wanted very much to be invited to dine with her uncle and his friends. Cleo had managed to avoid them during the afternoon, keeping to the north wing and its rear staircase. She wasn’t interested in meeting Van’s friends—and definitely wasn’t interested in seeing Van with them.

  The next day was another synchro day. Lily was practicing an eggbeater move to keep herself afloat, when loud voices sounded down the hall. They both looked up in time to see what felt like an invasion of beautiful people come through the door.

  “Miss Jones-Blakely!” Lily exclaimed. “You’re here!”

  A beautiful woman with unnaturally thick, blonde hair and what must have been very expensive highlights opened her lipsticked mouth in a wide, toothy exclamation. “Oh, Lily Rivers, look how darling you are! Even in that swimsuit, you’re adorable.” She shared a catty glance with her brunette friend over Lily’s utilitarian practice suit, which gave Cleo a quick dislike of Miss Alyssa Jones-Blakely. Fortunately Lily didn’t seem to notice. In fact, she started exiting the pool to greet the newcomers. Alyssa put a quick stop to that. “Oh, sweetheart, don’t get out. These are six-hundred-dollar shoes, and they don’t mix well with chlorine.”

  Lily slipped back down into the water. “Right. What are you guys doing? Where’s Uncle Van?”

  One of the men spoke. “Your uncle had some business to take care of, so Alyssa’s giving a tour of your house to those of us who haven’t been here before. Who’s your friend, Lily?”

  So far, Cleo had drawn some not-friendly looks from the ladies, and a few friendlier ones from the men. She would have preferred to be invisible. At being directly addressed, she wished she could dive underwater and have them gone when she surfaced. She wasn’t that lucky.

  “This is Cleo,” Lily said. “My mermaid.”

  The visitors were suddenly animated in their interest over Cleo. “Van said he was going to get Lily a mermaid for her birthday,” the brunette friend said. “Do you remember, Alyssa?”

  “I do. But wasn’t your birthday last month, Lily?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long do you get to keep her? I imagine you’re only renting, and that you didn’t purchase her outright.”

  Cleo felt the sting, as she was meant to. Alyssa Jones-Blakely may not have known about Cleo’s presence in the house, but she recognized a rival as soon as she saw one. What she doesn’t know is that I’m not a rival anymore.

  Lily seemed confused by Alyssa’s question, and Cleo decided it was time to be heard. “I’m a rental,” she said with clear, confident tones. “I’ve been here since late January. Lily’s learning to be a mermaid, and having an introduction to synchronized swimming.”

  Snickers from Alyssa’s posse—because this was clearly a woman who kept a posse around to laugh at her jokes and help her feel important—echoed through the pool area. Alyssa didn’t laugh, but watched Cleo with a patronizing hint of a sneer. She waited until her people had quieted down. “Are you both mermaid and a synchronized swimmer, then, Mermaid Cleo?”

  “I am.” Cleo was used to people who didn’t understand either of her interests, and well-practiced in answering them with a quiet dignity. She’d never needed anyone else to approve before, and she didn’t need it now.

  If Alyssa had hoped to upset Cleo, it would explain the disappointed look on her face. While Cleo endured the woman’s stares, Lily picked up the conversation. “I’m learning a lot,” she said. “Today’s a synchro day. Do you want to watch?”

  She dove under the water with her feet straight up so the visitors could see her eggbeater attempt, but Alyssa didn’t wat
ch. When Lily resurfaced, Alyssa said, “You know, Lily, what I’d really like is to see you dressed as a mermaid. Could you show me sometime?”

  “Sure! Do you want me to go get my tail now?”

  The posse laughed again.

  “No, you don’t need to get your tail now. How about tomorrow? Do you swim this time every day?”

  “Sure. Every afternoon.”

  “Tell you what,” Alyssa said. “Tomorrow, if you come all dressed up like a mermaid, I’ll bring my camera and take videos of you. How does that sound?”

  “Great! Will you put me on your YouTube channel?”

  “I might, we’ll see. And have your mermaid dress up, too. Then I can take videos of you both.”

  Cleo seethed inside. It was one thing for this jealous, rich brat to make fun of Cleo, but another thing altogether for her to make fun of Lily. “You’ll have to check with Mr. Rivers first,” Cleo said. “I need to know that it’s all right with him if Lily is filmed.”

  Alyssa’s eyes flashed. “Oh, it will be fine with Van. But if you like, I’ll check with him first. Okay?”

  Cleo nodded.

  Alyssa’s hateful gaze stayed on Cleo for a moment, before she interrupted a conversation between two of the men on whether or not synchronized swimming was still an Olympic event. “Shall we continue the tour?” she asked, ushering her friends back into the hallway. “There’s still so much to see! There’s an atrium on the roof that’s spectacular. Today’s a clear day, so we should be able to see for miles.”

  When they were gone, Lily shrieked with excitement. “She’s going to film us! I’m going to wear my new tail. Aren’t you glad I got it now? And you can wear your best blue one.”

  “Hmm,” Cleo said. “Or, I could just wear my practice tail.”

  “No way.” Lily sounded mortified. “You’ve got to wear your best tail, and the top that goes with it, and your mermaid makeup. Can I wear some, too?”

  “I’ll have to think about it.”

  “It’s going to be the best day. We’ll look like real mermaids, and we’ll be on YouTube. We’ll be famous!”