Philip raised one eyebrow. “Is the food any good?”
I laughed. I was beginning to see that Philip Nilsson liked to get to heart of a problem – cutting through the extraneous to find what was important. I said, “Not particularly, but then, I’m not their target market. Personally, I like lard in my refried beans, and I think meatless fajitas should be a crime.”
“Meatless fajitas? How can that be?”
“Shawn replaces the meat with either beans or mushrooms.”
Philip said, “And no cheese?”
“No cheese.”
Phillip said dryly, “Then I think I will avoid Alamo Beans, unless you wish to go there tonight for dinner?”
“No,” I said. I didn’t want to tell Shawn about my adventure until it was over, and I had won the two thousand dollars.
“How did you and Shawn meet?” Philip asked.
“I was at a party and friends introduced us.”
“Was it love at first sight?”
“No. I don’t believe in that, do you?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, which I found odd.
I thought he might ask more follow-up questions, but then our waiter brought our food. A large porterhouse steak for Philip and a bowl of broccoli soup with a salad on the side for me.
Philip’s steak sizzled, and it smelled delicious. I must have leaned forward to smell it, for he said, “Do you want to split this?”
“No, thank you,” I said quickly. “I’ll eat my own food.”
“While you salivate over mine?”
I said, “You’re right. I am envious. I wish I could eat steak.”
“Why can’t you?”
“I’m marrying Shawn and he’s a devout vegetarian.”
“Does he insist that you avoid meat, too?”
“No, but he watches those animal rights videos, and it’s always uncomfortable when I eat meat and he doesn’t. I decided it was best to eat the same way he did. Simpler.”
Philip cut a large bite of steak, which required the temporary use of my right hand, and then speared the bite with his unused salad fork. “Are you sure you don’t want a bite?” he asked and offered it to me.
He was tempting me. I wanted to eat steak, but I also knew that Shawn wouldn’t like it. But Shawn wasn’t here. And perhaps this was my last chance to eat steak, I rationalized.
“All right,” I said. “Just one bite.”
That one bite was fantastic – hot and juicy – and I groaned a little as I ate it. I’d forgotten how wonderful a fine cut of beef could be.
“That good, huh?” Philip teased.
I looked around and made sure no one else had heard me making noises while I ate. My mother would be appalled. Making noises was so unladylike. I said, “That’s really good.”
Philip raised his free hand to get our waiter’s attention. “Another steak, please,” he ordered.
“You don’t have to,” I protested, but when the waiter asked, “How do you want it cooked?” I succumbed and said, “Medium Rare.”
Philip smiled.
While we ate, we went through some of the questions on our list. We talked about our childhoods. We both had two siblings: he had two bothers and was the middle son. I had a younger brother and sister. I went to public school in Red Oak, and he attended private school in London.
He also had nannies and got a new car for his sixteenth birthday.
I spoke enough Spanish to understand half of what I overheard in public, whereas he spoke Spanish and French fluently and had a smattering of Chinese. “That’s impressive,” I said.
He shrugged. “It’s business.”
“Did you always know that you wanted to work for the family business?” I asked.
“Yes. I find it fascinating and satisfying.”
He was a lucky man. He sounded a bit like Shawn, who was also dedicated to his business.
“What about you?” he asked.
“I never knew what I wanted, so I’ve done a lot of things. I worked as a receptionist at a doctor’s office. I worked in a pet supplies store. I sold skin care products and make-up for a while until that company was bought out by another.”
“Did you ever go to college?”
“I took a few classes at the community college, but since I never knew what I wanted to study, there didn’t seem to be much point in it. I read a lot though. I’m always learning things.” I asked him if he had gone to college.
“Columbia undergrad and Harvard MBA.”
That didn’t surprise me.
He asked, “What do you like best about working for Nilsson?”
“Right now, I like looking at the banquet halls, when everything is set up. All the tables with their crisp tablecloths. The napkins arranged just so. The china gleaming.”
“You like the dinner parties.”
“I do.”
“Do you see yourself becoming the Banquet Coordinator down the line?”
“Maybe.”
He asked about my other interests and I told him that I had a YouTube channel where I talked about beautifying one’s life.
He asked what the name of the channel was.
“Pretty City Gal,” I said and then when he started to look it up on his phone, I said, “No. Please. Not yet. I use my name there all the time, and I want you to guess it first.”
“All right,” he said and glanced briefly at his phone, which lay on the table, so he could use it one-handed. “Willow?”
“No.”
“Winter?”
I laughed. “No. Is anyone really named Winter?”
He said, “Some women are named Summer. Wanda?”
I was enjoying this. “No.”
“Winona?”
“I think there’s only one Winona.”
“Wilhelmina.”
He was very good at this guessing game, which made me suspicious. “Wait a second,” I said and reached across the table to look at his phone screen. “You cheater! You looked up W girl names online.”
“I did,” he confessed. “But I consider it research, not cheating. Now, give me back my phone.”
I held his phone high, out of his reach with my left hand. “Not until you guess my name. Without help.”
He said, “Then we might spend the remainder of our time, sitting here, with you holding my phone. Our presentation tomorrow is going to be very boring. And your arm is going to get very tired.”
“I don’t care.”
He thought for a minute. “Wallis?” he guessed.
“No.”
At that moment, a family sitting next to us got up to leave. The tables were crowded and there was barely any room between the chairs. The mom was carrying a car seat, and while maneuvering past me, she knocked my arm and Philip’s phone went flying.
It fell into the river water with a quiet plop.
“Oh no!” I cried, feeling terrible. “Your phone.”
Philip stood and looked down in the dark water. “It’s lost now,” he said matter-of-factly. “And even if we could retrieve it, it would be ruined.”
I knew that. I’d ruined a phone once when it went through the washing machine. “I am so sorry,” I said, knowing that my apologies were inadequate.
The woman with the baby said she was sorry, too. “Don’t worry about it,” Philip said graciously, and the young family went on their way.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
He said, “I’ll use your phone to call my assistant, and I’ll have a replacement at the hotel before dinner. All my contact information is downloaded, so I haven’t lost anything.”
I was impressed. I wish I had an assistant that would solve my problems so easily.
He continued. “Until then, I suppose, I’ll be living off the grid. Which is probably good for me.”
I watched as he returned to his seat and continued to eat, seemingly without a care. I already knew that Philip Nilsson was nice guy, but this was amazing to me. If I’d ruined Shawn’s phone, he wou
ldn’t forget the matter so easily. But I supposed Philip losing an iPhone was like my losing a nickel.
Earlier that afternoon, after removing my pantyhose, we had each taken a bathroom break, which was horrendously embarrassing. Even with our eyes closed and singing out loud, we could still hear each other.
If it weren’t for the two-thousand-dollar prize, I would have quit right then and there.
Philip, however, had been a perfect gentleman, not making any rude jokes, as my brother Howard would have, if he were in the same situation.
And now I’d lost his phone.
“My name’s Winnie,” I said bluntly.
“Winnie?”
“Winnie. Like Winnie the Pooh, but I’m not a teddy bear.”
“You were named after a teddy bear?”
“No, actually, I was named after a pretty girl in a television show. The Wonder Years.”
He smiled. “I never heard of it.”
Perhaps he’d been in Europe at the time or had been too young to watch it.
He looked at me thoughtfully. “Winnie. It’s a cute name. It suits you. It’s better than W. J.”
For an instant I wondered if he was saying he thought I was cute, but I dismissed that thought. I said, “When I was younger, I was teased mercilessly. Either I was called Pooh Bear, or kids would make horse noises.”
He frowned, then said, “Ah. Whinny. I get it.”
“Exactly.”
“Children can be cruel.”
“Were you teased?”
“Some,” he said. “I think every child has their griefs or difficulties. It’s part of growing up.”
“What was yours?”
“Being the richest kid in the room. Never knowing if someone liked me for myself.”
I like you, I thought, but didn’t say it.
We finished eating, and Philip took out his wallet to pay for the meal. “It’s a good thing it was only my phone that ended up in the river. Without my wallet, I’d have problems.”
“If you lost your wallet, I’d pay for lunch.”
He looked at me closely with an odd expression on his face. “Thanks,” he said lightly.
He then borrowed my phone to call his assistant, but before he could make the call, there was an incoming call for me.
He handed me the phone and I looked at the caller ID. It was my sister, Jenna. I accepted the call, fully intending to tell her that I was busy, and I would talk to her later that night.
But instead of the inconsequential chit chat that we usually exchanged, she wailed, “Winnie! My water broke!
CHAPTER SIX
PHILIP
Winnie spoke on the phone to her sister and I caught bits of the conversation. “What does your doctor say? . . . You’re going to the hospital right now? . . . Yes, I’m coming. . . I love you.. . . Yes. . . What’s the name of the hospital again?”
When she finished the call, she looked distracted, concerned.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
She nodded. “It’s Jenna. My sister. She’s having a baby, and I promised to be there for her. She had a c-section scheduled for next week, but now her water broke, which changes everything.”
“Is she or the baby in danger?”
“I don’t know. Her doctor thinks she’ll be okay, but she wants her to come to the hospital right away.” Winnie looked at the handcuffs linking us together. “Have we even been together six hours yet?”
I looked at my watch. It was four-thirty. “No. About five and a half hours.”
She nodded. “Oh well, I guess it doesn’t matter. One hundred dollars isn’t going to make a bit of difference either way.”
She turned her right wrist and looked as if she might key in the PIN number to unlock the handcuffs, but I put my hand over hers to stop her. “What are you doing? I thought we were going to last twenty-four hours.”
She looked at me. “I have to go to New York.”
“Your sister’s in New York?”
“Yes, and I promised . . .”
“To be there,” I finished. “I heard that. But I don’t understand. Where’s the baby’s father?”
“He’s in the army. He’s deployed right now.”
Things were beginning to make more sense. “All right. Your sister needs you and you need to fly out as soon as possible.”
“Yes. I need to call the airline because I already bought tickets for next week, but I don’t think they’re transferable.”
I shook my head. “Don’t worry about it. Just give me your information and we can be on the next flight. My assistant Ramon will take care of it.”
“Ramon?”
“Yes, he takes care of all my travel arrangements.”
She looked dumbfounded. “You’re coming with me?”
I held up my left hand, bringing her right along for the ride. “I promised you twenty-four hours, and I will give you twenty-four hours. Whatever it takes.”
Winnie looked as if she might cry. “You are so nice. Thank you.”
I wasn’t certain whether I was being nice or if I just didn’t want to let her go. She’d agreed to be my companion for twenty-four hours, and I was going to hold her to that – if I could.
She gave me her phone again, and I spoke to Ramon.
Within half an hour, he secured first class tickets to LaGuardia.
We took a taxi to the airport and on the way, Winnie spoke to her fiancé Shawn.
Since I was sitting next to her, there was no privacy, and he spoke loudly enough that I, as well as our driver, could hear most of their conversation.
She said, “Hi, Sweetheart. How’s it going?”
He said irritably, “How do you think it’s going? It’s dinner time, Babe. Make it quick.”
I wanted to reach through the phone and thump him on the head for being so rude to her.
She said, “Sorry to bother you, but Jenna called and she’s having the baby right now.”
There was some kind of loud noise on the other end of the call and Shawn swore. “What’s that?” he said.
“I’m flying out to New York today.”
“Okay. Got it. Let me know how it goes.”
“But that’s not all,” she added, but he cut her off saying, “I really have to go, Babe. Talk to you later.”
“Love you,” she said, but as far as I could hear, he didn’t say the same. He merely ended the call.
She looked at me and said apologetically, “He isn’t always like that. He’s just really busy during dinner time. I’ll talk to him later tonight.”
He sounded like a jerk, but for her sake, I hoped she was right. Every time she talked about her fiancé, her face lit up. It was clear that she loved him, and she wanted their marriage to be a success.
When it came time to get through TSA, the officials wanted us to take off the handcuffs. Nothing I said could convince them otherwise, and the more I tried to explain matters, the more insistent they became. “I’m sorry, Mr. Nilsson,” one of the officers said. “Rules are rules. Miss Abbot is not in your legal custody, so it doesn’t matter what private agreement you have. You must remove the handcuffs to be allowed to fly. It’s a safety issue.”
Our conversation had drawn some attention. I saw several people filming us with their phones.
I said smoothly, “Thank you for your time,” and walked with Winnie away from the entrance.
“What’s going on?” she said. “We can take off the handcuffs.”
“No,” I said. “It’s a matter of principle now.”
She said, “I just want to see my sister. I don’t care about winning.”
I said, “Are you afraid of small planes?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never flown in one.”
“Are you willing to fly in a private plane?”
Winnie sighed. “I just want to get there safe and sound and see my sister.”
“All right,” I said. “Give me your phone and I will make it happen.”
WINNIE
<
br /> I filmed a brief video of us sitting in a luxurious airplane. “Here we go,” I said. “On our way to New York City. Hopefully to get there in time to see my nephew or niece be born!”
I turned off the camera and looked around the cabin, admiring the luxurious décor – there were eight large seats with seat belts and behind that, there were several cream color leather couches, small tables, and even a bar. I felt as if I were on a movie set.
“Do you travel like this all the time?” I asked Philip.
“No,” he said. “Not unless it’s necessary.”
I didn’t comment. I knew it hadn’t been necessary today. I would have been just as happy to remove the handcuffs and take a first-class seat.
But that would have meant saying good-bye to Philip, I thought with a little ping of disappointment. Without the contest, there was no reason for us to stay together.
I didn’t know how I felt about that.
I was enjoying spending time with him, getting a glimpse into how billionaires lived. As the mixer had promised, I was getting the chance to walk in another person’s shoes.
Not to mention new shoes for myself.
I still couldn’t believe I was wearing Christian Louboutin shoes that cost more than my share of the rent – seven hundred dollars. And the sandals hadn’t been cheap, either.
I sighed and leaned back in the huge chair, closing my eyes. What a day today had been. I glanced at my phone. It was already 7 p.m. Philip and I had been locked together for eight hours, but it seemed like much longer.
Philip said, “Are you all right?”
I nodded and didn’t open my eyes. “I’m fine.”
I was worried about Jenna and hoped that I would get there in time to be a help to her. I had spoken to her a few minutes before we took off. Jenna said she felt fine, but she was having some contractions. The doctor wanted her to have the c-section within the next twelve hours, and she wanted to wait until I was there. Jenna tried to sound brave, but I knew she was worried. She had begged, “Please hurry, Winnie!”
Roses from a Billionaire: A Clean Billionaire Romance (Lone Star Billionaires, #2) Page 4
