Best of Penny Wylder: Virgin Romance

by Wylder, Penny

  Is this all some twisted game of his? Do rich and powerful men get so bored with being rich and powerful that they get off on buying girls’ virginities? Is this just another power play for him?

  He’s certainly good at those, I learn from the first couple of newspaper articles I browse about him. He’s notorious for being a shark in the boardroom. He inherited Woodland Marquis when his father died, and he was only 23 years old—that sends a familiar twinge straight to my heartstrings. But back then Woodland Marquis was a single hotel in Los Angeles, not very well known, and certainly not a name associated with wealth and luxury. In the 9 years since he inherited that hotel, Pierce built an empire.

  He poured a ton of money into renovating the place, almost every penny he inherited from his father, except for the money he set aside to run a brilliant new marketing campaign. The hotel took off, and before long, he was rolling in profits. But he wasn’t happy stopping there—he bought another hotel in San Francisco, then another one here in Vegas, and soon enough New York, Chicago, Houston. He has hotels dotting almost every major city across the U.S. now, and a spinoff chain in Europe. All because, according to this article, he refused to stop running full-speed.

  Most people, the author wrote, would have stopped at that first hotel. He earned a nice profit margin; they would have been content with that, and settled in to enjoy the proceeds. But not the younger Pinewood. He spent every cent of those proceeds replicating the first hotel. Then he did it again, and again. His business has almost never been fully in the black, because he’s always reinvesting, buying up on his earlier successes. It’s a risky way to play, in business and in life, but so far for Pierce Pinewood, this style of work has paid off in spades . . .

  I’m still reading when my poor harassed waiter friend returns with a fresh mug of coffee. He drops it off and asks if I would like some food brought to me, but I wave him away. I’m no Pierce. The buffet is fine by me.

  I load up a plate with toast and eggs and bacon, then devour that along with more articles about Pierce. The more I read, the more I feel I’m starting to understand him. That drive in his eyes, the way he always gets what he wants. The way he kicked me out of bed at 5 in the damn morning because he had a work call—something that sounded like an emergency, to be fair.

  Rich as god or not, this man is a classic workaholic.

  Of course, that’s probably how he got so rich. But it can’t be good for his personal life. I doubt he has time for anything, even friends, with how often he must need to be on-call.

  I shake my head and finish up my meal. Right then, the waiter returns to tap my shoulder gently. “They’re paging you at the front desk, I think. Bonnie?”

  I nod and pocket my phone, wiping my mouth delicately as I stand. “The car is here?”

  He nods.

  Thank god it’s just a car and not another helicopter. Much as I love flying, I’m not up for another adventure at this hour, in this getup. I just want to be back home in my cozy, cramped apartment bed, where I can think about this situation I’ve gotten myself into.

  More than ever, I know I need to finish this “business deal” soon. Because I’m starting to feel something more than I ought to for a customer, so to say. And if I’m catching feelings, I can tell from those news reports that it will only lead to heartbreak.

  I stride out of the hotel, still wearing his bathrobe. Hell if I’m going back up there to beg him for my clothes back. I walk straight out of Pierce’s world, and back into the car that will return me to mine.

  9

  “What’s the matter? That’s the third time you’ve forgotten to move on your turn.” Gram’s ever-sharp eyes pierce right through my veil of . . . well. My veil of Pierce.

  “Nothing!” I exclaim, quickly reaching to advance my knight across the board. Less than a second later, Gram’s rook swoops in to take my knight, harmlessly, because I didn’t even notice him there. “Crap.”

  “You’re usually not this sloppy a chess player,” Gram scolds. “What’s on your mind, Bon-Bon?”

  I flush at the childhood nickname, though to be honest, it makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside that she still calls me that from time to time. My Gram is a no-nonsense woman—she had to be, in order to fly planes and helicopters back in a day when only men were trusted with jobs like that—but with me, she lets her soft side show. Probably because we only have each other left in the world.

  I sigh. The nothing defense won’t work with her the way it has with Erin for the past two days. Erin has also been on my case, relentlessly, to find out what happened the night I stayed over at “his place.” I’ve only given her the barest of details. No, we didn’t fuck (technically). Yes, I had a great time, until he got all workaholic and kicked me out. No, you can’t go and beat him up, Erin. Yes, that’s him calling me. Yes, I’m ignoring his calls.

  It’s been three days since I last saw Pierce. Since then, I’ve fantasized about him more often than I care to count. Let’s just say I had to replace the batteries in my vibrator.

  But still, even though he’s tried to call me three times, every day at 5PM like clockwork, I send the calls to voicemail. I figure it must be when one of his board meetings or something lets out, and he’s got me on his mind. Or maybe he’s trying to booty-call me at last. But I haven’t felt ready to face him again, not yet.

  At least, not in person. I’ve been devouring articles and photos of him online nonstop, like every cliché creepy stalker you’ve ever heard of. But that only makes my chest ache and my pussy throb even harder. I can’t stop thinking about seeing him again. More importantly, I can’t stop thinking about the fact that the next time I see him will be the last.

  Next time we meet, he’ll fuck me. Then he’ll pay, and he’ll leave, and I’ll never see him again. At least for now, if I dodge his calls and avoid him, there’s still one last meeting in our future. I can look forward to fucking him one last time. I don’t have to deal with our impending goodbye, not yet.

  I shake my head at Gram. There’s no way to explain this to her without earning myself a beating in the meantime. She cannot ever find out how I met Pierce, or why.

  “It’s a boy, isn’t it,” she says. It’s not a question. She might be ailing and trapped in this facility for the time being, but judging by the way she’s kicking my ass at chess right now, her mind remains as razor-sharp as ever.

  “Yeah,” I mumble, taking my next move on the chessboard a bit more carefully. “I was seeing a guy. Am seeing, I guess. But I think he’s going to break it off next time I see him.” That’s the closest I can get to the truth.

  Gram purses her lips. “Hmm.”

  I expect the usual advice. If he doesn’t love you for who you are, then he can screw off. But Gram just moves her chess piece in silence, then leans back in her chair to watch me.

  Nervous, I make another stupid move, and she snatches one of my pawns from the board. I groan.

  “First lesson of men,” she says as she twirls my pawn in her bony fingers. “Never let them distract you from the bigger game.”

  I laugh, in spite of myself. “What does that even mean, Gram?”

  “It means.” She sets the pawn down with a click and gestures at me to take my turn. While I’m staring at the board in contemplation, she continues. “There are other things in life besides relationships. Those are important, don’t get me wrong. But you need to have a life too. When you have a dream you’re chasing, a goal you’re aiming for, the right man will come along and help you reach it. Because that’s what a truly good relationship is—a partnership. Each person helps the other achieve a goal they desire, and together, you make the perfect team.”

  I move my queen forward to put her king in check. Gram’s eyes sparkle with approval as she moves him out of the way. “I do have a goal,” I tell her. Saving you. And getting my nursing degree. And getting a job where I can help people, where I can take care of other sick patients like my gram, and help save them all. I advance my queen again. “
I have a lot of goals.”

  “That’s a good start.” She taps her chin for a moment, studying the board. Then, in one swift motion, she captures my queen with her bishop, and I realize my king is in checkmate.

  I groan.

  “But having goals isn’t enough. You need to work toward them. A relationship is a goal, too, but it can’t be the only one, and it can’t ruin your attention span for the rest of your life if it’s going through a difficult patch.”

  “We’re hardly in a relationship, Gram,” I protest. “I barely know him. We only just started going out.”

  “And yet here you are, despairing that he may be about to break things off.” She tilts her head to rest it on her palm, watching me with the same sharp eyes that were just studying the chessboard. “If this boy is the right partner, someone who will help you achieve your goals, then he won’t throw that away so easily. I’m sure he has his flaws, just as you have yours—”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be on my side?” But I laugh as I say it. Because Gram is always honest with me, whatever the price.

  “I am on your side, honey, and if the people on your side can’t give you a little friendly constructive criticism, then who can?” Her eyes sparkle with laughter, too, though. “I’m just saying, it seems like you’re jumping to conclusions. You do have a tendency to do that, Bon-Bon. You don’t know he’s going to dump you until he does—and if he does, well, then he was never the right partner in the first place, and he’s doing you a favor. He’s freeing you to find the right person.” She reaches across the table to catch my hand, patting it softly. “At the end of the day, that’s all any relationship is. A test to see if you match. If you don’t, the best thing to do is to move on, until you find the one who does—and trust me, you will.”

  Her wedding ring glints in the light of the setting sun beyond the facility windows. We’re playing chess in the tiny game room, but it feels private, with nobody else from the facility in here at this hour. I glance at her ring, the only reminder of a man I never knew.

  “How did you know, with Grandpa?” I ask. She never talks about him. He died decades before I was born, and yet she never remarried, never even took her ring off.

  Gram’s smile turns a little sad. “When I met your grandfather, we had both just come off tours in Vietnam. He was becoming an auto mechanic in our town, way north of here, tiny little place called Redding. I wanted to keep flying, and I told him as much on our first date. The other men I’d gone out with that summer all laughed at me, or told me it was a waste—that a pretty woman like me was needed at home, making more pretty little ladies and handsome young lads, rather than up in the sky sailing all over the place.

  “Some boys were more subtle about it than others. They said being a pilot sounded very fun, like a great hobby. Others told me they’d love to have a pilot for a girlfriend, but eventually they’d need a wife who was, you know, a wife. They always said it like that. Like I ought to know implicitly what a wife was. And I knew what they meant, and that was never going to be a life for me.”

  Her smile deepens, grows happy again, and there’s a light in her eyes that I’ve never seen before. A twinkle, almost. “But your grandfather. On our first date, he swung me across the dance floor at a little club downtown, the only one in town, really, and I told him I wanted to keep flying, and he looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘Sue-Ann, that is the sexiest thing a woman has ever said to me.’ And he meant it.” She laughs softly. “Oh, he loved that I was a career woman. He used to come out to the fields and wave me off every time I had a run. At first it was little cargo runs, local trips, with the only place that would hire me. Then later, a real airline, TransAm, and I was their first female pilot ever. Your grandfather was so proud of me . . . He came to my wings ceremony with your mother in tow, and held her up on his shoulders so she could see me getting them pinned on.” She sighs and shakes her head.

  The smile fades, and a tear glitters at the corner of her eye. I reach across the table to grab her hand, and squeeze her fingers gently. She clutches mine harder, like she’s clinging on, and I hold on too. I’m thinking the same things she is, I’m sure. About my mom, who died far too young, and my father with her. About my grandfather, who I never had the pleasure of meeting, but who sounds absolutely perfect for the wild free spirit that is my grandmother.

  “He sounds great.” I venture a small smile.

  She nods. “He was. He was . . . I could never remarry after that. Rich was my soulmate, my partner in life. He raised your mother, and he held down the homestead and let me fly off into the sunset, and he held his head high when the other men in our town called him a sissy and a queer for taking on women’s work, because that was what he wanted to do too, you see? He wanted to stay at home with your mother, to be present for all the little moments. He was a gentle soul, my Rich, and he loved cooking for us all, making huge feasts that would blow your mind to taste. Whereas me, my god, I could barely boil an egg. He used to make fun of me for it.” She sighs again, but it’s a lighter sigh this time. A happy one. “That’s what you need to find, Bon-Bon. A partner who fits you. And maybe you’ll want to be the one at home with your kids, or maybe both of you will want jobs out in the world, or maybe you’ll both want to raise a whole passel of little ones. You got to blaze your own path. But I’m telling you, no matter how unusual the things you want may be, there’s a man out there who wants a woman like you.”

  I lean across the table to hug her, and she hugs me back so tight I nearly lose my breath. Tears shine at the corners of my eyes. I think about the bills piling up at home, all the petty worries of life. I’ll find a way to pay them. I’ll find a way to get her the treatment she needs, no matter what it takes. Because I can’t lose this woman from my life. She’s too amazing.

  She’s all I have left.

  “Now, all this talking has worn me out.” Gram tries to keep up a strong front, but she’s coughing a little, and her cheeks have gone pale. Shit. I reach over to ring for the nurse, and help her stand and grasp the walker she needs now, just to help her get around.

  “Let’s go back to your room,” I suggest, and then the nurse arrives to help, and Gram is too tired to protest, which I know means she really does need some rest. I’ll drop her off and head out while she takes her nap.

  But when we reach her room, there’s a surprise awaiting us. A burst of sunflowers on the table beside her bed, interspersed with white lilies that fill the room with a beautiful fragrance. Where someone found sunflowers at this time of year, I’ll never know. Even more mystifying, is why Gram tears up at the sight.

  “Oh . . .” she murmurs.

  The nurse pauses beside her, checking her pulse, worried. “You okay, Mrs. Taylor?” she asks.

  But Gram just bobs her head, beaming. “Yes, yes, I’m fine. Just . . . Those are my favorite.”

  “Sunflowers?” I tilt my head.

  “They had them at my retirement ceremony.” She hobbles to the bedside, collapses against it a little hard for my liking. But she remains animated, as she reaches out to touch the petals on the sunflower. “They were your grandfather’s usual present for me. He grew them alongside our house, and your mother measured herself against them every summer, to see how tall she was getting. Someone at work remembered, and that . . . You remember that party they threw me, no?”

  I was only five or six at the time, but I do vaguely remember all the press attention it got. The retirement party of the first female commercial airline pilot. Newspapers all across the country covered it. Now that I think about it, I do vaguely remember the photos of her in her flight uniform, surrounded by huge bouquets of sunflowers, beaming and waving at the crowd.

  “Who brought these?” I ask the nurse, but she only shrugs as she helps Gram into the bed.

  “Anonymous sender. They arrived at the front desk while you were in the rec room.”

  I dig through the petals, but I don’t see a card. “Maybe it’s your secret admirer,” I tell
Gram with a smirk, and she laughs at that one. But it’s a tired laugh. The nurse shoots me a significant glance, and I know by now what that means. Time to go.

  “I’ll stop by in a couple days, Gram.” I reach down to squeeze her fingers gently. “I’ve got work at the diner, then I’ll be by.”

  “Bring your homework next time,” she orders me, in between yawns. “I don’t want you slacking on your studies on my account.”

  I smile down at her. “Never.” But she’s already drifting off to sleep, her grip going loose in my hand. I gently set her hand down on the bed, and let myself out of the room, leaving the nurse to run a couple vitals behind me.

  As I’m closing the door to her room, someone touches my shoulder. I gasp, jumping, and whip around, only to have my heart nearly leap into my throat.

  Pierce. Here.

  For a moment, all I can do is stare deep into his pale blue eyes, my expression a mask of shock and confusion, I’m sure. Then he smiles, and I shake my head, forcing my brain to function again.

  “What are you doing here?” No, that’s not the right question, my brain chides me. “How did you even find me? Are you stalking me?” I scowl.

  He leans against the wall, completely unperturbed by my annoyance. “There were only so many female pilots your grandmother’s age, Bonnie. It didn’t take long to find the one based in northern California, whose granddaughter still lived in the region. And it took even less time to find out that she was still alive, though ailing and residing in a full-time care facility.”

  I storm past him up the hallway. “You had no right to barge into my life.” A thought occurs to me, and my mouth drops open. “You sent those flowers too, didn’t you? You looked up her retirement party articles and saw them.”

  “You aren’t the only one who can use google, you know.”

  I whip around to glare at him. “What, did you put a tracker on my phone or something too?” My voice is rising, getting the attention of the nurses at the end of the hall, but I don’t care.