“Sure. There are people who need those cars and vans I’ve designed and Paul wants to sell. It wouldn’t be fair if he had to let it all go.”
“And that’s why you loaned him money.”
“Just a little,” Blake said defensively. “Just enough to get him going again. I can afford it.”
Those four words were becoming all too familiar. Julie stood and felt the plane jerk as it hit an air pocket. She quickly dropped back down and hooked her seat belt. “Blake, I know you mean well when you say that, but even ten million dollars has to run out sooner or later. If you aren’t careful, you’re going to I-can-afford-it right back to where you started. We’re only getting four hundred thousand a year, before taxes.”
“Julie, you haven’t got any idea how much money that is, do you?”
“Well, it isn’t like I’ve had experience. I know it’s more than my father ever saw in his entire lifetime. I know that if it’s spent right, it can make life easier, more secure.”
“It can make life fun!” he exclaimed. “And I’m going to show you as soon as we reach New York.”
“Spending money has never been fun for me,” she said.
“That’s because you never had any before. You just wait. This’ll be a ball.”
“If I shop,” she argued, “it will be for my business. For cloth and accessories and retailing ideas . . .”
“You need to resolve to spend it only on things you don’t need.”
Julie breathed out a heavy sigh. “I could never do that.” She set her hand on the window as if she could reach through and grab a handful of cloud. “You know, my family was lucky to have food on the table. I always did all my shopping at Goodwill when I was growing up. But I tried to put things together with style, and pretty soon I started to like finding old clothes and setting trends with them. By the time I was in high school, I lost my image of the poor mill worker’s daughter and became the dare-to-be-different queen. Just as one of my ideas would catch on, I’d try something else. I realized then that I could set trends, and I didn’t need a fortune to do it. I can make women look good without looking cheap. They can be stylish and trendy and still dress modestly. Even when Jack stole my designs, he didn’t get the concept. He didn’t understand about glorifying God with what you wear. All he knew was that the designs sold well.”
“Did they keep selling well for him?”
“Not after he made his own changes to them. They bombed.”
“Then God fought that battle for you. He’s honoring what you do. Even the sweepstakes money may be God’s way of telling you that he wants you to succeed.”
“You think so?” she asked. “Because sometimes I wonder if it’s not just a test. And if it is, I wonder if I’ll pass.”
“Test or reward,” Blake said, “whatever it is, I intend to have fun with it.”
The cab driver who took them to Times Square chattered on the phone incessantly in a language they couldn’t understand, but when he pulled to the curb and let them out, Blake tipped him a hundred-dollar bill.
Julie gasped. “Blake! You accidentally gave that man a hundred dollars!”
“It wasn’t an accident,” he said against her ear, keeping his voice discreetly low.
“You can’t go around tipping hundred-dollar bills!” she whispered.
“Want to bet?” he asked with a grin. He ushered her into a restaurant with white tablecloths and a maître d’ who looked as if he didn’t approve of them. Blake gave him a hundred-dollar bill for a table.
“Why did you do that?” she asked. “It’s not very crowded here!”
Blake grinned. “I just wanted to. It’s fun.”
Julie moaned and scanned the menu on the wall as the maître d’ checked for a table. “Look at these prices! And this is breakfast?” she whispered. “I can’t eat here!”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to pay for this!”
“Then I’ll pay for it.”
“You’ll be out of money by the time he gives us a bill!” she said.
“Julie, don’t be ridiculous. We deserve a little—”
“You want to know what I deserve?” she asked, raising her voice. “I deserve an Egg McMuffin. That’s all I need.”
“Julie, you’re acting like a pauper. You said you were going to loosen up and try to spend a little.”
“Blake, I have very specific plans for my money. I don’t need you making plans for me, thank you. I agreed to this trip because I needed to relax. How can I do that eating fifty-dollar eggs? You can stay here if you want,” she said, “but I’m going to find a more practical place to have breakfast.”
Like a teenage boy who had been dragged away from a wild day at the fair, Blake woefully followed her back to the busy sidewalk. “So much for that tip.”
“Well, maybe next time you won’t be so quick to do that. We could have eaten two really nice meals on that hundred dollars.”
They reached a diner just across from the jumbotron at the center of Times Square, and she threw her hands up. “See now? This is more like it.”
“This is a mom-and-pop diner. Don’t you want to try something more fun?”
“No, I don’t. I’d just like to eat a normal-priced breakfast in peace, if you don’t mind.”
He followed her in and surreptitiously tipped the hostess a hundred dollars before she led them to a table by the window.
“That’s much better,” Julie said when they had been seated. “Now isn’t this nice?”
“I should probably thank you,” Blake said with a resigned sigh as he perused his menu. “Without you I’d probably be spending like there was no tomorrow.”
“Would you be tipping thousand-dollar bills instead of hundreds? Come on, Blake. You’re already spending like crazy, with or without me.”
“I’m just having fun. And besides, it gives pleasure to others. What’s wrong with that?” he said.
She drew in a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just very tired. All this excitement and not enough sleep.”
“Maybe coffee will perk you up.”
As the waiter poured her coffee, Julie felt the energy seeping back into her already.
Blake couldn’t get enough of observing Julie’s face as she finished her breakfast and watched the rush-hour activity on the sidewalk. Her eyes were huge as she seemed to take it all in. People flew past with purpose and direction in their strides, but their faces were strained and tense. Still, she took great joy in the famous area she had seen so often on television.
He sat watching her, remembering her sweet smile the night he’d met her in the restaurant. She only got more beautiful the longer he knew her. And that was unusual. Before, it had always seemed that women lost their appeal when the mystique wore off. There was always some fatal flaw in them.
It wasn’t that Blake was a perfectionist when it came to women. He wasn’t, really. It was just that he liked spontaneity, and it seemed his whole relationship with Julie had been based on just that. So far, she had none of the major flaws that had made him flee other women. There was no pretense with Julie. If anyone could keep his millionaire’s feet on the ground from here on out, Julie could.
“So what are our plans for the day?” Julie asked after Blake had tipped the waiter a hundred dollars. She had started to protest again but then realized that the waiter probably needed the tip. A hundred-dollar tipper in her restaurant would have made her week.
He grinned. “I was just thinking of a cruise around Manhattan. It’s only a few hours, and then we can come back and we can go to the garment district.”
“A cruise!” she said. “That sounds wonderful.” She waited at the table as he made a phone call. As he led her out, she felt that thrilling twitter of anticipation. A cruise around Manhattan Island with Blake Adcock was about the most romantic thing she could think of.
That twitter of anticipation, however, turned to a jolt of disbelief an hour later w
hen Blake led her to the dock where the boat awaited them. The staff were lined up as if they were greeting royalty, and Julie was baffled to see that they were the only passengers. “I thought this was a regularly scheduled cruise boat,” she said.
“It is,” Blake said.
“Then why are we alone?”
“Because I rented the whole thing just for us.”
As the boat’s engine began to roll, Julie realized she should have known.
AS THEY CRUISED around the bay, Julie drank in the sights of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty and the droves of people lined up to tour the statue. Blake drank in the sight of Julie taking in the sight of Manhattan. Watching her enjoy it was already one of the highlights of his day.
“It’s a beautiful day,” Julie acknowledged as they returned to the dock. “I’ll never forget it.”
Blake pulled her head against his shoulder and stroked her hair, watching the way it glided through his fingers. “Beautiful,” he agreed.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
He dropped a kiss on her temple. “My pleasure. Let’s go find a nice place to eat lunch,” he said.
She wondered what nice meant to him. Another class-conscious maître d’, or was he going to buy out an entire restaurant?
“I’m not that hungry,” she said. “I think I’d just like to get a salad somewhere.”
“Julie, I know you’re hungry. You just don’t want to spend any money. But loosen up,” he urged gently. “This is fun. It’s as bad to hoard money as it is to blow it.”
“Blake, watching money go down the tube is not fun for me. It upsets me terribly. That ‘fun’ could support the Spring Street Hospice Center for years.”
“The money isn’t going down the tubes. Think of it as a contribution to the New York economy.”
“New York will live without our contribution.”
He tugged her into another restaurant with white tablecloths and a snobbish maître d’, tipped him as he had the others, and got them a table. She had that look on her face when they sat down.
“Okay, if it makes you feel better, from now on I’ll be as frugal as a monk.”
“Sure you will,” she said skeptically. His charm seemed to be working, sapping the irritation right out of her. “Are you telling me you’ve abandoned your wish for a Jacuzzi for Paul and an iPhone for every niece and nephew?”
He chuckled lightly. “Not really,” he rumbled.
“And the fancy doorbell for your mother?”
“I was thinking of getting one that plays Handel’s Messiah.”
“The whole thing?”
“Well, no. Maybe just the ‘Hallelujah Chorus.’”
“And the yacht?”
“My church doesn’t want one,” he said. “I’ll get them a bus instead.”
“Oh, Blake . . .”
“‘Oh, Blake . . . ,’” he mimicked. “You know, this whole thing is just unreal. Who in the world would have guessed that I could spend almost a million dollars in just two days?”
“A million dollars!” Julie shrieked. “Are you serious? You only had a little less than four hundred thousand!”
“Funny how being rich gets you deeper into debt!”
Julie looked queasy. “Tell me you’re kidding,” she whispered. “Tell me you haven’t really spent every penny you had.”
“Don’t worry; I still have a fortune. I still owe a fortune. It’s not what you have but what you owe. Right?”
Julie’s face turned pale.
“I’ll be good from now on,” he said. “I promise not to throw any more money away. But if I run out of money, I’ll always—”
“Have mine to fall back on?” Julie muttered.
“Well, yeah. I was thinking this morning, and I have this great idea about our teaming up. We pool our money and open a building with Sheffield Fashions on one side and Adcock, Inc., on the other. We borrow the whole ten million of mine against our future payments, so we can have it now, and then we aggressively invest yours. We live off earnings from our companies and our stock dividends. So I’ve spent a little much. . . . But with yours added to mine, it could work. The money would grow along with our businesses, and we’d have even more coming in each year.”
She gaped at him, her disappointment clear. “You’ve given this a lot of thought, haven’t you?”
“Well, yeah. I mean, doesn’t it sound like a wise idea? We make a good team, Julie.”
“I thought you said we wouldn’t do business together. That we’d keep this strictly personal.”
“Well, we would. I wouldn’t interfere with your business, and you wouldn’t interfere with mine. We’d just pool the money. What do you think?”
She stared at the lantern on their table as if the light had suddenly illuminated something she didn’t want to see. “If you’d wanted my half, Blake, you shouldn’t have given me the ticket.”
“I don’t want your half, Julie. I’m not regretting that. I’m just saying—”
“That you’ve already blown yours and now you want mine.”
He closed his eyes and sighed heavily, then leaned in and took her hand. Locking onto her gaze, he said, “Julie, you’ve got me all wrong. I’m not after your money. It was a bad idea, okay? Stupid. Don’t let this ruin our time together.”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll try.”
But he could see that it would require great effort because his idea had already been planted in her mind.
JULIE COULDN’T SHAKE the feeling that the money was the driving force in her burgeoning relationship with Blake. It changed how she looked at every effort he made for the rest of the day, and it made her spirits lag like a four-day-old helium balloon.
That afternoon Blake wanted to shop, but Julie couldn’t stand the thought of watching him throw more of his money away. She suggested that they split up and do their shopping separately, then meet back at the Russian Tea Room at six. Blake seemed surprisingly happy to oblige.
For the first time since she had won her ten million dollars, Julie learned just how much freedom it gave her. She strolled in and out of retail dress and accessory shops from West Forty-Second Street to West Thirty-Fourth; she felt anticipation and excitement growing inside her at the new career opportunities her money afforded her. She would open a retail shop, she decided at some point during the afternoon, an outlet in which to display and sell her designs, a place to offer women the opportunity to have dresses custom-designed for them. She could hire specialists in silk and cashmere, and junior designers to execute her creations.
It was midafternoon when she began to miss Blake. She wondered what he was buying. She wondered how many hundred-dollar bills he’d doled out today. She had to admit—though never to him—that it was fun watching his face as he passed out those bills. The thought made her wish she’d stayed with him today, just to see his brilliant eyes and the looks on the faces of those with whom he shared his wealth. He was right after all, she decided. It was fun to have money. She didn’t intend to be without it again.
Strolling down Broadway with a wrapped bolt of silk under one arm and a bolt of hand-printed fabric under the other, she saw a man’s watch displayed in the window of a store. It reminded her of something Blake would wear, for it was both down-to-earth and elegant. It was practical enough to work in, but with its white-and-gold contrasts, it was suitable for the swankiest dinner club patronized by the world’s most eligible bachelors.
Eligible bachelor, she thought, her heart tumbling on the words. They would go home soon. In a few days, the press would grow tired of them, and they would become caught up in their own endeavors. Blake Adcock would have the coveted reputation of the town’s most eligible bachelor, and women would line up for him. Men would line up for her, too, but it would be for no other reason than the money. How would she handle that? How would he?
The thought that she would have to carefully guard against those after her money depressed her. But the thought that Blake would, too, dep
ressed her even more. What if they both wound up in relationships with barracudas and gold diggers? What if they lived lives of misery because of the people this money would attract?
She went into the store and checked the price, gasped at the cost, then decided that she wouldn’t spend it on him. She thought of putting the money into the bank instead, drawing interest on that amount, and watching it grow.
But then she wouldn’t see Blake’s surprise and joy that she had spent some of her money on him.
She considered the watch again and thought that buying it would mean playing into his hands. Hadn’t he already devised ways of getting her money for himself? Wasn’t he really one of those gold diggers circling her as his prey?
Of course not, she told herself. Not Blake. Not the man who had no bitterness when his business failed. Not the man who put his best friend’s feelings over his own disappointment. Not the man who had shared Christ with her in their first meeting.
But was he still the man she’d met in the restaurant that night? Was she the same woman?
Ashamed that spending money on Blake was such a battle, she decided to step off the cliff and buy the watch. When it was wrapped and ready, she hurried to the Russian Tea Room, anxious to see Blake’s face when he opened it.
Julie felt her heart leap with joy when she saw Blake waiting for her with several big bags under his arm.
“Hi,” she said, biting her lip as if she held every secret in the world just under the surface of her smile.
“Hi,” he said as if he too had a secret. He got the maître d’s attention, and the man led them to their table. They took their seats, the corner of the table between them.
“Did you clean out the city?” she asked as they leaned close together.
“Just about. You?”
“I bought some cloth,” she said, still grinning. She set down her bolts on one of the empty chairs but held the watch behind her back.
“Cloth?” he asked, his eyebrows arching in frustration. “Julie, didn’t you buy anything for yourself?”
Chance of Loving You Page 8
