Deception_A Secret Billionaire Romance

by Lexi Whitlow

  I spent the entire morning calling florists, looking for just the right roses to send her. I spent the better part of the afternoon wondering if she’d take my call. I’m slightly obsessed with Sarah Bauer.

  She’s probably never had a casual fling. She never made out with a boy at prom. She’s all serious and certain and conservative under that rose-gold surface.

  I groan again, just thinking about it.

  Jesus. Nathan was right. I need to get laid. Something tells me that’s not going to happen anytime soon. Not with this girl. But maybe that’s a good thing.

  At least she said okay to drinks. I’ve got a shot to do this the right way and try to figure out who she really is and what she’s about. She’s so different from any woman I’ve come across in ages. She’s no gold digger, and that’s unique in my world. If I give a woman a second look these days, they’re picking out wedding rings. The last three women I entertained the idea of asking out balked hard at the discussion of a prenup or an NDA. One of them slapped me. One burst into tears. One just smiled coldly and walked away. Before that, they were ready to drop, suck, and swallow—or pretty much anything else—if I’d asked for it. When the idea of not being able to walk away with millions was presented in hardcopy, their interest level in me took a nosedive.

  Sarah still doesn’t seem to have a clue who I am, or what I’m worth. I plan to keep it that way. There’s no reason for her to know who I am. CEOs tend to disappear when I walk into the room, and I want Sarah Bauer in my bed before she knows what kind of man I really am.

  I reach forward, touching the button on the intercom. “Samantha, is there anything else scheduled this afternoon? I’d like to head home a little early.”

  “No, Mr. Lucas,” she says from the office out front. “The calendar’s clear. See you in the morning. Have a great evening.”

  I plan to.

  I duck out the back way, using the executive elevator to descend to the mezzanine level overlooking Greenwich Street and Ground Zero, as well as at least ten thousand tourists making the pilgrimage to the memorial. None of those people are from this city. They come here from all over the world, gape into the pits, then up at the glass and steel buildings reaching to the sky. They’re awestruck by the place. To me, it’s just home.

  My driver, Danny, picks me up out front, silently holding the door for me. When he’s back inside, behind the wheel, I say, “When we get home, don’t park it. I’m just going to get a quick shower and change clothes, and then head right back out. I need to be on the lower west side before six.”

  “Yes Sir,” is all he says, nodding in the rearview.

  As we pull off, tourists peer into the dark tinted glass of the limo’s windows, wondering.

  I used to do that too. When I first got to New York, I’d watch the sleek, black limousines cruising around the city, always wondering what secrets they contained. Now I know they just contain mostly bored, wealthy people who can’t or won’t drive in the city. Occasionally they contain an authentic, self-made billionaire hurrying off to go on the first date he’s been on in over two years.

  Danny stops at the curb in front of my building while the doorman approaches at a quick step to open the door.

  “I’ll circle the block sir,” he says. “If you don’t mind, will you give me a call when you’re on your way down?”

  “Not at all,” I reply, climbing out, nodding to my doorman, who knows my routine better than anyone in the world.

  “Early today, Mr. Lucas. Glad to see you home at a decent hour,” he says, smiling warmly. He does that because he’s probably putting a kid through college on what I tip him every Christmas.

  Once upstairs, I shower quickly, change into jeans, an ordinary white Oxford shirt, and casually scuffed brown boots. I take off my wristwatch as there’s no point trying to masquerade as a down on my luck software developer if she notes the expensive Patek Philippe wrapped around my wrist. She was too caught up in her parents the other night to pay me much attention, but tonight she’s going to be focused. Something tells me this girl doesn’t let much escape her notice.

  Danny drops me off two blocks away from the bar so I can walk the rest of the way. I send him home after that, telling him I’ll get a cab back. If she leaves me at the bar I’ll probably regret that decision, as getting a cab on a Friday night in New York City takes an act of Congress.

  I’m astonished when Sarah shows right on time. I’m sitting alone at a table, fidgeting with my glass, when she strolls in the front door of the place at a minute ‘til six. No one is ever on time in this city, and women are always notoriously late for dates. I’ve heard they teach them about that in the ‘How to make men crazy for you’ classes all girls are required to attend prior to puberty.

  She’s lovely. She smiles slightly, even blushing the faintest bit as I pull out her chair for her. She’s still dressed in her work clothes, carrying her laptop bag and purse, looking every bit the high-end urban professional. She’d fit in on Wall Street except for the pink tips and lack of make-up.

  “I was worried you’d change your mind,” I confess, saying perhaps, one of the few truthful things that’s liable to come out of my mouth all night.

  Sarah’s brow furrows slightly. “Why?” she asks. “I said I’d be here.”

  I settle into my chair across from her. The bartender approaches for her order, and to my surprise, she orders a lime tonic and nothing else. I guess her definition of ‘meeting for drinks’ is a little different from mine, like so many other things.

  “Sometimes people don’t do what they say they will,” I observe. “You’ve never been stood up before?”

  She shakes her head, giving me a wry smile. “Nope,” she says. “And I don’t stand people up. It’s rude to waste people’s time like that. You’ll find I tend to honor my word.”

  “Me too,” I reply. “Good. We have that in common.”

  Sarah takes a deep breath, sits up straight, and with a voice pinched with a touch of anxiety says, “I think before we take a lot of time here, I should tell you something important.”

  More surprises? “Okay,” I say, biting my lip. This doesn’t sound like an auspicious beginning.

  “You know about my job,” she says. “My job is pretty much my life. My three best friends in the world are co-workers. We all hang out together. My circle is small, and I like it that way. I don’t go out a lot, and when I do it’s with them. They’re like family. The closest thing I have to real family anymore.”

  None of this is bad. Where’s the revelation her dire tone predicted?

  “That’s the way it’s always going to be,” Sarah says with emphasis. “I’m never getting married. I don’t want kids. I have enough responsibility with my career and six-hundred employees to look after. I’m never going to be anybody’s cook, washer, or nursemaid.”

  Is that all? I’m trying hard not to smile but I can feel the slight creases in the corners of my eyes.

  “A truly liberated woman,” I declare, laying my palms flat on the table between us. “It’s refreshing. Did you think I was looking for a cook, a washer, or a nursemaid?”

  She nods without hesitating. “I think almost all men are looking for that.”

  She has a dim view of manhood.

  “Well,” I say grinning slyly, leaning in just a bit, “I’m going to prove you wrong. I’m not interested in filling any of those roles. I probably deserve the look your father gave me last night when we first walked into that hotel restaurant arm in arm. I’m guilty of everything he imagines, and a lot more I bet he can’t imagine.”

  Sarah’s eyes grow wider with every word of my speech, then she flushes as pink as the antique roses I sent. It’s hard to believe there’s a woman alive in New York City capable of blushing any more.

  She blinks twice, trying to process what she’s heard, running it through her brain again.

  “But before we take up a lot more time, I have a confession too,” I say.

  She blinks again
, her lovely, pale jaw flexing with anticipation.

  “Last night, I was trying to impress you,” I say. “The truth is I was on a job interview yesterday, which is why I was wearing a suit. I met up at the bar with my buddy Nathan afterwards. I’m not in recycling.”

  She frowns. “You’re not?”

  I shake my head. I’ve practiced this delivery a thousand times in my head. I need it to be convincing.

  “Nope. I’m a currently unemployed software developer, working on a few things here and there, barely making ends meet, waiting for my big break.”

  Sarah nods, her expression remaining impassive.

  “I lied because you were so beautiful, and you called me handsome, and I just didn’t want you think I was a total loser. But then… then I spent the evening with you, meeting your parents, learning more about you, and I realized I really like you, and you deserve the truth.”

  “Oh. Okay then,” she says. “That’s not so bad. I mean I guess I wish you’d felt comfortable being honest with me last night, but I can also understand that I might have come off a little… intimidating, what with throwing around money for such a trivial thing, and just waltzing up to you in a bar.”

  “Last night wasn’t a trivial thing,” I tell her. “I saw how important it was to you. I saw how anxious you were about it.”

  Sarah doesn’t respond.

  “I have a question that’s been bugging me all day,” I say. “Why didn’t you get someone, a co-worker or a friend, someone other than a total stranger to do that with you, since you felt the need to do it?”

  She hauls in a deep breath, holding it a long time, her eyes down. When she finally looks up I see a trace of sadness in her eyes.

  “The truth is,” she says. “I don’t have a lot of guy friends. The ones I do have are mostly co-workers who are actually employees, or friends’ husbands or boyfriends. If I’d had more time to plan, I could have hired a professional escort, but my mother called me from the train station in Philadelphia yesterday. I had no choice.” She smiles awkwardly. “I told you my circle is small. I was desperate.”

  “Okay,” I say. “The thing is, if you ever need to scare up a fake date, call me. I’m happy to stand in, regardless of whether we go any further or not. Approaching a stranger like that, and carrying that much cash, it was reckless, and stupid. In this city, it’s just as likely to get you killed as make a new friend. You got lucky.”

  She rolls her eyes, shaking her head. “Ben, people—almost all people—are good in their hearts. If you treat them with respect, they’ll return the favor.”

  That’s the naivest, kumbaya bit I’ve heard in a while. Her circle is way too small.

  “You’re crazy,” I say. “And the good news is I hope to make certain you never find yourself quite that desperate again. Will you please have dinner with me?”

  Her smile could light up the darkest, stormiest, most lonely night I’ve ever spent. It’s like sunshine poking through the banded clouds of a hurricane. It’s got density and volume. Its energy makes me want to sweep her off her feet and dance around the bar, but I try to contain myself for dignity’s sake.

  “I’ve been craving pizza all day. The weather’s warm. Let’s get a pizza and eat in the park,” Sarah suggests. “I love doing that.”

  “I know a good place on Central Park West,” I say grinning. “It’s a ten-minute walk from here. I’ll call ‘em. What do you want?”

  “The works,” Sarah says, hailing the bartender, holding up her card.

  I tell her I’ll get our drinks, but she tells me to put my money away. “You’re between jobs,” she says. “Save your cash.”

  We spend two hours with a cheesy, thin-crust pizza and a bottle of wine in Central Park, watching the evening fade to twilight, talking mostly about her work and mine. Hers is interesting because it’s all true and terribly relevant to her world. The stories I tell are apocryphal, vague, and meandering. They’re the stories of my mis-spent youth, before I found my way into the world of stock derivatives, leveraged buy-outs, and general corporate opportunism. Once upon a time I really was a down and out software developer. Then I managed to code an algorithm that predicted what companies were struggling, when the optimum time to buy or sell their stocks was, and when to pounce. I made my first million while working from a roach infested, cold water flat in Hoboken. The next month, I made twenty million, and moved to Brooklyn.

  “I’ve got this product I know is going to be a huge thing, if I can just get it out of prototype and off the ground,” I say, sipping wine from a paper cup.

  Sarah’s genuinely interested, and so I detail for her the most ludicrous idea anyone ever pitched to me as a potential investment. It’s the perfect diversion for my cover. It’s the stupidest idea in all of modern tech history.

  “It’s called BitScents,” I say leveraging all the gravity I can muster. “You know how Abercrombie and Finch, Banana Republic, and all the big retailers have their stores custom scented with some brew that subconsciously brands the space in people’s minds, making them want to buy stuff, developing an olfactory connection with the place?”

  Sarah nods cautiously while biting off little bits of cheesy pizza and chewing carefully.

  “Imagine if the same thing could be done with web sites,” I say. “You go to Abercrombie and Finch online, and this device attached to your computer starts emitting that smell, causing you to wax nostalgic on how great you looked trying on that pair of jeans in the dressing room. Or maybe you’re at the Chanel web site and your get a dose of Chanel number twenty-two. Or you go to a restaurant site and get smacked with the scent of lasagna while browsing the online menu. The possibilities are endless.”

  I maintain an enthusiastic air while presenting this absurd idea, as Sarah takes it in with what I can only describe as reasonable, seasoned doubt.

  “That’s the silliest idea I’ve heard in a long time,” she laughs. “But I’ve seen sillier things come to market.”

  For the next hour, while it gets dark and the number of people in the park start to thin out, Sarah works through a half-dozen reasonably viable applications for this incredible boat anchor of a product.

  “The deal is,” she says, “companies like Chanel aren’t going to give up the formula to recreate their scent. You need to look at more practical application, like travel and leisure. You visit Expedia, for example, looking for a beach weekend, and you get a salty breeze scent. If you’re visiting Amazon, you get the scent of books.”

  That really is rather smart. If Sarah had been the CEO of BitScent, she might have made a go of it. As it is, the product idea died ten years ago. I’m amazed at her creativity.

  “Let’s talk about how to get a working prototype built,” she says. “If we can do that, we can build a marketing plan around it. Outline for me what you need to get there. I can organize some chemistry consults for help with the science end of it. We need at least five case studies. After that, I think I might be able to start the process of getting some early stage funding.”

  I almost laugh, listening to her. This idea is a tech graveyard resident, and yet she’s willing to commit her contacts and even financial resources toward helping me get it off the ground.

  I have no desire to get this particular product going, but I’m amazed with Sarah’s ability to support my idea, while knowing—as she must—that it’s one of the worst ideas in history.

  Sarah’s a rare creature. She’s managed to embody the sweet naiveté and boundless creativity of someone much younger, with the shrewd savvy and determination of a seasoned business executive.

  That, and she’s one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. She’s got what I can only describe as confident modesty, and it’s alluring in ways I couldn’t have imagined before meeting her. She’s a good listener and unguarded in her own conversation. Unlike most of us who walk through our lives wearing masks, wrapped in layers of fortified armor to conceal our vulnerabilities, with Sarah, what you see is what she
is. That person is beautiful inside and out.

  5

  Sarah

  Every bone in my body wants to tell Ben that his BitScents idea is dreadful, but I’ve never seen the point in crushing anyone’s dreams. I’ve had plenty of bad ideas myself. The only ones that ever cost me serious money, heartache, or time, were ideas other people tried to crush, making me dig in that much deeper, trying to prove them wrong. Ben will figure out soon enough his talents are better applied elsewhere.

  It’s hard to believe a confident, well-educated, street-smart guy like Ben is unemployed and spending his time barking up such an empty tree. I’d hire him. Maybe I should. Then again, that could be awkward having him around the office.

  The ideas he’s putting into my head just sitting here with me in the park talking are daunting. I like him. There’s nothing I don’t like about him. That’s a first.

  “Penny for your thoughts?”

  I’ve been watching the sun set over the trees, lost in my own thoughts. I look around. It’s almost dark and the park is nearly empty. The sidewalk lamps have come on. Soon it’ll be too late to linger here safely. I’ve never been here this late before. I always leave well before sun down, but somehow, I feel safe with Ben.

  “I’m thinking I should probably get home,” I say. “It’s getting late.”

  Ben nods. “It’s getting dark, but not late,” he replies, gathering our trash. He walks them ten yards away to a garbage receptacle, then returns, offering his hand. “May I walk you home?”

  I can’t help but smile. “That’s sweet,” I say, “but I live about a thousand miles from here. I’ll get a cab.”

  “I thought the Amish were fond of fresh air and exercise,” he teases. “It’s still early, let’s at least walk part of the way. When you’re tired we’ll hail a cab.”

  This part of the city is beautiful at night. We head out of the park, turning up Central Park West, staying on the park side. In just a few minutes we cross 72nd Street near the Dakota, which might be my favorite building in the city. There’s something about those old stone buildings that always captivates me. In Indiana, nearly every county courthouse looked like some version of the Dakota. Amish homes and work buildings are always plain, without any ornamentation. As a child I marveled at the beautiful stone buildings I saw in town, but I was told they were boastful, built to impress; prideful demonstrations of great wealth and worldly power. For a long time, I believed that, and still do to a degree, but I also recognize them as works of great craft. They’ve lasted, while glass and steel rise and fall without much remark.