The Guru (Trillionaire Boys' Club Book 6)

by Aubrey Parker

  Onstage, Anthony tells Rena that if her husband won’t agree to the divorce that would be best for them both, then it’s her decision whether or not to take a lover. He doesn’t judge, even though I was ready to. He neither gives Rena permission to break her vows nor condemns her for doing so. He simply says that the choice is hers — and that whichever decision she makes, it’s her duty to herself to own it.

  All those feelings she’s pushed far away, protecting herself day-to-day by watching them in black and white and from a distance? Anthony is telling her that she must now wrap herself in Technicolor. She can’t keep her choice at arm’s length and pretend she’s not making it. She can’t put on her nice clothes, wear her hair just so, and smile as if everything is fine while a storm brews inside her.

  Of course repression is causing her trouble.

  Of course it’s the source of her anxiety, as she tries to go out in public with her fake-perfect facade, acting like nothing has changed.

  “Your fate, Rena,” Anthony says as I watch them in the spotlight, “is in your palm.”

  Onstage, I don’t see Rena. I see my mother with her perfect little outfits and her perfect little all-is-well smile, hosting me and my brothers for holiday meals all these long, lying years.

  I watch Anthony, and picture him talking to Mom.

  My feelings are a see-saw. I want Anthony to help Rena, but I also want him to chastise her more than he is — which means at all, seeing as he hasn’t said a single negative thing. Doesn’t he know how angry I am? Doesn’t he know how hurt I am, for what she’s done to me? Why is all this attention focused on making Rena feel better about cheating, lying, and forcing her child to harbor her secret?

  Why isn’t there any attention on making me feel better — any berating of Mom for forcing me, now that I’ve so recently learned our family’s ugly truth, to keep her secret?

  Clearly, holding that ugly truth inside has affected me.

  My last boyfriend, Rudy, didn’t just cheat on me. He tried to cheat on me with my best friend — and did I throw him out when she told me?

  No, of course not. I called Jamie a liar, and defended the asshole.

  Hurt. Repression. Lies, festering below the surface.

  I’m starting to wonder, over these past few days watching Anthony work, if I’m really the bulletproof bitch I think I am. I’m starting to wonder if the problem with my life has always been me.

  I’ve been so mad at Mom since I found out about her affairs, but is it possible I’ve always known … and just denied it like I denied the truth about Rudy?

  … just like I denied the truth about Becker, the cheating asshole I was dating before that?

  … or Theo, who stole my money and spent it on drugs?

  … or Ian, with all the shit he dragged me through?

  Maybe I didn’t just find out that my perfect family was only a fantasy six weeks ago.

  Maybe I knew about the lifelong sham all along, denied it, and sought shitty relationships to mirror my parents’ without even knowing it.

  Thanks, Mom. Thanks for the damage.

  “You do deserve to be happy,” Anthony tells Rena onstage in his firm, I-won’t-sugarcoat-this voice.

  Her eyes are open now, and her cheeks are so wet that mascara-infused tears have actually darkened her collar.

  Anthony is kneeling in front of her with both of his huge hands on her shoulders. I watch his square-jawed profile as he says, “But you can’t make selfish choices at the expense of others. Your husband is part of your story. What’s between the two of you is between the two of you. Maybe he drove you to cheat; I won’t presume to know. But what I do know — and more importantly, what you know — is that your son isn’t part of that story. You can’t ask Oliver to lie for you. If he found out what’s going on, you have to let him decide what to do with that information. You need to be there for him, to discuss or not discuss it — whatever he decides. If he chooses to tell his father, that’s his choice. It’s out of your hands.”

  He gives Rena’s shoulders a squeeze, and goddammit if he doesn’t look right at me again as I finally start to blubber.

  “You have to understand that you never make one choice in isolation. Everything is a wave. You chose to be with another man when you and your husband really started to fight — and especially after he shut down, stopped talking to you, and refused to grant the divorce. But you were also choosing to accept that people might find out … and if they did, you were choosing not to interfere with their free choices. Do you see what I’m saying?”

  A sob escapes Rena. She nods.

  And as I think of my mother, realizing I might actually be starting to understand her choice, as much as I hate her for it, Anthony looks from the stage right into my eyes.

  “Happiness isn’t the goal of life,” Anthony says, “but freedom is. Because if we have the freedom to choose, we can choose happiness.”

  Choose happiness, Caitlin, he seems to be saying.

  If only it were that easy.

  Rena cries harder.

  And so do I, no longer caring who sees or hears.

  Standing in front of Rena, Anthony opens his arms and softly says, “Come over here.”

  I actually flex to rise as Rena stands, then enters the circle of his arms.

  They hug, and she sobs until it’s all out.

  The lights come up. The crowd applauds her bravery and victory, and the exercise is over.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ANTHONY

  I COME OFFSTAGE AS THE confetti falls. I never want to go behind the curtain with any of it in my hair or on the shoulders of my suit — not because I’m fastidious, but because the confetti is for the audience, not me. I had my victory a long time ago, and I get a new one every time I go onstage.

  My life has been good since its initial rough start, and these days I want for nothing. I have friends; my parents are alive and in good health; I’m healthy myself and in excellent shape.

  Most importantly, I have my business. It’s my baby, and I get the pleasure of tucking it in at night.

  I have all I want. I don’t need anything more.

  So no — the confetti is for them, out there beyond the curtain. It’s to celebrate the victory of each and every person in my audience who had a breakthrough today. Enough attention, for now, has been focused on Anthony Ross.

  But the second I’m backstage the illusion shatters like a fallen vase. Tracy and Perry, my husband-and-wife event management team, come at me with an agenda and a thousand questions.

  “Tony,” Tracy says. “That was great. Just great. The thing with today’s on-stage volunteer where you talked about the difference between her choices and the son’s choices? Brilliant.”

  I don’t slow. The minute I stop walking I’ll be surrounded, unable to escape — and I need to escape. Erica is waiting for me. She and I have an understanding.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “Amber gave me your schedule. She’s over at—”

  “I know,” I say, still walking. “I asked her to run down the street to that little cafe and check the atmosphere. Not for me; for the coaches and our one-on-ones. It’s okay. She said you volunteered to take over assistant duty for a while.”

  Tracy puts her finger on her paper. “Looks like she has your massage lined up at midnight. And your chiro at one.”

  “Is it possible to do the massage second? Adjustment is never very relaxing, and I sort of need to sleep when I’m done.”

  “You don’t sleep,” Perry says.

  Tracy keeps on going. “No problem. I’m sure they won’t mind switching. I’ll make a note for Amber to—”

  “Would you mind handling it instead? I really don’t want to put more on Amber’s plate if it can be helped.” I look at Tracy and then Perry, indicating that either will do. They’re not assistants, but we’re a big business family around here, and we all tend to pick up where things need picking.

  Amber’s stretched thin these days; she’
s getting married. She didn’t want to take time off even for her honeymoon, said that the Ross Institute couldn’t afford her absence right now. I insisted otherwise. This company is my obsession. It doesn’t need to be all of theirs, too.

  “Of course. Which do you want me to move? Do you want to start at eleven or midnight?”

  “I’ll still be with Erica at eleven. It has to be midnight.”

  Amber wouldn’t even have asked the question, but Tracy doesn’t seem to be embarrassed by the near-miss on screwing my schedule — no pun intended. Instead she nods, accepting my ludicrous schedule without a hitch. Nobody flinches anymore. When I first started, there was a lot I had to give up to grow the business, because the schedules never quite worked out to allow time for everything. These days I just do stuff whenever I want, and nobody minds shuffling their times to make it work. I’ve had a dinner meeting at three in the morning because I got immersed in roughing out a new event module. I once had a personal training session from 1AM to 2:30AM because it was either that or not get my workout in. Perry’s jokes aside, I’ve learned sleep is a lot more optional than people think.

  Work comes first, but these days I try never to weigh my other pursuits against the business as “or” options. I’ve always been an and guy, and fortunately I have enough money now to pay others enough to and with me whenever things fit.

  “A VIP showed up during the show to watch you from backstage,” Perry says, still following me as I snake through the hall’s serpentine back quarters. “But don’t worry; he was just sticking his head out to peek. He said he didn’t want to take up any of your time because he knows how tight you pack things.”

  “Who was it?”

  Tracy consults her clipboard. “Mr. Spooner.”

  “Clive? I didn’t even know he was in the country.”

  “In the country and on your stage,” Perry says, nodding in the corner of my eye. “You didn’t want us to hang on to him for you, did you?”

  I shake my head. “I have time with Clive next week.”

  Tracy looks something between surprised and insulted. She looks at her clipboard again, flipping pages. “When?”

  “Wednesday,” I say.

  “It’s not on the schedule.”

  “You’re not my PA, Tracy. Don’t worry about it.”

  “But this is Amber’s schedule.” She holds it up in case I might be thinking of a different schedule.

  “It’s not something Amber needs to worry about. It’s SM.”

  They nod. SM is my code for “self-managed,” meaning something I make arrangements for myself instead of letting my team handle it. With as much as I do, SM events are rare. The only SMs to pass Amber’s gauntlet recently were ordering flowers for my mom’s birthday and taking Jamie to Maui for hers. Both were simple for me to arrange — even the trip, considering we flew on my jet and only stayed two nights in my house there.

  This time Jamie’s new fiancé Aiden came with us, meaning that most of my role in the vacation birthday present involved getting out of the way to give them privacy. I mostly stayed in the east wing and left the west to them. I didn’t mind. I spent most of the Maui time working on my upcoming book, and on the phone with Tracy and Perry, brainstorming last-minute enhancements to the Fate In Your Palm event.

  Tracy’s still sort of lifting her eyebrows at me, but SM events are about privacy as much as they’re about the personal touch. I don’t want anyone but me ordering birthday flowers for Mom, but I similarly don’t want my staff butting in about it. I’m a very public person these days, so SM is the only way I can still do some things off the grid.

  Still, I can’t take Tracy’s expression, so I cave just a tad. Amber knows when to keep her nose out of my personal affairs and when I want a helping hand, but Tracy and Perry aren’t used to this level of intimacy.

  “It’s part of the meeting block,” I say, pausing to point at the block I mean.

  Tracy nods but doesn’t seem entirely satisfied. Normally my “meetings” are with staff she’d know, but this one doesn’t name the party — because, again, self-managed. It’s not that I want to fly solo for pretty much all of Wednesday, but at this point I have to unless I want to distract Jamie from her Ross Foundation duties to act as my handler. Nobody’s supposed to know about my business with Nathan’s Syndicate, but recently the time I’ve been required to devote to it has expanded like a cancer.

  At least it’s a benevolent cancer — as long as I have anything to say about it, anyway.

  I stop walking. We’re in a relatively people-free section of the building. It’s mostly just black-painted walls, A/V cables, and too many echoes. I look at Tracy. “Where does Amber have my personal time tonight?”

  Tracy looks down, but doesn’t miss a beat. My personal time is another thing nobody flinches at anymore. I actually held an inner-circle meeting about it, just to make sure we were all on the same page. My persona isn’t an act; I live my life the way I speak onstage. It would be difficult to dig up dirt on me because I’m an open book — and, frankly, because I don’t have time to manage lies.

  So the day after I decided to begin taking “personal time,” I told my team, Look, none of the women I’ll do this with think it’s anything more than it is. I won’t approach anyone who’s in a relationship or who scores poorly on the crisis survey we give our attendees. The intake forms will need to indicate that they’re psychologically healthy. I won’t take advantage of these women … but yes, the idea here is to have no-strings-attached sex. I don’t have time for more than “just sex” and they don’t expect more. Now, who has questions?

  My team and I discussed the idea for half an hour that first night, and then never again. Their questions weren’t about the morality of what I proposed, but were more about logistics. They wanted to know the system — how I’d meet the women, how I’d find moments to speak with them beforehand so our encounter wouldn’t be cold, how I’d coordinate those meet-ups with the staff, and how it could all be handled without my companion for the night feeling used.

  As with anything, we worked out a system to deliver maximum fulfillment in minimal time. And now, “personal time” with one woman per city is just another part of my always-complicated routine.

  Most bosses can’t get away with what I’ve established, but my team knows me and trusts my motivations. I’m human; I need companionship and touch and intimacy the same as anyone in my audience, and how else am I supposed to get it? Have a relationship?

  There’s isn’t the time. I only sleep five hours a night as it is — and frankly, married to my work as I am, the only honest way to get what I need is through single-serving girlfriends.

  “At the hotel restaurant,” Tracy answers. “Amber already talked to the manager and got you a nice corner booth. She’s planned half an hour for drinks. After that, you’ll have to pause your date with Erica and take that call. The one that couldn’t be moved?”

  I almost roll my eyes. Alexa Mathis doesn’t move out of anyone’s way, so of course nothing Amber did to try and reschedule was ever going to work. It’s going to be clumsy as hell to have drinks with Erica, then have a business call that I can maybe reframe as time for Erica to “get ready,” and only then get on with the rest of our temporary romance. But if I don’t do it that way, I’m out of options.

  I can’t just skip drinks with Erica, because I need to be at least a little bit of a gentleman before taking her to bed.

  And I need to talk to Alexa — she’s being an inflexible bitch, but that’s Alexa for you. She knows we need her as much as she needs us, and she’s always been great at playing her power cards.

  “The call won’t be more than half an hour,” I say.

  Tracy looks down at the schedule, running a finger along it and nodding. “Right. That’s what she has here: drinks, half-hour phone meeting, then up to a room to conclude your personal time.”

  “My room?”

  Tracy shakes her head. “Amber said to let you know she got yo
u another room and already gave your date the room number. The keycard is in your wallet—”

  I touch the back of my pants.

  “And your wallet is in the car.”

  I nod. “Good.”

  Alexa-interruptus aside, everything sounds perfect. A separate hotel room means fewer personal ties. As with anything I do, I’ve been refining personal time each time I do it, and this is the latest version.

  “It looks like your date’s number is already in your phone.” She looks back at Perry, who procures my phone and hands it to me. “Any questions?”

  “Confirm the time I’m meeting her, please?”

  “Ten.”

  I look down at my watch. It’s already 9:25 — typical for a Fate In Your Palm day. I need to keep things moving to stay on schedule. “When’s the last time you heard from Amber?” I ask.

  “She texted Perry just a few minutes before you came off stage. Wanted to make sure we had everything straight. When I said we were on top of it for her, she actually called like she didn’t believe us.”

  “She made Tracy repeat it all back to her,” Perry adds.

  “Don’t take it personally,” I say, moving toward the open back door and the street lights beyond. “She’s just trying to do her job and protect me from myself.”

  Outside, just a few dozen feet ahead, I can see my black Escalade idling at the curb. It’s a huge vehicle, but I’m six-four and broad. My suits would need to be custom-tailored even if I didn’t prefer bespoke, just because most men with shoulders as wide as mine are fat guys, whereas I need all my jackets tapered.

  “We’re not taking it personally,” Perry says. “If we had Amber running audience mics for us or something, we’d be micromanaging her in just the same way.”

  I reach the door, then turn back. “Guys?” I say.

  “Yes, Anthony?”

  “Please call Amber back. Get her report on the cafe and pass it down to the coaches who have one-on-ones scheduled for tomorrow, and then make the needed reservations if she hasn’t already. But then tell her to go home. She’ll tell you about all she still needs to do before tomorrow, so insist. Tell her I said that if she doesn’t go home to Nick right now, she’s fired. I won’t have her getting divorced before she’s married. Got it?”