I Married a Billionaire: The Prodigal Son (Contemporary Romance)

by Marchande, Melanie

  I’d be lying if I said the thought never crossed my mind. Sometimes I’d see a kid with bright green eyes like his, or dark hair with those loose, wavy curls. And I’d wonder. What would little Daniel look like? Or…Daniela?

  I chuckled to myself as we sat down to dinner. Of course I’d never actually saddle one of our kids with their father’s name. It was just funny to imagine. I remembered Daniel’s sister, Lindsey, telling me about how he’d been hyper and uncontrollable when he was little. It was hard to picture. I wanted to see it firsthand, and there was really only one way to do that.

  Of course, there was no guarantee we’d ever have a son. We might have a daughter, like he’d said. We might have a little girl with his features, and I didn’t mind admitting that she’d be quite pretty if she did. Prettier than me.

  A plate appeared in front of me, but I wasn’t really interested in the idea of eating. I pushed the steak around, trying to psych myself up for actually taking a bite.

  “Do you really want to have a daughter?” I said, at last, quietly. Daniel froze for a moment, then laid his fork down carefully on the edge of his plate.

  “It was just something to say for the press,” he said, his voice very cool and even. “I wish I hadn’t. Now they’re going to latch onto it. There’s nothing they want more than a Thorne heir. It would give them fodder for ages.”

  A Thorne heir. Leave it to Danny to come up with the coldest possible way to describe our potential child.

  “Oh, okay.” I stared at my plate, keeping my voice low. I was mindful that someone might be listening. “Just curious.”

  Two

  I woke up to a buzzing from my phone on the nightstand. Groping for it blindly, I tried to remember what that particular notification sound signified. Daniel had guilted me into beta-testing an operating system overhaul, and all of my settings had been scrambled.

  It took a few seconds of blinking and shaking my head before I was able to understand the popup alert. It was an email, from Emily. The subject line said:

  Got something to tell me?

  I opened it, my sleepy brain unable to even halfway guess at the contents.

  Inside, there was a link, leading to a gossip blog I was pretty sure I’d been featured on before. And underneath:

  P.S. Next time, let me pick the dress.

  Cringing, I clicked the link.

  The site took a painfully long time to load. I had to zoom in on my mobile browser before my still-blurry eyes could process what I was seeing.

  DANIEL THORNE’S BRIDE - SPORTING A BABY BUMP?

  I scrolled down to the picture, hoping against hope that I was actually still asleep, and this was nothing more than a nightmare.

  Out of all the times I had consciously and subconsciously posed for the camera, they’d managed to dig out a picture of me walking down the stairs as we left for the night, from the most unflattering angle possible. And the way the dress bunched around my stomach - okay, even I had to admit it looked a little suspicious.

  Oh, God.

  Madeline Thorne was looking radiant in her eighties throwback dress at the benefit for women’s heart disease - but did she pick it for a reason other than the color? Maybe she just needed something to fit over her growing bundle of joy. Daniel mentioned a “future daughter” in a conversation with a journalists, and sources say they overheard the couple speaking in hushed tones over dinner.

  The couple leads an intensely private life, but…

  I couldn’t read any more. I went back to Emily’s email and typed a one-word response:

  NO!!!!!!

  Against all logic, a few minutes later, I found myself staring at my reflection in the mirror, sideways. I’d never been one of those flat-stomached girls, but I didn’t exactly have a “baby bump” either. And certainly not one with an actual baby in it.

  One I’d stopped frowning at my reflection, I went back to my phone and texted Daniel.

  The gossip blogs think I’m pregnant.

  I was already halfway through breakfast when his response came.

  Ha ha.

  ***

  “It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, would it?”

  Daniel looked up from the sheaf of papers in his hand. “Hmm?”

  “I mean, if I was.” I stared at the computer screen. “Pregnant.”

  Daniel frowned at the paperwork. “But you’re not,” he said.

  “Of course I’m not,” I said. “And if I was far along enough to show, I’d definitely know about it.”

  “I should hope so.” He flipped through a few of the papers, and set them down. “Let me ask you something.”

  “Sure,” I said, sitting back.

  “How’s that OS update?” He jerked his head in the direction of my phone. “I’ve got a meeting with the team tomorrow afternoon. I’d like to report back on the user experience.”

  “Oh. Yeah, of course.” I cleared my throat. “Well, I don’t like that it jumbled all my settings.”

  “Which ones?” He was pulling a tiny notebook out of his pocket. “Be specific.”

  “Ringtones. My wallpaper. I don’t know. Everything.”

  “And this happened immediately after you installed the update?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  He was scribbling. I looked back at the picture of myself that was blown up full-size on my computer screen; by this time, it had appeared on every gossip blog I knew about, and several I didn’t. I figured it was only a matter of time before it actually headlined a tabloid. This wasn’t my first rodeo. But admittedly, it was the first time I’d been accused of being pregnant.

  No, “accused” wasn’t the right word. Actually, from the tone of the articles, it almost seemed like they were…happy for me. That meant that they expected their readers to be happy for me, too.

  I had ventured into the comments sections of a few of the blogs, against my better judgment, but very few of the discussions actually had anything to do with me, and before long, the whole thing devolved into a pissing match between two different people who apparently had very fundamentally different beliefs about the New World Order, though to the untrained eye, they seemed exactly the same.

  I considered using some of Daniel’s contacts in the media to do the classic “sorry, I’m not pregnant” disclaimer, but I figured no one would believe me anyway. All most readers needed was to see my name near the word “pregnant” and it would be lodged in their brains forever as the truth.

  Anyway, I supposed it was nice to know that if I was pregnant, it wouldn’t be met with a tide of public disapproval.

  “So.” Daniel frowned at me curiously. “Tell me about what happened to your ringtones.”

  ***

  He brought home two more manuscripts the next week, with a sour expression on his face. I almost had to laugh, but I could tell he wasn’t amused by it.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “There are some capable writers out there. Somewhere. Right?”

  “Of course,” I said. “But they might not be putting themselves out for hire to write a rich guy’s biography.”

  “What, are you saying they think it’s beneath them?” His expression suggested he thought this was a completely ridiculous excuse.

  “Well, for some people, you know, it’s an art form. They’re working on their…great American novel, or whatever. They don’t necessarily want to do something, uh, commercial.”

  He was looking at me like I was from a different planet.

  I raised my hands, palms outward. “Look, I’m not saying it makes good business sense, but that’s just how some people operate. They take their craft seriously.”

  “And I don’t?” he shot back, opening one of the kitchen cabinets and pulling out a bag of almonds.

  “I’m just saying, it’s a different perspective.” I picked up the manuscripts, skimming over them. The top one had a few grammar irregularities, which I thought was pretty sloppy for a writing sample meant to sell Daniel on their merit
s. But the other was even worse. It was completely spiritless and disinterested. I felt like I was reading a user’s manual.

  “There aren’t going to work,” I said. “There’s got to be someone else out there.”

  “I liked the first one,” he protested, snatching it away from me. “Sort of. I mean, what’s wrong with it?”

  “Here,” I said, pointing to the second paragraph. “Here, he doesn’t have parallel structure. And then down here.” I placed my finger further down the page. “The second clause of the sentence doesn’t correctly refer back to the subject. I mean, everyone makes mistakes, sure. Absolutely. I won’t crucify the guy over it. But this is supposed to be the way he proves himself to you. This is his one chance to make a first impression. He should be putting more effort in, I think. But hey, that’s just my opinion.”

  Daniel was looking at me closely - frowning, almost, but not with displeasure.

  “You know a lot about this sort of thing,” he said, finally.

  I shrugged. “I did okay in English class.”

  He slid the manuscript back over in front of him, and looked at it again. “Now that you mention it, there is something…off about it. I never would have noticed anything specific, though.”

  “Neither will most of your readers, probably.”

  “Still. I don’t want to put out a shoddy product.” He looked up at me again. “Why don’t you do it?”

  “Do what? Interview them?” I shook my head. “No way, Mr. Thorne. Hard limit.”

  He laughed. “No. I mean, write it.”

  “Are you insane?” I got up, going to the sink to rinse out my glass. “I haven’t written anything since my last college essay.”

  “Well?” he said, swiveling around on the stool, his hands folded in his lap.

  “Well?” I echoed. “Do I really have to list all the reasons why I don’t really think I can just…dive into writing a book?”

  “Don’t think of it that way,” he said. “Take it one chapter at a time.”

  “No, you’re crazy. No way.” I dried my hands. “Get a real writer to do it.”

  “What do you think the difference is between you and a ‘real writer?’” he said, in that reasonable, calming tone that he always used when he tried to talk me into something. And it usually worked, too.

  “I don’t know, a degree? Experience? A muse?”

  “No,” he said. “The difference is, they decided to write. You know, F. Scott Fitzgerald never even finished college.”

  “I know that, but he also lived a life of complete dissolution and married a crazy person.” I hesitated, stopping to turn and smile at Daniel. “I was going to say he didn’t make a very good role model, but actually…”

  Daniel’s expression didn’t change, but the middle finger of his right hand very briefly flicked up above the rest.

  I giggled, coming over to ruffle his hair and drape my arm over his neck. “Okay, so that was a low blow. I’m sorry. But I’m not writing your biography. It deserves someone who knows what they’re doing.”

  “You’re looking at this all wrong,” he insisted, shrugging me off. “You know me better than anyone. That’s the most important thing.”

  But I hardly know you at all.

  No, that wasn’t true. I knew Daniel, after all this time. I knew him well enough to love him. But there were so many things I didn’t know about him, still.

  And that’s when it hit me.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’ll do it, but I won’t like it.”

  “Well, that was a fast turnaround.” Daniel got up and came over to where I was standing. He wrapped his arm around my waist. “Thank you. I was dreading the idea of more interviews, and more manuscripts to read. It’s starting to feel like homework.”

  “God forbid,” I said. I didn’t know exactly what experiences Daniel had in school that left him with such a bad taste in his mouth, but anything even remotely approaching school work practically gave him hives. Well - I’d find out the details soon enough.

  Oh, God. What had I gotten myself into?

  ***

  The next morning was Saturday, so naturally, Daniel was sitting in the living room with a huge notebook and one of his ridiculously fancy fountain pens - I swore it was called something like Montblanc Meisterstruck - before I’d even finished my first cup of coffee.

  “Ready to get started?” he said, brightly, as I shuffled out and sank into an armchair.

  “Not really,” I said. “Do I have a choice?”

  He pushed the notebook in my direction. “I got this for you, unless you’d rather type your notes. We’ll record everything, obviously, but if there’s anything in particular you wanted to highlight.” I looked down and noticed a little digital recorder running on the table.

  “This is fine,” I said. “How many notes do you think I’ll need to take?”

  He shrugged. “Should we go in chronological order?”

  “Sure, fine.”

  I yawned. He was looking at me expectantly.

  “What?” I said, finally. “Go on. Get started.”

  “You’re supposed to ask me questions,” he said.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I set my mug down on the table. “See, I told you I wasn’t qualified to do this. How the hell am I supposed to know what questions to ask you?”

  He shrugged. “Most of them started by asking me about my earliest memory.”

  “All right, so, fine. Tell me about your earliest memory.” I uncapped the pen and waited.

  He took a deep breath. “It was a long time ago,” he said, finally, after a pause.

  “Well, I should certainly hope so.”

  I couldn’t quite read the expression on his face. I sat there for a while, mindlessly chewing on the end of the pen. The fact that he didn’t notice - and demand that I stop - spoke volumes.

  Finally, I noticed that the tips of his ears were tinged slightly pink.

  “Are you embarrassed?” I blurted out, laughing as I spoke.

  He looked at me balefully.

  “Come on,” I said. “You volunteered the question, you don’t get to weasel your way out of it.”

  He drummed his fingers on his thigh. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”

  “Oh my God.” I leaned forward in my chair. “Now I have to know. You realize that, right? There’s absolutely no turning back.”

  “I’d rather not,” he said, looking so uncomfortable that I was beginning to feel positively gleeful.

  I grinned at him for a while, tapping the pen against my teeth. His eyes silently begged, but I wasn’t giving an inch.

  “It can’t possibly be that bad,” I said.

  “It’s not,” he replied, quickly. “It’s not. That’s why I brought it up; I didn’t have any trouble telling anyone else.”

  “Just me.”

  “Just you,” he agreed.

  “Well, don’t I feel special.”

  A few more moments of silence passed.

  “I was…I don’t know how old,” he said, and it took me a moment to realize he was actually coming up with an answer. “I know I was hardly tall enough to see out of the window in the living room. This was in - you know, our first place. When I was a kid.”

  “The trailer,” I supplied. Lindsey had told me, but this was the first time it had come up in conversation.

  “As you say.” He cleared his throat. “We could see into the neighbor’s bedroom window, very clearly. I remember - thinking back - I remember - every once in a while, my mother or my father would go over there and yell at them to close the god damn blinds but it never happened. If either of them caught me looking, they’d…” he stopped, and frowned. “They wouldn’t be too happy about it. But this time, I suppose they didn’t. Because I just remember standing there for what felt like ages, with my fingers up on the sill.

  “She was very tall, the woman next door. Very tall, and very…statuesque, I guess, is what you’d say. Anyway.”

  He took a deep bre
ath.

  “She, you know, she undressed. As one does. But it was the first time I ever saw anything like that. And I remember it so clearly. Like it was yesterday.”

  “Fascinating,” I said. “I don’t know if it’ll really fit the tone of your biography, but…fascinating.”

  He folded his arms across his chair, leaning back on the sofa. “I don’t know why I didn’t want to tell you.”

  “You’re embarrassed,” I said. “But you shouldn’t be.”

  ***

  Excerpted from Daniel Thorne: A Life

  Daniel Thorne will be the first to tell you that no good idea comes without a price.

  It would come as a surprise to most people that the man who has consistently created some of the world’s most cutting-edge, technologically advanced handheld devices spent the first ten years of his life without so much as a video cassette recorder. Sitting in the living room of his parents’ trailer, eyes glued to the thirteen inch TV set with the rabbit ears on top, Daniel did something that many other children in his situation did: he dreamed of something better.

  But in his particular case, those dreams turned into a multi-national corporation whose devices became household names. It’s reasonable enough to wonder: what is it, exactly, that sets him apart from the crowd?

  I first met Daniel when he was poised on the brink of world fame. At the time, he struck me as stern and quiet. Somewhat aloof. I assumed he was like all great men: self-obsessed, convinced of his own greatness, and used to getting his way. The fact that he rarely spoke to his subordinates seemed to support my ideas about him.

  The truth of Daniel Thorne is somewhat different. Those who’ve had the privilege to speak to him at any length will tell you the same story; he is often surprisingly humble and self-effacing, and in general, he dislikes talking about his own accomplishments. When he avoids interactions with others, it’s not out of some sense of superiority. It’s simply because he is shy.