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

by Marchande, Melanie

  “I know.” Curtis looked positively gray. He went to the little electric kettle that he kept in the back of the room, fiddling with it absently. “That’s my landlord, by the way.”

  “Oh, my God. You’re kidding me.” I sat down, folding my arms across my chest. “I would have murdered him by now.”

  “Well, I barely ever have to talk to him. He’s usually too busy snorting cocaine off of Eliot Spitzer’s prostitute, or whatever he does in his spare time. Of which he has plenty.”

  I smiled at him as he handed me a mug of tea. “Don’t hold back, tell me how you really feel.”

  “I don’t understand why he’s been up my ass lately. I already told him, I’m not renewing the lease and he’s the reason why. But he keeps hounding me. What for, I can’t figure out. It’s like he’s trying to rub my face in it.”

  “It would be a shame if this place burned down accidentally after you cleared everything out,” I said, with a grin.

  “Oh my God, no,” said Curtis. “Please. Don’t put any ideas in my head.”

  “Well I guess that answers my question of ‘how are you doing.’” I sipped my tea. It was on the tip of my tongue to start ranting about all the insanity I was dealing with, but then I remembered it was too early to talk about the pregnancy, and Daniel and I hadn’t even discussed the possibility of talking about his dad to anyone else. As far as the rest of the world knew, Walter was still dead.

  “Hanging onto sanity, you know, one day at a time,” Curtis said, echoing my exact feelings. “You know, the usual. Doing yoga, deep breathing exercises, casually considering arson.”

  “I’m not bailing you out.” I set my mug down on the desk. “I don’t care if you tell them it was my idea, they’ll never believe you.”

  “Of course they wouldn’t. Look at that face.” He grinned at me for a moment, then looked away, abruptly. “But back to business, I’m assuming you’ve brought me something you want me to try and unload for you?”

  He flipped open my portfolio and glanced at the pieces. “Very nice,” he said, smiling, but I could tell he wasn’t really seeing them.

  I couldn’t blame him. Being in this place for the first time since I’d learned about its fate, the oddly poignant sense of loss came back with a vengeance. I knew that this place wasn’t just a business for Curtis; it was a piece of his personal history. He’d originally acquired it to impress a pretty classmate, who eventually became his wife. She’d since passed away, but the walls of his office were lined with her paintings.

  “How’d you end up with a landlord, anyway? I thought you bought this place.”

  He smiled wryly. “Joke’s on me. Back in the nineties, I went through a little bit of a rough patch and I was having trouble paying the mortgage. So were my neighbors - back when we were all involved in the art community. Big on inspiration, not so big on actual real dollars. That guy, if you can imagine, came in as an angel of mercy and bought the whole block. He bailed us all out. He made a lot of promises, and we were so grateful to him for ‘saving’ us that we didn’t read all the fine print.”

  “Well, at least now you know for next time.”

  He gave me a look. “Next time? Oh, hell no. I’m too old for this as it is. There’s no way I can…no, that’s…” he laughed, sounding a little bewildered.

  “You mean you’re not going to open another gallery?” The thought honestly hadn’t occurred to me. I’d just been assuming he’d start over in a better location.

  “With what money?”

  I raised my eyebrows a little.

  “No,” he said, holding up both hands in a gesture of protest. “No, no, no. Absolutely not.”

  “I didn’t even say anything,” I protested. “Look, just think it over.”

  “You’re sweet,” he said. “But no. Not in a thousand years.”

  “Come on,” I said, suddenly infatuated with the idea. “Daniel won’t mind, he likes it when I think of new and exciting ways to spend his money.”

  Curtis was shaking his head emphatically.

  “So what are you going to do, then?” I challenged him. “Don’t tell me you’re retiring.”

  “With what money,” he said, in a slightly more chagrined tone than last time. “No, I’ll be fine. I still have plenty of good connections, I’ll find something to do with my time.”

  This whole thing just kept getting sadder and sadder. I had a feeling that if Curtis’s wife were still alive, she’d never allow him to just roll over and accept this fate. But without her around, he didn’t know what to do with himself.

  I had to cut him a certain amount of slack. He was a widower, after all.

  For some reason, thoughts of Daniel’s father crept into my head. I didn’t particularly want to be in the business of making excuses for Walter, but I had to admit - I’d never lived through a tragedy like that. I couldn’t really pass judgment. Going through a massive dissociative fugue of some kind and faking one’s own death probably wasn’t one of the acceptable stages of coping with grief, but I couldn’t really sit in judgment. I tried to imagine what it would be like, watching Daniel slowly waste away and be powerless to stop it. Even the fleeting thought left me feeling cold inside.

  “It’s time to face facts,” Curtis was saying. “My time in this business is over. Everything’s changing and I never made even the slightest effort to keep up. That’s nobody’s fault but mine. Even if I wanted to stay in the industry, I wouldn’t know how.”

  “Jesus, okay, you want to carve ‘BROOKS WAS HERE’ in the door jamb before you go, too?” I smiled at him. “Tone down the melodrama.”

  “It’s not melodrama, it’s true,” he insisted. “The art world’s moved on without me. This gallery was one last cozy little outpost for me. No more.” He finally noticed me staring at all the paintings that lined the walls. “If you’re wondering what Jill would think of this, believe me, the thought’s occurred to me. More than once. Pretty much constantly.”

  “Well?” I prompted him.

  He sat down, slowly, like somebody was letting all the air out of him. “I don’t know,” he said. “If I knew that, this would probably be a lot easier.” He sighed heavily, leaning his head back onto the chair. “The fact of the matter is, you know - you never really get used to making decisions without your spouse. Or doing anything. But the other stuff is easier. At first it was almost impossible to get out of bed in the morning, and turn on the coffeemaker, and start the car, knowing she was gone. There was, you know, like - this palpable absence. But eventually you just re-learn. It’s like physical therapy. Or quitting cigarettes. I mean, it hurts a thousand times worse than both of those things combined, but I think you know what I mean.

  “The big decisions, though. They don’t come up often enough that you ever get used to it. I still get that urge, somewhere in the back of my mind that was never fully convinced that she’s gone. Better check with Jill. Let’s see what Jill thinks. And no matter how well you know somebody, or how many years you live together, you can never really be sure. What would she think? I don’t have a clue, honestly. And that’s hard to admit, you know, but there it is.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, finally, because I didn’t know what else to say.

  “It’s all right, trust me,” he said, his smile coming back without much emotion behind it. “You’re lucky, you know.”

  As it happens, I did.

  ***

  “Take me to Plum, please,” I said to John as I climbed into the car.

  His face registered surprise, but barely. “Of course.”

  I huddled in the backseat, my mind racing and my heart aching. I’d only been to the main offices of Plum Tech a few times since I’d quit, and it always felt eerie. Like walking into a time machine.

  When I stepped out of the elevator into the main office level, I stepped aside for a moment took in my surroundings. The building and the decor were the same, but I didn’t recognize a single face.

  “Hello, Mrs. Thorne,” said the
receptionist with a smile. I nodded, trying not to feel unnerved. Of course she recognized me. Plenty of people recognized me, these days.

  I walked down the hall towards Daniel’s office. Nothing had changed; the hallway still smelled the same, the carpet still felt the same under my shoes.

  And yes, his sharp-faced assistant, Alice, was still there.

  She gave me a curt nod as I went to the door and pushed it open, not bothering to stop and let myself be announced.

  Daniel was kneeling by the window, watering one of his plants. He’d taken his jacket off and rolled up his sleeves, and as I slowly shut the door behind me, I saw him reach out and touch the bottom of one of the leaves, laying it out over his hand and leaning down to look at it more closely.

  The click of the door made him look up.

  “Is something wrong?” was, of course, the first thing that came out of his mouth. In retrospect, I probably did nothing to assuage this fear when I rushed to him silently and threw my arms around him, holding him tightly, resting my head on his chest. He was frozen for a moment, but then he wrapped his arms around me. By now, I was used to the idea that returning an embrace would never be a reflex for him.

  “No,” I said, finally. “I just love you, that’s all.”

  “I love you too,” he said, with a mild surprise still registering in his voice.

  I pulled back, looking at his face. The sort of taken-aback expression, and his overall rumpled and thrown-off appearance, was almost painfully adorable.

  “I just wanted to see you,” I said. “I’m sorry if this is a bad time.”

  “Yes,” he said, his face finally relaxing into a smile. “I’m very busy with my plants, as you can see.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. They’re just going to have to wait.” It was a strange feeling, being in this room again - he hadn’t even rearranged the furniture since the first day I’d walked in here and he’d handed me a contract proposing a fake marriage, with his disgraced lawyer sitting uncomfortably in the corner.

  “It’s nice to know some things never change,” I said.

  “Are you referring to me, or the room?”

  “Both. Maybe. I’m not sure.” My head was buzzing, and I could feel my throat beginning to grow dry. But this time, it wasn’t a sign of an impending panic attack. That, I was sure of. “Did you used to be different, or did I just get to know you better?”

  “Both,” he said, with his arms still around my waist, holding me close. The heat of his body was making my knees feel weak. “I’m an acquired taste.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, softly. “Personally, I always liked it.”

  He groaned, then laughed. “Okay,” he said, letting his hands slide down to cup my ass. “All right. I walked right into that one.”

  “We never did it here,” I pointed out, looking around the room one more time. “I can’t believe it, in retrospect. It really would have lent some legitimacy to our story if we’d been caught in here, you know.”

  He smiled indulgently, stepping forward, moving my body along with him, until I was pressed up against his massive desk. “Alice always knocks first,” he said. “She’s very polite.”

  “She hates me,” I said, feeling his body grow even hotter against me.

  “I’ve told you a thousand times,” he said. “She doesn’t hate you. That’s just her face.”

  “You sure know how to sweet talk a girl, Mr. Thorne.”

  He grabbed me tightly around the waist and lifted me up to sit on the desk. “All the same,” he said. “I managed to snare you, didn’t I?”

  I spread my legs for him as he leaned in and kissed me, open-mouthed, hot and insistent. Sometimes I still marveled at how well our bodies seemed to fit together; like we’d been made for each other, if I believed in that sort of thing. Which I didn’t. Absolutely not. Absolutely, positively…

  Oh…

  “I think this is how I first imagined being with you,” I whispered, as he kissed his way down my neck. He chuckled, and I felt it against my skin.

  “Dry humping on my desk? That’s very romantic.”

  “You know me,” I whispered. “But it’s not going to stay dry, is it?”

  “How long after we first talked?” he murmured, unbuttoning my blouse. “How long before you first thought about it?”

  I felt a hot blush creeping across my face and chest. I just stared at him, until he looked up and met my eyes.

  “That soon?” he said, with a wicked grin.

  “Shut up,” I muttered, as he pushed my skirt farther up my thighs. “Why don’t you put that mouth to good use?”

  “Watch that sass, Ms. Wainright,” he growled, his fingers digging sharply into my legs. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

  My mouth quirked. “Are you really not aware of the effect you have on women?”

  He shook his head, chuckling. “Stop making excuses for yourself, you…wanton…” he was sinking to his knees, slowly, and my breath caught in my throat. “…wicked…girl.” He sank his teeth into my inner thigh. I shrieked.

  “There,” he said, smiling up at me. “Now everyone will know what we’re doing in here.”

  “I don’t think we have anything to prove anymore,” I said, breathlessly. “Especially not once…oh, my God, Daniel, you…your…” My fingers were clutching the edge of the desk so hard it hurt, but I couldn’t help it; something about this angle was so deliciously, toe-curlingly good that I absolutely couldn’t control my reactions. I let out a low groan, my body quivering and shaking in stark contrast to his small movements and gentle ministrations.

  The thought occurred to me: if he’d done this to me on that first day, what felt like so long ago - I would have married him for free.

  I came laughing.

  He stood up, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, which had come unrolled at some point. “I didn’t realize you found this so amusing,” he said, unzipping.

  “I don’t,” I managed to say, circling an arm around his waist and pulling him close again. “Sorry. I just…it’s hard to explain.”

  “So many things about you are hard to explain,” he whispered, grasping my ass firmly and scooting me further over to edge of the desk, until he was nudging at my entrance. “I like it that way.”

  I made a soft noise, pushing my hips forward to meet him halfway. I never got tired of the way his face changed in that moment, the way his eyes would suddenly soften and unfocus a little bit, like every time, every single time, he forgot how good it felt.

  “Ms. Wainwright,” he whispered in my ear, moving slowly inside me. “What a surprising turn of events this has taken.”

  I swallowed, tilting my head back. “You know I can’t…I just can’t resist you.” I moaned. “Mr…Mr. Thorne.”

  His movements grew sharper and faster, and I could feel myself start to slide along the desk. I locked my ankles around him, doing my best to keep up until he stilled, quivering, his breathing harsh and heavy in my ear.

  We stayed like that for a few minutes, until he finally pulled away, kissing me gently on the lips.

  He went around to the other side of his desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a wad of tissues, half of which he handed to me. “Want to stay for lunch?” he asked, with an indulgent smile.

  “Sure,” I said. “It would be nice to relax a little bit before I have to do the walk of shame back through those halls.”

  “Shame? What on earth do you have to be ashamed about?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Absolutely nothing.”

  “So what brings you into town?” he asked, re-buttoning his sleeves. “I mean, aside from the obvious.”

  “I was at the gallery. Tried to convince Curtis he should open another one, but I think he’s opposed.” I tugged my skirt back down to an acceptable level. “I offered to, you know, invest in it or something but I think it still feels like a handout to him. And more than that, I think he feels like he’s lost touch with the art industry. You know, the whole commun
ity. He doesn’t like the idea of coming to terms with that, so I guess it’s easier to just quietly fade away.”

  “What, do you want me to try and talk him out of it?” Daniel was re-tucking his shirt. “I know even less about the art industry than he does, I doubt that would be very persuasive.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “It just makes me sad. It feels like he’s giving up.”

  “There is such a thing as a graceful surrender,” said Daniel. “Speaking of which, it’s my cheat day. How does Italian sound for lunch?”

  “Ugh, you and your cheat days.” I smiled, settling down in the chair opposite his desk. “I don’t think it would hurt you to eat pasta more than once a week. You’re skin and bones.” It wasn’t true, of course. Although even in well-tailored suits, he did look quite thin. Outside of them, though, his muscles hardly looked underfed.

  Daniel grinned. “I’ll take that under consideration,” he said, picking up his phone. “Alice, can you order the usual from Gentile’s, plus a fettuccine alfredo with grilled chicken?” He eyed me, and I nodded approvingly. “Thanks very much.”

  Ten

  The morning of my next meeting with Walter, I woke up with a knot in my stomach.

  I didn’t know why I was so nervous. I could deal with him. I knew I could. It was just that he was insufferable, and I was very tired, and all I wanted was for him to just wake up and realize what an ass he was being.

  “You feeling all right?” Daniel asked as he gathered up his briefcase and jacket, watching me lift spoonfuls of yogurt and drop them back into the container. He had an important shareholder’s meeting today that was going to take up the whole afternoon, and I knew he was in a hurry to go in and get some work done before then.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”

  “You know, you can call Walter and cancel.”

  I stirred my yogurt halfheartedly. I didn’t like it when he called his dad “Walter,” but I couldn’t really blame him for not wanting to call the guy “dad.”

  “I’m not going to cancel,” I insisted. “I need something to do with my time.”