How To Catch A Billionaire (The Full Series)

by Helen Cooper

  “Well, I lied. I do believe in soulmates. Angelica was mine but I fucked up.”

  “Oh.” I felt a sudden pain burning through me and I wanted to collapse to the floor in tears.

  He looked at me then, really and truly looked at me and he whispered, “I’m sorry,” before walking out the front door.

  I stood there with my heart breaking and tears dripping from my eyes and I wondered to myself if there was anyway that I could make this right.

  Chapter 14

  I didn’t go back to the dinner party after Harry left. I mean, how could I? It was awkward enough in the room before he left; I couldn’t face all of those people now that he had gone. I think I was going through the five stages of grief but in reversed order or something. My tears had dried up and the shock was gone but I was really angry. I was angry that Harry had just left me there. Without even telling me what was going on. I felt like he had deceived me. This wasn’t the easy homecoming, meet the girlfriend meeting that he had led me to believe it would be.

  Harry had called me a liar so many times before but at least I’d always eventually been honest with him. He hadn’t given me the same courtesy at all. He was an asshole and I wanted him to come back so I could tell him that. I was aching to let him have a piece of my mind. I walked to the family library and sat in one of the dark brown leather chairs. I didn’t want to go back to the room, not when there were so many memories of Angelica in there. Who was Angelica anyway? Had he gone to her? She’d most probably dumped him when she realized what an asshole he was. It served him right, I thought. Then I bit my lip feeling guilty for my thoughts. I knew I didn’t want him to be in pain. Clearly, Angelica must have been a fool to have left him. I wouldn’t have made that mistake!

  I stood up and went to look at some of the books on the bookshelf. I knew that getting lost in a good book would help me clear my mind. I just didn’t want to think right now. I couldn’t afford to think too much. Too many unfamiliar emotions and feelings were whirling around in me and I was confused and scared. My life had changed drastically in a week and I wasn’t sure if I was going to be okay. My eyes ran past the philosophical books, I didn’t need Kant or Mill telling me what to do. It didn’t seem to me that their advice had really worked on a large scale anyway. Utilitarianism my foot. Life didn’t work like that. No one was going to willingly make a decision to sacrifice their well-being and life for the sake of others. I mean, if I had to choose between having Harry all to myself and everyone else being miserable or to let him and Angelica be together happily for the rest of their lives, and everyone in the world aside from me would be happy as well, I would keep him all to myself. I sighed. I knew that ultimately I just wanted him to be happy and if that was with Angelica, then I guess I would accept it. I rested my head against the dusty leather-bound books and felt two tears run down my eyes. I was definitely in love. Really, truly, completely in love. It served me right that I would fall in love with a man that was completely closed off to me. It didn’t make me feel better knowing he was closed off to pretty much every other woman as well. Maybe the heartache would help me with my acting. I sighed and looked anxiously for another book that was not philosophy based. I needed to get lost in another world. I needed to not exist right now. I felt as if someone was pulling my insides apart slowly and I couldn’t stop them. And as they were pulling, they were yelling at me, “He doesn’t love you,” and “You’re not smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough.” I had to stop the voices. My eyes continued to scan the books and I sighed with relief when I spied Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, it was my go-to book as a child. And I knew that I would get swept back into that world as soon as I started reading. I grabbed the book and sat back down in the chair and sighed with relief as I felt myself being dragged into that world.

  “I don’t know if I ever got over Beth dying.” Daisy’s voice interrupted my reading and I looked up to see her standing in front of me.

  “Oh sorry,” I apologized. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “My husband calls me Daisy the mouse.” She smiled at me. “He says I’m so quiet that even God couldn’t hear me if I was running towards him.”

  “Oh.” I smiled weakly. “I’m sorry I left the room, I just…”

  Daisy cut me off. “I understand, dear.” She sighed. “Harry’s had a rough time of it, you must understand.”

  “He left.”

  “I know.” She frowned. “He has a bad habit of leaving when he feels overwhelmed.”

  “Isn’t he too old to just leave like that?” I sighed. “What gets solved when you leave?”

  Daisy laughed. “Age and maturity don’t always correlate, my dear Sarah.”

  “I’ve noticed.” I roll my eyes and put the book down. I looked over at Daisy and smiled wistfully. “And yes, Beth’s death was hard but I don’t know if I ever got over Laurie marrying Amy. That was the part that really tore me apart.”

  Daisy laughed. “You can’t always help who you love.”

  “But he loved Jo,” I protested. “How does he go from loving Jo to loving Amy?”

  “He loved Jo as his best friend, my dear.” Daisy smiled at me kindly and studied my face. “He didn’t have the passion and lust for Jo. She was his rock yes, and perhaps they would have had a wonderful marriage, but in the end Amy was his match. The right match.”

  “Maybe.” I sighed. “I just never got over that, you know?”

  “There are some things in life that we will never get over, but it doesn’t stop us from living, Sarah.” She paused. “And remember Jo ended up with her professor.”

  ‘Oh Professor Bhaer. I loved him.” I looked at Daisy seriously then. “You know in some ways I loved him more than I did Laurie for Jo. Professor Bhaer was her rock.” I paused. “But Laurie, well he’ll always be her Teddy.”

  “Yes. Yes, he will. And Professor Bhaer always knew that Jo had another love in her heart but he loved her enough to know that what they had was special and could never be replaced.”

  “I don’t believe that someone can have two true loves.”

  Daisy smiled at me. “I thought that once.” She touched my arm. “But come, the rest of the family have all gone to their rooms, let me get you a snack.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” I frowned, not wanting to leave the comfort of the library. It had become my safe haven and I was in no hurry to leave it.

  “Come, Sarah.” She smiled gently. “I promise you’ll feel better.”

  “Ok.” I stood up and sighed. “I’m sorry; you must think I’m a terrible mess, huh?”

  “Not at all.”

  I followed her out of the library and to the kitchen and she made me a large cup of hot chocolate and a cheese sandwich with pickled onions and potato chips. “This is good.” I ate hungrily, surprised that the weird looking tangy onions tasted so delicious.

  “My mom made these sandwiches for me when I was a child.” Daisy smiled. “She was from England.”

  “Oh yeah? I’ve always wanted to go to England. To London and to Stratford-Upon-Avon.” I sighed. “That would be awesome. Then I could go to the Globe and visit Shakespeare’s house and recite monologues from his plays.” I grinned at Daisy forgetting my woes for the moment. “Now that would be awesome.”

  “It does sound pretty marvelous.” Daisy poured herself a glass of water and walked over and stood next to me. “So tell me about you, Sarah. What…”

  “Mother, did you learn nothing from this evening?” Harry’s voice boomed loudly in the kitchen and both Daisy and I jumped back in surprise. I peered at him over my hot chocolate and he looked the same as ever. Tall, handsome and magnetic; I studied his eyes to see if they were blotchy and red. I was happy to note that they weren’t. At least he hadn’t gone somewhere to sob over Angelica.

  “Harry, we were just talking.” Daisy sighed and walked over to Harry. “You can’t just run off and leave your girlfriend here without saying anything.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” Harry pu
lled his hands from behind his back and presented me with a bouquet of flowers. “These are for you, Sarah.”

  “Wow, they are beautiful.” I grinned at him happily. I never expected flowers. “I’m happy to see that you weren’t crying too hard,” I joked and groaned to myself. Now really wasn’t the time to try to be a comedian.

  “No, no crying.” Harry looked at me oddly as I sniffed the flowers and beamed. “Have you ever gotten flowers before, Sarah?”

  “No.” I blushed. “Well, not from a guy. Unless you count my dad, who is a guy, but you know what I mean. Not anyone I’d date or sleep with, because, of course, I’d never sleep with my dad. Eww. You know what I mean.” I grimaced at my poor choice of words and Harry started laughing.

  “Oh Sarah. I don’t know how some young guy hasn’t snapped you up already.”

  “They’re all too young and dumb,” I joked.

  “As opposed to too old and intelligent?” He cocked his head to the side and grinned. “Or maybe now, you like them old and intelligent?”

  “I don’t know about intelligent but old has some advantages.” I grinned at him.

  “Like the way we…” He walked towards me and stroked my hair and Daisy coughed. I looked up at her, my eyes wide and embarrassed. I had completely forgotten that she was there.

  “I guess I’ll retire to my room.” She smiled at us and gave Harry a kiss on the cheek. “Good night, dears. And Sarah it was great to meet you. I’ve been missing having another woman around the house.”

  “Thanks, Daisy.” I smiled at her warmly. She was such a nice lady; I’d never have believed it if someone had told me that before. I just assumed that all super rich women would be catty and bitchy.

  “And don’t forget what I said, Sarah. Think about who Jo and Amy were to Laurie.”

  “Uh ok,” I answered slightly confused that she was bringing up Little Women again. “Night.” And with that, Daisy walked out of the kitchen. Harry drew a chair up and sat next to me.

  “What a night, huh?” His eyes looked at me in concern as I sipped my hot chocolate.

  “Yeah. You could say that.” I rolled my eyes and licked the whipped cream off my upper lip.

  “Let me help you with that.” Harry leaned over and licked my lips with his tongue before pushing it into my mouth. He explored my teeth and then sucked on my tongue and groaned. “You taste so sweet and chocolatey.”

  “That would be because of my drink.” I smiled at him, my heart beating fast. His pupils were dilated and I could tell that he was feeling horny. It excited me that I could turn him on so. I kissed him back and closed my eyes. I wanted to pretend that the night had never happened. And that I’d never found out about Angelica, that I never realized that I loved him, and that he hadn’t just disappeared.

  “I’m sorry, Sarah. I shouldn’t have just left you here tonight.” He pulled back and looked at me seriously. “I owe you better. We are in this together.”

  I nodded my head in understanding wondering if perhaps Harry had realized that he loved me as well. That would make this the best weekend in my life, I thought to myself.

  “I should have told you about Angelica before we came home. I knew it would come up. I just wasn’t prepared for it. I haven’t talked about her in so long.”

  “I see.” I didn’t really understand and I didn’t want to hear anything else about her. I was consumed with jealousy. “It’s okay, Harry.”

  “No. I should explain.” He ran his hands through his hair and looked out of the window. “I had to leave tonight to clear my head, to sort through all the different emotions.”

  “Ok.”

  “I had to go and talk to her.” His voice was pained. But when I looked at his face, it looked like he was trying to hide a smile.

  “You went to see Angelica?” My voice held disbelief. And my heart broke into a thousand pieces.

  “Yes.” His voice broke. “I haven’t been to see her in years. Not since the night we broke up.”

  “Oh.” My voice was low.

  “I took her flowers.” He sighed. “Just like yours. They’re pretty, right?”

  “Yes,” I answered coldly. He bought me the same bouquet of flowers that he bought his ex? Maybe these were even the same flowers. Maybe she didn’t accept them so he decided to give them to me as some sort of pity gift instead of throwing them away.

  “She always loved flowers.” He laughed. “She said flowers helped people see the beauty in the world because they were so colorful and bright.”

  “I see.” I closed my eyes, not wanting to hear anything else about this perfect girl. “So what did she have to say, are you guys getting back together?” I couldn’t stop the rush of words from coming out of my mouth. I was annoyed and depressed. I didn’t think any amount of money was worth me going through these awful emotions.

  “What?” Harry looked at me in shock and shook his head. “Sarah, Angelica is dead.” His voice rose melodramatically and he flung his arm out wide.

  I looked up at him in disbelief. “What? But you just said you went to visit her.”

  “I went to her grave.” His voice was sad and I felt my heart break for his obvious pain. “Can you believe I’d never visited before? Not in all these years?”

  I shook my head, unsure of what to say. I had so many questions that I wanted to ask but I didn’t want to appear too nosey.

  “She was my soul mate. My best friend. My lover.” He smiled sweetly at me then. “So you were right, Sarah, they do exist.” He sighed. “I was lucky. We started dating when we were fifteen, seems awfully young to find your true love, doesn’t it? But we had been friends since kindergarten. We’d gone to a movie one night and shared some popcorn and it was like magic. Our fingers touched and it was like we had an electric current running through our bodies.”

  “You don’t have to tell me all of this if you don’t want to, Harry. If it’s too painful.” I looked up at him in distress hoping he would stop. I wasn’t sure I could stand to hear him talking about this woman he loved so deeply much longer.

  “No, I want to tell you.” He smiled at me sweetly. “I owe it to you.”

  I stifled a groan and the urge to tell him that no, he didn’t owe it to me. That I would be fine not hearing about any of it. But I kept my mouth shut.

  “So after that movie, we started dating. We were young and each other’s first loves. It was like a fairytale. Everything was perfect. She was perfect. And then we lost our virginity to each other when we were sixteen. And we thought that nothing could ever top that moment in our lives.” His voice drifted off and we sat there in silence for a couple of minutes before he started talking again. “It was Angelica that introduced me to Genny.”

  “Genny?” I looked up at him curiously. “Who’s that?”

  He sighed and continued. “You know, Sarah. Even soul mates can have issues. Even soul mates can drift apart. Love is not everything.”

  “It can be,” I whispered.

  He looked at me in pain and whispered, “No, it can’t.” He shook his head and the words came tumbling out. “It was the weekend after graduation. One of our friends had a great big party at his parents’ house. It was the blowout party of the year. We were all off to college and wanted to celebrate big, one last time. Angelica and I were both going to Harvard so we weren’t worried about it. Everything was seemingly perfect. But it wasn’t really. We’d been arguing a lot over little stuff.”

  “Oh?”

  “She was a lot more adventurous than I was as a boy. Capricious and daring and she liked to experiment.”

  “Experiment?” I frowned in confusion.

  “She bought all sorts of sex books. She wanted us to explore our sexualities in different ways. We had sex at school, sex in a public swimming pool, sex in the backseat of her parents’ car as they were driving.”

  “Oh ok.” My stomach churned.

  “But that wasn’t enough. She needed to go further and further. I didn’t understand it.” He grimac
ed. “Most boys would have been happy to be with someone who wanted to try all sorts of sexual tricks but I was happy just getting laid the regular way.” He rubbed his hands through his head and sighed. “And then she had this idea that she wanted us to try anal sex.”

  “Anal sex?”

  “You do know what that is?” He looked at me in shock and wiggled his eyebrows. I wanted to tell him how inappropriate I thought his mannerisms were but I kept my mouth shut.

  “Yes, of course.” I rolled my eyes annoyed. “I’ve just never heard of the woman wanting it and not the man, I guess.”

  “Well, she did. She begged me to fuck her in the ass.” He laughed bitterly. “And I said no. I didn’t want to. And we argued about that for weeks. Can you believe that?”