The Bet

by Lily Zante

  Tobias refused to discuss it.

  Xavier ventured another try, at the risk of getting shot down, as he had on the other occasions. “Are Candace and Matthias coming?”

  “No.” The tone of Tobias’s voice warned him against probing further.

  He could take the hint. He knew that if someone pissed Tobias off, his brother would cut them off and be done with them.

  “You’re flying with mom and dad, right?” Tobias asked, indicating the topic was done with.

  “Yup.”

  Fuck, yes. Xavier’s insides tanked at the thought. Gisele had to come, if only to be a distraction. The 17-hour flight from New York to Fiji, with a stop in LA, was tough enough, and if his parents were going to be on the same flight, it was going to be hell on earth. On landing, they had to take a small plane or a boat from the main airport to Kawaya.

  The thought of being stuck on the flight made his stomach churn. “Shame you decided to go a few days beforehand.” Otherwise they could all have traveled on Tobias’s private jet, and it would have made the journey bearable.

  “It’s my wedding, and I’ll do whatever the hell I want.” Tobias was traveling a few days earlier with Savannah and Jacob. Everyone else was coming a few days later on commercial flights, all paid for by Tobias.

  With it taking almost an entire day to get there, then four days on the island and a day to get back, it was going to be nearly a whole goddamn week. He had to make sure Gisele came along because, in that heat, with his parents and god knows who else, on an island that was remote; he’d go crazy unless he had something to do. And doing Gisele would be the best way of passing the time.

  Tobias gulped down his drink and announced that he was leaving.

  “Already?”

  He’d been hoping to hang around The Oasis for longer, and spend some increasingly rare time with his brother who he barely got to see much these days. It used to be the case that he could convince Tobias to come out every few months. Xavier used to insist on it just to get his workaholic brother out into the world of the living. But, ever since he had met and fallen in love with Savannah and her young son, Jacob, his brother no longer seemed to have much time for anyone else. Xavier missed that, a little.

  “Has Savannah ordered you to be home for dinner?” The idea of domestic bliss bored the hell out of him.

  “I promised Jacob I’d be home early.”

  Xavier’s eyebrows shot north. Pretty soon Tobias Stone’s household would be like The Waltons. Saccharine bliss.

  Enough to make him want to puke. What the hell had happened to the man once dubbed New York’s most eligible bachelor? Not that Tobias had ever been a player but, as Gisele had shown him on one of those stupid online celebrity websites, his brother still held strong on the list. It didn’t seem to matter that Tobias Stone was getting married. But what irritated him was seeing that he was number 7. And what pissed him off even more was finding out that Luke was number 4.

  Number fucking 4.

  And the man didn’t even seem to be interested in chicks.

  As for himself, he knew why he was so far down the list. He was nowhere near as wealthy as Tobias.

  He wasn’t a billionaire.

  Yet.

  And if truth be told, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to work that hard to become one. He was doing pretty well as he was.

  Chapter 2

  “Tobias Stone seems like a nice guy,” said Cara, picking up a magazine and showing her the center pages. “See.”

  “Then it must obviously be true,” said Izzy, running her hand through her dark hair. She flicked her bangs away from her face, but it would only take a shake of her head to have them falling back over her eyes again.

  “He’s not a creep, Iz. He’s New York’s hottest bachelor.”

  Izzy turned to her in consternation. “I didn’t know Gideon Shoemoney was a creep either.” Otherwise she would never have agreed to baby-sit for his two young children during summer.

  The Shoemoneys had paid her well for covering evenings and on weekends while their au-pair had gone back home to France for the summer. Izzy’s parents hadn’t been too happy when she’d told them she couldn’t come home for the holidays, but she had never intended to anyway. Pittsburgh didn’t have the same buzz about it that New York did, and after her first year at Columbia had flown by, she was keen to stay here for the summer before entering her sophomore year.

  By the end of this college year, she wanted an internship at a top firm. Even a middle one would do. But top would be better.

  “You have to let that go, Iz. Shoemoney can’t get to you now, and not everyone is going to be a pervert like him.”

  “Yeah, well ...” Just because she’d left their employment didn’t mean she was over it. And just because she had fought back didn’t mean she wasn’t afraid of something like that happening again. He still owed her some outstanding wages, but she had written those off. With the way she had left, she had no desire to go back and ask for it, though she sometimes wondered what Shoemoney’s wife had made of her abrupt departure. She had been away on business, that last time, and was often away each time her husband behaved inappropriately. She hadn’t called Izzy to ask why she had left, and it sometimes made her wonder if she knew what went on.

  “We’re marching aren’t we?” Cara reminded her. “And when we march with thousands of other women, we’ll be sending out a powerful signal that men can’t do this and get away with it. Not anymore.”

  “Maybe.”

  Cara flicked through the pages, and stopped. “His brother looks hot,” she squealed, examining the article as if it were an exam paper. “And he’s dating Gisele Steiner!”

  Izzy shook her head. “Never heard of her.” Nor did she care. What concerned her more was whether she was doing the right thing by accepting the job which Savannah had offered her—to babysit Jacob on weekends, as and when needed. But, before that, Savannah had asked her something that had taken her breath away.

  How would you like to spend 5 or 6 days keeping Jacob company so that he doesn’t get too bored at our wedding?

  Izzy had had to ask Savannah to repeat the request, because she wasn’t sure she heard right. Cara had nearly had a seizure when Izzy told her later.

  “You’re going to Fiji? To the wedding of the year?” Cara had yelled, “That isn’t work, girlfriend, that is a dream!”

  “It’s not Fiji. It’s their own—his own—private island. Kawasaki, or something.” Izzy couldn’t remember what it was called, even though Savannah had told her enough times.

  “Staten Island is the closest I’ll ever get to an island,” whined Cara. “I don’t care if it’s Tobias Stone’s private island or his shed,” Cara airquoted the last few words. “If it’s in Fiji, then who cares?”

  And so she had decided ‘yes’. Yes, she would gladly accompany Jacob to their wedding. The rest, working for them, weekends and maybe evenings, babysitting, she would have to think about.

  She had to go and see Savannah now, to sign the paperwork.

  “I wish you could take me with you,” Cara said, yet again. “I’d ask you to put me forward for that role, but I hate kids. Can’t stand the brats.”

  “Jacob isn’t a brat,” said Izzy. “But you might have been, once.”

  Cara swatted her butt gently. “You don’t even look excited.”

  “I am.” She was. But what if Tobias Stone was like Gideon Shoemoney?

  “I couldn’t tell,” quipped Cara, drily. “You get to fly in his private jet!”

  Izzy grinned. She hadn’t told her parents yet. Flying to a billionaire’s private island, on his private jet would be the last thing her parents wanted to hear. She didn’t want to send her dad over the edge again. She wasn’t sure what he would make of it.

  “Are you going to accept her other offer?”

  “I don’t know,” Izzy replied, bunching her hair into a ponytail. “Creeps don’t have that name branded on their foreheads.”

  “Yo
u said Savannah’s nice, down-to-earth and honest. She wouldn’t be about to marry Tobias if he was an asshole, would she?”

  “Some women don’t know the men are assholes until it’s too late.” But Cara had a point. Savannah was nice, and the two of them had gotten on well when Izzy had met her for that first time at her engagement party. It had been a few weeks after that when Savannah had contacted her to ask if Izzy wouldn’t mind babysitting Jacob for a few hours now and then. Savannah had told her that she didn’t trust anyone with her son, and that Izzy was the exception. At that time, Izzy had been busy working for the Shoemoneys, but a month later, after what had happened in the laundry room, she’d left.

  Luckily, she still had her other two jobs, one as a virtual assistant to a guy rolling out online courses, and the other taking care of ad campaigns for a mom and pop home business. It was steady money, and good money, and better than working at a fast-food place, or a bar. Plus, she could do it in her own hours, once her college work was done.

  Needing to fill the gap in income, she’d called Savannah on the off chance and it turned out that luck had been in her favor.

  She picked up her cell phone and handbag. “Am I doing the right thing, Cara? Do I need the money that bad?”

  “You need the money that bad.”

  She swallowed, and let out an angry breath. Being broke was a crap state of affairs, and studying for her Media and Communications degree wasn’t the thing to do, not from the small town she came from.

  But federal grants, juggling the three jobs—two now that she’d left the Shoemoneys—careful spending, and eating noodles and bread more than was probably good for her, meant she had her best shot at making something of her life.

  She needed to get that degree, then land a great job at a hotshot company, and she was going to do it all by herself. She wasn’t going to take a cent from her parents, not that they had much in the way of financial aid to give her. Studying was her way of breaking away and going to the city, and standing a chance of getting a corporate job. She was going to dazzle New York with her smarts and her drive—the kind of drive her father had once had. Seeing him broke, and so low, with his dream in tatters was more than enough ammunition for her to pursue her dreams and make a good life for herself, and, in due course, help her family. She would make her parents proud, and show her father that it was going to be alright. The poor man had suffered enough, the family had suffered enough.

  “Iz.” Cara came up to her. “Don’t beat yourself up about what happened. It wasn’t your fault. I don’t think Tobias Stone is anything like that perv.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe you’re right.”

  “If you’re not sure, use the week of the wedding to decide. Tell Savanah you’re not sure and you’re worried it might impact your studies, but personally, I don’t think you need to worry much about Tobias Stone. If there’s anyone you should worry about, it’s his brother. He’s hot stuff. A player, and ohmigod, he’s a looker. Both of them are, but he’s still—”

  “Seeing someone, remember? And I’m really not interested.”

  “Okay. I’m just warning you. Go and sign your contract.”

  “That’s what I’ve decided.”

  A private jet to an island in the South Pacific—she knew because she’d looked it up on the world map, and an invitation to the wedding of the year?

  She would be insane not to do it.

  ~ ~ ~

  Savannah, she had learned, was like her, a girl from a small town. Not a city girl by any means.

  How had she ended up falling for a billionaire?

  “Don’t you find it crazy?” Izzy asked. They were sitting in the huge living room of Tobias’s Upper East Side apartment, a place, Savannah had told her, they would soon be leaving because Tobias was having their new home completely refurbished, and the extensive building work was still underway.

  “I find the media circus crazy. Kay keeps me grounded, tells me not to read any blogs or comments, or the papers. She says she’ll have a look for me.”

  That cousin, Kay. Izzy had met her that one time at the party. “It’s good of her to look out for you like that.”

  “But at times, when she can’t hold back, she’ll tell me some nasty piece of gossip she read about, of Tobias having an affair because he’d been photographed with someone. It’s ridiculous what people can print.”

  “People can be nasty.”

  “Yes they can,” Savannah agreed. “I can see why, though. Tobias was a catch, and then I turned up and caught him, so to speak, and now that we’re getting married, I’ve ruined the fantasy for some of these women.”

  “You’re a catch too,” Izzy retorted.

  Savannah laughed.

  “You are,” she insisted, hating the way some women played themselves down. “You seem down to earth, and probably nothing like the vipers he comes across.”

  According to Cara the man had been a workaholic, and had suffered tragedy years ago.

  “Hey, Jacob.” She greeted the young boy as he walked in.

  “Hey, Izzy.” He gave her a wide smile. “We’re going to have fun, you and me,” he announced.

  “I know,” she replied, looking at his cheeky and adorable face. So different now to that first time she had met him. “I would expect nothing less.”

  “Don’t forget your swimming costume. I’ve got my Iron Man swimming trunks ready.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Tobias says we’ve got the whole place to ourselves, and the entire sea.” His eyebrows lifted as if he couldn’t comprehend the enormity of the sea belonging to one man. “And there’s a pool. Or was it four pools, Mommy?”

  “It doesn’t matter if there’s one or ten you can only ever go in one pool at a time,” his mother replied.

  This seemed to satisfy Jacob. “Can I sit next to you on the plane?”

  “I don’t know.” Izzy looked at Savannah. She had no idea about the travel plans. All she knew was that it was some place in Fiji.

  “Honey,” Savannah said, holding out her hand as Jacob came in for a cuddle. “I need to discuss a few things with Izzy. Why don’t you go and play for a while?”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you sure you’re fine about taking a few days off college?” Savannah asked her. “I would hate to impact your studies, and I know that your semester has only just started.”

  Savannah had obviously picked up on her hesitation, and it can’t have been that difficult because she hadn’t exactly gushed like a prepubescent teen when Savannah had first made her the offer.

  Rich men were crooks and creeps and she didn’t trust them. The only reason Izzy was even considering taking those few days off, with a weekend in the middle so it wasn’t that much time away from her studies, was because she needed the money, and because she would be surrounded by people. Savannah wasn’t going to leave her alone with Tobias, the way Cassia Shoemoney had. Still, it would be an easy few days, and Cara would never forgive her if she turned the opportunity down now.

  “I’ll be okay,” she insisted. She would work like crazy and make sure she was all caught up as soon as she returned. “I adore Jacob. I think we’ll have a lot of fun.”

  “Good. Jacob feels so comfortable with you, and that’s important to me. I find myself trusting people less these days.”

  “I understand.”

  “It’s not as if my parents wouldn’t take care of Jacob, they would, but I think he would get bored. And I want them to enjoy the wedding. I want you to enjoy the wedding and your time there as well. I just feel that Jacob would have a better time with a younger person running around with him. I was hoping Rosalee would come—she used to look after Jacob before, but her daughter-in-law is about to have another baby, and she doesn’t want to miss it.”

  “Don’t worry about me, or my studies. I’m really looking forward to it. I’ve never been to Fiji.”

  “Me neither,” Savannah confessed. She bunched her hair over one shoulder, and sat back, loo
king happy and worried at the same time. “There’s so much to do. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed.”

  “I can imagine.” She was worried about spending a few days on the island, but Savannah’s whole life had changed. It was a gigantic leap. No wonder she looked slightly flushed. “But you’ll be fine. I think it’s normal, a new bride feeling anxious.” She smiled at her, and Savannah returned the smile.

  “I have some paperwork for you to sign. I’m sorry to make it so formal.”

  “Don’t be. I understand.”

  “It’s just that Tobias is completely paranoid about his privacy, especially when it comes to personal matters.”

  “It’s fine with me. Where do I sign?”

  “Here,” said Savannah, pointing. “And you’ll consider my offer to be available on weekends? I just need a little help, what with the house move, and other things …”

  “I can let you have my final answer once we get back?”

  “Once you get back?” Somehow she sensed that this wasn’t the answer Savannah had wanted. “That’s fine.”

  “Ummmm.” Izzy cupped her chin. “Where do we get the … uh… plane?” Did she go to the airport?

  “I’ll get Morris to pick you up, and take you to the airfield.”

  “Morris?”

  “He’s the chauffeur,” Savannah explained. “Oh, and you’ll have to get used to the bodyguards.”

  Bodyguards?

  “They’ll be following you, us, everywhere. It’s a bit daunting at first, but you soon forget about them.”

  “Cool.”

  Bodyguards? A chauffeur picking her up and taking her to the airfield, before she got on the private jet?

  Cara was going to hyperventilate when she told her.

  Chapter 3

  A week later she was lying on a recliner around an aquamarine, kidney-shaped pool, with sun-loungers and cocoon pods dotted around. It was surrounded by tropical gardens, and a small walkway led to sun-kissed white sandy beaches. Tobias and Savannah were in separate hammocks under the palm trees and Jacob was further away, near the sand.