His to Have: A Billionaire Romance (3 page)

“Christ, Blake, what did you do?”

“I told you, I met someone,” I tell him.
 

He squints and looks at me. “What aren’t you telling me? Did you murder someone or something? Did you get arrested? I’m the guy you tell. That’s the deal we made when you took me on.”
 

“You might know her. Well, you know of her,” I say.

He claps his hands. “Did you bang a celebrity? Christ, don’t leave me hanging here.”
 

“I went home with Catherine Carlisle,” I say.
 

The color drains from Damien’s face. “Bullshit,” he says. He sits down and runs his hands over his temples. “Catherine Carlisle, as in the daughter of Richard Carlisle? As in the daughter of our former boss?
Carlisle Capital
Richard Carlisle? What the hell were you thinking?”

Damien is turning red. It suits him better than ghostly pale. He looks like he’s about to stand up and flip my desk over. “Seriously, what the hell were you thinking?”

“I wasn’t. I mean I didn’t know who she was when we met. She was at the party last night. I ran into her while waiting for Anderson.”

Damien hangs his head. His hair has thinned considerably since I convinced him to make the jump from Carlisle Securities. He probably thinks I’m trying to kill him with stress. “Does she know who you are? Tell me she doesn’t know who you are.”

“I told her who I was. Obviously I didn’t go into detail about what happened between me and her father.”

“I hope it was worth it,” Damien says. What he really means is he hopes it’s a one time thing, one that doesn’t blow up into anything bigger. I know he’s pissed, but at the end of the day, he works for me, and I’m not going to let him change my mind about Catherine.

“I’m asking her to see me again,” I say.

“I’m not just saying this as your corporate fixer. I’m saying this as your friend, Blake. Don’t do it.” He gives a half laugh and shakes his head. “I’m not going to change your mind on this one, am I?”

I shake my head no.

“This goes one of two ways: either her father catches wind of what you’re doing with his daughter and loses it or she finds out about your history with her dear old dad and comes after you herself.” 

“You forgot the third possibility.” 

“That you get away scot-free?” 

“No, that I tell her the truth and she doesn’t care.” 

“It’s the worst kept secret in New York that you’re the reason her family’s broke, and coming after you is the only chance they have of getting that money back. Between you and a fifty million dollar trust fund, I think she’d choose the trust fund.”

“I guess we’ll find out soon enough.” 

“Christ, kid, let this one go.”

I wish I could, but I can’t. He’s right. I’m going to break her heart or she’s going to break mine. There’s no way this ends well. “She could be an asset,” I say. It’s disingenuous. I don’t care what ins she has. I only care about keeping her close, seeing her as soon as possible. Damien is right. Seeing her is dangerous. It’s stupid. And there’s no way in hell I’m doing anything else. So what if I’m bent on my own destruction? Everyone else is anyway. 

“At least let me figure out if she’s up to anything,” Damien says. “Her father could be putting her up to this in some way.”
 

“How about you introduce yourself today?” I suggest. “I’m sending her a gift. You can deliver it.”
 

“I’m serious about looking into her,” he says.
 

“If it will make you feel better, go for it, but she’s not trying anything.”

“I’m more worried about whatever you have in mind.”
 

“What does that mean?” I ask.
 

“It means I’ve seen this movie before, and I’m not sure you’re gonna like the ending.”
 

CHAPTER 4

Catherine

I get in the cab in a daze. “What the hell is going on here?” I ask.
 

Ben sits next to me and slips his badge back into his pocket. “I know we didn’t leave things on the best of terms, but you know I care about you. Where are you headed?” he asks. He tries to smile, but I can tell something’s off. He’s different than I remember him. He’s not just older. It’s something else.

I don’t answer.

“Just drive,” he tells the driver, and we’re off.

I’m still in disbelief that he’s sitting next to me, and that he thinks that’s ok.
Didn’t leave on the best of terms
. That’s an understatement. Ben was my brother Aidan’s friend, his roommate actually. They met at school. Ben was only a year older than me, but he had skipped a grade at some point. He wasn’t from money, at least not the type of money we were from. His mother was a professor, and I don’t really know what his father’s deal was. Ben stayed at our house one summer while his mother did some kind of research project in Mongolia. I was young, and naïve, and I thought I loved him, and I think for a while he thought he loved me too.

“Ben, you can’t change what happened,” I tell him.

“I know,” he says. “You don’t know what you meant to me, what that summer meant to me.”
 

That summer
. My brother had a girlfriend at the time, and at least twice a week, Ben and I would end up alone. My father was constantly working, and my mother was always off on some yoga retreat or at some healing seminar, but Ben was always there. Whenever I needed him, he was there, and whenever he needed me, I was there too.
 

I used to bring him into the city and drag him to museums. The Met, MoMA, the Guggenheim, I dragged him everywhere, and we’d look at art, and we’d talk about everything we wanted to do with our lives, and we’d get food and talk about what we would do once we could finally live on our own, and we’d make out. In the park, on the train, just about everywhere you could imagine, we made out. Then, at the end of the day, we’d head back to my parents’ house in Connecticut and wait for my brother to come back. We never told anyone, but I’m sure it was obvious. Ben said he’d find a way to make things work when the summer ended, but then, one morning, at the end of summer, he was gone. He hadn’t even said goodbye.

I didn’t see him again until my brother’s funeral.

“I’ve tried to figure out what to tell you so many times, and now this happens, and I know it’s happening for a reason, and I’m trying to make things right with you. Cat, I’m trying to help you. You don’t have to like me, but I’m here to help.”
 

“You show up out of nowhere, after all this time, and you expect me to just go along with whatever you’re saying?” I ask. My voice rises as I speak. My hands are starting to tremble. “And you’re keeping tabs on me? What the hell is going on?”
 

Ben shoots a look at the driver and then leans in to me. He cups his hand over his mouth and whispers into my ear. “The guy you were with last night is the subject of an FBI investigation. I’ve been tailing him for the past month. Cat, if you don’t stay away, you’re going to get caught up in this, and I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
 

“What did he do?”

“I can’t tell you.”

I give the driver my address and turn my attention down to my phone. I’m not in the mood for games.
 

Ben gets the hint. “Legally, I can’t tell you what we’re investigating. I shouldn’t have told you this, but I felt like I owed you. The less you know, the better off you are. There are some really serious allegations against this guy.”

“Owed me…” I say. I bit down on my lip and take a slow breath. “If you want me to listen, tell me what you know.”

That’s when Blake drops a bombshell. “He doesn’t exist.”

“I slept in his bed last night; I think he exists.”
 

“Not Blake Bennett. There’s no record of him. He popped up here in New York five years ago, and other than that, there’s no trace of the guy. He’s a phantom. We’ve been looking into him for months and nothing checks out. He’s not even thirty years old and he’s a billionaire. A billionaire, Cat. He has a thousand million dollars.”
 

“I know what a billionaire is, Ben. Back before we lost everything and became complete pariahs, I used to be from a family of them.”

“And it took decade upon decade of unbelievable success for them to get there. Five years, Cat. Five years. I couldn’t even pay off my student loans in that time.”

“So because he’s successful, he must be a criminal?” I ask. “You know, they said the same thing about my father.”

“I’m just telling you to be careful, ok? And I’m asking you to keep this between you and me.”

“Fine,” I say. I just want out of the car.
 
My night with Blake had melted away all of my worries. Ten minutes with Ben had brought them all back with a vengeance.

“About how we left things,” he adds.

“Ben,” I protest.

“I told your brother about us. That’s why I had to leave. He and I were out at a club in the city. He had paid a small fortune to get fake ID’s made. It was late at night, and we had been drinking, and I decided I couldn’t wait another minute without letting everyone know how I felt about you.”

Ben pointed to the side of his head. He said he knew I’d been fucking you, and that he was going to kill me. The bottle opened up a three-inch gash in my scalp. The next thing I knew, I was in the hospital, and your family lawyer was talking about pressing charges. At first I didn’t know what to tell you, and I was embarrassed and ashamed that I had let something like that happen, and then too much time had passed. My mother decided to pull me out of school, and I did my final year of high school at a school North of Boston. Look, I don’t expect you to forgive me for how I left things, but I want you to know that I’m sorry, and when I saw you coming out of Blake Bennett’s place, I knew I had to tell you at least some of what’s going on.

“Is this it?” the driver asked as he pulled up to the curb in front of my building.
 

I’m breathless, and I don’t know what to do. I place my hand on Ben’s for a second.
 
There’s so much I want to say to Ben. I want to yell at him for not telling me this years ago, I want to tell him that it’s not his fault, but I know nothing I can do will change the past. “Yeah,” I tell the driver. “This is it.”

Ben slips a piece of paper into my hand. He’s written his number on it. I shove it into my pocket and step out of the cab. Suddenly I know why Blake is so thrilling. There’s no past with him. No unspoken regrets, nothing like that. There’s only the present. Too bad Ben just told me it’s all a lie. I stop just short of the front door and turn around. Ben is still there. There’s a whole mess of emotions tangled in my gut as his eyes meet mine and the cab slowly pulls away.

***

I can see the envelope from down the hall. At first I assume someone has stuck a flyer of some kind to my door, some notice about elevator maintenance or a noise complaint, but as soon as I get closer, I see it’s just an envelope with the word “occupant” printed on the front. I pull it down and pull out the letter. I get to the words “early termination of lease,” and “outstanding balance,” and stop. When an ordinary person gets evicted, there’s a bright orange notice that says get out. I get a polite letter from a law firm downtown informing me that my father hasn’t paid the rent in three months. I force myself to read the rest.
 

I have until the end of the month to move my belongings off site. There’s nothing about me getting kicked out. It’s all passive and cordial, and it makes me want to scream. Once I’m inside I throw my purse to the ground and lie down in the middle of my living room floor. Just when I thought things were starting to turn around, life found a way to pull the rug out from under me.

What the hell am I going to do?
I’m still holding out hope that there was some kind of mistake. My father promised me that the rent had been paid through the end of the lease, which would mean at least another month. I reach over and dig my phone out of the purse. I swallow my pride and dial. My blood pressure rises with each ring. I don’t know if I’m annoyed or relieved when it goes through to voicemail. “Leave a message,” is all the recording says.
 

“Dad, call me back when you get this. It’s urgent.” I hang up and lie back down. A moment later, the phone starts to buzz.

“Hello?” I say.
 

“Morning,” says the voice on the other end. This is not my father.
 

“Blake?” I ask.
 

“Were you expecting someone else?” he says. “You sound disappointed.”

“No, relieved. I just, um, what are you calling for?”

“What are you doing right now?” he asks.
 

“I’m sitting in the middle of my living room floor, talking to you.”

“I want you to join me for dinner tonight. Are you in?”
 

“I don’t know if I’m in the mood for it,” I say. “This day hasn’t gotten off to the best start.” I wonder how much I should tell him. It’s embarrassing, deeply embarrassing. I’ve never had to worry about money or status in my life, and here I am about to spill all of my feelings to a guy I barely know.

“Rather hang out on the floor?”

“I just got some bad news, that’s all. Can you give me some time to think it over?”
 

“Sure, but in exchange, I need your address.”

“Why?” I ask. “Planning on coming over to give me a little convincing?”
 

He laughs. His laugh is deep and warm and full, and hearing it makes me feel a little bit better for a moment. “Careful, Cat. You might just convince me that’s not a bad idea. Is there room for two on that floor?”

“What do you think?” I ask.
 

“Give me the address and I’ll let you know.”
 

I tell him my address, and he tells me I’ll have his answer soon, and I find myself waiting. I’m staring at the door as if he’s going to magically appear. Ten minutes pass. Then twenty. What the hell am I doing? I ask myself. I have a hundred other things to worry about right now, and whether or not Blake is on his way over shouldn’t be one of them. But it is. It’s the only thing I can think of. And I nearly jump up when I hear the knock on the door.
How the hell did he get past the doorman? Do I even want to know?