Kiki's Millionaire (13 page)

“No more self-effacement, Kiki.”

She hiccoughed and wiped her wet cheeks with the back
of her hand. “I’ll try.”

“Say something nice about yourself. I want to hear you
start trying now.” He stroked her arm and shoulder, his hand moving to her
neck.

Kiki turned her face and kissed his palm. “I…I guess
I’m…um…tenacious.”

He laughed softly. “That’s another word for stubborn.
I’m not fooled.”

“You’re always telling me how stubborn I am.”

“True enough.” He paused. “Kiki, you respect me, don’t
you?”

“Absolutely and totally.” She loved him. She trusted
him. She needed him. But she couldn’t stand the thought that he was thinking of
someone else: Isabella. Her body rebelled at the thought. Look at me, Jim!
Don’t think of her. Only me!

“Then don’t suggest that I haven’t got the common
sense to pick a woman who is good enough.” He stroked her cheek. “Have more
confidence in yourself than that. Have more confidence in me.”

What would Isabella say? “Yes…I will. I promise.”

* * *

Summer was winding to a close and Kiki had received a
call from John Heath at Wildwood Academy. There was a staff meeting and she was
to attend. Jim was working from home that day, but he wasn’t too busy to wish
her well as she left.

Other teachers were walking in from the parking lot as
Ernie dropped her in front of the administration building. Several did
double-takes at the Lincoln town car as she exited, and she felt conspicuous. I
can do this. Squaring her shoulders, she smiled as she walked up the sidewalk
and into the faculty conference room.

The meeting went well. She felt like it prepared her
for her new position, giving her some ideas about how things worked and what
was expected of her. Kiki met several of the teachers, who all seemed friendly
enough.

After the meeting, as they were all standing around in
small groups chatting, John walked up and smiled genially at Kiki. “I just want
to say thank you, Kiki.”

She returned his pleasant expression. “You’re welcome.
What did I do?” The others chuckled politely.

“Well, we’re grateful for the contribution, of course.
We’ve been sending in grant requests to Rocket Flare Foundation for several
years now and have only been getting a few thousand. The enormous gift this
year was unexpected.”

Alarm bells went off in Kiki’s head as she felt her
cheeks warm up. “I can hardly take credit for it. How much was it? I forget.”

“No need to be so modest. We know you had some influence
on Mister Chesterfield. Rocket Flare is giving us a whole new computer lab.
We’ll be updating and expanding everything. The students will be delighted. I’m
delighted.”

That bastard.
 
He bought me the fucking job! “Really, Jim makes his own decisions.”

John poo-pooed Kiki’s modesty and then the topic moved
on to other matters. All the while Kiki fumed behind her polite smile. Jim had
used his influence to secure a job for her. Exactly the kind of thing she
didn’t want, had told him explicitly that she wouldn’t accept. It would serve
him right if she quit on the spot. Then his contribution would be wasted.

But she wouldn’t quit. She needed this job. It was a
good opportunity, and she could do it. She could make it be about Kiki being
capable rather than Jim being rich. She would do it.

When she got back to Jim’s house—a place she had
to constantly resist thinking of as “home”—she went directly to the
bedroom and began organizing her three suitcases. She dragged the first one,
thunking down the stairs and to the foyer, then went back for the other two. As
she brought them down behind her, she came around the curve in the staircase to
find Jim standing near the bottom, eyeing the bag she’d left below.

“I don’t suppose you could be throwing out empty suitcases,
could you?”

She wouldn’t bite. “No.”

“Where are you going, Kiki?”

“Back to the women’s shelter. My job starts in two
weeks and I’ll find a place of my own.”

He faced her at the bottom of the stairs. “But I like
having you here, Kiki. You don’t need to move just because you’ll be able to
afford to.”

“Oh yes I do need to move.”

His eyebrows slashed down. “Why?”

One of the suitcases fell over behind her, but she
ignored it. “Because I won’t be bought. I hate your money and I don’t want to
be a dependent. We’re like oil and water, Jim.”

He put a hand on her shoulder gently, his eyes meeting
hers. “What has gotten into you? Things were alright this morning.”

She brushed his hand away. “I found out about Rocket
Flare’s grant to Wildwood, that’s what.” Her temper rose as she thought about
it. “How dare you try to buy me a job!”

“Buy you a…” He pushed a lock of dark hair off his
forehead. “I didn’t buy you a job. I got you an interview. You got the job
yourself.”

“Then it was a damned expensive interview! Money buys
so little these days,” she added sarcastically, picking up her suitcases and
heading for the door. Let him go back to nurturing his love for his dead wife.
Kiki couldn’t compete with a ghost. Hell, she couldn’t even get a job by
herself.

“Now just a minute!”

“No. No more, Jim.” Oh how she wished she could stop
the tears. Fuckin’ stupid emotional wimp. “It’s over.”

“Kiki, I-”

“Good-bye.”

There was a cab waiting for her outside, and she
carefully rolled her bags there and got into the car, closing the door firmly. On
Jim, on his money, on her love. She’d get over him. Yeah, like probably never.
She reached into her purse for a tissue and came up with one of Jim’s
handkerchiefs. It made her bawl all the harder.

* * *

Jim snapped at Ernie, complained about Evangeline’s
cooking, and generally made a huge pain of himself at work and at home. He knew
he was doing it, but just didn’t have it in him to hold back his frustration.
He tried to reach Kiki. Left her voicemail, email, text messages. He even went
to the shelter where they firmly shut the door on him.

His new hardware line was almost ready for release and
the public speaking engagements were crowding his calendar. Pre-orders were
coming in better than expected and the money was flowing freely. He’d have
given it all to have Kiki back though.

In fact, he seriously considered it. She hated his
money so thoroughly. If he gave it all to charity, got back to his used Rabbit
and take out Chinese, maybe she’d come back to him. But thousands of people
depended on him. All his employees and their families, all those people out
there who didn’t want to use the software and computers that the big two were
selling. They all looked to him and Rocket Flare to be there, strong and steadfast.

He still didn’t know why Kiki had left because he knew
he hadn’t given the school any money; he checked with his accounting staff and
no checks had been issued to them. Her complete about-face floored him. They’d
been going along so well. He had just about gotten up the moxie to tell her he
loved her. And he did love her. He couldn’t remember ever caring so much about
a person. Isabella had been his love while she was alive, but his adoration of
Kiki was even stronger than that. Isabella’s pull on him had faded so much that
he couldn’t even quite remember how it felt to have her beside him.

Kiki would be at Wildwood, teaching, very soon, and so
he’d know where to find her and when. It tore at him to think of her there,
stubborn, opinionated, beautiful…not his anymore. He considered showing up at
the school and confronting her. He needed to know why she’d gone. Sure, he’d
gotten her the interview, but getting the job was entirely her success. She
wouldn’t lie to him and make it all up. It nagged at him late at night, no
matter how exhausted he was, no matter where he was.

Women at receptions and pre-release parties fawned,
and all it did was make him more irritable. Many of them were the very type of
women he had had flings with after Isabella. But none of them tempted him now.
He was lonely, even in crowded rooms, even with women pressing their perfumed
air kisses on him.

When the product preview press conference rolled
around, he had put on his CEO face and smiled confidently for the cameras. If
the eyes that looked into the mirror at him in the mornings were dimmed, and
the lines around his mouth were a little more pronounced, people would just
chalk it up to being over forty and having too many late night events.

He made his appearance, but he was a brittle shell of
himself. He was James Chesterfield, rich guy, computer entrepreneur. No one saw
the real Jim. Kiki’s Jim.

Kiki put aside the envelope from Rillerhouse
Publishing thinking it was some sort of magazine sales pitch. Only after it sat
on the little desk in her room at the shelter for three days did she take the
time to look at it. Inside was a publishing contract. Rillerhouse wanted to
publish A Flamingo Named Fred! She was floored. Because she’d lost that bet
with Jim several months ago, she knew he was working on getting a publisher to
take a look at it. She had no idea he’d be successful. And here was a contract.
The terms were gobbledygook to her, though. She had no idea what some of it
meant. Kiki realized she’d need a lawyer to figure it out before she signed it.
But, of course, she couldn’t afford a lawyer.

Should she take a chance and sign it without getting
it vetted? How stupid do you feel today, Kiki?

Jim would know a lawyer. Unfortunately, Jim would also
want to pay for that lawyer. Maybe she’d just have to wait it out in the
shelter for an extra two weeks in order to use her paycheck on legal advice
rather than an apartment.

She still didn’t know a lawyer she could trust,
though. It appeared that a call to Jim was required.

Kiki picked up her cell phone and tapped a few keys
then hovered her finger over the “talk” button. It would open an unhealed wound
to hear his voice. She could almost smell his cologne and feel his warm arms
around her as she thought about talking to him. Stop it!

She hit the “cancel” command and changed to text
messaging.

Thank you for getting me the contract with the
publisher. Need a lawyer to vet it. Any recommendations?

After hitting “send” she stared at the phone for a
minute and then put it down. He must be busy. No surprise there.

She started folding laundry but before she could
finish, her phone rang. It wasn’t her text ring, it was her voice ring. She
looked at the caller ID suspiciously. Jim. Memories washed over her and her
heart ached as she let the call go to voicemail.
 
Apparently, he didn’t leave a message there, however. A text
came through a minute later.

Call Jessica Dentin: 555-8088. Intellectual property
attorney. Tell her I referred you. Send me the bill.

Kiki’s answer was brief.

Thank you. I’ll pay the bill myself. Take care.

He wasn’t giving up though, and her phone chimed a
minute later.

Call me, Kiki.

Kiki had to mutter her reasons for breaking up with
him several times before she put her phone down and walked away. Oh how she
wanted to talk to him. But it would be too tempting to chat a little, meet for
coffee, have dinner together, end up in bed. The progression would be as
inevitable as an avalanche after a gunshot.

* * *

Jim stared at his cell phone for a full five minutes
before he sighed deeply and put it in his pocket. The car jounced over a
pothole and he looked at the back of Ernie’s head, biting back a sharp comment,
then back down to the computer in his lap. He couldn’t focus on it.

If she’d only call him.

He rubbed the place on his right temple where tension
made his head ache, and then went back to his speech. Rocket Flare would
release the new hardware tomorrow and there was going to be a big event around
it. Jim’s PR department had prepared written remarks for him to make and he
needed to add his own notes to them, to personalize them. One paragraph caught
his attention and set off emergency bells in his head.

To commemorate this new achievement for Rocket Flare,
we’re equipping 100 California schools with new computer labs. This includes
hardware, software, and any needed structural improvements to house the
centers. Rocket Flare is proud to help the next generation of computer users
find their way to computing excellence.

Jim immediately pulled out his phone and called his PR
department.

“Janet, I need to know more about the charitable
giving of the new computer labs to schools. Is Wildwood in Cupertino on the
grant list?”

“I’ll check, Mister Chesterfield.”

The wait seemed interminable. If this was the reason
why Kiki had left him, he’d be able to allay her argument over “buying” her the
job. Maybe he could get her back. His heart thumped loudly, the blood rushing
through his veins with new urgency.

“Mister Chesterfield?”

“Yes.”

“Wildwood Academy in Cupertino is among the 20 private
schools receiving computer lab grants.”

He could see why Kiki would be suspicious. “How were
they chosen?”

“I’m not sure about them specifically, sir. I do know
that the private schools were schools that we’d given to in the past, and which
we had not given to this year.”

“Okay. Thanks, Janet.”

He hung up and dialed in Kiki’s number. Predictably,
she didn’t answer. Damn caller ID. She didn’t answer his text messages anymore.
Their recent exchange had been the first since she’d left him. He needed to
tell her in person. He needed to see her face when he explained that Rocket
Flare’s grant to Wildwood was just a coincidence. She was wrong about his
buying her a job, and now he could prove it.