Stingray Billionaire: The Complete Series (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (11 page)

“It’s breathtaking,” I
answer. “How much is it?”

“Twenty-seven hundred,”
Clarence answers.

“Twenty-seven hundred?” I
ask.

“Yes, miss,” he says. “If
I may say, it would be
an excellent
piece
to compliment your
complexion. The
rose
gold brings out the—”

“I’m sorry,” I interrupt,
“but do you have anything a little, I don’t know, less expensive?”

I’m not going to pretend
like I’m above enjoying some of the finer things dating Nick has to offer, but
the necklace costs almost four months’
rent,
and this is the first of who-knows-how-many stops today.

“Of course, Miss,”
Clarence says. He glances
behind
me a
moment, nods and then sets the box containing the necklace in the center of the
middle area.

“You can put it back,” I
say. “I love it, but I do think it’s a bit more than I can justify.”

“Of course, Miss,”
Clarence says. “We like to set all our pieces there before returning them to
the display. It’s to check for quality.”

To check for quality?
What does that even mean?

Oh well, I can’t be
expected to learn how this world works when I’ve only been in here five
minutes.

“Maybe something like
this would be more to your liking,” he says.

It’s another gorgeous
necklace, but I can see the price. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “That’s still a bit
too expensive for me.”

He shows me piece after
piece, and not only necklaces and pendants. I spend over an hour walking back
and forth, from counter to counter, looking at rings and earrings, bracelets
and even a couple brooches; though I don’t know when I’d ever wear
a brooch
.

I adore everything he
shows me, but he doesn’t seem to understand when I tell him the price needs to
go down, not up.

Finally, I manage to get
through to Clarence well enough that he shows me a tasteful, sterling silver,
Elsa Peretti necklace with diamonds for six hundred and fifty. It’s still more
than I had in mind, but at least I finally got Clarence under a thousand.

He insists I wear the
necklace out of the store, saying, “I’ll be sure to put this all on Mr.
Scipio’s account for you. You are all taken care of.”

“Thanks,” I tell him. “I
hope I wasn’t too much trouble.”

“Oh, not at all,”
Clarence says. “It has been a pleasure.” He glances
behind
me again and
this time,
I turn around just in time to see Marc brushing the side of his nose with his
index finger. He sees me and tries to pass it off like he was just scratching
his nose, but I get the feeling that’s not all he was doing.

I have to
say I
feel pretty amazing walking out of the
store with this beautiful necklace. What’s better is now I can call Naomi and
tell her I have a Tiffany pendant, too. She, of course, won hers in
a sweepstakes
.

We get back to the
car,
and we’re off again. Over the next few
hours, we stop at Bergdorf Goodman, Armani Fifth Avenue, and about half a dozen
other places I never thought I’d see from the inside.

I never leave with much,
but I’ve racked up almost three thousand in clothes and jewelry so far. Every
time I get back in the car, I send Nick a message, telling him what I got and
how much it costs. I know he planned this whole thing, but I don’t want to
cruise past any limit he may have.

By the time we’re on our
way to the final stop of the day, a little boutique where Marc’s sister-in-law
works, I’m not sure I can spend any more. We go into the
shop,
and I buy a couple of shirts and a pair
of pants for about two-hundred, but as Marc’s sister-in-law, Betty, is ringing
me up, Anthony touches me on the shoulder.

“It looks like a crowd is
gathering out front,” he says. “There’s no rear exit, so we’re going to have to
walk through them. Don’t worry, though,” he says. “We’ve got you covered.”

I look out the front
window of the shop to find the sidewalk packed. It would be bad enough if they
were just random strangers, but I can’t help noticing a lot of cameras out
there.

“I don’t suppose there’s
any way I can get out of here without my picture
taken
, is there?” I ask.

“You can borrow my jacket
if you’d like to cover your face,” Marc says, “but I don’t think that’d be such
a good idea.”

“Why’s that?” I ask.

“Looks too much like a
perp walk,” Anthony says.

I start shaking.
This isn’t
what I wanted. I knew there was a
chance my relationship with Nick would get out, but I didn’t expect it to be
like this.

“Why’s this only happening
now?” I ask.

“Someone must have tipped
off the press,” Marc says. “I don’t mean to be rude, Miss, but we should
probably get you out of here. People are going to start asking you questions,
but either don’t answer at all or just say, ‘no
comment,’
”
he instructs me.

“How do we do this?” I
ask.

“Just follow my lead and
stay close,” Anthony says.

I walk behind Anthony
with Marc close behind me, and I take a breath as the door opens.

Instantly, dozens of
voices are shouting questions I can’t begin to make
out,
and cameras are flashing all around me. Marc puts the flat of
his palm between my shoulder blades and keeps me moving forward, though
Anthony’s having some trouble cutting through the crowd ahead of me.

It’s only about twenty
feet from the door of the shop to the open door of the town car, but it takes
more than a minute to make the journey. Once I’m in the car, Marc closes the
door behind me.

“He’s not getting in?” I
ask.

“He’s protecting our
escape,” Anthony answers as Trevor hits the gas.

This is
too much. Apart from school photos and driver’s license photos, and the
occasional candid by Naomi, I haven’t had a picture taken of me in my life that
was in any way public. Even with that, Naomi’s random pictures of me are the
most public, and her shots only make it as far as her Facebook page.

It was fun pretending and
playing dress-up for a while, but the fantasy’s over. People grabbed at me,
trying to get my attention and everyone was shouting, just shouting at me. I’m
just a girl from a place nobody’s ever heard of; I don’t know if I can do this
anymore.

“It
looks like they’re already posting pictures,” Anthony says.

“What?”
I ask. “How?”

Anthony
shrugs. “It looks like they’re just teasers, so far,” he says, “but don’t be
alarmed if you see yourself in a few dailies tomorrow morning and likely a few
tabloids over the next week or so. Also, you may want to stay away from the
online stories. A lot of those people aren’t concerned with facts as much as
they are sensationalism, and you don’t want any part of it. Whatever you do,
stay away from the tabloids. Don’t even read the cover,” he says. “Trust me.”

I’d
love to
answer
if only I could speak.

We
get back to the hotel and security’s already waiting outside to escort me into
the building. I don’t know how the reporters got here so fast, or even if
they’re the same ones, but if it weren’t for the additional security, I don’t
know if I could have made
it through the hotel
doors
.

By
the time I get back up to my room, my head is swimming. I’m so disoriented that
I almost don’t notice that every piece
I
looked at Tiffany’s, every dress,
every pair
of shoes, every set of earrings, every everything I showed any interest in at
all, is in my room, waiting for me.

Chapter
Eight

Long Island

Nick

“Marly, hey, come in,” I
say as my longtime lawyer, mole, and mentor
knocks
on my office door.

“You wanted to see me,
sir?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “Come
in and shut the door, if you would.”

Ellie hasn’t left her
room in three
days,
and I don’t blame
her. The moment that first reporter got wind of who she was and what she was
doing in New York, things were bound to go a little crazy.

A little crazy would have
been fine, but the tabloids have taken a
particular
interest in Ellie.

“I suppose you’ve heard
about the recent issues Ellie and I have been having with the yellow press,” I
say.

Marly nods. “Yes, I
have,” she says.

I ask, “What do you think
we should do about it?”

Marly leans forward,
saying, “I know you don’t want to hear this, but we both knew this was going to
happen.”

“Did we?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she says. “We
did. I don’t know what you were thinking sending her on a Fifth Avenue shopping
spree right when we’re trying to get the board off our backs, but this is
reflecting
poorly
on you.”

“That’s the stupidest
thing I’ve ever heard,” I tell her. “Just because I own a company, I’m not
allowed to date or buy a girlfriend a few things?”

“A few things would have
been fine, but they’re reporting that your friend went home with over a hundred
grand in jewelry and clothing,” Marly says. “You don’t think a little
discretion might have been nice?”

“A hundred grand is
nothing,” I tell her. “
What's the problem?
”

“The big deal, sir,” she
says, her face growing a deeper shade of red with every syllable, “is that you
are the head of this
company,
and we are
not in
a stable
position right now. You
ducked away from the
central
office for
two months with hardly any warning and almost no explanation.”

“Again,” I start, “what’s
the—”

“It’s the timing,” Marly
says. “The company’s on the verge of complete upheaval and you’re sending your
girlfriend on a shopping spree. What do you think that does to investor
confidence?”

“Where are we?” I ask.

“We’re holding steady
this morning, but that’s just because we’ve found a new bottom,” she says. “Don’t
fool yourself, this keeps
up,
and you
don’t start doing some serious damage control with the company, and that
bottom’s going to drop out from under you.”

“I see,” I say. “Marly, I
need to ask you something, and I want you to be honest with me.”

She shifts in her seat,
but says, “Okay.”

“Did you tip off the
press about Ellie and where they could find her?” I ask.

“Of course not,” she says
with a scoff. “Why would I do that?”

“Well, you’ve been fairly
upfront with your feelings on the matter,” I say.

Marly rolls her eyes and,
with a smirk, she says, “It’s been a bad idea from the start. You could have
gotten to know this woman again without uprooting the company. Every inch of
this mess is because you don’t know how to be discreet about shit.”

My eyebrows go up. Marly
gets away with a lot when we speak in private, but
she’s never been
this outright disrespectful.

“
Uh-huh
,” I say. “Have you seen the new twist to the story yet?”

“Twist, sir?” she asks.

“Yeah,” I answer.
“Apparently, a staffer close to me walked in on Ellie and
me
in
a,
quote, ‘compromising position in the main room of Stingray’s new headquarters.’
The author of the article seems to think this is yet another indication that
I’m putting my personal desires above the interests of the company and the
shareholders. That wasn’t you?”

“You don’t understand
what you’re doing to the company,” Marly says. “You’re gambling away the future
of a lot of people by this stupid flight of fancy. The two of you reconnected,
well that’s just fan-freaking-
tastic
, but
this company was doing just great before she came along and if it has any
chance of bouncing back, you’ve got to stop doing what you’re doing. Keep
sleeping with her if you want, but get the company out of Mulholland now. I
hear construction just started on the new building: You have to stop it.
Then, put a halt
to the money flowing to the
new headquarters and get your head out of your ass, Nick. You’re killing the
business,
and the board isn’t going to put up
with this a whole lot longer.” She’s on her feet now, saying, “Come on, Nick.
I’m trying to protect you here. You need to meet me halfway.”

“You went behind my back,
didn’t you?” I ask.

She furrows her brow and
shakes her head. “I was trying to wake you up, Nick,” she says. “You have to
stop pushing the board. You have to—”

“Marly, you’re fired,” I
say.

“Make all the jokes you
want,” she says. “I’m not kidding around here.”

“Neither am I,” I tell
her. “I can handle people questioning me. I put you in your position because
you have a particular talent in that direction, but Marly, you sent those
reporters after Ellie. I could have lived with the leak about her and I in the
conference room back in Mulholland, but you didn’t just go to the press with
your concerns, did you?”

“Sir,” she says in a tiny
voice, “I—”

I slam my fist on my
desk. “You sold me out!” I roar. “You went to the board and told them to give
me one last chance to drop the Mulholland office before having me fired; well,
congratulations. I just got the call from
Reeves,
and that’s what he told me. Of course, getting your name wasn’t all that
difficult. I
said
to think of it as a
gesture of good faith. It sounds like you didn’t
say
everything you could have. I appreciate that. Still, he
insisted that I stop production
at
the
office. There’s one
minute
detail you
forgot to cover.”

“What’s that?” she asks.

“This is
my
company!” I roar. “You may have
managed to turn the majority of the board against me, but you forget I still
have some friends in this company. The office is
being built, the
board can’t do a thing about
it,
and
you
can consider yourself fired. Now get the hell out of my office.”

Marly takes a long, slow
breath and walks to the door. She turns around and, shaking her head at me, and
she says, “Most of the board was already against you, Nick. Before you said
anything about Mulholland, they were trying to find a way to get rid of you.
You don’t have the computer smarts Jacque had, and you’re
so obsessed
with
this nobody
you knew for like a week fifteen years ago that the one card
you did have to play, your ability to close a deal and to run the company,
started slipping a while ago.”

“Thank you for your
concern,” I tell her. “Security’s going to throw you out now. Maybe if we all
get lucky, you’ll bounce into traffic. Now get the hell out of my office and
never come back.”

One of the most difficult
things I’ve ever had to do in my life is to hold a stern expression while my
longtime mentor and confidant
is escorted
out of view. I’m furious, but I’m also hurt. For a man in my position, it’s
only acceptable to show the first, and that rarely.

I get up from my desk and
walk
across the room
to close the office
door. Metering my breathing, I go over to my semi-secret liquor cabinet,
located beneath all the plaques and certificates and pictures of me with
notable people.

Doing my best to steady
my hand, I pour two fingers’ worth of Glen McKenna into a tumbler and take a
drink.

Marly’s been with the
company … with me, almost since the company began. I have no illusions about
it: Stingray wouldn’t have been anywhere near as successful as it is if it
weren’t for her.

I never thought she’d
betray me like that.

Taking one more sip of
scotch, I walk back to my desk and press the intercom button.

“Yes, Mr. Scipio?” Darla,
my
assistant,
asks.

“Could you send Malcolm
in?” I ask.

“Yes, Mr. Scipio,” she
says.

A moment later, the door
opens.

I’ve been going over this
in my head since Malcolm told me what Marly had been
up to behind my back
. At first, I didn’t want to believe him, but
when I got the call from the board …

“Mr. Scipio,” Malcolm
says, opening my office door, “you wanted to see me?”

“Yeah, Malcolm,” I say.
“Come on in and shut the door, would you?”

I could be angry at Marly
for going behind my back and putting my position in jeopardy, and I am. I could
mourn the loss of her from the company, and I am. Right now, though, I have to
stay focused.

Along with losing a
mentor, I’ve also lost my insider. Whenever I wanted to take the board’s
temperature on something, I’d call Marly. Whenever someone under me started
scheming for my job, Marly told me about it.

I need a new mole.

“Have a seat,” I tell
Malcolm. “Do you know why you’re here?” I ask.

“No,” he says.

“Well,” I say, “I’ve got
something I want to run by you. Before I do, though, I want to impress upon you
how crucial it is that this conversation
stays
between us. Do you think you can handle that?”

“Of course, sir,” he
says. “I’d never betray your confidence.”

“Yeah,” I say, leaning
back in my chair and smiling. “Well, I guess we’re about to find out, because
if this is going to work, I’m going to have to tell you everything.”

*
                   
*
                   
*

Malcolm got through our
discussion without rending his garments, so I’m tentatively looking at it as a
successful meeting. He had a lot of questions, as I expected he would, but he
seemed to handle everything okay.

As I’m leaving the
office, I give Ellie a call.

“Hey,” she says,
answering the phone.

“Hey, you all right?” I
ask. “You sound stressed.”

“I made the mistake of
switching on the
television
for the first
time in about a year,” she says. “They’re still plastering my face in the news.
What’s better, apparently someone from town sent in a picture of me from high
school, so I look like I’m about a decade younger than I am.”

“I can’t begin to tell
you how sorry I am about that,” I tell her. “This isn’t what I wanted.”

“Yeah, well, it’s how it
goes, I guess,” she says and sighs.

I get down to the
car,
and Trevor opens my door. Getting in, I
tell Ellie, “I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t know if this is something
you’d consider or not, but I have a house out on Long Island. It’s just a beach
house, really, but it’s away from the city, away from the press. I thought
maybe you’d prefer staying there over—”

“If it’s not Manhattan,
you’ve got yourself a deal,” she says.

Part of me wants to tell
Ellie how Manhattan’s not all that bad as long as you can stay away from the
press, but I think better of it. “I’m leaving the office now,” I tell her. “Why
don’t I invite a few friends who’ve been through this sort of thing over
tonight and maybe we can figure out the best way past this. What do you think?”

“Just nothing big,” she
says. “I’m fine if it’s a few people, but I’m not in the mood to meet a whole
lot of
people
.”

“I know just the ones to
invite,” I tell her. “Don’t worry about a thing. We’ll be there to pick you up
shortly, and I’ll have your stuff gathered and sent to the Long Island house.”

“Okay,” she says with a
loud exhale. “I’ll see you when you get here.”

On the way, I send a few
texts to select people, informing them of “a little get-together” this evening.

When I get to Ellie’s
room, she doesn’t say much. She doesn’t say much when we’re back in the car,
headed along Long Island Expressway, either. The whole ride, I don’t think she
says more than ten or fifteen words, but she’s holding my hand tightly as she
sits in the seat next to me.

I know this isn’t what
she signed up for, but all I can do about it now is try not to make things any
worse.

As we’re pulling up to
the beach house, Ellie leaves my side a moment to get a better view out the
window.

“This is a beach house?”
she asks.

“Yeah,” I tell her.

“The thing’s huge,” she
says. “Where I’m from, we call this a mansion.”