What Matters Most: The Billionaire Bargains, Book 2 (31 page)

Then he spent the following moments telling himself to not get his hopes up.

He had decided to do anything he could to stay distracted from his marital situation—or more accurately his
lack
of a marital situation. As one tactic, he’d begged Sebastian to stay a little longer when Sebastian had been getting ready to leave. Tony had even given him a job. Really, he’d given Sebastian the easiest parts of Will’s job. Running simple errands, finding basic information and keeping Tony company while he sat on conference calls. Will, for one, was thrilled. He’d even muttered something to Sebastian about it being the hardest babysitting job he’ll ever have. But interestingly, taking care of someone else had made Sebastian less egocentric and less withdrawn. He had been responsible, had asked for nothing, had even thanked Tony for letting him hang out.

Of course, the job was right up Sebastian’s alley. He needed to more or less sit around and keep himself entertained until Tony needed him. His duties required anywhere from twenty minutes of his time to a couple of hours. And then he was back to sitting around and playing on Tony’s very high-tech entertainment and gaming system.

He was particularly good at the conference-call portion of his job description though. Tony hated conference calls more than anything else he had to do. Will had long ago decided to keep the meeting on speaker phone on mute until Tony needed to say something.

Tony had needed Will to be entertaining enough during the calls that it kept Tony awake, but not so entertaining as to detract from what he needed to respond to during the meeting. It was a tough but important balance. So far, Sebastian was nailing it. Where Tony and Will played basketball on the drive-way-sized court Tony had put in his office, shot darts, or played ping pong, Sebastian did dramatic reenactments of what was being said on the call, illustrated parts of the call like a cartoon strip and had built a Wheel of Possibility. Tony would spin the wheel and whatever he landed on was the next response he would give on the call.

Plus, Sebastian made a kickass BLT. Will always left the bacon too soft.

“I can’t get rid of
any money today.” And it was pissing him off to no end.

Sebastian chuckled. “Again?”

Since walking out of Children’s Hospital two weeks ago, Tony had been working on decreasing his assets. That was
all
he had been working on. Getting rid of his money.

It was turning out to be harder than it sounded.

He’d sold his skydiving business first. Fucking skydiving. What a stupid hobby
that
was. He hadn’t been at all sad to see it go. And he’d taken a loss there.

Then he’d sold two of his cars and one of his houses. He’d sold off nearly ten percent of his T.S. Enterprises stock.

But the thing about selling things was you sometimes made money.

So he’d made several huge donations to groups and charities. Which had been very well received and had nearly given his accountant a heart attack, which had been fun. Getting an accountant riled up was always fun.

But then he’d had some of his memorabilia authenticated so he could sell it and found out that several pieces were worth more than he’d known. Or paid.

It was like everyone wanted to give him money. Like the universe refused to let him be a normal guy.

Frustrated beyond reason, he’d given the most valuable pieces of his baseball collection to three different baseball museums. Then he’d found out that one of the museums had used the pieces in an auction and had forwarded Tony the profits minus their commission.

He’d called and actually chewed them out for sending him money and insisted that they
take
three more pieces from his collection to
display
only and that he didn’t want a dime from them.

The next day, four of his biggest stocks that had been fairly static for
weeks
had skyrocketed, one of his business managers had called to say that they’d had the best quarter ever, and his real estate agent had told him that rather than taking a loss on the house in Colorado, they’d made a twenty-percent profit.

The icing on the cake, however, had been the poker game last night. He’d played against some of the best local players. He’d been reckless and had done everything but cheat to lose.

And he’d won. Big.

It was all crazy. It was making
him
crazy. Crazier.

Living without Reese for two weeks had successfully pushed him over the edge from eccentric to complete irrationality.

He’d debated just writing checks out to everyone he knew—but most of them had plenty of money. He’d called to ask how much a hot air balloon would cost so he could go up and throw one-hundred-dollar bills out. The lady had said that the city would consider that littering. So he’d asked if
she
wanted a couple million dollars. She’d hung up on him.

He didn’t quite believe that the city would consider dumping money over the park littering, but he was still waiting on a call back from the mayor’s office on that. And he was considering doing it anyway. It would get rid of the money, and if he had to pay a hefty fine for doing it, all the better.

The clear sign he’d gone over the edge was that
he
was placing all of these calls rather than having Will do it.

In fact, now that he thought about it, he hadn’t seen much of Will over the past few days.

“Do you know where Will is?” he asked Sebastian.

There was no answer.

Tony looked from his computer screen to Reese’s brother. It hadn’t completely escaped him that part of why he wanted to keep Sebastian around was because he was a link to Reese. He’d know that before Emily had pointed it out to him a week ago. “Sebastian?”

“Uh…he had some stuff to do?” Sebastian shrugged and kept his eyes on his phone.

“You talked to him?” Tony was trying to recall if he’d seen Will at all that day. It might have been yesterday. Or the day before. Tony was having trouble sleeping and the days had started to blur together.

“I talked to him yesterday,” Sebastian said, still not making eye contact with Tony. He was typing on his phone.

“Sebastian, I’ll give you a million dollars to tell me where Will is.” Tony didn’t know why but he had a feeling he needed to know that information. It wasn’t like Will didn’t deserve time off. It was just that he never took it. Then again, Tony’s brother often pointed out that working for Tony was like one big vacation all the time.

Sebastian shifted on his seat and cleared his throat. “Um, I…can’t.”

Tony could see that it pained Sebastian to turn the money down. But the fact that he did it meant something.

That Will was up to something.

Sebastian was typing furiously.

“I’m going to need to see your phone,” Tony said.

Considering he’d bought the thing, he had every right. Well, aside from the privacy issues and the trusting-your-friend-and-employee issues, he had every right.

“Just one…”

“Do
not
delete anything.”

Tony didn’t often use his I’m-in-charge voice, but it seemed lately, since marrying Reese, he’d pulled it out a lot.

Sebastian sighed, but he got up and brought the phone to Tony.

The last text from Sebastian to the recipient said, “
You don’t have twenty minutes. Hurry the fuck up.”

And the recipient was Will.

Something was going on. With Will. Which was throwing Tony off a bit. As if he wasn’t off-kilter enough already.

Will was…Tony’s rock. He was the guy who was always there, efficient, brutally honest when Tony asked him for an opinion, more subtle and tactfully honest when Tony didn’t ask for an opinion. Will was never covert or…missing.

Tony swiped the phone’s screen, scrolled up through the messages and then read down chronologically.

“T’s asking abt u”.

“Distract him.”

“Already played 2 rounds of Spec Ops & let T win. Out of bacon.”

“Need 20 more.”

“T’s suspicious.”

“We’re almost set up. 20 more minutes.”

“U don’t have 20! Hurry the fuck up.”

Tony looked up at Sebastian. “You let me win?”

Sebastian shrugged. “I let up at the end.”

Tony scowled at him. “Don’t ever do that again.” He glanced at the phone again. “And I’m distracted by bacon?”

Sebastian grinned at that. “There’s this place that makes blond bacon brownies that will blow your mind. They put bacon grease
in
the batter.”

Tony stared at him. “Grease
in
the batter?”

“Yep.”

“Where is this place?”

“Alexander and Michigan. Or maybe Clark.”

Tony pulled Google up on his computer…then froze.

He
was
distracted by bacon.

He frowned at Sebastian. “Dammit.”

Sebastian laughed.

“Tell me what’s going on with Will. What are you two up to?”

“It’s just…this thing. You’ll see. It’s actually…great.”

“Sebastian, if you ever want to drive my Lamborghini again, you will tell me, right now, what the fuck—”

“I’m here.” Will strode through the office door, holding up a package of bacon like it was a prize trophy.

“Thank God,” Sebastian mumbled as he took the bacon and headed for the door.

Tony assumed he was taking it to the kitchen. And if he came back with a BLT, all would be forgiven.

“And I need you to see what I bought,” he said to Tony.

“What you bought?” Tony asked.

“I made an investment. I’d love your opinion on it.”

Tony wasn’t sure how to respond at first. He couldn’t remember Will asking his opinion on something for Will himself before. Tony looked at his computer screen. He was getting nothing done except making money he didn’t want. “Absolutely. If you tell me it’s far from here, I’ll be even happier.”

“It’s a bit of a drive,” Will said.

“Awesome, let’s go.”

There was no BLT in sight when Sebastian joined them at the front door.

“You know about this investment?” Tony asked Sebastian.

“Yep.” He seemed very pleased.

“What do you think?” Tony asked. “Is it a good idea for Will?”

Sebastian shot Will a look. “It’s a fantastic idea for
everyone
involved.”

Tony shook his head. He couldn’t help it. He liked the guy, BLTs or not.

Forty minutes later, Will pulled Tony’s Cadillac Escalade into the private hanger at the airport.

“This is my hanger,” Tony said, looking around.

“This
used to be
your hanger,” Will corrected. “And that
used to be
your plane and this
used to be
your skydiving business.”

Tony squinted at the plane. “Does that say
Come Fly With Me
?” he asked.

Will shut off the engine and grinned. “Yep.”

“They already renamed it and painted the plane?” Tony asked, getting out of the SUV.

Will joined him at the front bumper and took his mirrored sunglasses off. “Yep.”

“Well, that was fast,” Tony grumbled. He’d wanted to get rid of the business and had been thrilled to have an offer within thirty minutes of putting Will on listing it. But he couldn’t help the twinge of regret he felt. He hated that he didn’t have the balls to skydive.

“Come on.” Will started forward and Sebastian fell into step beside him. They walked to the other side of the plane and Tony followed.

“So what do you think?” Will asked, running his hand along the side of the plane.

Tony looked at him. “What do I think of what?”

“My new business venture.”

“Your new…” Tony looked from Will to the plane and back. “
Your
new business venture?”

Will nodded. “It’s a side business. Sebastian is going to put in most of the man hours. But I’m pretty excited.”

Tony turned to face him more fully. “
Your
new business venture?”

Will laughed. “Yeah.”

“What do you know about owning a skydiving business?” Tony asked.

“I’m a licensed skydiving instructor,” Will informed him. “I’ve done over five hundred jumps. I’m also a pilot.”

Tony stared at him. “No way.”

“I can show you my license.”