The Boyfriend

by Abigail Barnette

  “Yes, everyone misses Olivia,” Neil agreed. “Which is why it’s so nice of you to choose to spend this time with Grandma Valerie and Grandpa Laurence.”

  At least, that’s how we’d framed the idea when we’d told Olivia about our trip. She’d been disappointed to miss the “boat ride” at first, but we’d done our best to make it sound super unappealing and to raise sympathy for her poor grandmother, living with absolutely no Olivia for weeks at a time.

  The notion of anyone being deprived of her company had been an unthinkable horror.

  Shortly before meeting Laurence, Valerie had purchased a four-story brownstone. When Olivia had been born, she’d converted the entire third floor to a nursery and playroom. That was before Emma and Michael had died; she’d been that psyched for a grandkid. Olivia often talked longingly about this or that toy at Grandma Valerie’s house, and of course, Neil would instantly rush out and buy it or an even better version of it. The arms race for most baby stuff hadn’t ended with the pregnancy, as I’d hoped it would.

  We pulled up to the curb in front of the house. Only Neil and I got out; we’d agreed that the less El-Mudad was seen with us by Valerie and Laurence, the better, though I was reasonably sure Olivia would let all sorts of bombs drop in our absence. Once she was freed from her car seat restraints, she launched herself at El-Mudad.

  “Miss Olivia!” she commanded him, patting his face with both hands before throwing her arms around his neck.

  He laughed. “I promise, I will.”

  Neil offered his hand to help her step out, and he held it all the way up the steep stairs to the front door. If the walk had been entirely level, he would have done the same. He was a man pulled in different directions, between the post-fatherhood life and luxury retirement he’d dreamed of, and his desire to be with his granddaughter full-time in the way he hadn’t been for her mother. But Neil and Valerie had raised Emma to be a wonderful person. Olivia would only come out the better for being raised the same way.

  Then again, I knew as well as anyone that missing parents were a hole that couldn’t be filled. No matter how hard my grandparents had loved me, they hadn’t been able to replace my father. I hoped that as Olivia grew older and started to understand the world a bit better, she would realize that her parents hadn’t wanted to leave her. They’d just had no choice.

  Laurence answered the door when we rang the bell. His eyes went immediately to Olivia, and he gave her a broad smile. “There’s my girl!”

  Olivia put her arms out, and Laurence picked her up for a hug.

  Neil’s posture straightened. He really didn’t like the sudden competition for grandfather status.

  “Settle down, Afi,” I muttered under my breath, and he relaxed a little.

  Laurence’s expression of happiness faded a bit when he finally made eye contact with us. “Off again, I see?”

  I bristled. What the hell did he mean by that? And how were we supposed to respond?

  “Yes. To Spain, this time,” Neil said easily. “By way of Antigua.”

  “Valerie isn’t home,” Laurence explained, though we hadn’t asked. “She’s working. At your company, of all places.”

  “Her company, as well. And her dedication is noted,” Neil replied, his eyes unkind above his smile.

  “Well, not everyone can retire.” Laurence’s expression matched Neil’s. They’d perfected this art of arguing with each other in front of Olivia in a way that wouldn’t let on that they were arguing. “Someone has to run the business.”

  “Yes, we all know how companies like General Electric, Apple, and Wal-Mart folded once their founders left.” Neil shook his head sadly.

  That was enough. Like, e-total-nough.

  “Olivia, why don’t you take Afi to see the toys a minute,” I suggested sweetly, bypassing both men and their tempers. “I need to talk to Grandpa Laurence.”

  Narrowing his eyes, Laurence set Olivia on her feet. She reached for Neil’s hand. “Come on, Afi. Come with Olivia.”

  Neil did as his granddaughter commanded; I’d played a dirty trick there. He couldn’t deny her anything.

  As they climbed the stairs, I fixed Laurence with my no-bullshit stare. He gave me a fake smile. “What is it you’d like to speak to me about?”

  “Stop it,” I said coldly.

  Now that I’d given him permission to drop the pretense, his expression went hard and angry. “Excuse me?”

  “We know you don’t like us. We know you don’t approve of us traveling around, of having a nanny. We know you think we don’t care about Olivia, but we do. If you ask Valerie, she will tell you that this is exactly how Emma was raised. Spending time with her, spending time with Neil, splitting up custody during business trips and vacations. Not that Neil often took the latter. He was so busy trying to run two companies, including the one that gave your wife her job and her wealth in the first place.” Maybe that part was unfair. I would deal with that later. I lowered my voice so I wouldn’t be overheard by Olivia and Neil upstairs. “If Olivia is such an inconvenience to you, just say so.”

  “You think she’s an inconvenience to me?” He looked truly offended at the suggestion. “I’m not angry with you two for jetting off all over the world because you leave Olivia with us. We love having her here. I’m angry that you don’t want to spend that time with her. From where I stand, she seems like an awful big inconvenience to the two of you.”

  “How dare you!” I allowed myself a momentary fantasy of slapping his stupid, overly-tanned face. “Caring for someone else’s child is obviously an inconvenience. And Olivia is a wonderful, loveable inconvenience who was entrusted to my husband and me by one of the most precious people in our lives. We take that very seriously, and we wouldn’t trade her for the world. But we take Valerie’s happiness seriously, too. She moved here permanently to be closer to her granddaughter. I’m sorry if that means that for a few months out of the year, she stays with you. How negligent of us to share her.”

  Laurence nodded and slipped his hands into the pockets of his ugly khakis, the way middle-aged white guys always seemed to do when they were about to make some dramatic point. “How’s your friend, El-Mudad?”

  That wasn’t the direction I’d expected him to go in.

  “He’s fine,” I answered cautiously. “I’ll tell him that you asked and convey your regards.”

  “Or I could convey them, myself.” Laurence nodded toward the door. “Because I’ll bet a thousand dollars he’s in that car.”

  My blood ran cold.

  “I’m not stupid, Sophie. Neither is Valerie. Whatever strange relationship you have going on out there at your palace by the sea...it’s not healthy for Olivia to be around sexual deviance. Valerie agrees, but she’s too afraid to confront you about it. One day, she won’t be, though. I suggest the two of you—pardon me, the three of you—lawyer up.”

  The stairs creaked overhead.

  “That will be your husband, I think,” Laurence said with a triumphant smirk, pointing up at the ceiling. “Is there anything else you’d like to say before he comes back?”

  There were a lot of things I wanted to say. But we had a plane waiting for us, and I couldn’t get on it if I were in jail for threatening a man’s life.

  “You see,” he went on smugly, “I’m not all that sympathetic to gold diggers who find themselves put out by the realities of life. You might want to fuck two rich men, run off to exotic places, and spend their money, but the fact is that whether Valerie and I like it or not, you have a responsibility now to that little girl. From what I understand, Neil is never going to grow up. Maybe you should try to, for his sake.”

  I maintained steely, unflinching eye contact with Laurence for a long moment, shaking with rage. Then, I went to the stairs. “Neil? Olivia?” I called up. “The plane is waiting.”

  I turned to Laurence. “I’ll be sure to let Valerie know that we had this little talk. She would probably love to hear the kind of shit you’re saying to us when she’s
not around.”

  He chuckled, and that only infuriated me more.

  Neil and Olivia appeared at the top of the stairs. He glanced from me to Laurence and back with a puzzled expression. I gave him a small shake of my head that loosely translated to, “We’ll talk about it later.”

  I just didn’t know when later would be.

  We said our goodbyes to Olivia, and I forced myself to pretend to be warm to Laurence. After everything we’d all been through since Emma’s death, I refused to believe that Valerie would invite more drama, more pain into our lives. This was an ugly side to Laurence I would never have expected. I wondered if she had ever seen it.

  On our way down the front steps, Neil asked, “What were you talking to Laurence about?”

  If I told Neil now, he would march right back inside. He would demand that Valerie come home from work. There would be a huge, emotional confrontation and the person who would suffer most would be Olivia.

  I couldn’t handle that, and she shouldn’t have to.

  “I just told him to cool it, is all,” I said, hoping my voice didn’t still tremble with anger. “We can talk about it when we get back. It was no big.”

  No big, except Laurence, had threatened to take Olivia away. No big except he’d condemned us as perverts and me as a gold digger.

  No big except our lives might be turned upside down, and very soon.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Though I’d been sent numerous photos and videos during its construction, I’d never seen the Nauti III in person. The gleaming white edifice towered above all the other boats in the marina; I’d never seen a cruise ship, but if this was just a private yacht, I wondered just how big one of those actually was.

  Despite its enormous size, the vessel wasn’t bulky at all. I’d shared pictures of some of Neil and El-Mudad’s favorite supercars with the boat architect to show him the clean, swooping lines that had inspired the exterior. Gleaming white alternated with sea-green reflective glass panels on every level, making it resemble an alien spacecraft more than any of the other yachts around us.

  “Oh...Sophie,” Neil breathed once he could move his jaw again after spotting it. “It’s gorgeous.”

  I beamed. “Thanks. I might not know a lot about boats, but I know a lot about style.”

  “I agree. You’ve done well, Sophie.” El-Mudad seemed slightly less impressed. Not in a mean way. He was clearly pleased with the gift, but he already had several of his own. And they were probably a lot bigger. “And I love the name.”

  That had been the most challenging part; I’d wanted something with meaning, but nothing had quite fit. “Thank you. I thought it was a good pun.”

  “I think it’s absolutely perfect,” Neil said, pulling me close to his side.

  “Have you been on it, Sophie?” El-Mudad asked me, reaching for my hand. Here, where no one knew us, we didn’t care if someone spotted us being too affectionate with each other. Who was going to run and tattle?

  I shook my head. “No. But I’ve seen pictures. I think you guys are going to love it.”

  A steward of some kind met us at the foot of the gangway. I showed him my passport to prove it was really me.

  “Welcome aboard, Ms. Scaife,” the young man beamed. His skin glowed with a golden tan, and his blond hair sported highlights that had definitely been helped along by a salon. I’d hired the crew through a service that specialized in training little Stepford boat people. “And your guests?”

  “This is Mr. Elwood and Mr. Ati,” I informed him. I gave them both an apologetic wince. “Sorry, I couldn’t make you guys owners without ruining the surprise.”

  “So, this is your yacht, then?” Neil asked, his mouth slanting in amusement.

  I rolled my eyes. “No, it’s our yacht. Remember? What’s yours is mine, what’s mine is yours?”

  “Sophie owns a yacht now, did you hear?” El-Mudad asked him, teasing me.

  Neil shook his head in mock sadness. “What a snob she’s become.”

  “Oh, shut up,” I laughed and charged ahead of them onto the boat. “I can have you thrown overboard, you know.”

  “Would you like a tour, ma’am?” the steward asked.

  I waved him off. “No, I’ve seen pictures. And it’ll be fun to poke around all by ourselves.”

  “But we could use something to eat,” Neil told him. “And some lovely non-alcoholic strawberry daiquiris, if you’d be so kind.”

  “Strawberry daiquiris?” I asked with a laugh. The thought of Neil drinking a fruity cocktail was thoroughly absurd.

  Neil shrugged. “It’s hot. We’re on a boat.”

  “Would you like us to serve dinner now, or is this just a mid-afternoon snack?” the steward asked.

  “Maybe a light snack, followed very closely by dinner,” El-Mudad ventured. “Once we’re underway?”

  “Of course,” he said. “That should be soon. I’ll send the captain to come speak with you about our itinerary.”

  “Oh. I didn’t realize we had to do that,” I said, biting my lip as I tried to figure out just how someone talked to a boat captain. I wasn’t sure I could do it without sounding dumb.

  El-Mudad must have sensed my panic. “I’ll go talk to him. You two look around.”

  “I’m glad he went,” Neil said, once El-Mudad had left with the steward. “I would honestly have had no idea.”

  “I don’t understand how you didn’t have a yacht before,” I mused. “Like, never?”

  “Oh, no, I had one,” he said, his eyebrows lifting as he opened the door from the deck into the interior of the main level. “I just didn’t spend much time on it. I think it only ever went out once, and not with me. Elizabeth hosted Emma’s twenty-first birthday party on it. They sailed down to Miami, I believe. We held a few fundraising parties on board, but for the most part, it stayed at the dock in the harbor in New York. It wasn’t nearly as impressive as this.”

  “I thought all rich guys spent a ton of money on yachts and stuff,” I mused. “Of course, you have plenty of cars. And shoes.”

  “Yes, I just couldn’t justify the expense of something like this.” He took off his sunglasses and folded them up to slip them into the pocket of his white seersucker shirt. “Good lord.”

  “Ditto,” I said breathlessly. The photos really hadn’t done the ship justice. The way the decks were stacked with the highest—and shortest, in terms of length—sitting far back left room for skylights that illuminated half of the enormous great room. A sitting area comprised of a low, white marble-topped coffee table and slate colored half-moon sofas filled the center of the space. An enormous flat-screen television hung above a squat, rectangular fireplace, through which I could see the dining room on the other side. The table there was already set beautifully, just waiting for twelve people to fill all the chairs. Two majestic, albeit shallow, staircases wrapped around the outside of the room, cradling the arched doorways that led to the dining room.

  “Let’s go upstairs!” I said, tugging at Neil’s hand.

  “Wait,” he said with a laugh, heading through the archway. I followed him past the long table to the windows that face the back of the ship.

  “These can come up,” I explained, motioning to a panel on the wall. “I mean, someone with a key has to do it. But they come up so you can eat outside-ish.” Beyond them, a small sitting area crowned a broad, split set of stairs that led down to the bottom deck, where we could swim or board jet skis.

  Not that I planned to do either in the ocean. There were sharks in there.

  Upstairs, we found the home theater with a state-of-the-art sound system, the guest bedrooms—including a princess-themed one for Olivia—all with their private bathrooms, and the indoor/outdoor pool with swim-up bar and optional waterfall curtain between the outside and inside. On the other side of that deck, a stunning sauna and gym with sea views would make sure we didn’t slack on our workouts.

  But it was the private owner’s deck that I really wanted Neil and El-Mudad
to see. I made Neil wait until we were all together again before taking them up in the elevator.

  “I worked really hard to get this right, okay guys?” I warned them. “So you have to like it.”

  “And if we don’t, we should lie about it, or we’ll never hear the end of it,” Neil said to El-Mudad, who laughed but also elbowed him a little to support me.

  The elevator doors opened onto the deck that was meant only for us. We exited behind a cozy seating area with three oversized armchairs, ottomans, and side tables grouped into a semi-circle facing another retractable glass wall. Beyond that, the smallest of all the outdoor decks held the pièce de résistance, as far as I was concerned: a raised, round hot tub with three seats and glass completely enclosing one side.

  “That’s lovely,” Neil said, headed straight for the door. “And very clever.”

  “How did you think it up?” El-Mudad asked though he didn’t go outside to inspect it the way Neil did.

  “I actually saw something like it on another yacht.” I revised my statement. “I mean, in pictures of another yacht. I don’t go on many.”

  “That may change,” El-Mudad observed, his hand lingering on the tops of the leather chairs as he walked around them.

  I tilted my head. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because everyone who owns a boat like this shows it off,” he explained casually. “Next season, we should take it to Monaco. I’m sure the design firm would appreciate it.”

  “Wait, like...it’s a tour of homes kind of thing?” I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of just anyone marching onto my—our—boat. “Would you guys really be into that?”

  “Into what?” Neil asked, stepping back inside. He lifted the lid on the panel for the glass and punched buttons until it smoothly retracted, letting in the breeze off the marina.

  “Yacht week,” El-Mudad said, and Neil completely understood, so apparently it was a thing all the billionaires knew about.

  “Oh, of course, we’ll have to take this next season,” Neil said, sounding a bit disappointed. “It’s a shame we couldn’t take her when she’s new.”