The Billionaire's Favorite: A Homesburg Romance

by Elle Chance

  Cory shook his floppy-eared hat at me. He’d insisted we open the windows for the smell, so we were working in extra flannels and hats. “I enjoy having you around, idiot. I could pay a professional who knows how to paint.”

  “We’ll paint over that anyway,” I said to him, adding eyes above the mark I made to create a supremely unimpressed face on the wall.

  “I’m gonna get a review about that damn thing,” Josh said, coming over to paint over my emotional state. “And I’m wondering if you’re gonna run away from something that’s, shockingly, not your fault.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I muttered, returning to the detailed window work. “And I don’t know what I’m doing yet. Sofie sent over extra money and stopped all payments. And she probably doesn’t want me staying at the Lodge while she has to be here. And she doesn’t know she’s not in her father’s will.”

  Cory watched me paint, looking pained. “Well, I have employees now.”

  “Getting real mixed messages here, man. Do you want me to stay or leave?”

  Cory shrugged one shoulder, something we’d both picked up from our dad. It was a comforting gesture to me.

  I sighed, putting the brush back on the paint can. “I just wish this hadn’t gotten so messy, you know?”

  Cory let out a chuckle. “Yeah, falling in love with a rich girl in your hometown sounds like it should be easy as pie, right?”

  I scoffed. “Who said anything about being in love with her? She just flipped out on me and won’t return my calls now. I quit my job so I could help her cover story hold up. And now I know something that’ll piss her off. She already hates me, I don’t want to tell her now. This is guilt and shame about writing that stupid obituary.”

  “Right,” Cory said, sounding doubtful.

  “I have to tell her because I’m a good person.”

  Cory shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “If you say so.” He looked at me like he wasn’t buying what I was selling. Like he had back when we were kids and I’d tell him my latest scheme wouldn’t get us into trouble.

  “What are you not telling me?” I asked Cory. The art of conversations with my brother was to trick him into getting going talking. He was fine once he got out of his own head.

  Cory sighed. “Look, I’m not good at this stuff. You’re obviously in love with Sofie Barlow, whether you tell her she’s getting nothing or don’t.”

  “But she’s a nightmare,” I said, gearing up to rehash the whole writing the obituary her father requested thing. “She’s already ignoring me from doing what her father requested.”

  “Oh, the whole Barlow clan’s a nightmare. Her brothers have complained about every room we put them in. Sofie’s picky and renting way more rooms than she needs to have office space in a hotel. And she keeps trying to give me money to get horses so she can go riding. And that’s just off the top of my head.” Cory was both sympathetic and unsurprised, mulling over what to say now. “But that won’t change it.”

  “Why are you choosing now to use your words?” I ran a hand through my three-day-old despair beard.

  “I’m a business owner now. I gotta work on it, I guess. And I know you. You can be a real stubborn idiot sometimes. But so is she.” Cory shoved the paintbrush back into my hand unceremoniously. “Get back to it.”

  I gestured to the room we were in. “You’re half renovating a lodge you don’t know you’ll have the business for. You’re out of your mind.”

  Cory laughed for real at that. “Oh, didn’t you here? I have a fancy billionaire’s stamp of approval. Hell, my baby brother wrote a whole article about it. We’re booked out through February.”

  “So what if I’m in love with her?” I asked him, pacing around the room instead of painting. I gestured with the paintbrush. “Just because I’m in love doesn’t mean I have to do anything about it. And she was mean, Core. She just ran.”

  “So it’s mutual, is what you’re saying,” Cory said, hiding a smile as he spoke.

  “I tell you Sofie won’t talk to me since the article which tells everyone we’re in love. I tell you she lost it when she found me with her father. And that she doesn’t know she’s out of her daddy’s will. And you think Sofie loves me on top of thinking I love her? You’re losing it, old man.”

  Cory huffed, turning back to his paintwork. “I may be crazy, but I’m not blind. Sofie sold out my lodge for a few months. She’s got to be under a microscope, right?”

  “And? I’m not good enough to be with her. Is that what we’re getting at?”

  Cory shook his head at me more. “No, you idiot. You might be good enough for her. And that’s scarier. She’s dated before, right? Men like her and her father. But she gets stuck in the woods and finds out she doesn’t need fancy things. She doesn’t need someone like her dad. That’s a lot of change in a short period.”

  I shifted, rolling my eyes. “That’s a lot of assumptions in a short period.”

  “Everybody always says love is wings and light and butterflies. But it’s also a cage. It can change you. And don’t you think Sofie’s changed a little since you’ve known her?” Cory turned back to me, giving up the painting. “I’m not saying it’s all bad. But growing is change and change is scary.”

  Cory and I faced from each other like we were about to draw pistols and duel. And it felt like I’d been shot a few times this week already.

  “But how do you know Sofie loves me? I just don’t see it.”

  A one-shouldered shrug from Cory. “Of course not. You make her happier but you’re always there to see it. I’ve seen you two getting drinks together and coming back from seeing her father. She’s lighter with you.”

  “That’s not very convincing evidence,” I said, looking away from Cory. “And why don’t I just move back to New York and get back to bedding tons of beautiful women? I liked my life.”

  “Why didn’t you go back already?” Cory countered.

  And when I thought about it, the answer was easy. “I can’t leave before the end of her dad’s treatment. I have to know whether he’ll be all right.”

  “And whether she’ll be all right,” Cory suggested helpfully.

  “Ugh, all right, yes. And maybe tell her about the will so she’s not blindsided.” I turned away from the window to my brother. “When did you become so good with all this? Talking and stuff.”

  Cory sighed. “I’m not an idiot. I just don’t talk as much as you and Mom. Do you think Dad’s stupid?”

  I thought about Dad and his strong shoulder, his calloused hands. Dad, who could put up a barn in a couple days by himself if he had all the supplies. “No, he’s better than me at a lot of things.”

  “That and I write poetry. The finer arts of love and all that.”

  “You do?” I asked him, instantly lighting up. I wanted to just read it instead of wanting to crap on him for it like I would have when we were kids. Maybe it was a sign of being grown or just getting to know my own brother better. “It must be good stuff.”

  “I guess. Can we please just get back to it?” Cory waved to the wide, mostly unpainted room around us.

  And I did Cory a kindness and nod instead of agreeing to it. He settled back into the movements easily, eating up wall space faster than I could prep it for him.

  It was good work to contemplate how I could talk to Sofie. I followed the trim of the window and came up with a plan to talk to Sofie.

  SOFIE

  “WHAT’S LEFT FOR us to do for the Foundation before the holidays?” I asked Patty.

  She looked over her reading glasses at me. “We’re weeks ahead and you want more work to do? We could do nothing but sleep and walk around this little snow globe town and still be fine the first week of December.”

  We were perched on a couch in a suite on the third floor. I’d begged Cory to give me a new room with some distance between my room and here. The Lodge was large enough that it didn’t feel entirely claustrophobic to sleep and work here. But since ending things wit
h Josh I wanted the sensation of having more places to go to keep me from getting antsy. Everything had gotten a lot harder without the company and drinks to look forward to every week.

  But it was nothing that couldn’t be conquered with a fuller to-do list.

  “I just don’t want to lose productivity being out here. Everyone thinks I’m here for a man,” I said, annoyance coloring my voice.

  Patty gave me a quick glance and returned to looking at her extensive planner laid out on her lap. “Have you heard from Josh lately?”

  “No, I just blocked him everywhere. I don’t even know if he’s still in the Lodge.” I picked at my phone case, trying to sound nonchalant. “Do you know if he’s still here?”

  Patty shrugged. “I haven’t asked. I’m sure Cory would know.”

  I put my phone down, irritated. “Without work, there’s just nothing to do in this town.”

  Patty let out a hmm noise, apparently reabsorbed into planning a weekend visit to a spa nearby. “You have all those friends who want to visit. Or we could head back to the city when your father’s treatment is over next week.”

  “That’s assuming everything has gone well. You know my father’s so stubborn and wants to wait to find his results.” I huffed and began picking at the couch seams. “He’s so dramatic.”

  Patty let out a pointed “Mmm” at that, which I had to stifle defensiveness at. “Well, I’m being positive here. He’s been doing well, right? I know treatments have been hard.” Patty put her glasses down and she focused her big eyes on my face. “For everyone.”

  “I’m fine, Patty,” I told her. Business face on. But it wavered in the unending gentleness she was showing me.

  Patty nodded. “All right. Do you want me to make plans to see your friends here?”

  “They’re expecting me with my boyfriend, Patty. I can’t exactly show off someone I just fired from my payroll.”

  Patty’s patient gaze on me was making my chest tight. I would scream if she suggested I talk to him after he’d helped my father break doctor’s orders. And then did the most macabre writing I’d ever heard of with him.

  Besides, what kind of monster was I that I kept getting distracted from my sick father?

  I stood up abruptly, suddenly needing to be anywhere but here. “I’ll go for a walk then if we have nothing else that needs doing right now.”

  Patty just sighed and returned her bright pink reading glasses to her face. “All right. Rocco could probably use the exercise. He’s getting flabby with all the extra reading he does around here.”

  The thought of Rocco getting flabby made me smile. “I’ll tell him you said that,” I told Patty, who got reabsorbed in making detailed plans for the next few days. She’s so good when she’s working that she insists on playing hard too. “Well, have fun planning.”

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned about being out here, it’s that you gotta make your own fun,” Patty told me as I headed out.

  I got ready for a walk through the cooling-off air. I’d be walking as it went dark around Homesburg. I was planning on wandering around the little town just to clear my head and figure out what I wanted.

  Rocco agreed to hang back so I could think. I’d always felt weird about asking security to do that for me, but Rocco said as always, “We both need to have a life here.” He convinced the rest of the security to stay put at the Lodge, and I got to have my illusion of strolling alone.

  I marched down the sidewalk towards Main Street. The Delaware River had gone gold reflecting the sunset was off to my right. The sky was burning, glimmering gold. The trees were ablaze with the autumn colors. Homesburg felt like a bit of a dreamy postcard sometimes. It was hard not to fall in love with the crisp air, the sweet scent of the leaves underfoot decaying.

  I continued making my way down the hill, as cars drove people on their way home from work. A pinch went through the heart at realizing this might be one of my last times walking toward the Main Street of Homesburg. If my father’s treatment had gone well, he might go home as soon as next week and just come back for continued treatment occasionally.

  I hit Main Street and took a right to those crumbling stairs that Josh had first taken me to. I waved at a few people I recognized. Somehow I was avoiding the Chase family in town. And horribly, I started tearing up when I got past the storefronts and to the edge of the little town. I was really falling for it here. I’d publically declared that Homesburg Lodge was the perfect getaway from the city, and it was true. I’d gotten away, and I knew that when I left here, I wouldn’t be able to come back.

  I took a calming breath on the sidewalk above the stairs, almost tempted to wait for Rocco to catch up and help me down them. Instead, I avoided the stairs in the dark and walked closer to the trees, grabbing a branch and tentatively tiptoeing down the incline. At the bottom, I let go of the sticky pine branch and looked back up the short incline. It was silly, but I felt supremely accomplished, as much as I had by the long slog of the afternoon’s work.

  The river got louder as I made my way to the bench. I took the long way around it, stopping to find the letters I’d carved into the back of it. I crouched and traced the message MAB WAS HERE. Mark Allen Barlow. It had felt like I was making a deal with the river and the town by writing that down. I’d been so much more unsure of him and how his treatment was going then. I’d barely known Josh when we sat on the bench here before.

  It wasn’t the same sitting by the river alone. The sun rimmed the sky in an orange line. The water had gone dark and I could just hear rushing by. It was soothing, and it ate away at all the assurance and anger that had been getting me through the last week since I’d seen Josh. And I couldn’t stand being alone another second.

  I turned to find Rocco and spotted him standing near the trees. “Hey, Rocco, wanna come sit?”

  Rocco made his way over, light as a dancer on his feet always. It was weird how I could never hear him coming with all his muscles. “It’s a pretty spot,” he said, settling in and shifting the wooden slats under me with his weight. “I guess you’re a local now since you know it.”

  “I think I’m a few years out of getting to be a Homesburg local.” I thought about how excited folks still got when they met me around town when Josh had introduced me.

  Rocco chuckled. “I’d say more like a couple weeks out. Even Patty’s kind of starting to like the place. She’s learning to enjoy the outdoors and all.”

  “Have you liked it here?” I asked him. Suddenly feeling stupid for not asking before. I bit down and apology I was sure he’d wave off.

  “It reminds me a little of my hometown. Small towns are all alike in some ways. And lots of time to read, but not enough bookstores for me. I keep having to order new series in.”

  “You’re from Southern California, right?”

  “Yep,” Rocco said. “Going back for Christmas. I’m taking all my vacation time in December.”

  I winced. “Thanks for being so patient with that. I’m sure it’s a relief to have a backup now.”

  Rocco shrugged. “Eh, it’s easier out here, anyway. You have more people looking out for you here than you realize.”

  It turned out that underneath the anger were tears. Tears that streamed down my face at those words. I mopped up with the coat I’d bought to fit in with Josh’s family. That blurred the darkening space around me so it looked blue.

  “Oh, crap, did I say something wrong?” Rocco was looking at me concerned. “I’ve only seen you cry a few times.”

  “It’s all right, there’s a reason I needed to go for a walk,” I assured him, continuing to mop up my face with my coat. “I usually can hold it in until I got home. I used to be so good at my emotions.”

  “Yeah, it’s a little scary sometimes,” Rocco said, then he turned to let me get cleaned up. I loved that about Rocco.

  And he was good company. But I really wished Josh was here to put an arm around me and not say anything by the river. Or to say the perfect thing that would g
et me laughing and out of my head.

  “I think I may have messed up those people looking out for me,” I said finally. My voice was still cloudy with the lump in my throat.

  “You’d be surprised. The people at the grocery store ask about you. And folks at the tavern,” Rocco told me, his voice a confidential whisper like he was conveying a secret.

  “Everyone’s so nice. I really wish I could see myself coming back here sometime, but I think it will be too hard.”

  “With your pops?” Rocco nodded. “Anyone would have a hard time with that. And all the tourist money you help bring it will soothe them a bit.”

  I wanted to claim that I wouldn’t come back to Homesburg because it would be a reminder of my father being sick. Or that it wasn’t as exciting as the city, or that I wasn’t near my friends. This should have been a lonely and fraught time, and it had been between the hours when I was linking hands with Josh. But I’d fired plenty of people before, and that had never stopped me from going back to coffee-shops I’d frequented with them.

  I’d ruined Homesburg for me.

  “Something like that,” I told him with a shaky smile. “It’d be great to come back here for Christmas sometime with my father and brothers and just relax.”

  “Maybe things will seem clearer when you know how your dad’s doing.” Rocco cleared his throat and hesitated before continuing. “My mom had a stroke a few years back. It really took it out of me. I broke up with my girlfriend because she was just not there for me.”

  Josh had been the opposite of not there for me. He’d been there to make me smile and cover my family in the papers, no questions asked.

  I remembered Rocco’s girlfriend, who had a sharp smile and had always loved when I gave Rocco theater tickets as a thank you. I hadn’t really asked why things had broken down between them. I guess I had my answer. God, why was I always so thoughtless with someone so nice to me?