Loving the Secret Billionaire

by Adriana Anders

  “People like me. People whose parents worked two jobs, but still couldn’t afford preschool or health insurance.” Her breathing was raspy, with that passion again and it did something to me. The more worked up she got, the more I wondered how it would feel to touch her. Was her chest moving up and down with the power of those inhales and exhales? Were her cheeks hot?

  “Did you know they’re cutting eighty percent of funding to resources that affect our area’s low-income families? Afterschool programs, nutrition, libraries. It’s all being cut, while the power company’s getting a tax break. They’re talking about jobs, but the only work coming is temporary. Two years of employment, at best, while they shove that pipeline right into our backyards. Once construction’s done, the jobs are gone and families will have even less.”

  “You a socialist?” I could feel her tense up, though we weren’t touching.

  “I believe in giving a voice to those who are under-represented.”

  “You sure avoid direct answers.” Now I was just pushing her buttons. Of course, she probably didn’t know that. “That’s very politician-like.”

  “I don’t believe in labels.”

  I waited for her to go on, but that was apparently it.

  “Passionate. Like I said.”

  She gave an awkward little half-laugh. “Like I said, I’m Veronica Cruz, Mr.…”

  “Zach. Hubler.” Something rustled. “You holding your hand out?”

  “Um. Yeah.”

  I reached out, brushed her hand, and grasped it. Soft, small, a little shaky. We shook a couple of times and I let go with regret.

  “Hello, Mr. Hubler.”

  “Ms. Cruz.”

  “Well, then. Are you planning on voting in the upcoming elections, sir?”

  I swallowed. Yeah. About that. Shit. “Call me Zach. And, yeah, I’m planning on it.” After meeting her, I was. Although I wasn’t quite sure how I’d manage it without leaving.

  “Okay. Wow. Great.”

  The doorknob gave its familiar rattle, which meant she’d grabbed hold of it. I shifted away to let her through. “Thank you.”

  “What for?”

  “For helping me with Rylie. With the sign. And for not suing me.”

  I laughed outright at that. “It was fun.”

  She opened the door. “Fun?”

  “Best visit I’ve had in a while.” Ever, possibly.

  Her steps sounded on the porch, where she paused before continuing down the stairs.

  I switched on the outside light, shut the door, and grabbed a beer before heading down to my lair.

  Time to find out everything there was to know about Veronica Cruz.

  * * *

  Veronica

  I was in a weird mood as I walked the four blocks to Main Street. It wasn’t until I made it to the bus stop that I realized what it was—excitement. And it had Zach Hubler written all over it. I had that giddy crush feeling. Over a man I’d just met.

  If there was one thing I knew about running for city council, it was that you weren’t supposed to hit on the voters. But I liked him. And I had questions. Like, why was the outside of his house such a mess, while what I’d seen of the inside was pristine? If a little empty.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had this feeling—interest in a man.

  The 21 bus to downtown pulled up and I smiled at Milton as he slid the door open for me.

  “How’s the canvassing, Cruz?”

  I sighed. “Weird.”

  “You racking in the votes?”

  I waved at Myra who sat in her wheelchair halfway down, the only other occupant heading into town at this hour, and settled into the first seat. “One.” I shoved back the fizz of excitement I felt at that pathetic proclamation and turned back to the issue at hand. “People trust Rylie, you know? He’s got money, he makes money, he helps other people make money. They don’t trust a 28-year-old, Guatemalan preschool teacher.”

  “You hit the Tremont neighborhood today?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Different downtown,” he said, always the voice of reason. “Nobody downtown trusts anyone that earnest.”

  “True.” I smiled, fighting the urge to hug this big, sweet man. He’d been driving city buses for over two decades. I’d never forget my first bus ride to The Academy. Everybody I knew walked to school or took yellow buses, but I’d been one of the lucky few chosen to head out to the magnet school in the city’s posher neighborhood.

  “Maybe you should concentrate on making sure the voters you do have make it to the polls on Election Day.”

  That was the crux, wasn’t it? I had a team working for my campaign, but we didn’t have the funds to do all the big-money events Rylie’s donors put on. I met voters in grocery stores and coffee shops. He met them at the country club. We’d just blown the bank on bumper stickers and yard signs that nobody in this part of town seemed to want.

  “You wanna run extra buses?” I joked, past the tightness in my throat.

  “You know I would.” He flew past an empty bus stop. “We’re countin’ on you, kiddo.”

  I reached forward to pat Milton’s shoulder. He wasn’t supposed to campaign for me while on the clock, but the Cruz button I’d given him was front and center on his bag, sitting right there on the dash.

  The sight of that button came close to crushing me. I sank back in my seat, eyes squeezed shut, and breathed through it.

  I’m not a fraud I’m not a fraud I’m not a fraud.

  So, I didn’t fit the typical politician profile. That was a good thing. I knew, from the bottom of my soul, that I would be better for this town that Rylie. Now we just had to convince everyone else.

  So many people counted on me—people who worried about whether they’d be able to pay next month’s rent, or how they’d make their seventy hours of minimum wage labor cover child care and food and shoes for their growing kids. People like my grandmother, who wouldn’t survive the next few months if the health clinic lost funding.

  I opened my eyes and blinked past my reflection staring back at me from the bus window, to the blur of fast-moving street lights beyond.

  “Countin’ on you, girl,” Milton repeated, his words tearing through me like the voice of doom on a crash course straight to hell.

  2

  Veronica

  * * *

  Something fishy started happening a couple of days later. I stood in the school lot waiting for Jaime Girón’s dad to pick him up. Like every other weekday, Mr. Girón couldn’t get here until after the school was locked up tight. And like every other weekday, I gave three-year-old Jaime a granola bar, stuck an apple in his bag, and held his sticky little hand in mine, wishing his father wasn’t stuck at work super late, wishing he had enough money to get his kid a healthy snack, and wishing, above all, that Jaime’s mom hadn’t succumbed to cancer the summer before, leaving father and son sad, befuddled, and tragically alone.

  After strapping the boy into the back of his father’s car, I hefted my backpack and a handful of yard signs, and pulled up my CaraVan canvassing app, preparing to grab a bus to the southernmost neighborhood in town, where I’d likely strike out—again.

  I took a step as the app opened, then another, and nearly tripped when it finally loaded. Something was wrong. There couldn’t possibly be twelve people out on the campaign trail for me today. Okay, so the app was acting up. I shut it down and restarted it.

  Again, it looked like a dozen people were canvassing local neighborhoods—for me. But that wasn’t possible. I didn’t have that many people on my roster. Nobody wanted to canvas those areas for me. Realization dawned with a dark, angry flush. Rylie. Rylie had done this. He’d somehow hacked into my lists, gotten the addresses and sent his people out to sabotage my relationships with voters.

  I had to call him or get in touch with the electoral board or the ethics people or—

  No. I needed to simmer down. This could be a bug in the system. Right. That was it. Just something messed
up in the app. I swiped to the nearest house on the list—just a block from the school—and rather than head south as I’d planned, I set off for the address.

  I didn’t see the bright purple sign until I was practically on the bungalow’s lawn. It was one of those sweet, well-manicured houses that I always envied. I could imagine my grandmother sitting on the porch watching people walk by.

  How’d they get my sign? I turned in a full circle, wondering if maybe I’d canvassed here before and forgotten somehow, but I hadn’t. I gulped back a weird hiccup. Purple signs dotted two-thirds of the houses on the street. I didn’t even own that many yard signs. A little frantic now and a little out of control, I pulled up the app and scrolled to the visit report.

  2272 Blenheim. John and Elaine Matthew. Retired. Swing voters. Independent in past elections. Will vote Cruz, the note said, and my eyes blurred.

  What the hell was going on?

  I scrolled down to the last note, which read: Will drive voters to the polls on Election Day.

  My yard signs dropped to the sidewalk with a hollow thud.

  “Let me get that,” came an older man’s voice. He emerged from behind a bush in the yard I was staring at, with two dirty work gloves in one hand. I’d bet my meager paycheck that this was John Matthew.

  “I’ve got it. I’m fine. Thanks.”

  “You with the Cruz campaign?”

  “Oh. Yes. Yes, I am.”

  “Y’all are doing a great job of getting the word out.”

  I let out a weak, “We are?”

  He nodded. “Kids you had out here a few minutes ago presented a very compelling argument. Early childhood investments make a difference to us taxpayers later in life. Important at the local level. That other guy’s platform just doesn’t make fiscal sense. I’m excited to see how she does.”

  “Oh.” I was going to have to work on my political repartee, but at this point, I had no idea what was going on. I considered pinching myself in case this was a dream, but the panic attack I was about to have pretty much negated the dream theory.

  “Did they leave you with any pamphlets or anything?”

  “Oh, yeah, sure. Why, you all out?”

  “No.” My voice sounded thready and weak. “No, I just don’t think I have the most up-to-date campaign materials.”

  “Here.” He patted his pockets and finally came out with a folded-up flyer, printed in my colors—gold and purple. Everything about it, though, was way higher quality than anything I’d been able to afford, from the design to the paper it was printed on.

  And the campaign message was mine, only better.

  Veronica Cruz—Investing in Our Community’s Future.

  There was a photo of me taken from a school event a couple of years ago. I was shaking hands with a parent and a kid was hugging my leg. It was a preschool graduation ceremony, so I was dressed up, which was why this man probably didn’t recognize me.

  Below that was a list of bullet points, followed by one of those financial chart thingies showing return on investment.

  My heart was beating faster with an inkling of a hint by the time I turned it over and saw the quote on the other side.

  “I believe in giving a voice to people who are under-represented.”

  My fingers tightened on the paper and I made a strangled noise.

  I’d said those words just a couple days before. To Zach Hubler. The man I’d made it a point over these past forty or so hours not to think about.

  “Thank you, sir.” I said, thrusting the flyer into the man’s hand. I started to turn and then remembered what this was and who I was, and thrust out my hand. “I appreciate you taking the time to speak with us. I look forward to seeing you at the polls.”

  “Likewise.”

  Half a block down, I saw a group of what looked like teenagers, carrying Cruz paraphernalia.

  “Hey!” I called out as I hefted my own, sad-looking stuff and ran after them. A girl finally turned around. “You guys volunteering for the Cruz campaign?” I asked, out of breath.

  She lifted her chin with what looked like defiance. “Yeah.”

  I couldn’t exactly yell at them, could I, for helping further my cause? But I needed to know. “That’s… Wow, that’s great. Thank you guys so much for doing this.”

  Her eyes narrowed, then lowered to the thick stack of flyers in her hand, before widening and moving back up to land on me again. “You’re her. Veronica Cruz.” She turned to the group. “You guys, check it out. This is Councilwoman Cruz!”

  “I’m not—”

  One of the boys practically tripped over himself to get to me. “Cool! Thank you!” He grabbed my hand and shook it, hard. “We’re gonna turn this town purple!”

  “Your message is so inspiring,” a young woman chimed in. “Partisan politics have ruined the economy and peoples’ lives. Thank you.”

  “I…” Holy crap, what the hell was going on? “Thank you.” I was sputtering now. “For, uh, coming out here today and spreading the word.”

  “People keep telling us we’re the future. But then they vote for assho— I mean jerks who’re willing to throw it all away for a few bucks. This…” The girl, full of youth and passion, shook one of my glossy, redesigned new signs. “This is a future we can get behind. Start at the grassroots and work our way up.”

  Something filled my throat, the tight pressure of a hard sob, but there was so much mixed up emotion, I couldn’t begin to parse it. There was shock, some excitement, definite disbelief, and then, floating on the tail end like a snake’s tongue of poison, was guilt.

  I’d fought for this, I’d wanted it, certainly believed in my cause, but I’d never really believed in me. Maybe part of me thought I’d create a ruckus and change a few things, but who on earth would actually vote to put me on the city council?

  “Are you guys old enough to vote?”

  “Yeah, we’re all over at the college.”

  Oh, that made sense. But what didn’t was how they’d found me.

  “What got you out here today?”

  “Horde,” the young woman responded.

  “Horde?” I mouthed as the others chimed in.

  “Man, we couldn’t believe it.”

  “Yeah, when he posted yesterday—”

  They talked over each other in their eagerness to tell me all about it.

  “He never comes out of hiding, you know? I mean, other than a whisper on Reddit every now and then.”

  “And on some hac—some forums.”

  “Dude’s a legend,” one of the guys broke in. “No idea why he’d even care about this election.”

  “Told you, man. He lives here,” said the big, quiet kid farthest from me.

  “Oh, please. He lives in like Argentina or something.”

  “No way H would stay in a dinky place like this.”

  The girl nearest to me shrugged. “Whatever it is, he’s invested in this election. Put it out there a couple days ago.”

  “Everywhere,” one of them said, all hushed and reverent.

  “Yeah. The university’s on it now.”

  I said, “But, who is he?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “No, I mean, why do you know about him?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” They all stared at me now.

  I shook my head, clueless and, honestly, more than a little afraid. This all felt bigger than anything I belonged in. I caught the tail end of a look passed between a couple of them and could have sworn one of them shook his head.

  “He’s a financial genius,” someone finally said, his eyes shifting immediately away from mine.

  Was that what got kids up and out nowadays? Someone’s moneymaking prowess? That crushed my soul a little. “What—” I gulped. “What did he do to get you out here? I mean, what did he tell you guys?”

  “Message boards just talked about your campaign. Said it was time to mobilize.”

  “Gave us a link to CaraVan and that printing place where we picked all th
is stuff up.”

  A kid held up a sheet of paper. “Gave us a script, too.”

  “That’s… Wow,” I whispered, utterly out of words.

  “Yeah.” A couple of them nodded, looking…what was the word? Impressed, maybe? Although that wasn’t quite it.

  “All right.” I had to go see that man. Now. “Thank you, guys. Thank you so much.”

  “Course. Whatever H says, man. He’s the…” Please don’t say God. “…boss.”

  Blindsided and more than a little afraid, I took off running in the direction of Tremont Street to get to the bottom of whatever this was.

  It wasn’t until I arrived, out of breath, in front of Zach Hubler’s house and forced my hands to loosen their tight hold on my ridiculously primitive street signs, that I figured out what the expression on their faces had been: reverence. A zealous, almost religious reverence for a guy they’d never even met. I couldn’t quite reconcile that with the man I’d met two days before.

  * * *

  Zach

  * * *

  The pounding on the door stopped me mid-push up. I waited a few seconds for them to go away, like the UPS woman usually did after dropping her boxes. Nobody else made it up this far into the woods.

  Which wasn’t an accident. Everything about this place was designed to keep people out. The long drive, the woods, the front of the house. I spent a lot of money keeping as low a profile as possible. It was what had kept me out of the public eye. And out of trouble.

  The knocking didn’t let up, so with a curse, I pushed up off the floor and snagged a towel on my way to the door. I swung it open, ready to play stupid, and stopped. It was her. Veronica Cruz. Smelling sweet as a summer day. Everything inside me tightened up.

  “Hey.”

  “What are you doing?” She was out of breath, as if she’d run here.

  Don’t tell her a thing. Play dumb. “Working out.”

  “I mean with my campaign. What are you doing with my campaign?”

  “I’m not sure what you m—”

  “Hang on.” She shuffled around, producing a sheet of paper with a snap. “‘I believe in giving a voice to people who are under-represented,’” she read. “That refresh your memory? I said that to you. It’s not a campaign slogan. I just called my campaign manager, who had nothing to do with making these, which I knew anyway. Because I’ve only ever said those words to you.” Everything about her felt angry. Which hadn’t been the objective. It shouldn’t have surprised me, I guess. Nobody liked meddling, even if it was for a good cause. “Why?” she ended on a whisper. “Why are you helping me?”