Once Upon a Billionaire: Blue Collar Billionaires, Book 1

by Jessica Lemmon

  “You’d be required to have a sponsor and attend AA meetings regularly. I’d need proof. And weekly check-ins with the project manager. Drug screenings too.”

  Walt’s gaze shifts to mine. “What is this?”

  “An offer. You haven’t found a better one.”

  “I’m not a criminal, Viv.”

  “You are,” Nate says. “You have been caught with illegal narcotics repeatedly. Why do you think a company won’t take a chance on you?”

  “And, what, you are because Viv begged?”

  I open my mouth to argue, but Nate is faster than me.

  “This was my idea. I had junkie parents and a criminal record. I had the opportunity to have a new life, a fresh start.”

  “By being adopted by billionaires. That’s lucky.”

  “You were born into a billionaire family. That’s lucky too,” Nate counters.

  Dee’s mouth drops open. “You were?” She seeks me out next since Walt and Nate are in the middle of an intense male stare-down.

  “We lost everything when our parents passed away.” I’m not so much covering for Walt as avoiding having to explain. It’s hard to admit who our father was. Hell, Nate had to call me on it or I might never have told him.

  “Speaking of, I had a thought about Dad’s remains.” My brother pushes his plate, and the subject of him working for Nate, aside. I told Walt about visiting Mom’s grave, about how wrong it felt to put Dad in the ground next to her. “You’re right about keeping them apart. In life they barely got along, why doom them to spend eternity together?”

  I quirk my lips. It’s a dark subject for dinner.

  “How about sprinkling him in the water? He loved the ocean and the lake. Mom never liked either.”

  Thinking of her again splits me open. I blink back tears. I was so angry with her when she took her own life. I’ve had moments of grief, but usually it comes with a side of anger. Today is the first moment sadness eclipses the anger.

  A burial at sea for Dad is better than he deserves, but he can’t sit on my countertop for the rest of my life.

  “There won’t be any record of him, Viv,” my brother says softly. “He’ll be gone. Finally.”

  I nod, knowing it’s the right answer.

  “Lake Michigan, maybe. Close to home,” Walt says. Dee puts her hand on his shoulder and promises to go with him.

  “We can rent a boat,” Nate offers. “While we’re there I can show you the job site. You can look for an apartment nearby.”

  “That’s going to require money.” Walt looks at me expectantly. I shake my head.

  “That money is earmarked for rehab.”

  “I’m out of rehab.”

  “For now.” I slide a glance at Dee who’s watching me just as expectantly. I’m being overprotective of him, but for now I’m okay with that. “I need a lime wedge for my water,” I lie, standing from the table. Halfway to the kitchen, I feel someone follow me. To my surprise it’s not Nate.

  I grab a lime from a bowl on the counter and make use of the small knife and cutting board next to it. I’m aware of Walt glaring at me, arms folded over his chest.

  “I’m done with rehab. That was my last stay. I’m going to attend AA meetings for the rest of my life, but I’m not going to be admitted ever again,” he tells me. “Don’t you trust me?”

  I don’t answer, squeezing a lime wedge into my glass. Then I reach for a bowl from a cabinet and pile the remaining fruit into it.

  “V.”

  “I trust you.” I think I mean it. “But things happen outside of our control. Outside of your control. What if you have a bad day at work and you need a release valve? What if you and Dee have a fight? What if she—”

  “What is your problem with her anyway?” He keeps his voice low.

  I peek into the dining room. Nate has started a conversation about who knows what, and Dee happily obliges him by listening. He’s good.

  “She’s an addict,” I whisper.

  “So am I.”

  “You’ve been clean longer than her.”

  “She’ll get there. And if she doesn’t”—he takes a breath, his eyebrows lowering like it pains him to consider it—“I will still be clean. You’re doing to her what everyone did to you during Dad’s trial.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I mentally remind myself to keep my voice down.

  “You haven’t given her a chance or the benefit of the doubt. She hasn’t done anything wrong and yet you’re sure she’s going to. You’re betting on her to fail, and you don’t even know her.”

  “And you do?” I let out an incredulous laugh.

  “Yeah. I do. You need to trust me.” He sighs, sounding tired. “I’m taking meditation classes to help with the stress.”

  He is? “You are?”

  “They’re online, but yeah.”

  “Oh. I thought you were listening to music.” Or sleeping. Every once in a while I’d notice him with a laptop on his lap, headphones on, eyes closed. I never considered he was meditating. I have been underestimating him. And, possibly, Dee.

  “I’m not fifteen any longer, V. You can’t hold my money hostage until I reach a summit you’ve chosen for me.”

  Then again, maybe I haven’t been underestimating him.

  “It’s not your money.” I argue with that rather than the summit part. I realize a little guiltily I have been setting peak goals for him. Every day they are farther and farther out. “It was Dad’s money. Which means it wasn’t technically his, either.”

  “Unlike you, I don’t care about its origin. There’s no sense in suffering needlessly. Dad’s dead. There are no more strips of flesh you can take from him. He’s gone.”

  My lips compress. Why does it suddenly feel like everyone is ganging up on me?

  “Can you be nice to her?” He picks up the bowl of lime wedges. “For me?”

  I nod. Solemnly.

  I follow him to the dining room and do my damnedest not to stomp. I would feel better if he were thanking me, but that’s about me too, isn’t it? Resigned, I settle into my chair and force a smile.

  “Dee, what is it you do in Atlanta?” I ask.

  “I used to write code for websites, but before I went back into rehab I started working on a horse farm and I really liked it.”

  Really? I want to ask but don’t.

  “That’s why Walt wanted to take you horseback riding,” I say instead.

  “Yeah. I love horses.” She smiles.

  “When you go back to Atlanta, will you live with your sister again, or are you planning on renting your own place?”

  “Um…” She turns to Walt. He cocks his head at me.

  I send a silent message to him that hey, I’m being friendly, here before I realize he has an announcement.

  “She’s not going back to Atlanta.” He holds Dee’s hand on the table and dares me with his eyes to argue. “We’re getting married.”

  I can’t breathe. My baby brother, who can barely care for a plant, is going to marry a girl from Atlanta who has been sober for a little over a month and loves horses? When I am forced to take a breath, lest I lose consciousness, I blow out, “Walt—”

  “Congratulations,” Nate interrupts me to say. Under the tablecloth he squeezes my knee. “Sounds like you’ll both need to agree on an apartment.”

  “An apartment costs money,” Walt points out again, his eyes never leaving mine.

  “If you accept my job offer, you’ll have money,” Nate supplies.

  “Your job offer comes with a lot of strings, Owen.” I don’t like this power trip Walt is on. He’s being reckless. I narrow my eyes across the table. Lovestruck Dee isn’t far behind.

  “I’m not parting with your salary for any less than a guarantee you won’t shoot it up your arm.” Nate’s voice is low and hard, and I’m momentarily shocked. Guess he’s not as mellow about this as he seems. Walt has always been able to recognize authority. He recognizes it now and sits up straighter. “My offer isn
’t charity, Walter. It’s a hand up, not a handout. You want to work for me? You’ll have to work hard. You’ll have to prove yourself. Eventually, you could be running one of my job sites in Dubai if you want, but we have to build trust from the start.”

  “You’re in Dubai?” Walt asks, flabbergasted and impressed. So am I.

  Nate only smiles, liking that he caught us off guard. “Not yet.”

  I excuse myself to the backyard after dinner. I need another opinion. A woman’s opinion. Preferably a woman who knew both my brother and me well and will agree that no, Walt doesn’t need money for a place and yes, marrying a woman who’s fresh out of rehab is a horrible plan.

  I position myself under the porch lights, which frame me in an unattractive yellowish glow, but Marnie will forgive me. If she’s available. Fingers crossed.

  I text her and ask if she has “a moment to video chat before I lose my mind” and then I check the windows and find Nate fiddling with the knobs on a speaker. I can’t make out what song he’s playing, but the bass vibrates the glass. He’s granting me privacy. I like that about him. Or maybe my brother drove him as crazy as he drove me and this is his way of coping.

  My cell phone rings in my palm and beautiful, flawless Marnie takes up the screen with her perfect face.

  “Auntie Em,” I say in greeting.

  She lets out a throaty laugh. “I’m en route to the fridge,” she says as she slides through the kitchen and pulls open the door on a wide, stainless-steel refrigerator. “This sounded like a conversation for wine.”

  “It’s also a conversation I should have had a week ago before I fell into fantasyland.” I hold my phone in one hand and a wineglass in the other. I poured a chardonnay the second my brother and his fiancée left.

  “Ho boy. Let’s hear it, sister.”

  “I feel like I only call you with problems.”

  “Vivian. I’m here.”

  She is. No matter how long I go without reaching out, she’s happy to take my calls. I love her for that.

  I summarize dinner with my brother and Dee and then mention Chicago and where we’re going to bury my father. Then I admit I’m living with Nate and how it’s borderline suffocating. I breathe out the entire diatribe in one whooshing breath while pacing the yard. My face on the screen goes from half-lit to fully lit to completely dark.

  “Okay, okay,” Marnie says, her presence calming. Or maybe admitting all that stuff aloud is what calmed me. “Take a breath. A big one.”

  I obey. And then take two more like she instructs.

  “That always helps me.” She’s now lounging on a wicker chair by her crystal-clear in-ground pool. She lifts her white wine to her lips for a quick sip. “Let’s start with you staying at your billionaire boyfriend’s house.”

  “Ugh.” I collapse into a chair and sit much less elegantly than my friend. “Have I leapt from the pan to the fire?”

  “Not unless he’s embezzling money.” She smiles. I smile. It feels good to smile.

  “Am I blowing everything out of proportion?”

  She shrugs one slim shoulder “If you feel you need to stay close to Walt, honey, you should. He’s your family. He’s important.”

  “He told me I’m making a snap judgment about Dee. He said I’m doing the same thing people did to me after Dad’s trial.”

  She seesaws her head in thought. “Sort of but sort of not. See, Dee is guilty of what you’re accusing her of—using to the point of detriment. You were accused of stealing money and you never did. Not the same thing.”

  “So, what, I refuse to let Walt leave?”

  “You don’t want that either. But if he ends up taking a job elsewhere, who says you can’t go with?”

  I sit up straight. “Yeah, who says?”

  “You haven’t committed to anything, Viv. You didn’t agree to live with Nate forever. You haven’t taken the job he offered yet. You can do whatever you want.”

  “Right. You’re right.” I’m not trapped. I’m not committed.

  “Unless you’re having feelings for him…” Marnie raises her eyebrows in question.

  I shake my head, both to communicate I haven’t developed feelings for him and to keep out any stray thought to the contrary.

  We chat a while longer about her wedding plans, and she invites me to the small gathering. It’ll be intimate, she tells me, with around twenty-five people in attendance, and it’s not until next year. She jokes that I can bring whatever man I like as a plus-one, and I joke that I might show up stag.

  But when I look through the windows at Nate, part of me warms at the idea of him being around next year.

  I shove the thought away, and remind myself family comes first. Self-preservation, though, is a close second.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Nate

  Vivian comes in from the backyard and I turn down the music. She looks different. More relaxed and on edge at the same time. That wall she hides behind had been crumbling, but since she’s been staying here “officially” she’s been rebuilding. I wonder if she’s aware she’s doing it.

  Dating her keeps me on my toes, that’s for damn sure.

  The girls I went out with as a punk teenager deserved better. They had the same idea in mind as I did, I guess. Make out. Have sex sometimes. We’d park and sit in the car and listen to the radio and smoke or drink or both. Thank God I wasn’t busted for any of it or Will and Lainey would have strangled me.

  When I was an adult, and learned how to tie a tie, I connected with women the only way I knew how—although the make-out sessions happened in a much nicer car. When we were bored, we’d shop rather than park, or eat at an expensive restaurant or fundraiser.

  Until Deborah. The older woman who pulled me off her ex-husband’s job site and paid me to build hers. She and I connected, or at the time I thought we did. I suspect she used me to fill the lonely hours in her day. Meanwhile, I was hacking my way through the overgrowth hiding an unused heart. I wasn’t familiar with love until the Owens accepted me as I came. Not that their love had prepared me for romantic love. That’s a whole other ballgame—with a dynamic set of rules.

  Vivian sits on the couch next to me with a whump. I take the wineglass from her hand and set my drink next to it on the coffee table.

  She needed a moment after dinner to decompress. I get it. I maintained my cool for her sake. I noticed Walt challenging her at every turn. I saw in his eyes how much he enjoyed dropping the marriage bomb on his big sister. Had one of my brothers used me in that way, I’d have been upset too.

  I wrap my arms around her waist and her hands lift automatically to encircle my neck. She tilts her head to the side like she’s deciding whether or not she still likes me. She does. She has to. I’m a catch.

  “Kiss me,” I beg.

  She indulges me, tentatively at first but I take that kiss to the brink. After a deep, long, wet meeting of the mouths, she pulls away and swipes her bottom lip with her index finger.

  “I’m addicted to your flavor.” I spike my fingers through her shiny, thick hair. I haven’t nearly had enough of her tonight.

  She hums, her mind elsewhere. Maybe on how to further fortify the fortress she’s rebuilding around herself.

  Evidently she needs another moment. I release her and sit back on the couch, taking my drink with me. “When you came to my job site, you were a hot ball of fire in a hardhat. You challenged my authority, which I did not like.”

  “Yeah, the sledgehammer move sort of gave away your emotions.”

  I ignore her sarcasm and keep talking. “Soon after, you challenged a belief I’d held for a long, long time.”

  Her eyes hit mine. I have her attention.

  “Which was?”

  “I believed I didn’t need a relationship with a woman lasting more than a few casual nights.” I shrug. “My life is busy. I’m committed to excellence. I have a family I can’t let down. Women are too much work.”

  She nods, accepting what I said at face value.
“And I’m proving your theory right.”

  “You’re sure as hell trying to.”

  Her throat bobs as she swallows, but some of her guard drops. It’s no longer a steel wall. It’s a sheer veil.

  “The jig is up, Viv.”

  Her eyebrows lower in confusion. She doesn’t know what I mean, which is exactly what I intended.

  “We connected in Chicago,” I tell her, realizing this conversation might send her running for the hills. But I refuse to live life walking on eggshells. We’re two incredibly strong people and that means we fight it out in the arena, not from the stands. “And at your mother’s gravesite.”

  She reaches for her wineglass.

  I set my glass aside and fold my hands, remembering that afternoon. “I felt a camaraderie there, standing over her tombstone. You understand what it’s like to lose someone you love. And you felt it too. That bond between two orphaned kids.” Even though she’s living, I can’t count my birth mother as a parent, which Vivian now understands. “We’ve lost a lot. But we have a lot to gain.”

  She grunts.

  “Say it,” I tell her.

  “You’ve arrived, Nate. I’m dead weight. What do you want from me, anyway?”

  “Are you shitting me?” Her snarky comment cut deeper than I wanted it to. “I don’t want anything from you. I just want you. Is that so hard to believe?”

  She opened up to me in Chicago. She was tender and understanding. She didn’t come out, sword swinging, like she’s been doing since Walt reentered her life. If he has a hangnail she drops everything to take care of him. He’s starting to piss me off. “I thought you were settling in here.”

  “This isn’t real life, Nate.” She shakes her head pitiably like I’m the dolt who doesn’t see what’s right in front of him.

  “I don’t like when you use my name as a swearword,” I tell her. “And I disagree. This is real life. This is my life. You’re here and you’re real. I’m real. This is a life we’re making together. Don’t you recognize it when it’s in front of you?

  “Walt and his issues have taken center stage since we came home from Chicago,” I continue. “I think focusing on his problems is your way of masking your own needs.”