Just Friends: A Summer Fling With A Billionaire Heir

by Cynthia Dane

  “Feldman Steel. You’ve… never heard of it?”

  It rang a small bell, but he could’ve said O’Connor Steel or Yamamoto Steel and it still would’ve sounded familiar. All those generic company names sounded the same. “Maybe?”

  “Jesus.” Zack laughed in disbelief. “You really didn’t look me up, did you?”

  “What would I find?”

  “My Wikipedia page, for one.”

  “Because of your art?”

  “Because of my… are you for real? I’m Zachary Feldman. You don’t know me at all?”

  She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “No?”

  “Wow. That’s unusual.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t keep up with steel companies.”

  All he could do was laugh. “My father is Isaiah Feldman.” When that didn’t get a reaction, he said, “My grandmother was Isaac Feldman.”

  That name sounded more familiar. Something about her American history classes. Specifically, the monopoly breakups of the early 20th century. Rockefeller. Carnegie. Wait, wasn’t Carnegie a steel guy? Who had a monopoly? How could… oh, right. Taking off after the monopolies were broken up and competition was finally allowed.

  Oh.

  Oh. That Feldman.

  “You’re…”

  “The youngest son of the youngest son of the… wait, kinda buzzed here…” Zack held up one finger, “the oldest son of Ezekiel Feldman, the founder of Feldman Steel. That’s me.”

  “That… that means you’re…”

  “Stinking rich.”

  Rachel still had yet to touch her rum and Coke. Her eyes were too wide in shock to look at anything but Zack’s buzzed countenance. “Shit.”

  “Yup. Shit.”

  “So you’re like… an heir?”

  “I guess. I’ve got two business-minded brothers ahead of me, though. They can have it. I don’t have a business bone in my body.”

  “Wow.” Rachel was still too gobsmacked. This explains so much. The ability to pursue art full-time. Wearing nice clothes that probably cost more than Rachel’s gaming laptop. The super nice sandwich ingredients. Expensive art mediums like marble. Individually, they could’ve meant anything. But pieced together, they did point to a son of means. “That’s crazy. This is crazy. Shouldn’t…” She looked around the room, as if she would find a woman more worthy of Zack’s time in the well-lit bar. “Shouldn’t you be out with supermodels right now?”

  Zack shrugged in indifference. “I’ve dated supermodels.” He said it so candidly! Because of course he had dated supermodels! Duh!

  “I…” Rachel shook her head. “I’m nothing like that.”

  Zack snorted. “So?”

  “So…”

  “If I’m hanging out with you, Rachel, it’s because I think you’re worth my time.”

  ***

  Rachel was already on the phone with Parvati by the time she walked through her apartment door an hour later, having said a pleasant and very platonic good night to Zack at the end of her street. He was taking an Uber home, but made sure to walk her to her intersection.

  He didn’t try to kiss her. He did, however, suggest they meet up again.

  “I don’t know, Parv! He’s fucking rich!”

  “I got that hint,” she said on the other end of the line. “But, oh my God.”

  “Right?” Rachel flung herself onto her bed. “He’s hot and rich. What the hell is he doing hanging out with me? He said he wanted to meet up again soon!”

  “Are you going to go? You have to!”

  “Why do I have to?”

  “Because… he’s hot and rich?”

  Rachel rolled her eyes. “I don’t even know what to do with a man like that.”

  “Fuck him! Literally!”

  “No.” Rachel doubled-down on that decision the moment she heard Zack’s family history. All the way down to masking their heritage so they could overcome more hurdles? Kinda ruthless. Understandable, but damn ruthless. “He says he wants to be friends. It’s gonna stay that way. Besides, I’m supposed to be celibate right now, remember?”

  She could hear Parvati rolling her eyes on the phone. “What are you doing next?”

  “I dunno, but I think I should test how badly he wants to put up with me. Do you know what’s playing at the next Bollywood Cinema in the Park?”

  “Nothing a man like him would be interested in, probably.”

  Rachel grinned. “Exactly.”

  Chapter 8

  Anything that required Zack to put on formal clothing – and business casual counted as formal – was not worth his time. For one, he was not a fan of closed-toe shoes unless it was below sixty degrees outside. My toes need to breathe, all right? It’s best for all of us if the little piggies get their breathers. For another, suits were one of the most uncomfortable things on the planet. Either they didn’t fit right on his muscular body, or they were so uncomfortable that his skin cried for air.

  Cried!

  There were few things he went along with because his father expected it. Christmas was one of them. All right, so it’s my mother who expects that. The monthly meetings for Beta Kappa Phi, the fraternity the men in his family joined, were quite another.

  Fuck. Greek. Life.

  Like there were few things Zack agreed to do to keep his father happy, there were fewer men who detested his fraternity as much as Zachary Feldman did. He had joined because it was the proper thing to do. His older brothers, his father, and his grandfather had been members of Beta Kappa Phi since that branch of the Feldman tree started going to college.

  Didn’t mean he liked it.

  But he had to pretend he did. For one Saturday a month, Zack joined his brothers and father at the local country club to relive those bygone days of hazing and partying with so many substances that it was a miracle they remembered college at all.

  “What are you doing sitting over here by yourself?” his father, Isaiah, asked. Cigar smoke wafted in the bright hall overlooking the croquet courts. Cognac splashed into glasses. Masculine laughter rang out while the occasional male couple broke off from the party to discuss current business dealings or to warn an old brother away from a certain woman. “Mind yourself around that Welsh woman,” Zack had overheard earlier. “More than one of us have put our fingers into that honeypot, if you know what I mean. Poor Merange over there got roped into having a baby with her.”

  Zack, who hadn’t worn anything more than Valentino trousers and a button up shirt, sat up in his seat and turned down a glass of cognac from his father. “Didn’t get much sleep last night,” he claimed. “I’m on a deadline.”

  Compared to his father and brothers, Zack was broke. Between all of them, there was one giant private plane, two isolated islands, three mansions, and six boardrooms. Zack didn’t have any of those things. He had taken his healthy trust fund and used it to start his business while investing the rest as smartly as he could.

  “A deadline.” His father shook his head. “Son, staying up half the night to paint pictures isn’t a deadline. Come on. At least say hello to some of your brothers.” He patted his son’s shoulder with one hand and sloshed his half-drunk cognac in the other. “You never know when you might need to rely on them one day.”

  Zack shrugged. He might as well get this over with.

  He had been raised to schmooze men of his station. When he was young, he was a natural at it. To the point his father joked that he was going to promote his youngest son ahead of his brothers simply because of how much charm he exuded. A charming man was a dime a dozen in that lofty world. But a man who could charm billions of dollars out of a hardened businessman’s pockets? Priceless.

  Yeah, Zack had those skills. But he had chosen to use them for seducing and charming art critics over the years. He hadn’t been in a boardroom since he was in undergrad, shadowing his father and brothers and working up the nerve to say he was going to art school instead of business school as soon as he had his BA.

  Speaking of undergr
ad…

  There were only a few men he had called his frat brothers in attendance that day. Summertime meant he didn’t see as many of the ol’ pals. Summer meant the likes of his father and the men he partied with fifty years before. Zack could handle them. He had no love for them, but at least they didn’t remind him of what hell college was.

  The two men standing by the window snickering about money and pussy, however? Zack had to say hello to them, and he would rather eat his covered toes.

  “Feldman!” Ian Mathers almost choked on his drink between laughing at one of James Merange’s jokes and noticing an old frat brother in attendance. “Look at you! In a button up shirt.” Fine thing coming from a man who refused to wear neckties.

  “They turn the air conditioning up so high in here that even I’m inspired to cover up,” Zack said with the drollest voice he could muster. “A man doesn’t like shivering.”

  Ian gestured to one of the country club servers walking by. “Grab a drink and join our conversation. Reliving the glory days. Cause we’re not allowed to do anything else here.” That last bit included a knowing eye-roll. Ian’s father was also in attendance. So was James Merange’s. Beta Kappa Phi was big on legacies.

  “Right. Glory days.” Mentioning that meant Zack went to grab a drink.

  Glory. Fucking. Days.

  What was so glorious about being hazed for six whole months? One of the best days of Zack’s college life was when James and Ian graduated. Only then did Zack know some peace. Peace was more glory than parties and enough contraband to kill a man. I don’t know how these bastards are still alive. The only time college-aged Ian had said a nice word to Zack was when he thanked his savior for pulling his blacked-out drunk ass out of their snowy yard after a bender. What? Like I was going to let him freeze to death out there?

  His brothers had warned him that the major downside to joining this frat was the hazing. The more money a young man was promised, the bigger the family he came from, and the more handsome he was, the more he was hazed to hell and back. A far contrast from the other frats he had heard about over the years, where men matching that description were pampered from the moment they rushed in their sophomore years.

  Ian and James were definitely hazed when they joined two years before Zack. Their billion-dollar families saw to that. But Zack had been alone when he rushed. The only classmate who came closest to his social standing was Peter Scully, the son of a local politician. His father may have been the former mayor, but he was a small fry compared to Zack’s grand legacy. The chapter president’s two right-hand men (Ian and James, of course) had taken one look at their pledges and immediately singled out Zack for that year’s grand hazing.

  And I’ve still got the scars to prove it. There was one on his right shin from when they made him run laps around the track until he literally collapsed, scraping his knee so badly that he needed stitches. The fact these young men immediately took him to the emergency room did not make it any better.

  That wasn’t the worst offense, though. When Zack thought about that one, he had to hold back the urge to punch Ian Mathers right in the fucking face.

  “Lovely summer, isn’t it?”

  Zack was a beast at small talk. Especially intentionally awkward small talk, which he enacted now.

  “One of the best in recent memory.”

  “Can’t think of a better one.”

  Zack raised his eyebrows. “Planning on marrying that girlfriend anytime soon?” he asked Ian.

  “Hmph.” Ian put his empty glass down. “It’s a good thing I’m used to rejection, because I’ve got asking her to marry me down to a science. Sometimes I mix up what day of the week I ask on, though.”

  That made James laugh. Zack didn’t otherwise react. Still deserves better than you. Had Ian thought anything like that ten years ago when he met Zack’s girlfriend at a party?

  My fist. Your face. Let’s do this.

  “And how’s that bouncing baby boy of yours, Merange?”

  James stopped smiling. “Fine,” he said, curt. Ah, yes, Zack knew how to hit those sore spots. Until that past Christmas, James didn’t even know that he had a son with one of his old best friends. The scandal that erupted when the truth came to light almost ruined James Merange. Socially, anyway. Everyone assumed he had an illicit affair with one of the most promiscuous heiresses in America. A scandal only because he and his girlfriend Gwen were one of the city’s darling long-term couples, and naturally, it was easy to assume that one had cheated on the other. Zack had heard that Cassandra Welsh had stolen the poor schmuck’s genetics from a sperm bank, but he didn’t know if he believed it.

  “Good! Enjoy fatherhood, eh?”

  James redirected the topic to his best friend. “Trying to get Mathers on board the baby train, but I guess his girlfriend’s not into the idea.”

  “One step at a time, boys,” Ian said through gritted teeth. “One miracle, actually.”

  “And what about you, Feldman? Which Victoria’s Secret model are you dating this week?”

  “Jealous that you can’t be public with your supermodel girlfriends?”

  “Yes. That’s it.”

  It’s fun fucking with guys in serious relationships. God knew the bastards deserved it. Was it Zack’s fault that they were going out with women way too good for them? Nobody expected James and Gwen to tie the knot after going out for nearly eight years now. But Kathryn and Ian were always in the betting pool around the country club. Zack’s neighbor, however, was soooo not the marrying type, and that cracked him up.

  Suffer, dickcheese.

  Before this forced conversation could get any more awkward, Zack’s phone buzzed in his pocket. “Excuse me, gentlemen.” He turned around, pulling his phone out. “This is important.”

  He had only said that to get out of talking to them. What he didn’t know, until he looked at his phone, anyway, was that it truly was important.

  Because Rachel had texted him.

  Zack excused himself from the room, choosing to read Rachel’s follow-up text in the hallway near the men’s restrooms. Other country club members came and went, but none of the women in summery dresses or men in linen suits paid him any mind. Good. Because the boyish grin on his face was liable to give away how excited he was to hear back from Rachel.

  When I told my dad that I couldn’t sleep last night, it wasn’t because of work. All right, so it had been a little bit. Zack had sat down in his studio late Friday evening, intent on getting back to work. Preferably work that he could show off somewhere in the near future.

  His thoughts kept going back to Rachel. Their friends-only date hadn’t been anything special, all things considered, but damn if Zack still wasn’t struck with inspiration!

  Too bad he couldn’t actually create anything. Everything he started turned to dust once his hands moved.

  Then he tried going to bed, only to toss and turn while wondering why Rachel hadn’t texted him back yet. “I had fun tonight. Let’s do it again.” That’s what he had texted her, expecting something else in return. Nothing. Not for two whole days. Was this what women felt like waiting for texts from guys?

  Finally. Rachel had texted him back.

  “Do you like movies?”

  Zack scoffed. “Doesn’t everyone like movies?” No, no, that was too aggressive. He deleted it and sent, “What did you have in mind?”

  “Bollywood Cinema in the Park is showing a big movie tomorrow night. It’s one of those bring your blanket and food shows. Free admission. Unless you’re intimidated by movies that are in Hindi.”

  Zack reread that text one more time to make sure he got it right. “Bollywood?”

  “Indian movies.’

  “I know what Bollywood is.”

  “You got a problem with Bollywood?”

  “Not if I’m seeing it with…” Nope. Zack had to delete that too. Rachel insisted on a long game. Even if it turned out they could only be friends after all – or if, God forbid, their relationship totally
fizzled out – then fuck it, he wasn’t going to ruin it right now. “Sounds fun. What time? I’ll bring more of those sandwiches you liked so much.”

  “Seven. I’ll bring the blankets.”

  “It’s a daaaaa…” Backspace! Delete! “See you there.”

  Zack bit his knuckles before dialing a familiar number. “Hey, Gina!” he greeted his family’s favorite personal shopper. “Do me a favor and pick up more of those sandwiches for me tomorrow, would you? Yes, the ones from Luke’s Delicatessen. Same order as before. Thanks!”

  He put his phone away and soaked up his good fortune. He may have currently been in flashback hell, but by God, he was going to see Rachel again. A woman he both wanted to date and get to know better. Unfortunately, Zack was still learning that he could feel both things for one woman.

  Chapter 9

  Rachel hoisted the rolled up blanket over her shoulder when she reached the park on the far side of downtown. Already the grass was filled with waiting families, most of them South Asian, taking up space while excitedly pointing to the large screen at the other far end of the park. A table was set up to accept donations for future shows. Rachel didn’t have the change to put anything in, but she nodded to Mrs. Kapoor who manned the table in a red and purple sari, one leg dangling over the other as she thumbed through the papers of recent mailing list signups. Her husband stood a few feet away, loudly speaking in Hindi to another man.

  That wasn’t the only non-English language Rachel heard among the rabble of voices. Bengali, Tamil, Pakistani, Nepalese, Farsi… these monthly showings were such big deals for the local South Asian communities that whole families would pack up their cars for the day and drive hours to watch a free evening show before staying the night in a family member’s cramped home. But the happiness twittering through the park was enough to make it worth it.

  It also meant Rachel could not find Zack to save her life. The place was so packed that she also worried that she wouldn’t be able to find a place to spread out her blanket. He better have brought that food he promised. Rachel hadn’t had dinner yet. Her stomach growled with such ferocity that she worried she would soon pass out.