Just Friends: A Summer Fling With A Billionaire Heir

by Cynthia Dane

We should’ve stayed friends.

  “Rachel!”

  That was the last thing she heard as she fled the bar, her brain full of the kind of junk that made a woman decide terrible, terrible things.

  ***

  Her phone was off. Her apartment locked up tight. Her computer only on work-related websites, for all the good it did her.

  Zack had tried to contact her all afternoon and evening. He showed up to her door around dinnertime, and only left when she threatened to call the police. A notecard was slipped beneath her door, but she refused to read it.

  It wasn’t her trust that was shattered, per se. When she finally calmed down, Rachel rationalized that it wasn’t what she thought at first.

  That wasn’t the problem, though.

  Even if Zack remained true for the rest of their days as boyfriend and girlfriend, that didn’t stop the mental gymnastics always leaping about in Rachel’s broken brain.

  How could she be in a relationship when she was always haunted by the shit some other man said to her years ago? Maybe Zack had finally moved on from what Sadie did to him. Rachel would never move on from Mr. Dumps During Sex.

  She smacked her head against her desk. Her email dinged with a new message.

  It wasn’t Zack, amazingly enough. Does he even know my email address? They were connected via phone and one of his private Facebook accounts, but not email.

  “Thank you for your interest in returning to Happy Kids’ Park. This is Daisuke Aoyama, head of staffing for the Chubu Region…”

  So, Daisuke had gone from teacher to management, huh? Good for him. Rachel had only worked with him once before, when she covered for a foreign teacher who had called out sick from his usual school. At least she knew this guy, even if he probably didn’t remember her.

  “We still have openings and could fast track you through the approval and training process, depending on whatever timeline works for you. Please respond if you are still interested in a one-year contract.”

  Rachel got up and went to her tiny kitchen, where she poured herself more hot water from the kettle and slapped a fresh teabag into her mug. I should be in bed with Zack right now. He had promised to order takeout for them that night and watch whatever movie she wanted. She had planned to jump his bones halfway through chow mein and beef and broccoli.

  That was before her insecurities came crashing into her once again.

  Zack thought he had them? She was a train wreck! What made her think she could possibly be in a healthy relationship now? Let alone with a guy like him?

  What a joke!

  Even though she loved him. Even though the thought of running away was both life-changing and heartbreaking.

  Rachel sipped her tea and finally turned on her phone. There were about fifty texts and voice mails from Zack.

  “What the hell is going on? You don’t think I’m already cheating on you, do you? I bumped into her! She said hello! What, did you want me to be rude?”

  Sure. He had happened to bump into a woman he slept with while also seeing Rachel. They may have been open at the time, but…

  Damnit! Was that a sign, or what?

  The last time Rachel felt like this, she packed up her bags and moved to the city. She had been drowning in depression and the realization that her mother had dementia and would never be the same again. Had she regretted it? She was financially unstable for a long while, but when she looked at how far she had come…

  A call came through. Zack’s name was plastered on her phone screen.

  Rachel turned it off again. She couldn’t think. She needed peace. Maybe tomorrow she would be able to explain herself and the crap in her mind.

  Fuck it.

  She planted her ass down in her computer chair and reread Daisuke’s email. A minute later, she hit REPLY.

  Chapter 31

  “Where the hell is she?”

  Parvati leaped where she stood behind the counter at Opal’s. I don’t care if I scare the piss out of her. Zack slapped another hand down on the counter. Behind him, customers whispered to one another. Somebody got out their cell phone. “Where’s Rachel?”

  It had been two agonizing weeks since Zack last saw Rachel. At first, she texted him that she needed some space for a few days. She kept in touch daily, and while Zack hated knowing something was wrong, he appreciated the check-ins. “You don’t want to be around me anyway,” she lamented on Tuesday. “I’m on my period. Might as well send me to the Period Tent like they had in the Bible or whatever.”

  Zack didn’t care if she bled tar. He wanted to see her. He needed to see her. For the first time in years, he had a woman that made him want to get up in the morning and create his own artistic world – after he got done making love to her, anyway.

  After a week, however, he heavily insinuated that they needed to meet. In the flesh. Didn’t even have to be alone, although Zack graciously offered to come over to her place and bring whatever she wanted. He would haul a professional Italian chef to her tiny apartment and force him to make Rachel all the carbs she could consume.

  Seth had told him that some women were like that. Uncle Roy had shrugged and gone back to cleaning his deck. Meanwhile, Rachel continued to ignore most of his messages, including the updates about his art and what he wanted to do when they saw each other again.

  Then she disappeared. Fell off the radar. Stopped responding.

  Zack was a tad worried.

  The kicker was when he pounded on her door only to have the neighbor pop her head out and say, “Knock it off! She’s not there! She moved out two days ago! Asshole!”

  Moved out? Rachel?

  Where the hell was she! What the fuck was going on!

  “Tell. Me. Where. She. Is.”

  Parvati shook her head. “I don’t know…”

  “You don’t know where your own best friend is? Bullshit!”

  “Yes, police? I’m at Opal’s Café and there’s a man…”

  Parvati held her hand up to the woman on the phone. “She’s at the airport!”

  The café fell silent. Anyone who hadn’t already been enthralled by what was going on now took out their earbuds and gawked at the scene. “The airport,” Zack said back to her. “She’s at the airport.”

  “Y… yes. She’s going to Japan. She got a job there.”

  “What?”

  “She’s going back to her old job at the English school. She took a six-month contract. Or a year contract. I can’t remember!”

  “What?”

  “Look.” Parvati lowered her voice. “She told me not to tell you. She didn’t tell hardly anyone, so you’re lucky I’m able to tell you at all.”

  “But why? She never said anything like this to me, and I’m her boyfriend!”

  Parvati grimaced. “She gets like this sometimes. Gets really overwhelmed and goes on a super-independence streak. I don’t question it. She had a sound plan and her lease was up, anyway. She’ll make more money teaching abroad than she does translating. Please, Zack… I need to get back to work before my boss freaks out.”

  Zack snapped his fingers on his way out the door. I need to get to the airport.

  The thought of Rachel bailing on everything she had built for herself in the city and going to Japan with hardly a moment’s notice was so unlike her… or at least the her that Zack knew. She gets overwhelmed and fucks off to other countries? Without a word? You have to be kidding!

  But maybe that was the point. He had never seen that side of her before. Perhaps she had never let him see that side of her until now.

  Zack’s apartment wasn’t too far away. He could grab either his bike or the Corvette and get to the airport without wasting too much time. But what if every minute counted?

  He stopped at an intersection and summoned the first rideshare he could find. A dark gray Prius with both Lyft and Uber stickers showed up in thirty seconds, saving him the fifteen minutes it would have taken him to run home and get his vehicle out of the parking garage.

  Th
e stench of marijuana and poor pine air freshener hit him the moment he slid into the backseat. A young man with tanned skin and black, matted hair pulled into fraying dreadlocks turned around and made a happy fist at him.

  “Hey, dude! Welcome to my second home. Looks like I’m totally taking you to the airport, man.”

  Are you fucking kidding me? Zack didn’t have time to waste looking for another rideshare. He had to work with what he got.

  “Listen, man.” He leaned forward, arms crossing on the back of the driver’s seat. “You ever see that movie Not Another Teen Movie?”

  “Yeah, man! They shot that at my old high school! Fucking dope, brutha!”

  “Quite.” Zack pointed a knowing finger beneath the stoner’s nose. “I’ve got a code girlfriend-at-the-airport, you dig me?”

  “Whoa, man! Really?” The man whipped around and changed gears before Zack could say anything more. “I’ll get you to the airport with five minutes to spare! True love’s gotta win!”

  Zack would either give this guy a handsome tip, or he’d be thankful for the great insurance when he was holed up in the hospital from the ensuing car crash.

  In truth, the international airport wasn’t that far away. If traffic was good, it was an easy twenty minutes, on the other side of the river a bit farther toward the ocean. But traffic was never that good at this time of day. Not when everyone was coming back into the city after their weekend visits to the countryside.

  This driver had his work cut out for him. And Zack really, really needed to buckle up.

  He was glad he wasn’t driving, honestly. He had an important phone call to make.

  “Dad!” The car didn’t slow down as it whipped around a U-Haul in the middle of the freeway. “Thank God you answered! I was afraid you might still be in a meeting.”

  Isaiah’s voice cracked over the line. “I got out of one fifteen minutes ago. What is it? Some kind of emergency?”

  “You have no idea. Look, it’s a long story, but do you still have the number for the director of the airport?” Feldman Steel had been very involved in an expansion project a few years ago. Isaiah often bragged that the company had wowed the director so much that he came over for dinner twice a year and signed an exclusive contract with Feldman Steel to use them and only them in all future construction projects. “I really, really need you to call him for me and have one of the planes held up.”

  “What are you talking about? What’s going on? I can’t ask him to do something like that!”

  Zack gave him the college introduction course on what was going on with Rachel. Namely, that she was leaving the country if Zack didn’t get to her on time. His dad had seen that movie, right? This was even more important than that!

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Isaiah said. “But I doubt he’s going to hold up a plane for you. No matter how much money you offer him.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” Zack hung up as the car whipped onto the off-ramp at illegal speeds.

  “We’re almost there, dude!” the driver cried. “Your lady’s gotta still be there! Stop her before she gets on the plane to Paris!”

  Zack gritted his teeth. “Tokyo, actually.”

  “Shit, man! Let me have her ticket! I wanna go to Japan!”

  “Apparently we all do right now.”

  The car pulled up to the unloading zone outside the international terminal. Zack bounded out, tripping against the sidewalk ledge and garnering the attention of two security guards.

  Perfect.

  “Good luck!” The driver zoomed off to pick up someone from another curb. “May true love win!”

  One of the security guards looked at Zack as if he wasn’t sure what to make of this man with no luggage and hardly a clue. “Can we help you, sir?”

  “I’m Zachary Feldman, of Feldman Steel.” Zack pulled out his wallet to show them his ID. “Did my father call ahead about me?”

  The security guards exchanged glances. “Feldman, huh? Are you the one we’re supposed to escort to the gate?”

  “Yes, good sirs, I believe I am that man.”

  The guard on the left spoke into his walkie-talkie while the other gestured for Zack to follow them into the terminal. One quick pat down later, the security guards flanked either side of Zack and power-walked through the airport as if there were no emergencies afoot. Zack stole glances at every Arrival / Departure screen they passed, but without knowing what time Rachel was supposed to leave, the airline she was taking, and what her first destination was, he had no idea what any of the information meant.

  “Passing through security. Repeat, passing through security with escorted individual.”

  The guards nodded to the TSA agents dealing with a long line of angry, tired passengers. Zack quickly scanned their faces in case he saw Rachel in their midst, but they went through the VIP line too quickly for him to make sure.

  “This way, please, Mr. Feldman.”

  They were in the Departures for Asia terminal, and between Singapore Airlines and Nippon Airways was a large lounge with the words TOKYO, JAPAN on a large screen.

  There was no one sitting in the lounge. No one except for a custodian and the one uniformed attendant standing behind the information desk. The guards led Zack to her.

  “Hello,” the Japanese woman said with a smile, “you must be Mr. Feldman.”

  “Yes. I’m here for Rachel Taylor. Where is she?”

  The woman’s smile faltered. “I’m afraid her plane had already departed by the time the news reached me.”

  The roof, the whole sky crashed upon Zack’s shoulders in that bitter instance. “You’re kidding, right? Please, please tell me you’re kidding.”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, sir. By the time I heard, it was too late to pull any passengers to the side.”

  “Shit!” The guards leaped to attention once Zack let loose his curse. Stay calm, man. You can’t make plans if you’re freaking out about your girlfriend taking an impromptu trip to Japan without telling you. “Okay. Fine. When’s your next available flight for the same destination?” He would hire a quick turn-around PI to dig up where exactly Rachel went.

  The woman typed into her computer. “Tomorrow morning, sir.”

  This time Zack kept his curse to himself. “Fine. Put me on standby for that one. I can give you my family’s commercial account.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  He knew that was too far into the future for him to cut Rachel off somewhere. For all he knew, she started work at her new job tomorrow! The commercial flight was a mere backup plan. After contacting the PI – and thanking the guards for their diligent service – he called his father about borrowing the family’s private plane.

  “Sorry, son, but Daniel has it in New York right now.”

  Zack, who was in another rideshare on his way back into downtown, scoffed in disbelief. “What the hell should I do? I need a plane. Now.”

  “If you don’t know anyone who can lend you their plane on short notice, I recommend calling the Fraternity Help Services.”

  “You’re kidding, right? You think the frat is going to help me?”

  “Son, that’s what the Help Services are for. Anyone who is a member can call them for help with this sort of thing. I called them earlier this year to see if they could find me someone who owned properties in Turkey.”

  Zack wasn’t going to get into talking about Turkey. “Fine. I’ll call them. Thanks, Dad.”

  Isaiah texted him the number. The first voice on the line offered to help Zack with anything he needed. Really. Anything.

  It was a long shot, but Zack also knew that miracles often happened when one had enough money and the right connections. “Do you know of anyone who has a private plane I can borrow? Or, hell, I’ll fucking rent it. I need one to get me to Tokyo as soon as possible. It’s life or death. Seriously.”

  The woman on the line asked him to please hold on a few seconds. “I’m sending out an alert right now, Mr. Feldman. I’ll let you know if I get any bit
es while checking our databases.”

  So that’s what those texts he occasionally got were about? He always thought those texts asking for cuisine recommendations and maid service referrals were spam. How was Zack supposed to know that they came from the Fraternity Help Services? It sounded fake!

  “There’s a member in your city who is willing to let you rent his personal aircraft for a flat fee to cover fueling costs.”

  “Really? Holy shit. Thank you so much, uh…”

  “Miranda.”

  “Thank you, Miranda. I could kiss you right now, but the woman I’m after may not appreciate that.”

  She laughed. “No worries, Mr. Feldman. I appreciate the sentiment. Now, let me give you the contact information for Dominic Mathers so you can make further arrangements with him.”

  Zack wasn’t smiling anymore. “I’m sorry. Who?”

  “Dominic Mathers. He’s the one who owns the plane you’ll be borrowing. Actually, it’s owned by Mathers & Co., but since he’s the operating pres…”

  “Got it. Thanks.”

  Zack spent the next half hour making travel arrangements with the father of the man who stole his girlfriend all those years ago. As long as he didn’t have to deal with Ian…

  “Tell you what, Feldman,” Dominic said over the phone, “my son’s got the current contacts since he’s the last one to use the plane. Let me get you in touch with him. I believe he’s at his girlfriend’s place today. Do you happen to know…”

  “She’s my neighbor, thanks.” Zack hung up. As much as he didn’t want to do this, he apparently didn’t have any choice.

  ***

  Kathryn opened her door wearing nothing but a T-shirt and a pair of distressed jeans. Oddly casual for someone like her, not that Zack was complaining. The more casual a woman dressed, the more confidence he had demanding information out of her. Or maybe that was the other way around.

  “Is your boyfriend here? It’s an emergency.”

  She closed the door behind him. “Sure, Zack, come right on in. So nice to have you drop by.” Sighing, she continued, “He’s in the other room. Ian!”