Billionaire Ever After

by Blair Babylon

  Everyone else was silent, listening. Cell phones stuck out of the crowd like periscopes.

  Of course Georgie was smiling at Alexandre. Georgie always smiled that way at gorgeous men and, considering who everyone was around here, he was probably loaded, too. Surely Georgie wouldn’t hold that against him.

  Rae said to Lizzy, “Maybe she knows and doesn’t care.”

  “Oh, she would care. Georgie’s such a music snob. If she knew who he was, she’d be making tsk sounds right now instead of fucking him with her eyeballs. If she screws him before she figures it out, she’s going to shit bears in tutus. And shhh! I’m trying to video this.”

  “We’ll have to tell her,” Rae said, thinking that she should ask Wulf if Alexandre was the Duke of The Boondocks or the Comte d’Wherever.

  “No,” Lizzy said, and evil took shape in her eyes. “She’s the fucking mastermind. Let her figure it out. Twenty bucks says she scrogs him before she puts it together.”

  Rae glanced at her phone. “You know the plane for home leaves in six hours, right?”

  “That long?” Lizzy asked. “Make it fifty.”

  One Bright, Sunny Afternoon: Wulf

  Wulf von Hannover

  Hours later, after all the music had died down and most of the wedding guests had trickled away, Wulf and Rae waited with a small knot of people in the reception salon around the corner from the lobby of the George V Hotel. Late afternoon sunlight blazed through the glass front of the building and spread on the blue carpet just beyond his black shoes.

  The SUVs would be brought around within minutes, timed for minimal exposure in the unsecured areas.

  Security in public spaces is theater, designed to intimidate terrorists and reassure airline customers. Real security is a ballet, where the principal dancer leaps from one secured area to the next in carefully choreographed, intricate routines.

  Wulf released Rae’s hands, though her small fingers in his felt so right that he didn’t want to. They were in public, though. He couldn’t paw her like a schoolboy while they walked from the hotel lobby to the cars. There might be photographers.

  There most certainly would be photographers.

  A strand of Rae’s glowing auburn hair fell too near her mouth so he tucked it behind her ear, feeling the silk in his fingertips. She smiled at him. Any chance to touch her tempted him, and he so often succumbed.

  Every action and shaft of light seemed burgeoning with portent, as if the dark universe had turned kind long enough to bestow a wedding gift. It was just one day, one day of benevolence in his life that skated too close to the edge of mortality.

  Dieter cocked his head, listening to voices through his earpiece. “The cars are here.”

  They walked together, leaving the reception room in the George V hotel, through the lobby with its profusion of green and yellow flowers, toward the sidewalk outside. Wulf tucked Rae’s hand through his arm and held it in the crook of his elbow, feeling the warmth through his suit.

  He almost believed every moment could be like this.

  The other lingering reception guests gathered in the lobby in flocks, some sitting in the velvet-covered chairs, some standing with their heads bent toward each other. As always, Wulf was the last to enter the unsecured zones and the first to leave, with the exception of his sister and now Rae. Flicka and Pierre were already through and in the cars. Her entourage should be pulling away.

  Though he would have to rethink security details in the future, this time, he and Reagan would run the gantlet together.

  The reception guests still milled in the lobby, saying goodbye, waiting for their cars to be brought around. Theo, Lizbeth, Georgiana, a few of Pierre’s friends, and Yoshi fell in with Wulf and Rae, walking to the waiting SUVs.

  They emerged through the glass doors into the bright Parisian sunshine. A few photographers clicked long-barreled cameras from under the trees across the street.

  Just another bright, sunny spring day in Paris.

  Wulf turned his face to the sunshine, breathing. The soft daylight, the exuberance of the French spring flowers, his wife’s light hand on his arm, all these were worth taking a moment to taste. Marrying here and now had been an excellent idea.

  The sidewalk was a few yards wide. Planters heavy with aromatic flowers dotted the white walls of the old hotel and the buildings across the avenue. The doors to the black SUVs gaped open on the other side of the sidewalk, their motors growling over the city’s bustle and traffic on the Champs-Élysées only a few blocks away. His men held the doors and cleared the lane for them.

  Rae skipped a step at his side, delicately dancing on her ivory pumps that matched the silk wedding dress skimming her body.

  She wasn’t protected enough.

  Wulf untangled her hand from his arm, leaning to wrap his arm around her narrow waist.

  A gunshot blast burst in his ears.

  He spun, gathering Rae beneath his body as she screamed.

  No. God, no.

  One Bright, Sunny Afternoon: Rae

  Rae

  Rae gasped for air. Her side hurt. The shaded sidewalk chilled her butt and bare legs.

  Wulf hovered above her, shouting, “Rae!”

  Darkness of black suits swarmed all around them. She curled in, coughing, the wind knocked out of her again.

  Wulf’s frantic voice pierced her heart. “Are you all right! Rae!”

  Her hands were knotted around the lapels of his suit, cramping. All she could think and she cried out, “Not today! Not you!”

  “Are you all right!” Wulf shouted.

  “Yes! Wulf! Did they? Are you?”

  Beside her head, Dieter growled, “Into to the SUV. One, two, three, break.”

  The suits leapt up. Wulf jerked her arms, yanking her to her feet and had his arms around her, carrying her under her back and knees. Rae panted, “Fine. Lemme down.”

  Wulf ran two steps and bent, shoving her into the back seat of the SUV before him.

  She scooted back, grabbing Wulf’s arm and hauling him in after her. Over Wulf’s shoulder, she glimpsed Dieter backing in and surveying the area as he closed the door.

  Rae held Wulf’s arm, feeling his biceps twitch in her hands. “Lizzy! Georgie!”

  Dieter slapped the seatback behind the driver. “Go!”

  The SUV reared up as it leapt away from the curb. Rae grabbed the headrest to hang on as she slid over the leather seat. “Where are Lizzy and Georgie?”

  Wulf turned, “Dieter?”

  Dieter was listening to his earpiece, eyes closed. “No one in the crowd is down. Most people ran back into the hotel. Luca says that Georgiana is confirmed inside.” He listened. “Lizbeth and Theo are unaccounted for.”

  “We have to go back,” Rae told Wulf. “We can’t just leave them.”

  Wulf asked Dieter, “Who do we have at the hotel?”

  “Six men are still there, including Luca Wyss,” Dieter said.

  Rae held Wulf’s strong arm, panicking and yet wanting to leap out to find Lizzy. The stone walls of the buildings loomed above the SUV like ridges that gave snipers high ground and good lines of sight.

  “We will reroute straight to the airport,” Wulf said, wrapping his arms around Rae, shielding her again. “The plane is more defensible.”

  “We have to go back for them! Turn around!” Rae shouted at the driver.

  “Neither plane will leave until Theo and Lizbeth are secured,” Wulf told her. “Almost certainly, we are the targets. If we leave, we will draw the jackals’ attention away. Theo and Lizbeth will lose themselves in the crowd and get back to the hotel or the airport. They will be safe. We will find them. We will bring them in.” Wulf threw a hard, sharp look at Dieter. “There is no one down, ja?”

  Dieter held up his hands. “The information that I have from three Welfenlegion is that there are no injuries and no casualties. Everyone inside the hotel is shaken but unharmed.”

  The driver swerved the SUV through the heavy Parisian traffic
crowded on the narrow streets, throwing Rae against Wulf’s body. She grabbed his trim waist with her arms. Wulf held her tight around the shoulders. She felt his lips brush her hair.

  Dieter said, “Luca says that one of our SIM cards was installed in Valencia’s phone. We have his phone number. We’ll call him, find out where he is, and pick him up within a few minutes.” Dieter leaned forward, glancing straight at Rae. “Wulfram is right. We will draw the fire with us. You and Wulfram are the targets.”

  “I’m a target?” Rae asked, but she saw why as soon as she said it. She covered her mouth with her hand.

  Wulf wrapped his arms around her again, cradling her head to his strong shoulder. “Can you imagine the publicity if I lost you, too, if you died in my arms on the sidewalk? The media would run the two wretched pictures side-by-side.” His strong arms tightened around her, like he was putting his body, heavy with muscle, between her and anything else. “I should have left you alone.”

  “Those bastards,” she said, her voice hardening with anger at those evil men out there.

  His arms tightened around her. “If you don’t want to live like this, I understand. I can tell the clerk not to file the paperwork. We would not even need an annulment.”

  “Don’t even say that,” she said, but she buried her face in his shoulder and ground her teeth.

  On The Plane: Wulf

  Wulf von Hannover

  Wulf leaned against the bulkhead in the Gulfstream jet, watching everyone strap into the wide leather seats while the jet engines whined, idling. Rae was in the back row, gazing out the round window and chewing on a strand of her auburn hair. The window overlooked the tarmac, a secure area within the airport, so it was safe for her to be so near the glass even though he did not like her visible to anyone aiming at the plane.

  Wulf crossed his long legs at the ankle, making sure that his posture looked relaxed. He had set the example for decorum all his life.

  Georgiana was in the third row, and he was relieved to see her there. Leaving people behind was anathema. They were delaying the Gulfstream’s takeoff to allow more people to arrive from the hotel and to ensure everyone was safe before either plane left Europe.

  Wulf muttered to Dieter in Alemannic, the Swiss dialect that he spoke with his friends from those days, “Have we recovered Lizbeth and Theo yet?”

  Dieter nodded. “Luca Wyss assures me that they have been picked up by the Welfenlegion and are at the hotel. They’re shaken up, so they’re going to rest for a few hours. We’re going to be full here, anyway, when the rest of the cars arrive. They’ll have to take the Challenger.”

  A full report from Dieter. The day of wonders was not over. “Good.” It came out with more of breath of emotion than he had intended. “Is there anything they need?”

  “Nope. Some food, some rest, a stiff drink, and they’ll be fine.”

  “Make sure Luca knows that they’re to have anything they want.”

  Dieter smirked at him. “I don’t think anyone has ever complained about your hospitality, Wulfram.”

  “Just make sure he knows, Schwarz.”

  The stiff professionalism returned to Dieter’s posture. “I’ll make sure of it. We should take off as soon as possible, Herr von Hannover. Once we’re in the air, we’ll all be safer. It’s the only way we can assure your safety at the moment.”

  Wulf nodded. “How many more people are en route from the hotel?”

  “Ten. They should arrive within the hour.”

  “Thank you, Dieter.”

  Wulf passed the rows of empty seats as he walked toward the rear.

  Georgiana, belted in and reading on a tablet, caught his eye. She asked, “Lizzy?”

  “They’ve found her, and she’s at the hotel. She’s fine. She’ll be on the later flight.”

  Relief washed over Georgiana’s pale face, and her cheeks flushed pink. “Oh, my God. Thank God.” She clutched her chest. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

  Wulf smiled. “Indeed.” He continued to the back and sat beside Reagan, pulling her away from the transparent glass where anyone with a sniper’s scope could settle crosshairs on her.

  “Did they find her?” Rae rested against his broad chest.

  Wulf wrapped his arms around his wife and glanced out the window, absently watching for lens flare. “Yes. Both of them are at the hotel with Luca. They’re safe. We’re safe. Everything is fine.”

  Dieter's Sacrifice

  Wulf von Hannover

  An hour later, the Gulfstream jet’s engines revved up, whining as the packed plane rotated to taxi to the runway. Dieter sat beside one of the white-haired American lawyers who probably wouldn’t understand Alemannic.

  Dieter cranked his muscle-bound body around in his seat, regretting slacking off on his flexibility training yet again, to check that Wulfram was far in the back of the plane, still sitting beside Rae Stone.

  Most people wouldn’t see the difference in him, but Dieter could. Every time that Wulfram looked at that woman, he caught his breath like his heart had started beating again. Every time another man looked at her, Wulfram’s breath stilled like he was pulling the trigger on his sniper rifle.

  Dieter only wished that his own wife had that effect on him, but he loved her. They had a daughter who would be nearly as beautiful as her mother. His work left very little time for arguing, anyway.

  He dialed Luca on his cell phone. “Have you secured Valencia and Pajari yet?”

  “Negative,” Luca said. “Valencia is not answering his phone and we can’t get a signal from the tracking application, and Pajari never had one of our French SIM cards installed.”

  “Elands. Use Grimaldi’s security for the hotel. Send everyone else into Paris to find them before we land in the States.”

  “Before you land? Von Hannover is leaving without them secured? How in great, sulfurous Hell did you convince him to be sensible?”

  “I told him that we had Valencia and Pajari at the hotel.”

  “Jesus Fucking Christ.”

  “He will fire me as soon as he discovers it, no matter what happens to Valencia and Pajari. If you don’t find them safe by the time we land, he will also kill me with his bare hands.”

  Dieter was overstating only a little.

  He torqued himself around to glance at Wulfram and Reagan again. They were speaking softly, foreheads together. Wulfram was smiling a small, real smile, not that cold slash he showed the world.

  Dieter turned back and stretched his long legs to the bulkhead, saying to Luca, “But I’m not going to let him die on his wedding day.”

  After The Wedding

  Rae

  If someone had asked Rae where she thought she would spend her wedding night, “thirty thousand feet above the Atlantic Ocean” would not have made the list. After the abbreviated civil wedding ceremony in the Mayor of Paris’s office and their hasty exit after the reception, the caravan of SUVs had arrived at the airport, and they’d been rushed onto the plane.

  With Georgie, the guests, and the security guys all tucked in their recliner-beds and the night filling the sky behind the plane with darkness and stars, Rae followed Wulf into the bedroom in the rear section of the Gulfstream jet and kicked the door closed behind her. The plane’s walls hummed around them.

  Their overnight bags stood on the dressers. The rest of their luggage—Rae had been shocked at how much stuff she had accumulated in only a week—was stowed in the hold below their feet. Someone had bought three new burgundy and gold garment bags and a new suitcase for her to hold all the clothes from her own and Flicka’s weddings. She would probably never have an occasion to wear such formal gowns again.

  Except that she might.

  Wulf began unpacking his carry-on, pulling out his ditty bag and pajamas. The overhead lights gleamed on his blond hair. He glanced back at her, as calm as always. His azure eyes were the color of still water that ran deep.

  Rae swallowed hard to steady her voice. No matter how hard she had tried to p
ut it out of her head all day long, terrible things had slithered around her brain whenever she was distracted from the three-ring circus that had been her wedding day.

  Wulf was still keeping secrets. He had seemed all chortley last night while he had proposed, as chortley as he ever was, anyway, but he could snap that shiny shell closed and no one would ever know what was inside his head, not even her.

  He might be sick. He might have known that there were more men with guns out there. There might be something worse that Rae couldn’t begin to guess.

  She said, “All right. We’re alone. What is this frickin’ secret?”

  Wulf pulled long, silk pajama pants and another concert tee shirt out of his bag. “So soon?”

  “We need to talk about this.”

  He draped his pajamas over his bag. His cool glance washed over her, like he was appraising just how much to tell her. “Remember, I tried to propose two weeks ago, and you ran.”

  “When we got back from LA and I bailed out of that SUV like rabid javelina were after me. Now spill it.” Wulf reached out his hand, so she walked the few steps between them and took it. All that foreboding crested in a wave of dread. “Wulf, tell me.”

  He drew her into his arms. His breath whooshed as she laid her head on his shirt, still the crisp, white shirt that he had worn that morning. Thick muscles hardened under her cheek as one rounded shoulder twitched.

  Wulf’s deep voice rumbled under her cheek. “It was all a ploy. I said there was a reason, that it was a secret, but it was a ruse to have you marry me as soon as possible, before you came to your senses and ran again.”