Tributary: A Billionaire Romance (Oak Creek Book 2)

by Lainey Davis

  Dad sighs and looks up to the sky. “Your brother is up there right now,” he says. “I’m going up to your mother’s office to check in and make sure he lands safely.” He pats my leg and walks off toward the woman he trusted with his financial well being, his emotional comfort…his whole, private self. How could I grow up with them as a model of companionship and trust and manage to choose so poorly? I don’t let myself think about the one plant in my shop that someone gifted me. A tiny seedling I never asked for, but one that has grown to flavor the drinks I’ll enjoy for months…maybe years if I treat it well. I feel my tummy tighten at the thought of being known like that, of being seen by someone again. There’s too much power in that, too much risk. I remind myself what I decided when I returned to Oak Creek after my disgraceful departure from Princeton.

  “I’m better off alone,” I say, walking back to my plants.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Asa

  ANDY MOORELY EMAILS to ask if he can meet me at the train station in Oak Creek rather than on campus. I arranged to come to town early to catch up on Moorely’s project before Hunter Crawford’s welcome back party. I also decided I was never going to have a chance at wooing Diana if I was staying with her family, so I had Andrea do the leg work to buy me a house on Main Street.

  I barely looked over the emails she sent about furnishing it. She’s done this before in other areas I visit frequently for Wexler Holdings. I opted to take the train rather than charter a flight because I enjoyed it so much last time. The whole damn town of Oak Creek is walkable. I feel practically rustic waving at Moorely as the train slows at the platform. I am pleasantly surprised by my enjoyment of the ordinary experiences I find here. Turns out socialite life on the Upper East Side means forgoing the simple pleasures of meeting a friendly colleague at the train station.

  “Asa, good to see you,” he says, pumping my hand. “Can I get you a coffee or something? I just need to check in on a project and we can be off.”

  I shrug and follow him into the Insomnia Bakery. A young couple argues behind the counter as they set out a tray of fragrant pastries. I inhale and lean in, listening to them go back and forth about which of them was up more frequently with their twins the night before.

  Moorely coughs and says, “Stu, Jess, I’d like you to meet Asa. He’s in town for—”

  “Oooh, we know all about you,” the woman says, bringing one hand to her heart and smoothing her braids with the other. “Diana still giving you the cold shoulder?”

  This takes me by surprise and my eyes go wide. So she’s been talking about me! Moorely coughs again and asks for two coffees to go.

  Caffeine in hand, we step back outside as the couple starts to fight about their toddlers again.

  “Sorry about that, mate.” Moorely seems uncomfortable. “Listen.” He pauses outside the Houseplant Haven and I feel my breath catch. Diana is in there. “I’m testing out some new sensors with Diana, some of the tech that you’ve been funding. That’s the stop I need to make before we head back and go over some numbers.”

  I nod as he opens the door, my heart racing at the thought of seeing her again. I’m hit by the heavenly smell of all her herbs in the sunshine and I can see she’s got rows of houseplant “patients” perking up from their owners’ neglect. Moorely leans on the counter and then I hear her voice coming from the back.

  “It’ll be ok, Abigail…yes. I know, babe. I’m getting a shovel, too…I know. You didn’t do anything wrong, I promise…I’ll be there soon.”

  And then Diana bursts from the back room weilding a machete.

  Moorely and I leap backwards. “Christ,” he yells. “What the bloody hell are you on about?”

  “Oh,” she says, noticing us. “I’m sorry, Andrew. I need to postpone our appointment. I have to go euthanize Abigail’s chicken.”

  “Come again?” Moorely looks equally as shocked as I feel, but my senses are piqued at the sight of her. I have no idea what it means that she’s going to kill a chicken, but I’m not about to miss it.

  Diana rummages around in the box of tools under the counter I’ve been revisiting in my fantasies. She extrudes a shovel from beneath and stands, eyes flashing as she pulls a fleece on over her flannel and jeans.

  “I have to go. I’ll be back in twenty minutes if you want to wait.”

  Moorely and I look at each other. “I need to see this,” I tell him, intrigued. Diana takes off and we follow, Moorely puffing and muttering to himself about the Crazy Crawfords he’s tangled up with.

  “What happened to Abigail’s chicken,” I ask, lengthening my stride to keep pace with Diana. She props the shovel up over one shoulder and fists the machete handle in her right hand.

  “Sounds like a raccoon got in the coop last night,” she says. “That happens with Dad’s birds sometimes. It’s really pretty awful. The poor girls are such heavy sleepers. They don’t usually know what’s coming.” Her voice drifts off and she looks me over. “You’re going to get blood on your fancy pants,” she says.

  I shrug. We arrive at Abigail and Hunter’s house and Diana heads right toward the gate to the back yard. I reach for the latch for her and open the gate, ushering Moorely and Diana ahead of me. Abigail is pacing the yard, tears running down her face.

  “Oh, god, Diana! I came out to get the eggs and I saw it and then I heard her…”

  Diana drops the shovel and pats Abigail on the back. “Let me end her suffering. This will be ok,” she says, and strides toward the coop. She reaches inside the hutch and pulls out a struggling bird.

  I look away as she picks the bird up by the feet and draws the knife back. I hear Abigail wail and so I walk toward her. She grabs for my hand and squeezes and then Diana comes and wraps her arms around her friend. Moorely stands by with his jaw hanging open as Diana soothes Abigail. “You did the right thing, calling me,” she tells her friend.

  “Hunter is going to be so sad,” Abigail cries. I shift my weight around and, noting the shovel, decide to make myself useful. I glance around the yard and decide to start digging by one of the flowering trees along the back fence. The ground is hard—the warm days of spring haven’t yet settled on Oak Creek and there hasn’t been enough rain to make mud.

  I dig for a bit until I see a shadow cross the shallow hole. “You didn’t have to help with that,” Diana says, standing with one hand on her hip and a paper bag in the other.

  “It seemed like the right thing to do,” I tell her, wiping a wrist across my brow. I worked up a sweat in the few minutes it took to get Abigail calmed down and inside with Moorely, who’s helping her steep a pot of tea. “You didn’t have to help with that,” I counter, gesturing at the dead bird.

  Diana scoffs. “Abigail is family, basically. Of course I helped.”

  I lean on the shovel and scoop out another mound of heavy earth. “Seems more like a job for your dad, though? Right?”

  “Why? Because he has a dick?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  Diana plunks the chicken into the hole and grabs the shovel from me. “She called me because I take care of shit,” she says, blowing a lock of hair out of her mouth as she fills in the hole. Diana pats the ground with the back of the shovel and stretches, then glares at me.

  “Diana,” I say, offering her my handkerchief. “I didn’t mean to insult you. I—”

  “I didn’t give Moorely permission to bring you to see the sensors,” she says, and bites her lip.

  “You want me to sign an NDA?”

  “Maybe. Probably.” She raps on the back door and waves at Moorely. When he opens the door, Diana shouts to Abigail, “hey, I have to handle this meeting. I’ll stop by after work, ok? I’ll take you out.”

  Abigail nods, her eyes watery. Diana sighs. “Why don’t you go watch some Gilmore Girls? It’ll help. Right?”

  Once Diana gets Abigail situated on the couch, the three of us head back toward the Houseplant Haven.

  Moorely falls into step with her, and Diana punch
es him in the shoulder. “You can’t just bring people to see my work,” she says.

  “Oi!” He shouts, and rubs his arm. “It’s not like I brought a pack of first year students. You know Wexler is funding the whole bloody project.”

  She blows out a deep breath and squints at me. “We need to stop and have Sara draw up one of those contracts you mentioned.”

  “The NDA? Sure. Let’s do it.” I can’t help but grin, and not only because she thinks I’d understand her ideas enough to try to steal them. I’m about to lay eyes on Diana Crawford in her element.

  Diana’s lab is everything I imagined it would be. Her back room can’t be more than a few hundred square feet, but she’s got floor to ceiling shelves bursting with cannabis. I had a suspicion she was growing medical marijuana, but I had no idea she was using complex robotics and data analytics to optimize her products.

  I stand, mesmerized, as she shows Moorely around, explaining how his sensors contribute to the schedule of the mist blowers and LED bulbs. “The blue and red LEDs combine for just the right color of light,” she says, fingering a leaf as we wander the aisles. “The water is fortified with nutrients—the plants no longer need soil.”

  The dangling, ghostly roots get a puff of water as we pass, and the control panel on Diana’s tablet lights up. “I can monitor everything remotely,” she says, “but I’m in here almost all the time checking on them anyway.”

  I have never been so floored by a presentation before, and Diana isn’t even pitching for investment funding. This climate controlled space is a Mecca for her plants. I listen to her talk about developing the perfect nutrient blend for her irrigation, the work she’s done to not only cultivate this strain, but reproduce it so each plant is genetically identical.

  Her face is transformed as she explains all of this. There’s a lightness to her features, a literal glow in the purple light of the room as she speaks confidently. Moorely practically vibrates with excitement looking at the application of his technology. He keeps rocking from his toes to his heels, leaning in to squint at machinery before he gets puffed in the face with fertilized mist.

  I only vaguely notice him, though. I only have eyes for this brilliant woman, and her amazing work.

  “I want to invest,” I blurt, placing a hand on Diana’s arm.

  She stiffens immediately. “I’m not your target market.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There’s no way in hell I’m signing over a single share of ownership. I paid outright for the tech from Moorely. This is all mine.” Her eyes flash and she clenches her jaw.

  I scratch my chin. “Fair enough. But why not apply for a loan?”

  She rolls her eyes at me. “You know marijuana is still illegal on a federal level, right? I can’t even get insurance on this place let alone a bank loan.”

  “You don’t have insurance? Diana, that’s not goo—”

  She shakes her head and stomps out of the room, shouting over her shoulder. “I don’t need your business advice and I don’t need your money, Wexler.”

  Moorely scoots out of the back room, blinking in the bright light of the front of her shop. I close the door behind me, reveling in the pressure as it seals, fully concealing the botanical wonderland back there.

  “I didn’t mean to insult you, Diana. I didn’t mean to imply that you need advice. I’m just so impressed by what you’ve been able to achieve here.” She bites her lip, seemingly unsure what to say next. “I’d love to hear more about your business sometime, and I promise I won’t offer advice.” How do I tell her that I just want to watch her mouth move, the smile in her eyes while she discusses her research and the remarkable results?

  “Look,” she says. “I’ve got a lot going on right now. Moorely, did you get what you need? You have online access to the data dump…”

  He shakes his head. “More than, Diana. This is…just so extra. Is that what the undergrads are saying?”

  She rolls her eyes. ”Ok, well, I’ll see you at Hunter’s thing this weekend.”

  She disappears back into her lair, leaving us blinking away the mist that seeps out when she opens her door.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Diana

  SARA INSISTS ON joining Abigail and me at the Nobler Experiment after work. She doesn’t even know about the whole chicken incident, but grills me about the paperwork I had her draw up so Asa Wexler can’t run his fat mouth about my intellectual property.

  “You do realize that not all men are criminal scud buckets who are misleading you in a theft attempt?” Sara squints into her pint glass, studying. “This is me, your lesbian friend, telling you this.”

  Abigail is an eternal lightweight, tipsy and emotional after two pints. She gestures widely and says, “I wanna hear more about the scud bucket. Indigo always made me tell everything when I was getting with Hunter.”

  “Yeah,” I tell her. “I know. I was there and it was my brother and it’s gross.” Sara scowls at me. I quickly add, ”But of course I’m glad you’re getting your engine revved. Every woman deserves that.”

  Sara nods approvingly, but turns the conversation back to me. “Tell me again why we hate Asa Wexler? I seem to recall a story about an engine revving that was unparalleled…how many orgasms did you say it was?”

  “She’s at seven!” Abigail hiccups. “God, I miss Hunter.”

  “We came here tonight to support Abigail,” I say, trying to reroute the conversation. I flag down Tessy and order a bucket of fries to mop of the alcohol inside my brother’s girlfriend.

  “Di was amazing, Sara,” Abigail gushes. She starts to cry again, relaying the story of her ill-fated chicken.

  “Can you believe Asa said Abigail should have called my dad? That’s some kind of sexist bullshit. Like I’m incapable of slaughtering a chicken.” I snatch the bucket from Tessy and shove a scalding hot fry in my mouth. She scowls at me. “Sorry, Tess. It’s been a day.”

  As she walks off, Sara crosses her arms and looks at me. “Maybe he was acknowledging that, unlike you, your father currently owns and cares for chickens.”

  “Why are you so eager to defend him? He drives me crazy!”

  Abigail reaches across the table and taps Sara’s arm. “Asa dug the hole for the chicken,” she says. “You should see him look at Diana. Like the moon glows off her face.”

  “Oh, I’ve seen it,” Sara says. “And I think Diana’s seen it, too, and it scares the shit out of her.” She flags down Tessy again and orders another pitcher of beer.

  A few hours later, I’ve forgotten just why I felt so irritated today. I’ve also forgotten how to find my way to the bathroom of the Nobler Experiment, so I stop at the bar to ask Tessy for directions. I see her staring at me and she looks over my shoulder, where Sara and Abigail are throwing fries in each other’s mouths across the table. “I’m calling you a ride,” Tessy says.

  “Pshhh! It’s a half mile walk!”

  Tessy raises a brow. “Show me how you walk to the bathroom, then.” She points at the back wall.

  “There it is! See? I found it!”

  By the time I stagger back out from the bathroom, Indigo has arrived to collect us. Her dark curls bounce as she struts over to collect her wife and Abigail. “Come on, girls,” Indigo says. “Your electric chariot awaits.”

  “Oooh, Babe, did you charge the Leaf?” Sara claps her hands. “We almost never get to drive anywhere, you know?”

  “I know.” She and Sara link arms and begin walking to the parking lot. Abigail follows and I fumble in my vest pocket for some bills to leave for Tessy. I approach the car parked outside and I see all my friends waving their arms inside the car.

  “What?” I start walking toward the rear passenger door. When I pull it open, Abigail’s hair blows out in the breeze and gets caught in my mouth.

  “Other side, girl. Other side! We’ve been yelling.”

  “Ok, ok,” I say, slamming the door shut. Abigail screams, and I see that I’ve closed her dark tresses into
the door. It seems to take forever to get it back open and tuck her hair inside so I can close the door.

  I walk around to the driver’s side and slither into the back seat, pulling the door closed. “FUCK!” I screech. “Now I closed my hair in the damn door.” The girls all howl with laughter, which only intensifies when we realize the doors are child-locked and I can’t even open it from the inside to free my hair.

  Indigo is practically crying with laughter as she climbs out to free my long hair. “I’m shaving my damn head,” I say. “Drop me at Rinaldo’s for a buzz cut.”

  “Nobody’s shaving any heads,” Indigo says, finally catching her breath.

  As Indigo pulls out of the lot, Sara leans her head back on the seat and says, “Wanna hear about a mysterious real estate deal?”

  “Always!” Indigo comes to a complete stop at the intersection as if there would ever be another car coming in this town. I roll my eyes as she looks both ways.

  Sara starts chatting about a closing in the Realtor’s office in her building and I tune her out until she says, “Wexler Holdings.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Looks like he’s buying up the neighborhood,” Indigo interjects. “I did see a bunch of movers loading stuff into the old Espenshade house!”

  “Asa bought a house here?”

  Sara turns around in her seat and leans on the console. “Something about wanting to keep a close eye on his investments without inconveniencing the college president.”

  “And you’re just telling me this now?”

  The Espenshade house is on the same block as Abigail and Hunter, and Indigo screeches to a halt by the curb out front. We all stare at the house, looking at the blue glow of a television shining through the thin curtains over the front window.