Billionaire Brothers 01-04 The Complete Serial Box Set

by Meg Watson

“Yeah, that’s kind of the point,” she agreed.

  “Does everybody just do that?” I asked in disbelief.

  She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Well not everybody, but… Maybe you’re a little more, uh, reserved than a lot of people. Your cootch was probably excited to be set free!”

  “They think I’m a skank,” I moaned, drawing the crocheted afghan over my forehead. Even though it was sweltering in the bungalow, I liked the familiar feel of the blanket on me.

  “Oh, come on. It’s good,” she said, folding her legs under her on the flowered sofa next to me. “It’s a good thing. You did good! Guys don’t think like that anyway. I bet you made a helluvan impression.”

  “You don’t think I went too far?”

  Silence.

  “Oh my goooodddddddd,” I groaned.

  “Come on, I’m just kidding,” she said unconvincingly. “But, Bree-- Bree?”

  “What,” I grumbled from inside my tent.

  “This isn’t like… a sign?”

  “A sign?”

  “Well… you’re not going to shave your head or anything?”

  I flipped the blanket down and stared at her. Her face was all twisted with concern. Just the right amount of concern, though: true and earnest.

  “Why would I shave my head?”

  She shrugged. “That’s how you crazy white girls do in the movies. I dunno. Every time you get a big life event, whack, no more hair!”

  “I thought you would be proud of me.”

  She raised her palms to the ceiling. “Oh I am proud of you, girl, you have no idea. I just wish I could have been there! I’da cut that bitch! And him! I cannot believe you just walked out without, like a good nut-punch or anything!”

  My head fell back on the sofa, half wishing I could see whatever it was on the ceiling she was always talking to.

  “Nope, no nut-punch,” I admitted.

  “And you just let her get away too.”

  “Well, I left him a note?”

  “Oh a note?” she said, her eyebrows going up. “What did the note say? Where did you leave it?”

  “Um, on his car. It said You Suck.”

  She nodded sincerely. “Wow.”

  “Shut up.”

  “You suck,” she repeated, her voice gravely sarcastic. “You really said all that?”

  “Yeah OK, well… You know what? He does suck. And so does she. I can’t help it if I couldn’t come up with anything better, you know, on the spot like that.”

  Melita nodded seriously. I knew if it were her, there would have been some impressive fireworks. She would have made the nightly news. Or not - they probably wouldn’t have ever caught her, she’s so cagey.

  “Yeah,” I said finally, letting defeat wash over me like a warm, suffocating bath, “well, I guess that’s that. Both of them. Just… They win.”

  The words cartwheeled through my mind. They win. They sure did win. It all must have seemed so funny to them. I never even had a clue. How long had they been winning for? I cringed to think how casual they seemed about it as they were conspiring to rip my guts out. Whitney definitely seemed comfortable in my house.

  “Noooo,” Melita said, her voice drawing out for a long time. “They don’t win. They are stuck with each other. You win. You got out, washed that man right outta your hair and outta your vazheen, and look at you. Taking the bull by the china shop--”

  “I think you mean horns.”

  “Well yeah, girl! That’s the spirit! Grab ahold of them horns!”

  “Huuuurgggghhhhh,” I groaned, dragging the afghan over my face again. “No I just wanna hide, Mel. I don’t wanna grab anything.”

  “No!” she barked, whipping the blanket off my face. “There will be no hiding, Bree, do you hear me? You already started this so good, girl, I mean damn. You’re going to finish what you started. You’re going to go to the thing and get the job you deserve…. Oooh!”

  She clapped her hands under her chin, her cheeks plump and pink.

  “Did I tell you I was proud of you?” she squealed.

  I nodded, trying not to wriggle under her praise though it was just about the only good emotion in my body right then.

  “Because I am so proud of you!” she practically yelled, eyes to the heavens.

  “Well, I was kind of hoping you would be,” I admitted.

  “You’re movin on up!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I chuckled. It was hard to resist her upbeat attitude when she was in full-on enthusiasm mode. I could feel it seeping through me like sunlight, although the dark boiling slime of anger and sadness still bubbled just below the light. It was going to be hard to ignore.

  “I’m sorry I can’t sit with Tomas tonight,” I said. “I hate letting you down at a time like this.”

  She waved her hand in the air like it was no big deal.

  “Mama said she’d do it. No worries. It’s not like I’m going to be out super late anyway.”

  “Not the magician then?”

  “Oh lord!” she rolled her eyes dramatically. “Didn’t I tell you what happened with him?”

  “Nope,” I said, cuddling up to a more comfortable position and getting ready to hear the story. Melita had been picking the most unusual profiles off this internet dating site under the theory that they had to be the most genuine. Nobody would claim to be a magician who wasn’t, right?

  So far the results hadn’t been stellar. The guy whose profile picture featured the pink bedspread and the samurai sword raised over his head turned out to have… well, a girlfriend and a collection of samurai swords. Go figure. I thought that was pretty obvious but Melita still believed she was going to find an undiscovered treasure if she just dug deep enough, like pulling a Gucci crocodile tote out of the dollar bin at the thrift store.

  The magician's profile picture showed him peeking out from behind a fan of cards, naturally. More photos on his profile showed him tearing cards into pieces with a wide-eyed expression of dramatic surprise and pulling small red balls out of the various orifices on his head. I had high hopes for the magician.

  “Well, we already knew that he lived with his mama,” she started.

  “Yeah, which was not that weird.”

  “It's weird if you're 50 years old,” she said, her head bobbling on her neck like it was attached by a spring. “But I was willing to overlook that because she is like 90 and maybe he's just a good boy who takes care of his mama.”

  “Which could be a delightful character attribute,” I said helpfully.

  She fanned her fingers and nodded once. “That's what I'm saying. I was, like, trying to keep an open mind. Just in case, you know.”

  “So what happened?”

  She seemed to get uncomfortable and shifted on the sofa, twisting up her features and squinting hard.

  “Well, let me see if I can describe this to you. He takes me out to see a movie… But not any movie. Not, like, a grown-up movie. He takes me to see a cartoon.”

  “Wait, what?”

  She nodded vigorously.

  “Yeah, not an adult movie with explosions and making out and stuff, you know, things that you might want to cuddle up to your date for. No. He wants us to go see a full-on kids movie with like songs and shit.”

  “Huh.”

  “So, I am just figuring this is going to be an entirely G-rated experience, right? I mean, what grown-ass man takes a grown-ass woman to see a kids’ movie?”

  “I have no idea.”

  She shrugged theatrically. “So imagine my surprise when we get back to his shiny Toyota and he suddenly… Oh, geez, how can I explain this? You know how a Pez candy dispenser will have a head on the top of it?”

  “Yeah?”

  “And you like push with your thumb and the mouth opens and the candy comes out but, like, the whole top of the head has to go backwards in order to do it? Yeah, it was like that. Like, he moves to kiss me or whatever…”

  “Oh no!”

  “And the whole top half of his head unhing
es and he opens his mouth and it's like he's going to eat me or something! I mean, he just comes at me and instead of kissing me his mouth covers, like, the whole bottom half of my face. With slobber and everything!”

  I choked behind my hand, laughing so hard I could barely breathe. Her horror was palpable. She fanned herself as though she had narrowly escaped a tragedy.

  "I mean... I could have drowned!”

  “Oh my god,” I gasped between convulsions and stomach cramps. “That sounds horrifying!”

  “I barely escaped with my life,” she nodded seriously. “There is not enough good boy mama points in the world to make up for that.”

  “Were you wearing that black cherry lipgloss by any chance? Maybe he was overwhelmed with hunger.”

  She perched her fists on her hips and gave me a scowl.

  “I really do not think that this is funny.”

  “Yes you do,” I countered.

  “Yeah, okay. It is kind of funny. But how does a man get to be 50 years old and not know how to kiss?”

  “That's a good question. Little did he know he was dealing with a kissing prodigy.”

  “Damn straight!”

  “So you've exhausted the samurais and sorcerers on this dating site. What kind of sideshow freak could possibly be left?”

  “Well!” she said excitedly, her fingers wiggling in a jazz-hands motion. “I found me a real country singer.”

  “After our honky-tonk disaster experience, just last night? I can't believe it.”

  “Well, maybe I was inspired. But he has a cowboy hat and everything. And a guitar!”

  “Are you sure you want to be immortalized in a country song? You know those things never end well.”

  “He is just the cutest thing, though. He actually has a picture of his ass in faded blue jeans. You know I love me some ass in faded blue jeans!”

  “I know you do!”

  She nodded vigorously, her lips pressed together and glistening under what I believed to be a permanent shellac of lipgloss. I had never seen her without it. It was like her superpower.

  “Just be safe, okay honey?” I said, suddenly feeling serious and I reached out to tap my fingers on her knee. “You know you never really know somebody. Especially a complete stranger; you can't just believe everything that you hear.”

  “I'm just trying to get laid, don't you worry,” she reassured me sincerely. “I don't think either of us is in much of a position to be giving our hearts away. I just want me a little white boy penis to play with.”

  She shrugged as though that was the most natural thing in the world to say.

  “You should get you some penis too,” she suggested. “That might be just the thing to clean out your cootchie real good."

  I rolled my eyes and pulled the afghan up to just under my nose.

  “I really don't think I'm ready for that. I just hope I didn't unintentionally make an offer to those men that I can't come through on.”

  Melita's eyes went up to the ceiling.

  “Unintentionally, you say? It sure sounds intentional to me.”

  “Oh, come on, Melita. You know I'm not like that. I was just trying to be confident. Maybe I overshot the mark a little bit on the job thing, is all."

  “Overshooting the mark could be really good for you. Maybe this is the new you! This is your chance to start over, after all. You should try being a slut for a while... you might like it!”

  I pictured Whitney in my mind. Sluts sure do seem to get whatever they want, after all.

  “So what are you gonna wear?” she said, getting up and going over to the closet, flinging the door open. Though this was the living room, its closet was full of clothes just like every other room in the small house. Melita had a lot of clothes.

  “I’m more worried about where I’m gonna live,” I called across the room.

  Her head popped out of the closet, sideways.

  “What are you talking about? You’re gonna live here!”

  “Melita, I couldn’t…”

  “Well, not forever, but… I mean you’re kidding right? Of course you’re gonna stay here!”

  “You’re sure?”

  She disappeared behind the door and reappeared with four red dresses on hangers, two dangling from each hand.

  “Of course I’m sure,” she said irritably. “You say the weirdest shit sometimes. Of course you’re staying here! Now… which dress?”

  I eyed them all skeptically. Though Melita was pretty curvy, she was also about five-foot-two. There was no way any of those was going to cover my ass cheeks all the way.

  “Um, maybe something more formal?”

  She nodded, her eyes half-closing in a thoughtful squint.

  “OK,” she muttered, “that’s gonna be upstairs, back bedroom closet. You like purple?”

  “Actually, uh,” I stammered, finding myself blushing, “Lyle said he liked the blue?”

  I heard the hangers being snapped back onto the rod and she came out with her hands on her hips.

  “Lyle said that?”

  I nodded silently.

  “And was he the one on your front side or your back side?”

  I shrugged, making like I could barely recall, looking around the room as though the memory wasn’t as precise and present as a tattoo.

  “Um. Back?”

  “HOH. LEE. SHIT.”

  “Melita…”

  “Brienne, this really doesn’t sound 100% like a job thing.”

  “Of course it’s a job thing!” I shot back, suddenly saucy and ticked off.

  She snapped in the air, shutting me up immediately.

  “Follow me,” she commanded.

  Whirling toward the stairs, she marched up and toward the back bedroom, making a beeline for the closet. I hurried after her, trying to maintain my composure.

  Well, it is a job thing, isn’t it? I mean, I may have used a little sex appeal to get the job thing, but it is definitely a job thing.

  Melita disappeared into the closet. I heard a bunch of thumps and the sound of rustling dry cleaner plastic, maybe a dropped shoe or two. Then she finally came back out panting and sweating, brandishing a long plastic bag on a hanger.

  She blew her bangs off her forehead with puffed out cheeks and ran the back of her forearm across her brow.

  “This is it,” she said in a low, husky voice.

  “This is what?” I replied, crossing the room slowly with my hand out. Something about the way that she held the garment bag up told me there was something wonderful inside.

  "Open it," she said.

  I took the end of the zipper in my fingers, relishing the anticipation for just a moment.

  “This is the dress that is going to either get you hired or get laid,” she whispered into the sultry, dusty bedroom air. “And god willing, it will get you both.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The taxi let me out on the sidewalk in front of the Avery hotel, and I just froze like one of those marathon runners who has stopped in the middle of the race, a hundred other people rushing by them on both sides while they stand there, completely bewildered, wondering just what the hell is going on.

  This is a work function?

  I felt like I had been dropped off at a Hollywood premiere. There were those car-sized searchlights aimed up at the sky sweeping ovals across the low, hot summer clouds. There was a red carpet — literally, a red carpet — going up the stairs to the entryway. Men in tuxedos and women in floor-length gowns climbed the stairs together, elbows intertwined, chatting to each other as though they did this sort of thing every day.

  I felt ridiculously conspicuous. Stuffed into the dress Melita had given me, I tried to remember that I had to keep breathing in and out if I had any hope of reaching the top of the stairs without blacking out. In and then out, in that order. No messing up.

  The dress was a midnight blue satin, as tight as a blood pressure cuff. It went precisely down to the tops of the silver Louboutin stiletto heels she had loaned me and then
a generous slit gaped all the way back up my thigh.

  The neckline swooped so low I was going to have to remember to not drop anything that I needed to pick up. Around the neckline were folds of fabric creating a cup—shaped decolletage that was remarkably supportive.

  And I sparkled. Did I mention the dress glittered? I mean, it was not anything that could be described as "subtle." I looked like a starry sky.

  But it was very hard to convince myself to get up those steps. I couldn't tell if people were looking at me, but I knew that if I had been someone else I sure would have been looking at me. Without a date I really stood out like a sore thumb.

  “Just do this, Bree,” I muttered to myself.

  And still I was standing on the sidewalk with everybody swirling around me, moving toward the event.

  “Seriously, do it. Now.”

  Somehow my feet began to obey. I plucked the satin off my knee between my shaking fingers and began to climb the stairs one by one. I could feel people's eyes on me, but I would not let myself stop. If I had any hope of moving forward in my life, I knew I was going to have to just keep climbing.

  Two doormen stood on either side of the entrance, their eyes fixed on a point high above the heads of any of the people who were moving inside. Their raised chins gave them an extra air of seriousness and formality. I moved past them without breaking stride.

  That’s it. I’m in.

  The air seemed to change as soon as I entered the lobby. It was cool and thick like the air of a cave. Sconces hung on every wall, flickering with imitation candlelight. Above our heads were enormous discs hung from cables that washed a soft, powdery glow onto the couple hundred black-tie partygoers below.

  I stood as regally as possible, scanning the crowd for some sign of either Owen or Lyle. Even though everyone looked slick and dashing I knew that they would stand out from the crowd. Yet I couldn't see them anywhere.

  Making my way to the bar, I kept watch on my peripheral vision in case one of the Jacks appeared. The bartender leaned forward on the heels of his hands and dipped his chin to stare at me appreciatively.

  “What can I get for you, miss?” he said in a voice as smooth as silk.