Bad Billionaire

by Julie Kriss

  “No,” he agreed. “I’m shit with women, you know that. So I don’t have any more advice. Just don’t fuck this up, or you’ll regret it. And whatever you’re doing today—as your legal representation, I don’t want to know—don’t fuck that up either. Or get killed. And don’t ever tell me. Got it?”

  When we hung up, I stared at the passing tourists for a minute. Trying not to think about Olivia alone and unprotected. It was broad daylight in a big city, but that wouldn’t stop a man like Craig Bastien. He’d track her down to get to me.

  Which meant I had to get to him first.

  The countdown was on, and the clock was ticking.

  Twenty-Six

  Olivia

  The Mercedes was a beautiful car. The engine was as quiet as a sleeping baby and the seats were buttery leather. I had no idea what year the car was, but my guess was it was at least twenty years old. It was hard to tell because the lines of the body were so classically beautiful.

  I drove to Shady Oaks first. I was almost shaking, my brain in a whirl, but the quiet beauty of the drive in such an amazing car was almost like a therapy session. I had no idea where I was going to go, no plan, but by the time I pulled into the Shady Oaks parking lot I knew two things: One, I wasn’t staying here, and two, I wanted to drive some more. I could see why Devon loved it. I just wanted to drive and drive.

  I went into my apartment just long enough to pack most of my clothes and toiletries into a bag, hating every second I was there. I wasn’t over the attack from last night—not even close. Even in daylight, being in the apartment made me feel watched, violated, as if that creep might be right outside again, or standing behind me. With sweat trickling down my back, I packed as fast as I could and piled my stuff into the Mercedes. Then I was gone again.

  I avoided downtown and drove south instead, into South San Francisco, then over the bridge across the bay. I had stopped for coffee and a sandwich somewhere near CSU when my phone rang. It was a number from Gratchen Advertising.

  That was when I realized I was supposed to be at work right now.

  I stared at the number, and instead of feeling sick dread or helplessness, I felt nothing at all. Like Gratchen was from some other lifetime. I answered. “Hello?”

  “Olivia.” It was Corey. “It’s after noon. It’s Sunday, but we are behind on the l’Orifice presentation because you left on Friday night. I sent you an email telling you to come in. Were you going to bother showing up?”

  I swallowed the last bite of my sandwich. I had, indeed, seen the email on my phone, but I’d completely ignored it. “I’m sorry.”

  There was a long pause, the sound of Corey obviously waiting for me to say something else. “That’s all?” he said finally. “I’m sorry?”

  Answers ran through my head. I had a rough night last night. Someone threw me down the stairs and I went to the hospital. It was a perfectly good reason for me not to come in on my day off. At least, for any other employer it would be a perfectly good reason. I had the feeling Corey would argue it.

  And suddenly, I didn’t care. I didn’t owe him anything. I didn’t owe them anything. Not my personal life, not my mental energy, and not my time. Not even for the piddly amount of money they paid me.

  “I forgot,” I told him.

  I could practically see his eyes bulge behind his glasses. “You forgot to come to work?”

  “I did, actually,” I said. “And I wouldn’t have come, even if I remembered. I guess that means I’m not cut out for the job. So here you go. I quit.”

  “Olivia, we have important deadlines coming up. We are buried in work here. You can’t just quit without notice.”

  It was funny that he would say that, since the firm had been telling me from the first day that I was completely replaceable and there was a lineup out the door of graphic designers waiting to take my job. “Just hire someone else,” I said. “Let them pay their dues instead of me. But I can’t work for you anymore. I’m done.”

  “This is outrageous,” he said. “There’s no way you’re getting a reference from us.”

  It was like he was talking another language. The idea of asking for a reference, so I could get another job just like that one, was absurd. “That’s fine,” I said. “Have a nice day.”

  “Olivia, I really can’t understand why you would do this.”

  “Because life is too short to do something I hate,” I said. “Bye.” And I hung up.

  I waited. Sitting in the car, with my phone in my hand, I waited for the panic to set in. That was the single craziest thing I had ever done—almost crazier than letting a criminal on the run into my apartment, or getting into Devon Wilder’s car. I had quit my job. I had told them off. I had nothing else. I was unemployed.

  But the panic didn’t come. I had savings; I’d put money aside from my first paycheck. I didn’t need much to live on. The rent at Shady Oaks was cheap, but if I had to, I could bunk with Gwen or my mother for a while. The house in Diablo flashed through my mind—and the billionaire who lived in it—but I pushed it away for the moment. I would find my way on my own.

  As if he was reading my mind, a text appeared on my phone from Devon.

  Tell me you’re safe, he wrote.

  I stared at that and my heart flipped. A huge, slow, dizzying turn in my chest. He could have been angry with me; he could have flipped out. He could have demanded I tell him where I was, or tried to order me to come back. He could even have come after me, or sent Ben after me.

  But he said and did none of those things. Instead, he’d asked me about the one thing that mattered the most to him—whether I was all right.

  I took a deep breath. I was in love with Devon Wilder. It was clear to me now—I wasn’t just in lust with him, or fascinated by his looks and his personality and his complex life. I was in love with him. And he was in San Francisco, while I was driving away.

  And somehow, right now, that was right.

  I’m safe, I told him. And then, because I couldn’t resist, I added, It’s a beautiful car.

  Thank you, he wrote back. Consider it a loan.

  A loan meant this wasn’t forever. A loan meant I was coming back.

  Was I coming back?

  I didn’t know, not right now. I couldn’t answer. I just knew I wanted to keep going.

  It wasn’t until I got onto Interstate 5, heading south, that I realized where I was going. I drove for an hour, dodging heavy traffic and trucks, before pulling over at another stop and calling my sister.

  “You busy?” I asked Gwen.

  “Just running errands. It’s my day off,” she said. She sounded like she was outside somewhere, maybe heading for her car. “What’s up?”

  So I told her, as briefly as I could, that I had been thrown down the stairs last night, and today I’d quit my job, borrowed—stole, sort of—Devon Wilder’s Mercedes, and left town. When she was done shouting at me (“Holy shit, what’s the matter with you? Why didn’t you call me? Are you all right?”) she finally got around to asking me where I was going.

  “I just pulled off I-5,” I told her. “I think I’m going to LA. To see Mom.”

  There was a moment of quiet. “You haven’t been back to LA since art school,” Gwen said.

  “No,” I replied. “I think I owe her a visit.”

  “She’ll be happy to see you.”

  “I hope so.” I’d always felt so clearly that I’d let my mother down when I failed art school; she’d paid for it out of her own pocket, and I hadn’t even finished. I’d told myself ever since that I felt bad letting Mom down, but now I was starting to see the truth: I’d felt bad letting myself down. And it was time to let it go. “I’ll tell her you said hello.”

  “Sure,” Gwen said with dark humor in her voice. “If she asks.”

  I bit my lip. Gwen was going to have to work out her own problems with Mom; I had to focus on mine. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “Drive safe,” she said. “And don’t talk to strangers.”

 
After I hung up and got back on the interstate, I made a decision. I pulled off and headed for Highway 1 instead—taking the longer, winding scenic route down to LA, instead of the fastest route straight down the interstate. I’d never seen Salinas or any of the towns along the coast. Maybe now was the time.

  I had a beautiful car, a little money, a road ahead of me, and nowhere to be. I should have been blissed out.

  There was no reason I should feel so empty.

  Twenty-Seven

  From the San Francisco News:

  Largest Drug Bust in San Francisco History Underway

  Police have begun the largest drug bust in San Francisco history, according to Police Chief Mark Sanders in a press conference today.

  “This is an extraordinary occurrence,” he said. “We fight the drug war every day, but today we have been given the opportunity to execute a clean sweep.”

  He was referring to the unusual way the current round of arrests began. At three o’clock this morning, a boat was spotted by the Coast Guard, drifting in the bay off the shore of Alcatraz. It was a hundred-foot yacht with no lights or crew aboard. When the Coast Guard boarded the boat, they found a massive quantity of heroin, roughly estimated as at least fifty million dollars’ worth, packaged and ready for delivery into the harbor. However, there were no crew aboard the boat and no signs of foul play.

  Police Chief Sanders would not verify it, but our sources inside the department state that there was also a typewritten letter aboard the ship, listing who had sold the massive shipment, who had bought it, and named every dealer that was waiting for delivery in order to sell the drugs on the street. “It was an entire map of the heroin business in the Bay area,” the source said, on condition of anonymity. “There were names, relationships of who works for who. Where shipments are stored before being distributed. Where and how the money is kept. Addresses, full names, everything. Basically, someone just handed us the entire industry and gave us the power to shut it down.”

  It is not known who wrote the letter, or how it came to be aboard the ship. It also is not known how the ship came to be adrift in the harbor instead of docked for unloading by its intended recipients.

  “It’s as if someone left it there for us,” our source told us. “Just adrift in the bay like that. Like a gift.”

  Police have called up all available staff, as well as reinforcements, to handle the resulting warrants and arrests. Police Chef Sanders stated today that nearly thirty-five arrests have been executed, as well as over a hundred suspects brought in for questioning. Some of those questioned and arrested were already known to the police, but some were not.

  The primary arrest, according to police, is Craig Bastien, a local drug dealer who apparently arranged the shipment. “This man was the instigator of the entire operation,” Chief Sanders said. “It was due to him that this level of heroin was about to hit our streets. He stood to make millions in profit if this ship had docked—millions off of the misery of drug dealing and drug addiction in this city. We have a very strong case to put him away.”

  Bastien has been placed in protective custody, he said, due to the high level of risk that another in the prison population could harm or kill him. “He is not popular with the local drug dealers right now,” Chief Sanders said. “Since it was his deal that went sour and caused so many to be arrested, he’s already received threats. These are very bad enemies to have. But we are committed to making sure he stays alive long enough to stand trial.”

  Asked how he thought the ship ended up in the harbor, Chief Sanders said, “I have no idea. It almost looks like someone, somewhere, had a conscience.”

  Two Days Later, from the San Francisco News:

  Local Billionaire Makes Two Large Local Donations

  Devon Wilder, the San Francisco man who inherited an estate worth a billion dollars after serving a two-year stretch in prison for robbery, has made two donations that will make a difference to the local city scene.

  A San Francisco network of women’s shelters, called Sheltered Hearts, received a donation of $3 million yesterday from Wilder. “We are overwhelmed,” said Patricia Greene, the president of Sheltered Hearts, a non-profit that receives no government funding. “With this kind of money, we can make real improvements to our shelters and our system, which in turn will make a real improvement to many women’s and children’s lives.”

  It was revealed in a news item three days ago that Wilder, who was born in LA, is the son of Gina Wilder, who was murdered ten years ago at the age of thirty-nine. Her boyfriend at the time, who was convicted of the murder, is currently on Death Row for the crime.

  When asked about the donation, Mr. Wilder made a brief statement. “Ten years ago, when my mother was killed, I wasn’t in a position to help her,” he said. “Today I’m in a different position. It only makes sense to me to pay it forward and maybe help another woman and her kids. I just wish someone had been able to help my mother before it was too late.”

  In a second development, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art—which is also a non-profit—revealed yesterday that Mr. Wilder had given them $3 million as well as the beginning of an ongoing funding commitment. “We are very grateful,” Paul McGhee, the president of SFMOMA, said in a statement. “This kind of commitment to the arts means that we can continue to bring the best works in the world to San Francisco.”

  When asked about the second donation, Mr. Wilder’s statement was even more brief. “I have a friend who likes to go there,” he said about the gallery. “That’s all I have to say.”

  Twenty-Eight

  Olivia

  I phoned him. Of course I phoned him.

  He picked up right away.

  “Devon,” I said. “What the hell did you do?”

  “What?” he said, innocent.

  “I’m reading the news,” I said. I was sitting in my mother’s kitchen in her LA house, her laptop in front of me on the counter as I made a cup of tea. “You did this, didn’t you? The boat in the harbor.”

  He was quiet for a second. “I told you I wouldn’t hurt anyone,” he said.

  “I know,” I said, the words coming hard through my choked-up throat. “I should have believed you.”

  “You had no reason,” he said. “I knew that.”

  “I had every reason. And I did trust you.” I took a breath. “I do. I just let my panic get the best of me.”

  He was quiet for another moment. “It’s done,” he said. “Where are you?”

  “At my mother’s. In LA.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. My wrist is healing. So are the bruises.” I dunked my tea bag in my cup. “My mother is happy to see me. It turns out she worries about the fact that I have no love life.”

  “Hmm,” he said, a low sound I felt vibrate straight through my belly, and lower. “You gonna enlighten her?”

  I dropped the tea bag, distracted. “I told her about you,” I said. I had, while Mom and I had eaten takeout Chinese in our pj’s, like we were two teenagers. I hadn’t told her any of the dirty stuff, of course. But I had the impression that Mom had filled in some of the blanks. “She, um, she knows.”

  “And what does she say?”

  I remembered exactly what Mom had said when I’d finished talking. She’d sipped her wine and looked at me from under her lashes. Even at age fifty, with no makeup on and her hair going naturally gray—she’d stopped dyeing it—my mother was really beautiful. She was just genetically blessed, in a way Gwen and I should probably thank her for. A man like that isn’t easy, honey, she’d said, but he’s worth a million of any other kind.

  I wasn’t about to repeat that to Devon Wilder. “I think she’d like you,” I said instead. “She already likes your picture.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Devon said. “My mug shot?” That particular shot had run in the original story about Devon inheriting his grandfather’s money.

  “No. The one that ran in the donation story.” I was staring at it right now, on th
e laptop in front of me. The reporter had caught a snapshot of Devon leaving the offices of Sheltered Hearts and walking toward his car. In a suit. A suit. Dark blue, with a gray shirt and even a sexy dark silk tie. His dark hair was neatly brushed back from his temples, his beard trim, his green eyes glancing briefly at the camera. From his left sleeve peeked a silver watch over the dark ink on the back of his hand. His big body was in motion, leaning in toward the driver’s door of his Chevy. It was pure, one hundred percent suit porn, and I’d been staring at it for a day. That was mine. I had that.

  Maybe I could still have it, if I wanted it.

  “I haven’t seen that one,” Devon mused in my ear. “I don’t pay attention. I probably look like an asshole.”

  “You look like the hottest man who’s ever worn a suit,” I said, the words out of my mouth before I could think them. I was still staring at the picture, and it was making me feel possessive. Crazy possessive.

  He laughed, the sound echoing straight down between my legs. “I’ll remember to wear a suit more often when you’re around.”

  “About that,” I said. “About me being around. I’m working on something.”

  “Yeah? What is it?”

  “Mom had my old art projects stored in her spare room,” I said. “Including the final project I did before I failed out of school.”

  “You mean the photos you took and painted over.”

  He remembered. “Yeah, those. It’s been a while since I looked at them. I thought I’d hate them if I looked at them now. But I pulled them out, and I realized I still like them. A lot.”

  “That’s good,” he said.

  “It is. I realize now that dropping out of school made me lose all my confidence. It made me give up on my art, and I didn’t have a reason to. My art is what makes me happy. So why would I ever give up on that?”

  He was quiet, listening.