Billionaire's Best Woman - A Standalone Novel (A Billionaire Wedding Romance Love Story) (Billionaires - Book #5)

by Claire Adams

  “Did you ever talk to anyone other than your friend? How do you know he’s not just scamming you? How do you know the mob—or whatever you want me to call them—how do you know they’ve actually had anything to do with it?”

  “I’m about to tell you if you’ll stop interrupting me like I asked.” I folded my hands on my lap and let him continue without another word. “Jenna and I, like I said, we told each other everything. I don’t blame her for what happened. It wasn’t her fault. I just wish….” Dean looked out his window. “I came home one night after a bad day at the office—most of the early days were like that. Jenna was pacing the floor when I got there. She barely even acknowledged me when I walked in.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “It wasn’t. Joe had been by. He and Jenna knew each other from school—back before Joe dropped out, that is. Besides, she and I had been close a long time. It wasn’t exactly a secret. When I finally got Jenna to stop pacing long enough to tell me what was going on, she told me how Joe had threatened her.

  “He said his friends weren’t happy that I was trying to back out of my responsibilities, as if they had any room to talk. She told me Joe said if I didn’t stop doing what I was doing and come back into the fold, she was going to be my lesson. She told me we needed to do something. At first, I thought she meant skip town, but she was mad. Joe had threatened the both of us and it left a bad taste in her mouth.”

  “I don’t get how he could be your friend and still come after you like that.”

  “It was because he was my friend they sent him. Unless you’ve really crossed a line, those guys probably aren’t going to kill you. I asked Joe once if he’d ever shot anyone or hurt anyone, and the only answer he gave was that ‘killing people is bad for business.’

  “He said, ‘Imagine you’re a bookie and this skell who owes you money doesn’t have any money. You kill him and you’re never seeing a dime. Hard to pay someone back when what’s left of you’s floating in a 55-gallon drum. Break his leg, though, and suddenly, that guy has a job and you’ve got your money.’ He went on to call it a public service, saying that everyone should owe his friends money at least once in their life. He said it gave people discipline.”

  It wasn’t too hard to see where the story was headed.

  “I was just fed up. The coward who’d stolen my program was making his mark on the world with it. Meanwhile, I was stuck with a team of people who just didn’t seem motivated anymore. I was the only one who seemed to think like what we were doing at F&T was even worth the time, and this guy who’d been like a brother to me starts talking to my wife about how she’s going to be the price I pay for pissing his friends off, and I’d had it.

  “I was done with Joe; I was done with his ‘friends.’ I was done with all of that. This was before the money was rolling in, though, so it wasn’t like I could just retreat into the tower and wait for the storm to pass.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I stopped. I hadn’t been making deliveries for a while. Since I’d hired Joe’s friends, the relationship had taken on a cash-only quality. Basically, they wanted money or they were going to tear the shit out of my place. This is long before they bothered threatening me with exposure because back then, all the money I had was tied up in the company. People kept telling me I was rich, but the more I paid to those guys, the more they wanted.”

  “So you told the mob to go screw themselves,” I observed.

  “I didn’t phrase it quite that way. Remember what I said about crossing lines with those people? I’m pretty sure that would have done it. No, I called up Joe right then and there while Jenna was still pacing in the living room. I told him we had some things to talk about, but that I’d only talk with him.

  “I knew they’d send some guys as backup, and for all I knew, Joe could have been wearing a wire or something—not to take to the cops, mind you, but to take back to his people, so they’d know he wasn’t going soft on me because I was his friend.

  “I had all kinds of ideas about how that conversation was going to turn out, but there was hardly a conversation at all. I told Joe I was out, that he and his buddies could extort someone else. I told him I was done with his shit and if there had ever been any friendship between the two of us, he should just let me and Jenna go. I’d already paid back more money than I’d ever made making those drops and they hadn’t followed through when I’d hired him.

  “Probably, if I was talking to anyone else, I would have been a bit more careful with my words, but Joe and I knew each other. We really were friends there for a while until he got mixed up in all of it.”

  “So, you talked to him. What’d he say?”

  “He didn’t say much of anything. I don’t even remember how it happened. All I remembered was that I woke up in the back of an ambulance, my left leg felt like it had been used in place of a ball during Yankees’ batting practice, and my head wasn’t far behind it.”

  “He actually broke your leg?”

  “Gave me a concussion, too. I guess he realized people don’t remember things so well when they have a concussion, so he sent me a nice anonymous letter to remind me. Jenna got to the hospital, and she was so upset. She was crying because I was in there and she was cursing because Joe had put me there. She told me she was going to find him and—her words—‘make him leave us alone.’

  “I managed to talk her out of contacting him or going to see him, at least for a while. She waited until the drugs I was on in the hospital knocked me out before she….I don’t know what she thought she’d be able to do that I couldn’t. Maybe she thought she could reason with Joe, or catch him off-guard enough to jam a fork in his eye—Jenna could get kind of scary when she was angry.”

  I was trying to not be too obvious as I winced, but I knew what was coming. In a somber voice, I asked, “What happened to her?”

  Dean gazed out the window. “I don’t know,” he said. “Joe gave me the broad strokes when I woke up again. Can you imagine that? I went to bed, pleading with Jenna to stay away from Joe, to not get involved any more than she was already just by being with me and stay with me in the hospital where at least they had some security.

  “But when I woke up, Joe’s the one sitting in the chair next to my bed. He didn’t have to say anything. The fact that he was there and she wasn’t was clear enough. I thought he was there to kill me.

  “Once he confirmed—in a circuitous, double-speak kind of way—that Jenna wasn’t going to be coming back—ever—I told him to kill me, too. I told him I had nothing left without her, but Joe started talking about my employees and their families like they were an endless pool of potential victims, victims that could each and all be saved if only I learned to be reasonable. I haven’t missed a payment since. After that, I didn’t even balk when they raised my monthly tribute—that’s what they call it.”

  “Dean,” I said, “I don’t know what to say.”

  It was true. On the one hand, I did feel genuinely sympathetic toward him and Jenna. On the other hand, he was sitting there telling me the last woman he was with—his wife, no less—was killed by the same people who had threatened me only a few days before. For whatever it’s worth, being insecure and thinking I was just the woman who’d never replace his wife didn’t even cross my mind. That kind of self-doubt seemed childish in the face of what I was hearing.

  “Yeah, well,” he said, clearing his throat before he continued, “things are different now. There are only a couple of people in the country with more money than me, and you know how this country works: wealth equals power, which equals you can get people to do pretty much whatever you want them to most of the time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean everything in a twenty-foot radius of us, horizontally, and a couple hundred feet vertically, is in a controlled state.”

  It felt like he was bragging, but I still had no clue what he was talking about. “How so?”

  He smiled and said, “Can I get a visua
l signal from all overt units near my location?”

  “Why are you asking me that?”

  “I’m not,” he said. “Look out the windows.”

  I did. Three cars behind us—the only three cars behind us—flashed their headlights. Dean pointed forward, and I could just see the brake lights of two, no, three vehicles ahead of us. “All right, that’s not bad.”

  “Wait for it.”

  I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to wait for, but a few seconds later, a blinding light came from above the car, surrounding it. The windows in the back were tinted, but I still had to squint a bit from the brightness of the light around us. A moment later, the light went off and my vision went dark from the contrast.

  “What the hell was that?”

  “Mayors and rock stars can get a motorcade. Not everyone has a couple of helicopter pilots on staff to provide air support,” he said, smiling. “I know you must be angry with me for not telling you about Jenna sooner, but I didn’t want to scare you. Things really have changed since then.”

  “I’m not going to lie, that’s impressive, but I think we’re ignoring the bull in the china shop. I appreciate that you’ve upped security, but none of those people stopped that woman from walking up and threatening me five steps from your building.”

  “They exploited a tactical weakness, but that weakness no longer exists.”

  “You sound pretty sure of that.”

  “You may not know this, but you’ve had someone watching your back since the second time we got together. That first night, I had someone make sure you got home safe, but let’s be honest, neither of us were planning to see each other again.”

  “Okay, that’s a little unnerving, but I don’t see how you could possibly cover every angle all of the time. Plus, why are they so intent on getting to you now? You said you’d been making your payments to them and all of that, so why would they bother threatening me to threaten you?”

  “It’s not about covering every angle all of the time. Frederick the Great once said, ‘He who defends everything defends nothing.’ It’s just as much about security theater as anything.

  “The point is, they don’t want to be exposed any more than I do. I made a mistake agreeing to work with them in the first place, and an even bigger mistake going to them for help, but they’re not going to risk uncovering their operation, much less themselves, just to get back at me.

  “Despite how they may look in the movies, these people aren’t stupid. They’ve outlasted other families and other crews because they believe in discretion. Of course, there’s any number of situations where they could conceivably get to either of us without coming too far out in the open: hence the entourage.”

  “Yeah, your entourage is leaving,” I said, looking out the window as the vehicles which had been flashing their headlights a few minutes earlier, one by one, either passed our town car, or fell away, or turned off onto a side street.

  “They just change out every once in a while. It helps give the impression of overwhelming force, which is good because that’s exactly what I’m paying for,” Dean explained. “If you want, I can have the new cars flash their lights, too, so you know they’re on our side.”

  “I’ll believe you,” I told him. “You never answered my question, though. Why now? Why not go after you before you could hire a personal army?”

  “The simple answer is that I wasn’t worth going after like this before I could afford a personal army. Those first couple of years in the business were tight, but as soon as F&T got a foothold, it was ramen to foie gras overnight. I’d hoped they’d give up when I hired my first security team, but they’re not going to quit unless they’re made to quit.”

  “Okay, that’s the simple answer. What’s the real answer?”

  He looked out his window. “They want me to do something and they know I don’t want to do it. I won’t do it.”

  “What is it they want you to do?”

  “Does the name ‘Marty Scholl’ mean anything to you?” he asked.

  It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “I feel like I’ve heard the name before, but I’m pretty sure I don’t know him.”

  “I’m sure you don’t,” Dean said. “One of the things that comes with money and power is the strange perception that your word is unimpeachable. It’s the silliest thing in the world because nobody got to be filthy stinking rich playing by the rules. Microsoft had their antitrust suits, Apple uses—or at least used—child labor, and everyone on the planet knows for a fact that the Koch brothers are one of the top threats to democracy in this country.

  “Not everyone who’s made a few stacks is a sociopath, and some of them, like Bill Gates, actually do a lot of fantastic work with charity, but there’s a reason there are only four-hundred-and-some-odd billionaires in the country. It takes a mix of being willing to do things other people aren’t willing to do while giving people something they really want—or convincing them to really want something that you have. Marty Scholl was arrested, he was—”

  “That’s right. He was that mob guy you got cleared of charges.”

  Dean glanced over at me with a bit of a smile. “I like that you do your homework. Yeah, that’s the basic idea. Now, they want me to do the same thing for Izzy. He’s too big to kill, though I’d imagine his friends on the outside aren’t too worried about him squealing, anyway. He’d implicate himself more than anyone else if he tried, and nobody’s going to give a guy like him Queen for a Day just to bring down some lower-level guys.”

  “Queen for a Day?”

  “Immunity from all crimes that person has committed up until that point in time. For someone like Izzy, that’d be giving him a pass on who knows how many robberies, drug deals, assaults, and murders. I’m not willing to be the person responsible for setting him free.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Your brother’s been helping me with some ideas, and I’d hoped maybe to get your input, as well. I know all this is new to you, but you have a good mind and a fresh perspective. I’d be happy to hear any suggestions.”

  Once I stopped laughing—it took a minute or two—I wiped my eyes. “I’m sorry, but what exactly do you think I can do?”

  “The first step is going to be making sure that you’re safe and where they can’t get to you. Luke was right about that much, even though I know you hate being cooped up. But until you’re secure, everything else is on hold.”

  “I don’t know how I could be more secure than I am now,” I said. The statement should have been a comfort, but all it did was remind me just how vulnerable I was, even with Dean’s entourage.

  “The first thing you need to do is find somewhere more secure than your brother’s house. I know he’s done a great job looking after you, but even with my guys sitting on the house, there are too many variables, too many angles of approach.”

  “What, so you want to send me down to Fort Knox?”

  He actually thought about it for a second, but quickly shook his head. “I was thinking more along the lines of my place.”

  “Back to the scene of the crime, huh?”

  “Yeah, except this time, you go nowhere alone.”

  “And, you really think you can keep me safe? I mean, you really think it’s possible to keep me safe?”

  “I do,” he said. “I know it’s not ideal, and I know it’s not what you wanted to hear, but it is the best way for me to ensure that nothing happens to you because of my poor choices in the past.”

  He was looking at me, waiting for my answer. It occurred to me it might just be easier to leave the state and never see Dean again, but that idea was a nonstarter. I looked out the windows. All of the vehicles that had flashed their lights were elsewhere, and we were loosely surrounded by a whole new pack. “Do that thing with the lights again,” I said.

  He snickered. “This is Dean Carrick,” he said into the open air. “Can I get another visual sign from all units on my location?”

  Just as Dean
had said, all the vehicles around us flashed their headlights or their brake lights, but I wasn’t satisfied until the halo of retina-scorching light came from above. This wasn’t what I signed up for when this billionaire picked me up that night, but the fact remained: I was safer with him than anywhere else.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Plenty of Desk Space

  Luke wouldn’t come with me when I relocated to Dean’s. I tried telling him if I was in danger, he probably was, too. Even if it weren’t for me, he was close enough to Dean that he might have been at risk. As protective as he was, Luke didn’t protest the idea of me staying with Dean.

  I was sitting at an old, dusty desk on the executive level: this was my new office. Staying with Dean meant I had an armed escort to work. I’m sure I would have been fine if I’d just stayed on his floor and kept the door locked, but I couldn’t bear the idea of being cooped up again, even if it was in the most luxurious surroundings I’d ever seen with my own eyes.

  We got to work early, Dean and I. He had some things to take care of, but he put those on hold until he could set me up with a desk and some busy work until one of the other interns could “find something real” for me to do. I was fine with the minutia for now. It beat sitting on Luke’s couch, trying not to think of the words “cement” and “shoes” too close together.

  I started to lose myself in the work as the day wore on. Dean was right. The stuff on my desk was the definition of inconsequential, but it was engaging enough I didn’t even notice when I missed my morning break. For a while, it was nice to have something else to think about.

  My “new” desk sat in a disused office that had once belonged to some then-retired mid-level executive. It wasn’t much on space, but the pathetic window gave a decent view of the city and, in the distance, the river.

  When I wasn’t working on possible reconfigurations of the executive break room—the open file on my desk at the time—I was able to clear my head by pretending everything in the city was really as small as it looked from up there. It helped me feel the floor beneath my feet.