Billion Dollar Man

by Ali Parker

  And maybe, eventually, I would find a man. I would find someone who was on the same page with what I wanted, a doctor, perhaps, someone who wouldn’t mess around and not tell me what he felt for me. He would be handsome and attentive, and we would talk about where we stood. I would be happy, and I would want to build a life with him, and I would never look back to the man who had once been my crush.

  That was the best thing to do. Skylar had said if there were so many questions, Ben wasn’t the guy for me. She had been right. If Ben had really wanted it, he would make it happen.

  The thought of moving on, forgetting about Ben completely and acting like he had never been important to me, upset me. Ben had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember, and I had been in love with him in some way or another since I had become a teenager. It was strange to think that for the first time ever, he wouldn’t be a part of my life at all. It wasn’t something I liked to think about.

  But I was realistic. At some point, I had to move on. It was the right time. To hold on was to only make myself miserable because Ben had moved away, and there was nothing to hold onto.

  Besides, it was good that this had happened now. Yes, it hurt like a bitch. I wished I could make the pain go away. But better it had ended before anything serious had happened. If we’d slept together or become something more serious as time had passed, it would have been so much worse if he’d decided to up and leave.

  This really was the best way.

  After I decided that, everything felt different. I was still hurt, and I knew I would be miserable for a while. I was still even pissed at Jerrod, though this wasn’t his fault. But it would be easier to let go of the past and move forward.

  It was all there was left for me.

  Chapter 23

  Ben

  The big board meeting had been yesterday, and I was relieved it was over. Even though I had known every protocol and every employee, it had been nerve-racking to step up there and talk to them all. It had been heartbreaking to take care of all the paperwork and to address the people who had loved Uncle Dean as much as I had.

  Most of them had come to the funeral, but the loss was still raw. I had been able to see it in everyone’s eyes, my own pain reflected on their faces. I realized I wasn’t the only one who had lost someone. Not even close.

  At least, everyone had welcomed me back. I didn’t want to be here, but it was good for the employees to have someone step in that they knew. We had worked together for the past seven years, after all. And they had made me feel like I was a part of their company. They had pledged their loyalty to me as their CEO, and in this difficult time, there was nothing better than feeling like they were all rooting for me.

  Today, I had a meeting with the PI. I had to talk to him about the case and where we stood. The company was back on track, and I needed to know who was trying to bring it down. As soon as I could figure out what was going on, I could figure out how to stop it.

  I hoped.

  “Mr. Atwood, how are you?” David said. He walked to me with his hand outstretched, and I shook it. He smiled at me, a tight smile that was all business.

  “I’m alright, considering,” I said and gestured to a chair on the other side of my desk. The PI sat down.

  David Thomas was the best PI money could get. He came up with a contract that promised all kinds of results for a lot of money, and the first thing I’d thought when I saw him was that this man looked like he could deliver. He wore a casual suit, his brown hair combed to the side, and he had a face that wasn’t very memorable. He could blend in anywhere, and I wondered if he used it to his advantage.

  “Do you have any news for me?” I asked.

  David looked toward the window. “I haven’t found out anything new, but I have had the liberty of looking at the police case file. I think there is something we can follow up on. The similarity definitely suggests a connection between the two ‘accidents,’ if you will. I believe I can find more.”

  I nodded. “Good,” I said. “Report back to me as and when you find it. Don’t insist on meetings. This is my first priority.”

  “Of course,” David said.

  “And be careful,” I added. “I don’t want you to be a target as well because you’re looking into it.”

  “Mr. Atwood, part of my job is no one knowing I’m involved at all. But I appreciate the concern.”

  After our meeting, David stood, shook my hand again, and left the office. Amy came to my door when I was alone.

  “You have a meeting with that realtor, Ms. Houghton,” she said.

  “Thank you, Amy,” I said. “I don’t know how long I’ll be. Not more than an hour, I think. Call me if you need me earlier than that.”

  Amy nodded, and I left the office. I climbed into my car and drove to the address Ms. Houghton had texted me.

  “Morning, Mr. Atwood,” Ms. Houghton said with a smile that was too red and didn’t reach her eyes. “Are you ready?”

  I nodded. She opened the gate I had parked in front of with a remote, and we walked onto the property.

  The house was beautiful, a modern design with a garden all around it, immaculate lawns all the way to the perimeter wall and a patio with a uniquely shaped pool at the back. The house itself was a two-story place with double volume ceilings and four bedrooms, a bar that opened onto the patio by the pool and all the bedrooms had en suite bathrooms.

  “What do you think?” Ms. Houghton asked me when she had taken me through the entire place.

  I nodded, looking around the kitchen we had stopped in.

  “It’s a beautiful house.”

  “It’s perfect for the entertaining bachelor or a man who wants to start a family.”

  My heart tightened when she said that.

  “I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon.”

  Ms. Houghton carried on talking, rambling off suggestions for furniture and room allocations but I wasn’t really listening. The house was beautiful, to be sure. But buying a place seemed so permanent. I wanted to get out of the penthouse I had stayed in for seven years. I wanted to start a new chapter and get a place that was warmer, a place I could call my own. This place could be it, I thought. But how much warmth was there really between these walls when I felt so cold and empty?

  I wasn’t sure how permanent I wanted it all to be here. Everything felt so uncertain. I didn’t know what to make of the plane crashes. After talking to David, I was sure there was something more to it. What if something went wrong? What if I was in danger? Maybe I shouldn’t put down roots here.

  But I didn’t trust anyone to take over the position. Certainly not if someone was really trying to kill whoever was in charge. I could put someone else in danger, or worse, put the culprit in charge. Until it was all taken care of, I had to stay here.

  And I needed a place to live that didn’t have so many memories of Uncle Dean. It was bad enough that his memory was so strong around the office. I couldn’t handle that it was at the penthouse as well.

  After I met with Ms. Houghton and told her I was still thinking about the place, I headed back to the office. There was still so much to take care of. I had to sign a lot of paperwork, and I wanted to check in personally with all of the employees. I hadn’t been away for very long, but the only way to touch base with every single one of them was to be personally involved. I wouldn’t be able to do it all the time, but if anyone was struggling or even knew anything that could help the investigation or the direction of the company, I wanted to know about it.

  The work kept me busy. I ran around taking care of everything, and it distracted me enough that time flew by.

  But the moment I stopped moving, my mind flashed on Mila, and my chest tightened. The thought that I had made her cry killed me. It was the last I had seen of her, and it wasn’t the memory I would have wanted. I would have preferred to see her smiling. But for that, I should have treated her very differently.

  When I finally got away from the office, I did
n’t go home right away. Instead, I headed to a bar. I needed a drink, and I was postponing going home and being alone with my thoughts.

  I ordered Grey Goose vodka and drank it straight from the glass with nothing but ice. It was bitter as fuck, and it went down rough, but it packed the punch I needed. I wanted to get drunk as fast as possible. I wanted to feel light and airy and to forget. Alcohol was my only saving grace right now, and God knew I needed it to stop feeling so awful.

  Mila flashed before me again, and I sighed, leaning my head against the bar. I knew I looked like a drunk, but I was halfway there already. I wanted to bang my head against the bar to get the thoughts to go away. But that wasn’t going to help, either.

  She had tried to call me yesterday. I had seen her name pop up on the caller ID, and I had wanted to answer, but before I had been able to make up my mind about it, she had hung up. It was as if she had decided against it after she had tried to reach out to me.

  That was my fault. She had tried to talk to me, and because of how I had been with her, she hadn’t felt the liberty to go through with it.

  The alcohol was getting to me, making my thoughts fuzzy. I thought about calling her.

  At the back of my mind, a small voice screamed at me, telling me it was a bad idea. With vodka in my system, I was going to be brutally honest, and I would fuck up everything I had tried to put in place.

  But the little voice was drowning in alcohol, and I was already thinking about how to word what I really wanted to say.

  After another three fingers of vodka, I pulled out my phone and dialed her number. My only savior now would be if she was busy and didn’t answer her phone. The small part of logic that remained hoped for that.

  “Hello?” she answered.

  I froze.

  “Hello?” she said again. Was my number on private?

  “I made a mistake,” I said.

  “Ben,” Mila said, and she sounded less than pleased to hear from me.

  “I should have told you how I really feel. I was wrong.”

  “Yes, you were,” she said.

  “Please, hear me out,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I need you to know the truth.”

  “I think I heard it, Ben. I know everything I need to know.”

  “No, Mila,” I said, but she carried on talking.

  “Enjoy the big city, Ben. Take care.”

  The line went dead.

  “Mila?” I asked, even though I knew she was gone. “Mila!”

  I was shouting at a dead phone. I dropped the phone on the bar and swore. I held up my glass, and the bartender poured me another vodka. I threw it back in one go and felt it burn down my throat.

  I loved her. I’d always loved her. And now she was gone.

  Fuck.

  What was I going to do now?

  Chapter 24

  Ben

  David Thomas arrived at my office in New York fifteen minutes earlier than we had agreed. Amy, my Personal Assistant, showed him into my office. He looked casual and out of place in my sleek, organized building. He wore jeans and a t-shirt with an old blazer over it and shoes that looked like they came from a thrift store.

  It was a part of his disguise, I had learned. David did everything he could to be non-descript. It was the best way to get all the information he needed as a Private Investigator.

  “Have you found anything yet?” I asked.

  “I have,” David said.

  I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

  David was helping me investigate the death of both business partners that had owned the company before me. My dad and his partner, Uncle Dean, had died seven years apart, but the plane crashes had been so eerily similar that a murder investigation had been opened. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust the police, but I had wanted to get involved in some way. So I had hired David to look into things the police might not consider.

  The idea that someone was killing off the business owners was unsettling. Did that mean I was next? And why did it happen in the first place? Who was doing it? There were so many unanswered questions, and I needed to know if my life was in danger. I had no idea who to trust.

  For a while, nothing had come from David’s investigation. I didn’t know which I preferred – that there had been a reason for two people that meant something to me to have been ripped away, or that it had all been a terrible accident and there had been no foul play involved.

  David continued. “I traced both deaths, and the same thing happened in both cases. The wiring had been ‘faulty.’ The same mistake had been logged for both planes, but they were owned by different companies and manufactured in different factories.”

  “So it would be purely coincidental,” I said.

  David nodded. “Which tells me that it wasn’t coincidental at all. I don’t have any proof, but my gut tells me the wiring was tampered with. Not so much that it’s obvious, but enough to cause trouble.”

  I shook my head, looking down at my desk. If this was real and my dad and uncle had been murdered, it was so much bigger than I had thought. It wouldn’t change that they were both gone – Uncle Dean’s death was still so raw – but perhaps if someone was responsible, my loved ones could be avenged.

  “So, the next step would be to find out who would do something like that,” I said.

  “Right,” David said. “And I’ve already started digging.”

  He really was on top of things. He was starting to prove that he was worth all the money I paid him. David Thomas was probably the highest-paid PI in New York.

  “It turns out that your dad laid off a handful of employees just before the crash. I looked into each of them and found one who looks suspicious to me.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “He has ties to the Mafia.”

  Shit,” I said. No one fucked with the Mafia and got away with it. What if my dad had done something to piss them off and that was why he had died?

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “The Mafia could have had a reason to commit the murders.”

  “I mean, I don’t understand why my dad would have a Mafia member as an employee. What could they had seen in the company that made them get involved?”

  David nodded and crossed his leg over his knee at the ankle as if he was at a barbeque, not a serious business meeting. “I was thinking that, too. I haven’t gotten down to that yet, but I will. I need a little more time and a lot more digging.”

  “Take all the time you need,” I said. “This is finally going somewhere, and it’s offering more than what the police have been able to dig up.”

  David sniffed, pleased with himself. “When I promise answers, I deliver.”

  God, I hated arrogant people. But David was making good on his promise, and he was finding information that could lead to answers. So, I tolerated him because he was good at his job and that was what I paid him for.

  “Do you think that Uncle Dean was involved with this as well?” I asked.

  David shrugged. “I think it’s safe to assume that he was involved, or at least a victim of the Mafia because the accidents are so similar. Whether he knew anything, we’ll find out in due time.”

  I didn’t think Uncle Dean had known anything about it. When I had come to New York after my father’s death and he had taken me under his wing, he had shown me everything there was to know about the company. If there had been ties with the Mafia, surely he wouldn’t have hidden it from me? Of course, it was only speculation until David found evidence of some kind.

  Whatever the ties with the Mafia were, I sincerely hoped that it hadn’t been something too sinister. I didn’t want to realize now, seven years down the line, that my dad had been involved in crimes. And I didn’t want to find out anything incriminating about Uncle Dean so soon after his death. The wound was still too fresh; I was still in mourning.

  “I’m going to keep digging and see what I can find,” David said. “In the meantime, keep
your eyes and ears open for anything suspicious in the company.”

  “I will. The moment I find something, you’ll know about it.”

  David stood up, tugging his belt up higher on his hips. If he was in character, he was extremely good at it. I wouldn’t have pegged him for someone serious if I’d seen him on the streets. David extended his hand to me, and I shook it.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said.

  “Hey, you pay me,” David said and flashed me a cocky grin before he left my office.

  When he was gone, I sat back in my chair and let out a deep breath. This was all a very big mess. A part of me wished that I could go back to when it had only been an accident that had killed my dad. But if it was more, if someone had murdered my dad and Uncle Dean, I wanted to know what was going on. There was no going back.

  After I had taken care of all the calls and meetings for the day – the transition to new management was taking some work – I was exhausted. It was stressful to run a company, I knew it from experience, but I was even more stressed, now. After everything that had been going on with the investigations and with Uncle Dean’s death, I was even more uptight than I had been before.

  I phoned Penny – Uncle Dean’s widow – when I was on the way home.

  “I just wanted to check in with you. How are you doing?” I asked.

  “That’s very sweet of you, Ben. But you don’t have to keep calling me to see if I’m alright. This is something I’m just going to have to deal with.”

  “I know,” I said. “But sometimes it’s good to know that we’re not going through this alone.” I meant it for her sake as well as my own. My dad’s death had been hard to deal with. He had been my father, after all. But Uncle Dean’s death was hitting me even harder because I had been so close to him. I hadn’t seen my dad all that often, even though we had spoken over the phone every now and again.

  I wasn’t only checking in with Penny to ensure she was okay dealing with Dean’s death. I was also worried about her. Whoever had gone after my dad had taken out my stepmom, too. I was scared that something would happen to Penny because she was Dean’s wife. The poor woman had been through so much with Dean’s death, and she was a wonderful soul. She had been there for me as much as Dean had. I didn’t want anything to happen to her.