Beauty and her Billionaire Beast

by Bella Love-Wins

  “Look, that drivel is harmless. They’ve said much worse about Morris over the years. You and Isabelle are good friends. The two of you shouldn’t have to worry about silly political commentary…unless of course there’s more between you, beyond the purview of a platonic friendship.”

  This woman has begun to speak in code. It’s the language of politicians—just a stone’s throw from layman’s English, but in its own league, and thoroughly incomprehensible.

  “Sorry, I still have no clue what you just said. If you’re asking me to keep my public appearances with Isabelle on the conservative, more platonic side, you have nothing to worry about. We’re friends after all.”

  “Oh, I see. I appreciate that,” she tells me, sounding disappointed that I won’t admit to a damn thing. “I’m probably mistaken. I thought Morris said there was a spark between the two of you.”

  I shake my head. “No disrespect, Mrs. Harrison, but there’s nothing Pops would love more than to see sparks fly between his grandson and your daughter, or with any other eligible woman or young socialite from our circle of friends. He’s itching to see me walk down the aisle, and had no qualms trying to make me drag your daughter to the Hamptons this weekend in the hopes of some kind of instant love connection. Again, I’ll leave that to Isabelle to have a conversation with you on it.”

  “Completely understandable.” Tucking the magazine under her arm, she stands up from the bar stool, walks over to the sink, and dumps the rest of her coffee down the drain. “Keep the paper. Will you let Isabelle know I’d like to speak with her once she’s awake and dressed?”

  “She’s asleep now, so I’ll pass on the message later. We’ll see you at the main house, Mrs. Harrison.”

  “Excellent. Enjoy your day, Knox,” she says in a formal tone, and leaves the kitchen. Her heel clicks diminish until they fade away. I can only hope that the blowback from that ridiculous article will fade just as fast.

  It might, but judging from the look on Isabelle’s face as she storms into the kitchen, what I admitted to her mom may take a while for her to get over.

  “Let me see that!” she says and snatches the newspaper from me.

  “Good morning, yourself. I take it that you heard everything.” She doesn’t answer, taking the time to find the article about us. She sits in the identical bar stool where her mother sat, and reads the entire article. Then she closes the paper again and thrusts it across the counter away from her. “The content is not worth the paper it’s written on,” she finally says in a huff, and turns to face me.

  “Seems that way to me too,” I agree.

  “And you! Don’t even think that it’s the only thing I’m upset about.”

  “I figured as much. Look, Isabelle. That stuff about Pops… you know all three of them have been sticking their nose into our friendship. We’re getting closer in spite of them, not because of them. There’s a difference.”

  “Did you tell your grandfather that you’d spend the weekend with me to get him off your back about marrying someone?” she demands.

  “Jesus. You’re going to eat right out of their hands over this, aren’t you?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “Listen to me. You and I, this friendship, the way we reconnected since that night at the engagement party, it has nothing to do with them!” I bark, and hate how out of control I sound. I’m so fucking close to losing my shit right now.

  “Then tell me it’s not true!” she practically screams. “Tell me he didn’t put you up to luring me here this weekend.”

  “Just because he made those demands, it doesn’t mean I didn’t already want you here. You’re being unreasonable. You’re confusing what’s real about us with the crap going on up at the main house.”

  “So it’s true? Oh my god, I’m such an idiot.” She jumps off the bar stool and stomps up the hall toward the master bedroom.

  “We’re here because we want to be here,” I shout after her and follow her to the door.

  “No! I don’t want to be here! Not as some pawn to satisfy your grandfather’s wishes.”

  “Will you stop and just calm down for a minute? You don’t have all the facts.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do.” She goes over to the walk-in closet and drags her empty suitcase with her, dumping it on the bed.

  “What are you doing with that?” I ask and run a frustrated hand through my hair.

  She goes back into the closet and brings out a handful of her clothes, still on their hangers. “I’m going home.”

  “No. You’re not.” I stand in front of the suitcase, blocking her path.

  “Move, Knox. Get out of my way.” She tries to move my body, but it’s impossible with our size difference.

  “Why? For you to run again? Like you did at the engagement party? Or back in the limo?”

  “Like you can talk,” she shouts at the top of her lungs. “You left me for ten whole years! I didn’t have a fucking clue what I did to you! And you didn’t give a crap whether I was alive or dead, happy or in the worst fucking pain of my life! You still don’t give a shit about me. I’m just here so your grandfather will get off your back and stop putting pressure on you to settle down.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Well you know what? It doesn’t matter. I know what I need to know. I’m not staying here a second more.”

  “All right, fine!” I’m at the end of my fucking rope. I can’t keep a leash on my rage for much longer. I’m fucking done. Stepping to the side, I walk out of the room and return to the guest room where my things are. We’re supposed to stay here another night, and I won’t leave Pops here alone. I grab my car keys and head up to the main house.

  “Pops,” I call from the main floor foyer.

  “In here.” I follow his voice to his smoking room and find him sitting in his easy chair with a pipe hanging out of his mouth. Senator Harrison is in the dark red leather sofa, about to cut the tip of a cigar.

  “Hey there,” I say, trying to keep a lid on my anger. “Pops, I’ll be back in a few hours.”

  “All right, son. You and Isabelle going into town? Keep your eye out for those pesky paparazzi people. Damn snoops,” he grumbles.

  “Actually, I’m taking her back to the city. She wants to go home.”

  Her father leans forward in his chair, interested now. “What? Is she all right?”

  “Yes, she’s fine.”

  He rests the cigar on the coffee table in front of him. “She probably saw that article. I know first-hand how much she hates when the media makes a spectacle of her. She’s just like her sister, but Bethany is a lot worse.” He chuckles. “Her sister moved two thousand miles away to get away from all this public scrutiny. Can’t say that I can blame her.” He gets to his feet. “I’ll talk to Isabelle.”

  “All right,” I answer, and motion for him to go ahead of me. I follow him to the pool house, but we quickly see that there’s no sign of Isabelle. “She was just here. I don’t think she’d take my car.”

  “Let’s check the front,” Senator Harrison suggests. “We drove here in Tandy’s SUV.”

  We hurry to the front of the main house. My car is still there. Tandy’s SUV is also parked in the same spot. But we turn to the driveway entrance in time to see a catering van leaving through the wrought iron gates. Both windows are rolled down, and in the passenger seat, I see Isabelle.

  “She can’t leave like this,” I say, not hiding my anger. “I can stop them with my car.”

  “No.” The senator puts a firm arm on my shoulder. “Let her go. She’ll calm down eventually.

  “We don’t even know who that driver is,” I object, but it sounds weak and idiotic.

  “Nothing will happen to her. More likely than not, they’ll drive her to the Hamptons Jitney bus. Trust me, son. She’ll be fine. She just needs a minute to get over… everything.”

  I don’t agree, but if this is what she wants, I’ll give her whatever space she needs.

  “O
kay,” I concede. “I need to get my phone from the car. I must’ve left it in there last night. Just in case she phones.” Turning, I head to my car and click the remote to open the driver side door. As I lean down to grab my phone in one of the drink holders, I notice something and smile a little.

  Isabelle just high-tailed it out of here—without the keys to her apartment.

  The Senator heads inside, and I take my phone with me back to the pool house to connect it to the charger.

  She’ll see me.

  A lot sooner than she thinks.

  17

  Isabelle

  The summer sun is still in the sky as I walk up from the subway to the exit two blocks from my midtown Manhattan apartment. It’s been almost six hours since I stormed out and left the Steele family mansion in the Hamptons.

  And I don’t regret a single minute.

  Sure, it took me close to three times longer than it would’ve if I’d borrow Mom’s car, but I’m glad I found my own way back. It would’ve been a bit less time if I’d taken a minute to plan my route. After I bummed a ride with that catering driver to the Hamptons Jitney bus, I got to the bus stop five minutes after the scheduled departure time. And as it’s a holiday weekend, the westbound buses aren’t leaving as often. I used the hour and a half of waiting time to find a public restroom, change out of the clothes that I’d slept in, wash my face, brush my teeth, and get my anger back in check. Because it was the westbound bus, it was half empty. I was able to close my eyes and stretch out for the entire ride home. I could’ve walked from Seventy-Ninth Street and Broadway, but with my not too modern suitcase—the kind you still have to angle toward you to roll—I opted against a thirty-block trek on foot and took the subway instead.

  As my building comes into view in the distance, I reach a hand into my oversized bag to fish out my keys. I left the Hamptons in such a hurry that there are loose pieces of clothing and a few bathroom items stuffed inside. Tilting my suitcase to stand on its own, I stoop to the ground, moving items aside as I search. But my keys aren’t in here.

  Shit. I pull out each piece of clothes and shake it out over the pavement, hoping the keys will fall out of one of them. That doesn’t happen, so I hang the material over my shoulder and try the next one. And the next. By now, I’m hungry as ever and hot from the heat radiating up from the sidewalk after such a hot day. I wipe my brow with one of the pieces of clothes hanging on my shoulder and swear under my breath. Maybe it’s in the suitcase?

  I stand again and look at my suitcase, fingers on my temple, shaking my head. I’m going to have to unzip it and search through everything inside. Right here out on the public road. I hope to God that there’s no media people or the paps lurking around, because the next headline might read, Political Royalty Down and Out after Rubbing Shoulders with the Hamptons One Percenters.

  Stuffing the things on my shoulder back into my bag, I try to think of where I can do this indoors. There’s a specialty coffee shop with a public restroom about four blocks from here. I can also take a chance and see if anyone is entering or leaving my building and will at least let me into the foyer.

  Deciding to take the risk, I keep walking toward my building.

  Then I freeze.

  He’s here.

  Dammit.

  Knox is sitting out on the front steps with a broad, cocky look on his smug face. He stands and lifts my house keys, and dangles it between his thumb and index finger.

  “Looking for these?” he asks, smirking like the arrogant bastard that he is.

  “I kind of hate you right now.” I try to grab it from between his fingers but he wraps his damn big hand around mine, covering it and the keys inside, and trapping me. I crane my neck up to him. I want to slap that know-it-all look right off his face. “How did you get those?”

  “No, the right response is, Thank you so much for not holding it against me that I ran off with some random guy in a catering van! I’m so happy you drove back from the Hamptons to bring me my keys, Knox!” he says, annoying me even more as he mimics my voice in falsetto.

  “Shut up.”

  “You left them in my car, pretty girl.”

  “Oh. Shit.” I press my lips into a thin line. The last thing I want to do is stop being mad at him. Thanking him is right there on the list too. So is smiling, but a part of me is feeling somewhat flattered that he drove all this way for me. “Wait, why didn’t you just text me and let me know you found these?”

  “Then I wouldn’t be standing here to see the look on your face right now,” he says, grinning. “Admit it. You had all that time to think, and you know you were wrong.”

  “Um, nope… but thank you for driving all that way so I wouldn’t end up sleeping at a shelter or something.”

  His face tenses and he lets go of my hand and the keys. “You’re welcome. Happy Fourth of July,” he says in a stiff, serious tone, and walks toward his car parked a few vehicles away.

  I didn’t expect him to give up so easily. I also didn’t think my heart would feel like the bottom dropped out when he clicks his car remote and pulls the driver side door open.

  “You don’t need to leave right away,” I shout.

  He looks at me, one foot inside the car, his hand on the top of his door. “Do you still believe I lured you to the Hamptons just to fall in line with my grandfather or not?”

  “I…well…”

  “Bye Belle,” he grunts out and jumps into the car, slamming his door.

  I hurry up the street and press my palms onto the passenger side window to get his attention. “Wait!”

  He rolls down the window. “What?”

  “Okay I apologize.”

  “Do you believe it or not?”

  “You said it was true, Knox. What am I supposed to think?”

  His jaw ticks, and the vein at his temple is pronounced, pounding hard. “You’re supposed to trust your gut, and if you can’t do that, you’re supposed to trust me. Trust us.”

  “I did! I trusted us. I believed in us. So hard. But you let ten years pass, Knox. That broke me. All that time, I didn’t know what to think.”

  “No one can turn back time. I can’t change what I did.”

  I pound against the spot over my heart. “But you’re asking me to change the broken pieces left in here. The pieces that never healed.”

  “I don’t know… I’m sorry you feel that way. Look, I’ve got to get back to my grandfather now. He doesn’t have much time.”

  “What?”

  “You would’ve found out if you stuck around as planned. He’s terminal. We maybe have a few months with him. So, if you’re intent on believing I only took you there to follow his wishes or whatever, at least understand it was for a good reason. Even if it isn’t at all why.”

  “I’m…I didn’t know…”

  “I have to go now,” he mutters, and presses the button to roll up my window. His hand covers the gear shift, and without a parting glance, he drives away.

  Shit.

  What did I just do?

  18

  Knox

  “Remind me again why you think it’s such a bad idea to be single?” I ask Pops the next day after all our guests have left.

  We’re sitting out on the balcony, looking out at the ocean. It’s back to being quiet around the house and in the neighborhood. There aren’t noises wafting in on the wind from other estates in the area either, which is normal after the long weekend.

  Pops has a glass of whiskey in one hand and his pipe in the other. He makes no apologies for his frequent indulgences, and I don’t scold him for it. The man has precious little time on this earth. He may as well enjoy his vices.

  “Because, son,” he answers as though that alone explains it all.

  “Because what?”

  He places the cigar in one side of his mouth and looks at me, and I see the glint of levity in his eyes. “Because, when you’re old and gray and weak after fighting cancer, it wouldn’t hurt to have someone special who loves you
and will be there to hold your hand in the end.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Not even a little bit?”

  “No,” I tell him.

  “I think it’s a little funny,” he retorts.

  “You think you got jokes, but I’m trying to be serious here.”

  “All right, son.”

  “And by the way, Grams passed away before Mom and Dad did, so your whole argument is shot.”

  “No,” he grunts. He shakes his head and his jaw tightens. “She fought a good fight, and I was there for her in the end.”

  “Okay I guess that’s true.”

  “Trust me, if I didn’t get stuck with this damn cancer, I’d wait around for fifty or sixty years and I’d be there to hold your hand too. That’s what a loving family does for one another. They stick around, son.”

  I feel my chest go tight at his words. I fucking love this man.

  “There’s only one person left in this world that I love,” I admit to him. “And he’s sitting right next to me.”

  He sets down his whiskey glass and puts his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t try to get me all teary-eyed, boy. Besides, that’s a lie if I ever heard one. Well, not a total lie. It’s more like an omission.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t be a damn fool,” he tells me, and gets to his feet. He starts to head inside but turns to look at me one more time. “Answer your phone before I throw it in the ocean. All that buzzing is driving me up a wall.”

  I lean to one side and pull out my phone from my back pocket. It was on silent all last night, but I turned it on vibrate a short while ago. I didn’t bother to check any messages because work emails come onto that phone too. But I also didn’t want to end up reading any from Isabelle. Not while I was still mad as fuck.

  Now that I’m somewhat calm, I unlock the screen and open the text app. A bunch of texts have come in, most of them from Isabelle.

  Can you come back so we can talk about it?

  I didn’t know about your grandfather’s illness. Let me be there for you.