Shopping for a CEO's Wife (Shopping for a Billionaire Book 12)

by Julia Kent

  Anger has a purpose.

  My anger gets a voice, too.

  Except Andrew isn’t who I should be yelling at. He knows it, I know it, and thank goodness we’re so bonded that I have the freedom to take out my anger on the man who deserves it.

  Every last drop.

  “YOU did this!” I shout, pointing at James, who reels back in surprise, jaw set, nostrils flaring. My face imitates his, the muscles unsure how to handle the surge of unfamiliar emotion in me. “You chased us all down with your stupid plan to turn the most emotional day of my life into something you could exploit! You’re nothing but a greedy user of hearts. My mother is hooked up to machines and tubes and is in a hospital bed talking about turning her dog into my flower girl because of you!”

  James waves me off like I’m a gadfly, his attention back to my mother. It’s as if I didn’t scream at him. As if being the object of so much fury is commonplace for him.

  Either that, or he has no emotional core. None at all.

  “We cleared this up already. I didn’t go to the press about your miscreant father.” As if that is the issue.

  “No, you didn’t – and I do believe you, only out of respect for Andrew – but you started the three-ring circus that got them to dig up my connection to him!”

  He ignores me. “Pam, surely this is just the drugs talking. You find me attractive! What’s not to like? I’m wealthy. Good looking. Smart. Good with dogs.”

  “So humble,” Mom mutters, eyelashes fluttering. The beep of her heart monitor goes up radically, suddenly, Mom’s shoulders dropping in a gesture of exhaustion.

  “HEY!” I grab James by the shoulder and get in his face. Most of my life is spent living as if everything below my neck is just an extra part of me until it needs to be engaged by sex or exercise, but right now, the inverse is true. I am all body, all muscle, all instinct and impulse. “This isn’t a joke!”

  “I’m not joking.” He looks at my hand on his shoulder, then right at me, making it clear my physical intrusion into his body’s space is unwelcome.

  Oh yeah? Tough shit.

  “Your arrogance is breathtaking! You think you can just control everyone around you because you want every part of your life to be your way.”

  “That’s called power, my dear.” Can voices pat your head? That one just did.

  “Don’t,” I snap.

  Andrew crosses his arms over his chest, chin jutting up, watching us. I owe him an enormous apology for screaming at him, and yet I know I’m already forgiven.

  That’s real love.

  Half of me wants him to rescue me, to take over the monumental task of yelling at James until he breaks.

  The other half mentally wills him to stand back. I got this. It’s all on me.

  “Don’t what?” James makes an annoyed face, as if he found mayo on his sandwich instead of mustard. Not as if he’s being confronted by his future daughter-in-law in the most explosive of ways.

  “Don’t think you’re going to win this one.” Each word comes out of me like a gunshot.

  That gets to him.

  James has this imperious look to him, an outer shell that is thick as granite. People move through space and time with a fluidity, all wave and particle, unconsciously working in more than one dimension to conduct business, raise children, experience pleasure and pain, to just be.

  My future father-in-law has a rougher edge to him than most. Spine straight, movements deliberate, his eagle eye and battle-hardened stance make him a frightening person.

  To me.

  Until now.

  “You think I won’t win.” He’s not asking.

  “I think you need to leave. Now.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Then I’ll have the staff kick you out. I’m Mom’s next of kin. You’re causing actual physical damage to her by being present.” You know the phrase ‘blood runs cold’? I understand it now. Fully. I’m an icicle, cold steel, vibrating at a low frequency that could go on forever.

  “I’ll do no such thing. Pam, tell your daughter that -- ”

  Mom’s asleep. Or pretending to be. Either way, her eyes are closed and she doesn’t react to James, who turns away from me and settles into a chair, crossing his legs as if he has all the time in the world.

  Andrew looks at me. I intentionally avoid his eyes. If I look at him, I’ll weaken. I’ll capitulate and hand it all over to him, and then where will I be?

  “Get. The. Hell. Out. Of. My. Mother’s. Room. Or. I. Will. Physically. Remove. You.”

  Click! Flash!

  I don’t flinch, the flashbulbs going off through the tiny window in the door to Mom’s room. Here come the paparazzi, ready for more pictures of the miscreant’s daughter.

  My skin is rising up, up, up, as if helium runs through my veins, replacing the ice cold blood there just moments ago. James’ eyelids flicker, opening wide for a split second, then settling into his cultured, bored look. This is how he handles conflict, then. By forcing himself to go quiet. Calm. Like Declan. I see the similarities now. It’s not an act.

  It’s a coping strategy.

  James sighs and gives me a tight, tortured grin, darting his gaze to the door. “Imagine the publicity.”

  In an instant, I understand the term ‘crime of passion.’ I can visualize why people kill in a heightened state of emotionality. Nothing else can fix this. James will never change. No amount of bending to him will ever get me what I need. He is unbreakable. Inflexible and unyielding, a man who expects the world to change for him.

  It’s time for me to try out how that feels.

  “Leave.” Andrew’s single word cuts through the air. “Leave now, Dad.”

  “I’ll leave when Pam tells me to leave.”

  “I’ll have you removed from the board of directors of Anterdec if you don’t get out this second.”

  Ah, currency.

  “You’ll what?”

  “I have the votes. And once the videotape of this little incident falls into the hands of anyone on the board who wavers, you’ll be painted as a liability to the corporation. It’s simple, Dad. Amanda is right.”

  “Do you realize the kind of damage a corporate coup like that could do to our stock price?” James barks in outrage.

  “James,” Mom says with disgust, “can you imagine how hard it is for Andrew to even consider taking such measures against his own father? Are you so conceited that you can’t see what you’re doing to everyone around you?”

  I can see it, the split second where two James live in the same flesh bag of bones, where his face divides into two separate personalities, one demanding and dismissive, the other perplexed by his crazy self-centeredness. It’s both terrifying and refreshing, because over and over, the jerk inside him seems to prevail.

  Because it works.

  “Don’t think you’re going to win this one,” Andrew and I say in unison. Our breath comes in tandem, too, the feeling expansive, as if he’s touching me. He’s across the room. We don’t have to look at each other. We’re as connected as if we were bonded skin to skin, bone to bone, heart to heart. His blood runs through me and mine through him.

  We are one flesh.

  And we’re going to win.

  James stands, slowly, a flash going off in the hallway outside, voices rising in argument.

  Mom’s eyes open, her mouth moving as she swallows, throat long and elegant, swan-like, as she turns to look at James.

  “Pam,” he says, a kaleidoscope of emotions rotating through his eyes.

  “Listen to them, James. For once in your life, listen to someone else’s wishes.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said you’re not my type.” Mom closes her eyes, but just as her lids meet, she glances at me and Andrew. “This is exactly why. I don’t find you attractive because deep down, you care so little for what others want. You’re not the only person in the world with feelings and desires, hopes and mental images of the future. We all have that insid
e us. Each of us is different.” The words seem to drain her.

  “Mom.” I walk to her, touching the hand that doesn’t have IVs in it. “Please. Don’t waste your energy. He’s not worth it.”

  “That’s what my mother said about Leo,” Mom says, her chest rising like a fist in the air as she lets out a huff. “‘He’s not worth it.’”

  James turns the color of ash.

  “I told you, James. I told you that all this craziness made you just like Marie. You are two peas in a pod.”

  Andrew pales at the comparison, looking at me for confirmation that my mother’s words don’t make sense.

  I don’t give him what he seeks.

  “I’m nothing like that crazy woman,” James argues.

  “You both treat your children like pieces in a game that you can arrange to win some contest you’re too foolish to realize no one else is playing.”

  The doctor walks in, flanked by two black-uniformed security officers.

  “She’s right, Dad.” Andrew nods at the security officers, who I realize are with Anterdec. James notices, too, face reddening with emotion.

  Andrew catches my eyes, face grave and tense. A thousand words flow between us, fueled by layers of past injuries, present-day adrenaline, too many months of empty batteries and energy spent managing the consequences of James’ demands.

  In that space between us, all I need to do is blink. Nod. Acquiesce and ask I’m to take over. He’s already made his threat and I know he’ll make good on it.

  The final move in this painful endgame, though, must be mine. Andrew is strong enough to see it, secure enough to stand back and let me make it, mature enough to cheer me on quietly.

  And protective enough to be at the ready should I need him.

  “Call it all off,” I order James. “Every bit of it. All the video crews, the photographers, the chasing. You’ve put my mother in the hospital. The stress of this carnival of attention has destroyed the specialness at the core. Andrew and I are in love. We’re getting married because we want to build a life together. And you’re trying to manipulate that as if it’s your personal chess game.”

  “As if we’re pawns and you’re the king,” Andrew adds.

  “But I’m about to change the game,” I announce, moving to the door, realizing that while I can’t make James leave, I can do one better.

  “How’s that?” James asks.

  “If you won’t call off the media bloodhounds, then I’m done.”

  “Done?”

  On second thought, why make it all conditional? I can state what I want just because I want it. No one else has to validate my volition.

  “Actually, I am done. No more ifs.”

  I look at Andrew, who nods, knowing what I’m about to say.

  I fling open the door. In a loud voice that carries, I look James in the eye, seeing contempt and condescension, fear and regret, all the emotions he can’t put words to because he has no choice. He has to hide behind that shell. It’s all he knows.

  I have a shell, too. But I don’t want to be stuck in it forever, so I need to shed it and allow the cold air and sunlight to hurt my sensitive, weeping skin.

  “The wedding’s off.”

  Checkmate.

  Chapter 16

  No one changes the world by obeying.

  Andrew’s called me into his office for an emergency meeting with Gina and Katie, the wedding planner, who is practically in tears as we explain that we’re not having a wedding after all.

  “You’re calling off the engagement?” she asks, as if we’re Mommy and Daddy and we’re explaining that we love her very much, but sometimes mommies and daddies don’t love each other anymore.

  “No.”

  “Then you are getting married!”

  “Yes.”

  “So you have to have a wedding.”

  “No.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “We’re eloping.”

  “You don’t announce elopements! You just do them!” Gina’s pronouncement drips with contempt. “If you announce it, it’s not a surprise.”

  “We. Don’t. Care,” I stress. “We’re going to wait until all the paparazzi craziness calms down, and then go run off and get married in private.”

  “No ceremony and reception at Farmington for fifteen hundred?” Katie asks, looking at an app on her smartphone.

  “No.”

  She taps the screen.

  “No three hundred doves to be released as you have your first kiss as man and wife?”

  “No.”

  Tap.

  “No horse-drawn carriage and Austen-themed bridesmaids’ dresses?”

  I give Gina a sharp look.

  She shrugs. “We were going for consistency with Mr. McCormick’s unorthodox proposal.”

  “This is what was going on behind the scenes while I was trying to get my mother to help me?”

  Andrew and Gina share a look that says yes. “If Pam wasn’t going to participate, we decided that the experts should take over for an event this important. If it were a fifteen-hundred-person conference, we wouldn’t leave it to chance.”

  “But it was my wedding.”

  “You told Katie to do whatever she wanted,” Andrew reminds me. “And it was a wedding you didn’t want.”

  Fair enough.

  “But the video of James proposing to Pam and of you screaming at him is now up to three million views on YouTube! Someone connected you to the Chihuahua hawk rescue from last year, and a grainy video of you fighting with Jessica Coffin in a Turkish restaurant just makes you a viral star! We can’t waste all this perfect fame now.”

  “Perfect fame,” I repeat.

  “Yes! Social media celebrity is tenuous. Remember Chewbacca Mask Mom? Where is she now?”

  Andrew looks at me and mouths, Chewbacca? Then he looks at his lap.

  “See? You don’t know. No one knows. That’s because no one cares anymore. Her celebrity spiked and dropped. Yours is spiking.”

  “I don’t care about the drop.”

  She inhales sharply in horror.

  “You want it all canceled?” Katie confirms, pleading with big, round eyes that beg me to say the opposite. “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Every bit of the wedding?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even the after-wedding photo shoot? We have pyrotechnicians scheduled and everything for when you set the wedding dress on fire and run into the ocean to douse it.”

  “That’s a thing?”

  “Very trendy. Same with bungee-jumping pictures of the two of you kissing as you go down.”

  “Already do that,” Andrew mutters.

  I kick him.

  “Does your father know you’re canceling everything?” Katie asks Andrew, one eye twitching. She’s terrified to ask, unsure who to be more afraid of – Andrew or James.

  Too bad she doesn’t realize the answer is neither.

  “James’ opinion doesn’t matter,” I snap, giving her a cold stare. It’s so hard, because I get it. I do. I’ve been Katie. I’ve been the one in charge of a massive, complex project that falls apart in your hands, like trying to hold snow in a heat wave.

  But this is my life. My choice.

  And I don’t have to justify it to anyone but Andrew.

  Who stands, wraps his arm around my waist, and turns to Gina. “Cancel the next two hours of meetings.”

  She nods, then touches Katie’s hand. “I’m so sorry.”

  Katie begins to sniffle. Gina leads her out of Andrew’s office.

  I’m close to cracking.

  “You don’t have to have a wedding to meet anyone else’s expectations,” he assures me, rubbing my back gently.

  “I know.”

  “If nothing else, canceling it generates even more publicity.”

  “Oh, the irony.” I try not to be bitter. I fail.

  “It’s short term, though. The press will move on to the next big thing,” he reminds me, t
rying to be soothing.

  “But they’ll always be hovering. Waiting.”

  “Yes.” The finality in his tone, pulling no punches and being blunt about the truth, roots me in place. You hope when you fall in love that the new reality you carve out with the person you choose will match the inner joy that your imagination spins for you. All the dreams and projections, the what ifs and anticipations need to add up to some simple equation on the outside. Reality has to square with the internal wish.

  “Like your father. They’re just there, always doing whatever they want to forward their own agenda.”

  “I put a stop to Dad.” The gravity of his words makes a child run through me, from sole to eye socket, like an ice chip racing through my blood.

  “I know.” The apology Andrew demanded from James hasn’t come. I don’t expect it. Frankly, I don’t want the interaction at all, but I know it’s important to Andrew.

  I wish it were important to my future father-in-law, but I can’t control what he feels. Wouldn’t want to. If I did, it would make me more like him.

  “And I can do damage control on the press, but I can’t stop all of them from covering us.”

  Andrew invited me to share his world. The press is part of that, and while I can wish it away, I can’t control it. He’s a package deal, like it or not.

  But that doesn’t mean I won’t try to fix what I can.

  I take a deep breath and declare, “Then they’ll do it on my terms. Not theirs.”

  Chapter 17

  Ever since Declan and Shannon started running and expanding Grind It Fresh!, she’s hard to pin down. It’s bad enough that she and Declan are so secretive about what happened on their honeymoon, but the insult added to injury of my best friend practically ghosting on me because she’s in start-up mode leaves me feeling unsteady, adrift in a sea of wedding preparations I don’t really care about.

  Is there a wedding gene attached to the X chromosome that I’m missing? All my friends love to pick colors and food, dresses and flowers. Even Shannon seemed to enjoy most of the actual operational side of wedding planning, her mother’s interference excepted.