House of Cards (Tech Billionaires)

by Ainsley St Claire

  Me: Have you ever been easy?

  Maggie: Are we playing Have You Ever?

  This could get interesting. My cock twitches again. Yes, very interesting.

  Me: I wasn’t but I am now.

  Me: Well?

  I force myself to wait for her answer. I don’t want to go too hard at it. I need to go slow.

  Maggie: Only with you.

  Maggie: My turn. Have you ever had sex in a car?

  She’s younger than Christopher and me, but I’m sure she heard stories when we were in school.

  Me: In high school.

  Maggie: I was only checking the rumor. Have you ever had sex with any of my friends?

  This could go the wrong way. I need to ask her questions.

  Me: In high school. My turn. Have you kissed any of my friends?

  Maggie: Nope. We all know your only friend is my brother. Eww.

  I like that she’s funny.

  Me: I have friends other than Christopher, but the idea of you kissing him does skeeve me out. Didn’t you kiss Tommy Rogers?

  She was all hot for Tommy when we were in school. Christopher heard her telling one of her friends she was planning on losing her virginity to him. We put a stop to that.

  Maggie: He flirted with me, and you and Christopher beat the crap out of him. No other guy would look twice at me after that. You are personally responsible for my lack of experience with boys in high school.

  That makes me feel a little proud.

  Me: I’ll happily take that. How old were you when you lost your virginity?

  Maggie: Doesn’t matter. We all know when you did. All the girls used to talk about you and Christopher. I think they did it to make sure I knew.

  Me: Most of them were lying. I’ll keep asking until you tell me.

  Maggie: When was the first time you had sex with two girls?

  This was a huge lie when we were in high school.

  Me: I did not have sex with Christy Hansen and Jennifer Duval together.

  Maggie: Okay.

  Again, I need to shift this back to her.

  Me: Do you masturbate?

  Maggie: Of course. Masturbation’s very natural you know.

  I think back to her luscious body and my hands running all over it. My cock is hard in my gym shorts.

  Me: Have you ever performed for someone?

  Maggie: Don’t you remember? I’m pretty shy. No performing.

  She was a little shy, but so beautiful. She should be proud of her body.

  Me: You’ve got a beautiful body.

  Maggie: That’s not what my mother tells me.

  Her mother is a critical bitch, and I hate what she does to Maggie.

  Me: Forget your mother. You’ve got great curves and amazing soft white tits with sweet little pink nipples. You’re stunning naked and with clothes. I’m getting hard just thinking about when we were together.

  Maggie: Have you ever considered body piercings?

  Me: Who says I don’t have one?

  Maggie: I must have missed your Prince Albert.

  The image alone makes my cock hurt, and the idea of getting the head of it pierced makes me shrink. Is that what she wants? She didn’t strike me as kinky, but I could like kink.

  Me: Would it turn you on to have a piece of metal rubbing up and down your g-spot while fucking me?

  Maggie: xyaigh

  Me: What does that mean?

  Me: Answer the question.

  Maggie: I’m busy.

  It takes her a minute to respond. There’s a two-hour time difference, so it’s quite late where she is.

  Me: Are you alone?

  Maggie: Hold

  Me: ???

  It takes a few minutes. Did I get her in trouble with her mother?

  Maggie: I got so excited I had to take care of myself.

  Me: Are you fucking with me?

  Maggie: No, but I wish.

  My cock aches, and I want to put it inside her so badly right now.

  Me: When can I see you?

  Nothing.

  Me: Will you come back to Vegas and visit me?

  Maggie: I can’t. It wouldn’t be a good idea. I’m getting married.

  Me: What can I do to stop this?

  Maggie: You can’t.

  I can’t take it anymore, so I call her. It rings four times before she answers. I begin to wonder if she isn’t alone.

  “Hello?”

  “Let’s sit down with Christopher and Stevie. We can fix this. Please. I beg you. Don’t marry Alex.”

  She’s quiet for a few moments. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, and the phone line goes dead.

  ******

  In the morning, it suddenly comes to me during my meeting. Christopher is right. I need to go to Maggie. I need to get to Minneapolis to see Maggie and have a conversation. It’s important that she understands how I feel and that I need her in my life. Maybe that will give her the strength to fight this situation.

  Suddenly I’m more assured and determined than I’ve ever been. Now I need to figure out when I can get out of here.

  When the meeting concludes, I zip back to my office before meeting Christopher for golf, and log in to check the manifest for the hotel’s private jet—it’s in the clear starting tomorrow. We usually use it when we need to bring in whales, but the next two we’re expecting are flying in on their own private jets. I don’t have to worry about preventing money from entering the hotel if I borrow the plane.

  I grab the phone and dial Gillian. “Hey, I’d like to go home for a few days. The plane looks free tomorrow. Does it have anything going I don’t know about?”

  “No, but if you fly out, I may be able to talk someone I’ve been working on into coming back with you for a few days. Is everything okay with your parents?”

  “Yes, I just need to take care of something, and it’s better to do it in person.”

  “No problem,” she assures me. “Will we see you today?”

  “Of course. I’ll stop by later before the tournament starts again. I’m playing golf this morning with Christopher.”

  “No problem. Be sure to hit them long and straight.”

  Chapter 10

  Maggie

  On Sunday, after a reasonably leisurely morning, I sit in a café, in the back, drinking a nice cool glass of pinot grigio and waiting for Alex. I keep thinking about my conversation with Jonnie. It killed me to hang up on him, and talking to him just reminds me what I’m never going to have. I cried myself to sleep last night. My eyes are dry, and my throat is sore today.

  Alex enters the café and heads my direction. He kisses me on the cheek with a grin that reaches from ear to ear.

  “Hello, my lovely. I just left Charles.” He sits down and leans in. “He was amazing last night.”

  I force a smile and take a deep pull on my wine. Normally these comments don’t bother me—Alex is who he is—but right now they sting. This doesn’t seem nearly as hard on him as it is on me.

  He looks at me with a wrinkle in his brow. “What’s wrong?”

  I look away. I’m not sure hashing this out with him is going to make me feel any better. I just don’t think he gets it. No one does.

  “We’ve been best friends forever,” he prods. “Don’t start holding out on me now.”

  I fight the tears I can feel behind my eyes. “As much as I care about you, the thought of marrying you makes me sad,” I tell him. “And I don’t feel like our upcoming wedding is upsetting to you in the same way it is me. That makes me feel really alone.”

  He sighs, and when I look over at him, his expression is unreadable.

  “I understand you and Charles are tight, and that’s certainly fine,” I tell him. “But if I marry you, I don’t think I’m ever going to have something like that in my life.”

  He shrugs, picking at a packet of sugar on the table. “I’ve told you you’ll be free to live your life as you see fit. This is a business arrangement. We both know that. But it just has to happen. I
’ll help you any way I can.” He sighs again. “We can move into my family home. My mother is essentially living down in Boca, and once the business moves over to us, my dad may join her.”

  “What about Charles?” I ask.

  “What we do in our house is up to us.” He says it so simply, as if it actually were true. “Our parents lead separate lives. I guess I expect us to do the same, but at least be friends.”

  I sigh. “I want more than friendship. I want intimacy. A family unit. Love.” The tears build again, and I’m not sure I can stop them if they start.

  He shrugs. “It may not be perfect, but I won’t be stopping you from getting as close to that as you can. I love you. We’re going to get through this and put on a happy face for our families, high society, and all the vultures who are looking to pull us apart. This will all work out fine. I promise.”

  He squeezes me tight, and the waitress puts down another glass and a bottle of pinot grigio.

  “It looked like you needed this.” She winks at me, and I force a smile.

  “Thank you. You read my mind.”

  “If you want, you can even move Richard and Hazel into our house,” he says with a wave of his hand. “I know you love them. Your mother will hate the idea, but she’ll get over it. Once the business transitions, she’ll probably want to move south anyway. She’ll never miss them. Stevie and his girlfriend can move into your family home and hire their own staff.”

  At times like these, Alex drives me crazy. He can be so cavalier when it comes to these huge decisions—like these things have never occurred to him as important before.

  He also definitely underestimates my mother. I have no doubt she plans on sticking around and micromanaging me and any and all decisions I make

  “This wedding is stressing you out,” he says, shaking his head. “Leave it to your mother and the pros. Go out. Have some fun. Go get laid, for God’s sake. It’ll do your icky mood some good.”

  I give him the go-fuck-yourself-and-die look. He so does not understand anything I’m trying to explain.

  “Jesus. Okay, don’t go get laid and stay in your mood.” He throws up his hands. “We’re best friends. We love spending time together, so that isn’t an issue. I was telling Charles the other day how much fun we have.” He bats his eyelashes at me. “We’ll attend all the social events together, hold hands, play kissy face, and do our thing.”

  He acts like everything is going to be so simple. How can this be enough for him?

  “How does Charles feel about not being able to express his feelings towards you in public?”

  “He understands that our marriage is arranged and we don’t have anything to say about it—the entire charade is for legal and business reasons. He’s clear that he and I will be monogamous. He also understands that our marriage needs to look authentic, so he can’t be hanging all over me in public.” Alex scans the room and makes sure no one is eavesdropping. “Mags, it’s not like we were ever popular enough that anybody would care.”

  I take a breath. It’s hard to muster the energy to fight this. He’s obviously not going to fight it with me—or even understand why I would want to.

  “What we do behind closed doors is between us,” he reminds me again. “I’m giving you carte blanche to have affairs.”

  I rest my head in my hands for a moment. Right now Alex actually sounds like my mother. She recently told me marrying for love would be a colossal waste—and she was kind enough to point out that I wasn’t likely to have any prospects anyway. She believes my place in the family is to be married to the right person, who has the proper pedigree, and offers something to the success of the family business. Evidently that’s what Alex thinks too.

  No part of me wants to do this, but after this conversation, I’m not about to tell Alex about my situation with Jonnie. He seems all in on our marriage, which means he might go running to my mother. And nothing good could come from my mother knowing about Jonnie. She destroys everything in her path.

  ******

  After lunch, Alex drives me back to my house. My mother is waiting for us in the foyer. I drop my purse on the table and kiss her on the cheek. She lights up when she sees Alex.

  “Alex, so wonderful to see you,” she says, sounding just as fake as she does when she doesn’t mean what she says.

  They air kiss each other’s cheeks. Alex squeezes my hand and winks at me.

  “Darling, how was your lunch?” she asks.

  “It was fine. I drank too much wine, so Alex drove me home.”

  I love that her face becomes hard. She doesn’t enjoy anything in life, so excess is a completely foreign concept. I take great pride in the way she purses her lips because it will cause wrinkles.

  Alex takes this as his cue and quickly escapes.

  “What were you two up to at lunch that had you drinking so much?” Her face contorts as if she’s taken a bite of lemon. “You realize alcohol is bad for your skin and isn’t on your diet.”

  I take a deep breath and decide I can be just as bitchy as she is. It’s only proof that I got some Hudson genes from her. “We’re working out the rules of our impending nuptials.”

  She stands straight and her left eyebrow arches. “Rules? You’re married. You find a way to live as a couple. Your father and I did it, as do Alex’s parents, Jacqueline and Herbert. You’ll have babies, and the businesses will combine.”

  “Mom, you realize Alex and I have zero interest in consummating this relationship. He’s gay. It could mean I never have children,” I taunt.

  She snorts. “Nonsense. That’s just silly. He’ll change his mind.”

  “Mom, he’s not going to change his mind, and I don’t want to be stuck like you were in a loveless marriage.”

  She gets all stiff and hoity-toity. “Our relationship wasn’t loveless. Your father and I had great respect and admiration for one another. This is how we do things and how we protect the family legacy.”

  I have just enough liquid courage to be brutally honest with her. “Mom, there has to be another way. I don’t want to do this.”

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  “I’m over eighteen. You bet your ass I have a choice. And while Alex may be resigned to this sham of a wedding, I’m not.”

  She takes a big breath, and I’m ready to be verbally bludgeoned. I watch her figure out how to make me do something I don’t want to do.

  “You love Alex, and this is essential for the future of Reinhardt’s,” she tells me.

  “I do love him, but not as a husband. I love him like I love Christopher and Stevie. The business will go on without a family member chairing the board for the time being, and without Elite. We could fight that marriage clause in the will, and then I’d be happy to do the job.” I take a deep breath. “You need to cancel the wedding unless you plan on being embarrassed in front of all your society friends. I won’t be showing up.”

  I turn and walk upstairs to my room. I lie on my bed with a bottle of water from the mini fridge. I wish I could be this honest with her all the time. It’s quite a strange feeling, actually. She makes it so hard to tolerate her. Now I need to prepare for the fallout.

  ******

  When I wake Monday morning, I find a manila envelope under my door. My mother’s passive-aggressive way to confirm my participation in this wedding is inside the envelope, and it turns my stomach.

  “Bitch,” I say out loud, but only the spiders hiding in the corners of my room hear.

  I make myself a coffee and sit down to read through the documents.

  The largest stack is my father’s will. It was read to us when he died, so there are no surprises. The fact that he gave a quarter of his estate to his secretary, Nancy, and a quarter to each of his children was a bit shocking originally, but I’ve since realized Nancy was my father’s soul mate and love of his life. She wasn’t just an affair. It makes me wish I’d gotten to know their son, Murphy, better. But he died a few years ago—or at least we were told he did.
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br />   My mother has taken the liberty of highlighting the portions of the will that stipulate that the company must be managed by a married heir to my father. Otherwise, the company must be liquidated, including the Reinhardt Foundation.

  Next is a promissory note that indicates a significant loan from the Foundation to Herbert Walker, Alex’s dad, which is completely illegal and could send me to jail. The document has my signature, but anyone can tell it’s a forgery. At least I hope they can. Really, Mother? This is the most troubling item so far.

  Underneath this is a second stack of promissory notes, each signed by Alex for withdrawals against his inheritance. He’s mentioned his financial troubles before, but I didn’t think it was anything like this. Thumbing through the stack, it seems the totals are well over a million dollars. What is he doing with all this money? I flip through again, and the signatures look authentic. Mine was forged, though, so who knows. Is this really your signature, Alex? I can’t imagine a conversation with him about this will go well. And I guess this is supposed to make me feel guilty about leaving him financially destitute if we don’t marry. But I’m not sure it’s having that effect.

  I don’t know what to think right now.

  I read everything again, stuff it back in the envelope, and feel even angrier about this situation. I fucking hate my mother. And I’m pissed at my dad, who could have taken out the marriage provision before he died, but he didn’t. He knew my passion was running the Foundation. Why doesn’t anyone ever consider Stevie to run the company? Okay, actually I know why. He skipped college in favor of spending his inheritance, and he was high for probably the entire time he lived in Hawaii. Not great qualifications for running a corporation. I scream out my frustration to no one in particular.