Vanessa knew she needed to get some sleep. Tomorrow she’d have to miss another shift to take Emma to an emergency doctor’s appointment, one set up at the very last minute to assess the progression of her epilepsy. Emma’s condition sat wobbling on a threshold of increasing severity. Her health was declining rapidly in the wake of her parents’ death. A mental torment that only Vanessa could understand was rippling through Emma, causing her to seize twice as often, and at seemingly nothing. No trigger could be found, no cause could be located. One minute Emma was a normal six-year-old girl, drawing on the floor and wiping stray hairs from her face. The next Vanessa would see her trembling, unable to control her spasms, jerking and rolling.
The slow fade of Emma’s decline unleashed distressing variables into an already complicated equation for Vanessa, but there was a silver lining among the clouds that hung over their future: if Emma’s epilepsy could be proven by her doctor to be a significant financial hardship, Vanessa could apply for a government-funded grant which would pay for all of Emma’s medical care going forward. In the wake of what felt like insurmountable tragedy, this was a glimpse of hope that Vanessa couldn’t afford to let pass them by. She needed that help—in the wake of all that had happened, Vanessa could feel with every cell in her body, every firing of her synapses that finally, truly, some good luck was on the way.
She got to work washing dishes, scrubbing the waterlogged bits of baked brownie from the glass pan that her mother would always use for green bean casserole. Vanessa’s mind was dotted with the memories of Thanksgivings and Christmases, intimate family gatherings with home-cooked meals and laughs by lamplight. She still smelled her mother’s hairspray, still whiffed her father’s aftershave lotion. Despite the fact that Emma tore the house to pieces every day—astounding Vanessa with just how much mess such a small person could make—the house where they both spent their childhoods felt hollow, scooped-out. Without their parents, it was nothing more than a cracked shell of misfortune, a temporary shelter until the debts finally and inevitably swallowed her whole.
Chapter 3
Aaron Ridley was standing in a patch of sun as it stretched across the drab, gray carpet of his office. He had only just been awoken from a morning nap by Desiree, his secretary. For some reason, the mug of coffee she’d made for him when he arrived at the office didn’t seem to do the trick for his energy levels. His hands were lodged firmly in his pockets now, and he stood by the window as the sun rays danced along the tanned, caramel hue of his skin. He loomed over most people with his imposing six-foot, two-inch frame, intimidating most new acquaintances with a blend of his authoritative role in his father’s company, his laundry list of credentials, and his smooth croon like a pebble dragging across gravel. But before anyone had the clearance to reach that level of familiarity, they had to bolt through the barriers of his eyes: two sharp and sunlit lakes, glimmering at everyone who glanced his way.
Men found Aaron daunting and dispiriting, while women found him mysterious and irresistible. Aaron found most everyone—regardless of gender—to be weak-willed and uninspiring. Though he’d grown up in a whirlwind of unspeakable privilege as the son of a wildly successful businessman, Aaron always longed for a simpler life; for the raw grit of reality. Wealth felt plastic to him, as if life itself were counterfeit. He felt as though if something could be bought, it wasn’t real in the first place. Everything Aaron ever had was purchased with his father’s success, his family name, or the company card. His whole life felt manufactured, acquired by artificial sources of engineered authenticity.
Aaron thought of Charlie, his father, languishing at home, fed at intervals by a team of hospice nurses. Something had overtaken Charlie in recent months, bubbled up within him with increasing severity. Some poison had swallowed his body, rendering him mostly useless. Doctors couldn’t explain Charlie’s illness, so Aaron took over his father’s company as acting CEO. He’d always worked for Kümertech, but only in the shadows. Mr. Lee had always been Charlie’s right hand, his Vice President and clear successor at some point in the unsketched, foggy future. And yet, Charlie began to groom Aaron to take over, which he did rather reluctantly, as an only child not wanting to disappoint his father.
Today Aaron faced an impasse. The company his father built—the company that gilded Aaron’s childhood with prosperity—was tanking with unprecedented ferocity. Stocks were deflating, investors were pulling out. The company itself seemed to be imploding for reasons that Aaron couldn’t bear to accept. Staring out the window, watching the ordinary people walk on the pavement below, Aaron envied them their humdrum lives and their money problems. He’d never worried about the balance in his bank account in his life, but with that security came a certain blasé, waxy mindset. Aaron felt like he’d missed out on something, some subset of emotional intelligence that came along with day-to-day struggle. Today was the first time Aaron would have a quarterly meeting without his father’s attendance. At today’s meeting with the investors, he had a prime opportunity to undo it all, to join the ranks of the regular people, to collapse his company and start fresh in a life he’d always wanted.
Desiree cleared her throat and tapped a red-soled pump behind him. Aaron turned, not realizing she’d slipped into his office as he drifted off in his daydreaming.
“You’re already five minutes late to the pre-meeting briefing,” she barked, her cleavage trembling with every move she made. “Mr. Lee is getting into one of his moods again.”
Aaron stared at Desiree blankly, wondering why she insisted on dressing that way. She was a gorgeous woman, but she laid on this shellac of sex appeal that was almost blinding. She, just like everything else in his life, was so unnaturally manufactured.
“Okay,” he replied, his tone lackluster and bored. Sighing, he took a step toward the door, rubbing a spot on his thigh with his left hand. Under his slacks, an irritation kept pinging Aaron with nips of pain, stemming from a wound he wasn't sure how he wound up with in the first place. He winced as he patted the spot on his thigh, sparking concern on Desiree’s face. He ignored her, motioning that he’d exit the office after she did.
“Hey, Desiree,” he said lightly. “Was the coffee you made this morning decaf, by any chance?”
“Oh,” she replied, taken aback. “I’m so sorry. Mr. Lee made that pot of coffee just before I walked in. Only one cup left. I just brought it to you...I had no idea it might have been decaf, sir.”
“That’s okay,” Aaron said back to her. “Can you do me a favor and make some fresh coffee? I’ll need it after this meeting.”
“Of course, Mr. Ridley.”
Desiree was walking fast, click-clacking along the tile with her designer pumps and sashaying in her vacuum-packed dress. Aaron looked at her not with lust, but rather with confusion. Didn’t that hurt? Wouldn't it be uncomfortable to be so sucked in, so compressed?
Too lost in the fogginess of the day that loomed before him, Aaron nearly smashed right into Desiree in front of him as she gasped in disgust, her body dripping with a milky brown syrup. A girl kneeled on the floor picking up spilled lettuce leaves and tomato slices, mopping up excess salad dressing with her hands. She was wearing a uniform from Reynold’s—the restaurant that usually catered meetings with investors. Her sneakers were skidding across the floor as she jerked to clean her mess as quickly as possible. A visor covered her down-turned face.
Aaron moved Desiree aside and knelt down beside the girl. She refused to stop moving or meet his gaze.
“Hey,” he said, resting a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m so sorry,” she stammered, jolting from one movement to another, trying to erase her idiotic mistake.
“Hey,” Aaron whispered, smiling. “Hey, there’s nothing to be sorry about. Accidents happen. You don’t have to do this,” he assured the girl, who moved like a frightened rabbit in captivity. “We have custodians on staff for this.”
The girl looked up at Desiree, whose eyes were burning into the top of her head with fury.
“You should really watch where you’re going,” Desiree snapped, reluctantly wiping her hands down her torso. “I hope you know that I’ll be sending an invoice to your manager for the cost of this dress. You’ve ruined it.”
“Desiree,” Aaron whispered, helping the girl to her feet. “There’s no need for that.” He was calm, his kindness balanced out the hatred that rang through Desiree’s voice and down the hall, reverberating around them in torrid tension.
“But this is a designer dress, Aaron!” Desiree protested. “What, do you think I’m made of money?! Someone has to cover this damage. There’s no such thing as a—”
“Desiree,” Aaron said sharply, interrupting her. His eyes were cutting through her, exposing her to the clot of onlookers as the shrill bitch she was framing herself to be. Aaron raised his eyebrows as if he were speaking to a small child and said in a measured tone, “It was an accident. Now if you feel uncomfortable about the stain on your dress, you’re welcome to go home and change. I don’t want to hear another word about this from you. Are we clear?”
Mortified, Desiree nodded and quickly clomped away, hanging her head. An older man in his late fifties poked his head out from a doorway to survey the commotion. “Aaron,” he bellowed down the hallway. “What are you doing? It’s time for the briefing!”
Aaron stared at the man for about ten piercing seconds. His blue eyes shot down the hallway, freezing the man with a laser beam of indifference. “I’ll be right there,” Aaron said, only slightly raising his voice. He was cool, totally free of worry or strife. “Have I met you?” He asked the girl, turning to face her. “Have you delivered to us before?”
“No,” she said, looking down at her untied shoelace, at the mess it made. “They, uh… they just put me on delivery for this week. The girl who normally delivers is out on jury duty.”
“I see,” Aaron said, taking his billfold from his back pocket. “What do we owe you?”
“Oh, sir, I can’t take your money. I dropped everything,” the girl said with panicked eyes.
“Well, that’s honorable of you,” Aaron said, slipping two hundred-dollar notes into her shirt pocket. “…but I insist.”
Unsure of how to handle the situation, the girl sighed, radiating nervousness. Finally she turned her face upwards to return his gaze and found herself visibly stirred, caught in the rising tide of the ocean in his eyes.
“What’s your name?” Aaron asked, smiling.
“Vanessa,” she replied, in a trance.
Chapter 4
The interaction was on repeat in Vanessa’s mind—reeling and rewinding, flashing back and forth in time. How could she have been so stupid? Why didn’t she check that her shoes were tied before she walked in? And more to the point, why was her shoe untied, anyway? Never in her life had that happened to her, the knot coming apart as she walked. Why then? Why at that time?
Vanessa couldn’t get him out of her head: that stunning man, his kindness, his quiet and smoldering sex appeal. It was disgraceful enough to have ruined that woman’s dress, but to make such a mistake in front of such a powerhouse of a man? The ordeal felt to Vanessa like a mosquito bite: painful and irritating, yet unable to leave alone.
Anxiety drummed through her when she thought about what she’d tell her boss. She was already on thin ice at work. Her personal life had spilled over into her performance on the job on numerous occasions, and Vanessa could feel the patience of her managers slipping more and more every shift. Each walk across the parking lot to the restaurant felt like she was walking to her own execution. How could she tell her supervisor that she’d dropped the entire tray of food to be delivered? That she’d spilled salad dressing all over a woman’s dress? And then, worst of all, that the CEO of the company gave her money for this blunder?
These were where her thoughts went—wild and torrential, unable to be contained—on the bus ride back to the restaurant from her delivery. She took the longer route, the one with a few different transfers, just to elongate her shift, to make this leisurely time of midday privacy bend in the light. Vanessa could feel the stress humming through her, but she simply had to sigh and put her fears to bed. It’s counterproductive to worry, she told herself. You already have so many things to worry about. Don’t add another one to the list.
Today was just a short shift anyway. Her sister’s appointment was at two o’clock in the afternoon, and Vanessa needed time to take the bus across town, pick Emma up early from kindergarten, and take the bus in another direction across the suburb to the doctor’s office. What should be a fifteen-minute drive turns into a two-hour debacle of transfers, waiting times, and constant stops. This is life without a car: it feels like you’re always in transit, but getting there is a sluggish lurch through time.
To make the appointment on time, Vanessa would have to leave work by noon. It was 11:45 now, and the bus was nearing the restaurant. Just 15 more minutes, Vanessa told herself. Just 15 minutes, and then it’ll be over until tomorrow. The time will fly. It wasn’t that the job itself was difficult, or even completely unenjoyable, for that matter. It was the people. Vanessa’s co-workers were harsh and unfriendly, closed-off and uninviting. They looked at her as if she had a disease, as if they’d catch some sort of plague just by breathing the same air. Her manager, too, was draconian and exacting—always chiding Vanessa on even the smallest slipups. She didn’t belong there. She knew it, her co-workers knew it, her boss knew it. And yet, Vanessa couldn’t afford to quit, and the manager couldn’t find a valid enough reason to fire her.
Vanessa walked back into work, puffed up by the miniature pep talk she gave herself on the bus. It was 11:55 now. All Vanessa had to do was walk in the restaurant, piddle with something for a few minutes to look busy, then leave. Only five minutes, she thought again to herself, walking across the foyer and through the dining room of the restaurant, where she was immediately face-to-face with her manager, a hard-faced, stern-looking woman named Christina. “Come to the office,” Christina quipped, shooting daggers of anxiety through Vanessa. What was happening? Was she in trouble? Christina couldn’t have possibly known about the delivery. There’s no way. Fear flitted through Vanessa’s mind as she followed wordlessly into the office behind Christina, awaiting whatever axe was about to swing down on her.
“I just got a call from a woman named Desiree,” Christina said sharply after closing the door to the broom-closet-turned-office-space in the back corner of the restaurant. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
The clock was ticking on the wall behind Christina, the hands dancing with each other in the solid and unending march of time. Vanessa needed to leave in exactly one minute. Tension gripped her. What if she couldn’t get out of work in time? If she missed even one bus connection, the entire afternoon would be ruined. Emma’s doctors were clear about their schedules: no latecomers to any appointment. If Vanessa couldn’t get Emma to her appointment on time, it would be canceled and rescheduled for weeks in the future. Everything hinged on this moment, on Vanessa being able to leave work, catch her buses, and get Emma to the doctor for her evaluation. That was all that mattered.
“Do you have anything you want to tell me?” Christina demanded.
Vanessa gulped, glaring at the clock behind her manager. “No,” she said, deciding that whatever punishment she received was going to have to happen. She could only stand here for thirty-seven more seconds until it was too late. Vanessa didn’t care if Christina yelled at her, gave her an undesirable shift, cut her hours, or wrote her up. None of that mattered. Only Emma mattered. Only this evaluation.
Christina sighed. “Are you sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?”
Vanessa glared at her, willing the time to stop. “Christina, there’s nothing to say. The delivery went fine. I don’t know who this Desiree person is. I don’t know what she told you that makes you think I did something, but you’ve got to believe me.”
Christina locked eyes with Vanessa, sighing again. “You’re lying to me,” s
he sliced through the air with a voice like razor blades. “Desiree is the personal secretary to the CEO of Kümertech. That’s our largest and most loyal customer. Do you know how many years we’ve been delivering to them?” Christina shouted at Vanessa, who watched in horror as the clock struck 12:01.
“No, but Christina, you’ve got to believe me,” Vanessa stammered, noting each passing second with agony. “Whatever she said I did, she’s lying!”
“She wouldn’t lie to us. She’s been ordering catering from us for four years,” Christina snapped back, getting in Vanessa’s face. “You, however, have only been working here for a few months. I never should have hired you. You’re lazy, you’re inconsistent with your work, your mind is always elsewhere. You’re always asking to leave early, and you never work the night shift. What good are you? What else could be so important to you? Why even have a job if you’re not going to give it your all?”
Vanessa held back tears. She never wanted to tell her manager about the untimely death of her parents, that she’d had to care for Emma, that she dropped out of law school to work in a restaurant because it was her only choice. Vanessa didn’t want the pity. She didn’t want the scarlet letter of weakness. She didn’t want to be The Girl With The Dead Parents. And yet, the pressure mounted up around her; suffocating her with the vapor of demand in everyday life. One day, in a swirl of tension, she cracked. The truth came bleeding out, confession by confession, to her manager’s face. Christina glazed over with nonchalant indifference.
Today, and every day since she’d revealed her plights to her manager, there was no winning in Vanessa’s situation. She’d either be the girl everyone pitied, or the girl everyone considered lazy.
Unwrapped by The Billionaire Page 28