by Davis, Alexa
“Hello? Roy? Are you okay?”
But as Crystal answered the phone and relief flooded through me, I realized it was the best I could have hoped for. After all, no woman would want such a damaged man long term – they would have to be absolutely crazy.
“Crystal, I need you. Can you come over?”
She could tell that I was desperate; it was obvious in my voice. “I can come over until Bryan finishes school. I will see you in five.”
At least I didn’t have to be alone; at least I could have some company for the next few hours. It wouldn’t ever be enough, but it would have to do.
Chapter Six
June –Wednesday
I am going to get the interview with Roy today, no matter what happens , I thought to myself as I glanced at my reflection in the mirror.
I had been up thinking about my strategy for most of the night, and I decided to make myself look as fancy as possible to try and fit in with his rich, fancy ways. It was practically the first thing they taught you at journalism school, to make the people you were speaking to feel like you fit in with them. The second they assumed they were above you, the harder it was to get information out of them.
I just hoped that I could pull it off. “Rich girl” wasn’t exactly a look I was familiar with. For someone who was most comfortable in skinny jeans and funky tee shirts, this retro, fifties-style, red dress felt a little awkward on me. I didn’t have anything designer, so this was the closest thing that I had. It had belonged to one of the girls I went to college with. She gave it to me as we were all packing up to leave, telling me that she thought it would suit me, and for some reason, I still had it.
It did fit around my curves well, and if I could just relax, I would probably have looked okay, but I just couldn’t quite seem to manage it. I’d also tied my hair up into a complicated chignon, which was making me feel a bit awkward, too…but I had to do it. It was all for the cause, and I was determined to come back successful. I really needed to.
“Okay,” I muttered to myself in the mirror, trying to calm down my racing heart. “Just forget what you’re wearing and get out there. Talk to this man; he can’t be that scary. Get what you need and write a damn kick ass article.” But for some reason, my pep talk wasn’t quite working. I still felt a little anxious, like I didn’t have quite have it in me.
Still, at least I knew where this man lived now…that was proactive and a step in the right direction. It was better than sitting in the office on the phone at any rate. That wouldn’t get me anywhere. If this man was determined not to speak to the press, then he would never, ever chat on the phone however many times I tried. This really was the only way.
I stepped into my car, trying to ignore the self doubt coursing through my body, and I tried to focus on the task at hand instead. I wasn’t sure quite what I was going to do, only that it wouldn’t be a straightforward profile. I needed to create something that made a massive impact to make my article stand out. I wouldn’t be able to decide on how to tackle it until I spent some time with him. I hoped I would get a feel for him and his lifestyle and something would become obvious.
It didn’t take me long to get over to where Roy lived. It might have been on the outskirts of the town, but it was such a small place that it didn’t really make any difference. I didn’t feel like I had long enough to get mentally prepared at any rate. But I had to do it anyway. I didn’t get dressed up this way for nothing.
But as I slowly moved my way out of the car and started towards the building, it became obvious that I wasn’t going to have an easy time getting in to his property unless he allowed me to do so. He had an old barbwire fence surrounding the place that I could have climbed over if I wanted to, but I didn’t feel dressed for that, and a large gate with security cameras and everything at the entrance. It was almost enough to have me turning back and running away, but I couldn’t do that. I was going to have to tackle this eventually, so why not now?
My heart thundered in my chest as I slowly moved my body closer to the gate, trying to keep my professional face on. I tried to remind myself that this was the real stuff, the difficult jobs that I would be doing if I did end up going national, but unfortunately, my career so far of fluff pieces was doing nothing to help me. I needed to toughen up if I didn’t want to make a mess of things.
With a trembling hand and labored breaths, I leant forward and pressed the buzzer, expecting the CCTV camera to turn around and face me at any moment. But I waited, and waited, and nothing happened. I waited for so long that eventually, I realized that he was either ignoring me, or he wasn’t in…and neither option would help me. That made me frustrated and angry. I’d spent so long preparing myself, just to leave with nothing wasn’t how I wanted this day to go at all.
I stood there for a moment, trying to decide what a real big-time journalist would do, before making the decision to drive my car around this man’s massive expanse of land. I had no idea what I was going to find, if anything at all, but I needed to at least give it a try. I would have walked it if it wasn’t so far…and if I didn’t have on a ridiculous pair of sky high heels that I could barely even walk in. I honestly wasn’t sure what I was thinking with that one. I knew the ranch would be muddy. How did I expect to survive it, even if I did manage to get in?
I moved the car much slower down the road than when I’d been driving in, and I eventually spotted something unexpected, something that made my heart stop dead in my chest. There was a man, on Roy’s land, on a tractor, pulling fence poles out of the ground.
At first, I thought that it must be someone that he hired to do the job, but then I recalled Hailey telling me that he was constantly elusive and that no one really knew him, and it became clear that this man had to be the person I’d been looking for.
I stared in awe for a moment, drinking in his shaved head, which he kept covering up with an old, faded cowboy hat, his tight jeans, which covered an amazing, strong-looking body, and the kind aura that surrounded him.
This wasn’t what I was expecting at all, and it was safe to say that I was a little blown away. I had thought that I was coming to meet an oil baron, someone flash with cash who didn’t allow anyone in because of his greed and paranoia, but clearly, I was wrong.
Roy looked surprisingly normal, and that knocked me off my feet. I glanced down at my ridiculous outfit in disgust; this wasn’t going to work at all. I needed to be more myself if I was going to speak to him, I felt like if he saw me like this, he would instantly shut down and never speak to me again. I couldn’t see him looking this way. I need to go back and rethink my entire strategy – this wasn’t the sort of thing that I wanted to mess up just because I was impatient.
But I couldn’t leave just yet – I wanted to watch him for just a few seconds longer. I found something seriously mesmerizing about him that I couldn’t stop looking at. Not only was he totally unexpected and nothing like the stuck-up billionaire I thought he would be, but he was also the best-looking man that I’d ever laid my eyes upon. I didn’t usually have such an instant attraction to someone, especially since the nightmare fling that I had with Baz, but there was something different about this guy…something that had me intrigued.
Stop it, I suddenly warned myself, shaking my head at myself. I couldn’t start having any feelings for this man, making a complex situation even more complicated. I needed to focus on the task at hand. There wasn’t anything worse than a journalist hooking up with the story, compromising everything, and I was determined that wouldn’t be me. I was a professional through and through, and that would be the end of it.
No, what I needed to do was get back to the office and rethink everything from there.
***
“Whoa,” Mike called out in a teasing tone of voice as I stalked through the office. “What’s gotten into you? I don’t think you have ever dressed up this much, even for the Christmas party. Do you have a date or something?”
“No,” I grumbled as a reply. “I had a plan, but
it all fell apart.”
“Ooh, are you talking about Roy?” he replied, seeming to remember something important. “It’s hard to find anything out about him online unless you know where to look, so I have emailed you some links to get you started.”
I resisted the urge to snap at him and to tell him that I could have used that information before wasting my entire morning, because it felt pointless now. Instead, I raced to my desk, kicked off those stupid shoes, and logged on to find out what Mike was on about.
I clicked on the first couple of links, finding some well-buried business articles about him. They revealed that his oil company was an impressive Fortune 250 company. I knew that was a good thing and it proved just how business savvy it made him, but that wasn’t the angle that I wanted to take. I thought it would be too boring, the sort of thing that anyone could have written.
I started to feel despondent, like I was on another wild goose chase, until I spotted something a little more personal about him. However, it wasn’t something that made me feel good. “Billionaire’s Wife Loses Breast Cancer Battle . ” The article dated five and a half years ago and went into a little bit more detail about Roy’s wife and her long fight against the disease, accompanied by a picture showing him in a very private moment of grief, putting flowers on her gravesite.
Poor guy… I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to lose someone you loved. It broke my heart to even think about it, never mind go through it.
The longer I looked at the picture, the more uncomfortable I became. The image was so raw, so filled with emotion, that I could barely stand to see it. It was clearly a moment Roy didn’t want the rest of the world to see, so it probably killed him that this was out there.
No wonder he was closed off and private; no wonder he hid away from the rest of the world – a town like this held no secrets. The only reason I didn’t know about any of this was because I wasn’t here at the time. I was at college, and the Larkins weren’t a family I knew well enough for anyone to tell me about it.
I sat back in my chair for a moment, wondering how I was going to get a man who clearly had plenty of reasons not to speak to me, to open up. All of a sudden, it felt like an impossible task. Sure, I didn’t have my family around me anymore, but it wasn’t like I’d lost anyone to be able to relate to him. It didn’t seem like we were going to have anything in common, anything to build a bond from, and that was going to make this that much more difficult.
Chapter Seven
Roy – Friday
I already knew that I wasn’t about to get any work done on the fence today before I even woke up because on Fridays, I liked to try and get to the office, just to show my face for a short while. No one really needed me there and I never got much done, but I felt like it looked good, and I hoped that it gave staff confidence in me. They had probably heard all kinds of things about me, and I wanted to show them I was normal.
I tugged my tailored designer suit from my closet and yanked it on my body, already feeling alien in it. It fit me well because it was designed to, but I just didn’t like it. I preferred to be casual, in my jeans and tee shirts. I didn’t feel right this way – it was the main reason I could never fit in living in the city and working a nine-to-five finance job. That would kill me.
“Sorry, Tank,” I told my dog sadly. “I have to leave you here today, but I won’t be gone for long.” He whined at me, giving me sad eyes to make me feel guilty, but unfortunately, I couldn’t budge. Not this time. “I’ll get you some treats while I’m out.”
I straightened up my collar and walked out towards the door. This time, I walked past my beat-up truck, towards the small car that I had for journeys such as this one. Sure, I could have a Lamborghini like Lewis or something else as fancy as that, but I just didn’t feel the need. I liked living the quieter life, and that had been giving me pause for thought over the last few months.
I had slowly been forming a plan in my mind, one that would allow me to keep to myself even more, and I’d finally made the decision to just go through with it, which was also why I needed to go to the office to discuss my new steps forward with Lewis.
The half an hour journey into the next town where my office block was set up felt like it simply flew by because I was in my head so much, thinking about the best way to present my new plan. And, I still hadn't managed to come up with anything. I would just have to get in there and wing it, hoping that everything would be fine.
“Hello, Mr. Larkin,” one of the younger members of staff gushed as soon as I walked through the door. He was almost bowing at me in his eagerness to impress, which made me feel uncomfortable.
“It’s Roy, please,” I smiled thinly at him, judging him as an intern due to his oversized suit that clearly belonged to his father. “Is Lewis in?”
“I think he’s in his office…” he trailed off behind me as I walked forward, anxious to get this plan rolling.
I knocked lightly on the door, my pulse going crazy, but as Lewis swung the door to his office open and he extended his arms to me, I felt like everything would be okay. He would understand why I needed to do what I was about to do, and everything was going to work out. He embraced me closely, discussing business stuff with me, but I wasn’t really listening. I had too much on my mind.
“Come in,” he prompted and indicated towards his desk. “Take a seat; we could discuss your meeting in St. Louis now that you’re here.”
“Yeah, sounds good…” In all honesty, I had totally forgotten about the meeting with the shareholders, and I really wasn’t looking forward to it. “Are you going to come with me?”
“I can’t,” he told me regretfully. “I have too much to take care of here, but I’ve already written your speech, so I think you’ll be okay.”
To be polite, I scanned my eyes quickly over the piece of paper he handed me. I didn’t really have to read it because I knew it would be fine, but I didn’t want to give the impression that I didn’t care. “Thank you for this. I really do appreciate it.”
“That’s okay, and I will have my phone with me the entire time, so if you need anything while you’re there, I’ll be on hand.”
“Thank you,” I grinned at him, waiting for a couple of moments before launching into the real reason that I was there. “Look, I do have some things that I want to discuss with you while I’m here and they might come as a bit of a shock, so I implore you to hear me out before you say anything.”
Lewis glanced up at me, seeming to sense just how serious I was before nodding briskly and sitting back in his chair, allowing him to focus solely on me rather than the paperwork sitting in front of him.
“Okay, well first off, I just want to say how proud I am of you. You came into my life when I was really struggling with things, and you were too, just in a different way. You were at a crossroads of your life where things could have gone either way, you could have gone deeper into the pit you were stuck in or you could have dug yourself out. Luckily for me, you took the right path.”
I grinned at him, but he couldn’t seem to muster up the same happiness. He was simply looking at me as if I’d gone crazy, which in a way, I guessed that I had. “You left gambling far behind you, and you threw yourself into the business, helping me out when I needed you the most, and I honestly couldn’t have done it without you.”
“I… I don’t know what to say,” he gasped in shock. “I mean, you already know how grateful I am for everything that you’ve done for me. I hope that I’ve shown you that over the years.”
“And then some!” I exclaimed excitedly. “You’ve been dedicated to me and my company for a lot longer than you needed to be, and I appreciate that.”
“Well, no problem…” He looked totally blown away, which was where I hoped I would be before having to ask the next question.
“Well, what I want to tell you is that I’m done with the company.” As I spoke, Lewis’s face went totally white, which proved to me that I’d worded this totally wrong. He was already
getting the wrong idea, which wasn’t what I wanted. “No, no, it isn’t that. I mean, for me it is, but that’s because I’ve made all the money that I need.”
“What are you saying?” he asked cautiously, still freaking out.
“Well, you know me. I don’t need stuff; I’ve never been about that, so I have definitely made enough money to live off for the rest of my life. So, I want this trip to St. Louis to be the last thing I do for this business. After that, I want to sign it all over to you.”
“What?” He stood up, sliding his chair loudly backwards in shock. “What are you saying?”
I grinned happily, glad to be able to do such a nice thing for my friend. He had more than proven to me that he could be trusted, and I knew that he would do a good job with it all. “I want you to have the company. You have worked hard at it, and you deserve it. I’m done with it; this is what I want to happen.”
“I… I…” he started, shocked by my suggestion.
“Look, you don’t have to give me an answer now, just wait until I get back. Think about it, decide if this is something you might like to do, and just…let me know. No pressure, okay?”
I stood up and walked from the office, knowing that a life had been changed for the better. Lewis might not have had an answer for me now, but he would come around to the concept of owning the business, I just knew it.
I hope that you’re proud, Shelley, I thought to myself, like I occasionally did whenever I felt strong enough to think about my wife. I think I did something good, and I hope it works out for the best.
A bolt of warmth ran through me, one that was probably in my mind, but that I decided to imagine was her giving me her blessing. I allowed it to put a massive grin on my face. After that, I wandered about the office, allowing anyone who needed to to ask me any questions, which they did happily. Once I felt like they were all done, I made the brave decision to head over to the gravesite to take some flowers to my wife. Admittedly, I neglected her grave a lot of the time because it stirred up too many emotions, but right now, I had the need to go and see her, to pay my respects.