Five Minutes Late: A Billionaire Romance

by Sonora Seldon

  “But your mom saw them coming, didn’t she?”

  I felt him tremble beneath my hands.

  “Ashley, I treasure the memory of those ants because that last moment I spent watching them was the last normal moment of my life. You might be surprised how often I think of them – I used to keep an ant farm on my desk, years ago, just to have some tiny connection back to that moment, to keep it alive in front of me.”

  “Years ago, but why not now?”

  “I found over time that I could not bear to see them spend their small lives trapped inside layers of plastic, bustling through artificial tunnels within a false world, and so one spring day I brought them home and released them, here in the gardens.”

  He smiled at the memory. “I like to imagine the descendants of those ants live here still, going about their business all unaware of the greater world surrounding them.”

  “Devon, you are a legendary hero in their tiny compound eyes, I’m sure – but back when you were five, when your mom saw all those cars pull up and knew what it had to mean … what did she do?”

  Devon covered his face with his hands again, just for a few seconds, as he muttered something I couldn’t make out. When he looked up again, he stared straight ahead – but he also reached for my left hand and pulled it to him, wrapping both his hands around mine, his knuckles turning white as he held tight to me, held my hand as if I were his only lifeline in a drowning sea.

  “Mama leapt to her feet. She stared past at me at the street, her mouth dropped open, and time stopped. She stood frozen and staring, and then she bolted for me. She ran to me, she pulled me up into her arms, and I started crying because when she turned to run back inside with me, she kicked over the anthill with one foot without ever realizing it. I cried for the ants, I cried because Mama was crying, and then I looked over her shoulder and saw a crowd of strangers running at us, grabbing for us, reaching for me, and I cried until I couldn’t breathe.

  “She almost made it. Poor Mama tried her best, she ran faster than I’d ever seen anyone run before – she sprinted for the apartment building’s front door, she slid to a stop and twisted the doorknob, and she made it halfway inside before they caught her.

  “I didn’t know it then, but the stranger who led the pack of men that ran her down was Kevin Killane. He screamed at Mama, said terrible things I didn’t understand at the time and that I’ve cursed him for since, and then he smiled at me like a mad clown while his bodyguards and lawyers crowded Mama against the doorframe, pinning her in place as she cried and begged, and as I howled in her arms.

  “That was the last moment I felt her arms around me, the very last. I felt the warmth and sweat of her skin, I saw the tangled strands of her long black hair flying all around me, I felt her heart hammering beneath me as I buried my face against her chest, and then my father tore me screaming from Mama’s arms.

  “She lunged in the grip of the men who held her, she screamed and scratched and kicked and fought, but she was one against many. I cried out her name, the only name for her I knew – I sobbed and screamed for her, I howled ‘MAMA, MAMA, MAMA!,’ as Kevin Killane slung me over his shoulder like an old jacket and marched back to his limousine, laughing as if he’d just done the cleverest thing he could imagine.

  “I don’t think he even knew my name.”

  Devon didn’t say anything for two or three minutes that were the longest two or three minutes of my life. He just stared down past our joined hands at the floor, but he was really staring into the past.

  “That was the last thing Mama was able to do for me, you know – she gave him my name. Struggling against the men who held her, she screamed for me, screamed my name, screamed ‘DEVON!’ over and over again, in a ragged howl that echoed all around us.

  “My father spoke to me then, for the very first time. ‘Devon’s a good name, kid, I guess we’ll keep it – rhymes with Kevin, that’s sweet.’ Then a bodyguard opened the limousine’s rear passenger-side door, and my father pulled me off his shoulder and threw me inside as casually as if he were hurling a bag of potatoes into the back of a truck.

  “He stood next to the half-open door, kneed me back inside when I tried to scramble out again, and then he called out to Mama. I remember what he said, every sound and shade of his voice in that moment, as clearly as I remember anything I’ve ever seen or heard in my life.

  “ ‘This is the best thing for him, you dumb bitch, and if you had half a brain in your head, you’d realize that. And Jesus, get some sun once in a while – you’re so fucking pale, you look like a damn vampire or something.’ Then he climbed inside the limousine, dropped onto the seat next to me, and we pulled away from the curb.

  “I climbed over him, past him, pressing my face against the window, looking for Mama, crying when I saw her. He cursed at me – also for the first time, though certainly not for the last – but I just screamed, ‘MAMA!’ again and again, flattening myself against the glass, howling for her as I stared at her pale, lovely face fading away in the distance.

  “I couldn’t hear her any longer, and I doubt she could have seen me through the tinted glass – but somehow she stared right back at me, stared at me from amidst the men who held her, stared at me and mouthed my name, silently shouting for me as the limousine turned the next corner and sped away.

  “I never saw Mama again.”

  24. Ice Cream and Safety

  That was most definitely enough for one night.

  Sure, I had about five thousand more questions to ask – how the hell did your dad get away with blatant, in-your-face, right-out-on-the-street-in-front-of-God-and-everybody kidnapping, Devon? What did your dreamy, impractical, loving mom do next? Where did Kevin Killane take you in that limousine, on your terrible first day as his son? How did the other Killanes react? When did Uncle Sheridan the Jedi find out about all this? Who raised you, Devon?

  What did you think, once you were old enough to understand what had happened? What did you do, once you were old enough to do something?

  What happened to your mom, Devon?

  So many questions fought for attention inside my head, but now was not the time to ask them. I’d put the man I loved – wow, it felt so strange and scary and exciting to admit to loving him, even just to myself – through hell and back, and we both needed some serious rest. Now was the time for recovery, for retreating and regrouping and living to ask and answer questions another day.

  Now was the time for ice cream, dammit.

  “Devon, I’ve made a command decision – on your feet, soldier.”

  He shook his head, looked around at the balcony as if he’d only just woken up to find himself there, and then rose to stand at weary attention.

  “Would this decision involve commanding me to sleep? Because I must admit, despite the fact that we’ve only been sitting here talking, I feel as if I’ve just run a marathon – what time is it, by the way?”

  A furtive glance at the iPhone huddling inside the pocket of my robe told me it was 10:02 p.m., but I decided Siri had her priorities all wrong. “It’s time for you to learn about the restorative powers of Ben & Jerry’s, big guy – lead me to wherever you keep the ice cream around here, and we will indulge until we doze right the hell off in each other’s arms.”

  He flashed his devil’s smile. “If I find myself in your arms, my lovely and enchanting Ashley, I doubt I will feel like sleeping. Might I perhaps instead be allowed to lick my share of the ice cream off your tender nipples?”

  I felt like I’d slogged through a marathon and a triathlon back to back, but warmth flared inside me as I imagined his mouth on my … knock it off, body.

  “Jeez, first it’s sushi you want to eat off me, and now ice cream – make up your mind, boss.”

  “Why not both at the same time?”

  “Now you’re just trying to make me throw up – and I have to tell you, a throwing-up Ashley is not going to feel like getting all naked and frisky, so let’s just go find the ice cream, okay?”
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br />   I assumed we’d head for the main kitchen on the third floor, but nope – Devon informed me ice cream wasn’t kept in stock there, because he didn’t normally eat the stuff. While I was digesting the horrifying discovery that a living human being could not be addicted to ice cream, he steered me into an elevator and down to the ground floor instead; his household staff had a small combination kitchen/dining area down there for their own use, and he said the chances were fair that their fridge harbored some flavor or other of ice cream.

  It did.

  We found a single pint of ice cream tucked in the back of the freezer, and it was even the heavenly food-of-the-gods flavor known as Ben & Jerry’s Peanut Brittle. Since some ungodly heathen hadn’t bought cones, we spooned it up from bowls as we sat across from each other at the battered linoleum table in the middle of the room.

  “Ashley?”

  “Mmmrrphlwha?”

  “My apologies for waylaying you in mid-slurp, but may I ask you something?”

  I gulped down my current mouthful of creamy goodness. “Um, sure, but keep in mind two important facts: we’re supposed to be relaxing here, and I already feel bad for going all crybaby on you tonight. So, don’t ask anything that’s likely to make me start bawling again, okay?”

  “Agreed.” Devon peered down into his half-empty bowl – the bowl that I was going to snatch right away from him if he didn’t polish that puppy off soon – and ran the tip of his spoon around the rim. The sound of the spoon’s tip scritching against the ceramic bowl was just a tad weird and unsettling, as was the way he stared down at the melting ice cream as if he expected to find the answer to the ultimate question somewhere in the swirls of caramel and chunks of peanut brittle.

  “Ashley, do you think less of me for having slept with so many women?”

  Whoa, what answer did he want here? ‘Yes, you’re a slutty manwhore’? ‘No, I never give your sexual history a second thought, ever’? Both lies, so I decided to get all wacky and go with the truth.

  “Devon, ever since I hired on as your babysitter and loyal sidekick – and at more less the same coincidental moment, became your great big round ball of girlfriend – you haven’t been with anyone else.” Not a question, but a flat statement of fact that I knew was true, just like I knew the earth was round and third helpings of home-made lasagna were bad for me.

  “Yes, my just-the-right-size lovely ball of girlfriend Ashley, but before that –”

  “Devon, before that, what you did and who you did it with was, is, and will always be none of my business. I won’t deny that sometimes it seems weird that you could go from jumping every other woman on the planet at all hours of the day and night to being with me and me alone – but I don’t think less of you based on who you were before, and I judge you based on who you are now and how you treat me.”

  I eyeballed the remaining specks of ice cream in my bowl, spooned them up and slurped them down, then looked up at Devon again. “Mind if I ask what brought that question on?”

  “Ashley, a great part of what I told you earlier involved my father sleeping his way through every available woman he could talk or perhaps even force into his bed – although there are no confirmed reports of it, I certainly wouldn’t put it past him to have resorted to rape if a woman he wanted turned him down.

  “Earlier still this evening, you told me of how your own father had a history of pleasuring himself with many different partners before, after, and perhaps even during his time with your brave and lovely mother.

  “Therefore, I could hardly blame you if you thought my own extensive history with women meant that I was the same sort of man that they were – a callow, heartless bastard who saw women as mere objects to be used for pleasure.”

  “Devon, whoa. Wait up – you are NOT your father, are we clear on that? You are also not my dad, understand?”

  “Yes, but –”

  “Shush up, I want to stomp this idea dead flat right now. You are not a shallow, use-em-and-abuse-em, manipulative asshole, okay? You are anything but, big guy – you’ve been exasperating but adorable and weird but sweet to me, and I’ve never seen you treat women in general with anything but respect.”

  Devon smiled, pushed his bowl over to me, and leaned back in his chair.

  “I’ve seen you casting covetous glances at my share of the ice cream, lovely Ashley – feel free to finish that, while I try to explain.”

  “You don’t owe me an explanation for anything, Devon.” I didn’t let that stop me from finishing his ice cream, though.

  He looked over at the refrigerator, and then he peered up at the overhead light fixture. He looked at the table, he glanced at a nearby air vent when the central heating system thumped on, and he finally sighed and looked at me.

  “Ashley, I adore women, but they terrify me. No matter their shape or size, I find women to be sources of warmth and comfort, and yet they frighten me to my bones. I need them for safety, and yet they always desert me or use me – for sex, or money, or celebrity, or all three. I need them for understanding, and yet so often they’re frightened of me. I need them to be real, but they never are.

  “Until you, Ashley. You’re real. You’re warm, you’re safe, and somehow you understand, in a way that no other woman has. I wish I knew the words that would explain how much you mean to me.”

  You know the words, Devon. Three words. Why won’t you say them?

  Why won’t you, Ashley?

  “I know it’s late and I’ve already imposed on your patience many times over tonight, but might I make yet another request of my sweet, warm, and deliciously round girlfriend?”

  “Request away, boss. I’ve got a helping and a half of ice cream inside of me, so I’m prepped and ready for pretty much anything.”

  “I know this house is large and strange and entirely new to you, but would you consider staying here with me tonight?”

  “Well, sure – I mean, why wouldn’t I? We’ve stayed at my place more times than I can count, we’ve been in plenty of over-the-top-luxurious hotel suites, and we camped overnight at the office that one weekend when you and your minions were finalizing the Shirigami buyout, so what would be the big deal about spending the night here?”

  “Ashley, I have never allowed a woman to stay overnight in this house. I have never had sexual relations with a woman in this house.”

  I stared at him. How could that be true? All those actresses and models and athletes and porn stars and random fame whores, and none of them ever stayed the night? Nobody ever got their freak on with him here? Really?

  But yes, really. Somehow, in the same bone-deep way I knew Devon was faithful to me, I knew he was telling the truth about this. All of those women, however opportunistic or slutty, exited those mahogany double doors out front before the night was through, and they went out those doors unfucked.

  Why?

  “Um, I guess I shouldn’t be looking a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but … what difference did it make about jumping all those slinky bitches here, if you were already all over them everywhere else?”

  “Everywhere else? I would hardly say I’ve participated in passionate sexual union absolutely everywhere else; I’ve never been with a woman in the middle of Times Square at rush hour, for instance –”

  “Yeah, you’d get tire tracks all over your ass.”

  “ – or in the main tunnel of the Large Hadron Collider –”

  “I’m pretty sure that would be fatal.”

  “Only if the mechanism was turned on at the time.”

  “Devon, if you ever want to do it with me in any of those places, you need to stop dodging the question. Why didn’t any woman ever stay the night here? Why didn’t any woman ever get all sweaty and satisfied with you here?”

  “Ashley, this is my home.”

  Those blue-violet eyes drilled into me. “Outside, I wear my mental armor. Outside, I stand prepared for the attentions and expectations of the world, and I can pretend to be what everyone believes me to
be.”

  “You don’t pretend with me.”

  Why did he shudder when I said that? Why did his eyes flick away from mine, just for an instant?

  I chalked it up to nerves and moved on. “But inside this house, you let your guard down, is that it?”

  “Just so, although I never feel truly safe anywhere, not even here. But here it seems I am almost safe, almost free from the firestorm of assumptions and needs and demands waiting for me outside, and I can almost relax. Can you understand that, Ashley?”

  I pushed my chair back. I stood up. I took our bowls and spoons to the sink and rinsed them off under steaming hot water because only assholes leave dirty dishes lying around.

  Then I walked over to Devon, I stood behind his chair and wrapped my arms around him, and I rested my chin on top of his head – that last was a bit of a stretch, even with him sitting down, but I pulled it off.

  “Devon, I understand that we’re safe with each other here, there, or anywhere. I also understand that it’s late and getting later, we’re both tired, and we need to be in bed, even if we’re way too sleepy and doped up with ice cream to do more than snuggle. Agreed?”

  “I agree with all my heart, wise Ashley.” Devon forged to his feet, stepped away from his chair, and pulled me into his arms, right there next to the humming refrigerator.

  I melted into him, he sank his face into my hair, and we just held each other for an endless time that might have lasted five minutes. No questions, no answers, just warmth and safety and an understanding that went beyond words.

  ***

  I was a gutless coward.

  I took shelter in her warmth, and I said nothing of how little time we had left. I hid within the safety of her love, and I did nothing to warn her of what was coming. I accepted the comfort of her understanding, and I revealed nothing of how unreal I was, and would yet become. She gave me everything, and I deserved nothing.