The Billionaire's Mermaid

by Amberlee Day

  The Billionaire's Mermaid

  Destination Billionaire Classics

  Amberlee Day

  Published by Amberlee Day, 2019.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  THE BILLIONAIRE'S MERMAID

  First edition. December 12, 2019.

  Copyright © 2019 Amberlee Day.

  Written by Amberlee Day.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Also by Amberlee Day

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  “Don’t bother,” Van Rivers barked into his phone before leaving the limo. Quieter, but no less irritated, he said to the driver, “I’ll be ten minutes.”

  Din from the traffic and tourists in downtown Tampa made it hard to hear, and put a deeper frown on Van’s face. Over the phone, his assistant was too professional to grovel, but he came close. “Mr. Rivers, I hadn’t expected the lawyers to take this long, or I would have been out of here sooner.”

  “I’m already here,” Van said. “Turns out the place is on my way to the airport. But don’t think this isn’t an inconvenience, Leonard. I assigned this to you. I don’t have time to do your work for you.”

  “Yes, Mr. Rivers. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to take care of it for you.”

  “I won’t be holding up the plane for you, either. You’ll have to get yourself to Copenhagen when you’re finished. And hurry up,” he growled, “unless you want your next stop to be the unemployment line.”

  Van ended the call, shoving the phone into his pocket. What did he pay the man for, if not efficiency? Maybe it really was time for a new assistant.

  Taking long strides, he made his way among the tourists milling in front of the aquarium. Don’t these people have someplace to be, instead of hanging around outside a chintzy vacation venue in the middle of the week? In January? Don’t people work anymore?

  He pulled at his unbuttoned collar, loosening the sticky material from his neck. Just walking from the air-conditioned car to the building was too much in the unseasonably humid heat. He thought of how wonderfully cold his own home would be at this very moment, far north in Canada’s Alberta province, and growled at the comparison. Surely the projected profits from his business here weren’t worth these insufferable visits to Florida.

  And then there was this ridiculous errand. It would have been simpler if Lily had just asked for a pony. He was definitely ready for this trip to be over.

  A sign at the entrance read "Florida Adventures." Van really didn’t know much about the place, just the one thing that brought him here, and a flit of dry curiosity made him wonder where the adventure part came in. Plowing through the automatic doors, he sighed briefly as the cool air touched his sweaty brow, but he didn’t slow down. Van Rivers was on a mission, and the sooner he finished, the better.

  The lobby teamed with people, and at least a dozen lined up in front of the information desk. As the other visitors saw his expression, however, a pathway to the desk practically cleared itself. The receptionist, an efficient-looking young woman who was clearly used to managing pushy patrons, met Van’s steely look with a youthful attempt to be both welcoming and firm. “Excuse me, sir, you’ll need to wait in line—”

  Van already had his wallet out, and slapped a crisp hundred-dollar bill onto the countertop. He didn’t have time for delays. “I need to catch a plane,” he said. “Where do I find the person in charge of mermaids?”

  THREE MINUTES LATER, Van stood next to a middle-aged man, whose potbelly, untidy dress, and thick gold chain told Van that the man ran a sloppy but profitable business. Van wrinkled his nose at the heavy smells of chlorine in the aging pool and inspected the establishment’s mermaid supply.

  The website link that Lily sent him made the place look tacky but fun if you liked that sort of tourist attraction. The actual location was just short of trashy, but the sightseers didn’t seem to mind. Crowds surrounded the submerged theater watching the show, while bubbly music played and five young women wearing colorful tails performed an underwater dance. All had long hair that floated in the water in a way that even Van could see had an appealing quality, along with the turquoise water and florescent fake fauna. A quick look at the audience members—particularly the wide-eyed little girls watching the show—reminded him why he was here. He put his hand to his chin. How was he supposed to choose? Surely even among mermaids there were good, better, and best. Van, as always, wanted best.

  As far as swimming and dancing skills, they seemed equally qualified. None of them fell out of step—well, no, not step, but they all seemed to have the timing and movements down. When one finally fell a tad short and had to catch up, he took a satisfied breath that she had given him a reason to eliminate her. A second, he realized, had a buxom figure and tiny bikini top that would keep his male staff distracted more than the others, so he eliminated her, too.

  The show was coming to an end, and he needed to get to the airport soon—not that his own plane would leave without him, but he had real work that needed his attention. He scowled, trying to decide.

  “Do you want me to pick one for you, Mr. Rivers?” the manager asked. His sweaty hand held yet another hundred-dollar bill, but he kept it out, understanding that Van intended to give him more for the use of his mermaid. “Felicia, there in the pink tail, she’s a lively one.”

  Van watched as the bleached blonde approached the glass, throwing a flirty kiss and wink at the audience. He frowned. “Which ones work with children?”

  “Oh, all of them give lessons at Mermaid Camp.”

  “Hm.” Van looked at his watch.

  The next mermaid approached the glass to tell the audience goodbye as the routine ended. Instead of flirting, she enthusiastically smiled and waved at the group. Little girls jumped up, smiling and waving in response. As the mermaid swam away, Van’s unfailing instinct told him that this was the right mermaid. She looked and acted more like a storybook princess mermaid. Just the ticket for Lily.

  “I’ll take that one,” he said. “The brunette with the blue tail.”

  “Cleo?” The manager didn’t sound happy. “Couldn’t you pick someone else? She’s my most dependable girl. She choreographs, never misses a show. Great with the kids, too.”

  Van’s wallet had reappeared, and after he’d stacked quite a few more bills into the man’s palm, it appeared he had a deal. At the top of the money, he placed a business card with the Alberta address on it. “This is where she needs to be, by Wednesday next week. It’s important she makes it by that date. Tell her to call the number and my assistant will arrange travel. Are we clear?”

  “I suppose so, though I guess it depends on whether or not Cleo wants to go.”

  “She’ll want to go,” Van said. “Her wage is written on the back of the card.”

  T
he manager turned over the business card, and let out a whoop. “Holy mackerel! That’s for two months’ work? For that I’ll put on a tail and turn mermaid.”

  Sliding the wallet back in his pocket, confident that his business was complete, Van smirked before turning away. “No, thanks. One mermaid’s all I need.”

  Chapter 2

  Cleo Willey should have turned down the strange offer, but how could she? The Florida Adventures mermaid job served two purposes: swimming practice, and a paycheck, both of which were tiding her over until she figured out what came next. And with a paycheck like this Van Rivers offered, plus the possibility of a new adventure, how could she refuse?

  Mr. Rivers’s assistant, Leonard, had provided her with travel arrangements, but they were confusing. He’d said to give them a list of supplies she’d need for the next two months, as they weren’t close to town. What supplies? Was he referring to shampoo and toothpaste, or mermaid-related props and costumes? Dress appropriately, Leonard had said. Appropriate for what? He’d also said, Plan on Tuesday being a long day of travel. How long? What conditions? She really had no idea, and as Leonard had opted to communicate with her via emails, she found he only answered about half of the questions she asked.

  Luckily, she already had her passport, so she put her meager possessions in storage and prepared to fly north to Canada. By the end of her day of flights and transfers to Calgary—the biggest city in Alberta province—followed by a two-hour taxi ride to a small town Leonard referred to as The Village, Cleo was exhausted. The farther north they drove, the snowier the landscape. It was pretty, but the taxi heater couldn’t compete with the nighttime temperatures. She prayed they’d finally reached their destination when the taxi stopped outside a small-town grocery store, but quickly learned that the most difficult part of the journey was still ahead.

  If Cleo had grown up somewhere other than Florida, she might have been familiar with snowmobiles. They sounded like fun—maybe on a day that was more like the snowy scenes on Christmas cards, instead of the biting, bitter cold that hit her as soon as the taxi door opened. Whatever her expectations of what a snowmobile might have been, she was fairly certain that they didn’t usually pull a covered coach behind them.

  “Sit tight in here,” the driver said, tucking blankets around her long legs after she’d folded herself into the carriage. “You might want to put a coat on about now. Not sure how you’ve managed without one, on a day like this.”

  Cleo pulled her sweaters more tightly around her. She owned exactly three sweaters, which she’d already retrieved from her suitcase, and had layered all three at once. She also had on her one pair of jeans with her yoga pants underneath. They weren’t enough to keep her warm in the icy Canadian winter. Suddenly Leonard’s dress appropriately comment made sense.

  “I don’t have a coat,” she said. “This is all I brought.” Unless I want to pull out my mermaid tail, she thought. It was tempting, and she was so cold she would have done it if she thought it would fit over her pants.

  The driver, a thin, snow-suited man with a giant white mustache, looked at her quizzically. Whatever his thoughts, he only muttered, “What’s he going to do with this one?”

  Cleo shivered, mostly from the cold, but also with nerves. So much about this job was unclear. A child needed swimming lessons, she was told. There would be a pool, and she’d be paid well. Unbelievably well, actually. As the driver shut her tightly into the bullet-shaped snow coach—which was no warmer than outside, as far as she could tell, but at least kept out the wind—the sinking feeling that she knew too little about her high-paying adventure settled into her bones as deeply as the cold winter evening.

  SOMEHOW, WITHIN A FEW minutes of her journey through the white woods, Cleo fell asleep. She woke up when the coach rattled to a stop, and the driver left the machine idling. She could see through the snow-smattered glass in front that he had stopped to open an ornate, double iron gate. Someone had maintained the road there as the snow level was low enough for the gate to smoothly swing open, gaping like a grotesque black mouth against the unrelenting white.

  The road wound upward along a hillside, with sharp, pointed evergreens filling the deep cavity below. It probably wasn’t a long road, she thought—maybe a half mile—but to Cleo’s sleepy eyes it felt like the slow-moving coach would never stop ascending.

  When they did reach the top, the sight in front of them was something out of a dream. With the payment she’d been offered, she assumed the accommodations would be upscale. She’d pictured one of the more luxurious Florida homes: the glamorous beachside mansions along the coast, surrounded by tropical plants, lavish outdoor living areas, blue skies over white sand beaches. Not that she’d spent much time inside any place like that, but it was her only frame of reference for how the wealthy lived.

  If that’s what she expected a rich man’s home would look like in northern Canada, though, the reality left her stunned.

  She expected large—the place did, after all, have a swimming pool somewhere. But this was enormous. It was hard to distinguish much as they traveled up the hill. The moonless sky sported a distorting grey fog, making it so Cleo could just see the building’s shape at first, no details. Condos, maybe ... or like a building from the university she had briefly attended, some old and imposing institution.

  It may have been more than the location that had her head swimming in confusion. Despite the pile of blankets that surrounded her, she’d never really stopped shivering. How could a place this cold exist on the same continent as her native Florida? How did people survive it? She tried rubbing her hands together, but they were both numb.

  The driver took them past the front of the building. She could see details now that they were closer. The single front door, an ornate wooden thing, stood tall and wide enough to swallow several people at once. Lights lit a few windows, but the curtains, thick and red, seemed like some ancient creature’s bloodshot eyes. The great stone edifice supported rugged outcroppings, sharp turrets, and shapes high above the tallest windows that Cleo imagined were black gargoyles. All were cold stone, made chillier by the icicles and snowy blanket that spread from the trees, to the hills, and up and over the monolithic house.

  Not condominiums, but a single gigantic house. If this had been part of a book or movie, Cleo would have loved it. In reality, nothing about this place promised the warmth she longed for.

  They didn’t stop at the front door, but motored around to a smaller entrance. Of course, I’m here as a servant, the help. Not a guest.

  The snow-carriage pulled up very close to a low stone doorway, and finally the rattling motor stopped. Its echo rang in her ears and lingered in her shivering bones.

  Exhausted and cold to the bone, Cleo waited to see what was expected of her. Something about this place already zapped her normal energy and weighed on her spirits. She wasn’t sure she had the strength to even smile and greet whoever met her at the door, much less carry her bags inside.

  The driver left her there and opened the house door, releasing a stream of golden light into the black and white night. The view of the bright interior gave her hope. A sturdy older woman dressed in a sweat suit and turtleneck greeted the driver at the door, gawked at the carriage with an angle that suggested worry and urgency, then rushed out of sight to return carrying something bulky and dark. She hurried outdoors with the driver, very much focused on Cleo. Gratitude that someone else was ready to take charge overwhelmed Cleo, and tears stung her eyes.

  The carriage door opened, and Cleo shuddered again. She thought she’d been cold, bundled up in the enclosure, until the bitter night air hit her afresh.

  “Oh, you poor thing,” the woman said. She pulled the blankets from Cleo—which felt cruel to the shivering girl—and replaced them with the thick fur coat. It was warm, like it had been hanging near a fire, and Cleo let the woman wrap it tightly around her. “Come with me, we’ll get you warmed up. Foolish of Gus to bring you out after dark. It’s cold enough in the day
time.”

  “I was only following orders,” said the wrinkly-faced driver, clearly aware that his answer wouldn’t pass muster with this particular authority figure.

  “Hmph,” the woman said, still fussing over Cleo. “We’ll see about that. Help me bring her inside; she looks done in.”

  Cleo worried that her numb feet wouldn’t hold her, but the two strong figures on either side of her made sure that wasn’t a problem. They practically carried her into the house, and with exhausted relief, she felt the cold outdoors drop away behind her. They passed through the cloak room and into an enormous warm kitchen. Strangely, it was this room, both ordinary and luxuriously sized, that helped Cleo recognize what sort of place she’d come to. While on the outside it appeared as something out of a gothic novel, the inside of the house—at least, from this limited first view—was a genuine English country estate, strangely set right in the middle of the subarctic, Canadian winter wilderness.

  Chapter 3

  Cleo probably would have slept all day if Mrs. Fortney—Cleo’s sweat-suited savior from the previous night, who ran a hot bath and provided hot soup before tucking Cleo under quilts in a fabulously hot bedroom—hadn’t come to wake her up. Finally warm, she’d succumbed to exhaustion, and it was hard to pull her back to consciousness.

  “You need to hurry,” Mrs. Fortney said. She’d opened the curtains and actually pulled the blankets off Cleo to wake her up. “Mr. Rivers will be home soon, and he wants you and Lily to meet.”

  “Lily? Is that his daughter, then?”

  “Daughter? Heavens no. Mr. Rivers isn’t married. No children. Lily’s his niece, and today is her tenth birthday.”

  “Her birthday? Why did they want me arriving today? If there’s going to be a party, celebrations ... I doubt Mr. Rivers’s niece will want to take time for swimming lessons on her birthday.”