by Lexi Whitlow
“Justin told me. So you’re staying with your friends, or are you going to crash at his place?”
“Millie and Tim have a beach rental,” I say. “And the whole point is to spend time with them, so…”
Sarah’s hand goes up as her brows go down. “Wait a minute—what does Nathan mean, your place?”
“Didn’t I tell you? I have a house on the tip of Montauk. Up in the hills.”
Of course I didn’t tell her; I wanted it to be a surprise and my so-called friend just ruined it. But at least I still have the other one up my sleeve.
“No, you did not tell me.” She laughs and then groans. “Why didn’t you?”
“I have houses all over the world. I can’t keep track of them all.” I grin. It sounds like an awful thing to say, but I worked hard enough to get here.
She scoffs and shakes her head. “Who even says something like that?”
“A billionaire with houses all over the world?” I offer.
Turns out that wasn’t the right thing, either, as she grabs her bags in a huff. But it’s a good kind of exasperation, because it’s not long before she’s smiling again.
“Have a great weekend, Nathan,” she says. “Mr. Billionaire here has to drive me to East Hampton in—” She checks her watch again. “Just under seventy-three minutes, which is pretty much physically impossible, especially in Friday traffic, so we’d better get going.”
Nathan frowns. “Aren’t you going to take—”
“So long, Nathan!” I bark. “Like the lady said, have a good weekend.”
I grab her suitcase is one hand and her arm in the other, and lead her to the elevator door. Inside, I push the up button.
“You hit the ‘up’ button,” she says with mild annoyance.
“Did I? Shoot.”
She gives me a look but says nothing as the elevator rises through the six floors that take it to the top floor. When the door opens, I grab the suitcase and step out.
“Coming?”
“What’s going on?” she asks warily. The area is basically just a stairwell that leads up to a metal door.
“We have to go. Don’t want to be late for lunch.”
She follows me up the stairs, frowning the whole way, until I open the door onto the roof of the building. Warm air blasts us as we leave the air-conditioned space for the midday sun, and our ears are assaulted by a low whine that forces us to raise our voices.
“What in the world…?” she calls.
I lead her around the other side of the door, which gives her a full view of the rooftop—and the Bell 525 helicopter that sits on the helipad twenty yards away, waiting for us to board.
She looks at me, eyes wide, her hair flowing in the wind created by the altitude and the chopper blades.
I shrug. “I never said anything about driving.”
“There it is,” I say into the mic.
“Where?”
I reach across her and point out the Bell’s window to the building below. Its three levels are set into the side of the hill, all gleaming white exterior walls, inset with floor-to-ceiling opaque windows. What little roof there is outside of the hill is covered in flat solar panels that glimmer in the afternoon sun. The front grounds are bisected by an Olympic-sized pool that runs almost the length of the yard. A circular driveway, paved with super-hard acrylic microbeads and lined with solar-powered heating elements, runs to the front of the house and back around the the private road. In short, it’s a cutting-edge smart home that takes full advantage of all the technology available to the discerning home buyer to whom money is no object.
“Where?” she asks again, holding her headphone tight. “Behind that hotel, you mean?”
“Hotel?”
She points at my house.
“That’s it,” I say.
“That’s what?”
I put my hand over the headset mic and let out a laugh while she’s still looking out the window. When I’ve composed myself, I say: “That’s my house.”
She looks at it, then at me, then back at it.
“That’s not your house,” she says.
“Charlie,” I say. “Is that my house under us?”
“If it’s not, then I’ve been landing in the wrong person’s front yard this whole time,” the pilot says from the front seat.
Sarah turns to me, staring. “Who could possibly need a house that big? It’s ridiculous!”
I shrug. “Fine. There’s a motel about five miles back, we can go there instead.”
“No!” she cries. “I mean, we’re here now, we might as well…”
“Uh-huh,” I grin. “Thought you might feel that way.”
Charlie brings us down on the grass next to the entrance to the driveway so as to avoid kicking debris into the pool. I grab Sarah’s bags and help her out the door and onto the lawn.
“All right, buddy, we’ll see you Sunday, 1900 hours.”
“Roger that,” he replies.
“Thank you, Charlie!” Sarah calls. “It was my first time in a helicopter! I loved it!”
He salutes. “My pleasure, ma’am. Have a great weekend.”
With that, he lifts off and leaves us to fend for ourselves on my 14-acre estate. I’m pretty sure we’ll survive.
The front door pops open an instant before we reach it, so I don’t have to put down the bags as we walk in.
“What happened?” Sarah peers around the room. “Was the door open when we got here?”
“Facial recognition. A scanner over the door frame reads my features and opens when I get within a few feet.”
Her eyes widen. “Shut. Up.”
I ignore her. “Music.”
The air is suddenly fills with the voice of Shania Twain, singing about how much she enjoys being a female of the species. Beside me, Sarah is giddy as a child.
“How does it know my favorite song?” she gasps.
“Remember when I asked you to show me your Spotify playlist on your phone the other day?”
“Ye-es…” She eyes me warily.
“I emailed it to the house.”
“How do you email a house?”
I grin and slide an arm around her shoulders.
“The same way you do stuff like this, I say, waving a hand at the walls and changing each of the half-dozen “paintings” in the room (that are actually ultra-thin flexible video screens) from Gaugins to Renoirs. “You pay a bunch of tech geeks a lot of money.”
Beyond the entrance is a front room with a window wall that faces out onto the pool. The furniture throughout the house is ultra-modern, but designed with comfort in mind. The upholstery is in various shades of bone-white, which I read is calming somehow. And that’s what I’m looking for when I’m here: peace and quiet.
Well, maybe not so much this time.
The kitchen is done in white with matte grey appliances. Sarah goggles at the sheer size of it, turning her head back and forth to take it all in: cabinets that reach to the 12-foot ceilings, an island with seating for eight, polished concrete countertops that sport the latest in kitchen gadgets.
“Your fridge is enormous.” Her voice is filled with awe. “And there’s a TV in the door.”
“That’s actually a tablet. It keeps an inventory of what’s inside and orders whatever I need when I need it.”
She turns to me and frowns. “Okay, now you’re just messing with me.”
“Seriously. I programmed it to have certain items, and when it senses that I’m out of something, it sends an order to the grocery store in town, and they deliver it.”
“That seems so incredibly wasteful,” she says, but it’s almost reluctantly. I get the sense that the Amish girl is struggling with the billionaire’s girlfriend for dominance.
“The grocery store charges me a fortune for it,” I say.
“What happens when they deliver it? Do they just drop it at the door?”
“I have a housekeeper here a few hours every day. She coordinates with them.”
&n
bsp; Sarah scans the room in silence for a long time—long enough for me to get a little worried.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” she says absently. “I just can’t help wondering what my GrandMa-Ma would have thought of this place. I mean, this kitchen is bigger than the main floor of the house I grew up in, and there were six of us. How often are you here?”
“Maybe once a month in the summer. A couple of Christmases.”
“Wow. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound like I’m angry or anything; I’m not. It’s just that this whole thing is… alien to me.”
I’d never given it much thought, but now that she’s said it, it makes me wonder about my own reasons for having the place built. Why was it so important to me, when I hardly even spend any time here? That’s not even counting the places in Rome and Bangkok and London. I’ve got a duplex in Sydney that I’ve never even seen. It’s like the line in that old Joe Walsh song about how life’s been good to him.
“I grew up with nothing,” I say. “I swore to myself every night I went to bed hungry that, as soon as I was old enough to have any control over it, I was never going to go hungry again. I got my first job when I was twelve, and I guess I just didn’t know when to stop.”
“It wasn’t just money that was missing,” she says as she slips her fingers through mine. “Maybe you need to start focusing on the other stuff you want now.”
Suddenly I’m fighting a lump in my throat, so I lean in and kiss her. She strokes my cheek, which sends some blood down below, and now what I want more than anything is to show her the master bedroom.
“Holy shit,” she puffs. “Good thing your housekeeper has the day off. She might have called the cops if she’d heard that.”
Our sex was quick and dirty, because we’re still against the clock. My fly went down the second we got to the bedroom, her skirt went up and the whole thing lasted less than five minutes. But it was still incredible. It always is.
I pull on a pair of shorts and a Hawaiian shirt from the closet and throw a few more items in an overnight bag. My breathing still hasn’t gone back to normal yet as we head out to the foyer and grab Sarah’s bags.
“How are we getting to Millie and Tim’s place?” she asks, glancing at her watch. “We’ve only got twenty minutes, and it’s still fifteen miles to East Hampton. Guess you’re not going to live up to your promise.”
“Ye of little faith,” I grin.
We head out the front door and the garage door rolls back into the wall as I approach. Sarah sees the car inside and her mouth drops open just a little. It looks a bit like a cross between a muscular Ferrari and the smooth lines of a BMW M4.
“Whoa,” she breathes. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
I tap my fob and the entire roof and door assembly of the sports car rises up on hydraulics to let us in.
“That’s because it’s the only one there is,” I say, tossing our bags in the little cubby behind the seats. “It’s a Saab Aero-X, specially built for me. The only other one in existence is the concept car that this is based on. It never went into production because the cost was too high for the market to bear.”
She climbs into the passenger seat and I take my place behind the wheel. Another tap of the fob brings the canopy back down over us.
“My father would shit a brick if he saw this thing,” she giggles. “And GrandMa-Ma would probably think it was a spaceship.”
I wonder for a moment what her family will say when they find out about me, but I file it away just as quickly. There’s no time for that right now: we’ve got a long way to go and a short time to get there.
“Hold on tight,” I say as the engine rumbles to life. “I might break a few speed laws.”
Her hand drops on my thigh and I feel the pinch as her nails dig into my skin. Suddenly I’m stiff again, which makes me glad the Saab has a clutchless manual transmission.
“Do it,” she says, and the grin on her face as I punch the gas makes me feel like the teenager I never got the chance to be.
15
Sarah
How have we never been in this place before?” Tim grins. He’s three craft beers in and looking as loose as I’ve ever seen him. Millie’s not far behind with her Moscato cocktails, and I’m pretty sure she’s feeling him up under the bar table.
The Hyde Club is everything Justin said it would be and more. It’s an old brick building across from the beach, with an industrial-meets-colonial vibe that makes it somehow better than the sum of its parts. The fact that it’s already packed and the sun isn’t even fully below the horizon says a lot about where it stands with tourists and the locals. The music is cool, and low enough that we can actually hear each other talk. And the steamed clams we ordered a bucket of are to die for.
“How have I never been to the Hamptons before, period?!” I hoot. “Millie, why didn’t you tell me what I’ve been missing? This is awesome!”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Every Monday after we spend the weekend here, I tell you all about it. You just nod and say ‘uh-huh, oh really? Wow.’”
Beside me, Justin sucks his lips between his teeth to keep from smiling. Across the table, Tim’s attention turns to the scale model of a sailing clipper on a shelf of knickknacks.
“I am not like that,” I protest. “Am I?”
“Just on Mondays,” Millie soothes, patting my hand. “You’re a Type-A CEO, sweetie, it comes with the territory.”
“I promise she’ll come here more often,” says Justin. “This has really been awesome with you guys. I haven’t felt this relaxed in—well, I honestly can’t remember.”
“And it’s only the first night!” Millie raises her cocktail in a toast. “What are we going to do tomorrow?”
Tim practically jumps out of his bench seat as he points a finger at Justin. His grin is as wide as a kid’s on Christmas morning.
“This guy here promised to let me drive his car!”
Millie and I look at Justin, who shrugs.
“It really needs to spend more time on the road. Carbon builds up in the engine if it isn’t driven enough.”
I have no idea if that’s true or if he’s just making an excuse for some alone time with Tim. Maybe it’s actually both. Either way, I’m glad to hear it, and not just because it gives me some alone time with Millie. It makes me feel good to see Justin having a good time.
“Well, then,” I say, “we’re going shopping while you guys do that.”
“Don’t forget the beach time,” Millie chimes in. “It’s hot as balls out there and I need to be in the ocean.”
“And beach time. Can’t forget that.”
We order another round just as a good-looking guy approaches the table and slaps a hand on Justin’s shoulder.
“J-Luke!” he cries. “I haven’t seen you down here in ages! What’s going on, man?”
Justin’s eyes light up as he recognizes the man. “Hey, Preston!” The two shake hands. “You know how it is, dude. Money never sleeps.”
“Mine sleeps just fine in my trust fund, baby. Who’re your friends?”
Justin turns to us. “Millie and Tim, this is Craig Preston.”
They greet each other across the table with a wave. Then Justin turns to me with a smile.
“Craig, this is my girlfriend, Sarah.”
My heart jumps a little in my chest at the sound of the word while Craig reaches across Justin to shake my hand.
“A real pleasure,” he says. “Any friends of Justin’s are friends of mine.”
“Don’t ask me why old money like him hangs around with new money like me,” says Justin. “Craig’s family goes back as far as you can go on this continent and still have blond hair.”
“I hang around with you because old money people are boring as dirt,” says Craig.
“Wait a minute.” A sudden flash of recognition. “Preston? As in the Merriweather Cosmetics Prestons?”
He holds up a hand and winces. “Guilty as charged.”
&
nbsp; “Oh my God, I love Merriweather!” I gush. “It’s the only brand I use! I think I spent half of my first paycheck from my first job after college on your products. I remember feeling like I was just so very sophisticated.”
“You deserve it,” he chuckles, echoing the company’s world-famous slogan.
“I love Merriweather, too!” says Millie. “And believe me, your company’s advertising revenue really gets my heart pumping.”
Justin pulls a seat up for Craig and we chat about PinkBook and Merriweather and other small-talk topics through another round of drinks, until Craig checks his watch.
“Gotta get home,” he sighs. “Mom’s planning a party at the estate tomorrow and Elise has been trapped with her all night.”
“Elise?” I ask.
“My fiancé. She’s trying to suck up to the old bird by helping plan the party, so she let me out on my own tonight.” He snaps his fingers. “Hey, you guys have to come! I can introduce you to Elise, and maybe we’ll actually have a shot at having a good time for a change. These things are always so bloody dull.”
Tim looks like he accidentally bit into a tarantula, but Millie’s eyes are practically popping out of her head.
“Yes!” she blurts. “We’d love to come!”
Justin raises an eyebrow to me. “What do you think?”
I think I’m giddy at the prospect of arriving at a high society soiree on the arm of a handsome, successful man who’ll turn every other woman’s head.
But there’s no way I’m going to tell him that.
“Sure,” I say. “That sounds like fun.”
“Great!” Craig gives us one last wave. “Justin knows where the house is. We’ll see you tomorrow night!”
As he strolls out of the pub, I lean in close to Justin’s ear.
“I can’t believe you know the Prestons. They’re like the crème-de-la-crème of New York society.”
He flashes a smile. “You don’t know everything about me yet.”
“I know I can’t wait to call you J-Luke and talk about BitScents in front of a bunch of business people when you’re trying to take over their company.”