Shopping for a Billionaire's Fiancee

by Julia Kent

  “Mom made a funny noise of pain, a muted sound. I remember shoving Andrew down to the ground, with Mom, and he jerked, grabbing his leg. By the time the damn wasps were gone he’d been stung at least three times—the doctors weren’t sure about a fourth sting—and Mom twice.”

  “Oh, God,” Marie says quietly. I can’t bear to look at her. She’ll have tears in her eyes. And if I’m going to tell the story, I just can’t look at her.

  “Mom told me to stay calm. We knew she had a bad allergy and I knew she had an EpiPen in her purse. Andrew was screaming. No one was anywhere near—we were at least a half mile from the soccer fields, though you could hear the loudspeaker announcements from a distance. Mom handed me her purse. I knew what she meant.”

  I can remember the warm touch of her fingers as we exchanged the bag. Her manicured nails, a pearly pink. I can’t say that part aloud. It’s mine. Private.

  “‘EpiPen,’ she croaked, her breathing labored already. I could see the two stings on her elbow as she pulled her shirt up.”

  “Two?’ I remember shouting.”

  “’Andrew’,” she rasped, crawling over to him. And then I realized, as I found the EpiPen in her purse, that she wasn’t the only one struggling to breathe.”

  Marie is crying softly now. I can hear her. She comes up to me and places a hand on my forearm. I don’t move, but my eyes start to leak.

  Damn new allergies.

  “‘Where are you stung’? I asked him, and Andrew pointed to his calf. Two stings, then one on his neck. He sounded like he was having a horrible asthma attack.”

  Gravel on the road behind us crunches as a landscaper’s truck drives through, equipment loaded on the back. The sound of the lawnmower is gone.

  Good.

  It sounds a little like a swarm.

  “Mom pointed to Andrew, then the EpiPen, then back to him. ‘Inject him,’ she said, sounding like she was choking.” I finally look at Marie. “And I froze.”

  “Anyone would, Declan. Anyone. And you were just a boy.”

  I squeeze my eyes tight and go on, watching it behind my closed lids. “‘No,’ I said. ‘You need it, Mom.’ She just shook her head, hard, and tried to grab the damn EpiPen from my hands. Andrew was passing out. Mom’s lips were turning blue and she grabbed my face so hard, looked in my eyes and said, ‘Do it.’”

  Marie squeezes my arm.

  “So I did. I opened the pen and shoved the needle as hard as I could in Andrew’s thigh, and then I got up and ran as fast as I could to the soccer fields. Could barely breathe, but said enough to get all the people who had cell phones to call 911.”

  “You did everything right,” Marie says, patting my hand.

  “Did I? Did I really, Marie? Because my mom is dead. Dead. I didn’t do anything right that day.”

  “What else do you think you could have done, Declan?” she asks, digging through her purse to hand me a tissue.

  “What’s that for?” I ask.

  She points to the front of my shirt. It’s wet.

  “Oh.” I wipe my eyes with my palms.

  “You did everything right. Andrew lived. No one could have ever guessed he was allergic, too. And your mom asked you to save him and you did.”

  “But I couldn’t save them both!” I’m shouting at her. She is crying but not scared. That’s because I’m not angry at her. I’m angry at a world where I couldn’t save them both.

  The same world I have to live in, day in and day out.

  “Why did Mom make me inject Andrew? Why did I listen to her? If I’d injected her, maybe Andrew would have been fine. And then—”

  Marie grabs my arm, hard this time, with a yank that isn’t at all compassionate. It jolts me and makes me look down at her.

  “You listen to me,” she says in a hard voice. A mother’s voice, the kind moms use when they are disabusing you of an errant notion. Her finger comes out and she shoves it in my face, making a point. “Your mother did what any mother would do. That’s what being a parent is, Declan. When you are dying and your child—your baby—is dying right in front of you and only one of you can live, you beg that your child lives. Because no parent could ever bear to live in a world where there was a choice and they chose themselves.”

  “But—”

  “No, Declan. No buts. I don’t care what you’ve been told or who has told it to you, and that includes your father. You did nothing wrong that day. It was not your fault. No one can control everything. No one. The world just keeps proving that over and over again. You did nothing wrong.”

  If I squeeze my fisted hands any harder my fingers will snap off.

  “Declan. Declan,” she insists. “If you had injected your mother and Andrew had died, that would have been so much worse for her. Do you understand? She needed you to save her baby. You did exactly what she wanted most in that moment. You took a terrible situation and made the best of it. You were heroic. You were your mother’s hero. You didn’t have a true choice. She made it for you. That was part of her gift to you. She loved you and Andrew so much that she took the choice away.”

  My shoulders start to shake and I fall to the ground, head between my knees, eyes fixated on that carved word.

  loving

  “Come here, honey. It’s okay. Come here,” she says, giving me no choice in whether I get a hug or not, dropping to the ground next to me and wrapping her arms around me as I curl into a ball. Marie smells like sandalwood and vanilla, like makeup and laundry detergent, and she is warm. Soft. Motherly.

  The sobs come out in embarrassing ways and I fight it, but I miss my mom. I miss her. If I could stop the world and turn back time, I’d go back and kill those wasps before they stung Andrew and Mom. I’d pack two EpiPens. I’d not go outside at all with them.

  I’d do anything to have my mother alive right now.

  No business deal, no hard-core negotiation tactics, no lavish spending can bring her back.

  Neither can closing off my heart and running away from the love of my life.

  And her crazyass family.

  “I can’t be your mother for you, Declan,” Marie says, smoothing my hair as I wipe my nose on my t-shirt hem and compose myself, feeling like a weak, oversharing jackass. “If you let me, though, I can be like a mother.”

  “But you are crazy, Marie.” I’m not smiling as I say it because I am not kidding.

  She smiles and says, “Not clinically.”

  That makes me laugh. We stand and brush off our clothes. A breeze rustles my hair. The sky is blue and wide, without a single cloud in it. Rare for a Massachusetts day.

  “I just love too much, Declan.” She tips her head to the right and gives me a look I don’t think anyone but my Mom and Grace have ever given me. “And whether you like it or not, you’re one of my kids. You didn’t come out of my vag—”

  I hold up a palm. “I get it. I don’t need the anatomy lesson.”

  “But you’re part of Shannon’s heart, and that means you’re part of our family. Which means you’re in a web of people who love each other so much they do crazy things because they feel so intensely,” she adds.

  “And because you’re crazy.”

  Marie links her arm in mine and looks pointedly at Mom’s grave. “Elena, you raised a fine young man. Thank you. Whenever he decides to pop the question and officially become my son-in-law, I’ll take over for you and continue the raising.”

  I give her the side eye. “I’m twenty-nine years old, Marie. No one needs to raise me.”

  “You think you’re done, don’t you?” she scoffs. “I’m fifty-three—er...in my forties—and I still need my mom sometimes.” Marie’s mother died of a heart attack a few years ago. Not a bee sting, Shannon assured me.

  “We all do, don’t we?” A sniff or two, a short sigh, and we both seem to have composed ourselves. I feel raw. Exposed. Like maybe I’ve given in to my emotions too much. Dad calls displays of emotion “melodrama,” and even though I understand he has the emotional development
of a borderline sociopath, I can’t shake the feeling that this is all a little too much.

  I’ve completely underestimated and misunderstood Marie, though. She’s great in her own weird way. Maybe Shannon’s right about her mom. Maybe I’ve misjudged her.

  I look over and Marie’s watching my hands as I brush off my bottom.

  “You do have a fine ass, though.”

  Sigh.

  “Marie,” I growl. “Boundaries. Would you say that to your own son?”

  “Maybe. I tell Shannon I’d kill for her boobs.”

  Resting Asshole Face: Engaged.

  “Okay, okay! Sheesh! Is it my fault that some people can’t take a compliment?” she declares as we walk back to where our respective vehicles are parked.

  It’s going to be a very long marriage, isn’t it?

  CHAPTER NINE

  Two days before the proposal...

  We’re at work, talking in the hallway. I’m between conference calls, and it’s been the kind of day that started at 4:30am with a crisis in Singapore and is going to end at 2 a.m. with a crisis in Dublin. I can feel it.

  Meanwhile, a crisis is brewing right here, right now, between me and my beloved.

  There’s this look Shannon gets on her face when she has to tell me something she’s not sure I’m going to like hearing. Her face tightens a bit, and she looks pained. Concerned.

  Matronly.

  A lot like Grace the other day when she was in my office, grilling me about my pending proposal. Minus the chicken soup and crappy advice.

  “Just say it,” I might as well cut to the chase. When I’m at a negotiation I find the direct path is easiest. Insecurity is a wasted emotion. Wondering, worrying—all of that is just inefficient. An emotional drain. A horrible use of resources better spent elsewhere.

  (See why I would make a good CEO? Tell that to my dad.)

  Shannon’s shoulders drop and she starts playing with the ends of her hair, curling them up, almost chewing on them. It’s cute when she’s restless like this, but it’s ominous, too. Whatever she’s about to say is going to suck.

  “Um, so, Greg called today.”

  Oh. That. As far as I know, Greg’s kept the fake mystery shop conceit a secret, as planned.

  “And?” I can play along. She thinks I’m going to be mad that she agreed to help Greg out in a pinch with a mystery shop. I keep my grin in check.

  “And there’s this one job...”

  “We agreed,” I say slowly, like I’m talking to a disobedient child, “that you wouldn’t do any more mystery shops. I played Santa for an entire suburban mall in exchange. I was hashtagged.” I unbutton my suit jacket and lean against the wall, ignoring the phone vibrating in my breast pocket.

  “#HotSanta was pretty cool,” she says with a tone of cheeriness that reminds me what a good elf she was.

  And then there was that costume. Ho, ho, holy smokes.

  “#HotSanta existed for an hour and a half, but the odor of pee on my legs from terrified kids is branded in my scarred psyche for a lifetime.”

  She pretends to punch my arm. “C’mon. This is a mystery shop at Le Portmanteau.”

  I pretend to be impressed. “Really?”

  “Full meal. We have to order a bottle of wine. And the shop fee is $300!”

  I multiply that by four. Greg’s sharper than I thought. Affording it is no problem, and I’d spend ten times that on flowers to fill her apartment with roses if I thought it would make an impression. Somewhere deep inside, though, I feel like I can hear Greg laughing at me.

  Laughing from the finest table at Le Portmanteau.

  Focus. I need to focus. Shannon’s looking at me with excitement. “This is exactly the kind of shop secret shoppers dream of landing.”

  “You’re an assistant director of marketing now. Those dreams should be dead.” My words echo in the room. Shannon’s right. I do have Resting Asshole Baritone.

  She raises her eyebrows at me, blinking those big, brown eyes. “Someone woke up on the grumpy side of the bed.”

  “Someone woke up at 4:30 a.m. with a screaming tech director from Singapore complaining about a web issues, and then someone else got up later and came to work without having sex with someone.”

  She crinkles her nose and huddles with me. “Please don’t talk about sex with me in public at the office. You know we’ve talked about this.”

  Shannon’s so cute when she’s protecting her professionalism. Yes, I know that makes me sound like an asshole. No, I don’t care. She’s smart, funny, great with clients and she’s helped push marketing conversion rates through the roof for explorative online campaigns in emerging social media.

  I can admire all that and talk about her like she’s a piece of meat.

  “Okay. I won’t,” I concede. But not really. “How about we find a nice supply closet somewhere and talk about sex in private here at work?”

  Her deep sigh is tinged with frustration.

  So’s mine, but I think for different reasons.

  A commotion down the hall, at Dad’s office door, catches our attention. We both turn to look and hear a woman say, “No, I do not have an appointment, but this is important.”

  A flash of a blonde helmet of hair on top of a flowing lilac dress shoots into Dad’s office.

  Shannon and I turn to each other. “Was that—?” we ask in unison.

  “No,” we say at the same time, shaking our heads.

  “Can’t be,” Shannon insists, but she’s giving me a skeptical look that manages to have a strong pleading element to it. Like she’s begging me to say that is absolutely, positively not her mother making a scene in my father’s office.

  “She wouldn’t dare come here and crash Dad’s office,” I add.

  Shannon cocks one eyebrow.

  “Right?” I ask. Funny how now I’ve got a pleading tone, too.

  “I can’t believe you would—” shouts a woman’s voice.

  “You have some nerve coming in here—” bellows my dad.

  Slam! A door shuts and Dad’s administrative assistant, Becky, comes running out of the office. She sees me with Shannon and trots down the hallway as fast as one can trot in five inch heels.

  Dad picks his admins for their sex appeal. Not their practical qualities.

  “Some crazy woman just charged into the office claiming she’s an old friend of James’ and she needs to see him,” Becky says, breathless. Those baby blues are big and wide, with an impossible amount of white around them, framed by black eyelashes so long she could sweep floors with them. Becky’s got a nipped waist a man can span with his hands and boobs so fake and big they might as well be airline neck pillows.

  “Call security, then,” I say casually, trying to decide the best approach. Why would Marie, of all people, storm my dad’s office? It’s not as if she knows about the proposal.

  And even if she did, what does Dad have to do with it?

  “Old friend?” Shannon asks, grabbing Becky’s forearm. “Did she say anything else?”

  “It was really weird. Something about how she picked the right guy and how dare he treat Declan like—”

  I am not wearing five inch heels. I sprint into Dad’s outer office and fling open the inner sanctum, Shannon right behind me.

  “MOM?” Shannon shouts.

  Marie is leaning across Dad’s enormous desk, hands planted on stacks of papers, her face inches from his. She is saying something in a low voice and Dad is paying angry attention to every word. I can’t hear her because of the shuffling sounds Shannon and Becky are making behind me, but as Becky recedes back to her desk and Shannon starts hyperventilating, I can parse most of it out.

  “...and I can’t believe you would blame Declan for Elena’s death like that.”

  Oh, fuck. I knew yesterday was one big, big oversharing mistake. Marie just proved it. Shannon looks at me as I rub my mouth with my hand, calculating how to salvage this giant mess. Dad doesn’t do feelings, and Marie is one big walking heart cover
ed in perfume and new-agey clothing.

  This is not going to end well.

  “What is she talking about, Dec?” Shannon whispers in my ear, her hand between my shoulder blades on my back. The solidity of that palm grounds me, helps me to react from a place of logic and centeredness, rather than grabbing Marie around the waist and flinging her down an empty elevator shaft.

  Shannon and I have been so busy with our respective schedules that I haven’t even had the chance to tell her about my run-in with Marie at the cemetery yesterday. Even if we had time, I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it.

  Guess I’d better get ready now.

  “Your mom followed me to my mom’s gravesite yesterday.”

  Shannon’s eyes bug out. “What?” Dad and Marie are arguing in tight, gritted-teeth sentences, their heated discussion a backdrop for my emotional evisceration.

  Dad is going to kill me.

  “I went there to visit my mom, and Marie happened to see me at a stoplight. Waved. I went to the cemetery and was talking to my mom and Marie appeared.”

  “She stalked you?”

  I’m not going to throw Marie under the emotional bus, no matter how tempting. “No, nothing like that. She was worried about me.”

  Dad starts pounding the top of a stack of papers with his middle knuckle. Shannon casts a nervous glance at them. So far, Marie seems to be holding her own and no one’s ordered us out.

  “And storming James’ office today has something to do with that?”

  A sick sort of snicker I can’t control comes out. “I don’t know. It’s Marie, after all. She’s kind of crazy.”

  “You know I hate when you say that.”

  My palm out, I make a grand, sweeping gesture toward our arguing parents. “Case in point.”

  Her lips purse but Shannon says nothing.

  I win.

  “...how I handle my relationship with my sons is absolutely none of your business! I haven’t seen you in—thirty years?—and you think you can tell me how to parent?” Dad’s shouting now. It’s the sound of my childhood, the scary, terrifying voice of someone who is supposed to be authoritative and wise losing it.