Millionaire in a Stetson

by Barbara Dunlop

  “What was that?”

  “We forget it happened.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Look, ladies only.” She pushed open the locker-room door and left him standing outside.

  Inside, the locker room was exactly how Niki remembered it. It had been quite some time since she’d been here, although the place was as serene and quiet as always. Pastel armchairs formed comfortable groupings in a parlor area. Outside the restrooms were several makeup tables, complete with upholstered, French provincial chairs. Floral arrangements were placed on polished glass tables, and baskets of expensive toiletries were displayed along gleaming, marble counters.

  A large archway led to the locker area. No gray, utilitarian metal here. They were Maplewood closets, covered in a smooth, satin finish, arranged in neat rows, with crown molding along the top. There was a richly padded bench stretching down the middle of the aisle.

  Niki stopped at number sixty-one. It was a corner unit, slightly larger than most others. She dialed the combination and opened the louvered door. Inside was a row of hangers with a single sweater she’d left behind the last time she’d played. On the floor of the locker were two pairs of golf shoes. And on the top shelf, there was a makeup bag and a couple of bottles of shampoo and conditioner.

  She went up on her toes, feeling around at the back of the shelf. Her hand contacted a second makeup case. She drew it forward. It was turquoise leather, with a jeweled zipper and two front pockets. Niki had never seen it before.

  She glanced over each shoulder, confirming she was still alone. She drew the zipper slowly open, holding her breath, hardly believing she might have actually found it.

  Sure enough. There it was, a thick, tan leather volume with parchment pages, each covered in her mother’s flowery handwriting. Niki couldn’t help but smile as she flipped through and saw the different colored ink. Her mother had written in pink, purple, red, green and orange.

  Impulsively, she raised the open book to her nose and inhaled. It was Gabriella’s perfume, and Niki had to blink back tears.

  “Oh, mom.” She sighed. “I wish I was as brave as you.”

  But Gabriella’s voice was silent inside her head. This was obviously new territory for both of them.

  Niki zipped up the turquoise case, shut the locker door and secured it. Then she squared her shoulders, retracing her steps, opening the outside door to meet Sawyer’s quizzical gaze.

  She discreetly pointed to the case, receiving a slight nod in return. Then he took her arm, and they headed back up the stairs. They stayed focused on the exit route, and nobody stopped them this time. They kept silent until they were inside Sawyer’s Maserati.

  “That’s it?” he confirmed.

  “That’s it,” she told him.

  They shared a long look.

  “Okay,” he said, turning the key. “Okay. Now we find out what we’re dealing with here.”

  * * *

  Back in Sawyer’s penthouse, Niki sat flush against him on the sofa as they shared the diary. It started when Gabriella was twelve, several months after her parents were killed in the interstate pileup and she was left alone. She hadn’t written every day, maybe once every couple of weeks.

  Obviously, the crash had been terrible. Gabriella had been lucky, receiving nothing but cuts and bruises. But she’d been placed in a foster home, then another and another. She’d hated them all, the impersonal parents, the hostile children, and the regiment of explaining every detail of her private life to a parade of social workers. The pain and loneliness was clear in her writing.

  “Did you know about this?” Sawyer asked in an undertone.

  “I knew she was orphaned,” Niki answered. “I didn’t know she was this unhappy.”

  They read further, learning how Gabriella had run away from her last foster home. At fifteen, she’d set out to make it on her own. There were a couple of missing months in the diary, but then an entry that talked about a man who was helping her.

  He was a banker named Ellis Lorance, and he had an apartment in Georgetown. He also had a wife and family in a suburban neighborhood. Gabriella wrote cheerfully about the gifts he gave her, the fun they had together and his apparent problems with his wife.

  “I guess his wife didn’t understand him,” Niki deadpanned.

  “She was so young,” said Sawyer.

  “Ellis Lorance was a statutory rapist.”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “Do you know him?” Niki asked.

  Sawyer shook his head.

  They read on, coming quickly to the emotional breakup, where a confused Gabriella lost her only support system. Ellis gave her three-hundred dollars and put her out on the street.

  Again, there was a missing space of time, until Randal Goddard showed up. This time, Gabriella was more savvy. She asked him to teach her to drive. She opened a bank account and saved part of her spending money. She also chose gifts with lasting value, jewelry instead of clothes, a car instead of a trip, which she made sure was registered in her name.

  And that was when she started cataloguing secrets. Randal was the number six partner in a large, Manhattan law firm. He had a wife and two daughters, and Gabriella learned their address and phone number. By the time the relationship ended, Randal was persuaded to give her two months to move out of the apartment and ten-thousand dollars, which Gabriella promptly deposited into her bank account while searching for a new sugar daddy.

  “I’m having a hard time blaming her,” Sawyer observed.

  “She really was thrown to the wolves.” Niki liked to think she might have taken the money and gone to a community college in order to get a decent job and become independent. But that didn’t seem to be Gabriella’s style.

  Her next affair was with Neil, a stockbroker with some embarrassing sexual proclivities involving ladies’ underwear. At first, Niki squirmed, knowing Sawyer was reading the rather matter-of-fact description about her mother’s sex life. But she couldn’t help but smile as she read Gabriella’s notes about listening and learning about the financial system. Forget college, she realized now how very much her mother had learned about international finance by listening to his phone calls, reading his industry magazines and asking questions.

  By the time things ended with Neil, Gabriella had made some very smart investments. She’d also persuaded him to leave her with a sizable check, and her nest egg was well underway.

  “Neil Ryland is now the head of Rosewell Demetrick Equities,” said Sawyer.

  “Do you think he’s nervous?”

  “I think he’s freaking out.”

  “Yeah, that could be an embarrassing tabloid story.”

  As the diary went on, Gabriella clearly became more sophisticated and cynical. She never talked about loving or even liking her boyfriends. But she was quite obviously obsessed with financial security. She wrote that if she could get enough money in the bank, she’d never have to depend on anyone ever again.

  And then Wilton Terrell came long. Ironically, she seemed to like him. He was gruff and grumpy, but straightforward and honest. He told her she should go back to school and make something of herself. He told her to stop having affairs with married men and get her life under control.

  At the same time, going against what seemed to be his own principles, he was sleeping with her. Their affair was short-lived, only a few days, but he had sex with her about a dozen times.

  “Hypocritical,” Niki observed.

  “It seems Gabriella was hard to resist.”

  “Are you defending your gender?”

  “I’m saying we’re weak-willed when it comes to beautiful women.”

  “Girls,” Niki corrected. “She was still only eighteen.”

  “True,” Sawyer responded. “You win that one. We’re pond scum.”

  “Thank you for owning up to it.”

  “Can’t say I’m particularly proud of the team at the moment,” he mumbled.

  When Gabriella found out she was pregnant, she w
as thrilled. She’d admired Wilton’s straightforward honesty, and thought he was good father material.

  “Didn’t expect that,” said Sawyer.

  Something warmed inside Niki’s chest. “It’s nice to know I wasn’t unwanted.”

  “I’m sorry you ever had to feel that way.” He stretched his arm across the back of the sofa. “I find I keep contrasting her life to mine when I was a teenager.”

  “Spoiled little rich boy?”

  “You’re not far off,” he admitted. “Oh, there were pressures, getting into the right schools, the right fraternity, making the rowing team.”

  “I can only imagine,” Niki mocked.

  “Hey, you were a spoiled little princess yourself.”

  “Right. I guess you win that one.” Her chest went hollow when she thought of all the sacrifices her mother had made to give her that life.

  With Niki on the way, Gabriella became even more obsessed with security. She began picking lovers based on their wealth and their vulnerability. And, after Niki was born, she purposely picked out lovers she could exploit. Using what she’d learned from Neil about investing, and adding to her fortune with ever increasing payoffs from men, Gabriella became a truly wealthy woman.

  Niki seemed to be the light of her life, her reason for striving. Not that it was all work, not by any means. Early in the relationships, the men were blissfully ignorant and seemed deliriously happy. They took them on vacations all around the globe, lavished gifts on both Gabriella and Niki.

  Eventually, they came to passages where Niki could remember snippets of the story: the first time she was on skis, a sailboat adventure in the Mediterranean, and a trip to Disney World when she was five. It had all looked so innocently different to a small child.

  She couldn’t help but think about her own life at eleven. How incredibly different it had been from Gabriella’s struggle. Her chest went tight, and she had to blink away a rash of tears.

  Sawyer slipped the diary out of her hands, setting it down on the coffee table. “We’re going to take a break.”

  But Niki shook her head. She didn’t want to stop. Sure, it might be hard, but reading it couldn’t possibly be as difficult as living it. She felt honor bound to see this through to the end.

  “We’re ordering pizza,” Sawyer decreed. “And there’s some beer in the fridge.”

  “I’m not hungry,” Niki insisted, leaning forward to reach for the diary. This wasn’t Sawyer’s decision to make.

  “You sound like a cranky child.”

  “I was happy reading.”

  “You’re getting emotionally drained from reading.”

  “Don’t worry about me.”

  “You need something to eat.” He snagged the diary and carried it with him to the telephone near his kitchen.

  “You are a bully.”

  He grinned at her protest. “Maybe so. But I’m acting in your best interest.”

  “You don’t know what I’m feeling.”

  He sobered, pausing with the telephone receiver in one hand. “Your expression is pretty transparent, Niki. This is hard for you.” He glanced at his watch. “And it’s nearly seven. And we skipped lunch.”

  She did feel a pang of hunger, but she swallowed against it.

  “Is it so hard to admit I’m right?”

  “Yes.”

  He gave his head a shake of frustration, read a number off a list stuck to his corkboard and dialed the phone.

  While they waited for the pizza, Niki retired to the bathroom to freshen up. She changed out of the skirt and sweater in favor of a pair of soft yoga pants and a cropped T-shirt, then splashed water on her face. For the first time since this morning, she let her mind go back to making love with Sawyer.

  So much had happened in the past few hours that she hadn’t had time to regret it. And, even though she tried now, she couldn’t summon up remorse. If anything, she regretted the first time they’d made love, when she found out he was lying to her, and it had spoiled the entire experience.

  She gave herself a mental shake. Sawyer was still a liar. He was still the guy who’d hunted her down and spied on her. Maybe he was sexy, and maybe he came across as supportive and kind. But she only had to look as far as her own mother to know that people could act one way and be thinking another.

  She shut off the taps and rubbed a towel over her face. She combed her hair and mentally braced herself before returning to Sawyer. He was a good actor, and a great lover, dead stop. Expecting anything else would make her as naive as Gabriella had been when she was fifteen years old.

  She found him at the breakfast bar, diary open, making notes.

  “I opened one for you.” He pointed to a beer bottle.

  “What are you doing?” she asked with suspicion.

  “Writing down the names of the men so far.”

  “What are you going to do with that?” Was this the part where his nefarious plan came to light?

  “I don’t know yet.” He put down the pen, closed the diary, then handed Niki a bottle of beer.

  It was icy cold in her hand, and she realized she was very thirsty. But she continued to watch him closely.

  Sawyer took a drink of his own beer. “I really don’t know yet.”

  “How badly can people hurt me?” she dared ask.

  He stilled. “If I have my way, they’re not going to hurt you at all.”

  “But, they’ll want to.”

  “What they want is to save themselves. Randal Goddard is a morally righteous judge and a deacon in his church. His life goes into a tailspin if anyone finds out he slept with a seventeen year old while his wife was pregnant with their third child. Though your mother didn’t know it, some of what Neil Ryland did was insider trading. You could spawn an SEC investigation with the blink of an eye.”

  The doorbell rang, announcing the pizza delivery.

  “But, for now,” Sawyer finished. “Let’s just eat. You’re looking a little too thin for my tastes.”

  “Hey,” she protested, reflexively glancing down at herself.

  “Don’t worry,” he called over his shoulder as he crossed to the entry foyer. “I have just the cure.”

  “Too thin,” Niki muttered to herself. “As if.” She’d been working on the ranch for months. She had more tone to her muscles than she’d ever had in her life.

  Sawyer reappeared with the pizza box.

  “Double cheese,” he told her, setting it down on the opposite end of the long breakfast bar. “Dense with calories.”

  Niki took her beer and moved to one of the stools around the counter. Now that she could smell the pizza, she couldn’t wait to taste it.

  Sawyer set a stoneware plate in front of each of them. “Silverware?” he asked.

  “No need.” She opened the lid and helped herself to a large gooey slice.

  He sat down opposite her. “My kinda girl.”

  Their gazes met, and they both stilled, as their frantic lovemaking from the morning all but sizzled between them.

  “I have no idea what to do with you,” he told her with a dark intensity.

  She struggled to shake off her feelings. She was falling too fast and too hard for Sawyer Layton. She knew he’d lied to her, had been operating against her. But she believed him when he said he hadn’t expected the attraction between them. His actions rang true in that. He had tried to stop their lovemaking. He had backed off on their first kiss.

  And now he seemed to be helping her. He claimed he wasn’t trying to hurt her, and she was starting to believe him. She was starting to believe him, even though she knew that line of thinking wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t even safe.

  From somewhere deep inside, maybe from that self-preservation taught to her by Gabriella, she found a flippant voice. “I’m not yours to do anything with,” she told him.

  Then she bit down on her pizza, looking away.

  “Not yet,” she thought she heard him mumble.

  But when she glanced at him, he was focused on handl
ing a slice of pizza.

  “What?” he asked, looking up. “You expecting an argument?”

  “Delicious,” she said instead of responding.

  “Aldo’s,” he told her. “My favorite.”

  “Can’t get pizza like this in Lyndon Valley.” She took another big bite.

  After the pizza, they went back to the diary. As Niki grew older, things got tougher for Gabriella. Eventually, she chose the wrong man. He abused her, and when she tried to get away, he revealed his connections to corrupt police officers.

  “That was the year we went to Rio,” Niki whispered in horror. “She pulled me out of third grade in October, and we took off for months.”

  Eventually, Gabriella had found herself a bigger, badder lover, and the man who’d beat her backed off. She struggled with the fine lines between sex, coercion and an almost maniacal desire to party and to protect Niki.

  “She adored you,” Sawyer observed.

  “How did she do it?” Niki wondered out loud. “Some of these guys were really scary.”

  “Ironic that what she was seeking was safety.”

  It became clear as the diary went on, that no amount of money was ever going to be enough for Gabriella. She worried that she and Niki would have to disappear, and she worried that powerful people would be searching for them, making it even harder to hide.

  “She seemed so carefree.” Niki found herself reframing much of her childhood, seeing her mother through a different lens. Her heart ached as she thought of her mother never having anyone to confide in, not even her own daughter.

  When Sawyer suggested they go to bed and finish reading in the morning, Niki agreed. And when he took her hand and led her to his own room, she didn’t protest.

  They took off their clothes and climbed under the quilt, and he drew her back against his body, spooning her, kissing her, wishing her a good night.

  * * *

  Sawyer lay still in his bed with Niki cradled in his arms. She’d fallen asleep almost instantly. He’d dozed off and on, but mostly he’d lain awake trying to come up with his next move.