The Billionaire's Allure (The Silver Cross Club Book 5)

by Bec Linder

  “You waited for three nights to get me to agree to this,” I said. “You want something.”

  He looked down at his cup, spinning it between his long fingers. Nervous, or evasive. “I need your help with something.”

  “What?” I asked.

  He glanced up at me then, and I felt a shock when our eyes met, a powerful current flowing between us. “I think I found Renzo.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Max

  I watched Beth’s face as she absorbed what I had just told her. The expressions flickered across her face in quick succession: blank incomprehension, then disbelief, and then, finally, hope.

  “How?” she asked. “Where?”

  This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have in public—and we were still very much in public, despite the private room. “Why don’t we go back to my place,” I suggested. “I have some things to show you.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” she said.

  I rubbed my hands over my face. Beth had, if anything, become more stubborn with time. “It’s not a trick,” I said. “I’m not going to offer to show you my etchings and then whip my dick out of my trousers. I may have found Renzo. I may not have. I want you to take a look at the information my investigator sent me and see what you think about it. If Renzo has been in touch with you recently—”

  “He hasn’t,” she said. “Not for years. But it sounds like you know that already.”

  “I suspected,” I said. “Otherwise he would have shown up at my door by now with a knife and a pair of brass knuckles.”

  She frowned at me. “Renzo wouldn’t do that. He would be happy to see you again.”

  I wasn’t so sure about that, but I let it go. Yet another thing I wasn’t ready to talk about. “Come home with me,” I said. “We’ll have another drink. I’ll show you what I’ve found. And then I’ll call a cab and send you home. No funny business.”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again. She was tempted, I could tell. She wanted to know about Renzo. But she didn’t want to go home with me. She didn’t trust me. I couldn’t blame her. I barely trusted myself.

  “One drink,” she said. “That’s all. And then I’ll go home.”

  The waiter called a cab for us. I paid the bill, and when the cab arrived, we went out and took the elevator down to the ground floor. As the doors slid shut, Beth turned to me and touched my arm—a brief, light touch, like a butterfly landing, just above my elbow—and said, “Thank you for dinner.”

  “You don’t need to thank me,” I said. “I like eating there.”

  She frowned at me and turned away. I was forever sticking my foot in my mouth around her. “Never mind,” she said.

  We went out into the night in silence.

  Beth spent the first few minutes of the cab ride gazing out the window and ignoring me. I racked my brain for something to say to her, but she eventually took pity on me and said, “Where are we going? I don’t know where you live.”

  I seized the opening with gratitude. “Brooklyn,” I said. “Near the Manhattan Bridge. I can walk to my office.”

  “I thought you said you weren’t working right now.” That tilt to her chin meant she was probing for holes in my story. So suspicious, my Beth.

  “Not in the sense that I’m running a company or performing work in exchange for money,” I said. “But I’m not lazing around watching infomercials, either. I have a few things in the works.”

  “Haven’t you ever heard of a vacation?” she asked.

  I opened my mouth to defend myself, and then realized she was teasing me. “I don’t believe in taking time off,” I said. “A man’s only worth is in his ability to perform hard labor. I’m down in the salt mines every day, you know, sweaty and half-naked, using my rippling biceps to—”

  “Okay, okay,” she said, laughing. “I believe you.”

  The cab headed east through Midtown and then sped south along FDR Drive. Beth fell silent again and stared out the window. I wished more than anything that I knew what she was thinking. I longed to take her hand and confess everything: all of my misdeeds, real or imagined; every unkind thought, every selfish impulse.

  We went up over the bridge and down into Brooklyn, a glittering metropolis of its own. My apartment wasn’t just near the Manhattan Bridge, it was pretty much directly beneath it. I had the top floor of a converted warehouse, and my living room windows looked out across the East River toward Lower Manhattan.

  The cab pulled up in front of the building, tires rumbling over the cobblestones. Beth peered out and up, and then turned to me and said, “You live here?”

  “I do,” I said. I paid the driver, then slid out of the cab and went around to open her door, but she had already opened it for herself and was standing on the sidewalk, staring up at the building.

  “It’s actually less fancy than I expected,” she said. “Tech guys come to the club sometimes, and they all live in these sleek high-rises in Manhattan. They like to show me pictures. Lots of glass and stainless steel.”

  “Too impersonal,” I said. “I like my living quarters to have a little more character. Much like my women.”

  “You’re terrible,” she said, but she was smiling. It was a tiny smile, and she turned her head to the side to hide it from me, but I saw it anyway.

  We went upstairs. I unlocked the front door and ushered her inside. “Straight ahead to the living room. I’ll get a bottle of wine and join you.”

  I went into the kitchen and spent a few moments leaning on the kitchen counter, trying to get my head on straight. Beth wasn’t mine anymore. I wasn’t going to touch her or kiss her, or attempt to convince her to stay the night. I wasn’t some manipulative jerk, bent on getting my way.

  The truth was, I had never gotten over her. Not during college, and not during all the years after. I had dated a lot of women, and even become fond of a few of them, but Beth had my heart, now and always. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life reminiscing about our brief time together and cursing myself for fucking it all up. I would win her back. Somehow.

  But not tonight. Tonight, I needed to tell her about Renzo.

  I took a half-empty bottle of white wine out of the refrigerator and carried it into the living room along with a pair of wine glasses. Beth hadn’t turned on any lights in the living room, and it took me a few moments to locate her, a dark shape standing against one of the windows, backlit by the glow of Manhattan across the river.

  “Wine?” I asked, coming up behind her. The neckline of her dress dipped low in the back, revealing the delicate knob at the top of her spine. I wanted to bend down and press my lips against it, taste her soft skin, curl my hands around her hips—

  No. It wasn’t the time.

  “I’ll have a little bit,” she said. “I already drank too much at dinner.”

  “No such thing,” I said. I set the bottle and the glasses on the coffee table, and went around the room turning on lamps. My apartment was on the fifth floor, high enough that nobody could see in from the street, and I rarely closed my curtains even at night. I liked the feeling of floating in a glass capsule high above the ground.

  “This is a nice place,” she said. She touched her fingertips to the window. When she moved her hand away, her fingers left small smudges on the glass.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I like it here.”

  “You said you had some things to show me,” she said briskly, turning to face me, all business.

  I tugged the cork out of the wine bottle and poured two glasses. “Come and sit down.”

  She took a seat on the couch and accepted the glass I handed to her. “So.”

  “So,” I said. “When was the last time you heard from Renzo?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe five years ago? I had just started working at the club. He had been in prison for a while, and when he got out, he called me. He needed a place to stay. He stayed with me for about a week. I would have let him stay longer, but he said he had found a place. I didn�
�t really believe him. I think he was ashamed. You know. Of having to rely on me. Anyway, I never heard from him again after that. I called him for a while, but he never got back to me, and I guess after a while I just gave up.”

  “And you don’t have any idea what happened to him?” I asked. “He didn’t say anything about whether he was planning to stay in New York?”

  “No,” she said. “I assumed he was. He didn’t say. I don’t know where else he would go. It wasn’t like his parents would have let him move back home.”

  “I suppose not,” I said. “Well, I was hoping for some independent verification, but beggars can’t be choosers, I guess.”

  “Independent verification of what?” she asked.

  “Wait here,” I said. “The papers are in my office.”

  I went into the other room to get the manila folder that contained my information on Renzo. When I went back out into the living room, Beth was inspecting the little terrarium my sister had given me for my birthday a few months ago. She had filled it with succulents and cactuses—cacti?—and told me to water it sparingly once a month. I had somehow, miraculously, managed not to kill it. “My pride and joy,” I said to Beth, and she looked up at me, a question on her face. “It’s still alive,” I explained. “I’m thinking about upgrading to something more ambitious, like a spider plant.”

  “Those are pretty easy,” she said. “Just make sure to let them dry out between waterings.”

  “I’ll need lots of help,” I said. “You’ll have to come over on a weekly basis to make sure my houseplants are still alive.”

  “I think you can manage,” she said, refusing to take the bait. “What did you find?”

  I sat down beside her and opened the folder. On top of the stack was a blurry photograph of a man wearing a baseball cap. The investigator had taken it from across the street, and I couldn’t be sure it was Renzo, but it certainly looked a lot like him.

  “I’m not sure,” Beth said, touching the picture, her fingertips brushing the man’s chin.

  “I told you I wasn’t certain,” I said. “But look.” I turned to the next page. “A report from his parole officer. He requested permission to move to California, and it was granted. They transferred jurisdiction.”

  “When was this?” Beth asked, scanning the page. “A year ago. Okay. So he’s out of prison, then. I’m glad.”

  “And working, I think,” I said. “My investigator followed him to a construction site. He’s working with a framing crew.”

  “Okay,” Beth said. “So what? Are you going to send him a letter? Why do you care? Renzo has his own life. If he wanted help, he would have gotten in touch with me. I think it’s best just to leave well enough alone.”

  Maybe she was right, but I couldn’t let things stand. Renzo and I had parted on bad terms, and I needed to atone for that. I wanted his forgiveness. I knew it was a selfish desire, and I had spent several years trying to talk myself out of it, but I couldn’t move on with my life until I had made amends. “He’s too proud to reach out,” I said. “Renzo working construction? He wouldn’t be doing that if he had any other options. And besides, don’t you miss him?”

  I wasn’t expecting her eyes to fill with tears. She covered her mouth with one hand and glanced to the side. “I do,” she said. “Oh, God. I miss him all the time.”

  “Beth,” I said, stricken. I touched her back, tentative, and when she didn’t pull away, I slid my arm around her waist and drew her against me, holding her tucked against my side. She was so warm and small. I wanted to protect her from the world. “Please don’t cry.”

  “I’m not crying,” she said. She lowered her hand and leaned away from me.

  I took the hint and released her. She was skittish as a cat, ready to flinch away from my touch if I approached her the wrong way. She sat back against the sofa and raised her hand to her hair, smoothing her palm over her braids. The message was clear: No Trespassing.

  I shuffled the papers back into place and closed the folder, giving her a moment to collect herself, and then tossed the folder onto the coffee table and considered my next move.

  More wine. Wine was always the answer. I drained my glass and reached for the bottle.

  “You’re going to be on the floor if you have any more of that,” Beth said.

  I chuckled. “I’m not seventeen anymore. Of all the things I’ve learned in the past eight years, holding my liquor is probably at the top of the list of the most useful.”

  “Do you remember that one night,” Beth said, picking up her own glass, “when we convinced Todd to buy us some forties with his fake ID, and you and Renzo both got so sick—”

  “And you spent the entire night alternately laughing at us and forcing us to drink water,” I said. “I remember.”

  “It was your own fault for drinking that much,” she said. “I tried to warn you.”

  “We were showing off,” I said. “Or I was, at least. Renzo—I think Renzo was just trying to get drunk.”

  She nodded. “That was right after he’d gotten that letter from his sister, remember? About how he shouldn’t try to come home. He was pretty depressed.”

  I remembered that letter all too well. It had sent Renzo into a tailspin that lasted more than a week. He disappeared for a few days and wouldn’t tell us where he had been, but he came back with bruises circling his wrists and a suspicious amount of cash in a crumpled envelope.

  God. Renzo. I had failed him in so many ways.

  “What’s your favorite memory of him?” I asked. I didn’t want to dwell on the sad parts any longer.

  She took another sip of wine, looking thoughtful. “When he found that ukelele in a dumpster,” she said after a few moments. “Remember that? And he made up new lyrics for all of those Disney songs—”

  “Christ. I had forgotten,” I said. “What was that one about the crab?”

  “It’s not about a crab, it’s sung by a crab,” she said. “Under the Culvert. No, Inside the Culvert. He changed the lyrics.”

  “We can get higher, here where it’s drier,” I said.

  She laughed. “He was really into weed at that point, wasn’t he? Poor Renzo. We shouldn’t have let him smoke so much.”

  “I don’t think we could have stopped him,” I said, and she nodded, her face settling once again into sorrow.

  That wouldn’t do. I reached for her unconsciously, but checked the motion before I could touch her. She saw my hand move, though, and gave me a look I couldn’t quite decipher. “What’s your favorite memory of him, then?” she asked. “You have to share, too.”

  “That’s easy,” I said. “When we were in Washington Square Park, and that student had brought her puppy—”

  “Oh, God, it was a corgi, too, wasn’t it?” Beth asked. “And Renzo fell completely in love with it—”

  “And we couldn’t get him to leave,” I said. “He would have taken that thing back to the shelter with him if the girl would have let him.”

  “He missed his dog,” Beth said. “I don’t know if you ever saw it, but he kept a picture of his dog in his backpack, and he would pull it out sometimes at night and look at it.”

  “I didn’t know that,” I said.

  “He didn’t want anyone to know, I don’t think,” she said. “I only saw him do it a few times, and it was because he thought I was already asleep.” She sighed and shook her head, then gave me a piercing look I felt right down to the marrow of my bones. “So what are you going to do now that you’ve found him?”

  Always sharp, my Beth. She could put the pieces together. I had searched for and found her, and now here she was in my living room. I had searched for and found—probably—Renzo. And now? “I’m planning to go look for him in person,” I said. “And I want you to go with me.”

  She inhaled sharply, then tried to mask her reaction by taking another sip of wine. “That isn’t a good idea.”

  “It’s a brilliant idea,” I said. “He might not talk to me, but he’ll definitely
talk to you.”

  “Why wouldn’t he talk to you?” she asked.

  “The same reason you wouldn’t talk to me at first,” I said. “You took pity on me eventually, but I’m not sure Renzo would. He has far more testosterone than you do, for one thing—”

  “Hey,” she said.

  “—and he fights dirty. You’re offended that I think Renzo has more testosterone? I’m sorry. Let me amend that statement. Nobody would ever doubt your masculine prowess, Beth.”

  “You’re making fun of me,” she said.

  “Absolutely,” I said. “It’s fun. You make the most delightful faces.” I touched her chin, very gently, waiting until she smiled. “Beth. I missed you very much.”

  She turned her face aside, her mouth twisting. “You shouldn’t have left me, then.”

  “I didn’t want to,” I said. “There were circumstances.” I slid my hand along her jaw and behind her neck, cupping her head. “Beth. Don’t look away from me.”

  “I don’t want to look at you. I’m so mad at you. Still. I was—I loved you. I wanted—I wanted to—”

  “I know,” I said. “I wanted that, too. But life rarely cooperates with our plans. But we have a second chance, now. I know you’re angry with me. I hope you’ll be able to forgive me. I don’t want to let you go again.”

  “Oh, Max,” she said, her voice shaky. “You can’t do this to me. You can’t get my head all turned around and then walk out on me again.”

  “I’m not going to,” I said. I turned toward her and set my other hand on her hip. “Our story isn’t over. Whatever mistakes we’ve made, we still have time to rewrite them.”

  “It’s not that easy,” she said, pulling away from me again.

  I groaned, frustrated. This wasn’t working. I would never be able to talk her into trusting me. Beth didn’t operate like that. She was too logical, and giving me another chance wasn’t the logical choice. I understood that. It was the opposite of logic. I needed to appeal to her baser instincts: sex, intimacy, nostalgia.

  I needed her to give me a second chance.