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

by Bec Linder

  “I disagree,” Jack said, finally looking up from his plate. “Nobody ever talks about anything in this family. I want to know what happened.”

  I looked around the table. They were all watching me. My mother had one hand over her mouth. My father looked amused. I wondered if that was the secret to running a successful multinational corporation: take nothing seriously, and appreciate family drama for the entertainment value.

  “Well?” Rosemary said.

  “Okay,” I said, giving in to the inevitable. “Fine. You win. What do you want to know?”

  Between the two of them, Rosemary and Jack got the whole story out of me: where I had gone, why, and with whom. My father listened and sipped his coffee. My mother rested her elbows on the table and covered her face with her hands. I realized, after some time, that she was crying.

  I stood up and crossed to the other side of the table to sit beside her. Her shoulders shook minutely. I put my arms around her and patted her back. “Mother, please don’t. I’m sorry.” I turned and glared at Rosemary. “I hope you assholes are happy. It’s her birthday.”

  To her credit, Rosemary looked a little chagrined.

  “I never knew any of those things,” my mother said, her voice muffled by her hands. “I imagined it so many times. But I never knew what it was really like for you.”

  Guilt stabbed at me. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t think—it was never about punishing you. I didn’t intend to make you worry.”

  She sniffed and wiped at her eyes, then settled her hands in her lap and looked at me. Her eyes were red and puffy. “We found you, you know. About a month after you ran away. Your father hired a detective. But he said you seemed content and in no immediate danger, and we decided it was best to leave you be.”

  I sat back, stunned. I’d had no idea. “You found me? How did you—”

  My father laughed. “Max, you were a sheltered teenager. I’m sure you thought you were very clever, but you didn’t cover your tracks very well.” Then he sobered. “And even if you had, we would have spared no expense to find you. Don’t underestimate the degree of our concern. Rosemary wasn’t exaggerating when she said that your mother cried for six months.”

  “Well, now I feel incredibly guilty,” I said. “So thank you for that, Jack and Rosemary. Mother, how can I make this up to you?”

  “You can’t,” she said. “And I don’t want you to. I know what you’ve been doing in Brooklyn, with your youth shelter.” There was an accusing note in her voice, and I bristled, but then she patted my knee and smiled at me. “Our experiences shape us. Yours have certainly shaped you. Your running away was one of the hardest times of my life, but it turned you into the man you are today. I’m very proud to call that man my son.”

  “Touching speech,” Jack said sardonically, and began clapping.

  Rosemary threw half of a croissant at him.

  I ignored both of them, and leaned in to kiss my mother’s cheek. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know that doesn’t change anything, but I am.”

  “You can make it up to me by bringing that young lady over for dinner,” she said.

  I winced. That was one promise I couldn’t make.

  Just give me some time.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Beth

  The day after Max came to visit me—accost me?—at the club, I woke up early and started on a new book.

  I had been thinking about my conversation with Claudia, but I hadn’t done anything about it yet. That morning, I sat at my kitchen table with my laptop and read over my book, the few sad chapters I had pieced together over the past year. If I was being honest with myself, it wasn’t very good. The characters were paper-thin. The plot didn’t make any sense. I spent so much time trying to craft perfect, lyrical sentences that I had lost sight of the story’s beating heart.

  Which was, of course, and always, Max.

  Claudia had told me that my writing was too constrained. Okay: I would free myself from all constraints. I would stop worrying about writing The Great American Novel. I would write this book for myself.

  I went to my desk and got started.

  I wrote furiously, for hours, the words pouring out of me in a torrent. For once, I didn’t go back and revise. I just wrote. I finished an entire chapter. It was more than I had written in one day since—well, maybe ever.

  As the light changed toward evening, I saved my work and went down the street to the copy shop to print it off. It was my night to present at my writing group.

  For once, I wasn’t nervous. I felt good about what I had written. Even if nobody in the group liked it, I was still content with my work. Claudia’s hippie crystal vibrations talk mystified me most of the time, but maybe this was what she had meant about the story that was heavy in my heart. Now that the words were on paper, I could rise again. I felt lighter than I had since I’d opened Renzo’s letter, like I had shed the weight of my worries. I felt like I could move forward now, into whatever came next.

  I walked to the coffee shop in the warm spring twilight. All of the restaurants in my neighborhood had opened their outdoor patios for the season, and people were drinking wine and laughing in the fading light. Ahead of me, an elderly couple walked hand in hand. The city pulsed with life, and I was a part of it, a single cell in the vibrant, organic structure of New York. In that moment, all the pain I had felt, the betrayal and uncertainty, fell away.

  I could be angry, and self-righteous, and spend the rest of my life regretting what I had lost. Or I could choose forgiveness, and love.

  Put it like that, and it was no decision at all.

  The coffee shop glowed from within like a lantern. I went through the front door into the warm and fragrant interior. Everyone was gathered in the back, sitting in a loose circle. I’d had some printer problems, and I was the last to arrive. I set my bag down on the one empty chair and said, “I hope I’m not late.”

  “You’re right on time,” Claudia said, beaming at me. I looked around the room. Everyone was smiling, happy to see me or just to be there. I wasn’t alone. I had a whole meaningful life, even without Max. I didn’t need him. But I wanted him. He made everything better. He made me better.

  I took a seat and settled my stack of papers on my lap. The pages were still warm from the printer. I hoped that everyone would like what I had written. But if they didn’t, that was okay, too. I would still keep writing. There were other stories to tell.

  Claudia clasped her hands together. Her many rings sparkled in the light. “Shall we begin?”

  Evan went first, with his sci-fi novel. His latest chapter outlined the hero escaping from the space station. It was fast-paced, tightly plotted, and thrilling. I read through it so quickly that when I looked up, everyone else still had their heads bent over the pages. Evan glanced over at me, his eyebrows raised in a silent query. I flashed him a thumbs up, and he smiled.

  When everyone was finished reading, Claudia said, “Who would like to begin?”

  “This is fantastic!” Maggie said, without even raising her hand. “Evan, I’m ready to throttle you for ending the chapter there. You can’t make us wait another six weeks to find out what happens next.”

  He grinned. “So that was an effective scene break, I guess.”

  “Sure, if you’re evil,” Maggie said. “Readers will be up all night finishing your book. Do you want to be responsible for that much sleep deprivation?”

  Everyone laughed. Claudia jingled her bracelets and said, “What other feedback do we have for Evan?”

  Paolo raised his hand. “I have to disagree with Maggie. I thought the action sequence was trite and unoriginal. Really, crawling around in the air ducts? Evan, you can do better.”

  Fierce debate erupted. The group was evenly split between people who loved the chapter and people who thought the method of escape was too clichéd to be enjoyable. Evan leaned back in his chair, grinning, periodically taking notes. I was always impressed with his ability to
be completely unfazed by criticism.

  Claudia let us go on for a while, but then she raised her hand for silence, and everyone simmered down. “Evan, I hope you’ve been given some food for thought,” she said.

  He nodded. “Oh, yeah. I think I’ve decided what I’m going to do. But you’ll all just have to wait and see.”

  “Not fair!” Dan said. Like me, he was on Team This Is Awesome.

  “All right, all right,” Claudia said, heading off another outburst. “Evan’s had his turn. For the second half of our meeting, we’ll read something from Beth.” She turned to me, smiling warmly. “What do you have for us this evening?”

  I drew in a deep breath, and passed my chapter around the circle. “This is something new,” I said. “I just started on it today. So… Well, I’ll just let you guys read it.”

  They read, and I chewed on a hangnail. Maybe I was a little nervous.

  Naida finished reading, then Samuel. Darya finished, and flashed me a quick smile. Claudia waited until everyone was done, and then she said, “I don’t usually provide input during meetings. My role is to serve as moderator, not critic. But in this case, I feel the need to say something.”

  I hunched my shoulders, bracing myself.

  “Beth, I am so proud of you,” she continued. “This is what I’ve been waiting to see from you. I’m glad that you took our conversation to heart. It’s true that this is less polished than your previous work, but I believe that’s a good thing. I hope you’ll continue in this vein. I know I’m looking forward to seeing what develops.”

  Around the circle, people nodded their agreement. Darya smiled at me again, and this time I saw her smile for what it was: not pity, or even reassurance, but pride.

  Evan raised his hand. “I know you’re writing literary fiction and not genre fiction, but books can be literary and still engaging,” he said. “And this is. I already care about these characters. I demand regular email updates, because I don’t want to have to wait until it’s your turn again.”

  Samuel raised his hand and said, in his quiet way, “I agree. This is good work. You’re very talented. That said, the tone of the opening scene contrasts with the rest of the chapter in a way I don’t think you intended…”

  It went on like that. I glowed from the praise, and took notes of people’s suggestions. Paolo hated my work—he hated everything—but everyone else liked it and encouraged me to keep going. It was by far the most positive reaction I had ever gotten from the group. I wanted to go home and start on the next chapter right away.

  When we were finished, and I was packing up my bag, Darya approached me with Evan at her side. “Beth, we’re going for dinner, if you would like to come,” she said. “Evan promised me that he would tell me what happens in his next chapter.”

  I hesitated, thinking of my laptop, and the chapter waiting to be written. “Well…”

  “Sneak preview,” Evan said. “Exclusive inside information. Limited time only.”

  I looked at them, these people who wanted to be my friends, and decided that my book could wait for a little while. “Dinner sounds great.”

  * * *

  On Sunday, I woke up mid-morning and decided that I was going to visit Max at his shelter. It was a spontaneous decision, and I realized as I sat on the subway that I had no way of knowing if Max would actually be at the shelter. I figured it was worth a shot. He spent a lot of time there, I knew. And even if he wasn’t there, it would be easy enough for me to walk to his apartment and beard the lion in his den.

  It was a sunny day, and some kids were standing around outside the shelter. One of them, smoking a cigarette, gave me a suspicious look and said, “You want something, lady?”

  “I’m looking for Max,” I said. The kid’s snide tone irritated me, and I said, “Does he know you’re smoking that cigarette?”

  “She definitely knows Max,” another kid said, and flashed a wide grin at me. “He’s inside.”

  “Don’t tell her that!” the first kid said, aiming a kick in the snitch’s direction. “She’s going to tell on me!”

  “Serves you right,” I said. “Smoking is a terrible habit.” The kid opened his mouth like he wanted to argue with me, but I breezed past him into the building before he could respond.

  I immediately felt petty. I wasn’t here to score imaginary points against teenagers.

  I imagined telling Max about that interaction. He would just laugh at me, and tell me I had let my temper get the better of me. He knew my faults and loved me anyway.

  That was what it was: love. He had never said the words, except in the letter he wrote to me when he was seventeen. But I knew the truth of it.

  Or I thought I did, at least.

  One of the kids used her key-card to let me in, and I wandered around the building, looking for Max. He wasn’t in his office, which was the first place I looked. He wasn’t in the kitchen, or in the gym, which had sprouted a treadmill and a rowing machine since the last time I’d been there.

  Finally, I went into the library, and there he was, sitting at a table with a boy in a hoodie, the two of them bent over an open textbook, pencils in hand.

  I watched for a while, leaning in the doorway. Max was dressed casually, in jeans and a worn T-shirt that looked soft to the touch. As much as I liked it when he dressed up, I liked it even better when he wore things that looked like he had dug them out of the back of his closet. Wealthy Businessman Max was still, in many ways, an unknown quantity. I knew this Max, the one whose hair fell in his face, whose sneakers were a little bit scuffed.

  It took me a few minutes to figure out what they were working on. They were speaking quietly, and too far away for me to make out more than a single word here and there. It was probably the kid’s physics homework, I decided, when Max tossed an imaginary basketball, his fingers describing a perfect arc. The kid nodded, and typed something into his calculator. Max handed him a wadded-up piece of paper, and the boy aimed it at the trashcan and threw. It went right in, a perfect shot.

  I laughed aloud. I couldn’t help it. They both looked over at me, faces mirror images of surprise.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Don’t mind me.”

  “Beth,” Max said, starting up out of his chair. He paused halfway, and sat back down. The kid looked at him, smirking. Max held a hand in front of the boy’s face. “Beth. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

  “I dropped by,” I said. “Sorry. You’re busy. I can go wait downstairs.”

  “It’s cool, miss,” the boy said, gathering his things. “It was just this one problem giving me trouble. I understand it now. I can do the rest on my own.” I still felt bad for interrupting, but the kid was grinning and looking back and forth between me and Max. “She’s really pretty,” he said to Max in what I assumed was supposed to be a whisper.

  Max rolled his eyes. “Get out, Terrell.”

  The kid went, still grinning.

  “Sorry about that,” Max said, leaning back in his chair. “The kids are overly invested in my love life, or perceived lack thereof.”

  “Surrounded by matchmakers?” I asked. “That sounds like a hard life.” I felt a little shy. I wasn’t sure how to start this conversation. I moved into the room, but I didn’t go to where Max was sitting. I walked around the perimeter, looking at the books on the shelves, trailing my fingers along their bound spines. The titles ran the gamut—everything from mysteries to old pulp novels to self-help books I was sure I had seen on Oprah. Max had probably cleaned out the book sections of a few thrift stores to build this collection.

  “Beth, why are you here?” he asked, interrupting my thoughts.

  I swallowed. A deep breath, and then the dive. “I missed you,” I said. “I’m tired of being angry with you.”

  “Oh yeah?” he asked. His chair scraped across the floor. I turned to face him, finally. He was coming toward me, hands at his sides. I pressed my back against the bookcase behind me and braced myself for whatever would come next. A kiss, or a b
low.

  Dramatic. I knew Max would never hit me.

  He stopped in front of me. His hands flexed. He raised one of them and touched my chin, tipping my head back to meet his eyes. “Beth,” he said. He sounded unsure.

  I supposed I had given him plenty of reason for doubt.

  “I’m still a little angry,” I said. “But I forgive you. I’m deciding to forgive you. I want to be with you. I want—all of it, babies and—a life together.”

  “Beth,” he said again.

  My throat ached. I knew him: his strong jaw, his kind eyes. He had made some mistakes, but so had I. Mistakes were what made us human.

  His hand skimmed down my neck and rested on my shoulder. I felt the words rising in me before I said them, like a bubble of air in a bottle. And then I opened my mouth and there they were, raw and unabashed. “I love you,” I said.

  Then I closed my eyes in dismay. Had I really just said that?

  “My sweet Bee,” he said. “Elizabeth. You know I adore you beyond reason.”

  “You have to say it,” I said. I cracked one eye open to look at him. He didn’t look too upset.

  In fact, he was smiling. “Say what?”

  “You know what,” I said. “You can’t dance around it. You have to say it.”

  “Words mean nothing,” he said. “It’s actions that count, right? I’ll buy you a thousand red roses, take you on the tropical vacation of your wildest dreams—”

  Now I knew he was tormenting me on purpose. “Say it,” I insisted, tugging at the front of his shirt.

  He leaned in until his lips were almost brushing against mine. When he spoke, I felt his breath. “I love you.”

  I closed the final inch between us and kissed him.

  He immediately wrapped me in his arms, warm and strong, and kissed me with his whole heart. The bookcase was digging into my spine, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered but being here with him, this man I had chosen, for better or for worse, through thick and thin.