The Bridesmaid and the Billionaire

by Shirley Jump

  “Like this?” he repeated, his voice quiet, dark.

  “Yeah.” She leaned with him, his arm brushing against her chest, setting off a charge of explosions under her skin as if the fabric of her shirt and bra didn’t exist. “And then you, uh, go forward, really fast, and uh, when you do, you let go of the button.”

  “Like this?” Kane asked again, in that same dark, deep voice, doing what she’d instructed, leaving Susannah’s body behind with the movement. A whisper of disappointment whistled through her.

  “Exactly.” She stepped away, working a smile to her face when Kane’s bobber popped up just a few feet away from her own. “You did it.”

  “Thanks to you. Now what do we do?”

  “We wait.”

  He shot her a grin. “Any ideas on how to kill time?”

  Oh, she had a hundred of them. None of them the usual ways she had killed time while fishing. Which had been talking, listening to music, sometimes even reading a book. But today, with Kane Lennox beside her, she didn’t care one whit about catching a fish. Or watching the water. Or anything but continuing what they had started the night before.

  “Why Paris?”

  Of everything Kane could have asked her, that question took Susannah most by surprise. “What?”

  “I noticed every poster, every decoration you have is about Paris. From all that, I assumed that was the first stop on your trip around the world. Why that city out of all the ones in the world?”

  She jiggled her line a little, reeling in some before answering. Rover began digging in the dirt at the edge of the lake, trying to unearth a partially buried stick. “My parents were supposed to go on a honeymoon to Paris when they first got married, but they never did. My father’s dad had a stroke just before the wedding, and my mom and dad ended up staying home to work his farmland out on County Road 9, just outside of town. Farmers work long days and never get vacations. My parents would take day trips here and there, but they never got to go on that big European trip they’d dreamed of.”

  “I know people like that,” Kane said. “My uncle worked until the day he died. Had a heart attack in his office. Never even made it out of his chair. That’s when I decided I better take a vacation and have the life I’d always wanted, even if it’s only for a few days, before I ended up like him.”

  A smile crossed her face. “Seems we have something else in common. I never wanted a business that would consume my life like that farm did my parents’. I wanted a chance to see the world, except doing that’s pretty expensive.” She grinned. “Good thing I have this lucrative side job in fishing lessons.”

  He smiled back. “Good thing. You should consider tutoring all the clueless out-of-towners.”

  “Yeah, we get tons of those in Chapel Ridge.”

  He moved his rod a little to the side, pulling in the slack. “You’re starting your travels with a great city.”

  The images of the Eiffel Tower, the banks of the Seine, the quaint bistros, all those places in Paris she’d imagined visiting and never touched, marched through Susannah’s mind. “Have you been there?”

  “Not as a tourist. Only on business.”

  “You must be pretty high up at the jewelry store to get to go to Paris.”

  Kane shrugged, and again Susannah could swear she detected that icy tension in his shoulders. “I suppose so.”

  “I’m planning on working my way through the rest of the world, one doggie shampoo at a time.”

  Kane reached out and clasped her hand in his own. “Paris in springtime will be a perfect way to start.”

  Thirty yards away, the red-and-white ball on the end of Kane’s line dipped beneath the water, then popped back up again. “Hey! You’ve got a bite.”

  He began to turn the reel, but Susannah laid a hand on his. “Not yet. Give the pole a little jerk, then wait.”

  He did as she said. The bobber went under the water and didn’t come back up.

  “Feel anything?”

  Kane went still. “Line’s pulling.”

  “Now reel it in.”

  In slow and steady circles, Kane rolled the clear fishing line back onto the reel, inching the fish out of the water and back to the dock. A few minutes later, a six-inch bluegill dangled on the end of his line, flopping its yellow, green and blue body back and forth. “Will you look at that? I caught one. Already.”

  “He’s big enough to eat. If you want to have him for dinner.”

  “No, I just want to catch them. I’m taking no prisoners.” He grinned. “That’s where the fun is, isn’t it?” He finished pulling the fish in, then followed Susannah’s instructions for removing the bluegill from the hook and releasing it gently back into the lake. The fish remained still against Kane’s palm for a second, then swam off and disappeared beneath the dark surface. “Go ahead, go free,” Kane said quietly. Then he cleared his throat, straightened and turned back to Susannah. “Let’s do that again.”

  She laughed. “I can’t believe you’re paying me to teach you this.”

  “And I can’t believe you’re such a great instructor, with some amazing fringe benefits.” He placed a quick kiss on her lips, then grabbed his pole and headed over to the bait bucket.

  Fringe benefits? He’d made her sound like an insurance package or an extra vacation day. Disappointment sank like a stone in Susannah’s gut, but she brushed it away. She didn’t want any more than these few days.

  Did she?

  For the next half hour, they fished, with Kane reeling in another four fish, and Susannah catching three, throwing all of them back. After each catch, Kane was as happy as a miner discovering a vein of gold. “Had enough?”

  He held up his fishing pole. “I’m ready for some marlin now.”

  She laughed. “You won’t find those out here, but I’m glad you enjoyed the experience.”

  “I did.” He took her hand and gave it a squeeze. “More than you know.”

  He leaned in to kiss her again when his phone began to ring, the sound cutting through the quiet of the lake and destroying the moment. He’d opened up more than just an old coffee can filled with worms today. All that time alone, waiting for the fish. Then the joy of finally catching one had Kane dropping his guard and opening a part of his heart to Susannah. He’d begun to feel something for her, something deeper than he’d felt for anyone before. He could practically hear the warning bells clanging. Where could he possibly take this from here? Chapel Ridge, Indiana, didn’t go with Lennox Gem Corporation in New York City. And a woman like Susannah Wilson was never going to understand why a billionaire CEO had deceived her.

  “I’ll let you get that,” Susannah said as the phone rang again. “I have to get to work so I can walk the shelter dogs. I’ll catch up with you later. Okay?”

  Susannah rose on her tiptoes and placed a kiss on Kane’s cheek. The kiss was sweet, innocent and completely devoid of anything passionate, yet it touched a spot in Kane that he had thought New York and the business, and the world of money he inhabited, had burned away. As he watched her leave, her lithe figure moving easily up the hill and back to her car, he heard Rover let out a whine of disappointment. “I hear you, buddy. I feel the same way.”

  The phone continued its musical assault on his senses. Kane fished the cursed electronic device out of his back pocket. Took one look at the silver ball and chain, then a second at Susannah and the fishing pole slung over her shoulder, and decided he couldn’t do this right, not unless he did it all the way.

  He turned back to face the lake, then flung the phone as far as he could. It landed with a satisfying plop, floated for a second, then sank to the bottom of Lake Everett, taking its still-ringing expectations deep into the silt.

  “Suzie-Q, I need you.”

  “Jackie, I’m running out the door. I can’t—”

  “This isn’t a favor. This is about Paul.”

  Susannah stopped in her tracks, her hand halfway to the doorknob. She knew that tone in Jackie’s voice, knew it like the ba
ck of her hand. Jackie was having a crisis. Again. “What’s wrong?”

  “Paul called off the wedding.”

  “What? Why?”

  A sob, a catch on the other end, then Jackie sniffled and continued. “He said…he’s not ready. He thinks we’re rushing. That we don’t have enough money and we should wait until we’ve saved enough to buy a bigger house and have kids. But, Suzie, I don’t want to wait. I love him.”

  Jackie and Paul had had this argument a hundred times over the past year. From the second Paul had slipped the ring onto Jackie’s finger, he’d worried about finances. He’d calculated their budget from here to Sunday, trying to make two lean paychecks stretch further. Jackie, never one to worry about price tags or bill due dates, had argued with him more than once about the cost of the wedding.

  Susannah could have saved him the breath. She’d been trying to tell Jackie the same thing for years. But Jackie had never wanted to listen to talk about budgets and bills.

  “It’s just cold feet, Jackie. It’ll be fine.” She closed the books for The Sudsy Dog, gathered up that day’s checks and the deposit slip, tucking both into her purse. Tess gave her a sympathetic smile as Susannah sent her a wave and headed out the door, mouthing a thank-you.

  “I think it’s more than that. Can you come over? Talk to me? I really don’t want to be alone and you’re so good at talking to me and making me feel better. Please, Suzie? I’m so worried.”

  “Aren’t you at work?”

  “Are you kidding me? I couldn’t go back to work after Paul said that. I called in sick.”

  Susannah ran a hand over her face and bit back a scream of frustration. No matter how many times Susannah had tried to tell her differently, Jackie had never seemed to get the message about responsibility versus whim. “Jackie, you can’t do that. You two need the money. Isn’t that what this is really all about?”

  “Well…yeah.” She sniffled again. “But—”

  “But what better way to send a message to Paul that you’re on the same page as him than to keep earning your own paycheck?” Susannah paused, but got silence on the other end. She doubted Jackie was even listening. A hundred times Susannah had tried to instill a sense of responsibility, an understanding of priorities in Jackie, and gotten nowhere. Eventually it just became easier to do it all. “You should go back to work. Talk to me when you get home.”

  “Suzie, this is a crisis. How can I work when my life is imploding?”

  She’d said the same thing last week when her dress fitting had made her feel fat. And two weeks before that when one of her bridesmaids had endured a breakup of her own. Jackie had been blessed with a patient boss, but even Susannah knew that patience could only be stretched so thin. Still, she kept all this to herself. No sense making Jackie any more upset. “Jackie, you’re a receptionist at a paper company. It’s not like you’re in a high-stress, demanding job. Heck, after three the phone hardly ever rings over there. I’m sure you can get through the day.”

  “You have no sympathy at all. I can’t believe you won’t come home and take care of me. I need you to make me some soup and—”

  Susannah leaned against her car and closed her eyes. She rubbed her temples and prayed for strength. “Jackie, I have other things to do.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Jackie sighed. “I wish Mom was here. Don’t you, Susannah? She’d make it better. She always knew what to do and say.”

  Guilt rocketed through Susannah. She refused to give in to the emotion. Refused to let it bother her. Refused to let it sing its siren song again.

  And stop her from living her life one more time.

  Kane had thought he’d have more time before they called out the bloodhounds.

  He flung the newspaper into the wastebasket, but it was too late. The small headline, buried in the entertainment section of the paper—thank God for small favors—had already been burned into his memory. Gem Business CEO Missing: Family Spokesperson Says, “We’re Worried.”

  Family spokesperson. Kane snorted. Another euphemism for Ronald Jeffries, his father’s lawyer. The man called on to do all of Elliott Lennox’s dirty work. Like deal with a wayward son yet again. His father had to be royally ticked off to have alerted the media.

  Kane reached for his cell phone, then remembered. It had found a permanent home at the bottom of the lake. There’d be no calling home. Just as well. He wanted an escape. If he picked up a phone and called his father, there’d be a limo here in five minutes.

  To drag Kane back to the life he so desperately wanted to leave, just for a little while.

  He turned to enter the hardware store, when he saw Susannah coming out of her shop a few doors down. She had her keys out, her thumb on the remote for her car, when she saw him.

  “Kane,” she began, heading down the sidewalk to him, her steps fast, her face devoid of its earlier smile. “I can’t meet with you this afternoon.” She dug in her purse, then pulled out the bills he’d handed her earlier. “Let me refund your money.”

  He waved off the cash. “Keep it. We’ll catch up later. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s Jackie. She’s in a ‘crisis.’”

  “I take it the world isn’t coming to an end?”

  Susannah laughed, and he could hear the relief explode in the sound, as if she were a bomb of stress waiting for just the right detonator. “No. Just Paul, worrying about the bills. They argued again. Called off the wedding. Again.”

  “This has happened before?” Then he remembered Paul’s words in the bar about Jackie’s spending. Clearly the issue was a source of friction between practical Paul and flighty Jackie.

  “Jackie isn’t what anyone would call responsible with money. And Paul probably found out that she spent too much on flowers or a veil or something silly like little plastic people to sit at the base of the cake and look like extras.”

  “Extras?”

  Susannah nodded. “Jackie wanted to include representatives of every guest on the cake.”

  “Sounds to me like it’ll look more like an ant farm gone horribly awry.”

  Laughter burst out of Susannah in a steady stream. She laughed so hard, her cheeks turned red, and her eyes began to water. “Oh, Lord, I needed that today. Thanks, Kane.” She laid a hand on him, an innocent touch, the kind meant only to express gratitude, but it sent a rocket of desire roaring through Kane’s body.

  Susannah turned to go, and Kane knew he should let her leave. Let her deal with her family on her own. He had no need for entanglements. No wish to get involved. He was going back at the end of this week, back to a life that was as far removed from this town as Mars was from the moon.

  He needed to get real here—and fast. This relationship with Susannah would never work in his world, no matter how much he might think otherwise while he was inhabiting this little slice of heaven. Except…a part of him kept on hoping the Utopia would just go right on existing.

  “Susannah, wait.”

  She pivoted back. “Yeah?”

  “Need some help? Money is one thing I’m pretty good at.”

  And when a smile curved across her face, Kane realized he had a problem. One all the money in the world couldn’t fix.

  He wanted to move the moon right next to Mars.

  Jackie hyperventilated with the best of them.

  Susannah sat in the kitchen with her sister, doling out coffee and cookies, waiting for the emotional storm to pass. It turned out Paul hadn’t actually called off the wedding—Jackie also had a tendency toward hyperbole—but the two of them had had yet another finances disagreement, which Jackie took as a sign of impending doom. Now, Kane leaned against the opposite corner, Rover at his feet, the two males reflecting twin pained expressions.

  “What am I going to do? Paul is never going to listen to me after we get married. He’s always all money this, and money that.” A pile of shredded tissues lay before Jackie, beside a plate of cookie crumbs.

  “Be more responsible, for one,” Susannah said. “You spend mone
y like it’s pouring out of the faucet and—”

  Jackie let out a gust. “I don’t want to hear one more word about responsibility and boring things like money, Suzie. That’s not fun. For Pete’s sake, I’m getting married, not dying.”

  Kane pushed off from the countertop. “If you don’t start worrying about money, you will die.”

  Susannah opened her mouth, closed it, opened it again, then finally shut it. And waited to see what Kane had to say next.

  Beside her, Jackie stared at him, as if he’d just pronounced the sky brown.

  Kane crossed to the table, pulled out a chair and took a seat, not swinging it around and sitting backwards like Paul did, but instead lowering himself as properly as a guest at a dinner party. “I don’t mean die literally, but it’ll be close to the same thing.” He leaned forward, capturing Jackie’s attention in that direct way he had of holding eye contact. Even Susannah found herself wrapped around his every word. “You need money to have a marriage. To have a life. Not millions of dollars, of course, but enough to pay your bills, to fund your future. Your retirement.”

  Jackie waved off the words. “Retirement is, like, ten million years away.”

  “Maybe not quite that far, but yes, you do have quite a few years. All the more reason to start saving now. Did you know that if you and Paul started putting aside just a couple hundred dollars a month, you’d retire as millionaires?”

  Jackie’s eyes widened. “Millionaires? Us? But…he’s a teacher. I’m a receptionist. We can’t be millionaires.”

  “Everyone can be a millionaire, Jackie, with the right investment strategy. You just have to be smart about your money.”

  “Smart? Yeah, right.” She snorted, then chewed on her lip and considered that for a moment. “We’d really be millionaires?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like, what would I have to do?” she asked, grabbing her wedding planner from the center of the table. She flipped to a blank page, poised a pen over the lined pink paper and waited for Kane’s answer.

  Susannah gaped at Kane, as he began to rattle off easy, step-by-step advice about 401k plans and IRAs, while Jackie scribbled. He had done what Susannah had never been able to do, in all the years she’d been talking to Jackie, thousands of words falling on deaf ears. He’d gotten her attention, and gotten Jackie to actually ask questions, take his advice, and commit it to paper. Whether she’d actually do it would be another story, but Susannah had a feeling, based on Jackie’s rapt expression, that things were about to change.