HONEY GIRL: BILLIONAIRE (Book 2)

by Jones, Juliette

“I can’t do this,” she said, gathering her skirt and turning away from me, as though to run. I put my hand on her arm, but she shrugged me off. She gave me a look that was so haunted and so pleading I felt it all the way to the bottom of my soul.

  “Alexander,” she said. “I’m going away for a while. I need to think this through, in my own way and in my own time. I don’t want you to follow me. I don’t want you to track me or have your investigators keep tabs on me. At all. I’m trusting you. And I want you to trust me to do what’s best for me right now. If there’s anything left of me when I figure that out, I’ll let you know. If you care about me at all you will not try to stop me, you will give me some time and you’ll listen to what I’m asking you now: let me go and do not try to contact me. I’m leaving and I do not want you to come after me. I’m begging you with all my heart: please, let me go.”

  She left me standing there as she walked away.

  Lila

  I ran up the stairs because I knew there were several things I would need. I grabbed the small suitcase I’d brought for the weekend, then took the stairs that led down from the balcony of the master bedroom, finding my way around the back of the house. From there, I walked through the side garden, bursting with blue and white hydrangeas, to the large circular driveway. I saw the limo that had brought Eva and me from New York. The driver was standing there, doing something on his phone. “I need to get back to the city,” I said. “To Grand Central Station.”

  He hesitated for a split second: this wasn’t part of the plan. But I was the boss’s wife now, for all he knew, and he opened the door for me. “Yes, ma’am. Will anyone else be joining you?”

  “No.” I thought about waiting for Eva. I knew she’d want to come with me, to make sure I was okay. But there was no need to drag her along. She wouldn’t want to come where I was going anyway.

  The limo ride took an hour, maybe more. My thoughts were hazy, darting ahead, skimming the past, replaying the pain and beauty in equal measure. I didn’t know what to think or what to do. All I knew is that I needed to get away from him. I needed something I would never get: all of him. Not now. There was no Plan B. I would just have to figure things out as I went along.

  I thanked the driver and grabbed my bag, walking the dirty street, reacclimatizing to the old me. The real me. The me that was one with the grime and the struggle. It didn’t matter that I still wore my twelve thousand dollar wedding dress. Or my ring. These were remnants now of past I could look back on, now and then, muse over. Cry about when my defenses were down.

  I wandered through the cavernous train station. It took me some time to realize that the blur was my own tears, softening reality in a way that felt good. People stared at me but I barely noticed them. I found the train and paid for the ticket. I used the money card in my new pink wallet, for the very first time. It didn’t matter. He would want me to and he wouldn’t follow me. I knew he wouldn’t. Trust me. Trust me to do what’s best for me right now. I could justify the expenses: I’d worked at Skyscraper for a week. Here was my pay. A train ticket, a new outfit I’d buy myself: some jeans and a t-shirt to live out the rest of my life in, a budget hotel room until I could get some job and rent myself a room. Anywhere. It simply didn’t matter.

  The train glided out of the station.

  Outside, darkness was just beginning to fall.

  Alexander

  Of course it was all I could do to contain myself. To hold myself back from running after her. Her words pounded through my brain in repeating echoes. Do not try to contact me. Do not try to stop me. Do not come after me. Words that dug into my heart like jagged, spearing, vicious knives.

  How could she ask this of me? How could she run?

  That look in her eyes, so soulful and wounded. I knew if I followed her, if I refused to respect her request, she would never take me back. I knew.

  Let me go.

  I was a broken man. I sat heavily onto a bench only steps from where she’d stood, picturing her, wishing I could summon her back. My honey girl. My dazzling angel. Everything I’d ever wanted out of life, delivered to me in one perfect, peachy package that was Lila.

  Gone.

  I was vaguely aware that the wedding planner had already cleared the small crowd, ushering them into the house. The band was packing up.

  Only Jake and Shawna still stood there. Jake was next to me, his hand on my shoulder. Shawna sat down next to me on the bench. I wanted to move, but I felt strangely devoid of will. I wished Shawna would disappear.

  She put her hand on mine, where it rested on my thigh. To this, I did move, brushing her touch away. Something fierce and dangerous lurked inside me. I almost feared for her safety. But then I remembered: the baby.

  “Alexander,” she said softly.

  I didn’t want to hear her voice. I didn’t want to hear what she had to say.

  I looked at her and all I could feel for her was hatred. She could see this in me and it caused tears to pool in her eyes. I’d once thought her beautiful but now she looked too thin, too pale. Sinister, almost. She had ruined my life. I didn’t even fully believe that she was telling the truth about her pregnancy, but the damage had been done either way. She’d achieved her goal. She’d broken up our wedding, ousted Lila from the scene. But she would never be in my life again, baby or no baby.

  “Let me tell you how it is, Shawna,” I said, and my voice sounded weary. “I’ll financially provide for the baby. I’ll pay for your health insurance and your doctor’s bills. We can fight out the custody arrangement when the time comes. But get this straight: I do not want to see you or hear from you until the baby is born. The only reason I will ever see you again is to do the right thing for my child. You and I are over. There is no relationship between us. Now or ever.”

  Tears were streaming down her cheeks. I felt nothing.

  “Get out of my house.”

  “Alexander –”

  “Get out.” My voice sounded cold and dead, somehow. Something in me had died. That happiness I’d found for a brief moment in time, with her. My girl. “A driver will take you wherever you want to go. Leave now or I’ll have you forcibly dragged out. It would be better for everyone if you took your leave peacefully.”

  She stood tentatively, as though expecting me to change my mind. “Alexander.”

  “Just do it, Shawna,” Jake snarled. “Fuck off.”

  She glared at him, affronted, her face shiny from her tears. Finally, she walked away, her shoulders shaking with the soft sobs she was emitting. Someone put an arm around her and led her away.

  “Jake, get me a drink.”

  Jake contemplated me for a second. He could read my frame of mind: I was about to get rip-roaringly drunk and stay that way for the foreseeable future. He knew what I needed. Not a lecture or a pep talk. He wasn’t going to be able to stop me either way. I watched him walk over to the bar and grab a bottle of Jack. My brother knew me very well. I drank Scotch when I was on the up, American whiskey when I was looking to get inebriated. I had no idea why; it was just one of those things. He started to pour me a tumbler of it.

  “Just bring me the whole fucking bottle,” I said.

  He did, and he grabbed himself a beer.

  It took a surprising amount of effort to stand. I took the bottle from Jake and I started walking away, into the garden and up the outside staircase into the master bedroom. Lila’s wedding bouquet sat on the bed. The only thing left of her.

  I sat on the floor and leaned against the wall, holding the bouquet in one hand and the bottle in the other, taking a long swig. Jake had followed me and he sat in a chair by the window.

  “She’ll come back,” he said. “She just needs a little time.”

  In my heart I really didn’t know if that was true.

  I just didn’t know.

  I just couldn’t fucking bear it.

  Lila

  I walked out of the train station, finding myself in a small, dingy town whose economy hadn’t boomed since somewhe
re around the Revolutionary War, when saloons and muskets were the hot topics. It was very early morning, drizzling but not cold. The final days of an Indian summer, giving way to fall. I sat in a coffee shop and drank black, bitter coffee until the stores opened. I went into the first store I found that sold clothes and bought a pair of jeans, a pair of sneakers, a t-shirt, a navy sweatshirt and a raincoat.

  I left my wedding dress in the changing room.

  The road was long – around seven miles or so – and I thought of getting a cab. Instead, I decided to walk. The bag I had with me was small, made of soft leather with a wide strap so it wouldn’t be hard to carry. All I had in it was my wallet, my phone, some sexy lingerie (for the wedding night) and a six-thousand-dollar white Ralph Lauren wrap dress (for the day after). I let the hot tears fall and cool in the misty morning as I walked.

  I knew these roads. They were mapped into my soul. I’d walked them as a child. I knew these backwoods paths. I’d used them to hide, and to run.

  And I knew where I was going.

  Alexander

  The night became a blurry, soft stupor. The agony was there, hanging out at the fringes. But in here, in this shelter of inebriation, it was okay. I could still breathe. My heart was still beating. Lumping away in there like a fucking heartbeat (‘cause that’s what it was) that had lost its tune. All erratic. Skipping sometimes.

  That’s what she’d taken with her. Those beats of my heart that just didn’t happen sometimes.

  “Jake?”

  “Over here.”

  We were on the beach, somehow. I was lying there in my tux and it was covered in sand. And wet. My shirt was open. My tie was long gone. I was barefoot. “Did we go swimming?”

  “You wanted to. But I pulled you back out.”

  “Oh.” Something occurred to me. “You should’ve just let me fucking float away.” It would have been peaceful out there.

  “Nope.”

  He was sitting up, a few feet away.

  “You should have,” I said.

  “What would I tell Lila when she comes back?”

  “She’s not coming back.”

  “She might.”

  “She hates me. I’m an egomania … egomagical … ego –”

  “Egomaniac?”

  “Yeah, that. An egomaniacal asshole.”

  “That’s true.”

  “And now this.” I still held the bottle of whiskey. I took another swig. It was fucking empty. “Who drank all this?”

  Jake just laughed a little. “You, mostly. Me, some.”

  I sat up a little. The whole world tilted and swirled for a few seconds. I looked out where Jake was looking, at the glimmer of the moonlight on the rippling waves. It was a while before I got a focus and even then the moon was divided into two, sometimes three perfect circles.

  “She did it on purpose,” I said.

  “Who did what on purpose?”

  “Shawna. Since when do condoms just randomly get holes in ‘em?”

  Jake turned to look at me.

  I felt like talking. “I just couldn’t love Shawna. I tried but it just wouldn’t stick. She could tell. Damn, the moon’s beautiful tonight. I wonder if Lila’s looking at that moon. Would’ve been a beautiful night to be married.” I was ranting, but I didn’t fucking care. Sometimes ranting feels like the right thing to do. “But with Lila, it was just so easy. I fucking fell in love with her right off the bat. I didn’t even mean to love her but I just did. I mean, fuck. I’m so crazy in love with her, it’s killing me. And now she’s gone. And you know what? I don’t know if I can take it. I really don’t know. I’m not sure I can handle this: not having her. I don’t want to be without her.”

  “She’ll come back. She just needs a little time.”

  “What if she doesn’t?”

  “Then you’ll get on with your life.”

  “What if I don’t want to get on with my life without Lila in it?”

  “You have to. You have to try. You have to skim along the surface each day and ignore all those big, mean fire pits and absences and memories and just pretend like they don’t exist. Some days it’ll be more than you can bear. Sometimes you’ll feel like you’ve lost your mind. Some nights you’ll feel like it isn’t worth it, all this soldiering on. But it is. Because some days will be beautiful. Some days you’ll remember what the good stuff feels like. That day Lila comes back to you, you’ll think: See? This was worth it. Worth all of it. I think she will. You just have to wait it out and let her come back to you without forcing her hand. Keep going, brother. Because that’s what we do.”

  “It is?”

  “Yeah. It is.”

  God, I felt tired.

  “Jake?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How’d you like that apple pie?”

  “I liked it a whole lot.”

  “You think you might go back for more?”

  He smiled at the sea. “I think I might. Since it’s in the neighborhood.”

  We were quiet for a while. A wispy cloud drifted across the moon.

  “You know,” Jake said. “It might be a good idea to court order a pregnancy test by one of your own doctors. Just in case she’s lying.”

  “Yeah.” My voice sounded exhausted, defeated.

  “I’ll take care of it if you want.”

  Somewhere, in some layer deep down, I was glad he’d offered that. Because I didn’t feel capable of doing anything. Not now, not ever. I had serious doubts I could even drag myself off this beach before high tide. I almost wished he’d go away, so I could float away with the surf, and just be free. Not have to deal with anyone or try so damn hard anymore. I felt like my trying-hard mechanism had broken, along with my heart.

  “Come on,” Jake said, standing and holding a hand out to me. “We’ll get some sleep, then head back to the city in the morning. I have to be back by noon.” He made a salute gesture in the general direction of west, putting on a hillbilly accent, for no apparent reason. I think he’d drunk a fair bit of that whiskey, too. “Yes, ma’am, your honor. Don’t lock me up for three years. I’ll kiss your honorable wrinkly ass and everybody else’s. Don’t lock me up and throw away the key.”

  That reminded me of Lila. The key I’d given her.

  I couldn’t go after her, I knew that. I had to trust her and hope she’d find her way back to me.

  My chest felt unbearably heavy. Goddamn it, I could only hope and pray she did find her way back.

  And I hoped I lasted that long.

  Lila

  I couldn’t immediately find it. But, after wandering through the maze of graves I finally located the one I was looking for. A small, lonely headstone with the inscribed name Sarah Jane Carmichael.

  The drizzle thickened. I sat down and leaned against my mother’s gravestone.

  I’d been thirteen years old when my mother died. By then, we’d lived apart off and on for almost three years.

  “Hi, Mama.” It’s what I’d always called her. It sounded old fashioned now, but that’s what I’d called her when I was very young and it had somehow just stuck. “It’s me. I just wanted to come by and tell you I’m sorry. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you. I know how much you loved my daddy. I’m sorry he left you. I know it was because of me. It was me he didn’t want, not you. He loved you. He just didn’t want to be tied down with a baby. He wanted to be free.” The drizzle was stinging my face like tiny little fresh-water needles. “I really did try to make you happy. I’m sorry I never could. I’m sorry I was never enough.”

  I was crying again but these tears felt cleansing. They felt like they needed to pour themselves out, to wet the dirt and the stone of her grave. Maybe she’d feel their salt, somehow. Maybe, wherever she was, she’d know.

  That’s why I’d left him, of course. Sure, we could have talked it through. Made arrangements. I knew he loved me. And I knew he didn’t love Shawna. He’d told me that, and it wasn’t difficult to see. The look on his face when she’d stormed through that cro
wd had said it all. She was trapping him.

  It wasn’t Shawna I was thinking of when I left Alexander. It wasn’t Alexander I was thinking about, either. Or even myself. It was that baby.

  I knew what it was like to be abandoned, unwanted. My father had never wanted to be a father. He’d hated the thought of me. He must have, otherwise he never would have left us the week before I’d been born. He didn’t even bother to stick around long enough to see me. If only he’d been there for us, none of the tragedies of my life would have happened. My mother would have been happy. She’d loved him so much. He took some of me with him, she’d once said to me. The best part. I never knew her happy. I only got to see the despair. And the willingness to let any man into our house in an attempt to fill a small piece of that void. The wrong men. The wrong man. The one who had broken me and my life, in so many ways.

  I just couldn’t do that to someone else. I didn’t want Alexander to abandon his child because of me. I knew he was nothing like my father. Most likely, he’d step up and do the right thing, but it would always be a burden to him. A reminder of a past he never wanted. Without me in the picture, maybe he could give that child more of what it would need. Him.

  Alexander

  “I’m not going back to the city.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” Jake said. “Of course you are.”

  “No. You can drop me off at JFK.”

  It was safe to say I had never felt more like pond scum in the entirety of my life. It wasn’t just the hangover, but this sensation of being an empty shell, devoid of feeling, of emotion. I couldn’t have cried or laughed at gunpoint.

  “Come on, man,” Jake said. “Keep going, remember?”

  “You can make a few phone calls for me. I’m heading south.”

  “But Lila asked you not to –”

  “I’m not chasing her. I don’t know where she is. I’m not going to track her down. I just need to get the fuck out of here for a while, Jake.”