Penthouse Prince: A new York City Romance

by Tara Leigh

  She stopped, her wide, wet eyes having trouble focusing on me, and that’s when I noticed the two security guards flanking her, looking distinctly unhappy about the delay.

  I drew in a quick breath. Holy crap. “You’re BettencourtBets,” I whispered, almost as if she was a celebrity.

  Megan gave a wan smile. “I was.”

  One of the guards hailed a cab. Megan fumbled for the door herself, then sat down gingerly with her purse on her lap. The door closed, and she was gone.

  I should be angry. Megan caused me so much stress, so many sleepless nights. But I’m completely hollowed out. I don’t have the emotional reserve to process her duplicity.

  We both went up against Bettencourt. And we both lost.

  Our fatal flaw . . . Forgetting the most important rule of gambling.

  The House always wins.

  By the time I make it to Morningside Heights, I’m in desperate need of a shower, a bottle of wine, and a gallon of Ben & Jerry’s. Limping toward my front stoop, I almost don’t recognize the immaculately coiffed blonde that emerges from the back of a black Mercedes.

  “Mom?” Besides that glimpse of her in San Francisco, I haven’t seen my mother since my graduation day, and even then it was only for a quick coffee before she ran back to Van Horne.

  She lifts her sunglasses off her face, revealing eyes sparkling with tears.

  My stomach plunges. This is it, she’s here to finally cut the last of our fragile ties. I knew it was a risk when I stormed into Van Horne’s office, but I managed to hold onto the slim hope that she would finally stand up for me. “I understand,” I say, even though I don’t. “You don’t have to—”

  “My bold, brave girl. What you did today . . .” She shakes her head and sighs.

  I brace myself, waiting for the ax to drop.

  But it doesn’t. Yet.

  She points at the juice and smoothie bar that just opened up a few doors down. “Do you think they have tea? I could really use a tea.”

  “Sure, mom.”

  Inside, I wait impatiently while she peruses they three-page-long tea menu before deciding on Earl Gray. I order the same, just wanting to get this conversation over with.

  Finally, she starts talking again. “Sweetheart, I’ve tried so hard to shield you from this world. But you’ve gone and bulldozed through the gates yourself, haven’t you?”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “I didn’t want you to grow up in penthouses and county estates but never know what home feels like. To have credit cards and car keys but never learn how to write a thank you card or balance a checkbook.”

  “Mom, no one balances checkbooks anymore. No one writes checks anymore.”

  She tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “You know what I mean. Gerald’s not an easy man to love, and his children—” She breaks off. “I’ve never fit in with Gerald’s society friends. And his children—” Again she stops talking.

  “I met Wendy. And Bryce.”

  “They don’t like me very much. I thought they’d warm up to me, but they never really have,” she says quietly. “Were they nice to you?”

  “Bryce was. Wendy, not so much.”

  “I used to lie awake nights, dreaming about pulling you out of school. Bringing you to Manhattan to live with us.”

  This shocks me. “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because I knew it would be selfish. You were doing so well at your own school, and had so many friends. I was scared that you would feel like just as much of an outsider here as I did. Do, actually. And that you’d resent me.” She gives a tentative half-smile, devoid of any joy. “I don’t think I could have handled it, if you ever looked at me like Wendy did. Like I’d ruined her whole world.”

  My hands tremble at her unexpected words and I set my tea back down on the table before I spill it all over myself. I’ve spent nearly half my life believing my mother simply didn’t want me around. But, according to her, her motivation stemmed from her desire to protect me.

  It’s like we’re standing side by side, looking at the same picture. Whereas I see a bunny, she sees the profile of a woman. The image is the same, but our interpretation is entirely different.

  “Does he know you’re here?” I ask.

  “Yes. He called, ranting and raving, after you left his office. He’s meeting with his board now. But he’ll be fine. Already has a way to spin this to his advantage, I’m sure.”

  I’ve never heard my mother speak so dismissively of Van Horne before. He’s always loomed so large in my mind, I thought of him as an all-knowing Oz type figure. And maybe at the helm of Bull Capital, he is. In reality though, I now know that Gerald Van Horne is just a man. He has a wife who throws her hands in the air over him on occasion, an ex-wife who can’t stand him, and kids who don’t seem to want much to do with him at all. The more I learn about my father, the more I pity him. “I told him to tell his kids about me.”

  She deflates slightly. “Oh. I hope you’re not setting yourself up for disappointment there, honey.”

  “I’m going into it with my eyes wide open. I don’t expect anything from them.” I don’t say that I’m hoping for some kind of relationship, a chance at feeling like I’m a part of a family. I can see from the concern streaked across my mom’s features that she already knows.

  “Honey, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time.” I brace myself, but again she surprises me. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything, really.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “No, I do. I wasn’t . . . happy in my marriage to your father. But he was good to you, especially when you were a little girl. Do you remember how he would tell you bedtime stories, every night?”

  The ghost of his voice tickles my eardrums, but it’s not distinct enough to capture the words. I shake my head. “No, I don’t remember that.”

  “Oh.” She makes a disappointed frown. “Well, you always wanted to be a princess. Were obsessed with everything Disney. You wanted to be Snow White, would put on your sparkliest dress and dance around the yard, talking to all the birds and squirrels. And you would lay down in the grass, hoping a prince would just drive by and kiss you.”

  “Really?” I flush with embarrassment.

  My mother laughs. “It used to drive your dad nuts. He must have tried to explain that Snow White didn’t need a prince to make her into a princess a thousand times, but you would have none of it. And that’s when he started making up all these elaborate stories where princesses would rescue the prince, the king, the queen, and the whole village.”

  “I don’t remember. I really only remember your stories, when you would take me into Manhattan for our lunches.” I sip at my tea. It’s barely tepid now. “Why did he stop?”

  “I broke his heart, Reina. Not just when I finally left. But, little by little, day by day. He was a good father to you, but he wasn’t a very good husband to me. And I was a terrible wife. My heart belonged to another, and it ate away at him.”

  “But . . . Gerald.” I make a face. “He’s just so horrid.”

  “That’s just the face he shows the world. The big, bad Wall Street tycoon. He isn’t like that with me. And,” she shrugs, “he swept me off my feet when I was young and that was it for me. No one else could ever compare.”

  “But he was married.”

  “I know. It wasn’t a happy marriage, but that’s no excuse.”

  “He told me he gave you money for an abortion.”

  Tears spring to her eyes and she sniffs, blinking wetly. “Oh, I—” She stops, sighs, picks up her tea and then sets it back down again. “I wish he hadn’t said that.”

  “Is it true?”

  After a long pause, she nods. “It is true, yes. In all fairness to him, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do at first. You came as quite a surprise. But . . . once I got over the shock, I was so excited to become a mother.

  “After Gerald and I ended things, I stormed down to Penn Station and took
the first train out of the city. Wouldn’t you know it, your dad sat down right beside me. I was crying and he started telling me jokes. The dumbest knock-knock jokes he could think of. By the time we got off in Montauk, almost three hours later, we were friends. Eventually, we were more. And for a time, we were happy.”

  “Did Dad know I wasn’t his?”

  “Sweetheart, you were always his. From the minute you were born, you were his little girl.”

  “Biologically, I mean.”

  “Yes. He always knew, but it didn’t make a difference to him. That’s another reason I didn’t take you with me. He said he would agree to the divorce under one condition.” She looks pointedly at me. “That I leave you behind. If I tried to take you, he would fight me every step of the way. And it would get ugly. I couldn’t put you through it.” We are both quiet for several beats. “And I didn’t want to go through it either. I thought I would give him some time, and give myself some time with Gerald and his kids, too. I thought that I would win them over, that in six months or a year, I could introduce you to them and we would figure out how to be a blended family.”

  “But it didn’t work out that way.”

  “No.” She exhales, dabbing at her mouth with her napkin. “It didn’t work out that way at all.”

  “Was it worth it?” I ask softly, “Leaving me.” Losing me.

  I want her to say no, for her answer to be fast and unequivocal.

  But that’s not the answer I get. “I have a million regrets for the way I handled things.” And then she shrugs. “But I was in love.”

  I wince at the four-letter word, hating that she uses it as justification.

  Hating the word itself. Love.

  What is it really, but a curse.

  I think of Tristan, my heart twisting painfully inside my chest.

  Love takes hostages, makes victims out of innocent bystanders.

  Love sucks.

  Tristan

  I force myself to slog through the rest of the day. I still have a job to do—investors to pitch, investments to manage. Giving in to my overriding impulse to chase Reina down, to get on my knees and apologize until I’m blue in the face, beg her to forgive me . . . it feels like a privilege I don’t deserve.

  I was a jackass.

  I am a jackass.

  After the way I treated her . . . She’d be a fool to take me back.

  And Reina’s no fool.

  I spend the afternoon on the phone, talking to current clients and checking in with prospects. Selling myself, my fund, my bank.

  My soul.

  Even as my mouth is moving, my brain is whirring, double-time. Coming up with new kind of pitch. One that might get me a second chance with a woman I never should have lost in the first place.

  I take off my headset and throw it on my desk, filling Kyle in on my latest call. “That was Jake Allen, from Dominion. They’re in. I’ll have Legal messenger over the contracts first things tomorrow.”

  He nods. “Check your email. Dale and Tim sent their final report. Turns out things are both simpler and more complicated than we guessed.”

  “I know.”

  He frowns. “How? They just—” He stops. “Your father.”

  I nod.

  He folds his hands across his chest and leans back against the wall. “How does he do that?”

  “I don’t know. But apparently seeing what’s right in front of me isn’t a skill I’ve inherited.” I pass a hand over my face and groan. “I really fucked up.”

  “I guess I wasn’t much help.” Kyle grimaces. “So, what are you going to do about it?”

  “Grovel, I guess.”

  “That sounds about right. What are you still doing here?”

  “Procrastinating,” I admit. “I don’t want to show up until I know what to say. So far, nothing I’ve come up with sounds good enough.”

  “Do you love her?”

  I swallow thickly. “Yeah.”

  What started as simple attraction, lust, has morphed into something more. So much more.

  Reina is in my head, under my skin, and deep inside my heart. Every thump-thump, thump-thump of my pulse is her name, a two-syllable thrum that taunts me from deep inside my chest.

  “Just start there, dude.”

  “I’m not sure it’s enough.”

  I love Reina. Reina St. James. The secret daughter of Wall Street’s fiercest shark. A girl who could have worked anywhere, done anything, and yet she fought her way here, to my bank, my fund.

  And I treated her like garbage.

  Because I panicked. I thought I fell for another trap. Thought Reina was just another woman who didn’t want me. She wanted my name, my money, my access. And I let my own insecurities get in the way of the best thing that ever happened to me.

  The first night we met, I called Reina a little thief. It’s true. She’s stolen my heart.

  And what did I call her this morning? A casual fuck. A convenient stress reliever.

  “Maybe not. But it’s a start.”

  I forgot the Birkin.

  I don’t realize this until I’m knocking on Reina’s door. I’ve been so wrapped up in rehearsing my apology that I forgot to stop at the Hermès boutique on my way uptown. Do I think a bag that costs north of ten thousand dollars is a magic bullet—piercing Reina’s armor and allowing us to move past this entire episode? No. Of course not. But it can’t hurt. Maybe it would be enough of a surprise that she’d give me a chance. Or even a smile. Fuck, I’ll do anything to see her smile again.

  Reina blinks at me, surprise and then irritation flashing across her face. She’s wearing an old, oversized t-shirt that falls just above a pair of faded short shorts and knee-high socks. Effortlessly sexy. Arrestingly beautiful.

  “Excuse me?”

  Realizing that I must have mumbled the thought out loud, I repeat it. Like an idiot. “I forgot the Birkin.”

  “Uh, I don’t want anything from you.” She starts to slam the door in my face.

  I stick my shoe over the threshold just in time. “I owe you an apology, at least. An explanation.”

  “Save it. We’re done, remember?”

  I keep talking. “You’re not fired. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “No, but you did.”

  “I take it back.”

  “Fine. I quit.”

  Deciding not to push the issue, I change tacks. “I know about your parents. And I understand now about Bryce. I’m sorry I—”

  “No. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for believing you wouldn’t think the absolute worst of me the first chance you got. I’m sorry for believing I was more to you than just a convenient fuck buddy. And I’m sorry you turned out to be exactly what I should have known you were all along—a heartless, selfish, entitled prick.”

  “Reina, please. Let me come in. I started this all wrong. What I should have said first was that I love—”

  She cuts me off before I can say the word, snapping, “Don’t you dare.”

  And then she kicks me in the shin, apparently forgetting that she’s wearing socks, not shoes. It’s her wince of pain that makes me take a step back.

  When the lock slides into palace I lean forward again, resting my forehead on the door. I sink to my knees, forcing myself to listen to the sound of her tears, to bear witness to her quiet, hiccuping sobs of anguish.

  I did this.

  I did this to the woman I love.

  She’s the one crying . . . but inside, I feel like I’m dying.

  Chapter 21

  @BettencourtBets: This account has been suspended pending potential litigation.

  ONE MONTH LATER

  Reina

  I never did return to Bettencourt. Although I was worried about finding another job, Kyle reached out to me and said he knew of an opening with a rival hedge fund specializing in complex financial derivatives. And because beggars can’t be choosers, I sent them my resume and went for an interview with an open mind.

  To my surprise, after meetin
g with the principals and learning about their strategy, I was intrigued and decided to accept the job. If Wall Street is one big casino, derivatives traders are the sleight-of-hand magicians operating in the shadows, making fortunes appear and disappear through slick, smoke and mirrors acts of illusion. The group is made up entirely of men, math geeks whose reading preference skews closer to The Journal for Advanced Applied Quantitative Physics and Capital Markets Monthly than Page Six.

  But at least spending my days building out complex volatility prediction models is a way to keep my thoughts of Tristan to a minimum. My nights, however, are a different story.

  Every night I arrive home to find a gift from Tristan at my door, or a delivery from him sometime later.

  Last Sunday it was make-your-own-Bloody-Mary kit, along with a note. Remember brunch? That was the day I realized you weren’t just a casual fling. You are so damn special, Reina. I lost sight of it for a minute, and I regret it more than I can ever say.

  A few days before that, it was a beautiful ivory silk blouse. Remember the night I was too impatient to bother with the buttons? I didn’t tell you that I found one of them the next morning. I’ve kept it in my pocket ever since, so that I always have something that reminds me of you within reach.

  The other night he sent a delivery of truffle fries. I still remember the look on your face at your first bite of the french fry you stole from my plate. I hope one day I will see it again. Until then . . .

  I didn’t even know you could still buy DVDs, but I now have DVDs of every heist movie ever made, along with an enormous tub of gourmet popcorn. For the little thief who stole my heart. Don’t forget me.

  The next night, as if Tristan realized I might not have a way to watch them, he sent a DVD player and an afghan identical to the one I brought to his apartment. Not the same, though. Because this one still has the tags on it. Remember our movie nights? Let me know if you want company.

  It hurts to remember.

  It hurts to breathe.

  Sleep is practically impossible.

  I don’t know how to move forward, but I cannot go back.