The Billionaire and the Virgin

by Jessica Clare

  “I already know someone in the building,” Marjorie admitted. “Remember Agnes? She lives two floors down. She’s the one that got the landlord to pick my application out of all the others.”

  “Oh! That’s so wonderful. You already have a friend here.”

  “I do,” Marjorie said. “Agnes wants me to go to Friday night bingo with her and a few friends.”

  “See?” Brontë beamed at her. “You’ll love it here. It’s a fresh start.” Her face grew concerned and she looked Marjorie over. “Speaking of . . . are you okay? How are you doing?”

  Marj forced a smile to her face. “I’m fine. Really.”

  “Are you sure? You’re just so . . . thin.”

  Marjorie had heard that a few times over the last month. She’d lost a few pounds, unable to eat in her misery. And on a tall frame like hers, even a few pounds showed. “I’m fine. I just . . . was hurting for a while. I’m better now. I promise.” She hoped it sounded convincing.

  Brontë’s concerned expression didn’t diminish. “He used you. I hate that. I wish I’d been paying more attention and not so caught up in whether or not the roses were the right shade of red.”

  She waved a hand at Brontë’s concern. “It’s in the past. And I don’t know that he did use me. Sometimes I think he did and I fell for it, and sometimes I rethink our conversations and wonder.” She shrugged, picking up a pillowcase from a box and unfolding it. “Either way, it doesn’t matter. I can’t support the kind of man that he is and the business that he runs. I thought he was someone different. The truth . . . wasn’t what I thought. He’s someone I’m not sure I could ever be comfortable with and not question who I am.”

  “You know,” Brontë said, opening the closet and fetching Marjorie’s pillow off of the hideaway bed. She crossed the room and handed it to her friend. “When I first met Logan, I didn’t know he was a billionaire. I just thought he was the manager of the hotel. I was a waitress, right? So when I found out he was a billionaire, I freaked out. I didn’t know if I could handle dating someone that was rich. Not just rich, but obscenely rich. And the more I fought against it, the harder it was for me to come to the realization that I was the problem, not him. It was my perception of what a billionaire would think of me, not the reality of what he felt. Could that be the same here? Is it a class thing?”

  Marjorie shook her head. “It’s not the money. It’s that his business is set up to prey on girls with low self-esteem and to serve them up to men for money. I can’t respect someone that does that. It doesn’t seem right to me. Maybe I’m being overly moral or prudish, but it’s how I feel.”

  “Plato said, ‘People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person, or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.’”

  “That’s right,” Marjorie said. “I’m avoiding a growth-stunter.” At least, she was pretty sure she was. In the daylight hours, it was easy to hate Rob and all the ways he’d lied to her. At night, in her lonely bed, it was . . . not so easy, and she sometimes had regrets.

  Regrets that Rob was who he was.

  That she was who she was.

  Mostly, though, she regretted not tackling him and dragging him to bed sooner. Which was probably the wrong thing to regret, but there it was. Out of all the things to miss, she missed his smiles and his gentle caresses the most. And that made her an awful person, didn’t it? Because she should have been thinking about how he lied to her, and how he profited off of women with low self esteem, and mostly, she just missed him.

  “Just as long as you don’t avoid the people that nourish you,” Brontë said with a smile, bringing Marjorie back to the present. “And you know I’m here if you ever need someone to talk to.”

  “I know.” Marjorie stuffed the pillow inside the pillowcase. “But I think for a while, I’ll just throw myself into work.”

  “Now that’s music to my ears,” said Brontë. “I’ll be sure and give you plenty of it, then.”

  ***

  Marjorie settled in to life in New York City slowly. Some things about the city were amazing, like the vast variety of restaurants and the subway tunnels that allowed you to get anywhere and everywhere without a car. She loved the shops and the museums and Central Park most of all. Some other things in New York City took a lot of getting used to—like buying groceries from a corner store instead of a supermarket, and the sea of taxis, and the endless, endless swarm of people. She’d never seen so many in one place in her life. She walked next to them on the streets, shared cabs with them, and heard them through the thin walls of her apartment. No one in New York City was ever alone, it seemed.

  And yet with all the people in the city, Marjorie was intensely lonely. Maybe she was dumb and being a moony virgin, but she missed Rob. The time she’d spent with him made her feel more alive than she’d ever felt before. It was like someone had finally seen her—the real her, under all the layers—and was fine with all her parts.

  Maybe that was why, after so briefly being part of a duo, it was so hard to go back to her normal solitary life. Why she wasn’t completely satisfied with spending her Friday nights at bingo with Agnes and her friends. Why going to a yarn store and picking out a new pattern was no longer all that exciting when she didn’t have anyone to show her creations to. Why lying in that small, twin bed that folded out from the closet felt like a death sentence.

  She missed kissing. She missed hand-holding. She missed Rob’s laugh when she told a corny joke.

  She missed Rob.

  He was her first real love, and she’d fallen fast and fallen hard. It was going to take time to get over him, but the misery would eventually end.

  But in the city full of thousands and thousands of faces, she could have sworn she saw Rob everywhere she went. It bothered her. She’d hear his laugh, and turn around and see no one there. She’d see a shirt that he’d worn and follow the owner, only to find it on the back of a completely different man. Out of the corner of her eye, she could have sworn she’d seen a dark-haired man that looked just like him get into a cab.

  She’d confessed her “Rob-haunting” to Brontë, who’d given her a sad look and suggested she go on a date. She’d offered to set up Marjorie, but Marjorie went to a speed-dating round instead.

  Every man there had been intimidated by her height. She’d walked away humiliated and full of despair. Not that she’d wanted any of the men. She’d compared them all, mentally, to Rob, and found them lacking. They lacked his smile, his protective instinct, his charm, his everything.

  Marjorie supposed she’d just have to deal with being haunted by his memory for a bit longer. There were worse things than thinking you caught a glimpse of the man you’d loved for one brief shining moment in your life.

  ***

  “More tea, Marj?” Agnes held up her floral teapot. “I know how you love your Earl Grey.”

  Marjorie held out her dainty china teacup. “That would be wonderful, thank you.” She glanced around Agnes’s tiny flat. Pictures and knick-knacks covered every inch of surface, and the small apartment seemed utterly crowded with memories. “Your home is lovely. Mind if I look at your photos?”

  “Not at all,” Agnes said, beaming. She poured Marjorie a new cup of tea and then picked up her phone. “I’m just going to send Dewey a selfie while you do that.”

  Marjorie grinned and took a sip of her drink. “So you and Dewey are still a thing?” She’d introduced the two of them on the island, mostly because she wanted to spend more time with Rob. To her pleasure, they’d hit it off.

  “Still a thing,” Agnes agreed. “He’s coming to New York for some lady time in two weeks. Doctor’s appointments are holding him back, but we manage with Facebook.” She looked at Marjorie proudly. “I’m grooming him for husband number seven.”

  Heh. “I’d be more than happy to be a bridesmaid at your ceremony if you manage to get that one down the aisle.” Marjorie took another sip of tea and then set the cup down. She walked to the curio cabinet
in the corner that was littered with picture frames. Some of the photos were in black and white, some in color, some of children, some of Agnes herself at varying ages. Fascinated, Marjorie gazed at the pictures and paused at one of a handsome sailor dipping a much younger Agnes on the dance floor. They looked so incredibly happy. “Who’s in this picture?”

  Agnes moved over her shoulder and looked. “That’s husband number two. Kurt. Sweet man. Died in Korea two years after we married.”

  Oh. She felt a painful squeeze at the thought of the vibrant, happy couple in the photo having such an unhappy ending. “I’m so sorry, Agnes.”

  “It’s all right, Marj honey. I met a lot of good men after him, including Dewey.” She beamed. “Think, we both found love on the island!”

  “Not me,” Marjorie said in a soft voice. She straightened and turned away from the picture. “Mine was a liar and a bad man.”

  “Really?” Agnes looked fascinated. “What did he lie to you about?”

  She confessed to Agnes the truth of Rob’s business—The Man Channel, and the Tits or GTFO crew. She told her about how she’d never had a clue until the day of the rehearsal dinner, and how hurt she’d been.

  Agnes simply cocked her head and looked mystified. “He said that was who he was and that was the end of it?”

  Marjorie shrugged. “He said he’d change for me and asked me what I needed him to do. He was just saying whatever he could to try and get me to change my mind about how I felt about him. But there was no way I could back down after learning that about him. I felt betrayed. Especially after those awful men tried to get me to take my top off for them.” She shuddered. “And to find out that he was their boss . . .”

  “Huh,” Agnes said. “That’s so interesting. Do you read tabloids, honey? I find that they have the best crossword puzzles.”

  Marjorie smiled. “Do they now?”

  “Well, that, and pictures of shirtless men in Hollywood. I’m only human,” Agnes said with a cheeky wink. She moved to her kitchen area, humming, and found a stack of magazines and began to flip through them. “I’m pretty sure I have something here you’ll want to see.”

  “I really don’t read the tabloids,” Marjorie told her. She’d poked through a few after getting back from the island, her curiosity burning about Rob. What she’d seen there had been awful. Pictures of him partying on a yacht in Ibiza with Victoria’s Secret models. Rumors of drug-fueled orgies. D-listers sharing “sex secrets.” After that, she was done. She didn’t want to learn anything more.

  All that shit is fake, he’d told her. I’m not like that.

  It was easier to believe in tabloid Rob than the one she’d met on the island, though.

  Agnes wagged a finger at her and continued flipping through a magazine. “I promise you, you’re going to want to see this one. Ah, here we go.” She pushed against the spine of the magazine, ensuring it laid flat, and then handed it to Marjorie. “Read that.”

  A gorgeous picture of Rob in a business suit, phone at his ear, stared up at her. She couldn’t help herself, she gave a little gasp and gazed down at the picture for far too long. He looked so good. Tanned, shaved, handsome, his collar popped open—no tie for him. Sunglasses covered his eyes, and she wished she could see them.

  The picture next to him was of a sheikh of some kind, and she frowned. What did these two have to do with each other? Then, she read the bright yellow headline for the first time.

  Billionaire playboy sells The Man Channel and all affiliated stations to Saudi prince in billion dollar deal! There was a smaller headline underneath that read AND THEN GIVES ALL THE MONEY TO CHARITY!

  Her eyes widened. She picked up the magazine and began to read, frantic.

  Nothing about handsome billionaire Robert Cannon, 32, has ever been predictable . . . except for his love of partying. It seems, however, that scandal’s favorite billionaire is turning over a new leaf. Reports coming out of boardrooms state that Cannon has sold the incredibly lucrative The Man Channel and its spinoff stations to a powerful Saudi billionaire for over a billion dollars. When asked why he was getting out of the cable industry, Cannon’s reps were notoriously closed-mouthed. One source says that despite the fact that ratings have been up, Cannon was unhappy with the business itself. She said that “someone opened his eyes, and he didn’t like what he saw.” VERY MYSTERIOUS.

  It would seem that our secret source has the inside track, though. Not one week after the purchase of the channel went through, Cannon met with a famous women’s foundation and donated every dollar of the sale to charity. That’s right—every dollar of his sale of The Man Channel will now go to helping battered women and victims of rape.

  We’ve tried to contact Cannon’s reps, but they’re not speaking. Could there be another angle to this fascinating story that we haven’t heard yet? If there is, we’ll get the scoop!

  “Oh my sweet lord,” Marjorie whispered. She blinked, and then began to read the article again, looking for additional tidbits to glean.

  “I’m surprised you haven’t heard anything about it, Marj. Don’t you ever google ex-boyfriends?”

  She shook her head. “No! I . . . well, I did at first. Then I didn’t like what I saw.”

  Agnes tapped one long, bony finger on Rob’s picture. “Call me crazy, but I think this sudden burst of charity has something to do with you.”

  Marjorie didn’t know. Why hadn’t he said anything to her? She just stared and stared.

  Rob had sold his network. He didn’t keep a dollar for himself. He was broke now . . . because of her. Oh, mercy. Her stomach gave a queasy lurch. What if he resented her now because he thought she’d forced his hand? Her head spun.

  “Why don’t you take that article with you, Marj honey? It’ll give you time to read it later.”

  There weren’t more than the two paragraphs, but Marjorie nodded and clutched it to her chest.

  ***

  She was terrible at bingo that night. She’d promised Agnes that she’d go, but in reality, she’d just wanted to stay home and stare at that magazine article, and google more about Rob and this sudden sale of his business. Find out more details of why, and what he was doing now . . . and how broke he was.

  Marjorie was sick at the thought of someone giving away a billion dollars just to please her. It went to a good cause, of course, but it was an unheard-of amount of money. An utterly upsetting amount.

  So she tried to play bingo and chat with her friends, but she missed half the numbers because she kept googling things on her phone. She ended up handing Agnes her bingo card so she could fiddle with her phone more. As luck would have it, the card ended up winning a thousand dollars on the jackpot, and Marj insisted on giving it to Agnes.

  The woman had been an incredible friend to her lately and it was a small thing to do. “Buy Dewey a ticket to visit you,” Marjorie had insisted, and Agnes’s smile lit up the bingo hall.

  Eventually, the night ended and Marjorie and Agnes parted. Marjorie headed up the elevator a few more floors to her new apartment. Inside, all was utterly quiet—not even her noisy neighbors weren’t making a sound. She closed the door and locked it behind her, bolted it, then dragged her small bureau in front of it, because living alone in NYC didn’t make her feel all that safe. Then, she peeled off her high heels and headed over to the closet and tugged down the bed, and then flopped down on it to page through the magazine again.

  Two paragraphs. She didn’t understand it. A rich, handsome billionaire had sold his business, lock, stock, and barrel, and he only warranted two paragraphs? That was ridiculous. She had torn through the magazine over and over again, looking for additional mentions. She picked through Internet sites but all the information and gossip was well over three months old. It seemed as if Rob’s people—if he still had any—were on lockdown and nothing was leaking to the media except for a few fluff pieces about the upcoming season of The Man Channel.

  Where was Rob?

  What was he doing?

  A
nd why had he sold his business?

  Why could she find out more details about his partying in Ibiza than what he was doing with his money?

  When all her searches turned up fruitless, she gently pulled the glossy page out of the magazine and gazed at his photo over and over again. She taped it up next to her bed, like she had with pop idols as a teenager, and then cried herself to sleep staring at his picture.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  A week later, she was delivering a box of The Prince by Machiavelli to a nearby nursing home in anticipation of Brontë’s next book club event. She handed off the box and turned down a street, only to see a familiar head of hair disappear around a corner.

  Marjorie sucked in a breath. No way. Clutching her purse to her side, she walked down the street and glanced around the corner.. . . just in time to see the man disappear around another corner.

  Shoot. She eyed her shoes—five-inch-tall purple Miu Mius. She’d never catch him in these. Curse her love for adorable footwear. She grabbed one and hauled it off her foot, then the other, and tossed them into her shoulder bag. Then, she ran down the street after the man.

  She wanted answers.

  He was ahead of her, his dark head bobbing in the weave of traffic, his shirt a pale, bland beige. She kept that beige in the corner of her eye as she followed him up one street and down another. It was a stranger, she reminded herself. It was just a man that happened to look like him. It had to be.

  But when she finally caught up with him, breathing hard from her sprint, she summoned her courage and reached out and tapped him on the shoulder.

  And to her surprise, Rob turned around.

  He looked just as surprised to see her. “Marjorie?” He glanced at the cross streets and moved out of the way of traffic, his hand automatically pulling her along with him. They moved under the awning of a nearby business. “What are you doing here?”