Lush Money (Filthy Rich)

by Angelina M. Lopez

Ready and expecting this, Roxanne still felt a rumble in her stomach.

  Mateo made a move to stand. “I’ll go...”

  “Uh-uh. You sit,” Tonya commanded, waving a long fingernail at him. “You’re an important part of my negotiations.”

  Roxanne let her words sigh out like fog. “We don’t need to negotiate. Just name a number.”

  Tonya slapped her hands down on her tanned thighs. “You see, that’s the problem. You think you can just buy me off.” She pressed a hand to her abundant cleavage and looked mournfully at Roxanne. “A woman’s got her self-respect. I’m tired of being your dirty little secret.”

  The hair on Roxanne’s arms stood up. “What do you mean?”

  Tonya leaned back, draping her arms over the fur pillows and crossing her toned legs. Her bobbing gold heel reflected the chandelier light. “I don’t wanna hide no more,” she said smugly. “I want the world to know I’m the one who made Roxanne Medina. I mean, if I’d decided differently, you would have ended up just a little scrape on a doctor’s knife.”

  Mateo flinched, but her mother’s accusation that Roxanne should be more appreciative that she wasn’t aborted was an old and tired one.

  “I want you to introduce me to everybody,” Tonya continued. “You know, at one of those press conferences. You and the prince here.” She flicked a finger at him. “And I want to go to Spain. Rub up against some royalty. I’m ready to live the good life. It’s boring here; this town ain’t got no class.”

  She flicked a frosted curl behind her shoulder before her smile grew to its full, greedy width. “But most importantly, I want to be part of the little tyke’s life.” Tonya pointed a talon at Roxanne’s belly. And even though her womb was currently unoccupied, Roxanne fought the urge to wrap her arms around herself to protect it. “I want to see him every quarter. You come to me or I’ll come to you, I don’t care, I’m flexible. But I wanna be grandma to a prince.” Tonya’s smile took on the gleam of a predator. “Can’t you just see the spread in People? Me, the devoted grandma, holding a future king. Shit. That’ll make the people in this town spin on their heads.”

  Roxanne fought to maintain her calm as alarm bells shrieked in her head. “No,” she bit out quickly before she took a breath. “No,” she said, firmer, placing her hands on her jeans to cover up how sweaty they’d become. “You take the money. And you be quiet. Or you’ll get no money.”

  Looking at the triumph on Tonya’s face was like looking into the cold, dead eyes of an oncoming shark.

  “Oh, sweetie,” she grinned. “That dog ain’t gonna hunt no more.”

  Tonya uncrossed her legs and slid to the edge of the couch, coming in for the kill. “You’re gonna keep paying,” she purred, nodding. “And you’re gonna do whatever I tell you to.” Then she turned those evil eyes on Mateo. “And you, your highness, you’re gonna sign the papers that turn your kingdom into the next Disneyland. ’Cause if you don’t, your daddy and I will tell everybody about the fake marriage you two dreamed up so she could get herself a kid and you could get yourself some fuckin’ money.”

  Tonya’s eyes went wide. “Fuckin’ money,” she repeated, startling herself with her accuracy. “That’s perfect, ain’t it?”

  Mateo stood with a growl, his body long and tall and furious. “How do you know about that?”

  “That guy, Fuller, told me. He put together this whole little plan.”

  “Fuller? He knows about the contract?” Mateo looked at Roxanne. And Roxanne felt all of it—her shock at what was transpiring, her horror at her mother’s demands, and her own guilty conscience at not telling Mateo sooner—on her naked, naked face.

  Mateo’s eyes narrowed on her as his mouth dropped open in disbelief. “Roxanne, he knows the details of the contract?”

  Unable to look away from her husband’s shocked face, she could hear the joy in her mother’s voice when the woman said, “She didn’t tell you? He told her he knew all about it before you left Spain. Told her to stand down or he’d get y’all.”

  “Roxanne,” he demanded in a voice more horrible than she’d ever heard. His fists were clenched. “What is she talking about? ¡Digame!”

  Roxanne felt her lower lip trembling, a horrible show of weakness in front of a woman she hadn’t shown a weakness to since she was twelve. “I was going to tell you. I was just trying to figure a way out before—”

  Tonya butted in, and they were both too shaken to stop her. “He said he was real happy with how she got you out of the way and preoccupied. But now he’s ready to start moving things along. You know, break ground before winter and everything.”

  Fury blazed in his eyes, and Roxanne bolted out of her chair toward him, hands outstretched. “No, it didn’t happen that way,” she said, panicked. “You know that!”

  But the distance away from him gave room for her mother to keep talking. “The man came up with an ironclad plan. Even if you two break up, it won’t matter. We can still embarrass the shit out of you. Who’s gonna buy the ‘big powerful billionaire and noble prince’ bullshit when people hear what you’ve been up to?” As Mateo turned to look at her mother, staring at Tonya with disgust and disbelief, Roxanne stopped moving toward him. Shame filled her to the brim. “I told him why Roxanne takes such good care of me, how popular I am with the gentlemen, but he figured that was a detail we could save for the press later. When we needed something else out of y’all.”

  Roxanne closed her eyes, drained of every drop of value.

  “Prince, if I can give you a little motherly advice, I recommend you protect your own ass. All that girl cares about is her image. She wears fake contacts for fuck’s sake. She’s gonna do everything she can to come out lookin’ squeaky clean, even if it means throwing you in the shitter.”

  Roxanne heard Mateo storm out of the room. She opened her eyes and turned to face her mother, her limbs heavy with despair. Tonya looked at her like she was an interesting cockroach she’d scraped off her glittery heel.

  “My lawyers will be sending over some papers. I’d sign ’em if I were you. Along with everything I’ve mentioned, there will be an increase in my allowance. You’re not the only one with an image to maintain.” Her mother sighed heavily as she relaxed back into the couch. “I do feel bad about your situation. It’s pretty sad when the only way you can get people to have a relationship with you is if you pay ’em.”

  * * *

  Mateo was already behind the wheel when Roxanne stepped outside. She felt flayed, bared to the bone, without tools or armaments or the shield of her own self-worth to process what had just happened and help her see what step to take next. The drive back to the motel was silent; Roxanne’s ears felt muffled by shock, self-disgust, and Mateo’s vibrating anger. She couldn’t believe how stupid she was; to be outplayed by Easton Fuller, the king. And her mother. The variety of Tonya’s demands kept pinging around in Roxanne’s head, one demand glowing red hot and tearing through flesh: that her mother wanted to play grandma. That she expected to be in the same room with Roxanne’s child, that she expected to hold her child. That that horrible, abusive, disgusting woman, a woman she spent her whole life trying to escape, planned on exposing herself to Roxanne’s daughter on a regular basis. Roxanne fought the urge to roll down her window and scream into the pummeling wind. Or curl into Mateo’s lap and sob.

  Emotionally overwhelmed and without a welcome, she stayed blank and silent.

  Only the shock of watching Mateo drag his suitcase out of the closet and throw it onto the bed once they got back to the motel room brought her back online.

  “What’re you doing?” she asked, her skin prickling with returning blood flow as she watched Mateo stalk to the dresser.

  “I need to go back.” He grabbed an armful of clothes without looking at her.

  “That’s it?” she asked as he moved across the room. “We’re not going to talk?”

  He tossed
the pile into his suitcase. “What is there to talk about?”

  A puff of disbelief came out of her mouth as she watched him cross the room again. He would just walk out on her like she was...nothing? “Everything.” She stepped into his path. He stopped, focusing beyond her shoulder. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that Fuller threatened us with the—”

  “Stop it.” Now he was looking at her. Glaring, eyes burning her up. “I was such an idiot for believing your apology meant something today.”

  She felt her mouth soften with hurt. He had every right to be angry, but that was a low blow. After everything they’d been through together, after behaving like partners working toward the same goal, she thought he liked her. She thought he trusted her enough to investigate what had happened and not go straight to contempt. She felt gut-punched by his cruelty, by the face that sneered at her like he had through her laptop screen when they’d first met.

  “Are you working with Fuller?” he demanded.

  “No!” she declared, stunned by the question, staring into the depths of his eyes to find the Mateo she knew.

  “Are you trying to keep me away from the Monte so that he can turn my people against me?”

  “No.” Now he was starting to piss her off. “That’s ridiculous. You know me better than that.”

  “Do you believe I can save the Monte without signing Fuller’s deal?”

  She was surprised into silence by the question.

  His heavy brows clenched over his eyes. “You think I’m fucking pathetic. You think the only thing worthy on me is my cock.”

  She gasped against the blow. “That’s not true!” she declared, grabbing his bare arm as he moved to turn away from her. “I was... I was afraid. I was afraid you’d hate me. My contract gave Fuller leverage and I was afraid... I was afraid you’d walk away from me.” She admitted the truth to herself at the same moment she admitted it to him. Her nails dug desperately into his tense arm. “It was stupid and selfish and I’m so, so... You don’t want my apology but please know I didn’t do it to hurt you or disable you. I admire you more than anyone I’ve ever known. You know that. You know me,” she begged, searching his face for that spark of recognition. “You know my intentions. You said...you trusted me.”

  But the eyes that looked at her were blank and cool. “How can I believe anything you say?”

  She wanted to reel back in disbelief; her jaw wanted to drop to the floor. She’d just stripped away her last defense and exposed herself to him, told him her greatest fear: that he’d abandon her. And he replied like he was talking to his father.

  She realized then that she might be fighting for her life.

  “How can you believe what I say?” she echoed back. “Because, besides stupidly and foolishly holding some facts back, I’ve never lied to you. Because I have done everything in my power to help you.” As her disbelief and anger grew, she discovered an ember of self-respect. “Because I’m a good person.” As that ember grew into a flame, Roxanne felt the urge to burn down all pretense between them. “Because I have been more nakedly honest with you than I have been with any person in my life. And you know that! In that bed”—she pointed to it fervently—“I told you the most terrifying truth I’ve ever shared with any man. Why should you believe me?”

  She pressed her hands against her heart and looked at him with all of her grief and apology and hope and belief in him in her eyes. “Because I love you.”

  At that, the word “love,” Mateo dropped his eyes to the wiry orange carpet.

  Clarity stabbed through her. She pressed her lips together to hold back a mournful gasp. She’d gotten it all wrong.

  “Oh,” she said, dropping her hands and stumbling two steps back from him. “Okay.”

  He glanced at her from under his hair. She imagined he wished he had his ball cap right now. “What’s okay?”

  The AC was suddenly frigid in the room. She felt it flowing through her. “You don’t love me, do you?” she said numbly.

  “It’s a little hard to love someone who thinks you’re worthless,” he said, again to the carpet.

  The careless way he reached in and twisted her heart was the most painful thing she’d ever felt. “I don’t think you’re worthless,” she said, the words falling out like tears. “I think you’re perfect.”

  And he laughed. Ugly. “Perfectly incompetent. I’m the perfect child who’ll play in my pen while you clean up my messes.” He shook his head, still glaring at the carpet. That beautiful shining hair stroked his high cheekbones and sharp jaw.

  “That’s not love, Princesa. That’s pity.”

  And what else was there to say?

  Oh God, she prayed, wrapping her arms around her middle. Dear God, help me survive the next few minutes.

  She’d risked everything. She’d stepped out from behind every barrier, peeled away every layer, and showed him the naked essence of who she was. And he didn’t want what he saw. Maybe it was because of anger. Or distrust. Or simple disinterest. The “why” really didn’t matter.

  He didn’t want her.

  She spun her back on him and put her hand over her mouth. But she couldn’t hide the tears in her voice. “You should go,” she said, tears already dripping down her face.

  “Roxanne,” he said. And she closed her eyes on the sound of her name in his mouth. Tried to imprint it so she would never ever forget it.

  “Please, Mateo, please,” she begged him. The words came out with her sobs. Still holding herself, she walked to the motel room door. Placing her hand on the door handle, she said, “I’m so sorry for everything. But, please, if you ever had a drop of care for me, please don’t be here when I get back.” She shook with her weakness, trembled in her nakedness as she pulled open the door, stepped outside, and walked blindly into the hot Kansas night.

  June: Day One

  The Monte was enjoying one of its most perfect Junes on record.

  Mateo marveled at it as he sat in his office in the Castillo, his leather desk chair turned so he could look out one of the arched medieval windows, tapping a stiff slip of paper—a check—against his knee. A rich Caribbean-blue sky arced over the vineyards; the vineyards’ green leaves fluttered with health. The vines that stretched to the foothills were bursting with fruit; seamless sun-filled days were plumping the grapes with juice, while cool nights slowed down the process, allowing the juice to grow rich with flavor.

  The fruit from his Tempranillo Vino Real, still at least three months from being picked, was already showing incredible balance. It was responding well to the heat, could take even more as the Monte turned inevitably warmer over the years with the effects of climate change. Back at his greenhouse at UC Davis, several of his research assistants were putting the Vino Real through stress tests, exposing them to wet, cold, heat, and reporting the same excited results to Mateo—the vine could take it.

  The Vino Real can save the Monte, Roxanne wrote in the letter that accompanied the check. He glanced at the letter he’d thrown onto his desk, at the roll of blue ink across the page. Still tapping the check against his knee, he forcefully returned his eyes to the view out the window before he did something stupid. Before he pressed his face to the page to see if he could feel her hand against it.

  A dark hawk swooped down into the vines, snaring something innocent out of the fruit.

  His sister had taken over most of the day-to-day watch on the Vino Real, checking the sugars with a focused intensity that surprised him. They’d brought in a top Riojan winemaker whose name would ensure the varietal received the most press when they released the wine, but Sofia had made it immensely clear to Mateo and the ever-patient winemaker that she’d be overseeing the fruit’s transformation from grape to wine.

  She was no longer his little rebellious sister. Sofia had declared it when she’d dragged his ass out of the Castillo’s wine cellars—endless tunnels under t
he castle that he’d retreated to the first four nights he’d been home—and he believed it when he acknowledged how capable she’d been as his emissary when he’d been gone. The remaining shreds of hope his people had that his family could save them were based solely on his sister’s efforts. With gritted-teeth optimism, she was one of the few in the Monte enjoying the sun-soaked, blue-skied, crystal-mountain-air days.

  Everyone else was watching the sky for steel clouds and a mood-matching storm.

  Mateo had now shown all the growers the Vino Real. They were positive about the results, but it was impossible to be enthusiastic about a vine that wouldn’t be mature in their own plots for three years when they lacked confidence that they would be in charge of those plots for another year. No one, including Mateo, knew what the future of the Monte held, and townspeople and growers alike walked around with their own private rain clouds over their heads.

  Mateo sneered at the perfect day and spun his chair on it, flinging the check next to the letter.

  He could find no way clear of his father’s threats. His lawyers had looked. Mateo had gone over and over it with Sofia and Carmen Louisa. But the blackmail was simple and irrefutable: Sign or his father would name Roman Sheppard his heir. Sign or he would expose Mateo and Roxanne’s contract to the world. His father, cold and sneering, had presented him his options and a deadline the night Mateo had returned from Kansas. Then both the king and Easton Fuller had made themselves remarkably absent. It was a sign of their confidence that Mateo was 100 percent fucked.

  He had one more week to decide.

  When a tap came on the ancient oak of the office doorway, Mateo looked up to see the one person who unfortunately hadn’t made himself absent.

  Roman Sheppard liked to lurk.

  “Got a minute?” the man said in his low, gruff voice. His voice and those lines that winged away from his green eyes made him seem older than their twenty-nine years.

  Mateo leaned back in his chair. “Don’t you have a life to get back to, Sheppard? I’m sure there are children in burning buildings that need saving.”