Escorting the Billionaire by Leigh James
James
“Let’s stay and have another drink,” Audrey said. Her voice was jagged. All I wanted to do was wrap her in my arms and hold her, but she looked wary. I ordered us drinks, and we went and stood with Todd and Evie.
“What’s Celia’s problem?” Todd asked, watching our mother.
“Nothing,” Audrey said. She took a shaky sip of her martini. “She was just talking to me about graduate school.”
Todd raised his eyebrows at that. “She probably wasn’t that helpful,” he said. “Mother’s education consisted mainly of sorority rushes and mixers.”
“She had some insight,” Audrey said. I watched as she put her game face on, tight and intact. “But enough about that. How does it feel to be newlyweds, you two?” She reached down and twined her fingers through mine, holding on for dear life.
“It’s so great,” Evie said, linking her arms through Todd’s. “We are enjoying every minute this trip. And then it’s back to reality.”
“Are you going back to work after this?” I asked.
“Oh, no,” Evie said and laughed, her teeth a blinding white against her new tan. “We’re buying a townhouse, and I’m going to be managing the remodeling, the decorating… and then we’re going to try and start a family.” Evie turned and grinned at Todd, as he squeezed her tiny frame against his.
“That’s wonderful,” Audrey said. Only I would notice this, but I could hear sadness in her voice, maybe mixed with a little envy. “You two will be wonderful parents.”
“And you two will be a wonderful aunt and uncle,” Todd said, beaming at her. “We’re going to start our own family traditions. We can come out to California for Thanksgiving, you two can come to Boston for Christmas. Mother and father are being put on the back burner—they no longer get to boss us around. Evie’s going to organize everything.”
“As long as that’s okay with you, Audrey,” Evie said.
“I’ll happily defer to you, Evie. I’m sure you’re better at all that than me,” Audrey said, and I could still hear that undercurrent of sadness in her voice. Her hand held mine in a death grip, and she drained the rest of her martini in one gulp.
“If you two will excuse us, it’s past Audrey’s bedtime,” I said.
“Don’t be such a baby,” Todd said, looking at his watch. “It’s only nine o’clock.”
“We’re still in that new relationship phase where we have to have sex every couple of hours,” I said. “You old married people probably don’t even remember that, right?” I grinned and swept Audrey up in my arms; I was going to pretend that everything was normal with us, even if it was clear to me that Audrey was about to crack.
“On that note,” Evie said, laughing. “Just remember to get some rest, too! We’re snorkeling the West End reef tomorrow.”
“Good night,” I called jovially. I leaned down to Audrey’s ear. “Smile,” I commanded.
She made her best effort at it. But inside, I could tell her heart was breaking.
“What happened?” I asked when we were back in the safety of our room. “What on earth did she do to you?”
Audrey was pouring herself a glass of white wine. “I can’t tell you,” she said. Her voice was flat, dead.
I went over and stood next to her. Without asking if I wanted any, she poured me a glass and handed it to me. I had a sip and watched her face, which was drawn and pale underneath the color she’d gotten today on the boat. “You have to tell me. We’re in this together.”
“I can’t be in this anymore,” she said, her voice small and far away. “And your mother said that if I tell you what’s going on, the deal I just made with her is off. And it’s not even a good deal, James. It’s not gonna end well, and I know it.”
She looked defeated. My heart broke for her then, for her and Danielle both, what loving me had done to them. I pulled her to me. “This is on me. I should have known it wasn’t safe…that I wasn’t safe to be with.”
She pulled back and looked at my face. “Stop it. Your mother is a monster. While we’re at it, so is mine. We didn’t make them that way.”
I took her face in my hands. “Please tell me what she said. No matter what, I promise you, I’ll make it better. If she doesn’t want me to know, I’ll pretend I don’t. I’ll deny it till I die. Just tell me.”
“Your mother doesn’t fight fair,” Audrey said. I could see her visibly calming herself down, drinking her wine and taking deep breaths.
“Go on.”
“I told her about the letters. I said that I was going to send them to the Tribune. She didn’t flinch. She wasn’t even surprised,” Audrey said. “She said it was an amateur move. And then she said she’d called my mother, and that she was having her lawyer look into having my mother reinstated as Tommy’s guardian.” She swallowed hard. “She said I didn’t have a legal right to take her off his account at the home in the first place. She’s started paying my mother so that she’ll never go public with the information about me.”
She looked up at me. “I had to promise her that I’d stay away from you, James. And that I wouldn’t even tell you this. She said she’d take Tommy away from me. She’ll make sure that my mother gets total control. And she’ll do it, James. I know she will.”
Even though she hadn’t moved, I could almost feel her pulling away from me in her voice.
“She won’t do that. I won’t let her.” I wrapped my arms around her. “I’m so sorry, Audrey.”
“No. It’s my fault,” she said, her voice flat. “She told me I didn’t belong. She gave me fair warning.”
“She doesn’t get to win,” I said, holding her to me. “And neither does your mother, Audrey.”
“I don’t know. I don’t see a way out of this.”
“There’s always a way out,” I said, my mind churning. “We have tonight to figure out what it is. Tomorrow, we’re back with the nuclear arms.”
“I’d be happy with a BB gun at this point,” she muttered.
“One of my first business rules is, when it gets scary, stay in and push. That’s not the time to back off. And also—it’s okay to lie. There’s something to be said for saying one thing and doing another.”
“Ethical behavior is pretty much a non-issue for me at this point,” Audrey said, watching my face. “What’re you thinking?”
“I’m thinking,” I said, “that we fuck with her a little.”
Audrey looked at me expectantly, like that wasn’t good enough.
“Or a lot, babe.”
Later, as she slept in my arms, I made plans. I ran my fingers up and down her smooth skin, relishing the feel of her. I loved her. She was mine; nothing my mother could do or say was going to change that. I thought of Danielle, of what had happened. I would never forgive my parents for what they’d done to her. My heart was closed against them forever.
To Danielle, whose life was taken too early, I sent out silent love and prayers that she’d gone on to a better place and that maybe she could forgive me. As I sat there in the dark, I tried to forgive myself. I had no idea who my parents were when I was eighteen. I had an inkling… but I hadn’t realized the depths they would sink to in order to protect their precious, useless ideals.
I hadn’t known they were capable of murder.
I watched Audrey’s chest rise and fall. I was almost forty. I’d spent the last twenty years shielding myself from love, from feeling connected to another person. There’d been too much pain when Danielle died. I don’t even think I’d realized what I was doing—burying myself in my work, developing an endless list of projects, dating women I didn’t even like. But I didn’t regret any of it except for the loss of Danielle. Because each step had brought me to needing to hire a date for my baby brother’s wedding, and that date had ended up being Audrey.
Who was the love of my life.
“Audrey.” I said. “Wake up.”
“What?” she asked, alarmed, and sat straight up. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” I said, still stroking her skin. “I just wanted to tell you something.”
She lay back down, still half-asleep. “What is it?”
“I love you,” I said.
“I love you, too,” she said. She put her hand on my chest, tracing my muscle.
“You’re moving to Los Angeles with me,” I said.
“Yes. I told you I would. If your mother doesn’t run me off the road first. ”
“And you’re going to bring your brother.”
“I have to, James,” she said. “I can’t leave him with my mother. We’ll have to get all the legal stuff taken care of, and now we’re gonna have to fight your mom’s lawyer—”
“But we’re going to take care of all of that. I want him to come too, Audrey. I know how much you love him. I just need to know that’s still what you want.”
“Of course it is,” she said. “I wish it wasn’t, because then I wouldn’t have caused you all this trouble—”
“Stop,” I said, cutting her off again. “Please don’t ever say that again.”
“Okay.” Her voice was cautious. “Please tell me what’s going on with you.”
“I just want you to promise me,” I said. “I don’t want us to ever be separated again. I just don’t want to waste any more time.”
“Okay,” Audrey said again, nestling against me. She was quiet for a minute, and I thought she’d fallen asleep. “What’s it gonna be like?”
“What?”
“Living in your mansion in California,” she giggled. “The way things are going, it seems like we’re never going to get there.” She yawned. “Like it’s a fairy tale…”
I wrapped my arms around her. “Well, my house isn’t a mansion—not exactly. It’s all one level, up in the hills. I have a great view when there’s no smog. And I get all the sports stations, every single one. Even in my room.” I smiled at her in the darkness, picturing her in my house. “You can have your own closet, and if you behave, your own shelf in the bathroom.”
“If I’m living with you, I’m going to need more than one shelf,” she laughed.
“Well, okay. You can have more than one. If you’re good. What else is my house like… hmmm… I have a really big refrigerator.”
“Bigger than the one in Boston? ’Cause that thing’s huge,” she said.
“Yes, it’s bigger. And no offense, but Audrey, a Barbie mansion has a bigger refrigerator than the one you have in Southie.”
“Ha ha,” she said, punching me lightly. “But keep talking. Tell me what our life would be like.”
“Well, we would get up every day, and then we could do a quick workout in my gym—yes, I have a gym—and then you’d make me breakfast. Preferably French toast because you’re pretty good at that. And then I’d go to work—”
“And I’d go to work, too,” she slipped in.
“Yes, of course you would. Or you can go to school full-time. Just don’t let any of the students or professors ask you out. Then I’d have to fight them.”
“That might be hot, actually.”
“It might be. Yeah, it probably would be.” We both laughed then, and it felt so good. “But seriously, that might be a great place to start. And then I could pick you up from school, and we could go visit Tommy. On the weekends, we can go to dinner. We can take Tommy to the beach or to the park—we don’t have crap weather in LA. It’s totally different. You can go outside all year. And we can go see the Red Sox games in Oakland when they play the A’s. We can fly up in my private plane. We can fly to Hawaii for a long weekend. You can make me dinner every night.”
“Ha,” she said again, but she sounded pleased.
I paused for a second and traced her spine with my finger. I took a deep breath. “And then we can have kids, and you change their diapers—all of them, because I have a feeling that would be beneath me—and they’ll go to all the best schools. We’ll take them to Disneyland. We’ll go watch their music shows and their plays, and they can play baseball and be awesome at it like their dad, and they will never like the A’s, the Dodgers, or the Yankees, and if they are girls they will have beautiful, Bambi-like eyes like their mother. So there.”
“Bambi-like eyes?” she asked, and giggled.
I blew out an embarrassed sigh. “Mock me if you will. Just promise me,” I said, still stroking her back. “Promise me we are going to do all the things.”
“I promise,” she said, her face pressed against my chest. “I promise.”
The next morning, Audrey brought me coffee in bed.
“I’m going to make a few phone calls,” I said, “starting with Danielle’s parents. Even though I don’t have hard evidence, I believe my mother was at the very least involved in the accident somehow. I have to let them know. They still live in Tewksbury; I can look up the number.”
“Are you sure you want to do this right now?” Audrey asked. “It’s a pretty big wound to open up.”
“We need their help. They’re the only people my parents won’t be able to pay off,” I told her. “And they deserve to know, even if it’s only that I think my parents were involved. I’m going to let them in on the plan.”
“Are you going to let me know what the plan is?” she asked.
“Yes, but later. I want the element of surprise to go to bat for us.”
“What about your parents?” she asked. “Are we going to confront them today?”
“Don’t worry. They’re on the list. I have plans for them.”
