Rescued By the Billionaire by Lisa Kaatz

11

Ilooked in the mirror and swept my bangs to one side. Then the other. Then back to the other side.

I don’t know why, but something about my face looked different. New. It was as though having sex, losing my virginity at last, had changed something physically in the way that I looked. I leaned in closer to the mirror and searched my reflection for a clue. Some sign of what had happened last night. But there was nothing there.

The only evidence of what Lincoln and I had done last night was a ripped shirt on his bedroom floor and the slightly sore feeling between my thighs. I felt weird when I walked. It wasn’t a burning, horrible pain or anything. I just felt...raw. Like I’d stretched too hard.

We’d made love three times last night. I lost count of my orgasms. Lincoln had seemed intent on making me come as many times as I could stand before finally taking me for himself, before giving himself his own release. When he was inside of me, he looked straight at me, and it felt like he was looking into my soul. Like he was searching for something.

Once or twice after sex I thought I saw a strange expression cross his face. Like he was upset. But the expression was gone nearly as soon as it had appeared, and I was too afraid to ask what it was about. I’d always wanted my first time to be with someone who loved me. And I knew Lincoln didn’t. But I didn’t need to hear something that would affirm this aloud, right after I’d just given him my virginity.

So I just didn’t ask. And he didn’t tell. And after thirty or so minutes of blissful, lighthearted chatting, Lincoln would roll over me again and begin kissing me all over, as though I were the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted.

My body felt tired, as though I’d spent the day before lifting weights and running around. It felt as though I’d been through a triathlon. We’d tried it in every position I’d ever wondered about. Missionary. Doggy style. Girl on top. Even standing up, with him holding me up midair, pinning me between his pistoning hips and the wall behind me.

I hoped the walls were thick and that his neighbors slept deeply.

Still dissatisfied with the lack of evidence I found in the mirror, I turned back to the bedroom and found him still sleeping soundly in bed. With his eyes closed and his face relaxed, he looked more peaceful than I’d ever seen him. When Lincoln was awake he was all intensity. Even when laughing. And especially while making love.

I sat on the bed next to him and stroked his arm softly.

“Lincoln,” I whispered.

He groaned and rolled away from me, pulling the blanket tighter around him. I giggled. And then an idea struck me.

“Lincoln,” I said, tugging gently on his arm. “I’m going to go get us some breakfast. Okay? Gus will let me back in, right?”

He groaned again in reply.

“He’ll let me back in,” I decided.

Finding my pants took a while. Lincoln had thrown them across the room last night, and they’d landed behind a wingback chair in the corner. I tugged them up my hips, savoring the sore feeling between my thighs that I felt when I moved my legs. The only evidence of the change in me, of what had happened to me last night.

My shirt was beyond repair. I discarded it in the bathroom trash, then found Lincoln’s closet, sifting through the shirts hanging in his closet. He had to have about two hundred of them. Dress shirts in brands like Ralph Lauren and Dolce and Gabbana. I rolled my eyes. What kind of man needed this much designer?

I found a shirt in the back that looked reasonably subdued. A threadbare cotton t-shirt that simply read “Colorado Springs High School Baseball” with two bats crossed in an X shape underneath.

So Lincoln had played baseball?

There was so much about him I still needed to learn.

I remembered our deal. Three weeks. Was three weeks enough to learn all that there was to know about him?

Maybe we would have more time. Maybe we would have months. Years, even.

I breathed in deeply before stepping into the elevator. I was getting ahead of myself. Planning a future with the first man I’d ever kissed or slept with. It was almost kind of sad. Here I was, after one night, making Lincoln bigger and more special in my eyes than he had probably ever made me.

But hadn’t he said something to me last night? What was it again?

“Because Abby, I do want more. Believe me.”

I’d been too caught up in the moment to ask him what he’d meant. He wanted more. More than a friendship. But how much more could he want when he said he didn’t date? He doesn’t have girlfriends. They’re too much trouble. Remember?

So that made us...what? Fuck buddies? Friends with benefits?

I could live with that, though. I think.

I pressed the button and the elevator began to descend.

I didn’t have all of the answers. I didn’t know what Lincoln and I were doing, or where this would go. Who knew? I was just getting to know him. But I knew that I liked what I’d found out so far. I knew I cared about him. And I knew that I wanted to sleep with him again. Very, very soon. Maybe as soon as we finished breakfast.

The elevator doors dinged cheerily as they opened and I stepped out into the lobby, waving at Gus on the way out.

“Ms. Walker,” he said, standing quickly at his station and hastily stashing his cell phone in his pocket. “You’re up very early.”

“Getting some breakfast,” I smiled. “Want something? A bagel?”

“No thank you,” he said with a small, stiff smile.

“I’ll be back in a bit. Lincoln said you’d let me back up,” I said.

“I will,” he said with a small bow. “Enjoy your morning, Ms. Walker.”

I don’t think I’d ever be able to get used to having a doorman around all the time. And when did Gus sleep? It seemed like a terribly boring job.

I walked through the opened door and into the early morning air. The sky was a chilled gray color, without a cloud in sight, and the wind whipped at my hair. I pulled my coat tightly around me. Lincoln’s thin cotton shirt didn’t provide much insulation.

“Abby?”

I looked over my shoulder. Behind me on the sidewalk was someone familiar - Harry? Harrison? And beside him was the brunette.

“Hey,” I said weakly, slowing to a stop and turning to face him. “How’s it going?”

“Just came over to see if Lincoln was up,” the man said. “Suzi and I had a...late night, if you will. Of course, it looks like you had the same.”

He winked.

Beside him, the brunette’s eyes were as wide as saucers. Like a cat who had spied a mouse, she watched me with sharp attention, taking me in. My tangled hair. Fresh, makeup-free face. The oversized shirt I’d borrowed from Lincoln’s closet.

When she’d finished taking it all in, she gave me a devilish grin and then pulled out her phone, typing furiously with her head down.

“I’m Harrison, again,” he said to me, extending a hand.

“Abby Walker,” I said.

“I guess you and my brother talked things through?” he asked with a small smile, also surveying me from head to toe. Albeit without the obvious judgement and glee that the skinny brunette had.

She was still typing, looking up at me periodically through her hair and then back down, to her phone, her thumbs moving rapidly across the screen.

“Yeah,” I said. “We...worked things out. It turns out there was a misunderstanding.”

Still typing.

“Well I’m glad,” he said. “You know, ever since Lincoln met you he’s been acting differently.”

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, looking up at the building, as though he could locate which window was Lincoln’s and see him right now. “I mean...he’s usually such a workaholic, you know. All uptight and stuff. Ever since we moved out on our own, he’s been burning the candle at both ends. Of course, clearly it’s paid off.”

He gave me a knowing smile that I didn’t know how to take.

“I keep telling him to take a vacation every now and again,” he continued. “But then he gives me that old line. CEOs don’t take vacations. Which isn’t even true, I don’t know where he got that idea into his head. A few months ago, I read this article about Bill Gates - ”

“CEO?” I asked.

Suzi’s eyes snapped to attention.

Harrison’s eyes widened.

“Shit,” he said. “I thought he would have talked to you about it by now.”

“Lincoln is a CEO?” I repeated.

“You didn’t know?” Suzi finally spoke, looking at me incredulously. “Are you serious? Lincoln Taylor of Taylor Innovations?”

Taylor Innovations. I turned the name over in my mind, trying to see if it rang any bells.

“You must live under a fucking rock,” she spat.

“Hey,” Harrison held up a hand in a warning.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking not sorry at all. “It’s just, who the hell doesn’t know who Lincoln Taylor is? He’s everywhere.”

“Lincoln is a programmer,” I said in a daze, looking from her to Harrison. Harrison looked away.

“A programmer,” she snorted. “Calling Lincoln Taylor a programmer is like calling Henry Ford a mechanic.”

“Well, what is he then?” I asked. My cheeks were growing hotter by the minute and I felt the tears welling up in my eyes.

“The CEO of TI,” she snapped. Beside her, Harrison tried to get her to stop, putting his hand on her shoulder, trying to turn her to face him. She shrugged away from him.

“I can’t believe you’ve been hanging out with him for this long without a clue,” she said. “Dani and I thought you were just some gold digging little bitch trying to cash in on his money. But it turns out you’re just a dumb little bitch.”

“Stop it, Suzi,” Harrison said. All good humor was gone from his face.

“I mean, what did you think? How do you think he pays for everything?” she gestured upwards at the building behind us. “You have absolutely no concept of the cost of things, do you? You really are just some small town hick.”

She laughed again, looking at me in disbelief.

“You don’t deserve him,” she said, shaking her head.

“That’s enough,” Harrison shouted. He looked at me. “I’m sorry, Abby. He was going to tell you eventually. You should talk to him yourself. Clear things up.”

Clear things up.

It was too late for clearing things up.

Clear things up, after I’d given him everything last night. Clear things up after he’d been lying to me from the very beginning. About who he was. What he did. Everything.

Harrison leaned in, touching me on the shoulder. I shoved his hand away and glared at him.

“You knew he was lying to me too, I guess,” I said. “You’re just as bad as he is.”

“Talk to him,” Harrison pleaded.

“A programmer,” Suzi repeated behind him with a laugh.

I turned and started walking in the other direction. Suzi’s face was gleeful, and she gave me a tiny sarcastic wave as I left. Harrison looked positively tortured. But was I supposed to pity him?

No.

I practically ran across town. It was a ridiculous distance to walk. Too far. Cutting through too many sketchy neighborhoods. But I was full of too much energy, practically on fire. I wanted to scream and rage at the sky. Wanted to turn and run back to Lincoln’s apartment and...and what?

There was nothing left to say. I’d been lied to before. The kind of people who did something like this weren’t the kind of people to be sorry for it. Or to change. There was nothing left to do or say. Lincoln had shown me at last what his true colors were.

And he would always be my first.

I pushed the unwelcome thought from my mind. I’d assured Lincoln over and over last night that this wouldn’t be a decision I’d regret. He’d acted so concerned about it. And yet he’d done the very thing that was making me regret everything we’d shared last night.

It was his fault.

He knew the whole time.

He knew he was lying when he kissed me.

Knew it when he undressed me.

Knew it when he sank into me for the first time, so gently, so slowly. As though I were made of glass. As though he would rather die than hurt me.

Yet he knew, in that moment, that he was lying to me.

That he would break my heart.

I had barely ducked inside of the library before the tears fell. He’d known. He’d known he was lying when we slept together. Knew it when I looked at him and asked him for that favor.

My feet carried me to the computer section and I sat down in front of a station. The keyboard was one of those old fashioned ones, with cream colored keys that had turned yellow with age. I pulled up the search engine and typed in those words.

The words that were making me cry. The words that made me feel like my heart was being ripped from my chest.

Lincoln Taylor CEO.

Pages of results.

Pictures.

News articles. The most recent one dated yesterday.

Blog posts.

Video interviews.

A Wikipedia page.

It was all here. Every shred of his career was documented and, from the sound of it, revered. He was famous.

How had I not known?

How had he hidden it from me?

I thought back to Grindz. The way all of the women had fawned all over him when he walked in. It wasn’t just because he was good looking.

They’d known. They’d all known.

And I’d been too stupid to look up and notice it.

What else hadn’t I noticed? What else about Lincoln didn’t I know?

That huge apartment. With the library. His car.

The way he never wanted to talk about his work. The evasive way he described his “programming” job.

The clues had been here all along. I thought I was smarter than this. Thought I’d been through enough shit to know better than to trust someone blindly.

What had he said to me? Everyone had a motive.

What was his? To toy with me? Why else would he keep something like this from me?

I was a plaything. It was pretty clear. From the day he came outside to talk to me at the coffee shop. What had been his intention then?

I peeled my eyes away from the computer. I’d seen enough. More than a few photos of him featured leggy women in tight dresses clinging to his side at events. Shaking hands with the president. Sitting on a panel alongside Elon Musk and others with a microphone in his hand, the people around him laughing at some joke he must have been telling.

This entire other life of his had nothing to do with me or anything to do with what we’d already shared. I knew Lincoln as a quiet man with a soft spot for me and me alone, who wanted to help me, who didn’t date women but made a pseudo-exception for me. With soft lips and rough hands. Steely blue eyes.

The Lincoln Taylor on the internet - and in reality - was something entirely different. Otherworldly. Too big and bright for me. Even if I did talk to him - like Harrison begged me to - what good would come of it?

Lincoln didn’t even know me.

He thought he did.

But he didn’t know the half of the shit I’d been through. The trauma. The abuse. The horrors that led to me fleeing my small hometown in Maine and coming to NYC, where the city was big enough to swallow me whole. To make me disappear.

I walked back to my apartment. It was misting lightly now and my hair was damp and cold. Once or twice, I sneezed.

Just what I needed. To catch a cold as my life began crumbling apart. The timing was almost poetic.

The men standing outside of my building stared at me as I approached the door. It was one thing I wouldn’t miss about New York. The rent prices and the creeps, which went hand in hand.

I walked up the stairs just to burn off some remaining energy. I was still seething. Still crying when the thoughts became too much for me. And then I saw the notice on my front door.

“Evicted?” I gasped.

“Rent was due a week ago.”

I whirled around and saw him. My landlord, Jerry.

“I’ll get it to you next week,” I lied.

He came nearer. Too close.

“We had an agreement,” he said. “I already gave you a week. Now you were supposed to give me those photos. Where are they?”

“I don’t have them on me,” I said.

“Well they’re not in your apartment,” he said. “I already searched that.”

“You were in my apartment?” I asked.

“Nice panties, by the way,” he said with a grin. “Took a pair of those lacy black ones home with me as a souvenir. Hope you don’t mind. They smelled good. Fresh. Used. Who were you wearing those for? You got a boyfriend I should know about?”

“How long have you been going through my apartment?” I asked, the blood draining from my face. I looked to his left and right, then behind him, gathering my bearings. The hallway was dark and deserted, completely silent.

“Just some routine safety checks,” he commented. “Been doing them here and there for a while.”

“That’s illegal,” I said. He came closer, close enough so that I could smell his beer soaked breath.

“So is not paying your rent,” he said. “So it looks like we’re two for two. Except that you still owe me something, sweetheart. And I’m not leaving until I get it.”

He had me backed against my door now. I tried pushing him away. He leaned closer, pressing against me, then turned the door handle, pushing me through the door and backward into my apartment.

I fell back onto the hard floor beneath me and he closed the door behind him, turning the deadbolt with a deafening click. I could hear my heart beating against my chest.

“Was thinking I could take the pictures myself, since it seems like you forgot,” he said. “It’s okay. It happens. You can pay me back with interest.”

“Get out,” I shouted, trying to sound brave. But my voice wavered, giving my fear away.

“Not until we make this right,” he growled, lunging at me. I rolled to the side and climbed to my feet, making it to the door and starting to turn the lock. He gripped my ankles, pulling them out from under me and making me topple forward, my forehead colliding with the door handle on the way down. My ears were ringing after that.

He was on top of me, all hands, all everywhere. I threw punches wildly, my head still swimming from the impact of the door handle. I could hardly see, could hardly hear a thing. I felt his hand reach for the button of my pants.

“NO!” I shouted, kicking out. My foot landed somewhere soft and he cried out before collapsing on top of me.

“Get OFF of me!” I screamed, pushing him away. He was doubled over in pain.

I turned toward the door, sure that I was in the clear now. But he grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled me back and down. My arm broke my fall and crunched beneath me as I collided with the floor once again.

“You little bitch,” he growled down at me. “I’ll make you pay for that.”

“Help!” I cried again. “HELP. HELP.”

I kicked out, at him and at the walls, screaming until my throat went raw and dry, making as much noise as I could.

And then the door came down.