Rescued By the Billionaire by Lisa Kaatz

2

Igripped the steering wheel and breathed in deeply, exhaling through my mouth.

At 6’2” and one hundred and ninety pounds, I’ve never harmed a woman before in my life. Never have, and never will. But damn if Melissa Roberts, “CEO” of Grindz Coffee, didn’t make me want to grab her by the shoulders and give her a good, hard shake.

It had taken nearly an hour of chit chat after she fired that barista to get the details. Melissa was one of those annoying, batty women who talked in circles, meandering around the point and taking her time to get to the climax of a story - and she told me several stories. Mostly about what it’s like to be a fellow entrepreneur.

She kept saying that. Fellow entrepreneur.

“I remember when I founded my business,” she said, touching my arm again the way she had before. A light touch, then a squeeze of the bicep. “It’s so hard, when you’re first starting out. You know how it is…It’s so weird, we both kind of started the same way, if you think about it.”

“Oh?” I asked. “You also worked the graveyard shift at a 24 hour diner for a year to raise money for your first location?”

“Well, no,” she said quickly, her ears turning red. “Actually, daddy - um, my father, gave me the seed money as a graduation present.”

“Well, that was very nice of him,” I said. “Now, what can you tell me about that woman?”

“Who, Abby?” she laughed. “What is there to know? She came here about a year and a half ago looking for work. I gave her a job because I felt bad for her - you should have seen the state of her clothes and hair when she got here. Apparently she was living in a women’s shelter.”

She must have misread the expression on my face.

“I know,” she laughed. “It’s hard to imagine her looking much worse than she did today, right? But trust me, it’s possible.”

I clenched my jaw and looked away, pretending to be interested in the cars passing by.

“But she’s willing to work for minimum wage, so I figured it would be smart to secure some cheap labor. Right? What am I saying, you know how that is. You’re a fellow entrepreneur.”

I gave a stiff nod and turned the corners of my mouth up in what was hopefully a convincing smile of understanding.

“Anyway, I told her she could have the job,” she continued. “But she had to promise to wash her hair before her first shift. I even gave her a cash advance so she could buy some toiletries. I don’t know how some women don’t take some basic pride in their appearance, you know? But then again, that’s just me.”

She fluffed her straw-like hair and looked down at her manicure - nails shaped and polished into sharp, red daggers - before looking back up at me, smiling brightly.

“Anyway,” she said softly. “What do you say we get you inside out of this cold? I can make you anything on the menu, my treat. And I mean anything.”

“Actually, could I get the name and number of that employee you just fired?” I asked. “I’d like to discuss something with her.”

“Who, Abby? What do you want to talk to Abby for?” she snapped, her voice suddenly harsh and grating.

I did some quick thinking.

“Well, I might need to press charges,” I said carefully. “So I’d like to know where to serve her the papers. You know. After I talk to my lawyers, of course. You know how it is, when you’re in a position like mine. Like yours. When you’re a CEO, you can never be too careful.”

I’d said the right thing. Melissa’s eyes lit up.

“Oh, definitely,” she said, her voice returning to a soft purr. “I run everything by my lawyers, too. You just never know, you know?”

She sighed, a full-bodied, world-weary sigh.

“It’s just so hard having money sometimes,” she said, looking off in the distance wistfully.

“It sure is,” I said, pulling out my phone. “Now, what was Abby’s last name again?”

After I got all of the information I needed from Melissa - and after she gave me a sweaty handshake that lasted just a little bit too long - I got back into my car, typing the address she’d given to me into my phone.

And then I paused.

No. I wasn’t about to do this again. Whoever this woman was - this Abigail Hope Walker, this “Abby”, this formerly-homeless sketch artist with beautiful honey brown eyes - was just another woman I was trying to rescue. Another woman who would chew me up and spit me out.

And I’d had enough of that to last a lifetime.

But then I remembered what she’d said to me. About my name. She’d glanced at the name on my credit card - I’d seen her do it. But what had she said? Two names, two presidents?

There hadn’t been that change in energy that I’d become accustomed to by now. No sudden excitement or nervousness. She hadn’t looked up at my face after reading my name, scrolling through her mental rolodex and matching my face with the one she’d seen on the cover of Forbes, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, and even People Magazine a time or two. No “It’s him! It’s really him!” expression on her face.

No. Not even a flicker of recognition.

Either she was a really good actress, or she lived under a rock. And I wasn’t sure which one it was. I’d been fooled by actresses before. Women who said they were in love, who said they hadn’t the faintest idea how much I was worth when they became interested in me.

Women who slowly became more demanding of me over time. Women who started to make assumptions about what I would pay for. About what I’d do for them. Women who’d go shopping on Fifth Avenue under my name, telling shops to send the bill to my home.

Women who called the tabloids when things went south. Women who had used me. Lied to me. Burned me.

I closed the map app on my phone and put it in my pocket. I was being ridiculous. Maybe Abby really had been trouble since she’d started working there. Who was I to assume? She was feisty enough for that to be believable. The fire she’d had in her eyes when she’d told me off - like pure, concentrated energy directed straight through me.

Maybe she did know who Lincoln Taylor was. Maybe she just didn’t give a shit.

She’d be fine, I told myself. You don’t know a thing about her. It’s not your job to go around rescuing needy women. You know how that goes. You know how it ends.

One thing was for certain, though. I’d just lost the only barista in New York who could make a cappuccino the way I liked it.

“Linc.”

“Linc.”

“LINC!”

An open palm landed hard on my shoulder, smacking me to attention.

“Shit,” I growled, looking up at Harrison, my younger brother and the only person in this world who could get away with a) hitting me and b) calling me “Linc”, which had been my mom’s pet name for me before the cancer took her.

On anyone else’s lips, the nickname made me want to put my fist through the wall. Coming from Harrison though, who had called me Linc ever since he could walk and talk, it wasn’t terrible. Coming from others - usually women - and...well, let’s just say that I made it clear to everyone other than Harrison that this nickname was strictly off limits.

“I said do you want to order lunch or go out today?” he asked.

“Oh,” I said. I glanced out the window. Overcast. Might rain. But I’d been cooped up in my office since five in the morning today and needed to stretch my legs.

“Let’s try that new bistro down the road,” I said.

“Sounds good,” Harrison said, looking at me speculatively. “You okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” I had my back turned, pulling on my jacket. Thinking about it for a moment, I paused and then grabbed my umbrella from the bottom drawer of my desk. Better safe than sorry.

“Really,” Harrison said. “Because - and don’t take this the wrong way - you look like shit, dude.”

“Thanks,” I said. We walked out of my office suite, passing my assistant on the way out.

“Lunch,” I said. “Be back in an hour.”

Elise nodded, her lavender-tinted hair bouncing over her shoulders.

“Three o’clock,” she said. “You’ve got Reed coming in for a project briefing.”

“I’ll be back before then,” I assured her. “Can we bring you back something from The Corner Bistro?”

“A winning lottery ticket and George Clooney on a platter,” she said with a wink.

I shook my head. Always the same request.

“That woman is insane,” Harrison muttered as we got into the elevator. “Last week she told me I should grow my hair out. Said I’d look like a young Tom Petty.”

“Well, she might be right,” I said, glancing at his fair hair and thin frame. “Except, you know, you’d be Tom Petty plus an extra twenty pounds of muscle.”

“Just what every man wants to hear,” Harrison said. “That they look like a buff Tom Petty and their brother’s crazy sixty year-old assistant wants to bang them.”

“She didn’t say that,” I said, holding back laughter. “She just said you reminded her of someone and suggested a change in hairstyle. You should thank her. Maybe if you followed her advice, you’d finally get a girlfriend.”

Harrison scoffed and ignored me, adjusting his hair in the reflection of the glass elevator wall. We descended the thirty-five floors to the ground level.

It was a routine for me now, to throw on my sunglasses before we exited the building. It didn’t always help. But about 70% of the time, I could walk around the city without being recognized. The other 30% of the time, I was recognized but not usually bothered. New Yorkers we great like that. Whether it was an act or not, it seemed like they were all doing their utmost to seem casual about spotting celebrities and other “famous” people.

Not that I counted myself as famous. Not really. I guess.

Every now and again, though, I would be recognized. And occasionally, one of those people would be a beautiful woman who would try - and sometimes succeed - to give me her phone number.

Today was one of those days.

We placed our orders with the waiter, and I was about to ask Harrison how the new interface designs for the ComPassion app update were going when she came over.

Incredible body. Long legs that were shown off in a short dress that seemed a little out of place on a chilly Tuesday afternoon. Golden skin, white-blonde hair.

The kind of woman Harrison would drool over.

Correction: He was drooling over her.

“Hey there,” she said, beaming down at me.

“Hey,” Harrison said back. She turned her head and looked at him, as though surprised to see him there.

“Oh, hi,” she said quickly, then turned to look at me again. “You’re Lincoln Taylor, right? From Taylor Innovations down the street?”

“Yes, I am,” I said curtly, turning back to face Harrison.

She leaned over the table, resting her arm on the back of my chair. This position put her cleavage in my direct line of sight. If I turned my head just thirty degrees, I’d have her giant, fake tits in my face.

“I just love what you’re doing lately. Such important work,” she said, still beaming down at me. “So impactful. When my grandmother was on hospice, it meant the world to us.”

“I’m so glad it helped you and your family,” I said, looking over the dessert menu with a sudden interest. “Do you mind? Me and my colleague here are trying to discuss business.”

“Oh,” she said. She straightened up, her smile falling slightly. “Well, I’ll let you get back to it. I bet you’re insanely busy - ”

“I am,” I said, smiling up at her tightly. “Thank you for understanding.”

As she left, Harrison gaped after her. Then turned to me.

“Colleague?” he said incredulously. “Colleague? Why didn’t you tell her I’m your brother?”

“Because then she’d just want to fuck you for your money,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Exactly.”

The blonde had returned to the bar, where she’d been drinking with her shorter, slightly plump friend. I could feel their gaze on the back of my head. I was used to these sorts of interactions from women by now. For whatever reason, though, today it was making me feel as though all of my clothes were too tight, and itchy. Annoyance pricked at the back of my neck.

I loosened my tie, then took a sip of my water, gazing out the window onto the streets outside. I’d been right to bring the umbrella; it was pouring outside now.

“Disgusting weather,” Harrison commented.

“I kind of like it,” I said quietly.

Harrison turned back to me.

“For real, what the fuck is up with you today?” he asked.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You seem...tired,” he said. “And, like, weird. I don’t know.”

“Didn’t get my coffee fix this morning,” I said.

“Why not?” Harrison asked. “Can’t Elise order it for you? You can get it delivered now, you know.”

“That shit from the chain shops is gross,” I said, shaking my head.

“That’s right, you like that little hipster place,” he said, nodding. “Well, what happened this morning? Just didn’t make it over there?”

I thought of Abby. Abby, who had been unknowingly making me the best coffee I’d ever tasted for over a year. Abby, who had been fired for telling me off for being rude.

I’d vowed not to save her like I’d “saved” other women. But I couldn’t get her out of my head. And why? Was it attraction?

Unlike the blonde at the bar, I had no idea what Abby’s body looked like. Her clothes engulfed her. A hunter green sweater that looked three sizes too large and hung down to her knees. Jeans with paint stains and holes in the knees. And she wore large, thick-soled boots that looked like they’d be more at home on a construction site than in a coffeeshop in lower Manhattan.

But her face was beautiful. Even when contorted with anger. In fact, maybe even more so because of that. Was it sexually dysfunctional to be attracted to angry women? Maybe I should see a shrink.

Most of all, I noticed her eyes. Not just their almond shape and honey color. But the way they’d looked at me. I don’t think I’d seen someone look at me that way since I was sixteen years old.

Since sixteen, I’d been carrying some sort of badge with me that others recognized and reacted to. I wasn't just Lincoln. Before I sold my first company, I was Lincoln Taylor, adolescent orphan and troubled teenager. Someone to be pitied, or even feared. Possibly a future criminal. Or maybe I’d just off myself one of these days.

After my first company was acquired, though, I shed that identity for a new one. Lincoln Taylor, wealthy tech CEO. Lincoln Taylor, eligible bachelor.

Abby had looked at me like I was just...Lincoln. Just some guy in a coffeeshop who made her knock over her latte. As though I was just another person to her.

Not just that. She’d noticed things about me. My daily rhythm. The car I drove. My unhealthy phone addiction. Even the morning I’d taken a day off to install a new sink in Elise’s kitchen. I’d driven my truck to Grindz, because even on my day off, I needed my coffee fix.

God, that must have been over a year ago. But she’d remembered.

“Linc!”

“What?”

“Jesus, what is your deal today?” Harrison said, shaking his head. I looked down. Our food had arrived. When had that happened?

“You are seriously spacey today,” he said, taking a fry from my plate. “Do me a favor, and grab a cup of coffee on the way back to the office. Talking to you right now is like talking to a wall.”

“Right,” I said. “I’ll do that.”

I didn’t say much for the rest of lunch; Harrison did the talking for both of us. For once I was grateful that my brother was such a chatterbox. I didn’t think I could come up with an intelligent sentence. I was still thinking about Abby, reliving our conversation from yesterday play-by-play.

Taking Harrison’s advice, we split up after lunch and I decided to walk to the nearest coffee shop for a caffeine fix.

When I got back to my office, I had Elise cancel my afternoon appointments.

“All of them?” she said, raising her eyebrows.

“All,” I said.

“Are you feeling okay?” Elise asked.

“Elise, please,” I said weakly. I loved Elise dearly. She was like a mother to me. But sometimes I wished I could have an assistant who didn’t know so much about me. Someone who would blindly follow orders and not ask questions like “Are you feeling okay?” - which was the same question, incidentally, that Harrison had asked me all morning and afternoon.

“I’ll cancel them, I’ll cancel them!” she said, holding up a hand as though to say “relax.”

I went back to my office and drew the blinds shut, blocking the floor-to-ceiling glass panels that opened out to the hallway and Elise’s desk. Then I drew the curtains to my windows to the world beyond, blotting out the daylight.

I went to my desk and opened a drawer, shuffling papers around until I found it. Underneath an old contract and a thick copy of Steve Jobs’ biography was my trusty bottle of whiskey.

At business dinners and bars with women, I went for top shelf. Something older than shit and expensive, too. It always impressed people.

The truth was, I didn’t know a damn thing about whiskey. I wasn’t a connoisseur. I just liked the buzz. And when I was younger and poorer, Jack was my go-to. And so Jack was my go-to now. For days like this. Days when I needed to forget to remember. Days when I was tired of people asking me if I was okay. Days when I needed to forget a woman.