The Billionaire Game(21)
This was a nightmare. This was the worst nightmare I had ever had. Worse than the one with the clowns!
“I can’t believe you,” I whispered venomously, yanking my hand back.
Asher looked confused. “Of course you can. If you look at the projections—”
I could see only one solution to this communications divide.
I picked up a glass of that so-French-it-could-sneer-at-you wine and threw it in his face.
EIGHT
The thing about a dramatic exit is, it super helps if you have somewhere to dramatically exit to.
My rage powered me all the way to the lane before I realized that I didn’t have a car, couldn’t exactly call a taxi, and didn’t know how to drive Asher’s helicopter even if I could steal the keys (and oh, how tempting that sounded right now).
So I sucked it up and trudged back to the hotel in my heels, muttering curses under my breath, and made my way to the front desk. A room here would probably cost me an entire month’s rent, but maybe they would take pity on me and let me take a pallet in the kitchen or something.
“Excuse me,” I said to the receptionist.
She looked up and smiled as brightly as if she had just been told that she had won a trip to Disneyland. “Ah, there you are, ma’am. Here’s your key. Would you like a wake-up call, or a complimentary continental breakfast with our freshly squeezed orange juice, made from local oranges?”
I stared at the key in my hand like it was an alien artifact. “Wait. What?”
“Your cabin,” she chirped cheerfully. “Mr. Young reserved it for you.”
“Oh, I bet he did.” I could just picture Asher smugly setting the seduction scheme, thinking I’d buy his patter hook, line, and sinker. Too bad he hadn’t done his research on my company, or I just might have fallen for it too. “Just the one cabin, huh?”
“Yup!”
This girl was so fresh-faced and innocent, I almost felt bad about what I was about to do.
Almost.
“Gosh,” I said, leaning on the counter and lowering my voice confidentially. “I’m so sorry about this, miss, but it seems you’ve been caught up in a little misunderstanding between me and my brother.”
The girl paled slightly, visions of Appalachian family dynamics no doubt dancing in her head. “…brother?”
“Yeah, we get that all the time,” I said with a sigh, “because he’s adopted, and people think we’re a couple. We’re actually expecting two more people—his girlfriend, and my fiancé. I know Asher hasn’t seen Maybelline in ages, and I’d love to be able to give him a little privacy—you don’t think you could just add another cabin to the account…?”
Her hands scrambled on the keys, flustered. “I, I, I’m not sure—it’s just, Mr. Young is the name on the account, and since he didn’t authorize it—”
“It’s those memory problems,” I said gravely, with a concerned shake of my head. “Ever since the orphanage—oh, they used to beat them so terribly there, sometimes when we were kids Asher would still wake up screaming and wetting the bed— thank goodness the U.N. shut it down and found all those children nice homes. But some damage can never be undone.”
The girl’s eyes were so wide I was worried they might pop out of her head. “That’s so terrible!”
“It is, isn’t it.” I laid my hand over hers. “Thanks for being so sympathetic. Not everyone understands what a trial it is, you know?” I sighed deeply, and tried to look melancholy. I thought about Asher’s betrayal of my hopes, and that seemed to help. “I wish he would open up more about it to me, but at least he has Maybelline. He can talk to her about anything. The last few years they’ve been together…he’s been so much more open, so much more able to enjoy life. A true American success story.”
The girl’s eyes were filled with tears. “That’s so beautiful. I’ll add that extra cabin right away.”
“Thank you—” I checked her name tag—“Ava. This means so much to both of us.”
I salved my guilty conscience with a hefty tip, and then set out for my new cabin, courtesy—though he didn’t know it yet—of Asher Young’s apparently tragic childhood.
#
My room was gorgeous, with polished wooden beams and furniture so plush you could sink into it and never come back out, but I couldn’t calm down. The high I’d gotten from outwitting Asher’s trite little seduction scheme had deflated like a punctured hot air balloon as I faced the fact that it had all been a seduction scheme in the first place. He didn’t think my business could succeed the way I wanted it to. He hadn’t even been interested in listening to my strategy—he’d just leapt in and steamrollered all over it.
I opened up my briefcase and spread my samples over the bed. The pale violet brassiere with the velvet lining, the cobalt blue teddy with lace fringe, the sheer babydoll sewn from silk so fine you could have pulled it through a wedding ring—they still seemed beautiful to my eyes. They still seemed like a worthwhile dream.
So why couldn’t I convince anyone else?
Maybe I was never going to succeed. Maybe I didn’t really have what it took. Maybe all my designs were uninspired trash and my clients were gullible fools and I was just deluding myself with thinking that I’d ever made a difference in the confidence and self-esteem of the women who came to me. Maybe it was just underwear.