The Billionaire and the Virgin (Billionaires and Bridesmaids #1)(70)
The picture next to him was of a sheikh of some kind, and she frowned. What did these two have to do with each other? Then, she read the bright yellow headline for the first time.
Billionaire playboy sells The Man Channel and all affiliated stations to Saudi prince in billion dollar deal! There was a smaller headline underneath that read AND THEN GIVES ALL THE MONEY TO CHARITY!
Her eyes widened. She picked up the magazine and began to read, frantic.
Nothing about handsome billionaire Robert Cannon, 32, has ever been predictable . . . except for his love of partying. It seems, however, that scandal’s favorite billionaire is turning over a new leaf. Reports coming out of boardrooms state that Cannon has sold the incredibly lucrative The Man Channel and its spinoff stations to a powerful Saudi billionaire for over a billion dollars. When asked why he was getting out of the cable industry, Cannon’s reps were notoriously closed-mouthed. One source says that despite the fact that ratings have been up, Cannon was unhappy with the business itself. She said that “someone opened his eyes, and he didn’t like what he saw.” VERY MYSTERIOUS.
It would seem that our secret source has the inside track, though. Not one week after the purchase of the channel went through, Cannon met with a famous women’s foundation and donated every dollar of the sale to charity. That’s right—every dollar of his sale of The Man Channel will now go to helping battered women and victims of rape.
We’ve tried to contact Cannon’s reps, but they’re not speaking. Could there be another angle to this fascinating story that we haven’t heard yet? If there is, we’ll get the scoop!
“Oh my sweet lord,” Marjorie whispered. She blinked, and then began to read the article again, looking for additional tidbits to glean.
“I’m surprised you haven’t heard anything about it, Marj. Don’t you ever google ex-boyfriends?”
She shook her head. “No! I . . . well, I did at first. Then I didn’t like what I saw.”
Agnes tapped one long, bony finger on Rob’s picture. “Call me crazy, but I think this sudden burst of charity has something to do with you.”
Marjorie didn’t know. Why hadn’t he said anything to her? She just stared and stared.
Rob had sold his network. He didn’t keep a dollar for himself. He was broke now . . . because of her. Oh, mercy. Her stomach gave a queasy lurch. What if he resented her now because he thought she’d forced his hand? Her head spun.
“Why don’t you take that article with you, Marj honey? It’ll give you time to read it later.”
There weren’t more than the two paragraphs, but Marjorie nodded and clutched it to her chest.
***
She was terrible at bingo that night. She’d promised Agnes that she’d go, but in reality, she’d just wanted to stay home and stare at that magazine article, and google more about Rob and this sudden sale of his business. Find out more details of why, and what he was doing now . . . and how broke he was.
Marjorie was sick at the thought of someone giving away a billion dollars just to please her. It went to a good cause, of course, but it was an unheard-of amount of money. An utterly upsetting amount.
So she tried to play bingo and chat with her friends, but she missed half the numbers because she kept googling things on her phone. She ended up handing Agnes her bingo card so she could fiddle with her phone more. As luck would have it, the card ended up winning a thousand dollars on the jackpot, and Marj insisted on giving it to Agnes.
The woman had been an incredible friend to her lately and it was a small thing to do. “Buy Dewey a ticket to visit you,” Marjorie had insisted, and Agnes’s smile lit up the bingo hall.
Eventually, the night ended and Marjorie and Agnes parted. Marjorie headed up the elevator a few more floors to her new apartment. Inside, all was utterly quiet—not even her noisy neighbors weren’t making a sound. She closed the door and locked it behind her, bolted it, then dragged her small bureau in front of it, because living alone in NYC didn’t make her feel all that safe. Then, she peeled off her high heels and headed over to the closet and tugged down the bed, and then flopped down on it to page through the magazine again.
Two paragraphs. She didn’t understand it. A rich, handsome billionaire had sold his business, lock, stock, and barrel, and he only warranted two paragraphs? That was ridiculous. She had torn through the magazine over and over again, looking for additional mentions. She picked through Internet sites but all the information and gossip was well over three months old. It seemed as if Rob’s people—if he still had any—were on lockdown and nothing was leaking to the media except for a few fluff pieces about the upcoming season of The Man Channel.
Where was Rob?
What was he doing?
And why had he sold his business?
Why could she find out more details about his partying in Ibiza than what he was doing with his money?
When all her searches turned up fruitless, she gently pulled the glossy page out of the magazine and gazed at his photo over and over again. She taped it up next to her bed, like she had with pop idols as a teenager, and then cried herself to sleep staring at his picture.
Chapter Twenty-four
A week later, she was delivering a box of The Prince by Machiavelli to a nearby nursing home in anticipation of Bront?’s next book club event. She handed off the box and turned down a street, only to see a familiar head of hair disappear around a corner.