Stingray Billionaire: The Complete Series (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (18 page)

The skin on one side of
Marly’s cheek sucks in as she bites it from the inside. She doesn’t say
anything, but she nods.

“Can the rest of you give
us the room for a minute?” I ask. “Thank you all for coming out. I appreciate
it. We’re going to do everything we can to keep the company right where it is.”

I stand and shake
everyone’s hand before they file out of the room. As soon as it’s just Marly
left in the room with me, I resume my seat.

“Why didn’t you do it?” I
ask.

“What do you mean?” she
returns.

I say, “Don’t do that.
When you left my office that night, you
told me
you were
on your way to make your phone
calls,
and I know it wasn’t the board that held back the information. You never told
them. I want to know why.”

“When I found out what
they want to do
—
” she says.

“I’m serious, stop it,” I
tell her. “You couldn’t have found out the board wanted to fire everyone and
move the company overseas before you had a chance to make a few phone calls.
Either you’ve got a relationship with the people on the board to a degree I
don’t know
about,
or you never called
them in the first place.”

Marly stands and adjusts
the jacket of her pantsuit. “It didn’t feel right,” she says. “As pissed as I
was—as
angry
as I still am you dropped
this present in the board’s lap—
I
guess I
realized that you can’t fix one wrong with another. Just get your head out of
your ass and do what you need to do while you still can. If you can agree to
that, you won’t hear another word about Ellie from me.”

Now all I have to do is
get Ellie to speak to me for five seconds. The way it’s going so far, though, I
have a better shot convincing Jacque to give up his life as a playboy.

*
                   
*
                   
*

“I’m not talking to you,”
Ellie says through the crack in her front door.

“I know I shouldn’t have
gone off like Naomi like that, but something’s
happened.
I
need to tell you a few things,” I say. “If you decide
you’re done
after you’ve heard what I have to
say, that’s fine. There’s some stuff I need to get off my
chest,
and I don’t want to do it through the
crack in your doorway.”

“What stuff?” she asks.

“I’ll tell you here if
that’s what has to happen,” I tell her, “but I kind of had a whole thing
planned out.”

“You’re kidding, right?”
she asks.

“It’ll all make sense,” I
tell her. “I have to leave for New York in the morning, and I might not come
back as CEO. Before anything else happens, though, I need to do this.”

I can hear her sigh
through the gap, the brass chain between the door and jamb pulled
taut
. “What did you have in mind?” she asks.

“We have the dinner we
never had that first night I asked you out,” I tell her.

She
waits for
a beat before answering. “I’m not
going anywhere with you until you apologize to Naomi,” she says.

I hope she can’t see me
gritting my teeth when I say, “Of course. I think that’s only right.”

The door closes. After
the sound of metal sliding on metal, it opens again, this
time,
all the way.

“She’s in her room,”
Ellie says. “She locked herself in there when she looked through the peephole
and saw it was you standing there.”

I force a smile. “I’ll
knock
on her door,” I tell her.

In about twenty minutes,
she’ll know why this is so hard for me.

I knock on the door
across the hall from Ellie’s.

“What do you want?”
Naomi’s voice calls from inside the room.

“Naomi,” I say, “it’s
Nick.”

“Go away!” she
shouts,
and I try to keep my eyes from rolling.

“I’m sorry for speaking
to you the way I did,” I call through the door. “It was wrong of
me,
and I apologize.”

Naomi’s door swings
open,
and she’s standing there beaming. “You
mean it?” she asks. “You’re not just saying that to get back in Ellie’s pants
or anything?”

This is
one of the many reasons it’s impossible for me to take Naomi seriously.

“I mean it,” I tell her.
“I was upset, but that’s no excuse for acting the way I did.”

My upper lip twitches
when she pulls me in for a hug, but I go with it.

“Maybe you could make it
up to me somehow,” Naomi
says,
and I look
at Ellie.

“Yeah,” Ellie says,
“we’re done here
. Let me grab my jacket.”

Ellie and I arrive at
Carne Celeste and the way the hostess is eyeing
me,
I
’m nervous about what’s going to come with our food. Still, she manages
a smile and escorts us to an empty table near the back of the restaurant.

By the time Ellie and I
sit, the hostess is halfway back to the front of the
restaurant,
and suddenly this is all too real.

“Okay,” she says, “we’re
here. What did you want to tell me?”

“I’m sorry, would you
mind if we just talk for a few minutes?” I ask. “I just need a few
moments
to build up to it.”

Ellie raises an eyebrow.
She says, “Okay, but I hope you know you’re paying for dinner.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I say
quickly, my throat devoid of moisture. “
Of
course,
I’ve got dinner.”

She cracks a smile. “What
do you want to talk about before we can
talk
about what we’re here to talk about?” she asks.

I make decisions every
day that
affect
a lot of people, but
sitting here in this red booth with its splitting vinyl
upholstery, I
don’t think I can remember my name. I know it has
something to do with Rome and the Second Punic War. Maybe we can talk about
that.

“Did you know,” I start,
“the Roman General Cornelius Scipio was the one who finally defeated Hannibal
when it looked like Carthage was poised to conquer the empire?”

How I thought that was a
good topic for conversation is beyond me.

“Yeah,” she says. “I took
history in high school.”

“Everyone remembers the
crossing of the Alps, but most people don’t remember that it was by using
Hannibal’s strategy that Scipio was able
to
defeat the Carthaginian finally
,” I continue. Why am I continuing?

Thankfully, the waiter
comes over to the table before I have to explain why I’m going through ancient
Roman history. Yeah, it’s my last name, but come on, Nick.

“Have you had an
opportunity
to look at the menus, or do you
need a few minutes?” the young, pimpled man with the paper hat says.

“You know,” Ellie says,
“I haven’t even had a chance to look at the menu.”

“I’ll have the veggie
enchilada with the green sauce,” I tell the waiter. “Could I get that with sour
cream on the side instead of on top? Also, a side of black beans instead of
refried, if you don’t mind, and maybe some shredded lettuce in a bowl?”

I don’t look at Ellie.
That was me testing the waters.

“I’ll have the same,”
Ellie says slowly. The waiter walks away, writing, and Ellie leans over the
table. “That is what I’ve ordered every time I’ve been in here since I was like
five years old,” she says.

“I know,” I tell her.

“What do you mean you
know?” she asks.

“This is what I wanted to
talk to you about,” I start.

“What, that you’re having
me followed? Did you hire a private investigator or did you just bribe someone
in town to spill a few of my likes and dislikes?” she asks.

“No,” I tell her. “I know
it the same way I know you never wanted to work at Rory’s Treasures. A long
time ago, at least, you wanted to be a teacher, but the way Grant has a
stranglehold over the hiring in this town like it’s
sixteenth-century
Puritan
America and everyone
wants
to be a
blacksmith, you always knew it wasn’t going to happen. Still, you’re never going
to leave Mulholland because this is where your parents are and where your
grandparents are. You like new experiences, maybe more than Naomi, but when it
comes right down to it, you’re a sucker for tradition.”

“How do you know all
this?” she asks.

“I know it the same way I
know you always wanted to have dinner on some exotic beach, that you wanted to
drink champagne as the sun set over the water before you’d ever tasted
alcohol
,” I tell her.

“Stop,” she says.

I continue, “I know it
the same way
I am aware that
in eighth
grade, you once—”

“I said stop!” Ellie
shouts as her fist comes down hard on the table. Her hands go up to her face
and then she’s getting out of her chair.

“Ellie, please,” I say,
getting up from the booth to follow her. “Just let me explain.”

She’s out of here so fast
I can’t tell her how when I was in eighth grade, I was sick of moving from town
to town only to be picked on by a revolving cast of assholes. I can’t tell her
that when I was at my
lowest, that
when I
about to end it all before my life had even begun, that she’s who saved me even
though we’d never had a conversation before that day

 
She’s out of here so fast I can’t tell her how
she saved my life or how, if it weren’t for her, I never would have had the
motivation to work as hard as I did to get as far as I’ve gotten.

I don’t get the chance to
tell her that I am where
I
am, the good
parts at least, because of those two weeks back in the eighth grade when she
became the first friend I ever had. I wish I could have at least told her how
gutting it was when my dad came home with new orders and why I had to leave
before she could have known how completely she changed everything.

So I don’t wait for the
morning. If she hasn’t figured out exactly who I am yet, she will soon enough.
Maybe she’ll call, but probably she won’t. If I’d told her
at the start,
it might have been different.

All I know is when I get
on the plane, I’m not thinking about my company.

Chapter
Fifteen

To Inflict

Ellie

I had to
go out of town to find new inventory, but with the glass back over the front of
the store, the place doesn’t look half bad.
I’m down to
$500,
or I’d have the floors replaced. I
suppose we all have our scars.

Nick had a good story,
I’m sure, if only I’d let him tell it. The second he started going off about
all this stuff he knew about me, though, I knew I’d been right at the
outset
. Whether he got all that out of Naomi or
he hired someone to look into my past, it doesn’t matter.

I don’t blame him. I knew
what I was getting myself into
when I changed my
no to a yes
. I didn’t know he’d turn out to be creepy stalker guy, but I
figured a guy like him has to have some secrets.

The funny thing is,
there’s still that part of me that kind of wanted to hear him out. I can’t
imagine what he could have told me that would have set my mind at ease for
longer than two seconds, but it seemed like he’d put a lot of work into
whatever line he was going to sell me.

Call it
respect
for fiction. Maybe it was almost
a comfortable
life, but bad things follow Nick,
and I don’t do secrets.

I’m winning the battle
against asking myself what Nick would have to gain by outing himself like that
when the door to the shop blows open again. I get up and walk
around the counter
to close it up once more.

Since the fine citizenry
took it upon themselves to destroy my store, the door never quite
latches
without the deadbolt. With the deadbolt
in place, what’s the point of having a store?

Something strange
happens, though. I’m about halfway from the counter to the door when I see a
hand and then and arm and then the whole body of Mrs. Taber. She smiles when
she sees me.

“Hello,” she says.

“Hello,” I reflect,
monotone.

“Are you all right,
dear?” she asks. “You look a little peaked.”

“I’m all right,” I
answer, snapping myself out of it. I don’t know how to explain to her I didn’t
expect anyone to come back into the shop in at least another week. Honestly, I
was content enough to stop getting angry letters in the mail. “I’m sorry,” I
tell her. “Go ahead and have a look around. Let me know if you have any
questions or you need help with anything.”

“Actually,” she says, “I
was wondering if you had any more of those King Louis armoires come in. I went
to
Wal-Mart, and you were right, yours was
different.”

Having gone searching for
hidden (and reasonably priced) treasures for the first time, I asked a few
questions,
and when I did, I learned quite a
bit. For instance, I
found out that
the
Louis XV-style double-mirrored armoire we had in the shop, while pretty, was a
reproduction that was made and then almost immediately discontinued eight years
ago.

The thing wasn’t an
antique. Whoever owned it first just beat the hell out of it.

Going through the files
on Troy’s computer, I also learned just how much his out-of-town buys—which
were
always
our most expensive
pieces—
actually
cost. He got his crap
just as cheap as I bought my crap on the rare occasion someone in town wanted
to get rid of something.

It was
sad,
because nobody ever bought
the most
expensive pieces
anyway
. Mostly what happened is someone would
bring in a dresser and someone else in town would come and pick it up. The
limited business we did have
came
from a
few fifty dollar pieces a
week,
and a
whole lot of ten dollar sales exchanged between neighbors. I never sold
anything over a hundred dollars until that day the town decided to swallow my
life.

“Ellie?” Mrs. Taber says.

“Yeah,” I say. “We do
have a Louis XV armoire. It’s a reproduction, but I think you’ll find it much
more to your liking.”

“Do you price match?” the
old woman asks, reaching into her purse and pulling out an ad from the local
paper.

“If the price isn’t
already lower than what’s advertised, of
course,
I’ll
match
the price for you,” I answer.

She seems surprised. Part
of it is that I feel guilty knowing how much people paid for all those
castoffs. I didn’t know any better, but I never tried too hard to find out,
either.

The way they made me the
focus of their every emotion makes it so I don’t feel guilty enough to try to
pay them back the difference over time, but the least I can do is come to terms
with what and who I am. I am Eleanor (Ellie) Shaye Michaels. I am the
queen
of the town’s junk
store,
and I’m going to start selling things
for what they’re worth, damn it.

To the locals, that is.
People from out of town can pay a bit higher markup. Maybe it sounds
underhanded, but it’s the only way I can ease my conscience with locals and
still afford to feed and house my sister.

Mrs. Taber heads off to
look
at
what I’ve managed to put
together,
and I sit back behind the counter.
The old woman doesn’t buy anything, but as she’s on her way out of the shop,
she stops in front of me, saying, “I’m glad to see everything’s much more
affordable now. I know what people have been saying about you, but I want you
to know I never believed it.”

“Thanks,” I say. “Out of
curiosity, what
have
people been
saying about me?”

“I wouldn’t worry about
it, dear,” she says.

“No, it’s fine,” I smile.
“If nothing else, it’ll be good to know the specifics about why everyone hates
me as much as they do.”

She purses her lips.
“Please don’t be mad,” she says. “This isn’t how I feel. It’s just what I
heard.”

“I won’t be mad at you,”
I tell her. “I’m just curious to know what they’ve been saying about me.”

Ten bucks
say
none of it’s true.

“Well,” Mrs. Taber starts,
“I suppose there have been a lot of things said. The most common things I’ve
heard, though, have been about how when that wealthy gentleman came to town, he
was planning on hiring the townspeople for the new building, but you convinced
him not to do it.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much
what I figured,” I say. “By the way, it’s not true. I never gave Nick business
advice, and even if I did, it wouldn’t have been against Mulholland.”

If I had that kind of
opportunity now, though, I’d probably do what they’ve been saying for spite.

“Oh, it can’t be
right
, dear,” she says. “Even when I heard it
from your sister’s mouth, I knew it wasn’t true.”

“What?” I ask.

“Like I said, I wouldn’t
worry about it, dear,” she says.

“You say my
sister
told you all this?” I ask.

Mrs. Taber shakes her
head. “No,” she says. “I heard most of the rumors from my neighbor, Joyce. She
and I trade gardening secrets. I
did
hear your sister telling a few people about it when I was out for my afternoon
at Bert’s Café.”

I take a slow breath. “Well,
thank you for coming in, Mrs. Taber,” I say, my cheeks already hurting from my
forced smile.

“Of course, dear,” she
says and exits the store. I don’t wait
for the
old woman
to
get past
the front of
my store before I’m grabbing the keys and locking up shop.

From the beginning, I
blamed Nick for the way the townspeople have been treating me, glaring at me,
leaving me dead pigeons on my doorstep …

After I
lock up the store, I
start walking. Pulling out my phone, I
send Naomi a text, telling her there’s something I want to talk to her about
and
I
need to know where I can meet her.

She doesn’t respond.

Whether she knows what I
want to talk about and she’s taking the cowardly route, or she’s nowhere near
her phone, I bet I know where I can find her.

Walking up to Bert’s
Café, I spot Naomi around the same stupid group of friends she had in high
school. They only ever meet at Bert’s, and only ever for lunch, but week in and
week out, this is where Naomi goes for
her
social
hour when she should be working.

As soon as she glances
up, noticing me, I can see her mouthing the words, “Uh-oh.”

“Stand up,” I tell her as
I get to the table.

She looks up at me with
those doe eyes, saying, “What’s the matter? You
seem
upset.”

“Have you been spreading
lies about me around town?” I ask.

“No,” she says. She
glances at her friends and then back at me.

I ask, “Oh, so you never
said I’m the reason Nick hasn’t hired anybody in town?”

“I knew you’d just freak
out about this like you freak out about everything else,” she says.

“Do you have any idea
what you’ve done?” I ask. “I blamed Nick for the way people around here act
toward me since he and I first started dating.”

“I don’t know what he
ever saw in you
anyway
,” Naomi answers in
a deceptively cheerful voice. “
I
was
the homecoming queen.
I
was the one
voted ‘most likely to be a fashion model if she ever leaves Mulholland.’ Still,
a billionaire
businessman
comes to town
for the first time in, I don’t know,
ever,
and you’re the one he spots through
the window.”

“So that’s what it is
then?” I ask. “It’s jealousy?”

“Oh please,” Naomi says.
“Should I be jealous of the fact you sit behind a counter all day and never
sell anything or should I be jealous that when you won the dating lottery, you
couldn’t keep it together?”

“Really?” I ask. “You’re
doing this?”

“Doing what?” she smirks.

That
superior look
goes away rather quickly when my
fist crashes into her cheekbone.

“Ow,” I say, clutching my
hand as Naomi staggers to keep her balance. “Ow.”

I don’t know what kind of
response I was expecting, but
I’m hardly
prepared
when Naomi punches back. Half a second later, everything around
me is
blurry,
and I’m just trying to land
more blows than Naomi.

It’s funny, I always had
her pegged as a slapper, but when the dumb beast wants to, she can pack a
wallop.

*
                   
*
                   
*

I’m standing in front of
the mirror in my bathroom, grabbing the tube of antibiotic cream and squeezing
a dab onto my index finger.

“When
you’re done
with that,” Naomi
mutters
, “I think I’m going to need some, too.”

It’s not that I’m any less mad at her. Every time she
leans a bit too far in my direction, all I want to do is give her an elbow to
the face.

This is
just how it goes when you have a sister.

I take what I need and
pass it over to her. “How could you do that to me?” I ask. “I’ve always been in
your corner, even when you didn’t get into the college you
wanted,
and
you
said you needed to stay with me for a couple of weeks.”

“Why would you bring that
up now?” she asks.

“That was nine years ago,
Naomi,” I tell her.

She makes a sound
at
me, but with her fat lip, I can’t tell if
it’s a stifled laugh or a stifled sob. “It’s taken me awhile to find myself,”
she says.

“Honestly,” I say, “why’d
you do it?”

“Do you know what it’s
like to be the most popular girl in school and then graduate?” she asks.
“People remember you, but that popularity turns into something else pretty
quick if you’re not careful.”

“What does that have to
do with anything?” I ask.

She sighs and dabs under
her black left eye with some foundation. “You think I live such
a comfortable
life, but it’s hell being me
sometimes,” she says. “Do you know what it’s like to get stuff all the time and
know you didn’t earn any of it?”

A
certain
Fifth Avenue shopping trip comes to mind, but I keep that to myself. I wonder
what he’s going to do with all that stuff I left behind.

“I’m familiar with the
feeling,” I say.

“Well, that’s been my
whole life,” she says. “When I was a kid, everyone thought I was so cool
because
I
knew all sorts of games they didn’t
and I was willing to teach everyone.”

“I remember that,” I say.
I might smile, but when I open my mouth too wide, my lip splits open again.