Billionaire Romance Boxed Set (9 Book Bundle) (36 page)

I had
said goodbye to Shannon and left the apartment we had shared for the past two
years with a mixture of excitement and nervousness in my heart. Now, back at my
grandmother
’s before leaving for Hungary, I felt like a child
again, about to leave home for the first time. With torn emotions, I
packed my bag in the tiny bedroom I had shared with my Nagy growing up. Her
house dwindled amid the others on the rural street where she lived, tucked away
into the California brush. Not able to afford much space, she had strung a
curtain across the room just as she had when I was young so that I could have
my privacy in the bed that was only a few feet from hers.

“Brynn!” Her voice called out to
me from the yard. I looked out of the window. She had hauled a load of
vegetables out of the small garden and placed them on the steps. Her long white
braid made a sharp contrast to her dark, ankle-length dress. Although she
smiled and laughed, ever since my mother died, my Nagy wore clothes of
mourning, and sometimes her smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“I’m going to the market to pick
up some meat, would you like anything?”

“No thanks,” I said, waving at
her. “Should I prep anything?”

“Prep?”

“Prepare. Like, peeling.”

“Oh yes, peeling! Yes, you can
peel the carrots. I leave them here.”

She put the vegetable basket
next to the back door and disappeared around the corner of the house. I heard
the rattling engine start up, a grinding of the gears as she turned out of the
driveway and onto the road, and then only silence.

I breathed deeply, putting the
last of my clothes in the duffel bag. I placed my favorite book on top—
Creatures
of Mythology and Legend
—and tucked the picture of my mother into the
side pocket of the suitcase. She loved reading stories to me when I was young,
and I would beg her to tell them again and again, until she grew tired of the
old myths and began to make up her own. My fingers traced the letters of the
title on the old book, and then I zipped up the bag, cinching it tight.

Bzzzzzzzz
.

My phone vibrated on the coffee
table. At first I thought it might be Mark calling about the internship. My
Nagy was planning to visit a sick friend tomorrow, and so I had begged the
internship coordinator to let me arrive a few days early so that I wouldn’t be
a hassle to her. Mark was jealous that I got to arrive in Budapest before him,
but I’m sure he would be dying for me to tell him all about it.

I picked up the phone and my
breath caught when I saw whose name was on the screen. From my father I only
ever got one phone call on my birthday, and one at Christmas, even though at
the end of our short, awkward conversations he always said he would call me
soon. This was… unexpected, to say the least. I set my jaw and answered the
phone.

“Hi, dad.”

“Brynn, hey, how are you?” His
voice sounded fake, like it always did when he called. Like he had been
rehearsing sounding happy and supportive, like a real dad would sound.
Sometimes I wondered if his wife gave him acting lessons before he picked up
the phone.

“I’m fine.”

“I hear you’re going to Hungary.
Your grandmother told me.”

“Yeah.” I tried to sound happy,
I really did. It was just so hard to put on the same show that had been going
on for the past thirteen years between us. Sometimes I just wanted to scream at
him.
You abandoned me
, I’d say.
Why are you still pretending like you
care?
I did want to tell him, tell anyone about the awesome prize I had
won. But he didn’t care, not really, and he wouldn’t understand how important
it was for me to go there. To see where she was buried.
You never went,
I
felt like saying. He had no excuses, either. A famous, globetrotting
wife and all the money in the world to spend, but he had never been to Hungary
to see her grave.

“That’s great! Liza is going to
Italy this spring for a modeling show.”

My eyebrows knitted across my
forehead. Always about them. Liza and Susie, each more perfect than the
other. Both modeled: one swimsuit, one catwalk. Both inherited their mother’s
high cheekbones and delicate facial structure. In contrast, I looked dumpy and
squat—anyone would, I guess. But of course, that wasn’t the worst of it.

“Oh yeah?”

“That’s not far. Maybe you two
could meet and catch up.”

Catch up?
The
thought of seeing Liza again curdled my stomach. The brief time spent living
with that family had torn me apart inside, and I never, ever wanted a reminder
of it.

“Yeah. Maybe.” I tried to keep
the venom out of my voice.

“How is your grandmother?”

“She’s fine.”

“Good… good. Well, I just wanted
to wish you good luck. What are you doing in Hungary, anyway?”

“It’s a math internship.” For
one second, I hoped that my dad would actually care about something I did. The
prize I had worked so hard for.

“Ha, you and math! You know me,
I never could understand numbers.”

“Yeah.”
You couldn’t understand
me either. You never tried.

“Well, be careful,” he said.
“What happened with your mother—”

“Dad—”

“I told her not to go—”

“Dad
!” My
heart pounded in my chest and my fingers curled tightly around the phone. He
always got under my skin with his words, but this was too much.

“Brynn,” my dad said. “You know
what happened—”

“I don’t know!” My eyes burned
hot with the threat of tears. “I
don’t
know what happened!
Nobody
does!”

“Brynn, I’m sorry,” he said. His
voice seemed to back down. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

I couldn’t speak, my throat was
so tight with anger. An image of my mom flashed through my mind—a silent,
black monster tearing her to pieces from the shadows. The silence in the phone
held for so long that I thought the call had dropped.

“Okay, well, love you, Brynn.”
He waited for my response, but I wasn’t going to give him one.

“I’ll call you again soon,” he
said.

“Sure.”

The phone screen went blank, and
I realized that my hand was shaking as I set the phone down. I didn’t know how
he could pretend that everything was normal between us. He had tortured me with
his words, and never apologized, never, not once—

I pushed the back door open and
walked outside. The evening air chilled my skin, but I didn’t even notice in my
heated anger. The cypress tree in the back of the yard had grown some more
since I went away to college. My grandmother and I had planted it right after
my mother died—to remind us of her always, Nagy said—and although
it had started out the same height as eight-year-old me, now its sweet-smelling
branches towered over my head. I reached out to touch the bark, my fingers
still trembling. My stomach turned at the thought of leaving California, of
leaving my Nagy behind and with her everything I knew and loved. But then I
thought of what—and who—would be waiting for me in Hungary. Just
seeing Eliot’s face in my mind calmed me down after the horrible conversation
with my dad. I breathed more easily as I touched my hand to the heart of the
tree.

“Hi mom,” I said. I let myself
sink down to the patch of grass next to the cypress. A ladybug crawled
over a thin blade of grass, and I lay my finger down in front of it, letting
the small beetle-backed creature traipse over my skin before it uncurled its
wings and hovered gently away. It always made me feel strange to begin talking
to my mom, but once I started it was always okay. Like she could hear me.

“I’m really nervous about this
trip, mom. I know I should just be proud of myself for winning the prize, but
I’m scared too. And there’s this guy…”

I stopped, unsure if I should
say anything. I laughed once, nervously, and looked around. Only the brush
overheard our conversation.

“He’s really nice, and he loves
music, and he loves Satie. You’d like him, mom, he played your favorite song.”

Hot tears came out of nowhere,
running down my cheeks. I didn’t bother to wipe them. Gone was the anger I had
felt while talking with my dad. All that was left was a gentle sorrow. The
dissonant notes of the Gymnopedie played low in my mind.

“We can’t be together, but it’s
just nice to know that I can like someone. And someone can like me… like that.
Nobody ever looked at me like that before.”

I thought of Eliot’s eyes on me
and my body shamed me by reacting instantly to the memory. A heat spread
through me, and I brushed the wetness from my cheeks.

“Anyway, I’m coming to visit
you, mom. It’s been a long time since you left but I’m finally coming.” My
voice cracked, and a host of terrible images flew through my mind like
blackbirds on wing. I shook them away and reached forward, pressing my hand
into the cool bark.

“I can’t wait to see you, mom. I
love you.”

Fate
was often cruel to me. My hips were too round to wear a sleek princess
’s
gown, and I could never imagine myself in any fairy tale that did not end in
tragedy. How could I? All of my life I had known sorrow, and it became too easy
to retreat from reality into academics when I needed to.

The wicked mother and
stepsisters, both perfectly beautiful, were real enough. Hissing spite at me
between breaths, they convinced my father that I was inferior. He hated me, I
knew it, because I reminded him so much of her, of my mother. My mother had
left him to go to her own mother in Hungary
—I
remember their arguments over her leaving— and that was how he remembered
her. He must have thought that I would blame him for my mother’s death, and to
prevent that judgment from coming down upon him he made of me a monster. I was
only a child.

Occasionally I remember the
insults that have been thrown at me, either casually or in malice, and their
barbs still prick. The torment only ended when I left to live with my Nagy,
when she came to America to rescue me, but the echoes of my stepfamily’s words
still resonate within me. After so much damage, I cannot fully trust words.
Unlike mathematics, words can be twisted too easily to deceive, to cover up, to
hurt. It pains me to write when I know I cannot write the truth as it is
exactly. Nobody can. So I do my best, and when I fail I go back to my proofs,
the lines and numbers that match up perfectly and never, ever lie.

CHAPTER SEVEN

My plane trip from California to
London involved two layovers and an interminable amount of time over the
Pacific Ocean spent behind three rows of high schoolers who apparently took
international vacations every semester. They yelled back and forth about how
much beer they planned to drink when they landed in England. I remembered the
type from high school, but they were no less obnoxious now that I had
graduated. Only two things kept me sane on the journey. One was the vague hope,
now turned real, of visiting my mother
’s grave. The
other—god save me— was the thought of Eliot’s hot lips on my skin,
his piercing blue eyes staring into mine. I thought of him and everything else
melted away. I would have to be careful. I didn’t want to lose my heart to
someone I could never be with, but it seemed that I was already far, far gone.

At the London airport I got off
of the packed plane gratefully, wiping my bleary eyes. I had only managed a few
hours of sleep, and couldn’t wait to be in Budapest and finished with my trip.
I checked my transfer information with one of the agents at the gate. She took
my ticket and frowned.

“Gate Oh-Thirty? Hmm. I don’t
know that one.” Her voice sounded exceedingly British, and although my stomach
jumped with nerves, her smooth voice settled it back down.

She took me over to the
information desk through the mobs of people with cardboard cups of coffee in
their hands. My body wanted to collapse and sleep, and the world had taken on a
hazy sort of fuzz to its edges. I slung my bag to the ground. It seemed to have
grown thirty pounds since the last layover.

“Do you know Gate Oh-Thirty?”
she asked.

“Gate Oh-Thirty?” The older man
sitting at the booth took up the ticket to examine it. “Oh yes, see here at the
corner. It’s one of the private hangars.” He looked up at me with evident
surprise and stood up from his chair. “I’ll see you to your gate, miss.”

“I can find it,” I said, a bit
annoyed. “Just tell me where it is.”

“Not at all,” the man said. He
came around the booth and motioned the female agent away as he picked up my
backpack.

“You don’t have to—” I
said, but the man already had the bag over his shoulder. He waved me on.

“Please, miss—ah, Tomlin,”
he said, checking my ticket once more. “Is the rest of your luggage already
checked through?”

“Um, that’s it,” I said.

“Pardon?”

“That’s all I have.” Every
belonging of mine was stuffed into that duffel bag.

“Of course. My apologies, Miss
Tomlin.” He walked briskly through the airport, even with my bag weighing on
his shoulder. My sleepiness evaporated as I had to hurry to keep up.

We passed through two terminals
and I was beginning to think that we would walk the entire rest of the way to
Hungary when the man motioned me through a doorway to the outside.

“Brrrr!” I wrapped my arms
across my chest, shivering under my hoodie. Outside a freezing mist blanketed
the morning, and we stood on the icy tarmac with salt like grit under our feet.
A huge jet rolled right in front of us, heading toward another gate.

“Not too far now,” the man said,
and walked on, ignoring the airport workers who loaded suitcases onto a huge
belted carousel. I followed meekly as we passed underneath the extended
walkways toward a small jet plane sitting on the side of the tarmac. The wind
pelted my cheeks with wet snow.

“Um, I don’t think…” I said,
looking back to the airport with the 747s all lined up like fat geese on the
side of the terminal. “Is this a mistake?”

The information agent shook his
head.

“This is it,” he said. He
escorted me to the side of the plane. The body of the aircraft sloped down to
the tail, a sleek aluminum figure with a small staircase attached to the side.
Only three windows checkered the side of the plane—the smallest passenger
plane I’d ever seen. Stamped on the tail was a large letter H in slanted text
inscribed in a circle.

A man poked his head out of the
side of the plane, a pilot’s cap covering his light hair.

“The American girl! You’re
early!” He thumbed back into the plane. “We can board you now, though. Come on
in!”

I stepped up the stairs and
almost fell backwards onto the tarmac in surprise when I saw the inside of the
plane. Plush leather seats lined the sides of the plane, and dim lights made
the entire interior glow. Extended tables held bottles of wine and champagne in
sunken ice buckets, and velvety blankets and pillows were plumped up on each
seat. Large screens in front of each seat beckoned with menus of entertainment.
And it was
warm
.

“I can’t… this isn’t…” I
couldn’t form a complete statement if I tried. “Is this…am I…the wrong
terminal?”

The pilot laughed.

“You’re Brynn, right?” He had a
different, slangier British accent than the information agent, maybe what they
called Cockney. “I’m Louis. Mr. Herceg told me about you.”

“Eliot?” I slapped my hand over
my mouth. I would have to stop calling him that.

“Nah, his brother, Otto,” the
pilot said, a grin creeping over his face. “You’re talking about the
mathematician one, right?”

“Right,” I said, turning my head
away to look at the screen. Pretending to examine it while the embarrassment
wore off. Why did it take me so long to stop blushing?

“This is his brother’s plane,”
the pilot said.

“He has a brother?”

“You didn’t know? Good lord!
Otto Herceg is a a member of the national assembly in Hungary.”

“National Assembly?”

“Yep, like one of your senators.
He’s got more money than God, and almost as much power. But I have to say he’s
not quite as handsome as his younger brother. Isn’t that right?” The pilot
winked at me, and all the red I had been willing from my face came screaming
back with a vengeance.

“Back to work, Louis. Get those
checks done, and I don’t mean checking out the passengers.” A middle-aged woman
climbed into the plane behind me, a pilot’s cap in her hand. She had evidently
caught the tail end of our conversation.

“Don’t mind him,” she said,
clucking at me as she walked by and placed the cap squarely on her head. “More
beans than brains in this one’s head. Did he even offer you a drink?”

“I was just going to,” Louis
said, his face tucked in embarrassment. I thought the woman was going to scold
him for a second, but she just shook her head and peered around the plane.

“Well finish final check and
radio up to the tower,” she said. “Let’s see if there’s any openings to takeoff
sooner rather than later.” She picked up a checklist from the back of the
cockpit door and ran one finger down the list, then threw it back down onto the
counter.

“Now, dearie,” she said. “I’m
Lori, and this is my plane to fly today. Let me know if there’s anything I can
do to make you comfortable.”

No other passengers came walking
down the jetway, and it dawned on me as Louis finished the check that I would
be the only passenger there. Lori started the plane, the jet engines coming to
life with a loud roar, and we took off quickly if with a few bumps. Flying in a
small plane might have been scary, but sitting in a cushy oversized seat I felt
like a kid on a roller coaster. When the ground below turned into tiny dots and
patches, Louis came back and made sure I was okay. Both pilots made a fuss over
serving me alternately over the course of the short flight, Louis out of shame
that he hadn’t been a better host earlier. They plied me with cakes, nuts, and
a spicy goulash topped with cream that warmed my stomach.

“Mr. Herceg insisted that you
taste some Hungarian food before you arrive,” Louis called back from the
cockpit.

“It’s for the best,” Lori said.
“If you tried the wrong stew first you might never eat Hungarian food again!”
She laughed.

“Is it very different?” I asked.

Lori shook her head sagely.

“It’s not that different,
really. But if you find yourself longing for a McDonalds, don’t worry, they’re
all over the place.”

“I hope it doesn’t come to
that,” I said, laughing.

“You’re different than our
normal passengers,” Lori said, looking at me curiously.

“Oh yeah?” I asked, licking the
glaze off of my fingers. “How’s that?”

“One bag for a suitcase. And
you’re young. And…” She trailed off, looking at me up and down. I realized that
she thought I was a mistress!

“I’m just a student,” I said,
blushing again. “I’m here for the math internship.”

“Never flown a student around in
this jet before,” Lori said. “And I’ve been working for the Hercegs for nearly
a decade.”

“First time for everything,” I
said helplessly.

She eyed me with a degree of
caution, as though I might not be telling her something.

“You’re a special one, aren’t
you?” she said. “To him.”

“Who?” I asked, my wide eyes all
innocence even as I hid the truth.

“You know who,” Lori said, her
mouth curving into a knowing smile. “The young one. The math genius.”

I looked out of the window, not
wanting to say a word.

“How long until we get there?” I
asked. The best way I knew to change the subject.

Lori stood up. “Not soon enough
for you, girl. I know the look of a woman in love.”

I flushed even harder and set my
mouth in a line. I wasn’t going to reply to any allegations that might lead to
rumors. Eliot probably had enough on his plate to deal with without that. Lori
simply smiled.

“Good for him,” she said, and
disappeared back into the cockpit, closing the door behind her.

The plane landed in Budapest
with the sun shining brightly outside. The ground stretched on below for miles,
covered with a thick blanket of snow, and the horizon’s mountains glittered with
icy peaks. The buildings were sugared with icicles and snow, gridded by darker
gray streets. As we glided to a landing, I felt a thrill of fear of the unknown
pass through me. A new world, a new place to begin in. I thought it looked like
paradise.

When I stepped out of the plane,
I nearly froze to death.

“It’s so cold!” I yelped. I
jumped back into the cockpit, nearly knocking Louis down on the stairs of the
plane. I dug through my bag and found two more long sleeved shirts that I
pulled on over me before zipping up my hoodie. Still, compared to the delicious
warmth of the luxury jet, the outside air stung all the way through the layers.
My nose ran and I wiped it on my sleeve. Ugh.

I waved goodbye to Lori, and
Louis escorted me over to airport customs. After being ushered through a
private security check, I scurried over to the curb, where a limo waited for
me. The driver spoke halting English, but I understood enough to know that he
was taking me to the internship apartments. He had a letter for me, which I
tucked next to me as I took off my outer layers. I blew on my hands, waiting
for them to warm up before ripping the envelope open. Inside were two keys and
a note. I held my breath as I read his handwriting.

Brynn—

Right now I am attending a
dinner with my brother, but will be back later this evening to check in and
make sure you are comfortable in the apartments. The smaller key is for the
room inside, 6b. I also have a textbook for you if you’d like to begin your
studies early.

All the best,

E. Herceg

I ran my fingers over his
signature. I’d never seen it before, and it seemed to tell me something about
the kind of man he was. The elegant curls of the E, the way he underlined his
name with the tail of the last letter. An easy confidence in those letters. I
wished only that it had been his first name, but I no longer had the privilege
of calling him that.

“Eliot
,” I
whispered, as though the word itself were illicit.

The ride to the apartments only
took a few minutes, and although I pressed my nose to the window, I could
barely see anything of the new city I had landed in. High stone walls loomed
over sidewalk snowdrifts, and the few people walking down the street were
bundled up so much as to be unrecognizable. We rounded a corner into a
neighborhood where the buildings cast shadows down onto the street, and it
immediately felt like dusk had fallen. I shivered, looking up at the sky.

The limo stopped in front of a
drab stone building three stories tall. All of the windowsills heaped high with
snow, and I wrapped myself up again as best as I could before stepping out of
the limo cab. It wasn’t enough. The cold pierced through to my skin, and even
my best boots couldn’t keep out the iciness of the snow-covered sidewalk. My
toes felt instantly numb.

The driver waited patiently by
my side until, blushing, I scrambled in my pocket for a tip. I only had
American money, not having thought to transfer any at the airport, so I gave
him a dollar. He tucked it into his pocket unceremoniously, got into the limo,
and drove away, leaving me standing in front of the building.