Shopping for a Billionaire's Wife (16 page)

Amanda gives me a queer look. “Why would Andrew care where I drink my coffee?”

“Declan made me swear not to buy it from the competitor.”

“And you let him? Did you sign some kind of kinky contract letting him dictate your caffeine choices?” As she takes a sip of her short breve, a silver bracelet clinks on her wrist.

“What’s that?”

“My new charm bracelet from Tiffany! Isn’t it gorgeous?” I see rubies, sapphires, a silver Chihuahua, and, oddly enough, a wasp. 

I grin on her behalf. “Yes.”

“Didn’t Declan get you a necklace?”

“How do you know?” Declan hasn’t said a word to me about it. 

“The staff here is buzzing like bees about the giant emerald. Andrew told me.” 

Oh, God.

“I sent it back.”

“You
what
?”

“I sent it back. I don’t need it.”

“Who cares about
need
? It’s Tiffany!” Sometimes I think Amanda and I were switched at birth and she’s really Mom’s daughter.  

 Amanda’s phone buzzes. “Oops! Gotta go!”

“Thanks for the coffee!” She tosses me a thumbs-up as she walks away.
That
is a bestie.  

I close the door ever so softly and tiptoe back into the living room.

To find a naked, angry Declan staring right at me. I jump from anxiety, spilling a few drops of my latte on the thick, patterned rug. 

“What’s that?” he asks, the question rhetorical. He knows damn well what I’m holding. 

I slide the cup around in my palm, as if covering the Grind It Fresh! logo will somehow hide my transgression. “Nothing,” I answer.

“You’re coffee-cheating on me. You’re resort-cheating on me. I can’t believe this!” His voice cracks with incredulity. The cafe should rename itself Ashley Madison.

I’m supposed to feel shame, right? Self-loathing and disgust and guilt.

Instead, I drink a long, slow, delightful sip and savor my weak-willed moment, because once you sell your soul to the devil for a good latte, there ain’t no going back. 

“I am choosing to spend my consumer dollars on a high-quality product, Mr. Let the Market Dictate Winners and Losers.”
Sip.
 

Wrong answer.

I’ve seen Declan’s face turn red in anger. I’ve even seen his neck flush and the top of his chest turn a pinkish shade, as if he spent ten minutes too long in the sun.

But watching his, erm, you know, turn the same color as my old Hello Kitty outfit is quite the sight.

“Are you calling Litraeon a loser?”

“No! Of course not.”
Sip.
 

“You just said that.”

“Did not!”
Sip.
 

“And by extension, you just called
me
a loser.” He puffs out his chest and crosses his arms. 

“Honey, I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves here.”
Gulp.
“We’re making more of this than it really is.”

“My almost-wife thinks the resort that I practically hand-built in my formative years with Anterdec is inferior to the resort next door.”

“You’re really getting hysterical, honey. I think we need to just calmly and rationally try to apply reason here.”
Sip
. 

“Don’t you dare accuse me of not being reasonable!” he bellows. “I am perfectly reasonable!”

“Then why can’t you apply your own common-sense business practices to what I’m experiencing? Superior product means consumer dollars follow.”

He points at me with a crooked finger, eyes narrowed to moss-green triangles, face full of self-righteous fury. “Because you’re a traitor.”

Sip.

He’s right.

“And you rejected my necklace.” 

Oh, no.

I brace myself for what I know is coming. “Declan,” I say with a gentle, appreciative sound. “I loved the necklace. You were so sweet for thinking of me. And the emerald matched your eyes.”

I can tell it makes a difference that I noticed, even if his next words are cold. “But you returned it regardless.” Not just any cold—
liquid-nitrogen
cold. 

“It’s not...me.”

“Why can’t it be you? Is the you that you think you are so inflexible?”

“What?” That sounds like a line from a Dr. Seuss book you give to college graduates when you can’t think of what else to gift. 

“Why can’t you let yourself accept what I have to give, Shannon?”

“We’ve talked about this before.” My fingers on my right hand begin worrying the enormous stone on my left ring finger. My hand feels so weighed down by it. Not by the burden of what it represents—our commitment to spend the rest of our lives together—but by its physical presence. The ring is, literally, heavy. 

A weight I hold that is both a physical and a metaphysical reminder that I am about to marry a billionaire and make his life mine.

Forever.

For the rest of our lives, my existence will be defined by him. Sure, he’s going to compromise with me and my life choices, and our families—well, we’ll have to balance out the varying value systems, rituals, traditions, time obligations, and other issues that every couple experiences when they join and become each other’s family.

Billionaires are a whole different story.

“I know we’ve talked about this before,” he answers in a weary tone, shaking me out of my thoughts. “We’ve talked about it
ad nauseum
. That doesn’t mean we’ve resolved a damn thing.”

“What do you want me to do, Dec? Just say yes to everything you want to smother me with?” The words are out and I regret one of them instantly.

“Smother?” he says with a derisive huff.

Yeah, that would be the one.

“I’m sorry.” If I rush the apology out fast enough, can I save this conversation? “I really am. That’s not what I meant.”

“I think that’s exactly what you meant. Don’t back away from it. Own it.”

Is he right? I don’t know. I’m so used to acquiescing, because most of the time he
is
right on topics like this. One of the foundations of our relationship is the fact that Declan’s so secure, and has such faith that I can overcome my own overly-developed sense of helping others to strike a healthy balance. I’m still not sure I agree with his assessment, but I’ve gone along with his opinion because so far, every time I follow his viewpoint I feel better about myself. 

But what if I’m just replacing my mother with Declan? Letting people tell me how I should feel gets harder and harder as time passes.

And maybe that intolerance includes Declan.

“Smother.” I square my shoulders as I say the word. “You’re smothering me.”

“With jewelry from Tiffany?”

“And tailored clothing from Italy. And a wedding that costs more than an expensive house in metrowest Boston. And limos and SUVs and helicopters and planes. Restaurant meals that cost more than my first car. You don’t live a life that even dips its toe in reality, Declan.”

“It’s
my
reality.”

“Your reality is most people’s fantasy.”

“But not yours, clearly.”

“You are my fantasy.
You
. You’re my fantasy man come to life, vibrant and breathing and breathtaking, Declan! I love you. Not your money.”

“Is that what this is about? You’re worried I think you’re after me for my wealth?” Relief washes over him, as if he’s figured it all out. “That’s it? God, no, Shannon, I know you’re not one of those types.” 

“What types?”

“The Jessica Coffin type.”

“She
comes
from money!” I declare, completely blown away by this conversation. We’ve talked about this before, of course. James wanted me to sign a pre-nup, but Declan shot that down long before the wedding. You can’t be engaged to a man with Declan’s level of money and not have a long series of discussions, but we’re navigating a winding river we’ve never traveled before. 

This isn’t about his money.

It’s about his lifestyle.

“Right. She comes from a family with connections and a long history of being the equivalent of aristocracy in Boston society, if such a status existed. And yet she’s a gold-digger, plain and simple.” 

He said it. That damn word.

“How can she be a gold-digger when she’s already rich?”

“Her gold isn’t money. It’s status. Prestige. Unearned privilege that she wants to swallow whole, to hoard for herself by virtue of partnering with the perfect husband.”

“Sounds more like a merger and acquisition than a marriage.”

“That’s exactly right.”

“How cold.”

“How Jessica.”

I flash back to that first date, when we went out to dinner and ran into Jessica and my ex, Steve, on a date. The awkward dinner between the four of us, Jessica’s compulsive need to insult me through digs and jabs so obvious to me and Declan. Steve, a social climber himself, chose not to see it.

By the end of the night she’d clearly dumped him, anyhow, her eye on catching a bigger fish.

My
fish.

My soon-to-be-husband fish.

“You’re my fish,” I mutter under my breath.

“I’m your
what
?” he chuckles.

“My fish.”

“You’re deflecting.”

“Technically, I’m not. I’m thinking about Jessica Coffin and how she tried to steal my fish from me.”

He points to himself. “And I am the fish.”

“Something like that.”

“What kind?”

“What kind of what?”

“Fish. Am I a salmon? A trout? A grouper?”

“You’re a lobster, of course.”

“Lobsters aren’t fish.”

“We’re speaking in love metaphors.”

“It still doesn’t make sense.”

“
Love
doesn’t make sense.”

“No shit.”

“Declan.” The hurt in my voice masks some utterly chaotic emotion that plumes through me like a toxic cloud, a throbbing, pulsing danger that threatens to infiltrate every cell inside me. Not only has this conversation spiraled into bizarro Mom-topic territory, Declan is still angry. Frustrated. Disappointed. 

And I’m the cause of that maelstrom inside him.

Which he hides behind barbs and banter, his stone face intact.

“Why the big emerald?” I ask him, my voice neutral.

“Huh?”

“Why an emerald? Aside from the fact that it matches your eyes?”

“It seemed fitting.”

“Because it was bigger than Amanda’s earrings? And because those earrings had gemstones like Andrew’s eyes?”

Declan’s frown tells me he’s truly caught off guard, his words sincere. “I didn’t think about that when I ordered the necklace. I just wanted something timeless, beautiful, and worthy of your delicate neck.”

I melt, blood firing at the words.

“You make me want to give you the world. And when you say no, it’s like—” He breaks off his words, turning away from me. 

“I have the world.” My voice comes out in a shaky sigh. “I have you. I love you. I don’t love your money or your power. I don’t love your hundred-hour weeks or your press coverage. I love Declan McCormick, the man. Not Declan McCormick, the image. The billionaire. The icon.”

His eyes bore through me, as if fusing onto my soul.

“I don’t need baubles and designer clothes and stylists and new cars. I’m simple, Declan. I just want more of you.”

“You have more of me.”

“I want even more.” I’m greedy that way. 

“And when I give you parts of my life, that
is
how I offer you more of myself.”

“You are not the giant green emerald!”  

“And rejecting it doesn’t make you some kind of better person,” he says softly.

“I feel like we’re talking in circles,” I say, curling up inside, hurt that he doesn’t accept my words.

“I feel like I’m spinning my wheels,” he replies. If he feels the same way, then maybe... 

“We’re not really at odds, though, are we?” My look begs him to agree.

“No.” He opens his arms and I step into them, pressing my cheek against his chest. Still naked, he stands tall and strong, back straight and his cheek resting against the crown of my head. “Not as long as you stop drinking that damn coffee from the resort next door.”

My laugh feels good. “Too bad Anterdec doesn’t own Grind It Fresh!” I joke.

His smile spreads across my scalp. “Or a Tesla dealership.” 

“I’m a cheap date,” I remind him. “A good latte is all I need.”

“You’re all I need.” We’re trying to find our way across a fault line that has widened during the course of this conversation, tossing tether lines at each other with reasonable certainty the other will catch the weighted end.

Here’s the problem with reasonable certainty: a tiny portion of the time, it’s not reasonable.

Nor is it certain.

Chapter Twelve

“All that over a coffee?” Amanda and I are in the fitness center, pretending to work out before lunch. Mom goes to yoga upstairs, some poolside class where she gets to strut her stuff, and I don’t want to be anywhere near her right now. Knowing we have dinner tonight at eight p.m., and knowing it’ll be a giant mess just makes my avoidance kick in that much harder. By pretending we’re using the workout equipment, Amanda and I get a modicum of peace.

And she smuggles me clandestine lattes.

“Right.”
Sip
. It’s an orgasm in coffee form. Not the kind that makes fireworks explode in your head, though, or that make your hands curl and your fingertips scrape against the wall above the headboard. It’s the kind where wave after wave keep coming and coming until you start to wonder if it’ll ever end.

Maybe I’m imagining this coffee.

“He blew up like that just because you raved about the resort next door? Seriously?” Amanda takes a sip of her breve and gives a sound of appreciation. We’re on treadmills next to each other, set at 3.0 miles per hour, which means we could be lapped by old ladies at the mall with tennis balls on the bottom of their walkers. 

“Right. Totally uncharacteristic of Declan. We’ve been together for two years. I’ve never seen this side of him.” Walking this slow takes effort. Effort requires calories. Which means this latte is actually
workout fuel
. 

“He is supercompetitive.” She snorts. “Look at him and Andrew.”