Stingray Billionaire: The Complete Series (An Alpha Billionaire Romance) (6 page)

“I
did
tell you to bring your passport,” I interrupt.

She glares at me and my
mouth conveniently shuts on its own.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “What
were you telling me?”

“Work,” she says. “I have
work in the morning.”

“Which morning?” I ask.

“Thursday,” she says.

Teeth together, I take a
slow breath through my mouth.

“It’s not the end of the
world,” she says. “I’ll call
him,
and I’m
sure it’ll be all right.
Actually, it
won’t
be
all
right
, but I don’t think he’ll fire me
so
long
as I can still get the call in before my shift.”

“Yeah, it’s Thursday
night in Mulholland,” I say. “We crossed the international dateline. Don’t
worry; everyone loses a bit of time figuring out the difference. Unless you’re
working the graveyard shift, I’d
say you missed
it.”

“Oh my god!” she
responds,
startling
a nearby older local
woman almost into the side of a building. “Could I use your phone?” she asks.

I pull my cellphone out
of my pocket and hand it to her.

“This works here?” she
asks.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “I’m
on
a different kind of
plan.”

Actually,
when
you’re rich, companies will often give you stuff so people will see you with
it.
It’s funny: Before I had money, everything
was so incredibly expensive.
Just living from week to week was a
gut-wrenching experience. Now that I couldn’t run out unless I worked at it, I
get all sorts of things for free. Like Stingray’s tax bill. That one’s
especially useful
.

Ellie takes the phone and
frantically dials. “Do I need a country code or anything?” she asks.

“The number’s based in
the US,” I tell her. “You’ll just need the area code.”

“This is
an excellent
phone,” she says before putting it
up to her ear.

“The software’s all
ours,” I start, but now’s not the time.

“Yeah, Troy?” she says.
“Hey … No, what time is it?”

I look at my watch. It’s
eight o’clock here, so that means it would be about five in the morning in
Mulholland. If the guy can’t handle a call at five AM, he has no business
owning, well, a business.

“That doesn’t seem
proportional at all,” she says. “When was the last time I was late for a shift,
much less missed one?”

“Mind if I give it a
shot?” I ask.

Ellie rolls her eyes and
hands me the phone. “You’ll be lucky to get a word in,” she says.

I put the phone
to
my ear and her boss, Troy, is still going.
“…had to work up front yesterday,” he says. “Do you know how long
it’s been
since I did that? What if a customer
had come in?”

No customers all day and
he’s bitching at Ellie for missing a shift?

“Yes, Troy is it?” I ask.

“Who are you?” he spits.
“I’m trying to speak with my employee, or should I say,
former
—”

“Nick Scipio,” I answer.
“You can call me Mr. Scipio.”

The line’s quiet.

“Now, Troy,” I start,
“you seem like a reasonable man.
As
I say
that, you’re not all that reasonable, are you? I guess that’s just something
people say before they’re about to lay down the law.”

“Mr. Scipio,” he says. “I
didn’t know she was with you.”

“Does that make a
difference?” I ask.

After a long pause, he
answers, “I guess not, no.”

“Good,” I say. “From what
I saw when I was in there, Ellie does a lot of great work for you, and I don’t
think it’s
couth
of a man in your
position to speak to her in such a way; don’t you agree?” I ask.

“Yeah, of course,” he
says all too quickly. “I don’t know, it’s just early morning, and I don’t even
think I knew what I was saying and—”

This man’s a worm.

“Well that’s great,” I
interrupt, making sure he knows just how little I care for his excuses. “Now, I
think someone as skilled as Ellie should get a raise. What
do you say?
”

“Vacation time,” Ellie
whispers to me. “I haven’t had more than two days off in a row since high
school.”

“Also, how about some
vacation time?” I ask. “You know how people tend to work better, harder and
faster when they’ve had a chance to recharge their batteries.”

“Of course, Mr. Scipio,”
Troy answers. The cherry on top of the sundae that is this moment is when he
asks, “Is there anything else I can do to make this right?”

I smile.

“Yeah,” I answer. “I
think we both know you owe Ellie an apology, so why don’t you do the right
thing and show us all how sorry you are.”

I don’t say anything, but
Ellie’s eyes seem a bit more dilated than they were five or six seconds ago. As
I hand the phone over to her, she’s stifling a smile.

“This is Ellie,” she
says. The smile just grows until she’s handing the phone back to me, saying,
“Okay,
that
was impressive. Thank
you.”

“People like try to
dominate everyone until someone calls them on it. After that, they’re all
apologies and timidity,” I tell her.

“Well,” she says, “it
worked. You know, after
all of
that, I
think I might be up for a little dinner.”

“Great,” I respond. “I’ll
send Amin a quick text and let him know we’re on our way over there.”

I ignore the multiple
threats of physical violence Amin’s texted me since I notified him dinner
was postponed
and let Amin know we’re on our
way. Troy was easy to deal with, but Amin is the sort of person you don’t jerk
around: he has passion.

We get to the beach and
find the two chairs set about twenty feet from the water’s
edge,
and we sit.

“I will say this: you
live quite a life, Nick Scipio,” Ellie says as we gaze out over the distance.

Champagne comes, then
dinner proper, but after the bit of excitement over her job, I’m starting to
fade. We eat and we chat, but mostly, we just sit together and try to keep our
eyes open long enough to finish the sunset.

By the
time
we leave the beach,
Ellie
and I are dragging our feet. We’re both
asleep within minutes of getting back in the car.

Once we pull up to the
airfield a few hours away, the stopping car brings us both around again. Only,
now that we’re both out of the car and walking to the plane, Ellie’s not
speaking to me.

For a while, I chalk it
up to the jetlag, but when I open my mouth to say something to her, she jumps
in first. “I’m not going to sit here and lie to you,” she says. “All this is
more than slightly overwhelming, and I’ve had stars in my eyes.”

“But?” I ask.

“But you’re still acting
like I’m someone that can be bought by all this,” she says. “All of this, the
date, talking to Troy, I do appreciate it, but if you wanted to impress me,
you’d …”

“Yes?” I ask.

She sighs. “I don’t know.
You’d do something to protect the rainforest around the village or donate money
to the people who live
there
year round,
so maybe ours isn’t the last generation that gets to see what you flew us both
halfway around the world to show me.”

“You know, that’s
something I could—” I start.

“I’m
exhausted
,” she says, and with that, she’s
gazing out the window
again,
and I’m not
sure I’m any farther with her than when we left Mulholland.

Chapter
Five

Adjusting

Ellie

It’s been a day or two
since we got back from Kola Kitanabu, and I’m still a bit off-schedule. We
weren’t there long enough for my internal clock to adjust, but trying to sleep
on the way back proved to be problematic.

After I told Nick all the
things I thought he should be doing, but wasn’t, I tried for a long time to
ignore his presence. The same approach worked when I brought all those books in
the car with me. He may think I’m a bit weird, but at least he won’t know how
insanely nervous he makes me.

I don’t
believe he’s too good
at picking up on that
sort of thing.

What
I
picked up on, though, was the phone call Nick made when we were a
few hours from home. Okay, he made a lot of phone calls on the way home; the
way there, but he only left his seat for one of them. He was trying to hide
something he wasn’t trying to hide before.

At first, I just assumed
it was because there was a chance he might start yelling at whoever was on the
other end of the phone, but that’s not what I heard when he went back into the
rear section of the plane. I didn’t hear anything.

I got out of my seat,
curious as to why he’d bother hiding this call when he clearly detailed an
upcoming hostile takeover Stingray is making to the CEO of the company Nick’s
going after.

I pressed my ear against
the door and didn’t understand the language
spoken
on the other side. It sounded a lot like what they were speaking in Kola
Kitanabu, though I’m no expert.

Occasionally, though,
Nick wouldn’t know a
word,
and so I’d
catch an aural glimpse of the conversation. At first, this wasn’t all that
helpful, but when the English words he
was
saying shifted from
regular
parts of
conversation
to numbers and acres it started
becoming clear.

I kept my ear against the
door until Nick unwittingly confirmed what I’d suspected: he was calling
someone in Kola Kitanabu, or at least someone with some influence over the
area. Most of the conversation was impenetrable, but I’d heard enough.

When he came out of the back,
he nearly caught me spying on him. Fortunately, I have
cat-like
reflexes and the instincts of a ninja. Okay, the phone
call
ended,
and I may have flailed my way
back to my seat before he opened the door
separating
us. But that’s not anywhere near as inspiring.

When I tell Naomi about
it, I think I’ll stick with the cat/ninja thing. Ooh, I like that: Cat Ninja.

At first, I was more
upset than anything. From what I’d gleaned, he was talking to someone about the
rainforest around Kola Kitanabu. While a big part of me was glad he’d listened,
the rest of me just took it as confirmation that he still believed the only
thing between him and my affection was that he hadn’t thrown enough money
around for my benefit.

When I asked who he was
talking to on the phone, though, he said it was the chef. Nick said he was just
giving his old friend a thank you call for the exquisite beachside dinner.
That’s all he’d say about it.

That’s when I decided to
give him a real chance.

To tell the truth, I
probably would have had a hard enough time keeping up my defenses. You don’t
talk about price-per-acre with a chef.

Now, I’m almost to work
and, as I round the final corner, my stomach drops.

A large crowd is standing
in front of the shop.

Ever since that day in
the hotel, people around town have been giving me dirty looks. Even though no
one, least of all me, got a job from Nick that day as far as I know, they think
it’s my fault nobody
was hired
.

As I get closer to the
group in front of the store, though, something happens. Everyone starts
smiling.

Almost in unison,
somewhere between eighty and a hundred people say my name.

I don’t know what they
want, but at least they look happy.

Coming closer, I start
wondering if I should turn and get out of here, but the people in front of me
move to the side, creating a path for me to get to the door.

“Good morning, Ellie!”
someone behind me says.

“It’s a beautiful day,
don’t you think, Ellie?” someone else
chimes in
.

I couldn’t respond if I
knew how. As soon as I open my mouth to thank someone for complimenting my
outfit or to say, “Good morning,” back to someone, somebody else is trying to
get my attention.

Finally, I make it to the
door, and I’m a little worried about what’s going to happen next when I turn
the unlocked knob. Everyone’s very respectful, though. Somebody holds the door
open as I walk through, and despite my certainty of my pending demise, I’m not
trampled on the way into the shop.

The people follow me into
the store, but so far there’s no visible threat of violence.

I make a quick stop
to
the office to let Troy know I’m here, but it
doesn’t look like he’s in there, though his
antique
phone is off its cradle.

“Troy?” I ask.

“What’s happening out
there?” Troy’s voice comes back to me, though he’s still nowhere in sight.

Furrowing my brow, I walk
around the desk and find him in the leg space beneath it.

“Hey there, fella,” I
say. “If you’ll come out from under there like a big boy, I’ll give you some
ice cream.”

“What the hell is going
on out there?” Troy
asks,
his eyelids
forming two nearly perfect circles. He’s sweating.

“I have no idea, but I
don’t think they came here to break anything,” I answer.

“How do you know?” Troy
asks.

I shrug. “Have you heard
anything break since they came in here?”

He’s curled into a little
ball,
and he’s hugging his knees. The
phone’s receiver is lying on the ground next to him.

“Who’d you call?” I ask.

“What?” he asks.

“Okay, well you just stay
under
there,
and I’ll
deal
with the very scary townspeople you’ve
known your entire life,” I tell him.

A minute ago, I was
pretty terrified, myself, but it’s so much more fun to mess with him.

Still, as I’m walking out
of the office, I get another jolt. Everyone in the store has something in their
hands,
and almost all of them are looking
at me right now.

I stand on the threshold
a few beats; right until I notice that what I’m looking at isn’t just a mob of
people. They’re trying to form a line.

If this is Mulholland’s
idea of looting, it’s very polite.

My knees not quite doing
their job, I walk around to the back of the counter and take my seat on the
stool in front of the cash register. Looking up, I say, “I’m sorry, I have no
idea who was first.”

They figure it out, and
over the next hour or so, I sell every single thing in the store. Mrs. Taber
even comes up to the counter with the tag for the armoire she wasn’t interested
in buying only a month ago.

When there’s nothing left
on the shelves, a
couple of
people stay
behind to ask if
those
are for sale,
too. I tell them, “I’ll have to ask Troy, but I doubt it.”

They don’t seem to care.

I get up and walk back
into the office to find Troy sitting at his desk, the phone to his ear.

“Yeah,” he says, “just
one. No, I don’t know how long it’s going to be, can we just leave it
open-ended? Great.” He covers the mouthpiece with his palm and says, “Did they
get everything?”

“Pretty much,” I tell
him. “They wanted to know if the shelves were for sale, too, but I didn’t—”

“How much are they
offering?” he asks.

“Probably more than what
you bought them for,” I answer. “What should I tell them?”

“Tell them if they can
get the shelves out of here themselves, they can buy them, but we don’t do home
deliveries,” he says. He turns his attention back to the phone, saying, “Yeah,
I’m here. You don’t have anything straight through to Papeete?” He groans and I
walk out of the office with the good news.

The guys waiting on word
about the shelving pay
me,
but say
they’ll have to come back with a truck another time. I let them know we’re
probably going to be closing up for a little while—for obvious reasons. The
only response I get as the final two men leave is, “Don’t worry about it.”

After the shortest shift
of my life, I head home. As much as I’d love to revel in the insane bonus
that’s no doubt coming my way, I’ve got to get my head together.

Nick is coming over
tonight.

Initially, we’d talked
about grabbing a drink after I was off, but since my schedule seems to be
open for
… I’m not sure how long, but a couple
of days, at least, Nick’s coming over to my place in about an hour.

Now all I have to do is
convince Naomi to make herself scarce. I don’t know how that’s going to work,
but as much fun as it was to see the townspeople come together to try to buy my
affection the same way I thought Nick was, I don’t feel too much like going out
anymore.

I get to my building and
start down the hall. When I come around the corner, though, I’m hit with déjà
vu.

Standing in front of my
door is a group of ten or twelve people.

“What are you doing?” I
ask.

Mr. Robbins, the
assistant principal of the high school answers, “Well, we just wanted to see if
we could get a few minutes to talk to you about Stingray.”

“I don’t work for
Stingray,” I answer. “Can I get to my door?”

“Of course,” Mr. Robbins
says. “Listen, we know that Mr. Scipio’s putting something together here in
town, and a lot of us would just like to be a part of it, you
see
?” he asks. “Why, I bet if he were to hear
it from you—”

“Okay, I don’t know what
you think I can do for you, but I don’t work for Stingray. I have no say in who
gets hired or who gets fired, and as far as I know, they won’t even be doing
any of that for a while,” I say. “I wish you all the best of luck, but now will
you please get out of my way so I can go home?”

“We’re not trying to take
advantage of anyone, Miss Michaels,” Mr. Robbins says. “We were just hoping—”

“I have nothing to do
with it,” I interrupt. “You need to get out of my way, now. And seriously, who
camps out in front of someone’s door to ask them for a job?” I ask. “I may not
have any say over anything Stingray does, but I know if I
were
the one doing the hiring, each and every one of you would be
on my blacklist, so maybe it’d be best if you all move now.” When they don’t
jump out of the way, I repeat, “Move now!”

Slowly, they turn and
start filing toward the other end of the hallway.

When I get through the
door and lock the deadbolt behind me, I pull out my phone.

Nick answers, “Scipio.”

“Hey, Nick,” I start.
“Listen, I just got home, but I’m not feeling so well all of a sudden. Would
you mind if we postpone things for a while?”

*
                   
*
                   
*

It’s been three days and
I haven’t left the apartment.

Every time I approach the
door to look out the peephole, I get this feeling like I’m on the verge of
opening Pandora’s Box.

I haven’t heard anything
from Troy about coming back to work yet, but I suppose I didn’t expect I would.
Knowing him, he’s probably on a
riverboat
somewhere along the Mississippi, losing every last dime we made in a poker
game.

Right now, I’m ducking
behind the couch because someone’s at the door. A moment later, Naomi’s coming
in, carrying three paper bags of groceries in her arms, saying, “No, it’s fine.
I’ve got it. No, don’t worry about it. I
was
built
for manual labor, you know.”

I get up and take two
bags from
her,
and we haul everything to
the kitchen.

“How is it out there?” I
ask.

“It’s about the same,”
Naomi says. “You know, about the same as it has been for the last twenty-eight
years of your life. What is your deal,
anyway
?”

“They all think I can do
something for them, but I can’t,” I tell her. “How much longer do you
believe they're
going to buy that, though? I’ve
seen the news. I know how quickly things can go bad.”

“Remind me to cancel the
cable,” Naomi says as she starts unloading groceries. “You have seriously got
to get out of this place for a while.”

“Actually,” I start, my
nerves creeping back to the surface, “I was hoping you might be willing to do
me a favor.”