CHAPTER TWO
T HREE BLUE - EYED BILLIO NAIRE bachelors walked into a health club...
Sounded like the start of a bad joke, right? Or a dream opportunity for someone inspired by Blush magazine’s latest article questioning whether there was a woman alive who could secure more than one date with any of them. The One-Date Wonders themselves: Adam Courtney. Cade Landry. Zane deMarco.
For Skylar Bennet, it was neither funny nor a dream. It was a full-fledged nightmare. She froze in the cafe across the street, staring in horrified amazement as, within the space of two minutes, the three subjects of the tasteless article currently being quoted all over social media stalked in. Well, Adam and Cade stalked. Zane simply sauntered.
Typical .
Skylar drained her coffee and ordered another. She’d done her run and didn’t have to get to the office immediately, so she’d wait to see them walk out again. It wasn’t the first time she’d watched out a window hoping to see Zane deMarco, but she wasn’t some tragic teen suffering from her first crush now.
It was Saturday—the Fourth of July in fact, so it was a long weekend as well, but those guys didn’t holiday like normal people. They weren’t rolling up to a gym for fun and fitness. Setting up deals was their sport and recreation because nothing mattered more to them than making money. But as much as these three had in common, it wasn’t normal to see them together . They were rivals , not besties.
Maybe that article did have something to do with it. As gross as it was, it was also accurate—they were each ridiculously young to have achieved billionaire status and all those pictures proved they were unrepentantly active on the social scene. But she didn’t know much about Adam and Cade other than what else had been written—British Adam was all aristocratic old money, while Cade had built his construction company into a billionaire business. But she knew more than enough about Zane deMarco. The man was avaricious and an annihilator and he did not give a damn about what anyone thought of him. Which is why Skylar was quite sure it wasn’t that article drawing them together today—it was something far worse.
They were coming for Helberg Holdings. That company was more than her place of employment; it had changed her life. She’d been a beneficiary of the Helberg Foundation—awarded scholarships first for senior high school, then a full ride for her entire degree. She’d interned for them through her summer breaks and come to work full-time in the company headquarters here in Manhattan as soon as she’d graduated.
It was the plan her father had dreamed she’d follow—to be the first in her class, the first in his family to get a degree, to work in the city in a prestigious firm, to excel , and to show loyalty... The Helberg scholarships had enabled her to do exactly that.
She’d owed. She still did. Now, years later, she’d made her way onto the HR team, but since the untimely death of the CEO Reed Helberg seven months ago, whispers about a takeover had been growing. The optimists in the office wanted it to be bought by someone who’d restore the conglomerate to its former glory, but Skylar was afraid it would be ripped apart by some ruthless corporate raider.
Someone like Zane deMarco.
The jerk scooped up vulnerable companies, stripped and sold their assets and ditched the rest. He had zero commitment. Which was exactly how he approached women as well—absolutely a ‘one-date wonder,’ he’d accumulated as many notches on his bedpost as he had dollars in the bank. But while he was all fun and charm on the outside, Skylar knew the truth. He didn’t just have the arrogance of the successful—he was a soulless vessel who lived only to make cold, hard cash. He didn’t truly care about anything—other than getting further along an endless path of acquisition and excess. In short, Skylar hated him. She had for years now.
It didn’t help that he could kiss a woman like no one else. That once, so very briefly, almost a decade ago, she’d been his target. She’d fallen for his looks, his superficial charm... Fortunately, her father had intervened before she’d foolishly given Zane everything he’d wanted—the way so many others had since.
And of course he’d forgotten her and moved on to his next target—the same way he had with all the companies he’d shredded and the employees he’d left redundant. They couldn’t be more different.
The irony was that they’d come from similar backgrounds. They’d lived in the same run-down apartment building in one of the few affordable housing complexes in Belhaven Bay, a picturesque village in the Hamptons, when they were kids. Sounded fancy, right? Wrong.
Growing up in one of the most famous and wealthiest areas in the world ought to be wonderful, but being a year-rounder was a vastly different experience to being a child of the rich and famous who dropped in only for weekends of the best weather. She and Zane had other things in common too—they’d both been raised by a single parent: Skylar by her dad, a caretaker, and Zane by his mum, a cleaner. They’d even gone to the same school until she’d won that scholarship to that boarding school upstate for her senior years. And unfortunately, she still remembered the quiet boy he’d been so very long ago. He’d found her not long after her mother had run off with another man. A few days later, a disbelieving Skylar had tried to find her—a na?ve, heartbroken kid wandering down the road with no direction or plan. Zane had come across her a couple blocks over from their complex. She’d been crying—as pitiful as she’d been hopeful. He’d not said anything. He’d just taken a bit of raspberry candy from a packet in his pocket and handed it to her. He’d waited while she’d eaten it. While she’d calmed down. Then he’d walked her back to their building, up the stairs, and left her at her door. They’d been children but he’d been her friend. Just for that moment. Because he’d roamed freely as a kid—some would say wildly—while his mother worked long hours. But from then on, Skylar had stayed inside, obeying her father’s new rules.
Because she’d needed to be safe and he’d needed to know where she was at all times. She’d needed to be good and quiet and study hard. And she had. Because she’d not wanted her dad to disappear on her too.
Then Zane and his mother had been in an accident. He’d had to take a long time off school and hadn’t roamed their block any more, and she’d hardly seen him at all.
It wasn’t until the summer after her first year at that boarding school when everything had changed. She’d been sixteen. Still processing her mother’s absence, still pleasing her father—adhering to his strict lessons on loyalty and work ethic and not succumbing to distractions. She’d watched the world from the balcony as she’d studied. From her bedroom window in the evenings as she’d combed her hair. Late one night, she’d spotted Zane in the darkness across the courtyard. He’d been on the balcony of the two-bedroom unit that was a mirror of her own. He’d become something of a local legend by then—his jaw-droppingly elite academic performance overshadowed by rumours of some online financial success. But that night he’d looked moody and serious and honestly as lonely as she’d felt for years. He’d been wearing nothing but an old pair of shorts and unfortunately for her, in the shadow and gleam of that moonlit night he’d had the beauty of a brooding angel—tousled coal-coloured hair, sharp cheekbones, a sculpted torso. He’d leaned out with his arms wide on the railing and stared down at the courtyard as if he were Atlas himself with the world on his shoulders. Her heart hadn’t just thumped painfully, it had flipped right over. She’d stepped back into the darkness of her own room but kept watching him for the full fifty minutes he was out there, and at one point he’d looked up, staring directly at her window, and even though it’d been dark and she’d known there was no way he could have seen her, she’d flushed.
From that night on she’d ached to see more of him—naively imagining they were kindred spirits, what with all those commonalities—and more of him she had then seen. It had become her habit to go for a run early in the mornings—not that she’d been good at it, but it’d been the one way of getting out that her father had allowed. She’d argued she needed to be fit to study well. To her surprise—and secret pleasure—she’d passed Zane on her way out a couple of times. He’d smiled at her. He had a captivating smile.
Then, on one of her last days home, as she’d come back from her run, she’d all but slammed into him as she’d turned into the stairwell on her side of the building. He’d steadied her and in the cool shade he’d smiled and his pale blue eyes had gleamed, and she’d felt energy emanating from him. Later, she’d learned it was around this time that he’d made his first million. All but overnight, so the story went. As a freaking teenager. Now she realised he’d wanted to celebrate in true playboy fashion—with a female conquest. A notch for his new belt. But back then, she’d thought his piercingly pale blue eyes had seen straight to her soul. Or at least, he’d noticed the movement of her mouth.
‘What are you eating?’ he’d asked.
It had been raspberry candy, of course. Her favourite and always her post-run self-reward.
‘Got any to share?’ he’d asked when she’d told him.
She’d shaken her head as she’d swallowed. ‘That was my last piece.’
‘Yeah?’ he’d muttered huskily. ‘Maybe I can still have a little taste.’
With that, he’d made his move. The kiss had been tentative at first. Soft. Gentle. Then it just changed. She’d changed. It was like a wildfire had exploded within her. She’d moaned, suddenly all the more breathless. She’d become so hot, so malleable in his arms. She’d have let him do anything. So easy . He’d lifted her up, surprising her with his strength as he’d pressed her against the wall with his lean body. But she’d been the one to curl her leg around his slim hips, welcoming him closer. She’d been the one to hold him so tightly, recklessly racing with him towards the precipice of something she hadn’t understood but innately knew would be profound. She’d lost all track of time. Of everything. All she’d known was that she’d wanted that contact more than anything.
So she hadn’t heard the heavy tread of her father coming down the stairs. She hadn’t stopped kissing Zane back, clutching him closer, letting him touch—
For a time after, she’d tried to reassure herself that it would have looked worse than it actually was—after all, she’d already been flushed and breathless and sweaty from her run—but being caught pinned against the wall by a panting Zane, her father had thought her disarray was because Zane had manhandled her...
The scalding mortification of that moment still overcame her even now, years later. Even though her father was no longer alive.
‘Get off her!’
She’d been paralysed. Her father had pulled Zane back and shoved him from her. She’d slithered to the ground and said nothing to either her father or Zane as her father had suggested...assumed... accused .
She’d sunk back against that wall and watched the glittering passion in Zane’s eyes morph into bitterness as she stayed silent in the face of her father’s fury. And then even that bitterness had faded until he’d stood there, coolly and dispassionately enduring the endless onslaught of her father’s rage.
‘I don’t care what money you’ve supposedly made. Don’t you dare touch my daughter! Don’t you dare help yourself—you’ll never be good enough for her. You’re a troublemaker, stay away!’ Her father had berated him repeatedly before whirling to her. ‘And you , get upstairs. Don’t you dare squander the opportunities you’ve been given! Don’t you dare ruin your future!’
He’d gone on and on and on. She’d been too stunned—too scared—too shamed to speak. She’d scuttled upstairs and hadn’t dared leave the apartment again. Fortunately, it was only a few days before she’d had to return to school. She’d done so quietly and dutifully, repeatedly apologising to her still-disappointed father.
When he’d calmed down, when she’d finally summoned the courage, she tried to assure him Zane hadn’t taken liberties, that she’d welcomed that kiss. But she hadn’t said that right at the time.
And then her father had got angrier. ‘Don’t you dare let lust control you; don’t you dare waste what you have on a boy who wants only one thing...’ It would, he’d lectured her, only lead her off the path into selfishness, into shirking responsibility. Disloyalty. After all, look at her mother—wasn’t she the prime example of that?
Skylar had been devastated. She’d promised not to lose focus. She’d promised to make him proud again. There would be no boys—no lust. Not for years. Not—she hadn’t realised at the time—really ever again.
When she’d returned the next holidays, Zane had left town and so had his mother, and a different family had lived in their apartment. She’d been glad. She’d tried hard not to follow word of Zane’s success but it had been hard to avoid. He was the town’s poster child. She’d seen the write-ups of the ‘wunderkind’ investor, seen the pictures of him at parties over in the UK even—always with a beautiful woman on his arm.
And the year after that she’d met him again. They’d both been guests at a formal graduation function of their old school. Even at eighteen she’d still felt awkward, wearing a thrift shop dress that was too big in the bust. Most dresses were still too big in the bust. She’d been nervously excited, knowing Zane was going to be there. Because despite everything, she’d never forgotten that kiss and at that point she’d not yet had another. At first she’d been too shy to look him in the eye; she’d forced her attention on being polite to Reed Helberg. The generous, old CEO rarely made appearances at events like that.
When she’d finally summoned the courage to glance over at Zane, he’d met her gaze for less than a second before coldly turning his back. She’d been flattened. He didn’t talk directly to her. She’d noticed he’d not even politely applauded when she was announced as the Helberg Scholar—with a full ride to a prestigious university. He’d only deigned to shoot her a patronisingly sarcastic look as she’d sat back down, as if it were somehow disappointing to him that she’d accepted such an amazing offer. Anger had brewed in her then. But Zane hadn’t bothered to look her way again. He’d spoken only briefly to Reed—and it was evident Zane hadn’t thought much of him either. He’d been so rude he’d actually left before dessert, and on his way out he’d muttered to her beneath his breath.
‘You’re pathetic.’
His dismissal that night, his arrogant rudeness, had destroyed the remnants of her crush completely.
So, if she were an awful person, she’d whip out her phone right now and post an anonymous tip on social media to let the single women of the world know exactly where the three billionaire baits could be found. By now they were probably in the sauna—as if it wasn’t hot enough in Manhattan in July. But these men did everything to extremes, including how many women they dated.
Skylar had zero interest in securing a date with any of them, least of all Zane deMarco. She only wanted to know whether he was discussing Helberg Holdings with those other sharks, but short of sneaking into the gym changing rooms to eavesdrop she wasn’t about to find out. But she was certain Zane would want Helberg—it was exactly the kind of prize that he liked. Big and sparkling, coveted by all. He liked to take such things and tear them apart. Just because he could.
But if Zane ripped Helberg to bits, as she knew he would, he’d ruin the hopes and futures of countless other kids like her who would benefit from a Helberg scholarship. Plus he’d also threaten the livelihoods of so many workers who’d been loyal to Helberg for decades, and Skylar simply couldn’t stand for that.
A bunch of people dressed in red, white and blue burst into the cafe, wreathed in smiles and excitement. Skylar stilled, remembering how the rest of the country wasn’t working today because they had feasts and parties to attend with family and friends.
Zane deMarco might not have much family but he liked to party harder than anyone—especially with all his female ‘friends.’
She pulled out her phone and did a quick search to remind herself that indeed this was the one time of year that he sometimes returned—not to the enclave of groundskeepers, caretakers, cleaners and cooks, but to an elite annual party at an oceanfront summer residence that would be a permanent palace for anyone ordinary. Danielle Chapman’s Independence Day party.
Skylar jumped off her seat, energy bursting as a plan formed. A year older than her, it had been Danielle’s job to settle Skylar into that new school because she spent part of her summers on Long Island. Despite their vast differences, they’d actually got on well and Danielle’s approval had spared Skylar from a lot of bullying. Danielle still spent every summer on the island. Her parties were exclusive and discreet. The few invitations she sent were coveted, but every year she sent Skylar one—ditto to her Halloween party upstate. It was a running joke between them that Skylar could never make either because of work. Danielle had been teasing Skylar about working too hard for years. But Skylar wasn’t a party person and to tell the truth, seeing via socials that Zane had attended Danielle’s most recent parties, she’d had all the more reason not to go. Not this year though.
Skylar shot the health club doors a final glance. She wasn’t going to sit around waiting just to spot them in the distance and do nothing. She had to take action . She’d go to Danielle’s party tonight. Zane would surely be there and the guy was not discreet. If she could get within earshot, it might give her a chance to find out for herself what his plans were. She whipped out her phone while she still had momentum.
‘You’re coming?’ Danielle shrieked less than a minute later. ‘Fantastic! You know the dress code is white—do you need something to wear? You’ll stay the night out here? Do you need transport?’
Skylar laughed as she refused all Danielle’s offers of additional help. It was enough for her to actually go; she liked her independence. And she held back from asking for confirmation that Zane would be there. It was a crazy long shot, but one she had to take.