4 JANIE
JANIE
“Why are you so good at this?” I say. Yell? Yeah, I’m yelling.
“At?”
I burp, “Ugh! Sorry, excuse me. Good at drinking so much!”
“University?” He finishes another shot and pounds his chest. “Keeping up with old wankers trying to get me sloshed at the pub? Why are you so awful at it?”
“I don’t like losing control. Why does Las Vegas keep having earthquakes?”
He laughs again as we settle in at the counter of another Vegas bar. He insisted we change locations, I insisted the next drink would be my last. “I think you should switch to water, love.”
“I did two drinks ago.”
His brows go up. “I think I should switch to water.”
“Probably so,” I chuckle. “So, have you had enough to spill the beans yet?”
“Have you? What’s the deal with dear old Granny?”
“Just Gran. And…I found myself in a bit of a…situation.” He leans in to listen.
“The broke kind.” He frowns, disbelieving.
He knows I’m good with numbers. I sigh and will myself not to blush.
Or go pale. I think another text came in while we were walking, so I should be equally mortified and terrified but the alcohol is doing its thing.
“Can we establish a drunken cone of silence on this conversation?”
“A vodka vault,” he nods.
“Have we had vodka?”
“Surely.”
“Ok, so a vault?”
“Bitter beer black box. Sworn to scotch secrecy.”
“Please stop,” I smile as I say it. He nods, also smiling, his eyes looking glassy as hell. He probably won’t even remember this conversation. “Okay, well, hardly anyone knows this, hence the vault. My brother is…a mess. He’s a gambler and an addict, sometimes those two over…over…”
“Overlap?”
“That!” I say lifting my hand up to point and almost falling off the stool. “He got into trouble and helping him, uh…wiped out my savings.”
“Bloody hell.”
“Gets worse,” I say. “It’s just me and him and my Gran.
We’re all we’ve got. And right before he did that, I’d just splurged to move Gran into a premium rate care facility, which she needs.
I was going to sell her townhouse back home but it needs a lot of work and it’s paid off. Hard to pass up a free place to stay.”
He frowns and I can almost see his alcohol-soaked brain slowly processing what I’ve said.
“But Mellman’s? You don’t like the idea of working remotely?”
“Ha!” I guffaw embarrassingly loud and then hold down another burp. “I would love to work remotely. I hate offices and overhead lighting and meetings and all the…” I gesture around us and then at him.
“People?”
“Exactly.”
“I’m people?”
I chuckle. “Absolutely. But the alcohol is helping.”
“Damn, you’re mean. Here I thought we were becoming besties. So, go on then, why not remote?”
“Um, a remote job didn’t come up in time. Mellman’s needed someone urgently because one of their senior accountants decided at the last minute not to come back from paternity leave. So their offer was competitive.”
Please buy this. Please buy this.
After a beat, it appears he does. I think I have alcohol to thank for that. And maybe tomorrow he’ll look at the Mellman’s records and see what a big fat fibber I am but that’s a problem for Tomorrow Janie. Tonight Janie is relieved to have at least told someone some part of the truth.
“Can I ask what happened to your parents?” he asks gently.
“Dad died, mom left. When my brother and I were babies.”
“I’m sorry, Janie. That’s a shit hand you were dealt.”
“Yup,” I pop the p. “But I showed my cards. Your turn.”
“Clever,” his eyes dance with mine in a warm and fuzzy way that feels dangerous. And is it just the booze or does he truly look like a bona-fide movie star? How is a real person this handsome up close? If only his personality was as lovely and not so…over the top.
I suck down more water.
He inhales and then lets out his reply, “Your brother’s a wanker. My father’s a wanker too. Pissed at me that I’m just a…what did you call me earlier? Something about being handsome.”
“Pretty,” I correct.
“Tomato, Tomahto. He kept warning me that I had to get serious. Be serious. Settle down, find a place in the enterprise. I’m not technically on the payroll.”
“Seriously? Like I was teasing? You don’t have a job?” I choke on my drink.
“Of course not, I have a trust.” He pretends to be offended.
“Oh right, the trust.”
“Right.”
“But, you said you have a P.A…” I think aloud.
“Doesn’t everyone?” His grin fades and he stares at the sleek counter top where our drinks rest. “PA personal, not EA, executive. I just pop around having fun, usually at a resort or attraction we own. My P.A. manages my calendar, books flights, reservations. All personal things. But as for the business, I’ve never been…
actually involved. Dad kept warning me and harping at me.
I always ignored it.” He pauses and takes a sip of his beer. “Until last week.”
“When he…? I’m on the edge of my seat, man,” I push him.
“Sent over legal documents, contracts that I apparently signed myself. I vaguely remember it. Anyway, if I don’t…ugh, if I don’t take up a senior executive position, I’m out.”
I relax, “Oh, that doesn’t seem so bad, just pick a job.”
“It’s not just that. He’s quote ‘grown tired’ of my reputation. I also signed paperwork that stipulates I’m out if…if I don’t get married.”
“Married?!”
“Correct.”
“Wow. And by out you mean…”
“Out of the company, the will, the trust.”
“Not the trust!” I tease, but he doesn’t even grin.
“I’ll also have to legally change my last name, settle a tab of debts my father has kept since I was eighteen, apparently, and so on. I lawyered up but he’s outmaneuvered me. I’m properly fucked.”
“Too bad you didn’t win the Great Grace Race,” I smirk.
He grimaces, “You saw that?”
“The entire world saw that. It was the number one hashtag on TikTok for weeks.”
He doesn’t look stoked about being a trend, which is kind of surprising. He was in a real life Bachelorette type situation a little over a year ago, where a few billionaire men competed out in small town Arkansas for the heiress of the Ameri-Mart fortune.
He lost to the man who is now marrying my friend Kat, Skye’s cousin. Speaking of…
“Whatever happened to Grace? Could you call her? Were you even a close second or did she like that hot, beefy bald guy better?”
He snorts, “You don’t have much of a filter when you actually speak, do you?”
“I do if I need to mince words. I’m crap under…under…”
“Pressure?”
“Right. But I thought we were two besties here in the safety of the vault.”
“Ah, I see,” he says. “Well, Grace fell in love with some local I think. Pissed her father right the hell off. Turns out she’s pretty gutsy. She actually could’ve been brilliant for this arrangement.”
“Bummer.”
He slumps even more, “Quite.”
“So, you actually wanted to get married? Like, you fell for her?” I find myself asking.
He recoils. “Heavens, no. Father made me do it. I thought he just wanted me in it for the PR. She’s a lovely woman but a real marriage? No.” I stare at him, the caricature of a rich man-child who is deathly allergic to commitment. “What, don’t tell me you’re a romantic?”
“No,” I shake my head. “But I’m not scared of commitment either.”
He tilts his head in thought. “I’m not scared of commitment.
Scared of…boredom. I like change. I like bouncing about the world and trying new things.
Getting that pilot’s license. Scuba license.
I’m even licensed to take you sky diving.
” He looks over at me but I don’t react.
“I like different cuisines, extreme climates, a variety of…”
“Women,” I finish.
“I was going to say cultures.”
I grin, “Sure you were.”
“I was. We’re in the vault, no sense lying, yeah? I’m not running from commitment. I’m running from…monotony? I date. I’ve tried, truly. But I get bored every time.”
“Well, you could speed date, find someone new who—”
He looks over with defeated eyes, “Who’ll marry me by the end of the year?”
“End of the year! It’s already October!”
“As I said,” he chugs his drink again.
“Wheeewwww,” I exhale. “But, like, if you don’t settle, your dad cuts you off, then you can just get another fancy job from a fancy billionaire friend, right?”
“It’s not that easy, legally. But even if it were, I…I will be publicly eviscerated. My father has pinned me into a corner. I’m not sure even a fancy billionaire friend could employ me.”
“Skye’s family would,” I say, meaning it.
I may be estranged from my best friend at the moment but her family runs Canton Cards International, a family values greeting card business turned big box gift and hobby store.
In the middle of the United States, wherever there’s a Target or an Ameri-Mart, across the intersection, there’s a Canton Cards store.
And the Cantons, surprisingly, even with their fame, actually live up to their values.
So, this is not a hard problem to solve:
Skye’s sister, Samantha Canton, married Emerson, Benedict’s older brother.
Emerson is the Canton Cards CFO.
Um, duh.
Wait, did I say all that out loud?
“Janie, you don’t understand. This is…basically blackmail.
My father has orchestrated the contracts so that I’ll be forced to have a press conference, claim personal bankruptcy and go to rehab, explaining I lost my inherited fortune due to sex and drugs.
After the rumors settle, I very much doubt the Canton family will touch me with a ten-foot pole.
” He adds softly, “And I wouldn’t ask them to. ”
“Your own dad is doing this?” I screech.
“Wankers, right?” he jokes sadly.
“Uh, you win. Your Dad is a billion times worse than my brother.”
He snorts, “Thanks.”
“Why? Even for a billionaire father, going after your personal character seems extreme?”
“Why do any of us do anything? Our parents screwed us up. Grandad was horrible to him, said he’d never build a lasting dynasty and so on.
I think when we were kids, none of us seemed interested in the business and Dad started to panic.
He’s always been a cold bastard but I didn’t realize he’d totally lost the plot. ”
I push a little more, “Still, no offense, but aren’t there a lot of shady rich people? Take the hit and find a new empire that’s not the Clark’s or the Canton’s. Carry on with your pretty boy life.”
He grins but it lacks his signature sparkle as he says, “Again, you just can’t get over how handsome I am.
” I don’t even respond. He slumps on his stool.
“I may seem…shallow but I do care about some things, namely my family. My brothers, cousins, aunts, particularly my mother. She…this public spectacle, to lose me from the family, it would crush her. And my father is not bluffing. I will be completely ex-communicated.”
We sit in stunned Vodka Vault silence for a moment. But the sight of Mr. Charming himself—always the bright, fun, witty life of the parties we’ve been at—so dejected…it’s getting to me. Just like the strays I always took in growing up. Just like my brother, again and again. Just like…
Still.
If a person can help, they should. And maybe I can. I ask for another water and lean closer to him.
“Okay, get out your phone.”
He obeys, “Why?”
“The women, Bossman!” I say with a whack of his shoulder. He starts to protest but I grab his device. “I’m sure there’s a thousand in here and right now, tonight, we’re gonna find you a wife.”