Chapter 13 DaydreamsReality?
DAYDREAMS OR REALITY?
Simone
“You okay? Simone?”
The sound of my name yanked me back to reality like a line on a hooked fish.
It had been happening every day this week. Throughout the night, too. If I was being accurate, this daydreaming had been happening since approximately 8:42 p.m. last Friday, when Brendan Black had left me to make a choice that would change my life…or not.
I smiled at Lincoln, the owner of Cavalier Coffee, the cafe near Northeastern University where I ran my pop-up.
The grin he offered back was as cozy as his flannel shirt, beard, and knit beanie.
He never dressed like a man who spent his days indoors in the city.
More like someone who wanted to go for long hikes before coming home to chop wood in his hometown in Maine.
Our common, small-town New England origins were the main reason he’d been asking me out for the last year. But despite our coworkers trying to push us together, Lincoln had always felt more like a brother than a boyfriend to me.
I wasn’t sure he knew that, though.
“I’m good,” I said as I finished folding up the table. “Just daydreaming again.”
“You’ve been daydreaming all morning. Want to tell me about it over beers tonight?”
I looked up. “Tonight? Oh. I, um…”
“Another time, then.” He took the folding table from me and carried it toward the cafe’s storage area.
I picked up my cash box from where I’d set it on the floor, took a seat at one of the corner tables, and started calculating the cafe’s share while Lincoln and the other employees closed up for the day.
I had a few hours to relax until my shift at the bar.
A job, I reminded myself, I could quit entirely if I signed the papers folded in my coat pocket.
I hadn’t quite been able to bring myself to throw them out last night.
Instead, I’d done my homework. What felt like snooping last week was due diligence today.
A few hours on Google had informed me of all the things the cardiac ICU staff had already known about the Black family.
I learned that Niall Black was eighty-two, with three sons and a daughter from three different women.
I learned that he was the son of a construction worker from Cork, had grown up on the mean streets of South Boston, and had parlayed an early gambling business (and ties to the old Irish mob) into the massive holding conglomerate his family ran today.
And I learned that the de facto heir to the whole operation was Brendan Black, who had spent his early years in Southie well before his family moved away, and it was gentrified beyond recognition.
Thirty-nine. Consummate bachelor. Dual degrees in business management and animal biology (that was a surprise) from Harvard, where he was also a champion boxer and rumored member of several secret societies.
Since graduating, he had been working his way up the ladder of his father’s company, turning every rung to gold.
The man was a modern-day Midas, perfectly trained to become his father’s successor.
Those were just facts, though. Despite being profiled a number of times in a number of fawning articles, I couldn’t find much more than those external tidbits.
It was evident that Brendan was also intensely private.
While I could find estimates of his net worth that honestly seemed made up (the Black family was collectively worth a staggering two hundred billion dollars, while the company in which they held a majority stake was worth close to a trillion), the only items about his personal life included a mention of his favorite book (East of Eden) and that he liked peanut butter.
I was meant to pretend to be engaged to the man. How could I make that convincing if I had no inkling of who he really was?
One thing was clear: Blackguard Holding wasn’t just an investment company. It was a family company.
To him, a fake engagement must have seemed like the simplest path forward. Far easier than an actual relationship or, far worse, letting people actually get to know him.
I wished it were that simple for me.
I pulled the contract out of my coat pocket and skimmed over the first page again. At this point, I practically knew the thing by heart.
Five million dollars.
For a few months of work.
That money would change my life. And my sister’s. My entire family’s.
But there were other things stopping me.
Things like “open-mouth kisses.” Touching my “posterior region.”
“Nibbling.”
The problem wasn’t just that these things had actually been listed in the document like features of an apartment lease.
The problem was that I knew the exact breadth and temperature of Brendan Black’s hands when they cupped my face.
I knew exactly how far around my thighs they wrapped when he lifted me onto a table.
I had experienced firsthand how expertly he kissed with a “light application of teeth” while sucking my lower lip.
And I had dreamed four separate times last night what “placement of Client’s fingers up to two inches below the waistband of the Fiancée’s pants or skirt” might feel like…
or if they continued several inches lower.
Neck. Ears. Jaw. Fingers.
It was like he wrote the stupid thing knowing the exact parts of my body he could touch to drive me crazy. I was generally a sensible person, but I had a feeling I’d lose all reason if that carefully maintained stubble rubbed the sensitive skin under my jaw for one second, let alone “up to ten.”
He wanted me to play a part. But if he was as talented as that mouth suggested last night, all that “play” would reduce me to a puddle of neediness.
Who would pay five million dollars for that?
It didn’t matter, I told myself as I separated the stack of cash due to Lincoln from my box and started to calculate the payments taken on my phone.
Parties will not engage in any kind of sex.
The words flashed through my head, along with the memory of Brendan’s lips on mine. If this was such a formal offer, strictly platonic and completely professional, then why had he kissed me so passionately?
What he was asking wasn’t prostitution, but it wasn’t that far off.
So, why did that particular section make me feel so strangely disappointed?
I was not going to have sex with Brendan Black.
A man who did not want to have sex with me.
His contract said so.
Right?
Not that it mattered.
The answer is no, I told myself as I sent a Venmo to Lincoln for today’s earnings.
Decision made.
“There you are!”
I jumped at the sound of my sister’s voice, muted by the window next to me but accompanied by the sharp rapping of her knuckles on glass. She was on the other side, Kylie waving beside her. Back from wherever they’d disappeared to for the last day and a half.
I gestured for her to wait. “Linc, did you get the payment?” I called to the front.
Lincoln gave me a friendly thumbs-up from the register. “Killed it, hon. See you next Friday?”
“See you then.” I packed up the leftover plain brown paper bags and folding racks into their cardboard box and carried them outside, where Selena was waiting impatiently with Kylie.
“Anything left over for us?” She nodded at the shop. “Your neighbor said you were here, but seven bucks a coffee? Too rich for my blood.”
Not even a hi or hello. Just a “what do you have for me?”
“I usually sell out.” I grinned down at Kylie, who was already holding her hands up for a hug. I set down the box and picked her up. “Hiya, kiddo. Whatcha been up to?”
“We went back home to pack,” she told me. “And I finished all of Daniel Tiger. Every episode, all day yesterday.”
“Don’t start,” Selena said to me, catching my frown. “I had shit to take care of. No thanks to you.”
I sighed. Selena never seemed to care about fighting in front of her kid, but that didn’t mean I wanted to.
I bent to set Kylie down. “See that nice man at the counter in there, honey?” Kylie glanced at Lincoln, who waved at her and winked.
“He keeps chocolate chip cookies under the counter. If you tell him you’re my niece and ask pretty please, he might give you one.
Might even make you a hot chocolate too. ”
“What about me?” Selena asked.
Kylie wasted no time skipping into the shop, where I could see Lincoln was already reaching under the desk for the stash of cookies I made for him each week as a thank you.
I turned back to Selena. “You were saying.”
My sister shook her head. “I tried. I really did. But even with the half down, Ezra isn’t letting me out of this debt. I’m ten seconds from selling my body at the pier to pay this off unless you figured something out.”
“Sel, come on. Don’t even joke about that.”
“What am I supposed to do? I guess I could call Dad.”
“Why would you do that?” I couldn’t quite keep the sharpness out of my voice. The last time Selena did that, she’d nearly bankrupted him. A solid percentage of what I sent home was going toward his second mortgage.
“He already said if I really need it, he’ll sell some of the herd.”
I gaped. “Sel, you can’t be serious. You know he’s already behind on payments—the bank will foreclose within the year, and we’ll lose the whole farm. He needs every cow he has right now.”
She shrugged. “So what? Honestly, it’s the least he can do for us after checking out the way he did when Mom died.
Neither of us lives there, and it would be better if Dad just filed for bankruptcy in the end, got out of debt.
They’ll let him keep the house, you know.
It will pay that off, just sell the rest of the farm to developers.
It’s probably worth more that way anyway. ”
I just stared. Selena had always been selfish, sure.
But she had also been my sister. The one who had explored creeks and trails around Woodstock with me when we were kids.
Who sat at our kitchen counter with Mama and me to lick the cake batter from the bowl, who helped me name new calves and fed them treats like apples and pumpkins.
Once upon a time, we’d made good memories, and the farm had been the only place where either of us had ever really been happy. How could she be so cavalier about throwing it all away?
“What do you want me to say?” she asked. “I have to pay these guys off, and I have a kid to take care of. Do you think Ky would be better off with her mother at the bottom of the Harbor? Do you?”
I glanced inside at Kylie, who was currently dipping her cookie into a hot chocolate Lincoln had made with chocolate sprinkles.
The contract weighed heavily in my coat pocket. The money would pay for plenty, but there were things I—or at least my family—needed now. Things like childcare. Preschool. A safe home for my beloved niece. And a farm that needed to be saved.
Five million dollars was a lot, but ten percent wouldn’t cover it all.
Still, he did say he liked a good negotiation.
If I had the nerve.
“There’s another way,” I mumbled before I could stop myself.
Selena’s eyes brightened. Excited, but not entirely unsurprised.
I hated that I was such a foregone conclusion. She knew I’d always bail her out.
“I have to visit someone,” I said, already reaching into my pocket for the wad of the folded-up contract. “But I can have the money by tonight. Don’t go to Dad.”
Her grin was instantaneous. “I knew you’d come through for me, Simmy. I knew it. You’re the best. You really are.”
“Wait, Sel,” I said, pushing back the hug she was already foisting on me. “I have a condition too.”
She backed up, instantly suspicious. “What’s that?”
I looked at Kylie again, then back at her. “If I do this, er, job, I’ll have to leave for a few months. But I can pay off your loan and give you enough money to live on until I get back.”
Selena’s eyes practically doubled in size. “That’s amazing! What kind of job is it? Can I do it too?”
“Absolutely not,” I said, maybe a bit more sharply than was necessary. “Just promise to stay at the apartment with Kylie until I get back. I’ll even have a nanny come and help you with Ky, but you can’t disappear on me until then. And there will be one more condition.”
She held up her hands in surrender, though she was plainly curious. “Fine, fine. Don’t ask, don’t tell, got it. What’s the condition then?”
I took a deep breath. “When I do come back, I want you to sign legal guardianship of Kylie over to me so I can take her back to Woodstock.”
It was the bravest thing I’d ever done. And I almost took it back as I watched mood after mood pass over my sister’s face.
Shock. Anger. Indignation.
And finally…resignation.
“Fine,” Selena’s voice was quiet and surprisingly solemn. “You pay this off…she’s yours. Can see her on holidays and stuff? She is my daughter, after all.”
“Of course you can.” Honestly, I wished I were more shocked she was capitulating so quickly. “That’s all? No argument?”
Selena looked at Kylie again, and something like sorrow colored her face. Maybe regret. And then weariness. “I was never cut out to be a mom. You and I both know it.” She shook her head. “I don’t remember running this much as a kid. Did we?”
“Probably. We used to spend half our summers playing tag in the meadow until it was dark. But we had a farm to run around, so our parents didn’t have to watch us like a hawk like you do in the city.”
“God. I wish I could just let her go in the pasture until she wears herself out.”
“Maybe I can do that for her. And you can do…whatever you need to figure things out for yourself.”
To my surprise, something like warmth crossed my sister’s face. “I hope you do,” she said quietly. “Thanks, Simmy. Really.”
Before I could stop her, she wrapped me in the biggest hug she’d given me in years.
It was like we were kids again. Before Mom had died.
Before Dad had disappeared into himself.
Back when my sister had been my best friend, and I had been hers, and I would have sworn nothing in the world could tear us apart.
“I have to go run an errand, but I’ll be back this evening with the money,” I said once she released me. “Can you bring my stuff home and wait for me there?”
Eagerly, Selena gathered my bags and the shelf as I waved for Kylie to come out and join us.
“See you on the other side,” Selena called as I headed for the nearest T stop.
I waved, unable to speak as I contemplated what I was about to do.
The other side, she’d called it.
She had no idea.