Billionaire Falls First

Chapter 1

“Thank you for having me tonight.” I’ve just given an hour-long speech to fifty thousand people and my voice is husky as it carries across the stadium. “New Orleans, it’s always a pleasure.”

The place erupts in applause.

Usually I avoid giving speeches. I’m too busy. Gigs like this feel more like a hassle than an ego boost.

The Superdome had to be booked for my speech because the number of people who wanted to attend couldn’t be accommodated in the Convention Center. Now, the entire crowd is on its feet.

People tend to love you if you’re helping them make shitloads of money.

The massive screen behind me still displays the final slide of my keynote, which includes ideas and numbers that change the way markets think.

I have a knack. I’ve known this since I was seven years old. I’ve been called “the Benjamin Graham of the 21st century,” “a young Warren Buffett with the added bonus of his family’s famously good looks,” and countless other banal descriptions I don’t pay much attention to.

My parents weren’t investors. My father was the successful movie director Jack Wilder and my mother, Hattie Carson, was his obsession and his muse. She was also one of the most famous actresses of her time.

My mother was a diva, a genius, and one of those rare people who absolutely refuses to toe any line.

She drank too much, lived too hard and died young because of it.

To say my parents fought like cats and dogs would be an understatement.

Even so, their love affair was one for the ages.

And the headlines throughout my childhood made sure the whole world knew it.

The headlines also made sure the whole world knew exactly how out of control my mother was, how tragic her sudden death was, and how my father never recovered from her loss, either personally or professionally.

As if we didn’t know all that. My three younger brothers and I lived through every nitty gritty detail of it.

We all have our scars. I bury myself in work to forget about mine.

Rhett recently decided to spend time at the Montana ranch our father bought for our mother when she was deep in the throes of her decline, hoping some fresh mountain air would cure her.

It didn’t. Which reminds me I need to call him and see how things are going.

I’m also overdue for a phone call with Apollo. He’s been the headlining star in at least ten different Hollywood movies in the past few years and he’s hard to get a hold of.

When Apollo was only six, our mother insisted the director of one of her movies cast him as her neglected cherubic child (a little too accurate, unfortunately).

At that point he was too young to refuse.

The camera absolutely loved him, then and even more now.

He’s been acting ever since, mostly because he enjoys it but also because Hollywood adores him and he’s inundated with work offers.

He can pick and choose the best roles and is now one of the highest paid stars in the world.

And Boone, the youngest of us and the free spirit of the bunch is … Boone. Still playing the field and still figuring things out. Luckily for him, he has the charm of our mother at her best and also inherited the family knack for making money.

Somewhere in the middle of all the storms and the drama of our childhood, my father noticed that I could always predict which of his movies would make money.

They say it’s impossible to tell. That no matter how many stars you cast and how much cash you throw at a project, it never guarantees box office success.

But I could see it a mile away.

Call it a sixth sense or whatever, but I can see things other people can’t seem to see. Maybe it’s an ability to read how people will react to commodities more than anything else, who knows. All I know is that I can predict the direction in which money will move, and with uncanny accuracy.

I sat down at the breakfast table one morning when I was seven years old and the newspaper happened to be open to the financial pages. It felt strangely like reading my own kind of music. Without even needing to be taught, I could see patterns in the chaos.

I remember the moment and the feeling vividly. I was enthralled and I was hooked.

From there, I read every book I could get my hands on. With my father’s help, I opened a brokerage account when I was nine years old. And I started to use it, play it and follow my instincts.

By the time I was twelve I was a millionaire.

I started my own fund when I was fourteen and the numbers started to grow exponentially from there. I was offered a full ride to Harvard Business School when I was sixteen (my family name didn’t hurt, but it was the fund they were drooling over) and finished my MBA when I was twenty-one.

They called me a prodigy. A visionary. The talent of a generation.

I don’t know about any of that. Reading numbers just happens to be the one thing I know how to do.

I’m good at making money—serious money—and people tend to listen when I speak. Which is why the stadium is packed tonight.

The standing ovation continues.

But I’m not here for adoration.

In fact, why am I here?

To check out the quaintest little hotel on Bourbon Street, that’s why.

My mother was originally from New Orleans.

Her father was a down-on-his-luck jazz musician and her mother a proper Southern girl from Atlanta who fell in love with a man “below her station,” according to her parents.

She was disowned when she ran away with him.

Times were tough for my grandparents after that, so their adorable little daughter—my mother—helped pay a few bills by performing her song and dance on Bourbon Street for tourists.

It’s hard to imagine it now, allowing such a thing, but apparently they were that desperate.

A Hollywood talent scout happened to be strolling through the French Quarter one sweltering August day, as the story goes. My mother was ten years old.

When my grandparents heard what the movie studio was offering to pay to put my mother in a blockbuster alongside some A-list superstars, they upped sticks and moved to L.A.

without a backwards glance. I still have that old, framed headline somewhere: Shirley Temple’s outrageous talent meets Elizabeth Taylor’s stunning looks for a brand new era.

Audiences can’t get enough of the newest phenom child star Hattie Carson.

Poor Mama. (She never allowed us to call her “Mom,” a word she despised. Call me Mama or call me Hattie or don’t call me at all.) She eventually fell out with her own parents because, for years, they spent all her money.

My family history is anything but boring. Which might be why I prefer numbers to people. They’re predictable. They don’t yell or cry, get broken hearts or over-medicate themselves into early graves.

I scan the crowd. Hopefuls in bad suits, desperate for some investment stardust to rub off on them. Women with hard, eager eyes, hungry for my attention.

Women want me for a lot of reasons. My name. My Hollywood pedigree. My looks. My build. My “talent” in the bedroom. My gigantic fucking cock. Not to mention my funds, my companies and my famously vast amounts of money.

Unfortunately, they could all be cardboard cut-outs of the same person, every one of them lacking appeal, personality or any kind of spark. Which happens to be the story of my life.

I wish I was easier to please.

Women seek me out, stalk me, and go to absurd lengths to get close to me. It is what it is. And I never aspired to be either a monk or a choirboy. I go with it when the animal cravings threaten to drive me mad, but nothing has ever lasted longer than one night. Because I never want it to.

I’ve come to realize that I’m destined to end up alone.

I’m about to turn thirty and I’ve never been in a serious relationship.

I try to feel more than just a very finite version of lust.

I try to care.

The problem is, I never fucking do. The exchanges are always so uneven. So out of sync. So she’ll-kill-to-have-me-but-I’m-entirely-uninterested.

I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I’m not a person who’s capable of falling in love. I’ve never felt even an inkling of anything that could be considered anywhere near that particular ballpark.

Maybe I’m too left-brained, who knows. No matter how much they cry and plead and do whatever they can to get me to commit to anything beyond one night—if I even hang around that long—it’s always the same. I’m already bored out of my mind.

I don’t choose to lose interest, it just happens. Every single time. And I’ve learned to accept my own shortcomings.

It’s easy enough to fill the void with work.

I have a lot of colleagues and employees who in some cases might even be considered friends.

And I have my brothers, who know me better than anyone.

But sometimes I feel the disconnect harder than other times.

Like now. It would be nice to have something—or someone, more specifically—to look forward to.

Instead, as always, I feel sort of empty.

Dark. Twisted in knots because it’s been too long since I got fucking laid.

I step back from the podium. Now that I’ve done what I came here to do, all I want is to get the fuck out of here.

Cameras flash. Security closes in with stealthy efficiency, guiding me offstage through a restricted corridor lined with velvet rope and people craning for a better look.

I can hear them calling my name.

My mother’s voracious lust for attention definitely did not rub off on me.

Backstage, my team is waiting—assistants, drivers, more security. I’ve never been able to travel light and lately it’s been getting harder to fly under any kind of radar.

I don’t do social media but my executive assistant Todd occasionally shows me the frenzy that surrounds me online.

Which couldn’t interest me less. Most of it is meaningless gossip. Women I’ve spent time with, getting headlines for their tell-all confessionals about how “beastly” and “ravenous” I am in bed, for fuck’s sake. Todd has insisted on showing me a few.

“Wilder” doesn’t even begin to cover it. The man totally ruined me for anyone else. How’s a girl supposed to recover from that? You broke my heart, Dallas Wilder! Come back to me!

I didn’t even know it was possible to have that many Os. Holy moly, I want to have your babies, Dallas Wilder. Call me!!!

It was by far the best night of my life. The man is a beastly, well-hung dream come true.

Or something along those lines. Which amuses Todd to no end.

“You killed it, Einstein.” It’s a nickname he gave me a long time ago.

Todd and I met at Harvard when I was in my last year of my MBA and he was a sophomore.

We became unlikely friends. He’s smart and has the kind of cool head it takes to be an effective investor.

When I offered him a job, he jumped the Harvard ship to come work for me. “Standing ovation, bro.”

Aside from my brothers, Todd is the one person on the planet I genuinely trust. And he’s good at PR, which I need. If it wasn’t for Todd, I’d be content to hibernate in my own numbers vortex.

He forces me out of my own head. I’m a better leader with him around and, with his help, I now run several multi-billion dollar funds that everyone from Wall Street to Main Street wants a slice of.

He’s also a blackbelt in karate, which means no one’s getting past him.

Literally everyone I’ve ever met has wanted a piece of me.

What that piece is depends on who they are and whatever shape their desperation takes.

I’ve had women assistants, but whatever professionalism they possess seems to get overridden by fantasies of sex with their boss.

With Todd I don’t have to worry about that.

He’s blond and athletic and has his own entourage.

I’ve occasionally wondered if he swings both ways but I’ve never asked him.

I’m more interested in the fact that he’s a good friend and an even better assistant.

He acts as a kind of gatekeeper between me and the crowds.

The two of us hit it off because I have things to teach him and he’s fucking good at what he does. Organizing schedules. Making sure emails are answered. Checking notifications. All the shit I’m too busy or distracted to notice. We’re a good team.

“You practically started a religion out there,” he tells me.

“Sure.”

“For more than one reason.” He winks.

“Whatever,” I growl. I’m too pent-up to feel anything except a feral kind of rage that can only be relieved by one thing.

“You promised you’d stop in at the cocktail party they’re having in the main lobby,” he reminds me.

“Did I?”

“They wanted you to attend the formal dinner and after-party too, but I managed to get you out of those. There was, however, no dissuading them from making me promise you’d show your face—briefly—at the cocktail party.”

“Fucking hell.”

“It’s New Orleans, Dallas. They always have good parties. Who knows, maybe you’ll meet someone interesting. It won’t kill you to mingle for ten minutes.”

“It might,” I grumble.

“Okay, nine then. But no less. The driver will be waiting for you outside.” He pauses, looking almost guilty for a split second.

This gets me curious. “What?”

“In a white stretch limo.” Predicting my disgust, Todd gushes, “I’m sorry!

I know you hate anything that obvious but it’s all I could get.

They don’t do Maybachs in NOLA, apparently.

The driver will drop you at the rear private door of your hotel in the French Quarter where security will be waiting for you. It’ll be fine.”

This does nothing to calm me.

“You can survive nine minutes,” Todd assures me, leading me through door that leads into a crowded foyer. “Starting now.”