Keeping His Promise (Year of the Billionaire Part 3) (10 page)

"I wasn't concerned about that because I had already made up my mind which direction I was headed in. I wasn't going to be looking for any
job; I was going to start my own firm. Elsa," he seemed to almost choke on the name, "was talented without being ego driven. Frankly, in spite of her brilliance, I didn't think she had the balls to succeed."

"By the time we graduated, Elsa and I had become good friends. I had already decided she'd be a great addition to my team and that working for me would be a good way for her to cut her teeth in the business and maybe harden up a bit.
She became my right hand. She seemed to know what needed to be done before I told her and her business sense was totally in sync with mine."

"We were together constantly. One day, I just realized I was in love with her. It hit me hard. When I admitted it to her, she just told me she'd been waiting for me to get my head out of my ass long enough to see it." He grinned ruefully and flexed his fingers in front of him. Then he got up and stood by the window, half in shadow and almost turned away from me.

"We had it all. The world was ours. We mapped out a perfect life, planned all of the things couples plan. Her parents were elated, my father was mostly indifferent."

Tristan gazed out at the lake, graying in the fading afternoon.

"When she died, all those plans were buried under a mountain of snow. I was directionless. I threw myself into work, as people tend to do, and that translated into the fortune I have today. I treated every deal as if it was the last deal I'd ever do. I worked, literally, as if there was no tomorrow. Because, for me, there wasn't."

He walked back to me and stood in front of me, taking both of my hands in his.

"I hope you can understand now. I promised you that I would tell you why I ask you to live without expectations. Because . . . because expectations hurt. Expectations get crumpled under a semi on a slick highway or buried under an avalanche in the Alps."

He looked at me with such sadness that I wanted to weep for him.

"I know that this isn't what you want to hear. But I told you at the beginning and I'm telling you again now. If you can be happy what I have to give you, I promise I'll be very good to you. I know that the time may come when you won't be satisfied with those limitations. When that day comes, I'll deal with it with as much grace as I can muster."

I took a deep breath. I had thought about how I would handle this all weekend long. It was time. "Tristan, I
do understand. And, within your . . . limitations . . . I'd like to continue to see you and enjoy you."

His face lit up, victorious. But I wasn't through.

"However, I'm going to have to impose some limitations of my own."

"I guess that's only fair."

"And it may be that you can't live with them. That's a risk
I
have to take." I paused to hold on to my composure under the look he was giving me. It was enough to tear my resolve to pieces.

"Go ahead."

"First, you have to stop using your money to 'help' me or my family. I am grateful for all that you've done, but I want you to bow out of the union situation with my father. He's a big boy and he can take care of himself."

"Second, I'm going to be working now and making a decent living.
No more wardrobes, no more jewelry. I can dress myself. If I have the time to take a trip, I understand you have a plane and I won't refuse to fly in it. But tone down the billionaire routine. It makes me uncomfortable."

"Third, we're going to limit the time we spend together. You know that you're the most amazing, mind-blowing lover I could ever hope to have. But sex isn't everything. I can't be in your bed every night and have a real life away from you. And I need a real life away from you if I am to continue to enjoy you. You can't
be
my
life if there's no chance
we'll
ever have a life."

He waited a moment before he spoke. "So, what's the limit? On the time we can spend together?"

I hadn't really gotten that far in my thinking.

"Really, Raina," he pressed, "Twice a week, three times a week? If I don't see you one week can I get four days in a row?"
He spat the questions out with some bitterness. It clearly wasn’t what he wanted.
Well too fucking bad. It isn't really what I want, either
.

"A few times a week. Don't get petty about it. I'm not going to keep a calendar and check off days."

"Does lunch count or are we just talking actual dates ?"

"Tristan, please."

He was pissed that he couldn't have everything his way. But I could see him soften. I wasn't being unreasonable, after all. How could he expect me to turn my very existence over to a man who adamantly rejected a future?

"Very well, then. But one last thing."

"Shoot."

"You have to keep the stuff I've already bought for you."

"Okay."

"And I think I ought to be able to give you gifts. What's the use of having money if I can't spend some on you?" I had to laugh at the little boy way he almost whined that out.

"What's wrong with flowers . . . or chocolate?"

"Hmmpff," he pouted.

"Most men would be thankful that I'm not a gold-digger."

"I'm not most men."

"That much I know." I pulled him down beside me on the couch and kissed him with affection and desire. "It won't be so bad, you'll see. Let's just enjoy each other."

He pulled me tightly against his chest and breathed against my hair. "Let's not waste any time. Let's start enjoying right now."

So began the edgy dance that would carry us along for many weeks.

Ten

My life at Clemson's Bookmark, on both floors, was more than I could have expected. Manhattan was a different world than Brooklyn. I had grown up in New York City, but Manhattan made me feel like a country hick. I had many occasions to be thankful for the wardrobe Tristan had supplied me for our trip to Chicago. It made feel less a rube when I walked down the busy streets full of finely dressed professionals hustling about their daily lives. Of course there were bums and eccentrics garbed in all sorts of outlandish outfits, but I wanted to fit in with the purposeful men and women who dressed like they were going somewhere.

When Jenn finally made it into
the city to see my apartment on her winter break she couldn't believe my luck. Mom had helped me brighten it up with some colorful prints and the worn, but still nice rag rug from my bedroom was just the trick to liven up the living room. I had fresh flowers in every room. True to form, Tristan had held me to my word on accepting flowers and sent me fresh bouquets several times a week.

"So you're still with Tristan.
" It wasn't a question. It was more of a challenge.

"I wouldn't say 'with'. We're still seeing each other." I tried to sound casual as if going out with a gorgeous billionaire I was crazy about was just another every day part of my life.

"C'mon. You're talking to me here, Rains. Truth time."

"That is the truth. We made a deal. He won't commit farther than next Monday and I won't let have my life one day at a time. Let's say I'm on a diet--a Tristan King diet."

"So how often do you see him and what do you do?"

"Twice a week, sometimes three times. A lunch now and then when he can get away from his desk. There's a big push at the end of the year in the world of high finance."

"And?"

"And
. . . we eat at one fantastic restaurant after another. He's got a box at Lincoln Center and season tickets to everything whether he uses them or not. I had two days off in a row and we flew to Bermuda for a 48 hour getaway. See all these flowers? I could open my own funeral home. Check the refrigerator. Bet you won't recognize some of the chocolates in there. I hardly have room for actual food."

"And?"

"And . . . each evening we spend together ends in atom splitting, planet shifting, nuclear meltdown worthy sex."

"Sleep over?"

"Sometimes, if I don't have to work. Mostly I come home, though. It's a little easier on me. He lives at the Dakota, you know. It's only a dozen blocks."

"How convenient."

"Yes and I see where you're going with that. I thought maybe there was some clever engineering going on with the job, too. At the beginning when Mr. Clemson talked about his grandson being behind the whole computerized book catalog, I thought maybe Tristan had pulled some stunt. But last week I actually met Boyd Clemson. He's genuine, and a nice guy, too."

"Looks like you've come to an arrangement that works. Good for you."

"It works . . . to a point. Tristan still takes up most of my conscious thought, though. The more I'm with him, the more I want to be with him. But I've got to keep control of it or I'll lose myself like I almost did before. I can't let him make me crazy, Jenn."

"What about other people? Is this thing with Tristan exclusive?"

"We've never discussed it. Bizarre, huh? But I think that
exclusive
would definitely fall under the category of some sort of forbidden expectation of commitment."

"Maybe you
should
see someone else. Get a perspective on normal."

"Jenn, other guys aren't even alive to me anymore."

"That's not healthy or fair to you. You think that limiting yourself to seeing Tristan a few times a week somehow gives you control but that's an illusion. He runs you just as if he had you 24/7."

"I can't imagine wanting anyone but Tristan to touch me."

"Who said anything about touching? But if you don't at least expose yourself to other men, you could be on this merry-go-round with Tristan King forever. Or at least until he get tired of you and trades you in on a more cooperative model."

That thought ran cold through my blood. The thought of Tristan doing to some other woman the things he did to me was almost unbearable. And that bit of self-discovery brought me up short. Jenn was right, the devil's bargain I had made was an illusion.

"Jenn," I said wretchedly, "I don't know what to do. I'd rather cut off my right tit than never to see him again. But you're right. I think the only thing I've accomplished anything by limiting the time I spend with him is to make me more miserable."

"So, if I may ask, what do you do on the nights you don't go out with Tristan?"

"I read. I surf the internet, watch movies."

"Uh-huh."

"I brood?"

"That's a better way of putting it."

"What do you suggest?"

"Sweetie, you're in Manhattan. You're young, you've got plenty of pocket money and everywhere you look there's something to do. Do it! Do something else for a change."

I took Jenn's advice to heart. When Boyd Clemson dropped in the following Thursday, I asked him if he'd like to grab a sandwich at Zabars. I didn't know anything about the guy other than he was a few years older than I, sharp as a tack and really easy on the eyes.

Truthfully, I enjoyed his company. It was a nice change from the intensity I experienced with Tristan. Boyd was about as laid-back and easy going as they come. He told me that his family had been in the publishing business for generations but his grandfather had sold the company back in the sixties for a tidy sum. His father had turned his considerable inheritance into a charitable foundation to promote the arts.

"I am what is disdainfully known as a 'trust fund baby'. Gramps putters around his bookstore. I putter around the world. When the trusts were set up, someone unwisely made them big enough to squash any motivation to work, but small enough to prevent any meaningful business investment," he told me over a pastrami sandwich and Dr. Brown's soda.

"You sound happy enough with your life."

"I am! I am content as hell. Kind of like a neutered Tomcat. I've been effectively castrated of ambition so I am free to devote myself to getting fat and complacent."

"You're not at all fat."

"I was speaking metaphorically."

We
strolled a few blocks after lunch, digesting and talking. Boyd was a big theater buff and enjoyed finding the most obscure off-off Broadway productions.

"I can make a big impact
by hooking the unknowns up with Dad's foundation. It makes me happy to do it. I love theater. It's so much more 'real' than film."

I told him about my stint as stage manager
for the Mahkeenac Little Theater. "I had a great time. I was amazed at how talented the actors were. I'd never seen any amateur theater before and I was just blown away by how good they were."

"The actors I know aren't paid much more than volunteers anyway. Some of the productions are just a pure labor of love."

Boyd started visiting the shop more frequently after our lunch and I began to look forward to seeing him once or twice a week. He was a self-taught computer whiz kid and helped me over more than one 'bump' in the new catalog system.