New York Billionaires Series

“Excellent.” She beckons and I join her in her office, the door shutting behind us.

Summer gives me a slow smile. “Hello.”

“Hi,” I say. Glance from her to the sad, half-eaten salad on her desk and the summer weather outside her window. “Come out and have lunch with me.”

“Yes, really.”

Her smile widens until it becomes a physical thing aching in my chest. “All right. You leave first and then I’ll join you downstairs?”

I bend and give Ace a pat to hide my smile. “Yes.”

Fifteen minutes later we’re walking into the park next to her office building. Summer steers us right to the lone bench unoccupied by office workers and sinks down on it with a thankful sigh. Like a sunflower, she turns her face up to the sky.

“This was exactly what I needed,” she says.

My hands tighten on the sandwich I’d bought on the way, the flimsy excuse to spend more time with her. I look away from her beauty before I’m tempted to forget it’s not for me.

“You often eat lunch at your desk?”

“Sometimes,” she admits. “We hadn’t been doing so well before you guys bought us. I mean, you know that.”

“I do.”

“One of our problems is that we don’t get repeat customers. If we’ve done our job well, they’re settled into a relationship and will never need our services again.”

“Kind of a flawed business model.”

“My aunt should have thought about that before she started,” she says. “Or perhaps we should just do a poorer job.”

“That’s always an option. Embrace mediocrity, Summer.”

That earns me a laugh, one that sets off a tightening in my chest. “This is coming from you, right? The embodiment of success?”

I turn my head. “I’m the embodiment of success?”

“Let’s see,” she says, counting on her fingers. “Co-founder of a wildly successful venture capitalist firm, rich beyond measure, part of the Winter family… do you want to add anything?”

“The epitome of male beauty,” I deadpan.

She laughs again, reaching up to brush a tendril of blonde hair from her forehead. “I forgot about that one, of course. How could I embrace mediocrity when you haven’t?”

I shake my head and lean back against the bench, closing my eyes against the sunshine. It’s warm against my skin. “Don’t compare yourself to me at all.”

“That’s an option, I suppose.” I hear the tear of plastic as she opens the rest of her salad. “I bought a few of the lagers we drank the other night.”

“Yep. They were in my local supermarket.” She crosses her legs, the summer dress she’s wearing sliding up over tanned knees.

I re-focus on my sandwich. “Your windows? Have you spoken to your aunt about them?”

“Yes, I have. She was horrified.”

“Rightly so.”Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“They’re getting fixed next weekend. I don’t know how she got a hold of carpenters so quickly. I think she helped set up the meeting of the head of a construction firm with his wife, and that’s why?” Summer chuckles. “My aunt knows more people than the Yellow Pages.”

I’d gathered something similar from my time interacting with Vivienne Davis. Getting her on board with the changes to the company will be necessary if we’re to succeed with it at all. She’ll make for an excellent ally or a terrible enemy.

“I’ll have to be out of the apartment for a day or two,” Summer continues. She slides one foot out of her wedge sandal and buries her foot in the sun-warmed grass. “They’ll mostly have to re-caulk the windows, but apparently some of the products aren’t the best to breathe in.”

“Where will you stay?”

“I’m not sure. I could go up to my parents’ place, but it’s quite far. My aunt would probably take me in if I asked.”

“When is this?”

“Next week. Thursday to Friday.”

“I have a place in Montauk, and I’m going next weekend,” I say, making the decision to as I say it. “You’re welcome to come along.”

Her blue eyes hold genuine surprise. “Anthony, are you sure?”

“Yes.” Not at all. “It’s got more than enough space. Ace could run on the beach. Besides,” I say, adding the pièce de resistance, “there are always windsurfers out there. I’m sure we could find you an instructor.”

“Wow… are you serious?”

I shrug. “Yes. Unless you’d rather not, of course.”

Her face splits into a smile that could rival the sun. “Oh, of course I want to! That’s incredibly kind of you, Anthony. I don’t know what to say.”

“You can bring those beers,” I say. “Print out a few scorecards.”

“I’ve been dared by my girlfriend,” she declares, “to tell you all that-”

I groan. “Please don’t.”

But she’s laughing and shifting on the bench, her thigh coming to rest against mine. I can’t believe I’ve agreed to this, let alone suggested it. Navigating the house at dark with her there to watch. The headaches have been good for the past week, but a migraine with her there and no way to explain…

“So you have a house in Montauk,” she says, and the soft lilt of her voice brings me back. “How come?”

Oh.

The house is a test and a surrender. It’s the one inch of ground I’ve given to the diagnosis, and having purchased a place for my future self, I’ve barely spent any time there. No one knows about the house who isn’t my lawyer, accountant or assistant. They’ll all ask why I bought it. And the answer isn’t one I can speak out loud.

I need a place to live when the music ends, when the curtain falls, and the only thing remaining is darkness.

The place is gorgeous, with a view of the ocean that mocks me every single time I see it. Beautiful. And one day completely pointless. I could be living in a cave and not know it.

“As the embodiment of success,” I tell her, “of course I have a house in the Hamptons.”