Читать книгу The Nanny Plan - Sarah M. Anderson - Страница 7
ОглавлениеThe auditorium was filling up, which was exactly what Trish wanted. Maybe four hundred people had crowded into the lower level and, in addition to the journalists from the college paper, some reporters from the San Francisco television stations were in attendance. Excellent. A good crowd would leverage some social pressure on her target. No billionaire would risk looking heartless by saying no to a charity in front of a big crowd.
Trish had been sitting in her spot—end of the third row, to the left of the podium on the stage—for over an hour. She’d gotten here early enough that no one had seen her smuggle in the check. She wished she could afford a cell phone—then she could at least play with that until the talk started instead of being the only person in the room who wasn’t connected.
She was as ready as she was ever going to be. She just had to wait for her moment. Timing an ambush of one of the wealthiest men on the planet required precision.
Trish had planned everything down to her shirt—a great find at Goodwill. It was a distressed blue T-shirt with a vintage-looking Wonder Woman logo emblazoned over her breasts. It was a half size too small, but she had on her black velvet suit jacket, so it looked fine. Polished, with a geeky air.
Exactly like her target, Nate Longmire.
People continued to filter in for another thirty minutes. Everyone was here to see Longmire, the newest billionaire to come out of Silicon Valley’s wealth generators. Trish had done her homework. Longmire was twenty-eight, which didn’t exactly make him the “Boy Billionaire” that the press made him out to be. As far as Trish could tell, there wasn’t anything particularly boyish about him.
He was six foot two, broadly built and according to her internet searches, single. But the plan wasn’t to hit on him. The plan was to make him feel like she was a kindred soul in all things nerd—and all things compassionate. The plan was to box him into a corner he could only donate himself out of.
Finally, the lights in the auditorium dimmed and the president of the Student Activities Board came out in a remarkably tight skirt. Trish snorted.
“Welcome to the Speaker Symposium at San Francisco State University. I am your host, Jennifer McElwain...”
Trish tuned the woman out as Jennifer went on about SFSU’s “long and proud” history of social programming, other “distinguished guests,” blah-blah. Instead of listening, Trish scanned the crowd. Over half of the mostly female crowd looked like they were hoping for a wild ride in a limo to happen within an hour.
The sight of so many young, beautiful women made Trish feel uneasy. This was not her world, this college full of young, beautiful people who could casually hook up and hang out without worrying about an unexpected pregnancy, much less how to feed that baby. Trish’s world was one of abject poverty, of never-ending babies that no one planned for and, therefore, no one cared for. No one except her.
Not for the first time, she felt like an interloper. Even though she was in her final year of getting a master’s degree in social work—even though she’d been on this campus for five years—she still knew this wasn’t her world.
Suck it up, she thought to herself as she counted the number of television cameras rolling. Five. The event was getting great press.
She was a woman with a large check and a secondhand Wonder Woman T-shirt waiting to ambush one of the richest men on the planet. That was her, Trish Hunter, in a nutshell.
“...And so,” Jennifer went on, “we are thrilled to have the creator of SnAppShot, Mr. Nate Longmire, here with us tonight to discuss social responsibility and the Giving Pledge!”
The crowd erupted into something that wasn’t quite a cheer but came damn close to a catcall as the Boy Billionaire himself walked on stage.
The audience surged to their feet and Trish surged with them. Longmire walked right past her. She had an excellent view of him.
Oh. Oh, wow. It’s not like she didn’t know what Nate Longmire looked like. She’d read up on his public persona—including that ridiculous article naming him one of the Top Ten Bachelors of Silicon Valley, complete with a photo spread.
But none of the pictures—not a single one of them—did the man justice. Attraction spiked through her as she studied him. In person, the tall frame and the broad shoulders weren’t just eye-catching, they moved with a rippled grace that left her feeling flushed. He had on hipster jeans and Fluevog boots, but he’d paired them with a white tailored shirt with French cuffs and a purple sweater. A striped purple tie was expertly tied around his neck. He wore a scruffy beard and thick horn-rimmed glasses. They were the nerdiest things about him.
Longmire turned his face to the crowd and Trish swore she saw him blush as the thunderous noise continued. He did not preen. If anything, he looked almost uncomfortable. Like he didn’t quite fit in up there.
“Thank you,” he said when the noise did not let up. “Please,” he asked, a note of desperation in his voice, motioning for everyone to sit down. That, at least, worked. “There we go. Good evening, San Francisco State University!”
More applause. Trish swore he winced. He sat on a stool in the middle of the stage, gestured and the lights went down. A single spotlight fell on him. Behind him, a screen lowered to the ground and a slideshow began.
“Technology,” he started as the screen flashed images of attractive people on tablets and smartphones, “has an enormous transformative power. Instant communication has the power to topple governments and reshape societies at a rate of speed that our forefathers—Steve Jobs and Bill Gates—only dreamed of.” The audience laughed at this joke. Longmire gave them a tight smile.
Trish studied him as he spoke. He’d obviously memorized his remarks—not surprising, given that the press had reported his IQ at 145—just above the threshold for a true genius. But when the audience responded in any way, he seemed to draw back, as if he didn’t know what to do when he went off script. Excellent. That was exactly the sort of speaker who wouldn’t know how to tap-dance out of a blatant donation request.
“And you are on the cusp of this technological revolution. You have that power at your fingertips, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.” Longmire paused to take a drink from a water bottle and clear his throat. Trish had the distinct impression that he was forcing himself through this. Interesting, she thought.
“The problem then becomes one of inequality,” Longmire went on. “How can you communicate with the rest of humanity if they don’t have those things?” Images of tribal Africans, destitute southern Asians, aboriginals from Australia and—holy crap, had he actually found a picture of...Trish studied the photo hard before it clicked past. No, that hadn’t been her reservation out in South Dakota, but it might have been the Rosebud lands.
Well. Yay for him acknowledging the state of the Native American reservations in a five-second picture, even if the montage did irritate her. All the people of color had been relegated to the poor section of the talk.
“We have a responsibility to use that power—that wealth,” he went on, “for the betterment of our fellow humans on this planet...”
Longmire talked for another forty-five minutes, calling for the audience members to look beyond their own screens and be conscious consumers of technology. “Be engaged,” he told them. “A rising tide lifts all boats. Solar-powered laptops can lift children out of poverty. Make sure the next Big Thing won’t be lost to poverty and disease. It all starts with you.” This time, when he smiled at the crowd, it was far more confident—and far more practiced. “Don’t let me down.”
The screen behind him shifted to the official Longmire Foundation photo with the Twitter handle and website. The crowd erupted into applause, giving him a six-minute standing ovation while Longmire half sat on his stool, drinking his water and looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here.
The emcee came back out on stage and thanked Longmire for his “absolutely brilliant” talk before she motioned to where the microphones had been set up in the aisles. “Mr. Longmire has agreed to take questions,” Jennifer gushed.
Timing was everything. Trish didn’t want to go first, but she didn’t want to wait until the reporters started to pack up. She needed a lull that was just long enough for her to haul out her check and get to the microphone before anyone could stop her.
About ten students lined up in either aisle. Some questions were about how Longmire had started his company in his dorm room and how a regular student could come up with a billion-dollar idea.
“What’s something that people need?” Longmire replied. “I wanted a way to take my digital photos with me. Adapting a simple idea that would make it easier to share photos with my parents—and make it easy for my parents to share those photos with other people—led me to adapting the SnAppShot app to every device, every platform available. It was ten years of hard work. Don’t believe what the press says. There are no overnight successes in this business. See a need and fill it.”
When he was replying, Trish noted, he had a different style. Maybe it was because he was really only talking to one person? But his words flowed more easily and he spoke with more conviction. The power in his words filled the auditorium. She could listen to that voice all night—he was mesmerizing.
This was a problem. Trish rubbed her hands on her jeans, trying to steady her nerves. Okay, so he spoke quite well off the cuff—which he demonstrated when a few people asked antagonistic questions.
Instead of acting trapped, Longmire’s face would break into a sly smile—one completely different from the cautious movement of lips he’d used during his prepared remarks. Then he would dissect the question at an astonishing rate and completely undercut the argument, all without getting off the stool.
Ah, yes. This was his other reputation, the businessman who, much like his technological forefathers, would occasionally sue people for fun and profit. Nate Longmire had amassed the reputation of a man who never gave up and never surrendered in the courtroom. He’d completely bankrupted his former college friend, the one he’d started SnAppShot with.
Trish caught herself fidgeting with her earrings. Okay, yes—there was always the chance that her little stunt wouldn’t go over well. But she was determined to give it a shot. The only people who lost were the ones who never tried.
Finally, there was only one person in line on her side and Longmire was listening intently to a question from the other aisle. Trish looked back and didn’t see anyone else coming forward. This was it. She edged her check out from behind her seat and then stood in line, less than two feet away from the check. She could grab it and hoist it up in seconds. This would work. It had to.
The person in front of her asked some frivolous question about how Longmire felt about his status as a sex symbol. Even as Trish rolled her eyes, Longmire shot beet red. The question had unsettled him. Perfect.
“We have time for one more question,” Jennifer announced after the nervous laughter had settled. “Yes? Step forward and say your name, please.”
Trish bent over and grabbed her check. It was comically huge—a four-feet long by two-feet tall piece of cardboard. “Mr. Longmire,” she said, holding the check in front of her like a shield. “My name is Trish Hunter and I’m the founder of One Child, One World, a charity that gets school supplies in the hands of underprivileged children on American Indian reservations.”
Longmire leaned forward, his dark eyes fastened on hers. The world seemed to—well, it didn’t fall away, not like it did in stories. But the hum of the audience and the bright lights seemed to fade into the background as Longmire focused all of his attention on her and said, “An admirable cause. Go on, Ms. Hunter. What is your question?”
Trish swallowed nervously. “I recently had the privilege of being named one of Glamour’s Top Ten College Women in honor of the work I’m doing.” She paused to heft her check over her head. “The recognition came with a ten-thousand dollar reward, which I have pledged to One Child, One World in its entirety. You’ve spoken eloquently about how technology can change lives. Will you match this award and donate ten thousand dollars to help children get school supplies?”
The silence that crashed over the auditorium was deafening. All Trish could hear was the pounding of blood in her ears. She’d done it. She’d done exactly what she’d set out to do—cause a scene and hopefully trap one of the richest men in the world into parting with just a little of his hard-earned money.
“Thank you, Ms. Hunter,” the emcee said sharply. “But Mr. Longmire has a process by which people can apply for—”
“Wait,” Longmire cut her off. “It’s true, the Longmire Foundation does have an application process. However,” he said, his gaze never leaving Trish’s face. Heat flushed her body. “One must admire a direct approach. Ms. Hunter, perhaps we can discuss your charity’s needs after this event is over?”
Trish almost didn’t hear the Oohs that came from the rest of the crowd over the rush of blood in her ears. That wasn’t a no. It wasn’t a yes, either—it was a very good side step around giving a hard answer one way or the other. But it wasn’t a no and that was all that mattered. She could still press her case and maybe, just maybe, get enough funding to buy every single kid on her reservation a backpack full of school supplies before school started in five months.
Plus, she’d get to see if Nate was as good-looking up close as he was at a distance. Not that it mattered. Of course it didn’t. “I would be honored,” she said into the microphone and even she didn’t miss the way her voice shook, just a little.
“Bring your check,” he said with a grin that came real close to being wicked. “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen one that large before.”
Laughter rolled through the auditorium as Longmire grinned at her. Behind his glasses, one eyebrow lifted in challenge and then he pointedly looked offstage. The message was clear. Would she meet him backstage?
The emcee was thanking Longmire for his time and everyone was applauding and the rest of the evening was clearly over. Trish managed to snag her small purse—a Coach knockoff—and fight against the rising tide of college kids who had not been invited backstage for a private meeting with the Boy Billionaire. With her small purse and her large check, Trish managed to get up the steps at the side of the stage and duck behind the curtains.
The emcee stood there, glaring at her. “That was some stunt you pulled,” she said in a vicious whisper.
“Thanks!” Trish responded brightly. No doubt, Jennifer had had grand plans for her own post-interview “meeting” with Longmire and Trish had usurped that quite nicely.
“Ah, Ms. Hunter. Hello.” Suddenly, Nate Longmire was standing before her. Trish was a good five-nine—taller in her boots—but she still had to lean her head up to meet his gaze. “Excellent,” he went on, looking down at her as if he was thrilled to see her. “You have the large check. Jennifer, would you take our picture?”
His phone chimed. He looked at it, scowled briefly, and then called up his SnAppShot app. He handed his phone to the emcee, who forced a polite smile. “Hand it up here,” Longmire said, taking half of the check in his hand. Then he put his arm around Trish’s shoulders and whispered, “Smile.”
Trish wasn’t sure she pulled off that smile. His arm around her was warm and heavy and she swore to God that she felt his touch in places he wasn’t touching.
She would not be attracted to him. She couldn’t afford to be attracted to him. All she could do was forge ahead with her plan. Phase One—trap the Boy Billionaire—was complete. Now she had to move onto Phase Two—getting a donation out of him.
Forging ahead had absolutely nothing to do with the way his physical touch was sending shimmering waves of awareness through her body. Nothing.
Jennifer took two shots and then handed back the phone. Longmire’s arm left her and Trish couldn’t help it—she shivered at the loss of his warmth.
“Mr. Longmire,” Jennifer began in a silky tone. “If you recall, I’d invited you out for a dinner after the program. We should get going.”
There was a pause that could only be called awkward. Longmire didn’t even move for three blinks of the eye—as if this statement had taken him quite by surprise and, despite his ferocious business skills and dizzying intellect, he had no possible answer for Jennifer.
Jennifer touched his arm. “Ready?” she said, batting her eyes.
Trish rolled hers—just as Longmire looked at her.
Oops. Busted.
But instead of glaring at her, Longmire looked as if Trish was the answer to all his questions. That look should not do things to her. So, she forcibly decided, it didn’t.
“Gosh—I do remember that, but I think I need to address Ms. Hunter’s question first.” He stepped away from Jennifer much like a crab avoiding a hungry seagull. Jennifer’s hand hung in empty space for a moment before she lowered it back to her side. “Call my office,” Longmire said, turning on his heel. “We’ll try to set something up. Ms. Hunter? Are you coming?”
Trish clutched her check to her chest and hurried after Longmire, trying to match his long strides.
That definitely wasn’t a no.
Now she just needed to get to a yes.
* * *
Nate settled into the Apollo Coffee shop. He liked coffee shops. They were usually busy enough that he didn’t garner too much attention but quiet enough that he could think. He liked to think. It was a profitable, satisfying experience for him, thinking.
Right now he was thinking about the young woman who’d trucked a comically large check into the hired car and carried it into the coffee shop as if it were the most normal thing ever.
Trish Hunter. She was drinking a small black coffee—easily the cheapest thing on the extensive menu. She’d insisted on buying her own coffee, too. Had absolutely refused to let him plunk down the two dollars and change for hers.
That was something...different. He was intrigued, he had to admit.
The large check was wedged behind her chair, looking slightly worse for wear. “That’s not the real check, is it?” he asked over the lip of his grande mocha.
“No. I got a regulation-sized check that went straight into the bank. But this makes for better photos, don’t you think?” she replied easily, without that coy tone women had started using around him about the time he made his first million.
“Not a lot of people would have had the guts to try and trap me like that,” he noted, watching her face closely. She was lovely—long dark hair that hung most of the way down her back, brown skin that graced high cheekbones. With her strong features and strong body—because there was no missing that—she looked like she could be Wonder Woman.
She didn’t act like the kind of women who tried to trap him with their feminine wiles. Instead, she sat across from him, drinking cheap coffee and no doubt waiting to tell him why he should cut her another check.
For a second—the amount of time it took for her to look up at him through thick lashes—Nate almost panicked. He wasn’t particularly good with women, as evidenced by that nagging feeling that he hadn’t handled Jennifer’s dinner invitation well and the fact that he had flat-out ignored that message from Diana—the third one this month.
Ever since things with Diana had fallen apart—and then really gone to hell—he’d kept things simple by simply not getting involved. Which meant that he was horribly out of practice. But there was no way he would let another woman take advantage of him. And that included Diana. Hence why he would just keep right on ignoring her messages.
Trish Hunter wasn’t doing the things that normally made him nervous—treating him like he was a sex god she’d been secretly worshipping for years.
She grinned, a small curve of her lips over the edge of her cup. That grin did something to him—made him feel more sure of himself. Which sounded ridiculous but there it was. “Did it work? The trap, that is.”
Nate smiled back. He was terrible about negotiations with members of the opposite sex. Money, however, was something he’d learned to negotiate. And the fact that this lovely young woman wasn’t playing coy—wasn’t acting like he’d gotten used to women acting around him—only made him more comfortable. Everything was out in the open. He could handle this kind of interaction. “That depends.”
Her eyes widened slightly and a flash of surprise crossed her face. It made her look...innocent. Sweet, even. “Upon?”
“Tell me about your charity.”
She exhaled in relief. It wasn’t a big gesture, but he saw it nonetheless. He wondered what she’d thought he would ask. “Of course. One Child, One World is a registered 501(c) charity. We keep our overhead as low as possible.” Nate sighed. He hated the boring part of charity work. It was, for lack of a better word, boring. “Approximately $0.93 of every dollar donated goes to school supplies...” her voice trailed off. “Not the right answer?”
He sat up a little straighter. She was paying attention to him. He’d be lying if he said it wasn’t flattering. “Those statistics are all required as part of the grant application process,” he replied, waving his hand. “The lawyers insisted. But that’s not what I wanted to know.”
She raised a strong eyebrow and leaned toward him. Yes, he had her full attention—and she had his. “You asked about my charity.”
Oh, yeah—her words were nothing but challenge. This was not a woman telling him whatever he wanted to hear. This was a woman who would push back. Even though he had the money and she had a very cheap coffee, she’d still push back.
That made her even more interesting.
And as long as he kept thinking of it in terms of power and money—instead of noting how pretty she was and how she was looking at him and especially how he was no doubt looking at her—he’d be just fine.
“Tell me about why a young woman would start an organization to get school supplies into kids’ hands. Tell me about...” You. But he didn’t say that because that would cross the line of business and go into the personal. The moment he did that, he’d probably start flailing and knock the coffee into her lap. “Tell me about it.”
“Ah.” She took her time sipping her coffee. “Where did you grow up? Kansas City, right?”
“You’ve done your homework.”
“Any good trap is a well-planned trap,” she easily replied, a note of satisfaction in her voice.
He nodded his head in acknowledgment. “Yes, I grew up in Kansas City. Middle-class household. Father was an accountant, mother taught second grade.” He left out the part about his brothers. “It was a very comfortable life.” He hadn’t realized how comfortable until he’d made his money—and started looking at how other people lived.
Trish smiled encouragingly. “And every August, you got a new backpack, new shoes, new school clothes and everything on that list teachers said you had to have, right?”
“Yes.” He took a calculated risk. Just because she had black hair and skin the color of copper and was running a charity that helped American Indians on reservations didn’t necessarily mean she was a Native American herself. But there was no such thing as coincidence. “I take it you didn’t?”
Something in her face changed—her eyes seemed to harden. “My sixth-grade teacher gave me two pencils once. It was all she could afford.” She dropped her gaze and began to fiddle with one of her earrings. “It was the best present I ever got.”
Nate, being Nate, didn’t have a smooth comeback to that. In fact, he didn’t know what to say at all. His mom, Susan, had worked as a teacher, and she’d occasionally talked about a student who needed “a little extra help,” as she put it. Then she’d fill a backpack with food and some basics and that was that. But that was before she’d had to stay home with Nate’s brother Joe full-time.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said quietly. Once, he hadn’t believed there was a world where a couple of #2 pencils were an amazing gift. But now he knew better.
Her gaze still on her coffee, she gave him a quick, tight smile. He needed to move the conversation forward. “So you’re working to change that?”
“Yes. A new backpack full of everything a kid needs in a classroom.” She shrugged and looked back at him. The hardness fell away. “I mean, that’s the first goal. But it’s an important first step.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “You have bigger plans?”
Her eyes lit up. “Oh, of course! It’s just the beginning.”
“Tell me what you’d do.”
“For so many kids, school is...it’s an oasis in the middle of a desert. The schools need to open earlier, stay open later. They need to serve a bigger breakfast, a bigger lunch and everyone needs an afternoon snack. Too many kids aren’t getting regular meals at home and it’s so hard to study on an empty stomach.” As she said this last point, she dropped her gaze again.
She was speaking from experience, he realized. Two pencils and nothing to eat at home.
“Indians on the rez love basketball and skateboarding,” she went on. “Having better courts and parks on the school grounds could keep kids from joining gangs.”
“You have gang problems?” He always associated gangs with inner-city drug wars or something.
She gave him a look that walked a fine line between “amused” and “condescending.” “Some people have perverted our warrior culture into a gang mentality. We lose kids that way and we rarely get them back.”
He thought over her wish list, such as it was. “I haven’t heard anything about computers.”
She paused, then gave him that tight smile again. “It’s the ultimate goal, one that will require far more than ten or even twenty thousand dollars of funding. Most schools don’t have the infrastructure to support an internet connection, much less cloud storage. I want kids to have basic supplies and full bellies before I get to that. You understand, don’t you?”
He nodded. He’d toured some bad schools—mold growing on the walls, windows taped shut to keep the glass from falling out, ancient textbooks that smelled like rot. But what she was describing...
“What is it you want from me, then? Just ten grand?”
The moment he said it, he realized that maybe he shouldn’t have phrased it quite like that. Especially not when Trish leaned back in her chair, one arm on the armrest, the other curled up under her chin—except for her index finger, which she’d extended over her lips as if they were in a library and she was shushing him. She met his gaze full-on, a hint of challenge lurking in her eyes. The air grew tight with tension.
God, she was beautiful and there was something else behind that gaze—an interest in more than just his bank account. He should ask her out. She wasn’t intimidated by him and she wasn’t throwing herself at him. She was here for the money and all her cards were up front, no hiding funding requests behind manipulative sexual desire. Hell. He didn’t meet too many women who could just sit and have a conversation with him.
Except...dating was not his strong suit and he was pretty sure that asking a woman out right after she’d requested a donation would probably cross some ethical line.
Damn.
“Of course, One Child, One World would be delighted with any funding the Longmire Foundation saw fit to disperse,” she said, sounding very much like someone who’d written a few grants in her time.
“How’d you get to be a Woman of the Year?”
“One of my professors nominated me,” she told him. “I didn’t know she was doing it. One day, I’m trying to organize a bake sale to raise a hundred dollars to cover postage back to the rez and the next, I’m being flown to New York and given a lot of money.” She blushed. “I mean, a lot of money for me. I’m sure ten grand isn’t very much to you.”
“I can remember when that much was a lot of money,” he admitted. He winced. That was a totally jerky thing to say and he knew it.
He was about to apologize when she said, “Tell me about your charity,” turning his question back on him.
He regarded her for a second. “Is that another way of asking why I’m giving money away for free?”
“You did go to all that trouble of earning it in the first place,” she pointed out.
He shrugged. “Like I said, I had a comfortable childhood. We didn’t always get everything we wanted—I didn’t get a car for my sixteenth birthday or anything—but we were fine.”
How he’d wanted a car. Brad, his older brother, had a half-rusted Jeep he’d bought with lawn-mowing money that he swore made it a breeze to get a date.
Back then, Nate had absolutely no prospect of a date. He was tall and gangly, with dorky glasses and awful skin. They were still trying to integrate Joe into a mainstream classroom at that point and Nate was mercilessly mocked by his peers. The only possible way he could have gotten a girl was if he’d had a sweet ride to pick her up in.
Alas. No car. No date.
“Anyway,” he went on, shaking his head, “I made that first million and I felt like I’d made it. But a weird thing happened—that million spawned a second million, then a third. And then the buyout happened and now...” He gave her an apologetic smile. “Honestly, what the hell am I going to do with a billion dollars? Buy a country and rule as a despot?”
It wasn’t as if this background was entirely new information—he’d given interviews explaining the rationale for his foundation—but those were formal things with scripted answers, preapproved by his assistant, Stanley.
Right now, sitting here in a coffee shop with Ms. Trish Hunter, it didn’t feel like an interview. It felt like a conversation. An honest one.
Nate nodded toward her shirt. “I bought Superman #1—you know?”
A smile quirked at her lips. “I do know. Didn’t you pay the highest recorded price for it?”
“I did. It was wild—I felt like I was jumping off a cliff, to pay five million for a comic book.”
“Did you at least read it? Or did you lock it up?” The way she asked the question made it clear—she would have read it.
“I read it. Carefully.” He waggled his eyebrows at her, as if he were saying something salacious. She laughed. It was as close to flirting as he got. “With tongs. In a temperature-controlled room.”
Her eyes lit up. “Were you wearing one of those hazmat suits, too?”
“No. Just gloves.” She giggled at the image and he laughed with her. It had been totally ridiculous. “But what else am I going to do with this much money besides buy comic books?”
“You donated a lot to mental-health research,” she said. She was leaning forward slightly, her body language indicating that she was really listening.
“I have a...personal connection to that.” When she waited for more, he added, “I keep my family private. It’s the only way to stay sane in this industry.”
Yes, he had set up an endowment into schizophrenia, depression and bipolar research. That was the public action. The private one had been setting up a trust fund for the care of Joe. Mom was able to stay home full-time with Joe now, and they had reliable home health aides to assist. Nate had tried to give his parents a million dollars or an all-expenses paid trip around the world, but it turned out that peace of mind about their youngest son was all they really wanted.
And after what had happened with Diana...
Nate’s private life stayed private. Period.
“Ah, understood.” She tilted her head. “That explains why there’s no press on it. I wondered.”
He stared at her. Yeah, he expected that she’d done her homework, but it was unusual to have someone admit to digging into his past—and then agree not to discuss it. As the shock of her blunt attitude wore off, he felt himself grinning at her even more. “Thanks. So, you know—I’m rich, I no longer run my own company—what am I going to do with the rest of my life? I set up a fund for my niece, bought my brother a house, took care of—well, I took care of the rest of my family, fended off a few lawsuits. That only left me with about a billion. Giving away the money seemed like something to do. The Longmire Foundation has given away fourteen million dollars and I haven’t even made a dent yet.”
That was the truth. He was making more in interest than he could give away. The simple truth was that her request for a matching grant of ten thousand dollars was the product of about five minutes for him, if that. He could add two or three zeroes to the end of the check and never even notice the money was gone.
“Is that what makes you happy?”
He looked at her funny. Happy? He was rich. He wasn’t the same gangly nerd he’d been in high school. He was a ruthless businessman, a hugely successful one. He owned his own jet, for crying out loud.
But there was something in the way she asked it...
“I’m doing good. That’s what counts.”
“Of course.” She opened her mouth, paused—and then angled her body toward his. Her gaze dropped again, but only for a second. She looked up at him through her lashes. Energy—attraction—seemed to arc between them as he stared at her.
Her eyes were a deep brown, like dark chocolate. Sweet, yes—but much more than that. There was innocence, but now it had an edge to it—an edge that held a hell of a lot of promise.
He leaned forward, eager to hear what she would say—and whether or not it would sound like legal boilerplate or if it would sound like something else.
He leaned right into his coffee and promptly spilled what was left of his grande mocha into her lap.
“Whoa!” she shouted, hopping to her feet. The dark stain spread down her leg.
“Oh, damn—I’m so sorry,” he mumbled. What had he been thinking? Of course she wasn’t going to say something along the lines of “Maybe we should discuss this over dinner.” He grabbed some napkins and thrust them at her. “Here.”
This was terrible. He’d been doing just fine when it’d been a business negotiation, but the moment he hoped it’d go past that—it blew up in his face.
“I’m so sorry,” he repeated. “I’ll pay for the cleaning bill.”
She laughed. And after she’d checked her seat for coffee, she sat down, spread a napkin over her lap, and grinned at him. “Don’t worry about it.”
“But your clothes...” Even now, he could see the droplets of coffee on her shirt.
“I’m used to spills and stains. Don’t worry about it.”
He wasn’t sure if he believed her, but then he met her gaze. It was full of humor, yes—but he didn’t get the sense that she was laughing at him. Just the situation. Clumsy billionaire knocks coffee into her lap.
He had to get out of here before he did even worse damage to her clothes or his pride. “Listen, why don’t you come by my office in two weeks? I’ll have my assistant start the paperwork and we can settle the terms then.” He fished out his card, which just said, “Longmire Foundation,” with the address and email. “And please—bring the dry-cleaning bill. It hurts me to think that I might have ruined your shirt.”
A second too late, he realized he was staring at her chest. The jacket had fallen open a little more. It was a very nice chest.
God, what was he doing? Trying to make this worse? He shook some sense—he hoped—back into his head and handed over the card. “Say, Friday at two?”
“I have to work.” She took the card and studied it. “This is in the Filmore area.”
“Yes. I keep an office close to where I live.” She was still looking at the card. “Is that a problem?”
“No, it’s fine. I just thought you’d be down in the Mission or in SOMA. Close to where all the other tech billionaires hang out.”
He waved his hand. “I like to walk to the office when it’s nice out.” She gaped at him, as if she couldn’t believe a billionaire would stoop to walking on his own two feet instead of being carried on a gold-plated litter by trained elephants. “Truth be told, we’re not some sort of secret billionaire club. And I don’t really have much interest in the constant one-upmanship that happens when you get us all together. I like peace and quiet and a nice view. I like to be a little bit not what people expect.”
That got her attention. She looked up at him, her dark eyes wide and...encouraging?
If she could still look at him after he dumped his drink all over her, then maybe...
She went back to studying the card. “I won’t be able to get there until five. Is that too late?”
“Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll make sure Stanley knows you’re coming.”
“Stanley?”
“My assistant.” Actually, Stanley was more than that—he picked out Nate’s clothes and made sure Nate projected the right amount of geek-cred cool. If only Stanley had been here tonight, no one would have gotten a damp lap.
He’d have Stanley start the due diligence on her charity to make sure her numbers were correct.
She grinned up at him again, as if she wasn’t sure how to process an assistant named Stanley. “I look forward to our meeting.” She stood, crumpling up the napkins and stuffing them into her empty cup. Then she extended her hand. “Mr. Longmire, it has been an honor. Thank you so much for considering my proposal.”
“It’s a worthy cause.” He took her hand in his and tried to shake it, but the feeling of her slender fingers warming his momentarily froze his brain. He wanted to say something suave and sophisticated that let her know he was interested in more than her charity.
He had nothing.
Maybe their next meeting would go more smoothly—in his office, Stanley would be ready to swoop in and save Nate from himself as needed. “And again—sorry about the coffee.”
She waved him off and retrieved her large check from behind the chair. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to be too splattered. “I’ll see you on Friday in two weeks.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” That got him a nice smile, warm and friendly and comforting—like she realized exactly how socially awkward he really was and was rewarding him for doing a decent job.
Nate watched her figure retreat from the coffee shop and disappear into the foggy darkness, the check glowing white. Trish Hunter. Yes, Stanley would have to do some due diligence on her charity. And on the woman herself. Nate wanted to know more about her—a lot more.
He sent for a car to take him home and was picking up the coffee cups—his mother had always taught him to pick up after himself and being a self-made billionaire hadn’t changed that—when his phone rang. Not the chime that went with a message, but the ring of someone actually calling him.
His mother. She was pretty much the only person who called him, anyway. She was too old to learn to text, she said. That was her story and she was sticking to it.
“Hey, Mom,” he said, heading out to the sidewalk.
“Nate? Oh, honey.” She was crying. Nate froze halfway out the door. Instantly, all thoughts of Trish Hunter and large checks and coffee were pushed from his mind.
“Mom? What’s wrong?”
“Nate—oh, God. There’s been an accident.”
“Dad?” Panic clawed at him. His parents were only in their fifties. He didn’t want to lose either one just yet.
“He’s fine. Oh, Nate...we need you to come home. It’s Brad and Elena...”
“Are they okay?” But even as he said it, he knew the answer was no. His mother was crying. Something horrible had happened to his older brother and his sister-in-law. “What about Jane?” When his mom didn’t answer right away, Nate nearly threw up. “Mom—is Jane okay?”
“The baby is fine. We were watching her so they could go out... Come home, Nate. Come home now.”
Dear God in heaven. “I’m on my way, Mom. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” He hung up and called Stanley. This was one of the benefits of being a billionaire. He didn’t have to deal with emergency flights. He had an assistant—and a private jet.
“Stanley, get the plane ready. I need to go to Kansas City. Right now.”
