Despite the Gentleman's Riches: Sweet Billionaire Romance (For Richer or Poorer Book 1) (10 page)

To my surprise, Lena blended in at the Cuadic meeting as if she'd been born to fight the good fight of environmental protection and social justice. Kimberly immediately dragged the newcomer away from my side to introduce her to the other non-profit members, and Lena's easy smiles and facile small talk reminded me of the way her brother had worked a similar crowd not many days before. My charge definitely wasn't the kind of teenager who would need to be bailed out in a social setting.

And I was glad that the teenager didn't need my help because her absence allowed me to pepper Ms. Cooper with questions. Lena was less of a conundrum now than she had been when I first met her, but I still yearned for some professional advice.

"What do you think I should do?" I finished, having run through the highlights of my new job and Lena's basic history, although leaving out the identity of my employer. It still felt weird to be hired by the opposition, even though Jack seemed quite content to let me take whatever stance I wanted in relation to the proposed power plant. Deep down, I knew I was wading through the murky waters of a conflict of interest, but I couldn't see any way to reach the shore without either quitting my job (and losing my trailer) or quitting Cuadic (and losing my mind).

"You seem to be on the right track," Ms. Cooper said, peering over her glasses at my charge as the girl made the dour conspiracy theorist in our midst laugh with real delight. "If school hadn't just let out for the summer, I'd suggest you bring Lena by to try out a lab with my students. Maybe you could get her involved in water testing in the meantime?" Our group had started a quarterly campaign of identifying insects in the river that would be most affected by Clean Power's plant, on the theory that a baseline would make it easier to shut the operation down if the new industry polluted the water enough to change the habitat for the worse. Water testing had been my introduction to the non-profit group, and it
did
seem like a good way to engage scientifically minded youngsters, even ones like Lena who were dubious about formalized schooling.

But that wasn't quite what I'd been asking. I was hoping that Ms. Cooper would have some insight into Lena's mental health, some tips on how to bring a troubled teenager out of her shell. Before I could probe deeper, though, Ms. Cooper had moved on to another topic.

"That reminds me," the teacher continued. "I'm going to bring up a proposal at the meeting tonight, and I'm hoping I can count on you to support me."

"Of course," I answered, without even asking for any details. Ms. Cooper was the most thoughtful, level-headed member of our organization, and if she thought a new project was good for Cuadic, then I was sure she was right. Although it was a little less clear why the older woman would need my support—everyone present tended to look up to the teacher the same way I did, and any motion she proposed was bound to succeed.

"Let's get this meeting going." Brett's voice rose above the chatter, putting a halt to our conversation before I could ask for more information. With a shrug, I caught Lena's eye and headed over to join her in pulling the folding tables into a circle and lining up chairs for us to settle into.

***

"...which brings us to our final order of business," Brett said two hours later. I'd been waiting for Ms. Cooper to present her proposal all evening, the anticipation making me less patient than usual with Tom's paranoid interjections and with the way the Señora tended to use this time as an opportunity to get up on her soapbox. Despite having less fun than usual, I'd still managed to cover the sheet in front of me with plenty of notes for the minutes, which I'd type up later in my role as secretary, and I'd also volunteered to help out with envelope-stuffing for a membership mailing. But I was definitely ready for something more interesting to occur. Something like Ms. Cooper's proposal, which must be what Brett was now introducing in his usual, roundabout manner.

"As most of you know," our organizer was saying, "I've been working as a liaison with several national environmental groups over the last few months, and I was recently surprised to be offered a job as a field manager for one of them. While I'll hate to leave Cuadic behind, I feel that this is a great way to have even more impact in the environmental arena."

"Which leaves us without an organizer," Ms. Cooper broke in before Brett could wax more eloquent about his career. Was this the moment when my mentor wanted to make sure I would back her up? But her words weren't anything out of the ordinary since the teacher often let Brett lead the meeting even though she was Cuadic's president and technically in charge of that role. So I sat back, but kept my ears peeled for the opposition my mentor obviously expected.

"We'll need to form a committee to start thinking about how to find another organizer," Kimberly suggested, already making a list on the notebook she kept in front of her throughout our meetings. "An email to our membership list, maybe an ad in a few of the local papers...."

Others around the room began to toss out further ideas, and I dutifully jotted down their suggestions at the same time Kimberly did. But as the reality of what we were doing sunk in, each word felt like a stab through my heart, yet more proof that Cuadic members would never take me seriously, no matter how many tasks I volunteered for. Sure, I had found a way to earn my living for the moment, but Lena wouldn't stay in our backwoods town forever, and then I'd be forced to hunt for another minimum-wage position like the one I'd held at Food City. Being paid to do something I was passionate about would be a dream come true, but it was becoming clear that Cuadic's members either didn't realize how much I yearned for the organizing position, or they didn't think I was qualified for it.

Apparently, not all of my compatriots felt that way though. "Just a minute," Ms. Cooper interrupted, her words carrying over the crowd in the same way she brought her classes to order without really raising her voice. "I think we have a good applicant right here in this room," she continued once the roar had died down. "It makes a lot of sense to hire one of our own board members who already has experience with our organization rather than training someone new off the street. What do you think of Ginny as an organizer?"

Every eye in the room turned my way, and I felt my cheeks heating up in embarrassment.
Be careful what you wish for....
I was honored that Ms. Cooper had thought of me, that she had even taken the time to warn me (in a roundabout fashion) before the meeting began. But now that I started to envision what my job would be like as Cuadic's organizer, I suddenly wasn't sure I was up to the task. Sure, I'd be paid to do what I loved, but I'd also have to find a way to manage this pack of unruly people, some of whom had gone to school for nearly as many years than I'd been alive. How could my night-school education stack up?

If I hadn't agreed to support Ms. Cooper's proposal earlier, I probably would have backpedaled now, citing my inability to handle the position. Instead, the best I could do to live up to the teacher's good opinion of me was to sit up straight and keep silent.

"What a great idea!" Kimberly was the first to speak, but other members quickly came around, expressing their approval in a wave of support. As Ms. Cooper's candidate, my selection was almost a done deal. Except...

"Don't you think we should run a background check on her?" Tom asked, his question cutting through the felicitations.

"Are you serious?" Ms. Cooper asked, her voice sterner than I was accustomed to in a non-school setting. "Ginny has been coming to our meetings since she was a sophomore in high school. Surely we all
know
her."

"She could still be a government spy...." Tom started, but his voice was drowned out by the laughter filling the room. For all intents and purposes, I was hired.

***

The delivery boy showed up after our meeting had ended, but while most of the members were still lingering around the snack table. I had thanked Ms. Cooper so many times that I think she was starting to get sick of me, and even the night-owl Lena looked like she was about ready to head home to her borrowed bed. In fact, given all of the life changes I had to ponder, I was about to use my charge as an excuse to leave early when a stranger's voice broke through the gossip.

"I've got packages here for Ginny and Lena," the teenager called from across the room. He had probably been standing just inside the door for fifteen minutes, trying to figure out how to get a word in edgewise, before finally succumbing to the urge to yell. I understood his impatience—Cuadic sometimes made me want to tear my hair out too.

But a package for me and Lena didn't really make sense. Not only did I seldom order anything online, I definitely wouldn't have had a parcel sent to the community center where our meetings were held. Still, every eye in the room was once again trained on me, and I opened my mouth to protest...only to have Lena hiss in my ear.

"It's from Jack," she whispered, cluing me in to what should have been obvious. Especially once I saw what the boy was holding—a huge bouquet of hothouse blooms, which he thrust into my hands, along with a smaller box of chocolates for Lena. The card, when I peeked inside, simply said, "For my girls."

"Oh, how sweet!" one of the more grandmotherly Cuadic members cooed. "Ginny has a gentleman caller!"

"Who's it from?" demanded Kimberly, clearly hurt that I hadn't shared my dating escapades with her, even though there was really nothing to tell. What could I say?
Yeah, my car wouldn't start so Cuadic's worst enemy drove me home...and now he's sending me flowers.
Better that Lena and I get out of there before Jack's identity came to light.

Plus, I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about the gift. Romantic, maybe, but even though I loved to garden, I wasn't so keen on cut flowers. Given my very limited budget, flowers seemed like a waste of good money, especially since the blooms would wither away in short order.

Now, a box of chocolates...despite my dietary obsessions and the equally ephemeral nature of the gift, that was the kind of offering I could get behind. But a glance at Lena's face showed that she wasn't entirely thrilled by her brother's gesture either, so I just threw a few good nights over my shoulder and allowed the girl to lead me toward my car.

"What's wrong?" I asked, once we'd attained the quiet of the parking lot and couldn't be overheard. My charge merely shrugged, the dark making it hard to decipher her facial expression, but I had a feeling that Lena was as closed down now as she'd been when I first met her, as if Jack's present made her feel even more alone than her lack of interested parents did. Despite his glibness, I suspected that Mr. Fish Sticks had intended the chocolate as an apology for his absence, but the gesture had clearly backfired.

"I'm sure he misses you," I offered, although I
wasn't
entirely certain of that fact. After all, Jack was probably busy with whatever meetings had called him away, and for all I knew, he had a woman in every city to keep him company. A phone call would have been a true sign that Jack felt his sister's absence keenly, but that would have taken much more effort than simply clicking a few buttons to have gifts delivered to our door. As much as I hated to admit it, the data
did
all point to the fact that thoughts of his kid sister and her companion were probably pretty far from Mr. Fish Sticks' mind at the moment.

"Whatever," Lena said, her voice as cold and petulant as when she'd cut off Mr. Reed's advances. But this time, I sensed that the girl's mood was real. "Can we go home now? I'm tired."

And when I thought of Cuadic's battle, of Lena's difficult home life, and of Mr. Fish Sticks' guile, I was suddenly exhausted too.

A few days turned into a week, and the only sign of Jack was the daily delivery of flowers and candy. Or, I should say, the attempted delivery. On the third day, when two unopened boxes of chocolate had already piled up beside Lena's duffel bag at the end of the couch, I decided to put my foot down.

"Are you going to get in trouble if I send these back, Jimmy?" I asked when I opened the door to yet another bouquet of blooms. By this point, the delivery boy and I were on a first-name basis, he'd learned to greet Florabelle properly, and I held out a little hope that Lena might show some interest in a nice kid her own age. No such luck...not that I blamed my charge for giving Jimmy the cold shoulder since he was always the bearer of perceived snubs from her older brother.

"Um, no, I don't think so," Jimmy stuttered, peering around me to where Lena was carefully scratching Florabelle's neck and pretending not to notice our visitor. "That's never happened to me before. Don't you like flowers?"

Poor kid, caught in the middle of a battle he knew nothing about. Rather than airing our dirty laundry in public, I shrugged and said, "Flowers are okay, but I don't think Lena is a fan of chocolate." The girl shot me a glance, making it clear that she
was
paying attention to every word that passed between me and our confused delivery boy, and that she knew I was making nice. I'd put my dietary restrictions on hold last night to bake gooey brownies out of a box in an attempt to cheer my charge up, and she'd eaten a sizable chunk, despite the frown that remained plastered on her face both before and after the snack. Lena liked chocolate as much as I did, just not
these
boxes of bribery and neglect.

"So, you want to keep the flowers, but not the chocolate?" Jimmy asked, wrinkling up his brow. Okay, I could see Lena's point—the boy wasn't the brightest bulb in the box and I probably wouldn't want to cultivate a friendship with him either.

"No, you can take both of them back," I clarified. "Wait a sec, though." I grabbed the card out of the bouquet and snagged a pen off the kitchen table.
Thinking of you
, lied the interior, and I crossed off the words in order to scrawl my own message in reply:
Returned to sender
.

"Here," I finished, handing the card back to our delivery boy. "Make sure this goes back with them."

"Well, the person who buys the flowers doesn't actually come in and pick them out," Jimmy explained, clearly trying to figure out how he'd get my note to someone he'd never met. "He just calls us up and gives his credit card number...."

"Oh, I know precisely how easy it is for Jack to send us presents," I said, letting my irritation show despite my knowledge that poor, dumb Jimmy wasn't the one at fault. "And when he calls you up tomorrow with another order, you can read my note back to him."

I wanted to slam the door in the delivery boy's face, but instead I grabbed one of Lena's boxes of chocolates off the floor. "Here, this is for you to snack on while you drive," I finished, handing off the unwanted gift.
Someone
should get enjoyment out of the expensive candy, and I wanted to make up for any snarkiness I'd aimed in an improper direction.

I was rewarded by two smiles, one from the teenager at the door and another from the teenager on the couch. Mission accomplished.

***

I had hoped that Jack would both literally and figuratively get my message, spurring him to come home or at least to give Lena a call letting her know that she hadn't been forgotten. But, instead, Jimmy showed up at our door the next afternoon with another offering.

"Seriously?" The word slipped out of my mouth as soon as I saw who was knocking. The poor kid was holding a potted plant in one hand and a bundle of balloons in the other, and I had a hard time believing that even Mr. Fish Sticks was so dense that he thought simply switching gifts around would be enough to appease his little sister.

"Does he think I'm
five
?" Lena asked from where she'd come to stand by my side. The girl's words were angry, but at least she was engaging with the world again, which decreased some of the worry that had been building every time I waded through the teenager's deep silences. Anger beat out depression any day of the week.

"Here, give them to me," Lena demanded, and I raised my eyebrows in surprise. Was my charge going to accept Jack's gift after all? But she simply snatched the ribbons out of Jimmy's hand, then released the colorful orbs into the air, where they quickly rose out of sight—not particularly good for the environment, but a huge stress reliever if the expression on the girl's face was a realistic indication of her feelings.

"And I'm guessing you want me to take back the plant," Jimmy said, looking back and forth between the two angry women in front of him, and I tried to soften my expression into a smile as I nodded my head in confirmation. "Maybe you want to write on the card?" the kid offered.

"Nope," I replied simply. "He'll get the message."

But Mr. Fish Sticks did
not
get the message. The next day, Jimmy was back with a teddy bear for Lena and a basket of fruit for me, and on the sixth day the offering was fancy cheeses and spa toiletries. I got madder and Lena got quieter as the evidence of Jack's disinterest grew, and it was growing harder and harder not to shoot the messenger. But I did my best to give the kid a break and send him away each time with a kind word, if no smile.

Between deliveries, I tried to think of outings that would take Lena's mind off her brother, but the interested girl who had glad-handed Cuadic members was now gone, hidden beneath a cloud of despair. The teenager wasn't particularly unpleasant—I could tell that Lena was trying not to bite my head off in the same way I had tried to be cordial to the delivery boy. But the best Lena could come up with right now was silence.

Until, that is, her stillness broke in the middle of the sixth night. I awoke to the sound of sobs emanating from my charge, who was supposed to be sound asleep on the couch.
Should I give her privacy or offer comfort?
I wondered, listening to the teenager's labored breathing and stifled moans. There was nothing I could say to cheer her up since I was coming to believe, just like Lena did, that Mr. Fish Sticks found business far more enticing than his sister. But perhaps my mere presence would help a little bit?

So I padded down the hall in my bare feet and slipped my arm around the teenager's shoulders as she sat hunched over at the edge of the sofa. Lena stiffened at first, but then collapsed into my embrace, turning her face to soak my t-shirt with tears and snot. I didn't mind—I was just gratified that the girl had curled toward me rather than away.

"Shh, it's okay, let it all out," I soothed, rubbing circles around her back until my charge quieted. Then, as solid proof that Lena wasn't quite fully grown quite yet, she fell asleep in my arms.

***

I gently laid the girl back down on the sofa and pulled the covers up to her chin before stealing her cellphone and walking outside for some privacy. It was 3 a.m., but I didn't care—Jack was overdue for a wakeup call.

"Lena? Are you alright?" My employer answered on the fourth ring, his voice bleary from sleep, but I had no pity to waste on Mr. Fish Sticks.

"This isn't Lena," I growled, breathing in short gasps as the anger I'd been storing up all week came to a head. "Lena is sound asleep on the couch after crying her eyes out."

"Ginny?" Jack said next, still sounding a bit befuddled, but I didn't give my employer time to ask any more questions.

"Why was she crying, you might ask?" I continued, raising my voice slightly as I paced up and down in my backyard. It was pitch black outside and I couldn't see where I was going, but if I stubbed my toe, the physical pain would be a welcome reprieve from the ache that had been sitting on my chest for days. "Your little sister was sobbing her eyes out because she feels abandoned by her brother, who seems to think that impersonal gifts are an appropriate stand-in for his presence. But they're
not
. Fancy chocolate might be appreciated by some teenage girls, but if you're richer than God and if you get your secretary to order the candy for you, then you haven't sacrificed anything and you
definitely
haven't proven that you know or care about your sister. All your gifts did was make Lena realize how unimportant she is to you. So if that was your goal, then
good job
."

I still had several more paragraphs of ire to toss in Jack's direction, but my employer hadn't gone to law school for nothing. Even woken out of a sound sleep, he was quick to collect his wits and go on the offensive. "I'm sorry Lena has been difficult," Jack said carefully, refusing to be sucked into my argument and failing to add that I was being paid to handle exactly this sort of difficulty. "I'll be sure to speak with my sister about her behavior when I return."

"Not good enough," I interjected, his words failing to mollify me in the least. "Lena hasn't been
difficult
. She's been acting like any normal teenager would when the only family member she currently has contact with shows that she's less important to him than..." My words trailed off as I realized I had no idea what Jack had been up to over the last week.

"A corporate merger," Jack supplied, which told me nothing except the one essential fact—business had consumed Mr. Fish Stick's attention when he should have been thinking about his more important responsibilities.

"Whatever," I said, a hint of a smile coming to my lips at the use of one of Lena's favorite words. But my mood quickly turned grim once again. "I'm sure that increasing your net worth by another billion dollars seems very important to you right now, but there are other people who can take over the world in your stead. On the other hand, there's no one else who can make Lena feel like she's more than just a bit of jetsam tossed overboard to lighten your load."

My diatribe finally wound down to its inevitable conclusion as chagrin over my forwardness turned rage into regret. What exactly had my planned conclusion been when I picked up the phone? Surely not just to rant and rave, sounding like a hysterical female whom no well-reasoned lawyer would ever take seriously.
I planned to tender my resignation if Jack doesn't come home tomorrow and make things right with his sister
, I remembered as I sank down into a crouch on the wet grass. But my trump card now looked weak and unlikely to succeed in light of my irrational behavior.

And was I really serious about quitting? From a purely financial perspective, if I lost my job now, I was screwed. Jack had set out cash for me each day when he was at home, but I hadn't gotten paid since my employer left town, which meant I was short the money I needed to pay my lot rent this week. Which in turn meant that Mr. Reed would soon be breathing down my neck once again, and I wasn't willing to go to the lengths he suggested to keep my home.

Which meant that I really should grovel and see if I could keep my job. However, as much as I loved Pippin and Florabelle, I'd come to care for Lena more, the irascible teenager wriggling into my heart even though I was the one who had originally sought entry into hers. And I now realized that I was willing to forfeit whatever it took to help Lena find the support she needed from her brother. Because, even though I had survived losing my family at an early age, I was determined that Lena would never be forced endure a similar trauma on my watch.

Which is why I went ahead and laid everything on the line, even though the words made an uncontrollable tremor run down my spine. "You need to come home, Jack, or I'm quitting. Tomorrow."

My eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough by this point that I could barely make out the shape of my apple tree on the other side of the vegetable garden. As I waited for my employer's reply, the sapling seemed to be whispering advice across the expanse of night-muted greenery, but I didn't speak tree and couldn't be sure whether I was being egged on, or whether Pippin was begging me to pull back and think things through. So I just clenched Lena's phone in a white-knuckled grip and waited for the other shoe to drop.

"My plane can be ready in an hour," Jack said at last, and I couldn't tell whether he was upset or simply resigned. "I'll be there before you wake up."