The Billionaire Dating Game: A Romance Novel (32 page)

I stopped, leaned against the nearest building. My cheeks were wet, but I hadn’t noticed when I’d started crying again. Maybe my tears weren’t spent after all. Maybe I would cry forever, cry until I died of dehydration.

A woman pushed past me, jostling my bag from my shoulder. She didn’t even turn to look at me.

“Slow down,” I whispered.
Slow down. A little girl is sick.

What matters more than that?

It was late by the time I got back to the hospital. Emma and Arlen were already asleep. Arlen had an IV hooked up to her arm and there were monitors all behind her bed. Her whole midsection was wrapped up in a bandage. Poor girl.

I sat down next to the hospital bed. There were bouquets of flowers lined up on the table, probably from Emma’s friends. I hoped they’d been by to keep her company. Emma’s eyelids fluttered open when I put my bag down.

“Hey, lamebutt,” she whispered, stifling a yawn.

“Hey, dorkface. How is everything?”

“It’s alright.”

Emma blinked and wiped the sleepiness from her eyes. She sat up slowly, cradling Arlen gently so as not to wake her.

“Do you need anything? I brought chocolate pudding.”

“I need chocolate pudding.”

“Well, I brought it for Arlen, but…”

“Lisa, don’t you even tease me about chocolate pudding.”

I smiled weakly.

“Okay. There’s probably enough for both of you.”

I took out the pudding cup and ripped it open. Emma tried to get her arm out from under Arlen, but Arlen whimpered and squirmed.

“Hold up,” I said. “Don’t wake her up.”

“I can’t get my arm out—”

“Wait.”

I held out a spoon of pudding in front of Emma’s face.

“Are you feeding me?” She laughed a bit. “Now I know how Arlen feels.”

“Do you want pudding or not? Here comes the airplane.”

Her laugh was stifled by a mouthful of pudding.

“Oh, that’s heavenly,” she said, leaning back in the hospital bed. “Mmmm. Can you go ahead and hook that up intravenously?”

“You want to mainline your chocolate pudding? Junkie.”

“Absolutely. Give me another spoon of that.”

“Nah, this spoonful is for me.”

“You jerk!”

“It’s the pudding tax. One for you, one for me. Or do I have to teach you about sharing, too?”

Emma grinned, her bottom lip smeared with chocolate. We ate the pudding spoon by spoon. In the background, Arlen’s monitor emitted a steady whir. Every once in a while, something would beep softly.

“So what is all this?” I asked, gesturing with the spoon.

“They had her under anesthetic for the spinal tap,” Emma said. She looked down and brushed a lock of Arlen’s hair away from her face. “So they hooked her up to all these machines for the procedure.”

“Did the doctors find anything else out?”

“They got some of the blood tests back, so they know what kind of cells are in there. And they’re going to start chemo first thing tomorrow.”

Emma’s lip quivered, and she bit down on it, looking away.

I put down the empty pudding cup and reached out to her for a sideways hug.

“It’ll be alright,” I said, not knowing how. “Arlen’s a strong kid.”

“I don’t know… I don’t know why this happened.”

“Me either,” I said helplessly. “There’s no reason.”

“I just think… if there was something I had done earlier. If I had pushed for another doctor to see her the first time she was sick—”

“You didn’t know. None of us did. Not even the doctors.”

A slow tear made its way down Emma’s cheek. I wiped it away with a tissue.

“It’s no use,” Emma said. “I’ve cried so much my cheeks are going to prune anyway.”

She looked up at me.

“How did Mom handle it all by herself?”

I sat back in the chair. We didn’t talk much about Mom anymore. Emma had gotten into a fight with her about Joey when they’d started dating. My mom had told her that all men were trouble, and had forbidden her from seeing him. Of course, that only made Emma more desperate to prove her wrong. And when she’d gotten pregnant while still in high school, the fallout was vicious. By that time, I was in college and couldn’t be the peacekeeper anymore at home. Emma and Mom were at each other’s throats.

Emma had moved in with Joey the week she turned eighteen. A month later, Mom died of a heart attack. And four months after that, Emma had Arlen—and Joey disappeared. It had taken almost a year to find him and get the lawyers to make him pay child support.

“She did the best she could,” I said finally. “Just like we’re doing.”

We’ll be her parents.
That’s what I’d said. Only, it was harder to be a parent than I thought. My lips pressed together.

“I’m sorry,” Emma said.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for—”

“Yes, I do. You shouldn’t have to deal with any of this. If it hadn’t been for me getting knocked up, you would have finished college.”

“Don’t—hey. Hey.”

She was sniffling, her hand pressed up against her mouth to make the sobs come out quietly. Arlen wiggled on her lap.

“Emma, don’t blame yourself for any of it. I decided to drop out, okay? And I’ll go back to school eventually, anyway.” I considered telling her that it might be sooner rather than later. Now that I’d quit my job at
Moi
, I didn’t know what I was going to do.

“I’ve just made so many mistakes.”

“You made one mistake, and his name was Joey.”

She smiled at that through her tears.

“And you were a kid,” I continued. “Everybody makes mistakes, especially kids.”

“But I wasn’t the one who paid for it. You had to deal with all of my mistakes. It’s all my fault.”

“No, it’s
not
. And no matter what mistakes you made, look at us. We have Arlen and she’s wonderful. And I wouldn’t give the two of you up for anything.”

She looked up at me, her eyes red with tears, her face still young and beautiful under all the hurt.

“Lisa, you’re the only family we have. I don’t deserve you.”

My face went hot.

“Em, I have to tell you something.”

“Hmm?”

“I couldn’t—the doctor said we might have to pay for special treatments, and I couldn’t get the money.” The words splashed out of me in a torrent of guilt. “I asked my boss, but he wouldn’t give me any advance pay, and I went back to the show but it wasn’t—I didn’t win, Em. I got kicked off. And there’s not enough money saved up, and I’ll try to get a loan but I don’t—I don’t—”

“Shhh. Shhh.” Emma wiggled her fingers from under Arlen, and I reached out to hold her hand. Tears streamed down my cheeks as she gave my hand a squeeze.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry. I tried—”

“Shhh. Lisa.” Emma raised her eyebrows at me. “Lisa. Hey, lamebutt. Listen to me.”

I bit my lip hard. My heartbeat was pounding in my ears.

“Lisa, you don’t have to do everything. You can’t protect us from everything.”

“But—”

“You’re doing the best you can. Aren’t you?”

I looked down at my little sister in the hospital bed, her sick baby on her lap. And here she was, holding my hand and comforting me.

I nodded, my head bowed, and held back my tears. Inside my mind, though, I couldn’t stop the thought whirling around in my head since I arrived at the hospital:

What if my best isn’t enough?

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Another day passed in the hospital. Between going out on pudding runs and visiting Mac, I was busy every minute of the day.

We were still waiting to see if Arlen needed the special treatments. I couldn’t afford them yet, but I applied for every loan I could online. I set up a donation website, and throughout the day Emma watched as donations trickled in. It wasn’t looking great, but it was something.

I stopped by the community college and applied for classes to start immediately. Not that I was going back to college, but I thought that I might get approved for some student loans. I didn’t know if it would work, but I was going to try anything that could possibly have a chance. I even texted Piers, begging him to call me. But after the way he’d left me, I wasn’t expecting anything. I was the same as all the other girls that flirted with him, only I was after his fortune rather than his fame.  How stupid.

I’d fallen asleep in the chair outside the hospital room that evening, my laptop on my knees.

“Lisa?”

“Lisa, wake up.”

“Yo. Lisa.”

I opened my eyes. There was a face inches away from mine.

“Ah!” I yelped, jumping backwards in the chair. My laptop fell from my lap, and Dylan caught it.

“Dylan?”

It was Dylan. Wide-eyed and staring down at me, an expectant expression on his face.

“Wha—what are you doing here?”

“Come with me and I’ll tell you,” he said.

I glanced back at the hospital room.

“I don’t—what do you want, Dylan?”

“Trust me,” he said. “You’ll want to see this.”

I gripped the sides of my seat as Dylan wheeled around a corner, the engine of his Ferrari zooming.

“Piers told me about what happened with your niece.”

“He—he told you?”

“He sent me the video of your last interview. I had no idea, Lisa! I’m sorry I went after you like that. I bet you didn’t even want to kiss me.”

Dylan sighed, and I saw the same expression that he’d had before, when talking with me about his fame.

“Dylan, it’s not like that. I mean, I was starting to like you—I wouldn’t have let you kiss me if I didn’t like you. I think you’re a wonderful, funny guy.”

“Really?” Dylan grinned, a shy blush coming onto his cheeks. The guy was adorable, I’d give him that. Even if he wasn’t my cup of tea, he would make a great boyfriend to someone.

“But it’s true, that’s not why I came on the show,” I said, more seriously. “I wanted to win so that I could get the money. It should be me apologizing to you.”

Dylan shrugged.

“Piers told me that’s what would happen. He didn’t think I’d find anyone worth dating on the show. I kind of did it as a favor to him.”

“A favor?”

“Yeah, well, he helped me out when I first came to New York and started working on my dad’s business. I kind of went crazy with spending money. At first, that is.”

I blinked. Apparently he didn’t think Ferraris and fighter jets were being crazy with money. I wondered what he thought
was
crazy.

“And I was dating all these different girls at once, and it was like, none of them even cared. Or, they said they didn’t care. And I was going out to clubs and getting drunk and hooking up with anyone I thought was cute. I mean, I thought that’s what you did when you were rich.”

He frowned, his fingers gripping the wheel.

“And I was getting bad, like, blackout drunk. When I met Piers out at a red carpet event thing, I thought it was so awesome that all these hot girls would fall over themselves trying to get our attention. Like, famous girls, singers and models and shit. I bought them all drinks, and Piers came over to my table. I was such a big shot, right, like freaking
Piers Letocci
coming over to my table!”

His eyes glowed, and I realized that he must think of Piers as a role model. I chuckled lightly. Piers as a role model? God forbid.

“He asked me—I remember, because I was getting way too drunk and flirting with all the girls—he asked me what I was trying to accomplish. I didn’t know what he meant.”

Dylan bit his lip, staring out the windshield intently.

“He said,
None of these girls really care about you.
And I started to argue with him, like, because they were all trying to get with me. But he just looked at me, and he said,
They want the money. They want the suit. They want the fame. But they don’t give a shit about you. Don’t waste your life on people who don’t care about you.
”

Dylan looked over at me, as though to see if I was going to laugh at him. I waited for him to continue.

“And I asked him how I could find a girl that really cared about me. I was joking, right, because I was drunk and I didn’t really know what he was talking about. And he told me that the only way would be if the girl didn’t know who I was.
Stay inside. Don’t get famous,
he said.
Because if they know your face, it’s already over. You’ll never find anyone who will truly love you.
”

I swallowed hard, remembering the first night I’d met Piers. The man in the mask. I’d wondered why he had hidden his face. I’d wondered why he was so reluctant to show me.

And I remembered the shock in his face when I hadn’t recognized who he was.

“So it hit me that if someone like Piers Letocci says that, I oughta listen. Because I always thought that I wanted to be like him.”

We pulled up to the curb outside of a building that said Marquis Theater.

“This is it,” Dylan said, hopping out of the car. He opened my door for me and I stepped out, trying to make sense of what he had told me.

“Why did you agree to do this show, then?” I asked, as we walked up the steps to the theater. “Why did he even ask you to come on TV?”

Dylan flushed.

“Well, he needed a billionaire. And I’m going to go over to London soon to open up a new branch of the company. Piers said that nobody watches his stuff in England.”

I stopped at the side of the building. The sign above our heads said Main Stage Entrance.

“Wait, what? He’s British, isn’t he?”

“Yeah, well, I guess they think American TV is stupid. And lots of people there see him as a sellout. Anyway, his ratings are awful over there.”

“Huh.”

“So I thought, why not?”

“Why not.”

“Why not,” Dylan agreed. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” I said, as he opened the side entrance door for me. “What’s up?”

“It’s about Kate.”

I looked over at Dylan, raising one eyebrow.

“Is she in it for the money?”

“Oh, Dylan—”

“Because you said in the interview that all the girls were here for the money. And the only one I really had a thing for was Kate. But I don’t want to get my hopes up, you know, in case…” He trailed off.