The Billionaire's Pledge (3 page)

“But I really don’t understand,” she said. “Why don’t you use a design firm down in San Francisco? You must have somebody down there that you already trust.”

He’d been hoping she would ask this question, not just because it was obvious but because it showed her honesty. He didn’t want to tell her the whole truth right now, though. He would save that for later. Instead, he just gave her the bare outline.

“I’m going to be here for a little while. You’re right, I have a company down in the valley that normally does all my web work. But this is different. I hate working remotely. I like to see people face to face. Guess I’m kind of old fashioned that way, but it’s worked out so far. So since I’m here, I need a company that’s here also. Somebody I can meet whenever I need to. Go over designs, talk things through. I’m very hands on. When I work with someone on a project, it’s like a partnership.”

By the way her eyebrows arched while he was talking, Zac judged that Savannah was intrigued. That was good. He sensed it wasn’t just about money with her. He sensed that she craved a serious project to sink her teeth into, and he definitely had that sort of project for her. But that wasn’t the real reason he’d come to Hood River.

The real reason Zachary Cushman had come to Hood River wasn’t business at all. It was personal. Things had gotten too crazy back in San Francisco. He’d started a photo-sharing company in his senior year of college, grown it organically for a few years, then gotten outside investors to fuel the flames. In the last few years, it had gone absolutely crazy, and write-ups were all over the tech press. 

By using smart lawyers, he’d managed to maintain ownership of 60 percent of the company—an almost unheard of amount for a tech startup that had gone through two rounds of funding. But like Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook, Zachary had wanted control, and he’d kept it. 

When the offers started coming in, they’d been huge. First a billion dollars from Microsoft. Then two billion from Google. Three billion from Facebook. He’d finally sold for five billion to a Chinese company called Tencent that nobody had ever heard of but that was growing so fast it had more cash than it knew what to do with.

Zachary had taken his portion—
three fucking billion
—and lived the life of a tech rock star: mansions, cars that cost a half-million each, a private jet to carry him all over the world, parties every weekend, expensive champagne. And women. Oh, God help him, the women! They were everywhere. He was having more sex than he’d ever thought possible. But then he’d discovered that the women were all just after his money, and a feeling of discontent had settled over him.

He didn’t want that life. He’d thought money and a kind of partial fame would make him happy, but when he’d gotten everything he’d ever wanted, he found he was more unhappy than ever. Life became meaningless. Relationships were shallow and the people around him were petty. Any time he thought he’d found a woman who cared for him—not his giant bank account and fancy lifestyle—it turned out he was wrong. 

He’d gotten sick of it. His soul needed something else. There was an empty place in his heart that needed to be filled, and a crack in his soul that needed mending. So he’d decided to change his life completely. He sold the cars, sold the jet, sold the mansions. Got rid of most of his nice clothes…although he saved a few.

And he secretly moved to Hood River, Oregon, to start a new life doing fun things in the outdoors like kiteboarding, skiing, mountain biking, hiking, kayaking.

But the most important part of his plan had grown out of his failed relationships with money-grubbing women. He’d been having sex with them all the time. In the back of his Rolls Royce. On the recliners in his Gulfstream. In the hot tub of his Cupertino mansion. On the pool table of his Manhattan apartment. Hell, he’d even gotten it on with his attorney’s receptionist in the bathroom of the law firm. But none of them had fulfilled him. He’d simply gotten more and more unhappy.

So he’d made a pledge to himself: No sexual contact until he fell in love with a woman he could spend the rest of his life with. With the precision of his programmer’s mind, he’d typed up the constraints in his word processor. 

Zachary Cushman’s Pledge

In light of recent events, I, Zachary Cushman, hereby solemnly pledge and commit to following the rules specified below for one full year after the signing of this contract. I may participate only in activities deemed acceptable herein.

1. Flirting is acceptable.

2. Touching a woman’s face and hair is acceptable.

3. Giving or receiving a non-sexual massage is acceptable.

4. Kissing is acceptable, with or without tongue.

5. Placings fingers, hands, or other body parts inside a woman’s clothing, under her dress, etc., is not acceptable.

6. Touching a woman’s genitals, buttocks, nipples, breasts, or any other erogenous zone is not acceptable, whether through clothing or with direct contact. This includes areas directly adjacent to erogenous zones, such as a woman’s inner thighs, or the skin directly above her pubic mound.

7. Using any kind of object or toy to stimulate a woman sexually is not acceptable. 

8. Allowing a woman to touch my genitals, buttocks, nipples, or any other erogenous zone is not acceptable, whether through clothing or with direct contact.

9. The word “touching” includes the mouth or other body parts, not just hands and fingers.

10. Contact between my genitals and a woman’s genitals is not acceptable, with or without a condom or other barrier.

Once I’m sure I have found a woman I am in love with and could possibly spend the rest of my life with, then the above rules no longer apply and I am free to do whatever I want. I must not break this pledge purely for the sake of gaining sexual gratification or returning to my old ways.

It had started a month before he left San Francisco. And now he’d been in Hood River for a month, and in that time he hadn’t even been on a date. He still had ten months to go.

CHAPTER 5

They spent the next hour working out some of the specifics of the deal, and Savannah enjoyed listening to Zac’s description of what he wanted to see and what the development projects would be like when completed. He was clearly a visionary. She was starting to wonder what his story was. Was he paying for these enormous projects himself? Did he work for some other company? How long was he in Hood River? Did he always dress so nicely, or did he ever go around in shorts and a T-shirt?

As he prepared to leave, she said, “I’ll work up a few scenarios for the architecture of the site. No graphics yet, just a kind of outline. All right?”

“Perfect. Let’s get together the day after tomorrow to review your progress. Sound good?”

“Great. I’ll see you then.”

Savannah spent the rest of the afternoon doing research on how similar websites were set up, sketching ideas, and making lists. This was the biggest project she’d had in a long time, and she wanted to make sure it was done right. She might even be able to come through with the 50 grand for her parents.

It was hard to focus, though, because Zac had looked so familiar and during their conversation she’d grown more and more sure that she’d seen him somewhere before. Even his first name seemed somehow familiar. Had she met him in New York at some point? Had she seen him on the tech news sites she’d been reading since she got into the web-design business? Or had she just seen him around town and not really noticed him before? No, she decided—if she’d seen him in Hood River, she would have remembered. He stood out, and he wasn’t the kind of person you would immediately forget.

She went home to her apartment on the top floor of a large Victorian house on the hillside above town. The owners had taken the attic and broken it into two tiny apartments, each containing a bedroom, a living room with kitchen on one side, and a bathroom. It was all she could afford, because business had been terrible since she’d left the big city. When she did have extra profits, it seemed like estimated tax payments ate up a chunk, and then she always made sure to pay some to each of the companies she owed money to.

She could have declared bankruptcy long ago, and maybe she should have. Maybe she still should. It would be the easy way out. Erase the debts. Start over. But Savannah didn’t want to take the easy way out, the coward’s path. She intended to pay back every dime, even if it took the rest of her life.

She plopped down on the sofa and opened her laptop. The two emails were still there—she hadn’t responded to either one. She read Charles’s email again and got a horrible tightness in her chest. She’d basically forgotten about it over the last few hours, she’d been so caught up in the Zac project (why hadn’t he given his last name?). But now she took a deep breath and got up the courage to write a reply. Somehow she had to keep Charles away, and right now email was her only option. Should she lie? Tell him she wouldn’t be here around that time? She sighed. She decided to be honest instead.

Charles - You can’t come out here. If you do, I simply won’t see you. I might even have to call the police. I can’t have you in my life anymore. You know one of the reasons I left New York was to get away from you. Please cancel your ticket.

- Savannah

It was harsh, but what choice did she have? She moved her mouse over the Send button, hesitated and re-read the email, and then clicked. It was done. Maybe he would actually listen for once…

Her mind flashed back to one of the few things that Charles
had
actually done well, which was sex. He was a strange man in many ways, but in the bedroom he had been amazing. He taught her everything. Every nuance of how a man wants to be touched, and every little trick to control his body and play it like a virtuoso playing a violin. How to keep him at the edge of orgasm for as long as she wanted. How to bring his pleasure up and down, like a marionette on strings. How to bring him into the “plateau phase” right before release. And most important of all, how to keep him there and then finally allow him to come.

Jesus, God, stop thinking about him! So what if he taught you how to pleasure a man, it was all for his own narcissistic ego!

She forced her thoughts in a new direction and clicked on her mom’s email. But this wasn’t much better: the tightness in her chest got even worse. Fifty thousand dollars. Fifty grand! There was no way, simply no way—unless the Zac project was truly real, and in the back of her mind she wasn’t sure about that. She hit Reply but at that moment her cell phone rang. She picked it up and saw “Mom” on the screen. Speak of the devil…

She took a huge breath, let it out slowly to calm herself, then answered.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Honey, did you get my email?”

“Yeah, I got it. How are you guys?”

“Vanna, honey, I’m so sorry but do you think you can get us the money this week? Will that work for you?”

“
This week
?”

“It’s just the operation, it was so expensive. The bills are due, they’re calling us all the time now. You have no idea what it’s like…”

Savannah couldn’t bring herself to say the truth: that she knew
exactly
what it was like. She’d been woken up in the night by collections agents more times than she could remember. A pang of sympathy shot through her. Her parents were in for a horrible time of it.

Instead, she said, “I don’t understand, Mom…don’t you guys have any savings?”

“Not anymore. We’ve always relied on your father’s pension and our social security. We never saved up all that much money, and we gave most of it to you.”

Oh, God. She hadn’t quite realized that before. It suddenly dawned on her that she’d been a greedy, selfish idiot. Taking her parents’ life savings! 

“Uh, A—and I’ll pay you back,” she stammered. “It’s just really bad right now, Mom.”

“Bad? What do you—”

“Bad. Like, I don’t have the money.” She may as well tell them the truth, or at least some of it.

“But you said—”

“I know what I said. I’m sorry. Some things fell through. I’m really sorry.”

There was a long pause on the line.

“Mom? Still there?”

“Well how much can you send? Maybe if we gave the hospital ten thousand…”

“Nothing. I can’t send anything.”

“Five thousand?”

“You’re not hearing me. Listen to me—I don’t have any money right now. I can’t send anything. I’m going to get evicted here if I don’t pay my rent, that’s about all the money I have this month.”

“Oh, honey…”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“What are we going to do? They keep calling, Vanna. You don’t know what it’s like.”

Again, she thought:
I do know, Mom. I know exactly what it’s like.
 

But she didn’t say it. What was the point?

She sighed and listened to the wind outside rattling the windows in their frames. She stood up and walked over to the window that looked north, toward the river. Kiteboarders were still out there, the dazzling colors of their kites dotting the gray of the river.

When Savannah spoke again, her voice was low and sad. “I don’t know what to say, Mom. I’m sorry I ever asked you for the money. I’m sorry you ever said yes. I’m sorry about Dad’s heart. I never wanted any of this to happen. Tell him I love him, okay? And I love you, too. I should probably go.”

“So soon? We never talk. How are you, dear? Have you met any nice men out there?”

“Not really, Mom. Well, maybe one. I don’t know yet. Talk to you soon, okay?”

Her mom huffed a sigh of frustrated resignation. “All right. Bye.”

“Bye.”

She clicked off and watched the river for a long time, wondering what the future might hold.

CHAPTER 6

Savannah LaMont spent the next day at work fleshing out her ideas and getting a series of screens together to show Zac. It was fun work. She hadn’t enjoyed a project very much in a long time, but she was definitely enjoying this one. He had given her almost total creative freedom, and she felt her mind going a thousand miles an hour as she poured out her ideas onto the screen and in her little sketchpad.