The Girlfriend (The Boss) (8 page)

“I understand. Sweetie, if you really care about this guy, then you’re making the right choice.” Mom laughed softly. “I’m just relieved you’re finally showing an interest in somebody. I thought you would be single forever.”

If I’d been feeling a little less down, I would have lectured her about how being single forever isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and how I would still have value without a man. Instead, I accepted it as she intended it, as a misguided but very genuine expression of worried mom love.

“So, tell me about him,” mom prompted. “Does he work in publishing?”

“Um, yeah. He does. We met on the job.” I felt like I was stepping through a minefield, but I didn’t want to tell mom I had gotten involved with my boss. The way my emotions were running haywire, I couldn’t handle her disappointment.

“What are you going to do in England? You can’t work there, right? Because you don’t have a green card?”

“I can freelance. If I have to stay longer than six months, I’ll have to get a visa and it’s this whole pain-in-the-ass process that Neil’s lawyer is going to work on.” Was that the kind of thing a normal guy could do? Call up his lawyer and have things fixed? How did it work when you weren’t moving overseas with a billionaire? It was probably exhausting.

I wasn’t sure I should spring the money conversation on her at the moment, but luckily she fixated on an entirely different detail. “Six months is a long time.”

“Maybe longer.” If there was one person on this entire Earth that I could trust myself to say this to, it was... well, it was Holli, but it was also my mom. “Honestly, if he wanted me to stay permanently, maybe I would. I really love him. But nothing is set in stone yet. We’re just trying to get through right now.”

“Oh, honey.” My mom has a great mom sigh, and she unleashed it then. “If you’re happy, then I’m happy for you. I trust you to make the right decisions.”

“I am.” And surprisingly, despite the hellacious bad week Neil and I had just weathered and the nightmare of chemotherapy looming ahead, I really was happy. My heart swelled up, and I felt like my mother and I were closer than we’d been in months.

And then she said, “I’m just so worried about you being so far away from home. You’re still very young, and some of those countries are just not safe.”

I would be a hundred and my mom would think I was too young. And I was going to England, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t even have to learn a different language.

“I hate to point out that Ricky is twenty and he just spent a year in Afghanistan, which is a lot further away and a lot more hostile than
England
,” I said in as patient a tone as I could manage.

“But it’s different, honey. You’re a girl, it’s more dangerous out there for you.”

My hand rose in the air beside my head, clenched into a fist, and I bit my lip hard before responding. “I hear the buzzer, I have to go get the door.”

“Okay, good-bye, honey. I love you!”

“Love you, too, mom.” I clicked the button on the phone and hoped my irritation at mom’s predictably misogynist comments would get me through my inevitable Christmas homesickness.

CHAPTER FIVE

Billionaires are horrible at moving.

I had every piece of my five-piece luggage set open on my bed, in an impressive game of suitcase
Tetris
. We had two more days before we left for England, and I seriously had to get my shit together, but Neil mostly stood around, looking helplessly at my room and complaining about the manual labor.

“I don’t see why you’re doing all of this yourself. You could bring some essentials for the holiday week and we could purchase anything else you need once we’re in London. We can hire movers for the rest.” Neil said all of this like the concept of moving one’s own belongings confused and horrified him.

“Um, I’m not entirely comfortable with the whole, ‘buy new things’ plan. I don’t have a job, and I’m on severely limited funds right now.” Before he could protest, I held up a hand. “I know, you’re a billionaire. But I really don’t want to spend a bunch of your money on stuff I already have. That’s so wasteful.”

He sighed wearily. “All right. There’s no reason we can’t get this sorted, between the two of us. I assume you’re not planning on bringing furniture?”

“No, I figured you had some of that. I just want my clothes and some of my books. My computer, of course. And an obscene amount of shoes.” I smiled sweetly at him. Gosh, today felt so much better than the day before. I was starting to feel... dare I say it? Normal. The pregnancy seemed like just an irritating nightmare now, nothing so truly horrible as to have caused a lasting impact on us. “You know... I’m finally feeling like we’re us again?”

A smile spread slowly across Neil’s face. “I’m very glad.”

I grinned at him and held up a pair of frilly pink panties. “Do you think I’ll need these?”

“Oh, I’m sure we could find a use for them.” But his smile faded. He cleared his throat, a red flush creeping up his neck. “I assume you’re aware that our sex life might be impacted by chemotherapy.”

I had thought about it, but I wasn’t sure it was something I should bring up. I nodded, shoving the panties into my bag. “I looked it up online. It really sounds like you’re going to be miserable.”

“I did some research, as well. I’m not sure what approach Dr. Grant will take, but I know he plans to be fairly aggressive. We’ll discuss all of that when we meet with him on the twenty-eighth.” He flipped through the clothes in my makeshift closet. “It’s going to be a bit of a whirlwind once we get there, I’m afraid.”

“Hey, it’s that or sit around here and be unemployed.” I grabbed my strapless bra and dropped it into the suitcase. “Besides, I have a feeling your whole life is kind of a whirlwind.”

“That is the unfortunate downside to dating the owner of a multimedia empire.” He considered a floor-length black silk dress, one I’d never worn because it skirted a fine line between haute couture and lingerie. He raised an eyebrow, pulled it down, and laid it across the open garment bag.

Huh. I was expecting to spend most my time in t-shirts and jeans in hospital waiting rooms. Were they really fancy over in England or something? Had
Bridget Jones
lied to me? “So... Here’s something I don’t understand. You said you were going to London for treatment. But we’re flying into Bristol and going to
 
a house in Somerset?”

“My country house,” he said, totally casual, like everybody had two houses. “We’ll be going there for Christmas, but we’ll stay at my place in London while I undergo treatment.”

I considered a moment, tilting my head as I regarded him. “You know, I’ve always wondered... when you have two houses, and you’re staying at one, do you have stuff you only keep in one place? Like, do you have two of everything in your clothing and your DVDs and stuff?”

“No. I have what suits me for each location, and anything else I might need, I pack and take with me. I rarely find myself in need of an anorak in London, so those stay at the house in Reykjavik. I don’t often need a suit and tie in Somerset, so I don’t keep them there.”

“Um, how many houses do you own?” And how the hell did he keep track of them all? I lost things in my tiny shoebox of a room and never saw them again. I couldn’t imagine trying to find something if there was a chance I’d left it accidentally on a different continent.

The fact that he didn’t have a number at the ready was even more startling. “Well, there’s the apartment here, the houses in Somerset and London, one in Reykjavik, my lodge outside of Akureyri-“

“I don’t even know where that is,” I interjected.

“Iceland.” He continued, “There’s an apartment in Venice, but that’s obviously not a residence, I keep it as a vacation home... so... five?”

“You own five houses.” I sat down on my bed. I suppose the number could have been significantly higher, but it was still quite a shock.

“Well, six, because I own my sister’s
 
in Kensington, but for all intents and purposes it belongs to her. I’m not about to make her give it back.” He sat beside me. “Are you upset?”

“No, not upset. I just don’t really know how to deal with the fact that my boyfriend has five houses in four countries, when I grew up in continual fear of losing the trailer I lived in.” I shrugged. “I’ll get there.”

“Can I confess something?” he asked, looking at the floor. “I’m having a bit of the same problem, from the opposite side. I’ve never lived a life where money was an issue. My parents were rich, their parents were rich... I was raised the way you were, in terms of work ethic. We were always taught to be grateful for what we had, but we never needed or wanted for anything. I can’t imagine living the way you do. It sounds so unbearably horrible.”

“No, you sound unbearably snobby.” I laughed to soften the statement, because it really wasn’t his fault. He was like an alien trying to comprehend Earthling life. “The most difficult part, for me anyway, is the fact that I have some preconceived notion about how rich people are supposed to act, and you don’t fit into that. You’re just Neil, most of the time, and then I get confronted with something like, ‘Oh, I have five houses,’ and it throws me. Honestly, I don’t even know how much a billion dollars is.”

“One thousand million,” he said, and he sounded embarrassed.

“I can’t get my head around that. And you have six of those, and you’re making more money every day. I’m unemployed.” I sighed.

“I should warn you, then... my house in Somerset is quite large. And old.” He said this like it pained him to admit it. “It’s not a ‘normal guy house,’ as you would put it.”

“If it’s a castle, I’m going to throw up.”

“Not a castle. It’s a nineteenth century neo-renaissance chateau-style manor house.” All of those overwhelming words just fell right out of his mouth in a jumble, and I could only stare at him and blink.

“I know. I heard exactly how it sounded when I said it.” His head dropped, and I couldn’t help but laugh at him.

“Oh, poor baby.” I looped an arm around his back and leaned against his arm. “Listen, you’ve seen how much clothing I own. You know I can adjust to extravagant living.” He chuckled as I continued, “How about this? After you get over this pesky cancer thing, you come with me to meet my family in Calumet. That way, you’ll experience the same culture shock that I’m experiencing now, and we’ll be even.”

He raised his head and held out his hand. “Done.”

“Great. Now, tell me what to expect. I thought we’d be wearing comfy sit-around clothes the whole time we’re there. I mean, you’re going to be doing the chemo thing. So, what gives with the fancy duds?” I reached behind me for the silk dress. “What am I going to need this for?”

“Well, we’ll have to celebrate New Year’s Eve, won’t we?” he asked, slapping his hands on his thighs before he stood and returned to the hanger-laden pipe that served as my closet. “And besides, we’ll have plenty of room for all of your things. I’ve already asked the household staff in London to empty Eli—”
 
he stopped himself quickly and corrected, “a closet for you.”

I chose to ignore the near mention of his ex-wife. “Is it as nice as your closet in New York?”

“Oh, nicer.” He frowned at my dresses. “Why am I doing this part? Why can’t I be doing the frilly underthings?”

I giggled and grabbed a handful of lace. I don’t know why I had to discriminate; I could take all my underwear, if I wanted to. When I looked up, he was gazing at me as though I were some astoundingly beautiful object he’d never seen before, and he’d frozen at the sight of me. Warmth blossomed under my ribs and suffused my entire body with a comforting, giddy pulse.

“We’re doing this.” I couldn’t disguise the awe in my voice. I really didn’t want to. “We’re going to live together.”

“We are.” When he smiled, his whole face lit up, and every bit of doubt that still remained from that awful night at the hospital evaporated completely. I met him halfway as we crossed the room to each other, and he pulled me into his arms for a long, slow kiss.

Everything in my life was in utter turmoil. I was leaving for another country. I was moving in with my boyfriend of just slightly over two months. I should have been incoherent with terror. But I couldn’t wait to go into this new part of my life with him.

There was some guilt there, too. The more I wanted to rush into living with him, the more I was reminded that it was happening only because he’d been plunged into a medical crisis. In what I’d read about the treatment, the drugs used to kill his cancer didn’t differentiate much between healthy cells and sick ones. The art of chemotherapy seemed to be in keeping a patient alive while slowly poisoning him. The side effects sounded scary, the risks even worse.

But he was fine now, his body as sturdy and familiar as before, his arms as strong around me. I clung to him, breathing in his cologne, letting him kiss me breathless, letting the reality of his condition remain some far off future. It was the only way I would stop myself from going crazy with worry.

* * * *

Two days later, we ate our last dinner in New York and rode to the airport in the Maybach, my ridiculous amount of luggage crammed into a hired van behind us.

I looked out the window as we pulled onto the runway. We weren’t even going to have to go through the terminal. That boggled my mind; I’d still packed my carry-on luggage with one-ounce containers of everything.

I whistled as we pulled up to the jet. It was a G5, slender and gleaming white. A long flight of stairs reached up to the open cabin door, and warm light showed from the windows.

Neil reached across the seat and took my hand. “Are you all right? You look a bit pale.”

“I don’t like flying,” I confessed, perhaps just slightly too late. “I know you don’t, either.”

He jiggled the lapel of his coat, and from an inside pocket I heard the rattle of a prescription bottle.

“But I’m excited,” I assured him, because when someone is taking you for a trip on a plane he
owns
, you don’t want to appear ungrateful. “I’ve never been on a private jet before.”

“You’ll never want to fly commercial again, I can tell you that for nothing. Every time I’ve had to has been a bloody nightmare.” He paused, a slight smile tilting his mouth. “Well, almost every time.”