The Billionaire's Flame

Billion-Dollar Smile

I wake up to the sound of my mother vomiting into the basin next to the bed.

“It’s okay, Mom,” I say as I lean over to rub her shoulders. She doesn’t have any hair left for me to pull back. “Just let it out. I’ll get you some water in a minute.”

She gives another retch before straightening and turning to face me. “You slept in my bed again.”

“Yeah, I know.”

She gives me a tired look that indicates she’s not pleased. As always, it’s hard to look into those green eyes that once burned bright as emeralds. The same eyes she passed down to me. The cancer has taken that burn from her, along with so much else. “Emmy, baby, I don’t need you to do that. I want you to live your life.”

She thinks I crawl into her bed because I think she needs the comfort. I don’t have the heart to correct her. “I know, Mom. I’m sorry.”

“How did your show go last night?”

This is what I love about my mother. She’s in the midst of chemo and radiation, can barely keep her head above water, and somehow still manages to keep track of which days of the week I have shows with Brady. She’s always been my biggest fan.

“It was okay. The crowd was nice. There was actually this…” I trail off, thinking better of what I was about to say. If I mention Kieran to my mother, she’ll get way too excited. She’s desperate for me to find any guy besides Connor.

She parts her lips to push me to finish my sentence, but another wave of nausea must hit her before she gets the chance, because she lifts the basin again.

“s**t, Mom,” I curse as I rub her back. “This is worse than usual. Do you want me to cancel my shift at the Daily Dose?”

The Daily Dose is my second job—a coffee shop a few blocks away from our apartment. Connor hates that I haven’t given it up yet, since my pocketing all that extra cash means my saving up to eventually break free of him. I won’t let him bully me into quitting, though. He doesn’t own the Daily Dose, which makes it a safe space.

“I’ll be fine, baby,” she tells me, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “You worry too much.”

- - - - -

My third customer of the day is one of my least favorite people on the planet: Lexi Murphy.

Lexi was in my class at Cerulean High. She was the queen bee—and not the kind that won people over with honey. She was mean.

She’s still mean.

“I still can’t believe he came back,” she says to her two faithful sidekicks as she struts into the Daily Dose like she owns the place. I’m pretty sure Lexi has at least two children by now, predictably by way of the quarterback. He’s a doctor, I think, and is pretty much never around. She must have a really dedicated nanny.

“I can’t, either,” says one of her sidekicks. “And to think—we almost went to the Crimson Cavern last night!”

Ugh. They’re talking about Kieran. Of course.

“I bet Emmy was there,” Lexi says as she sidles up to the counter. “You work there, too, don’t you, Emmy? How many jobs is it you have these days, again?”

God, I loathe her. As if it’s something to brag about that you don’t work hard to provide for your family. Don’t get me wrong—being a stay-at-home mom is all fine and dandy if you actually stay at home and mother. That’s just not the case for Lexi.

“Two,” I tell Lexi through clenched teeth.

“Let me guess—your weirdo boyfriend gave you Kieran Sharpe’s table, didn’t he?”

I feel my teeth start to grind. “What can I get you, Lexi?”

“Oh—nonfat, no whip vanilla latte, please. Now, come on. Give me something here. Who was he with?”

If Lexi thinks I’m indulging her at all, she’s sorely mistaken. I ring up her order and glance at her friends. “Anything for you?”

“The same,” they say simultaneously.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes a second time as I add their orders and flip the screen to show Lexi her total.

“Oh, fine, then,” Lexi says with a dramatic sigh as she pulls her platinum AmEx out of her Prada purse. “He probably didn’t look twice at you, anyway.”

Which, of course, only makes me grin.

- - - - -

Summer afternoons in the Bay Area aren’t the ideal time for running, but by the time I get off work that day, I don’t care. I’m fed up with Lexi’s behavior, I’m annoyed with Connor’s incessant demands that we meet up, and I can’t get the image of Kieran Sharpe’s gray eyes out of my head. I need to sweat it out.

There are tons of great places to jog in Oakland—during the day, mind you; the city gets a bit seedier at night—but the trail that starts near our apartment and leads back to the old high school really is one of the best. It’s about four miles one way, which is my ideal distance. I usually walk the first and last mile of the rounder, leaving me six miles to run.

I run harder than usual—either as a result of the angry Bikini Kill playing in my ears or of the Lexi/Connor/Kieran debacles. Whatever the reason, by the time I start nearing the high school, I’m sweating bullets, breathing heavy, and—

Smack. I run into him so hard, I actually fall to the ground.

“s**t,” Kieran says, stooping down to look me in the eyes. Again. “Are you okay?”

I almost laugh at that question. It’s so similar to the one he asked me all those years ago. Some things never change, right?

“Sorry,” I say as I scramble to my feet. Unfortunately, I don’t do a graceful job of it. My wooziness catches up with me all over again, and he reaches out a quick hand to steady me when I start to sway.

I eye him cautiously as his big, strong hand holds me firmly by the arm. He isn’t wearing a shirt, which makes me even more lightheaded. He’s wearing athletic shorts and running shoes. He’s sweaty, though not nearly as sweaty as me. Did he really just happen to be running the same path that I was?

I pull the headphones out of my ears and pocket them. Before I can stop myself, I ask him, “What are you doing here?”

He laughs—as if I’ve just made some sort of joke. “Last I checked, it’s a public trail. Used to run it all the time back in high school. Didn’t expect to run into anyone with it being so hot out, though.”

He was trying to be incognito, I realize. Taking this trail in the morning or evening would have meant being recognized by squealing fangirls. “Oh,” I say lamely. “Yeah… I just got off work.”

He looks understandably confused by that. “At the Crimson Cavern?”

“No—I work at the Daily Dose, too.”

He doesn’t know the Daily Dose, I can tell. Most of these places popped up after he left. That’s what happens when you leave for ten years.

His hand is still on my arm. I feel like he’s burning a damn hole in my arm, but somehow in a good way. I must still be breathing pretty heavily, because he looks concerned. “Do you want me to call a car to take you home? You don’t look so good.”

No kidding, I think grimly. I wish I had chosen to wear more than the sports bra and spandex shorts I donned for this run. He’s probably used to rail-thin women in Lululemon. “I’m fine,” I say, taking a step back. He lowers his hand, but stays close. I sway a bit.

“Let me at least walk you back,” he says. “How far do you live from here?”

“Four miles.”

His eyes widen. “You were doing an eight-mile stretch?”

I shrug. “Yeah. You?”

“Well… yeah. I’m just surprised you were.”

I consider pointing out to him that that’s somewhat insulting, but I’m having a hard enough time breathing.

“Come on,” he says, offering me an arm. “I won't take no for an answer.”

I eye his arm suspiciously. It’s even more muscular than it looked underneath that suit. He looks like he could be a male model, for crying out loud. Why is he wasting his time talking to me?

“It’s four miles,” I remind him stupidly.

He flashes me a grin. It’s a million-dollar smile, as they say—pearly whites; strong lips; just enough crinkle in his eye to make him seem a little more human. Even the slightest hint of dimples.

According to Brady, it’s a billion-dollar smile.

“Then we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other,” he says.

I take his arm at point because, frankly, I’m afraid I’ll fall all over again.