The Billionaire and the Bestseller

Chapter Eight: Money Games

Colton was already walking away when Riley returned, looking harried.

“Sorry about that. Sometimes I wonder how some of these clients survived before they had me. I’m too young to have children in their thirties!” Riley lamented, before finally realizing that her client was sitting eerily still; frozen and pale faced. “Thank god you’re a big girl who doesn’t need me to hold her hand...”

“Everly…?” she tried, maintaining the pen name since they were still out in public. When there was no response, she said more urgently, “Earth to Nicolette?”

She then tried snapping her fingers in Lettie’s face, which finally got a reaction.  Lettie lurched back in her chair, gasping. “Sorry! Oh my god, I’m so sorry...I...uhm, I’m ready to go.” 

Nicolette was not, in fact, ready to go. Half of her stuff hadn’t been packed yet. Instead of carefully storing and packing her things, she opened her enormous satchel purse wide and used her forearm to sweep all the remaining things into it. Dice clattered against sections of carefully painted dwarven forge and various reference cards as they were shoved into the leather satchel.

“Everything ok…?” Riley asked, glancing at the direction of the staircase, which Colt was already making his way down.

“Yep!” Lettie said, her voice tinged with panic. “Let’s get back to the hotel so we can pack. I want to get to the airport early.”

Nicolette’s mind buzzed as she followed Riley down the spiral staircase, across the courtyard and out into the club’s lobby before climbing into a taxi that the agent hailed with a whistle and wave. She wasn’t entirely sure why she wasn’t telling her agent about Colton’s threat. In the time that Nicolette had known her, she’d watched Riley handle any number of sticky situations for her clients - some of them much worse than her current predicament.

Yes, Lettie was frightened of her identity being made public, and the field day that people would have with that knowledge. It worried her that her brother and parents would be embarrassed by both the content of her writing, and her membership in an infamous s*x club. She was also afraid that she would be fired from her humble day job as a librarian for her inappropriate association with Maskerade.

Nothing she was doing was illegal, and what she did on her own time was no one’s business but her own, but she doubted that her stodgy old boss, Mr. Belk, would tolerate having a Godless deviant under his roof. Her being agnostic was one thing, but add in the s*x stuff and the ‘satanic’ dungeons and dragons stuff, and it would definitely push the old man over the edge.

She’d already burned her favors with him when she’d insisted on having Harry Potter books available in the children’s section. She had to pay for them out of pocket, but it was worth it to see the light in the kid’s eyes. While Nicolette was sure that the library would continue on without her, in the event of her untimely firing, but knew there was still so much more that she could do for the library, and for the kids. Especially with the money that would be rolling in if the film was successful.

Some other part of her knew that it was only a matter of time before her identity came to light. And another, darker part of her, liked seeing the desperation in Colt’s eyes. At least, she thought it was desperation that she saw as he handed her back her phone with his phone number safely saved inside it. 

She had to admit that he was a remarkably good actor; better than she gave him credit for, at least. She had, in the heat of the moment, been legitimately afraid of him. But, now that she’d had a minute to regroup, Nicolette wasn’t so sure that he would make good on such a threat. Colton was a lot of things, but she didn’t think he was cruel enough to ruin her life for a part in a movie. That flash of desperation had given her a shred of hope that his threat was about something else entirely; connection.

It was still there, after all these years. Unless she was delusional, he clearly felt it, and although she wasn’t ready to admit it yet, Nicolette felt it too. It pulsed inside her like a live wire. It might hurt her, but it might also jump start her heart - which had remained still, lifeless like a cold iron weight in her chest since the day Colton left Macon without so much as a ‘see ya later kid.’

That’s why she didn’t tell her agent about Colton’s threat, and why when the next morning rolled around, she didn’t hesitate to pick up the phone and dial the number that Colt had saved for her.

Colt was woken by the blaring of a raid siren ringtone at full volume. He’d assigned it specially to Nico’s number, wanting to ensure that he wouldn’t miss her call. He fumbled blindly for his phone, eyes still bleary, and barely managed to swipe to answer before it would have gone to voicemail.

“Nico…?” came Colt’s hoarse voice. 

He’d struggled to fall asleep after leaving the club. Knowing that Nicolette was so close to him - in the same city even - made his blood sizzle with excitement. He’d jerked off twice before drinking a handful of the tiny and ludicrously overpriced bottles of liquor and it still took him until three am to finally pass out. His tongue felt like sandpaper in his dry mouth. When he glanced at the clock on the bedside table, he almost groaned; it was seven in the morning. Nicolette was always an early riser.

“Yes.” Lettie replied softly.

There was a long pause. Then, Colt asked, “Yes, you’ll help me get the part?”

“Mmmhmm, but I want something in return.” Lettie replied easily.

Colt could hear the smile in her voice, and couldn’t help but smile in return. She was toying with him. That was a good sign, right?

“All right, I’ll play. What could a best selling author possibly want from little old me?” Colton said in his best flirty tease of a tone.

“What does anyone want?” Lettie answered his question with one of her own. But, before he could reply, she continued, “Money.”

The smile fell away from Colt’s lips like a lead balloon. “What?”

“Money. And lots of it. You must have plenty to go around.”

Nicolette knew that he came from wealth, and that he hated when people asked for handouts. He grit his teeth. This had to be some kind of game; payback for threatening her. That was his Nico, all right. She loved her games - though they’d never played one quite like this before.

There was no way that she really needed money. From what little he’d heard about her life through the grapevine, he knew that she got a job at one of the smaller Atlanta area libraries. She might not make a lot of money as a librarian, but he bet that her salary paired with the earnings from her book ensured that she lived more than comfortably. Plus, he was pretty sure that Chris had bought homes for both his sister and parents when he made his first million plus paycheck.

OK. She was trying to push his buttons. Maybe he could flip this on her?

“I inherited a fair amount when my parents died. But, maybe you didn’t know about that. I didn’t see you at the funeral, though Chris and your parents came…” he said, striking a somber tone in the hopes of guilting her.

“I was there…” she said softly. “I just didn’t think you’d want to see me. I didn’t want your girlfriend to feel uncomfortable.”

Shit. He’d forgotten that he brought his flavor of the week with him to the funeral. His parents’ death had been so sudden and shocking that he honestly didn’t remember most of that week, or the name of the woman on his arm as the two caskets were lowered into the ground side by side.

“I...uhm...I wish I had seen you there.” he mumbled awkwardly. “That woman...I wasn’t really dating her. It was just for the publicity. She pretended to cry, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I thought I was broken, but my therapist...nevermind. You said you wanted money, right?”

There was a soft intake of breath from the other end, and he cleared his throat hoping that she would let the morose awkwardness slide.

“Right. Money. Oodles of cash.” Nicolette said, her voice no longer as flippant as it had been earlier. Her enthusiasm had been tempered by their morbid recollection.

“How much?” Colt asked, swallowing lightly.

“Seven point three million dollars, please.”