Saving Her Billionaire Vigilante

Three: Piper Powell

Three

Piper Powell

    My old room was still the same. A replica of the teenage girl I’d once been. A Taylor Swift poster on the wall, posters of the Damon Salvatore guy above my bed. A bookshelf full of the vampire novels I’d been obsessed with, and the full Harry Potter series. All relics of my teenage years. It was hard to believe that part of my life was over.

    Tanager Manor was an hour outside of Crescent City, in what could be called the countryside. Ransom and I had spent most of our time at boarding school. But I remembered the rare occasions we were both at home together. Summer, and the holidays. Mr. Tanager always insisted we spend that time together.

    After dealing with Ransom, all I wanted to do was sleep for a thousand years. I changed into the pink striped pajamas I wore. Then, I threw myself onto my bed. Still exactly the same, with a purple star comforter. I crawled in underneath my covers, and for the first time since the news of Tanagers death, I allowed myself to cry.

    I sobbed myself to sleep, my face buried into my pillow.

    When I woke, it was to the sound of crunching. And angry beeping. Like construction. Paranoia shooting through me, I bolted upright. Ransom had done something. Something that I was going to be pissed at him for.

    I got up and went to the window to look outside where the noise was coming from. Outside, there was a horrible machine crushing my car. Still in my pajamas with nothing but a robe to keep me warm, I went out into the fall morning and stared at the wreckage. Ransom stood off to the side, drinking a cup of coffee, watching the whole thing like it was a show.

    “You asshole!” I strode up to him, fury in my eyes, and I slapped him across the face.

    He winced, rubbed his cheek, and then grinned like the cat that caught the canary. “It was a horrible car,” he insisted. “You still represent the Tanager name. I can’t have you driving something like that.”

    I glared. “You’ve never considered me a Tanager. You’ve always made that abundantly clear. I’m a Powell, and now because it suits you, suddenly I represent Tanager interests?”

    “No, because it suits my father,” said Ransom.

    I narrowed my eyes at him. “What are you talking about?”

    “He split Tanager Inc. between us. You own fifty, and I own fifty. I wasn’t supposed to say anything until the lawyer read the will, but I thought telling you might make you realize the responsibility that you have now.”

    I stared at him, certain that this was all a sick joke. “You’re kidding me.”

    He shook his head. “I wish I were. It would make things a lot easier on me. The will stipulates that for me to inherit my portion, I have to work with you for at least a year. You’ll be the Vice President of the company. If you want to forfeit after a year, you can give your portion to me. Same deal. One year at the company.”

    “You can take all of it. I don’t want your blood money,” I snarled.

    “Please, Piper. I know you don’t owe me anything. But if you don’t help me with this, the company gets sold out from under me.”

    I narrowed my eyes. “To who?”

    He took a deep breath. “The Cardinal family.”

    I swallowed. Christian Cardinal had been my enemy in high school. He’d been my first boyfriend, and then turned into my worst nightmare because he thought I was in love with someone else.  He’d obsessed over me and released pictures of me online. Ones of me changing. He was a genius hacker, and he’d gotten into my computer. His family did security for the CIA. They were also extremely Catholic. We’d also dated briefly, but when I realized he’d been stalking me, I broke up with him. That was when he released all the personal information, he’d stolen off my computer.

    Pictures.

    Personal e-mails.

    Whatever he could find, anything to ruin me. It had ruined my whole life. It had taken forever to get people to take me seriously again. Especially because there had been personal photos of us. Involving me naked.

    “No,” I said sharply, “no, that won’t happen.”

    “Then, you’ll stay. Complete your end of the deal. It’s one year, Piper.”

    I scowled. “How is it that you always get your way?”

    He shrugged. “When you have everything, you know how to get everything.”

    “I don’t owe you anything, you know,” I said bitterly.

    He took a sip of the coffee cup in his hand. “I know you don’t. But you owe my father. Me, I know you’d disappoint in a heartbeat. Him…. I know you wouldn’t.”

    I glared at Ransom. One of the many reasons I hated him was that he always found a way to interfere.  Any relationship I’d had, or come close to having, he’d stopped. It was like no one was good enough for his standards. Once Ransom scared them away, there was nothing I could do to get them back.

    “Ransom,” I said, “to be clear, I’m not a child anymore. Or a teenager. If you try to interfere with my relationships, I will walk away from anything related to Tanager. Do you understand?”

    He clenched his jaw, and I could see him struggling with his answer. He wasn’t good at being told he couldn’t do something. “Fine.”

    I stared at him, surprised. “You mean that? Because if I’m doing this, I’ll be at home. Here. People from our past might seek me out. People that you don’t approve of---”

    “It’s fine,” he said curtly.

    “Okay,” I said, hardly daring to believe that he would keep his word. More than likely, he’d screw things up before the week was over. He was good at doing that.

    “Follow me,” he said.

    I raised an eyebrow. “Why should I follow you?”

    “Because,” he said, “that’s the way of the world, Powell. Where I go, you follow.”

    I snorted. “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you?”

    He said nothing, and there was a dangerous look in his eyes like he knew something I didn’t. When he was plotting, his blue eyes were grey. Like storm clouds. Hesitantly, I followed him. We were going to the left side of the house, where the garage was, I realized. It was large enough it could have been a house on its own, but Mr. Tanager had a vast car collection. One that Ransom had added to over the years.

    Ransom took out his garage key, hit the button, and the door creaked open as it rose. Inside, there was what appeared to be a luxury car dealers dream. Mercedes Benz. Bugatti. Maserati. Whatever it was a sports car enthusiast could have desired, it was there. But I also noticed, tucked in the front line of cars, a red Tesla roadster.

    I glanced from the car to him. “That’s…. almost practical. And out of place for you.”

    “That’s because it’s not mine,” he told me. He took out a key and handed it to me.

    I stared at it apprehensively. “The cars mine?”

    “The paperwork is in your name,” he said, “drive it, don’t drive it. But if you’re going to be Vice President, you’re going to need to look the part.”

    I scowled. “I’ll take the role, but I’m not doing anything. I don’t want to have any part in Tanager.”

    “The annual salary is $118 million,” he said, “and you only get it if you meet the requirements. One year, working under me.”

    If I’d been drinking something, I would have spat it out. “Are you kidding me?”

    He shook his head. “It’s one year, Piper. One year and you can make enough money that you can never work again. Or do whatever you want for the rest of your life.”

    If I had $118 million dollars, I could do whatever I wanted. Start my own blog. Publish a book. Whatever. The sky was the limit. And, as an added bonus, I would never have to talk to Ransom ever again.

    “Fine,” I said, “fine I will do it. But Ransom, no more interfering. My life is my life.”

    He said nothing. “The funeral is at eleven,” he said, “I’ll meet you in the drive when you’re ready.”

    “I can drive----”

    “For one more day, we’ve got to pretend that we’re family. We’re going together.”

    “What if I have something to do after?”

    He raised an eyebrow. “What could you possibly have to do after?”

    I hesitated. It was a foolish hope, but I was hoping to see Oliver Oswin there. My old best friend, my first, real crush and boyfriend. That is, the first one that hadn’t used me. I knew that Oliver was probably going to be at the funeral. I hoped that he might see me there. That he might want to catch up, that we could make amends. “I have errands.”

    “Mr. Leech can do your errands. Leave a list for him.”

    “Okay, I don’t have errands,” I said, “I’m thinking that someone might be there. Someone that I might want to reconnect with. Someone that you---”

    He put his hand up. “That’s enough. Do you know how wrong that is? Using Dads funeral to have s*x?”

    I shook my head. “Not s*x. Oliver and I have a history. If I’m going to be working at Tanager Inc., I’m going to run into him.”

    “Why would you run into him?”

    “Well, he lives next door, doesn’t he?”

    Ransom nodded.

    “I can only assume one of the stipulations about my being Vice President is that I am going to have to live with you, correct?”

    He looked at me quizzically. “Why would you get that idea?”

       “Because, your father wouldn’t have given me this job just because of the money. This is a last-ditch attempt to make us forge some kind of connection.”

    He paused. “You think so?”

    “It’s the oldest trick in the book. Force two siblings together----”

    “Not siblings,” he reminded me.

    “Until we get along,” I finished.

    He nodded. “Well, it is one of the stipulations, which you’ll find out when the will is read.”

    “Exactly,” I said, “which means I will probably end up running into Oliver a lot. I need to make things okay with us. I can’t have him hating me.”

    “Why? He hates me. I live right next door to him.”

    “Because, unlike you, I actually care about my relationships with people. Besides, what happened was a terrible mistake.”

    He was staring at me again. “Breaking up with Oliver?”

    “Our kiss,” I said, “it was foolish, and never should have happened. I still can’t even believe that you did that.”

    Ransoms eyes darkened. “Well, that’s one person’s opinion. I, for one, think that our kiss was a good thing.”

    “It ruined my relationship,” I said.

    “Yes, but I finally got to touch you the way that I’ve always wanted to,” he said. He looked at me seriously, his eyes roaming my body. I licked my lips. There had always existed between the two of us a strange tension. One that I had never been able to explain.

    My parents worked at Tanager, and I saw Ransom around all the time. Before Mr. Tanager adopted me, I knew about him. He’d been a moody teenager around the office. I always thought he saw me as the annoying scientist’s daughter. But every once and a while, I’d catch him looking. I suspected he never acted because I was too young. I was two years younger than him.

    And then I was adopted, and that made things even more complicated. But when I turned eighteen, everything changed. There’d been confessions. And almost. And things that never should have happened.

    “Is that why I’m here?” I said. “Are you expecting something to happen?”

    He reached out and brushed back a strand of my red hair. “It’s not that I’m expecting to happen. It’s that we are written in the stars, and I would hate to disappoint them.”

    I frowned. “Stars fall.”

    “Exactly,” he said.

    I didn’t know what to say to that. But I did know that we had a funeral to get ready for, and I couldn’t deal with this nonsense. I swallowed hard, and then I left the garage and went back into the house to get ready for the funeral.