Page 107 of Most Eligible Billionaire

“It’s a breath of fresh air,” she says.

“You know how messy teenaged girls are?”

“It’s thrilling to see you have…friends here. We’re all so pleased.”

I’m about to protest that I bring friends here. But I don’t.

The two of them stake out the bedroom on the very end of the south wing. We order in wine and soda and gourmet pizzas. They stay exactly ten minutes. It’s hard to compete with the promise of two guys from One Direction.

Vicky and I drink wine and talk about everything—even a little business. She wants to make sure we got the software Mandy requested. She changed her mind about it soon after I started taking her on facility tours. I tell her it’s in place.

Now and then the girls come through with reports that they heard music, and they carry on detailed analyses of whether it was recorded music or if it was the guys in jamming mode.

And as Vicky and I are fucking that night on the edge of the hot tub on the top veranda, and again as we have slow, lazy sex the next morning, I think to write One Direction a fan letter just for how completely they keep Bess and Carly glued to the other side of the mansion.

“You take good care of her,” I say that afternoon. Vicky and I sit on the porch overlooking the expanse of lawn, which ends in a pool, a cluster of cabanas, and the beach, edged in sea grass, deep blue-green water beyond.

Perched under an umbrella at the edge of the actual beach, Bess and Carly are in full teen girl splendor mode, running lines and staking out the neighbors, and Smuckers is a streak of white, running all around the lawn. The umbrellas are Locke blue, a fact that Vicky makes fun of.

“We’re all each other has,” she says simply.

I try to get more about her earlier life, but she’s vague, and eventually I find the conversation has circled around to her desire to know why I wear dark suits in the city and beige linen suits in the Hamptons.

Does she just hate to think about that time? I won’t push her. I pushed her enough. And we’re supposed to be away from it all.

The four of us walk along the beach for Saturday sunset, a ritual from when I have business visitors, who tend to enjoy the backyard view of the mansions, the lifestyles of the rich and famous, though they rarely admit it. Carly and Bess are no different, but they do admit it, pointing out different displays of excess. Vicky seems unimpressed, if not slightly hostile toward displays of wealth.

Between houses, the girls run ahead with Smuckers, kicking around in the surf.

“Back in your town, remember how you told me about being bullied?” I say.

Vicky gives me a blank look. “Sure.”

“Was it somebody wealthy?”

Her brow furrows. “Why would you think that?”

“Just wondering. You’re not impressed like a lot of people are. And, well, you did call me a rich, entitled jackass at one point.”

She takes my hand. “You know I don’t think that.”

I keep my eyes on the horizon, feeling her gaze on my face. I wonder if that’s why my mother chose her. I hate the question I’m about to ask, but it’s been burning in me. “Did my mother seem…happy in those last years?”

She squeezes my hand. “Henry—”

“I just…didn’t know her the last few years. I missed her.” I never say that aloud.

“She seemed happy…in her way.”

I nod.

“I wasn’t sure how much you wanted to know about her. But, yes. She had her routines and Smuckers. She’d terrorize people in the neighborhood, like when they wanted to pet him, she’d act angry. That was kind of her jam.”

I smile. It’s a bittersweet feeling, more sweet than bitter now.

“She was such a character,” I say. “I always imagined I could repair things. That somehow I’d break through and we’d have a heart-to-heart.”

“I’m sorry,” she says.

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