Page 22 of Most Eligible Billionaire

Like what a race car driver would wear. Henry probably owns race cars. He probably drives them in places like the Alps or Monaco.

I tear my gaze from his hands and back to his eyes, ignoring the warmth spreading up my spine.

People have reactions to each other, just like chemicals do. Some blend. Some layer. But some transform each other—they fizz and bubble right out of their containers.

That’s Henry and me—something about him gets me reacting—pulse too fast, skin too tight. Wanting to spar. Something. Anything.

It’s hate, I tell myself.

I hate the hotness of his hands and the wrong heat of us in this room.

“Let’s end this charade,” he says.

Something dark arrows through me.

Charade. To most, the word conjures up a marginally fun game where you wish there was more wine.

Not to me. It’s one of the words they hammered me with. Selfish charade. Disgusting charade.

“I have the papers for you to sign right here. And a check.” He slides it across the table. The implication is clear—if I sign, I’ll be released.

I look up at him.

“You don’t win this,” he says softly. “You don’t win against me.”

My blood races through my veins.

Never again. Never again. I vowed it, didn’t I? Never again to be pushed around by somebody like this.

I watch myself stand. I watch myself pull Smuckers into my arms. “Keep your cookies,” I say. “And keep your money, too. Smuckers and I are not for sale.”

Speaking those words, I feel this rush of energy, like I’m sticking up for that girl I left in the dust of Deerville. I’m sticking up for Vonda O’Neil.

It feels amazing.

I turn. I walk. My knees are shaking like Jell-O, but I walk. With every step, I feel stronger. Expanding beyond my container. Bubbling over, wild and free.

I can’t believe they’re letting me leave, but they are. I get out of the police station with nobody stopping me. So they never intended to arrest me after all.

I walk down the sidewalk feeling strangely new.

Never again.

Five

Vicky

The first boardmeeting takes place on a Wednesday at Locke Companies headquarters. I enter the address from the sheet the lawyer gave me into my phone. It’s an easy subway ride.

The headquarters turns out to be one of those grand Financial District buildings, gleaming white stone and glass shooting high up into the sky.

The doorway is actually a bank of doorways that seems designed to illustrate the concept of redundancy. There’s a revolving door, an automatic single door, a single door for people with handicaps, a double door for people with handicaps, an automatic double door, a nonautomatic single door, and one last door, added, perhaps, as an insult to the undecided, next to which a uniformed attendant stands.

Above is a row of blue flags, flapping in the wind. Specifically they areRoyal Blue 1—that’s the Locke Worldwide corporate color. This is something I learned from the packet the lawyer put together for me. The flags are emblazoned with the Locke logo, interlocking circles in the shape of a building, or a penis, if you will.

I take a deep breath and walk under the blue awning and enter a five-story-tall lobby with a giant triangular rock five stories high with water cascading down its sides into a Royal Blue 1 fountain.

One of the men behind the security desk rises. He suspects I don’t belong.

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