Page 5 of Return Billionaire to Sender

I stare down at my phone, but I’m back to the girl in the lobby. She was annoying, not watching where she was going, but Ted has her wrong when he says she didn’t know who I am. She knew precisely who I am.

I stay out of the spotlight as much as I can, but people still recognize me at times; I can always tell from the way they turn guarded, expression hardened. It’s a small click on the dial, but one I know well, having seen it so often.

Sometimes it’s in their posture. Sometimes they actually back up a step, unaware they’re doing it.

People rarely know what they’re doing. They rarely see what’s in front of their faces. It’s why I’m so rich and why everybody else is so pathetic.

So the woman. I saw the recognition in her eyes, but she just stayed there with a kind of wide-open and frank gaze. She didn’t shut it down even when I got close to her, knelt close enough to overwhelm her.

You’re so kind.

It was hardly kindness. It’s just that she was so buttoned down and tied up, right down to the bow around her neck, scrabbling her scattered belongings into just-so order. I had this overwhelming sense of her—I can’t quite describe it—but I was driven to grab her phone and I knew instinctually that pocket is where she’d want it, a theory I proceeded to test. And naturally, I was correct.

I like to stay sharp about people. It’s how I win.

A test of a theory; nothing more. And her, she was an open book, barely guarding herself from the likes of me.

You’re very kind.

Lack of survival skills. Not a good look on a woman.

With this I dismiss her.

Though I have to say, my colleagues’ assessment of her as a gray bird is off, and shows how woefully inaccurate their reading of her was.A gray bird is a common bird and she was anything but. What’s more, they had the color palette wrong; this woman was more like sandstone, pale and subtly golden, her hair just a shade darker than the freckles that cover her face like dusky constellations. Her nose curved just so, the faintest shape of a ski slope. And the quick, efficient way she moved her strong, slim fingers—they wouldn’t have noted that. Her scent—something raspberry coconut. Probably shampoo.

And really, the prim little bow around her collar. For one long, strange moment I imagined undoing it.

Undo the bow. Undo her. Like opening a guileless little gift. Unwrapping her neck, pale and bare. And then a button. Another button. Freckled skin flush with heat. Fingers on pale skin, scattering every last one of her little secrets out of every last one of her hidden little pockets.

You’re very kind.

What would it take to undo her? What would that frank, wide-open gaze look like all heated up?

More to the point, why am I still thinking about her? I have a million things to think about, and they don’t include her. I need to be thinking about a certain merger right now—I actually budgeted this transit time for that.

I put my phone in front of my face. When I have any kind of screen in front of my face, that’s a sign not to speak with me, my own version of a head on a pike. Because the other secret to my success is rigid time management.

I lower my phone and put my hand to my neck. “And what the hell exactly was that? What she was wearing? Around her neck?”

“It’s called a butterfly tie,” Lynette says. “It’s a women’s bow tie.”

I wait for more. When more is not forthcoming, I say, “A women’s bow tie.” The secret to getting people to tell you things is that you repeat their last few words. There’s nothing more stimulating to people than their own words.

As one of my lawyers, Lynette’s seen me use that technique hundreds of times but she still falls for it. “A women’s bow tie, very Kmart circa 1989. A little bit Korean schoolgirl, a little bit country-mouse-goes-to-Sunday-school. It’s not something anybody would ever wear.”

“Women are wearing bow ties now?” Kaufenmeier asks. “Can you all leave one thing to us?”

“No, she wasn’t wearing a bow tie like a man wears,” Lynette explains. “A butterfly tie is a largish bow with the ends trailing out. Imagine a slim-ish scarf tied in a bow around her neck, though I’d bet any amount of money it’s pre-tied and she clips it on. That would be so gray bird.”

I frown. The clip-on aspect definitely ruins my fantasy—you can’t slowly pull the end of a clip-on bow and untie it. You cannot pull it clear of the collar with slow, taunting deliberation.

If she were mine, I’d demand that it be an actual long bit of fabric tied around her collar that I could untie, like untying the bow on a gift, the gift in this scenario being her complete and utter undoing. I’d pull it out from under her collar, slowly. Pull it away. And then the buttons, one, two, three. A scrap of a bra, white, no frills.

The elevator comes to a stop on six. We get off and I head to my office, mind spinning on the country mouse down there.

Is it a clip or a tied bow? A tied bow would also be best because once undone, the tie would be there. Always useful for sexual hijinks. I’d hold it up in the air to show her. Would her gaze change then? Would she finally feel wary?

Though there’s something to be said for the pre-tied bow. Any woman that I could take seriously as a human being would clip on a pre-tied bow. Fashion is an incredible waste of time. A woman I’d take seriously would appreciate that. She’d be interested in efficiency and order and not wasting the time of tying the bow.

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