Page 53 of Return Billionaire to Sender

You sure about that?That’s the question between us now. He doesn’t even have to voice it.

“Even if I were capable of empathy, nothing would change. I would still knock down any building I see fit to knock down, including John and Maisey’s.” He watches me strong and steady, like he really needs me to get this. “Inspiring a person to feel empathy for those whose lives he might upend only works on somebody who cares, who wants to avoid being a villain. Me? I know what I am. I’m a bad man, Elle, and I’m perfectly comfortable with it. I’m the villain in everybody’s story, and I always will be.”

Chills come over me. “I don’t accept that.”

“Which part of it?” he asks.

“The whole thing.”

He narrows his eyes. “You didn’t know me before,” he says. “You didn’t give a shit about my empathy or emotional intelligence or moral fiber a month ago, and you won’t give a shit about it in a month. What do you really want here?”

I swallow back the dryness in my mouth. “Your empathy.”

He seems to find this amusing. “Come on, now, think big, Elle. What is it really? Tell me. Who knows, maybe you’ll get it. Tell me what you really want. Make a list. Ask for more than one thing. Be outrageous. Go for it.”

I shouldn’t play his game; I shouldn’t allow his question to sink into my heart, but I do.

I want him to see the beauty in the building. I want for him to love it the way I do. But there’s so much more—maybe it’s something about eating the rich treats, but images ofhimcrowd my mind...images of him watching me with that intensity that he has. Images of large, rough fingers skimming my cheek, my neck, my bare arm.

He’s watching my eyes, looking back and forth from one to the other.

It’s exciting and addictive, because I’m not used to it; people never even give me a second look. I’m used to being part of the furniture, always there in the background, and here is this man focusing on me, on what I want. And this is a man who sees people. Sure, he claims it’s for ill, but I’m reveling in it.

And I would smooth my hand down his scruffy cheek, and I would help him off with his suit jacket and I would slide my hands over his shoulders and I would tell him that he’s not a villain. I would whisper it in his ear. I would tell him that I knew from the first that he has a good heart. It’s that good heart of his that enables him to see people like he does.

“I know there’s something,” he rumbles. “Let’s see what we can do to get us both what we want.”

“What I want,” I force myself to say, “is for you to complete today’s video with no more side conversations.”

“Oh, how incredibly boring,” he says.

“It’s not boring to me.”

He glitters. He’s a nuclear reactor of sexy power, and I’m the nobody who will never contain him.

Quickly I turn and hit play. He watches the rest of the program—as much as he ever does, anyway.

I get out of there quickly as soon as it’s over.

I observe yet another negotiation session the next day, observing him slowly and methodically spinning a web of friendly engagement and even charisma around the unsuspecting room. His keen interest cuts under the surface of everybody, makes people want to tell him things, to give him things.

He has one of Gerrold’s lawyers proudly sharing their contrarian opinion on something about domestic interstate transit; he gets the son talking about a pit-smoked barbecue place near the Austin distribution center that the crew is crazy over. He has Gerrold sharing intimate business details like they’re old colleagues.

Will Gerrold be able to hold out? Will he give in and beg Malcolm to buy as Malcolm so jerkishly predicted? Sometimes I send Gerrold silent bursts of ESP—stay strong! Don’t fall for Malcolm’s fascination and charisma!

I skip meals most days so as to not abuse the per diem, though I still go down and sit with the group. They all seem to think I’m on a one-meal-a-day diet, which is somewhat true, I suppose. And that one meal seems to be during sessions with Malcolm where he rolls in the treat cart. It really is hard not to feast off the treat cart. I tell myself that the food would go to waste anyway, so it’s not like I’m taking more than I ought from this company, but I also sort of know that if I refused to eat the treats, Malcolm might stop ordering them. Or would he? Not that it matters.

Not only am I completely starving by the time our sessions roll around, but the selection gets better and better with chocolates, champagne grapes, freshly baked breads.

One day, an assortment of bruschetta is there, and I learn that this is Malcolm’s favorite food, and I tease him about that before confessing that it’s my favorite food tied with chocolate chip cookie dough and cheese.

Cookie dough arrives in a small crystal dish with a spoon the next day.

“You are evil,” I say excitedly. But I really do want it. And, I have to keep my strength up. And hey, I’m still making him watch the videos.

I start up the video before I dig into the dough.

Malcolm is his usual incisively perceptive self. He guesses Francine’s a dancer before it comes out in the footage. He thinks one of the second-floor residents seems depressed, and when I talk to Jada that night she promises that she’ll invite her to watch Bachelor and get Maisey to tie a little baggy of homemade caramel corn on her door. That’s Maisey’s thing—tying little baggies of homemade caramel corn on people’s doors when they’ve been nice to her, or just when she randomly feels like it. I’ve gotten my share of caramel corn baggies as the letter carrier for the building, and it always touches me, not to mention being utterly delicious and decadent. I’m scared to ask how much butter she uses.

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