Page 13 of The Runaway Billionaire's Inconvenient Baby
“Nothing is worth leaving our homes for!” cries a woman at the back of the room. A murmuring of agreement goes around the room, and my face falls into a frown. “This is our life. We won’t let you take it.”
The woman stands up, and I actually gasp. She’s tall, blond, beautiful. She’s wearing a green summer dress that complements her sharp blue eyes and flows around her sun-kissed knees. I clench my fists harder to stop myself from gawking at her. I don’t think letting her know that I find her absolutely stunning would do anything to endear her to my cause.
“Thank you for your opinion, Miss…?” I pause to let her tell me her name.
“Billie.”
“Miss Billie. I understand that you feel strongly about this town. I’m sure many of you do, but I can assure you that I would look after your village.”
“That’s what the rich always say,” Billie shouts. “You want to take over our island, build on it, take it and make it into your own. Well, we’re not having it. This town is ours, and we’re not letting you move us.” Another murmur of agreement goes around the room, and I grimace. Why are they all being so difficult? Time to break out the trump card.
“Miss Billie, if you’ll let me finish. I wasn’t planning on doing any redevelopment here. I’m not selling this land, and I’m certainly not having tenants. I want somewhere I can escape. Somewhere where no one is going to bother me. Building apartments wouldn’t help with that.”
To my relief, some other people in the audience laugh. I haven’t lost them completely — not yet.
“I’ll tell you this,” I say. My lawyers are going to be furious when they find out I’m riffing, but I need to persuade these people. If I have to pay out a small fortune, so be it. It’s not like I can’t afford it. A billion dollars is far more than any person could ever hope to spend anyway, and I have several of them.
“I will buy each and every one of you your new dream home, no questions asked, no strings, no limits. Just a house in your name. Not only that, but I will give each and every one of you — man, woman and child — half a million dollars if you agree to peacefully leave my island.”
The people gasp in shock, and I suppress my smug grin. I can’t let them know I think I’m winning.
But this Billie character shakes her head. “You think we’ll be so easily bought? You’re wrong. We’re a community. We’re stronger together, and we don’t need you.” The agreement from the audience is weaker this time, but it’s annoying to see it’s still there.
People are clearly thinking about my suggestion. Why wouldn’t they? I’m giving them everything.
For some reason, that isn’t enough forher.
We argue for another forty minutes. This Billie is stubborn, arrogant, irritating, and worst of all, everyone in town seems to like her. Any time I posit a solution, she bats it down and gets everyone on her side. She’s making me look like the villain, but I’m not.
All I want is to stop people stalking me.
Even this stubborn woman must be able to see that there’s no evil in that. I mean what I say. I wouldn’t redevelop. I wouldn’t knock anything down. Well, nothing much, anyway. I certainly wouldn’t be building condos and hotels, and I would let some of them stay.
Hell, this Billie can stay if she really wants to. I’m sure there must be something better out there for her though. She’s a young woman and clearly a smart one. She must be lying if she says she’s never felt the call of something bigger. I’m offering it to her; I’m freely giving her the world.
Why won’t she take it?
When I get back to my hotel, I’m exhausted. I say hotel; it’s the upstairs room at the local inn. They do have tourists here sometimes, and apparently, those tourists like to stay somewhere quaint. I don’t do quaint. That is something I’ll be building when I move here: a nice, modern house. The internet seems fast enough, at least, but I don’t really care for this history and character stuff.
I want somewhere nice, clean and sleek to live, somewhere where I can see the ocean. Somewhere I won’t have to worry about mold and moths and furnishings from the nineteenth century.
I slump down on a bed and call James. He and the other lawyers left before I went to the town meeting. They didn’t want to stay on my beautiful island, but I thought I should probably spend the night to make sure I can tolerate being out in nature like this. It’s been a long time since I was away from the city.
The evening crickets are loud, but it’s peaceful in a way too. There’s hardly any traffic noise, hardly anyone outside the window shouting. It’s calm. It’s still. It’s nice.
James picks up the phone. “I need you to do whatever it takes,” I demand.
“What?”
“Whatever it takes,” I repeat. “I want this island. I don’t care how annoying stupid locals are. I don’t care how much resistance there is. Put in the offer. I’ll give all of the locals who will move whatever they want and those who don’t, well… figure out a way to get them gone.”
“Yes, boss,” says James. Usually, I’d be annoyed by him patronizing me like that, but today I don’t care. I’m too annoyed by everything to care.
And if young Miss Billie thinks that I’m backing down even for a single second just because she likes her town the way it is, well, she’s got a storm coming.
This is my island now, and she’s going to have to like it.
CHAPTER 7
