Page 14 of The Runaway Billionaire's Inconvenient Baby
BILLIE
Every time I pace over the floorboard near the sink, it creaks. I’ve been pacing nonstop for the last half hour, mulling over the meeting in my mind. As soon as it was over, I fled the town hall and headed back to one of the safest places on earth. My mother’s house.
She’s been watching me get riled up as I recounted everything that happened at the meeting. She didn’t go, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t care.
I know she’ll agree with me anyway. This town means something to her too. Like me, she was born here, raised here. Everything she knows is here. Like me, she cares. She taught me to care.
“It’s like we’re nothing to him. Like we’re not even people. We’re faceless voids that he can throw out whenever he wants because he wants the island. And because he can afford it, he thinks he’s entitled to it.”
“Rich people are all the same,” says my mother mildly. I know she’s trying to placate me or make me feel better, but nothing isgoing to make me feel better until this situation is over. Not until I know that we’re safe in our homes.
“Doesn’t he know?” I continue, swallowing back my tears. “There are elderly people here. There are people who need to live here because of their jobs, people who have nowhere else. Doesn’t he care?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“It’s the way he seemed to think that he could offer us money, and everyone would roll over. And the worst part is there are some people who will. Some people will roll right over for a fat check.”
“Honey,” says my mother, getting to her feet and taking my hand. “Come and sit down.”
“I can’t believe this,” I say, falling into her arms. She embraces me tightly and I breathe her in, absorbing that familiar and comfortable scent that I associate with my mother. Sea salt and lavender.
She’s always there for me, no matter what. I can’t believe I’m about to lose this too.
She leads me to the kitchen table — the same one she’s had since I was eight years old — and sits me down. I scrub my eyes with the back of my palm. “I feel so helpless,” I whisper.
“Me too,” she says and lets the moment pass in silence. Quietly, she says, “Do you remember when your father and I moved us into this house?”
I nod.
I was seven, and Mom wanted to move closer to town so she could be near her newly opened art store. She’s a painter, and she makes such beautiful things. She always has. With my dad running the cafe and me a little older, finally, she could pursue some of her dreams, and she succeeded. When Dad died, she made sure the cafe went to me.
“I was so scared then,” she confesses. “It was something new, something exciting. I wasn’t that much older than you are now, you know. I had a child, and your father had to fend for himself in the cafe. It was scary, but your father and you were always there for me.”
She shoots me a look, and I close my mouth, swallowing my comment to let her finish her thought. “You were only seven, but oh, honey, I relied on you more than you know. We made so many memories here, didn’t we?”
I wipe another tear off my cheek. “Why does this feel like you’re saying goodbye?”
“We’re not going to lose this place,” she says, her sea-blue eyes blazing as she looks into mine. On her cheek, there’s a splodge of blue paint clearly left over from her most recent painting session. Seeing it makes me smile, just a tiny bit.
This is how my mother always is when I imagine her, covered in paint and full of passion. “I love you, Mom,” I whisper.
“I love you too,” she says firmly. “Now you get out there and persuade the town that this guy’s money isn’t worth giving up everything we love for. All these memories, all our lives, they’reours. You persuade them, or you persuade him. I know you can do it. My daughter, who single-handedly stopped illegal fishingpractices from going ahead in this town. I’m sure she can dissuade a billionaire from taking everything from us.”
I chuckle bitterly. “I don’t know if I can.”
“Baby,” my mother scolds me. “What have I always said about self-doubt?”
“It doesn’t do anything except hold you back. I know. But Mom… I’m scared. I’m scared we’re going to lose everything. I can’t live without all of this.”
“Then I’ll watch you chain yourself to the railings to stop it.” I give her a look, and she raises both eyebrows. “You’ve done it before.”
“Yes.” I laugh. “But I’m not seventeen anymore. People take me seriously these days.”
“And they’ll take you seriously again. Trust yourself, my love. I do. I know you’ll do what’s right for this town. I will support you every second of the way. You know that.”
“I know, Mom. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You’d be doing the same.” She grins. “You just wouldn’t have someone to complain to.”
