Page 33 of Billionaire Romance

14

Weaver

I’m a whirling dervish in my bedroom. Clothes, purses, jewelry are thrown everywhere, as I search for the perfect “meet the mother” outfit. If Chris thought I’d spend another hour in bed with him after he sprung these last minute dinner plans on me…well he was right. So now I’m fucked (literally twice fucked and figuratively) because I have twenty minutes to hop into a cab and get to The Supper Club, a fancy midtown restaurant, to meet Mrs. Beliem.

This morning at breakfast with Kate, I laid it all out for her. I told her about my date with Chris last night and how when we parted this morning, he let me know he was serious about me. And I admitted to her that even though I know it’s fast, I feel like this could lead somewhere. Kate’s duty as best friend is to be my cheerleader, but also to be pragmatic when she sees I’m floating three feet above the ground. She told me she was happy for me, that she hopes it leads somewhere good, but she also warned me to kick him in the balls and run if he dropped to a knee and proposed anytime soon. I laughed and told her not to be ridiculous; we’re just dating. But now I’m zipping myself up into my cute little shirt dress, looking for my conservative heels and purse, and although it’s not “kick him in the balls and run” time yet, things have escalated quickly.

I look at my reflection in the mirror. I’m trying to strike a good balance between hot girlfriend and respectable to meet mother girlfriend. I nailed it. My red shirt dress falls below my knees, but the buttons running down the front end just above them, leaving a nice slit the rest of the way down. I leave the top button of my dress open, and it reveals just enough that you’d have to be sitting very close to me to catch a glimpse of my matching red bra. I pull my hair up into a high ponytail, apply a light swipe of lip gloss, and add my favorite gold hoops from high school for good measure. I’ll look like the girl next door to his mother, and the girl of Chris’s teenage wet dreams.

Chris insisted on picking me up even though it’s out of his way. I protested, but I’m glad he didn’t listen to me. The idea of arriving before him and sitting alone with his mother really left me sweating. I’m sure she’s a lovely woman, she’d have to be to have raised such a terrific guy like Chris, but considering our odd courtship all these months, well I’m just not confident I’ll be able to navigate the conversation on my own.

But as we head downtown, I forget all about our weird history as Chris informs me of the various family dynamics he wants me to understand.

“The way you make it sound,” I say, “your grandfather is like some bizzaro quirky puppet-master, man behind the curtain who controls all of you?”

“In a nutshell,” he says, holding my hand in his lap. “Really it wouldn’t be so weird if Grandad was a little more…er…well not so eccentric. He’s always been an ideas man, and it served him well. He built up his company from nothing. He had an idea and he went for it. But now that he can’t travel, and the business dealings fall on my brothers and Mom, well he has an idea and we have to move on it. And most of the time he strikes gold. He has a good nose for business. But other times…” He breaks into laughter.

“What? You have to tell me,” I say, poking his side so he’ll let me in on the joke.

“There was this one time when he heard about a man in Mumbai who was sitting on a brilliant idea. I don’t know how he got this information, but he called me and told me I had to fly out and talk to him. See if he was looking for investors. He knew it was some type of entertainment company and he had dreams of Bollywood or something. Really, he’s a tyrant but he’s also a character, Grandad. I fly to Mumbai, wander around this market street looking for the guy. The locals point me down a road and I arrive at this small house with the wildest noises you’ve ever heard coming from the window. The guy comes out, a monkey on his shoulder, totally confused by what I’m doing there. He trained and rented out his monkeys to perform for tourists around the city.

“I had a cup of chai with him, pet a few monkeys, and then headed back to the airport to fly home to London. When I told grandad, he just said, “Better luck next time.” It didn’t even faze him I’d flown almost 5,000 miles for a cup of tea. That’s the way he does business. And back then, it was fine, a funny adventure. But when I look to the future, I just don’t know how it’s all going to work out.”

The word future hangs in the air like a dangerous and exciting bubble. Did he mean our future?

“Well do you like it?” I ask gently.

“It’s business. It lets me travel, it lets me collect from my trust fund, but it’s not what I want to do for the rest of my life. No way. It’s suited for my older brother Martin. I mean, he really likes the numbers. And Ryan really likes the travel and money, so he doesn’t care about much else, but I need something more. I’m not sure what, though,” he says. He looks wistful and I have a desire to tell the driver to turn around, head to the hotel. I want to take him to bed and hold him and tell him all about my dreams and how he can be part of those, but we arrive before I can say anything.

“Are you ready?” he asks, as he holds the door open for me.

“It’s just dinner. I’m a big girl,” I tell him, tracing a finger over the collar poking out from his beige cashmere sweater. He scans the restaurant behind me and then drops his lips down to mine, kissing me so tenderly I feel like my feet lift off the floor. The maître d’ interrupts us by clearing his throat.

“Can I help you?” he asks haughtily, looking us up and down like we’ve walked into the wrong restaurant.

“Reservation for Beliem,” Chris says. “Anne Beliem. We’re here to join her.”

The maître d’s expression changes instantly. “Oh, Mr. Beliem, right this way.” He calls over to a woman at the bar who sweeps over and takes our coats. We follow the maître’ d to the back of the restaurant, Chris holding my hand reassuringly as we pass most of the tables and there’s still no sign of his mother.

“You’ll find your party in there, sir,” the maître d’ says, gesturing toward an archway that’s half obscured by thick curtains.

“Mrs. Beliem?” Chris asks. “In there?”

The maître d’ is walking away and Chris stares after him. A loud roar of laughter erupts from behind the curtain.

“I apologize in advance,” he says as he leads me through the curtain.

Beyond the curtain is a private room with a large dining table in the middle. I recognize Chris’s brother, Ryan, right away, and to my relief, Chris leads us in the opposite direction from him. At the head of the table is a smartly dressed, attractive woman, who I assume is Mrs. Beliem. Her hair is blonde and cut in a bob that frames her soft face nicely. She smiles when she spots Chris, and her eyes light up as he bends down to kiss her on the cheek.

“Mom, this is Weaver,” he says. “And this—” he waves around the room— “is not what I was expecting. At all.”

“Don’t be such a stick in the mud, Chris,” she retorts. “When was the last time three Beliems were in Manhattan together? I couldn’t not call your aunts and uncles. And lucky for us, your cousins were in town, too.”

Chris introduces me around the room to his various relatives. I know I’ll never remember any of their names, but mine is on their lips already, as if I were the guest of honor, the topic du jour. When his elderly aunt mentions how romantic it is that we met in Paris, I detect Chris shooting an annoyed look toward Ryan, sipping a gin and tonic across the table with a Cheshire grin across his face. My palms are clammy, and I start searching for any excuse to leave.

“Weaver come sit by me,” Mrs. Beliem calls across the room.

Chris squeezes my hand in a reassuring gesture, and I walk away. Into the lion’s den, it feels.

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