Most Eligible Billionaire: a grumpy sunshine romantic comedy (Billionaires of Manhattan)
Chapter 30

“THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW?” Carly is inconsolable when I tell her we have to leave. Her eyes shine wild. “It’s my junior year,” she says. “We can’t just leave!”

“We have to.”

“But we can’t! Please…”

“I’m so sorry.”

She collapses in a heap on our ratty green couch. “And our show just went up. And Bess…oh my god, I’ll never see Bess again!”

“You’ll see her again.” I hope. I think. I wrap my arms around myself.

“All my friends. Our whole life. If I leave school they’ll never let me back in.”

“I know, baby.”

“Isn’t there some other way? There has to be! You always think of something. You always do.”

The hope in her eyes kills me. “I thought about it long and hard. This is the best I can do for us.”

She flops back, staring listlessly at the ceiling.

I’m letting her down. I tried to take too much. I tried to fly too close to the sun and I got torched. I wipe the thought of Henry from my mind’s eye. He might be calling, but I’ve long since blocked him.

“All our stuff,” Carly says.

I want more than anything to wrap her up in a hug, to give her the hug that I actually really want for myself, but she’s not in the mood. “I’m sorry.”

“What if I finished out the semester living at Bess’s place? And then maybe it all dies down…”

“Connect the dots, Carly. Denny will spill. He lives to make my life miserable. Or somehow it gets out—too many people know. And Mom hears. She’s going to want you back. Especially if she sniffs the money—she’ll want you back and she’ll figure out an angle.”

“She’s a drug addict! She didn’t even file a missing persons report. Won’t they see?”

“She’s your mother and I’m Vonda—that’s what they’ll see. They’ll put you back with her. You’re leaving New York with me or her. You know I’m much more fun.”

She picks up a bright green scarf and a soft sob escapes her lips. Deep down, she knows I’m right. She was young, but she remembers the scary guys, and they’re still there. We know this because we secretly follow Mom on Facebook. We see her pictures, most of them from the inside of a bar or somebody’s trashy living room.

I sink down next to her. “We can go a lot of places with that money. Where do you want to go?”

“Nowhere. I want to go exactly nowhere.”

“Me, too,” I say. I look around, despairing. Aside from the couch, the furniture isn’t ours, but we collected a lot of little treasures over the years. We fought hard and we made a life.

“We’ll never see the sad mimes or fierce protector guy again.”

“I know.” I set a hand on her forearm. “Let’s think of a cool place to go where you can continue your theater training.”

We go out to get stupid-amount-of-candy ice cream, passing the sad mimes on the way. We hug them and get white paint on our cheeks.

We talk plans at the ice cream place. I nix Los Angeles—it has to be overseas. I already spoke with my ultra-expensive fake ID guy—he feels like he can swing overseas work visas under different names.

We settle on London. It’s the theater scene that sells it to Carly. And it’s a big city like New York. A place to get lost.

We look for VRBOs on our phones, and when we replace one, we pay a random neighbor to arrange it; that way we won’t leave a trail.

We’ll head to an airport hotel ASAP and arrange the rest of the move from there. It’s important not to leave a trail, because if the story about me and Smuckers and the company pops, the media spotlight will be relentless.

Brett seems to think he has Denny contained, but he doesn’t know that piece of shit like I do.

I leave Carly at our place, packing boxes to ship. A classmate of hers and her mother are taking over our parrot-sitting gig, because long-term pet sitting gigs on the Upper West Side are easy to fill. She’s going to introduce them to Buddy and show them how it all goes.

I head out to meet Latrisha at the studio. It’s dark outside when I get there. I thought I’d feel sad when I walked into the place, but I feel strangely proud. The space and the community made my life better. It was a family when I had none. I wander around, just connecting with people one last time, not doing the big dramatic goodbye.

Bron over at the smithy gives me a beer and tells me how my order will be ready in a week. I tell him that I know it will be amazing.

Of course I tell Latrisha I’m leaving. She senses it’s trouble. She thinks it’s Henry. I promise her it’s not. She wants to rescue us, put us up in her high-security building, circle the wagons. She’s a total Joan of Arc that way.

“You’ve been such a good friend,” I say. “Trust me. It’s better this way. A storm could be coming.”

I make her come over to my space and look at my toolboxes to see if there are any tools she wants. I’ve got some great ones she can use for inlays and fine work.

“I hate this,” she says. “It’s morbid. You’ve been collecting these for years. You have to take them.”

“I’m going on a plane with a dog and a teenager. I can’t take my tools, too.”

“How are you going to make jewelry?”

I swallow. “I’ll figure it out.”

“I’m taking them all,” she declares with tears in her eyes. “And I’m keeping them for you for when you return. You belong here.”

It’s a sweet thing to say, but in the back of my mind, I think, You don’t know about Vonda.

On the way back, I have the Lyft drive along Central Park past Henry’s building. I make him stop across the street and I look up there, wanting to catch a glimpse of him. The kitchen light is on.

Is Henry there? Is he celebrating?

I wasn’t pretending.

I’d be a fool to believe that. He lives for that company. He protects what’s his.

I wasn’t pretending. We got this, Vicky.

I sit there and let myself sink into the feeling of his words being true, like trying on a plush and beautiful coat that you can never afford but you want to feel it around you, and for a second, maybe you even believe.

And it feels so good.