Yes, Mr. Van Der Wells (Not Another Billionaire Romance) Read online

  “No. And I have no inclination to.”

  She was pensive for a few, and I hoped she would run off and leave me to my thoughts of chocolate-drizzled donuts. Why did she want to run with a miserable old blob like me anyway?

  “I know what your problem is,” she said suddenly. “You view exercise as work, instead of something fun, so the mere thought of it exhausts you before you even begin.”

  I shot her a side-glance, but didn’t respond. Hoping she’d take that as a hint to leave me alone.

  “Exercising is what you make it, Mr. Van Der Wells,” she went on. “If the thought of it makes you break out in sweats before setting a foot on the treadmill, then that’s because you’re doing it all wrong. The thought of working out should thrill you. You should view it as your personal playtime. And there are so many different ways to ‘play.’ You don’t have to be in a gym bench-pressing a hundred pounds. ‘Gym’ doesn’t have to be literal. Just find a fun sport. Tennis? Swimming? Jogging?”

  I can’t out-walk her, she’s blabbing on right there on my heels.

  “Running is most everyone’s favorite. It’s liberating. There’s no stress to it. You don’t have to try to keep up with anyone. You set your own pace, take your own path. There’s no perfect way or right way to run. You just run.”

  With an impatient sigh, I stopped walking and dug out my wallet. “Look, can I pay you to leave me alone?”

  “How about we make a bet?” she countered. “Run with me, just this once, and if you like it, you pay me fifty bucks. If you hate it, I give you fifty bucks and promise never to bother your donut-stuffing face again.”

  Exasperated, down to the tips of my sausage fingers, I turned and stepped into her, staring down my nose at her, aiming for intimidation. Yet her gay sapphire eyes just laughed at me. Far from intimidated. “I don’t need to make a bet with you, little girl. I’m a multi-billionaire, and you’re a tween on an allowance. Save your fifty bucks.”

  She rocked forward on her toes and bounced back on her heels, still warming up. Due to our closeness, however, each time she rocked forward on her toes, her distractingly tempting rack brushed up against my chest. And I know I’m going to hell, the deepest, darkest, pit of conflagration, for wanting to tear that fuchsia sports bra off and ravish her right there.

  “A true businessman,” she starts in an admonishing tone, “respects the value of a dollar, no matter how wealthy he might be. Whether it’s one-dollar or one thousand dollars, he never passes up the opportunity on a dollar. Every dollar is respected by a true businessman.”

  Although we lived in the same building and sometimes ate Sunday dinners at the same table, I always tried to keep an adult distance from Charlotte, for obvious reasons. I never had a conversation with her long enough to find out what I’m finding out right now: She irritates. Worse than a tick on a dog’s ear.

  Why on earth was I letting an all-pink teenage girl rile me?

  When I did nothing but glare down at her for a full minute, she prompted, “So, what’s it going to be? Are you gonna be a true business man and run with me for fifty bucks, or are you gonna be a punk-ass fraud and waddle down to the donut shop to stuff your face with lazy cops?”

  It’s official, she got to me. The annoying little wasp stung me. Pressing a finger to her chest, I pushed her back an inch. “You’re on.”

  At this, her face lit up, and she bounced and clapped like the little girl she was, immediately dishing out warm-up instructions.

  We warmed up on the walk to the park, which wasn’t bad at all, to be honest. My joints popped and cracked, but I loved how awake they felt afterward.

  At the park, Charlotte advised I start off by power-walking. We power-walked for about fifteen minutes before graduating to light jogging. This had me wheezing in no time, and I stopped and rested three separate times before we wrapped up an hour later.

  Even though all I did was power-walk and light jogging, Charlotte was right, it was freeing. My lungs opened up, and it felt as though I was breathing fresh air for the first time. I had a definite pep in my step as we walked back home, sipping cool bottled water. For the rest of the day, at work, I could feel a huge difference. Less tension.

  Wanting that fresh and freeing feeling to last, I paid Charlotte fifty bucks every morning to run with me—which she gladly accepted and stuffed in her fanny pack. A lot more than a monthly gym membership fee, but I didn’t care, because no gym had Charlotte Cooley there. And this girl was a character. Sometimes I questioned whether I was running because of running, or I was running because of her. She’s sprightly, mouthy, pushy, and exasperatingly inquisitive. Her high-spirited disposition affected mine in such a powerful way she would never come to know. Morning runs with Charlotte were the highlight of my days.

  Until one morning, I waited for her and she never came. I waited the morning after that, and she still didn’t come. It was on the third morning, mid-waiting, that Mom rang me with the news: Raymond Cooley had been arrested and charged with fraud and embezzlement, and all his assets had been seized, including the penthouse. No one knew where Charlotte and her mother were. They just vanished.

  I didn’t run the morning I heard the news, and the morning after that, I tried to find reasons not to run. But then I heard Charlotte’s taunting voice in my head, calling me Fatty Nate and Donut Face, her twisted way of getting me to push harder whenever I got too complacent.

  So I got up, and I ran.

  I ran for her, I ran for me.

  I ran, and I never stopped, because I knew wherever she was, she was running, too.

  I ran, and ran hard, believing, crazily, hopefully, that one day we would run and crash right into the other.

  ONE

  “I-I CAN’T BREATHE…An…Andrew…please, stop.”

  He’s going to kill me this time. I just know it. I can see it in his eyes. The nothingness. Emptiness. He will do it. Just because he can. He’s going to strangle me to death, acid-melt my body in his bathtub and then move on with his floozy like I never existed. Oh God, I’m going to be one of those horrific spouse-murder stories on Snapped.

  The edges of my vision burn black, every breath of air squeezed from my lungs. I’m tipping up on my toes, slapping hard at his hands, completely incapable of forming words now.

  Please. I don’t wanna die at nineteen. This was a stupid, stupid idea. Dear Father, if you let me live, I promise to stop downloading illegal movie and music torrents. I promise to stop watching gay porn and to stop masturbating to fantasies of virgin teenage boys seduced by hot soccer moms. Just please let me live and I swear I’ll be good.

  Andrew abruptly releases my throat and grabs my jaw instead—wow, Our Father works fast!

  “The next time you question where I go and what I do with my dick, I’ll knock your goddamn teeth out. I’m the man, you’re the woman. You don’t get to ask questions. I do whatever the hell I want, screw whoever the hell I want, and you should just be a good little girl and keep your mouth shut until I have use for it. Got it?”

  As I begin to reach my hand up to rub my burning throat while I gasp for air, he knocks my hand away, barking in my face, “Answer me!”

  Numbly, I nod. “Yes...baby. I…I understand.”

  At the endearment, his expression softens. Releasing my jaw, he gently slides his hand around to the back of my neck. “Lotty, you know you have nothing you worry about. Those other women mean nothing to me. You’re my baby. The one I’m going to marry. You know that, right?”

  The things I do to survive. “Yes, I know.”

  He smiles, leans in and kisses me. “I love you alright? Only you.”

  I almost choke as I lie, “I love you, too.”

  The buxom brunette who I walked in on him screwing minutes ago, appears in the doorway of his condo, his sheet draped around her, glaring down at us on the sidewalk. In a sulky tone, she calls, “Andrew, babe, are you coming back or should I leave?”

  Andrew has me pinned with his hips to the side of
his Toyota Camry taxicab. He chased me down after I walked in on them, caught up with me on the sidewalk, slammed me against his taxicab, and proceeded to choke the daylights out of me, because, how dare I get upset and ask who the bitch was.

  “Go back inside, Shauna!” he calls back without taking his eyes off me. “I’ll be there in a minute.” To me, he says, “You dropped by to ask me for the night?”

  Forcing a pitiful expression, I drop my gaze and nod.

  His thumb caresses the side of my face. “Look, since I’m gonna go back inside and not get rid of Shauna, how about I make it up to you by giving you the next five nights? You’ll make enough to cover your rent and groceries this month. That good?”

  Yes! Yes, that’s more than good. I peer up at him from under my lashes. His curly dark hair tumbling down over his forehead, a bit ruffled from his romp with “Shauna.”

  Andrew is the asshole to beat all assholes, but he’s so damn good-looking it hurts. He has a lazy kind of sexiness to him. Half-Hispanic, with an odd and unusual—but sexy—accent, like a smash between Scottish and Spanish. Slender build, average height, midnight eyes and a killer smile. The same ambushing smile I’d foolishly fallen for.

  “You’d do that?”

  His expression conveys that my question is ridiculous. “Lotty, you’re the only woman I spend my money on. I don’t give two shits about anyone else and their problems. I take care of you because I care about you. Sometimes…” He pauses, getting a faraway look in his eyes. “Sometimes I wish I could do more for you.”

  You could. By refraining from screwing every whore in a store, and from beating the senses out of me every chance you get. “I know you would if you could, baby.” There goes another lie. I’m turning pro at this. Lie to stay alive.

  “Wait here,” he mumbles, dropping another kiss to my lips. “Lemme go get the keys.”

  Barefoot and in just a pair of unzipped jeans, he turns and jogs up the steps to his condo, disappearing through the open door, and reappearing a minute later with the keys to his cab, pressing the fob into my palm. “You know the drill. I need it back by six. My Glock’s in the secret compartment under the driver’s seat. Hope you don’t end up having to use it. Be safe.”

  He kisses me again before heading up the steps, slamming the door behind him without a backward glance.

  Well, that worked out better than I planned. I was aiming for two nights and ended up getting five.

  See, Andrew’s a crap liar, so when I phoned him earlier and he told me he was chilling at Duke’s Bar, forgetting that Duke’s Bar is closed on Tuesdays, I saw it as an opportunity to take advantage of an “unfortunate” and “heartbreaking” situation. Dropped in unannounced at his condo, knowing, indubitably, that there’d be a woman inside—I didn’t plan on getting almost choked to death, though. By that point, I began regretting my “brilliant” idea to catch him red-handed and manipulate him into giving me a few nights on his taxicab.

  My boyfriend—and trust me, I use this term very loosely—has invested in three Toyota Camry Hybrids. Two of them are registered in a car service company, on which he receives a weekly payment, and the third he runs as a cab on his own. Prior to my impoverishment, I couldn’t have imagined this, but taxicabs make some serious cash in NY.

  Andrew pays my rent for me when I can’t afford to. A hellhole one-bedroom apartment I share with Mom. In case you’re wondering why I take his crap, that’s part of the reason.

  No, I don’t love him. Never have. I liked him once—I mean, he’s hot. Like, seriously. But the first time he laid his hands on me, I was instantly disillusioned; never getting to the falling in love part.

  I tried to end it with him on numerous occasions, but Andrew is obsessed with me. And “breaking up” with a man as violent as him is next to impossible. He will stalk me, find me wherever I run, and then beat me to blood and bruises for trying to leave him, while simultaneously begging me to take him back.

  I can’t hold a job because of him. I’ve lost a number of waitressing and bar-tending jobs because of him. He would barge into whatever establishment I was working at and create a scene, accusing me of cheating or flirting with customers. No one wanted all that drama in their business, so job after job, I got sacked because of my obsessive, possessive, abusive “boyfriend.”

  I can run. Somewhere farther than New York. Somewhere he won’t find me. Except, I can’t run with a dying Mom.

  Therefore, as a result of his actions, I’m jobless. People talk, word spreads, and so, no one will hire me, because of my “crazy man,” a man who was wildly popular in Brooklyn, by the way.

  Consequently, I am dirt poor, and forced to rely heavily on him for support. I wonder sometimes if that’s been his plan all along, why he behaves how he does, so I wouldn’t be able to fend for myself and would thus need him.

  Physically and emotionally, he abuses me, no excuse for that. None. Nonetheless, he pays my online college tuition, covers my rent 98% of the time, and buys me groceries weekly. Judge me all you want, but at this point, with my dying Mom on my hands, I really don’t have a choice. This is how I survive.

  Whenever I need extra cash for emergencies, such as medication refills for Mom, I ask Andrew for a night on his cab. If he’s in a good mood, he’ll let me have it. He’s not altruistic, though, and is a total asshole, so at other times, like tonight, I have to cook up a gambit, something to manipulate him into granting me a night or two.

  Sometimes it works, and sometimes...not so much.

  Tonight, thanks to his promiscuity, I’m biting back a victory smile as I duck into the shiny Camry and drive off.

  Working nights is hazardous for a female driver—not to mention a nineteen-year-old female driver. But I don’t have a license to work a taxicab, so nights, when I’m less likely to get busted, are my only option.

  Andrew’s gun is stowed under the seat for protection. On multiple occasions, he’d had to brandish it when criminal passengers tried to mug him. But I’ve never encountered any such scares before, so I’m not afraid. Just cautious of the passengers I pick up.

  An hour later, after reigning in close to ninety bucks in fares, I swing up to the curb of the nearest coffee shop, grabbing a large cup of Cappuccino to keep me awake and alert through the night.

  As it’s only minutes after nine, the city’s still buzzing with life. Cab driving isn’t the ideal job for a nineteen-year-old, but I do enjoy taxiing. It’s kind of fun. When Andrew and I first met, back when I actually liked him, before he showed me his horns, I used to ride shot-gun with him for fun while he worked. Then one day he caught the flu, was in bad shape for a few weeks, and couldn’t run the cab. By then, I knew all the routes and shortcuts, so I offered to run it until her got better. He was dubious at first, but eventually relenting, allowing me to try for one night. When I returned in the morning with more earnings than he expected and not a scratch on his sleek car, he let me work at nights until he got well.

  That’s how I can get him to hand his keys over to me trustingly. He knows I’m boss at this.

  I’m creeping along the outskirts of Brooklyn, keeping a lookout for wavers as I sip on my deliciously steaming Cappuccino, single-handedly steering through traffic, when someone abruptly dashes out in front of the cab.

  My foot jams on the brakes, my hand reflexively holding the cup of coffee away from me to prevent being scorched. A lesser driver either would’ve hit the idiot jaywalker—or rather jay-sprinter—or get burned from a huge cup of coffee.

  Carefully setting the coffee down into the cup-holder, I look up, slowly releasing my foot off the gas, fully expecting the coast to be clear of street-dashing idiots so I can go about my business. But it’s not, and I have to hit the brakes again.

  There is a man, standing like a deer-in-headlights in front of my cab, head whipping from side to side as if confused whether to run or get on all fours and start barking like a dog. On top of that, he’s…naked—well, not completely. He’s wearing tight white boxers t
o cover his bits—or rather his much.

  My eyes scan the perimeter, trying to figure out if this is some kind of parade or prank or something. Because first, this is New York, and all kinds of crap happens here, no matter the time. Second, because the man in my headlights possesses the body of a model, as clichéd as that sounds. Not just a model, but also a football model.

  Headlights from passing vehicles flash and glide over him like rotating runway lights. A sexy bastard caught in the spotlight.

  I can see every inch of him, including the semi-hard erection printed against his tighty-whities. I can see his eight pack—yes, eight pack—and well-defined V. I can see his strong, strong football-player-type thighs, and slightly bowed legs. I see lean, non-bulky arms, and an amazing, downright impressive chest, although it had a tad too much hair, but hot all the same. I see a face that would make vaginas weep tears of surprise orgasms: A jaw line so high and sharp I could probably slit my wrist on it, a Roman nose, and extremely tousled jet-black hair sticking every which way. Sex hair. Sex face. Sex everything.

  What hole did this demon climb out of? Because he is a demon, right?

  I’m no longer foolish enough to believe that men who look like he does are sent from Heaven. Nope, they’re sent from Satan himself—which I’m sure is a sexy beast, as hot as sex, and as irresistible as sin. We’re tricked into believing that demons are hideous ogres, and angels are perfect and outrageously beautiful. But it’s all a lie. These panty-melting creatures are the Devil’s key weapon against us poor, unsuspecting women. And time and time again we fall right into their trap.

  Fortunately, for me, I’ve learned my lesson, so the Devil’s tricks no longer work on me.

  Pressing down the heel of my palm on the horn, I poke my head out the window and yell, “Get out of the frickin’ road, asshat!”

  His head jerks, and then he squints. Said eyes then widen with relief, as if realizing for the first time that he’s standing in front of a taxicab. Just then, out of nowhere, a glinting object whizzes by Sexy Demon’s ear and lodges right in my rear-view mirror.