New York Billionaires Series

Very fucking low, that’s what. Not once had I met anyone at the Gilded Room at work, and only a few times had I done so in a private setting. But Frederica Bilson is my company’s trainee, so off-limits she’s practically wearing a neon traffic cone on her head. The perfect memory of Saturday night is tarnished forever now, knowing she’s met me, the real me. And I’m not a mafia boss.

I lean back in my chair and press the heels of my hands against my eyes. The insolent young trainee writing those emails had been Strait-laced.

I can’t get the two images of her to merge into one in my head.

The dark-haired vixen, coy and seductive on Saturday.

The proper, pencil-skirted young woman meeting my gaze across the conference table.

The whole point of going to the Gilded Room is to provide anonymity-to ensure I stay in control. I’d erected a ten-foot concrete fucking wall between my private and my professional life, and somehow she’d managed to claw her away across like a beautiful but deadly weed.

And of course she’s in Strategy of all departments, the one place I’m convinced is bleeding information to our competitors. Our business moves had been anticipated by other consulting firms too often for it to simply be a coincidence. I’d been keeping a close eye on the department for the past month… and now my view will involve a woman I know the taste of but who I can’t go back to for seconds.

The phone on my desk buzzes, and I press down on the speaker button. “Yes?”

“Your son’s school is on the line, Mr. Conway.”

St. John’s Prep is always calling me, and it’s only about my son every third time. The others? Do you want to donate to the school bazaar? Chaperone a trip to the Bronx Zoo? Join in on the bake sale? It’s as time-wasting as it is guilt-inducing.

“Put them through.”

Static crackles, and then a professional voice on the other line. “Mr. Conway?”

“I’m here. Is Joshua all right?”

“He is, but he says he has a stomachache and wants to go home.” Her tone of voice is apologetic. “He didn’t want us to call you, sir.”

I’m already reaching for my cell. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Oh, that’s perfect. We’ll be waiting for you.”

I hang up and close down my work laptop, slipping it into my briefcase. Joshua rarely has stomachaches, and he never wants to go home from school early. A thousand different scenarios spin through my head. Had I forgotten something? A doctor’s appointment, the anniversary of his mother’s death… no and no.

I stop by my secretary’s desk. She looks up from her screen, her face snapping into the professional mask she always wears. “We need to clear my afternoon,” I say, “and move any meetings from three p. m. to telephone meetings instead. I’ll be working from home.”

She’s already tapping away at the keyboard. “Of course, sir. Everything all right with Joshua?”

Cecilia knows everything about everything, and has since I took over Exciteur. She’s invaluable. “Yes,” I reply, already heading to the elevators. “See you tomorrow.”

I find myself tapping my foot against the steel floor the entire way down, and I know I won’t be able let go of my worry until I arrive at St. John’s. Ryan stops the car in the drop-off zone and I shoot out of the car, striding up the stairs to the old brick building.

Joshua, Joshua, where are you…

He’s waiting with Mrs. Kim inside the school’s main doors, sitting on a bench and kicking his legs out in front of him. He shoots me a sheepish look under a head of dark curls.

“Thank you for coming,” Mrs. Kim tells me. “I’m sorry about calling you during your working hours, but I’m afraid Joshua was really in pain.”Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

He hunches over at her words, an arm curling around his stomach.

“You made the right call,” I say. “Thanks for letting me know.”

Her exhale is one of relief. Had she been worried I’d be angry? Perhaps I hadn’t hidden my annoyance at the bake sale calls as well as I thought I had.

Joshua and I head out of school, and I reach out to run a hand through his hair.

“Hey, Dad.”

“Hey, kid. A stomachache, huh?”

Hmm. “Is it too bad for ice cream in the park on the way home?”

He looks up at me, eyes serious behind his glasses. “I think ice cream might make it better.”

I press my lips together to keep from smiling. “Then ice cream it is, kiddo.”

Joshua leaves his backpack in the car and Ryan takes off, back to the apartment. We walk home instead, side by side and hands in our pockets. The tall oak trees of Central Park beckon at the end of the street. An oasis in this world of stone.

“Did you have Math and English this morning?”

He nods. The lapels of his uniform shirt are askew and I reach over and correct them for him, ignoring his huff of irritation. “And? How did it go?”

“Math was fine. English was fine, too. We had to recite a poem and then tell the class what we thought it meant.”

My eyebrows rise. “One you wrote yourself?”

“No, from a book.” His voice darkens. “We got one each and then we had to stand by our desks and read them out loud.”

“How did it go?”

“All right, I guess. I got an easy one.”

So that’s not what he got a stomachache from, then. We enter the park and both watch as a dog runs in front of us, its leash trailing behind it on the darkened grass. A teenage boy comes running after it.

“See?” I say. “That’s why we don’t have a dog.”

“I would hold on to the leash,” Joshua protests. “And we don’t have to get a big dog.”

“We’re not a small-dog family.”

“We’re a no-dog family,” he mutters. “I’m getting strawberry.”

“Good choice. I think I’ll get mango.”

He groans. “You always get mango.”

“It’s my favorite, kid.” I run my hand through his thick head of curls again. He’ll never get me to stop doing that, not even when he’s as tall as me. His mother had those exact curls.

“If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” he quotes with a sigh. It’s one of my favorite sayings.