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He walked back towards his car.
“Why the rental car?” It was an odd thing to say after that speech but the question had been on Zoe’s mind.
Nick turned toward her and gave a rueful smile. “Turns out my assets are frozen until the board can vote on whether or not I stay CEO. I had to cut back, sell some things. I had to fly coach.”
“How was it?”
“Could’ve used more leg room.”
He got into the car. Zoe made no attempt to stop him, but anyone watching her might have noticed that she hugged Lion all the tighter as she watched the car drive away.
With slow but firm steps, Zoe went back into the house. Her mother met her.
“How was it?”
Zoe was not even sure herself. “I think… I think he was telling the truth.”
“Does it matter?” asked Olive Blanchard.
Zoe shook her head with more certainty than she felt. “I guess not. He’s such a good liar. He could say anything, I don’t think I’d ever really know.”
Olive nodded quietly and took her daughter’s arm. Together they walked into the kitchen where Davis was just hanging up the phone. He had a puzzled look on his face.
“What’s wrong?” Olive asked.
“That was the bank,” said Davis. “Our mortgage is gone.”
“What?” Olive blanched, her hand raised to her lips. “Will we lose the house?”
“No, no,” Davis shook his head, still trying to fathom this out. “The mortgage has been paid off. The house is ours. For good.”
“How?”
Zoe did not wait to hear her father’s answer, she was already running for the door. How much would you have to sell to pay off the multiple mortgages on the Blanchard place, and on the farm equipment and the livestock?
She did not know, but she had a hunch that there was someone in France who had just bought a Ferrari Daytona.
Chapter Fourteen
To a man who has spent his life traveling by private jet (or first class if he is slumming it), the Departure Lounge of an airport seems a strange and fascinating place the first time he encounters it, almost magical. But the novelty wears off pretty quickly and he begins to realize what everyone else has been complaining about all this time.
Nick’s first visit to the departure lounge had been on his trip south and, to be honest, he had not really noticed the place, his mind being too focused on his task; apologizing to Zoe and – possibly, maybe, if the fates were with him – winning her back. But that had always been a long shot, and so his second time in a departure lounge saw him bereft and despondent, head rested on his hands as he stared at the scuffed floor. Well, at least he had done the right thing.
He had told her the truth of what had happened and he thought she had believed him. It had not been enough of course, but that was to be expected – his behavior throughout the whole unfortunate situation had been pretty unforgivable. If he could have, he would have taken it all back.
But then, he realized he was lying again. Lying to himself. Because to have taken it all back would have meant taking back all the times he spent with Zoe. All the laughter. All the lovemaking. All the ways she had made him a better person.
No, he wouldn’t take it all back.
It was a strange thing how much a person can change and not even notice it. Strange how the thing that matter to them one day can seem so inconsequential the next. Nick owned five cars, which he had never considered excessive for a man of his means (although there can have been relatively few men with a failing business who owned so many). The Daytona lived in France, where his family had a home; an Aston Martin was kept in London, where his family had a home; a flashy Lamborghini Aventador was in Rome, where his family had a home; and he had two cars for New York, a Ford GT and, somewhat incongruously, an army surplus jeep, just to prove that he was still a man.
They were his, neither family nor business had any claim to them. And it seemed that they were almost unique in that. It turned out that virtually everything that Nick Rothberger owned, he hadn’t actually owned. His various apartments (in New York, London, Rome etc.) were paid for with company money, furnished with company money – none of it was his. It also turned out that a disproportionate amount of stuff that he ‘owned’ belonged in fact to the family, and the family was the company, so property and possessions went the same way as accommodation.
He was not sure if the bar was his or the family’s but the family seemed happy to let him keep that either way.
But the cars were his.
Or had been. They were all gone now. Zoe had mentioned her parents’ financial troubles and Nick had sympathized as much as a man who had no idea what ‘financial troubles’ might mean could. At the time Nick had not thought their money worries seemed all that serious, now he had a somewhat different perspective. Perhaps the sums they owed were not vast, but if you did not have those sums then it didn’t really matter whether they were vast or not.
He was not trying to buy Zoe’s affection, he did not think that possible, but he felt that he owed her something and this was something he could do.
In a way it rather surprised Nick that he had to sell all five of his cars. With some he paid off the Blanchard mortgages – who knew farm ownership could be so expensive? Turned out they had owned a damned lot of farmland, a lot of cattle, and a lot of other equipment they needed to run the place. With the rest of the money he was going to work on reviving his bar – making it a real enterprise, and not just one he’d been playing at.
So the cars were gone, and the funny thing was that Nick didn’t really care. Partly of course that was because he had lost something so much more precious, but also he found that his whole view of such things had changed. It was just stuff – there were more important things in life. Although, he thought as he glanced at the departure board to see how late his flight had now become, a private jet would be nice right about now.
“How on earth do you go about paying off another person’s mortgage?”
Nick looked up startled to find Zoe standing before him. She wasn’t smiling exactly, but there was about her face, something that kindled an almost unwilling candle of hope in him.
“More to the point,” Zoe went on, “how do you do it? You don’t know the first thing about finance.”
“I had help,” Nick admitted. “If you know the right people then it can be done.”
“Story of your life.”
“I guess so.”
“But not anymore?”
Nick shrugged. “I’ve been lucky my whole life – never had to do a damn thing. If things are a bit tougher now then I still don’t think I have any real right to complain.”
Zoe said nothing a while, just looking at him. “That was a nice thing you did.”
“Seemed the thing to do.”
“There’s a nice guy in there somewhere.”
“If there is, then he’s only been there since I met you,” said Nick, honestly.
“I wanted to thank you.”
Nick nodded, not sure what to say. “I didn’t do it to…”
“I know.”
“I wasn’t trying to…”
“I know.”
“I don’t think that it changes anything between us or…”
“I know,” Zoe said again. “It was still nice.”
She came and sat next to Nick.
“What are you going to do?”
Nick shrugged. “I own a bar. It’s currently in debt somewhat, but I can try to turn it round. And if not, then I guess I can sell it and use the money to pay off the debts and take it from there.”
“Do you think you’ll be happy?”
Nick half-smiled. “You know what? I always thought I was happy. Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve always had everything. And anything I didn’t have I could easily afford. But these last few weeks…” He couldn’t help smiling. “I didn’t know what happy was before I met you. But it’s got damn-all to do with money. I don’t know if I’ll
be happy, but if I’m not, it won’t be because I lost the money.”
A thrill passed through Nick as he felt Zoe take his hand. “I think you’ll be happy.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
She reached out and placed her other hand over their intertwined fingers. He looked up at her in awe. He saw unshed tears shimmering in her deep brown eyes.
Zoe turned to look at him. “If you screw up again Nick, I’ll kill you. Or I’ll let my Dad do it. One or the other.”
Nick gulped like a choking goldfish for a moment. “I don’t… I don’t know what to say. I don’t deserve you.”
Zoe shrugged. “Probably not. But, here’s the thing: I’m miserable without you. So really; who’s getting punished? Why should both of us be miserable when both of us can be happy?”
Nick’s heart sang. He was not sure if he deserved her, or if he even deserved to be happy, but he would spend the rest of his life trying to deserve it.
“So how does it feel, not being a CEO anymore?” asked Zoe, cuddling up against him.
“I’ll let you know,” said Nick, not really interested in what they were talking about. “I’m still technically CEO until the board meeting tomorrow.”
Zoe sat up so sharply that Nick almost fell over. “Wait a minute. You’re still CEO?”
“For the moment.”
“Come on.” Zoe got to her feet, dragging him with her. “We’ve got work to do.”
