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CHAPTER 10
CON
Of course, the asshole is still pimping out his daughter. I shove the phone in my pocket and snatch Willow’s cheap white coat off the floor. It feels paper thin between my fingers. “Was there a coat on that rack?”
“A what?” she asks, completely confused.
I whip open the door and bellow, “I need a long winter coat. White.”
“I don’t need a new coat,” Willow protests. “This is fine. Con, seriously.”
Callie appears immediately with a puffy, white coat in her hand. “It’s not a dressy coat, but I’m sure I can find one in a few days. This is one of our most popular items—”
“I’ll take it.” I fold Willow’s old coat over my arm in case she has some sentimental attachment and then drape the down-filled coat over Willow’s shoulders.
She runs a hand over the round patch on the arm with the map of the Arctic. “Con, this is too much. Do you know how much these Canada Goose jackets go for?”
I don’t, but neither do I care. I take her hand. “Let’s go.” As we pass by Callie, I shove my black credit card toward her. “Charge it and get the rest delivered.”
“But Mr. Romano—”
I cut her off with a wave of my hand. “You have my card. I don’t care what it costs.”
It pisses me off that our shopping excursion is being cut short before we got to the good stuff—the sparkly, glittery stuff—but Willow’s dad needs to be taken care of immediately. He’s a cancerous growth on her life, and if allowed to continue to cling to her, that disease would spread until it consumed her.
“I’m sorry,” Willow says when we reach the elevator bank. She sounds miserable.
I’m going to string up her dad with his own tie when we get to her house. “What for?”
“I know you saw the texts,” she says, her head so low that her chin’s nearly making contact with her chest. “I can’t imagine what you’re thinking right now. Actually, I can and that makes me feel awful.”
I stare at her in astonishment, speechless for the first time. Is she thinking that I’m mad at her?
“You must think that I planned for this.” She plucks at the shirt we just purchased. “That I’m playacting because I want your money and that I’m going to steal all your secrets and give them to my father. I swear to you that I didn’t come to you with any intention of getting money. I just wanted…you. Now you’ve bought all these things and I don’t have a gift for you.”
The elevator door slides open, momentarily halting my response. Three people wait impatiently for us to get on. With her eyes pinned to her shoes, Willow steps inside the car. I follow her, frustrated that we’re not alone.
While she stews in her misery, I chafe at the people around us. I throw an arm around her shoulder, but she stands stiffly at my side. I glare at the others. Can’t they get off and take a different elevator? When the first floor lights up, the car empties.
Immediately, I take Willow’s shoulders in my hands. “I know you aren’t a gold-digger, Willow. You’ve been chasing after me for three years. Gold-diggers don’t spend that much time waiting for a mark. A real hunter would’ve moved on to easier pickings.”
Her chin comes up and out. “Why would I move on? Aren’t you one of the richest men around? My father says you’re worth at least twenty billion.”
“That little?” I smirk, amused by her pugnacious response. I pinch her chin. “You don’t have it in you to be a gold-digger.”
That makes her frown even harder. “Have you met my father? He’s as avaricious as they come. And I only put up a token resistance to you buying a few pieces of clothing that probably cost more than the gross national product of a small country.”
The elevator stops on the basement and the doors slide open. I usher her out, directing her down the long hallway. All the while, she continues to argue that she’s a terrible human being out to take me for all I’m worth.
“I loved the nice car. I know you live in that amazing two-story penthouse overlooking Central Park. I’ve fantasized about waking up in that place and cooking breakfast for us.”
“Or asking the chef to prepare us breakfast,” I chime in.
“Or I’ll ask the chef to make me breakfast, lunch, and dinner,” she adds on miserably.
“Go ahead,” I tell her as we reach the sidewalk. I wave a hand to hail Ben. “I don’t give a shit. I’ve got plenty of cash and no one to spend it on. You could be the Bill Gates of gold-diggers and I wouldn’t even notice.”
“If you don’t care, then why are you so angry? Why are we running off to confront my father?”
