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2
LUCAS
24 Hours Earlier
Dull. So fucking dull. There was no other way to describe this evening. My date. This restaurant. This wine. Could it get worse? I wasn't drunk enough to listen to this woman continue talking.
"And I just couldn't help it. I said, no, Daddy, I'm going to meet Elon Musk." Barbara flipped back her bleached blonde hair. "So that was how I convinced him to buy me a first class ticket to the rocket launch."
Of course, her name was Barbie. She couldn't have been a closer fit of the stereotype, albeit a very overdone version. Her fake breasts were two sizes too large, her plastic surgery obvious, and her dress a size too tight.
When I didn't respond, she fumbled for her wine and took a large gulp—her third glass and the last of the bottle. Why the hell did I spend forty five hundred dollars on a bottle of wine that this woman was hogging? As our server walked by, I lifted a finger.
"Whiskey, neat."
She continued talking, her high-pitched voice like fingernails on a chalkboard.
"Have you ever been—”
Our server was about to walk away. "Make it a double."
Barbie chuckled awkwardly. If she was annoyed, she'd never let me know. None of these women did. "Have you ever been to a rocket launch, Lucas?"
I chugged back the only glass of wine I'd drank. "No."
Of course not, because Elon didn't sell first class tickets to see his launches. It was free to watch from the beach, and the only people who watched it with him were those who worked on SpaceX.
But of course Barbie didn't know that because her story was fake—just like her. It was a fishing question, like everything else she'd said tonight.
It didn't take a rocket scientist to pick up the tabloids and see that Elon and I had been doing a business deal in Spain last month. She would know that. Like she would know every other surface level thing about me—practically everything other than my social security number.
Not many people knew much more than that.
And Lord knew that if she had my social security number, she wouldn't be here.
It wasn't me she wanted. It was access to the dollar sign practically stamped on my forehead.
The server arrived with my Whiskey, and I took a large gulp.
Barbie leaned across the table, squeezing her arms together so her cleavage became more enhanced. I looked because it was what she wanted.
Maybe I'd fuck her. Probably not.
At thirty-one, I was getting past the stage of one-night stands. Beyond the gold diggers who hounded me, most of the sex was mediocre at best. Such was the result of beautiful women who only had their looks to rely on, who'd grown up without ever having to develop a personality.
I was always an anomaly to women like Barbie here. She was used to men worshiping the ground she walked on, and when I didn't, it only made her try harder.
She licked her plump lips and twirled her hair. "I'm really glad Jenny set us up tonight. How do you know her?"
It was a stupid question and didn't deserve a response. Jenny was my publicist, and Barbie knew it.
Just as the silence was getting awkward, the server delivered my steak. Five hundred and the best in town. Barbie had ordered a Caesar salad that she wouldn't eat. With my mouth full, she finally had an excuse to stop asking me questions I wouldn't have answered, even without the food.
There was a part of me that enjoyed watching her little head spin. It was one of the few things that made these dates sufferable—watching women like her grasp for conversation as they processed the fact that I couldn’t care less about getting into their pants.
Of course, it wasn't the only reason why I was doing this. Jenny said I needed a girlfriend. Optics. All optics these days.
I was a billionaire. Why the fuck did I need a girlfriend?
