Wild Open Hearts (Bluewater Billionaires) - Kathryn Nolan Page 0,12
devoured a double bacon cheeseburger right in front of me yesterday. “I mean, soon. Not right away or anything.”
“And this woman cares about abused dogs?” I asked. Because I didn’t fucking buy it.
“She’s in the middle of some bad press,” Elián added. He was scrolling across his computer screen, reading to himself. “That’s why I recognized her name. Last night there was a news story. Her company’s caught up in a scandal. Turns out for the past few years they’ve been using ingredients tested on animals. Luna lied.”
I glanced back at Jem. “You believe that?”
“No,” she said, chin lifted. “Besides, they’re already making it right. She’s a good person. She messed up, is all.”
I didn’t think the words billionaire and good person belonged in the same sentence. And how could it? People with money always made me itchy and people with a lot of money made me furious. Growing up in the Miami Devils Motorcycle Club, money was a tool to manipulate. We either didn’t have enough and stole—or worse—to get it. Or we had too much—and stole—or worse—anyway.
“The lady says she wants to come talk to us about a mutually beneficial partnership,” Wes continued. “Wanted to know if we happened to have thirty minutes free to talk today. I told her hell yeah.”
“I don’t know why this is happening,” Elián said, “but you need to prepare to schmooze the ever-living shit out of her. Who the hell cares what she did? We need her support.”
I clenched a fist. Money aside, I was sure she had more fancy degrees than my high-school-dropout situation. And I was a Mason. If she was from Miami, wouldn’t she know I wasn’t a smart idea for anyone?
“I’d rather jump into a pen of stray dogs with my pockets filled with bacon,” I said.
“Beck,” Elián said, warningly.
The three people I cared about the most in this world were staring at me, waiting.
The three people who depended on me to pay their salaries.
“This her?” I asked, pointing wearily to the screen. A smile broke across Jem’s face. She clicked on a tiny photo square and enlarged it. The woman glowed like the sun—flashing white teeth in a beautiful smile. She had dark brown, wavy hair, blond at the ends and expressive, dark eyes, tan skin. Clasped in her hands was a bouquet of pink flowers and she was surrounded by color: blue ocean, blue sky, white sand, yellow shirt, green earrings.
“Huh,” I said again.
“We have very few options,” Elián said. “It’s this or I make you be in that calendar. Or say goodbye to both kidneys.”
I swallowed thickly. “Okay, I got it. It’ll be fine. I want to keep my kidneys.”
Jem squeezed my shoulder. “You’re going to love her.”
8
Beck
I scowled out the window at the rainbow-colored billionaire walking across the Lucky Dog campus. She had a stern, dark-haired woman by her side with her face in her phone. They’d arrived in a black sedan, tinted windows and there was definitely a driver. A few feet behind them both was a smaller white woman with an earpiece. But other than that, it was only the three of them—Luna had no paparazzi, no fountains of money spraying from behind her.
I wasn’t sure what I’d expected.
Luna looked like a tropical flower, dressed in colorful layers and jewelry. The sunlight bounced off of the gold rings stacked on her fingers.
Jem was practically shitting herself, grinning as Luna dropped and held her hand out for Princess to sniff. I snorted. I’d rescued that dog myself and she still cowered whenever I walked into her kennel.
Princess sniffed Luna’s hand. Licked it. Wagged her tail.
Elián shot me a look of amusement from where he stood next to her. Jem was laughing shyly at whatever Luna was saying. Wes walked over with a cup of coffee for her and she touched his arm, had him smiling, was gesturing at the space around them.
Elián led Luna and the two other women up the steps and into my trailer. I knew I was glowering like a bastard but suddenly all I could see was Lucky Dog’s ugliness—the run-down kennels, the cheap toys, the mud, the bald spots on the grass. I was sitting on a donated desk surrounded by donated furniture. I wasn’t sure where Luna lived, but I imagined she had a mansion floating on top of a hill of diamonds.