Alpha Billionaire Series

MANDY

Are you sure we're invited to this party?” Vivica asked as we climbed out of the canoe.

“I am. Gracie and Scott have a big everyone's invited party at least twice during the summer. I've been coming here for years Its fine”

“Yeah, but that woman's designer golf club ensemble cost more than my rent.”

“You live with your parents, Vivica. You don't pay rent.”

“My point exactly.’

The woman in the designer sportswear was our hostess. She had a small fluffy white dog tucked under her arm. She waved, and then rushed toward us with her other hand outstretched. She grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Amanda, honey, I am so sorry about your father. How is your mother holding up?”

“Hi Gracie,” I said. “Thank you. Mom is doing really well. She was too tired to come. But she wanted me to ask you to please call her. She would love to go do brunch, or even spend an afternoon out on the lake, just sitting. Her energy isn't back yet" “Absolutely, honey. 'm so glad she was feeling well enough to come this summer. We missed her so much last summer” She waved at Vivica. “I'm Gracie, welcome welcome.”

“Thank you so much for inviting us," Vivica gushed.

“Amanda knows everything, make yourself comfortable. I have to go tuck Varicella up, too many people for her”Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

We watched Gracie walk into her impressively large house. Vivica waited another long moment. I could tell she wanted to say something. She practically vibrated next to me.

Vivica turned to me, placed her hands on my arms, and closed her eyes. “Did that woman name her dog after chickenpox?” We found a place to sit on one of the low walls of the terraced patio.

“Yep. It's a purebred Bichon Frise. Apparently from a line of award-winning show dogs." It almost hurt to tell the story. The cost of that dog could practically pay off my student loans. I was at lunch with Mom and Gracie a few years back when Gracie started carrying little Pox everywhere. As she told Mom about her new companion she pronounced it bye-chawn freeze. I learned that Gracie had a big heart, but a horrible sense of language.

“It's ah, French, so she wanted to give it a French name.”

It pained me to share the story with Vivica. No one ever let Gracie know that her husband called the dog Pox. He loved Gracie, but he wasn't a fan of the dog. Everyone loved Gracie, and her quirks.

“Money is wasted on the rich’ She shook her head and let out a big sigh. “Where's the beer?”

“Don’t let me drink too much. I have to work tomorrow. I have a video meeting and I don't want to get that hangover,” I tasked Vivica with keeping me sober. Besides, paddling the canoe while drunk was as bad as drunk driving, and I didn't want to walk around the lake to get home.

Vivica rolled her eyes at me. “You're always working”

“And you're not.” I bumped her shoulder, so she knew I was teasing.

“Yeah? Well, my cousin Dylan, told me to take a break before I started working because as soon as I started, that was it for the rest of my life" Vivica said.

“Hm,” Dylan's philosophy sounded familiar. “Professor Linsay would love him."

“Professor Linsay?”

“Yeah, in the middle of this very “capitalism for the win’ semester I was having, there was this subversive socialist professor. He was very pro the worker. Take your vacation days, make sure your employees take their vacation days. He had all kinds of stats regarding how overworked Americans are. He opened my eyes to..” Damn it. I started breathing hard and had to blink to stop the tears. I hated how unprepared I was for the sneaker waves of sorrow that slammed into me at the most inopportune moments. I couldn't say “my Dad’ without tearing up, or feeling overwhelmed.

Vivica reached out and held onto my hands. She gave me a reassuring squeeze when I closed my eyes.

I nodded. I could do this. I had to learn to be able to talk about Dad without succumbing into a mess of emotions. “I need a moment.” Standing, I rushed into the Haufmann’s house. I weaved through people standing around talking and upstairs to the bathroom. I closed the door and leaned against it.

I refused to cry, not when there were all those people out there. If I stepped out of the bathroom with blotchy skin and red eyes everyone would know I was crying, and then I would have to answer a million “are you okays,” and “what's wrongs." I didn't have the wherewithal to face that.

We were at the Haufmann's for a party, I was here to have a good time, forget my worries, forget about work for a minute. Maybe get buzzed, maybe meet my summer romance. I wanted to leave the weight of mourning Dad behind. I thought I had tucked it away in the storage unit in Chicago with the rest of my life.

“Mandy,” Vivica's voice was soft, barely muffled by the door. “You want me to bring you anything?”

I blew a long slow breath out through pursed lips. “I could use a drink.”

“Sure, I can do that. You want a cold beer or a warm one?”

I laughed at my choices. “I guess I'll have a cold one.”

“Be right back.”

I didn’t plan on spending the entire time in the bathroom, but at the moment, I couldn't open the door and go out there where those people were. Vivica had to have gone straight to the cooler and back. She was tapping on the door a moment later.

She slid into the bathroom with me when I opened the door. I was still on the floor and leaned back on the door. She sat on a small pink fur-padded vanity chair.

“This place is really posh,” she commented as she looked around. The bathroom we were in was a huge room. The tub was more like a small indoor personal pool, the shower a glassed-in space with stone walls and a bench. The actual potty was behind another door.

“I don't think my bedroom is even this big” she said.

“The properties on this side of the lake are pretty sweet,” I agreed.

“And to think I was impressed with your lake house. I mean a house on a lake in a different state even, how sophisticated.” “Shut up,” I said. “I've been to your parents’ house. You're in no position to talk”

“If I want to continue living the lifestyle, I have grown used to with them, I have to stay with them. Have you looked at apartments? You can get a closet for your entire pay check. Prices have really gotten out of control”

“I thought the plan was to live at home for a year before taking the leap?” I asked. Vivica and I had talked about our plans of growing up and becoming functional adults since we met in middle school.

We went in different directions for college, and both came back home, neither of us with promising careers straight out of our MBA programs.

I started to say something, and my voice hitched in my throat. I paused and dropped my gaze to somewhere on the floor. “I'm sorry, Mandy."

“No,” I complained. “You should be able to talk about your family without worrying about setting me off"

“Hey,” she started. “Do not dismiss your emotions. You're allowed to have them. You've had a crappy summer. As your friend I can, and I should be more aware. I don’t want to add to your burden. I want you to be able to enjoy yourself, even if it's jus alittle”

I wiped away my tears with open palms. “I was supposed to be learning how to manage work and life. I hated seeing my dad work himself so hard. And now that I'm suddenly thrust into the thick of managing MiMa, I can see why he worked so hard. Everything is set up to be as complicated as possible. There are systems in place that are more twisted than a tango, and they should be straightforward paths. I'm struggling. I should be in Chicago unravelling the mess instead of trying to do it from here."

Vivica opened her mouth to say something.

I cut her off. “I have to be here. Mom couldn't stand being in Chicago another second. Between her cancer, and Dad up and dying, she couldn't get out of there fast enough. She's just not physically strong enough to be on her own yet. And mentally, Ishook my head, she had endured so much. Being here with her was the least I could do.

“Okay” I got my feet under me and stood. “This is not a pity party, it's a party. There are potential rich boyfriends out there. They won't find us in here”

“Are we looking for boyfriends now? What happened to being fierce career women?” Vivica stood and wrapped her arms around me in a hug.

“Fierce with male companionship,’ I corrected.

“Sounds like a plan. You don't happen to know who that ginger hottie on the grill was?"

“You mean Craig McMillan?”

She opened the bathroom door and we left. Hopefully, I left my grief in Gracie’s bathroom, because I didn’t want it anymore, “How would I know if he's Craig McMillan? Mandy, I don't know these people, you do.”

I nodded. “It is Craig. 'm just trying to figure out how Craig McMillan and hottie fit into the same sentence.”

“You have got to be kidding me? Did you see those arms and that beard?”

“The last time I really looked at Craig he was just a tall lanky guy with a freakishly skinny long neck. I guess the beard helps. And no, I didn't look at his arms. It's Craig McMillan. I don't look at him."

“Oh, is there some history there I should be aware of?” Vivica giggled.

She would just love for there to be some torrid past between me and the guy she was interested in. But there wasn't any history. I just didnt find him attractive or interesting. Now that guy we had seen at the warehouse earlier, he was hot.

My eyes locked with a pair of flashing dark eyes under dark brows. I froze and then smiled as I recognized the handsome features of the very same man. I stood, I was going to go over and introduce myself. If there was one thing I had learned in the past few weeks, life was too short to only work.

He was in front of me before I took a step. “Hi,” he said.

He held a beer in front of him, the same way I was holding mine. There was nothing special about holding a drink, but when dropped my eyes because if I kept looking at him, I would combust, I noticed we both were extending our fingers wanting to touch.