Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (104 page)

Nicole sipped her cranberry drink, which
was too strong for her tastes.
 
She
looked around the bar.
 
People were
all staring at them.
 
She didn’t
like this at all.
 
Not one bit.

But after a time, it seemed the other
patrons were losing interest in the strange Americans.
 
The bar got more crowded, noisier, loud
heavy punk rock music was playing over the speakers.

Red seemed to have relaxed a little,
too.
 
He rolled up his shirtsleeves,
undid his tie, and began drinking vodka and cranberry with Nicole.
 
He kissed her for embarrassingly
extended periods of time.

But eventually she was starting to get a
little bit tipsy as well, and her body was loosening up.
 
She was starting to think that earlier
in the night she’d been more afraid of this bar because it was so foreign and
the people spoke another language.
 
Sure, they were dressed kind of funny, and they looked intimidating, but
most of them seemed to be having fun and acting like young people did in New
York every night.

“I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” Red
said in her ear.
 
As it was, she
could barely hear him over the noise.

She nodded.
 

“And then let’s get out of here, huh?” he
said.

She nodded again, gratefully.

He smiled and kissed her cheek.
 
“You’re the best, baby,” he yelled to
her, and then pushed his way through the crowd to get to the bathroom.

A couple of minutes later, a young man
wearing a sleeveless t-shirt and heavily tattooed arms plopped down on the
empty stool next to her with his beer.
 
He looked at her and grinned.
 
She saw he had two or three gold teeth, and some kind of tattoo around
his right eye.
 
“American?” he
asked.

She nodded nervously.
 
“My boyfriend’s—“

“My name is Karl,” he said, holding out a
large, calloused hand to her.

She didn’t want to touch him at
all—he was giving her a really bad vibe.
 
But she told herself to calm down and
just try and end this as quickly and politely as possible.
 
“Hi, Karl,” she said.

“Do you like boxing?” Carl asked her.

She shrugged.
 
“I—I don’t really know—“

“Because I’m a boxer.”
 
He smiled again.
 
“What about your boyfriend?” he
said.
 
His accent was thick but he
spoke perfectly reasonable English.

“What about him?” she said.

“He looks like a fucking twat,” Karl
replied, grinning.
 
He glanced back
and she saw that he had a couple of goon friends watching nearby.
 

Nicole’s heart started to speed up.
 
She didn’t want Red to come back and see
this idiot giving her a hard time.
 
“I really should go,” she said.

“Why?” Karl asked.
 
“You one of those stuck up Americans?”

“No.
 
But you’re being rude and you’re frightening me.”

Karl smiled.
 
“Awww, I’m really nice, sweetie.
 
I swear I am.
 
And I got a big motherfucking schwanz,
too.”

“Get away from me,” she said, as he
leaned in.

That’s when Red appeared, pushing through
the crowd.
 
When he saw Karl on his
stool his eyes turned cold and hard and she knew he was furious.
 
“Are you okay, Nicole?” he called out,
not taking his eyes off the punk.

“Yes,” she said.

Karl turned, saw Red and grinned.
 
He stood up, and he was big, at least as
big as Red.
 
On top of that, he
looked mean, as though he fought a lot and quite enjoyed it.
 
Nicole realized that he hadn’t truly
been interested in her at all—talking to her had merely been a means to
an end.
 
He’d wanted to start a
problem with her boyfriend.

“Red, don’t do anything,” she said,
getting up and grabbing his shirtsleeve.

“Did he touch you?” Red asked, his eyes
still unwavering.

She leaned in to talk to him.
 
“He didn’t touch me, and besides, he’s a
boxer.
 
He wants to fight you.”

Karl grinned at Red, mocking him with
wide eyes.
 
“What a fucking twat you
look like,” he said.
 
Behind them,
his friends laughed and closed in.

“You box?” Red asked.

“Enough to knock the teeth out of rich
American faggots.”

Red grinned and nodded.
 
“Good for you, man.”

“Good for me, not so good for you,
son.”
 
Karl took another step
closer.

Red put out a hand and lightly pushed
Nicole out of the way, and she knew something was going to happen.

And then it did, as if in slow motion and
fast-forward all at once.

Karl threw a quick punch that caught Red
on the nose, snapping his head back.
 
Nicole screamed.

And then Red threw two powerful
punches.
 
One of them landed on
Karl’s chin and the other seemed to hit his temple.
 
His head flashed back as if he’d been
shot, and the big German dropped like a sack of potatoes.

Karl’s friends grabbed Red and tried to
throw him to the ground.
 
Red swung
an elbow back and smashed one of them in the nose, knocking him over like a
bowling pin.
 

Yet another attacker punched Red in the
face.

Red kicked him in the stomach, grabbed
him by the hair, and planted a powerful punch down onto the side of his face,
causing him to fall to the floor.
 
Red delivered yet another kick to his ribs.
 
Then he spun on the remaining friend,
who threw up his arms and babbled in broken English for Red not to hurt him.

“Come on, Nicole,” Red said, taking her
by the arm and leading her outside.

They hailed a cab just as three or four
large and menacing men came running out of the bar behind them.
 
As the cab drove away, beer bottles
smashed on the hood and the street next to them.

And then they were out of reach.

The cab driver’s eyes were wide and
spooked.

Red spoke to him in German and quickly
handed him a wad of cash for his troubles.

He held Nicole close, she buried her face
in his chest.
 

“I’m sorry I brought you to that
shithole,” he said, eventually.

“I told you I didn’t want to stay there,”
she cried.

“I should have listened.
 
I was being an asshole.”

“Yeah, you were.”
 
She sat up and wiped the tears from her
eyes.
 
“You can’t do that to me
again.”

He nodded.
 
His nose was bleeding, a slight trickle
down from one nostril, and she grabbed a tissue from her purse and wiped the
blood away.

“I don’t deserve you,” he said.

When they got back to their hotel room,
she looked at him.
 
“We need to
talk,” she said.

“Yeah?” he sat down heavily on the couch
and put the TV on.

“I think you should reconsider Kane
Wright’s offer.”

He laughed.

“I’m serious,” she said.

He glanced over his shoulder at her.
 
“Why would you even say such a thing to
me?”

“Because,” she told him, walking closer,
“I don’t think you could stand to lose Jameson International completely.”

“Well maybe I don’t have a choice.”

“But you do.
 
You—“

“Nicole, don’t push me on this,” he
growled.
 

“All I said was you should consider
it.
 
Maybe Kane Wright is a bastard,
but the other possibility is that you lose your company and go crazy.
 
You’re already acting out, fighting,
drinking.
 
I won’t stand for it,
Red.”

He didn’t reply.
 

“So now you’re going to ignore me?”

He still didn’t answer, just stared straight
ahead at the television, watching a show she couldn’t even understand.

For a moment she considered really
letting him have it, really saying something awful to get his attention.
 
He was being a big, selfish baby, and
taking it out on her.

But then Nicole thought better of
it.
 
She was angry, too angry to
deal with Red in his current mood.

So instead she went to bed, thinking he
might wake her in the night like he had yesterday.

His touch never came.

***

When Nicole woke up, Red was coming out of
the bathroom, towel wrapped around his waist.
 
“Morning, sleepy head.”

She yawned.
 
“Are we still fighting?”

He stopped and smiled at her.
 
“I sure hope not.
 
The last thing I want to do is argue
with you during our meeting with Kane Wright today.”

“What?
 
What meeting?”

“I thought about what you said to me last
night, and I realized you were right.
 
I should at least consider partnering with that bastard, even if it’s
the last thing I want to do right now.”

“Oh, Red.
 
Don’t do it because of what I said!”

He laughed at her anxiety.
 
“Don’t worry, I’m a big boy and I make
my own decisions.
 
But I’m smart
enough to know good advice when I hear it.”

Now she felt distinctly guilty about what
she’d said to him, most of which was just parroting what Kane Wright himself
had told her over the phone.
 
It was
as if she was in league with Kane—a double agent—and she didn’t
like the way that made her feel inside.

“I’m not so sure if it was good advice,”
she said, sitting up.
 
“Maybe you
should just trust your instincts.”

He shook his head, moving to the closet,
where he took a freshly dry-cleaned suit off the rack.
 
“You sure do like to confuse a guy,” Red
said.

“I’m sorry.
 
I just—I was drinking last
night.
 
I don’t know what I was
saying.”

“Whatever.
 
I already made the meeting and my
instinct tells me we should go.
 
Let’s play this thing out, see what he’s willing to do.”
 
Red threw the suit across the bed, then
went to the dresser drawer and grabbed an undershirt, boxers, and sox.
 
“Kane Wright doesn’t want some drawn out
battle that bleeds Jameson International dry before he takes it over.
 
He’d much rather get the company now,
while there’s still something left of it.”

“Okay,” Nicole said, debating about
whether or not to tell him about the phone call she’d gotten yesterday.
 

And then Red turned and looked at her,
and his eyes were bright, shining—like his old self.
 
“For the first time since things went
bad recently, I finally feel clear,” he told her.
 
“I think I can see the road in front of
me again.
 
It’s a nice feeling and I
owe it all to you, baby.”

She sighed and fell back against the
pillow, knowing she couldn’t possibly bear to tell him now and see the look of
disappointment on his face as he realized that he’d simply been outmaneuvered
once again by Kane Wright.

The truth was, Nicole still thought it
was the right thing to do.
 
And
she’d find an opportunity to tell Red about that phone call—when the time
was right.

***

“This is the way to begin a great
partnership,” Kane Wright said, as the three of them stood on the deck of his
private yacht, sailing down the Spree River and watching the buildings and
streets of Berlin as they passed by.
 

People standing on a bridge overlooking
the water waved at them as they sailed underneath.

“Very nice,” Red agreed, watching the
scenery with a smile on his lips.
 
“I’ve always wanted to buy a yacht.

“Soon you’ll be able to buy two or three
of them,” Kane replied, glancing at Nicole, who had chosen to speak as little
as possible on this excursion.