Fresh: A BWWM Secret Billionaire Romance

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I
drank
a sip of my Moscato. "Seriously, my dad is the worst."

"Your dad worships the ground that you walk on. You're the most spoiled girl in the entire DC area, and that includes Malia and Sasha."

"He's being horrible."

"Horrible like how? Like the time that he made you look at your five-figure credit card bill from an hour-long shopping spree at Potomac Mills? It's an outlet mall, girl. People are supposed to save money there. Or is this like the time when you bought a car because it matched your outfit and you didn't want to take the metro home?"

"Neither. It's way worse."

He sighed. "You know I love you, but I doubt that your dad is really doing anything too bad."

"He's making me go to Wisconsin."

"Okay, I take that back."

"I know! He wants me to go to flyover country. Middle America. You know it's all cornfields."

He rolled his eyes. "It's not all cornfields. You know that I lived in Madison for two years, right? It could be fun."

"You lived next to a park that was adjacent to a cornfield. In the state capital. God knows what would happen if you had been living in La Crosse, Steven's Point, or the woods in the north that you call 'Up North.'" I shivered. “That would have been the worst.”

"Honestly, get over yourself. It's not so bad in America's heartland. There's much less traffic."

"You told me that all of the county roads were riddled with potholes."

"True, but the people there are pretty friendly. You know that someone dug me out of a ditch when I spun off the road in the ice. Who knew that the hills in Madison would be way scarier than any of the hills in DC?"

"Whatever," I said, flipping my hair out. "I'm going to the boonies. My dad is ruining my life."

"Sweetie, I love you, but you don't do very much. You shop. You gossip."

"Hey! I have a career. I am an internationally renowned artist.”

"True, sweetheart, but there's zero money in that."

It was true. Our entire house was filled with my paintings. Everyone said that they were pretty, but there was no money in painting pretty things.

"My dad is making me meet this stupid farmer boy."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. He wants him to take over his company. But, like, I don't understand how someone who milks cows every morning is going operate Daddy's business. It's his baby as much as I am."

"That does sound weird."

"There's no real food there, either."

"Sweetheart, of course there is real food. This is America."

"No! When you lived in Madison, didn't you tell me that getting sushi was a nightmare? That the only place that you could get it used MSG out the wazoo that made you taste it for 2 days afterward?"

"I did tell you that, yes."

"Any place that doesn't have real sushi does not have real food."

"Okay, I get it. Wisconsin is Siberia. So why are you going at all? Can't you just pout at your dad and stay here?"

"Don't you think that I already tried?" I flipped my hair again. "He's being, like, firm. Parental. I don't know."

"You mean he's actually not spoiling you by giving you everything you want? Quelle shock, Veruca Salt."

"Hey! I'm a good egg." I swatted his arm lightly. "Veruca Salt was way more spoiled than I was. Am. Whatever."

"You have a sweet heart, but honestly, darling, nobody has said no to you in your life. You're smart, so your teachers have always loved you. You're an excellent artist, so you've always had success, there, too. You've never failed at anything. And even if you did, you could just go crying to Daddy and get it fixed."

"Not true. I lost my 8th grade spelling bee."

"Yeah, at the county level. You still won out of the entire school."

"Of course I did. I was the best."

"Maybe your father is teaching you a good lesson by making you get out of your comfort zone."

"I know what the country is like. I've listen to Sam Hunt. It's all pickup trucks in the middle of the forest, lightning storms, which, by the way, I get plenty of here, thanks, tornadoes, and, like, Bible thumpers."

"Babe. Yeah. I mean, there are plenty of religious people out there."

"You told me that they had Friday fish fries in every restaurant. Like everyone eats fish on Friday!"

He sighed. "It's only during Lent. For cripes sake, Mel, McDonald's offers discounted Filet-O-Fish during Lent. It's not some heathen Midwestern custom."

I sniffed. "Like I would ever eat at McDonald's."

"Baby girl, it will be good for you to see something new. Try something new. Think of it like a trip to Paris. You'll eat new foods and see new people."

"This is nothing like going to Paris. People in Paris are normal. They don't milk goats or cows or whatever. They drink wine with dinner. They're civilized, while Wisconsin..." I grimaced. "Wisconsin is a much more foreign country than France will ever be."

"Darling, you are only saying that because your dad has that office in Paris for foreign sales and has been taking you there several times a year for basically your entire life."

"Well, yeah."

"You've spoken French since you could speak."

I tossed my hair. "True. I definitely haven't spoken hick since I could speak."

Andrew sighed. "It will be good for you to see how normal people live, not the kind of girls who have Daddy's plastic and can wave it like a magic wand."

"Hey! I have seen how normal people live."

"Yeah, normal people in one of the most highly educated metropolitan areas in the entire world. This is a pseudo-reality right here. You're acting as if DC is The Capitol and the rest of the country is made up of the lowly Districts, like in the Hunger Games."

I stared at my high heels. They had Swarovski crystals on the toes, and they were made from very well-hydrated leather. I should know. I had polished them myself. I didn’t trust anybody.

"Oh my god," Andrew groaned. "You think that it's all District 13 out there, don't you? Baby girl, the world is made up of more than the Boston-NYC-DC supermetro."

"I know that!" I replied hotly. "I've been to LA."

"It's also not just SF-LA-SD, either."

I flipped my hair. "I'm sure there's plenty of the country that's extremely nice. But seriously, why do I have to go to it?"

"You didn't answer me earlier. Why do you have to go to it?"

"I told you. My dad is making me meet this guy that he wants to take over our company. He was talking about a merger. Acquisition. Whatever, I don't know, I was more thinking about whether or not I should go to the wine bar with that new guy I told you about last week or to the club with that rich one."

"Babe, the answer is always both. But you still haven't told me what your dad said."

I rolled my eyes. "Seriously, he wants me to marry some guy. So gross, I know.”

"He wants you to marry some guy? Girl, this isn't the Middle East. It's not like he can sell you off into some harem."

"I know. Try telling him that, though."

"Your dad is a pretty reasonable man. Why on Earth would he decide that you needed to be married to a stranger?"

"He said that because I was growing up, I needed to start settling down."

"Pretty true."

I hit him again. "Whose side are you on?"

"Yours, always yours."

I said. "It's not like you settled down, and you are older than I am."

"Those are the benefits of being an orphan. I don't have a father to guilt trip me into doing something I do not want to do."

He drink more wine. I winced. It was still a sore spot, even though his parents had died 2 years ago, when we were still in college.

"I'm sorry, Drew."

He waved his hand. "Don't worry about it. Not important."

"I can't handle that I need to meet this redneck hick from the boonies. Why can't he come to DC to meet me, if my dad wants us to get married so badly?"

"He probably has something tying him down."

"Yeah, he does." I snorted. "Farm chores. My dad says that I don't understand, but honestly, I don't want to understand how a barn works. It's not like it would ever be relevant."

"It's relevant now."

I rolled my eyes. "I mean, yeah, for a half second. But when I come home, it will all be gone, like a broom sweeping it away. Like Fantasia."

"Like the Sorcerer's Apprentice?"

"Exactly like that." I nodded. "It's completely impractical knowledge."

"Well, I will help you pack. I can't believe that you're going to Wisconsin in the middle of winter."

"I know, brr! But Daddy says that he wants it this to be finished as quickly as possible."

"Why the rush?"

My voice got very small. "He has cancer."

Drew gasped. "No. Your dad never gets sick. I swear, he's just too healthy for any diseases to hit him."

"I thought so too. I thought he was invincible. But it turns out he's human just like the rest of us. I mean, I got the flu twice. And he lives in the same house as me. But, he has never gotten the flu. And he never gets the flu shot!"

"You sound like he should have gotten the flu by now."

"It's not fair," I whined.

"How serious is this cancer?"

"I don't know. He says that they caught it early. And they would not have if I hadn't nagged him into seeing a doctor when he kept being tired."

"So he wants to see you get married before he dies?"

"Yeah, actually, he wants to see his grandchildren before he dies."

"That does not leave you any time. He wants you to have two or more kids before he dies? Sounds impossible."

"I have no idea how long this battle with cancer will last. Maybe he'll beat it into submission. He's healthy underneath, you know."

"But you aren't going to fight when he is so sick."

I nodded. "You know that I would do almost anything to make him happy. After my mother died, we only had each other."

"That's why you are so spoiled. Your mother would've put a stop to this. Instead, you went through your teenage years alone."

"I had you."

"I was barely there. I was so depressed at the time."

"We wore so much black, don't you remember?"

"How could I forget?" He looked at my bright cherry-red dress. "Thank God we are done with that phase."

I smiled up at him. "Yup. There are so many more choices if the color that you want is not black."

"When do you leave?"

"I told my dad I need a couple days to pack. I will go by the end of the week.”

"Do you want help packing? You have a tendency to pack five suitcases for a weekend trip."

I swatted his arm. "That's an exaggeration. A huge one. It's more like three. Who knows what the weather will be like? It's not like I can see the future."

Andrew rolled his eyes. "No, but most people are happy just packing a jacket if the weather gets bad. You have to pack an entire winter wardrobe."

"I have to buy an entire winter wardrobe. My dad says that Wisconsin is a lot colder than DC."

"Yeah, it is. You know that I found out about my asthma when I lived there."

"Yeah." I shivered. "And you told me the story about the time that your hand stuck to the gas pump. That sounds horrible."

"It's not a big deal. You just need to make sure that you fill up your gas tank when the weather is good."

"When is the weather ever good? You told me about the weather, and you said that the snow did not melt from October to April."

"It's true. You have never been sledding on the real hill, though. You barely even made snowman when we were kids. There is kitesurfing on the lakes in Madison, Monona and Mendota."

I rolled my eyes. "I am not planning to stay for very long. I just need to meet him. I was thinking about having my jet stay on the runway while I went for a visit."

"You are so rude."

I gasped. "I am not! I just don't want to spend my entire life with some hick named Jimmy Fox."

"Did you just say Jimmy Fox?" Andrew blinked. "Jimmy Fox?"

"Yeah. I did. Do you know him?"

"Yeah, he was one of my euchre buddies."

"What on Earth is euchre?"

"It's a game."

"What kind of game?"

"It's a card game."

"Yay. I get to look forward to learning how hicks spend their time."

"Seriously, chill out. Enjoy it. Eat some cheese curds."

"Oh my god, what are those?"

"They are a by-product of the cheese-making process. You can only eat them fresh, though. They squeak when you eat them."

"So instead of mice squeaking, you get your food to squeak?" Horror filled me. "This isn't like going to another country. It is like going to another planet."

Andrew sighed. "You can always text me if you need help acclimating to the wild world of America's Dairyland. It really isn't that bad, though. You'll see when you get there."

I put down my glass of Moscato. "I better get home. I need to make a list of everything that I need to buy for visiting the Arctic Circle."

"Send me a picture when you get there. I kind of miss the land of ice and snow."

"Nobody should go north of the Wall."

"You know nothing, Jon Snow."

We smiled at each other. "I'll talk to you soon."

He waved at me, and he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, the sure solution to solitude.