Greene's Riches (A Billionaire Romance - Vol. 1) (2 page)

Before leaving for the event, Alexis had smoothed her hair in the hotel mirror, a hotel which the magazine had thankfully put her up in for the special event, and practiced her professional press introductions. She kept imagining flashing paparazzi and screaming over other press members, all trying to ask the question that most interested them, but she knew it would be more civilized than that. She would be allowed to mingle with others and listen to the speech, but this was not a press release. No reporter’s questions would be flying about, but rather, large sums of money towards Mrs. Williamson’s favorite cause: A Brighter Life. This cause provided free electricity for the tenants of certain small towns all over the world, with a main focus on keeping millions of poor and impoverished children warm through cold winters. At three hundred pounds per plate and over five hundred people attending the event, several thousand pounds would be going towards the cause before donation checks even started being written.

Now, Alexis watched from the cab as the beautiful historic hotel came into view, lighting up the large stone steps and huge castle-like windows. She felt a flutter in her stomach, and breathed what she hoped was a calming breath. She paid the driver and thanked him for his religious insight throughout the drive, wishing him a nice evening and promising to buy his book when it finally made it out into the world. She was actually quite thankful for the distraction on the twenty-minute drive from her less expensive hotel to this magnificent one that would soon house the evening that could make or break her career. So soon into her travels, she was being thrust into a situation she imagined herself being in perhaps a month or two from now, after she had written some Tips on Traveling Alone for the Modern Woman and Getting Work Done While You Travel fluff pieces, for example. She had so many less important things to write about, but she had to look at all of this positively. If she played her cards right, three days into her trip, she could find a series of stories to follow. There would be so many important people at this fund-raiser and she would hopefully be able to make a long list of successful women with stories to tell.

Alexis smoothed her new evening gown one last time. She would have to write a great piece just to be able to afford the dress for it, she thought, before making one last adjustment of the view of her breasts. She usually did not strive for sexy, but she figured that any extra attention she could get tonight could be helpful in finding her next story. For once, it made sense to use this advantage that she doubted would even be noticeable to the celebrities here; she hoped to at least not wash out next to the prominent personalities she was about to encounter.

“Good evening, Miss,” the doorman greeted her. “Will you be attending the Brighter World Dinner?”

“Yes, thank you,” she responded quickly, starting to fumble through her clutch for her invitation.

“Upstairs and to the left, Miss,” he said, slightly bowing his head to indicate that he had completed his duties and she could stop looking for the paper.

She smiled sheepishly, hoping the couple behind her had not seen her rifling like a maniac through her purse. She took out her wallet so she would be prepared for the next stop, if there were one.

After making her way up the beautiful marbled double staircase, she was greeted by a lady in a suit who was handing out table numbers and nametags for everyone. Alexis showed her press pass and was given her nametag showing the magazine she was with. She was kindly directed shown the table where the press would be dining and asked to enjoy her evening. So far, this request seemed possible. She was feeling better just by there sheer fact that she had made it through the door without being scolded and thrown out for not being on some list. Maybe she had just seen one too many movies, she thought.

****

An hour into the evening, Alexis had managed to exchange a few pleasantries with some of the other press members, all who seemed far more experienced at all this than she did, except for one who went by the name Johnny Penn. After talking to him about how it was his first break into writing for his uncle’s mid-level newspaper, he had managed to snap every pencil he had out of excitement, while writing every detail he could take in and went off in search of more writing utensils in the lobby. There were only a few more minutes until the introductions would begin and the speech would start before dinner.

Alexis had only let herself have one fairly large glass of white wine so far, as she could only imagine how far south the evening could go if she started flirting with some rich husband of some rich angry lady. She had already turned a few heads throughout the night, so she no longer worried about her appearance. She knew she was conservatively dressed enough, so it did not make her uncomfortable to be getting attention; it just made her want to figure out her game plan. Who should she talk to first? Should she just mingle and see what happens? A few dozen questions varying only slightly from these swirled through her thoughts, as she made her way over for a glass of champagne. One more drink before dinner couldn’t hurt, she thought.

As she reached for a glass as the waiter passed by she scanned the room. No more time to talk to press. She had gathered some valuable information about the evening from some of them that would work in her article, but she needed to start making first-hand connections for future stories. She stopped in her tracks as she thought she had finally set eyes on the woman of the evening.

“Oh, damn,” she heard as someone ran into her. She was instantly mentally kicking herself. She had stopped too quickly and now someone had run into her. She turned to see that it was even worse than she thought.

“Oh my god, I am so sorry,” she started, grabbing the nearest cocktail napkins she could from a table. She could see that the man behind her had spilled red wine on the floor and was holding the glass away from his body as though it had also spilled on his tuxedo. “No, no, no. I can’t believe I did that. I’m so sorry, sir,” she said vigorously dabbing his chest.

“Really, it’s fine,” he said, his smooth, deep voice catching her off guard. She looked up because a voice like that had to belong to either a king or a radio show host. “I managed to keep from spilling it on myself, I think,” he said, smiling at her as she looked up at him in awe, holding the napkins still on his chest now. She pulled away quickly once she recovered from what she had done.

“Oh, Mr. Greene,” she stammered. “I-I didn’t know that it was you. Not that I would spill red wine on just anyone, but I especially wouldn’t intentionally spill it on you. I just stopped because I thought I saw someone, and I’m so sorry.”

Mr. Greene smiled his breath-taking, award-winning Man-of-the-Year smile at her, even though she wanted to disappear just long enough to make herself stop making blubbering excuses. So she smiled back.

“I’m sorry, sir, I just-“

“Please, no more apologies. Nothing happened, so there’s no need,” he said with a grin. She could tell that he was taking an extra second to look at her now as well. Then she remembered her nametag.

“Oh, yes, well I just wanted to say that I know who you are and I’m so delighted that I get the opportunity to finally meet you,” she started, then realized she must sound like a crazed fan. “Not that I did this on purpose. How could I have?” 

She wanted to disappear now. Finally she said, “What I was trying to say through all of that is that I’m a writer with Modern Women of Today Magazine. You were in our January edition, which is how I know you and it’s very nice to meet you.”

“Ah, yes,” he said, remembering. “Someone there was crazy enough to nominate me as Most Eligible Business Man of the Year, I believe?”

She laughed, surely a little too nervously, she thought, but hopefully he was too important to notice much about her. “Yes, someone there did. Not that I can blame them,” she said. She was shocked at her nerve. That was borderline flirty, she thought.

“I was kind of hoping it was you,” he said, making her melt on the spot. “I figured you must make all the decisions there to be sent all the way to London for a fund-raiser.”

She felt a calm come over her, just ever so slightly. This was playful banter and she could handle playful banter.

“No, they just treat their interns really well,” she joked. “I’m actually their current traveling editorialist. I’m so grateful that I was able to come here tonight and spill everyone’s drinks.”

He chuckled as beautifully as he had smiled. “You’re funny, Ms. Black, is it? I like that.” He lingered while looking at her nametag.

“Oh, well, I’ve got to have something to work with to combat my lack of grace,” she continued, slightly in awe of herself now.

“I think you are far from lacking grace. For a moment, I thought you were an angel trying to keep me from drinking too many glasses of wine tonight,” he said, flashing that smile one again.  She did not know how long this could or would go on, but she did not want to stop. Her answer came soon enough.

“Excuse me, Richard?” a woman called out. “There you are, dear. It’s time to sit, time to sit. The speeches will start soon.” A beautiful brunette in a flowing white gown who truly did look like an angel had looped her arm through Richard Greene’s.

Of course, he was here with someone, Alexis thought. One doesn’t stay the Most Eligible Business Man on the Market forever.

“It was so nice to meet you, Ms. Black,” he said, smiling warmly, but in a much more conserved way now. “You should get back to your date.”

She smiled, “Oh, yes. I suppose it’s time.” At least she could leave the situation with him thinking that she had come here with someone.

She watched as the perfect man and his perfect woman walked away, chattering intimately on the way to their table, before finally resigning to her seat next to Johnny, who now sat prepared with several pens and pencils sticking out of his breast pocket.

             
****

The speeches and the dinner had been perfect. Alexis had been happy about
nearly every detail. The night had actually turned out very smoothly, after almost being ruined by nearly making Richard Greene spill wine all over his tux. She had been able to break herself out of her looping reverie of marrying him, by reminding herself that she never even stood a chance, at least judging by the beautiful woman next to him all night. After overcoming this personal obstacle, everything from the perspective of someone looking for a hot un-televised breaking news story went well.

Janice had ended up presenting her son to the audience to announce that he would be taking the place of her former partner, who everyone managed to avoid mentioning until now and intelligently continued to do so afterwards. Then, the thirty-two year old Benjamin Williamson spoke in acceptance of his new post, and in thanks to his mother for all of her work. He gave her the one gift that not only made them both more loved by one another but by everyone in the world as well; he presented the new addition to A Brighter World that he had secretly been working on the past few months. This new addition, A Cleaner World, would provide running water in the same towns A Brighter World would visit, working hand-in-hand as their partner, and he unveiled a filtering system to make sure there would be plenty of drinking water as well.

Alexis felt so fortunate for this new twist to the story. The magazine would be expecting the usual amount of excitement following a fund-raiser; the article would not have been the feature story without something major. This something major was going to help Alexis get a stipend every month, after being less than three days in. She couldn’t believe her luck. And, what’s more, during and after the dinner, she had met several women from many different countries who were impressive and independently successful or knew someone that was and could tell about them. Alexis knew she could follow up on some of these for more impressive feature articles and interviews. The travel section had the chance of being a real position, if she kept doing this right. This story had practically written itself, she thought happily.

When she finally felt truly secure about her success of the evening, with her list of future feature stories nearly a page long, she drank several glasses of celebratory wine and champagne and toasted to her good fortune. By ten o’clock, still early at in the night, she felt, she was having a great time wandering amongst groups of press and the few more inebriated members of the businesspeople looking for the most entertaining bunch to listen or talk to. She and Johnny and a few other members of the press eventually ended up in a circle near their table, all howling and laughing at their party-fueled conversation. Alexis had finally decided to drink water, knowing that she wanted to be more sober for finding her way back to her hotel at the end of the night. She wanted to feel safe and this was all still very new territory, although she was not really able to differentiate between these new friends and her old ones – these new ones felt just as close and a bit more fun and carefree, she thought.  Maybe it was because they had all been thrown together from so many different places and then been given a greater story than they imagined and then all gotten fairly drunk, but they were all feeling especially friendly.

A few drinks into the after party, when the conversation had switched to gossip about all the celebrities they had encountered that evening, Johnny told Alexis that he was also in love with Richard Greene. He joked about how he had tried to hide being gay because he hated the attention girls gave him. They all wanted to be his best friend and he just wanted to get laid by the hot guys they wouldn’t let him talk to, he had told her. They laughed about how he had ended up only feeling like hanging out with a girl anyway. Alexis was happy to make what felt like her first real friend near London as she exchanged contact information with Johnny; at least he could make her laugh and she wouldn’t have to worry about him wanting to be more than friends.

Around eleven thirty, or twenty-two thirty, as they so rudely tried to confuse her with when she was tipsy here in England, Alexis decided that it was time to start heading back to her hotel. She needed to hail a cab soon so that she didn’t end up staying out all night with people she didn’t know, she thought cautiously. Drunk Alexis tended to be more of a social butterfly than Sober Alexis was. She generally tried to avoid dealing with that side of herself, but tonight had gone too well not to celebrate at least a little bit. If she ended the night now, it would be just about a perfect ending, she thought.

She made sure she had all of her belonging and told Johnny goodnight, calling her cab on the way down out of the ballroom.

“Need a ride?” she heard from behind her. She looked absentmindedly, not thinking the voice was speaking to her, but just at the moment she saw his handsome features again, she realized that it wasn’t just any voice, it was
his
voice – Richard Greene.

She smiled, slowly pulling the phone away from her ear as though she had just finished talking on it. “No, of course not! Thank you, though.”

“Were you not just calling a taxi?” he said, one eyebrow arched as he grinned.

“Well, yes, but I’m fine taking a taxi.” Then, she had a thought. “Say…Where’s your girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend?” he asked, amused. “You must mean Genevieve, my sister.” He laughed at Alexis’s instantly embarrassed expression. “It’s okay, really. We get that all the time. She just likes coming to these things with me and I don’t always like finding a date that I don’t really plan on talking to anyway.”

“Okay, well, I guess that makes me feel a little bit better, that I’m not the first one to say such a dumb thing,” she responded, almost giggling. She stopped herself. She would not be
that
drunk girl.

He stepped closer, so that she could smell his musky, manly scent. She had to remind herself not to close her eyes in bliss as she inhaled. “So,” he said, more quietly. “How about that ride?”

She suddenly felt too warm. Excitedly so, but she knew this couldn’t happen. And if it did happen, she would regret it. Or, would she regret it if she didn’t?, she wondered.

“Um, thank you, but I really think I can manage.”  Her words did not sound nearly as confident or convincing as she was hoping for them to.

“Really, I don’t mind.” He put out his arm for her to take. “Right this way.”

****