Writing Our Song:A Billionaire Romance

Chapter 9


The next day a plane ticket from Sea-Tac airport to LAX arrived and by mid-morning on Saturday I was walking through the arrivals gate with my large carry-on luggage slung over my shoulder and that Californian sunshine streaming in through the window. Jeremy was actually waiting for me himself and waved to catch my attention.

“No checked luggage?” he asked.

“I’m a woman of few possessions,” I said.

“OK, packin’ light, no problem. Want me to carry that?”

“No, I’ve got it.”

Jeremy shrugged his shoulders and led me through the airport until we arrived at the security screening area. I looked over at him and noticed that he didn’t have any kind of luggage at all.

“Looks like I’m not the only one packing light,” I said.

“My stuff has already gone through with a couple employees when they arrived to prep the jet.”

“Oh.”

Jeremy stepped up to the woman who was checking flight documents and I saw her glance up at him and then do a double take before a smile that expressed more-than-professional-courtesy graced her lips.

“Passport and boarding pass please, sir,” she said.

“No boarding pass, I’m travelling on a private flight. Jeremy Holt and Beatrice Hampton,” Jeremy said, giving her his passport.

The woman, who looked to be my age but almost achingly beautiful, sported a name badge that said ‘Madison’ and looked from Jeremy to me as I handed over my passport. If I hadn’t known better I would have said there was thinly veiled jealousy in her eyes.

Looking at a clipboard resting on her little podium, she compared the names on the passports and ticked us off a list before handing them back and telling us to have a nice flight. Jeremy walked straight through the metal detector as I placed my bag on the conveyor belt leading to the x-ray.

I caught little-miss-big-smile-sparkle-eyes turn her head and give him a full body scan every bit as thorough as the machines inspecting our luggage, and perhaps just a little more intimate. She diverted her gaze with a blush when she saw I had noticed and I couldn’t help but shake my head.

What must it be like for a person like Jeremy to go through life with that kind of treatment all the time? You couldn’t help but get just a bit full of yourself, I bet. My bag went through without issue, as did I, and Jeremy was waiting for me on the other side.


“You sure you don’t want me to carry that for you?” he asked.

“No, I said I’m fine. You sure you wouldn’t rather take Madison? She might be better company.”

“Who?”

I pointed.

“Oh. Meh. No. I’d rather take you. Let’s go.”

When his back turned I couldn’t stop the corners of my mouth from rising just a little. It was an unexpected ego-stroke to have so much attention from him when he referred to a girl as stunning as Madison as ‘meh’.

Get a grip, Beatrice, I thought, you’re here because he owes you for some reason. Don’t start thinking you’re anything special, and don’t forget who he is.

The tiny smile dropped from my face as if it had never existed.

*****

Being a private flight, we didn’t have our own boarding gate and had to cross the tarmac to walk up the steps-on-wheels to enter the aircraft. It was such a strange feeling to be out there, seeing the other jumbo jets more close-up than usual and be struck anew by the wonder of how things so huge could ever get off the ground.

Jeremy’s private jet was not like the few commercial planes I had been on previously. While we waited for our turn to roll out to our allocated runway he gave me a quick tour. It was much more like a house with wings than the flying sardine cans I had been on before.

An office, a kitchen area, a living room and ‘sleeping quarters’ were all present, along with an area that was more akin to the business-class seating I had walked through on my way to the economy-class sections on my previous flights. When it was time for us to go, the opulence did little to settle my take-off nerves and I gripped the armrests while staring straight ahead and breathing carefully.

“Not a happy flier?” Jeremy asked.

“It’s mostly the take-offs,” I said. “I don’t even mind the landings so much, and flying is fine. Oh, and I hate it when they’re circling the airport and they turn so sharply that I’m looking straight down out of my window. I hate that.”

“Oh, yeah. I know what you mean. Like, if the wings are pointing straight up and down, what’s the plane gliding on?”

“Yeah, that might be it.”

The roar of the engines in take-off became a steady drone as the jet climbed to whatever its cruising altitude was and the captain made an announcement over the P.A system, addressing Jeremy and I both by name, saying that it was OK to remove seatbelts and move around the aircraft. Jeremy immediately took his off and walked to the rear of the room we were in, opening a fridge that was disguised to fit in with the rest of the décor.

“Drink?”

“Yes please, what do you have?”

“Wines, beers, juices, Coke, lemonade…”

“Orange juice?”

“You got it. I’ll have lemonade.”

Jeremy poured the drinks and handed me my glass before returning to his own seat. The juice was fantastic, ice cold and refreshing after the heat outside the airport. I drank half the glass all at once before setting it down.

“What did you mean about owing me?” I asked.

“Hmmm? Oh. Well, I was supposed to be having a meeting with just John Bloxham that day but when I turned up there were several spanners in the works, namely the Colonel and those other executives. I was planning on investing in Bloxhamtech, and there’s always a bit of debate on how best to value a company. John was being difficult because he built that company from the ground up, and he’s sentimental about it.”

“You think he shouldn’t be?”

“Oh, that’s fine as far as I’m concerned. I can understand it for sure, I could have dealt with it. He just needed to be convinced that I wasn’t going to take his legacy and trash it. Rod Stevens, on the other hand, he’s just plain old greedy. And an a*shole. You’d back me up on that one, wouldn’t you?”

“No argument here.”

“The others were just worried about their jobs or the projects they were trying to get done, but they were adding a lot of noise to the discussions and kept on putting John, whose decision it really was, back at square one,” he said.

“What did you do?”

“Well, ultimately, I knew John wanted the deal to go ahead and I knew I wanted it to go ahead but the longer things dragged on the more it would cost me. If I didn’t invest, they knew there was a real possibility the company wouldn’t survive but an agreement wasn’t anywhere near as essential for me, so I had an advantage there. I needed to give an ultimatum in a way that said ‘take it or leave it, I have got to go now’ without causing offence and making them dig their heels in. Then you walked in.”

“Coffee is served,”

“Exactly. Me needing to go to the hospital to tend to crotch-burns is about as hard to get offended about as anything, I told them to take the deal as it stood or I wouldn’t be back. They took it, you saved me millions.”

“Did you really need to go to the hospital?”

“No, I think I have the milk to thank for that, haha!”

“So I saved you millions and all I get is this lousy trip to New Zealand?”

“And an orange juice.”

“Any food?”

“Only on the flight. Once we get there I’m going to give you a sharp stick and you’ll have to live on whatever you can catch.”

I turned my head to look out of the window so he wouldn’t see me smiling, to my surprise I was even fighting to suppress laughter. Why did he have to be so… I struggled to think of a word. Non-evil? Likable, even?

Below the wing I could see occasional snippets of ocean through breaks in the clouds as our shadow raced us across the fluffy surface and I tried to gather my thoughts again. Remember who he is, Beatrice. I turned back to Jeremy, who was looking at me in a similar way to when he had first seen me in the boardroom.

“Why am I really here, Jeremy?”

Jeremy’s eyes never left mine as he continued just looking at me for a few seconds before taking a sip of his lemonade and putting his glass back down.

“Beatrice, one of the reasons I’ve done so well is because I’ve got this knack for understanding people quickly. It helps me know what I need to do to get them to come around to my way of thinking. It’s kind of like a game, maybe I think of it that way because of how young I started. I’ve done it so often for so long that it comes as naturally to me as breathing.”

“Congratulations. What does it have to do with me?”

“You’re a tough one to read. When you walked into that boardroom and I saw you for the first time, my heart almost stopped. You’re one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in my life, but then you looked around the room and spotted me. I saw your eyes and I knew something was wrong. Really wrong.”

I turned my head back and looked into my lap so he couldn’t look into my eyes anymore. He had no right to go speculating about me, about my life. Desperately I tried to find my hatred, to wrap myself in it, to stay safe as he continued.

“There’s something about you, Beatrice, I don’t know what it is but my gut told me it was something special, something that was being smothered. I couldn’t live with myself knowing that you had that look in your eyes.”

There it was, that flash of resentment I could redirect away from myself, I seized it with both hands and looked back in his direction.


“So what am I then? A game or something you’re just taking pity on?”

Jeremy leaned back against his window and looked like he was going to take another sip of lemonade, but thought better of it and laced his fingers together over his stomach instead. I stared at him hoping I would spontaneously be given the gift of heat vision so I could blast him away.

“Has anybody ever told you that you’re cute when you’re angry and your hostility is very disarming?” he asked.

I didn’t answer.

“Why does it have to be either, Beatrice? Couldn’t I just be being nice? Is that really so hard to believe?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to you?” he asked quietly.

It felt like he was trying to pick apart my painstakingly crafted walls. Not violently, just a little tug here and a little prod there, but I’d gone through too much to have some rich bastard poking around them. To my shame I felt tears welling up.

“Don’t. Don’t. Don’t you dare,” I said with as much venom as I could muster.

“OK, OK,” he said, “Beatrice, what I said back at your place still stands. No pressure, no obligations and all that. We’re going a long way away, I thought you might like to relax a bit. I don’t mean just sitting on a beach, I mean it in the sense of leaving everything behind.”

Jeremy paused and looked at me as if he expected me to say something. All I could do was sit there, furious at the audacity of this rich man who had red carpets rolled out for him wherever he went. Yet what he was proposing sounded so good, like heaven on earth. Was it even possible though?

“It’s exhausting acting in a way that’s… uh… contrary to your true nature, Beatrice. Most people I’ve met can’t keep it up during a business meeting that lasts for an hour when they’re trying to bluff me. Is this who you are? Or are you actually really tired? Think about it.”

Jeremy pulled a folder of some kind out of a little drawer and began reading it, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I turned and stared out of the window, blinking away the tears that hadn’t quite fallen, and watched the clouds and ocean zip by again for a good long while.

Was it possible? I repeated the question to myself. Could we be going far enough away that the blamelight couldn’t find me? What would that be like? I imagined it might be like temporary relief from a full-body cramp that had lasted for over four years.

Four years. The words hung in my mind like a crushing weight. That was a long time. I thought about all the guilt, the pain, everything I constantly tried to defend myself against and almost trembled.

Could I relax a bit, relax the way Jeremy had said, and not have all that overwhelm me again? I didn’t know. Maybe. Maybe for just two weeks I could.

“Jeremy?” I spoke without turning around.

“Yes?”

“Maybe… um. Maybe… you could call me ‘Bea’?”

“Bea. I’d like that.”

Somewhere deep inside, a part of me felt a little calmer already. It was like a towel that had been wrung beyond any more water coming out of it, to the point where threads were beginning to snap and rip, and now it had been unwound a bit. Just a turn or two, but enough to feel.

*****

Sleeping on a private jet was also a completely different experience to economy class, in that it was actually possible for me. Jeremy said that it was a thirteen hour flight so we’d be arriving at about midnight our time, but late evening the next day in local time because of the international date line.

He said it would probably be best if I could stay awake until we arrived at our hotel, have a normal night of sleep there, and then just function on New Zealand time but after a nice meal and watching a movie on my own personal screen, the steady drone of the engines were like a lullaby and I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

After what felt like about ten seconds of sleep, I heard the pilot advising us to buckle up for landing. I returned to my seat with a bleary-eyed greeting to Jeremy and sat down. Outside my window the world had gone dark long ago but when I pressed my face right up to it and looked ahead, I could see lights fast approaching.

“Land ahoy,” I said.

Auckland airport was surprisingly quiet but it still took a long time to get through customs, they even had sniffer-dogs give our luggage a good search before letting us through. We eventually walked through the international arrivals gate to see a lone man in a dark suit holding a sign that said ‘Holt’, whom Jeremy waved to.

“That’s me,” he said. “Where is everybody?”

“I think you’re the last international flight of the evening, sir. There’s a separate terminal for domestic flights. Is this all the luggage?”

“Yes,” said Jeremy.

“Excellent. My name’s Conor, by the way, happy to meet you.”

The man stuck out his hand and Jeremy shook it before he extended it to me.

“Beatrice,” I said.

“Conor, ma’am,” he repeated, “If you’d like you can put that bag on the trolley and I’ll take care of it for you.”

“No, it’s OK, I’ve got it,” I said.

“Come on Bea, his employers have got his family, if he doesn’t take all the bags they get sent to him in bags,” said Jeremy.

“It’s true, ma’am,” said Conor.

“Ugh. Fine, here.”

“You did the right thing.”

“Now one day I can accompany my daughter down the aisle, much obliged ma’am,” said Conor with a smile.

Conor led us to a large black car and opened the rear door for us, waiting for us to get in before he loaded the bags into the trunk. It wasn’t quite a limo but it was certainly spacious. I was confused for a moment when Conor opened the front passenger door and hopped in but then saw that the steering wheel was on that side. Of course, they drove on the left hand side here.

“Man, I’m tired,” I said.

“About half an hour to get to your hotel, ma’am,” said Conor. “If you need me, I’ll be right up here staying close to the steering wheel.”

With that, a glass divider slid upwards until Jeremy and I were alone in the back and Conor navigated us out of the car park.

“You ever been here before?” I asked.

“Nope, first time,” said Jeremy.

I realized I hadn’t yet asked him why he had to come here, but my eyelids were so heavy that I could barely keep them open so I decided to focus all my remaining energy on staying awake. After several lefts and rights we were on some highway that led in the direction of the city center.

As I looked at the Auckland skyline I could see it was dominated by a building that looked a lot like the Space Needle back in Seattle, lit up with a blue glow and topped with a mast of many flashing red lights, presumably a warning for any low-flying aircraft.

Eventually, Conor pulled up in front of the Hilton and then he and an employee of the hotel brought our bags inside. I floated through the check-in process in an almost-delirious state of exhaustion and parted ways with Jeremy, agreeing to meet him for breakfast in the morning.

Instead of being simply told what my room number was, I was actually personally escorted right to the door and wished a pleasant stay. I dropped my bag on the floor and stared at the huge bed with relish but forced myself to have a shower first.

At last I crawled under the covers and laid my head down on the softer-than-soft pillows on the other side of the world. My eyelids drooped until they were just barely open and then a thought hit me that had me sleepily struggle to a sitting position.


Had… had Jeremy really said I was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen? I rested my head on the pillows again and thought about that for a while before I fell asleep.