A Billionaire for Christmas

“I’m kind of done talking. I’ve reached the end of this stupid, stupid tale. I got conned, and now I’m broke. I probably should be a prostitute, but I don’t think I’m smart enough. Guys would be like, ‘I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a blow job today,’ and I’d be like, ‘Okay, sure!’ Because I’m just that dumb.”

“You’re not dumb.”

“I’m hoping I am. If I’m dumb, I can get smarter.”

“You’ve had some bad breaks.”

She huffed a laugh. “Ya think?”

Augustine tugged his wallet out of his hip pocket again. He grasped all the cash inside and laid it on the counter. “This will get you started.”

Dree glanced at the stack of green and yellow bills. There was even more there than he’d tried to pay her. “Just put that money back in your wallet. I haven’t done anything to earn it.”

“You don’t have to.”

She had been raised not to take charity. Others needed it more. “Yes, I do.”

“I don’t need it. You do.”

“I’ll be fine. I always land on my feet.” She had no idea how she was going to do that.

Augustine said, “It’s nothing but pieces of paper.”

She snorted. “That sounds like someone who’s always had plenty of it. When you haven’t had enough, you know money is precious. It determines what you can eat and how safe the place is where you sleep. You’re rich, aren’t you?”

“I’m comfortable,” he admitted.

“Yeah, that’s something a rich person would say.”

“I was going to pay you for last night. Let’s pretend you didn’t say no.”

He was a nice guy, but Dree was getting a little pissed at him. “I am not a prostitute.”

“As you said, Jesus hung out with prostitutes.”

She rolled her eyes. “Does that make you Jesus Christ?”

Augustine laughed out loud at that, looking up at the stained ceiling. “Now, there’s something no one who knows me has ever accused me of. Some people have called me the very Devil in disguise or an incubus, but no one has ever confused me with the Savior.”

“There are some lines I’m not going to cross, Augustine.”

Yet.

She was going to get more desperate, she knew. When the end of the month came, even beside the fact that she needed money to eat and pay rent and buy a sleeping bag or something, Mandi would need a thousand dollars to cover Victor’s therapy costs again. That was her usual shortfall unless something made it worse. Dree wasn’t sure how much Vic was improving with language skills, but when he went to daily therapy, he was a whole heck of a lot less violent. When Mandi had tried to stop his therapy once, he’d nearly beaten the crap out of her even though he had been only eight at the time.

And then there was Christmas. She wasn’t sure how much Victor understood about Christmas, but her nieces and nephews from her other siblings did. Her brothers and sisters were going to need the gift cards she gave them as presents to make it through the very expensive month of December, too.

“I understand you’re not a prostitute,” Augustine said. “You’ve made that abundantly clear. I am entirely certain you’re not. It shall never cross my mind again.”

“Okay, then,” Dree muttered. “I’m glad we’ve got that settled.”

“But you need money.”

“I’ll figure it out. I’m resourceful. Maybe I’ll get a box and be one of those living statues in a park or something. People just give you money if you stand there and do that.”

“Have you ever done that before?” he asked her.

“That doesn’t matter. Seems like it would be on-the-job training, to be honest. Or maybe I’ll go to a bank and get a loan.”

“Do you have collateral?” he asked.

“No, but I’m good for it.”

“I’ve heard banks don’t have a sense of humor about that,” Augustine said.

Tears were stinging her eyes again as she realized that she had no options. “Or maybe I’ll dance on tables and give blow jobs like my friends in college did when they didn’t have enough money to eat.”

Augustine asked, “What did you do in college when you didn’t have enough money to eat?”

She looked down at her half-eaten croissant. “I didn’t eat.”

He sighed. “You’re driving me insane. I’m trying to help you, and you won’t let me. I’ve never had such a problem giving money away before.”

She chuckled and squeezed her eyes closed to make the tears go back in. “Sorry.”

He took her hand again. “I don’t want you to miss meals in Paris, of all places. I want you to see Paris in all its splendor. It’s your first trip. Let me help you.”

“I don’t need help. I’ll be all right,” she lied.

“I’m going to eat every meal while I’m here. I’m going to eat croissants like this every morning.”

Dree’s stomach growled.

“Let me assuage my guilt at having too much money because I assure you, I do,” he said.