A Billionaire for Christmas

But just as I got my zip down, I stopped, a sickening wave of guilt rolling over me. It felt crass and wrong to beat off to thoughts of this girl who could be my daughter. Even though she’d never know that I’d done it, it was degrading and a violation of sorts.

I zipped up my trousers and stood. I loosened my tie and then moved to the buttons of my shirt, undressing furiously. I needed a shower. A cold shower, that was what would take care of this.

Just as I dropped my shirt on the desk chair with my jacket, my mobile rang.

My heart leapt so high, it was practically in my throat as I scrambled to look at my screen, hoping it was her name that I’d see lighting up on the caller ID.

The name I saw instead caused me to let out a groan.

With resignation, I clicked the accept button and answered. “Hello, Ellen.” Ellen Rachel Wallace Starkney Locke. She was just Ellen Wallace again now, having shed both the name I’d given her and the one she’d received in her previous marriage. Eight years had passed now since the paperwork had become final on our divorce, and still, she made my blood boil every time I had contact with her.

“I haven’t even spoken yet, and you already have a tone,” she greeted me, with a tone of her own. So nasty. So like Ellen.

Now there was a boner killer.

“Yes, I think I earned the right, don’t you?” I didn’t need to bring up her past sins against me. She knew them.

“Honestly, Dylan,” she said, letting out an audible sigh. “Move on. I have. It’s time you joined me.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. She was a liar. She hadn’t moved on. She was still stuck underneath the emotional avalanche that had fallen upon her the day Amanda had died ten years ago. Instead of facing her pain, Ellen had buried it, becoming rotten and disconnected as she did.

If she’d really moved on, if she’d let herself heal, would she and I be apart today?

I couldn’t imagine it. Didn’t even want to anymore. Because I had moved on—moved on from her and any notion of happily ever after. She’d proven to me that love always died, and I’d accepted it. She was the one in denial.

I didn’t want to go there with her, though, not tonight. “Why are you calling, Ellen? Anything you have to say could have been said to me tomorrow when I pick up Aaron.”

“That’s what I’m calling about. Aaron won’t be able to see you until the afternoon. Oh, and then he has Latin lessons at four, so it will be evening, actually, before you can get him.”

I ran my palm through my hair and clutched a handful tightly in frustration. “Christ, Ellen. He can’t skip Latin one week while his father is in town? I flew from another continent to spend this time with him.”

“Lessons are paid for in advance. There are no makeups. Latin is a foundational language, and it’s so important these days.”

No. It wasn’t. Not as important as spending time with his father.

But there was no rationalizing with the helicopter tiger mother that was Ellen Wallace. “And why is it I can’t see him during the day? I chose this week to visit because he had time off from school.”

“While he doesn’t have school this week officially, tomorrow the teachers will be in the classrooms available for makeup work and tutoring. I signed Aaron up for the full day.”

I leaned against the desk, my knuckles curled. Aaron didn’t need tutoring or makeup. He had a three point four grade point average. This was Ellen being spiteful and stubborn.

“Cancel it. I can tutor him.”

“On seventh-grade advanced chemistry?” she retorted patronizingly. “Even if you could understand it, he needs a lab.”

“Why is a thirteen-year-old even taking advanced chemistry? Aaron doesn’t have a scientific bone in his body. Are you shoving these classes down his throat?”

“I’m insuring his future,” Ellen said, raising her voice.

“Ensuring that he’s going to hate you one day, if not already. Cancel the tutoring.”

“It’s too late. He’s signed up. And I’ll not let you get in the way of his success.”

“His success,” I echoed incredulously. He was still just a boy. Did she ever give him a chance to just be a kid? I was so angry, I went low. “I’ll pick him up myself. I’ll sign him out from the school as soon as you drop him off.”

“It would be kidnapping. They won’t let you take him without my authorization.” She was just as nasty as I was. Nastier.

“I’m not on the school’s parental records? We’d always agreed it would be both of us in case there was ever an emergency!”

“I reconsidered. If there was an emergency, you’d be too far away.” She sounded proud of herself. “I have my sister listed as emergency now. And Donovan Kincaid is there as a backup to her.”