Page 16 of Trailer Park Billionaire (Distinguished Billionaires #3)

HELENA

H e doesn’t smile. He doesn’t frown either. He just stands there, staring deep into my eyes.

“Look, Mr. Lyon, it’s not what you think it is,” I say eventually, grabbing his hands and sliding them off me.

“It’s not like a violent boyfriend who beat me or anything like that.

” I sigh, rubbing a hand over my forehead—careful not to smear the remnants of my makeup.

That technically wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t a boyfriend.

Mr. Lyon continues to search my face, seemingly struggling to process that new piece of information. Then he just says, “Ben.” His fingers carefully tug a strand of hair behind my ear to reveal the band-aid, the scent of scotch and sandalwood lingering in the air. “Call me Ben.”

“Alright… Ben.” I take a step back and start packing up. For a second, the blade of the knife in my bag reflects the fluorescent light from above. “Look, you’ll have to believe me when I tell you that it’s nothing. Because if you don’t, then I’ll just have to make something up.”

The angry expression chiseled onto his face softens a little. “Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah, I’ll just say it was… uh… I tripped.”

“Right into someone’s fist?”

I roll my eyes. “More like a door… knob. See… it was just your classic reckless dance move meets gravity sort of situation. Florence and the Machine, eye, doorknob—done. Tale as old as time.” I clap my hands, hoping that can conclude our conversation.

Of course, it doesn’t.

“And that left you with a black eye and a cut to your head,” Ben says, crossing his arms.

I nod and shrug at the same time. “Gravity’s really stepped up its game this year.”

He inhales sharply, as if calling upon some long-lost reservoir of patience.

Then he also nods, slowly. “Look, Helena. I know this is none of my business. And if you want to keep it to yourself, I’ll respect that.

We barely know each other. But my offer stands.

Tell me who did this to you, and I will make them pay.

Like I said: I am very angry and dangerous. ”

“I thought you said you were rich and powerful.”

“Yeah, well, right now I’m feeling mostly angry and dangerous,” he says, and I believe him. His voice sounds strained. As if, for whatever reason, he actually cares.

I watch as the veins on his arms bulge, the blood pumping visibly as he clenches his fists.

“Luckily for you, women love being stuck in an empty room with angry and dangerous men,” I mutter, as my heartbeat slams like a drum in my chest. At least that’s what it feels like.

Like it just woke up and is now audibly echoing through the whole damn room.

It’s beating so fast, I immediately feel light-headed.

As if on autopilot, I stagger to the sink and run cold water over my head.

I hold my breath and wait for my heartbeat to calm down.

It takes a moment for my body to comply, but eventually, it does.

When I come back up, I inhale deeply and let it out in one quick gust.

Better.

Ben watches me in the mirror on the wall. It’s hard to read his face. Usually, it’s sporting a trained smile that oozes charm. Now, his brow is furrowed. But I guess that’s better than the angry stare from before.

With my heartbeat back to almost a normal speed and sound, I sling my bag over my shoulder. “Now, pray tell—what are you doing here? We didn’t have an appointment to look at more paintings, did we?”

Ben runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head. “No, no. I was just in the area and figured I’d drop by and see if you had time. But now I’m thinking I’ll take you home instead. Or maybe to the ER. Has a doctor taken a look at you yet?”

“That won’t be necessary,” I say, then pause at the doorway. Trying not to let him know what I’m doing, I listen for any footsteps in the hallway before slipping out of the classroom. Then I quickly head for the door, before Elaine or any of my colleagues can spot me.

Ben follows right along.

“We’ll have to postpone looking at the paintings. I’m afraid I’ve got plans today. I need to go through my grandpa’s belongings to see what I want to keep.”

It’s Friday, which means my routine allows for an evening of doing nothing. Which means I have time to clear out my grandpa’s apartment. If I could avoid it, I would, but I’m hoping to find some clues as to what he’s gotten himself mixed up in.

“Well, if you’re afraid of your plans,” Ben says, “then you should let me help. I’ll take you to your grandpa’s. I’m an excellent bodyguard and an even better driver.” He hurries to open the staff entrance for me. “And doorman,” he adds with that damned smile of his.

I consider my options for a moment, and even though I’m not thrilled about breaking my personal no-associating-(with-strangers) rule, letting him drive me does make a lot of sense.

It’d be quicker. And maybe—just maybe—it’d be good to have someone as strong as Ben around, in case a gang of violent men is waiting for me there too.

“You sure?” I ask as he gestures toward the parking lot already. “You’re probably busy doing… whatever it is you do on a Friday evening.”

“Candlelit dinner. Moonlit stroll. Intense, smoldering eye contact. The usual. But that can wait, don’t you worry.” He winks at me as he smoothly reaches his hand around my waist and maneuvers me over to his right side, away from the traffic in the street.

“Well, I wouldn’t want to ruin your date…”

“Oh, no. Not a date,” he interjects. “Just a meeting with my accountant.”

“Over candlelit dinner, moonlit strolls and intense, smoldering eye contact?”

Ben shrugs. “It’s important to keep your financial advisors emotionally invested in your success. But like we established already?—”

“You’re very rich and powerful,” I finish his joke, deadpan. “Which is why you can take the evening off to save a damsel in distress?”

“Can’t allow gravity to get the upper hand now, can we?” he quips and points at the big RV parked in the corner of the lot.

I think about it for another second, then decide that I can’t just accept his help for free.

Him helping me should at least be transactional—just so he doesn’t get the wrong idea of me being interested in him, or what other dumb ideas men usually get.

“Fine,” I say, “but I’m going to pay you back for the gas and your time. ”

$100,000 …

I can’t even pay for dinner anymore.

“If you insist,” Ben agrees with a shrug. “Now, if you’d please follow me this way.”

We cross the street and eventually make it to our ride. It’s the same vehicle that took me to my grandpa’s last time.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone rich and powerful drive an RV before,” I observe out loud.

Ben laughs, opens the door, and waits for me to get in.

“That’s because people are bad at being rich and powerful.

See, why would I waste money on an expensive sports car if I’d just bang my head every time I got in and could never even hit sixty since most of my driving is in the city anyway?

” He closes the door behind me, rounds the vehicle, and gets in himself.

“Real luxury is this.” Ben smacks the wheel, accidentally setting off the horn, startling me with the loud sound.

“It’s having as much legroom as you want, a kitchen for when you’re hungry, your own bathroom, and even a bed if you get tired.

Try fitting all those amenities into a Porsche. ”

I slowly nod as he starts the engine. Weirdly enough, that all makes sense to me. I guess when you’re actually rich, status symbols don’t mean nearly as much as actual comfort.

“By the way,” Ben brushes some imaginary dust off my shoulder before pointing at my back, “I love your jacket.”

“Oh, thanks,” I say, glancing at it—only to see little blue and brown handprints all over. “It’s a collaboration piece. My grandpa, Ed, sewed it together and painted it, and the highlights were added by an upcoming new artist called Sketchy Ryan.”

Ben smiles, grabs the headrest behind me, and begins reversing the car. “Tell me about that. Iris called it ‘Ooops, I Arted’ class?”

I nod and check to make sure the little handprints on my back are actually dry. “There’s not much to tell. I thought it would be a good idea to have art classes for kids. So I started teaching art classes for kids. That’s about it.”

“Really?” Ben asks with a raised eyebrow, his gaze shifting to me and then quickly back onto the road. “Because Iris told me you came up with the idea so Dia and Clay wouldn’t have to go to prison.”

A smirk tugs at the corner of my lips. It’s hard to avoid when it comes to the little rascals.

“Well, Iris has a very lively imagination.” I think about it for a second, then decide to expand.

“It wasn’t quite that dramatic. The whole thing started when I saw Dia and Clay sneaking around the museum with a group of kids.

They were clearly up to no good. I recognized the look.

It was the same one I had when I started acting out when… I was younger.”

Ben’s eyebrows shoot up, his gaze fixed on me while the RV rolls down the road.

“Eyes ahead, please,” I say and use my hands to turn his head back onto the street. “Gravity was enough already. I’d rather not also lose a fight with forward momentum.”

Ben laughs and eases off the gas. “Technically, I think you’d be up against sudden inertia.

But don’t worry—I won’t let that happen.

I will, however, need to hear about you acting out in your younger years.

You know it’s illegal to tease such interesting information and not follow up on it.

Consider it your payment for my chauffeur services.

” He flashes one of his annoyingly perfect smiles, until I quickly point his head forward again.

“Is my money not good enough for you?”

“Oh, no, rich and powerful men aren’t interested in monetary reimbursement. We deal almost exclusively in information… and sometimes candy.”

I chuckle softly, take a deep breath to ease the knot still curled in my stomach, and—for whatever reason—resist the urge to lie.

Maybe because he’s been kind, or maybe it’s his perfectly chiseled charm finally wearing me down.

Either way, I tell him something about myself that not many people know.

In fact, now that my grandpa is dead, no one but Elaine does.

“Well, I may or may not have been arrested once or twice when I was a teenager,” I say cautiously, leaving out the severity of what had happened.

“And so, like any reformed criminal who still remembers the exact weight of a police flashlight on their—not yet fully developed—skull, I decided to intervene before anything bad could happen to Dia and Clay.”

Ben listens keenly while focusing on the road ahead.

“I lured them in with free snacks, which is just Kidnapping 101, obviously. Then I gave them paper, paints, and a safe place where they could simply exist for a few hours and weren’t expected to spend any money.

Over time, the whole thing snowballed, and suddenly there was a whole group of kids who, instead of trying to steal the museum’s donation box, were sketching self-portraits, drawing birthday gifts, and—somehow—being a community, I guess.

” I point at an upcoming intersection. “Take a right here and stay on the parallel street. Less traffic usually.”

Ben does as instructed.

“And that’s about the whole story. We have one or two classes a week depending on how many kids sign up.”

“They’re important to you, hm?”

I shrug. They really are. But they’d be fine if I left for Laos… I hope.

When we pull up outside my grandpa’s apartment building, I look around. I’m not sure for what, but I look anyway. Maybe a suspicious car, maybe suspicious people loitering, maybe… maybe I’m getting real paranoid here.

I exhale and roll my shoulders back. They won’t be here.

All that’s waiting for me here is the smell of old books, oil paint, the faintest hint of turpentine, and painful memories.

My stomach tightens. And, right on cue, my grandpa’s face flashes through my mind like a punch to the gut.

It used to be that certain situations evoked images in my mind—not just images, usually it was paintings by my grandpa.

Paintings that reminded me of happier times.

Now all that ever pops up in my mind seems to be his face in agony.

Ben notices instantly. “Expecting gravity to show up?” he asks carefully. “Or… just don’t want to deal with whatever remains?”

I don’t answer right away, not sure what to reply.

Both. The prospect of both kind of sucks.

Before I can say anything, Ben re-buckles my seatbelt and takes my hand. “It’s okay,” he says, blissfully unaware of how clueless he actually is. “We can come back another time if you’re not ready. We’ll just ignore it for now, you know… like grown-ups.”

I glance down at his hand squeezing mine in an attempt to soothe me. He’s warm, his skin surprisingly rough. I imagine what that same hand would feel like wrapped around my throat. Not hurting me, not really. Just doing things I should definitely not be thinking about right now.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I’m grieving. I should be fearing for my life. And… I’m horny?

How?

Why?

“No, it needs to be today,” I say, pulling my hand away, unbuckling the seatbelt, and opening the door.

“I have this thing…” I continue, offering more of me than I normally would.

But I guess this isn’t your normal, everyday situation.

“This routine that I need to follow. My grandpa taught me when I was in… when I was younger. If I don’t follow my routine I tend to spiral a bit. And this is on the schedule today.”

Ben just nods, says ‘Okay,’ and gives me a sympathetic smile. He must think I’m crazy. By now, I think I might be crazy.

We pass Paul Bearer, who works the reception at the Haven Lifespace Community, and get in the elevator. The doors open on the sixth floor, where we step out and walk over to his door. There’s no one there. The hallway is empty in both directions.

“You ready?” Ben asks, leaning against the wall while I search for the keys. He’s been eyeing me, wondering whether I’ll change my mind, whether I’ll ask him to take me home instead.

“Yeah,” I say, even though that’s obviously not entirely true. I reach for the handle, slide the key in, then pause. “Just… don’t judge the mess, okay? My grandpa was… a free spirit. Which is a poetic way of saying ‘hoarder with artistic tendencies.’”

Ben waves me off. “Don’t even worry about it. You should see how I live,” he says (obviously to make me feel better).

A second later, there’s a muffled sound on the other side of the door.