Page 31 of Trailer Park Billionaire (Distinguished Billionaires #3)

HELENA

“ A nd better make it a juicy one,” I stress, still arguing with myself whether I really should reveal this much to someone I’ve only known for like a week and a bit. It certainly feels longer. Is it crazy to think that he actually cares? At least about my safety?

Yes.

Yes, it is.

He cares about my safety because he needs me to play my part in his heist.

Besides, there’s a reason no one knows anything about me—why I don’t let people in.

Once our job is done, we’ll probably never see each other again. I mean his backup plan is to literally run away. He’d leave eventually.

At least he won’t leave in a fucking paint can, I think to myself and ruffle my hair. Hopefully.

It’s just that it wouldn’t be smart to entrust someone like him with this knowledge—a professional liar, a con artist.

Then again, he may be a criminal, but at least his moral compass seems to be pointing him in the right direction.

Ugh, fuck. This is giving me a headache. Why does it have to be so complicated?

“A juicy secret about myself?” Ben asks as he steps into the kitchen and opens the fridge. “I’ll have to think about that. How do you fancy some fancy ramen for dinner in the meantime?”

I follow him into the open kitchen and push him right out again toward the couch nearby. “Your true calling might be breakfast food, but this is my area of expertise. Now go on, tell.”

Ben leans back on the couch, arms stretched over the backrest, watching me with a smirk that’s almost lazy. His eyes are sharp though, calculating. He’s weighing what to give me. I guess he also doesn’t want to make himself too vulnerable.

“Well, I think I should start with the obvious,” he says. “Sometimes… I steal things.”

I glance at him over my shoulder while retrieving the ingredients from the fridge that Alexei stocked a little. “I really hope there’s more to that story, because I asked for juicy, not for the blindingly obvious.”

He tilts his head, leaning forward, inviting me in, like he’s about to tell me one of his darkest secrets. “You know the Art-Crossed Lovers heist a couple of years ago?”

I nearly drop the egg I’m holding in my hand. “No way! You mean to tell me that you’re the reason that painting went missing? How? I heard the St. Clairs went ballistic over it.”

Ben shifts, getting comfortable, like he’s settling in for a story time, a cocky smile on his lips. “Alright, picture this: Paris. Midnight. I’m dressed for the job: black turtleneck, tactical trousers, a balaclava that isn’t neon. The Mission Impossible theme song is play?—”

“The Art-Crossed Lovers were stolen in Berlin.”

Ben stops, the grin on his face growing even bigger. “You know that, hm?”

I cross my arms and turn toward him. “Didn’t think I needed to point this out twice, but: no more lies.” I stress the next part. “No more surprises, no more secrets, and no more lies.”

Ben nods slowly. “You promise the same?”

I just stare at him.

“Fine, alright. No more lies.” He runs his hand through his hair.

“The story is true. I did steal the painting. But it wasn’t like it was in the movies.

We had a buyer lined up who was willing to pay a pretty penny.

Half upfront, half on delivery. We used 100k of the up-front money to bribe the two guards who were watching the museum that night and just walked out with the loot.

” Ben chuckles. “We trained them thoroughly on what to say to the police. Then one of them improvised and decided to make it more convincing by knocking out his colleague.” He laughs.

“I guess it worked. The police never arrested anybody.”

“And now the painting is forever vanished.”

“I’m afraid so. But it belonged to the St. Clairs anyway. It’s not like they’d miss it.”

This is true. As far as I know, the stolen painting was on temporary loan and would have just disappeared in their giant private collection again.

“What did you do with all the money? Why are you living in a trailer?” I ask, genuinely confused.

Ben thinks about it for a moment, then shrugs.

“Spent it all,” he says with a mischievous grin.

“Like I said, people are bad at being rich. I’m so good at it, the financial advisor I told you about—the one I take on candlelit dinners, and moonlit strolls—bills me for all the tissues he needs when looking at my account.

” He leans forward slightly, his gaze flicking to the pot on the stove.

“Now, what the hell are you making there?”

“Chichi,” I say, finish the last preparations, and fill the ramen into two bowls I find in the cupboard.

Then I add half a soft-boiled egg, a slice of American cheese, and some sprinkles of crushed potato chips on top.

“Traditionally, you’d use the ramen packaging as a bowl, but since we’re not in prison, and this is supposed to be fancy.

I figured we’d use the good china. You know, like actual billionaires. ”

Ben accepts the hot bowl with a laugh and slides over to make room for me on the couch. “Prison, hm? What other dishes did your grandpa teach you?”

I sit down next to Ben and think about it one last time.

Telling him will be useful. He needs to understand why I am the way I am.

“Actually, my grandpa didn’t teach me. Ashlynn Smoulder did—my cellmate at the time.

Remember how I told you that I had been arrested once or twice?

Well, those arrests lead to a couple years in prison. ”

Ben freezes. He lets out an ‘Oh’ that I don’t quite know how to interpret.

I slurp some of the broth, enjoying the feeling of making Ben Lyon speechless, even if it’s just for a moment.

“My grandpa went away when I was fourteen,” I elaborate, my voice quieter than before. “He got five years and, because he was my guardian, I got placed in foster care.”

“What about your parents?”

I snort softly. “Well, they were big believers in the whole dying early thing. Very committed to the cause. Wait, that sounds wrong. They didn’t commit suicide. My mom died when I was three, and my dad, the old grump, died in a car accident when I was thirteen. Just bad luck, I guess.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need. It’s not like you killed them.

” I shrug and sigh. “Anyway, my grandpa, in an attempt to take care of me, took up odd jobs because we needed the money. One of them was the Gentileschi job, and you know how that turned out. After my grandpa went away, I got mad. And then I got madder. And then I got reckless. I was young and dumb and started acting out. I stole things. Petty theft at first—a lipstick here, some gum there. But that wasn’t enough.

Because I was really fucking angry, and I needed that anger to go somewhere.

” It’s getting harder to breathe suddenly, but I still continue.

“So I decided to get back at the people responsible for putting my grandpa away. He obviously was caught up in some shady dealings, and he certainly wasn’t innocent, but they—the St. Clairs—managed to walk away free by blaming all of it on him. ”

Ben’s jaw tightens, but he stays silent, listening.

“They took him from me, so I decided to take something from them.”

I don’t have to look at him to feel his attention sharpening.

“So… I burned down their house.”

Ben exhales sharply.

“And then I trashed their gallery.”

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah, police caught me at the scene. The second one. I went away for a couple of years. And in prison, you learn things. Chichi was one of them. You make do with what you have—crushed chips, ramen, cheese, whatever you can scrounge up.”

Ben is still processing all of it.

“Anyway, that’s not why I told you this story. I’m telling you because… you know how people get out earlier on good behavior? I did not.”

“But… you’re not like that.”

“I’m not like that anymore . Because of my routine. It’s what my grandpa taught me. To not listen to others or to my intrusive thoughts. Instead, I just follow my routine. Every day. That way, I stay away from bad decisions. Which keeps me away from getting into trouble. Which keeps me away from?—”

“Prison,” Ben finishes my sentence.

I nod and glance at him. “My routine is like the most boring superhero. But it does keep me safe.”

He’s staring at me like he’s seeing me for the first time, and I don’t know if it’s fear, or worry, or… something else entirely. But it makes my chest feel even tighter than it already did.

“That must have been hard to share,” he says eventually. “Even harder to go through.”

Which is when I notice that our feet are touching, have been touching since I sat down.

I don’t even like physical contact. I should probably pull away.

But I don’t. Instead, I meet his eyes, and for the first time since meeting him, it feels like neither of us is trying to be something we’re not.

He’s not hiding behind his persona, not even behind his charm, or smile; and I’m not shutting everyone and the world out.

I allow them in. Or rather just one of them. Even if it’s just for a glimpse.

And then, like a slow-burn fuse finally reaching the dynamite, the tension explodes. He puts his bowl of ramen down and uses those strong hands to push me into the sofa cushions while his lips find mine.

At least, that’s what he does in my imagination.

In reality, Ben just swallows hard, his eyes lingering on those lips of mine before he finally says, “So tell me about your routine then. I want to know everything.”

And that, I do. I tell him when I usually go to bed, when I get up, what I eat, when I work, and everything else that plays a factor.

Ben listens carefully, asking questions about which things I’m flexible on and which need to stay in place.

I tell him about how, after a couple of years, I managed to loosen the routine a little… and how that inevitably landed me here.