Chapter 15
Rejuvenated
Vincent Adams
Six months ago, Vincent had been up for it. He met Gabrielle at a dinner party hosted by their pain-in-the-ass business partner, her daddy Peter Rossetto. Despite her borderline incestuous relationship with her father, Gabrielle developed a thing for Vincent.
He’d thought she was pretty enough to ignore the fact that she often kissed her father on the mouth. Once or twice, Vincent thought he’d caught a glimpse of tongue being exchanged.
Peter had called and asked Vincent to take his daughter out for a night on the town. What the hell, Vincent thought. They went out to dinner twice. He banged her for dessert. On the second night, he held her during the afterglow of sex, and she said that she loved him. Vincent wasn’t repelled by her admission, but he couldn’t return the sentiment. Romantic love was something other men sought and experienced, not him.
Gabrielle had been easy to date. Her idea of fun was unique and extreme. Her buddy, international polo player Pedro Isla, spent an afternoon teaching them both how to hit the ball across a grassy field while riding a horse. They spent weekends at vineyards owned by politicians and international businessmen. They went from skiing in Switzerland to boating in St. Barthes. She liked destinations that started with “Saint”: St. Lucia, St. Barthes, St. Tropez, St. Moritz, etc.
Vincent had found her access enticing. Gabrielle strolled into the most exclusive clubs in the world with a wink, a smile, and her daddy’s money. They were having fun, but Vincent was well aware that one day they would part ways. He liked Gabrielle, but she wasn’t the one. She believed he was the one for her, though.
It had happened at a regular old meeting. Peter began with a speech about going to hell and back for the people he loved. Vincent and Robert thought Pete had finally lost the two marbles he had left. Rumors said that he was bipolar and foolishly impulsive. That’s why no one else would partner with the bastard, even if he did come with an unlimited resource of cash.
Vincent and Robert took a chance. Together, they contributed 1.5 billion dollars to build A&Rt Media Group. Peter Rossetto supplied a whopping three billion. The extra 1.5 billion gave him more power than he needed. So after the monologue on family and the love of a father was over, Robert had agreed to relinquish his controlling interest of A&Rt by letting them buy it back at the price of purchase if Vincent agreed to make “the love of his life” happy forever. At first, Robert and Vincent thought he was pulling their leg. He assured them he was serious and presented them with a notarized letter of intent. Three billion and a wedding, and Peter Rossetto would be out of their lives professionally. Sure, he’d gain a wacky father-in-law, but he would eventually figure out a way to legally divorce Gabrielle.
Regardless, Vincent’s initial response had been, “No way.”
After a long night of talking it out with Robert over three bottles of Jamaican rum, they had agreed to take the deal. After signing the contract, Vincent scheduled a vasectomy. He had no intentions of neglecting their marital bed, but he didn’t want to bring children into their f*cked-up situation either.
Then he’d seen Maggie at the wedding, sitting next to Charlie and giving him the same attitude she used to give him back in high school. Vincent felt as if he’d never stopped craving her. He could tell she didn’t remember him. Had he changed that much? She hadn’t changed at all. She was still the most interesting specimen in the room.
Where he came from, girls who looked like Maggie knew the price of their stock. Their mothers made sure of it. Maggie slouched, blew her nose in public and didn’t care who heard it, and she flipped girls like Kate Patrick the bird without caring that it shattered Kate’s shallow little world. Maggie was beautiful for sure, but more than that, she was sexy.
Fate had wanted him at the wedding. It just so happened that a week before the wedding, he had run into Jack Lord at the C-cup Café buying bagels for his pregnant fiancée. He’d heard that Jack and Charlie had inherited Lord’s Steel after their father died. However, Jack brokered the deal of the century by selling the company under the stipulation that he could repurchase twenty-five percent of the company within a year of the date of sale. Jack invested in high-stakes real estate and was able to buy that twenty-five percent. Vincent read that Belmont Jaxson Lord was worth 15.6 billion, but that was four years ago. Jack was probably worth double that by now.
When they spoke, Vincent had mentioned A&Rt Media Group to Jack. By the look on Jack’s face, Vincent could tell that he pitied Vincent for partnering with Peter Rossetto. Jack ended up inviting him to the wedding. Before they parted ways, Vincent asked about Maggie. He wondered if she had a husband and kids.
“Who? Mags?” Jack had snickered as if that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “No.”
Jack had the same blunt way of answering, “no” with no explanation that Maggie had.
So Vincent had gone to the wedding for two purposes. He wanted to shake Jack’s hand and ask for a sit-down with him, and he hoped he would see Maggie. His second goal distracted him from the first.
After the strange wedding ceremony, he’d waited for her to finish her talk with Jack, and he rode down with her in the same elevator. He wanted to ride to the docks with her in the same limousine, but she didn’t get into a car. Vincent figured maybe she had to do something first because surely she wouldn’t skip the reception. Yet she never showed up, and that bummed him out. Later that night, Jack came to him asking for a favor. Actually, it was no favor at all. He would give Maggie Conroy his last breath if she needed it.
And tonight in Aspen, after abandoning her in the hotel room, he could still taste her sweet nectar on his lips and smell her in his nostrils.
Robert shoved him in his arm. “What the f*ck is wrong with you?”
Vincent didn’t budge. “I love her.”
“I do too, but I’m not putting the company in jeopardy for it.”
Vincent wondered if he heard him correctly. “You love her?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Ha!” Vincent scoffed. “Bullshit.”
“You can love her, but I can’t?”
Vincent shook his head. “Maggie isn’t some girl you can tell yourself you love so you can f*ck her until the next best thing comes along.”
Robert’s silence said Vincent was right on target. Pursuing women and then dropping them after he’d had his way with them was a habit for Robert. Lena was one of those women he pursued, caught, and convinced himself he loved. The excuse used to be that Lena was frigid, which was probably true. Soon after their wedding day, his roaming eyes and cheating ways caused her to lose respect for him—and the loss of attraction soon followed.
The elevator door opened, and Vincent and Robert exited and stomped toward the restaurant.
Gabrielle sat at a table next to her father, sniffling. She wiped her eyes as soon as she saw them coming. Peter stroked her back. “Daddy” kissed her bare shoulder, watching Vincent as he approached. Until now, Vincent refused to acknowledge that the strange man would become his father-in-law. Pete Rossetto reminded him of a guy who wore a red silk smoking jacket and sat in a leather armchair, petting a white kitty.
“What in the hell are you doing here, Peter?” Vincent growled as soon as he plopped down in a chair.
“Protecting my investments.”
Vincent stabbed a finger at his fiancée. “Are you f*cking her?”
Peter eyes inflated into an expression of bewilderment. “What did you say?”
“What father kisses his daughter like that? It’s perverted as hell.”
Peter pounded his fist on the table. “How dare you!” Spittle glistened on his lips as he leaned across the table, puffing like a raging bull.
Robert lifted his hands in surrender. “Pete, sit. Let’s let calmer heads prevail and talk this out.”
Peter slowly, almost theatrically, reclaimed his chair.
“Vincent apologizes for his indiscretion. He knows what has to be done,” Robert said.
Peter glared at Vincent with a crazed look. “Do you?”
“I don’t want her working for you,” Gabrielle said. “Fire her.”
That was the moment of realization. Vincent had changed since he made the heedless decision to take one for the team. He observed Gabrielle blubbering and wiping her eyes, playing her father like a flute. She was a spoiled brat who snapped her fingers and got everything her father could afford. He could never spend a year, let alone a lifetime, with someone like that. He had to make a move with no delay.
He gritted his teeth. “I’m not firing Maggie. But yes, I know where my loyalties lie.” He stood. “I have a flight to catch.”
Gabrielle shot out of her seat. “Where are you going?”
“Business. I’ll see you in New York.” Vincent stormed out into the dark snowy night.
The last thing he heard was Gabrielle whine, “Daddy!”
His driver was already waiting for him because he hadn’t planned to strip Maggie out of her clothes and do her immediately. He knew Robert was next door, so he wanted to whisk her away to a more private hotel. Suddenly Vincent felt like a fool. What in the hell was he doing making love to the one woman he ever loved while he was engaged to another? No wonder Maggie didn’t take his phone calls. He was selling her cheap. Well, not anymore.
Vincent placed a call to his pilot and told him that they would fly out. He knew what time it was in New York, but he had to make the call. It was late, but if fate was truly on his side, he would get an answer. The phone rang. He heard his heart beating.
“Hello?” Jack answered. He sounded irritated, probably wondering why the hell Vincent was calling so early in the morning.
“It’s Vincent Adams,” he said.
“I recognize the number. What’s going on? Is it Maggie?”
“It is Maggie. It’s always going to be Maggie. I need to talk to you. Please,” he pled.
After a long pause, Jack Lord agreed to meet Vincent at his house in Malibu at ten a.m. He explained that he was on the West Coast because Daisy had wanted to return to L.A. for a week to rest and recover from her recent hospital stay.
After receiving clearance, Vincent’s jet touched down at LAX. It was six a.m. in L.A. He had time to kill, but he couldn’t sleep or eat. After disembarking, he gave his driver Jack Lord’s address and told him they would wait in front of the house until ten a.m.
The driver didn’t object to such a preposterous choice. The first hour of waiting was the toughest. He wished he was waking up beside Maggie instead of sitting in a car.
The three and a half days they’d spent in Aspen were life changing. When he sank into her depths, it was if he found exactly what he’d been looking for his whole life. Then there was the taste of her tongue, the suppleness of her lips, and the firmness of her nipples between his teeth… Vincent wanted to close his eyes, grab himself, and recreate some of those moments in his head.
Bang, bang, bang!
“Shit!” Vincent jumped and turned toward the window.
“Why are you out here?” Jack asked.
“Roll down the window,” Vincent told the driver. “I’m early,” he said when the tinted glass between them was gone.
Jack tipped his head toward the beach house. Vincent took a moment to admire the modern building made mostly of glass and redwood. Sitting on a cliff above the Pacific Ocean, it was impressive.
“Come in, and I’ll get you a cup of java,” Jack said.
Vincent gladly accepted the invitation. The closer they were to talking, the sooner he could peel the monkey off his back. He grabbed his briefcase and followed Jack up one of the many spiraling mosaic-wood staircases to one of many entrances into the house.
“Tough night?” Jack asked as soon as they were inside.
“The worst.” Vincent looked around the interior. He had been comparing Jack’s house to his own, but the interior sent him over the cliff. The sleek contemporary furnishings convinced him that his house, only a half mile or so up the shore, needed a major renovation, inside and out.
“Then you’re in luck. I make a pretty mean pot of coffee.”
They stepped into a gourmet kitchen, which also impressed Vincent.
“You can have a seat in the sunroom,” Jack said. “How do you like your coffee?”
“Just black.”
Jack poured as Vincent went into the glass room that captured an incomparable view of the Pacific Ocean. The gray light and the motion of the water made his eyes burn. He yawned, remembering that he hadn’t slept in more than twenty-four hours.
When Maggie had refused to answer his calls or return them, he couldn’t relax in St. Tropez. He refused to go to the wedding, and Gabrielle threw a dramatic tantrum. She smashed plates and glasses and called him a piece of shit. When she finally stormed out of the villa to go to the wedding alone, he left for Aspen. Gabrielle must’ve figured out where he went and why. That didn’t surprise him, and he didn’t feel the least bit guilty.
“Here you go.” Jack handed him a cup of piping-hot coffee and sat at the end of the table. “So what can I do for you?”
“I love Maggie. I don’t want to marry Gabrielle. I can admit I was stupid to agree to it, but I was different then.”
Jack frowned. “You agreed to marry her?”
Vincent explained the entire ordeal to Jack. It was a bad deal that gave Peter Rossetto all the power. They essentially made a pact with the devil. “She’s daddy’s little nymph. She knows how to get what she wants, and she wanted me. I’m sure you’ve heard how difficult it is to partner with Pete Rossetto?”
Jack acknowledged that well-known fact with a sigh and a quick tilt of the head. “So what do you want from me?”
“He invested three billion in the company, but to get rid of him it would cost us 19.7 billion. If he chooses to sell on his own, then we would only have to pay him six billion. It was a shitty deal for us and Shinola for him.”
Jack shook his head. “Even if you could buy him out, he won’t let you. You have to slice the wart off your ass and hope to control the bleeding. Do you deserve Maggie, Vince?”
“Probably not. Do you deserve Daisy?”
Jack narrowed his eyes. “Point taken. You have the contract?”
The moment he hoped for arrived. “I have it right here.” Vincent took a thick stack of papers out of his briefcase and gave it to Jack.
“I’ll have my team see what they can find. No contract is ever ironclad. And I have some other ways of convincing Peter Rossetto to cooperate. Are you looking for another partner?” Jack asked.
“Only if that partner is you.”
Jack regarded him shrewdly. Vincent saw the wheels turning in his brain. “I want you to stay away from Maggie until we work this out. You’re still engaged, and you should behave as if you are. We don’t want to lose the element of surprise.”
Vincent arched an eyebrow. “We?”
Jack shrugged. “Yes, we. I’m in. Hungry? The cook is on the way over.”
“Yes, I’m hungry,” he said with a breath of relief.
Vincent and Jack discussed some of the foreign real estate markets and Jack’s rebuilding efforts in underdeveloped countries while they waited for breakfast. The cook made spinach-apple omelets, turkey bacon, and biscuits.
“So where’s the missus?” Vincent asked as soon as they were served by the cute little cook.
“Here she comes,” Jack said.
Plop, plop, plop. Vincent heard feet walking up one of the staircases outside. Seconds later, Daisy knocked on the glass door of the sunroom. Her workout clothes were sweat-soaked.
Jack sprang up and trotted over to let her in. They shared a tender, suck-on-each-other’s-lips kind of kiss.
“How was it?” he asked.
“Pregnant hot yoga?” she said. “Never, ever, never again.” She flopped down into the chair next to Jack.
“There’s actually something called pregnant hot yoga?” Vincent asked.
The cook set a plate in front of her.
“Thank you, Cindy,” she said and then focused on Vincent. “Yes, and it’s a bad idea. My little one nudged me in the kidney for putting her through it.”
“Are you saying it hurt you?” Jack asked, rubbing her stomach.
“A little. It was a stupid idea. I felt better after walking on the beach.”
“Don’t ever do that again.”
“I won’t, honey.”
They repeated the enfolding-lips kiss. The three of them conversed about everything from past travels to Daisy’s ideas for a traveling magazine to Jack looking to get involved in the complicated business of building in downtown Chicago just for the hell of it. Breakfast lasted two hours.
When Vincent stepped out on the porch and into the dry, tepid ocean air, he sucked in a deep breath through his nose. He could feel it. He’d been rejuvenated.