Rags To Riches Baby

Harper snorted. “No. He knows better. Oliver will leave the battle to the courtroom. But don’t be surprised if he shows up at the apartment ready to give you the third degree. He’s a seasoned businessman, so he’ll be on the hunt for any loophole he can exploit.”

Lucy’s first thought was that she wouldn’t mind Harper’s brother visiting, but his handsome face wouldn’t make up for his ill intentions. He intended to overturn Alice’s wishes and was probably going to be successful. Lucy didn’t have the means to fight him. She could blow every penny she’d saved on attorneys and still wouldn’t have enough to beat a man with his means. It was a waste of money anyway. Things like this just didn’t happen to women like her. The rich got richer, after all.

That did beg the question she was afraid to ask while the others were still around. “Phillip, Alice and I never really discussed her finances. How much money are we talking about here?”

Phillip flipped through a few papers and swallowed hard. “Well, it looks like between the apartment, her investments, cash accounts and personal property, you’re set to inherit about five hundred million dollars, Lucy.”

Lucy frowned and leaned toward the attorney in confusion. “I—I’m sorry, I think I heard you wrong, Phillip. Could you repeat that?”

Harper took Lucy’s hand and squeezed it tight. “You heard him correctly, Lucy. Aunt Alice was worth half a billion dollars and she’s left most of it to you. I know it’s hard for you to believe, but congratulations. It couldn’t happen to a better person.”

Lucy’s breath caught in her throat, the words stolen from her lips. That wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t possible. It was like her numbers were just called in the lotto. The odds were stacked against a woman like her—someone who came from nothing and was expected to achieve even less. Half a billion? No wonder Alice’s family was upset.

The help had just become a multimillionaire.

* * *

So that was the infamous Lucy Campbell.

Oliver had heard plenty about her over the years from his sister and in emails from his aunt. For some reason, he’d expected her to be more attractive. Instead, her hair was a dark, mousy shade of dishwater blond, her nails were in need of a manicure and her eyes were too big for her face. He was pretty sure she was wearing a hand-me-down suit of Harper’s.

All in all, she seemed incredibly ordinary for someone with her reputation. Aunt Alice was notoriously difficult to impress and she’d written at length about her fondness for Lucy. He’d almost been intrigued enough to pay a visit and learn more about her. Maybe then he wouldn’t have been as disappointed.

She had freckles. Actual freckles. He’d never known anyone with freckles before. He’d only remained calm in the lawyer’s office by trying to count the sprinkle of them across her nose and cheeks. He wondered how many more there were. Were they only on her face, or did they continue across her shoulders and chest?

He’d lost count at thirty-two.

After that, he’d decided to focus on the conversation. He’d found himself responding to her in a way he hadn’t anticipated when he first laid eyes on her. The harder he looked, the more he saw. But then she turned her gaze back on him and he found the reciprocal scrutiny uncomfortable. Those large, doe eyes seemed so innocent and looked at him with a pleading expression he didn’t care for. It made him feel things that would muddy the situation.

Instead, Oliver decided he was paying far too much attention to her and she didn’t deserve it. She was a sneaky, greedy liar just like his stepmother and he had no doubt of it. Harper didn’t see it and maybe Alice didn’t either, but Oliver had his eyes wide open. Just like when his father had fallen for Candace with her pouty lips and fake breasts, Oliver could see through the pretty facade.

Okay, so maybe Lucy was pretty. But that was it. Just pretty. Nothing spectacular. Certainly nothing like the elegant, graceful women that usually hung on his arm at society events around Manhattan. She was more like the cute barista at the corner coffee shop that he tipped extra just because she always remembered he liked extra foam.

Yeah, that. Lucy was pretty like that.

He couldn’t imagine her rubbing elbows with the wealthy and esteemed elite of New York City. There was new money, and then there was the kind of person who never should’ve had it. Like a lottery winner. That was a fluke of luck and mathematics, but it didn’t change who the person really was or where they belonged. He had a hard time thinking Manhattan high society would accept Lucy even with millions at her disposal.

His stepmother, Candace, had been different. She was young and beautiful, graceful with a dancer’s build. She could hold her own with the rich crowd as though she’d always belonged there. Her smile lit up the room and despite the fact that she was more than twenty years younger, Oliver’s father had been drawn to her like a fly to honey.

Oliver looked up and noticed his driver had arrived back at his offices. It was bad enough he had to leave in the middle of the day to deal with his aunt’s estate. Returning with fifty thousand in his pocket was hardly worth the time he’d lost.

“Thank you, Harrison.” Oliver got out of the black sedan and stepped onto the curb outside of Orion headquarters. He looked at the brass plaque on the wall declaring the name of the company his father had started in the eighties. Tom Drake had been at the forefront of the home computer boom. By the turn of the new millennium, one out of every five home computers purchased was an Orion.

Then Candace happened and it all fell apart.

Oliver pushed through the revolving doors and headed to his private elevator in the far corner of the marble-and-brass-filled lobby. Orion’s corporate offices occupied the three top floors of the forty-floor high-rise he’d purchased six years earlier. As he slipped his badge into the slot, it started rocketing him past the other thirty-nine floors to take him directly to the area outside the Orion executive offices.

Production and shipping took place in a facility about fifteen miles away in New Jersey. There, the latest and greatest laptops, tablets and smartphones produced by his company were assembled and shipped to stores around the country.

Everyone had told Oliver that producing their products in the US instead of Asia or Mexico was crazy. That they’d improve their stock prices by going overseas and increase their profit margins. They said he should move their call centers to India like his competitors.

He hadn’t listened to any of them, and thankfully, he’d had a board that backed his crazy ideas. It was succeed or go home by the time his father handed over the reins of the company. He’d rebuilt his father’s business through ingenuity, hard work and more than a little luck.

When the elevator doors opened, Oliver made his way to the corner suite he took over six years ago. That was when Candace disappeared and his father decided to retire from Orion to care for their two-year-old son she’d left behind.

Oliver hated to see his father’s heart broken, and he didn’t dare say that he’d told him so the minute Candace showed up. But Oliver had known what she was about from the beginning.

Lucy was obviously made from the same cloth, although instead of romancing an older widower, she’d befriended an elderly shut-in without any direct heirs.

His aunt Alice had always been different and he’d appreciated that about her, even as a child. After she decided to lock herself away in her fancy apartment, Oliver gifted her with a state-of-the-art laptop and set her up with an email address so they could stay in touch. He’d opted to respect her need to be alone.

Now he regretted it. He’d let his sister’s endorsement of Lucy cloud his judgment. Maybe if he’d stopped by, maybe if he’d seen Lucy and Alice interact, he could’ve stopped this before it went too far.

Oliver threw open the door to his office in irritation, startling his assistant.

“Are you okay, Mr. Drake?” Monica asked with wide eyes.

Oliver frowned. He didn’t need to lose his cool at work. Letting emotions affect him would be his father’s mistake, and look what that had done. “I am. I’m sorry, Monica.”

“I’m sorry about your aunt. I saw an article about her in the paper that said she’d locked herself in her apartment for almost twenty years. Was that true?”

Oliver sighed. His aunt had drawn plenty of interest alive and dead. “No. Only seventeen years,” he said with a smile.

Monica seemed stunned by the very idea. “I can’t imagine not leaving my apartment for that long.”

“Well,” Oliver pointed out, “she had a very nice apartment. She wasn’t exactly suffering there.”

“Will you inherit her place? I know you two were close and the article said she didn’t have any children.”

The possibility had been out there until this afternoon when everything changed. Aunt Alice had never married or had children of her own. A lot of people assumed that he and Harper would be the ones to inherit the bulk of her estate. Oliver didn’t need his aunt’s money or her apartment; it wasn’t really his style. But he resented a woman wiggling her way into the family and stealing it out from under them.

Especially a woman with wide eyes and irritatingly fascinating freckles that had haunted his thoughts for the last hour.

“I doubt it, but you never know. Hold my calls, will you, Monica?”

She nodded as he slipped into his office and shut the door. He was in no mood to talk to anyone. He’d cleared his calendar for the afternoon, figuring he would be in discussions with his family about Alice’s estate for some time. Instead, everyone had rushed out in a panic and he’d followed them.

It was best that he left when he did. The longer he found himself in the company of the alluring Miss Campbell, the more intrigued he became. It was ridiculous, really. She was the kind of woman he wouldn’t give a second glance to on the street. But seated across from him at that conference room table, looking at him like her fate was in his hands...he needed some breathing room before he did something stupid.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen before tossing it onto his desk. Harper had called him twice in the last half hour, but he’d turned the ringer off. His sister was likely on a mission to convince him to let the whole issue with the will drop. They’d have to agree to disagree where Lucy and her inheritance was concerned.

Oliver settled into his executive chair with a shake of his head and turned to look out the wall of windows to his view of the city. His office faced the west on one side and north on the other. In an hour or so, he’d have a great view of the sun setting over the Hudson. He rarely looked at it. His face was always buried in spreadsheets or he was doodling madly on the marker board. Something always needed his attention and he liked it that way. If he was busy, that meant the company was successful.

Free time...he didn’t have much of it, and when he did, he hardly knew what to do with it. He kept a garden, but that was just a stress reliever. He dated from time to time, usually at Harper’s prodding, but never anything very serious.

He couldn’t help but see shades of Candace in every woman that gave a coy smile and batted her thick lashes at him. He knew that wasn’t the right attitude to have—there were plenty of women with money of their own who were interested in him for more than just his fortune and prestige. He just wasn’t certain how to tell them apart.

One thing he did notice today was that Lucy Campbell neither smiled or batted her lashes at him. At first, her big brown eyes had looked him over with a touch of disgust wrinkling her pert, freckled nose. A woman had never grazed over him with her eyes the way she had. It was almost as though he smelled like something other than the expensive cologne he’d splashed on that morning.