A Billionaire's Secret Baby - Chapter 10

It really was the only way to travel. And there was something about seeing the city at night, lighting up while we soared over Manhattan, that lifted my spirits. Even if the experience wasn’t as new for me as it was for Lola.

But still, even though I’d traveled a hundred times or more like this, it really was special to have Lola along with me. We soared among the skyscrapers of Manhattan. Lola laughed and started in fright as a flock of birds flew beneath us. And I stared at the city beneath me in wonder, as though seeing it for the first time through Lola’s eyes. Eventually, we touched down on the roof of a tall skyscraper on the southwest side of Central Park. As we landed on the helipad, I let the blades stop before I unbuckled my belt, and Lola unclipped hers.

We got out after the blades stopped. Even if I was perfectly used to traveling this way, I couldn’t help but feel the special sense of occasion for Lola. She was laughing hard, taking deep breaths, and I stepped towards her and felt a warm rush of desire for her.

She was having an amazing time so far, but the rest was yet to come.

We stepped down from the helipad and through a door. There, we descended a metal staircase.

“I can’t believe it,” she kept saying. “We’re on a real skyscraper.”

“You know I live on one of these?” I said.

“Crazy,” she said. “How do you manage? I’m not sure I’d be good with being up so high all the time.”

“The main problem is keeping your feet on the ground,” I said, as I rang the bell and called for the elevator.

We dropped down two floors, and when it opened, the both of us breathed a sigh.

Space was an elegant restaurant, up thirty two stories in the building. It mostly served the stockbrokers and super-rich of New York. We arrived at a gallery with a glass floor, beneath which you could see the white tablecloths and silver cutlery gleaming below, above a carpeted floor.

We walked down a long, wide staircase that provided a view of the action. Behind the glass, white-jacketed chefs moved with precision and poise, decorating food with tiny, edible flowers and tweezers. The waiters would then carry dishes out to the dining room. In the center of the restaurant was an enormous circular bar, with a huge wine rack and drinks cabinet which had been carved from the trunk of an oak tree.

When we got to the bottom of the staircase, the maître d’ beamed.

“Ah, Mr. Lowe,” he drawled in a French accent. “So good to see you again. And this time you are eating with a friend, no?”

“Christophe,” I said warmly, as we shook hands. “This is Lola.”

“Will it be a private room this time, Mr. Lowe?”

“Actually,” I said, “I think this time we’ll sit by the window.”

He nodded, and clicked his fingers. A waiter appeared, and we followed him across the soft, red carpet of the restaurant’s floor.

“This is amazing,” whispered Lola, fixing her eyes on the crystal chandeliers which hung around the dining room. “I’ve never even heard of this place.”

“It’s a private restaurant,” I said. “By appointment only. You have to apply to make a reservation. Or be invited.”

“And how did you get in?” said Lola, cheekily.

I smiled. “It’s amazing how many invitations you get once you’ve got eight figures in your bank account.”

Lola grimaced at the thought of it. But I could tell she was enjoying herself, even if my money didn’t impress her.

“Wait,” she said, looking out over the view. You could see halfway across New Jersey from here, and the park below was in bloom. “Don’t you mean nine figures?”

“No,” I said, chuckling. “I don’t keep that money in my bank account.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that no one actually has that amount of money in the bank.”

“What? So all the billionaires in the world are just…faking it?”

“Kind of,” I said. “Billionaires don’t keep their wealth in bank accounts. It makes more sense to invest.”

“So if you went to the bank right now,” said Lola, “how much would they let you take out?”

“Are you kidding? Banks don’t have any cash. It’s too easy to rob them. The last time I needed a lot of cash was when I was buying some property in China. It took them seven weeks to get enough together for what I needed.”

“That’s crazy, Alex. So all this money is just…floating around on the internet.”

“That’s the simplest way you could put it, yeah.”

We sat down at a table by the window.

“Would you care for an aperitif?” said the waiter.

“Champagne,” I said to him. “Crystal, please.”

The waiter smiled politely and nodded. He returned just a moment later with a chilled bottle, and popped the cork for us. My favorite sound in the whole world. He poured us both a glass, and then left.

“Where are the menus?” said Lola.

“Oh, there are no menus at Space,” I explained. “You just tell them what you don’t like and what you do like, and they bring you something.”

“Wow. Sounds kind of like potluck. I mean, the last time I had potluck was when I was back home a couple of years ago. But still.”

“I promise you, the food’s good.”

Lola looked up at me, and I watched with gentle curiosity as she tossed her hair over her shoulder. She’d worn a beautiful dress for the occasion, a flower print. Her hair was cheerily and messily worn loose over her shoulder. And suddenly, she began to look more and more like the girl I’d met in Bali six years ago.

“So where is home?”

“Oh. I mean Wisconsin. That’s where my parents are from, anyhow.”

“You’re from the Midwest, then?”

“Oh yeah. I grew up there.”

“Did you like it?”

“Well, I moved to New York when I was twenty-one. Tell you the truth, I’ve kind of forgotten what it’s like out there. I mean, I took Macy for Christmas a couple of years ago. But I like it here, you know?”

“What, in New York?”

“Why? Don’t you?”

“Maybe it’s not where I’d choose to live right now,” I said. “But I like the roots I’ve put down. The Blue Orchid especially.”

“You and Zeke seem pretty tight.”

“I guess that’s true. We met when I used to work in a bar down in the East Village.”

“A bar? How old were you?”

“I was nineteen.”

“You’ve lived here since you were nineteen?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“What did you do?”

“Like I said. Worked bar. Anything, really. I was saving up some cash when a bar closed across the street from me. I threw everything I had into it. But by then, Zeke was a legend. He opened for these people in Chinatown and had a knack for it. He could make anything happen. That’s why I hired him.”

“And Luca?”

I smiled thinly. “Luca came along much later.”

“I hope I’ve seen the last of that jackass.”

“He wasn’t always like that. I mean, I’d never heard him speak the way he spoke to us last Friday. But I wasn’t surprised, all the same.”

“You weren’t.”

“Luca grew up in the Bronx, in the nineties. It wasn’t such a nice place to be back then. And deep down, I think he’s still there, in some ways.”

“Do you think he’s really going to sue?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him. But then, I wouldn’t put it past anyone.”

“Why?”

“You can always rely on people to let you down,” I said, slowly emptying my glass and setting it down on the pristine, white tablecloth. “First they say one thing, then they do another.”

“But people can change, right? They can get better. They can surprise you—even if they’ve done something to hurt you.”

“Not in my experience.”

Lola looked a little downcast about that, so I decided to change the subject.

“You got any brothers or sisters?”

“Two brothers. What about you?”

I didn’t answer her. “Wow. Two brothers. That’s a hell of a lot of carnage for one house, huh?”

“Come on, Alex.”

“What?”

“I just asked you a question. About your family. And you skipped right over it.”

Damn. It wasn’t the first time I’d underestimated Lola. And now she was going to press me for details.

“It was just me, actually.”

“And your parents?”

“My mom.”

“Oh,” said Lola. She nodded politely, but I could see she was thinking all kinds of things.

“Is it true you grew up in Philadelphia?”

“Hey, look,” I said. “The waiter’s coming.”

He arrived and took our order. I asked for something high in protein, with vegetables. Lola asked for no anchovies. I looked suspiciously at her for a moment.

“No anchovies?”

“What?”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“No. I can’t stand them. They’re salty and fishy. Gross.”

“You never tried Gabriel’s bagna cauda at work?” My head chef’s anchovy sauce was legendary, and had been one of the first things reviewers picked up on when we opened.

“If anything could change my mind, it would be that, I’m sure. But they’re not for me.”

“I wish I could eat an anchovy pizza,” I said.

“So order one.”

“I can’t,” I said. “I have to stick to a diet while I’m training.”

“Training?”

“I’m running an Iron Man Triathlon at the end of the Summer. For charity. My publicist says I need to be more likable.”

“Don’t you give like, millions of dollars to charity.”

“Anonymously, yes. But anonymous donations don’t help your public image.”

“Neither does looking so grumpy all the time!” teased Lola.

I stared at her. Hard. Watched her shrink in her seat, as she blushed at the glare I was giving her.

I started to shake.

Finally, I couldn’t help myself. I started to chuckle, a booming chuckle that came up from the inside of my chest.

“Sorry,” I said, laughing. “I couldn’t help it. Your face, I just…”

“That wasn’t funny, Alex,” snapped Lola, flustered.

“Now who’s grumpy?” I said, and we both laughed.