Dirty Money(10)

Ivy huffs with irritation, crossing her eyes at me. It's so childishly  silly in comparison to her elegant demeanor that I throw back my head  and laugh. I love it. I love discovering these new facets of her  personality. I'm fascinated by her already, and I can just see that  fascination growing with time. But I'll let her fight it for a few days  if she must. "Would you be more comfortable if we just talk about  houses, then?"

"Yes." She rummages through her bag and pulls out a pen and paper. "Now  please, let's talk about what kind of house you want and stop talking  about how you're going to get me to marry you." Her eyes are sparkling  with amusement as she says it, which tells me she's not taking me  seriously. That's all right; I've mentally filed away every bit of  information she's thrown at me tonight.

She needs to know my birthday and personal information about me.

She needs to know my history.

She needs to meet my family.

I can do that shit.

And as I do, I'm going to seduce her. She needs pretty words? I'll give  her pretty words. She needs flowers and jewelry? I'll give her those,  too. She needs my face between her legs? I'll fucking tongue her for  hours on end and love every moment of it.         

     



 

I can win her. I know I can. I've gotten everything I've ever wanted as  long as I fought for it, and I fully intend on winning Ivy Smithfield.





Chapter Five



Ivy

My sister's car isn't on the stretch of highway she described to me,  which means it was likely towed away. That means a ticket for vehicle  abandonment and an impound fee that I don't have. I should be really  upset right now, because my bank account can't handle a new tire, much  less extra costs on top of that.

Strangely enough, though, it's barely on my radar. I don't give it a  second thought as I drive home, past the suburbs, exit off the highway,  and then head down a familiar gravel road. The rocks thunder against the  undercarriage of my car and I swerve heavily to the right, then the  left automatically. It's a private road and the potholes here won't be  fixed by the city, and they're big enough to lose a tire in. I'm on  autopilot, though; I don't need to think as I'm driving, which is good  because my mind is fixated on Boone Price.

I . . . received a marriage proposal from a billionaire tonight. It's so strange.

Not only that, I turned it down. Part of me wonders if that is crazy. If  I shouldn't have agreed to it, regardless, and walked away a few weeks  later with whatever chunk of his money that the prenup would have gotten  me. That's mercenary, but it's hard not to be mercenary when your bank  account is empty and the bills keep piling up. I didn't take him up on  it, though. For some reason, it's weirdly important to me that Boone not  think I'm just after his bank account.

Or rather, I'm interested in his bank account, but only in how it can help him purchase a house.

And then, of course, I'm thinking about Boone again. Despite his uncouth  appearance, Boone can be real charming. I ponder this as I drive up to  the single-wide that I call home. The lights are on, which means  Wynonna's home, too. I should have bailed on dinner the moment he  started hitting on me, but he never pushed so hard that I felt  uncomfortable. Just hard enough to let me know that he meant business.  Once I firmly established that I would not be marrying him, we talked  about houses and what he's looking for.

Boone pretty much just wants one thing: grandiosity. So tonight, I'm  going to start scouring the Internet for the biggest, most impressive  houses that South Texas has to offer.

Riiiight after I tell my sister about the bizarre day I've had.

I park my car in front of the trailer and head inside. Wynonna's sitting  tucked on the small plaid sofa in the trailer, a stack of books in  front of her and her laptop open on a nearby table. She looks up at me,  surprised, when I open the door. "You're home late."

"It has been a weird, weird evening," I tell her, sitting down at the  small, built-in corner table that acts as a kitchen in our tiny trailer.  "Did you change your flat? I passed the spot on the highway you said  it'd be at and I didn't see it."

My sister looks upset. "No. Do you think someone stole it?"

I shake my head. "More like it got towed by the city. Don't worry, we'll  figure it out in the morning." I don't want Wynonna to stress about  money-I'll do all the stressing when it comes to that. So I nudge the  stack of books on the table. "Did you find the right books for your  classes?"

"Sort of? They're an edition or three out of date, but I'm hoping the  majority of the text is fine, because they were also cheap. I'm willing  to take that risk." She pats the stack of books. "Twelve bucks for all  of these."

"That's wonderful!" Books are so expensive, and it was a worry we both had. "One problem down."

"Yep." She crosses her legs and gives me an expectant look. "So tell me  about your day. Did you find another meth house in the suburbs?"

"Weirder than that," I tell her. "I got a new client today."

"And?"

"And he took me out to dinner."

Her brows go up. "And?"

"And he's a billionaire."

Her eyes get huge. "What? Get out."         

     



 

"I'm serious! His name is Boone Price and he works in oil. He told me all about it."

This time, Wynonna gives me a skeptical look. "Reba, are you sure someone's not playing a joke on you?"

"Call me Ivy, you doof. And I'm sure. Everything he told me was legit." I pat the table. "Bring your laptop over here."

She does, and we immediately pull up dozens and dozens of webpages all  about Boone Price, the Price brothers, and the "21st Century  Spindletop." In a way, I'm relieved to see that everything he told me  was the truth, but now I'm also completely intimidated once again. He's  all over Wikipedia as one of the richest men in the United States, the  oil well is the biggest producer on US soil in a century, and there are  endless financial articles about wells and roughnecking and rigging and  how people can become a billionaire like Boone Price. My sister skims a  few articles and then goes back to Google and clicks on "Images."

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"Checking out his face." She squints at the photos, frowning at the laptop. "That's not him, is it?"

She points out a picture and I click on it to enlarge it. In the photo  are five big, dirty men with equally scraggly beards wearing baseball  caps. There's one in the center that's not smiling, and I nod slowly  then point him out. "That's Boone."

"Wow. He looks . . . not like a billionaire." She tilts her head. "More  like a lumberjack that hasn't had a bath in about ten years."

That's . . . not an inaccurate statement about Boone. "I think he works  directly on the wells sometimes? So I get why he's dirty. I'm sure he's  not dirty all the time."

"Was he dirty today?"

"Yeah."

"Mmhmm." Her brows go up again. "So this big dirty billionaire wants you  to sell him a house? You said he was a new client, right?"

I nod. Should I tell Wynonna the rest or just let her assume it's just about a house?

"Okay, but why you? I love you, Reba, but we both know you don't have the clout that the Jacks do. So why go to you?"

Count on my clever sister to see right through things. She knows the  struggles I've been having, and how the Jacks are always there to grab  any worthwhile clients before I can make a move on them. "He saw my  picture in the flyer and wanted to work with me . . . and go out with  me."

Her lip curls in horror. "Seriously? Oh my god, Reba-"

"Ivy-"

"Whatever! You told him to fuck off, right?" When I hesitate, she gasps.  "You are not serious! We do not need the money this bad! Look at this  guy!" She stabs her finger at the screen. "He looks like Pig Pen from  Charlie Brown, just aged a few years! Don't tell me you said yes!"

"He's not that bad in person-"

Her mouth falls open.

"And besides! I didn't say that I was going to date him. I turned him down."

"Darn right you did."

"And then he proposed marriage."

Her mouth falls open again. "Whaaaaat?" She waves a hand at me,  indicating I should keep speaking. "I changed my mind. Tell me  everything."

So I do. I don't tell her about Winky Jack stealing my open house, or  the fact that I have forty dollars in my bank account. My sister doesn't  need to know how desperate the situation is, or how anxious I am about  keeping us afloat. She just needs to worry about college and her  classes. I can handle everything else. I always do. Instead, I focus my  story on Boone Price showing up at the elegant Three Jacks office,  trailing mud and dirt with every step. I tell her about how he reserved  the entire restaurant on the hopes that I'd go out with him. I tell her  about the picture, and his rather forward suggestion that I should marry  him.