Page 9 of Billionaire Romantic
“Nice try, L. Emerson.” I told Grace about my dad’s official title for me and she found it hilarious. She picks up her phone. “I’m making you a profile.”
5
“Don’t you dare.”I get up and wander into the kitchen. “I’m getting a glass of wine. Do you want one?”
“Of course I want one. I got laid today!”
Smiling at her excitement, I pour two glasses of ice-cold Pinot Grigio. Carrying them back to the window seat, I set them both on the raised marble-topped table my mother bought at an antique store in the Village, just a week or so before she died. Every single thing in this apartment has a story, but this piece of furniture is one of my favorites. “I didn’t even ask you what Mr. O’s name was.”
“Ethan. Ethan Patrick Malone.”
“Ethan Patrick Malone. He definitely has Irish in him. Which makes him a good catch. And he even told you his middle name, which is a good sign. It means he’s honest.”
“If you say so.” She’s typing on her phone.
“By the way, it’s a good thing Ethan Patrick Malone has an apartment. Because there’s a very real possibility we’re both going to be homeless soon.”
This gets her attention. She stops typing and looks up at me. “It can’t be that bad, Luck.”
“Gracie,” I tell her honestly. “It is.”
“But you’re Lucky Emerson O’Callahan Ashton. Luck follows you wherever you go. It can’t happen. Something will work out. It has to.”
I sigh heavily. “The truth is, the company was in a lot more debt than I knew. Storms have been brewing for a while now. My father never told me how bad things had gotten.”
Grace takes a contemplative sip of her wine. “I know I’m only an aspiring CFO at this stage, but is there anything I can help you with?”
“I wish there was. ”
“You’re smart, resourceful, and stubborn AF. You’ll figure it out, Luck.”
“I honestly don’t know what to do. No matter how hard we try to crunch the numbers into something that works, they refuse to cooperate. Even when we sell—ifwe sell—I’ll personally still be in the red by, oh, almost exactly as much as this apartment is worth.”
“He didn’t put the apartment in a trust?” She seems shocked, just like I was. Of all the things to overlook.
I shake my head a little, trying hard not to burst into tears. “Must have slipped his mind. It was in his name, and now it’s in my name.”
There’s a stubbornness I know and love behind her empathy. “Well, if anyone can figure this out, it’s you.”
I’m usually a die-hard optimist, but today my look-on-the-bright-side-no-matter-what attitude has taken a hit.
Grace clinks her glass against mine. “Hey. Come on. This is just the universe testing our resilience. If we have faith that things are going to work out better than we ever could have imagined, then they will. Girl, if we can’t Excel our way to billionaire status, we’ll just have to manifest our way to it.”
Grace is big on manifesting. I’d accuse her of being woo-woo about it, but she actuallyhasachieved amazing things and if that’s how she wants to pitch it to herself, then why not.
“I’m living proof that it works,” she insists. “If I hadn’t manifested my way into your swanky apartment, right now I’d be living in a chicken coop somewhere near Bangor.”
“I think that had a lot more to do with a shitload of hard work than mere manifestation.” I shrug. “But I’ll drink to it anyway.”
She smiles and there’s a sadness there as she tries to make light of our situation. “I’m a champagne-taste-on-a-lemonade-budget kind of girl and it would be morally reprehensible of you to pull me out of my squalor only to throw me back into it again. I won’t let you.”
Grace is originally from a small town in rural Maine. Her parents went through a bitter divorce when she was ten and she was passed back and forth between her parents’—as she calls them—“shacks.” Neither of Grace’s parents had any money. They both were deeply mired in poverty. According to Grace, this was because they had a poverty-focused mindset. They didn’tbelievethere was any other destiny for themselves except to be poor. They lived off food stamps until Grace was old enough to get an after-school job at the library, where she read every book she could get her hands on about how to get rich.
Grace was determined not to follow in her parents’ footsteps. She decided a long time ago that she didn’t want the life they had. So she set her sights on making as much money as possible by focusing obsessively on studying finance. She managed to get a full ride in scholarships to NYU for her undergrad and is now halfway through her MBA (with substantial student loans). Despite the scholarships, she still has a lot of debt, is usually cash-strapped and is often barely getting by. But the fact that she’s here at all is a testament to her amazing work ethic, her belief in herself and her grit.
“I just don't see how I can fix this,” I admit.
“Okay. Take a breath.” Grace sets her almost-empty glass back on the table. “I have a plan. We’re going towillthis to work out.”
