Page 2 of My Mystery Billionaire

Ten days after selling my company, I was burying Carly.

Chapter 4

Beatrice

PresentDay

“I'm glad I quit that job. And you know what? I'm glad I worked that job, too,” I told my mother. We were on our twice-weekly evening call. I had moved to a different part of the city and was pursuing a technology career after college as I’d dreamed of doing. Mom worried that I wasn't earning enough to live in a good safe neighborhood, especially after I had let slip that I'd seen a mugging at the corner of my street three or four weeks ago.

It's true this is not the safest neighborhood, but I can afford it and the apartment itself is clean and secure-ish.

And I can do better.

“BB, I know you already quit the job and if you need to come home to save money, please come home now. Your room is still here you know.” I rolled my eyes at my mom's childhood nickname for me, but I knew she was right: I needed a job and I needed one now. “I've got some savings mom, and I've had a number of interviews like I told you.”

I hung up very confident in the way things would go. And lo and behold, the very next day, I got an e-mail from a multibillion-dollar corporation in the city, MetriCooks, which specialized in digital security and all kinds of digital custom creations for large business clients.

It's a good thing mom never asks me to explain my work. Ha ha ha. I'm not sure if she would understand what I was saying to her anyway!

After my “father” flew the coop, mom did everything she could for me.I love that woman.

The e-mail is the second interview!

Yay!Good thing it’s this afternoon. I don't think I could stand waiting around for the chance to talk to them again.

I got presentable and went in for the second interview. It was actually the third one, but the very first was just a Zoom call with the hiring manager.

By that evening, I had a new job at double the money from my first job!

WooHoo and Kalamazoo, Too!

And best of all, it starts in two days.

“Mom! Guess what!?”

Mom’s thrilled!

And I am more than relieved.

Chapter 5

Hendrik

Icouldseeoutof the corner of my eye that the club owner was keeping watch over me. I liked Ralph.

When my Carly died, and I didn't come in to play for three weeks, I heard from some regulars that he went out looking for me. He never did find me.

In a way, I'm glad he only knows my first name. I needed time for my grief.

I have been playing in this club, how long now? I found it about six weeks after moving to the neighborhood. Right after I found the70 CrossFitclub. Ralph was good to me from the very start. He never asked who I was. He never got uppity about me just sitting here and strumming for a couple of hours two or three nights a week. He never even tried to make conversation.

God knows I didn't. And I said even less after Carly died, to anybody. Except to my lawyers, to make sure they sold the business for me in the right way. The bottom line of the deal was that I needed to sell it for what it was worth. Not a dollar less. And I get zero personal publicity in the process.

I don’t know how, but the attorneys negotiating the sale did it. Not one picture of me in the media. Not one call for an interview. Nothing much about me but only the company in the business media.

And what a relief that was, too!

I remembered the headlines, though. If the reporters couldn’t get a live interview with me (and they couldn't) they'd find other ways to make billion-dollars news with someone else. And they did, thank goodness.

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