Never Give Up (A Billionaire Love Story) Read online

  Never Give Up

  It’s funny what people say, that time heals all wounds. In my case, it hasn’t even come close. It was three years ago next month that Marissa disappeared. The love of my life. And it’s funny, even though she’s officially been declared dead, even though her family held a funeral for her, even though every single person I know speaks about her in the past tense, I know in my heart of hearts she isn’t dead. She’s alive, and I have to find her. I just don’t know where to look.

  * * *

  It was summer, Marissa’s favourite season. There was nothing she liked more than to go up to my house in the Hamptons and paddle board in the water, or go parasailing, or just head out on the boat with me and have a picnic surrounded only by the waves. Once I surprised her with a trip to Hawaii and she spent so much time scuba diving I would joke that she spent more time under the water that trip than above it. And of course, she would remind me that she spent more than enough time above ground in the bedroom of our suite at the Hilton.

  Now I was home, in New York City, where I met Marissa and where I spent most of my life. My sister Kelsey was having a birthday party for her daughter, Charlotte, who just turned two. We were by the playground, trying to take care of a couple dozen kids, cake, presents and food.

  “Ken, honey, can you please be a dear and deal with the catering?” I heard Kelsey ask her husband as the van pulled up, with three people dressed in clown suits pulling out what was presumably enough hot dogs, curly fries and cupcakes to feed a couple dozen toddlers.

  I was on “keep the kids in the playground area” duty with Kelsey and my other brother, John. Between the three of us we were in a pretty good position to make sure no one ran off without us seeing, but the kids still required constant supervision.

  “Man I wish we got to go help the caterers instead,” John muttered to me, and I laughed as I scooped up a little boy wearing Burberry and guided him back towards the screaming horde of toddlers sliding down the slides, playing in the sand, running through the rope passages and playing in a ball pit that probably had so many germs in it there were likely diseases yet unknown to man running through it.

  “I guess you weren’t cut out to be a preschool teacher, John,” I replied.

  “That’s for sure, I’m a lawyer, I basically babysit adults and that’s hard enough,” my brother replied, and we both laughed. John was one of the top civil lawyers in the city, and the stories of how incredibly thick some of the richest and most powerful people in New York could be made me laugh every time he told them.

  For another hour we helped Kelsey take care of the kids, who quickly lost energy as it came close to the time their parents were going to come pick them up. As for me, I was getting a bit of a headache.

  “Hey Kels I think I’m going to go for a bit of a walk if that’s ok,” I told my sister, needing a break.

  “Yeah, sure Nick, thanks for helping out,” my sister replied. It was amazing how she could still look perfect, even though she must have been completely exhausted. Always having to play super mom. That was Kelsey, alright.

  Rather than be surrounded by screaming toddlers for another hour, I decided my pounding head needed a bit of a break, and I moved away from the playground and towards the trails and the water, desperate for a break from the screaming children. I like kids, and Marissa and I would have had some for sure, but I prefer them in small doses, that’s for sure. Twenty seven of them is more than I can handle at once for long periods of time.

  I strolled out towards the water, enjoying the new sound of wind in the leaves and rustling of the grass. I sat down on a park bench, and turned my head to business. I was the oldest son – and more importantly the only one interested in running the family business – and as a result my father had started to take me under his wing and give me more and more responsibility in running the business. I was twenty nine, he was sixty nine, and looking to get ready for retirement. My father started and ran a large software company, getting into technology in the 80s, making a fortune during the dot com bubble, getting out before it burst, then re-investing his millions afterwards and turning them into billions.

  Now, in this digital age, I was starting to make my mark on the company. Moving from software to app development, for one. I could see the future was app development, and unfortunately there were a few detractors at the company that opposed my view. I was thinking about the meetings I had with a few new developers next week when I saw a couple out of the corner of my eye.

  They had obviously rented a boat, he was dressed in a Ralph Lauren polo and she had on an adorable white summer dress. She was laughing like crazy as he paddled them around in circles, moving the boat around, coming close to tipping them a few times. I could see myself and Marissa in them, and suddenly my heart felt heavy. This happened way too often. I couldn’t let her go. I couldn’t admit she was dead. I knew I would see her again, but until that moment came, I felt like I was being destroyed. My thoughts floated back, as they so often did, to the best night of my life, as I used to, and still do often call it. The night I met Marissa, the night she came into my life.

  * * *

  God, not another one of these things, I thought to myself as I put on the tux I was starting to wish I could burn. Sure, growing up in a super-rich family of billionaires had its advantages. Unfortunately, it also had its downsides: charity functions, dinners, etc, that once I hit adulthood, I was supposed to attend.

  Sure, it’s the ultimate first world problem. Hell, it’s more of a one percenter problem. But when you’ve just turned twenty six and all your friends from college are still going to bars and hitting on women (though they only do it on weekends now instead of every night like when we were in college) and you’ve got to go to a family obligation, it starts to get old. Believe me.

  So no, I wasn’t looking forward to a night of mingling with a bunch of people forty years my senior that wanted to be seen in their expensive clothes and jewellery, making small talk and saying absolutely nothing of value. I’m not going to lie, I just wanted to stay home and watch the new episode of Breaking Bad. I hoped no one would spoil it for me, but I knew there was no chance, since I’d be the only person in the room even watching the show.

  Eventually I sucked it up and left my apartment, getting into the limo waiting for me outside. Hmm, this one must be important if dad sent a limo over, I thought. I glanced at the invitation in my hand. Tonight we were raising money for kids’ education. Not too much of a surprise then, childhood education was my parents’ favourite philanthropy, they thought the best way to get children out of poverty was through education, and they donated millions of dollars every year towards the cause.

  When we got to the Waldorf, I went straight to the ballroom, had my name checked off the list, my coat taken, and took a glass of champagne from a waiter as I got ready to mingle.

  “Oh my God, if it isn’t Nicholas Kerry,” I suddenly heard a woman say. “Tom, come and see Nick Kerry,” she said, grabbing at the man next to her and hurrying over to where I was standing. It was Joan and her husband Tom Reid, old friends of my parents that I hadn’t seen in quite a few years as they were spending their retirement years in a villa on the French Riviera.

  We made small talk, catching up on old times, and eventually moved on. I was having a polite discussion with an old associate of my fathers, James Lachlan, whom in reality my father couldn’t stand at all, when my life changed completely. Lachlan was talking about machinery he was involved with as a waitress walked past with a tray full of glasses of champagne, when he made a sudden motion, swiping a half dozen glasses off the tray and directly onto the tux I hated so much.

  �
�Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” squealed the poor waitress as she tried to look for a napkin to wipe the champagne off me with.

  “As you should be, watch where you’re going,” Lachlan told her. As she turned back towards me I got a good look at her face for the first time, the most beautiful face on the planet, and it looked like she was going to start bawling any second.

  “It wasn’t her fault James,” I told him, and turned to her. “Don’t worry,” I said, smiling. “I hate this tux anyway.”

  She giggled a little bit, and when she smiled she was even more beautiful than before. Her straight red hair framed the most gorgeous green eyes I’d ever seen in my life, cheeks that blushed red but without a freckle to be seen, and a small mouth with lips almost as fiery as her hair. I had no idea who this girl was, but damn if she wasn’t one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.

  “Come on, let’s go find some more napkins, get away from here,” I told her, and she seemed relieved.

  “Thank you so much. Oh God, it’s my first night here, I’m going to get fired for sure,” she told me, flustered.

  “OK, well, I don’t want that to happen. It wasn’t your fault, you had no way of knowing Lachlan was going to just throw his arms out like that. Why don’t you go get some napkins or something and meet me outside the men’s bathroom downstairs? That way no one will see.”

  “Thank you so much sir,” the girl replied as she ran off to get the napkins. I quickly left the room, heading down a level to where I knew there were bathrooms for the guests. I waited outside, and she came back a minute later with tea towels, cloth and paper napkins, and a bottle of club soda.

  “Wow, that was quick!” I told her.

  “I swear I’m normally a good worker,” she replied with a bit of a smile, and I couldn’t help but laugh.

  “What’s that for?” I asked, looking at the club soda.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t know how to get champagne stains out of clothes?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not so much of a drunk that I’m in the habit of spilling it all over me. I was just going to dry my shirt and head back in.” This reply got a laugh out of her, then she nodded towards the door.

  “Well, get in and take your shirt off then, we have work to do.”

  I went into the bathroom and got the shock of my life when she casually followed me in.

  “What if someone comes in?”

  “Do you seriously think the public bathrooms at the Waldorf of all places get frequent visitors? I’m pretty sure this is just for show.”

  I couldn’t argue with her logic, and took off my jacket and shirt. I had to admit, I was feeling a little bit self-conscious. I’m a pretty fit guy, I spend my lunch hour at the company gym in the basement every day, but this girl was just so damned pretty I felt like anything less than Ryan Gosling wasn’t good enough for her.

  “So, uh, can I ask your name?” I asked as she grabbed my shirt and began to blot it with a napkin soaked in club soda. I had to admit, it was effective. There had been a bit of a stain forming, but it was gone now.

  “I’m Marissa. You?”

  “Nick. You say it’s your first day. Lived in the city long?”

  She gave me a look out of the corner of her eye, a look I couldn’t quite place. Was I being impertinent by asking these questions? Yeah, probably. But I was also standing topless in the middle of a hotel bathroom with the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, I needed to get my mind off what I really had in mind somehow.

  “A few months. I was doing some temp work, then got offered this job. It takes up basically all my nights, but at least I have the days to myself.”

  I nodded. “Nice. Liking it so far?”

  “Yeah, it’s better than the middle of nowhere, Florida, anyway. The weather isn’t as stifling here, but I think I’m going to miss summer being basically year round down south.”

  She finally finished cleaning my clothes and put them under the hand heater to dry them.

  “Thanks for not trying to get me fired,” she finally told me.

  “Are you kidding? I’ve told you, it wasn’t your fault.”

  “Yeah, but still. You hear stories. I’ve got a lot of them from my coworkers. Let’s just say most enormously rich people aren’t as nice as you.”

  “Most not enormously rich people aren’t as nice as me either!” I told her, laughing. “But I know what you mean. Too many people have a sense of entitlement, and don’t realize that the person they just got fired likely had a family to feed, had rent to pay, and that by being a douchebag they might actually be ruining someone’s life.”

  “Exactly.” Then, almost like she worried she said too much, she went back to the clothes. I looked at Marissa, bemused. She was pretty, but she had a bit of spunk to her, too. I liked her. I liked her a lot more than I was willing to admit at the time, in retrospect.

  “Listen, this might be a bit forward of me, but can I buy you dinner sometime? You know, as thanks for saving my tux, and my dignity? Because I definitely would have just gone back out with a stained suit.”

  There was that weird look again.

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  “Neither do I, but we could try?”

  I really wanted her to say yes to me. Not only was she gorgeous, and I liked her, but at this point in my life I wasn’t used to having women say no to me. It sounds arrogant, but let’s face it: I was a fit, not-too-shabby looking guy in his 20s, heir to a company worth billions with a trust fund that had over a billion dollars in it itself. Most women basically threw themselves at me.

  “Sorry, I don’t think I can. Sorry. Here’s your stuff. Thanks again for being so nice to me.”

  And with that, Marissa ran out of the bathroom and I was left holding the top half of my tux, confused about what had just happened this last minute.

  I went back to the ballroom and continued to mingle, but I spent every minute looking for Marissa. I saw her from time to time, but she seemed to be making a point to serve the other side of the room.

  At the end of the night I asked one of her coworkers about her, but he said she’d already gone home, anyway.

  I was just starting work at my father’s company at the time, and Halloween was coming up. So, I decided I was going to see Marissa again, even if it meant I had to have a party at the office I’d just started working at. Not exactly the best way to make yourself seen as a serious heir to the business, but I liked this girl.

  So, I called up the organizers of the last charity, found out who they had cater it, and hired them for the party I was holding. I made sure to ask that Marissa would be working as a waitress that night.

  Sure enough, there she was. I waved when I saw her, and she waved back, shyly. I went over to where she was holding some hors d’oeuvres.

  “Hey Marissa, fancy seeing you here.”

  “Am I wrong in thinking this wasn’t an accident?” I had said I liked her spunk. She was blunt, and I liked it.

  “You’re not wrong, no.”

  “You really want that date, don’t you?”

  “I really do.”

  “Why? What do you see in me? I have a high school education, I work a dead end job, I’m not at all the type of girl I assume you usually date.”

  I liked her honesty, now it was time for me to be honest back.

  “You’re right. You’re not like the girls I usually date. The girls I usually date are stuck up, interested in nothing but my money, with completely vaporous looks behind their perfectly done up eyes. They’re not interesting, and I hate that I attract that type. You’re the absolute opposite. You’re still incredibly beautiful, but you’re honest, you’re blunt and you have an actual personality. You’re exactly the type of girl I want to go out with, and that’s why I’m asking you out.”

  That made her pause for a minute. I could practically see the wheels whirring in her brain as she decided what she wanted to do next.

  “Fine. But make it coffee, not di
nner.”

  “That works for me. When’s a good day for you?”

  “I have Wednesday and Friday night off.”

  “Wednesday it is, then,” I told her with a smile. We swapped phone numbers so we could text and figure out where to meet, then I let Marissa get back to her work.

  The rest of the night I thought about our date. I knew what coffee shop I wanted to take her to, a small place in an old warehouse not too far from my office. Hopefully she’d be up for that. I couldn’t believe how much I’d fallen for her in such a short period of time. Little did I know just how far I’d fallen for her.

  * * *

  “Yo, Nicky boy, you can’t get away with just leaving me with all the kids over there.”

  My brother’s booming voice interrupted my reminiscing.

  “Aw damn it man, you’re not thinking about Marissa again, are you? I know dude. She was awesome. We all loved her. Hell, I think dad was hoping you’d marry her more than you did. But you gotta let that go sometime. It’s been like three years.”

  “I can’t let it go, John,” I replied. “I know she’s out there. I know, everyone thinks she’s dead, but I just can’t bring myself to admit it. Not until I see her body.”

  My brother simply put his hand on my shoulder instead of answering. He knew how hard the past few years had been for me. I’d lost the love of my life. Still, I knew a part of him was right. I had to move on. It wasn’t healthy for me to keep thinking about Marissa, waiting for her to come back. I was like an old war widow, constantly waiting, refusing to accept what had happened.

  “Come on man, let’s go back and help Kels with the kids.”

  I nodded and turned to follow John back towards the playground. Grateful parents were coming by to pick up their completely exhausted toddlers, and I knew Kelsey would sleep just as well as any of them tonight.

  This next part was more just saying hi to the parents than taking care of any children. We got a ton of thanks for having their children over for the party, a little bit of small talk, and then before we knew it the whole thing was over, and the sound of children that had been ringing in my ears for hours was gone, with only the birthday girl Charlotte still squealing with pleasure over her presents.