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  UNREQUITED

  by

  Aya Fukunishi

  Copyright © 2012 by Aya Fukunishi

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  First Printing, 2012

  A Bangkok Nights Publication

  Arnold twirled a Mont Blanc in his chubby fingers, dropping it occasionally to the leather surface of his desk. John flinched each time it landed heavily on its nib. It's not like he couldn't afford to replace it a million times over, but John believed people should treat a nice pen with respect. The pen struck the leather once more, and he reached out to grab it before Arnold could react. The lawyer frowned, his heavy jowls wobbling.

  'John, we really need to talk about your estate one of these days.' He said, abruptly. 'You should never forget that you could get hit by a bus on the way out of my office.'

  John grimaced. 'Thanks, Arn. It's good to know I can always visit my old friend when I need a boost. You wanna tell me again how Santa Claus was just a fat guy hired by Macy's? That was a classic.'

  'John, I'm serious. Look, I know you're only thirty and you'll probably outlast my fat, diabetic ass by about fifty years, but you know what kind of lifestyle you lead. The BASE jumping, for starters. And that wing suit you bought last month. You want me to show you a YouTube video of a guy face planting into the side of a mountain in one of those things? I had my assistant put together a collection. Forget a bus. You're gonna get killed by Mount Everest in the face.'

  John laughed. 'I wish you wouldn't worry about me so much, Arn. You know I'm always careful. By the way, have I ever mentioned how much you look like Oliver Platt when you're angry?'

  'Stop busting my balls, John. It's not about being careful. You think these guys who jump out of planes aren't careful? Jesus, they check their equipment in their sleep, they're so careful, but one unexpected gust of wind or a bug in the eye will send them hurling into a wall. It's not a lack of care that's the problem, it's statistics. Eventually you'll make a mistake, and there are no do overs up there.'

  John pouted and stared at the pen in his hand. He didn't like it when Arn was no fun.

  'I know you don't like to hear this, and I know I sound like your mother, rest her soul, but to be honest I don't care. This isn't just me wanting to keep my oldest friend alive. I'm also trying to protect my job. You know you're my biggest client. Hell, you paid for this whole office. Thanks again, by the way. But if you die tomorrow you'll leave no heir, no anything. Hell, you don't even have a damned will! Your brother would stand to inherit four billion dollars and change, and you know he'd just buy himself a mountain of blow before the ink on the check was dry. He'd be dead within a week.'

  John sighed, suddenly serious. While he didn't really care about what happened to his fortune after he was gone, he knew that his brother would die under its weight. It was all John could do to keep him on the straight and narrow with the modest stipend he allowed him each month.

  'OK, I see your point. Well, you're the sharp legal mind, Arn. What do you want me to do about it?'

  His friend smiled, happy for the rare win over his famously stubborn friend. 'Well, the first thing you need to do is place some money in trust for Ryan. He needs to be taken care of should anything happen to you, but we both know he'd go off the deep end if he ever got his hands on serious cash. That's our most pressing issue, but I can take care of that in an hour. Just need your signature.

  'Now, what I'd usually suggest to someone with your kind of wealth is that you set up a second charitable trust to distribute your estate to any organization you care to help. With you, though, I'm not sure that's such a great idea. You just know Ryan will contest it, and I'm sure those assholes who've popped up over the years will be back begging for their share. Especially that one guy from, uh...?'

  'Wichita,' John replied. Wichita. That case had dragged on for three months, and it was only when John brought out the check book that the guy had finally crawled away. It seemed silly that now, as a grown man, John regularly found himself called to court on the wrong end of ridiculous paternity suits. Ever since he'd made his first millions, deadbeats had been showing up from around the country to claim that they'd been the ones to dump their load into his mother before catching the next bus out of town. Real classy types.

  They all wanted the same thing: a spot in his will. It was only because John refused to submit to DNA testing that they kept coming out of the woodwork, but he was too stubborn to take a swab or a needle and make it easy on himself.

  'John, I'm gonna lay it out for you. The moment your heart stops beating there's gonna be a feeding frenzy. It'll get messy. Every woman you've ever slept with will climb out of her cave to claim you put a baby in her belly. Every drunk old guy in the lower 48 will claim to have put you in your mom, and your brother... God love him, he'll say anything to get his next hit. It'll get very messy, and your good name will be dragged through the mud. Everything you've ever achieved will be forgotten, and all you'll be remembered for is the brawl over your estate.'

  John slumped, losing the boyish grin that had beamed out from countless magazine covers; the grin that had made him a hit with every college girl and housewife the world over. He ran his fingers through his thick dark hair, and scratched the light stubble on his cheek. 'So what do you suggest I do?'

  Arnold looked uncomfortable, and his eyes flitted to the cabinet that held his best scotch. 'I'm not gonna get involved in your love life, John, I know you too well for that, but you need an heir. You need a solid, unimpeachable line of succession that will discourage anyone from so much as filing suit, even your brother.'

  John sighed. 'You know better than anyone that I don't do relationships, Arn. Hell, when was I last in a relationship that didn't blow up in my face?'

  Arnold smiled. 'Well, there was that one time in your freshman year with... Oh no, I remember. You slept with her sister.' He chuckled in an effort to lighten the mood. 'Look, old pal, this is just my legal opinion. As your counsel I'm telling you to get your house in order. As your friend? Hell, I don't know. Work something out.'

  Chapter Two

  Work something out.

  As he walked onto the busy street from Arn's uptown Manhattan office John laughed at the thought. Arn was a good friend, but like most people he seemed to believe that money could solve every problem, if you throw enough of it. It was true of most things, of cour
se. John could snap his fingers before bed and have a brand new private jet delivered in the morning. He could afford a dozen luxury homes dotted around the world, each with a full time staff prepared for him to arrive at any moment. Most pleasingly he could have almost any woman he wanted. If they weren't swayed by his unimaginable wealth they usually gave in to his looks and easy, confident charm.

  Unfortunately, when it came to relationships his money seemed to count for nothing. In fact it was often the problem, the wedge that drove between him and any woman he cared about. No matter how hard he tried he always seemed to end up with women who couldn't see beyond his bank balance.

  Since his first tech start-up broke big in the final year of high school he'd struggled with it. Overnight he'd gone from the cute, funny guy who always heard the line let's just be friends to the desirable, debonaire millionaire who caused panties to drop the moment he walked into a room. The first few years had been a lot of fun, but as his genius and insight quickly turned the millions into billions he found himself a target for every soulless, money grabbing gold digger on the planet. What's worse, he seemed to be tragically bad at recognizing them on sight.

  It had been his last girlfriend who'd put the icing on the cake. She was a sportswriter he'd met at the Superbowl, and they dated for three months. One morning he'd returned to his Malibu beach house after a meeting to find her stealing a hundred dollar bill from his bedside table. A hundred dollars, in a house worth twenty million. She could have just asked for it, and he'd have given her ten times that amount. He'd thrown her out along with the bill, which he'd told her to keep as a souvenir.

  Since then he'd sworn off women. Six months without so much as a date, and he'd never been happier in his life. He missed the sex, of course, the closeness of another person, but the lies, uncertainty and mistrust had stolen any joy from it long ago. The constant doubt whether the woman laying beside him would still be there if it weren't for his fortune, his private jet and his homes had plagued his every waking thought. It had all become too much to bear.

  Now, though, he was faced with a new problem. He knew Arn was right, of course. John lived a high risk lifestyle. Every weekend he found himself BASE jumping, mountain climbing and performing insane aerial stunts in the old Cessna he'd bought with the proceeds from the sale of his first business.

  More than once he'd come dangerously close to death. He'd lost his oxygen in a sudden blizzard on Annapurna, only making it back down to camp by blind luck. Just the previous month his primary chute had failed to open while jumping into a thousand foot deep cave in Costa Rica, and it was only quick thinking that had spurred him to pull his backup moments before hitting the icy water deep within the earth. He'd staggered out with nothing more serious than a broken wrist, but Arn had yet to shut up about it.

  In any case, he knew there was a strong chance he wouldn't die peacefully in his sleep at a ripe old age, and he knew he'd have to take Arn's advice if he wanted to prevent the nightmare scenario he'd laid out back in his office. If only to save his brother, John would need a child.

  But how? He found it impossible to trust any woman he dated. He'd been burned too many times. How could he hope to find someone he could trust to raise a child. Come to that, how could he find a woman he could trust not to fight for his fortune herself?

  Unless... Do I dare ask her? What if she says no?

  John slid smoothly into the back seat of his limo, the door held open by his attentive, elderly driver Carl. His young assistant, Amy, set down her phone and poured him a drink from the minibar.

  'Good meeting? How's Arn?'

  John laughed, taking the scotch gratefully. 'Still a loveable teddy bear. Let's get hot dogs.' He tapped on the glass behind the driver. 'Gray's Papaya, Carl, and don't spare the horses.'

  Chapter Three

  Amy had come to work for John fresh out of college. After studying electronics for four years she'd become interested in his tech company, Trent Enterprises, and when the opportunity arose for an internship in his New York headquarters she'd jumped at the chance, despite the fact that she couldn't afford an unpaid position and had to work a night job just to pay the rent.

  Three months later John had visited and she'd sat in on a meeting about the latest release, an imaging system that would allow brain surgeons to train on 3D projections. Amy hadn't slept in days, and she'd just come off the night shift at her telemarketing job. The meeting had been heated from the moment John had announced he intended to donate one of the million dollar systems to every major hospital in the US.

  Amy shouldn't have been there at all. The discussion was way above her pay grade, but when the boss of her boss made a remark about the technology that was just plain wrong - even to her addled, sleep deprived mind - she couldn't help but correct him.

  She was ordered angrily out of the room, and ten minutes later she received an email to inform her she'd been reassigned. She went home for the weekend depressed, and it wasn't until Monday that she realized she'd been hired as John's personal assistant. Apparently he'd liked her spunk.

  That had been three years ago, and since then she'd found herself thrown into a world of high level negotiations with foreign governments, glitzy parties with Hollywood celebrities and, more than once, to John's hospital bedside after yet another death defying stunt gone wrong.

  She loved John for all his flaws, but she despaired at his impulsiveness, his reckless behavior and the poor choices he made in everything but business. His personal life was a train wreck, and it was always Amy's job to pick up the pieces after another failed relationship. Even so she adored her job, and she thanked John every day for giving her such an opportunity. She owed him everything.

  Chapter Four

  'Did I ever tell you about the time I streaked down Broadway?'

  Amy rolled her eyes and smiled. 'Yes, John, you tell that story every time we eat here. Sometimes I think you only bring me here as an excuse to describe your swinging dick.'

  John grinned boyishly, ignoring her. Amy thought he looked like a shy little kid when he did that. 'Stopped right here at Gray's for a hot dog, and they just gave me a bun and a bottle of mustard. Sal over there said it looked like I'd brought my own sausage.'

  Amy echoed the last line along with him. She'd heard the story at least once a month since she'd come to work for John, but it was never quite the same. Sometimes he was alone, and sometimes he brought along the clientele of a local bar. Amy knew the truth, though, as she'd seen his arrest record. He'd streaked with a couple of college girls from NYU, and he was out of his mind on acid. He never told that version.

  'Hey, Sal!' he waved across the restaurant at the manager, who waved him away with mock disgust. 'Sal and I go way back.'

  Amy couldn't help but break into a grin. She tried to be professional around John, but he just had a knack of making her laugh. Few could help but love him. It was just a shame he seemed to also have a knack for dating the few who could.

  John buried his hot dog into his mouth, letting the mustard and ketchup mingle together and dribble down his chin. He ignored it and carried on talking with red and yellow blobs around his mouth. Amy reached out with a napkin to wipe away the sauce as he spoke. Sometimes, she thought, working for John was like taking care of a child.

  'So Arn thinks I should have a baby,' he said, matter-of-factly.

  Amy smiled, surprised. 'Really? Arn said that? He does understand you can barely dress yourself, right?'

  'Of course he does. We shared a dorm room at college, remember? I don't think he saw me fully dressed for four years. It's probably why we're still so close.'

  The smile fizzled out, and John was suddenly as sincere as he ever was. 'No, I'm serious. He's worried about what'll happen when I kick it. He thinks Ryan will end up with all my money, and you know what that'd be like.'

  Amy knew all too well. Ryan had taken his first overdose soon after Amy had started working for John, and he'd stayed in John's Upper West Side apartment for a month
after he was released from rehab. She knew that he wouldn't have the self control to survive real wealth.

  'So he wants you to have a baby?'

  'That's what he said. I think he may be right, too. Any way I play this I can't see it ending well if I die without an heir.'

  'OK,' she said, slowly. 'So how does he suggest you go about creating this savior? Should I get out your little black book and call that girl who took your jet to Paris without telling you? How about the one who took a bribe to steal the plans for your heavy water reactor? Oooh, I know, I'll call Sarah, the girl who totaled your Veyron. She was precious.' Amy smiled, pretending to dial a number on her cell.

  John wiped the remnants of sauce from his mouth, sat up straight on his stool and fixed his tie. 'Well actually, I do have someone in mind.'

  Amy grinned. 'Oh? Who?'

  John looked out onto the street, watching the lunchtime foot traffic hurry by. 'You.'

  Chapter Five