The Billionaire and His Driver

CHAPTER EIGHT

Inside the club, Ronny sat at the table across from Oscar Grisham, the former Governor of Oregon, and Oscar’s daughter Fallon, one of Ronny’s “lady friends.”

Oscar leaned back and dabbed the side of his mouth with the elegant napkin. “Here’s the deal,” he said in his heavy, pompous voice, his belly touching the table. “You’ve got to marry her first to prove to me you’re all in.”

Ronny kept on eating. Asking a man like him to marry Fallon or anybody else was the same to Ronny as asking him to inject himself with cancer. But his life was always a means to an end. Always. “I’m very fond of your daughter,” he said in that generic way he often spoke.

But Fallon, who could be as transactional as her father, refused to let him get away with that nonsense. “No you aren’t,” she said with bitterness in her voice. “So quit lying.”

“You aren’t all that fond of her,” Oscar said, echoing her daughter. “Let’s face it. You aren’t fond of anybody but yourself. But that’s okay. I don’t need a choirboy in the family. I need a President. And you have what it takes to be President. But as much as you want to make it so, they aren’t going to let you just ease your way up into that august house. The last businessman we had as president was an unmitigated disaster. They aren’t going to let that happen again. You’ve got to prove yourself first. You’ve got to get to the Governor’s mansion first. That’s your ticket to the top.” Oscar leaned forward and started eating again. “That’s where I come in.”

Ronny’s motives were never what people thought they were because he was never going to be a caricature of what society said he was. But his motives were his business. He let Oscar continue to blather on. “I’m the former governor of this fine state who left office with the highest approval ratings of any prior governor before me. I can get you that governorship with my daughter by your side. And then, together, you and Fallon can make it all the way to Pennsylvania Avenue. But marriage first,” Oscar added, “because I’m not in this for the hell of it. There has to be a marriage first. Now what say you?”

Oscar and Fallon both stared at Ronny. Fallon was a beautiful woman. A gorgeous girl nearly twenty years his junior. But whenever they were together it was like watching paint dry. They had nothing in common. And she wasn’t a dumb blonde either: she wasn’t that stereotype. She had a good head on her shoulders. But she, like every woman he’d ever been with, ultimately bored the shit out of him. He couldn’t wait to get them out of his bed. He’d rather eat spikes than marry any of them. Fallon included.

But his motives were never what people thought they were. “You make a compelling case,” was all he was willing to say about it. Yet another non-answer to the question.

Oscar didn’t like the answer, but was willing to play the long game with Ronny. He was worth it to him. Fallon was tired of the long game. “Why are we even bothering with this, Father? We aren’t even engaged yet. He hasn’t even given me a ring yet.”

Oscar patted her perfectly manicured hand. “All things in time, my child.”

Ronny smiled. “Patience is a virtue.”

Fallon looked at him with daggers in her eyes. “Patience? Are you serious? I’ve been patient with you long enough, and what do I have to show for it? Nothing!”

“All things in time like your father said.”

“Bullshit,” she yelled out loud enough that a few other diners looked on.

“Tone, my dear,” Oscar said. “Watch your tone.”

“He’s bullshitting you, Father.”

“I don’t bullshit anybody,” Ronny replied.

“Oh yeah? Then who was she, Ronald? Who was that female with you on your plane when you landed?”

She worked for Ronny, although she wanted more than a working relationship, but Fallon wouldn’t believe him even if he told her. So he didn’t bother.

“See, Father? He didn’t deny it and I had no clue a female was on his plane. It was a wild guess that always end up being the truth. He doesn’t want to marry anybody. He’s married to himself!”

“I agree,” said Oscar. “But a smart man, which Warren Ronald Bradshaw most certainly is, will weigh his choices. Love is one choice. Or marriage to the daughter of a man who has the kind of political connections ambitious men envy, is the other choice. Victory in the State House and then the White House, is one choice. Or no victories at all, is the other choice. Those are his choices.” He looked at Ronny. “An ambitious man will choose marriage and the presidency. Am I wrong?”

Ronny continued eating. He was staring at father and daughter, but he wasn’t seeing either one of them. That driver, and how she became the first woman in the history of his existence to ever refuse his money, was still on his mind.