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  BILLIONAIRE MOUNTAIN MAN

  By Claire Adams

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 Claire Adams

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  Chapter One

  Cameron

  The couple looked like they were in about their mid-fifties. Well, he looked about that old. The woman he was leading out of the building with her arm linked around his looked about half that age. I watched them. She wasn't dressed for work—not the kind that he did, in any case. She wore stilettos and a chic camel trench coat. Not the most practical work outfit, but then it probably depended on what your job was. It is none of my business, I thought, watching him lead the woman to a car. But if it wasn't, they'd be more goddamn discreet about it.

  The man, I knew worked in the building. The woman? Hadn't seen her a day in my life. The two of them were familiar though. They stood on the sidewalk, kissing furiously. His name was Kirk Lourd. He drove a Mercedes, and he and his wife had three kids. She was a stay-at-home parent. They had probably sat at the same table that morning having breakfast. Hours later, and here he was, mauling a twenty-year-old right outside his place of work. He had some goddamn nerve. I didn't know whether that was a good or bad thing. Guess it depended on who you asked.

  I couldn't imagine the stones on that guy. I mean, if you were going to do that shit, didn't you at least have enough shame to do it behind closed doors? Anyone could see them. What if his wife happened to come by? What then? What the hell did you even say? They finally separated, and he opened the car door for her. He patted her ass as she turned to get into it, saying something to her that I wasn't close enough to hear. What could that have been? It’s you I want to be with, I swear. I’d leave her if we didn’t have the kids. Yeah, or some other lie like that. He slammed the door shut, and the car started. Once it was gone, he turned and walked back into the building. Just like that.

  You know what, Porter? She probably knows, I thought. Even better, she probably doesn't care. I shook my head and looked down at the ground. It was cold out; I could see my breath form clouds in front of my face, but the snow hadn't come yet. I was stalling. I had been outside the building almost twenty minutes. I wasn't late yet, but ten more minutes and I would be. The whole scene with Kirk and that woman…I'd probably be thinking about that all day. Or how about just forgetting it? It's none of your business anyway. Shit, he isn't your husband. If you had been inside, you wouldn't even have seen anything. Just pretend like it didn't happen.

  That would have been nice. Just not giving a fuck and pretending everything was fine. What was that like? Kirk seemed to be able to pretend that his marriage and kids had never happened. It looked like that woman could pretend to be attracted to Kirk so he'd bankroll her, unless their love was real and it was just a shame that they hadn't met sooner. Yeah, too fucking bad. He had absolutely been at least thirty years old by the time her parents were welcoming her into the world. I liked to reserve my judgments because hell, I was no saint either, but goddamn. What the hell was wrong with some people?

  It felt like a movie sometimes, because all the parts had already been written. A man, by birth or hard work—or a combination of the two—gets rich. He gets himself a loving partner, and they have a family together. They live in a beautiful home, raise beautiful children, and go on beach vacations in the summer and skiing holidays in the winter. You'd think that would be enough; it sounded like a pretty good way to live to me.

  There were rules though, apparently. Once you hit a certain tax bracket, there was a certain car you had to drive. You had to get your suits from a certain place. You had to be unfaithful to your wife. It wasn't just the men; it was everyone. To make a play work, everyone had to play their role. That was just how the system fit together and worked—all of it. Society. Everyone got their script and acted their part. Whether it was a role you chose for yourself or one someone chose for you didn't matter. You just did it.

  The whole street was on the move. Everyone had somewhere to be, somewhere to go. A role to fill. A job to do. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered how many people did what they did because they wanted to and not because they believed they had to or had been forced to believe that they had to.

  Did it even make a difference? Kirk Lourd was probably lying to his wife. So what? He wasn't the first person to ever do it and wouldn't be the last either. What he ate didn’t make me shit. It wasn't any of my business in any case...until I had a wife and a couple kids and it was my turn to help keep the wheels spinning.

  I went inside. My father was probably already here. Morning meetings were the usual. At the end of the day, I had a job to do. How about you concentrate on that, I thought, getting into the elevator that would take me up twenty-six floors. I had a role to play too. I was my father's son, and he had been his. For decades, that had meant only one thing. This: Porter Holdings—my father's legacy and my future.

  A lot of people liked to think that they made their own choices, that they owned their own lives, but how many of us could really say that that was true? Our building was one of the tallest in the Salt Lake skyline. My office was on the top floor. I had worked at the firm since graduating, six or seven years ago, and I could look forward to another twenty-five or thirty where those had come from. My dad had worked here all his life, taking over after my grandfather had established the company. I was next. Just like that, that was how the wheel kept turning.

  If you thought about it too much, it started to feel a little crooked. Unfair maybe, like it didn't make sense, but if you shut up and fell in line, then everything worked out. Actors received awards for portraying roles in movies, and we did, too, for the roles we played in our real lives. If you waited long enough. It wasn’t gold statuettes, but what were those good for anyway?

  I knocked at the door of my father's office, saying good morning to his secretary, Hope. I remembered her from a time when she didn't have the grey hair at her temples and light lines around her eyes, even when she wasn't smiling. She had worked at the company for god knew how long. When I had been a teenager, spending time at my dad's office instead of getting into trouble like a normal kid over school breaks, she had covered for me the couple times that I had snuck out when I hadn't been supposed to and gotten back to the office late. Earlier than that, I remembered sitting at her desk, doing my homework the days I'd come to the office after school instead of going straight home. It was never too early, according to Grayson Porter, to start working towards your future.

  "Morning, Hope," I said. "Old man already at it?"

  "As usual," she said, smiling kindly at me. "Mr. Hamm's with him too. They're expecting you."

  Brett? Made sense. He had been working at the company for almost as long as Hope had. Only difference was he'd show up at the house sometimes. He and my dad were friends and working together so long, and somehow, they hadn't managed to screw that up. I heard my dad on the other side of the door and walked in. After my childhood bedroom at my parents’ house and school, my dad's office was probably the place that I had spent the most time as a kid. It was a big, airy space, with wood floors and luxurious leather furniture. My dad and Brett Hamm were sitting on the couches across
from a mahogany coffee table, talking. They stopped when I walked in.

  "Took your time today, son," my dad said. I shrugged and walked over to them.

  "What'd I miss?" I asked, sitting on the last couch, a leather loveseat that faced my dad's large, antique style desk. The blend of modern and antique elements was something that I had only started appreciating as an adult, even though I had spent hours in his office since childhood. At my parents’ house, my mom had taken care of the interior decorating. My dad's office was the only place that really reflected who he was. A balanced blend of traditional and modern—same as the values he held and what he had tried to teach me my whole life.

  "Not much; you're lucky this morning," Brett said in a mock-warning tone. I wasn't late; my father just set his clocks early. We launched into easy conversation about nothing in particular, catching up after the weekend that had passed. Brett brought up a project that the company had been working on: a housing development in Draper. I had grown up hearing about developments, acquisitions and investments so much, I wasn't sure I found it interesting myself or just did by force. I respected what he did. He had grown the family business exponentially in the years that he had been at the helm. He was good at what he did and had earned his position. I just didn't know why I had to want the same thing.

  "What do you think, son?"

  "What?" I asked. I hadn't been paying attention.

  "The site. You haven't made it up there yet, have you?"

  "I did. A couple weeks ago."

  "We should be breaking ground this week. Next week at the latest. What did you think?" he asked me. The company had begun as a brokerage but had ventured into real estate development in the past couple decades. That was my dad's bag. He was passionate about development, but in all the years I had spent in his world, I hadn’t caught the bug yet. It just didn't get my blood pumping the way it did for him. I didn’t think continued exposure would do the trick, but my dad apparently did.

  "It's good," I said lamely. I had no comment. The development would start, then the homes would get sold, then we'd move onto something else. It always happened that way; there wasn't anything special about this time. If I’d had more of an opinion to offer, believe me, I would have given it. My dad chuckled lightly.

  "Is it? I hadn't noticed."

  "What do you want me to say?"

  "Nothing, Cameron. Any more enthusiasm out of you, and you’d be bouncing off the walls," he said good-naturedly. If he wasn’t proud of me, he hid it well.

  "You already know it's good, Dad. You don't need to hear it from me."

  "Your opinion matters, Cameron. Eventually, a lot of people here are going to rely on your decisions going forward." I sighed but understood. It had been the same story the last twenty-nine years of my life. One day, it was going to be me behind that big desk, so I had to be ready for when that day came.

  "I know," I said heavily.

  "I don't think you do, Cam."

  "I get it. I do. I just..."

  "You just what?" he asked.

  "Do you know about Kirk? Kirk Lourd?" I asked him.

  "What about him?"

  "I think he's cheating on his wife. I saw him outside the building a little while ago, kissing some woman who wasn't her."

  "What Kirk does on his own time is his business. I don’t believe you’d want him looking over your shoulder. You should pay him the same respect."

  "I wasn't going to do anything. I just... Is that it?" I asked. "Is it written in the rule book that once your household income is higher than a hundred grand, you have to do that?"

  "Nobody has to do anything, Cameron. Kirk made the decisions he did because he wanted to. If there are rules, everyone makes their own."

  "It seems that way, but it can't be. It's like there's a script everyone follows. People just do things because it's written for them."

  "Is something wrong, Cameron?" he asked, leaning forward, balancing his elbows on his knees. He was almost sixty but passed for younger. He was in good shape, he walked with a straight back, and the graying hair and lines on his face just seemed to add to the authoritative air he had cultivated over years of being in charge.

  "I've just been thinking lately about how artificial everything is. I feel like everything, the whole world, was engineered for us, and our only job is to keep it going," I admitted.

  "You feel like someone's lying to you?"

  "I just feel like there's something wrong, and I don't want to be part of it."

  "The only real power anyone has is power over themselves."

  "Does anyone really make their own choices?"

  "Everyone does," he said definitively. "Refusing to take responsibility for yourself is still a choice. The only thing you or anyone can do is make the right choices. How are you going to do that if you’re too busy worrying about what other people are up to?"

  "It's not just other people; it’s everything. It's how society was built, what it runs on. False narratives that trap you in vicious cycles. Rewarding corruption instead of virtue.”

  "You take care of yourself, Cameron. Other people can mind their own business. You have a plan, a purpose. Other people are just doing their best to find theirs. Let them."

  I shook my head, looking down. I didn't think he got it, but there was no use arguing with him. At the end of the day, he was right. All I could do was mind my own business; it was the best use of my time in any case. I had a job. In the future, I'd have his job; that should have been more than enough to keep me busy. It had been mine since before I had been born. I didn't know whether to feel duped or lucky. Everyone had a role to play, and this was mine. I could complain, but if I didn't do it, who would?

  I was born in Salt Lake City and had lived most of my life in Utah. There had been the years I had spent in California for college, but it had always been the plan to come back. No complaints from me as far as that was concerned. I liked it, preferred it actually to the bigger cities I'd lived in. Being close to my parents had always been a priority, and they weren't going anywhere, so neither had I. My parents still lived in the home I'd grown up in, in Holladay, but I had moved to Provo after renting a place in Salt Lake for a couple years after graduating. Salt Lake City was no Vegas, but I preferred the slower, quieter vibe smaller cities had. Provo was smaller than Salt Lake and less populated. Fewer people meant the neighborhoods weren’t as crowded. I had my own place, and most of my neighbors were older people and families. If a house in the middle of isolated ranchland was a feasible option for me, I would have taken it, but it wasn’t, so I’d settled for the next best thing.

  It was a bit of a drive, almost an hour to get from my place to my parents’ house, but it was worth it. Instead of heading home after work, I decided to take my dad up on his offer to have dinner at their house. They were flying out to Greece that weekend, so I wouldn't be able to see them for a while. I saw my dad every day at work, but it wasn't the same with my mother. She ran an art gallery in Salt Lake City, and unless I went to the house, we didn't have that many visits. She answered the door when we got there, hugging me and taking dad's coat from him as we came inside.

  We had shown up a little early; dinner wasn't ready yet. My dad headed upstairs, but mom had been cooking. I followed her into the kitchen. She cooked a lot more now than she had in the past when I had been a kid. They had a housekeeper, and always had, but I remembered as a kid, always cleaning my plate when my mother cooked, partly because she would always let me help when I asked her.

  She had on an apron over her calf-length skirt and coral blouse. Throughout my life, we had always eaten meals together at the table, no exceptions. They hadn’t given me an easy time, Grayson and Evangeline Porter. They were easy going ‘til you crossed them and did not suffer fools. I felt like I had turned out okay. Both of them had experienced huge successes professionally, and look at that: they hadn’t turned into power-crazed degenerates.

  "Smells good in here. Need any help?" I asked her. She put on som
e oven mitts and opened the oven to look at whatever she had cooking inside.

  "Grab a bottle of red from the cellar from me?" she asked, pulling a skillet out of the oven. It had three browned, glazed duck breasts on it. The kitchen was big enough that as a kid, I had been able to sit at the island and watch her cook without getting in her way. The cellar was just off the kitchen, temperature controlled, filled to the ceiling with racks of wine that my parents had collected over their thirty plus years together. I picked out a pinot noir to be safe and went back to the kitchen.

  "How's this?" I asked, showing her the bottle. She looked up from the salad she was preparing.

  "Good pick," she said appreciatively. "I got your father that one on our last trip to Paris." I searched for a corkscrew to get it open.

  "You excited for your trip this weekend?"

  "It's been a long time coming," she said. "I think we both need the time off. Especially your father. How was work?" she asked.

  I shrugged, pulling the cork free from the bottle. "Same as it always is."

  "One more time, with feeling," she said, teasing me. It wasn't a secret that I didn't have the same passion for real estate that my father did. Passion was just one part of the equation, and passion could be built. I hadn't gotten that far with my efforts, but one day...yeah, one day.

  "What would I have to do to get dad to hear me out about work? All this stuff about me replacing him?" I asked.

  "Cameron, you and your father have been working together for years now. After him, you're the most prepared for the responsibility."

  "If he could train me to do it, he could train someone else to. I don't want it. It's his thing. Not mine."

  She sighed, wiping her hands on her apron and untying it. "He's not asking you to do it tomorrow, or even a year from now. The handover is going to take time, and he is going to be there every step of the way supporting you if you need him."