Not In A Billion Years: A hilarious, enemies-to-lovers romantic comedy from Camilla Isley

1

BLAKE

When I said it was okay to go on the record, I wasn’t trying to pick a fight with sexy billionaire Gabriel Mercer, I swear. But as my number two is kindly pointing out, that might be what I’m about to get.

Evan pulls his blond hair, saying, Did you really have to slander our biggest competitor in a national newspaper?

I lean back in my chair and grimace at my second in command. "Slander? What I said wasn’t slander."

Evan brandishes a printout of The Wall Street Journal article that came out today to celebrate my new gym opening and quotes my words back to me. "I wouldn’t call receiving an ivy-league education debt-free along with all the connections certain schools bring, and having your start-up money handed to you on a silver platter, being self-made. You basically called him a spoiled brat."

But I also said very positive things about him…

I ask Evan for the printout and search for the right passage. "‘Gabriel Mercer,’ I read aloud, ‘is a skillful entrepreneur,’ he said. I pause for a moment, puzzled. Oh, a typo, they’ve turned me into a man. Can you call the paper and have them rectify it?"

Evan grabs the sheet of paper from me. He, she… must be the most common typo in the book. His eyes frantically scan the rest of the text. You’re a she everywhere else. Readers will get that you’re a woman.

I’d still like the online version to be corrected.

Will do, chief. Anyway, being turned into a man isn’t the problem. You picking a fight with Gabriel Mercer is.

I only said he isn’t self-made, which is factual.

Still, Gabriel Mercer won’t appreciate being called a rich boy in the press. Why did you have to go on the record stating it?

I run my mouth, okay? I made a mistake. When the reporter cited him as an example of a self-made entrepreneur, I just lost my marbles that she’d call someone with so much privilege, so much access, self-made. And then she wouldn’t strike the comment no matter how many times I asked, so… spilled milk.

Should we post a retraction?

No.

Why not?

Because it’s true and because that would bring even more attention to it. Maybe Mercer won’t even read the article.

I promise you, that man has a Google alert for his name.

Then so be it. I throw my hands in the air. I don’t have time to deal with potentially hurt, fragile male egos, I have a cardio class to teach in less than one hour. But I want to go over the Apex pitch first.

Apex is the largest producer of fitness watches and trackers in the country and they’re looking for a new sponsor partnership. I want it.

Evan plonks onto the chair opposite my desk. I’ve updated the presentation; our social media growth is exponential and our reach unparalleled.

I bite the top of a pen, taking in Evan’s gloomy face. But?

But if you shrink down the numbers to the US market only, they’re not as impressive. And I’ve heard their marketing director is more of a traditional—

Dinosaur? I finish the phrase for him. Let’s launch a new campaign to improve our domestic numbers, bring Cara in on this, I say, referring to the head of marketing. Have her come to me with a few ideas. Anything else we can do to juice ourselves up for Apex?

Unless you plan on becoming a fifty-year-old white male with 2,500 physical locations, I don’t think so.

Shed twenty years off that description and he’s basically described Gabriel Mercer.

I frown. Is Power Training in the run for the bid?

Bidders are confidential, but we can assume Apex has reached out to them. And now you’ve given Mercer an extra reason to crush us.

Then let’s make sure our pitch is airtight. I drop the pen to avoid chewing on the back out of stress and stand up. I have to go change now or I’ll be late for class.

I round my old desk in the new office, which is sitting above my first brick-and-mortar fitness center. The glass-wall new development is surrounded by a mix of older red-brick buildings, former factories, and warehouses designed by famous architects. A more soulful vibe that I preferred to the glass-and-steel forest uptown to set the new location of my company’s headquarters. NOHO (North of Houston Street), with its cobblestone streets and vibrant, artistic community, felt like the perfect place for my business to thrive.

The view always puts a big smile on my face. Contrary to my COO, who, while also contemplating the sunny June day, still looks frowny and troubled.

Relax, Evan. I walk up to him and pat his shoulder as he stands. What’s the Mighty Gabriel Mercer going to do, anyway? Send me to bed without dinner? Bring it on. I’m all for the intermittent fasting.

You’re being brazen if you think making an enemy of such an influential man won’t come back to bite you in the rear end. Mercer has ties to a lot of real estate deals in Manhattan and beyond, and could make it difficult for us to expand.

As you smartly pointed out, his core business is real estate. I wouldn’t even call him a competitor. It just so happens that most of the properties he owns are fitness centers.

Yes, but we already had to buy this property on the hush-hush to keep under his radar; now you’ve put us front and center in his field of vision. Evan drops his arms to the side. Doesn’t that worry you?

What are you suggesting? That he’s so powerful he could buy all gym-suitable buildings in America? Mercer is not omnipotent. And he could never take the internet away from us. We’re a crowd. Business has been democratized. Didn’t you get the memo?

Evan purses his lips tighter than a kitten’s ass. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

All right, Taylor Swift, I won’t. I give his trapezius a gentle squeeze, the muscle tightly knotted under my touch. Please go take a yoga class. This level of stress isn’t good for you.

I leave him to brood alone in my office, hoping he’ll heed my advice and blow off some steam with a little controlled breathing, or at least take a sauna.

I reach the ground floor and greet various patrons on the way to the women’s locker room. The chit-chatting almost makes me late for my class, but I make it a point not to be short with anyone despite being pressed for time. I didn’t gain twenty million Instagram followers by being aloof and unattainable.

Not the style of the competition, as Evan calls it. The Mighty Gabriel Mercer—MGM, I rename him in my head—has exactly zero Instagram followers because he has no Instagram, Facebook, or any other social network on the planet.

What a snob.

The only thing more annoying than his looks—dark, handsome, groomed to perfection—are his self-celebratory statements on how he turned a one-million-dollar loan into a ten-billion-dollar empire. Heck, if I had a million dollars to start with, my company would be a hectocorn by now.

Not that I’m judging. But in the male-dominated business world, size counts. The competing little pricks have even designed a scale for their appendage-measuring contest. A start-up is proclaimed a unicorn when it reaches a billion-dollar valuation—that’s where I’m at. My company is a rare, magical creature that has beaten all the odds. But I still have to contend with the behemoths that dwarf my worth. The decas, or decacorns, aka the corporations that have hit the ten-billion mark—that’s where MGM’s at. And above that is the ultimate goal of a hundred-billion market cap, reserved for the likes of Google, Apple, and Amazon—they were start-ups, too, once. Becoming a hectocorn is the pipe dream of every new entrepreneur. Mostly unreachable, to be fair. Especially for someone like me: a woman with no money and no connections who had to start from zero.

But I’m not interested in dwelling on what I don’t have or can’t ever attain. I prefer to count my blessings for everything that I’ve achieved and still strive to achieve. For his sake, I hope MGM is the same. That he’s too busy making piles of money for himself and his investors to care about little old me and my press releases. He probably doesn’t even know I exist.

I change into a neon-pink sports bra, black leggings, and pull my hair up in a high ponytail.

With a bright smile stamped on my face, I cross the gym and enter my HIIT class shouting, Morning everyone, who’s ready to pump the heat and grind some positivity into their lives?

2

GABRIEL

Are you sure you want to blow a million dollars on an old car? Mila, my executive assistant, asks me as we get out of the meeting room. The deal with Apex Watches is not in the bag yet, but their executives seemed pleased with our proposal to install display cases for their fitness tracker in all of our 2,400 gyms.

Don’t call it an old car, it’s a 1960 Aston Martin GT Zagato, I say as we pass by the cubicles of my employees, most of them young and fresh-faced, working away on their computers.

Yeah, but the wheel isn’t even on the proper side. Mila stops when we reach the elevator. Couldn’t you find a less expensive toy to play with, James Bond?

The elevator doors swish open and we step in. Mila uses the key around her neck to unlock access to the top floor—my floor.

I cross my arms, leaning a shoulder against the metal wall, and grin at her.

Nuh-uh, don’t give me that, she chides. The cocky bastard act doesn’t work on me.

I chuckle. One reason I hired you. Anyway, this time you don’t have to rein me in. I want that car.

A ding announces we’ve reached our destination. As the elevator doors part on the executive floor, the sun bounces off the glass-and-metal walls of nearby skyscrapers, blinding me. I squint at the view of the tall buildings interrupted only by the splotch of green that is Central Park—its majestic trees small compared to where my office sits above the rest. I stride toward my door, Mila close on my heels.

You’re the boss. Mila sighs, resigned. How high should I bid?

Every other loser will bid at around one, but I don’t want to take chances, let’s go for an even 1.2 mils.

You got it, boss. We stop at her desk, located just outside my office. Any other extravagant purchases you want me to make on your behalf today?

Nah, thank you, Mila, that’d be all.

She sits at her post, and I walk into my office, taking in the city below from the expansive wall of windows.

Gosh, this view of New York City never ceases to amaze me. Manhattan stretches out before me, a vast glass-and-steel tapestry where everything is possible. Like always, I feel a surge of excitement at being here, in the center of it all.

I take off my suit jacket and drop it onto my chair. Just as I’m about to sit at my desk, my phone pings with a new Google alert. The email links to an article in The Wall Street Journal.

I frown. I don’t remember giving them an interview and can’t fathom why they should do a piece on me now when they didn’t bother to give me the cover when Mercer Enterprises made it to decacorn.

I settle in my chair and forward the link to my computer to read it on the big screen.

The article is about a new gym opening in NOHO.

Ah, the supposed competition.

It amazes me how most people—even experts—still consider my company a fitness empire when the core of the business is, and has always been, the real-estate deals that gravitate around the fitness centers.

You don’t build an empire off a one-time $42,500 franchise payment and a 5 per cent royalty on $39.99 monthly membership fees.

You build it by owning the land upon which the gyms are placed.

My entire business model has been to amass plots of land to then lease to my franchisees, who, as part of their agreement, are only allowed to rent from me.

This guarantees me a steady, upfront revenue stream. Before a single shovelful of dirt is moved, the cash starts to roll in. Also granting me greater capital for expansion, giving me the firepower to acquire more land, which in turn fuels more growth.

Real estate… That’s where the money is.

I went into fitness only because that happened to be the commercial activity that made the most sense for my first big plot acquisition.

Still, if an article about a new gym cites me, I want to know what they have to say. I read the opening.

Blake Avery, Instagram fitness sensation, seals the dream with the opening of a new, state-of-the-art fitness center in up-and-trendy NOHO, Manhattan. Now fans—at least the ones who live in New York—will be able to attend in-person sessions with the most popular personal trainer the internet has ever seen. And if you don’t live in The Big Apple, despair not, each training session with Blake will be streamed live on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Times will vary to accommodate different time zones.

I’m dealing with a circus monkey, then. Don’t even get me started on what I think about social media, influencers, and internet celebrities. I conduct my business under the radar. Professional to a T, as it should be done by anyone with their sanity still intact. Shaking my head, I read the next passage of the article.

Blake, after over a decade of inspiring people all over the world to be more healthy and fit, you’ll finally be able to do that vis-à-vis. Are you excited?

A decade? How old is the dude? I don’t read his reply and skip to the next question.

Your company is what in the start-up circles is known as a unicorn. What does that mean?

It means our latest valuation went over the billion-dollar mark. For a start-up, something as rare as finding a unicorn.

I scoff at that. Try making it to decacorn before you boast. Loser.

You don’t come from a wealthy family, do you? How does reaching the status of unicorn make you feel?

The article is a mile long and, frankly, I don’t have time for a rags-to-riches sob story. I save a PDF version of the editorial and search the new document for my name. The question that brings me into the picture makes little sense on its own, so I back up a few passages and read the entire exchange.

The world of fitness seems to be full of self-made entrepreneurs. Do you think it’s because the fitness community is so inclusive?

Yeah, I’ve never found a more supportive group of…

Blah, blah, blah… I don’t read the full apple-polishing response.

And you’re the second one of these remarkable self-made entrepreneurs to become a billionaire—

Pardon me, who was the first?

Gabriel Mercer, who else? Blake slightly scoffed at the mention of the competition, so I prompted, You seem to disagree?

No, sorry, Gabriel Mercer is a skillful entrepreneur, he said. But I wouldn’t go as far as calling him self-made…

The skin at the back of my neck heats. To get to where I am, I bent over backward. Nothing—nothing—enrages me more than people assuming I’m sitting in the top chair because I was born wealthy. In my fourth year out of college, I took a one-million-dollar loan—not from my father, but from a venture capitalist, going through the Series A, B, and C funding ropes like any other startupper—and turned it into a ten-billion-dollar company through my hard work.

So, no, I don’t take lightly to insignificant nobodies slandering my name. I read the next paragraph, already knowing it’s only going to enrage me more.

Why not?

Well, I wouldn’t call receiving an ivy-league education debt-free along with all the connections certain schools bring, and having your start-up money handed to you on a silver platter, being self-made.

That’s it.

I slam my laptop shut and stand up. This Blake Avery chap seems to know a lot about me—at least the swellhead thinks he does—and I know exactly nothing about him.

Time for a meet-up.

I grab my suit jacket from my chair and storm out of the office.

Call my car, I bark to Mila.

She scrambles up from her chair, phone already in hand as she texts Tobias, my driver. Where are we going?

"I’m going—alone."

Ooooh. She gives me a coy look. I’m intrigued. I left you not fifteen minutes ago in a peachy mood, and now you’re as amiable as a broody Mr. Darcy forced to attend an unsophisticated country ball. Did someone prompt you to dance with a not-handsome-enough young lady?

I only grunt in reply.

Come on, boss, what got your panties in a bunch?

Not in the mood for jokes.

Now I’m even more curious.

Still, I give her nothing.

Can I know where you’ll be in case I need to track you down for something urgent?

I mumble a non-committal, Lower Manhattan.

After that, we wait in silence by the elevator until the doors swish open and I get in, alone. I push the lobby button and, just as the doors are about to close again, Mila asks, Should I wait up for you?

3

GABRIEL

The company black SUV is waiting for me outside the building. Tobias, my driver, is holding the door open for me. I get in with a confident stride, but the moment the door closes, I clench and unclench my fists, trying to control the panic. Fighting to keep my hands steady as I fasten my seatbelt.

Deep breaths.

The moment the SUV pulls off, panic still lurches in my chest. I squish it down, hating that I have no control over my reactions. That I didn’t even notice how my hand went to clench on the door handle and is still gripping it, knuckles white with the effort. It’s been fifteen years since the accident, and I still hate being inside a car I’m not driving.

But I won’t let fear dictate my actions. I can master it. I can sit in this car without having a fit. I have to; no self-respecting CEO drives himself to business meetings. In my free time, I enjoy my luxury cars—I have no problem with fast rides when I’m the one at the wheel, the one in control, but not when I’m on the clock.

Besides, I usually use the time in the backseat to work, which in turns helps to keep me distracted from the fact that I’m inside a death trap. Win win.

Another deep breath and I take out my phone, intending to find out more about this Blake Avery, but the screen lights up with an incoming call from Thomas, my brother.

He wants to drop by my office later—never a good sign. I try to pry out of him what the ask is going to be—usually, something family-related that would remind the world of my belonging to the Mercer dynasty—but Thomas doesn’t budge, leaving me in the dark.

We hang up just as my driver pulls up in front of the address cited in The Wall Street Journal article for the new gym’s grand opening.

As I take in the artistic, friendly neighborhood out of the blackened windows of the company car, I have to concede this Blake character knows what he’s doing—at least real estate-wise. The gym is placed in a high-profile new building. A modern glass box that sits on the corner of two of the most trafficked streets of the neighborhood. Impossible to miss or ignore.

Any passer-by will at least glance at the shiny architecture and wonder what’s inside. Not that the twenty-foot banners of a sweaty woman and muscular dude working out will leave any doubt. Nor will the first-week-free offer spelled out in bright print.

Another spike of irritation prickles my neck. Gyms might not be my core business, but the fact that I knew nothing about this property being up for grabs infuriates me. Avery must’ve secured an off-market sale, which makes him alarming on top of being a nuisance.

Tobias opens the car door for me and I’m half tempted to reconsider. I know nothing about this man who so lightly dropped judgment on me in the press, and I rarely walk into a meeting unprepared. But, in the article, he pushed all the wrong buttons, hitting on the sort of prejudice I’ve had to deal with at every start-up event since I set out to build a business of my own. As if I didn’t belong with the other entrepreneurs. As if my surname took away the right to get funding outside my family’s wealth. To be free of all the strings that would’ve come attached to a loan from my dad. Free to make my own path, my own money.

But I did make it on my own, and no one should question that, let alone in one of the most read business papers in the country.

I get out of the car, exhaling a sigh of relief at being on solid ground again, and ask my driver to wait nearby—no, I’m not sure how long it’ll take me.

I cross the street and enter the building, sidelining the reception as if I’m a patron who knows where he’s going. This is a good, old-fashioned ambush. I don’t want Blake Avery to be alerted to my presence and have time to prepare. That scumbag doesn’t deserve a five-minute warning. He already has the advantage of knowing more about me than I do about him.

The article stated the gym will also be the new headquarters for the umbrella corporation that goes by the ridiculous name of Bloominghale. I don’t know how Bloomingdale’s still hasn’t sued them. I’d gladly help.

Out of view in a corner where I won’t attract much attention, I study my surroundings. The inside space is as neat as the outer layer, everything one would expect from a luxury gym: pristine, modern, and high-tech. The equipment visible from the reception is state-of-the-art, the best there is. A trendy juice bar is stationed just outside the locker room’s entrance to the left. And a yoga studio where a tall, blond dude is perched in the most precise headstand I’ve ever seen completes the picture.

My gaze locks on the glass-and-steel staircase leading upstairs to what looks like office space—bingo! I dart in that direction and jump up the steps two at a time, hoping to remain undetected. Maybe not the best move since I’m winded once I get to the top—part physical exertion and part anticipation. Out of breath is the last look I want to project once I finally meet this bigmouth face to face, so I take a few steadying breaths and navigate the upper corridors blindly, again acting as if I belong. I don’t know where I’m going, but if I were the big boss at this dubious establishment, I’d want my office to sit in the corner. I head that way.

And jackpot! The big office is right where I expected it to be. The name and title—Blake Avery, CEO—are etched on the door.

The desk outside the office is unmanned.

Fortune favors the bold.

I smirk.

Or carelessness disadvantages the lax.

Mila would never leave my flank open like that. True, her job is made easier because my entire floor has restricted access, but even so, she’d never abandon her post and leave me at the mercy of unexpected enemies.

I close the distance to the unguarded office and grab the knob, ready to make a grand entrance.

I’m not sure what I was expecting upon throwing the door open… perhaps a fit dude all brawn and some brain, mid-thirties to mid-forties if he’s been at this for ten years.

What I wasn’t expecting was to find a young woman, back turned to me, shaking her booty in a stellar execution of a fast feet drill. She’s wearing a neon-pink sports bra and black leggings. Her midnight black hair is up in a high ponytail and she has headphones on, working out in time to an unheard tune.

After the fast feet, I expect her to transition into a predictable lounge or squat combo. Instead, she jumps, throwing her hands up in the air, eyes closed, shaking her body and head in a maniacal way that wouldn’t fit half bad in a Flashdance remake.

I cross my arms over my chest and lean against the doorframe, enjoying the show. With all the moving and spinning, I can’t get a proper look at the woman’s features—only guess that she must be beautiful.

The dance exhibition continues for a few more minutes until the woman turns toward me with her eyes open and freezes in place. And, hell… I’m struck by a bullet to the chest as her electric blue eyes meet mine. A deep color, but so bright it’s staggering against her thick black lashes.

She’s quick to recover, though. She takes me in with a not-so-subtle once over and, in a second, her charged gaze shifts from shocked to hostile.

Yep, beautiful. No, not friendly.

She removes the headphones from her head and unceremoniously drops them onto the desk. Uninvited guests usually have to pay a ticket for the show, she says.

Not exactly the opening I’d expected. Beautiful and feisty. Pity she’s a little too young for me. With her cheeks all red and puffed up from the workout, she looks barely old enough to order a drink.

Is this a regular gig, then? I make an attempt at a light rebuke, but seeing how she remains unmoved, I change tactics. Sorry to intrude. I flash her a grin, one that I’ve been told leaves no prisoners. I wasn’t sure how to grab your attention over the music and the dancing.

What can I do for you? she asks flatly.

I’m here to see Blake Avery, I say candidly, entering the office properly. Do you know where I may find him?

Her eyes narrow. She’s about to reply, when the missing secretary—presumably returning from a juice break too many—barges into the office out of breath, panting, I’m sorry, Miss Avery, I left my post only for a second; reception didn’t warn me someone was coming up to see—

The pathetic excuse-giving is silenced by a raised hand from Angry Blue Eyes. It’s okay, Tilly, I can handle this myself. Please close the door on your way out.

Confident despite her young age. I like it.

The secretary backtracks, leaving the two of us alone in the office.

You’re an Avery, I accuse, some of my indignation coming