Page 3
“I want to take him on a trip,” she says quickly. “An educational trip. ”
Okay, this may have some merit. I take Gabe a lot of places because I want him to be educated and well traveled. “Where?”
She pauses, silently hemming and hawing, and my suspicion that she’s going to play me goes on full-scale alert.
“Where?” I ask again, this time with anger saturating my voice.
“The Galapagos Islands,” she blurts out.
“You got to be f**king kidding me?” I snarl at her.
“No, I’m not f**king kidding you,” she snarls back. “They have a lot of wildlife there for him to see… these huge tortoises. ”
True enough. But everyone that has ever heard of the Galapagos knows they’re famous for those monstrous beasts.
“And let me guess… you’re not going alone?”
“Well, no. I would take Anthony with me. It’s not safe for Gabe and me to travel halfway around the world on our own. ”
Of course she would. Anthony was her new, twenty-year-old boyfriend that I had the extreme displeasure of meeting last weekend when I dropped Gabe off. He was laying on her couch in a pair of boxer shorts with a beer in one hand and the remote control in the other. Marissa smirked at me when she saw me narrow my eyes at him. She’s just vain enough to think I’m jealous, but I was pissed a half-naked jackass was in her home when I was dropping my son off.
“What the f**k?” I had leaned in and hissed at her. “Get your f**king boyfriend dressed. ”
She blinked at me innocently and shrugged her shoulders. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t sure what time you’d be by. ”
Fucking bitch. I dropped Gabe off every Sunday evening I had him at seven PM. She knew exactly when I’d be there.
Focusing once more on Number 3498’s beautiful eyes staring calmly at me from the computer screen, I take a deep breath and let it out.
“One last guess,” I say with sarcasm. “You have a luxury resort probably already picked out. ”
She misses the sarcasm. “Why, yes I do. Would you like me to send you the link so you could see it?”
I blow up. “No I don’t want to f**king see it. I’m not paying for you and your f**k toy to go on a vacation. ”
“It’s an educational trip,” she huffs into the phone, and I don’t even have it in me to argue. I press the “end” button on my phone, and blissful silence soothes me.
She calls back, of course, but I ignore it. I’m assured that Gabe is fine, and this was just another extortion call from her that I quickly shut down.
Shutting my phone off, I turn back to my computer and read Number 3498’s stats. ONO lets you be as anonymous or open as you want. Number 3498’s profile is skimpy, but then, so is mine. It just says she’s originally from Nashville, has graduate education, and is only interested in vanilla.
Which works for me. I can take or leave the kink.
I look at her just a moment more, and f**k yeah… her eyes are captivating me. I’m going for it.
I click on the button that says “Send a Message” and type, Tomorrow, 7PM, Sullivan’s on Upper East Side. Wear red and wait at the bar for me? ~ Mike
I don’t even hesitate before I hit “Send”. I’m not the type that wants to enter into any frivolous discussion to see if we’re compatible. She’s hot—I want to f**k her—end of story. She either does or she doesn’t and if she doesn’t, my wish list is stocked full of other women.
Picking the deposition transcript up from my desk, I get back to work, telling myself that I’m not allowed to leave until I finish reading it. But I still can’t concentrate for shit, because now I’m suddenly anxious to get a reply from Number 3498. I keep glancing at my computer screen, waiting and waiting.
I play this stupid game… read a few lines of testimony, look to the computer. I keep on playing it over the next hour, and just as I’m about to give up and log out of ONO’s website, a message pops up in my inbox.
From her.
I can’t believe how f**king giddy I feel… how my heart is racing.
I click on the message and open it up.
It has just two words.
Yes. ~ Stella
Nope. Can’t help it. I pull my arm back in a fist pump of victory, and then push back from my desk, my chair rolling a good three feet back until it bumps into the plate-glass window that overlooks Manhattan. Raising both arms up, I savor the feeling of this win.
I just know… something different is going to happen with this woman tomorrow, and I’ll be out of my rut for good.
My phone rings, and my moment of sweet victory is over. I see it’s Lorraine Cummings calling, and I answer it with a sigh. She’s an attorney that has a decent caseload—mostly business law—but she sucks donkey dick when it comes to her own business practices and she’s getting ready to go under. I made an offer to buy her firm out, and I assume she has an answer for me.
“Hello, Lorraine. Have an answer for me?”
“I do,” she says breathlessly. “Would you like to get together for dinner to discuss it?”
“It’s either a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer,” I tell her, not unkindly, but not offering any room to argue.
“Of course,” she says hastily. “I mean… yes, the answer is yes. ”
“Good. Then I’ll see you and your associate attorney… What did you say her name was?”
“McKayla Dawson. ”
“That’s right. See you both on Monday… eight AM sharp. And don’t be late. ”
“We won’t be, and I just wanted to take this opportunity—”
“I’m sorry, Lorraine… I have a meeting getting ready to start and can’t chat. See you on Monday. ”
I disconnect, not feeling an ounce of remorse over the abrupt way I ended the conversation. Lorraine Cummings is a pain in the ass, but she’s going to be my pain in the ass starting Monday. In exchange for buying her cases at a discounted price, I’ve agreed to take her on as an employee, along with her associate attorney.
She approached Bill and me a few weeks ago with an offer to sell her firm, which included a nice asset load of several business litigation cases and one, potentially big, personal injury case. That case was a little shaky, and she didn’t know the exact details other than a brain injury was involved, but that was enough to perk my ears up. The only caveat was the case would only come with her associate attorney… this McKayla Dawson she just mentioned. Frankly, I had forgotten about that, but I wasn’t worried. I had plenty of work to do and could keep her busy, and it would be a small price to pay to latch on to a brain injury case. Worst-case scenario, I could keep her on here at the firm until the case was concluded, and then cut her loose. I’d give her a nice bonus, though, if the case settled well.
We made a fair offer to buy Lorraine out, and she said she wanted to think about it for a few days. She wasn’t fooling me… she wasn’t thinking about it at all. She had decided to accept it the minute I threw the number at her, but she wanted me to think she had other options. She wanted to try and negotiate.
Thus the reason she suggested dinner tonight. She wanted to make a counter offer, plus she wanted to flirt some more with me to see if I’d take the bait.
The answer to dinner was an unequivocal “no”. She either accepted my offer or didn’t, and I wasn’t going to miss a minute of sleep if she didn’t. I also wasn’t going to be overly excited if she did. It was just a way to continue growing my empire.
Just business.
It was also a “no” because I didn’t have it in me to suffer her breathy sighs and the way she would lick her lips when talking to me. She comes on way too obvious, and yet really doesn’t have the guts to make a move on me. I mean, if she would just walk up, palm my dick, and massage me to life, I probably wouldn’t say no.
Who would? She’s pretty hot, a little bit older, but attractive all the same.
But no… she doesn’t have the metaphorical balls to do it, and I like my women a little more strong in their base urges. I like a woman who goes after what she wants.
Like Number 3498. Her simple “yes” was the one answer I got tonight that has me smiling.
It’s a lecherous one, but I’m smiling all the same.
Tomorrow cannot get here fast enough.
Chapter 3
I hit Sullivan’s at six PM, a full hour before Stella is due to arrive. I wanted to have a drink, relax, and think about what I could do to her this evening. I also wanted to watch her walk in.
I can tell a lot by the way a woman walks. The way she holds her head, her shoulders. Does she look around the room or at the floor? Do her arms swing naturally or does she hold them stiff at her sides?
Body language. I’ve been reading it for years on jurors, and I do it with people all the time. You can’t trust half of what comes out of people’s lips anyway, so I rely a lot on evaluating their movements to get the full story.
I order a Jameson neat and sip at it while checking out the patrons. There’s a dark-haired woman at the bar that makes eye contact with me. For a moment, I think it might be Stella, because of her bold gaze, but I immediately realize she’s not wearing red and it doesn’t look like there’s much else upstairs to compete with it. I don’t see the intelligence in those eyes that originally caught my attention and immediately know it’s not Stella. I don’t return the woman’s look and brush my gaze past her, making sure I don’t make eye contact with her again.
At six thirty on the dot, my breath catches as I watch her walk in. She wore red… as I demanded, and I knew it would look f**king fantastic on her. The dress is practically painted on to a slamming body with the hem just hitting at mid-thigh and the low cut plumping her br**sts up and over the top. It’s sexy as sin, but not slutty. She has on fire engine-red lipstick to match it, a color I hated on Marissa, but Stella wears it very well.
I hope to have that lipstick smudged all over my c**k later tonight.
I take a sip of my whiskey and watch her over the rim of the glass as she walks to the bar. She holds her head high, her gaze roaming the room. Luckily, she doesn’t look toward the corner where I’m seated, but she makes eye contact with anyone that deigns to look back at her. Her h*ps swing softly, but her shoulders are held back regally.
And those eyes… pale green loveliness sparking electric… filled with brilliance.
I peg her as a banker or a financier.
Tilting my glass back, I take the last swallow of Jameson and let it burn its way down my throat. She orders something from the bartender as I stand from the table and throw a twenty down. As I make my way over, I let my eyes roam down the long expanse of leg she has exposed, capped off by a pair of black heels that I wouldn’t mind being pressed into my shoulders later… if she can get her legs up that high.
“I’ll pay for that,” I say, just as the bartender sets a glass of white wine in front of her.
Stella turns slightly in her seat, her mouth poised open to say something. When she sees me, her eyes go wide with surprise and her mouth closes. She shamelessly runs her eyes down the length of me and when her gaze comes back up, they shine appreciatively over what she sees.
Turning to the bartender, I hand him my credit card and nod toward Stella’s wine. “And I’ll take another Jameson neat. ”
When I turn back to Stella, her lips are pursed in amusement. I stick my hand out with a genial smile. “Mike… Number 134 at your service. ”
She laughs at my introduction, and it sounds like the beauty of when you hear church bells tolling. She places her palm in mine, and I swear, a frisson of electricity courses through me from the contact. I can’t f**king help myself because of the overwhelming need to touch her skin with my lips. Pulling her hand up, I brush a light kiss over the back and love how the smile slides off her face a bit.