Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (70 page)

His expression
darkened again.
 
“You don’t decide
what’s enough.”

“You said I
could tell you when I’d had enough.”

“Have you?”

“In this
instance.”

He made a face
of disgust.
 
“Just get out of my
office.”

It stung.
 
But she was angry now, too.
 
He wanted to keep rubbing her face in
shit and she wasn’t going to stand for it anymore.
 
“Fine, Red.
 
Have it your way.”
 
She turned and left, not looking back.

***

Nicole had
found a new resolve.
 
After
returning to her desk, she made a decision.
 
She wasn’t going to crack the way she
had before.
 
She wasn’t going to
give Red the satisfaction of seeing her go to pieces.
 

He wanted her
too.
 
She knew that now.

Being apart
would be as hard for him as it was for her.
 
She had to believe that.

So she went to
Remi’s office.
 
Remi was
concentrated on her computer.
 
She
looked up, dazed.
 
“Hey, Nicole.
 
What’s up?”

“Give me
work.
 
Give me as much as you can.”

“I thought you
were getting sick of dancing cowboy pictures.”

“No.
 
In fact, I’m kind of getting to like
them.”

Remi’s eyebrows
went up.
 
“Oh, no.
 
You must be sicker than I thought.
 
You’ve gone off the reservation.”

“Just give me
whatever you can.
 
I want to work
until I can’t see straight.”

Remi shrugged.
 
“I’ll show you a little Adobe and then
you can get going on some of these pictures I’m struggling with.
 
But I warn you—this won’t be
pretty.”

“I’m game.”

“Pull up a
chair.”

And she did.

Remi kept to
her word, first giving Nicole an Adobe tutorial and then emailing her dozens
and dozens of pictures to work on.

Nicole was at
the office until well after nine o’clock that night.
 
And she didn’t check her phone once.

When she got
home, Danielle wasn’t in.
 
She
didn’t much care, she was a zombie.
 
She fell into bed that night and slept a dreamless, deep sleep.
 

Her alarm woke
her at five the next morning and she got up promptly, showered, dressed, left
and caught the train, arriving at the office by six o’clock.

She was one of
the first people in.
 
She made the
first pot of coffee and got right to work.

That night, she
didn’t leave until eight.
 
When
Nicole returned home, Danielle was in her room with the door shut and loud
music blasting.
 
It sounded like
Blake Shelton.
 
He was singing how
god gave him someone for the ups and downs.

The weekend
came and went.
 
Nicole spent most of
it sleeping and recuperating in her room.
 
She and Danielle exchanged very few words, but at least they weren’t
arguing.
 
She didn’t have the energy
for more arguing.

Another night
of falling asleep when her head hit the pillow.
 
The alarm waking her after what seemed
like mere seconds.
 

Back to the
office, which now felt more like home then home did.

She kept busy,
didn’t allow herself time to think about Red or what (or who) he might be
doing.

Remi remarked
that she’d never in her life seen an intern pick up Adobe this fast, nor work
this hard.
 
She said it was a relief
to have some help on the cowboy ad.

Even Glen
noticed the change.
 
He blinked his
happiness every morning he came in and saw her already buzzing away.

***

One night,
perhaps two weeks later (she no longer kept track of the days, they all blended
together) she was at the neighborhood convenience store shopping for something
to eat.
 
She was staring at cans of
soup and wondering if it would be better to eat chicken noodle or chicken rice.

“This is no
place for a beautiful flower like you,” someone said from behind her.

She was going
to say something extremely rude without even turning to look at the man in
question.
 
And then she realized who
it was.
 
She continued staring at
the soup cans on the shelves, without really seeing them.
 
“What are you doing here?” she
whispered.

“I needed to be
with you.”

She wanted to
smile.
 
Her heart was dancing.
 
She hadn’t allowed herself to hope for
this moment, but now that it was here, she was beyond happy.
 
At the same time, she didn’t want to
give in so easily to him.
 
She
didn’t want Red to think he could treat her terribly and then she’d take him
back the second he decided he wanted to return.

“I’m very busy
shopping right now,” she said, picking up a can of tomato soup and examining
it.

“I can see
that,” he said.
 
And then,
insistently, “Look at me.”

She turned and
looked up at him.
 
He was staring at
her with longing, with fire, and she was struck once again by his physical
perfection.
 
He could have been a
movie star, she thought, if he’d wanted to be.
 
Any woman would pay any price to have
him, and yet here he was, with her.
 
In this dingy little convenience store.

“Okay, I’m
looking at you,” she said.

He was dressed
in a suit with a light trench coat because it had been raining off an on all
day.
 
She could smell the rain on
him even now.
 
“I’ve never felt this
way about someone,” he said.
 
“I
need you.”

She looked
away, unable to deal with the passion she was feeling.
 
If she kept looking at him, she wouldn’t
be able to stay strong.
 
“You can’t
just toy with me,” she said.
 

“I’m not toying
with you.”
 
He caressed her cheek,
and then his hand cupped her chin and tilted her face towards his.
 
“Look at me, beautiful.”

She met his
gaze once more and felt the tears sting her eyes.
 
“You were the one who threw me out of
your office.
 
You humiliated me,
laughed at me.
 
And then two weeks
of nothing.”

“I was
wrong.”
 
His eyes didn’t waver.
 
“I was…conflicted.”

“Conflicted
about what?
 
Why do you have to make
this so complicated?”

He shook his
head.
 
“I don’t know.”

“You’re the
most frustrating, ridiculous person I’ve ever met.”

“And so are
you,” he told her.
 

“So where does
that leave us?” she asked.

“I didn’t
expect to feel this way,” he said.
 

“How do you
feel?”

And then he
kissed her, while she held the can of tomato soup that she didn’t even
want.
 
His lips were firm and warm,
his hands held her face softly, slid around to the back of her neck, her
hair.
 
She’d never felt such passion
before, hadn’t imagined it even existed.

Finally they
broke off.
 
He smiled at her and she
laughed.

“This is
crazy,” she said.

“Let’s go back
to your place,” he replied.

She shook her
head.
 
“No way Jose.”

“Come on, it’ll
be fun.
 
I want to see how you
live.”
 
He grabbed her free hand and
started for the exit of the store.
 
The middle-aged Korean man who was working the register stared at them.

“Red,” she
squealed.
 
“We can’t!”

“I’ve done a
lot of things in my life,” Red told her.
 
“I built a multi-billion dollar business from scratch.
 
I’ve invested in startups that people
said would never amount to anything, and made money doing it.
 
I swam with the sharks near the Great
Barrier Reef.
 
I think I can make it
through a night at your second-story walkup.”

She
laughed.
 
“My roommate’s home.
 
I can’t.”

“Already met
her.”
 
He cocked his head.
 
“Come to think of it, she wasn’t
particularly friendly to me.”

Nicole stopped
dead in her tracks.
 
“Don’t joke
around like that.”

He smiled.
 
“I’m not joking.
 
I thought you’d be home so I knocked on
your apartment door.”

“You didn’t
buzz first?”

“Someone was
coming out of your building while I was waiting, so I just went in and knocked
like a true gentleman.
 
But the girl
who answered the door wasn’t very forthcoming.
 
She refused to tell me where you were.”

Nicole put her
hand to her forehead.
 
“Oh no.
 
No, no, no.”
 
She had a terrible feeling.

“Relax,” he
said.
 
“She’s harmless.
 
And luckily, I know that you have a
habit of shopping at this store on weekday evenings.”

“I really wish
you hadn’t gone to my apartment,” Nicole said.
 
“You’re famous—she definitely
recognized you.”

 
“We’re not doing anything illegal,” he
smiled.
  

He had a point,
Nicole thought.
 
Why was she being
so secretive about this relationship?
 
Partly because she wanted it to be just between them.
 
She didn’t want to always be answering
Danielle’s probing questions, defending her own actions.
 
But also because she sensed that
Danielle would judge her, would tell her that it was a mistake.
 
She would say that Red was only going to
hurt her.

“You’re right,”
she told him, trying to convince herself that she didn’t care what Danielle
knew.
 
“I don’t give a damn what
Danielle thinks.”

The Korean man
at the register was unabashedly watching their banter, his face a mask of
puzzlement.
 

Red
sighed.
 
“I think we can do
something more interesting than your apartment.
 
I’ve got a place in mind.”

“Where?”

“Trust me.”

 
“Fine.
 
I’m game.”
 
She put the can of soup down on the
counter by the register.
 
“I’m not
buying this,” she told the Korean man, who just stared.

Red walked her
outside.
 
The little bell chimed on
the door as they left.
 

His car was
parked across the street.
 
It was
still misty out, but the rain had mostly stopped.

“Your chariot
awaits,” he said, opening the passenger door of the car.
 
She slid into the seat.
 
The inside of the car smelled fresh, as
if it had only just been cleaned.
 
And it also smelled of his cologne, which she now associated with
pleasure, with passion.
 

He got in the
driver’s seat and they took off to an unknown destination together.

***

They drove for
a long time.
 
Nearly forty-five
minutes, and a lot of it on the highway.
 
She tried questioning him, but Red refused to say where they were
going.
 
At first, she’d been
convinced he was going to take her to that Club Dominion place, but obviously
not.

“Relax,” he
laughed, when she got frustrated with his refusal to tell her where they were
headed.
 
“The surprise is part of
it.”