Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (78 page)

“Well, I’m not going to be bullied into
quitting or moving to a different department.
 
I’m staying on at this position.”

The older woman finally turned her gaze
to Nicole.
 
“Fine.
 
You want to work hard—you want to
earn your way in this business?
 
I’ll make sure you earn every last red cent we pay you with blood, sweat
and tears.”

Nicole smiled a little.
 
In her heart, she knew she was a
fighter.
 
None of these
people—except Red—truly understood that about her.
 
“Bring it on.”

“Can do, Miss Masters.
 
Can do, and will do.
 
Ta ta now.”
 
Remi wiggled her fingers at Nicole, and
the younger girl turned on her heel and left the office.

***

When Nicole returned home to her own
apartment that night, it was well after eight o’clock at night.
 
She and Red had gone out to dinner after
work, to a tiny little Thai Restaurant on the Upper West Side.
 

He’d wanted her to come back to his house
(their house) in Connecticut afterwards, but Nicole explained that first she
needed to speak to her old roommate.
 
Danielle may have been a jerk, and perhaps the friendship had run its
course, but Nicole didn’t feel right just disappearing without an explanation.

Red had been understanding of her wishes,
if disappointed.
 
“Have your
heart-to-heart with Danielle and then come back with me.
 
I can wait in the car.
 
I’m patient,” he’d told her.

But it just felt wrong to do that.
 
The changes taking place were massive,
and Nicole needed to try and take some control back of her life.
 
Setting things to rights with Danielle
was part of it.
 
Besides, there
would be plenty of nights to share her new home with Red, but this might be her
last night in her old apartment, her old life.

When Nicole opened the door, Danielle was
sitting on her laptop at the kitchen table.
 
She looked up and saw Nicole and her jaw
dropped open.
 
Danielle was so
surprised—she looked as if she were about to dispense Pez from her
mouth.
 
It was so comical that for a
brief moment, Nicole had to hold back a burst of laughter.
 

She didn’t want to start things off by
laughing in her former roommate’s face, not after everything else that had gone
on between them lately.

“I didn’t expect to see you tonight,”
Danielle said, quickly closing her laptop.
 
This made Nicole wonder exactly what she’d been doing—maybe
reading The Rag, or one of the Internet forums, trying to get the dirt about
Nicole and Red?
 
Surely all the
housewives would be saying how gross it was that Red had chosen to be with such
an ugly, plain girl when he could have had supermodels and actresses?

  
“Sorry I haven’t been in touch,”
Nicole said, dropping her purse on the kitchen counter and leaning against
it.
 

Danielle nodded.
 
“I understand.
 
You’ve been busy…”

“Listen,” Nicole said.
 
She took a deep breath, knowing she had
to just say it and get it over with.
 
“I came back tonight to talk to you about the apartment situation.”

“Okay.”
 
Danielle’s eyes narrowed.
 
“I didn’t realize there was a ‘situation’
to talk about.”

“Well, there kind of is.”
 
She was dreading this conversation so
much that she was having trouble getting the words out.
 
Finally she forced herself to pull the
trigger. “I’m moving out.”

Danielle’s expression didn’t really
change outwardly, and yet there was a subtle shift.
 
The set of her jaw tightened under the
surface of her skin, her eyes hardened.
 
“You’re moving out because I told your parents about Red?”

Nicole shook her head emphatically.
 
“No.
 
Not because of that.”

“Then why?
 
Have I been that bad of a roommate?
 
Am I messy, obnoxious, what is it?”

“I’m moving in with Red.
 
He proposed to me on Sunday and we’re
engaged.”
 
Just saying the words
felt so bizarre, and from the look on Danielle’s face, it sounded as bizarre to
her as it did to Nicole.

“Engaged.”
 

“Yes.
 
I know it sounds funny.”

“Funny?
 
Not the word I’d use.”
 
Danielle stood up and started to put her
hair into a ponytail.
 
“You’ve been
seeing him, what—a few weeks?”

“I’m not going to defend my choices to
you, Danielle.
 
I came here to tell
you I’m moving out, and to give you notice so you can find a new roommate.”

“You’re on the lease too, Nic.
 
You’re the one who’s got to find a
replacement.”

“Fine, I can do that.
 
Still, I thought—“

“You don’t owe me anything.
 
Go play housewives of the rich and famous
or whatever it is you’re doing with that guy.
 
I really don’t care.”
 
She smiled.
 
“No offense.”

“Danielle, please don’t be like
this.
 
I want us to stay friends.”

“Just be on time with the rent and find a
person to take your place on the lease.
 
I’d prefer it be a woman, and of course I’ll want to have a chance to
meet whoever it is first, just to make sure we can get along.”

Nicole sighed.
 
“Of course.”

Danielle finished putting her hair
back.
 
“How do I look?” she said,
throwing her arms wide.
 
“I wonder
if I look beautiful enough to land a rich man who will take care of me.”

“You look great, but you’re acting like a
six year old.”

Danielle smirked.
 
“So now you’re an adult.
 
Before Red came along, you were little
Miss Innocent.
 
You’d never even had
an orgasm, for god’s sake!”

“What does that have to do with
anything?”

“He’s just a guy, Nicole.
 
He’s a guy who gave you a great orgasm
and you’re mistaking that for love.
 
You can’t possibly be in love with a man you only just met, a man you
probably know almost nothing about.”

“You have no idea what I know about him,
or what we’ve done together,” Nicole said, but Danielle’s words hit
uncomfortably close to home.
 
Did
she really know Red well enough to make this kind of leap?
 
What if she was wrong about him?

“Maybe in three weeks you learned all
there is to know about a thirty-five year old, multi-billionaire who runs a
Fortune 500 company and has dated dozens and dozens of beautiful women,”
Danielle said.
 
“I’m sure you’ve got
Red Jameson all figured out.”

“I never said I had him all figured
out.
 
Why can’t you just be happy
for me?”

“I’d be happy for you if you were doing
something healthy, something ambitious and smart and empowering.
 
But all you’re doing is becoming another
cute girl trying to land a wealthy sugar daddy so you can live in a fantasy
world.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“In New York, girls like you are a dime a
dozen.”

“Thanks for sharing your insightful
opinions, Danielle.
 
I think I’ll go
to my room now.”
 
Nicole walked to
her room.
 
As she closed the door,
she heard Danielle shout a last parting insult.

“Don’t come crying to me when he lets you
down, Nicole!
 
Because I won’t be
here for you!”

***

Later that night, her cell phone
rang.
 
She answered it quickly from
her bed, where she’d been dozing.
 
For some reason, she’d assumed it was Red and hadn’t bothered checking
the number before picking up.

“You never called me back,” the male
voice said.

It wasn’t red, but the voice was somehow
familiar.

“Do I know you?” Nicole asked.

A slight chuckle from the other end.
 
“Not as well as you might, but in time I
think we could become good friends.”

She sat up in bed, feeling nervous.
 
“Are you a stalker or something?”

Again, the laugh, this time even more
amused.
 
“Some might call me that,
but those are just the ones who complain because it makes them feel good to
play the victim.
 
And then when I’m
not around anymore, when I’ve lost interest and moved on, they call me and ask
me to come see them.
 
They always beg
me to see them in the end.”

“Listen, I don’t have time for this.
 
Please don’t call me again, whoever you
are—“

“You really don’t care that your fiancé
has had two previous engagements?” the man on the other end said, his voice
deep and smooth and somehow threatening without being obvious.

“You’re lying.
 
Who is this?
 
Tell me your name.”

“Anderson.”

The man who’d left that creepy voice
message earlier.
 

“Anderson who?”

“Have you ever seen Silence of the Lambs,
Nicole?” he asked.

She didn’t answer him.
 
Yes, she’d seen the movie, with Anthony
Hopkins and Jodi Foster.
 
Anthony
Hopkins was brilliant as the deranged serial killer, Hannibal Lector.
 
And come to think of it, this Anderson
creep actually sounded a bit like Lector from the movie.
 
“I’m not in the mood to play games,” she
told him.

He spoke as if she hadn’t said
anything.
 
“If you recall the film,
there is a running dialog between Clarice Starling, a young FBI agent trying to
track a murderer, and Hannibal Lector, an imprisoned therapist who has a
brilliant mind but is also a serial killer.
 
Clarice finds that in order to elicit
information from Dr. Lector, she must first provide information about the thing
that interests the mad doctor most.
 
Namely, her.”

“I don’t get your point, and to be honest—“

“Don’t say that,” Anderson chided
her.
 
“I’ve found that the ones who
say, ‘to be honest,’ are usually lying to my face.
 
It’s such a trite phrase, uttered
primarily by compulsive liars.”

“I don’t care whether or not you believe
me,” she replied.

“But you’re still on the line,” he
reminded her.
 
“So perhaps you do
care.”

She hung up on him.
 
She expected him to call back, and if he
had, she intended to put him through to voicemail.
 
But he never did call back, and now
Nicole was left wondering about his statements, wondering about who Anderson
was and how he’d gotten her cell number.

Another restless night of sleep, one of
many in the last month or so.
 

Every so often, she turned to look at the
time on her cell and found that only a few minutes had passed.
 
She started to doze around four-thirty
and then she still woke up at a quarter to six.

Nicole sat up in bed just as her phone
rang.
 
This time it really was
Red.
 
When she answered, she was
struck by how chipper and awake he sounded.
 
No tossing and turning for
him—he’d probably slept on some enormous bed with temperature controlled
settings to cool his pillow off when he needed it.

“Beautiful,” he said, his deep voice
pleasant and alert.
 
“How are you?”

“Okay.
 
A little tired.”

“I missed you last night,” he said.
 
“You should have been here with me.”

“I miss you too,” she said, smiling
despite her exhaustion.
 

“I’m on my way to your apartment now,” he
told her.
 
“I should be there in
about half an hour.”

“Really?”
 
She jumped to her feet.
 
“I don’t have time to shower and dress.”

“Come on, you can do all that in thirty
minutes.
 
I get up, shower, shave
and put on my suit every day in like twenty minutes.”