Confronted (Beauty And The Billionaire Geek Book 1) (2 page)

“What are you doing? You shouldn’t be lifting it that way. You’ll never have the correct angle to achieve the leverage required for the dimensions of the frame. Haven’t you ever hung a photograph before?” The building maintenance workers looked at me sheepishly and agreed with my every word. I bent to inspect the bottom corner of the black frame. It hadn’t been damaged.

“Tilt it backwards as you climb the ladder next time. I paid a hundred thousand dollars for this photograph.” They yes sir’ed me and when back to their jobs. People didn’t think before they acted. It was one of the greatest weaknesses of the human race. I should know.

I watched them as they proceeded to hang the photograph correctly. I’d chosen the perfect spot at the end of my bedroom, near a sitting area with brown leather couches. I would be able to see it from my stately mahogany four-poster bed as I rose in the morning.

That was exactly where she belonged, under my watchful eye, naked. Examining the line of her thigh as it curved into her hip, I found myself inadvertently aroused.

The two men in white smocks fussed with the frame as I turned through the doorway into my office. Computer monitors covered the far wall over my long, steel desk.  My cat Spock rose and stretched, not as spry as he’d once been.

My entire penthouse had an outer wall of glass. I could see downtown from one room, Mount Rainier from another, and Puget Sound from a third. I never would have imagined living in a place like this the last time I’d spoken to Zoe. My financial rise had been swift and unexpected, much like our breakup. 

I moved across the room and hit a button on a keyboard, and the room filled with the hard pulsing rhythm of techno thrash music. I slipped into my chair and with a few mouse clicks, I brought up Zoe’s entire portfolio over the last several years.

Her photographs filled my computer screens in scenes of her depicting everything from an innocent girl in a pink dress with frilly white lace and knee-high  stockings to a dominatrix dressed in a red latex cat suit, wielding a whip.

My dick pushed against my tuxedo pants calling for attention. Zooming in on one of the newest images, I examined her perfect round breasts. Her dark pink nipple pointed up, as sharp as an icepick. I could see her skin prickled with cold as she lay with her legs spread, her hand covering her slit.

She’d gained weight since I’d seen her last. Five years ago, she had been a tiny eighteen-year-old girl fresh out of high school. Five years had rounded her into womanhood. It definitely appealed to me.

Music pulsed, and the throbbing in my cock drew my attention as someone knocked at the door. I frowned. The movers. I’d forgotten about them. Turning down the music, I clicked away from her portfolio. My screens showed lines of code, tracking programs, and other applications that would be unintelligible to the average person. I had a thought and began typing code into the black screen.

“Yes?” I shouted without turning my head.

“We’re finished, Mr. Black.”

“Good,” was all I said. I could hear them talking, but I was done engaging with them for the night. I continued typing. Someone cleared his throat. Why weren’t they gone? I scowled and thrust out of the chair, shoving my hand into my pocket. Spock meowed and trotted through the door.

I crossed the room and slapped a fifty-dollar bill into each of their hands then raised my eyebrows at them. They took the money and skulked out of my house. At least, I think they left. I didn’t show them out.

I went back to my desk, brought her photographs up again, and stared at the way her body had filled out, analyzing each nuance and curve. I liked it. I liked it a lot.

There wasn’t any reason I couldn’t see her in person again. Why shouldn’t I get to see her? I clicked onto a picture that showed a full-frontal  shot with her legs open. Her body had been shaved, and her strawberry-blond hair tumbled around her shoulders.

I remembered what it was like to lick her there. I stared at her picture and unzipped my pants. I needed to see her again. I would see her again. No matter how many women threw themselves at me now, there would never be another Zoe. It would always be her. 

I’d known she would be at the benefit auction. Marcus liked to bring his models with him to those types of functions. It did present a kind of image when he was seen publicly with such beautiful women. Zoe hadn’t come last year. He’d used a different model.

When I’d seen her tonight, I half expected her to walk right up to me and start a conversation. I thought maybe we’d have sex in the limo on the way back to my apartment. When she barely made eye contact with me, I realized that perhaps there were still issues between us that I had not accounted for.

I stared at the line of Zoe’s shaved slit. I licked my lips then frowned, rising from my chair to the bar at the back of the room. I poured myself a shot of top shelf vodka with cranberry juice on ice, took a long swig, and slammed the glass down on the counter.

My cock still stood at attention, itching inside my tuxedo pants to be abused. I walked into the bedroom, sat at the end of my bed, and kicked off my shoes. They fell with a thud on the highly polished black hardwood floors. I slipped out of the rest of my clothes and stood naked in the middle of the room.

Zoe wasn’t the only one who had changed physically. Being a billionaire afforded me a great many things. Two years ago, I’d started working out in my private gym every day for an hour before lunch and an hour before bed. I’d been able to sculpt and tone myself into the kind of guy who used to beat me up in high school.

My shoulders and arms rippled with taunt musculature. My pectorals rose over my heart and curved downward into my defined abdominal muscles, pointing toward my towering, erect cock. Even my face had lost its youthful roundness. It had been replaced with a well-defined square jaw and chiseled cheekbones.

I rubbed my hand down my abs, enjoying the sensation of hard muscle as my hand sank down to grip my throbbing dick.  I leaned against the wall next to Zoe’s photograph.

My hand moved slowly, enjoying the buildup of sensation. I closed my eyes and memories of Zoe swam in my mind. The swirl of her dress, her hair in the rain, the feeling of her hand on my shoulder when I worked.

When I opened my eyes, they fell on the photograph of her exposed skin, her tight nipples, and her passive half smile. Tension mounted inside my loins as I pumped my hand more swiftly.

In my mind’s eye, I sank inside her and watched the light in her eyes as she whispered my name.

If humiliation could kill a person, I’d be dead. The idea of Billy having my nude photograph made me want to absolutely die. Guilt and shame choked my throat, and I had to suck back vomit twice in the taxi ride home.

I stumbled from the cab and climbed the steps of my building until I made it to my second-floor apartment. Fumbling with the keys, I finally found the right one, slid it into the lock, and turned. Inside, I flipped on the lights and collapsed on my pale floral print couch.

After five years, this was how he saw me again? I rubbed my hand over my face. Drunkenness numbed my body. I moaned, “Why,” and hit the couch with a whimper.

I’d never planned to be at this modeling thing for so long. Definitely not for five years and still sharing a two-bedroom apartment with Stacy on Capitol Hill. I lay down on the couch and curled up in a fetal position, which was not particularly easy in a tight ass designer gown and heels.

I knew what he must think of me, still getting naked after all this time. What did I have to show for it? Thousands of nude pictures of myself everywhere from book covers to catalogs to Internet websites. I had no degree and no prospects other than getting naked for another decade. What a disaster.

I stared at the entertainment center and eighteen-inch  flat screen that I’d bought back in the beginning of my modeling career when I thought money would flow into my hands forever. At least I still had some furniture. I hadn’t had to sell all of it. Cash, on the other hand, I did not have. I’d been so naive.

Stacy and I lived in an older building, but the interiors had been upgraded right before we moved in five years ago. Apartments like these were economical, utilitarian, and inexpensive for Seattle. The appliances in the galley kitchen near the entrance still seemed fairly new, but the white carpet that covered the entire apartment had started to look dingy.

I lifted myself from the couch and tugged at the zipper on my dress, until it fell to the floor. I took a big breath and let it back out again now that my breasts were liberated from the dress. I kicked off my shoes and sighed in relief.

Nude except for a g-string, I staggered to my bed and climbed under the sheets. Stacy would be pissed that I left my clothes on the floor, but I couldn’t make myself get up to put them away.

My eyes fluttered as I looked at the popcorn ceiling. The ceilings were obviously a detail that had been left out of the remodel. I hated them every time I looked at them. I wondered what kind of ceiling Billy had. Crap. William Black
the billionaire
.

I couldn’t believe it. I mean, of course I could believe it. His rise to fame had been well documented in all the local and national papers. They wrote about William Black as far away as Australia and Hong Kong.

I never understood how Billy had created OpenPortal. I don’t think I even really understood Billy at all. No matter how close we had been, no matter how much time we spent together, he had always been beyond me, in some little world of his own.

Memories of the dark basement room where he used to live flashed through my mind. It always smelled faintly of mold and cat down there. When he wasn’t hunched over his computer writing code or playing video games, we would lie in his little bed and hold each other or make love for hours. I fell asleep remembering the sound of Billy’s voice as he whispered in the crook of my neck, under the warmth of his covers.

I woke to the sound of the door closing and Stacy’s heels clicking on the linoleum floor in the kitchen. Pulling myself out of bed, I wiped my eyes and slung on a red silk robe with a print of cherry blossoms across the fabric.

Trudging down the hall, I leaned against the doorframe that led into the living room. Stacy flipped the switch on the coffee maker and boiling water gurgled through the filter into the pot.

“Morning,” I said, groaning. She swung around and blinked at me with a wide smile on her baby-doll  face. Her hair was tousled but otherwise, she looked fantastic, the complete opposite of how I must have looked this morning. 

“Morning!” she sang, pulling a coffee cup from the cabinet.

“Good night? How did it go with that stockbroker?”

“Oh, Zoe. It was absolutely magical! He took me back to his place. He had a condo in Queen Anne with the most fantastic view. The things he did to me…”

“That’s fine. I don’t need to know the details.” Usually, I’d be up for a story about one of Stacy’s conquests but this morning the idea just grossed me out. I felt a vile pit in my stomach as if I might hurl at any moment.

She smirked and crossed the room with a cup of coffee that she thrust into my hands. I took it and scuttled toward the couch to sit down. She still had on the sparkly mini dress and her silver fuck-me-pumps from the night before. That must have been one hell of a walk of shame.

I pulled my bare feet underneath me and nursed my coffee. Stacy sang an annoying, old country song in the kitchen, and I turned to watch her walk down the hall. A few moments later, the sound of water on porcelain came from the bathroom.

Leaning against the arm of the couch, I pouted to myself. I usually didn’t pout - not my style - but today, I would allow myself a good long pout. I’d never wanted to bear the humiliation of ever seeing William Black again. Too much had transpired between us for a meeting to be anything but deeply painful.

I slid the coffee cup onto the table and curled up on the couch, hugging my knees. I hadn’t been this depressed since the fallout of my last relationship, six months ago.

My ex-fiancé, Andy, had been one of Marcus’s clients when we met. I’d been hired to pose with a handful of other models for a series of images and a short commercial to promote the nightclub he managed for his uncle in downtown Seattle.

At that point, my career had been on high octane. I’d stashed away over a hundred thousand dollars in cash from the big campaigns I’d worked over the years. That was all gone now.

I heard the bathroom door creak open, so I peeled myself off the couch and slipped into the steamy, warm room. After my shower, I felt a thousand times better. At least, I felt clean. That was a start. I wrapped myself in my robe and went to my room with a towel piled on my head.

In the drawers of my dresser, I found a pair of faded blue jeans, a black camisole. I slipped my feet into a pair of sandals and tied my still wet strawberry-blond hair into a tight bun on top of my head.

Across the hall in the bathroom, I applied moisturizer, a light dusting of bronzer, and peach lip-gloss. I didn’t look quite like hell frozen over after the shower, and I didn’t feel quite so vulnerable.

So what if he had my photo? My photos were all over the Internet anyway.

After I finished drying my long tresses, I went back to my bedroom and picked up my cell phone to check my messages. I had the slightest tinge of a feeling that he would have called, but I admonished myself for having such a ridiculous idea. I did, however, have a call from my agent, saying I had a booking request for a fine art shoot at a studio in Pioneer Square.