King of New York (28 page)

“Of course I
understand, go, go.”

“Thanks, dude,”
James says as he hugs Chad and quickly exits the bar and gets into a BMW convertible.

Chad is left feeling
dejected, but he understands that his friend has to attend to matters of
business. He leaves their unfinished drinks and leaves a tip of a hundred
dollars before he too exits the bar into his waiting Bentley.

He’s driven to
the home of New York’s most notorious socialite. “Take a break,” he says to the
driver and hands him a pile of cash. “Get something for your wife and child. I’ll
call you when I’m ready to leave.”

“Thank you very
much, boss,” replies the driver before driving away.

Chad looks
warily at the stairs that lead to his female companion’s house. He wipes the
sweat off his brow and sighs deeply.

“What am I doing
here?” he says to himself, feeling a deep sense of doubt. However he continues
slowly up the stairs and rings the doorbell.

A blonde woman
with grey eyes, dressed in silk lingerie, opens the door. She has a seductive
smile on her face.

“Please, come in
Mr Perry. Oh, how I’ve missed you,” she whispers.

He smiles
awkwardly. “No need to miss me when I haven’t missed you,” he replies coldly.

She seems hurt
by his words but brushes it off, “Always hard to please, Mr Perry. I see you
haven’t changed a bit.”

“I guess not,”
he adds nonchalantly, as he quietly follows her into her home.

“Would you like
a drink, handsome?”

“Yes, please.”

“And what would
the most handsome man in New York like to drink?”

“Just pour me a
glass of cognac,” he requests icily.

“You know,
you’re far too sexy when your moody, Mr Perry. Quite frankly it turns me on.”

He laughs
quietly. “What turns you on? The fact that I don’t like you or the fact that I
only want you because of your body? But you still allow me. Why?”

“What sort of
question is that, Mr Perry?”

“Perhaps you didn’t
hear me. Let me repeat myself. I asked why is it that all you women, except
one, that I have been with, regardless of your beauty and brains, allow a man
like me to just want you for one thing, and one thing only? Why don’t you
demand more from men like me? Why don’t you tell me that if I can’t provide
what you want then you want no part of me?”

She doesn’t seem
fazed by his questions; instead, she asks him a question of her own.

“The only
question that needs to be asked is why do you come running to women like me
when your world comes crumbling down? Perhaps it is you who shouldn’t come to
us, when you know that we will not give you what you want. Am I right or wrong,
Mr Perry?”

Her question
strikes deep in his heart and his eyes darken with anguish as he looks down
into the glass of brown liquor. He laughs heartily in order to mask the pain of
her question. “Well I guess that’s enough questions for today,” he replies,
with a degree of sadness in his voice.

He gets up and walks
towards the lady in front of him. The glass of cognac is still in his hand. He
takes a sip, closes his eyes and savours its taste. All he can think of is that
he wants to be inside her, to hold her and for her, through her sex, to
momentarily make his pain of being alone and away from Sierra disappear. Even
though he is surrounded by people on a daily basis, he still feels empty and
deserted. It is a harrowing ordeal for him to know that he is in the midst of
everyone, yet he feels he is alone in New York. He feels lost within Sierra’s
world, and like he can’t be found as she has no way of finding him and leading
him back to sanity.

Because Sierra
is not around, he feels the need to be within another woman’s world, even
though he knows that the thought of being in another woman’s world is vague and
tarnished. He pushes the thought aside and goes with the flow of the moment as
his female companion smiles seductively at him.

“Why so sad,
baby? Don’t be shy,” she whispers to him.

He doesn’t know
what to say, so he says nothing. Instead, he awkwardly smiles his lovely smile
at her.

“I love when you
smile; it brings out the blue in your eyes.”

“Thank you,” he
says, quietly.

“Follow me,
darling,” she says softly.

He follows her,
almost reluctantly, to her bedroom. Her touch is soft and warm. He grips her
hand tighter.

Thank you for
being my companion for today,” he whispers. She turns around and smiles lovingly
at him.

“Anything for
you, Mr Perry.”

He gently kisses
her hand.

“Is it work that’s
causing you stress, baby?” she asks in a soft voice.

“Umm, yes, yes,
it is work,” he lies.

“Well don’t
worry about work today, darling. I’m going to do things to you that will make
you feel as if work never even existed. The only work you will be doing tonight
is the work that my body tells you to, and I can guarantee you that it will be
the most pleasurable and rewarding work you will have undertaken in a very long
time.”

He laughs. “Is
that so?” he says.

“Oh yes it is,
Mr Perry,” she whispers.

A little smile
creeps across his face as he thinks about the things he’ll do to her body when
they are both naked on her bed.

He winks
seductively at her. “Well I can’t wait for my new job to begin as I’ve been
extremely uninterested in my previous role and would like to start a new role
with your body as my director.”

He walks towards
her bedroom window. The view of the city is almost eerie and a feeling of
emptiness creeps inside his mind. He hears his female companion get off the bed
and walk towards him

He listens
attentively as she whispers erotic words to him. He feels his body getting hot
from the words that she’s saying to him. He feels the blood rush to his manhood
and he groans quietly as she continues to whisper to him.

“Do you want me
to do the things I just said to you, baby?” she says softly.

He turns around
and grabs her neck before whispering something in her ear. She moans loudly.

“Shh, don’t be a
bad girl, or else I’ll have to punish you,” he says slowly. She whimpers as he
pulls at her neck and breathes ever so softly near her mouth. She closes her
eyes and he sees that she desperately craves his kiss.

“Please kiss me,
darling,” she whispers.

He looks at her
inviting lips; shaped in a sexy pout, she pushes forwards to his mouth. He
closes his eyes and breathes deeply. He does not kiss her. She whimpers in
disappointment.

He lifts her and
carries her towards the door. He pins her hands to the door and places
passionate hot kisses on her neck. She moans, begging him not to stop.

“Please continue,
baby, don’t stop,” she says softly.

He stops. She
opens her eyes and he sees a deep longing within them.

“Please don’t
stop, I need you, Chad.”

His heart pains
him because he truly feels sympathy for her.

“I am sorry,” he
says, as he places a soft kiss on her forehead. “I can’t do this.”

“What the
matter, darling?” she asks, with hurt in her voice. “Am I not attractive enough
for you? What’s the problem?” Her voice is filled with sadness and it makes him
feel bad. He takes her hands in his and softly kisses them.

“You are more
than beautiful; you are stunning, and any man would be lucky to have you,” he
says to her. “But I am not such a man. And I don’t want to use you tonight; you’re
worth much more than that. And anyway, I love someone else.”

“Wow, so you
finally found love. Well, that’s something I never thought I would live to
hear.” They both laugh awkwardly. “But I am truly happy for you, Chad.”

He gently kisses
her lips and walks out of the room, into the living room and out of her home.

He doesn’t
bother to call his driver, but hails a yellow taxi and goes back to his home.

CHAPTER 19

A few days
after she left him, unable to keep thoughts of Sierra to himself, Chad flies to
California in his private jet to see Dr Ninn.

Dr Ninn is Chad’s psychologist.
He has known the billionaire since around the time he’d made his first million.
Chad had approached the psychologist after his university friend, James, had
spoken highly of him. While engaging in an emotional recollection of his
childhood on their first ever meeting, Dr Ninn had struck a chord that shed a
bright light on Chad’s childhood demons. The young Chad had always felt that it
was his fault that his father left, but Dr Ninn had made it clear it wasn’t,
with five simple words: “You were only a child.” It was at that moment that
Chad almost conquered his demons. So he always made it a priority to visit Dr
Ninn in times of trouble, when his own intellect failed the mechanisms of his
mind.

It was during
his undergraduate studies at Harvard that they first met. Before Chad left
Cambridge, Massachusetts, for the holidays in search of solace, he’d suffered
from a severe bout of depression and was forced to seek medical help. When he
went to his doctor, she referred him to the same psychologist that his friend
James had previously mentioned. His name was Alberto de Stefano Ninn, BSc, MSc,
PhD Psychiatric Medicine, MD and other various accolades. Chad was finally
persuaded to go and see him with two outstanding references.

At their first
session, Chad had expressed the effects his childhood trauma had on the way he
interacted with others. Dr Ninn had asked him pointedly: “What’s your problem
so far as you understand it?”

“I sometimes
feel life tricky and rough, with me having a feeling of inadequacy. This makes
me feel insecure inside about how others might perceive me, then angry and
confused outside when dealing with people.

“I guess that’s
because you are looking at things from a complicated perspective – sort of
making mountains out of molehills, seeing demons in every nook and cranny …”

“I think so. I
bear a complex ambivalent attitude within me that sometimes creates fearful
demons in my mind. One moment I may be feeling happy and eager to do something,
the next I feel worried and listless. I feel like I’m drowning.”

“Do you drink?”

“A glass of
cognac once in a while.”

“Drugs?”

“No.”

“Problems with
love or with a lover?”

“Love and
relationship is not for a man like me, Doc.”

“In this case, I
suggest that a profound change in your attitude towards the situations that
confront you can help change your inner reality. You should know that only a
positive attitude towards life’s situations creates joy, hope and faith in you
even when you face difficulties or temporary setbacks.”

“I know Doc, but
it’s not with setbacks or difficulties that I have a problem. It’s with the
wealth that I am slowly but surely accumulating.”

“Why would you
have a problem with accumulating wealth, Mr Perry?”

“Because I may
not be accumulating it in the right way.”

“How do you mean?”

“Never mind, Doc,
I don’t want to speak about it any further,” Chad said languidly, “but I simply
feel indifferent and lack the willpower to pull myself out.”

Dr Ninn listened
sympathetically as Chad continued.

“I know I really
need to refresh my views, change opinions that are prejudicial or unfounded, reshape
my world view maybe, re-examine my insights, maybe ultimately even change my
whole location entirely …”

“What’s stopping
you?”

“Money, and the
desire to be king. I had a difficult childhood that kind of made me feel
determined inside to accumulate wealth in whichever way I find available. I
guess my poor, deprived childhood is still troubling me.”

“I guess you
tend to meditate on just the unpleasant memories?”

“Exactly so; I
feed poisonously on them to the extent that they make me sick.”

“Why not try a
vacation where you pursue new interests? That could help ease the stress in
you?”

“I guess so. But
I’m not a people person. However I might contemplate flying out of the
country.”

“Within such a
refreshing process, which sometimes is long and painful, you might discover old
and unpleasant elements in your life that might corrupt your interpretation of your
present self –”

“Like my mother
when she was drunk allowing my father to physically and verbally abuse me and
call me a bastard?”

“Something along
those lines. But, may I ask, after all this time, why can’t you let go of the
past?”

“I don’t know …”

“Can you explain
why you can’t stop yourself from constantly blocking your vision with
unpleasant memories?”

“Because their
lack of love for me has turned me into this cold and loveless character …”