Never Forgotten: Second Chances (4 page)

"That's what dreams do. We have no choice but to come when summoned."

"So now it's my fault. I summoned you."

He chuckled. "I don't even come every time you summon me."

"Your independent streak is amazing for a dream."

He reached out to put his hand on her hip. "Does that feel like a dream?"

The hand was tangible, arousing. "No."

He nodded in the direction of Thom. "Does he make you happy?"

She glanced over at the sleeping form, hearing his elegant snore. "No. He makes me less unhappy." She put her hand on his thigh, saw with pleasure that her touch aroused him. "No one makes me happy the way you did."

"So you summon me for your pleasure."

"If I knew how, I'd summon you to return."

"But who would you be summoning? Years have passed since you knew me. We can never return anywhere. Even a reunion is new. People can rekindle fires that have gone out, or try to make things work that once worked and the failed, or even never worked at all, but it's impossible to regain a lost moment, much less a lost love."

"Then I want you to fall in love with me again."

He smiled, his eyes shining in the dim light. He turned her on her side, facing away from him and lay down beside her. One arm snaked around her to fondle her breasts, and his stiff rod pressed against her. "But I never fell out of love with you."

"You disappeared."

"And you don't know what happened."

It was true. "I know I couldn't find you, and I wanted to die."

"But you didn't. You were strong." Megan lay on her side in her bed listening to her own breathing. With Thom sleeping in front of her, and Sal, the magician, behind her, her dream lover seemed more real than the man who had fucked her twice already. As she lay there, Sal raised her leg and brought his familiar hard cock to her cunt, working the large head of it between the lips of her pussy. She shifted her hips, wanting him. "Does he fuck you well?" His question came on hot breath by her ear.

"Yes. Differently, but well."

Then Sal throbbed inside her, stretching her cunt, filling her. She touched her pussy and let her fingers trail over the beautiful shaft that plunged into her. She sank back against him enjoying the hard chest and muscled shoulders that supported her. "Fuck me, Sal." It was a request and moan of pleasure. He rolled her onto her stomach, moving onto her back, pinning her to the mattress. He pressed his knees between her legs and grabbed her hips, raising her ass up in the air and taking her that way, with her face in the tangle of sheets, his body slamming into hers, that massive cock still stretching her, going deeper. She put a hand between her legs so that his balls touched her fingers as he fucked her with a growing fury.

Sal is fucking me.

It was only a dream, but suddenly she was coming, her body contracting around his swollen shaft, squeezing it, wanting to feel him come inside her. And then it happened... the flood of his seed rushed up inside her. She sagged on the bed, satisfied. Sal lay on her for a moment and then dissolved, leaving her to drift into a deep sleep.

* * * *

That Megan still kept the picture on her nightstand said everything a visitor might want to know about her relationship with the long lost Sal. In it, he faces the camera proudly, looking elegant in a suit and a red bow tie. Megan has her back to the camera and is captured in profile, her gaze focused on his handsome face. You can't see her gown, just a bare shoulder and her dark hair covers her ear. She has one hand on his shoulder, and their hands touch on his chest.

The photo was taken at a party. It was an upmarket affair, one of the first she'd gone to. The people she'd known and hung out with before she met Sal were into the casual partying you expect from young people. Sal moved in a different circle and introduced her to a world of elegance where formal dress and conversation held sway. She expected to find the atmosphere stuffy and stifling, but she found herself meeting people who took charge of their lives and believed in making things happen. While their opinions could be as foolish and narrow as anyone's, they were exciting. She learned to see the world in new ways. Sal introduced her to business people and professors. He made her feel at home with them, and soon she belonged in that world where she could use her intelligence as a tool to create a life more to her liking.

The truth was that Sal gave her direction. Until she met him, she had drifted aimlessly, pretending to pursue her MBA in order to keep her father paying her way through life a bit longer. Grad school was a distraction and little more.

Sal was a popular man on campus and a natural leader. His calm confidence and sheer competence made men follow him willingly, and his suave good looks made him a magnet for beautiful women. He told her he had an American mother, long dead, but his father was Italian. He had the look of a southern European and a gracious flair. Even more, he was achingly handsome.

At first, she stayed away from him, put off by what she saw as his arrogance. She knew that part of her reluctance to even talk to him came from her unwillingness to put herself in the middle of the crush of girls always vying for his attention. Although Megan was far more attractive than plain, at that point she cultivated an aversion to glamour. It all seemed superficial, even hypocritical. And the cluster of femininity that surrounded him, his seeming enjoyment of it, annoyed her. This self-imposed distancing didn't prevent her from watching him secretly, however. Resisting watching, and fantasizing about him, would have been impossible—far beyond her. She was reluctantly drawn to him. Even the way he walked was so powerfully masculine that when he passed her on campus it could make her forget where she was. She told herself she wouldn't like him, that they had nothing in common, and she recited the mantra that he must be incredibly shallow to be so popular.

When they finally met, it was Sal who approached her, moving directly, as with everything he did. He seemed to know her better, was more aware of her than she could have ever imagined. She was certain he'd seen her but didn't think he'd paid much attention. So when he crossed the quad and stopped in front of her, standing there looking at her, it came as a surprise. The sound of his voice, directed at her for the first time was unforgettable. "Megan Cross, you have avoided me for too long."

He'd stopped her on her way to the library where she intended to spend a free period untangling the essence of Arrow's Turnpike Theorem. The assignment was to determine if this idea from the 80s had any relevance to modern economic theory. She was drifting but she still did the work, and had developed something of a taste for the subject despite herself. So she had determine to do some reading and been halfway there when he'd stepped in front of her and made his accusation, offsetting it with a broad and irresistible smile that warmed her to the core.

"Not avoiding you, Sal," she said, saying his name to hear it on her own lips. "I've just avoided meeting you."

"Why?" The sincerity of his question caught her as off guard as his approach. "Am I so dreadful?"

"Hardly dreadful, but living in another world. Besides, you are too full. Your life is crowded."

He laughed. "That needs some explanation. I'd like to know what you mean, and I love the flowing of your voice. I don't care if you insult me."

She laughed, thinking she had no desire to insult him or to praise him. "I am a selfish person and unwilling to compete for attention. You have a horde of admirers already, and for me to attempt to get to know you, to avoid avoiding you, as it were, would put me in the middle of all that. I never deliberately join any horde, especially of admirers."

"Never?"

"Never. I'm not a fan of celebrity."

Her answer pleased him. His eyes danced, and then his mouth uttered one word:
perfect
.

The idea amused her. "Few, if any, answers are perfect." Still, it pleased her that she had responded to him without losing her poise.

He shook his head, and put his hand on her arm, turning her away from the library. '"Not your answer. You. You are perfect. Now I need to buy you lunch."

"You do?"

"Absolutely. I must. It's the most important thing in the world."

"To you perhaps." Her protest was weak—only words. The sensual undercurrent of his touch, its casual possession of her arm, on the other hand, held a power she'd never known before. She was impelled to move with him, and she worried that his touch was something she could easily become addicted to. She resented the way his casual manner overwhelmed her will to stand apart from him.

"To me? Yes. Of course, what else, who else, should I care about?"

His teasing made her bold. "Why me, of course."

He stopped and stared at her as if she'd surprised him, and he weighed her response. "Yes, yes." Then he moved her in the direction of lunch again. "Always. Perfection must be served, but she must also learn the price of that service."

His puzzled poetry confused her, but that didn't matter. The pounding of her pulse echoed in her head making it impossible to hear or think clearly. She knew with certainty that she was under some sort of spell, but whatever magic he used, it felt good, and as he talked she sensed that some new part of herself was emerging, erupting. Some hidden person was coming out of hiding.

Sal had called to this inner being, and when he teased it into the light, he nurtured it. That new person, this new side of herself surprised her a great deal, and she found she harbored hungers and passions she'd never acknowledged until Sal came along. Then, one by one, he began to show them to her, and then he satisfied them. He complemented her so completely she wondered how she'd survived before he spoke to her.

That day he exposed her emergent being, brought it out into the day, bought it lunch and fell in love with her as quickly as she did with him. The world around them faded into irrelevance. When she thought back to the day they met, she could never say exactly what happened or how they got from the cafeteria to his room and then his bed. But it happened, and she accepted it as more of his wonderful magic, even though he told her it was all her doing. He seemed to believe that and for all she knew it was true.

Even after she'd lost him, found herself aching for him, feeling his absence, his magic, and the memory of him lingered with no indication it would ever fade. Over the years, the years after Sal, the painful empty years and the years she'd tried to fill with new dreams, new love, the memory was stronger at some times and weaker at others, but Sal and what he'd meant were never forgotten. Not for a moment.

The next day Megan swung into action. Since doing nothing guaranteed failure, Megan sat herself down at her desk and made a list of people to call. At the top she put the names and numbers Thom's PA had sent her—the money brokers. She would call them, but with time pressing hard against her, she intended to pursue several options at once. She added the name of their banker to the list, and those of some industry people she'd made friends with over the years. Companies found it beneficial to invest in each other from time to time so there was always a chance, even if remote, she might convince a company in a related business that nurturing Diamond could prove profitable. Her best chance would be with the ones who trusted their gut instincts. Thom was right that she had little that would attract an investor if they looked at just the projections. Unfortunately, financial reports never captured the confidence of a software engineer or the viability of a new market. The prospects of any new thing were difficult to assess but those of software, the ultimate intangible were daunting.

She put her head down on her desk and gathered her strength.
Dump the negative thoughts. "The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running."
Well, she was running as hard as she knew how and couldn't catch a glimmer of the finish line. The emotional roller coaster was a rough ride. Time to be strong. Again.

* * * *

By the end of the day only one of the calls she'd made had produced any results. Riley Carson, a broker Thom recommended, called her back minutes after she left a message. He went straight to the point. "If you want us to work for you, with you actually, we need quite a bit of information. So that we don't waste time, I'll fax you our worksheet along with a limited nondisclosure agreement. We won't broadcast your details, but I need the right to present it to clients. The worksheet will tell you what information I'll need to put together a pitch to investors. And, before I even thinking about making calls, are there any limits on the kind of deal you'll consider?"

She liked his voice. It sounded masculine, confident, but not arrogant. "I'm not sure what you mean? What sorts of limits?"

"Some people have certain things they won't consider. Some things are off the table. For instance, are you totally against selling a majority of the stock to an investor, or being acquired, or dead set on raising money a certain way?"

"I'd say it totally depends on the specifics. What I want might not be possible, and I might not like details of an offer. I'd probably frown on bank robbery, for instance, or laundering money for a cartel, but only in general. Mostly I'm open to hearing what people are willing to offer."

He chuckled. "Good. Then as soon as you get the worksheet and send me the data, which is mostly spreadsheets for data you should have on hand, I'll move on it. Are you on any sort of deadline... looming debt payment or something?" Then he listened as she outlined the timing problem.

"That will make it harder to find the right person, but if it's what we have to work with, then I'll get moving. I can't guarantee finding something in time or even at all. This sort of a project is always a bit of a crap shoot."

"It should be like selling a profitable gold mine at a discount. And it's all because we were foolish enough, I was stupid enough, not to pay more attention."

His laugh was honest. "These things always look like
can't fail
propositions from the inside. But remember the investor doesn't care how good the new product or program is. The only thing that matters to them is the potential return on the investment and the risk involved. The payback on a new product is going to be uncertain—your best guess is just that no matter how much research you do. Some of the most spectacular failures have been products from major companies who spent a bundle on market research and still got it wrong. That means that we have to convince investors that there is actual gold in the mine. I have to find someone who both has money and the belief that they understand this business. And then that person will have to agree with you."