Before Her Billionaires

by Julia Kent

  She loved her job. Liked the sameness of it. How she could walk into the office carrying her cup of coffee, sit at her desk, log in to email and feel like she was important. Like what she did mattered, even if it was answering emails, completing a technical specifications document, or finding an error in a business process. Even meetings made her feel like she was productive.

  Well, most meetings. Definitely not the ones scheduled for 8:30 a.m. on a Monday, though.

  Hopping into the shower, she took a quick one, knowing Josie would be here soon. Though parts of her body hummed and twitched, they weren’t getting any attention from her right now. Five minutes later she jumped out, dried off, and was dressed, combing out her hair and braiding it absent-mindedly.

  Bzzz.

  Josie was here.

  “You!” her friend shouted as she stormed through the door, headed straight for the kitchen. “You had better have caffeine!”

  “How in the hell do you drink caffeine at the end of a work shift?” Laura asked, knowing the answer.

  “With my mouth.”

  Laura sat at the table with her cup of coffee while Josie prepared hers. The two women were about as different as could be. Where Laura was light and fair, Josie was darker, with pale skin and sharp eyes. Curves and softness abounded in Laura, whose long, curly blonde hair and bright green eyes radiated a gentle Barbie look. Josie, meanwhile, was rail thin, with a slightly pinched look that came from a general distrust of the world.

  Both were fiercely loyal to each other, though, and as Josie sat down and sipped carefully, Laura was surprised to find herself deeply relieved to have company that wasn’t feline.

  “You look like a bus hit you in your dreams,” Josie declared.

  “Something like that,” Laura muttered, drinking so she wouldn’t have to talk.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  Laura waved her hand dismissively. “Same old same old. No boyfriend, unlucky in love, who would ever want me, might as well become a cat lady.” She looked pointedly at Josie. “You know the drill.”

  A long, sad sigh poured out of Josie. “Yeah, I know. My own cats are at home eating anything they can out of sheer starvation. I had to work twelve hours. If I stay here much longer, they’ll break into my nightstand and start eating my lube.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “I know, right? Cat hair in your lube.” Josie shuddered.

  “That’s not what I meant,” Laura said flatly. “And eww...you have the most bizarre mind. I’m sitting here worried about living the next six decades of my life without love, and you’re worried about your cats drinking your Astroglide? You’re so...romantic.”

  “Practical.”

  “Weird.”

  Josie lifted her half-full mug in a toast. As Laura banged her mug against her friend’s, Josie said, “To truth.”

  “To love.”

  “To getting laid,” Josie countered.

  Laura could drink to that. And did, finishing her coffee with one eye on the clock. She had about five more minutes before she needed to head out the door for the train ride into Boston.

  After checking the cats’ food and water dishes, she turned to Josie and said, “You ever have dreams so vivid it’s like you can feel them, even after you’re awake?”

  “Only when I took a hit of acid back in college.” Josie squinted at her. “Why? You dropping acid before bed?”

  Laura shot her a smirk. “The only drug I use is right there,” she answered, pointing to the coffee maker.

  “Yeah. Me too,” Josie said with a sigh. “When did we become so boring?”

  “When we became grownups.”

  Josie’s eyebrows went to her hairline, eyes full of mischief. “You may be a grownup, but no one in their right mind would ever call me a grownup.”

  “You’re a registered nurse who works on complex research cases, Josie. They don’t hire children to do that.”

  Josie snorted. “You obviously haven’t spent enough time in hospitals. Surgeons are just emotional teenagers with the pressure of life on their hands in the operating room. Orthopedists are bone crunchers who look at a dislocated shoulder like a kid looks at a roller coaster. We’re all immature. Some of us are just better at hiding it.”

  Laura nodded, swallowing and trying to calm the anxious butterflies in her stomach. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned the dreams. If she kept Josie going on this new tangent, then they could forget she ever mentioned it.

  “So. Dreams,” Josie said.

  Damn.

  “I keep having sex dreams.”

  “Join the other six billion of us.”

  “You’re so supportive.”

  Josie laughed. “It’s just...everyone has sex dreams. I have them. Did I ever tell you about the one I had with Abraham Lincoln? The man could do incredible things with his pinkie.”

  Laura gaped at Josie. “Discussion over.”

  “Aw, c’mon!”

  “Not if you’re going to mock me.”

  “I wasn’t mocking you! I really did have a dream about Lincoln and his magic digit! It was right after watching Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Slayer, and I—”

  “Then this discussion is really over,” Laura said with a shudder.

  “Now who’s being the judgmental one?” Josie said with fake offense.

  Laura’s eyebrow arched. “You seriously had a dream you slept with Abraham Lincoln and you two had some ass play?”

  “Yep. And he loved the strap-on I wore.”

  “Oh, gross.”

  “I can’t control what’s in my dreams! Not my fault!” Josie insisted.

  That gave Laura pause. She had a point. None of the dreams were technically fantasies, right? They came to her, unbidden, a product of her subconscious. Laura didn’t seek out threesome porn, didn’t read romance novels about threesomes, didn’t watch movies on the topic, didn’t search it out at all.

  It was just...there. In her dreams. In her bed. In her body, some sort of yearning that came out the only way it could.

  While she slept.

  That was comforting, in a way, and yet deeply disturbing. Why did she harbor these wishes? Dreams were manifestations of something rooted in the body, mind and heart. Bad dreams were like an exorcism, but good dreams—and make no mistake about it, these were damn good—were wish fulfillment.

  She had plenty of wishes. Oh, how her wish cup runneth over. As she looked down at her chest, she thought sourly that she had plenty up top, plenty in her head, and not nearly enough in her heart.

  And bed.

  Josie finished her cup of coffee and checked her phone. “You’ll miss the train if you don’t get going.” She held her phone up for Laura to see the time.

  “Damn. You’re right.” Grabbing her briefcase, she headed out the door, Josie on her heels. After locking the apartment up, she squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. Out the main door and on the sidewalk, she and Josie went in opposite directions, Josie to her bed and Laura to yet another day of anonymity in a cocoon of mirrored glass and concrete.

  And no dream men.

  * * *

  As she rode the elevator up to the thirty-second floor of the massive, glass-and-concrete tower that Stohlman Industries inhabited, Laura kept her eyes on her hands. Head down, crushed by bodies that pretended they weren’t touching, she lived in her head. The scent of ten different perfumes and colognes, of various hairspray brands and deodorants, and a faint whiff of sour alcohol from someone who’d overindulged last night was, oddly enough, a familiar comfort.

  Maybe comfort was a bit of a stretch, but it was a signal.

  Monday morning.

  Work time.

  Her boss’s boss was gone for a three-day business conference on government contracts and sexual harassment compliance, a meeting Laura was grateful to skip. Requests for business travel were rare for her. Financial analysts tracked numbers, so her face-time with clients wasn’t a priority.

  On the rare occa
sions she did travel, it was always the same. A boring flight spent next to that one guy on the plane who drank too much and grossly flirted with you. The endless wait for the rental car (if the company was willing to get you one), then the complicated drive that always involved a few missed turns to get to the hotel.

  The hotel that looked like every other hotel next to an industrial business park.

  A quick check-in, the rush to find a restaurant still open (or a quick breakfast if the flight was on a Monday morning), and then ten hours of pretending to care about some business regulation that—frankly—had nothing to do with the daily reality of her job.

  And, of course...the occasional pass from a business colleague who was the equivalent of Overreaching Drunk Airplane Guy.

  As the elevators doors opened and closed on their slog upward, she wondered when she’d become so cynical.

  Ding! Her floor. No time to think about that now. “Hey, Laura!” called Debbie, the receptionist. “How was your weekend?”

  “Great! How was yours?”

  Debbie’s eyes lit up. Laura knew she was just waiting to be asked. Debbie was Laura’s age, with long, silky brown hair that looked like something out of Vogue magazine. She wore low-cut sweaters and a full set of make-up every single day. Her nails were perfect, her clothes fit her trim body, and she was always charming—to the men. Women wanted to look like her and men wanted to sleep with her.

  “I met this new guy who took me to see The Book of Mormon, and we went to Tempo Bistro. Can you believe it?”

  Laura pretended to know that those two details were a big deal. She had no idea what Tempo Bistro was, but it sounded fancy. Debbie was very status conscious, and threw brand names and social signals around like currency. “Nice! What was the guy like?”

  Debbie’s face shifted from excitement to boredom. “He was okay.” She sniffed, clearly unimpressed. “But the raw tenderloin nigiri was to die for. Entrees start at $70 a pop.”

  Laura wouldn’t be eating there any time soon.

  “And he got us backstage VIP passes and I have pictures of me with the cast!”

  Debbie’s smartphone was already in her hand, turned to a picture that showed a toothy-smiled Debbie with a group of cast members still in heavy stage makeup. Laura had no idea who any of those people were, but knew that in Debbie’s world, this was important, so Laura played along. She hated to hurt anyone’s feelings.

  “Wow, Debbie. I’m jealous.” She wasn’t really, but she knew that’s what Debbie wanted to hear.

  Magic words. Debbie’s face lit up. “Oh, don’t worry,” she said, clearly enjoying her perceived imbalance between herself and Laura. “You’ll find a perfectly decent guy some day.”

  Laura almost snorted. Perfectly decent. Shoot for the stars for me, why don’t you?

  Laura’s smile tightened a notch and she looked away. “Got a lot of email to answer,” she said, taking a step toward her office.

  “Wait! You didn’t see my pictures of our dinner!”

  What’s next? Laura wondered. Pictures of the date’s platinum American Express card? His penis? His car? Debbie had specific standards for the “perfect” man that were so different from Laura’s they might as well have been dating a completely different species.

  “Hey, Laura.” A deep man’s voice cut through Debbie’s chatter. Laura turned toward it, grateful. Rick was the IT help desk director, and Laura loved him right now. He was her knight in shining armor, and as she turned to look at him she held back a low whistle of appreciation.

  Rick’s typical work wardrobe leaned toward business casual, and his hair was styled as if his grandmother cut it. With glasses from the 1980s and an absent-minded professor look, he looked like the stereotype of an engineer who went back to school in his 40s, got a teaching license, and went on to work in an inner city high school.

  But not this morning.

  A warm flush began in Laura’s belly as her eyes took in the new Rick. Even Debbie shut her mouth and just stared, one perfectly manicured, thin eyebrow arching.

  Tailored suit with white dress shirt, silver cuff links and a lilac tie? Check.

  Black wingtips? Check.

  Contact lenses? Check.

  New haircut that looked like someone at one of the top salons on Newbury street had cut it? Check.

  And a cologne that made women’s knees go weak? Oh, yes, sir.

  “Rick!” Laura peeped, unable to cover her reaction. Holy smokes, he was hot. Flaming hot.

  “Oh,” he said, fumbling with his hands, becoming fidgety. “This?” He swept his palm down the side of his body and Laura swore she heard Debbie groan. His hands looked so soft and strong, nails clearly manicured. The smattering of hair on the backs of his hands glinted as the light caught his gold watch.

  “Yes,” Laura replied with a hiss. “This.”

  “You like it? My sister took me out for my birthday and insisted I needed a new look now that I’ve been promoted upstairs. It’s not too much, is it?” His brow tightened with a slight frown of worry.

  Laura looked at Debbie, who was biting her lower lip and sucking on it so hard she was about to swallow it. That lilac tie was the clincher. Imagine that around your wrists, tied to a bedpost, while...

  “No, no,” Laura interrupted her imagination, giving it a little spanking, a light slap to make it stop wandering. “Not too much. Perfect, in fact,” she added with a shaky inhale. “But you—promoted? Upstairs?”

  His face split into a geeky grin. Ah. There was the Rick she knew. “Yeah—can you believe it? Director of IT Resources for the Pacific Region.”

  “Pacific?” Debbie asked, disappointment in her voice. “You’re being transferred?”

  He gave a sheepish smile. “Yeah. I move to San Francisco in three weeks.”

  Debbie’s eyes crawled up and down Rick like she was picking out a slab of meat. “Too bad. Before you move, make some time for old friends, m’kay? I’d love to go out for drinks.”

  He cocked an eyebrow, the look like something out of a Fast Company magazine profile. “You would? Last month you turned me down. Twice. Said something about taking care of your cat’s toenail fungus that night.”

  Laura snickered. Debbie gave her an Evil Glare of Doom.

  “That’s...that wasn’t me,” Debbie said with a generous dose of laughter. She stood and came over to Rick, placing one manicured hand on his suited arm. “You must have me confused with someone else. Maybe Laura. She has three cats.”

  Laura’s leg twitched, like something hit it. Maybe it was from being thrown under a bus.

  “No,” Rick said slowly, turning his attention to Laura. “It wasn’t Laura.” A shy smile played at his lips. Laura took in his appearance again and grinned back just as he averted his eyes. You can take the geek out of the gamer shirts, but you can’t take the gamer out of the guy in the hot suit. Rick was still all nerdtechie, and she liked him for it.

  Debbie pretended the phone rang just as Rick took a few steps toward Laura and walked her to her office.

  “You excited?” she asked him.

  “About what?” He seemed really nervous.

  She frowned. “About the move! The promotion!”

  “Oh. Yeah. That.” He laughed, a shy sound that made her feel warm toward him. Awkward Rick was great for talking about ComicCon or the latest gamer scandal. Anything else and he shut down.

  “I’d be thrilled to move up the corporate ladder.” Laura’s words were not, technically, true. She’d be thrilled to get the raise that came with a promotion, but working in management was about as much fun as watching Debbie get a Brazilian. And Laura knew exactly how much fun that was, because one day Debbie had come to work with a video of it.

  Laura was perfectly fine being a middle-level Financial Analyst. One of the drones. Even her grey sweater matched the walls of her windowless office.

  She blended in, and that was all fine and good. Stohlman Industries owned her soul for fifty hours a week.

 
They couldn’t have more.

  “I’m glad, sure,” he said with a shaky sigh. “And my girlfriend dumped me last week—”

  “You had a girlfriend?” Laura regretted the words instantly, knowing her surprise would make Rick uncomfortable.

  He glared at her, the look filled with menace and hurt. “Hard to believe, right?”

  “No! That’s not what I meant...” A burst of embarrassment and shame filled her, making her tongue tied. Why was she like this? How could she ever imagine someone like Rick—this new Rick—would realize she was just making conversation and not judging? A sense of self-loathing pounded in her veins, and all she wanted to do was flee to her office and bury herself in a spreadsheet.

  Spreadsheets were safe. Spreadsheets didn’t give her uncomprehending looks, or make her feel like an idiot. If she messed up a spreadsheet she could fix it with a few clicks. Too bad men didn’t have an “Undo” button.

  “Okay,” Rick said in a clipped voice, fidgeting as they reached her door. He looked like he wanted to get away as quickly as possible, like a little boy dressed up in his dad’s clothes. Laura’s keen sense of equilibrium with him was completely off, and all she wanted to do right now was get behind her desk, safely ensconced in her office, door shut.

  But Rick followed her.

  She faltered at her doorway, hand on the knob. “Um, you need something?” she asked, trying to smile. Please leave me alone. She was so drained from being “on”, and just wanted a break.

  And it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. This would be one long Monday.

  “The staff meeting,” Rick said, all business. “I just wanted to give you the head’s up that I’ll be leaving, and you’ll get an IT contact for problems.”

  “Have they hired anyone yet?” she asked, a feeling of mild dread washing over her. During crunch times, a good IT contact was worth their weight in gold. A bad one was worse than no IT help, though.

  “Nope. Budget cuts.”

  She groaned. “They’ll just assign me to someone who’s already overworked, won’t they?”

  He gave her a cheesy thumbs’ up. He was thawing. She grinned and shook her head, ending the conversation as she shut the door and leaned up against it, closing her eyes and looking up.