The Science Of Love: A Billionaire BWWM Romance

by Mia Newberry

  As he got out of the vehicle he looked across the lot and saw a small dance academy in session. He stopped to watch the young girls twirl around in the window, finding it amusing to see them guided by the motions of the older women. He turned to walk to the restaurant when one of the instructors caught his eye.

  It was Jada. It had to be. After all these years, he’d found her again. He walked up to the lobby of the school and went in, drawing deadly glares from all the mothers who had their daughters in session. A few of them moved in front of him.

  “Is there someone I could speak to about the school?” he asked one lady near him.

  “Why?” she demanded. “What do you want?”

  “I had wanted to ask someone about instruction for my daughter,” he lied. “Is there someone I can talk with?”

  The next moment the door opened and Jada came out with her class, dismissing the little girls to their mothers. She made sure each one had gone to a guardian and looked up to see David in the lobby.

  “David?” she said to him.

  “Jada?” he said to her.

  The entire room vanished leaving them the only occupants. It was as if a gate had been opened in the sky and a light had poured out which enveloped them and only them. They continued to look at each other until David reached into his pocket and handed her a card.

  “Please call me,” he said to her. “I need to go. I’ve missed you.”

  Then he turned and left.

  Chapter 4

  Jada hadn’t followed the rise of David’s company, Top Floor Intersections. She had been too busy the past two years trying to find her place in Pittsburgh. She had managed to locate a decent apartment on the west side of the town in an area which was on the rise. This managed to help her in her attempts to get into a graduate program at Karski College, a small school located in the city. She had decided on the field of physics, since this had always interested her. But the college kept putting her on the “waiting list” which irritated Jada to no end. She would come home every evening from teaching young girls the basic positions and sit down with a text book on physics to try and beef up her knowledge of the field. When she had some free time she’d find a Go game to play on line.

  It was two days before she pulled out David’s business card and looked at it. She seemed to recall hearing something about his company in the news and brought it up on the tablet. The company was doing very well, according to the financial reports. David had found a way to unleash a dating site that men with poor social skills, nerds, would flock to. He’d expanded what he did to other dating systems and was providing the framework for a whole new way for people to meet each other.

  But, as she soon discovered, David didn’t have much going on in his own life. He was unmarried and approaching thirty. He was often seen in the company of fashion models and never lacked for a date to some important media event. There were speculations he might be gay. Most of the commentators made interesting connections between his social awkwardness and a dating service for computer techies and engineers. Which was interesting as David couldn’t find any steady action on his own.

  So as Jada picked up her phone and was prepared to call him, she had some idea what he had been doing all these years. The nervous little computer nerd whose eyes had lit up when she kissed him had gone on to do great things. And what had she done? She was teaching at a dance academy and watching her money dwindle while hoping to be accepted into a graduate program in physics. She hadn’t had time for men, but perhaps she could renew things with the young man who had been eager to learn Go just to impress her.

  His phone only rang twice when he picked it up.

  “Jada?” he said again. “I’m so glad you called.”

  Jada had been his obscure object of desire for the last decade. In his heart of hearts, David could only love one woman and it was her. She was the unobtainable, the one who had got away, and the loss from which he had never recovered. Jada was the woman he saw in his dreams every night and the face which faded from him in the morning. He still had the Go set he’d bought after meeting her, but couldn’t pick it up as it reminded him of Jada. He’d been told by several business colleges that the local ballet was a good place to make contacts, but David couldn’t bring himself to go no matter what city he was in. All he could think of was Jada whenever he saw ballet dancers.

  He hadn’t been able to find out where she’d gone. If he had, David would have been unable to get in touch with her. His shyness was too strong to allow him to communicate with her. He knew Jada was out there someplace, but he couldn’t even bring himself to seek her out. So the day he saw her in the storefront dance studio was the day David felt his life was finally moving in the right direction. He’d been strangely aloof that evening at dinner and his associates kept asking him why he wasn’t talking much, but he couldn’t tell them. How could he tell a room full of tech gurus that he’d found the true love of his life once again and feared it was a cruel illusion?

  But his illusion had called him. She was real and in Pittsburgh. He had to make contact with her and when she called, he’d been at home going over the numbers for the day. David had stopped everything and focused on talking to her. They played catch-up and David was secretly thrilled to learn she was still single. He proudly told her he’d avoided marriage or any kind of relationship, but he didn’t tell her why. How could he tell her that he had her picture in a special place in his heart? If there had been a secret room in his soul, he would have placed an idol of her to worship every day. He would have burned incense and prayed to her image if he’d had the ability to do so. But he lacked the words to express him to her and merely suggested they get together over the weekend. He recommended a nice restaurant he could take her to. She paused and claimed to check her calendar, which in truth was empty, and told him the date was open. He offered to pick her up personally, but she told him they could simply meet at the restaurant.

  “Do you still play Go?” David asked her.

  “All the time,” she responded. “But now I do it mostly on line. I don’t like to play that was so much because you can’t read your opponent’s facial expressions.”

  “You started me playing,” David told her. “I wouldn’t know a thing about it unless I had you teach me. It’s been a big part of how I think-out business strategy. I credit you for helping me out.”

  “There is a club here in town,” he heard her say. “We should go there some evening.”

  David ended the call and nearly fell off the chair in joy. She wanted to see him again! All these years of waiting had paid off! All he had to do was meet her at the restaurant Saturday night and not mess it up. How would that look if it came out Mr. Internet Dating had blown a meeting with a potential girlfriend? The embarrassment alone would be horrendous. He had to do what he could to make this date work.

  Jada hung up the phone and wondered what he would be like after all these years. She tried to remember him. So much had happened since they were together so briefly all those years ago. Had he changed much? She didn’t think he had. David still seemed like the anxious computer science major she had known years ago. There had been that brief moment at the entrance to the dorm when before she’d learned of her father passing away where she thought it might have turned into something more. Over the years she had thought about David and how her life could have been different. It wasn’t unusual to see mixed race couples these days. She remembered her mother talking with disgust about a local man who had taken up with a white woman, so the old prejudices still remained, but they seemed to be fading.

  It had been a long day for her with several classes she had in the city being rescheduled due to some bad weather. The storms had come into Pittsburgh early and swept across the hills, sending huge torrents of rain through the streets. Some of the intersections flooded and cars had to be re-routed. The lightning was fading as she looked out the window of her apartment and thought about David.

  Jada walked into the bathroom and look
ed at her natural hair. Should she get it done for Saturday? She liked keeping it natural and smooth. Maybe she would get it braided. She remembered David looking at her hair in fascination the last time they were together, but she had it much shorter at the time for college, not the thickness it was now. Yes, getting it braided might be the right thing to do.

  David lay on the couch in his condo and thought about Jada. He had been with a few women over the years, but she was always in his mind. Even the ones he’d dated didn’t stay around very long because they were always being compared to his image of Jada. It wasn’t a question of wanting to see her again; he desperately needed to be with her. How could he let her know how much she had meant to him all those years ago? So much had happened in the meantime, but he didn’t care. When she had walked those girls out of the studio and he saw her, it was as if the clouds had parted. He felt his palms grow sweaty. The old anxiety was returning, making him nervous beyond all understanding. He feared it would destroy him, making his attempts to woo her feeble. Even with all the money he and his company were worth, one disappointing look from her would destroy him.

  Jada was ready Saturday night and looked up the location of the restaurant on line. It was in the city, near a very swanky part of town. She checked her bank account and made sure she had the money needed to get her there and pay the parking ticket. She expected David would foot the bill, he seemed traditional enough in that respect and he had no money troubles as far as she could tell.

  She checked out her outfit and liked what she saw. It was a tight dress which showed off her cleavage to anyone who wanted to check it out. She’d bought it on a whim last year and had saved it for the right occasion. It fit her dancer’s body to perfection. She liked the way the color set her off. It was just enough red to draw some attention, but not too much. Her make-up might need a little fixing, but the rest of her face was in order. She picked up her purse and went downstairs to catch the cab she had called to take her to the restaurant. She didn’t want to risk parking downtown and a cab was a good alternative. It might be a little on the expensive side, but this was an important date. In some ways it was a reunion.

  David had the valet park his SUV and went in to see the hostess. She asked if he wanted his usual seat and he told her no he was expecting a female friend and could they put them some place a little more private. She found a small table in the back of the restaurant which overlooked the river and he thanked her. Now all he had to do was wait for Jada.

  While he waited for her, David checked his cell phone for any important messages. There were none he needed to attend to right away. The email was routine and could be dealt with in the morning. He thumbed his tie and hoped the knot in it was going to look good. He had learned to tie a Windsor knot years ago, but didn’t do it enough to remember how. This evening he’d actually gone on line to find some instructions on how to tie one. He checked his reflection in the window glass and felt a little bit of confidence. He’d put on some weight since his college days by eating irregularly, but not too much. David had avoided the late night pizza and junk food diet which had plagued so many of his colleges.

  “Hello, David,” he heard Jada say as he stood up to greet her. She walked up to David and gave him a hug. He stood back and took her in. If Jada had appeared to be an angel when she emerged from the dance studio, she now looked like a goddess. He felt lucky enough to bask in her radiance.

  He walked around and pulled the chair out for her, just as his mother had taught him and pushed it in as she sat down. David returned to his chair and asked her how she was.

  “It’s been a tough week,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of classes to teach and I’m still taking one or two of the courses I need to get into a program at the college.”

  “So you went back to school?” he asked her. “I know you left when your father died.”

  “Yes,” she told him, sipping her water from the glass in front of her. “I finished my teaching degree down in Mississippi at the state college so I could help my mother.”

  “Good to hear,” he told her. “And how is your mother?”

  “Passed away three years ago,” she told him. “It’s why I came to Pittsburgh. Sold my parents’ house and used the money to start over up here.”

  They talked for the evening on what each had done in the years since they had seen the other last time. Jada talked about her hopes to obtain an advanced degree in physics and do research at some prestigious institute, such as Argonne near Chicago. She talked about her dance classes and the difference between teaching younger girls and high school science students. David talked about the years he had spent in the corporate world and what made him decide to launch his own company. He talked about the success he’d had with the on line dating service. She’d heard about it on the Internet and was curious how well it was working out for him. He told her better than he ever could have imagined, but it could all fail tomorrow, such was the validity of the Internet. She still wanted to hear more about it.

  The food was good. David had picked an excellent restaurant and the lighting around them was soft. He didn’t tell her that it had the reputation as the number one restaurant in the city for seduction. It was rumored to promise “her clothes off by midnight or your money back”. She did like it, he could tell. He loved the way she had braided her hair for the evening and wanted to ask her about it, but thought it might not be a good idea. He had heard black women were very sensitive about their hair and woe be to any man who touched on the subject without adequate preparation.

  “Do you still play Go?” he asked her. “I remember you teaching me all those years ago. I don’t think I’ve played a single game since the day you left.”

  “I still do,” she said, taking a bite out of her meal. “But mostly on line. I just don’t have the time to go to any of the clubs around here. And they have funny hours when they’re open. I have been a few times and it was fun seeing the reaction on the faces of the older men when I sat down to the board. I don’t think any of them had ever played a black woman before.”

  Dessert came and David ordered a cherry pie. Jada was practical and had some vanilla ice cream. David admired her nails and wondered how women could keep the manicure with a regular job. It had to have something to do with all the nail parlors he saw. There was one on every corner these days. Must be a growth industry. There was a lot of discussion at the board meetings which direction to go, could these nail parlors use software devoted to just their needs? Health and beauty care seemed to be an area which could use more support than it was getting. What color underwear did she have on? Would he get to know this evening? All David wanted to do was touch her. Just one touch to make sure she was real and not some kind of cosmic trick being played on him. Several times other men had walked by and slowed down to check out Jada with admiring looks. What did they think of him? He’d seen a few of the waitresses make a double turn when they saw them together. Did they recognize him, or were they impressed he was out with Jada. He might be worth a whole lot more than her, but David felt vastly inferior to her.

  The fear was killing him. They were keeping the conversation casual, but all he could see in his mind was her in his bed as he woke in the morning. He didn’t have a fancy bed, but it had good latex foam supports in it. Someone had told him they were the best kinds of mattresses to use for sex. He had just bought the condo last month when he’d relocated the company to Pittsburgh. In his mind he’d bought the condo for Jada, even though he couldn’t locate her. David was slowly realizing everything he’d done over the past ten years was to please a woman he didn’t think he would ever see again.

  And yet here she was in front of him. The one thing he thought he could never have and yet had worked so hard to obtain for years. Did she understand he’d do anything just to have a brief moment with her? He had worshiped her so long from afar that it was an anticlimactic event taking Jada out to dinner. In the ancient Roman and Greek tales the gods sometimes came to earth from Mount Olym
pus and walked among the mortals. Jada was his own personal Venus Celestas, the goddess of love and seduction.

  Jada enjoyed the evening she was spending with him and yet she felt there was something she was missing in the conversation she was having with David. He continued to stare at her through the evening and wouldn’t take his eyes off her. She was used to having men look at her from a distance and found it a little annoying. One day a construction worker had followed her down a block calling after her, wanting to know if she had a boyfriend. She avoided the oafs who leered at her from cars and buses, but it was not unusual to be viewed as a hunk of meat by the men at malls too. Soon after arriving in Pittsburgh, she had been enjoying some small talk with a young man at an electronics store when a girl walked in, grabbed the man she had been talking to by the hand and pulled him out of the store.

  She tried to decide if David was going to ask her home. Although Jada played it safe, she hadn’t been on the pill in the past few months. She never did like taking it; the pill made her cranky and messed up her other cycles as well. Her doctor had tried to find her a prescription which would work for her, but nothing seemed to be right. The last man she had slept with was six months ago and he was the father of one of the little girls she taught at the studio. The man claimed he was going through a divorce and was quite the charmer, but the wife who came by to pick the little girl up one day didn’t seem to be divorcing. All she could talk about was her and her husband’s upcoming trip to Europe. Jada had avoided the man ever since.