Yes. I could stop making him pay through the nose for all the artwork, property, and deals he wanted that I snatched from him because I could. It wasn’t because I really desired, needed, or shared his taste and sensibilities in his possessions. Could I give up the hard, expected fight for Joduku Plastics? Could I put my desires, my bubbling need for more of him above Carmichael Ketchup? Maybe so, maybe not. Could I give up my desire to have a baby and forego the fertility clinic regimen, not knowing whether we could make it or not, risking that my biological windows of opportunity might close? Definitely not. There were some boundaries that I had to maintain for myself lest my past lessons be in vain.
I sighed. Nicky snuggled closer, tucking me up under his chin. He moaned.
Yes our relationship was taking on a new level of complexity. But there was, in fact, one thing that I was certain of. Everything about last night felt perfect. Neither of us wanted to ruin it with talk of our businesses, personal issues, and long-standing grievances.
Yes, I wanted my Nicholas back. Because I love him.
“Good morning, baby,” I said as she opened her eyes, noticing I was watching her.
“What time is it?” she yawned.
“It’s almost nine a.m.,” I said smiling, kissing the top of her forehead. “I wanted you to rest and recuperate from all the chaos and stress of last evening,” I said, moving out of the bed, pulling the strings and closing the top of my drawstring pajamas.
“Thank you for saving me, Nicky.”
“No need to thank me. I should be thanking you. My life holds no real meaning without you in it, Harper.”
I’m not sure she believed me but I meant every word. I needed her in my life.
“Are you hungry?”
“Yes I am. What do you have a taste for?” She yawned again.
“Besides you? What taste could compare to the sweetness of you?”
“Mmmm, maybe a hot stack of pancakes smothered in some warm Vermont syrup, with a big side of hash brown potatoes, and bacon,” Harper smiled, grinning like a schoolgirl.
“I can make that happen,” I said eagerly, grabbing the morning newspapers, flipping through them quickly, thankful that I hadn’t made the tabloids.
“You can, can you?” Harper said raising one eyebrow.
“Yes it’s like making magic, love. Snap your fingers and your wish is my command.”
“And how might you make that magic happen, my dear? Do you have a genie in a bottle that you rub its belly?” She laughed, pulling the white sheet up close to her chin covering her breasts.
I walked to her side of the bed, kissing her softly on the lips.
“Just rub my belly, baby.”
Kiss.
“I have omnipotent powers.”
I kissed her again.
“I know how to part the waters baby.”
I kissed her some more.
“And I have a jet,” I cooed, pressing my lips against hers, probing for her mouth to give my tongue an entrance.
She grabbed my hair by both hands and pulled my lips to hers, gently kissing me back. I picked up the phone on the nightstand, calling Stephen letting him know we were going to be on the move.
“Let’s get dressed. Breakfast in Vermont it is.”
I specifically chose my favorite Lear jet out of the Milk Money fleet, the one that had a large double-sized bedroom suite. I told the flight crew not to disturb us until we landed. Stephen was busy arranging for our security and car service for when we touched down. By the time Harper and I landed on the airstrip in Vermont, we had taken out our official membership in the Mile High Club. We worked up a keen appetite for each other beyond our need for breakfast.
I shuttled us to the finest five-star location in all of Vermont, taking her to the Stowe Mountain Lodge, located at the base of Mount Mansfield within the Stone Mountain Resort.
Stowe Mountain Lodge was highly recognized for its classic beauty and pristine location. The Lodge reflected the very best of the quintessential New England town well known as a renowned destination for world travelers, offering the finest dining in all the Northeast.
I selected the Solstice, the intriguing artisan-inspired signature restaurant of Stowe Mountain Lodge for our dining enjoyment. I knew Harper would appreciate the restaurant’s romantic ambiance with hand-carved Vermont crafted artistic woodwork and custom pottery. I had a fondness for their open kitchen with unsurpassed views of Spruce Peak Mountain.
Harper loved it. It was a true feast for our eyes and our senses. The best treat was that the restaurant prided itself on the finest natural local ingredients possible, preparing foods based on an ideology of farm-to-table local ingredients throughout the menu. Their food was not a just about a meal, but more of an experience.
The server sat us in a booth near the window. Stephen sat at another table across the dining room but maintained visual proximity to us.
True to her desire, Harper ordered a triple stack of buttermilk pancakes with maple syrup, Vermont butter, and fresh berries. She gorged herself on smoked ham, maple sausage, and Vermont bacon. I wondered where she put it all, thinking that whatever hunger I created for her in the Mile High Club, I was going to work it right back off of her on the flight back.
I settled on the poached eggs with lobster, tomato slices, English muffin, hollandaise, and farmers red potatoes, thinking I needed to be mindful of my rock-hard six-pack, otherwise Stephen would beat the shit out of me again, the next time we got in the ring together. Stephen had no tolerance for middle-aged men with flabby guts hanging over the side of their pants. Not an option as long as Stephen was in my world. He was an anal-retentive Navy Seal down to the bone.
“How are you this morning?” I asked.
“Well fed and well sated,” Harper answered. “This place is so beautiful, Nicky. I love everything about it. The food is to die for.”
“Well baby, I’m like that genie in the bottle. All you have to do is rub me, and magic appears. A rub-a-dub-dub, my love,” I laughed heartily, savoring the clump of succulent lobster in my mouth, enticing Harper to take a taste.
Harper grinned and laughed at my jokes all while flashing her beautiful big brown eyes and a smile that made me melt. We were completely lost in our fantasy moment right up until the time that both of us began receiving email messages on our iPhones from Joduku Plastics. We both received the same exact emails.
Please be advised that your firm has been selected among our short list of contenders to compete in the bidding process for the sale of Joduku Plastics. CEO Nobu extends his invitation to your company to make bid presentations to its management team within thirty days from the date of this notice. We expect you to make your presentation in our Princeton, New Jersey headquarters on or about the first week of April. Enclosed is a packet of our company’s financials, headcount, and quarterly 10K reports that you may find useful for preparation of your bids. Should you have any questions or require further assistance, our managerial staff is ready and available to assistance. We welcome your firm’s continued confidentiality in these matters. Your firm will be expected to conform to all requirements for nondisclosure agreements that may need to be exacted for the confidential transmittal of trade secrets and any other confidential matter between our two firms. We welcome the opportunity to speak with you soon.
Sincerely,
CEO Nobu
Joduku Plastics
It was reality time.
“Did you get the same message I did?” Harper said, setting her fork down.
“Yes I did,” I said, feeling as if someone had let the air out of my balloon.
“Let me see,” she said.
Jesus, was there no real trust between us at all? I thought, peering at her intensely while handing her my phone.
“Show me yours,” I said, thinking I was going to stay on her same level given this playground we had managed to find ourselves. One thing I admired about Harper, she damn sure was no pushover. She didn’t know it yet, but she was
going to one day have my sons, and they were going to have killer instincts in the business world, because their future mother was just an out-and-out downright fucking shark hidden inside a temptress body.
Quietly we checked one another’s phones, looking at the email messages from Joduku Plastics, then looking at each other. We handed our phones back.
I sighed out loud, pushing my plate back feeling like I was losing my appetite. Harper hadn’t raised those beautiful brown eyes to eye level yet. I searched her face and my heart trying to figure out what she must be thinking.
The server arrived at our table, “Is there something more I can get you sir, this morning?”
“Yes,” I said. “We’d like two Bloody Marys please,” I said, nodding at Harper, who nodded back at me in acquiescence.
We sat in silence for a beat, watching as the server brought our drinks to the table. I decided to man up and be the one to break our silence.
“Baby, what do you want to do with this information?”
“You know Nicky, I’ve given this a bit of thought. I’m doing this acquisition for Carmichael Ketchup. You’re doing the acquisition for Becker Foods. At the end of the day it’s not like it’s our companies.”
“Get to the point Harper,” I grumbled, knowing I was starting to sound grumpy.
“It’s not like you’re doing this acquisition for Milk Money. I’m not doing this for mine. This isn’t a Montgomery Consulting Group acquisition. It’s not like we have to make this whole showdown of buying this plastics company for our parents personal to us, do we?” she asked, her eyes pleading for some sort of assurance.
“Well you do have a point. But we still have to manage Elizabeth’s and Big Daddy’s expectations. There’s no way we’re getting around that fact, which means this whole acquisition process puts your interest and my interests at odds with each other,” I reminded her.
“Well for all we know, neither of us could win,” Harper pondered. “Not that I’m very good at losing,” she said sipping her Bloody Mary through the straw.
See? That’s the shark that I know. The devil is in the detail. All you have to do is listen and pay close attention. I cocked my head to the side looking and searching her face to read past her words.
“I’m a terribly sore loser, too, Harper, but then again you know that. I try not to make losing a word or action that I keep in my tool box,” I said.
Fuck, somebody give me a gun now. Let me shoot myself and put myself out of my misery. I was just getting myself off the sidelines getting in the game to get my woman back and now I was stuck in the middle of this bullshit company acquisition for Big Daddy. Why can’t he buy his own damn company? Fuck, he could goddamn go into the plastics business himself. Big Daddy was always dragging his crap into my world. And, Elizabeth, what was her game? Surely I was missing something here. I fucking didn’t like this picture, feeling that the pout might have started to show on my face.
“Well we could tell them both to go kiss our asses,” Harper said laughing, finishing her Bloody Mary.
“Yeah Kitten, we could leave the country, and leave them holding the bag,” I laughed, ordering myself another Bloody Mary. “I could make Three take over the acquisition,” I said, feeling a bit buzzed now, and thinking this might not be such a bad idea at all. “Del-a-fucking-gate this mess to Three.”
I waved my hand high to get the server’s attention and asked him to bring us a pitcher of Bloody Marys now. I was feeling inspired.
Stephen had finished his breakfast, was sipping on coffee and flipping through his iPad. I suspected we were starting to get a bit loud. Harper was giggly. I noticed Stephen had shifted uncomfortably a couple of times in his seat as he glanced our way through his Ray Bans.
“Yeah Nicky, I could have mother’s in-house acquisition team take over the negotiations,” Harper laughed with enthusiasm, starting to slur her words.
The thought of both of us getting out of our parent’s business caused us to get super excited.
We both decided the pitcher of Bloody Marys was indeed inspirational and re-ordered more. Harper laughed and chuckled with the server, flipping her hair around causing the server to laugh with us. She was a natural born flirt.
She slid her body closer to mine resting her head on my shoulder and began looking at me with those doe eyes. Her body heat was radiating off of me.
“You’re just such the smartest man, my Nicholas,” she said stumbling over her words.
“Oh baby, it’s not me, it’s you,” I slurred, kissing her on the top of her forehead.
“You always have had such good ideas,” I said looking at her with hungry eyes.
“Nicky, I want you,” Harper said smiling, looking like the seductress I knew her to be. “This fireplace is so warm. I’m starting to get sooooo hot,” she said, drawing out her words while unbuttoning the top button of her crisp white blouse.
I could see her bosom starting to pop out, her eyes twinkling against the rays of the morning sun peeking through the window. She looked absolutely mouthwatering.
“Kitten, Kitten, Kitten.” I rocked side to side, loosening my tie, and pulling off my suit jacket.
“Let me give you what you need baby,” I whispered in her ear.
“Now,” she whispered back, running her hand up my thigh under the table stroking my bulge.
“Yes now, my love.”
“Mine,” she said.
“Who needs me, baby?” I asked.
“I do,” she said. Certainly not Elizabeth!
“Who needs me, baby?” she asked.
“I do,” I replied. Certainly not Big Daddy!
“Nicholas, take me to the mountaintop baby,” Harper said with the heat of the fireplace in her eyes, biting her lip and tipping her head to the side.
“Sweetheart, I’ve have a suite upstairs with our name on it,” I grinned.
I motioned to Stephen to deal with our tab. Stephen nodded back at me peering at me with a perplexed look. I suppose he could tell we were high as kites, but I could care less. He sat his iPad down and picked up the local newspaper. I suppose we were boring Stephen. It didn’t matter. I was happy. I had my Harper back.
I took Harper’s hand and grabbed what was mine.
Chapter Ten
Harper
“You have a call from Mr. Becker, Ms. Montgomery,” Charlotte said over the intercom.
“Put the call through.”
“Hey Nicky, how are you today?”
“I’m fine Harper, but I’d be even better if you have dinner with me tonight.”
“I really want to, but I’ve got all kinds of deadlines in order to be ready for the Joduku Plastics presentation. Plus I have early evening appointments,” I said.
While I was still pursuing my original goal of trying to land the acquisition of Joduku Plastics for Carmichael Ketchup, my enthusiasm for the whole matter had waned. I was going through the motions absent the attack-dog persona that I typically employed when going in for the kill on a new acquisition.
“I’m surprised you aren’t knee deep under tons of paperwork on this yourself, Nicky. Don’t think Big Daddy is going to let you go all half-baked on this one,” I chuckled.
“Who cares about what Big Daddy thinks? I only care about us, Harper. We promised each in Vermont three weeks ago that we weren’t going to let this business stuff with our parents get in the way of our relationship. I hope that wasn’t just the Bloody Marys talking?” Nicholas asked suspiciously.
“Bloody Marys or not Nicholas, I meant what I said. My relationship with you is more important than this deal. I intend to keep it that way,” I said, hoping to quell any doubts Nicholas might be having about my intentions.
“That pleases me, baby, so let me please you. Have dinner with me. I’m wooing you, Kitten,” Nicky pleaded. “Let me woo you, baby. You know, just like that Jeffrey Osborne song that you like to play over and over and over when I’m around. Can you woo, woo, woo,” Nicholas laughed.
He
started singing in my ear through the phone. I could just imagine the look on his face. I wondered if he could sense my grin and the eye roll that I was projecting on my face.
“You’re so cute when you turn your nose up like that, Kitten.”
“And what makes you think I have my nose turned up?” I said rather flirtatiously.
“I’m not sure you think us Anglo-Saxon Annapolis Navy boys know how to woo, woo, woo.” He laughed. “I had a good teacher baby. Mico was the king of woo, woo, woo, and he taught me how to woo, woo, woo, too, sweetheart. I was a good student,” Nicholas taunted.
“So you think you know how I liked to be wooed?” I asked, loving Nicholas’s playful side.
“Charlotte should be arriving in your office right about now. A little something special from the woo-woo man,” Nicholas laughed.
Just at the exact moment, Charlotte walked through my office door with six pounds of pink-iced Hello Kitty cookies wrapped in a huge pink basket with a large pink bow tied around the cellophane.
“These just came for you,” Charlotte said, smiling from ear to ear.
I still had the phone up to my ear, knowing that Nicholas was awaiting my reaction.
“Cookies, Nicky!” I squealed into the phone. “How did you know I was hungry? I needed a pick-me-up this afternoon. I missed lunch working so hard.”
I ripped the cellophane off and dove into the basket in a state of utter delight.
“Exactly,” Nicholas said. “I’m here to anticipate your every need, Kitten. But don’t you think it’s time you rub the belly, baby, let the genie out of the bottle so he can work his magic?”
“No I think not. You’re just trying to screw up my focus and concentration so you can beat me out of this acquisition, Nicholas Becker,” I said, putting my hand on my hip and squinting my eyes, wondering if he were pulling dirty tricks.
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