Unwrapped by The Billionaire

by Joanna Nicholson

  “Why would I do that when you’re so much better at it?”

  He gave her that smile that made his eyes light up even more. She gave him a playful eye roll in return.

  “Good night, Kurt,” she said.

  He waved his hand at her in response and turned back to his jotting.

  As Emily walked out of the building, she was again hit with that mixture of elation, contentment and confusion that she always felt when she spent long hours locked in with Kurt. It wasn’t a bad sensation but she knew it wasn’t helpful either.

  And, she also knew there was only one antidote for it.

  Taking a deep breath, she sucked in the fresh, crisp, pine filled air that the mountains of Northern California provided. Turning her eyes to the mountain range in the west, she looked at the bright pinks, oranges and yellows that came with the setting sun.

  Sunsets like these, with the light breeze of late summer, beckoning in the winds of autumn always made her remember why she came to school here in the first place.

  It wasn’t the famed Art History department that drew her here (though it was a bonus), and it certainly wasn’t professor Kurt Schmidt. It was the perfection that was the Pacific Northwest.

  Allowing the sunset and the air around her to fill all her thoughts, she decided to take the long way home. Hoping, silently, that all this beauty would make her forget about her married professor for the foreseeable future.

  Chapter Two

  Forgetting about Kurt Schmidt wasn’t as hard as Emily thought it would be.

  In the next two weeks, he hardly spoke to her. Though, to be fair, he hardly spoke to anyone at all. He stayed holed up in his office with the door locked. Even during his required office hours, he responded to student questions with nothing more than monosyllabic answers and grunts. The only reason Emily knew this was because some of their more studious art history pupils came to her with their questions about the mid-term when the professor wasn’t helpful.

  That was not to say that she never saw Kurt. She would still stop by his office to hand him attendance reports or grade student papers. But, when she did, they hardly spoke. While grading, she worked at the desk next to his, mostly in silence while he muttered and clicked his pen or tapped furiously on his laptop keyboard.

  He was so involved in this accessible new book that he no longer had time to help create lesson plans for his class. That, left Emily to do the work. And, while she didn’t mind, she had to admit, between that, her own term papers due and her part time job at the “Art for Keeps” studio, the strain was becoming a bit much.

  Even Audrey, Emily’s roommate and work mate was beginning to notice to stress Emily was under. And, she took a darker view of it than Emily did.

  “You’ve got to put your foot down with that professor,” she said one day as they set up the blank bowls and paints at the studio, preparing for another group to come in. “You’re letting him take advantage of you!”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Audrey,” Emily said putting a bowl down at the head of the table a little more forcefully than necessary. “He’s got a lot of work too. Besides, TA’s usually do this kind of stuff for their professors. It’s kind of expected of us.”

  Audrey let out an ironic snort.

  “Most professors I know at least pretend to teach their classes,” she said. “This guy's got you doing all his work for him at half the price of a full time assistant. And, I think I know why.”

  “Audrey, don’t start,” Emily said. She stared intently down at the white smock covering the table, her cheeks blushing all the same.

  “A crush is one thing, Em,” Audrey said. “But you can’t let it run your life. Doing this guy’s work for him is not going to make him leave his wife.”

  “I’m not trying to make him leave his wife,” Emily said a little too defensively. “I’m just trying to do the best job I can. That’s all. Besides, he’s more than my boss. He’s my friend. And I know how much this book means to him.”

  “Whatever you say,” Audrey said quietly, shaking her head.

  The two friends didn’t say anything more on the subject. Still, a tense sort of silence surrounded them as a group of middle aged women wearing red and pink hats, came in and sat down at the tables, laughing and chatting among themselves.

  Emily explained how the plain white bowls in front of each of the women should be painted and Audrey showed them how the machine to set the designs worked. Once the group of women passed their orientation, the girls went around the room getting various colors, consulting on designs and answering questions.

  Other than the occasional dark glare Emily got from Audrey, it was shaping up to be an ordinary painting session. Until, that is, the front door to the shop flew open.

  Emily looked up and her heart began to pound in her chest.

  “Can I help you sir- “

  “Won’t be long, I just need to see someone.”

  Kurt Schmidt walked past the receptionist at the front desk. The girl continued to call after him as he made his way into the back room where Emily was standing frozen, pink tinted paint brush in hand.

  “Sir? Sir!”

  “Em, there you are! I need to talk to you. It’s about the book.”

  “Sir, you really can’t be in here.”

  Julia, the receptionist rushed into the room, wobbling on her high heels, her normally cheery face pale with fear.

  “It’s ok, Julia,” Emily said stopping the nervous looking girl who’d rushed out from behind the desk after Kurt. “I know him.”

  “I get that, Emily,” Julia said. “But, unless he’s…painting something…you know the boss will kill me if I let someone in who hadn’t paid for a session.”

  “Fine, how much does a session cost?” Kurt asked pulling out his wallet.

  “This is a group session,” Emily said. “So, they got a special rate. But, you’d have to be a member of the Red Had Society…”

  “If I pay full price and…I don’t know…paint a pot or something…will I be allowed to talk to you?”

  “What do you say, Julia?”

  Emily glanced at Julia who looked between her and Kurt, biting down on her lip. Finally, she heaved a sigh and held out her hand for the cash.

  “I’ll tell the boss that we had another session come in at the last minute,” she said.

  “Great! Thanks,” Emily answered before taking Kurt’s arm and moving him to the table across from the middle-aged women as quickly as she could.

  It wasn’t quick enough that Audrey didn’t notice. After handing a woman with a large, feathered red hat another purple paint brush, she stalked over to Emily. A suspicious scowl on her face.

  “Who’s this?” Audrey asked. “I thought we only had one group booked for today.”

  “We did, this was a last-minute session,” Emily said hastily as she could, hoping that Kurt wouldn’t add anything that would give him away. “I’ll still be able to help, I’ll just be going back and forth.”

  “Didn’t really come into paint pots or anything,” Kurt said while Emily cringed. “Emily’s working with me on a book and I really needed her opinion on something.”

  As Emily expected, Audrey’s expression turned from suspicious to exasperated as she turned back to Emily with a raised eyebrow.

  “It’ll only take a bit,” Emily said. “Promise.”

  “If he’s here he might as well paint,” Audrey said, turning to look Kurt up and down, a scowl on her lips. “Just make sure you don’t leave me alone too long with the old ladies.”

  With another scowl at Kurt, Audrey turned on her heel and marched back to the ladies with the red hats.

  “Why do I get the feeling she doesn’t like me much?” Kurt asked.

  “Most of the guys I introduce her to get that feeling about Audrey,” Emily said. “She’s just really protective of me.”

  Kurt nodded in acceptance and allowed Emily to lead him to a single table with a blank white bowl and several paints set out in front
of him.

  “Since you teach the subject, I’m going to assume you know how paint is set on pottery. So, I’ll save the spiel.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Instead, I’m going to ask what was so important about the book that you couldn’t just email me,” she said.

  “Wasn’t sure if I would be able to say it in an email,” he said taking a large sponge and dipping it in the blue paint. “Besides, I think this is the kind of thing that needs a brain storming session. And I knew you were working here this afternoon.”

  “Working being the operative term,” she said. “Julia was right about the boss. If she came in and realized that you weren’t really a client I would be in very hot water.”

  “But, I am a client,” Kurt said. He kept staring down at his bowl which was now blue almost all over, but, Emily could see the playful smirk on his lips. “I paid for a session, didn’t I? And I’m painting a bowl, aren’t I?”

  “Fair enough,” she said. “So, back to the matter at hand. What’s this urgent issue?”

  “I got an email back from my agent,” Kurt said. He put the sponge covered in blue back and had now picked up a small accent brush and dipped it in yellow paint. “He says the book’s ok. But, it’s still not accessible enough. We need to play up the romance angle. Apparently, my writing wasn’t emotional or evocative enough.”

  “What did you say about the romance with the prostitute?”

  “I brought the pages for you.”

  Kurt reached into his pocket and pulled out two pieces of crumpled paper. As Emily looked them over while Kurt absently mixed light yellow swirls into his blue bowl, she could see why his Agent had sent them back with red lines all through the copy.

  The most evocative line in the entire two pages of summarized sources complete with foot notes read: ‘There is ample evidence to suggest that Vangoh’s relationship with the prostitute, Rachel, was not only of a sexual but also an emotionally amorous nature.’

  “So, what do you think?” Kurt asked. His right hand kept making yellow swirls while he looked up at her, biting his lip.

  “Are these two pages all you wrote about the ear and the prostitute?”

  “Yes,” he said. “I didn’t want the whole book to be defined by one sensational episode.”

  Despite herself an indulgent smile curved against her lips.

  “That’s the point of writing a popular history book,” Emily said. “People want a little sensationalism.”

  “Then maybe it was a bad idea to do this,” he said. “Maybe I should have just told the president of the college to stuff it.”

  “That wouldn’t have helped your dreams of tenure,” Emily said glancing, once again, over the pages he’d brought her. “Besides, the stuff you have isn’t bad. You’ve got good research, arguments, foot notes, you just might need a…”

  “Feminine touch?” he asked. There was a hint of something in his voice that sounded teasing, almost flirty. When Emily looked up at him, she could see a smile she had always dreamed of but never thought would be directed at her. His grey eyes were sparkling with mischief behind his spectacles and his expression was, indeed, very playful.

  “You could put it like that,” she said, feeling a warm blush color her face as she looked down at the paper once more. “I was going to say you might need a ghost writer to help out with it.”

  The smile disappeared and he let out an arrogant snort.

  “You know I’d never trust one of those hacks with my work.”

  “They’re not all hacks, you know?” she asked. “You might be able to find someone who’s just as passionate about this as you are.”

  He gave another little huff as he put the finishing touches on the inside of his bowl.

  “I don’t think that’s likely,” he said. “Unless…”

  The arrogant huff on his face faded and the focused wrinkle between his eyes returned. His lips pursed together for a moment before looking up at Emily.

  “Unless what?” Emily asked, suddenly wary.

  “Unless, you’d like to do it,” he said.

  “Do what?”

  “Help me write the book,” he said. “You’re clearly better at this…sensational…or…emotional stuff than I am. What if you were my ghost writer?”

  Emily looked at him for a moment, her lips pressed together in the same way his had been.

  She knew what she wanted to say. Writing a book with Kurt Schmidt was exactly the type of opportunity she’d been dreaming of.

  And, she didn’t just dream about how amazing it would look on a resume when she applied for Art Museum curator jobs when she’d finished her degree. She’d also dreamed about spending hours alone with Kurt, going over research, deciding what incident should go where. That, she had to admit, thrilled her more than any hit on a resume might.

  “Em! Can you help me get these bowls to the back?”

  As though on cue, Audrey called Emily out of her Kurt Schmidt inspired reverie. She looked up at her friend who was staring at her with a glare and a raised eye brow.

  “Yeah,” she answered. “I’ll be right there.”

  “You can take mine back too,” Kurt said. “I think it’s finished.”

  Emily looked down at Kurt’s bowl and smiled when she saw a very Vangoh image. The yellow and black swirls against the blue pot harkened back to his Starry Night painting almost exactly.

  “We’ll talk more when you get back?” he asked sounding hopeful.

  “Sure,” she answered.

  “Em! Are you coming?” Audrey called, the glare still on her lips.

  “Yeah,” Emily said before giving Kurt an apologetic smile and scurrying across the room.

  “You know he shouldn’t be visiting you at work, right?” Audrey asked as soon as they moved to the back.

  “I knew you had the ladies well in hand,” Emily said. “Besides, it didn’t take long.”

  “Still. He can’t expect you to drop everything because he needs you for one of his little projects. You’ve got a life too.”

  Though Emily didn’t say anything to that and the two girls didn’t speak as the bowls were heated and set, Audrey’s words punctured Emily’s little day dreams like a pin in a balloon.

  Audrey had a point. Emily had a deadline for the first draft of her master’s thesis due in two weeks. She also had lessons to plan for Kurt’s class that he’d asked her to teach and that was not to mention work.

  If she could give up one of these, she knew she would like to give up her job. While she certainly didn’t mind, helping people create little designs on pots, she couldn’t deny that there were other things she would rather be doing with her time.

  But, giving up her job would mean an almost complete loss of income. The money she got for helping Kurt with his classes was more a stipend than a salary. And, without the money from the shop, there was no way she would be able to make rent.

  So, when they went from the fire of the back to the main painting room, it was with a defeated air that she returned Kurt’s pot.

  “So?” he asked eagerly. “What’s the verdict?”

  “Kurt I…I just don’t think I can,” she said.

  “Of course, you can!” he told her. “You’re good at this stuff! Much better than me.”

  “Anyone would be better at romance than you,” she said with a small smile and an eye roll.

  “You sound like my wife,” he said attempting a smile in return. “She says I don’t try. That’s why she spends most of her time away. And, that’s also why she stays in the guest bedroom when she is here.”

  Though he tried to keep his smile in place, Emily couldn’t help but notice that it had become more than a bit forced. Something almost sad entered his expression as he looked down at his finished pot.

  “Look,” Emily said, thinking it might be best to quickly change the subject. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I’d love to work on this. It’s just…with school and my job…I don’t have the time.”

&nbs
p; “How many hours a week do you work here?” he asked. When he looked up at her, the vague sadness disappeared and he looked up at her again with that focused expression. He was, once again, the analytical professor trying to solve an academic problem.

  “Twenty-five,” she said.

  “What if you spent those hours working on the book instead?”

  “Depends, are you going to pay me fifteen dollars an hour?” she asked a hand on her hip, fully expecting the answer to be no.

  “I’ll pay twenty an hour,” he said.

  Her eyes widened and the hand dropped from her hip. Was he offering her a job?

  “You…really think I’m worth twenty an hour?” she asked.

  “I’d pay more if you asked for it,” he said. “I just…this is really important to me. You’re the only person I can trust to care about this book as much as I do.”

  He looked up at her with those clear grey eyes shining behind his spectacles. Emily searched his expression for some hint of the manipulation that Audrey seemed to assume was there when the professor asked for favors. But, she couldn’t find it. He looked entirely sincere.

  And, if he was, she knew that twenty dollars an hour was more than enough to stop her work here.

  So, with a sigh, she held out her hand to him.

  “Ok then, professor,” she said. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

  His smile brightened as he took her hand, shaking it eagerly. Those grey eyes danced behind his spectacles and she couldn’t help but notice the way his longish hair fell across his face. Seeing his smile, so bright and genuine and happy, caused that little flip to settle back in Emily’s stomach.

  “Thanks, Em!” he said finally letting go of her hand. “You won’t regret this. I promise.”

  He gave her another smile which caused another flip in her stomach. As he left the shop, Emily prayed that he was right.

  Chapter Three

  It had been two months since Emily had left her job at the Art studio. Two months since Kurt had offered her the job as his ghostwriter/research assistant, and the book still wasn’t finished.

  Not that Emily minded. To tell the truth, she looked forward to the writing sessions in Kurt’s small office at the school more than she looked forward to any other part of her week.