Unwrapped by The Billionaire

by Joanna Nicholson

  No matter what happened next, no matter what they talked about in the morning, one thing was clear: Nothing would ever be the same.

  Chapter Five

  “You did what?” Audrey asked incredulously and much too loudly for Emily’s liking.

  “Would you keep your voice down?” Emily asked looking around the coffee shop where she had asked her best friend to meet her that morning. Now, she realized that might have been a mistake. Audrey had a loud voice as it was. And, when she was upset or surprised, it expanded exponentially. Emily was not crazy about the whole town learning about her fling with a married professor.

  “Sorry,” Audrey said lowering her voice just slightly. “I just…Emily…how…how could you do something like that?”

  “Look, it’s not like I planned it or anything,” Emily admitted. “Neither of us did. It sort of just…happened.”

  Audrey let out an incredulous snort as she picked up her coffee cup.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m sure when he invited you up to his bedroom to look through his telescope, his intentions were completely pure.”

  “You don’t know Kurt,” Emily said with an eye roll. “He gets excited about stuff he’s interested in and he wants to share them. He usually doesn’t think about how the stuff he does looks to outsiders or even affects other people.”

  “Well, he certainly didn’t think about how this whole thing was going to affect you,” Audrey said. “Not to mention his wife.”

  At the mention of Kurt’s wife, Emily couldn’t help but let out an indignant snort of her own.

  “I don’t think his wives as invested in their relationship as you think she is,” Emily said. “She’s hardly ever at their house and when she is, Kurt says she usually sleeps in the guest bedroom.”

  “Of course, he’d say that,” Audrey said with an eye roll. “If he’s been trying to get you to sleep with him, he’d want to make his wife sound like some heartless harpy. One of the oldest tricks in the book.”

  “He’s not like that!” Emily insisted. “He didn’t tell me that stuff about his wife to try and get me to sleep with him. It’s just stuff I’ve picked up while we worked together.”

  “So, he was subtle about it,” Audrey said with a shrug. “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t calculated.”

  “Again, if you knew Kurt you’d know he’s just…he’s not a calculating type of person. At least not that way.”

  Audrey lifted her hands in a gesture of surrender.

  “Ok,” she said. “We’ll agree to disagree. Point is, it happened. So, what happens now?”

  “I don’t know,” Emily said.

  “You didn’t talk at all afterwards?”

  “We were supposed to talk this morning,” She admitted. “But…something happened at the school and he got called away.”

  “What could happen at the school on a Saturday morning?” Audrey asked. There was a note of disbelief mixed with righteous anger on Emily’s behalf mixed into Audrey’s voice. Emily couldn’t blame her for that.

  Her lack of conversation with Kurt this morning, despite the promise he’d made last night, bothered her more than she was willing to admit.

  “That’s why I wanted to talk to you,” Emily said. “I had to ask someone’s advice and since Kurt’s not available…”

  “He should be,” Audrey said. “Just picking up and leaving after…you know…that’s a really jerky thing to do!”

  “Audrey! Can you just stop bad mouthing him for two seconds? I just need some objective advice!”

  Emily gave her friend an exasperated expression. Audrey rolled her eyes and once more, raised her hands in a gesture of surrender.

  “Ok, ok. But, I’m warning you, it’s hard to be objective when it’s your best friend.”

  “Well, then…pretend it isn’t me. Pretend I’m asking you about some friend of mine. What would you say to her?”

  Audrey looked at Emily thoughtfully before picking up her latte and taking a long sip.

  “So, your…friend…just slept with her married male friend and needs my advice?” Audrey said as though trying her best to distance herself from the situation.

  “Yeah, pretty much.”

  Audrey nodded and set down her cup.

  “First thing I would tell her is that affairs with married men rarely end well,” Audrey said.

  For the first time in their conversation, Emily gave her friend a cheeky smile.

  “Do you have a lot of experience with that?”

  Audrey slapped Emily’s arm playfully.

  “You know I don’t,” she said with a chuckle in her voice. “But, I’ve seen it plenty of times. Friends of my mom, friends of friends, even my older sister once. The guys almost never leave their wives. And, even when they do, they rarely stay with the woman they left for.”

  “But, what if-?”

  Audrey held up a hand to stop her.

  “I know your trying to convince yourself that you or…your friend…is the exception to that rule. But, trust me, you’re not. So, the best advice I can give to you or…your friend…is to go to this married guy and tell him that it was a one-time thing and it’s over now.”

  Emily’s heart sank in her chest and she looked down at her coffee. Taking it in her hand, she took a long sip, hoping beyond hope that it would hide the tears that were forming in her eyes.

  When she set the cup down, Audrey’s hand reached across the table and touched Emily’s. When Emily looked up, Audrey wore an understanding, sympathetic smile.

  “I know it’s going to be tough,” Audrey said.

  “Yeah,” Emily admitted with a mirthless chuckle. “Even harder when we’ve still got to work in the same tiny office.”

  Audrey pulled her hand back and looked thoughtfully at her as though trying to imagine a work around to that problem.

  “You’re still working on the book, right?” Audrey asked.

  “Yeah,” Emily said. “We’ve finished the hardest section but, we’re still a ways from being done.”

  “Well…do you have to be in the same room to write it? I mean, couldn’t you do it by email or something?”

  Emily bit her lip and looked down at the long nails of her fingers tapping against the coffee cup in front of her. In theory, Audrey was right. She and Kurt could work on the book without seeing each other. There were a million ways to communicate now without coming face to face. Maybe all those different methods of communication were created specifically with this scenario in mind.

  Logically, it made sense. But, when Emily thought about not seeing Kurt at all, her heart constricted in her chest and she found it difficult to breath let alone produce a coherent answer.

  Sensing Emily’s reluctance, Audrey heaved a sigh.

  “Look, Em,” she said. “I know it’s hard. I know how much you like this guy but…I just don’t want to see you get hurt. And, trust me, if you keep seeing him, you will. It’s best to cut it off now, before it gets worse.”

  Emily bit down hard on her lip, lifting her eyes and looking up at her friend. The sad smile Audrey wore along with the sympathetic, wide eyed glance told Emily that her friend did, at least, have some inkling about how hard this would be.

  Saying goodbye, finally and forever, to Kurt Schmidt was, Emily thought, probably the most difficult thing she would ever do in her life. Still, when she remembered how Kurt had run out on her that morning, when she remembered his reluctance to talk to her after the night they’d shared, when she thought about how much more it would hurt her to have to see him every single day knowing that, after their work, he would go home to his wife, she knew that it was also entirely necessary.

  “I can’t do it by email or text,” Emily said.

  Audrey rolled her eyes.

  “Em! I’m telling you- “

  “No, you don’t understand,” Emily said holding up a hand to stop her.

  “I’m going to tell him I can’t see him anymore, but, I have to tell him in person.”

  Ch
apter Six

  The air in Emily’s little Honda Civic was growing stale the longer she sat outside Kurt’s house waiting to go in.

  She hadn’t told him she was coming.

  After lunch with Audrey, she’d started several texts to him but, in the end, every one of them sounded cliché. They all started with the words ‘We need to talk’. And, anyone who’s ever been through a break up can usually guess what that means.

  For some reason, she didn’t want him to guess the truth right off. A part of her wanted him to have a few blissful hours where he didn’t know that she was about to walk away forever. If the shoe had been on the other foot, Emily decided, she would have been happy to have as much time as she could imagining happy ever after before reality came crashing down around her.

  That, in part, was why she was still in the car. Looking out the window at that large, brown house on a ledge in the middle of nowhere, her mind couldn’t help but travel back to the night before.

  She couldn’t help remembering the touch of his hand on her body or the way his lips moved across hers. Kurt shoving her against the balcony door, pushing her down onto the bed. When she closed her eyes, she could still see that passionate desperation shining out of his eyes. As though he was a starving man who had just been presented with a feast.

  Shaking her head and clearing it as best she could, Emily took a deep breath and put her hand to the car door.

  Time to go back to the real world, Em, she told herself firmly. With this resolve in mind, she pushed open the door and made her way up the long driveway towards the Schmidt home.

  When she reached the door, and rang the doorbell, she half prayed that he would be out. That, maybe, he would still be doing…whatever it was he had to do for school.

  A moment later, however, she heard footsteps moving behind the door and she knew that there was no turning back.

  The door opened and Kurt’s face peered out. When he saw her, his grey eyes widened in surprise.

  “Emily!” He said. “What…what are you doing here?”

  “Hey,” she said pulling one long strand of curly red hair over her shoulder and twisting it around her finger like she always did when she was nervous. “Can I come in?”

  His eyes grew even larger in his head and the blood drained from his face. He looked terrified. As though she were a ghost or the grim reaper come for his soul.

  “I…I just thought we should talk about last night,” she said. “You promised we would and we didn’t get a chance to this morning.”

  “You should have called,” he said. Blood had come back into his face but he was now glancing quickly over his shoulder back into the living room behind him. His shoulders were tense and he looked like a deer in the woods, ready to run at the first sign of trouble.

  “Is this a bad time?” she asked. “I mean, do you have people over or- “

  “Kurt? Who is it?”

  A woman’s voice sounded from the kitchen and Emily felt the blood drain from her own face when the petite blonde woman came around the corner.

  Though Emily had never met Cheryl Schmidt in person, she’d stared at her picture in Kurt’s office enough times to know her by sight. And, in the flesh, she looked even more like those models you see in clothing catalogues, the ones who have a smile permanently plastered on their faces.

  The permanent smile flashed at Emily as Cheryl neared the door. Only the hint of confusion in Cheryl’s eyes told Emily that she was surprised by the presence of a guest.

  “Oh…er…Cheryl, this is Emily,” Kurt said awkwardly.

  “Oh, the famous Emily!” Cheryl said, her blue eyes changing from confused to understanding. “The girl who’s helping Kurt with his book! I’ve been hoping we’d get the chance to meet.”

  Emily’s first thought was to say ‘you were?’. Before today, she’d never imagined that Cheryl would even know about Emily’s existence let alone consider her ‘famous’. In fact, as often as Cheryl was away, Emily had never imagined Kurt and Cheryl speaking about much of anything. Certainly, not the book Kurt and Emily had been working on.

  But, now, she realized how stupid that was. Cheryl was Kurt’s wife, after all. Of course, she would know about the book.

  So, instead of responding in surprise, Emily put on the most real smile she could muster and came up with a quick excuse for her unexplained presence.

  “Yes, sorry to burst in,” Emily said. “But, I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d drop some pages off for Kurt to look over. But, if you’re busy I can- “

  “Don’t be silly, come in! Come in!”

  Cheryl ushered Emily through the door and past Kurt. Emily tried to meet his eye but he looked down at the floor, determinedly away from her as he closed the door.

  In that moment, he didn’t look like a thirty-six-year-old college professor. In that moment, he looked like a toddler hoping his mommy wouldn’t notice that he’d taken a red sucker from the candy dish.

  Emily’s stomach plummeted when she realized she was the red sucker in this scenario.

  “I’m afraid I’m the one who should apologize,” Cheryl said to Emily as she guided her through the hallway towards the dining room. Emily could hear Kurt following in their wake but didn’t dare turn back to look at him. “I came back into town a couple days earlier than I’d planned. And my father and one of his business associates sort of invited themselves over for dinner.”

  “I don’t know if I’d call Hamilton a ‘business associate’,” Kurt cut in from behind the women. Both turned to him and Emily saw a hint of something in his eyes when he looked at Cheryl.

  This was a look Emily had seen him wear whenever a professor he didn’t particularly care for crossed his path.

  When Emily glanced up at Cheryl, she saw the smile dip slightly. It almost turned into a frown before Cheryl seemed to catch it mid drop and plaster it back onto her face.

  “Ok, so he’s not just a business associate,” she said. “He’s also an old friend of the family. Have you eaten, Emily?”

  “Oh, I…er…no,” Emily said. If her mind had been in the right space, she might have lied or made some excuse. But, as it was, so much was happening around her that the truth was the only thing able to come out.

  “Well, you’re welcome to stay for dinner, we’ve got more than enough,” Cheryl said. Emily picked up the sound of male voices conversing in low tones as they neared the dining room.

  “I don’t want to intrude,” Emily said. Though she directed the statement at Cheryl, she glanced back hurriedly at Kurt. Trying to read in his face whether he wanted her to stay. His face was closed, impassive. Even those expressive eyes didn’t betray him.

  For the first time in what felt like forever, Emily had no idea what he was thinking.

  “It’s no trouble at all,” Cheryl said cheerily. “In fact, you can act as kind of a buffer between Hamilton and Kurt. There are times when they don’t really get along.”

  “I try,” Kurt says with a slightly defensive tone.

  “Sometimes you do,” Cheryl says. There’s a darkness to her tone that says this is an argument the two of them have had before. “But, either way, it’ll be nice for Kurt to have a friend to take the edge off a little.”

  Emily fully expected Kurt to shoot something back about this Hamilton behaving himself. But, before he could, their awkward little trio entered the dining room. The source of the low male voices became clear immediately.

  A tall, distinguished looking man with salt and pepper hair wearing a neat suit sat at the head of the table. This was clearly Cheryl’s father. Malcolm Jennings. Billionaire mogul and the little university’s largest donor.

  Next to him sat a man who looked much younger but equally distinguished. He had dark blonde hair cut neatly in what Emily thought of as “the Business man’s trim” and a dimple graced his right cheek when he smiled.

  The two men straightened up and stopped talking immediately when Cheryl, Emily and Kurt entered the room.

 
; “I hope you two weren’t talking business, daddy,” Cheryl said. “We’re just about to eat.”

  “Nothing important honey,” the older man said leaning back in his seat and giving his daughter an indulgent grin before his hazel eyes landed on Emily and narrowed suspiciously.

  “I take it we have another guest for dinner?” he asked.

  “Oh, yes! Sorry!” Cheryl said with a small chuckle moving towards Emily and ushering her towards the table. “Daddy, Hamilton, this is Emily. She’s Kurt’s teaching assistant and she’s been helping him write his new book.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Hamilton said standing and moving forward to give Emily his hand. His shake was strong. Stronger than Emily was prepared for and she began to feel like her hand might break. “It’s also nice to hear that Kurt might start making some real money from those books he writes.”

  Though Hamilton chuckled at that last line, Emily couldn’t help but wince. Especially when she saw Kurt’s face fall out of the corner of her eye.

  “Hamilton, don’t be crass. Kurt makes enough,” Mr. Jennings said. He stood and shook Emily’s hand as well. “And we’re always happy to have someone from the college over. I know we’ve got a lot of talent over there.”

  Not sure whether she should thank Mr. Jennings for that, she did her best to smile before sitting down next to Mr. Jennings and across the table from Kurt.

  “So, how do you think the book’s coming?” Mr. Jennings asked her when they were seated comfortably. “I know I’ve heard good things about it from Kurt, but, I wouldn’t mind getting a female perspective.”

  “It’s mostly women who read that sort of thing, right?” Hamilton said.

  “I don’t know,” Emily said. “I mean, I guess more women tend to be interested in art history than men.”

  “But, Vangoh” he said. “Isn’t the sensitive, tortured soul more of a soft subject? The kind women are drawn to?”

  Though his tone was casual, Emily saw him give a glance and a smirk to Cheryl who was sitting next to him as he said it. She smiled back as though he’d brought up some kind of inside joke the two of them shared. Whatever the joke was, it was completely lost on Emily.