I’m not ready to believe that this is a man of unsounded depths. Maybe this is all part of the game. You know, like a higher stakes version of “You’re fifteen minutes late even though you’re actually fifteen minutes early.” But I’d be lying if I said this isn’t getting a lot more interesting.
“So am I going to be a research assistant? A proofreader? What do you actually want me to do?”
He stops pacing and sits on the couch next to me. I can’t help but think about what his weight would feel like, pressing me down into the cushions. “I want you to argue with me,” he says. “I want to see how I might be wrong about my ideas. You wrecked that guy in your debate and that’s what I need. See if you can take my arguments apart and I’ll write accordingly. If you can show me that I’m wrong, then there doesn’t need to be a book. There just needs to be more thinking on my part. And I’ll tell you this if I’m right about you, and I am, then you and I are going to reach a very interesting conclusion together.”
He looks at me and holds my gaze. I’m determined not to look away first, but I can’t help it. In this moment there’s no posturing or bravado. He cares about…something. “What’s the book about?” I say, wondering what could make him this passionate.
“It’s about love and trust,” he says. “And don’t you laugh. Do you want to know why the other girl didn’t last? I wasn’t lying when I said all she wanted to do was fuck, but she wasn’t able to think at all. I’d start talking through ideas with her and her eyes would just glaze over. Have you ever heard about playing down to the competition?”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t quite there with her, but she certainly didn’t keep me sharp or challenge me.”
Am I supposed to be his competitor?
He leans forward and puts a hand on my knee. Oh shit, here we go. But he doesn’t seem to know he has done it, and it doesn’t seem a pushy gesture. He’s just connecting. Connecting his hand to my leg. “You’ll able to compete with me.”
I swallow hard. I want to grab his hand and put it between my legs. Nothing like turning yourself into an instant cliché, right? “What’s the other thing?” I say. “You said you need something else.”
Conrad blinks. Then the awareness returns. “Oh shit. Right. Look, I’m going to be honest with you about consulting. I can’t say too much, but I’ve made my name and my fortune as a personality expert. Types and archetypes. I’ve devised a system that has allowed me to work on everything from dating websites to counter-terrorism. I know people and I know how to match them with each other, or turn them into enemies.”
He gets to his feet and looks out the window. It seems like I should do the same so I go and stand shoulder to shoulder with him. Well, it’s more like head to shoulder. I can’t believe how tall he is. They say that tall men earn something like an extra $10,000 per year per inch of height. Conrad, with his bank account, projects like he’s about 20 feet tall. I want to look up at him but I’ve got to keep my cool.
“I think your videos demonstrate that you have an innate understanding of human nature,” he says. “And I think that will make you invaluable to the experiment. And that’s what the book will be about, ultimately. The success of the experiment. But I don’t know if this is the best place for us to start. Any chance that we can get out of here and talk over some food?”
I remember him saying that if he wanted to seduce me he would take me somewhere else. But this doesn’t feel like that. “Do I need to bring anything?” I say.
“Just your brain.”
Even if she can’t admit it, that’s one of the things that every woman wants to hear.
“And something to take notes with.”
Okay. Nice and practical. Nothing wrong with that.
“And don’t change a thing about how you look right now. It’s really working for you.” He winks. “And for me.” Now we’re back in familiar territory as far as the dance between powerful, irresistible men, and the women who try to keep them at arm’s length. But who am I kidding? It’s been less than five minutes since I wanted to put his hands up my dress. He can flatter my mind all he wants, I’m smart and I’ve earned it. I’ve still got a body though, and right now it wants to do all sorts of things to him.
I spare him this internal monolog and roll my eyes. But can I tell you that when he and I step out of the elevator together, the look on Zima’s face is something I wish I could put in a bottle? She was practically vibrating with hatred.
“If you have clients,” she says, “Should I tell them you’ll be back?”
“It’s hard to say, Zima,” he says. “That’s all going to depend on how Maya responds to our date.”
There’s a town car waiting for us outside. A date? Is that what I heard? Remember, I tell myself, this is the man who says he treats life like a game. What better con could there be than for him to tell me he wants to write about love? Especially if he’s going to use me for research. Maybe his plan is to turn me into the cautionary tale.
Let him try. I’m ready for him.
Chapter Six - Conrad
We don’t talk on the drive to the restaurant. There are days when I want to throw my phone into a puddle and walk away. Honestly, there have been days when I do that very thing. But one of the problems with being rich is that you can’t say that you can’t afford a new…anything.
I can tell that Maya wants to ask questions. I’d probably answer them. She obviously doesn’t know what to make of me, and that makes two of us. Well, that’s not true. I’m the one who knows our personality types. But I’ve gotten so restless. There’s just no sport in anything. And I want to feel something real. It doesn’t make sense to me yet, but there was a hint of it when I saw Maya on the video. Some ancient, animal part of me that wasn’t sexual sat up, took notice and said, Jesus. Who is that? It makes me feel, if not vulnerable, then as close to it as I can come. She is uncertainty. But enough of that for now. I know her potential. It’s up to her to show me she can deliver on it.
My driver Mike--who also doubles as my helicopter pilot at times--lets us out at the best restaurant in town. I know because I own it. I own it because I wanted something within close driving distance to my office. I wanted something within close driving distance to my office so I could bring clients here. I bring clients here because of the exact look on Maya’s face right now.
“Arturo’s?” she says.
“Yes.” I know what she’s thinking. Arturo’s is infamous for being so obscenely expensive that no one can eat there and for not taking reservations. You can look like a vagrant or like me, but if you’ve got the money there’s a seat for you inside. It works. “You’ve never been here?”
“No. I’m guessing you know that.”
“Well, maybe, but today’s your lucky day. I told Arturo to make something for us.”
“You know him?”
“This is my restaurant,” I say. “I know everything that happens here.” I take her through the front doors. She gets to meet Arturo and she’s obviously starstruck. His cookbooks are fixtures on the bestseller lists, and this restaurant is a popular spot for eating-based reality TV shows. I take her to the back of the building and we descend a staircase to the VIP room.
“I don’t feel like a VIP,” she says.
“Here, VIP is code for ‘no one gets to come in here but me.’ So, you qualify since you’re with me.”
We go into the room and I pull out her chair for her. Then I lean down before she can react, and I kiss her. If my calculations are correct, this is going to help.
Chapter Seven - Maya
So much is going on that I don’t even know what to pay attention to. The restaurant, Conrad, Conrad’s eyes, Conrad’s suit, and now…his lips. On mine. Out of nowhere. But even more surprising is that he backs off immediately, sits across from me, and then says, with cyborg-like detachment, “What was that like for you?” This is even more annoying since he’s already admitted that he doesn’t ask questions he doesn’t know the answe
r to.
This stoic delivery choked off any shouting I might have done. “Are you talking about the kiss?”
“What else?”
“What makes you think you just get to kiss me?”
“You’re not answering my question. What was it like for you?”
What should I tell him? If I tell him that it was amazing, that it turned my insides to goo and lit my skin up like a blowtorch, he’s going to get the wrong idea. But what’s the right idea? If I tell him that I want him to do it again, right now, but I want him to go slow so I can see it coming, and sink into myself when his lips touch mine, what’s that going to teach him?
“It was surprising,” I say. This much is true and I don’t see how it could lead us anywhere bad. “But you’re not paying me to kiss you. Don’t think for a second that--”
“You didn’t kiss me. I kissed you. Was it good surprising or bad surprising?” He laces his fingers together and furrows his brow like a philosopher. “Just tell me, and then I’ll tell you why I ask.”
“If I had been looking at you when you did it, it might have been good. Or, better. As it was, I barely had time to register the fact that it was happening before it was over. Then you put me on the spot and started badgering me with questions.”
“I hired you to help me. To argue. This feels like an argument.”
“Kissing me doesn’t get your book written. I don’t see any words on the page, do you?”
“Why do you think that it starts with kissing? I’ve always felt that most relationships go from talking to maybe holding hands. But it’s when two people have kissed that it really gets going. It’s a line that not everyone should step across.”
What kind of bizarre interrogation was this? The most delicious man I had ever laid eyes on was quizzing me about a kiss he just stole and now, oh boy, here comes the most famous chef in the city with a plate for me.
“Madame,” says Arturo. “I know you’ll like this.” He squeezes Conrad’s shoulder and is gone as quickly as he came.
“You eat, I’ll talk,” says Conrad.
I’m about to interrupt him. I’m about to tell him where he can go. After all, he hired me to argue with him. “I’m not hungry,” I say. Then my stomach growls and Conrad throws back his head and laughs. It’s a perfect sound, a boyish sound, and I hate that I can’t stay mad at him. I’m trying. I really am. So, while I formulate my thoughts, I start to eat what turns out to be a roast beef sandwich that flew down from Heaven. It is so good that it almost makes me blush. While I chew, Conrad keeps chattering.
“People still don’t know why they kiss,” he’s saying. “There are cultures that don’t do it. What do you think about that?”
I wipe my mouth with my napkin. I don’t know what comes over me, but I get to my feet, lean across the table, and kiss him. It doesn’t last as long as I’d like, but I can’t let him get a big head. Or, a bigger head. “I think those cultures are missing out. Now tell me more about the damned book.”
Chapter Eight - Conrad
I hadn’t planned on kissing her, despite my calculations.. Not yet, at least. I had figured that we would eventually get there, but it took me by surprise. That’s not to say that I didn’t mean what I said to her. As I try to organize my thoughts for the book, they race away from me as soon as I shine a light on them. They say that sunlight is the best disinfectant, but tell that to a fleeing cockroach.
It surprised me more when she kissed me, although it wasn't’ totally out of keeping with her type. After that, just watching her dab her mouth with the napkin made me want to lay her down on the table. I think she knew it, too, because that’s when she started asking questions. “This is how I would prepare for a debate,” she kept saying. “So you owe me the background material.”
“Conrad, what makes you want to write a book about love?”
“Because I don’t understand it as well as I would like to. I’m not sure anyone does.”
“Conrad, how do you define love?”
“I don’t. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt it. I just know what people are like.”
“Conrad, how is love, at least, different than lust?”
“Lust is something I know all about. But I’ve also had enough of it to know that it’s hollow on its own. After a while, of course.” She smiled back at me and bit her lip again. I was about to make an indecent proposal but she cut me off.
“We should probably be getting back. I think Zima is going to be worried about you.” Not so fast. She can ask the questions, she can ambush me with a kiss, but she’s not going to set my itinerary. “Not yet,” I say. “There are a couple of other things I need to show you. For research, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Did you take any notes?”
She looks down at her clipboard. “Want to see? I’m going to run to the ladies’ room real quick. Take a look if you want.” She holds the clipboard up, covering her face for a moment. After she excuses herself I grab for it.
The page is blank except for the faint red outline of her lips. She must have done that right now. Jesus, my heart is pounding. At this rate, we’re never going to write a damned word. Hell, at this rate, we’re not even going to make it back to the car. I start daydreaming about all of the things I want to do to her. I’m wondering about the noises she would make. Eventually, I start wondering where the hell she is. I check my watch. She’s been gone for 10 minutes. When I go upstairs, Arturo says she left. He’s laughing. “She looked like she knew a secret,” he says.
Game on. I go outside, thinking she might be waiting on the curb. She’s not. My driver’s there, but she’s obviously gone. Then my phone buzzes. It’s a text from Maya. “I went back to the office. Had an idea for your project. No time to waste.” That was it. Now she wants to see what I would do. Will I rush back to the building to see her? Will I yell at her? Fire her? Honestly, I consider doing all three, in various orders. But I’m having fun. She shows all of the signs of unpredictability and impulsivity, but there’s no telling what she will do next, which means there is no telling what I will do next. And it’s been a long time since I’ve felt that way.
“Where to, sir?” says Mike.
“Back to work.” On the drive, I’m having fantasies of Maya being in my office. In this nice little daydream, I march in, grab her hips, lift her onto my desk, and demand that she explain herself to me. I’m instantly hard. By the time I get to the building I’ve calmed down a little, but that changes when I go inside and Zima reports that Maya had just left. “She said to tell you she’ll be working from a remote location today,” she says. “Conrad?” she says in the background while I start to laugh. “Is there anything I can help you with?”
I turn. Zima is walking towards me, wanting to talk, but I don’t have time for her concerns right now. “No, I say. Just don’t forward any calls to me for a couple of hours.”
When I’m at my desk I open up a spreadsheet and start making a list. After a few minutes, I text Maya. “I’m willing to let you work from home today,” I say, “But I need you here tonight. Non-negotiable. Come at 9.” It takes her a while to respond. When she does, there’s nothing defiant about it. “I’ll be there,” she says. “What should I bring?”
“Bring a change of clothes,” I type. I look at the words, not sure if I mean them. “It might be a long night,” I add. There. She won’t know what to make of that. I’m not even sure that I know what to make of it.
But I’ll figure it out by the time she gets here.
Chapter Nine - Maya
“I’m not sure what got into me,” I’m telling Angela, who is sitting across from me at my kitchen table, open-mouthed and stupefied. “When he kissed me, it really set me off. And it wasn’t just that, it was that robotic way he handled it afterward. I just had to show him something. He acts like he knows everything, not to mention everything about me. I get the feeling that he’s never surprised by anything. That he feels entitled to do whatever he wants. I mean, h
e just kissed me.”
Angela sighs. “Tell him to come kiss me. I won’t complain like this.” She makes it sound like I’m the most ungrateful person on earth.
“I’m not telling him that. He didn’t hire you. But that’s when I kissed him back. He was going on and on and suddenly I just wanted him to see how it felt.”
“Whoa! What did he do?”
“He was surprised, but it was a real kiss. He probably wasn’t as surprised as I was. You know me. That’s really not me.”
“No. It’s really not.”
It also surprised me when I left. And texted him. And then when I left the firm. I was playing a game that I was creating as I went along, following rules that I couldn’t see. There was no plan. I’ve always been the one with the plan. There was something liberating about it. Of course, there was also something terrifying about it. Like, say, losing a job that paid a ton of money for doing little more than eating at Arturo’s.
“And so you’re going back tonight?” says Angela. “Oh my God, I’m so jealous. I bet he’s planned something so freaky. I wonder why he wants you to bring a change of clothes. I wish I could hide in your purse and spy on you.”
“It’s nothing like that,” I say. Was it something like that? I was the one goading him, daring him to raise the stakes. “But I’m going. I’ve got a job to do.”
Angela and I spend the rest of the afternoon creating increasingly insane scenarios about my upcoming night with Conrad. We debate whether my change of clothes should be something comfortable, like yoga pants and a sweatshirt, or professional. Or sexy, I ask myself without telling Angela. She knows, though. The excitement is practically rising from my skin in waves.
Angela goes home after dinner and then I’ve got a couple of hours to kill before I go to meet Conrad. I decide to nap. If it’s going to be a long night, I’m going to need stamina. When my eyes pop open an hour later, I take the curlers out of my hair, brush my teeth, double check my night bag, and I take a car to the office. The building is dark except for the faint light coming from the lobby. Before I can touch the door it slides open. The desk is empty. Poor Zima. She’s probably out somewhere auditioning for a commercial for Rolaids.
CEO's Christmas Party: A Bad Boy Billionaire Boss Romance Page 51