Womanizer (A Standalone Novel) (A Steamy Alpha Billionaire Romance)

by Tyler, Nella

  I felt like I knew so much more about her company than I did before, although I really didn’t. There were still so many missing pieces to the puzzle that I hadn’t figured out yet. The biggest of all those pieces was figuring out where Alicia fit into the puzzle. Her place in everything was going to be key.

  We buzzed Darla’s apartment and were waiting for her to answer. She didn’t speak, but there was a buzz on the front door so we went inside. It was a fifth floor walk-up and I instantly didn’t want to come visit Darla ever again. How anyone would purposely live on the fifth floor of a building without an elevator was unknown to me.

  “You guys coming or should I send a rescue party?” Darla said from the top of the stairs.

  “Oh, he said he’s at the gym all the time. He can make it up the stairs.’

  I heard Natasha’s voice and was a bit relieved. I liked that I would know at least the two of them at the party and I was excited to meet their partners.

  At the top of the stairs I had to take a moment to catch my breath. Alicia, on the other hand, didn’t even seem out of breath after five flights of stairs. She was obviously in great shape.

  We walked into Darla’s apartment and my mind was blown. She stood there next to a woman that looked so plain I couldn’t even figure out how the two of them were together. Her wife was beautiful, very beautiful. But she was not in the least bit outrageous like Darla was.

  “Evan, this is my wife, Rosalynn,” Darla said.

  I reached over to shake her hand and was mesmerized by her eyes. Rosalynn had jet black hair and pale skin, but her eyes were crystal blue. At first I thought they might be contacts, but they were just too brilliant to be anything but real.

  “Hello, Rosalynn, I’m Evan and this is my girlfriend, Alicia,” I said.

  The words came out of my mouth without even a thought. It was only after they had floated away from me and into the air of the room that I realized exactly what I had said. I looked over at Alicia and shrugged my shoulders in apology. Luckily she didn’t seem to care.

  We all continued to exchange pleasantries and as we finished Natasha spoke up.

  “This is my lover, Roberto,” she said as she turned and kissed the man who stood behind her.

  I reached over and shook his hand when they were done and so did Alicia. He didn’t say anything but smiled as he shook our hands.

  “Let’s get started with some wine,” Rosalynn said as she grabbed some glasses and started pouring.

  “I’m all for a little alcohol,” I added.

  “Me too,” Alicia said.

  I moved toward Roberto as the women all took off for the table and started to get things ready. We stood their silently for a few moments and watched the women.

  “Natasha is a great lady; she’s really kept me going at work for the last few years,” I said.

  He just shook his head and smiled at me.

  Roberto was definitely a man of very few words. I liked that.

  “Can we help you ladies with anything?” I asked as we continued to watch them.

  Several of the women hollered no to me, so I moved to the couch to have a seat. Roberto followed shortly behind me.

  Again we stayed silent and waited for the ladies to call us into the other room.

  “I called Alicia my girlfriend, but really we have just been on a few dates. Do you think she’s going to flip out about it?”

  Roberto just shrugged his shoulders and smiled at me. Again, he didn’t speak.

  “He doesn’t speak English, Evan,” Natasha said as she came into the room.

  “What? Nothing?” I asked.

  “Nope, he’s from Italy. He’s a model. I met him while he was doing a shoot here. I love it. We communicate with body language alone.”

  It seemed like it would be really hard to have a relationship with someone if you couldn’t talk to them. But I watched as Natasha straddled Roberto and kissed his neck. She got up and pulled him up with her and then hollered back at me.

  “Come eat.”

  I followed them into the dining area and found my seat near Alicia. She had just poured herself a second glass of wine and I couldn’t help but be a little happy about it. Hopefully she would get just tipsy enough that she would spill the beans about what was going on with her company.

  As dinner continued on, I tried not to just sit and talk with Alicia, although that was what I really wanted to be doing. Instead, I made an effort to talk with both Rosalynn and even Roberto. Although Roberto didn’t speak English, I was able to communicate a little bit with him through facial expressions and head shakes. He seemed like a pretty cool guy to have agreed to come to a dinner party when he didn’t speak the same language as anyone in the room.

  Darla and Rosalynn cleared the table and Natasha instantly started to make-out with Roberto. It got a little uncomfortable when Alicia and I weren’t making out.

  “I heard Bill Yobi was partially responsible for you first business failing. Some guys at work were talking about it.”

  I don’t know why I blurted it out like that and it wasn’t something I had intended to do. I saw the look of agitation on Alicia’s face the second I brought up Bill’s name.

  “Yes, we talked about this before. People think he had something to do with it but it wasn’t him. There were two other people arrested.”

  She was beyond annoyed with me and I watched as she poured herself a third glass of wine.

  “I’m sorry. I just keep hearing how he’s a scam artist. I don’t see why you would have risked bringing him on with your new company.”

  “Oh, so you know how to run a multi-million dollar clothing line, do you?”

  Alicia’s face had turned flush and she looked like she was about to cry. But I couldn’t turn back. I needed to get some good information out there and see just how she would react.

  “No, I don’t. But one of the women in my office said that they saw a story about Bill and he is living in a multi-million dollar condo here in New York. You must be paying him more than yourself if he has that nice of place.”

  Her patience was growing thin and I felt like she was about to explode like an attraction at a state park. I held my breath as I waited for the explosion.

  “Let’s be honest, Alicia, he was involved in money laundering before. You can be pretty sure he’s doing it again. It wasn’t a smart move to bring him into your new company.

  Alicia stood up and I saw her hand pull back just before she slapped me.

  “You don’t know anything ,Evan. You’re basing your information off of media stories instead of the truth. He’s a good man. He’s the one who made sure I didn’t get charged. You don’t know anything.”

  I saw the tears well up in her eyes and knew I had taken things too far. But Mike and Rebecca and I had not discussed this reaction. She was angry, but she also seemed really hurt and sad by me asking more questions about Bill.

  “I’m sorry Alicia, I just don’t understand why you kept him.”

  “You aren’t running my company, so you don’t have to understand. I’m leaving.”

  She stood up and left the apartment without saying goodbye to anyone. I had to run after her. I needed to make an effort to straighten things out. I really had no actual answers yet, only that Alicia had some sort of emotional connection to Bill. Something deep that made her react the way she did when I said he might be trying to defraud her.

  “I’m sorry, Alicia. I just look at the down side of everything,” I said as I walked ten steps behind her.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re right. I have no idea. Please, let’s talk about it.”

  “I’m done talking, Evan. I’m going home.”

  She raised her hand into the air as she left the apartment building and just like magic there was a cab there for her. It was truly poetic how quickly she could get a cab at any hour. My theory was that it was a combination of her being a sexy woman, her red hair, and just pure luck.
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  “I’ll call you tomorrow,” I said as she got into the cab.

  Although I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to be answering any call from me anytime soon.

  I went back up to the dinner party and was faced with three women who looked very disappointed in me. Even Roberto, who didn’t speak English, looked at me with disappointed eyes.

  “What?” I said as I sat back down at the table.

  “Did you just accuse her of money laundering?” Natasha said with a chuckle.

  “No, I said I thought it was a stupid idea to hire the same guy she used to have working with her. Especially considering he had been charged with money laundering.”

  “Was he charged or was he arrested and released?” Darla said.

  Something in her eyes made it clear that I was wrong.

  “He was arrested and released, but that doesn’t matter. He was obviously doing something illegal if they arrested him.”

  “Didn’t they arrest Alicia also?” Natasha asked.

  “Yes, but she wasn’t involved so they let her go.”

  “Hmm, and they also let her VP go,” Natasha added with a shrug of the shoulders.

  “It doesn’t really matter if he was involved or not. You are basically telling her she’s a bad business woman. No woman in power wants to hear that from someone,” Darla chimed in.

  “What? You want me to just let her whole company get ruined again because of this guy?”

  “It’s her company,” Darla added.

  “I have thousands of dollars invested into her company,” I added.

  “Then sell off her stocks. There is no reason you need to be involved in her business at all. You told her your concerns. You have to let her handle things now.”

  “Oh, Natasha, it’s not that simple.”

  “Why?”

  “I care about her.”

  I saw the surprise on her face. She had never heard me say such a thing about a woman that I had dated. In fact, she probably hadn’t actually seen me date many women at all. The whole situation was unusual and I felt really out of place.

  “Then you definitely need to step back. She won’t consider dating you if she thinks you don’t trust her business sense. She’s a strong woman, you need to let her find her way with this business,” Natasha said and gently touched my hand.

  I hated it, but I thought she might be right. If I kept pushing Alicia she would surely pull away and I would never get to have a relationship with her. As much as it was going to kill me, I needed to just be supportive of her and not let her know just how much research I had done on her company.

  I decided not to confront Alicia with any more information, but I wasn’t going to stop investigating. If I found some solid proof, only then would I bring it to Alicia.

  Chapter 33

  I had new information and I wasn’t ready to stop my investigation just yet. I grabbed Michael the first thing when I got to work and sat in his office to discuss where I should go next.

  “So the dinner didn’t go well?” he asked with a smile.

  “It could have gone better. First time I have been slapped in a very long time, though, that was fun.”

  “Really, I would have thought you were getting slapped a lot more often,” Mike laughed.

  “I know, me too.”

  We moved into my office and Natasha was there with some coffee and the day’s numbers. But I wasn’t interested. My whole mind was consumed with trying to figure out just what was going on with Alicia’s company. Only if I could get the evidence I needed would I be able to confront her again.

  I had become obsessed with the mystery of who was stealing from Alicia. Even if she was going to be angry with me, I was determined to figure out what was going on.

  My entire life had been a weird combination of me giving up on some things without trying at all and then hyper focusing on other things until everything in my life had been forgotten. I didn’t understand enough about myself to know why I was able to so easily give up on some tasks but yet be consumed by others. But Alicia and her company were certainly something that I was consumed by.

  “Let’s look at what we have on this Bill Yobi guy so far,” Mike said as he took out a piece of paper and started to take notes.

  “Well we know he was arrested with her last company,” I said.

  “We know he’s overly protective of her, based on how you said he acted at the stock exchange.”

  “Yep,” I said as I remembered him chasing Alicia and I down the hallway.

  “Is he her father? A boyfriend? Some other close relationship?” Mike said. He clearly had the same thought process as I did.

  “I asked about him being her father. She laughed and said no. I mean I think she would have told me if he had some sort of other relationship with her.”

  “Well how long have they worked together? Maybe she just really trusts him?”

  Mike was again thinking the same as I was. Alicia had worked with Bill for well over five years; he had been her advisor in the clothing world ever since she first started. Perhaps there was a dependency on him because he was the only person she knew for such a long period of time.

  I personally felt like there was some sort of fatherly guidance that Alicia got from him, but I couldn’t understand why she was so loyal to him. She obviously didn’t want him to control her and I had seen that the day we ran away from him on the stock exchange. But maybe that was just some childish game to Alicia and not actually something that was important. I didn’t know what the conversations were like between them. It was entirely possible I knew nothing about Bill at all.

  “I think you’re right. I think she has just known him so long that she trusts him. Maybe I’m wrong about the guy. But there is just something that I don’t like about him. I wonder if we delved into his personal finances if we could see what else might be going on. I mean if money is being stolen from her company by him, we should be able to find it somewhere. Right?”

  Mike didn’t answer but went right to looking for the financial we had on individuals that worked at ALL Warren Clothing. We didn’t have much, but it was a good placed to get started. The good thing about financial information was even when you tried to cover it up in one location; it usually showed up somewhere else. You couldn’t cover up every purchase or bank account. You could only minimize the trail towards them.

  I had the address of where Bill lived which was the first thing to catch my attention. He lived in the upper east side of New York where pretty much any apartment was well over a million dollars.

  “Look up his address, Mike; I think I know where this is.”

  I watched as Mike pulled up a real estate website and typed in the address. We both sat back in awe as we saw a multi-million dollar penthouse come up on his laptop. I couldn’t afford a place like that and I knew Bill shouldn’t be able to with his role in a new start up company. It was an immediate red flag.

  “This isn’t possible. I can just show this to Alicia. She will know that something is wrong,” I said.

  This was the information I needed to convince Alicia. Obviously he couldn’t pay for such a lavish lifestyle with the money he made from working with Alicia. I got excited with the thought that I would be able to show this to Alicia and she would forgive me.

  Having Alicia so angry with me felt horrible. My insides felt like a school girl who had been turned away by her boyfriend. I was usually the person who caused this kind of chaos in others. I wasn’t the person who had these feelings.

  Most of my adult life had been spent avoiding deep relationships. I hated this feeling in the pit of my stomach. I didn’t like how out of control I felt when someone left me. That was why I was always the person who left others. Or I would get into relationships that were specifically set up to end after one night.

  I was in new territory and it was doing quiet the number on my body. I felt nauseous and out of control and I needed to do something to get back into control very quickly.

 
“Evan, there is no real information here yet. Maybe Bill’s rich grandmother died. We have no idea where the money really came from you can’t just go and confront her again. You’re likely to get slapped.”

  “Hey, guys, can I help you with the research today?” Rebecca said from the doorway of my office.

  Both Mike and I stopped and stared at Rebecca as she stood in the doorway. I didn’t want her to be involved at all anymore. I knew I was going to have to be firm with her this time. I hated this part when it came to women I had fucked.

  “No thanks, Rebecca, we have this,” I said to her.

  “Come on, I’ve been helping all along,” she said as she came in and sat down.

  I just looked at Mike with wide eyes and tried to figure out a way to nicely tell her to leave. I wasn’t in the mood to pretend to care though.

  “No, Rebecca. We don’t need your help on this.”

  Here face went red and I could tell she only held back her anger because Mike was in the room.

  Rebecca stood up slowly and put on what looked like the worst pretend happy face I had ever seen. She obviously didn’t want to show how disappointed she was to Mike, but she couldn’t hide it. I felt like she would have bit me again right then and there if Mike had not been in the room. Luckily for me, he was there.

  “Alright guys, I’ll talk to you later,” she said with a smile as she left.

  I jumped up and locked the door after she was gone. I didn’t want her barging in again.

  “Wow, that was a little creepy, Evan.”

  “I know, like seriously she was super cool before and she’s turning into some sort of stalker or something.”

  “Her eyes went totally weird when you told her no,” Mike added.

  “I know. I tell you she totally bit me on purpose the other day. Like straight out Dracula shit.”

  Mike just laughed.

  He was used to me and my women troubles. Mike found humor in all my situations. Including the time I got arrested because the woman I was with had actually robbed a bank earlier in the day. I still hadn’t lived that one down. Luckily I had a great alibi for earlier in that day and the woman confessed and said I didn’t know anything about it. Mike gave me quit the lecture about choosing my women more wisely.