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

by Tyler, Nella

  “Do you think I should go check out his place? See what else I can find?”

  “No, Evan. If you want to know what I really think, I think you should sell off your stock and give up on the whole thing. I think you’ve got yourself in way over your head and you don’t need to be involved with this girl. There are plenty of other women who don’t have these kinds of issues.”

  “I’m not giving up, Mike. I’m so close.”

  Mike just shrugged his shoulders. He knew better than to argue with me when I had decided something. We had known each other for too many years for him to argue with me about things that I decided to focus on.

  I think he was just as confused as I was about the things that I was willing to let go of and the other things that I focused on. But Mike seemed to just let things roll off his back without a worry.

  “No reason to go over there, Evan. We can see that his place is expensive. It was last sold for thirty-two million dollars back in 2005.”

  “I just need more. I need to find out for sure if he was the one who purchased the apartment. He seems like a smart man, I’m not sure he would be dumb enough to purchase that expensive of a condo with money he stole from Alicia’s companies.”

  “You’re right. It does seem a little obvious. I think I have a guy that can help us find more information. You should try and make up with Alicia though or all of this is going to be for nothing.”

  I knew he was right. No matter how much I wanted to figure out what was going on with her company, if she was pissed at me it didn’t matter at all.

  “Ok, I’m going to work on her. You work on finding the financial proof I need to blow up Bill Yobi’s lies. I need real proof though. I need his name on some documents so I can show Alicia he is using her.”

  Mike and I ended our day of investigation and he went off to try and find the answers I needed. I went home and tried to figure out what I could say to Alicia that would bring her back to me. She was pissed, but hopefully not too angry to forgive me.

  I had never worried so much about a woman and her dislike toward me. Something about Alicia had drawn me in though. I was hyper focused on her and there was no way I was going to give up until everything had been settled.

  I was committed to making sure I helped her figure out who was stealing from her and I was going to have to deal with the consequences if she continued to hate me. I really hoped when it was all done she would be able to forgive me, though. It made me physically ill to think that she might not ever be willing to forgive me.

  Chapter 34

  I stood at the window in my apartment and stared out over the city. It had only been a few weeks before that I had a hot blonde bent over right there and fucking her. I didn’t have the urge to go get a woman from the bar though, instead, my mind was consumed by thoughts of Alicia’s warehouse.

  It was a huge building in the middle of nowhere. It didn’t even seem like a good choice for someone who wanted to store large amounts of cash. You could do that anywhere in the city if you had to. Simply rent an apartment and keep the money there. Why did they put the money into a warehouse? Why did they choose a place so far away from everything else? There had to be significance to the location.

  “Alicia, I know you’re pissed but I would really like to talk to you. Please come by my apartment anytime or the office,” I said into Alicia’s voicemail.

  I gave my address and then hung up. I hoped that she would be willing to stop by so we could discuss what was going on. If she was really involved then she wasn’t going to call me back. If she was really involved she would cut off all communication with me and try to hide out.

  I hoped she would call. I hoped she wasn’t involved at all.

  My mind raced with the thoughts of everything. What had started as a plan to just get research on a company had spiraled out of control now. I was in much deeper than I ever thought possible. My life was wrapped up in Alicia and her company and I wasn’t going to be able to move on until I figured everything out.

  I felt the pressure of the situation and the uncomfortable nature of what was going on. I was Evan Gade, my life didn’t get mixed up with women like this. My life was about work, making money, and fucking hot women. Something had gone wrong with my plan and now I wasn’t doing any of those things. I had stopped being able to work efficiently, stopped making money and I certainly wasn’t fucking anyone lately.

  Sleep found me late into the evening.

  In the morning, I felt more exhausted than usual. I really wanted to get everything figured out with Alicia but I might just have to give up. I couldn’t go around being exhausted forever. Sooner or later I would have to get back to my normal life.

  My mood was glum as I headed into the office and waited for Alicia to contact me. I would give it a day or two and then if she hadn’t reached out to me by then I would have to move on.

  “You look like shit, Evan,” Natasha said as I came down the hall toward my office.

  “Thanks.”

  “I take it you weren’t able to get Alicia to forgive you yet?”

  “No answer when I called.”

  “Well you need to get over it. You have a fucking job to do Evan. Your clients need to make money and they need your full attention.”

  Natasha was right. Something had taken me over and I didn’t have enough energy to concentrate on Alicia and do my work. Something was going to have to change. I wasn’t about to risk losing my clients over this mess. If I had to see off the stock to ALL Warren then that was what I was going to have to do.

  “You’re right Natasha. I’m going to focus on work today.”

  The best way for me to focus was to spend the morning on the stock market floor. There was no better way to refocus my energy on investments than to be smack dab in the middle of all the excitement.

  From the newbie’s to the old pro’s the stock market floor was where it was at when you needed to get back into the game. I loved it on the floor. It felt like home to me.

  The buzz of the trades, the loud yelling of the traders: it was intoxicating. Similar to the high I felt when I took a new woman home or had fun with her in some random location; but the stock market didn’t require emotions. In fact, the best work traders were able to separate the emotion of the trades from the logic of the deal.

  I had lost my focus. By getting involved with Alicia, I had done exactly what I shouldn’t have done. I had made the investment into her company something more personal than it needed to be.

  By the end of the day, my focus had returned and I was in full on trading mode again. I sold off some stock that I didn’t think was helping the portfolio grow and I had started investing in a couple new companies. It was a very productive day, except for one thing; I hadn’t made the decision if I was going to sell off the ALL Warren stock or not yet.

  “Mr. Gade, there is a Ms. Warren here to see you,” Natasha said over the speaker phone in my office.

  My stomach dropped and I jumped up. Hopefully she hadn’t come with the intention of slapping me again.

  “Hi, Alicia,” I said as I opened my door.

  She sat in the chair next to Natasha’s desk and looked visibly upset. But she didn’t look angry, instead she looked very sad. Her eyes were puffy like she had been crying and I just wanted to sweep her up into my arms.

  “Hi, Evan,” she said as her eyes met mine.

  I reached my hand out for her and she grabbed a hold of me. I held onto her and made our way back into my office.

  “You alright?” I asked.

  “No. I’m not alright. I don’t know what’s going on at all,” she barely got the words out of her mouth before she totally broke down in tears.

  I couldn’t understand much else that came out of her mouth after that, but Alicia started rambling on and sobbing all at the same time. The only thing I could think of to do was pull her close and hold onto her. She obviously was upset and I wasn’t familiar with sticking around to deal with that kind of emotional outburst.
Hugging her was the best I could think to do.

  “It’s alright,” I said as I rubbed her back. “What’s going on?”

  I shouldn’t have asked her a question though; she continued to cry and tried to answer me. I had no idea what she said.

  After about twenty minutes of hugging her, she finally pulled away from me and seemed to have calmed down. Her eyes were puffy again and I had an urge to run far away. Not because I wasn’t worried about her, only because I wasn’t comfortable being around someone when there was so much emotion going on.

  Historically, if a woman got emotional, I walked away. I just didn’t have the temperament for comforting women. My specialty was making them moan, not making them feel comfortable. But surprisingly, I didn’t mind comforting Alicia.

  “Evan, I don’t know what to do.”

  “Okay, now that we are all calmed down. Tell me again what’s going on. I couldn’t really understand you.”

  “I tried to talk to Bill and told him that it sucked people still remembered what happened before. He got really upset and freaked out. It scared me.”

  “What do you mean he freaked out?”

  “He said he was taking a day off and going to check on some things. He got pissed and thought I believed you and wanted to know why I would trust someone else and not him.”

  “What did you say?” I asked.

  “I couldn’t say much. I really hadn’t believed he would do anything bad ever to me, but the way he got so angry it was horrible.”

  Alicia was about to start crying again and I didn’t want to deal with that.

  “Let’s take a couple big breaths and see if we can figure out what’s going on. Maybe you just caught him off guard. We don’t know anything for sure yet.”

  I had to calm things down a little and I didn’t want her to think I was targeting Bill personally. The only reason he kept coming up was because of his history with Alicia. Well maybe that wasn’t totally true. I also had my concerns about him being her finance VP and not having a graduate degree in business or finance. He just didn’t seem qualified to be a vice president of a company.

  It was also extremely unusual that he would have a multi-million dollar condo without even having his MBA. Surely he couldn’t be getting paid that much money from Alicia.

  Alicia hugged me again and held on tight. It felt good to have her arms around me. I liked having her guard down and feeling her so close to me. Normally all I would have been thinking about was how I could get her into bed. But I wasn’t. At that moment I was just thinking about how I could help her.

  “I’ve had a bad feeling about a lot of things with my company lately, Evan. I just don’t know what’s going on. There have been people complaining about getting double billed. There are people complaining that they haven’t gotten their orders. I just feel like things should be running so much better.”

  “I can help. But you have to be honest with me,” I said as I stepped away and went to my computer.

  I wasn’t ready to tell her that I had been researching her company since the day I met her, but I did really want to use this conversation as a starting place for us to move forward. I wanted to help her figure out what was going on with her company and ensure she was making the most profit from her organization. She didn’t need another failed company on her hands and I wanted to make sure that we prevented that.

  “Thanks, Evan,” Alicia leaned in and kissed me.

  I couldn’t resist. Emotionally, I was exhausted as I was sure she was too. It was a huge step that she had shown up at my office and it made me think she really did not know what was going on.

  There was a giant weight that had been removed from my shoulders. I could tell by her reaction that Alicia wasn’t in on anything. Now we just had to figure out what exactly was going on and try and get to the bottom of it before her company was at risk.

  “Let’s go back to my place and we can talk about things,” I said.

  I didn’t expect her to say yes, but I also didn’t want to stay at the office all night and my place was much more comfortable. I was exhausted again and just really wanted to go to bed. Or at the very least, go back to my apartment where I knew we could relax and talk comfortably.

  “Sure,” Alicia said as she grabbed her bag and waited for me by the door to my office.

  Something in her eyes told me that she wasn’t angry with me anymore. She seemed to have forgiven me and I was able to relax just enough to look toward the possible future when everything had been figured out.

  I couldn’t wait to sit with Alicia in my arms and have her thank me for helping to save her company. The thought played in my head like the ending of a romantic movie and I wanted it to happen. I wanted Alicia to get her happily ever after and I wanted it to include me.

  Chapter 35

  “This is a nice place,” Alicia said as we walked into my condo.

  The sun was setting in the distance and Alicia went to the window and watched it for a little bit. I just stayed back and enjoyed looking at her silhouette in the middle of the sunset. Her delicious hips swayed side to side as she looked out over the city. I wanted to come up behind her, lift up her skirt and have my way with her right there by the window. But then I remembered the blonde I had had right there only a few weeks ago.

  “Come sit with me and let’s talk about things,” I said in an effort to get her away from that spot.

  I didn’t want Alicia like that. I wanted to have her naked and in my bed. I wanted to make love to her, not fuck her up against a window. My mind whirled with the thoughts of previous women and then the thoughts of Alicia who sat next to me on the couch.

  “So tell me what you think is going on?” Alicia said.

  She had obviously calmed down and seemed much more willing to discuss the situation. I still didn’t want to tell her just how involved I had been in all the research. I was going to have to lie a little bit.

  “Well, there is a lot of public information that people go through about a company when it comes up as an IPO. I had a research assistant who brought up that your books looked too perfect. That’s kind of a warning for us in the investment world.”

  “So good accounting makes you think there is fraud?” Alicia laughed.

  I could tell she was very skeptical of me and what was going on. She still didn’t fully understand what I thought was happening. Really, I didn’t fully understand what was happening.

  “Yes, with most companies, you can see areas that they need to work on when you review their financial. When a company looks perfect on paper, we get worried.”

  “I don’t get it, Evan.”

  “Think about when you balance your checkbook. Have you always had every single check written in your ledger?”

  Alicia laughed. Oh, it took my breath away when she laughed. My heart rate quickened and I felt a tingling shoot through my body. I could sit and watch her laugh for hours on end.

  “No, I’m horrible at keeping my checkbook balanced,” she said through her giggles.

  “It’s kind of like that, we expect to see little errors here or there. It shows that the company is normal. But when everything looks perfect and there isn’t a single error, often those are the companies we find out have cooked their books.”

  “Do you mean made fake financials to release to the public?” Alicia looked shocked but seemed to be understanding what was going on.

  “Yes, exactly.”

  She took a deep breath and for a moment I thought she might breakdown and start crying again.

  Instead, she just leaned back in the couch and pulled her legs up to her chest. I sat back as well and we just enjoyed the silence, both of us lost in thought. The situation was unique and I appreciated that it was especially difficult for Alicia. She had everything on the line. This wasn’t just some investment for her, this was her livelihood and she couldn’t lose another company.

  “Evan, why do you think it’s Bill? What about Ryan?”

  “Who is Ryan
?”

  “He’s my distribution guy. He’s the one in charge of my warehouses and the orders getting shipped out. That seems to be the area I’m having the most trouble.”

  She had a good point. If this Ryan guy was in fact in charge of all the warehouses, he surely must know what was going on with the New York warehouse. But how could I bring that up without specifically telling her that I had already snuck into her warehouse and seen stacks and stacks of case and absolutely no product at all.

  “Maybe we should take a drive out to your warehouse tomorrow. We can just check things out and see what’s going on?”

  It was the only way I could think of to let Alicia get a firsthand look at what was going on. We could sneak in and she could see all the cash and she would know that I was right about something illegal going on.

  “Thank you, Evan, I think that would be a great idea.”

  Alicia leaned over and tucked her head in by my shoulder. It felt perfect. We fit very well together and I was happy that I could comfort her a little bit during this difficult situation.

  She looked up at me and I had to kiss her. Something overcame me and I needed to feel my lips on hers. I didn’t care if it didn’t go past just kissing, I had to feel her. I needed to touch her.

  Slowly our lips met each other and we kissed soft gently kisses. My body still reacted with the desire I had for her, but I knew better than to push things further. She had denied me for weeks and I didn’t want to take advantage of the vulnerable spot she was in at the moment. I was happy to just spend the evening kissing her; if that was all she wanted to do.

  Her hand moved up to my face and I felt the warmth of her fingers on my rough skin. My breath quickened and I could tell hers had as well. Slowly I turned so I could face her move directly and I kissed her with passion. Strong, deep passion that I couldn’t hold back another second.

  She exhaled and then kissed me back with equal passion. I almost exploded with desire when she returned my passion. I needed her.