by Kira Blakely
Zoe followed me around the house now as I started packing her lunch box.
“Aunty Lily! You have a date with Casper?” Zoe was excited.
I smiled at her and tipped my head in her direction.
Zoe and Casper had hit it off the moment they met, although I was still careful to make sure that they didn’t meet very often. He had met her two or maybe three times already and Marla only once. But he was always sure to bring presents and give her all the attention a young girl craves. The result was that Zoe couldn’t stop talking about him and was excited every time she sensed that I was going to see him.
The truth was that I was afraid of my feelings for Casper and the hold he had on me, which only grew stronger as time passed. I was afraid of him hurting me. I couldn’t admit how attached I was to him. I couldn’t bring myself to trust him. We were in a no-labels relationship, and even though he wanted me to move in with him, I was still holding back. I still wasn’t sure.
“Okay, we have to go now. I’ll be late for work, and you’ll miss your bus,” I said, picking up Zoe’s bag from next to the door. She came bounding toward me, and together we took the elevator down to the ground floor. I had my own car now, one of my many company perks.
“Did you and Casper save those trees yet?” Zoe asked, as we made our way to my shiny new car. I had told her about the forest in Nevada where Argent Energy was about to build a base. I was the consultant environmentalist on the project, trying to come up with a plan to best work on the contract and not destroy any of the natural habitat and cause minimal damage to the environment. I had been working on it for the past four months as my first major single-handed project.
“It’s still going on, Zoe. There’s a lot of work to do,” I said to her, as we put on our seatbelts.
“I’m sure you will both be able to do it. Casper can do anything.” Zoe was beaming, smiling as she thought about her superhero. I only smiled at her. She was right, though. When I expected resistance from him, he had allowed me to do my work in peace. With no interference. This job was more rewarding than I had anticipated.
“When can I see him again?” she asked, interrupting my thoughts. I drew in a deep breath. I wasn’t ready yet. I still had a nagging feeling that I needed to give this relationship some more time before I completely let him into my life. Before I allowed him to become a part of Marla and Zoe’s lives.
“Soon, baby. Maybe in a couple of weeks. We could go for dinner,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road.
Zoe sighed, clearly not satisfied with that answer, and she fell into contemplative silence.
“I like Casper, Aunty Lily. You should like him, too,” she said, and I burst out laughing.
“Of course, I like him,” I said, shaking my head at her.
“Is he your boyfriend?” she was quick to ask, and I rolled my eyes.
“Now, Zoe, sweetheart, you know that’s a personal question, and what have we discussed about boundaries?” I said, gripping the steering wheel tightly.
The truth was that I didn’t know if he was my boyfriend. I knew he was my boss and we slept together, and he’d bought me an apartment and a car and showered me with gifts. But was I his girlfriend? Casper Argent was one of the most eligible bachelors in the country. He wasn’t the kind of guy who had girlfriends. He took lovers. And he had taken me. Expecting anything more from him would be foolishness, and I would have nobody else to blame but me for the heartache to follow.
I had taken to wearing kitten heels to work now, ditching my leather sandals for something slightly more professional now that I had an actual job. I still wasn’t going to dress like the other corporate thoroughbreds, though. I still wore bright prints, floral skirts, peasant blouses, and beaded jewelry, just a little less loud.
Today, I was in khaki pants that barely reached my ankles and a tie-dye blouse with my red curls tied up in a bun at the back of my head. My black pumps clicked against the polished marble floor of the lobby as I walked toward the elevator.
Marie, the receptionist, and I exchanged cold glances. We weren’t exactly on talking terms yet, but she had started smiling at me sometimes now, which I believed was a step in the right direction.
I still felt out of place here, but I was learning to accept it. I was making a difference from the inside, instead of from the other side of the picket line.
I took the elevator to the top floor with a pack of files pressed under my arm. Casper had been away for business for the past two days, and I had some research that I wanted to show him.
I’d also missed him. But I wasn’t going to tell him that in fear of appearing too needy. But he always kissed me, holding me close in the privacy of his office, and I was looking forward to that. I had a smile on my face as I stepped off the elevator and walked toward his office door.
I knew that his door was slightly ajar even as I walked toward it, because I could hear the trickling sound of the koi pond and waterfall in the hallway. I began to walk a little slowly because now I could hear the exchange of voices. Casper wasn’t alone. I didn’t want to interrupt a meeting.
But when I got closer, I heard a woman’s voice, one which sounded oddly familiar.
The door was ajar indeed, just a little bit, but enough for me to see through if I put my eye to it.
Samantha. My blood boiled immediately.
Casper was at the far end of the room behind his oak desk. Samantha was standing in front of him behind the desk, too, so that he had to twist his chair sideways. He was looking up at her with that smile on his face. The one that always melted me into a puddle.
Samantha was in a sleek white jumpsuit with gold trimmings and large, gold earrings. She had the perfect copper makeup on that made her look like a celebrity. She was, indeed, fit to be a celebrity. But I wasn’t concerned about her looks just then. I was more concerned about why she was standing so close to Casper, leaning toward him, making certain that he could see down her cleavage, revealed by the deep V-neck of her jumpsuit.
“You are such a tease, Casper. I flew in all the way from New York,” she said, and my jaws clenched tightly.
Samantha leaned in closer to Casper, her nose nearly grazing his. I knew I shouldn’t have been spying – not again, not like this – but I couldn’t help myself. This would confirm all the fears that I had about Casper.
“I really can’t, Sam. I’m busy tonight,” he said, and my heart started racing more.
Samantha looked visibly upset by his response. “You were always up for a date before. At my beck and call. We always had fun. What’s changed now, Casper?” she asked, straightening. I could barely control myself from the burst of feelings coursing through my veins.
“What can I say, Sam? I’m otherwise engaged,” he replied with a smile.
“Engaged with what?” she pushed him with a sour look on her face.
“All right, Sam. I didn’t want to be direct because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” Casper stood up and glared down at her. “But, I can’t see you tonight because I want to spend time with my girlfriend, all right? I’m just back from a business trip, and I haven’t seen her in days.” He was speaking through gritted teeth now with narrowed eyes, focused on Samantha. Who for some reason, had managed to get on his nerves at that precise moment.
I entered the office without knocking, forcing my face to be as expressionless as it possibly could. They both turned to me, and the look on Casper’s face changed. He smiled.
“Lily! I was wondering where you were,” he said, taking long, meaningful strides toward me. He kissed me with his hands on my cheeks, holding my face. Right there in front of Samantha, the witch.
I was smiling when we parted. My heart was ready to burst out of my chest. Casper always surprised me, but this was a new high. One I didn’t want to get off.
“You?” Samantha cried, with her nose pinched and her eyes narrowed to a slit. She was ready to slap me if she could.
I simply smiled at her. “Hello. I remember you fro
m the party in Hawaii. You’re Casper’s friend,” I said as casually as I could. Casper’s hand on the small of my back was filling me with confidence.
I could see the hatred in Samantha’s eyes as she glared at me, choosing not to respond.
“How was your trip?” I turned to Casper instead.
“Good. I missed you,” he said, smiling at me, as though we were the only two people in the room.
I bit down on my lip as I drank it all in, swaying from the headiness and my happiness.
“Zoe was asking about you today. Maybe we should all have dinner together tonight,” I said, certain now that I had made the right decision.
The End
The End
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Billionaire Bad Boys Series
AS HE WATCHED the woman get dressed, Dawson held back a sigh of frustration. He’d enjoyed the previous night; he’d have to be dead not to have enjoyed having sex with a beautiful woman, even if he couldn’t remember what her damn name was.
But as he watched her getting ready to leave the warmth of his bed, he felt cold inside. She turned to face him as she started to put on her bra and flashed a smile that was all perfectly straight, white teeth and false eyelashes, and he knew what she was going to say even before she uttered a word.
“So, gorgeous, when will I see you again?” Her voice was as fake as her tits were, and the coldness he felt inside quickly turned to a feeling of disgust. “And could you possibly give me some money to pay for a cab home? I seem to have misplaced my purse.”
And there we have it, he thought. Another fucking gold digger out for what she could get off him. He was so sick and tired of being treated as a meal ticket by almost everyone he knew, especially women, that he was at the point where he could quite easily throw in the towel and move to a secluded island.
There were just two flaws to his getaway plan: he loved money and the power it gave him over people, and he loved sex with beautiful women, even if it meant he had to use his money in order to get it. Miss fake-sexy, whatever-her-name-was seemed oblivious to the fact that his expression had grown cold as he swung his legs off the bed and reached for his wallet on the nightstand. He withdrew a hundred-dollar bill and walked over to where she stood, ogling his muscular nakedness, before thrusting the money into her hand.
“You won’t see me again, but thanks for a good night,” he said.
The woman’s expression turned petulant, and he was reminded of a sulky child who had been told she couldn’t have any more candy, which, considering the things they’d done the night before, made him cringe.
Thankfully, she took the not-so-subtle hint though, and a short time later he was alone in his penthouse apartment mulling over his life and where the hell it was taking him. He supposed that he had no one to blame for the way people treated him but himself, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier to swallow. He knew that he’d been dealt a rough hand from the minute he’d been born, but he’d managed to make something of himself despite that – or maybe it was because of that – so why couldn’t he find someone decent to share his life with?
Because you can be an asshole. Your mother was an asshole. Your father was probably an asshole, and you can definitely treat people like assholes, which is probably why you get treated like an asshole in return. What else can you expect? He knew that he wasn’t really an asshole – not in the grand scheme of things. Too many people had told him otherwise for it to be true. But sometimes it was hard to ignore the demons of his youth that reared their ugly head during times of self-doubt, and during his formative years, he’d been told so many times that he was a good-for-nothing waste of space.
He shoved at the mental voice that had decided to answer his rhetorical question, pushing it resolutely back down into the recesses of his mind where it belonged. He refused to think about his parents or their effect on his life any more than he wanted to think about the ‘system’ he’d been raised in as a result of their non-parenting skills. That was a dark road that he really didn’t want to travel down – not if he could help it. At least he had one thing to thank them for; they’d made him determined not to turn out like them.
Unfortunately, once he started to think about it, the thoughts were hard to shut off, no matter how hard he tried. As he took his shower and got ready for work, he couldn’t help but dwell on his past.
He hadn’t been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, despite what a lot of people thought when they found out that he was filthy rich. Hell, he hadn’t even been born with a plastic one either. If truth be told, he had no idea if his birth mother had known anything about spoons, other than to use them to do whatever drug users did with them to get the filth into their wasted bodies. He’d been born premature – tiny and suffering from the effects of his mother’s heroin addiction, and despite not being given much hope of surviving, he had recovered and thrived, thanks to the care he received from the neo-natal nurses.
Of course, he couldn’t remember any of that. His earliest memory was probably when he was about three years old, and it was the memory of children crying in their cribs or playpens at the children’s home he’d been taken to when he’d been well enough to leave the hospital. Most of his memories since then were carefully tucked away in some dark recess of his mind where they couldn’t escape to haunt him.
Occasionally, especially during adolescence, he hadn’t quite managed to keep them held back, and they would resurface when he least expected it, resulting in him being expelled from numerous schools and being labelled as a rebellious thug who would never amount to anything. Rather than adhere to everyone’s low expectations of him, he doggedly worked his way up the food chain until, eventually, he owned his own business. It felt good to actually employ those same people who’d said he’d never get anywhere in life except jail. As he thought about that, he smiled for the first time that day.
ALEXA HUNG UP THE PHONE with shaking hands and then gave a whoop of glee.
“Woohoo!! I’ve got an interview, Laura!”
She tried not to get too excited about it as she shouted through to the kitchen, but it was hard not to be, especially after the conversation she’d had with her best friend and roommate, Laura, earlier that day. Feeling disillusioned with city life in general and being unable to find a job in particular, she’d told Laura that she was just about ready to call it a day and move back home with her parents. It wasn’t what she wanted to do, but if she couldn’t find a job before her meagre savings ran out, then she wouldn’t really have an option. Laura had told her that she needed to at least give it a couple more months, but she wasn’t sure that she could wait that long.
Running in from the kitchen, Laura gave a cheer of her own and high-fived her friend. “See? I told you something would come along, didn’t I?” She ran around the room shaking imaginary pompoms and wiggling her hips, and Alexa couldn’t help laughing.
“I don’t have the job yet, Laura. It’s just an interview, and there’s nothing to say I’ll get it.” But she hoped against hope that she would. She loved her parents, and they’d given her an amazing life, but she really didn’t want to move back to the small town she’d spent her whole life dreaming about escaping from. Working on the small family farm had kept her physically fit, but it wasn�
�t what she classified as a real job, and there sure as hell wasn’t any chance of her improving herself or her future there.
“So where is it, and what will you be doing there?” Laura was acting as though the job was already hers, and Alexa had to admit that her excitement was more than a little infectious.
“It’s just a temporary job at the Dawson James offices as a receptionist while their regular girl is on maternity leave. Nothing to get too excited about, but it’s better than what I have right now, right?” You don’t have anything right now, so of course it’s better, you dweeb, she thought to herself.
Laura stopped jumping around and stared at her. “Dawson James? The Dawson James?” She sounded more than a little envious, and when Alexa shrugged her shoulders and looked at her as though she was speaking a foreign language, she also looked incredulous. “Alexa, please tell me that you’ve heard of Dawson James? I mean, how can you not have heard of him? He’s only the most eligible bachelor this side of the equator!”
“I have absolutely no idea who or what you’re talking about.” And she really didn’t. “All I know is that the job is at the Dawson James offices.” What the hell is so special about the guy, she thought, unable to push away the curiosity that ran through her head.
The next hour was spent with Laura, enthusing over the wonderful Dawson James and how he’d built his empire from nothing and was now one of the richest men the planet had ever seen, which Alexa was pretty sure was a complete and utter exaggeration.
“So how did he build it up? What kind of business background does he have?” She would admit to being more than just a little curious, especially considering the way her friend was rambling on about him.
Laura shook her head. “Nobody knows. In fact, nobody seems to know much of anything about him or his past. He stays out of the limelight as much as possible, it seems, so it kind of makes him even more mysterious, doesn’t it?” She threw a grin in Alexa’s direction. “I have heard that he’s incredibly handsome though, so that certainly adds to his allure.”