Chapter 6

Oliver

I spent the morning making arrangements for the evening with Becka. I knew she had been upset the night before and, even though I knew she’d likely be much happier tonight, I still wanted to treat her to something special. I made reservations at one of my favorite restaurants. I thought about it, then changed my mind and cancelled the reservations there, choosing instead to take her to a bar downtown.

She was beautiful anywhere, but I especially loved looking at her when she was in her element. Last night when she was sitting across from me drinking her beer I had been so turned on by her I’d wanted to ravage her right there in the bar.

I sat at my desk and thought about Becka, saw her face in my mind, and knew that it was the fact that I was willing to forego my favorite Michelin star restaurant for a dive bar that made Becka someone I needed to hold on to. She was good for me. The bar felt exciting, like visiting another country, and I loved exploring places like that with her.

As I stared out the window, my phone pinged. I grabbed it and looked; it was a text from Becka that she needed to speak with me immediately. I frowned. Tone is impossible to detect over text message, of course, but she seemed angry. I texted back immediately.

I can call you, what’s going on? I looked at the time; it was almost ten o’clock in the morning. I thought about the donation I’d made to the school, but I was fairly sure it was too early for Becka to have found out. I wasn’t even sure Amy Evans knew about it yet.

Two minutes later, my phone rang. I picked it up and was just about to say hello when Becka began yelling on the other end.

“Who do you think you are? You think you can fucking buy me? Is that what you do?”

“Slow down,” I said. Apparently, she’d found out about the donation. “I did it for you, of course, but for Amy as well. I did it for the school and I did it for the future of food science.” I spoke calmly and slowly, using the same voice I used when I was trying to smooth something over with a difficult client.

“I can’t believe you did that without telling me. Do you know how that makes me look?” Before I could interject, she went on. “It makes me look like a complete prostitute!”

“Becka, please,” I said. “It was never my intention to upset you. Can we please talk about this tonight?”

Thankfully she agreed, and we hung up. I sighed. I’d misjudged that business transaction, big time. Normally I knew exactly what to do when money was involved, when there was a negotiation that needed to be handled.

I thought Becka would be excited, grateful—not to me, but grateful for the opportunity to be able to continue her work—but of course I’d completely shut out the timing aspect. We’d had sex the night before, then I turn around and make a donation—small to me, but not to Amy and certainly not to Becka.

Idiot, I thought to myself. Well, there’s one sure way to erase a deal, and that’s to erase it. If Becka didn’t want the donation, I would call and rescind the money immediately. I would offer that to her tonight and see what she said.

We met at the bar downtown and this time, she was there before me. She sat by the door waiting for me. She still looked angry, though she didn’t yell at me when I hugged her hello and kissed her ear. She was warm and smelled like lilac or something, something very sweet. As soon as we sat down, we both began talking at the same time.

“I’m sorry—” she began.

“I’m sorry—” I said at the same time. We both laughed, the tension dissipating. Her eyes softened and she found a small smile.

“Me first,” she said. “I’m sorry I flew off the handle with you earlier today. I just… I wasn’t prepared to hear that the donation had been made, that you had made it, and it freaked me out. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do things for me. I didn’t tell you that stuff last night because I wanted you to fix it.”

“I overstepped,” I said, “and I’m sorry for that.” I had thought through what I was going to say to Becka during the afternoon while I sat in a Skype meeting. “Originally after we talked, I was ready to rescind the donation, out of respect for you. But, I won’t do that. I believe in your research, yours and Dr. Evans’, and I want it to continue. I didn’t donate the money to you; I donated it to the college.”

She sighed as if she was feeling torn. “I wanted to tell you to take it back, but Dr. Evans was practically suicidal when she found out we’d lost the funding. This morning when she talked to me, she was so happy and hopeful, excited to continue with our next step.” She shook her head. “I can’t do that to her.”

“Well, good then, it’s settled. The donation stays.”

“Don’t do it again,” she said. She looked at me with an expression of pure seriousness, and I understood that she truly didn’t care about my assets or my position as CEO. I tried to remember the last time a woman had turned down a gift. Usually it’s the other way around; people, usually women, were contacting me day in and day out asking for money in one form or another.

“I won’t do it again,” I said. Unless I feel like it, I thought. I liked Becka a lot, but she wasn’t going to dictate how I spent my money or ran my life. She looked as if she considered the matter closed. I smiled at her and squeezed her hand. If she only knew that she’s seen just the tip of the iceberg when it came to information about me. Though, I reasoned, if I did my job right, she would never find out anything I didn’t specifically want her to know.

We had dinner, then Becka asked if we could go for a walk and window shop. It was going to be light for about another hour, and I suggested we walk in the direction of the river.

As we walked, I took her hand. She leaned into me. Her body was so warm and soft, but firm in all the right places. I put my arm around her when she leaned into me, and I kissed the top of her head. She looked up at me. We stopped on the corner between eighth and ninth avenue and I kissed her.

We faced each other and she leaned up to meet my lips. Her lips were cool from the evening breeze, and she tasted and smelled like a subtle alcohol perfume. I kissed her hungrily, feeling my body aching for her, my cock awakening, seeking out her warmth.

“I love spending time with you,” I whispered to her. “Can I see you tomorrow?” She nodded. “I want to take you to a very special restaurant.” I was making the plans in my head as I was talking out loud. “Do you have an evening gown?”

She thought for a moment. “I don’t, but I can borrow one from my room-mate, Lisa.” She gave me a long look. “You will not buy me an evening gown,” she warned.

I put up my hands. “Wouldn’t dream of it!” I said, even though that was the exact thought that had gone through my head. “I’ll make the reservation for seven o’clock, if that works for you?”

She smiled. “Asking a question—you’re softening, Oliver.”

I smiled back. “You’re a bad influence on me. Going to get me into trouble with the other CEOs.” I kissed her again and I walked her back to her car. As we walked, I held her hand once again and, as she leaned her warm body against mine, I squeezed her fingertips. I brought her hand to my mouth and kissed it.

When we reached her car, I kissed her goodnight, enjoying the sensation of her lips on mine. Tomorrow night, she would come home with me and we would enjoy another night together. I would make sure of it.

Becka

“What the hell are you doing home?” Lisa demanded the second I walked in the door.

“Nice to see you, too,” I said, setting my purse down and taking off my shoes. It was impossible, of course, but my body felt as though Oliver’s warmth was still moving through me. His fingers interlacing my fingers, his warm protection as we walked down the street. I smiled to myself.

“I mean,” she said, “what are you doing here when you should be over at your billionaire CEO’s mansion tonight fucking his brains out?”

“Classy,” I said. “We had dinner and I came home. It was a lovely evening.”

She rolled her eyes and walked into the kitchen, getting us each a glass of wine. She came out and handed me a glass of red. “Sit,” she said. “I’ve been out of the loop for the last week. You need to tell me absolutely everything.”

“You’ve been out of town for one day,” I said, laughing. But, for Lisa, that was a long time to go without hearing all of the goings on of her friends, so I began to tell her everything that had happened since she left. Starting with sex and ending with him making the “anonymous” donation to the college to benefit Dr. Evans’ research and my dissertation.

“Oh my god,” she sighed. “That’s so romantic!”

“Romantic if you’re a hooker,” I said. “I’m pretty sure I just got paid for sex.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Lisa said, filling my glass again with the bottle she’d brought from the kitchen. “He likes you. You told him you had a problem. He solved your problem.”

“I don’t need a man to solve my problems for me,” I protested.

“No, you need a billionaire to solve your problems. Fortunately, you have one. Look at it this way,” she said. “Would you have gone off on him -- which I can’t believe you did, by the way, have you no sense? if you told him that you had a clogged toilet and he came over and plunged it for you?”

“No,” I said. “That would be fine. But I’m not seeing the connection between a clogged toilet and a million-dollar donation to fund Protame.”

“Because you’re not thinking clearly,” she said. “You’re just bothered by the money part, not by him helping you. You want his help. He wants to help you. He’s got billions -- billions! -- of dollars. He’s probably better equipped to give you a million dollars than to plunge your toilet, honestly, so why don’t you just let him do what he’s good at?”

“First, he didn’t give me anything.” I stopped. Lisa was looking at me as if I’d just given her another box of ammo. I sighed. “It’s not even an issue anymore. I told him he could still give the donation but that he wasn’t allowed to do it again.” I shrugged. Simple as that.

Lisa burst out laughing. “I love that you told a billionaire what he was and wasn’t allowed to do. You crack my shit up sometimes, Beck, you really do.” She took a sip of her wine. “How about this, how about if you just let Mr. Billionaire take care of you and spend some money on you? Being a sugar baby might suit you just fine. And I bet being your sugar daddy would fulfill at least one fantasy on his list.”

I shook my head and smiled. “You’re terrible,” I said. “But, I’ll let it go tonight because I need a favor.”

“Sure, anything,” she said.

“I need a dress. He’s taking me somewhere really fancy tomorrow night and I told him he wasn’t allowed to buy me a damn dress; it was all over his face that he wanted to. I said I could borrow one from you.”

“Fortunately, I have great taste in clothes,” she sniffed and stood up. I followed her into her bedroom and we spent the next few hours trying on dresses. At around midnight, I ran to the kitchen and grabbed another bottle of wine. We drank it as we tried on every dress in Lisa’s closet. I couldn’t believe how many clothes she had.

“You need to shop less,” I said, slurring my words a bit with the wine.

“You need to shop more,” she said. “You need fancy schmancy dresses to wear with your new boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said, protesting, but not as strongly as I would have sober.

“He is so your boyfriend. Here, try this one on. I just bought it; the tags are still on.” She tossed a red dress with silver shimmering thread running through it at me. It was gorgeous; the material felt both soft and heavy in my hands. I slipped the dress on over my head.

“Take off your bra,” Lisa said. She was right; the neck was so low cut there was no way I could wear even a strapless bra with it. I slid my bra off through the spaghetti straps and adjusted my breasts in the dress. I turned to the side; the dress looked amazing. I was about a size bigger than Lisa, but the dress was made of a stretchy material and it accommodated my curves very nicely.

Lisa whistled. “You look fucking amazing in that dress,” she said. “You look better than I do in it, honestly.”

“That’s because you’re drunk,” I joked, but she was right; the dress looked perfect on me.

“You need shoes,” Lisa said. “Do you have shoes?”

“I have black heels I can wear,” I said. “I’ll try them on, but I think they’re tall enough.”

“No, no black,” she said. She rummaged around in her closet for a minute, nearly disappearing into the back corner. When she came out, she held out a shoe box. I opened it; inside was a pair of silver, glittery heels. I looked at her, holding one up. She shrugged. “I needed shoes to go with the dress.”

I slid the shoes on and they fit a little snugly but not too bad. I turned around for her so she could see the whole outfit. She clapped her hands and laughed.

“You are going to knock his socks off!” she said. “He’s going to tear that dress off of you when he picks you up. Did he tell you which restaurant he’s taking you to?”

“He didn’t,” I said, shaking my head. “He just said it was his favorite, and that I needed an evening gown.”

“I just want your life,” Lisa said. “You understand that, right?”

I laughed. “Yours is pretty good. After all, I hear your roommate is dating a billionaire.”

She threw a pillow at me and we laughed. I threw one back, and the wine-induced pillow fight was officially on.