Chapter1
Her thick, dark locks caught a ray of sunshine, and it glistened under the light. It was what he noticed first; it was the first thing that caught his attention. He stopped to appreciate the sight of it, realizing she was probably no more than a college student. She wore tailored orange shorts and a white flowy top, pairing it off with a nice pair of sandals and a wicker bag.
His eyes narrowed, as if to lessen the glare of the sight before him. Nothing like a leggy and laughing woman to turn his frown into a grim smile.
It had been a terrible morning, as the first of his three meetings had begun late. Lunch was to be his only respite in a sea of disappointments. He had been fortunate enough to enjoy a balmy day in the supposed sweltering heat this season. He disliked perspiring on his suit, and he gladly took it off the moment he stepped out of the office building. It was one of the many he owned. He claimed it was his; it was his birthright after all.
James Warren Douglas IV continued to observe the fresh-faced woman who walked past him, talking animatedly to a female companion, another leggy, light-haired and skimpily dressed woman. Was this how most of the collegiate women dressed nowadays? He couldn’t have been that much older, but his Ivy League school had its rules, dress code included.
He was walking in the same direction which the young women were headed, and he saw them part ways as soon as skimpy lady walked into a café. The woman that had caught his eye continued walking, oblivious to the fact the she was being observed. James needed a good conversation, no matter how random… she would be perfect. She stopped in the middle of her pace, carefully stepping to the side to avoid people. Her eyes sparkled as she checked her phone. For a moment there, James thought she was on drugs.
“You should watch where you stop to check your phone,” he suddenly said, standing beside her, nearly hitting her shoulder.
She looked up, her dark brown eyes momentarily narrowing to see who the stranger was. “May I help you?” she said, unsure of what else to say. She had made a point of stepping beside the wall of the building to not get in anyone’s way.
She was even prettier up close, even if he was nearly side by side with her. She wasn’t too tall, and neither was she too short—well, at least beside his six-foot frame. Her tawny skin was a contrast to his pale one, and it further piqued his interest. He hadn’t had the opportunity to date women of her heritage. Now was his chance.
“As a matter of fact, you can help me,” he said smoothly.
“Do I know you?” she said, confused.
“Not yet, but you will soon enough.”
“Excuse me?” she felt her face heat up, even more confused this time. Who was he again?
“Lunch with me, now,” he told her calmly, as if he had expected this to happen, and as if he expected her to say yes.
She opened her mouth, about to spew a few insults, but no sound came out. Instead, in those few seconds of silence, she saw how tall, well-dressed, and dangerously handsome the stranger seemed to be. Careful, she told herself, he could be a pimp, or worse, a drug dealer.
He suddenly took out a thick wad of cash, holding it in between his fingers. “Here’s $1000 for your troubles.”
“What?” She looked flabbergasted. Who in the hell did he think he was? Her temper began to rise, when he interrupted her.
“Don’t get me wrong; I know you’re not the type,” he quickly said, with a charming yet almost frozen smile. “It’s just that if you’re off for somewhere, and I’m taking away precious time from you; wouldn’t you rather be paid to just sit around and have a decent conversation and lunch with me? And then you’ll be on your way, no harm done.”
She blinked, absorbing everything he had said. “You’re giving me a thousand dollars just to have lunch with you? And to talk to you?” She looked around. “Alright, is this some prank show? I know there’s a lot going on—”
“This bill isn’t fake,” he told her. “Is that a yes or a no?” he asked her. “I only have—” he stopped to check his Hublot Chronograph watch for the time, “forty-five minutes to enjoy a meal with good conversation.”
“What makes you think I’m good—”
“Is this a yes or no?”
She took a step back. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“James Douglas. Pleasure,” he said, extending his hand out to shake hers.
Out of courtesy, she took his hand, but she took it gingerly, as if dreading that some plague could infect her.
“So, is that a yes or a yes?”
She shook her head, unable to believe she mouthed a small yes. What was with this man? His magnetic personality was almost scary. No, it was thrilling… wasn’t it?
“Alright,” he said, “there’s a little Italian bistro I enjoy right around the corner. You good with Italian food?”
“I’m not really—” There was something in his eyes that made her stop. She wasn’t hungry. She was on some intermittent fasting scheme, courtesy of her college mate’s influence. Well, there was the next day to fast. Her self-control slipped because of the mere words of a stranger. What was going on? It wasn’t something fishy; she couldn’t feel a threat. She couldn’t feel a massive prank in the works. For a split second, she thought she saw a hidden camera somewhere. Her eyes narrowed, still suspicious but at the same time curious.
He held out his arm. “Shall we?”
Gingerly, she slipped her arm around his, feeling the warmth of his skin against hers. She took a breath, realizing she had almost forgotten to do so. They walked for a few meters before the man called James stopped.
“Ah, here we are,” he announced.
She balked. It was a super fancy place, a restaurant she had always wanted to try as soon as she was gainfully employed or earning at least a few thousand a week. Was this what the thousand dollars was for? She was effectively paying for her own pricy lunch? Cold crept into her palms, and she suddenly wanted to turn back and run.
“We’re eating here?” she whispered as they walked inside. “We don’t have a reserv—”
“Ah, Mr. Douglas, pleasure to see you once more. Madam,” the man behind the reception greeted her as well. He led them to a corner which was surprisingly unoccupied, given that all that she could see was a full house.
She suddenly became very conscious of her outfit, and he saw this as she slipped into her seat. He had a dry smile on his lips, as if he was amused by her discomfort.
“You alright?” he began, holding the menu in one hand.
“I didn’t know this was going to be a—”
“Restaurant?” he teased. “It’s not fancy or anything.” He was looking at her intently. Her outfit wasn’t bad; it was just casual. At least she wasn’t in those painfully loud, attention seeking clothes, with the creepy witch-like nails, and an all-too annoying accent. “Not everyone is in a suit,” he added, trying to ease her worry.
She remained silent, reading the menu intently, and she was doing her best to control her nervousness. So, he was known amongst restaurant staff, and he didn’t lie that his name was Douglas. She was safe from a kidnapping or, better yet, from a murder. The menu screamed expensive. She deduced ‘aperitivo’ meant appetizers, appetizers that were the full price of her usual meals.
“Shall I order for you? No allergens?” he asked her, seeing her eyes flit from page to page.
“I can’t pay for this,” she protested.
“What makes you think you are?” he asked her. “I wanted to talk to someone, and here you are. Just talk to me for the rest of the lunch break I have, and then we’ll go our separate ways.” He nodded for a waiter and prattled off his orders, as if memorizing the menu by heart.
“We’ll have the bruschetta with mascarpone cheese and sun-dried tomatoes, the lady will have the seafood risotto with white wine, and I’ll have the veal fillet medallions—the chef already knows how I want it.”
“Certainly, sir. Excellent choices,” the waiter said, nodding before he left.
He turned back to face her, his eyes intently looking at her this time. “So, tell me about yourself. I don’t know your name.”
She hadn’t had the opportunity to tell him her name, unless that was how he had meant for it to happen. It all felt like one strange set-up, one she couldn’t find herself settling into. “Who are you?” she blurted out.
“I already told you my name,” he said. “So, who are you?”
She hesitated at first, wondering if she should give him her real name. She relented. “Aliya. Aliya Jones.”
“That’s it?” he said. “What else?”
“What else do you want to know?” she asked cautiously.
“You’re so guarded,” he told her.
“I think it’s only natural that I am. I mean, I’m eating with a complete stranger in a fancy-ass restaurant—” She stopped, realizing he was probably one of those rich guys who disliked rough language.
He gave a small smile. “Go on.”
She took a deep breath, unable to say anything else. The sound of glasses, knives and forks tinkering made her feel trapped.
“Tell me about yourself, Aliya.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “I’m the youngest in the family. I’m 23 years old.”
“You’re attending college at the University of Miami?” he asked her.
She nodded. “How do you know?” Stalker alert.
“Educated guess. Orange shorts, notebook peeking out of your bag with the logo of UM on it,” he told her matter-of-factly. “You could have kept me guessing, but you quickly gave yourself away.”
“Why are we having lunch?”
“Aren’t you hungry?” he said as a waiter placed toasted bruschetta in front of them. He grabbed one and ate it immediately, looking at his watch as he did.
“How many minutes do we have?” she asked him.
“Thirty,” he responded. “Good thing where I work is close by. Where were you supposed to go?”
“Back to my place,” she replied, careful not to mention where she lived.
“No classes on this fine Friday afternoon?”
She shook her head. “It gives me time to read at least.”
“Do you work anywhere?”
She nodded. “Part time.”
“Where?”
“A coffee shop near the school. It’s convenient, and the pay helps for my expenses at least.”
“What are you taking up?”
“You’re asking so many questions,” she said, her reservations escalating once more.
“Well, I’m paying you a thousand dollars to talk to me, aren’t I?” he said. “So, talk.”
She took another deep breath. “What do you do?”
“I work in real estate,” he replied matter-of-factly, “but that doesn’t answer my question. What are you pursuing?”
“Dentistry,” she quickly replied, as their main course was served in front of them.
“Ah, that explains how you have such nice teeth. You do experiments and procedures on each other?”
“Depends,” she responded, weirded out by their conversation. Couldn’t they talk about the weather or some other conversation filler?
“What year are you in?”
“My second. I took a gap year after high school.”
“Doing…?”
“Stuff,” she replied. “I felt like I needed to volunteer and stuff.”
“Where did you volunteer?”
“Habitat for Humanity. A bit of a stint with Unicef, too.”
“So, we have a socially conscious person here,” he murmured. His company had their own corporate-social responsibility shenanigans, and he only went there for the publicity of it or when his social marketing manager requested his presence.
“Where’d you go?” Her eyes lit up, the first he had seen since he had met her.
“Oh, a few countries. Puerto Rico, Mexico, I got to go to the Philippines too,” she said animatedly.
“Do you have roots in any of those places?”
She nodded. “My grandmother was Puerto Rican,” she replied. “I speak Spanish fluently.”
“And your parents?”
“My dad’s a retired sheriff for Miami Dade; my mom’s a salsa instructor.”
“I assume you can dance.”
She gave a shy smile. “A bit.” A bit was an understatement. Hell, she enjoyed dancing as much as she enjoyed watching tooth extractions and bright smiles.
“What about your siblings?” he questioned.
“Well, my two older brothers sorta followed my dad’s footsteps. One is in the Pensacola Police, and the other works in Forensics for Miami Dade.”
“I guess no one can mess with you,” he commented.
“I tried dating. The key word there is ‘tried,’” she told him with a short laugh.
He smiled at her. He knew she was smart but naïve in certain aspects. “What happened?” he pressed on.
“It just didn’t work out.”
Or your entire police squad scared them all off, he thought, grinning inwardly. “All of them?”
She gave a smile that he was beginning to enjoy more than he had expected to. “Not all of them. I’ve only had one serious boyfriend. Sometimes, things just don’t work out.”
“That’s never happened to me,” he said calmly. She gave him a look that said, ‘oh really.’ “It’s true,” he said. “Not about relationships, though, but about life in general. I make things work out for me.”
“And that explains why I’m here, having lunch with someone I barely know,” she told him, “cause you make things work out for your benefit.”
“Smart girl,” he teased.
She shook her head. “Isn’t this a bad thing for your reputation? Whoever you are?”
“Does it matter what they think? I enjoy satisfying myself,” he said. “You should too.”
“I guess I grew up considering other people,” she quipped, then she felt her ears burn a little. “I mean, not saying you didn’t—”
He nodded, causing her to stop. “You can go on, you know. It’s still a conversation, no matter what.”
“Don’t you have other people to talk to?” she asked, frowning a little.
“I have too many people to talk to. So here you are, someone I barely know, a refreshing addition to my otherwise mundane day.”
Ah, he was the type to use big words, she thought, glad that her mother had instilled a love of reading in her. She wasn’t quite sure how to pronounce the food on the menu, though, and she was more than glad that he’d ordered for her.
“Do you always pay people to talk to you?”
He shook his head. “You’re a first.”
“So, you think money can make a difference?” She frowned a little, suddenly hating herself. She had gotten wrapped up in a ploy, all for money.
He nodded. “Of course it does. Only, I’m not paying for services I can get for free. I’m paying for your time and the expertise you have with your life.”
“Trust me, if I was an expert, I’d have all the time and money in the world to do the things I want,” Aliya said wryly. “Just like you.”
You have no idea what I had to do to get here, he thought with a smile. “Strategy is what it takes,” he told her. “Besides, you’re young.”
“And you think you’re that old? Or am I talking to a sixty-year-old that looks like he’s in his early twenties.”
“I’m flattered to know you think I’m in my early twenties. I’m actually 27.”
“If you added a few wrinkles here and there, yes, you’d be 27.”
Aliya noticed that he gave a quiet laugh, more of a chuckle, and she saw how the corners of his eyes crinkled. She enjoyed the sight of his grey-blue eyes in laughter. He wasn’t her type… but then again, she never had a specific physical type. She liked men who were genuinely kind. This James Douglas was a politician type of kind. She couldn’t quite place his personality yet, but she could tell he was manipulative in a charming way. How was that even possible? Charming, yet manipulative. It dawned on her that he was the first person she had met who fit this description. Her father had once told her these traits were usually reserved for psychopaths… Who was he, really?
She suddenly turned serious. “Are you married?”
“Will it bother you if I was?”
“Of course it would,” she said, flabbergasted and suddenly panicky. What if his wife was here? A movie-type scenario confrontation began to play in her mind.
“Relax, I’m unmarried, no children as well,” he told her, “and that’s what you need to know about my life.”
Why would she need to know that part of his life? She didn’t ask about children at all, but here he was, offering information to half a stranger. She was half a stranger now; they were telling each other personal things that one wouldn’t bother much with on a first casual date. Wait, was this even a date?
“How’s the food?” he asked her.
She had been too engrossed in the conversation, she hadn’t realized she was eating without even tasting it. She chewed slowly this time, trying to come up with some nice adjective. “It’s… really good,” she told him lamely.
A brow rose. “Just good?”
“This must be your favorite restaurant,” she said, trying to make the conversation better.
“One of my favorites, when I’m here.”
“You don’t live here?”
“I just work somewhere here,” he said. “Where do you work again, exactly?”
“I work in a small café,” Aliya said.
“How did you get a scholarship?”
“This feels like an interview,” she protested.
“Oh, it feels like it?” he said nonchalantly. “I’m being as casual as possible. This is a friendly conversation between two adults, after all. So, how did you get the scholarship?”
“Simple, I worked hard,” she said with a frown.
“Does IQ matter to you?”
“Does it to you? Do you base your paid conversations with IQ?” she said, feeling uncomfortable again.
“If I’m working with them, yes. Seeing this is a casual conversation, I just want to know.”
“It doesn’t. As long as common sense is there,” she said, after a few moments of silence.
“So, you’re one of those people,” he murmured. Then, he smiled at her. “Well, what do you know? My break time is up. You need to study too, right?”
She didn’t say anything as he called for the waiter. He flicked out a black credit card, and the waiter acknowledged it.
“Aliya Jones,” James repeated again, “I hope you enjoyed our lunch as much as I did. As promised,” he said, slipping an envelope onto the table. “Here’s your fee.”
He wasn’t kidding. She had nearly forgotten about it. Had it really been forty-five minutes with him? It felt like it had gone for hours. His discussion and interjections were nearly torturous at times. She held that sense of relief back, not wanting for him to see it.
“Aren’t you going to take it?” he prodded on. “It’s not blood money. I worked hard for that money, mind you.”
“If you worked hard for it, why are you just giving it away?”
“Because I know the value of a good conversation,” he told her as he kept his credit card. “And let’s just say, I earn better than most.”
A simmer of annoyance ran through her. He made it seem like he was a millionaire, when he was probably only some highly paid executive with a credit card debt to pay off…
“Oh, you earn better than most; glad to know that,” she said through clenched teeth. Her patience had been tested before, but never like this. She had never been so annoyed with a person she had just met!
Aliya didn’t take the envelope. He sighed and took it back after waiting for a full two minutes. “Shall we?” he told her.
As soon as they stepped out of the café, he nodded at her, thanking her for her time.
She stared at him for a moment. Wasn’t he going to ask for her number? Was that it? Did he always do that? “Uh, yeah,” she said lamely. “I’ll… see you around?” she sounded unsure. Who would be? For all she knew, he could be some two-bit conman, or a criminal on parole, or someone who needed psychiatric help and a cocktail of medications.
“I hope so,” he replied. “I’ll be going this way. Have a pleasant day, Miss Jones.”
She stood in place, watching him walk away from her, until he disappeared into the corner of the street.
That was the strangest lunch date she had ever had, if one could actually consider it a date. It took her a while to spin on her heels and walk the opposite direction; and the whole scenario didn’t fully sink in until after she got home.