Houston was sitting in his office, anxiously awaiting Amy when his direct telephone line rang. Quickly glancing at his watch, he saw that he had at least a half-hour until she was due to arrive, and so he answered.
“Houston Storm,” he said.
“Hello, Huey,” came his mother’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Hey, Mom!” he said, leaning back in his executive chair. “How’s it been?”
“It’s been fine, honey. What about you? Are you still seeing that girl you told me about? Jessica? Jennifer? What was it? And when is she going to give me grandchildren?”
“Genevieve, mom?”
“That’s the one!”
“No mom…I told you that she was a date to a fundraiser. I wasn’t ‘seeing’ her!”
“Then how is she going to give me grandchildren?”
“She isn’t mom…she was just a one-time date. We weren’t right for each other.”
“Well, I guess I’ll probably have better luck with your sister, then, won’t I?”
“Mom! I’m an only child!”
“Well! Maybe if I had another baby, they would grow up to give me grandchildren! You need to get a move on, Huey, or they’ll all be taken!”
“Believe me, mom, finding women who would have a child with me isn’t the problem. You know that I just want a good one…like you.”
“Well, you’ll never get a good one if you keep running around with the whores that I always see in pictures of you!”
“Mom!” Houston said, surprised.
“Well they are!”
“Well, I have found a good girl, I think…Mom, you would love her!” he said, and he began telling his mother all about Amy and their lunch date the day before.
“When will I get to meet her?” she asked, over twenty minutes later.
“When I am sure things are working out, Mom.”
“Well, you’d better get moving, Huey…I’m not getting any younger, and I want grandchildren!”
“Well, hopefully, we’ll have a second date today.”
“Good. Be nice…open the door, use your manners (I know you have them, because I taught them to you!), and ignore your phone!”
“Yes, Mom,” he said, sheepishly. Just after he finished saying this, Zivka, his pretty eastern European secretary, ushered Amy through the door and into a seat in the corner of his spacious office.
“Okay, I know you’re busy and need to go,” she started saying.
“Mmm…”
“Enjoy your date, I love you, Huey,” she finished.
“I love you too…bye,” he said, quickly ending the conversation and hanging up. Standing up, he walked around his desk to sit next to Amy, looking relieved. “You came!”
“How could I refuse?” she asked him.
“Did you like the roses?”
“Not as much as Alice did,” she answered him, telling him all about her boss’s disdain for having decorations in the office.
“Well, they weren’t for her,” Houston replied with a huge smile. “I’m sure you want to know why I asked you to come up here today.”
“To ‘fuck’ me?” she said, getting straight to the heart of what was bothering her.
“No!” Houston answered her, shocked. “I mean…if you wanted to, but that’s not why…I mean…what?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you own this building?” she asked him.
“It wasn’t important,” he answered.
“Fine. Why didn’t you tell me that you are one of California’s top five richest men?”
“Because I didn’t want to—”
“Look,” Amy interrupted him. “We need to make something perfectly clear…I am not Genevieve Wyndham, or Irina Leonidovna, Sasha Sasha, or Toni Webster. I ain’t an actress, professional golfer, rapper, or model. I am Amy Delaney, and I am not famous. I am not a damn groupie, and I’m not interested in you for money, just so that is clear as well.”
Houston was completely taken aback. He had not thought a bit about what he would say if Amy knew who he was, or looked him up. The truth was, he hadn’t cared about how his very well publicized affairs would affect any woman that he was seriously interested in…he could only imagine what Amy would say if she found out about Willow. After all, she had been at his mansion two nights ago! Thinking all of this over, he began to speak.
“Amy…I know that I wasn’t completely open with you yesterday, but I have my reasons, and I will gladly tell them to you. First, though, I didn’t tell you that I own the Yuanfen Building because it wasn’t important to me. I didn’t tell you that I am a billionaire because I didn’t want you to like me because of my wealth. As for those other women…I know you aren’t Genevieve or Sasha, Toni or Irina, or any of the other famous women I’ve been with over the last few years. I didn’t want them; I wanted what they could give me…a reputation, prestige, and notoriety. I didn’t even want them because of their bodies, to be honest. I mean, let’s face it…if I was just interested in getting my dick sucked, there are literally thousands of women in San Jose who would do it for free, just so they could say they sucked a billionaire’s cock. I know you aren’t a groupie, and I don’t want you to be. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. You are the one woman I have ever looked at and thought to myself, ‘I’d give my entire fortune away to have her to be mine.’ Well, maybe not my entire fortune. But anyhow, that’s why I did something I’ve never done before…asked for you to meet with me a second time.”
“So, you are saying that you were only with them once each?” Amy said, struggling to understand.
“Exactly…even the rich have one-night-stands, you know.” This resonated with Amy, because she too knew what it was like to be constantly moving from one partner to the next, never connecting on an emotional level with any of them…never seeing them again. Other than Tony, she hadn’t been with a single man twice in over five years. This, similarity between them, more than anything, led to Amy’s willingness to see what dating this billionaire would be like.
“Okay…so, are you asking me out on a date? An official date?”
“Yes…and more, if you want. I have never met a woman that made me want to sell everything and run away with. I have a great afternoon planned for us…if you’ll agree to go with me.”
Several prolonged seconds passed, when finally…“Let’s go, then.”