Chapter 8
"We have a problem." He had come back into the room after a few minutes. He had rolled off her when he could safely do that and had gone into the bathroom. She had pulled the sheets up over her as she waited for him to come back in. Her breath quickened as she looked at his muscular physique.
"And what is that?"
He climbed on the side of the bed. "This is not a one-time thing and it is not going away."
"I agree," she surprised him by saying.
He stared at her for a moment not knowing what to say at first. "So what are we going to do about it?"
"We could meet whenever." She shrugged.
"Just like that," he said softly.
"Just like that." She stared at him, the tousled hair and the slumberous look in his gray eyes. She did not dare venture further knowing what was already there. "We have this amazing connection and it would be stupid of us not to explore it."
"Indeed," he said in amusement. He reached over and pulled the sheets down. "Does that include you spending the night here with me sometimes?"
"That could be arranged." She arched her back as he ran his fingers over her nipples and down her stomach. "What are you doing?"
"Getting ready to start over. Do you mind?" he asked her softly.
"Not in the least." She slid further down as he climbed in next to her. "I don’t mind at all."
*****
"I should fire you." Benjamin was waiting for her in the lobby the minute she walked in.
"But you are not going to," Sasha said airily as she made her way to her office.
"I have no idea why he is still using you," Benjamin said as he came in and closed the door behind them.
Sasha shrugged off her coat and scarf and hung them up before going around to her desk. "Of course you do. I am good at what I do."
"Ad one day that enormous ego is going to get you fired," Benjamin said with a sigh. "You do not just leave here and don’t answer your phone, Sasha."
"It will never happen again, but I really thought I was fired."
"I was going to fire you, but he said he was not doing it without you."
"Good man." Sasha fleetingly wondered if it was really because of her work or because he had designs on her body. She shrugged away the thought and sat down. "Is there anything else?"
Benjamin shook his head. "We have a very tight deadline."
"And I will get to it as soon as you leave," she said pointedly.
He gave her a retiring look and then left.
Sasha leaned back against the chair and closed her eyes briefly. Yesterday was still very much imprinted on her mind! She had not left the apartment until late and not before he had made her promise to see him again tonight.
"I have to go out of town for two days and I want to spend the night with you. No arguments, Sasha," he had warned her.
"I was not going to argue.’
"Good," he had said briskly.
What on earth was she doing? She was sleeping with one of the most powerful men in the world, a man who could make or break her career! A man who was used to sleeping with women who were recognizable and who were high up in society. What was she doing? And what would happen when he got tired of her? When he decided that it was over between them? Would she be satisfied with just going her way and be done with it? Would she be able to look at his picture on the internet and in the papers alongside some gorgeous woman and feel nothing at all? What was she doing and how could she have done this? How could she not? She shuddered as she remembered how he had made her feel. How he had brought her to such heights of ecstasy that when she had come crashing down she had not realized where she was! And she knew he felt the same way too but what did it mean? She jumped slightly as her phone rang. She answered it and spoke to Minister Brady who had driven Chloe to the hospital. "Thank you, my dear, for what you did. She is certain to get the best treatments here."
"You are welcome, Pastor." She hung up the phone and with forced determination she started working!
******
"Ladies, thank you for coming on the show. I know that you all have busy schedules and families to take care of, so I want to apologize for the short notice and I am so pleased at the amount of you that turned up for this interview."
"You are welcome," Kelly said as she crossed long legs encased in blue silk pants and settled back against the chair provided. "We are happy to be here to clear the air, Anastasia."
The other wives agreed.
"First, I will introduce you to our television audiences even though I know that they already know who you are by seeing your pictures and by the work you do. To my left, we have Kelly Takahashi who is married to Kane Takahashi. I have to tell you, Kelly, that getting a reservation to your restaurant and your husband’s is like trying to pull teeth! It is the hardest thing to do."
"I will make sure you are put on the list as soon as we get out of here," Kelly said with a laugh.
"I appreciate that, darling," the middle aged blonde told her. "Now next to Kelly is Leesa Wellington and I have to say, Leesa, that you look stunning as usual. I understand that you are heavily involved in the building of an extra wing to some of our local hospitals to aid in the fight against cancer?"
"I am." She flashed her smile. "You know it is my pet project and one that I hold close to my heart as I was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years back and I have every intention of fighting the good fight."
"Thank you, darling, and then we have Carrie Copeland, Dr. Hailey Snyder, and Harper Shaw with us as well. I must say I am very happy to see you ladies and to have you on the show. I have here in my hand the magazine that paints you and the others like you as women who set out to prey on rich, white men. It is very careful not to paint you as being women who prefer other men aside from your race, but the readers picked up on that and ever since I have announced who my guests will be on the show, the network has been flooded with calls from African American as well as Caucasian women who are adding their comments to the mix." Anastasia turned to Kelly and Leesa. "I am going to start with the two of you who have been married for much longer. What is your take on this article?"
"This is not the first time we have been targeted and accused of turning our backs on our own race, Anastasia," Leesa said seriously as she turned to look into the audience. "We have been accused of thinking that black men are beneath us for want of a better word. I am a black woman and now more than ever the idea of a black woman married to a white man brings our race and our loyalty to our race in question. I am not ashamed of who I am. I am with Bradley because I fell in love with him. Yes, many people know my story. I pursued him because I fell in love with him long before he even noticed me and I was determined that he was going to be the man for me. I often tell people that I am color blind." She stopped at the laughter before continuing. "I don’t notice the color of the person’s skin or anything like that, but I am into a person because of their character and their personality. I am who I am. And that is forthright, bold, and really do not give a heck what people think of me. I love my husband and my children and they come first for me. We are women who married the men we marry because we had no choice. We fell in love and we make no apologies for that."
"Kelly?" The woman turned to her.
"My story is much the same as Leesa so maybe you should allow one of the others to speak," Kelly told her.
"Hailey, you have a doctorate in liberal and contemporary arts and you still lecture at one of the most prestigious universities in the country. You are a fairly newlywed and what is so interesting is that you are ten years older than your husband. Your husband had the reputation of being a former playboy and I must say that the differences between the two of you are of course staggering! What do you have to say?"
Hailey laughed easily as she crossed her legs. "You forgot the part where I found myself pregnant at age forty-five and then pregnant again a year later." She waved her hand. "As Leesa said before, love makes strange bedfellows. I would never have seen myself with David in a million years. He was not my type." She waved at the camera. "I love you, darling." She turned back to Anastasia. "I am totally going to have to pay for that remark later on tonight. But seriously, I fell in love hard and I fought it like the dickens. There were too many variances between us and there was no way it was no way it was going to work. But he broke down every single one of them and he refused to take no for an answer. Did I notice that he was white and rich and ten years younger than I was? Yes, I played all those things over in my mind and tried to stay away from him, but then I realized that staying away from a love like that would be like ending my life and I had no intention of doing that.
"I feel the same way," Harper said quietly. "I was against what Ethan stood for, what his company did. I never thought much about the black and white of it. I was not interested that much in a relationship until I met him and he changed my way of thinking, the way I thought that love was supposed to be. I am sorry that women have a problem with us as women finding love, but we are women in love and we make no apologies for it!"
*****
"Darling, what are you doing home so early?" his mother asked in surprise as she looked up from the program she had been watching to see him come into her room. "It’s only four-thirty."
"A guy cannot come home to the favorite woman in his life?" he asked her teasingly as he bent to kiss her cheek. She did look so much better and he was starting to have hope. "What were you watching?"
"An interview with several of the wives of the members of your club. Very interesting," she murmured. "So tell me why you are so early?"
He sat next to her and took her hands. "I am going away for the night."
She looked at him with a small smile. "The last time I checked, you are an adult and certainly do not need my permission to stay out the entire night. I am happy to know that you are in an actual relationship."
"It’s not a relationship-" He broke off with a laugh. "I have no idea what it is."
"Sasha is quite an interesting girl, isn’t she?" his mother asked shrewdly.
"How do you know-" He shook his head. "Of course you know. Yes, she is, and I have no idea what this is all about, Mother. I just know that I like being with her."
"It starts there, darling. Don’t keep her all to yourself. Invite her over to have dinner with us one of these days."
"I will," he promised as he bent to kiss her hand.
Elizabeth watched as he hurried away with a smile on her lips. She had been waiting for this moment ever since she had been diagnosed with the dreaded disease. She had lost her husband far too early and had concentrated everything she had on her only child. Her husband had been a pharmacist who had been very dedicated to his work. He had encouraged his son to go into the same field, but they had both noticed that Stephan had a penchant for experimenting. At first, she had thought that his fascination for makeup meant that he was gay, but he was always thinking of ways to make things over. She had seen where he spent his time carving out his career until he had become one of the biggest names in the beauty industry and she was so proud of him. But she had also been concerned. He had been a beautiful baby and had turned into a very handsome man whom women climbed over themselves to be with. She also noticed that he never had much interest in them aside from the physical aspect of it. Whenever they spoke about him settling down and having a family, he would tell her that as soon as he found someone like her then he would certainly do that. He had never brought a woman home before and she only knew he was going out with one when she saw their pictures in the papers. But he had brought Sasha home and she had liked the girl immediately and she had also noticed that the girl was not like the others. She had a mind of her own and she was not afraid to say what was on it. She looked up as the nurse came in. "I am fine, my dear. I think I will sleep very well tonight. Thank you."
The woman nodded and made sure she had everything she needed before leaving. With a smile on her lips, Elizabeth made her way into her bed and pulled the sheets over her.
*****
"God!" Sasha placed her hand over her racing heart as he got off her and dropped back onto the pillows. "If I never believed that I had a strong heart before, I know it now." She turned her head to look at him. His eyes met hers and she shivered at the look on his handsome face. "I thought yesterday was intense but I was totally wrong." She took a deep breath to quiet herself. "I am going to miss you. How long are you going for?"
"Three days." He got up and propped his head up on his hand as he looked at her. "We could have phone sex." He leered at her.
"Not satisfying enough," she said in regret. "But what we can do is to make up for those three days by not sleeping at all tonight."
"We could do that." He trailed a finger along her cheek.
"I have a request."
"Anything," he murmured as he circled her bottom lip.
"I cannot concentrate when you do that." She pushed his hand away. "I want to see the campaign before it airs."
"Why?"
"We used plus sized women as you suggested and I just want to see how it works out."
He stared at her for a moment. "What did you eat today?"
"What?" She stared at him puzzled.
"What did you eat for breakfast and what for lunch?"
"That’s none of your business. In case you have forgotten, we are not in that kind of relationship," she told him firmly.
"We have vigorous sex, Sasha. When we get together we go at each other like it is the last time we will see each other. I cannot keep my hands off you and I am guessing you feel the same way. I know you have an issue about the person you are and I also noticed when you were with my mother that even though the meal was light you only had half a sandwich and only drank water. We came here close to three hours ago and I asked you if you wanted something to eat and you said no."
"So?"
"So I want to know that you are eating right."
"Look at you being concerned for what goes on outside this bedroom."
"I am," he said soberly. "What did you eat? And before you lie to me, I am going to get the phone and order takeout and we are going to have a meal." He started to reach for the phone.
"I had a sandwich!" she said hastily. "I had a sandwich and some salad for lunch. I had coffee and a wrap for breakfast."
"And?"
"Okay, I did not have dinner. What does that matter?"
"It matters because to me you are more than the woman I am having sex with," he told her as he reached for the phone.
"I don’t want anything to eat."
"I do." He rang the number and she watched as he placed the order for Italian.
"All this because I asked to see the campaign?" she asked him heatedly. "You don’t own me, Stephan! I eat what I please because you know what? This is my body and I can do whatever the hell I please with it. I don’t even like Italian! Did you even consider that?"
"Everyone likes Italian," he said mildly. He flung one foot over her as she made to move off the bed. "Where are you going?"
"Into the kitchen to get away from you. You are actually annoying me right now," she told him as she tried to move. "Stephan, let me go."
"No." He climbed over her body and pinned her against him. "We have time before the meal arrives."
"You really think I am going to have sex with you right now? Seriously?"
"You don’t have a choice," he whispered as he bent his head and took her lips with his. "Neither do I."
******
Sasha crept from the bed after making sure he was fast asleep and made her way into the elegant black and white bathroom. She knelt in front of the commode and pushing her fingers deep into her throat, she induce the vomiting and put her head completely over the lid as she brought everything back up. The meal had been delicious and the pasta incredible and she had eaten seconds because she had not been able to help herself. He had looked at her pleased that had been eating such a generous amount, but she knew that she was going to have to get rid of all that extra food. She never ate after seven, ever, and they had eaten the meal at eight. He could afford to put anything he wanted in his body because, well, his body was sexy with not an ounce of extra flesh on the magnificent physique. She knew because she had spent a few minutes well going over the hard muscled form and admiring it from every angle. He was perfect and she was not. He was all muscles and she was a size twenty woman who was boinking an absolutely gorgeous man who had not said anything about her thick legs and thighs and her heavy arms. He had not said anything about her appearance and she wondered how long that would be. She leaned back against the tile and closed her eyes. She was not into doing that often. It only happened once or twice before when she had eaten too much and felt uncomfortable and guilty. She knew the damage it could do to her internally and she was not into doing things like that to her body. She just had to get rid of the extra food he had made her eat. She struggled to her feet and went over to look at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were red and watery and there was drool coming from the side of her mouth. It was not a pretty picture. She rinsed her mouth out and washed her face before toweling it dry. Taking a deep breath, she headed back to the bedroom and climbed back in next to him. He murmured something and reached over to pull her into his arms. She burrowed her head onto his chest and inhaled his scent. She had no idea where this was going but she knew this was where she wanted to be.