Come back to bed.”

I didn’t turn around. Didn’t need to. I already knew the petite brunette calling to me was lying lazily on one side, eyes half open, looking at my naked body from across the room. There was the distinct ruffle of silk sheets, the soft moan of her equally-hot friend waking up next to her, a muffled giggle as their naked bodies intertwined.

I smiled to myself. Staring out at the street below through the large floor to ceiling window, I took a long puff from my cigarette and let the smoke cloud my faded reflection. The sun was coming up, and from the thirtieth floor, I had a perfect view of Austin as the city slowly woke up. I relished these moments, the few minutes in my life when I had complete peace and couldn’t be bothered by anything else except the view and the smoke filling my lungs.

The fact that the girls were waking up naked in my bed was only going to ruin that for me.

“Come on, Chance,” came the voice of the second girl, don’t ask me her name, hoarse from all the screaming she did last night, yet seductive enough to make my cock twitch. “How about we give you a little breakfast in bed?”

After what I had done to the both of them last night, I had a feeling their idea of breakfast was going to be just a little too tame for my taste. I took another drag from my cigarette, watched as the morning joggers ran down the sidewalks of the park across the street, and stretched my arms toward the high ceiling. My phone beeped, a reminder that my life was already starting, and I sighed as I put the cigarette out.

“Sorry, girls, work beckons, you’ll have to eat without me,” I said, walking out of the room, barely glancing at them as they watched me leave.

I crossed the large expanse of the living room, kicking panties and bras aside as the automatic curtains opened and let the sun in. The automated penthouse where I had spent the last seven years of my life slowly came alive, coffee machine turning on, the large flat screen waking up and displaying the six o’clock news, and the chime of my computer starting up with an immediate display of my email and to-do list.

I walked past it all and made my way upstairs to the second floor to the secluded master bedroom. I never brought girls here. This was my sanctuary. The parties always happened in the second master downstairs with the oversized king-size bed.

I continued on the master bathroom, which was larger than most apartments in Austin, and turned on the hot water and stepped inside. I leaned against the Italian marble tile wall and let the steaming jets wash away last night’s grime, then stepped out and dried myself off. My day had begun. I was in work mode. Everything on a precise schedule. Three minutes for a shower when I was alone, tops.

My suit had already been laid out for me the night before, a gentle reminder from Pauline that she had been here to tidy up despite my late-night antics. I made a mental note to give her a little something extra the next time I made out her check.

From downstairs, I could hear the soft giggles and whispers of the girls as they gathered their clothes. I got dressed quickly, slapped on my platinum Rolex watch, and made my way back downstairs. The girls were sprawled across the couch in their lingerie now, lazily filling up glasses with what was left of last night’s champagne and enjoying the view.

“This place is incredible, Chance,” one of them said, turning around to look at me as she swayed gently from side to side.

“Didn’t notice much last night, huh?” I asked, grabbing my phone and keys.

“We were too busy noticing other things last night,” the second girl giggled. “Like the size of your cock.” Giggles all around.

I nodded. “Well, make yourselves at home,” I said, heading for the door.

“We’ll be here waiting when you get home!” the first girl called. Again, no clue what her name was. She did have an amazing set of tits and the tighter pussy of the two, but I digress.

Babe, I’ll never see you again...

Pauline would see to that. She’d be here within two minutes after I left and would chase both of them out with a shotgun if she had to. Another bonus for Pauline.

* * *

I rode the private elevator down in silence, briefly checking my messages as they came in one after the other over my phone, already clouding my head with crap I would have to deal with before the day was out.

I tucked the phone inside my jacket, walked across the lavishly furnished lobby, and waited as my car pulled up to the curb. The back door opened, and Alice gazed at me from over her horn-rimmed glasses, a scowl on her face that left unattractive lines etched on her forehead.

“We’re going to be late,” she announced as I slid into the backseat, closing the door behind me.

“Good morning to you, too, Alice,” I greeted.

“You have a meeting in ten minutes,” Alice said, ignoring the tired smile on my face. “Dennis has been planning this meeting for weeks. The least you can do is show up on time.”

“Alice, sweetheart, I pay you to keep my life organized, not to give me advice,” I replied. “Or to chastise me. I’m pretty sure I pay other people to do that.”

Alice grunted, and I couldn’t help but smile. Ever since I had hired her as my personal assistant slash wrangler, I had definitely upped my game. I didn’t have to worry about incompetence anymore, and since Alice enjoyed pussy as much as I did, I didn’t have to deal with office drama, either. She was the perfect fit for me, and she knew it just as much as I did. Which made her one smug bitch.

My kind of girl.

“Okay, Miles,” I called out to my driver. “Get us to the office, pronto, before Alice here rips us both a new one.”

“With pleasure, sir,” Miles replied, giving me a knowing smile in the rear view mirror. “And may I say, you look exceptionally well today, Mr. Ridder.”

“I feel like crap, Miles, but thank you.”

“You’re quite welcome, sir,” he said as the car pulled into the morning traffic to head downtown. “Just doing my job.”

* * *

As you can see, investing in this would put Ridder Technology at the forefront of the game.”

I was slumped in my seat fiddling with my phone, barely listening to the pitch Dennis had lined up for me. When you’re a rich and famous entrepreneur like yours truly, people come out of the woodwork to pitch you all kinds of business ideas… the next big thing… nothing like it on the market… the greatest invention since sliced bread. At least that’s what everyone claims. Some of the ideas are truly crazy, some are not, most would lose rather than make money. I get pitched everywhere I go: at the office, at social events, on the golf course, in the men’s room at a strip club; even at the fucking Astros games standing in line to buy a freakin’ hot dog.

This pitch was no different. I just wasn’t standing at a urinal with my cock in my hand. The kid standing across the conference room looked like he had just come out of high school, nervous voice cracking, zits and all. The suit he was wearing was a size or two larger than his frame, his glasses kept slipping down his nose, and he fumbled along his presentation as if he were asking a girl out for the first time.

I was already bored to tears.

“What do you think, Chance?”

I looked up and lifted an eyebrow at the man sitting to my right. Dennis East was my best friend and right-hand man, and the one person on the planet that I truly trusted. Ever since freshman year at college, we had been stuck to each other’s sides like ticks on a blue hound. I had started my company with the little bit of inheritance my good-for-nothing old man had left me when he finally choked and died, and building it up to the billion-dollar tech conglomerate that it was now had been a real challenge. A challenge I could not have overcome without the help of Dennis.

He was as ruthless as I was, his charming smile hiding the true tiger that hid behind it. He could compliment a man one minute, then tear off his head in the next. If there was one person I knew who could run my company as well as I could, it was Dennis. That was a thought that gave me both comfort and pause. Sometimes, Dennis acted like he did run the place. I’d have to gently nudge him back into the second chair to get us back on track.

That made me wonder why the hell he was wasting my time with this crap. I had no idea what this kid was pitching, but it wasn’t something I was the least bit interested in. Dennis knew it, so why was he wasting my time?

“I’m not really sure what Poindexter is pitching,” I said with a long sigh. “Hell, I’m not sure he knows what he’s talking about.”

Dennis shot me a glare, his signature “play nice” look that I was slowly getting tired of, especially when he set up useless meetings like these.

“I think Alan’s idea has tremendous potential,” Dennis said, waving a hand at the kid, who was fidgeting like he had to take a piss.

“Oh, man?” I said, lifting my hands up in apology. “I’m sorry, I thought this was a high school science fair. Were you pitching an idea for a real business? Alan?”

“Chance,” Dennis hissed.

The kid was fiddling with the pointer in his hand, his face bright red, visibly uncomfortable.

“Okay, I’m sorry, I’ll be serious,” I said, leaning in. “You’re asking me to invest millions of dollars into a software that directly competes with something my company already has on the market, based on research that directly contradicts what we know about customer satisfaction and future product development.”

“Erm, well, um…” the kid stuttered like a village idiot.

“Not only that, what you’re showing me here is a demo of what is only half-developed, based on a concept that is not fully thought out, with the promise that what I’ll be getting surpasses our own product tremendously.”

“What Alan is suggesting,” Dennis cut in, glaring at me, “is that what he’s offering can be developed into a newer version of our own software, with much better compatibility options, for a much lower cost. And is a lot more stable.”

“Alan, are you looking for a job in our research and development department?” I asked. “Because if that’s the case, then you’re in the wrong room, and I just wasted half an hour of my time I’ll never get back. If, however, you’re trying to sell us something that we can’t make ourselves, then you’ve gone about it all wrong, and I highly recommend you get your ass out of my conference room and back to high school before the bell rings.”

“Chance!” Dennis growled between gritted teeth. “Don’t be such an asshole.”

I got up, buttoned my jacket and gave Dennis my best smile. “Next time you set up a meeting with a monkey, make sure it can dance. At least then I’d be a little more entertained. And much less of an asshole.”

I stepped out of the conference room and made my way down the hall to my office. Behind me, I could hear Dennis apologizing to the kid, and I shook my head in disbelief. Of all the fucking demands I had to my schedule, this shouldn’t have been one of them.

Alice met me halfway down the hall and handed me a manila folder. “What the fuck is this?”

“The quarterly reports from last week,” she said. “I need your signature on all of them. Also, you’ve got three calls on waiting, two from board members, one from our client in Sweden.”

I frowned at her. “Jesus, Alice, couldn’t you just take a message? I don’t have the energy to deal with the fucking board right now.”

“I’ve taken messages,” she said defensively. “Twice in the past three days. You just never called them back.”

“Fine,” I replied.

“How did the meeting go?” she asked.

“Waste of time.”

“Did you make another one cry?”

“No, this one just shit himself.” I opened the door to my office, slumped down in my chair and threw the folder on my desk. I sighed, laid back and rubbed my eyes. I felt a heavy weight on my chest, as if someone were sitting on me. I undid my tie and took a few deep breaths. When I opened my eyes, Alice was still there.

“What?”

“Signatures,” she said, nodding at the folder on my desk.

I waved her away. “I’ll get it done, Alice. Please, just let me breathe for a few minutes.”

She looked at me for a beat, then clicked her tongue and walked out of my office just as Dennis brushed past her and stormed in.

“What the fuck was that, Chance?” he yelled.

I glanced past him and nodded at Alice to close the door. She rolled her eyes at me and left.

“I spent a week setting that up!”

“Really?” I asked, getting up and walking to the mini-bar. “A week? Damn, Dennis, you’re losing it.”

Dennis slammed his hand down on my desk. “I’m serious, Chance.”

“So am I,” I shot back, pouring two shots of bourbon and handing him one.

“It’s seven in the morning,” he said, looking into the glass like it held a turd.

I smiled and downed my bourbon. “Never too early to start drinking.”

Dennis glared at me for a moment, then pushed the drink back into my hand. I carried both drinks with me as I returned to my chair. He let out a frustrated growl, fell into the chair across from me and shook his head. After a few seconds, he finally scoffed and smiled.

“There he is,” I said, pushing his drink towards him.

“You’re a fucking asshole, you know that?”

“Yeah, but you love me for it,” I said. “Are you going to drink that or should I?”

He pushed it back to me. “Go ahead, kill yourself for all I care.”

“Oh, but you do care,” I chuckled, drinking only half the glass before my chest tightened and I had to set the drink aside.

Dennis undid his own tie, pulled it off and tossed it onto my desk. “You can’t keep doing this, Chance,” he said. “We can’t keep shooting down every good idea that comes walking through our doors. If we don’t get these guys, someone else will.”

“Calling that kid’s idea a good one is a bit of an overstatement,” I said, leaning back in my chair and fishing for my cigarettes. I lit one, took a log drag, and let the smoke out in rings. I waited for Dennis to give me shit about smoking—everybody gave me shit about smoking—but he was still harping on about the kid.

“R&D is coming up with nothing we can use,” Dennis said. “We either innovate or we die, you know how this business works.”

“Then fire the whole fucking R&D team,” I replied. “Ask Alan if his high school buddies want a job. Hire the whole fucking twelfth grade if it gets you off my ass.”

“Funny.”

“I’m serious,” I laughed. “The guy’s right for the job. He definitely can’t head a project, but we can find some desk for him in a corner where he doesn’t bother anyone. Maybe get him laid as well.”

Dennis clenched his jaw and shook his head. “We’ll leave the women to you,” he said. “They’re already throwing themselves at your feet, Austin’s Most Eligible Bachelor.”

“Guilty as charged.”

“Speaking of which, how are Barbie numbers one and two?”

“Left them at home,” I smiled, lifting my drink in toast.

“A little present for Pauline?” Dennis laughed.

“Yup.”

A knock at my door and Alice walked in. “Three calls, Chance. Three.”

Dennis blew out a long sigh and stood up, adjusting his tie as he went. “Don’t forget. My place tonight, don’t be late.”

“I never miss a party, man,” I said with a smile.

Dennis shook his head as he walked out, leaving me with a very angry assistant.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“The phone, Chance!”

“Fine!” I replied. I put out my cigarette, picked up the phone, and began a long day of setting and putting out fires.

* * *

By the time I was done and stepped out of my office, most of my employees had already gone for the day, and the only lights visible were the ones coming from the conference room where I knew a team was working out a few bugs in one of our most recent software releases. Alice was at her desk, blonde hair tied back in a high ponytail, fingers tapping away at the keyboard like lightning.

There was a bittersweet feeling about the office when it was this empty. My mind went back to when Ridder Technology had been nothing more than a few cubicles in a run-down building just outside Austin, the only space I could afford at the time. We practically lived there, worked day and night, toiled like our lives depended on it and success was just out of reach.

That was six years ago. Now Ridder Technology had its own high-rise building in downtown Austin, and I had enough money to feed a small nation. It felt good being on top of the world, and looking out at my kingdom, I knew there was only more to come.

I dropped the manila folder on Alice’s desk, and she gave me a quick glance, her fingers never leaving the keyboard.

“Signed and ready,” I said.

“I needed those three hours ago,” she said.

“I’ve only got two hands,” I replied. “I’m heading out. Call Miles and have him wait for me downstairs.”

“Try not to stay up too late,” Alice called after me. “We have a long day tomorrow.”

“Sure thing, mom,” I called back and made my way towards the elevators.