by Ford, Mia
“Wow, this is the life,” I said. “You know how many people would love to have a room like this in their house?”
“Yeah, it is pretty sweet,” Ted said. “I usually have my masseuse come once a week, but this week has been so stressful…”
“Oh, problems at work?” I asked. “I don’t mean to pry, but it is sometimes helpful to tell someone, especially someone you don’t know very well.”
“I’ve noticed that. It’s always so much easier to talk to strangers about weird shit, right?”
“Yep.”
“Well, the business has been taking a bit of a nosedive lately, and honestly it doesn’t seem to be bouncing back.”
“The cosmetics company isn’t doing well?”
“Oh, no. The cosmetics company is fine. It will never have an issue unless people just stop wearing cosmetics. I’m talking about my motorcycle business. The manufacturing has dried up, and several of my best sponsored racers have decided to quit me this past week, too.”
“That’s rough,” I said. “Any particular reason they quit?”
“Because their wimps,” Ted said. “This game isn’t for everybody. I did it and it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. It’s the reason I have back problems to this day and have to get massages and chiropractic adjustments at least once and sometimes twice a week. By the time I’m forty-five I’ll probably have major issues. And I can thank that sport I dedicated so much of my time to.”
Ted almost sounded sincere. But I knew most of his back issues were bullshit. He’d done most of that to make me feel sorry for him. It was all part of a con job.
I began the massage with Ted’s shoulders. The oil began to warm up even further between my hands and his skin. He tensed up slightly when I first touched him, but very quickly he started to relax. I kept my hands smooth and steady, kneading into the muscles, slowly working my way in to relieve the tension and the knots that I felt.
Ted really was tense. He didn’t even need the bike business. He could sit on his ass and do absolutely nothing if he wanted to and be fine.
But his ego wouldn’t let him. He had to succeed at whatever he decided to do. And he often attempted to do things in a very absent-minded and narrowly focused way.
“Oh, that feels great,” he said, his voice almost purring with the expelling of breath.
“Good,” I replied. I was really working into the major muscles in his upper back and shoulders, pushing through them and flattening them out and then slowly letting them come back to shape, before starting over again.
“Where did you learn to do this?” Ted asked.
“My aunt used to own a spa. I would work with her and she taught me how to do massage work. I used to be pretty good at it, but then I graduated high school and I decided that I wanted to do something else with my life. I’m just now starting to figure that out.”
“You mean, you just decided what you want to be when you grow up?” Ted cracked.
“Yeah, basically.”
“And what is that?”
“Oh, I believe I want to teach elementary school. So, I’m going to start back to college in the fall to get my bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education. I figure I can complete it all in about two and a half years.”
“Wow, that is quite the commitment,” Ted said. “But I’m sure you will do great. That’s very noble, working with kids. You definitely have a knack with them.”
“Thanks.”
“So, I am curious why a beautiful woman like you isn’t already snatched up and married.”
Ted reached behind himself and moved my hands down lower. I was now just above his ass. The rest of him was covered with only a towel and he was wearing a pair of boxers underneath it. He had insisted on it as the most comfort for his massage. I almost objected, but I didn’t want to tip him off too much that I was not in any way falling for it.”
“Your lower back giving you problems?” I asked.
“Yeah, just in the center, and then it radiates out to the sides sometimes. Any idea what that could be? Should I go to a chiropractor?”
“Well, it might be an old injury. You say you hurt yourself during your racing career? Plus, I’d imagine being in that position on those bikes constantly had to wreak its toll on your back.”
“Yeah, I’ve tweaked it a time or two that is for sure.”
I applied pressure to his lower back with both hands and then I began to move my hands in a circular motion outward. I felt his tension slowly starting to ease.
“That’s the spot…” Ted groaned. “Yeah… there…”
I applied hard pressure then. His groans got louder, but still I held on. It was good for the muscles to undergo that stress so they would get the improved blood flow to them and start to heal.
Finally, I released the pressure. “Wow, that was sore,” Ted said.
“It will start to feel better in the next day or two,” I said. “You should have your regular masseuse give you a once over.”
“Well, if I’m being honest, I think you are doing a better job.”
“Thanks. I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I am not a masseuse.”
“You could have fooled me,” Ted said.
I grabbed some more oil and went back to massaging his lower back.
And then Ted grabbed my hands and started to move them towards his ass. I held on strongly and then backed away.
“Not gonna happen,” I said with a smile. I was disgusted but I tried to portray that I was mildly annoyed and nothing more.
Ted laughed, his giddy, half-drunk laugh.
“What’s wrong? I thought we had a thing going?” Ted asked.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said. “I was just trying to help. I’m sorry if you misread me.”
I stopped the massage and began to round up my things.
Ted sat up on his elbows and looked at me very confused.
“Where are you going?” Ted asked.
“It’s past my shift,” I said. “I need to leave.”
“Wait…” Ted said. He almost sounded like he was pleading with me.
“What?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. I think the alcohol has me doing some funny things tonight. Please stay.”
He sounded almost sincere, but then again Ted was the best at being “almost” whatever he wanted.
I was halfway to the door, but I stopped. I was drawing him in and it was working. Soon, he was going to think that I felt sorry for him and that I was starting to let my guard down for him to get into my head. And then I’d have him. I’d turn the tables and he would never know what hit him.
“Ok,” I said. “But I want to keep it clear. We have a business relationship; nothing else.”
Ted nodded. “Sure, absolutely. I’m sorry again.”
I sat my stuff back down and began to massage him again, this time higher on his back.
“So, how long was it after your wife died, before you started to date again?”
“What?” Ted asked. He seemed confused by the question, or more like startled. I loved to keep him off balance.
“I just imagine it would take a long time before I was ready to move on after such a serious relationship with someone I loved, and then to have them taken from this world in such a grisly way…”
I shuttered so that he would see how it creeped me out.
“Oh,” Ted said. “I… um… well, to be honest, I didn’t actually do any dating for a good six months.”
“How did you get back into it?” I asked. I grabbed the lotion and rubbed it between my hands, letting the lotion soak through my fingers, and then I applied it to his back.
Ted paused a moment. He was clearly trying to come up with some plausible lies, all the while dealing with the relaxing sensation of the massage. It was hard to lie when you were that relaxed.
“A friend of mine. He decided I needed to get back out there and that Leia—that was my wife—she would have wanted me to. It took
some time, but I eventually realized that he was right and I couldn’t mourn forever. Eventually, I owed it to myself to move on. But I still think of her all the time. I will never have a love like that again. I know it’s cynical to say that, but I feel it in my gut. It’s true.”
As I rubbed him and those words came out of his mouth I almost believed them. If I’d been anyone else his words would have won me over. He sounded every bit the grieving husband who was just trying to move on with his life and get over the tragedy of his wife’s death. He really had no soul at all. I was sure of it.
I finished up his massage and then I drove home. When I arrived back at Taylor’s mansion he was working on his book in his office.
“Hey, honey,” Taylor said as I entered. I kissed him quickly and tried not to disturb his work.
But he stopped and turned to face me. “How was the day?” He asked with a wide smile.
I told him everything about what had happened. I almost expected him to be mad at me for letting things go that far with the massage. In the moment I was so caught up in continuing the ruse and progressing with the plan that I didn’t think what Taylor might feel about how inappropriate things were getting. But on the way home, the guilt started creeping into me.
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Taylor said. He stood up and hugged me softly against his hard body. “It’s ok. You are doing what you need to do. I trust you implicitly. I don’t trust that cretin any farther than I can Frisbee him.”
I laughed. “Thanks, honey. You are amazing, you know that? Sometimes I think I don’t tell you that enough.”
Taylor rolled his eyes playfully. “Well, it never gets old to hear that.”
He turned back around to his book where he finished a few sentences, saved the work, and then shut down the computer.
We spent the next few hours relaxing in front of the television, which neither of us had done for a long time.
As we sat there I realized just how much I loved Taylor. I saw us spending the rest of our lives together. There were no red flags like there had been with Ted. Of course, I hadn’t picked upon those warning signs the first time, but I was no longer that naïve young woman I’d been when a dashing stranger swept me off my feet. No, I was a strong, independent woman who had been through hell and back. I knew real love when I saw it. And what Taylor and I shared was real.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ted
I ended the call and threw my phone across the room where it landed on the couch (thankfully) and bounced to the carpeted floor in the living room. The rage was welling up within me and I felt like I was about to go completely bonkers. Everything I’d worked for had once again blown up in my face and it was all the fault of some damn imbeciles who would not do what they were told. I preached until I was blue in the face to those marketing assholes that the current campaign was the wrong way to go. They came back at me with a bunch of stupid charts and statistics and eventually proved to me that they were right.
Well, I’d just proved to them that they didn’t know their asses from a can of shoe polish. I’d lost a bundle. The stock in my company had taken a huge nosedive and I was heading towards being completely out of business. The bikes weren’t selling, and the racers I’d been sponsoring were all losing and dropping out of the sport. My name was buried so deeply in the mud that I couldn’t have gotten it out with a forklift. I was finished in the world of motocross.
My dreams were starting to implode. And I was definitely going to have to sell the baseball team. It had proven to be a big loser. Attendance was way down and even merchandising was in the gutter.
I was just so ready to give it all up and live the boring life of a widowed billionaire. It sounded like a no brainer when I thought of it like that, but I wanted more out of life. I wanted to make something of myself on my own merits and not just piggy back off someone else’s achievements. That was fine for getting yourself into the game, but now it was time for me to spread my wings and fly.
I sat down on the couch and sighed heavily. Grabbing the whiskey bottle I took a few swigs and tried to calm down. I’d been nothing but a bundle of nerves lately.
The only thing that had helped at all was that amazing, impromptu massage that Jane had given me the night before. Wow… that was something else. I was still thinking about that. She was truly a woman of many gifts.
I’d been thinking of her a lot lately. I desperately wanted her. She was the most interesting woman I’d met since…well… since Leia. The two of them were a lot alike, but Jane wasn’t so high and mighty and condescending. That was what got Leia killed. She was so bitchy all the time that eventually she pushed me too far.
“What to do… what to do…” I muttered to myself before taking another drink.
The cosmetics company was my main source of revenue. The guys in charge knew what they were doing and it kept me sitting pretty. But there were a lot of silly maintenance duties I had to do as the owner of the company that just bored me to tears. With the money racked up over the years, I was sitting on billions of dollars’ worth of a goldmine. What I found myself wondering lately was why didn’t I just sell the company to the highest bidder? Then I could just disappear and live my life happily and quietly somewhere.
But even then I would be giving up so much money… I didn’t know if it was actually worth it.
Then again, it was worth looking into. I grabbed my phone off the floor (thankful that it had not cracked anywhere) and made a few phone calls to let it be known that I was looking for interested buyers. It did not take long for the calls to come rolling in.
* * *
I left the last of the meetings of the day feeling pretty good about things. I had four different people interested in buying Daniels Cosmetics for a nice, hefty sum. Of course I would lose money in the long run, but it was really enough to strongly consider getting rid of the headache of it all. Why did I really need to bother with it? I was so tired of working all the time and having nothing to show for it other than a company that I didn’t give a piss for. It was just the money stream; that was all it had ever meant to me. It was serving its purpose, but my needs and desires had changed.
When I got home I was surprised to see that the house was empty and the kids were not there. The nanny must have taken them somewhere to entertain them or to wear the energy out of them so they would sleep that night. I could swear those kids needed to be tested for attention disorders. They were very small, but they never stopped with the energy. Luckily, Jane had enough pep to keep up with them quite well. I was really starting to like her.
The other night had been a big faux pas on my part. I’d actually tried to get her to touch my ass. What the hell had I been thinking? I giggled as I remembered it, but she’d almost stormed out and I couldn’t afford to let her go. She was too perfect. The kids loved her.
I’d seen a lot of positive changes in the twins since Jane had come around. They were less disruptive, less violent with each other, and they stayed out of my hair way more. I hadn’t even felt the urge to knock them silly lately.
But she had stayed. That told me that there was hope for her and me yet. Most women would have walked and kept walking if they weren’t interested, but not Jane. No… she was almost amused by it. I could tell by that twinkle in her eye. I’d been great at reading people my whole life. It just came natural to me. It seemed like everyone revealed their hand the instant they met you. You could just read it on them.
I went into the billiard room, poured a whiskey, and started playing some pool. I was just getting into it when I heard the door open and a moment later the kids voices. Well, so much for a relaxing evening to myself. I just hoped that the nanny would keep them out of my hair for a while. And I really hoped we’d have another dinner like we had the night before.
After a few racks of pool, the door opened and Jane stood there. She looked as beautiful as ever. The dress she wore was very form fitting, but casual. It billowed away from her legs just enough to tantalize a
nd tease the eye about what lay under the dress and her cleavage was very enticing as well. I could clearly see that she had phenomenal breasts.
I scanned her from her toes to the top of her head and let my gaze linger on her most beautiful parts. She noticed and looked mildly annoyed; I didn’t give a damn. If she expected me to apologize for this or my behavior last night, then she had another thing coming. I was who I was and there was no changing me.
“Where are the kids?” I asked.
“In Nicki’s room playing. They look like they might fall asleep at any moment. I took them to the zoo today and I think it might have tired them out.”
“They didn’t have school?”
“Just a half day. The teachers had an in service day.”
“Would you like to play a game or two?” I asked.
“No, I’m not really much for pool,” she said.
“That’s too bad. It’s my favorite. I play almost every single day in fact.”
“You must be pretty good at it then.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, I’m ok. So, are you staying for dinner?”
Jane shook her head. “No. I prepared a meal for you earlier; it’s in the fridge. My world famous chili. Would you like me to heat it up before I go?”
“No, I’ll manage, but thanks.”
“I’m not sure your butler likes me very much,” Jane said with a smile.
“Yeah, well you are doing his job better than him. I appreciate it.”
“No problem.”
Jane walked over to the pool table and leaned over a little bit. This gave me just enough of a glimpse at her cleavage to send me into minor heart palpitations. God…what was this woman doing to me.
“So, how did things go today?” Jane asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help but overhear yesterday. It sounded like things weren’t going well.”
I smiled and took a shot at the seven ball, sending it into the side pocket.
“Things are ok,” I said. I didn’t feel like getting into this discussion with the help.
