“Hello,” a man said curtly when he answered the phone.
“Hi, um, is this Mr. Stanley?” I asked in a shaky voice.
“Yes, who is this?”
“Well, hi, I’m with Girls Tech,” I said as I tried to calm myself. “We are a non-profit that …”
“How the hell did you get this number? Did Wendy pass you through?”
“Um, I’m sorry. Is there a better time I could call? We have a great program that helps girls, and young women have access to tech training programs.”
“How about you call my secretary like all the other worthy causes trying to get their hands on my checkbook?”
“Wow, that’s a pretty big assumption, Mr. Stanley. Just because I’m calling you, you’re assuming I want your money?”
“Yes. That’s how this goes. You call me. You tell me how your charity is so much better than a hundred other charities, and I’m supposed to give you a big fat check. I’m sorry, young lady; I don’t have time to give to every charity that calls me. That’s why I let my secretary set up appointments once a week with charities that go through the proper channels.”
“Well, I wasn’t calling for money,” I lied. “Maybe you could stop being such a self-absorbed jerk for thirty seconds and actually listen to me before you accuse me of money grubbing.”
“Calling me self-absorbed is supposed to get me to listen?” He laughed.
“I’m sorry.” I really should not have talked to him like that. “Do you have a minute to talk or could I call you back another time and talk with you. Please? I promise I’m not calling to get you to write a check.”
“Oh, now it’s a minute,” he joked. “I’ll give you five minutes if you call me back next Tuesday at ten o’clock. What’s your name again?”
I looked at September as she sat across from me and I felt my face flush with excitement. He was actually going to give me some time with him. This might just be the break we were waiting for.
“Miss Masters, sir. I’m with Girls Tech. I will call you next Tuesday exactly at ten o’clock.”
“And you promise you’re not going to ask me for money? Because I don’t like it when people lie to me; that’s a surefire way to get me to hang up on you and not take any more of your calls.”
“Promise.”
“Fine then. I’ll give you the time, but only because you were honest about the self-absorbed comment. Goodbye.”
He didn’t wait for me to reply and quickly hung up, but I couldn’t hold back the excitement. I had actually landed the opportunity to talk to him about our organization. I was rude and not at all well behaved on our call, and he actually liked it. Men were such strange creatures.
“Got him!” I yelled at September even though she was literally only a few feet away from me
“Who?”
“Mr. Stanley from Stanley and Associates has agreed to talk to me for five minutes next week. Well, he agreed as long as I didn’t ask him for money,” I said as I reclined in the chair and put my feet up on the desk.
“How exactly is that a good thing? We need money. The exact thing you are supposed to be talking to him about is money.”
“No, it’s okay. He runs a huge organization. I don’t necessarily need his money. I could ask him to work with us and get his staff involved or something like that. I haven’t thought out all the details, and I was pretty rude to him on the phone, but it’s a good thing. Yeah, it’s good.”
“You were rude, and he still agreed to talk to you.”
“Yeah, he said he liked my honesty. At least I don’t have to meet with him face to face, that would have been terrifying. He sounds really intense.”
“Oh, he’s gorgeous. I wouldn’t have been able to talk to him even on the phone. I’d probably have passed out the second he answered the phone.”
“Well I don’t know him, so I guess it was a good thing I made the call.”
September thrust her phone into my face with a picture of a beautiful looking man in a blue suit. He had shaggy light brown hair and a bit of scruff for a beard. His brilliant blue eyes made my heart skip a beat, and I instantly understood what September was saying about passing out. It was definitely a good thing that I had not known what he looked like before I made that call.
“Isn’t Merrick so dreamy?” She swooned.
“Yeah, he’s a very handsome …” I stopped cold when I realized what she had called him.
“Merrick?”
“Yeah, this is Merrick Stanley. He’s like a millionaire and owns Stanley and Associates. Wow, it’s so amazing to me that he’s actually single still. I would have thought somebody could have snagged him by now.”
I swallowed hard and felt my legs get shaky as I sat back down in my chair. The entire room was spinning. I had just called Merrick Stanley, a self-absorbed jerk, and Patty was fixing me up with him.
“Are you okay? See, I told you he’d make you pass out.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m okay. I’m just going to take a little break. How about we meet back here in an hour or so?”
“Sure, I’ve got some other work to do, but this doesn’t mean our bet’s off.”
“No, no, we are still on for pizza.”
September left, and I reached for my purse to call Beth. She wasn’t going to believe this. In fact, she was probably going to flip out. I couldn’t wait to tell her. My phone started to ring as I pillaged through my purse, and I slid the button over to answer it before looking to see who it was. There were only a few people who ever actually called me, Beth and my mother.
I made my way back to my own office so I could talk to her with a little privacy. My office was sparse, but I liked the minimalistic feel of it. It made me want to work harder so I could travel and fill all my shelves with amazing knick knacks from around the world.
“Hey,” I said as I leaned back in my chair with my eyes closed.
“Hello, is Kristina there?” A deep sexy voice asked.
I instantly sat up straight and looked at the caller ID, but it was blank. The voice sounded really familiar, though. It certainly wasn’t my mother or Beth. My foot started shaking as I tried to figure out who had my personal cell phone number and was calling me.
“This is her.”
“Hi, this is Merrick,” he said in a much nicer voice than he had been talking to me when I had just called his office. “Patty gave me your number.”
“Oh, yes. Hello, how are you?” I said as properly as I could manage.
Hopefully, he couldn’t tell I was the same girl that had just called his office and called him names. I shook my head as I tried to talk to him and not freak out on the phone. I really wished that September hadn’t shown me his picture. All I could think about was his dreamy blue eyes, and how they made my body tingle when I looked at a photo of him; I could only imagine how much power his eyes would hold in person.
“I’m doing well, thank you. It’s a little weird to be calling someone up for a blind date, but I did read through your profile, and I think we have a chance of a decent connection. At least we could enjoy a nice drink together, right?”
“Oh, okay,” I fumbled.
“Are you free on Saturday?”
“No,” I replied before I could stop myself.
My mother had always told me to deny a guy a date if he asked for a Saturday night with you right away. She always said, ‘no girl has Saturday night free on short notice if she has a life.’ She would tell me that same thing throughout high school and college. I hadn’t followed that rule in years because most guys didn’t bother actually asking me out for a real date.
“Okay, how about Friday night?”
“Sure,” I replied.
According to my mother’s advice, I probably should have said no to Friday as well, but I didn’t want to say no to him twice. Our date would likely be a disaster of me staring at him and him thinking I was a lunatic, but I was definitely going to go out with this guy.
“I’ll text you from my personal cell pho
ne. Maybe we could talk a little this week?”
“Sure.”
“Would it be alright with you if I picked you up from your place around six on Friday?”
“Sure,” I replied again and realized I had said the same thing for every question he had asked me. “That would be fine. I’ll text you my address later this week. I mean after you text me from your phone. Since I don’t have your phone number or any way of reaching you,” I babbled on and on.
“You mean after you’re sure I am who I say I am?” He gave a deep laugh that sent tingles throughout my body. “I’ll send you a message shortly so you have my number.”
I felt my face flush with exhilaration as I held onto the phone and smiled at his laugh. Damn, he had a sexy laugh.
“Sure,” I jokingly replied again.
“Alright, I’m going to let you go. I’m sure you’re very busy. It was nice connecting with you, and I look forward to seeing you on Friday.”
“It was nice talking with you too, Merrick,” I said.
My heart was beating out of my chest as I hung up with Merrick and quickly dialed Beth to tell her all about what had just happened. In the span of ten minutes, I had insulted one of the sexiest men in New York and accepted a date from him. It was beyond unbelievable. I couldn’t even wrap my brain around it, and I knew Beth was going to totally freak out.
“So I have a date with Merrick Stanley this Friday night,” I yelled excitedly into Beth’s ear the second she answered the phone.
“Who’s that?”
“What? You don’t know who that is?”
“I’m joking! Who doesn’t know who Merrick is? He’s slept with every woman in the city. He’s deliciously handsome, and from what I hear, he’s really good in the sac.”
My heart sank at the visualization. I knew that any guy I dated was going to have a past, but I didn’t think I could get over a guy with a past like that. It scared me, right away. It was also a realization that I probably wasn’t the right girl for this guy. If he was used to dating models and socialites, I was going to be a huge disappointment for him.
“Oh.”
“No, I’m joking,” Beth said as she tried to cover her tracks. “I’ve actually met him before. He’s very handsome and extremely nice. He’s a tall drink of water and I guarantee you’re going to want to drink from him.”
“Did you sleep with him?” I ventured to ask as I laughed at her visualization of the man.
“No, I’m not really his type.”
“What kind of girl is his type?”
“I’m not sure. It’s been a year or so, but he notoriously dated …” she trailed off and then stopped talking. The phone was silent but I could hear her rustling around in the background.
“Who? What? Who did he date?”
“Okay, don’t take this the wrong way. I’m not sure. Maybe I just saw him with this type of girl, and there are many other women he dated. In fact, I’m sure he’s dated other women and not just redheads,” she said, and I practically heard her flinch through the phone.
“Redheads? Oh, come on? Is he a redhead fetish guy?”
“I don’t know for sure. He might just like all women, and I’ve only seen him with redheads? It’s possible I happened to see him only on the nights he had a redhead with him.”
“How many?”
“How many redheads have I seen him with?”
“Yeah. I mean one or two could just be a coincidence, but more than that is probably a fetish,” I flung my head into my hands and rested it on the table while I waited for her answer.
“Stop calling it a fetish. You like guys with brown hair; it’s not a fetish for you.”
“I don’t care what color hair a guy has. It just happens that most of the guys I actually date have brown hair.”
“My point exactly. It doesn’t matter what color hair anyone has. I mean even if I’ve seen him out with six or seven women with red hair. That doesn’t mean he has a fetish.”
“Seven women? Oh, Beth! That is a fetish for sure. Plus, I insulted him the first time I talked to him. This just isn’t looking good for me at all.”
“You insulted him?”
I couldn’t stop laughing as I thought about how badly this date was going to go. When he asked me where I worked, I’d have to give myself away, and he’d know I was the person who had called him a jerk, a self-absorbed jerk to be exact. He’d probably think I arranged the date somehow, and that I was playing some sort of trick on him. This was not looking good at all.
“In my defense, I didn’t know it was him when I insulted him. I actually called around and got the direct number to Mr. Stanley and was going to get him on our newsletter list so we could work on increasing our donations. Anyways, he was rude to me, and I was even ruder, but then he agreed to give me five minutes next Tuesday. It actually ended just fine.”
“Then he asked you out?”
“No, he didn’t know it was me when I called, and I didn’t know it was him. He ended up calling me just a few minutes ago after September showed me a picture of him, and I realized who he was.”
“Wow, you’re dating life is getting more confusing than my life for sure. Anyways, are you going out with him then?”
“Yeah, I agreed to go out on Friday. I’m not sure it will last long once he realizes who I am. It’s just a drink.”
I could barely pull my head off my desk as I looked around my bare office and thought about what fun it would have been to date a guy like Merrick. He probably traveled everywhere in the world. But he certainly wasn’t going to go for me after he realized I was the woman who had been rude to him on the phone.
“Don’t tell him!”
“Beth, I can’t just keep this to myself. I’m not going to lie to him. Eventually, he’s going to ask what I do for a living.”
“Okay, I don’t mean that you need to lie to him. Just use some creative truth telling. Like if he asks you what you do, tell him you work for a charity, and that’s it. Most guys won’t even bother asking you more. They never really care what we do for work, I should know.”
That was true. Beth was a cashier at a clothing store and still seemed to date perfectly respectable men. I had to agree that I didn’t think guys really cared what their ladies did for work. She had me feeling optimistic that I could get through at least the first date without a disaster and possibly without lying.
Chapter 5
Merrick
Talking to a girl on the phone before I even had a photo of her was beyond anything I was used to, but I wasn’t about to argue with Patty when she told me to call this girl. Patty seemed pretty good at her job from what I had heard, and I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt.
After the previous dates I’d been on, I was confident that Patty had brought me a woman who was more exciting than the others. I certainly couldn’t imagine going out with another one of the women from the list I already had.
“So how’d it go?” Patty asked.
“Date Friday,” I said as I looked at Wyatt who was sitting on the couch across from my desk. Behind him was a tall shelf filled with all the awards that local charity organization had given me over the years. There were enough awards that the middle of the shelf was drooping and a flash of possible disaster crossed my mind’s eye as I imagined all the random awards toppling onto Wyatt’s head.
“I’ll send you her profile now and match the two of you through the online portal. Talk to her a little this week. Get to know her before your date; I think this process will work better for you than just going out with the women on your list.”
“I’ll give it a try, but I would have liked to have seen her before I called.”
“I know, but we don’t always get what we want. It’s my job to deliver you a woman that I think is perfect for you. It’s your job to let me do my job.”
I was humoring Patty that was for sure. I didn’t go on blind dates with women, and I definitely wasn’t used to asking a woman out before seeing her
. I had a particular taste, and so far I had learned even when I thought I liked a woman based on her profile, it could turn out horribly wrong when I showed up for the date.
“I told you she was good,” Wyatt gloated as he sat on the couch not even aware of the dangerous image I had of the shelf toppling over on him.
“She scares me.”
“So you’ve got a date with this girl and no idea what she looks like? This should be fun for you.”
“No Wyatt, this sounds like a waste of my time. Patty is going to send the girl’s portfolio over online, though. So let’s see what she looks like. Any guesses? I’m not judgmental; really I’m not. She sounded nice, and I’m sure Patty found some similarities in our lifestyles, and that was why she matched us up.”
“Short with big boobs,” Wyatt laughed.
“I’m open to any type of woman,” I started to say before glancing at the profile Patty sent over. “Oh shit!”
“What? Let me see.”
“Wow, she’s a knockout,” I muttered quietly.
Kristina’s main photo was a full body shot of her in a tiny blue dress that had a flared skirt. She was thin with sexy curves and had blue matching hi-heels on. The picture looked like it might have been a professional photo because of how she was standing and the perfect coloring of her outfit, hair, and skin. She had a small smirk on her face, and I couldn’t help staring at her profile picture for a minute before diving into her main page.
“What does she do for work? How old is she?” Wyatt asked as he looked over my shoulder.
“Okay, here we go,” I clicked her page. “She’s thirty years old. A fundraising executive at a local non-profit. She’s funny; oh man, listen to this, ‘I’d like to get away from the cliché of loving New York Theater, but I just can’t. I love all the arts, even finger painting.’ I like her already.”
“Are there more pictures?” Wyatt asked as he pulled my laptop toward him.
“Hey, you’ve already got a woman. Get back,” I joked. “This one is off limits.”
“I know, I know. I’m just trying to help you out. You need an objective opinion so you know if she’s really as beautiful as you think she is.”
Breaking the Rules: A Billionaire Romance Page 75
