by J. P. Comeau
I tried focusing on my sushi, not wanting to tell anyone what had happened. For all I knew, Jorge and I hooking up was a one-time thing. He had an awful history with women, and I didn’t want to get sucked down the relationship rabbit hole again.
But I caved in and gave them the details. “You can’t tell anyone else, though, especially Chase. Last night we, well, you know.”
“You had sex with Jorge?”
The construction workers across the street glanced over at us.
“Shh, Margo! If those guys can hear it, you know damn well everyone in the spa can!”
Margo just shook her head while smiling from ear to ear. “I knew it! I’m telling you, Ginger, Jorge will be more than just a fling!”
Eva’s eyes lit up with excitement as she leaned across the picnic table. “Oh, this is so exciting! Do you think Jorge is the one?”
“Of course he’s the one,” Margo said while grinning at me. “They’ve spent the past year talking on the phone every week, then he flies all the way from Belgium for her party, surprises her with a diamond tennis bracelet, and then makes love to her!”
I held up my hands while shaking my head back and forth. “First of all, both of you are crazy. I have every intention of keeping my relationship with Jorge on a strict friendship level.”
Eva squinted at me. “I think you mean friends-with-benefits level, Ginger. Because friends don’t sleep with each other, but friends-with-benefits do.”
I shrugged while reaching for another sushi roll. “Whatever you want to call it, that’s what we are, all right? Look, my life is finally on track, and I refuse to get sucked into a romantic relationship. Besides, I don’t think Jorge is that type. We’re just friends who happen to be attracted to each other.”
“If you say so,” Eva quipped while glancing over at the construction guys again.
I tried changing the subject to focus on Eva for a bit. “So, how do you like being the manager of the spa now?”
“It’s all right. I can see why you were frazzled at times, though. It can be a bit overwhelming trying to manage everything at once, but Guadalupe says that I’m doing a great job.”
“You know,” Margo said while pointing her chopsticks at me, “there’s a good chance that you’re the reason Jorge called it off with Ria.”
I wanted to tell her to lay off the Jorge talk for a while but was interested in why she felt that way. “Why would you say that?”
“Well, he used to tell Chase how much he hated her personality. But, well, she was good in bed and she had experience in the diamond brokerage business. Anyway, once you two started talking regularly, Chase noticed that he rarely mentioned Ria anymore. Chase said, the only time Jorge mentioned her name was when he was complaining about her.”
I couldn’t help but smile. Just knowing that I may have had something to do with the dissolution of Jorge's relationship with Ria put a little more pep in my step for the rest of the day.
I spent the afternoon hunched over my desk, doing my best to breathe in the fresh lavender that was pumped continuously throughout the spa. Yuslan said it was a great way to naturally relax people as soon as they came inside, and it also worked well at keeping the staff calm. Their secret was using actual lavender, not some fake, synthetic oil. When clients walked inside, they were hit with the scent, and many said they looked forward to their appointments for that reason alone.
By the time five o’clock came around, I was mentally exhausted. But I had promised Jorge that I’d look over his books, so I grabbed a salad to go from a nearby restaurant and headed home where I promptly got to work.
Jorge wasn’t kidding when he said there was a lot to go over. Everything he had sent me went back to the beginning of his business, and it didn’t take me long to find some discrepancies. Within a month of Ria’s joining his company, I noticed several thousand dollars per month was lost, and unaccounted for. She had done an excellent job of keeping track of their expenses, but it was obvious Ria never expected Jorge to run the numbers. She had altered the bank ledger to indicate reconciliation discrepancies. Those entries made the books seem to balance, masking the loss to only the trained eye.
Which was where I stepped in.
I tried to focus on the math, but my mind kept drifting off to the two of them in bed. I was overcome with jealousy as I pictured Jorge on top of her, pumping away as he had done with me the night before. And he had made it perfectly clear to her that it was strictly a friends-with-benefits situation.
Just like I had told the girls, it would be with us.
I poured myself a glass of wine and got back to work. By the time nine o’clock rolled around, I had calculated nearly a million dollars’ worth of funds that weren’t accounted for.
Well, my job is done.
I typed up a basic email to Jorge, included an attachment of all of the discrepancies, and hit the “send” button. Whatever he decided to do with it was up to him. It was his business, after all, not mine. If Ria were my employee, then she would have been fired the second I noticed an inconsistency.
If Ria were my employee, she’d be sleeping with every man on my staff that was inclined to give in to her.
I shut off my laptop, slid into a satin nightgown, and then hunkered down on the couch to watch television. But as much as I tried to tell myself not to worry about Jorge’s business, the more worried I became. Sure, he had a history as a womanizer and mixed business with pleasure. But there was a good side to him too. He seemed to treat his employees incredibly well, and even though he was practically swimming in money, he often told me about all of the bonuses and perks he gave his employees.
Knowing that he was being taken advantage of made me feel a bit protective over him, and for a second, I thought about calling him.
No, Ginger. You have enough on your plate. Besides, he’s a big boy and can take care of himself.
I just hoped that by taking care of himself, he’d get rid of Ria, because even though we were just friends-with-benefits, I couldn’t stand the fact that she still worked for him.
The longer I tried to ignore the feeling in my stomach, the more I realized that I needed to speak with Jorge. I reached for my cell phone and called him. “Hey, it’s Ginger. We need to talk.”
6
Jorge
I told myself that one day I’d have a mansion as big as Chase and Margo’s, but only when the time was right. Hopefully, it’d also be on Key Biscayne, not too far from theirs, so he and I could hang out all the time. Occasionally I thought about having one built for me right away, especially since there was some land available not too far from his property. But that type of investment didn’t make much sense for a single guy like myself.
Besides, I loved my luxury penthouse with its private elevator. It’d cost me a pretty penny, but it was worth it. Sometimes I longed to have an actual house instead of a big apartment, though. It would be nice to have a yard or a home with its own private beach like Chase’s. There was something so humbling about buying a place in the suburbs versus living in a penthouse. But until I was engaged or married—both of which seemed far into the future—it’d have to wait.
Although the more I looked at their home, the more I thought about having one built anyway. I could always rent it out until I was ready to move in. It’d only mean more money for me.
As I pulled into their long driveway, which had a massive water fountain in the middle, I admired its exquisite architecture. Chase had really pulled out all of the stops when he’d had it built. And to think that he had almost sold it because he’d been all alone, only to have Margo swoop in at the perfect time.
Their doorbell chimed so loudly that I was sure it could be heard from the street, which was several hundred feet away. Margo opened the door within seconds, with their one-year-old daughter, Joanna, clutching her arm.
“Jorge, come on in! I’m making fried chicken for dinner, so I hope you’re hungry.” She promptly handed me Joanna, who cooed as I held her and wa
lked into the living room.
“Oh, man. I haven’t had fried chicken in years. Bring it on!”
Chase took one look at me, holding his daughter and burst out laughing. “I cannot wait until you have kids, man. It’ll be interesting to see how you do as a father.”
I rolled my eyes while handing Joanna back to Margo, who slipped onto the back porch.
“Are you suggesting that I’d suck as a dad, Chase? Because if memory serves me correctly, you weren’t exactly father-material back in college.”
It was our weekly hangout night, where we just sat in front of the television and drank beer. It was a way to catch up with each other since we were both so busy. We usually ordered a pizza, but I was more than happy to have some of Margo’s fried chicken. That woman could cook up some of the best food in all of Florida.
“Whatever, man. All I’m saying is that one day, you’re going to have a brood on your hands and be up to your ears in diapers.”
I pictured myself with three or four kids, all screaming for my attention at once while I tried getting ready for work. No, thank you. “Yeah, me with kids. That’ll be the day.”
“It’ll happen just when you least expect it,” he said while handing me a beer from his armrest cooler. It was ice-cold too.
“How come Margo dipped? Does she not like me or something?”
Chase shot me a look while opening another beer for himself. “Why are you so paranoid all of a sudden? No, the waves are starting to pick up, and Joanna loves to watch them. I wouldn’t be surprised if she turns into a water baby.”
“What’s a water baby?”
“You know when you can’t get your kid out of the water.”
“I thought every kid likes to play in the water.”
“Nope,” he said while changing the channel. “I hated the water growing up, but Ginger was a water baby. She used to spend hours in the ocean or pool, refusing to get out even when it was time to eat.”
I nodded while sipping my beer, not wanting to discuss Ginger too much. Chase was very protective of his little sister, so much so that he had refused to give me her number last year. He had ended up giving her mine, which at the time felt like a slap in the face. Although everything seemed to be working out just fine.
“Well, hopefully, mine will be a water baby because I love swimming. I wish I had more leisure time lately, but all I ever do is work. Speaking of which, how’s work going for you?”
He shrugged while landing on a home shopping channel, pitching some outdoor grill that seemed to get his attention. “Work is work. I’ve been thinking about getting into the pressure-cooker business, but I’m still doing research on how it works.”
“I’m assuming that with your touch, it would be something you could control remotely.”
“Of course,” he said matter-of-factly. “What about your job? Anything new?”
“I officially broke things off with Ria.”
Chase slammed his beer bottle down onto the coffee table before turning to face me. “Please tell me that you’re serious this time, man.”
“Hell, yes, I’m serious. Ria invited me out for drinks the night before I left for the States, and I made it abundantly clear that I’d text her to let her know if I could meet her.”
“Let me guess: she went anyway and was pissed you didn’t show up.”
“Yup,” I said while chugging the last of my beer. Chase promptly handed me another one. “Between the two of us, Ria and I haven’t had sex in several months. We’d only been getting together to discuss work after-hours because I thought that maybe there’d be a spark between us, but there’s nothing man. And when I look back on it, the sex was good but not great.”
“Well, your next step should be to get rid of her as a business partner.”
He was right, but Ria was so involved in my company that it would be a huge pain in the ass to get rid of her. I was hoping Ginger would find something so she’d just up and quit, then I could transfer the job responsibilities to someone already working for me.
“Speaking of which, I suspect that she’s been embezzling money from me for quite some time.”
Chase nearly dropped his bottle of beer that he’d just picked back up. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“Because I knew you’d be on my ass about firing her, and it’s not that simple. Do you know how many hours a day I work? And do you know how hard it is to find someone trustworthy to look into this sort of matter?”
As a billionaire, I attracted people who only wanted money. Which was why I had trusted Ria to look over my books. She had a successful, steady job, and her family was pretty well off too. If she were in desperate need of cash, she sure didn’t act like it.
“I know it’s difficult, but you could be losing millions of dollars, Jorge. You never should have had sex with her, man. The second you told me that you two hooked up, I knew it would be bad news.”
“How could I forget that conversation we had months ago?”
I thought Chase would have been impressed that I’d slept with Ria, who could have easily passed as a supermodel with her hourglass figure and long, chestnut hair. Her face was perfect, with full, luscious lips, chiseled cheekbones, and eyelashes so long they tickled my forehead whenever we kissed.
But her soul was pure evil.
Chase had ripped into me that night, saying that I’d done the dumbest thing possible as a business owner. He reminded me that he was always surrounded by beautiful women he worked with and that you never mix business with pleasure.
“And what did I say to you that night, man?”
“That if I don’t have the balls to turn down a woman’s sexual advances, then I don’t have the balls to be in business.”
Ouch.
“Look, I said that to you because you’re like my brother. Please tell me that you’re having this looked into, and if you need someone to help you with it, I’m sure I could hook you up. Personally, that’s not my thing, but—wait a minute. What about Ginger? That’s basically what she does anyway, and you two talk all of the time!”
Yes, we talk all of the time and funny you should mention that because she is looking into it. Oh, and I had sex with your sister last night. And even though it didn’t last that long, it was the best I’ve ever had. Is that cool, bro?
I froze in my seat, not knowing if I should tell Chase what had happened between Ginger and me the night before. Obviously skip over the details, since it was his sister, but tell him that it finally had happened.
Why should it matter to him? Both of us are grown adults, and it was consensual.
Our eyes met, and for a second, I thought he knew. Chase had always been highly intuitive.
Here we go.
But just as I went to tell him my cell phone rang—Ginger.
I held my finger up to Chase, who nodded, then I snuck onto the back porch. Margo ducked back into the house, giving me plenty of privacy to talk.
“Ginger, I was just thinking about you.”
“I have good and bad news, Jorge. The good news is that I’ve finished going through your books, but the bad news is that there’s a million dollars’ worth of funds not accounted for.”
My blood pressure skyrocketed as all of my suspicions were confirmed. “I knew it, Ginger! God, I am so stupid!”
“I know it’s a little too late, but it’s a terrible idea to mix business with pleasure. My guess is that Ria had you wrapped around her finger and knew that she could convince you not to look at the books. I’m so sorry.”
I could hear the concern in Ginger’s voice and truly believed her apology, even though she had nothing to do with my getting screwed over. “Well, I appreciate it, but this has nothing to do with you. I don’t think that I can ever thank you enough, Ginger.”
“Please, it’s the least I could do since you gave me such a beautiful diamond tennis bracelet.”
“That was a gift of congratulations for getting your degree, which is about to pay off with your new
job. But I mean it, Ginger. I’m so lucky to have you in my life, and I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”
“Just promise me that you’ll never hook up with any of your employees because this will get super messy.”
Chase peeked his head out the back window at me, which was thankfully closed to keep the air conditioning inside.
Please don’t come out here, man.
“I don’t foresee that being an issue, Ginger. The hooking up with my employees, that is. Thankfully I have excellent lawyers, although I’m not sure which route I’ll take.” Ask her out! “Anyway, would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow night?” Please say yes, please say yes!
“I’d love to have dinner with you tomorrow night, Jorge.”
“Perfect. I’ll pick you up at seven o’clock.”
As I hung up the phone, I slouched down onto a nearby chair and buried my face in my hands. I was filled with excitement at seeing Ginger again, and remorse at ever having gotten involved with Ria.
One. Million. Dollars.
Chase came out a few minutes later and sat down next to me. “What was that all about? One minute you’re screaming into the phone, and the next, you’re all excited. And now you look like death, no offense.”
I leaned back in the chair and looked at Chase. “If Ria thinks that I’ve treated her like shit lately, then she’s in for a rude awakening.”
7
Ginger
It had been a busy day at Lavender Dreams Spa. We were lucky to rarely have anyone file any complaints, thanks in part to Guadalupe and Yuslan taking such good care of their clients, but when we did, it was usually messy. A woman claimed that she’d booked a two-hour massage online, even though the longest we offered was ninety minutes. After refusing to pay when the masseuse stopped at the scheduled time, she demanded a free treatment, or she’d leave us a bad review online.
Thankfully, Eva was a manager who could tell when a customer was lying. Much like Jorge could spot a fake diamond from a mile away…or so he had claimed.
