by Vivien Vale
“Okay. I’ll come in.”
She falls into step beside me, and I glance at her. I still can’t believe how fucking lucky I am to have her by my side.
We did have a rocky road at the start, but once she decided she was okay to live here in the mountains with me, life couldn’t be better.
“I got an email from Phoebe this morning,” she tells me but I’m only listening with half an ear. I don’t really care how the company is doing. I’ve put all that behind me.
Of course, Emma still has her hands in it a little bit. She’s been asked to stay on as a consultant and overseer. Most of the work can be done remotely, from our cabin. From time to time, she visits the office, but I think that might be more for a social outing than anything else.
“And?” I feign interest. It’s important to Emma, so it should be important to me. Relationships are about give and take. Seeing Emma gave up her city lifestyle for me, the least I can do is give by listening to tales of things that interest her.
“Record profits for the last six months.”
“That’s hardly surprising with you at the helm.”
I put Oliver in his little bouncer and make a pot of tea. This latest batch of leaves is my best yet.
“You’re just saying that.”
Emma comes up behind me and wraps her arms around my waist. Her bulge makes it a little difficult to get her arms all the way around.
“I’m not.”
I turn toward her and kiss her. It’s a long slow kiss. Oliver is screeching.
Emma pulls away. “Feeling left out, little one?”
As if to say yes, he’s bouncing wildly up and down.
“I’ll get him,” I tell Emma and push her gently toward the couch. “You sit down and put your feet up.”
Grumbling something akin to protests, Emma heads to the couch.
For a while, neither of us says anything.
“How’s the woodwork going?”
With Oliver on my left hip, I take the hot cup of tea in my right and bring it over to Emma.
Since her pregnancy, she’s got this golden glow around her all the time. She looks so fucking hot I can barely keep my hands off her.
“I finished the latest order, but since then I’ve got another five or so orders that have come in.”
She grins.
“Phoebe also sent me a report on the progress of the reforestation of our forest.”
It’s not really our forest, we just like to call it that because it joins our boundary. It’s the reason Emma and I ended up getting up together. I suppose, in a way, I should be fucking grateful to those dishonest pricks who ran the company I helped build up. If they hadn’t turned to illegal operations—
I stop mid-thought. No point going over old ground.
If they hadn’t tried to kill Emma, I would never have rescued her, and blah, blah, blah.
“Apparently, the trees are doing better than expected,” Emma continues and interrupts my thoughts.
I sit down next to her and pick up her feet. She doesn’t complain, and I massage them. There’s no swelling or anything, but I like to show my support.
It looks so uncomfortable, this whole pregnancy thing.
“And according to the national park ranger, the bear numbers are up, too. With all the illegal logging activity, the habitat of the bears was destroyed, making it easier for poachers to shoot them and thus reduce their numbers.”
She pauses to take a sip of her tea. I watch her close her eyes and enjoy the taste sensation.
“This is very good…” She looks at me. “What’s different?”
“Leaf type, drying type, you know. I’m playing around with different options.”
Emma nods. “Anyway, looks like a happy end for everyone. And you know what?”
I shake my head. It can be hard to keep up with her. She’s so full of enthusiasm.
“We’re a shining example that running a business with no regards to the environment whatsoever doesn’t pay off. The company back then, you know, when it did all that terrible stuff, it wasn’t even making as much profit as we’re making now.”
Time to shake my head again.
“And we continue to put money into sustainable projects around the world and buy parcels of land for conservation.”
“Wonders will never cease.”
“No need to be cynical,” she closes her eyes and leans her head back against the couch.
“You okay? And I wasn’t being cynical.”
Emma shakes her head. “Enjoying the foot rub. Do you want to do my neck next?”
“Anything for you, babe.”
I fucking mean it. I’ll do anything for this woman, the love of my life. If it weren’t for her, I’d be still living surrounded by darkness and feeling miserable.
“Speaking of increasing bear numbers, I hope the ranger knows if a poacher shows his or her face around here, there might be another tree accident,” I say to Emma.
Her head snaps around.
“Don’t even say or think it,” she warns me.
“Come on. You wouldn’t stand by as some crazed maniac with a gun shoots at Boss or his bear cubs would you?”
I can see the inner struggle written all over her face. “No.” she agrees eventually. “But I’m not a fan of violence, and I also don’t believe in treating violence with violence.”
My hands stop massaging, and I lean forward to give her a kiss.
“Let’s hope then that no poacher will come within a hundred miles of our mountain and our bears.”
Emma doesn’t say anything. She grabs my hand and puts it on her belly.
“Feel it?”
A fist or a foot is punching against her tummy. It feels unreal.
“You see,” Emma looks at me. “Your unborn child also doesn’t approve of violence.”
I’m too excited by the feel of the little person growing inside Emma’s tummy to disagree with her.
Fuck.
Life is simply amazing.
Emma and I have created this little creature growing in her tummy.
My eyes find Oliver, who’s happily back-bouncing in his bouncer. When I look at him, I also can’t believe we made him.
And here we are, waiting for a sibling.
I can’t wait for the newest edition to the family to come and join us.
Hard Pressed
A Billionaire in Disguise Romance
By Vivien Vale
Copyright 2018 by Crimson Vixens
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental. This work intended for adults only.
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Xavier
I try not to do this too much. ‘This’ being whisking people up and away, taking them to far-off lands for multicourse dinners. It’s a little too Aladdin. It’s a little much and, honestly, not the glamorous fun it seems in the movies.
Here’s the basic truth: I drop more than a hundred grand to make people feel uncomfortable. They’re rarely enjoyably wowed. This might be my fault.
I don’t tell people to bring their passport, bustle people into my private (but shared) plane, and get a last-minute reservation to a Michelin-starred restaurant overseas all because I love them and want more of their company.
I do it only because I see doubt in their eyes. Or, no. It’s not doubt I see, but a look of discovery when they suddenly realize who I am is not what I seem.
Like this one sitting across from me. Her name is Jane, but she seems like an Amber or Topaz. Someone either born into luxury or someone so hungry they grab at opportunities, determined to make one stick.
We met at an event at a TriBecA gallery yesterday. She handed me a glass of sparkling wine and when I
went to grab a cocktail napkin, she handed me her headshot folded into a sharp square, small enough to slide into my trouser pocket.
She winked at me. I laughed. Chutzpah can be sexy, but mostly it’s annoying.
Later, I followed her as she walked around the room with a tray full of canapés, each one capped with perfect mounds of shining caviar. When she stopped and turned to look at me, I took one and, before I popped it into my mouth, I asked if she’d get a drink with me when she got off work.
Jane-Amber-Topaz smiled and then she nodded. She turned on her heel and walked to the back of the gallery and through the doors hidden behind a towering sculpture of a faceless man carved in onyx.
A minute later she was next to me. She was wearing dark lipstick and her navy trench was belted tight.
“Let’s go,” she said. I arched a brow and smiled down at her; she was tall, maybe six feet, but I’m taller still and bent slightly toward her.
“Your boss is okay with that?” I asked, my voice low.
“I’m hoping to convince you to be my boss,” she said.
We left, slid into a cab. I let my hand brush her thigh.
“This is about work,” she said, so I removed my hand and nodded, looking out the window. I brushed my hair out of my eyes and tried not to be annoyed. “Ok, let’s start with work. Which one of my businesses are you trying to break into?”
“I’m an investigative reporter,” Jane said, “and Hard Pressed has one of the best teams working right now: the Russian dossier, the CH Jones scandal…well, I guess, I don’t have to tell you about the scoops your team has racked up over the past few years.
I nodded curtly.
“No,” I said, “You don’t.” Jane’s forefinger pulsed on her thigh. She was nervous, but her eyes gleamed with excitement. I asked her, “Are you good? Where have you published?”
“Mostly in mid-market newspapers, but yeah. I’m really good. I’ll send you my clips. But also consider the facts: We didn’t just run into each other, obviously. I sought you out. I hope it doesn’t make you uncomfortable,” she said. She wet her lips with tip of her tongue and continued. “In order to find you, and get you to talk to me, I had to do a small investigation.”
“You could have just made an appointment with my assistant,” I said, feeling fascinated and wary. The air in the cab had gone still.
“We both know you wouldn’t have seen me,” Jane said.
The cabbie leaned on his horn. The moment broken.
The evening went on. We didn’t talk about her investigation. I planned to leave her at the bar and head back to my apartment alone. But she was beautiful and tenacious. I found myself fascinated and curious about what she wanted to happen next.
I listened to her talk and answered some of her questions. We both drank our bourbon neat. When the server brought the bill, I put down my black AmEx card over the bill for our drinks.
“I’m not going to hire you,” I said. “Not like this and not for that team. You want me to admire your gall and I do—to an extent. But finding out where the CEO of a major media group will be on a Wednesday night isn’t a deep dive investigation, a two-penny PI could have done just as well.
“On our investigative team, there are five Pulitzers between them. By asking questions and digging through thousands of files, they brought down one major bank and an online sex trafficking ring. What do you know about these kinds of investigations? You’re a cub reporter, tenacious but green.”
Even in the dark of the bar, I could see the blood rush to her face. At first, I thought she was embarrassed, and expressing it like a kid by blushing from her toes to the roots of her hair, but as the moment stretched I realized she was furious.
“I haven’t told you what I know about you, Stanley,” she said.
I was getting up from the table, but sat back down when I heard her.
“I changed my name,” I said, trying for nonchalance. “I’m not exactly the first person to do that.”
She nodded, smiling slowly.
“Sure, Xavier, that’s true. People change their names and you absolutely look the part of a debonair business god throwing around his black card in a dive bar in the East Village. Xavier is something else, but Stanley is…nothing much.”
I forced a laugh.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said, taking care to keep my voice so low she had to lean slightly forward to hear me.
A slight look of surprise flashed across her face.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
I smiled coolly.
“To your house to grab your passport,” I said. “I assume you have one, Jane.”
She looked me dead in the eye, and belted the last of her bourbon. A sharp nod and then she took off for the door.
We didn’t talk much and then we both slept on the plane. I had the flight attendant bring out Dom Perignon and a bowl of caviar from the Caspian Sea. I told her to use the crystal champagne flutes.
When sudden turbulence caused the plane to jolt, I watched Jane’s full champagne glass fly and smash against the side of the plane. I smiled and asked the flight attendant to bring her another crystal glass filled close to the rim with champagne.
“Let’s try that again,” I said.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Rome,” I said.
I watched her swallow the wine, the caviar in front of her untouched. She looked out her window and I, finally feeling calm, looked out mine.
Once we landed, I deposited her in the penthouse of the Ritz. Then, later, I sent a chauffeured Rolls Royce to pick her up.
I didn’t prepare her for the luxurious glamor of the dinner. I didn’t offer to buy her a wardrobe full of designer dresses. I was dressed impeccably, tailored suit, cufflinks, a square of silk tucked into my pocket.
Now, she’s seated across from me in a dress that looks like it was bought in a Midwestern mall in 2003. She’s still beautiful, but she’s lost her cocksure attitude.
“You’re not eating, Jane,” I remark, taking a sip of the rare vintage I ordered for us. “Is it okay? Should we call the chef over?”
“It’s perfect,” she says, a note of bitterness obvious.
I incline my head.
She picks up her fork and puts it down again.
“You’ve made your point, Xavier,” she says.
I lift my eyes to hers.
“Let me be very clear, little girl,” I say. “You may think you know me and understand some part of who I am or where I’ve come from. You learned I came from a small town, was raised by a single-mother. You might know every fact of my life, but I am and will always be more than you are: smarter, richer, more powerful, more accomplished. If you cross me, threaten me, follow me, I will—” here I pause and lean back in my chair for effect, “crush you.”
I watch her wilt. I feel both shame and satisfaction.
“Now,” I say, dabbing my lips with the napkin. “We have a few minutes before the plane will be ready to take us back home, should we get dessert?”
I watch her as she lifts her head and squares her shoulders.
“Whatever you like, Xavier.”
Back on my plane, she’s staring out the window while I’m smiling to myself.
Allie
I’m not sure why I’m here again, sitting on the black leather chair in this stuffy, cramped waiting room. The guy sitting at the back of the room looks like the receptionist, but he isn’t.
His name is Brock, a douchey name for a douchey guy. He’s the youngest talent agent in this three-person outfit and the one who didn’t get a private office with a door. Everyone who walks in and treats him as if he might be helpful in connecting them with another agent in the office is rudely and pointedly ignored.
Or, if he’s in a playful mood, he looks you up and down and says something like: “My clients are all animals, but I might make an exception for you and your horse’s face” or “you and your bullfrog’s mouth” or “sloth’s hands” o
r “hippo’s grace” or “cow’s titties” or whatever animal part comes to his mind in the moment.
The poor person who makes the mistake of thinking he’s a decent human being, mostly innocent teenage girls, blink stupidly at him, and then sink into the other chair in the room to wait for their actual agent to stick their head from behind the door and call their names.
The smart ones, however, turn and take off, speeding out the door.
You better run, I always think, but Brock never acknowledge their reactions and goes back to barking into the mouth piece on his headset.
In all my years, sitting in this chair in front of his desk, I’ve never seen him meet with a client himself or close a deal. He must do something, though, because I’ve noticed his clothes have stopped hanging off his body. He looks like a man who eats good food regularly and he carries himself like a man who has a trainer, a masseuse, and a tailor.
I know all this about Brock because I sit here forgotten for hours by my agent, Cheri. I know all this because years ago I was the green and hopeful kid, still sporting my cheerleader-perfect ponytail.
The first morning I walked into this place, I was going to meet with my agent—my agent!—for the first time. I’d tied a red ribbon in my hair that morning, but before I opened the door of my car to walk into the building, I changed my mind. I pulled off the ribbon and slipped it into my black Longchamp bag, a present from my aunt on my nineteenth birthday.
That was years ago—how many? Seven? Ten? Who knows. That was the last promising day of my career. Since then I’ve wasted days of my life on this black plastic chair watching people walk past me with big confident smiles and leave with watery eyes.
Those of us who are veterans of this life will nod at each other. I’ve watched so many of them change from having that snappy walk of an eager dreamer to the more measured clipped movement of the determined, to the resigned forward motion of the person trapped in a tortured loop.
There’s nothing glamorous about this life.
Today, for example, I’ve been waiting for an hour and forty minutes to see a woman who won’t look me in the eye for the whole of our 15-minute meeting. She won’t waste her words on me or help me when I tell her that I haven’t worked as an actor in months. I’ll tell her that I’m starting to lose my will to go on.
