Mr. Rich

by Virna DePaul

  “Hey,” I say, before the ambulance attendants burst into the store through the wide automatic doors. Before I know it, I’m being pushed aside and a crowd is gathered around me. I clutch the wallet in my pocket, intending to give it to the ambulance attendants, when She-Hulk grabs my arm, her perfectly manicured nails biting into my skin.

  “What the hell happened?” she asks.

  “I don’t know. He passed out. I called 911.”

  “Obviously! You should have come and gotten me first.”

  “But I—”

  “Julia!” Someone else grabs my other arm. It’s Kevin. “What the hell did you do?”

  I roll my eyes. “I didn’t club him over the head and try to whisk him away to my cave, if that’s what you think, Kevin.” I pull away from them, wanting to see what’s happening with Sebastian. The ambulance attendants have put him on a gurney and are quickly rolling him out of the store.

  What the hell? He’d been awake. I’d expected the paramedics to take his vitals. Give him some water or oxygen or something, not whisk him out of here with such urgency. Automatically, I go after them.

  She-Hulk grabs my arm again, and I swear, I almost punch her out of sheer reflex.

  “Where are you going?” she asks in a harsh tone.

  I squeeze the wallet in my hand, but for some reason, I don’t want She-Hulk or even Kevin to know I have something of Sebastian’s. It’s as if I’ve been entrusted with something precious, something that I can’t let fall into the wrong hands, and I have a duty to make sure it gets back to him as soon as possible.

  “I’ll be right back, She-Hul—Sheila,” I say, pulling away again. “I just need to see if he’s okay.”

  Quickly, I head outside and curse. I’m just in time to see the ambulance speeding away. At least it doesn’t have its lights or sirens on, which reassures me that Sebastian’s life isn’t actually in danger.

  But I want to make sure. I want to know why he passed out and that he’s going to be okay. There are countless hospitals in the city. I don’t know which one they’re taking him to and I don’t want to take any chances that I won’t be able to track him down myself.

  And the truth is…

  I’m nosey. I’m bored. I’ve been bored for a long time, and the only person who’s even come close to changing that is Sebastian Rich. First by making me hornier than a thorn bush on a scorching summer night. Then by pulling at my heartstrings and making me see him as not just a hunk of prime meat, but a human being with vulnerabilities.

  I glance back at the store, knowing the responsible thing to do would be to go back to work and give She-Hulk Sebastian’s wallet.

  But fuck being responsible.

  I’m in a desperate, lifesaving need of an adventure.

  Back in my glory days, the days before I realized big dreams could never overcome the cosmic joke that is reality, I imagined myself a sleuth in the making. Like most millennials, I had seen one too many episodes of the show that you couldn’t pry Mariska Hargitay’s cold, dead hands from. In my wildest fantasies, I would have been the real-life version of her in my own Law & Order. Turns out, that’s something you have to go to college for.

  Granted, I’d gone to college, but it hadn’t been for anything as high-brow as criminal justice. No, all I’d wanted to be for the longest time was a composer and performer. Like so many before me, I’d had dreams of fame and fortune, but I’d decided I’d back that dream up with a degree in music education. In other words, I’d gone the safe route to musical stardom.

  I’d done everything right up to then. Then I’d thrown it all away in a single night, and I’d been paying the price for years.

  I deserve one decent adventure, don’t I?

  It’s with all that buzzing in my mind that I decide to give chase.

  Except I can’t chase an ambulance on my oh-so-adventurous four-speed bicycle, which I ride to work since I live only a few blocks away.

  Two cabs are pulled to the curb at the side of the store. I run up to the first one and command the driver to “follow that ambulance.” It’s stopped at a red light just a block away.

  “No, ma’am,” the cab driver says. “We don’t chase cars, let alone ambulances.”

  “But it’s an emergency!”

  He shrugs.

  I can always wait to return Sebastian’s wallet when he gets home, but what if he doesn’t make it home? What if something is seriously wrong with him? I need to know he’s going to be okay. After briefly hesitating, I finally pull a bill from Sebastian’s wallet and wave it in front of the driver’s face. “I’ll give you a hundred bucks.” I’ll pay the money back, even though it’s more than a full day’s pay for me.

  The taxi driver snatches the bill from my hands with a wide smile and motions for me to get in the backseat. I take no time ripping the door open, and before I’ve even pulled it shut and settled into the worn fabric seats, we’re peeling away.

  Less than a minute later, my cabbie slams on the brakes. I brace my hand against his seat just in time to stop my head from slamming into it. Once I’ve recovered, I look ahead to see the reason we braked so quickly: the ambulance is sitting at another red light.

  Soon, we’re on the move again and making a sharp right turn. We follow closely behind the ambulance, too close for my comfort. I’m suddenly afraid that Sebastian Rich is sitting up in the back of the cab, looking out the little windows in the back doors, wondering why the hell the sample girl from Cooper’s Market is following him.

  “Could you try and keep a one-car distance between us?” I ask the driver as nicely as I can. Not nicely enough for him apparently, as he taps roughly against the brakes. “Do I need to give you another hundred to guarantee my safe delivery?”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” he responds.

  Forgetting we’re strangers, I slap him on the shoulder. He turns to me with a look of aggravation on his face, and a tinge of guilt tickles my gut until I realize I paid this man a handsome fee. So far, he’s not getting a tip. I peek around the headrest and squint my eyes to get a better look.

  We’re approaching a yellow light—the kind of yellow light a line of cars can speed through with ease, but for whatever reason, the ambulance comes to a stop.

  An uneasy feeling sinks into my gut—that Sebastian Rich isn’t just aware I’m following him but that he wants to be followed. That everything that has happened thus far has been intentional, from me finding him passed out to the 911 dispatcher telling me to look for his wallet.

  My mind races to the most natural conclusion: he and his accomplices, who aren’t really medics at all, are going to lure me to the outskirts of the city. Nobody will be there to hear me scream as he dismembers my body and stuffs each of my limbs in a separate trash bag.

  My eyes shift to the cab driver, narrowing in on him with suspicion.

  He’s in on it. They’re working together, the most pessimistic part of my mind reasons with me. They’re partners in crime that nobody would ever suspect.

  The light turns green, and the ambulance wastes no time accelerating through the intersection. I shrug off my melodramatic and paranoid thoughts and tap my driver on the shoulder several times, pressuring him to give chase.

  But the funniest thing happens—I mean, of course it does—because as soon as we begin to accelerate, the cab jerks suddenly and the engine dies. Right in the center of the busiest intersection on this side of town.

  The ambulance speeds away, farther and farther down the street until it blends into the tapestry that is the beginning of the mid-afternoon traffic rush.

  My cabbie turns the key in the ignition, but the engine won’t turn over. Horns honk from all sides of us. We’re blocking traffic and suddenly I’m no longer worried about being murdered in the middle of nowhere. If I don’t get out of here ASAP, I’m going to be torn apart by an angry mob of city slickers.

  With a sigh, I get out of the cab. “Thanks anyway,” I say.

  Then, clutching the wallet, I walk to th
e nearest bus stop to catch a ride back to work, knowing that She-Hulk is going to have a field day with me when I get there.

  But no matter. I’ll take her ass-chewing like a good sport, and then once my shift is over, I’ll begin the real work: tracking down Sebastian Rich.

  Chapter 3

  Julia

  I unlock the door to my apartment, and I’m greeted with the cool air and nagging whine of my window unit working hard against the summer heat that seems to have won the battle in the musty hallway. I check over my shoulder to make sure no one is following me. I can’t shake the feeling that someone knows I have Sebastian Rich’s wallet, and he’s going to jump out at any moment to take it.

  In my imagination, he isn’t exactly nice about it.

  I close and lock my door behind me, checking through the peephole to make sure no one has appeared. I make sure all of my blinds and curtains are drawn closed so that no one can see inside the apartment.

  A soft meow greets me, and I reach down to pet my cat, Samson. I found him in a Dumpster when he was a tiny kitten, and he decided to keep me. He’s sleek and black, with large yellow eyes. Sometimes he likes to hide in shadowy corners of my apartment, and all I see are those eyes peering at me, which can be pretty darn freaky.

  Samson follows me farther into the apartment, which is a tiny one-bedroom with random furniture I’ve collected. A rickety coffee table in the living room with magazines and glasses scattered across it. A TV that’s seen better days; a side table with a dying plant drooping on it. None of the furniture I bought myself; I either inherited it or found it for free on Craigslist (thank God for the free stuff section—otherwise I’d have nothing to sit on).

  I plop down on my couch. It’s the same tired old couch that’s in everyone’s first apartment, the hand-me-down of dubious origin. It’s gray and brown…I think. It might’ve had some kind of floral pattern on it, but now it’s just dingy and faded. And while this was and still is my first apartment, the couch should have been replaced several times over at this point. If I’d had the money to spend on something nicer, that is. Which I don’t.

  After returning to Cooper’s and profusely apologizing to She-Hulk for running out on her, I finished out my shift. She-Hulk seemed like she wanted to fire me right then, but instead I got a glare and a lecture before being sent off to my station.

  Now, still sitting on the couch, I set my purse down on the floor next to me and fish out the wallet with one hand. My fingers wrap around its satisfying girth and weight, and the interior lures me like a piece of forbidden fruit. I’m itching to learn more about Sebastian, but I don’t want to invade his privacy more than necessary. Then again, there’s probably a medical card inside his wallet that might help me track down what hospital he’s at, or a business card with his phone number. He’d appreciate me checking in on him, wouldn’t he? Telling him I have his wallet and have every intention of getting it to him?

  I open the folded piece of leather and once again see his driver’s license photo sticking out from the pocket that hides his personal information. Slowly, I slip it out of the pocket and stare at his picture. I see more than his gorgeous features this time. Maybe it’s because he’d looked so vulnerable lying on the grocery store floor, but now I imagine I can see so much more to him than bedroom eyes, a firm jawline, and silky hair that would feel heavenly as I ran my fingers through it. I fancy I see courage in that stubborn chin. Honor in his sharp cheekbones. Passion and humor and kindness in his golden eyes.

  I feel like I know him all of a sudden, that we share an intimate connection, and I’m filled with the deep-seated knowledge that Sebastian Rich is worth getting to know not because he’s Big Sexy, but because he’s a good man. And damn if that doesn’t make him even more attractive to me than before.

  Finally, I put the license on the table beside the open wallet. Then I hesitate.

  I clear my throat, then flip through the credit cards. I open the pocket where his cash is kept and pull out the stack, in case he’s stuck something in with the bills, which is what I’d do. Nothing. I lay the money out on the table and let my fingers work into the crevices of the soft leather, looking to find what else is hiding deep inside. I can tell there’s something behind the credit cards, but I can’t get it to come out. My fingers catch a slit in the fabric, spread open the compartment, and shake the wallet lightly. Two square packets fall out onto the table with the telltale ring of the condoms inside. I feel my face flare, set the wallet down on the table, and out of sheer curiosity, I flip the wrappers over to see what Mr. Rich uses to wrap himself up for the ladies.

  “Oh, Mr. Rich,” I exclaim as I see the size of the condoms–XL. “I guess all those vitamins and supplements do work.” I force my eyes off the condoms so I can keep digging through his wallet, but I can’t force my mind off the bulge I saw in his jeans when he was in the store earlier today. I imagine how well he fills those extra-large condoms, and that leads to thoughts of how well he would fill me.

  So much for being attracted to his inner goodness.

  Desire sparks inside me at the thought of Sebastian’s thick, hard manhood stretching my insides taut. I close my eyes and breathe slowly, letting the wave of desire wash over me and away.

  I can’t get caught up in fantasies right now. I need to know who this man is. I mean I know who he is, but I want to know who he is.

  “I could just drive over there right now,” I say, looking at Samson. “I could drive over there, climb in a window, and wait for him to find me in his bed. It will turn out he’d just been a bit dehydrated, but he’ll be grateful that I came to his rescue, once by calling 911 and then again by returning his stuff. He’ll be so grateful he’ll want to give me a reward, something far more precious than cash. Oh, it would be perfect. If I didn’t end up giving him a heart attack or wind up in the slammer first.”

  I pick up the driver’s license while I’m talking to myself and flip it around in my hand. Then I shove it back into its pocket. I do the same with the condoms. I’m closing the wallet back up when I notice a hint of white sticking out from behind the license. How many pockets does this thing have? I sit back down and commence to work two pieces of paper out slowly, vigorously.

  One of them is smooth, like photo paper. The other looks textured, like a business card. Once I get them out far enough, I pinch the pieces of paper and pull them out all the way.

  “So much for that idea.”

  I’m holding a photo of Sebastian Rich and a beautiful blonde with eyes as blue as a cloudless summer sky. They’re standing in front of a house with a For Sale sign in front of it. They’re both smiling, and Sebastian has his arm around the woman’s shoulder.

  He’s wearing a blue dress shirt and gray slacks with his signature smile. Next to him, the thin blonde is wearing a tight black skirt that stops just above her knees, exposing her perfect legs beneath it. She’s got a black blazer on over a white blouse tucked into her skirt. Her body is perfect. She has narrow hips that are only slightly curvy, yet the curves of her generous breasts are enviable. She has the most beautiful golden hair, and a smile that is friendly and contagious.

  It’s pretty obvious I’m looking at a house they bought, though I don’t see a wedding ring on anyone’s finger. But, hey, times have changed. I’ve seen a lot of married couples who don’t wear rings. Or more likely, they’re cohabitating. Either way, unless I delve into Fatal Attraction territory, Rich is definitely off the market. Not that a man like him was ever lining my shelves to begin with.

  I look at the business card, expecting to find the name of the realtor who sold them the house.

  Ashley Rich, Realtor.

  I look back at the picture. The blonde is obviously Ashley. She is just as obviously his wife.

  “And I’ve been sitting here fantasizing about a married man,” I groan, letting the photo and the card drop from my hands. I already feel like the other woman, and the extent of our relationship has consisted of him passing out, me stalking him both
in person and through the contents of his wallets, and bam, a brick wall. “Time to forget about Mr. Rich.”

  But I realize I can’t. Not yet. I slump back on my couch, the cool air pumping out of my dying window unit. Samson hops up onto my lap and beings purring.

  “No, we’re too far in it now,” I tell the cat. I take another look at the house in the picture. It’s a small, quaint little one-story house with a nicely trimmed yard. It looks like the perfect little home to raise a perfect little family.

  And for some reason, I’m overcome by such a cloud of depression that I stand up—Samson lets out an annoyed meow—leave the wallet where it is, go into my bedroom, fall into bed, and cover my head with a pillow. Maybe I even scream.

  —

  According to the searches I’ve done on my laptop in the café near my apartment, Sebastian Rich goes by Bastian.

  Bastian.

  It would be obnoxious if he didn’t look like a Bastian, sexy and mysterious, with eyes that sparkle with vitality when he’s not passed out cold on a grocery store floor.

  I’ve only been on my laptop for fourteen minutes so I can’t claim to be an expert on all things Mr. Rich, but I’ve gleaned enough to know some of my speculations were right.

  And some of them were wrong.

  He comes from money. He works in a high-rise building downtown. He often wears a suit and tie to work.

  And yes, he’s most definitely out of my league.

  But he’s not married. Ashley Rich, it turns out, is his sister.

  I almost wish he were married.

  Then, at least, I’d only have to imagine him in a serious relationship with one woman, as opposed to engaging in a string of sexual encounters with one woman after another.

  Turns out, Bastian Rich is a playboy. At least, if you believe the evidence online, of which there is plenty.

  It’s currently the second busiest time for cafés in this city—a time when white-collar workers need shots of caffeine adrenaline before hitting the night scene after work. I have internet service on my phone but not my in apartment—too costly—which is why after moping at home for a while, I headed to this café.