“Look, I don’t know how I can help with this then. Maybe we should call it a night.”
She sat up. “Not yet, please,” she said, her voice going higher, sounding like a little girl. “I’m just starting to relax and calm down. I can’t go back there yet.” She hung her head down and started to sniffle. She reached down into her purse to grab a tissue. She sniffled some more and dabbed her eyes.
“Why are you crying?” he asked, perplexed at her up and down emotions.
“I-I just feel so lost, so alone sometimes…like no one understands me or even cares how I feel.” Her face was drawn and sad looking and her shoulders were hunched.
Giorgio didn’t say anything. He just waited for her to continue.
She looked up at him. “How about a hug? I’m feeling really shaky right now.”
He hesitated.
She bowed her head again. “I guess I am alone.” She made soft weeping noises. “I can’t even get a hug in a time of crisis.”
He took a deep breath, feeling conflicted. He watched as she continued to dab her eyes. “Oh, alright,” he said, getting up and sitting down next to her. He put an arm around her.
She wrapped her arms around waist and rested her head against the center of his chest. “Thank you,” she said. “You have no idea how much I needed that.” She squeezed him tighter and took some deep breaths.
“Sure,” he said.
She pressed her face closer to his chest. “You smell so good.” She touched his chest. “You feel so good. So strong.” Her hand slid down the front of his chest, then across his hip to rest high up on his thigh.
He looked down. Her hand slipped down between his legs and softly caressed his inner thigh, again dangerously close to his crotch. “Portia, I need to get up.”
“No, don’t go,” she said, moving her hand and gripping his hip.
He pulled her hand away. “I need to.” He stood up and turned around.
She noticed his hand go into his pocket. Perfect, she thought, he’s adjusting himself. He’s getting turned on. Now’s my chance. She grinned like a Cheshire cat. She reached for the buttons on her blouse, quickly undoing them, letting it hang open, but still covering her breasts. She again raised her leg, letting her skirt ride up high. She reached up to grab his other hand and pulled him back down.
As he sat down, he was shocked to see her blouse, now open, and her leaning her knee against the back of the sofa. Her lacey fuchsia underwear was on full display. His face reddened. “Portia? What are you doing?”
Before he could say another word, she wrapped her other leg over his lap and sat up, letting her silk blouse fly open, exposing her breasts. “What does it look like I’m doing?” she purred. “I’ve wanted you to touch me since the first moment I met you. I don’t want to pretend otherwise anymore. I wish I had met you before Nikolas.” She looked down at the open collar of his shirt. She slid her hand inside his shirt and then across his chest. She started to unbutton it more.
He grabbed her hand. “Portia, stop, we can’t…”
She placed a finger on his lips. She loved how full and soft to the touch they were. “Oh, I think we can. Let me show you just how that can happen.” She ran a finger across his bottom lip. “I’ve seen you look at me.”
“Portia, close your blouse, this isn’t right. You’re my brother’s wife. You need to go. Now.”
She laughed and then fell back down on the couch. She raised her arms over her head, showing off her large, enhanced breasts. “Look at this body, you know you want it. Touch my breasts. Just a kiss. Then, maybe I’ll let you kiss something else.” She opened her legs. “Like anything you see? Want to see more?”
He jumped up off the couch. “Stop! Close your legs, do up your shirt and go! Go home to Nikolas.” He again thought of Anabelle.
A look of fury crossed her face for a moment, but then it became one of determination. She stood up as well, her blouse still hanging open, and sashayed closer to him. “Don’t pretend like you’re not attracted to me. Like you haven’t wanted to bend me over since we met. Nikolas doesn’t have to know,” she whispered as she pressed herself against him. She reached down between his legs.
He grabbed her hand before she could get a hold of him. “You’re not touching me. Go home to your husband if you want that.” He took a step back from her, gripped her hand tight for a moment, then let it go.
She looked at him, her face etched with shock. She had never been turned down by a man before, especially not with this level of come-on.
She laughed sarcastically. “You’ve got to be kidding me. You’re a single guy, you’ve got a nearly naked beautiful woman in your place, ready and rarin’ to go and you’re going to turn that down? Turn me down?” She held her hands out at her side. She dropped her voice. “This is our chance to be together.”
“Portia,” he said, his face tense, his jaw clenching, “I don’t know how the hell you’ve got this idea into your head that there’s something between us, but you’re sadly mistaken. Even if there was, which there isn’t, I would never do that to my own brother!”
Her face again twisted into an expression of fury. “Please!” she shouted at him as she pulled her blouse closed. She did up a couple of buttons. “It’s just sex. It doesn’t have to be a lifetime commitment. People do it all the time.”
“You are a piece of work. Why are you really here tonight?” he asked her as he raised his voice. “To seduce me? To betray Nikolas? What’s your game?”
She gave him a look that could kill. “You think you’re all high and mighty now, Mr. Big Shot CEO. You’re going down. The papers say so.”
“Excuse me?”
“You just wait, when you’re out and no longer flying high on Wall Street, you’ll wish you could have me. Instead of trolling around with your little plump treat from the wrong side of the tracks.”
“She’s more woman than you’ll ever be and has more class than you could hope to have!”
“Give me a break! She can’t hold a candle to me in any way and you know it!” She practically spat the words at him. She huffed, her face red with anger and indignation. “I look forward to when the truth comes out about you. Your double-dealing, sneaky, hucksterism days are nearing an end.”
He regarded her curiously for a moment. He lowered his voice to an even tone. “You’ve been asking me all kinds of questions about the business for months now, grilling me on details. There’s no truth to those rumors and you know it. You’ve said as much.”
“Truth is relative and perception is everything,” she said as she pointed at him. “You are becoming a liability to Tsar Enterprises. If you don’t step down soon, you’ll take the company down with you.”
“The hell I will!”
She turned around and grabbed her purse and shoes. “You know how skittish investors are since all the big financial scandals. They just need a whiff of impropriety to flee. And there’s been more than enough of that going around.”
“Lies, and it will stop.”
“Oh really, you’re going to stop it? You don’t even know what you’re dealing with.”
“Don’t I?”
She pointed a shoe at him. “No, you don’t. If you had half a brain in that pretty head of yours, you would take me up on my offer.”
“What offer is that?”
“Let’s join forces. You and I. In business and pleasure. That’s how it should have been from the start. Our timing was just off. At least Nikolas saw the value I represented, I’ll give him that.”
He ignored, for the moment, the implications of her statement for his brother’s marriage. “Let’s just say for argument’s purposes, I did that. How will that stop these rumors and lies?”
“I can help,” she said, hesitating, sizing him up. Is this really the opening I’ve been waiting for? she wondered. To get both Giorgio and Tsar Enterprises?
“How?” he asked.
“You need someone like me to help guide the company in a new direction,
away from these troubled waters. There are incredible opportunities out there right now just waiting to be explored in more…speculative investments. There’s less competition and potentially a lot more lucrative returns. I know how to play those markets. Well.”
“You want us to get into even riskier investments? Forego the safer path and put the company on the line?”
“There’s much bigger money to be made out there,” she said, buttoning up her blouse the rest of the way. “Easier money. You should listen to me. I can open up doors to a whole new world for you, for the company. For us.”
He thought on her words for a moment.
She stood there, watching him, scanning his reactions. She needed to play this just right.
“You’ve wanted that since the beginning, haven’t you?” he said, as he crossed his arms. “In the beginning, even before you and Nikolas got married, you were suggesting things like that. More uncertain ventures.”
“So what? I like driving profits higher. And they’re only uncertain to those who don’t know what they’re doing. I do. That’s the difference. That gives us a huge advantage.”
“You could end up driving our business into the ground. What you propose would risk everything.”
She gave him a condescending look. “The higher the risk, the higher the reward, you should know that, Mr. Business Guy. The difference is that I’m just not afraid of taking risks like you Tsarkopolis boys apparently are.”
He caught her double meaning, but ignored it. “It’s not your company, Portia, and I’m not going to allow that. That’s final.” He shook his head. “My father worked too hard to build it into what it is today. I won’t throw that away on reckless ventures with shady people.”
She huffed. “Fine, you don’t trust me and you don’t trust my judgment. Your loss.” She pointed her chin towards him. “I guess we’ll just see how long you’re in a position to make these decisions.” She sat down in a chair and put her shoes back on.
“That sounds like a threat.”
“Oh Giorgio,” she said, glancing up and shooting him the iciest, most patronizing look he had ever seen, “it’s just a reality check for you. You think you can control everything, but you can’t.” She walked over, grabbed her jacket and put it back on. “Mark my words, trouble is coming.” She headed for the door.
Giorgio blocked her path. “Wait,” he said softly, holding his hand out in a gesture of peace. “Don’t go yet.” He gave her an intense look.
She sized him up, a sly grin crossing her face. She flicked her hair back and licked her lips as she stepped closer to him. “Changing your mind about tonight, now that I’m about to slip through your fingers?” she asked as she hooked her hands onto his waistband, near his belt buckle. “It’s not too late, you know.”
He didn’t pull away from her this time. “I need to ask you something.” His lips were slightly parted.
“Uh-huh,” she replied, staring at his pillowy lips as she gripped his waistband tighter. It was intoxicating for her being this close to him. She imagined him naked. She wanted to have sex with him so badly. She had for years.
He let her keep hold of him. “The night of the ball,” he started to say, “someone overhead a conversation you had.”
“Oh?” she replied, her mind picturing herself undressing him, kissing him, touching him, straddling him.
“It was about the business,” he said.
She laughed. “I think you and Nikolas and I collectively spent hours talking to people that night about our business, the charitable fund, and on and on.”
“This one took place in the ladies’ room. You were on your cell phone.” He watched her carefully as his words sunk in.
A shadow crossed her face. She didn’t say anything. She stood perfectly still.
“What was heard was a little distressing to say the least,” he continued, hoping to get a reaction from her.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said as she removed her hands from his waist and shifted her stance.
He gave her a smirk. “I know you do, so denying it isn’t going to help. The entire conversation was overheard. Every word.”
“You know what,” she said, her face growing tense, “you were right, it is getting late. I need to be going now. Thanks for your hospitality,” she said as sarcastically as she could. She made to leave.
He held out his hand. “Before you go, I want to know why you’ve had someone planting all these lies online about the business, about me, about what I’m doing? Accusing me of illegal scams, illegal transactions, of duping investors.”
“Seriously,” she said, putting a hand on her hip, “you’re accusing me of being an internet troll and a traitor now? Ridiculous. This conversation is over.”
He pressed on. “You know, I wondered why you’d been asking so many questions over the last few months. At the time, I chalked it up to being interested in moving up in the business. But now I see what it was for. To give you enough actual facts to anchor your lies to, to make them seem more legit and cast just enough doubt about the company and about me, in the investment community.”
“And you got all of this from some bathroom conversation? At a busy, crowded event, where everyone’s been drinking, and you couldn’t hear people three feet away with all of the noise?”
“You were seen while you were talking on your cell,” he said.
“Bullshit, there was no one there…” she stopped herself. She realized she just implicated herself.
Giorgio smiled, nodding his head. Taking a chance with the bluff had paid off.
She glared at him. She huffed, stepping around him and went to the door.
He didn’t try to stop her. “I’m telling Nikolas. About everything.” He turned around to look at her.
She was holding onto the doorknob, her back to him. “He’ll never believe you, there’s no proof.” She left, slamming the door behind her.
Giorgio stood there for a moment, then reached into his pants pocket. He took out his iPhone and turned off the recording button.
Chapter 26
Giorgio listened to the recording on his phone. He had captured everything from when Portia had started her intense, but ill-fated seduction attempt. He was relieved she had left, but was saddened and stressed over the necessary consequences of her actions. He knew what had to be done though.
He sat down at the glass and stainless steel desk he had in the far corner of his living room. He enjoyed doing his work there when he needed to bring it home. Looking out over the expansiveness of Central Park helped to relax him and give him perspective. He gazed out at the colorful lights of New York beyond and let out a long sigh. Things would be different from here on in. He hooked his phone up to his laptop and copied the recording onto his hard drive. He saved it in three different places, plus on a memory stick for safekeeping.
Next, he picked up his phone and texted Nikolas:
Need to talk ASAP. It’s urgent. – G.
He then drafted a quick email to Nikolas and attached a copy of the recording. Less than five minutes later his phone rang. It was Nikolas. Giorgio leaned back in his chair and answered it. “Hey man, we need to talk…right away…in private. Good, thanks…” He took a deep breath, set his shoulders and hit ‘send’. “Nik, you need to open the email I just sent you.”
Over the next half hour, he filled his brother in on what happened and Nikolas listened to the entire recording that Giorgio had made of Portia’s attempts at multiple betrayals. Nikolas was crushed. He decided he needed to get out of the house before Portia came back home. Giorgio invited him to stay at his place for the night for moral support and so they could talk things over. Nikolas agreed and they stayed up until dawn talking about their situation and the future. Decisions were made.
*****
Giorgio and Nikolas had each managed to get a couple of fitful hours of sleep before heading into work Wednesday morning. They downed one pot of coffee at Giorgio’s place, then cup a
fter cup at the office. They had meetings they had to attend and business matters to take care of. Plus they had a lot of new balls to get rolling and fast.
Giorgio, however, took the time before his first meeting to call Anabelle’s cell phone. He had a lot of making up to do. Not surprisingly, he got her voicemail. He left a message:
“Anabelle, hi, it’s me Giorgio. I know you’re probably not speaking to me after the way things left off between us the other night, but I wanted to apologize to you. I’m really sorry. Listen, I need to talk to you. It’s really important. Please call me back. I’m sorry about everything…I miss you.”
He’d wait, for awhile at least, for her to call him back.
*****
Anabelle was sitting at her desk at work when she saw the number on her cell phone. There was no way she was answering it. She saw the voicemail indicator come on, but she didn’t bother to listen to it. Maybe she would later, maybe not. She hadn’t been able to sleep over the last couple of nights since her fight with Giorgio. She was in no state to talk to anyone except Sarah, least of all the source of her pain.
She had called Sarah Tuesday night when she got home. She ended up sobbing on the phone. Giorgio hadn’t said a word to her since he had stormed out of her place Monday evening. The painful conclusion the two best friends had come to, after talking for two hours on the phone, was that Anabelle was at best a distant second to Portia in Giorgio’s life and only there at his convenience. Whatever that meant for his relationship with his sister-in-law, they agreed they may never know, but the implications made their skin crawl.
Sarah had pointed out how Giorgio would just up and vanish whenever suited him, canceling their first date, which had been the same day Anabelle had spotted him having a cozy, touchy-feely lunch with Portia, and then didn’t call her for two days afterwards. Next he had ditched Anabelle in the hotel room the night of the ball, after Portia had already pulled him away from her once earlier in the evening. Finally he had stormed out of her place when she tried to tell him that Portia was trouble and didn’t call her back after that. Not a word. All three instances had one factor in common. Portia.
Love in the City, an erotic romance novel Page 25
