by Tasha Fawkes
He breezed past me, a pair of black jeans slung over his shoulder, a couple of earth-toned shirts on hangers dangling from his fingers, and draped over his arm I barely caught a glimpse of a dark charcoal-colored sports jacket.
The door of the dressing room slammed shut and I stared at it, somewhere between amusement and total annoyance. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea after all. Maybe this was going to mean more trouble than it was worth. Maybe the guy would take sadistic pleasure in annoying the hell out of me, just because he found it amusing. In between second-guessing myself, bemoaning the fact that I was avoiding the truth of the entire matter, which was, bottom line, that I was afraid that my parents would cut me off if I didn't do what they said, Ben walked out of the dressing room for the second time.
This time, I couldn't hide the admiration and attraction I felt. I felt a couple of heart palpitations as I barely stopped by mouth from dropping open as I managed to regain control. Definitely billboard model, and he was right in his choices of the clothing. The black jeans he wore cupped his ass like nobody's business. The bulge of his genitals was only vaguely discernible, and the pant legs crumpled slightly along his calves. Those jeans would look great with a pair of boots. He looked so dammed masculine, like a cowboy or something, that I couldn't help but stare. He had donned a rust colored short-sleeved, button-down shirt that fit him like a glove. The fabric of the shirt accentuated his build, those broad shoulders, the outline of his pecs, fitting close to his torso, but not overly tight. The buttons didn't bulge one iota and yet I could still see the faint marks of his nipples, the hint of abdominal musculature beneath.
While I stared, speechless for several seconds, he offered a grin and then shrugged into a sport coat, a neutral, charcoal gray which set off the jeans. The pop of color offered by his shirt was perfect. I kicked myself for not having chosen those clothes myself.
"Well?"
"You…" I paused and cleared my throat. "Those are good on you." I tried to inflect a bored tone into my comment, but I could tell I hadn't fooled him a bit. He stared at the pulse throbbing in my neck as my gaze kept returning again and again to the way those pants hugged his ass and waistline, then as my eyes drifted up and latched onto his muscular chest.
He watched me for a moment, and then the grin slightly faded. He approached and sat down on the sofa and placed a hand on my thigh, just above my knee. I barely kept myself from jerking as heat slowly made its way up my leg to my pussy. The warmth flooded my lower regions and made its way up my body and into my breasts. Of their own accord, my nipples tightened. Again, I cleared my throat, unable to pull my eyes from his.
"Karen, is all this really necessary?"
It took me a moment to process the question. "Necessary?"
He gestured toward the clothes, the boutique, and then the air. "Why not just tell your parents that you'll find your own boyfriend and someday, your own husband, all by yourself?" He gave a slight shake of his head. "So again, is all this really necessary?"
I went to my go-to response. "You don't know my parents."
He said nothing for a moment, glanced down at his hand on my thigh, gave it a slight squeeze, then readjusted his position, now turned more toward me, one knee up on the couch, the other draping loosely around the back. I felt his fingers playing with the back of my blouse.
"You're worried that they'll cut you out of their inheritance or take away your allowance, or whatever it is that rich parents give their kids. Am I right?"
I said nothing although I did feel the heat of a blush burn my cheeks. Was I that obvious? Besides, no way in hell was I going to tell him the truth, that my parents were desperate to set me up with someone with money because they were running out of money. They had unobtrusively sold off several properties in the northern part of the state, including our summer home by the lake up in Maine. I certainly wasn't going to tell him that I was worried that one of these days, my father would no longer pick up the tab for my expenses, and that, even worse, my trust fund would not be available.
The knowledge of my parent’s financial difficulties always made me feel sick to my stomach. I had never lived without money, without being able to buy anything I wanted, to travel anywhere I wanted to go, or to surround myself with the nicer things in life.
I would find a rich man to marry, I would! But I wanted to be the one doing the picking and making the choice. The fiasco with Daniel was only one reason. The other, the one that I hardly even dared to admit to myself, was that maybe, just maybe, there was not only a rich man out there for me, but one that I had respect for and could love. And more importantly, one that could love me in return. I wanted—
"Money isn't everything, Karen," he said quietly. "Oh, sure, we all want it and it's nice to have, but… there's a limit to what a person should be willing to do for money."
"Coming from someone who hasn't got any." I snapped. I saw the look flash across his face and felt immediately sorry for my harsh words. "I'm sorry… really," I said. I must sound like a bitch. He said nothing.
I had a feeling that he had been talking more about himself than about me but I couldn't help but feel… I don't know, defensive? I turned to him again. "You don't know anything about my life, Ben, and I don't know anything about yours. It's easy for a stranger to tell another how to live, isn't it?"
He appeared surprised. "I'm not telling you anything," he said, leaning back. "I'm just saying… I'm doing this, aren't I? For you? And it's not just for the money, it's—" He glanced down at the clothes he wore. "I could pay for these, you know, if I really wanted to. Should I?"
A sudden surge of annoyance swept through me. "You're not sticking to the agreement. Besides, we both know that it would take months for you to pay for what I intend to be your upgraded wardrobe."
"And that's just it, isn't it? You have more money than me, so you're better than me?"
"No… no, that's not what I meant at all—"
"It is and we both know it."
He stood, staring down at me with what I could only describe as a look of pity. Now I went beyond annoyance to anger. Who did he think he was, looking down his nose at me—
"It makes no nevermind to me, Karen." He shrugged, turning toward the dressing room. Before he disappeared inside, he glanced over his shoulder. "Just remember who's doing who the favor, okay?"
The dressing room door closed firmly behind him. I glowered at it for several moments. How dare he? By the time we were finished with this makeover, I will have spent thousands of dollars on new clothes, and, if he allowed it, a new, stylish haircut… if he allowed it? I shook my head. What was happening here? I was the one leading the way. I was the one that would tell him how to dress, what haircut would look good, and how to act. He wasn't in control of any of it.
Or was he?
What startled me the most, in addition to the things he had said to me, was how he made me feel. My body burned with renewed desire. Not with anger, not really. He was getting to me, and I'd barely spent an hour with him today. I had to maintain a cool exterior, had to maintain control. No doubt the guy cleaned up nicely, but if I were to be completely honest with myself, I rather liked his "old" self. That devil-may-care, casual appearance that he had shown me in the cafe. At any rate…
The door to the dressing room opened and he stepped out wearing the clothes he had worn to the boutique. With a slight bow, he handed me his outfit. "You can take the cost of these close out of the ten grand you promised me. Fair enough?"
I frowned, but was beginning to realize that Ben Reynolds was going to be a force to be reckoned with. This was not how I envisioned this. I had mainly chosen him for his appearance and his convenience, and of course, the fact that I knew that he didn't make the kind of money he wanted to make. And yet, somehow, I felt like I was losing my power over him. I stood, offered a cool smile, then deliberately brushed up against him, my nipples caressing his chest as I took the clothes and headed for the front desk clerk standing in front of the regi
ster, watching us.
Problem was, while Ben merely chuckled softly behind me, I once again felt the tingle in my breasts, the surge of heat in my groin, thinking about the way those strong fingers of his had pleasured me… and, dammit, that I wanted to feel his hand there again.
I placed the clothes on the counter, ignoring Ben as he approached, standing close behind me, so close that I felt the heat emanating from his skin, got a whiff of his aftershave, which didn't help the tingling in my breasts one iota, and dug into my handbag for my wallet. I pulled out my credit card and handed it to the clerk and gave her instructions to have the clothing delivered to my apartment.
After the transaction, Ben turned to me with a lifted eyebrow. "What now?"
I turned to him. "We finish putting together your wardrobe," I said, pushing open the door to the boutique and emerging onto the sidewalk, the sounds of New York City surrounding me, restoring my sense of equilibrium. "Then, we go get a drink and discuss your background story and how we met, and all that other stuff."
To my surprise, he grinned. "Anything you say, Karen." He purred. "After all, you're the boss, aren't you?"
I held back a sigh, lifting my hand to catch a taxi. Was I?
Chapter 8
Ben
I was kind of surprised that Karen had invited me to her upper Manhattan brownstone Manhattan apartment. Yes, I had been there once before, but at night and in the dark, so I hadn't really gotten a good look at it, or her neighborhood. I had been interested in other things at the time. I had not taken any notice of her darkened apartment as we headed for her bedroom and a few hours of drunken revelry on her bed.
No doubt about it, her apartment, though only separated by miles geographically, was as different as night and day for my own studio apartment in Brooklyn. Even my cheap ass studio cost me two grand a month. My view? A cinderblock wall I could touch if I cared to open my crank windows and the backside of a bricked multi-unit apartment building dotted with window-mounted air conditioning units. I had done some checking. Her address on the upper west side, overlooking the northwestern boundary of Central Park, averaged over four grand a month. I shook my head. Must be nice to have that kind of money, where you didn't particularly have to worry about paying rent. Then again, I wondered why she didn't have a condo.
I sat in the back seat of a surprisingly clean and fresh-smelling taxi, contemplating the rationale for meeting her at her apartment, especially after the argument - quiet argument – we'd had nearly a week ago after she had finished "shopping" for me and we'd gone to have a drink at a downtown bar. The argument, if it could even be called an argument rather than strong disagreement, had started after she began to "explain" a rather convoluted background story for me. Of course, she wanted me to play the role of a billionaire businessman, but she had also proposed that I have a history of world travel, for my business of course, which would be the reason why I had no semi-permanent address in New York City that her father would supposedly check up on. She had me staying in a suite at one of New York's more expensive hotels uptown.
I had disagreed. "Let's keep it simple," I said. "The more details you and I have to remember, the more chances of us giving it all away."
One thing had led to another, with her once again reminding me that she was the boss, that she was paying me to play the part, and that she had complete control over the back- story because, after all, she knew her parents better than I did.
Finally, we have come to a semi-compromise. We agreed that my background story would be to, like her former fiancé, 'dabble' in imports and exports from Asia while I also 'dabbled' in the stock market, making a good bit of money from 'dabbling' in stocks for cutting-edge medical equipment, and that I had pretty much grown up in Thailand, only recently returning to live in the states full-time.
I still wasn't convinced that this was going to work. I mentioned that it wasn't difficult to check on someone's background; after all, these days, everybody left a digital footprint. Her response? That she knew someone, who knew someone, who again, knew someone who could create some "creative" documents for me; driver's license, credit cards, and so forth. That's where I put my foot down, and what led to the bulk of the argument.
"Absolutely not," I said, shaking my head. Was she crazy? "No way in hell am I going to be on the hook for any kind of fraud, you got that?" She had stared at me in startled surprise. "Seriously? I'm keeping my own identity, thank you very much."
"But you're working for a commodities trader! My parent's will find out if they so much as type your name into Google search!"
"No, it won't," I assured her. "I'm not even listed in the company's employee directory."
I sighed, striving for patience. This whole plan was growing more convoluted and ridiculous, almost to the point where I felt like backing away. Then again, between the money and well, her, it wasn't like I wasn't going to be rewarded for my troubles. Because, despite some of her less-than-desirable personality traits, and her impression that she could lord herself over me, I couldn't help the fact that I was attracted to her. Not only her physical beauty and voluptuous curves, but her. The more time I spent around her, the more aggravated she made me, the more I wanted to know her. Who was Karen Queen? Will the real Karen Queen please stand up?
I was fast gaining the impression that she kept so much of herself hidden. Self-protection? Lack of confidence? I had no idea, but I wanted to know more. I sighed, wondering how this was all going to turn out. By the time the cab dropped me off in front of her apartment building, I was once again wondering what the hell I was doing. Why had I allowed myself to be talked into this? I was allowing myself to be literally transformed into someone I wasn't.
I paid the cabbie, got out, and walked up the steps to the front door wearing faded blue jeans, a dark blue T-shirt, and Converse tennis shoes. When I wasn't wearing my cheap monkey suit for work, this was me. This was how I felt most comfortable. And why not? I hadn't grown up here in New York City. I had grown up in Oklahoma with a close-knit family. Actually, I had arrived in New York City two years ago to get away, to escape, to become invisible in the mass of humanity that tens of thousands called home. Tens of thousands of people, brushing by each other every day and yet so isolated. A year later, my parents had sold their house in Oklahoma City and moved to New Haven, Connecticut, and I knew why. Mom wanted to make sure I was okay. They weren't intrusive in my life, but they wanted to be nearby. Coming from such a close-knit family, I hadn’t been surprised by the move. Actually, it was nice to know my parents were nearby… a two-hour drive from the city in good weather.
I had broken up - or rather, she had broken up with me - two and a half years ago. I hadn't been in a serious relationship since. Helen had been the woman of my dreams, at first. But I had allowed her to take charge, at first because I didn't mind. But then, as she grew more controlling, more suspicious of the time I spent away from her, and even clingy-jealous, I had hesitated. I didn't admit it to anyone, not even to my parents, but I was a romantic at heart. I was idealistic, believed myself sensitive but not a pushover, and I had my standards. I am also particularly observant of human behaviors. That's why I knew Karen was putting up a front, a front behind who she really was and who she really could be.
I'd confronted her and she had laid into me like nobody's business. She showed her true face then, her true self. It was ugly and jealous and petty. She'd fooled me, hook, line, and sinker. Thank God, I had discovered the truth before she'd reeled me in. So, she'd dumped me and I left town. And here I was, struggling to 'make it' in the Big Apple.
Sure, I was frustrated by my boss's apparent efforts to hold me back from advancing, but for now, I wasn't bucking the system. I had quietly begun to put out feelers, and if nothing came of them in New York City, well, there was no law against me moving somewhere else, was there? My parents had sacrificed a lot to put me through college. Middle-class and hard-working, they had always been supportive of me. I hadn't lost sight of my goals and aspira
tions, but, and this was something that I had to admit to myself, this little interlude with Karen Queen had not only seemed like an interesting endeavor, but had turned into something much more personal. For me anyway.
After I was buzzed into the building and made my way to Karen's apartment, I decided that, for the time being at least, I would just go along with this and see how things played out. When she opened the door to her apartment and gestured for me to come inside, I did so, surprised. The apartment was large, by New York standards anyway, opening into a living room with wood floor, large glass windows overlooking the park, and furnished with modern, sleek furniture. Chrome, glass, and gray fabric. The kitchen to the right was just as austere; sterile mostly, nothing on the marble countertop. Not even a coffee machine. The place looked… generic. Immaculate. She probably had a maid. But the place lacked any sense of personality whatsoever. Nondescript landscape paintings in fancy frames on two of the living room walls. No photographs, no knickknacks, nothing that gave an indication of who Karen was or what she liked.
When I turned toward her, I saw her giving me the once over. Her expression didn't reveal any emotion whatsoever. She glanced up and met my eyes and then simply pointed down the short hallway that I did remember led to her bedroom. I felt a niggle in my groin. Really? We were going to dinner with her parents tonight. I wasn't looking forward to it, but she was offering a carrot…
I walked down the hall, she following just a few steps behind. I paused in the doorway and looked at the bed. No carrot, but obviously clothing that she had picked out for me, lying on the bed. I gritted my teeth. It bugged me that, at times, and more often than not, she attempted to treat me like I was her peon. A slave. A child. Just because I was playing this role didn't mean that she could treat me like this. Then again, if the drunken tryst that I had enjoyed, and that I was positive she had enjoyed, was anything to go by, the payoff would eventually be worth it.
