I had to smile at the thought of my dad. He loved to work on things. By trade he was a sanitation engineer, a garbage man for the city. He loved his job, and I always thought it was because he got to find ‘treasures’ that he would later be able to bring home and fix up. “Everything,” I told Aiden. “He would find things that people had thrown out and bring them home and then when he had time, he would restore them, or make completely new things out of them. He was good too. Much of what was in our house were things that he made or as he used to put it, ‘brought back to life.’”
Aiden was smiling, “Did you lose him long ago?” he asked.
“When I was fourteen. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do, stand and watch them put the man I loved so dearly into the ground.”
“I know what you mean,” Aiden told her. “My parents were killed in a car accident when I was twelve. It was earth-shattering. I was lost for most of my teen years, just wondering where I belonged.”
“Oh Aiden, I’m sorry to hear that. Did you have other relatives who took you in?”
“I did, but none of them could keep me for long for one reason or another. My aunt took me in first, but she already had four children and when she found out she was expecting her fifth, she sent me to live with my grandparents. They were good to me, but they’d lived in another state much of my life and we didn’t really know each other. They were a lot older too. It was like living with strangers. When my grandfather passed and Grandmother had to go into a nursing home I was sixteen. I emancipated myself then and I’ve been on my own mostly since. I’m sure all of that has to do with why I crave my own family so badly.”
“I’m sure it does,” I said. “No brothers or sisters?”
“No, I was an only child.”
“Me too. My parents lost one after me. I think they were afraid to try again.”
We sat quietly again, listening to the music. It was a comfortable silence, one that comes from being content. I had my head leaned back into the sofa and I felt Aiden reach over and touch my hair softly. I looked at him and he said softly, “You’re so beautiful, Holly.”
I felt myself blush and thankfully before I could spit out my silly, “Thank you,” he pulled me into him and covered my mouth with a kiss. His tongue snaked in between my lips and joined mine in a beautiful tango. We kissed for a long time and even though I started to feel like I could hardly breathe, I didn’t want it to end. When it did, he only pulled back slightly and I could feel his breath on my face as he said, “Would you mind if I join you in your bed again tonight?”
I smiled, I’m sure it was a giddy smile because that’s how I felt. “Not at all,” I told him. He stood up and reached out for my hand. I took his and followed him to my new room. The curtains were wide open so that the twinkling of the fairy lights across the city cast a soft glow over everything. We didn’t bother closing them, we were on top of the world, and no one would see us here.
Chapter Ten
~
I woke up alone again the next morning. The night before had been magical. Aiden was a skilled and tender lover, without a doubt the best that I’d ever had. Not that I’d had that many, but enough to know that the way he concentrated on my wants and needs and unselfishly brought me pleasure was not the norm. I wondered if he left the moment that I had fallen asleep. Was that to keep himself distanced? Was he trying to not have feelings for me, or did he really not?
I stretched out in the comfortable bed and told myself not to think about it now. There would be plenty of time to figure that out while we work on conception and then spend nine months awaiting the arrival of his miracle. I shuddered again at that thought and made myself change tracks. I had to take my mother to rehab today and then meet the contractor at her house and discuss with him what needed to be done there.
I threw back the sheet and climbed out of bed. I put on my robe and slippers and wandered through the big, empty apartment to the kitchen. I found myself looking around as I poured my coffee, but there was no note today. Yesterday’s was a fluke, just to orient me to my first day. He wasn’t my husband, or my boyfriend. I was his employee and he was under no obligation to tell me where he was going, when he would be back, or to wish me a good day.
I took my coffee out on the balcony again and as I sat there and sipped it in the cool morning air I reminded myself that Aiden wasn’t the only thing I needed to be careful of not getting overly attached to. The lifestyle could be addictive as well.
After finishing my coffee I showered and dressed. I was just getting ready to leave the apartment when my cell phone rang. It was Rose.
“Hey girl! What on earth is going on? Joe said you quit.”
“Yeah, I went in to give him my two week notice. He told me I could just go and you all would be fine. I was going to go out and talk to you but it was the lunch rush and you looked awfully busy. I’m sorry.”
“Why did you quit? Is it your mother? Is she giving you a hard time again?”
“No…well yes, she was. I’m taking her to a rehab facility out in Scarsdale today. Hopefully it will stick. That wasn’t why I quit though, I have a new job.”
“Doing what?” Rose asked.
“I’m a personal assistant, of sorts.”
“Wow! I didn’t even know you were applying.”
“I wasn’t,” I told her. “Sometimes it tracks you down and presents itself.”
I held my lips closed and said something completely unintelligible. I really didn’t want to tell her.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“I said, Aiden Scott,” I repeated.
Rose actually gasped, “Are you kidding me? The Aiden Scott? The one who has the giant hots for you?”
I laughed, “He does not have the “giant” hots for me,” I said, trying not to blush as I thought about all of the things he did to me the past two nights.
“Honey you’re either lying, delusional or in denial. I always knew he had it bad for you. Now it’s just confirmed. Is he paying you good?”
“Better than you can imagine,” I told her. She went on again about how he “wants me” and then she let me in on some of the gossip going on around the café. When I finally got off the phone, it had been an hour conversation from start to finish. I felt bad not telling my friends the whole story, but I just didn’t think any of them were going to understand. Some days, I wasn’t sure I understood myself.
I had to wait another hour when I got to the hospital for them to get Mom and her things ready. We finally headed out to Scarsdale around eleven-thirty. She complained the entire way and I was trapped on the train with her.
“Holly, I want to go home. I want to be in my own house in my own bed…”
“We’ve already had this conversation, Mother. If you leave this facility before you’re deemed ready to go by the staff, that’s it for us, do you understand me? If this is how you choose to live your life, I can’t stop you. It is not how I choose to live mine, and I can make the choice to not live it that way.”
My mother didn’t have anything to say to all of that, but she didn’t refuse again, but even if she did, she’d have to wait now and get on the train back to midtown when we got to Scarsdale.
We got to the train station and she still hadn’t said a word, so we got a cab to the rehab facility and she sat silently on that ride too. She thought she was punishing me, but I definitely preferred it to the incessant whining. She refused to speak to the admissions worker as well, so I answered all of the questions. She did sign the paperwork which I was thankful for. When I got ready to leave I said, “I’m sorry that you’re angry with me, but I’m only doing this because I love you.”
She wouldn’t even look at me. I kissed her cold cheek and told her to call me if she needed anything. She stared straight ahead with no response. I left with tears in my eyes and allowed myself to cry all the way home. Then once I got there, I told myself that was it, there was nothing left to cry over, she was on her way to being well, and I wa
s on my way to financial freedom, at last.
AIDEN
I got home from the office late the second day that Holly was living with me to find multiple boxes of Chinese food, enough to feed an entire family sitting on the dining room table with a note that said:
“I hope you had a nice day. I didn’t know what you liked so I ordered a variety. Sleep well, Holly.”
I smiled, because it was sweet, but I also had to grimace. Was I making a mistake with this naïve young lady? She’s only been here two days and it already seems as if she’s treating this as some kind of domestic partnership. Were my intentions so incredibly selfish that I failed to consider the emotional ramifications that this would have on her? I understood clearly that this was a business deal, and she said that she did, but did she really? A lot of women would be happy to do this for a large sum of cash and walk away. Holly didn’t seem like that type and ironically that was one of the reasons I picked her. I liked that although she seemed to be struggling and I knew she was taking care of her alcoholic mother, she didn’t seem overly attached to the money or the luxury that she suddenly found herself surrounded by. She still refused to let the driver run her around town and instead took a cab everywhere she went. She cooked and she cleaned up her mess. She made her own bed. To me, those were astounding qualities in a woman who was suddenly and completely relieved of the responsibility of doing any of that.
I can tell when we’re having sex that to her it is more than just the act of conception. She looks at me with real emotion in her eyes and sometimes my guilt runs so deep that I can’t look back. The sex is phenomenal, the best that I’ve ever had…and I’ve had more than a few. Afterwards, she always snuggles into me, and damn it feels good but I wait for her to go to sleep and then I go back to my own room. Spending all of our nights together would add to her confusion. I don’t want to lead her on, that’s why I’d put everything into the contract and made sure that she understood all of it before we agreed to any of this.
I went down the hall to her room. The door was left open a crack so I peeked inside. I could see her in the moonlight and the lights of the city coming in through her windows. She was lying on top of the bed with her long hair fanned out around her. She was wearing a night shirt that came to her knees and I could see the gentle rise and fall of her chest. I felt something stirring in my stomach; it was more than just desire…I ignored it. I’d had those feelings before, once. I’d acted on them and given away my whole heart, only to have it trampled and broken. I wouldn’t go through that again, for anyone. I wasn’t looking for a permanent hookup or even a long-term lover. The last thing I want now or likely ever again in my life is a permanent hook up with someone. I don’t want to give someone that much power and control over me…ever again, and most especially, I don’t want anyone to have the power to walk away with my child.
I had spent a significant amount of time searching for the right woman. She had to be beautiful, intelligent, kind and of course, healthy. When I first saw Holly I was instantly aroused by her beauty and I hoped that she fit all of the other bills. I sat in that café for two months, finding out what I could, but the selection of my child’s biology required more than I could learn about her in an hour or two at the café. So of course, I had an extensive background check done on her. That was how I found out that she’d turned down several offers to colleges because of her high GPA in high school. That seemed curious so I delved deeper and found out about her mother’s alcoholism and how many times dear Holly had to bail her out over the years. Holly seemed to drink very little, have sex only when in a relationship, and only visited the doctor once yearly presumably for an annual check-up. I hadn’t cared about her mother’s problems once I had all of the facts.
The fact that I was extremely attracted to her was going to help as well. She was not only gorgeous, but something about her just drew me in to the point of where I just had to have her. Even if she had said no to the proposition I would have still tried to bed her. I’m so glad she said yes, and that she wanted to try and conceive the old fashioned way. It’s exciting to me to know each time we could be creating life…my child’s life, not to mention how fabulous the sex is.
I’ve done my best other than the sex to keep this relationship strictly business. I hope I’ve succeeded. I try to view her as just another of my thousands of employees. She has the most important job of course, so I want to reward her handsomely. I need to remember when I’m feeling overwhelmed with emotion, if we’re not fucking…to get the hell out of there.
HOLLY
I had just gotten a clean bill of health from my new doctor, but was unsurprisingly told that the pregnancy test was negative. It had only been three weeks, so neither Aiden nor I had even considered it a possibility yet. The good news was that he and I had fallen into a rhythm. We had a familiar routine that had begun one morning not long after the night I’d gone to bed without him and he’d stood at my door and stared at me for the longest time, watching me sleep. I hadn’t been asleep, I’d known he was there, but I’d made up my mind that any moves beyond the stipulations of our contract would be up to him from now on. I had emotions running rampant through my heart and my brain. It was likely if I acted on them, other than late at night when we were both in the throes of passion, that I would regret it. So I’d forced myself to pretend like this was only a job and that I was fine with it only being temporary.
I think Aiden had noticed my retreat and I don’t know if it was due to emotions of his own, or a fear that I was going to give up and leave, but he’d begun being more attentive on his own. He wasn’t overly so, he didn’t whisper terms of endearment in my ear when we shared a meal or took a walk, but he started not leaving so early in the mornings, having coffee or breakfast with me on the terrace, sometimes having his driver bring me to different restaurants to meet him for lunch, and almost always making it home in time for dinner, or taking me out to eat.
I was enjoying my new life. It was definitely the polar opposite of my old one. But the truth be told, I’d begun to feel so strongly about him that I’d gladly trade the luxuries for him to feel the same way about me. The fact that I still had so much time and he was beginning to open up and talk to me about things gave me hope.
As I took my walk this morning I thought back on the conversation we’d had the night before. We were watching a documentary on the Discovery Channel about beaches and conservation and out of the blue he said, “I haven’t seen the beach or felt the sand since I was in high school.”
I thought that was strange. He was obviously wealthy enough to go anywhere in the world that he wanted to. Didn’t wealthy people take regular vacations and wouldn’t some of those vacations inevitably land him on a beach or an island somewhere?
“Why not?” I’d asked him.
“Too busy with work,” he said.
“Why do you work so hard?” I had asked him. “So many hours that you have no time for yourself?” Then without thinking about how it might sound I added, “When is enough money enough?”
He looked at me with a hard expression. I was afraid that I’d made him angry. The silence was awkward and when he broke it he said, “When I was a kid, we lived like normal, middle-class people. My father worked on Wall Street and my mother was a stay-at-home mom. I had no idea what our financial status was really, but I would have never guessed rich. After my parents were killed, and I was staying with my aunt she told me that her father, who was also my mother’s father was a billionaire. She said that he had accounts set up for me all over the world, and that it was likely I was a multi-millionaire myself. I asked her why I never met him and why my parents never told me about the money. I guess when my mother and her sister were kids, my grandfather left them and his wife for an eighteen year old girl that he married and began a new family with. Out of his guilt, the girls and my grandmother were all given a large amount of money. My grandmother refused to touch hers so my mother and aunt did as well. They didn’t want anything from him si
nce he’d been incapable of giving them what they had needed the most before he’d walked out. My mother didn’t have any further contact with him, as far as I knew. She never talked about him in front of me anyways. My aunt says he never tried to contact them. It was as if he thought giving them money was sufficient to make them disappear. My mother died with all of her money in an account and it reverted to me. She and my father weren’t poor in their own right. I didn’t realize how wealthy I was for a long time. When I was 25, the rest of the accounts my grandfather secretly set up became mine too.”
An Heir At Any Price: The Billionaire's Obsession - Contemporary Romance Page 8
