by BWWM Club
Her last relationship had been three years ago and had ended disastrously with him telling her he had fallen in love with someone else. She had made up her mind to throw herself into her work and forget about men in general, at least for now.
She had lost both her parents when she had just turned thirteen and had been sent to live with her aunt, her mother’s sister who had never been married nor had children. The relationship had been strained in the first few years but they had learned to adjust to their different circumstances and had actually become friends; even though it had taken a while for Debra to accept that she was an orphan. Her aunt Sybil had sent her to college with the savings she had accumulated over the years and she would always be grateful to her for that.
Debra cleaned the bowl and rinsed it out in the sink before going into her bedroom to take off her clothes and head to the bathroom to take a quick shower. She wanted to get to work early because she needed to face Michael and get him to look at the options, make him realize that he needed to do what needed to be done.
*****
The object of her thoughts was prowling around in his sterile ultra modern penthouse apartment, a scotch in his hand. Michael had received the messages from Amy about Debra needing to see him but he did not want to deal with the situation right now. He did not care if it looked like he was running away from it, he just wanted to shelve it for a bit.
His mother had called him, telling him that she wanted to talk to him and he knew before hand what it would be. She had been bugging him about settling down and giving her grandchildren and saying things like the legacy of his father needed to continue. He laughed harshly at that bit. His father, before he had drunk himself to death, had been a rotten bastard who enjoyed beating his wife and son and when he was not doing that he would be hurling expletives and threatening to kick them out. He had turned to technologies as a way out; scraping and saving to buy what he could and he had become obsessed with games, so much so that he had started looking for ways to invent new games.
He had left home when he was eighteen and had practically lived on the streets but he had gotten a break when an older woman had listened to him and believed in him enough to invest in his dreams. He smiled as he thought about her: Fiona; twice his age and divorced with money to burn and an attraction to the lean hungry youth she had met in the coffee shop. They had parted ways amicably two years after and he had paid her back with interest. “I knew I would not lose out on you,” she had said, placing a gentle hand on his jaw. “Go and be rich and show them darling, I believe in you.” They still kept in touch and the last he had heard from her; she was in Paris, married to some rich Parisian and jet setting all over the world.
He had done the right thing, although he had been loathed to do so and had bought a house for his parents. He had told his mother he would buy somewhere for her to live but only if she got rid of his father from her life. She had begged him and he had acquiesced with the utmost reluctance with the provision that if he hit her again and Michael found out he would be out, no questions asked.
He had not gone to visit them, not while his father was alive. Michael had funded the funeral when he had died and had even attended the sham of a ceremony. He made sure his mother was well taken care of and dutifully visited her once a week.
He had seen enough ugly marriages to know that it was not something he wanted to do; maybe somewhere in the far future to produce an heir. He stared at the amber liquid in the glass in distaste and put aside the glass on the marble counter top in the kitchen. He had often wondered if he had inherited the nasty gene from his father. Michael had made sure to stay away from hard liquor as much as possible. He did not even like to argue too much with a woman so as soon as the relationship started turning in that direction he headed for the door. The last relationship he had been in; Moira had told him that he was shallow and afraid of commitment. She was probably right, he thought with a grimace.
He had built his company from scratch, now he was being forced to do something he did not want to do to please people he did not give a damn about. With a harsh sigh he plowed his fingers through his hair; his expression forbidden; damned if he would.
His cell phone rang just then and with an impatient sigh he realize that it was Selene, a woman he had gone out with twice in the last month and had found her to be too clingy and insecure.
“Hi Selene,” his voice was cool and detached. He did not need to give her any encouragement.
“I thought you were going to call me.” He heard the pout in her voice and he could just picture her lounging on her four poster bed in some slinky lingerie barely covering her long slender body. She was a ravishing blonde who was into films and wanted to make their arrangement more permanent.
“I got tied up,” he told her without further explanation. He was impatient and he wanted to end the conversation.
“Why don’t you come over?” she suggested in a sultry come hither tone that had attracted him before but now bored him out of his skull.
“Not possible,” he answered pleasantly. Maybe he should marry someone just to get rid of these kinds of women. “I have an early meeting tomorrow and I am preparing some notes as well.” He lied.
“Oh darling, you are disappointing me,” that pout was there again and he realized that he hated women who played games; they were grownups for crying out loud; not teenagers. “I really want to see you Michael.”
“Another time perhaps,” he said dismissively. He told her bye and hung up the phone before she could say anything else. He was definitely never seeing her again. Maybe an expensive piece of jewelry to soothe her ego and some flowers, it always did the trick, he thought cynically, changing his mind and downing the scotch in on long swallow, the liquid burning a path in his gut and warming him from the inside. With a fatalistic shrug, he strode into the huge black and white bathroom with the intention of taking a shower. He had tomorrow to deal with and he had a feeling it was going to be quite a day.
Chapter 2
“Let me get this straight, you want me to choose from one of these women, the one most suitable for me as my bride?” Michael swept his hand to indicate the clippings of the photographs of him with several different women over the past year.
“Precisely,” Debra said calmly. She had no intention of allowing him to intimidate her and as he so rightly mentioned; she was going to do the job she was getting paid so handsomely to do. “This one I think has the right image, I don’t know about her personality but you would know.” She pointed to a picture of a tall exotically beautiful brunette that was hanging off his arm and smiling brilliantly for the camera. The picture had been taken a few months ago and her name was Jewel, an international jet setting model that he'd had a brief and very passionate fling with. She was one of the few women he'd been with who had not wanted to tie him down with marriage. She'd told him laconically that all she wanted was a good time with a handsome and charismatic man and he had certainly shown her that.
He smiled lazily as he picked up the clipping and looked at the picture; she would probably make some man a good wife someday when she decided to settle down.
Debra mistook the look and her eyes grew cool. “I take it you are in agreement?” she asked him with a bite in her tone.
“You took it wrong,” he put away the clipping and looked at her amusement. “Jewel is not interested in marriage and even if she was I don’t want her for my wife.”
“The way you were looking at her says otherwise,” Debra was frustrated and she gathered up the clippings and shoved them back inside the folder. She had spent so much time coming up with the plan that she was feeling a little let down and quite frankly she did not know what to do now.
“How about you?” he asked her softly. Her head snapped up and her chocolate brown eyes widened as they met his dazzling green ones. She was dressed in an off white linen suit and a black and white silk scarf around her neck. Her makeup was flawless as usual and her short hair showed off her face to p
erfection.
He had spent the entire night trying to come up with something that would work and he had not gotten anywhere. Michael just knew he was not going to sacrifice his single life just to suit people he did not give a damn about, certainly not with the women he had been associating with, unless it was her.
“What?” for the first time since he knew her, she had lost her cool and seemed to be in a daze.
“How about us getting married?” he stood up and came around his desk to face her. He was disturbingly handsome in charcoal suit pants and a pin stripe red and gray shirt with a red silk tie. His hair was brushed back from his forehead in waves with a lock escaping that almost compelled you to want to fix it back into place. “We know each other and we have no hang ups about the romantic side of it. It would be a mutually beneficial agreement and at the end of it you will be a considerably wealthy woman.”
“You think I would marry someone for his money?” the question was thrown at him frostily as she stepped back from him, his presence was too unnerving.
"I think you are a very smart woman who knows a good business deal when she hears one," he responded smoothly, shoving his hands into his pockets. "You are a beautiful woman Debra and I think we work well together and we would make a great team. Don't worry I won't make love to you unless you want me to." He added with a small cynical smile.
"We are not having this discussion," she turned as if to walk out of the office only to be brought up short by his hand on her arm.
"Think about it Debra, that's the only way I am putting on a monkey suit and going before a marriage officer." He turned her around to face him. "I am not such a bad catch; I am actually very good in bed."
She wrenched her arm away from him and sent him a fulminating stare. "I don't give a damn." She hissed, walking out of the office without a backward glance, leaving Michael staring after her with a slight frown.
She was so damned sexy! He thought with a pull of his desire. He was attracted to her and he was sure it would work out, if only she would say yes.
*****
Debra was furious! How dare he talk to her like that. She fumed, pacing the length of her office. She had worked so hard to settle herself into a successful career just to have a man tell her that it would be lucrative for her to marry him. She could jolly well make it on her own.
She dragged out the clippings of him with Jewel. The caption read: 'Billionaire Playboy Michael Tanner out on the town with Supermodel Jewel Hutchinson.' He was gazing down at her with a slightly indulgent smile; his arms around her possessively.
She had not written off marriage but when she did decided to get married it had to be someone who loved and respected her and someone she would want to spend the rest of her life with. Not some marriage of convenience that years down the road they would part ways. Marriage was supposed to be for keeps and she was romantic enough to want that.
*****
"I need a massage and sex and not necessarily in that order," Juliette stretched her slender legs out in front of her with a sigh. They were having lunch at a trendy new restaurant near the office building just to get out for a change. The chef, Orlando, a strapping black bald headed man found it a personal affront if they went elsewhere to eat other from eating at the company dining room. They had sneaked out feeling like teenagers sneaking out to meet boys. It was totally ridiculous but they hated to offend him because it meant sullen looks for a long time and food that tasted like sawdust.
"What's stopping you?" Debra dug into her chicken fettuccini with relish. She was the one who had inveigled Jules to let them escape the office, so she was probably the one who will have to explain to Orlando why.
"Damian is no longer in the picture," Jules waved her hand carelessly, her beautiful face calm and not in the least bit anxious. "He wanted more and I was not prepared to offer more."
"The poor dear," Debra smiled teasingly; the thought flashing through her mind that Jules would probably make a better wife for Michael than she would. Both of them had similar views on relationships, she thought wryly.
She had not told Jules about the ridiculous proposition Michael had offered her, sure that by now he was regretting even voicing it. She had found a few more prospective brides for him to choose from and even if she had to tie him down to his desk, he was going to have to make a decision.
"How is the cleaning up campaign coming on?" Jules looked at her friend curiously. She was sipping water delicately; claiming that she was on a liquid diet because she had seen a smashing red dress in one of the salons and she was determined to fit into it.
"It's going," Debra said with a shrug. As much as she valued the friendship with Jules, the girl was also friends with several of the receptionists and the matter was much too confidential for office gossip.
They discussed the various topics ranging from who was screwing who in the office and the fact that Sheryl from accounting's husband was cheating on her with her best friend.
When they got back to the office Debra went straight to his office only to be told by Amy that he was out for the rest of the afternoon at a meeting and had left a message for her to meet with him first thing tomorrow.
Good, Debra thought in relief. She needed to get the matter out of the way, she had other pressing matters to attend to. There was damage control to be sorted out for the computer solutions company that they had acquired two months ago that had been leaking money like a sieve. Michael had ordered a complete reshuffle of the management team. They were planning to restructure the company and opened under a new name and she was supposed to come up with a suitable logo as well. She had her hands full and certainly had no time for Michael Tanner's love life.
*****
Maura Tanner stared at her son anxiously. After spending most of her life cowering under the vicious onslaught of her drunken husband, both physically and emotional she had become a shell of the woman she had been before she had marry him. Even though he had been dead five years now, she still expected him to come barging into the room with his hand raised and his mouth hurling expletives at her. Michael was the spitting image of him but his personality was so different they were far from being father and son.
Her son had bought them such a lovely house that she secretly thought was too big for her now that her husband was gone. She did not know how to accustomed herself to this totally different lifestyle even after all those years.
"You look tired son." Maura ventured tentatively. She was so unused to voicing her own opinion that she expected to be told to shut her mouth. She rarely had anything useful to say as her husband had told her so many times in the past, she had started to believe it.
"I am a little tired," he told her, reining in his impatience. He had left the meeting and come straight over because she had called him yet again wanting to find out if he was coming to see her. He had spent so many years resenting her for not standing up to his father that he found it hard to even find a glimmer of love in his heart for her. God knows he was trying and he made sure to give her everything money could buy. After all she was his mother.
“I am okay mother,” he told her with a forced smile. Frankly he was not in a very good mood. The meeting he had not too long come from had not gone very well; he had been trying to acquire a chain of hotels that had become dilapidated from lack of good management and funding that had dried up when the management staff had found clever ways of depleting the profits. Michael had done the research and knew that with an injection of capital and a total makeover, the chain stood to make a phenomenal amount of money. The owners of the title; a dried up old man and his two sons were holding out on selling because they claimed he was too much of a womanizer and they were not sure he would do justice to the pile of heap they owned. He, who had acquired so much from sheer grit and determination, was getting resistance from men who did not know the first thing about running a business. The feeling irked. He had felt like telling the trio where to shove it, but he had exercised admirable constraint and left
the meeting with his anger boiling up inside him. It was not fair to take out his feelings on his mother, it was not her fault and besides she had been beaten up too many times before by one man already, she needed a break.
“Let’s go out and have dinner,” he said suddenly, standing up and reaching for her hand. “Let’s go out and eat all the lobster we can and listen to some jazz and blues.”
It was worth it to see the sudden glow on his mother’s usually pale and unhappy face and he was glad he had suggested it. Maybe it was time to put the painful past behind them.
*****
Debra cleaned out the fridge with a vengeance that suggested she was going to be getting inspected by the electronics fairy and would get a demerit if there was even a speck of mold or foods going bad. She had dragged out a pair of ancient sweat pants and an old torn T-shirt that she had had since she was a teenager and had not had the heart to get rid of it.
Whenever she had something difficult to deal with, she cleaned and by now her apartment was spotless and smelled like a flower garden in the summer.
She was just having a glass of wine and contemplating whether or not to call and order pizza when there was a knock on her door. With a frown she wondered who would be knocking at a quarter past eight and peeping through the hole she realized it was her sometimes annoying neighbor Felicia. Debra thought about not letting her in but she knew the woman would keep pounding on the door; she was not one to take a hint and go away.
“Felicia what brings you by so late?” she unlocked the door, making sure to put the emphasis on the word late. Maybe this time she would take the hint.
“I saw the light on under your door and decided that you were probably still up.” The middle aged woman came inside, her eyes darting from one corner of the room to the other as if she expected to see some man curled up in one corner hiding. She lived alone and often complained that there were no good men around. Debra had tried to tell her that maybe if she would fix herself somewhat instead of wearing the same baggy clothes all the time then maybe she would get some attention.
