"Who's Victoria?" Wendy came around and put her hand on my shoulder and twisted her head to see my face. "Are you married?"
"No, no, it's not like that. I'm not married. Listen, just, don't worry about Evelyn, okay? She's under a lot of pressure with the campaign and she's been with my for a long time. This means a lot to her."
"Does it mean a lot to Victoria?" She put her tongue in her cheek and now she was tapping her toe.
"I've never met Victoria," I said. It wasn't a lie, really.
I felt caught between two worlds just then. On the one hand, I was here to do a job. I had people to schmooze and I just kicked out my campaign manager. There would be a news crew here later to get the marriage proposal on tape, which would cement me as the "family candidate" with the "perfect wife."
But it was a fraud. It was everything that I hated about Vegas all at once.
Then again, you don't get ahead in this world by staying in a small town in New Hampshire. You just don't.
I sighed and sat down at the table.
"Wendy, I -" I wasn't sure where to start. "You know, this town. I don't know why I bought this hotel, exactly. I mean, yeah, it's a great investment, but there are plenty of opportunities that would make me a lot more for the same initial investment."
She looked at me like I was speaking Greek.
"I mean that this hotel wasn't the best use of my money."
"So why'd you buy it? Did you miss me?"
"Actually, yes."
Her face went blank and she fell back into a chair, and it rolled back and thumped against the wall.
"I thought about you often. I was busy, I had things to do, but you were always in the back of my mind. We had this connection, you know?"
"Yeah, of course I know." Her lower lip quivered. "So why'd you leave?"
"Why didn't you tell me you didn't want me to leave?"
"Who says I didn't want you to leave?" She smiled and kicked me under the table.
"Ow, hey," I laughed. I reached for her hands and she put them out to me. "It feels like there's some cosmic force pulling us back together, Wendy. I flew back here and I it just felt right. I drove around before the snow and then again this morning, and it felt like home. Do you know what I mean?"
"Well, I live here, so, obviously... but you didn't answer my question: why'd you leave?"
"You know why. We talked about it - we agreed, right? I was going to the Naval Academy and you were going to - what was it, a state school?"
"Yeah. I... I did agree to it." She looked like she was going to cry again. What was I missing here? We both agreed to it.
"There was nothing here for me after my parents moved to Florida. All our friends left."
"My dad died right after you left, Daryl. I needed you then, and I couldn't reach you. I had to give up my dream of college and get a job to support my mom."
My heart sank. "Oh, my god, Wendy, I had no idea. You could have found me, I mean, you knew where I was."
"We decided we weren't going to have a long distance relationship, remember? And you were so damned determined to run off to the Navy."
My phone buzzed. It was Evelyn again.
"You know what. I want to catch up with you but don't have time right now, I gotta run. Tell you what, let's get you changed."
"You got a closet full of ladies' clothes?"
"Actually, yes."
The closet of my suite had been used as a temporary place to store clothes for a fashion show last week. The weather had kept them from coming to get them.
Wendy walked in and her eyes got huge. She sniffed the air. "Is that cedar? I always loved the smell of a cedar closet."
"The walls are cedar planks, yes. I had this suite redone when we made plans to host the conference here."
She whistled and started to thumb through the dresses. "This is some quality shit you got here," she glanced at me and went back to the dresses, dragging them down the rod, pulling them out and laying them against her body, putting them back and thumbing through again.
"There are shoes over there," I pointed to the other side of the closet, "but I don't think I can help you with any, uh, undergarments."
She stripped the sweatsuit off and tossed it aside. I stopped to admire her body. She looked back at me.
"What?" She looked down at herself. "Ain't you never seen anyone in granny panties?" She made a kissy face and slapped her ass.
"Of course," I laughed, "but you're rocking it, I must say."
"You're being nice. I know I'm fat. You can say it. My boyfriend did this morning."
"You have a boyfriend? That tells you you're fat? Wendy, I thought you'd be doing a lot better than that."
"You really don't think I'm fat? I mean, I'm no spring chicken." She pinched a hunk of flesh on her side and made a pbbbt noise.
"Stop it, I mean it. And if I wasn't already running late, I'd lay you down for round two."
"I don't know. I mean, your campaign manager was pretty pissed. And what would Victoria say?"
"Okay, stop teasing me or I will slam you raw."
Wendy laughed and went back to the dresses, shaking her ass and peeking back at me. I really had to get going but I was enjoying this. I never had playful fun with women. And I was sure that I would never have playful fun again with a fake marriage.
"You can let yourself out when you're dressed. I know you've got work to do, too. I've got to get downstairs before Evelyn strokes out on me."
I was going to move in for a kiss but thought better of it.
Wendy's tablet rang. It was Lisa calling on Skype. She held up the tablet and turned it away from me so Lisa wouldn't suspect, I'm sure, that she wasn't exactly working right now.
"Where the hell are you, Wendy? This email server is acting up again. I thought you were going to remote into it right after you fixed that WiFi hotspot?"
"Um, yeah, well that job was a little harder than I thought. I thought it had me licked and then I found my way... you could say it came to a good resolution."
I laughed quietly and shook my head. Same old Wendy.
"Why are you talking that way, Wendy? Just get back down to the server room."
Chapter 6
Wendy
I found a nice dress, not too fancy but not too plain. It hugged my ass and cinched in the waist. And it pushed the "girls" up. Flaunt it if you got it, I always say.
This suite was seriously nice. I looked around before leaving - three bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a huge balcony. The kitchen had a wine fridge and the living room had a giant flat screen TV.
I had to hand it to him, Daryl did good for himself in ten years.
But all that success and such a smart guy, why wouldn't he take the hint? Did he really not know that I loved him and that I didn't want him to leave? Or that I would have gone with him? Fuck, I would have followed that guy to the ends of the Earth.
And what was he doing bagging on this place? I live here, hello! And he grew up here, too. Just because you got money didn't mean you could be an ass to everyone in your past.
Or, more importantly, to me.
Still, his tongue worked me over good. I smiled to myself. I wish we could have finished.
I wished I would have had the guts to say something to him before he left. To tell him how I felt. I was so stupid.
And who the fuck was Victoria? Why was he so evasive about her?
I sat at the kitchen counter on the bar-height stools and logged in to the email server.
There was some strange activity. I opened up a new terminal and checked the logs. I saw something strange. It looked like someone was sending a lot of emails on the company server in the past few days, through my email server, and, if I didn't know any better, that law enforcement was trying to break in to my system.
At the very least, they were intercepting messages once they left my system.
Back in the email server, I pulled up some email headers, found the messages, and looked who they were from.
Daryl, what were you up to?
Lisa wasn't in the server room when I got there. Which was good, because she just slows me down and it's just weird how she looks over my shoulder, like she even understood half of what I was doing.
And her perfume... ugh. She's a big girl and I'm sure she uses it to cover up, well, you know what I mean.
Back on the server with a real keyboard, I did some additional digging into these emails.
The more I dug, the more I realized that the FBI was onto Daryl for some reason. I couldn't figure out why, and I couldn't read his emails because we encrypted outgoing messages by default - I couldn't read the emails without the password to his account.
I was getting into some borderline illegal stuff here. And by borderline I mean 100% totally illegal, unethical, the sort of stuff that IT folks get fired for doing all the time. Losing this job would really screw me over.
What was he hiding? He left, he didn't keep any contact with me but now tells me he thought about me all the time, then he buys this hotel a year ago and doesn't come and look me up or anything. He's fucking here and doesn't so much as pick up a phone book to try to find me.
What if he wasn't really here for some political thing, maybe he was here to run to Canada if shit got real? I mean, if the FBI is monitoring his emails, I'm sure they've cracked the encryption by now, or did some human engineering to get his password. It's not that hard, people are nice and helpful and that's how Kevin Mitnick did all his hacking, and the FBI fucking hated that guy.
What are you running from, Daryl Daneski?
And if you're just here to make a quick getaway, maybe I shouldn't be messing with you. You seem like a dream come true - I'm out on my ass, my car's dead, and I find out you're my boss.
But what the fuck?
You're just a big question mark to me right now.
I jumped at a knock on the door. I scooted over on the chair and opened the door.
"Oh, it's you," Evelyn said.
"Look, I don't have any beef with you, so just run back up and do your thing, okay?" That was me trying not to jump down her throat. She interrupted the best sex I'd had in a long, long time, and I needed it.
Right now, I needed to do some more digging on Daryl.
"Do you know where Lisa is? I was told she's usually down here." She ignored me like I was nothing to her.
Then she looked me up and down and made a face - that one where you slightly purse your lips and pull your head back. It was subtle, but she might as well have said, "Mm, hmm" and snapped her fingers in a zee formation.
I stood up and bit my lip, shook my head. I started to say something and stopped. She raised her brows at me but didn't say anything.
That smarmy bitch.
"Lisa is running around, trying to manage the conference. Maybe check by the ball room. Or have her paged over the hotel system?"
"We don't use our hotel intercom for anything except emergencies. It's tacky to do otherwise."
I almost lit that bitch up. Instead, I cracked my knuckles in front of her face and sat down in the creaky office chair. I pushed myself back over to the terminal and started typing away. I wasn't really typing anything, but she didn't know that.
I didn't look up. "You can go now."
Chapter 7
Daryl
I explained my platform so many times that I was probably spouting it off in my sleep.
I smiled so much that my face hurt. That's a lot of smiling.
The conference, however, seemed to be going well. The stage was easy to see no matter where you were, the audio was great, and there was even a phone app you could download to get the speaker schedule, check out meals, the local attractions, etc.
This was a million dollar conference on a small town budget.
I knew it was Wendy that was the magic behind this. Lisa was too high strung to do anything but herd the cats, but the cats did all the work.
After a couple of hours, I needed a break and I excused myself. Sometimes I just needed some time alone, and I went to the boiler room in the back of the hotel, and went outside from there. I propped the door open to get a draft of heat from the boiler room while I stood out under the overhang and just watched the snow fall.
One of the things I always loved about this place was the solitude. And the quiet.
A blizzard is eerily quiet.
I used to shovel the long driveway when I was a kid - we were poor, didn't have a snowblower, so I had to shovel. In a blizzard, you went out every few hours to keep up.
The only sound was the scraping of the shovel on the ground. I'd just lean against the shovel and listen to the quiet and reflect.
Mostly, I'd reflect on getting out of there.
Wendy sure threw a wrench in my gears.
Maybe I should tell Wendy that I'm supposed to be engaged to Victoria tonight. I wondered if Wendy would be okay with "visits" to me - it would be nice to have the "perfect wife" and still have a loving relationship.
But I think Wendy wouldn't take it well. She wouldn't understand that Victoria means nothing to me. And, despite what Evelyn says, I don't think I'll grow to love Victoria - she's just not my type. She's not Wendy.
But Wendy doesn't have political connections, she doesn't have an in with all the socialites in Vegas, she's just a girl I used to know.
A girl I couldn't quit, as much as I thought I could. As much as I thought that my Navy career, my real estate riches, and a political career would make me happy, it never quite added up.
Maybe Evelyn was right, maybe I should marry "Mrs. Perfect" and see if we grow to love each other. I mean, there are arranged marriages all over the world every day that turn out great, right?
"Hey, how'd you find this place?"
I turned to see Wendy in the most amazing dress. It hugged her body like a glove. I stopped and took her in.
"Take a picture, it'll last longer." She laughed and stood next to me, staring out at the snow.
"You look great." And she did.
And that made it that much harder. I wanted to tell her I was here to get engaged. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. I was enjoying my time with her too much.
Fuck!
"In high school, I used to hang out in metal shop, remember? Which was right next to the boiler room. I was always ahead of everyone else on the projects so I'd sneak out to the back. I figured this building would have a room like that." I looked at her and she just looked ahead, her breath fogging in the frigid air. "I figured right. You?"
She put her arm through mine but kept looking at the storm.
"I live in this town, remember? I've done a lot of work at this hotel, even though I only contract with them." She looked at me. "With you, I suppose, now."
"Remember that shitty car I had in high school? My dad's car?"
"Yeah, it was always dying on us," she laughed. "It died outside that graveyard we were at with Matt and Carrie. We had a ouija board on top of a grave. They were freaking the fuck out." She laughed again. I could listen to her laugh all night.
"I was just messing with them. Remember the doors to the car were locked when we got back? I wanted to spend more time with you."
My phone buzzed again. I pulled it out. Evelyn again. It was time for me to meet Victoria. That woman had the most impeccable timing.
"Shit, I gotta go. Let's meet up a little later, okay? I just have something to take care of. It's boring and stupid and I don't want to do it, but I told Evelyn that I would. She thinks it makes me the perfect candidate for State Senator and she made some deal, I don't know, but I really have to go."
"Hey, one thing - there's something going on with the email system. You've been sending a lot of emails. Is something going on?"
"Oh, that's not me. That's Evelyn. She sends as me. I let her run everything and I check up on it every now and then. I'm not one for email, I prefer the human touch."
If you've seen one rich girl in Vegas, y
ou've seen them all. Fake tits, dyed hair, flawless bone structure, tall, heels... you know the type. Hot, but essentially clones of each other.
That was Victoria. I spotted her from across the bar before I was introduced. I was certain it was her.
Nailed it.
Evelyn was falling over herself to introduce me and to try to be sure we would get along.
It was totally out of character. What the fuck was going on?
"Daryl, Senator Dinero, I'd like to introduce you to Victoria Lobos, nee Victoria Dinero. Sounds great, doesn't it?" She put her hands together and I swear she jumped up and down a little.
Victoria chewed gum with her mouth open while she talked on the phone. Not exactly out to impress, I see.
"Hang on, Porsche, I have to like, do something now," she said, glancing at me. "Yeah, okay, so I'll, like call you later or something."
What. The. Fuck. This lady was straight out of a 1980s Valley Girl movie.
"What do you think?" Evelyn was actually giddy. I never thought I'd describe her that way, but that's the best description.
"I don't know, this might not be right. Now that I see her..." I trailed off. What I wanted to say is, "Now that I see her, I need to fill Wendy with my seed and drag her around with me."
"Hi, Victoria, I'm Daryl Dinero. My close friends call me Daddy," I said, adding that extra part in to gage her reaction. I tested Wendy with it and she passed with flying colors.
"Ew, I'm not going to call you that." She withdrew her hand and twisted up her face.
Fail.
"My daddy says that I'm going to get $200k/year plus expenses for doing this."
Good lord, she's a prostitute and her dad is a pimp. What have you done, Evie? How could this get any worse.
"Hi, I'm Wendy. You are?"
My heart started to thump out of my chest. Wendy, in her sexy little dress, had come in and seen me with Evelyn and Victoria, and had come up to introduce herself.
Evelyn's fists were clenched and her face was red. I put my hand in front of her and gave her a stern look.
Daddy's Perfect Wife: A Billionaire Romance Page 4
