WEAK Part One: A Thornhill Road Romance Read online

  I'd have killed to spend time with him.

  I still would, but not like this. If one of my patents had been a time machine I would have used it to go back and start all over again - back to the day before we met.

  "Okay." He said. "Don’t worry. I'll delete this little indiscretion of yours, but I do want to know how you got this number. We'll do lunch. Today. When are you free?"

  That's right, he was my boss so he could say things like that. He also had possession of my slutty, drunken image and of my obscene text. Was there any way I could have said no?

  "I'm free from 12.00."

  "Great. I'm in the building all day. I'll come get you. Don’t go anywhere in the meantime."

  He looked very, very serious about that. It dawned on me that he might not be exactly over the moon about this either despite him seemingly having me over a barrel. I still had no idea how that picture got onto his phone from my number. It had all been a silly drunken joke between girls. Nothing like this was ever meant to happen and of all people, why him?

  Jesus Christ, I wanted to die.

  I watched him walk away and noticed how tall he was, how confident. Of course he was. I didn’t know that much about Vincent Medici, his public life wasn't as open as some other attention seeking CEOs but I did know that despite being barely thirty years old and that he had had more success in his life already than most people ever would. More than me at least and I was nearly his age too. I wasn't looking forward to the big three o at all.

  The expensive suit he was wearing hung perfectly on his muscular frame. I noticed that as well.

  He stepped into the lift and raised his eyes to me just as the doors slid shut.

  I darted mine away instantly but it was just long enough for something weird to happen between us. Or maybe it only happened to me. I can’t describe it any other way than to say that… No. I can’t put it in words. Not yet.

  I backed down in the chair and begin to play back in my mind exactly what had happened the night before. How in the hell it could all have left my mind that morning as though it had never taken place I will never know.

  Chapter Three

  Dill was clicking his fingers in front of my face.

  I glared at him.

  "Are you even here today Vincent?"

  "Do I look like I'm here?"

  "Not really. Didn't you sleep well last night?"

  "I slept just fine. Let's get on with this. Where do you need me to sign?"

  There was nothing new in the documentation for our latest joint venture. Nothing new at all. In fact, it felt like going through the motions at this point. The idea was okay, we would invest, money would be made or lost, one way or the other we would figure out a way to get ahead or we would cut our losses and run. I had been doing this for years with a level of success that some in the financial and business media called uncanny, some pure luck, and which some even called into question as being totally above board.

  They could call it what they wanted, but in reality it all boiled down to instinct. Everyone has it, all you need is the courage to hear it, act upon it and then reap the rewards. The logical mind is overrated.

  "Are you sure you slept okay Vincent?" Carmen asked with that soft, sultry voice of hers. Thank God for Carmen. If it wasn't for her this office would be a testosterone fuelled war zone from one end of the week to the other.

  "I'm okay Carmen, really."

  "You seem distracted."

  Understatement. The damn text, the damn pictures and then meeting the actual person in my own building…good God almighty. Add to that the sheer proximity of our encounter - being that physically close to her and this had all the makings of becoming a serious problem. When I saw that same face from the video clip and that same long, dark, sexy hair the very next morning it was like walking into a room and being slapped in the face by a real live angel.

  An angel I had spent the whole previous night fucking senseless in my dreams.

  Like I said, I had been looking at her picture all night and playing back the clip again and again, but no matter how much I looked I couldn’t get enough of it…and now I was going to have lunch with her.

  "Earth to Vincent. Is there anybody home in there?"

  Dill and his foghorn voice.

  "Let's break for lunch." I said.

  "Huh? It's only 11.50am. We have lunch scheduled with Parker and the legal team for 2pm."

  Shit. He was right.

  "You handle it Dill. After all, you’re not a complete incompetent I'll see you guys later." I grabbed my jacket and left them gaping behind me like witnesses at the scene of a car wreck.

  I didn't care.

  We were in the middle of the best financial quarter of the company's history and I had been giving every waking hour of my life to making us a success for the last five years. They could make it through an afternoon without me.

  As soon as I got outside I made for the men's room. I had to see that clip one more time and read the text again. I wanted to believe this wasn’t some kind of scam. I wanted a break from the relentless routine I had set myself since I quit college and decided to become a millionaire. I never wanted to experience the poverty my family had had to go through when I was a child again. I had hit the one million dollars target pretty quickly but if you've ever made a million bucks you'll know that it can’t stop there - there's always more to achieve.

  I realized that I liked making other people into millionaires too. Not just anyone, but people who had bright ideas and the spirit to see them through. I had achieved this as well, many times over, but now I needed a break. Not a rest or a vacation, but something entirely different. I guess that's why my heart was pounding when I opened that video clip and listened to her words again.

  "I've got an idea baby." She was clearly a little oiled, at least, if she was faking it she deserved an academy award. "And you've got what it takes to make it happen. I don’t have money, but I do have these." She ran her hands over her boobs and squeezed them just enough to make me want to come in my pants. "And I have this." She turned around and tapped her sweet, perfect little ass with one dainty hand. "If you can make my idea happen I'll blow your mind big boy. I'll blow your mind and suck your--"

  The door of the men's room opened and I swiped the clip to shut it down.

  It was fucking Dill.

  "Checking your voicemail in the John?" He said. "You do need some sleep brother."

  I grunted, shoved the phone into my pocket and headed out to the elevator. Dill had been with me from almost the very start. Even though the company had my name he was as much a part of its success as I was.

  I needed a break from him too.

  I got to the elevator and waited for it to reach the executive floor.

  Employees and colleagues nodded to me with deference and respect on all sides. I must have looked damn serious. They probably thought I was thinking about our latest acquisition or how to turn a profit on one of our high risk ventures when in fact, all I could think about was keeping my stupid damn cock under control. That and about how this little temptress got my number? Was I being trapped here? Was I about to make the dumbest mistake of my entire life because of pair of soiled panties I couldn’t get out of my mind?

  'These are mine. I was hot in them. For you.' The woman I was about to have lunch with had said that. What was it about them that was controlling my thoughts like a obsession? This kind of behavior was definitively not me.

  I am always in control. How could underwear, belonging to a hot young woman or not, be capable of doing this to me?

  I felt…powerless…weak…and I didn’t like it.

  I had to figure this out and get on top of it.

  I knew that only a very small number of people could have sent the clip to me short of someone having hacked my phone. Given the encryption technology on my personal handset it would have to have been the North Korean government and even I didn't believe I was that important.

  If this woman was a sta
lker she wouldn't be first, but she would have been the first ever to hack my phone. She would also the first who subscribed to Scientific American. Cyber stalker? Nerd/geek cyber stalker? God help me, the thought was kind of a turn on.

  I had to know who she was.

  I needed to know how she got my number.

  At least those were the excuses I gave myself for going through with canceling my meeting with legal and taking my sexy blackmailer-stalker out for lunch.

  The elevator arrived and I stepped in. A statuesque blonde joined me two floors down. She was a high-powered Ivy League financial expert we had recently hired and she gave me the 'I'll fuck you any time' smile I've gotten used to since I hit the big time. I had to focus not to have a raging hard-on standing next to her.

  But the boner wasn't for her.

  It was for the cyber-stalking, phone-hacking, my-panties-are-for-sale, I-can't-get-you-out-of-my-head, blushing girl-next door, I-will-do-anything-to-sleep-with-her receptionist waiting for me two floors down.

  And the boner was a hard one.

  I took a deep breath in and avoided the eyes of the sculptural and highly available beauty standing too close beside me.

  This was getting bad.

  Very bad.

  Chapter Four

  After our encounter in the lobby I had plenty of time to relive the events leading up to my absurd 'sext' of the day before.

  I had finished my first day on reception at Medici Investments and so far so good. Then when I arrived home there were letters from not one but two venture capital firms to say that they weren't interested in the patents or business ideas I had pitched to them.

  My heart began to race like it always did when I saw the envelope. I should have been used to it by then but the anticipation, the fear never seemed to wear off.

  The fear of rejection. Constant rejection.

  Nobody had ever said it would be easy and I wasn't looking for a free ride, but I had put so much into that last presentation. I had given it my all and the panel of interviewers had been upbeat about my product.

  I decided to put off the moment of disappointment by changing out of my receptionist uniform and into something more comfortable. At least if I was reduced to tears I wouldn't be messing up my work clothes.

  My heart still raced when I picked the envelope again but this time I tore it open, read the news and then sank into a stool by the kitchen counter.

  Was this ever going to get any easier?

  I was sitting in shorts and a t-shirt still staring at the rejection letter when a text from Will, my ex from back home in Shillington, Ohio, came through. He had been texting a lot lately, mostly about how great life was going for him. I should have been happy for him, but when your own life is crawling along under a black cloud it can be tough to hear about another person's success.

  Especially if that person is your ex boyfriend that you left in order to make your own name in the big city.

  Especially when your big idea just got kicked in the teeth again.

  He wanted us to get back together but I knew I didn't want to go there. Not for now anyway. Maybe not ever.

  "Is that your loser ex again?" Clarissa's voice made me jump. I hadn’t heard her come into the apartment. She was my flamboyant roommate and a total New Yorker although originally from the Midwest too like me. She worked for a fashion magazine doing exactly what I wasn't sure. I also didn’t care, fashion not being exactly one of my top priorities.

  "He wants us to get back together again." I said without looking around.

  "You dumped him once already. Tell him to stop harassing you or you'll slap an injunction on his sorry small town ass."

  "It was mutual agreement. Nobody got dumped."

  I had needed to be in New York where all the investment money was but he couldn’t even think about leaving Shillington, Ohio. He wanted to open a sports bar there and run it together with me. His dream. Definitely not mine.

  "You need to get the Midwest out of your soul Victoria. You're not in Shillington anymore."

  Jean, my other roommate arrived home and the apartment was filled with the energy of the two women. Thursday night and already they wanted to go out. New York is a great town to go out in, but only if you don’t have to worry about every dollar you spend.

  I told them I was staying in to do some work.

  Clarissa rolled her gorgeous big blue eyes to heaven.

  "Okay. We'll all stay in, but not to work. Look what I brought home." She swung open the refrigerator door to reveal a bottle of chilled Champagne.

  Jean squealed with delight. It was her thing at the moment. Bubbly. The more expensive and pretentious the better.

  Clarissa held the bottle up for display.

  "Moet and Chandon Dom Perignon."

  Jean's jaw dropped. She stared at me.

  "Do you know how much a bottle of that stuff costs?"

  I looked at her blankly.

  "Fifty bucks?" I said.

  Jean shook her head.

  "Not even close Vicky. More like a thousand. Clarissa, where in the hell did you get that?"

  Clarissa tapped her beautiful nose with a long, slender, manicured finger.

  "A gift from a friend."

  "You're going to get yourself in trouble some day." I warned her. "Nobody gives a gift like that without expecting something in return."

  "How do you know he didn’t already get it?" She winked at me before expertly scooping three champagne flutes from the cupboard between her long elegant fingers. She plunked the heavy bottle down onto the kitchen counter.

  "Now shut up and sit down you pair of holy virgins, we are staying in tonight, as sad as that is, but we are going to drink, in its entirety, this bottle of what I presume to be the most expensive liquid to ever pass between your tight, greedy little lips."

  I sat down, resigned to losing a night of valuable work on my project. Maybe I could sneak away after a token first glass.

  "I won't ask what liquid needed to pass your lips to get a 'gift' like this." I said. "Go on, pour me a glass. I'm curious to see how the other half lives."

  "Only the purest of liquids ever pass these lips baby." Clarissa puckered up and blew me a kiss. She could take the ribbing and with her always being so vague about exactly what she did for a living it was a running joke of mine that she was, in fact, running a high end escort service from her bedroom.

  It wouldn't have surprised me that much at all if it turned out to be true.

  "Come on Clarissa, tell us where you got this." Despite being a corporate accountant with excellent career prospects, Jean had the nosiness of a teenage schoolgirl.

  "She got it from one of her clients at the escort agency." I said.

  Clarissa popped the cork and bubbly spilled out into the Champagne glasses.

  That's right." She said. "This was a tip for allowing him to lick my sweaty toenails with his fat tongue. You should see what he gave me for a look at a pair of panties I kept dirty especially for him."

  "I can’t tell if she's kidding or not." Jean stared at me with childlike innocence. "Is she kidding? I don’t even think she's kidding."

  "So what if she isn’t." I said. "I'd sell my dirty panties for the right price if I could find a buyer."

  Obviously I was kidding but of course Clarissa latched onto it like a Bull Terrier with a bone. I should have known better. The girl is highly sexed and loves to talk dirty all the time. God help the man who finally marries her, he won't know what's hit him when the pre-marital façade drops post honeymoon.

  If the guy makes it that far.

  She took my hand and stared at me with her huge, hypnotically made up blue eyes.

  "So you'd consider parting with used underwear for cash Vicky. This isn’t like you at all." She stared into my eyes like a boa constrictor with a rat deer in its coils. "I like it little sister. I like it a lot."

  "I was joking Clarissa."

  "Don't be so coy Vicky, now come on, let's all be honest with e
ach other here. This topic of conversation needs to be thoroughly explored. Which one of us hasn’t seriously considered selling off a little lingerie on the internet if push came to shove and things got bad?"

  "Go to hell Clarissa." I said, surprising myself. I wouldn't normally have been that snappy but with the day I had had and the rejection letters my mood wasn't great.

  "You've had a bad day." Clarissa said, still holding onto my hand and still trying to control my mind with her huge eyes. "You need to tell big sister Clarissa all about it."

  She was seductive - with men and women alike - no gender or species was safe from this woman.

  "Whatever it is, everything will be alright again soon." She said soothingly. "Now tell me, what's making our gorgeous little mad scientist so grumpy? Is it the lack of sex baby? Is it finally getting to you?"

  It would have been funny, the way she said it, so serious, so deadpan, except of course for the horrible element of truth.

  "I'm not as dependent on sex for my happiness as you are." I hit back.

  "Of course you aren't honey. So come on, forget about sex and just tell big sister all about it."

  Jean poured Champagne. Two hundred dollars a glass. What I wouldn't have done for that money in my hand instead of it disappearing uselessly down my throat. I didn’t want to talk about my patents with my roommates but the rejections hadn't been the only bad luck I'd had that day. I decided to deflect their attention elsewhere.

  "I had a fender bender this morning."

  "You poor thing." Clarissa cooed.

  "Morning rush hour and I got involved in a rear end collision with some guy."

  "He dinged you from behind - his fault. Automatic. Fucking asshole. And besides, everyone knows men can't drive. It's the same thing that makes them such uncouth animals in bed. Excellent spatial awareness but absolutely no fucking patience - always just trying to get 'there', you know? Wherever 'there' is. It doesn’t matter if it's Times Square or your G-spot they just want to crash their way through, eyes closed, and smack into the bulls-eye with everything they've got."