Tuesday, 4:35 pm

After finishing the paperwork at The Blue Beans and ordering a coffee for Natalie, I returned to the office. The rest of the coffee date with Ashlee went without a hitch, which surprised me, considering how poorly things went for her at the start of the meeting. She filled me in a little on her history. She was twenty and attending her third year of college at Columbia, studying business administration with an emphasis on business law.

She’d confided in me that her real motivation for attending was to get her father off her back while trying to find someone to marry. According to her, Roger VanCamp wanted her to follow in his footsteps and take over as a partner in his firm someday. It was an ambition Ashlee didn’t share; she was much more interested in nursing her social media influencer hobby while looking for a potential husband among those in high society. That was another reason to avoid anything intimate with her - she was looking to tie someone down, and I didn’t think we were a good match. As soon as all the paperwork was finished and I was able to find a lull in the conversation, we parted with another hug and a kiss on the cheek.

With almond milk double-shot blonde caffe latte in hand, I opened the door to Natalie’s office, stepped in, and was greeted by the sight of her bent over one of the drawers of a filing cabinet. I’d only been away an hour, and she’d utilized the time wisely.

“It looks like you’re nearly done,” I said, kicking the door shut as I watched her.

Natalie looked up from her project and broke out that brilliant smile that warmed my heart. The conversation at The Blue Beans was all but forgotten. Ashlee? Who the fuck was Ashlee?

“Just about,” she said as she stood up. She glanced at the coffee in my hand, “Oh! You went to the good place!”

“I did, but I finished mine earlier. I thought you could use a little celebratory coffee, what with it being your first day in your new role. Just how you like it,” I said as I held out the cardboard cup.

“You didn’t have to do that!” Natalie approached me, procured the offered coffee, and took a sip. Her eyes closed and she hummed as she enjoyed her drink. I watched her lips pressed against the lid, then her pink tongue as she lapped away a bead of coffee left behind. I’d never wanted to be a hot beverage more in my life. She glanced at me and smiled at me. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

My heart skipped a beat or three, and I blindly fumbled behind my back to lock her office door. She tracked my movements, “Why are you locking my office door, Marcus?”

The overly-innocent tone in her voice betrayed the fact that she knew very well why I’d locked the door. After the kiss from her earlier, and then the teasing from Ashlee, my libido was quickly reaching its boiling point. Feeling particularly aggressive, I approached her and gingerly took the coffee out of her hands and set it down on her desk. I cupped her face in my hands and brushed a few strands of hair out of her eyes as she gazed up at me. I was on edge… hyper-aware in case she showed any sign of hesitation or negative reaction to what I was doing, but I couldn’t detect a single hint that she didn’t want this. Her breathing was shallow, her lips parted, and her pupils were dilated. Then she gave me another smile - small and nervous.

“I don’t want anyone interrupting us,” I whispered

I leaned in and felt her do the same. Our lips met and began to slide over each other as we initiated a slow, gentle kiss. My eyes closed, and I enjoyed the feeling of her soft, full lips on mine. She immediately sought out my tongue with hers and I felt her arms slip around my waist and pull me closer to her. I simply rested my hands on each side of her face, running my thumbs over her cheeks as we softly kissed, our tongues lazily playing with each other.

Her scent filled my nostrils, and her taste intoxicated me. Her presence filled every sense I possessed, and I wanted nothing more than to be joined with her in every possible way. All thoughts of my new assistant and the promises she’d made… my ownership of Bobbi… Ashlee’s desperation for me to give her a chance… all paled compared to the woman I held in my arms.

She moaned into my mouth, the intensity and pressure of her lips on mine increasing. I could feel her pulling me even more incessantly against her. I slid my hands back and let my fingers slip into her hair, lightly massaging her scalp. We broke the kiss, breathing heavily as we opened our eyes and stared at each other. I felt ready to throw all other opportunities aside if it meant I could have Natalie. Helen would have called her dangerous. I thought she was everything.

We pounced on each other, our hands roaming as our kisses became feverish. Our tongues found each other again, wrestling to pin each other down. Our breathing was heavy, and we took turns allowing little moans of desire and pleasure slip into the other’s mouth.

My hands found their way under the hem of her knit top and I began exploring the smooth skin of her lower back and sides as I gently prodded her backward in the direction of the office loveseat. As I did so, she started going for the buttons of my shirt, unfastening them feverishly as she captured my lips between hers in turn, suckling on them.

She bumped into the loveseat and then surprised me by spinning us around so that I was between the couch and her, then gave me a little shove. I fell onto the middle of the seat, my shirt flying open and exposing my chest. Natalie grinned and let out a low growl as she straddled my lap. She grasped the bottom of her sleeveless shirt, pulled it over her head, and dropped it on the floor in one fluid motion. She stared down at me in a way that reminded me of a lioness standing over her prey as she raked her fingernails down my chest just hard enough to leave light little lines. I hissed through my teeth in response and my hips came off the couch involuntarily, pressing the steel bar in my pants into Natalie’s crotch.

“God, Marcus,” she said quietly as her eyes roamed my bare upper body. “You are unbelievable.”

I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket but ignored it. There was no way in hell I was going to stop this to answer my stupid phone.

The phone ceased vibration as gazed at Natalie’s near-topless body - her skin was a smooth, caramel color. I reached out and brushed my fingers across her naked abdomen; it was soft with firm muscle just underneath. Her chest was well-endowed; her larger breasts were encased in a black satin bra that did a magnificent job of holding them in place. I wanted to cut the strap between them and set them free so I could enjoy them in all their glory. Her waist was comparably small, and her stomach was flat without any real definition to her abdomen. Natalie exuded the femininity of a full, mature woman in the spring of adulthood, and I wanted to kiss every square inch of the flawless masterpiece that was her body.

“And you,” I said, searching for the right words. “You’re perfect.”

My phone started buzzing again, and once more, I ignored it.

She leaned forward and cupped my face in her hands, gently directing me to take my gaze off her chest and look into her eyes. When I looked up at her, she softly smiled at me, pressed her forehead to mine, and said, “This has been a long time coming, hasn’t it?”

“You too?” I asked. Then I leaned forward to plant little kisses along the expanse between her neck and shoulder. I reached up and slipped a bra strap down just enough to give me unobstructed access to continue my exploration.

She giggled and pressed her full lips to my ear, running them across the sensitive skin as she whispered, “You couldn’t tell?”

I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her tight against me once more as I lightly ground myself against her crotch with a hard-on so intense that it was in a little bit of pain. “I’ve wanted you for a while now.”

“Marcus,” she said, “What-”

My phone started buzzing again and Natalie cut whatever she had been ready to say short, looking down the general direction of my phone. “Do you think you should get that?”

“No,” I replied.

No. God no. Under no circumstances did I need to answer the damn phone. I didn’t care if all my money had been placed in a warehouse and set on fire. Right now, I didn’t give a shit.

“Are you sure? Isn’t that like, the third or fourth time?”

I let out of snort of frustration and fished for the phone from my pocket, keeping my eyes locked on her. When I finally pulled it out and looked to see who was calling, I was surprised. It was Phoebe, my neighbor. She never called me, so the worst scenarios possible came to mind.

I looked back at Natalie and said, “I have to take this, but I’ll make it quick, but don’t you dare move!”

She laughed and said, “I’m not going anywhere, Marcus.”

I smiled back at her and answered the phone. “Hey, Phoebe. What’s up?”

“Hey, Marcus. You’re not home, are you?”

“No. I’m at work. Why?”

“Because I think someone broke into your house,” Phoebe replied, sounding upset. “Your door is open. I didn’t go in there, but I peeked. Your apartment looks pretty trashed.”

“What?” I sat up straight on the couch and tapped Natalie’s thigh. She immediately slipped off of me with a concerned expression.

“Yeah. I thought I heard you being pretty loud in there about an hour ago. I didn’t think too much about it, but when I finally looked out, your door was open, and it just didn’t feel right.”

“Did you see anyone?” I stood up and started idly fastening the buttons on my shirt. Natalie sat on the couch watching me, and I felt a pang of regret for putting clothes back on. At that moment, part of me was tempted to not care about the state of my apartment in exchange for more time with her.

“No,” Phoebe replied. “But I thought I heard someone in the hallway after things quieted down. I thought I heard someone talking on the phone. That’s when I looked out the door and saw yours open. I didn’t see whoever was on the phone, though.”

“Have you called the police?” I said, half my buttons done on my shirt. At that question, Natalie’s face transformed from disappointed confusion to full concern.

“No. I didn’t want to call the police without talking to you first,” Phoebe said.

“Okay, thanks,” I said, “Could you go ahead and call them for me? I’m on my way.”

“Sure,” she said. “See you soon.”

“Wait,” I said before she had a chance to hang up. “Did you see Jack?”

I hadn’t seen my cat since I left the house yesterday, and the thought of something happening to him before I got a chance to see him again caused my stomach to tighten.

“He was under your bed,” Phoebe said, and I immediately breathed a sigh of relief. “I brought him back here to the apartment. Nate’s playing with him. I don’t think I can keep him long though. Jim hates cats.”

“Thank you!” I said. “I’ll be there as soon as I can!” I said and ended the call.

“Natalie, I’m so sorry,” I said. “I have to go. Someone broke into my apartment.”

“Oh damn,” she said, adjusting the sleeveless top she’d just slipped back on. “What happened? Do you need me to go with you?”

I wanted her to go with me, if for no other reason because it was Natalie, and I enjoyed her presence, but she also had things to do.

I shook my head. “No. Thank you. That means a lot, but you need to stay here and finish getting set up and be a boss.”

She nodded. “Okay, well, give me a call when you can. Keep me updated.”

“I will.”

I took a moment to look at her and she stared back, offering me a small smile. She was obviously as disappointed as I was. “I’m sorry our time was cut short. I… wanted more,” I said, reaching out with one hand to brush her cheek.

She looked at me with heat in her eyes. “I did too.”

“What is this?” I asked, searching her face and trying to burn her beautiful features in my brain as if they weren’t already there.

“I don’t know,” she said. “What do you want it to be?”

“Something,” I said, not knowing what that meant. I just didn’t want to scare her off with words like ‘relationship’.

Natalie reached up and cupped my face in both her hands and offered me a sweet kiss. After just a few short moments, she pulled back just enough to look me in the eyes. “I can work with ‘something’.”

She let my face go. “You just got dumped a few days ago, my friend. My relationship ended a month ago. I’m still a little fresh, but you’re just raw. Let’s just take our time and see what happens.”

That sounded like a horrible idea, but I didn’t voice the thought. However, I must have telegraphed it pretty hard because Natalie’s face took on a look of concern.

“I’m interested in more, Marcus,” she followed up. “I just want to be a little careful about getting into another relationship with anyone right this second. Especially with you. I don’t want you to just be a fling.”

I smiled at that, my heart warming as her words took most of the sting from me. “Yeah. I don’t want that either.”

“Good,” she said, grinning at me. “Now you better get back to your apartment. Let me know what happens.”

“I will,” I said as I reached for the door. I unlocked it, paused with it halfway open, and glanced back at the woman behind me. She was already looking through a small stack of files on her desk, and I drank in the curves of her body, amazed at how lucky I was to have the attention of someone like her. Yet there was a pang of longing for what was cut short. I pushed it down and exited the office, leaving Natalie to finish her day.

I quickly made my way to the bottom floor of the building, passing Andrew and whoever was the current security guard on duty. “Hey, guys. Could you call me a cab? I’ve got to get back to my house super quick.”

“How about I give you a lift?”

I looked over my shoulder and saw Erin standing in the middle of the lobby, smiling at me as she was finishing putting a fresh-looking badge to the building on her lapel.

“Erin? What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I’m starting my job,” she said as she closed the distance between us. “Helen had these gentlemen process me for building access, and she took all of my information to get me set up on payroll. She asked when I was ready to start and I said right now, so she told me to come and find you.”

I glanced back at Andrew; both of the guys at the security desk were trying to hide smirks.

“Okay,” I said, still in a hurry. “Good to have you on board. You said you have a car?”

“I do. I was just about to take it to the parking garage now that I have a sticker for it,” Erin said. Her eyebrows knitted in concern. “Is everything okay?”

I started toward the large front doors to the building with Erin working to keep up with my pace, “I just got a call from my neighbor. She said it looked like my place might have been robbed.”

We emerged from the building, and Erin pointed out the dark blue Lexus idling nearby. “Oh shit! Did you call the cops?”

“Phoebe did,” I said as I climbed into the passenger seat. As soon as Erin dropped in the driver’s seat, she handed me her phone with a map application already open. I typed in my apartment address.

“You’ll need a place to stay,” Erin said.

“I have a place, actually,” I said, impressed that Erin was already in problem-solving mode. Her initiative and ability to just jump into the moment reassured me that I made the right choice. “It’s only for the week though.”

“That should be enough,” Erin said. “I don’t imagine an investigation will last more than a day or two, and you can hire someone to clean it up pretty quickly.”

“I don’t think I want to keep living there, though,” I said. “Not now that I can afford better.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding a bit surprised, and I wondered exactly how much Helen had filled her in on the details of my situation before inheriting my fortune.

“You’ll see what I mean.”

Tuesday, 5:23 pm

“Well, they certainly did a number on the place,” Detective Reese said as he crossed his arms over his chest. He appeared to be in his late forties. His short, dark hair was already speckled liberally with silver to go along with his bright grey eyes. He had the beginnings of a gut hanging over the waist of his jeans, evidence of the sedentary lifestyle of a detective who spent more time filling out paperwork than actually hitting the streets. He scanned the living room of my apartment, making sure his officers were proceeding just as he’d instructed. “And you’re sure you don’t know what they were after?”

I didn’t respond at first. I was still trying to come to terms that my home had been invaded and almost all the things I’d collected over the years had been completely shattered. My bookshelves were turned over, and all the books weren’t scattered across the floor - pages were torn from them and tossed. My Playstation had a hole in it where it looked like someone had stabbed it with something long and thin. My kitchen counter had been completely cleared, and all its contents lay scattered around the small kitchen.

I wasn’t trained like the detective, but even I could tell this didn’t look like a simple robbery - this had a malevolence behind it that superseded a motive like greed.

“I recently came into some money,” I replied. “But I haven’t told anyone about it besides my lawyers.”

“Hell of a coincidence,” Reese said.

“Yeah.”

I looked over at Erin, who was walking around the room, taking stock of everything like she was trying to memorize it. I’d given her a brief account of what had happened over the last few days from finding out about my grandfather to the moment I ran into her in the lobby. I hadn’t given her the exact amount I was worth, but she picked up on the fact that it was an incredibly significant amount. The look on her face when we first entered my apartment was one of shock. Erin carried herself as if she came from privilege, and even if she hadn’t belonged to a super-wealthy family, it was a safe bet she’d never set foot in a one-bedroom apartment.

“You got a place to stay? It’ll be a couple of days before we can finish up here,” Reese said.

“Yeah. Solomon’s Palace. I got it for a week,” I said as I continued to look around, trying to decide if there was anything here I would want to take with me. I was so wealthy that I could just buy anything I needed, so I was primarily on the hunt for sentimental things. Unfortunately, they’d done such a good job ransacking my place that almost everything had been destroyed beyond recovery.

“Fancy,” Reese grunted.

I caught sight of Phoebe peering through my apartment doorway and glanced at the detective and Erin. “Could you guys excuse me? I’ll be out in the hall.” Reese nodded and Erin gave me a small smile.

“Hey, Mrs-” I caught myself. “Hey, Phoebe,” I said as I stepped into the hall.

Phoebe hugged me, squeezing me tight against her. “I’m so sorry this happened, Marcus! I should have followed my instincts and checked on it sooner!”

I hugged her back, a little surprised. Phoebe and I’d never really had a relationship that involved hugs… not that either one of us was stand-offish or anything. We’d just never had that kind of relationship. I suspected it was because of her husband, Jim. He was a jealous man who never seemed to like me - or any man. I suspected Phoebe had developed a habit of keeping her distance to keep the peace in her marriage.

“No, I’m glad you didn’t,” I said. “If they’d seen you, something might have happened to you. This is just stuff, and I wouldn’t want to see you hurt over things that can be replaced.”

She finally pulled away and looked up at me, her eyes bright with unshed tears. It was easy to imagine she was upset, with such a vicious robbery happening mere feet away from where her son was. “That’s sweet of you. Still, I feel ridiculous that it happened right across the hall while I was home.”

I shook my head and said, “Don’t worry about it. Seriously. You did me a solid by calling me and the cops. I’m grateful.”

She scrubbed at the corner of one of her eyes and gave me a weak smile. “Of course.”

As she did so, the sleeve of her shirt fell part of the way down her forearm, exposing her wrist. I noticed several dark splotches on the underside, and when Phoebe caught me looking, she quickly pulled the sleeve up and gave me another weak smile. Neither of us said anything. I’d asked her repeatedly if her husband was abusing her, and she’d always denied it. I considered pulling Detective Reese into the hall so he could take a look, but before I could act, my neighbor decided to move the keep the conversation moving.

“I take it you’re not staying here tonight?” Phoebe asked.

I eyed her for a moment, and she returned my stare with a great poker face. Finally, I sighed and said, “No. I have a room at Solomon’s Palace.”

Her eyebrows arched up at that, “Fancy.”

“Second time I’ve heard that in the last hour,” I snorted. Then I glanced around to make sure there were no nosy neighbors around before continuing, “Yeah. I recently came into a lot of money. Just don’t tell anyone, if you don’t mind. I’m afraid more stuff like this might happen.”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about it. Your secret is safe with me.” She glanced towards my door, “Are… are you planning on moving?”

I nodded, “Yeah. Honestly, this mess seems like a sign, and I can afford a better place now.”

Phoebe’s lips compressed and she gave a stiff nod, looking a bit more upset.

“Hey,” I said as I placed a hand on her shoulder. She looked away from me. “If you need anything - anything at all - don’t hesitate to ask.”

Phoebe and I had shared an apartment building for over a year now, and while we got along well, I was a little alarmed at her reaction to the news that I was moving. She was my closest neighbor, but it wasn’t like we saw each other every day. For one thing, we didn’t have much in common. She was a stay-at-home mom who enjoyed raising her kid, a good romance novel, and a glass of wine. I never really enjoyed kids, I preferred a good TV show, and I hated wine. She was married. I was single. She was forty-one. I was twenty-eight. We didn’t exactly run in the same circles. Her husband also hated me, which had discouraged us from getting too friendly. I was surprised when I got this kind of reaction from her.

When she didn’t look at me or acknowledge what I said, I placed a thumb on her chin and physically directed her to meet my gaze. “Please.”

Part of me was a little surprised at my insistence. It was a testament to how power can quickly change a man in a matter of days. She bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling and nodded, doing an incredible job of holding back unshed tears. I wondered just how isolated this woman was and how lonely her life must be. I also wondered if those dark marks on her wrist had been from Jim.

Finally, she nodded.

“I need to go check on Nate,” she said. “And get your cat. Are you able to take him with you to your hotel?”

My fingers lingered on her chin for a moment longer and then I let them drop. “Yeah. I have a carrier. I’ll bring him with me. Thanks again for taking care of him.”

“No problem,” she said with a weak smile. “Good luck. I hope you find the guy who did this.”

And then she crossed over to her apartment, shutting the door behind her. I turned to head back into my apartment to see how everyone was doing inside and to get my cat carrier. I felt bad about moving and made a silent promise to myself to keep an eye on the Lucases, even if I was no longer going to live across from them.