Wednesday, 4:41 pm

When I wasn’t busy checking the news every thirty minutes, I spent the rest of my workday doing damage control. I had a growing number of unreturned texts and missed calls that needed to be addressed. While looking over my grandfather’s collection of assets or counting money like a rich duck sounded appealing, if I wanted to keep the relationships I’d built, I needed to start whittling down the number of notifications on my phone.

I started with my dad. Well, stepdad.

Henry Upton was a good man and was the only father I’d ever known. He married my mom so early in my life that it felt like I’d always known him. We were close, too. He’d taught me to ride a bike, catch a ball, and swim - all the apple pie stuff you’re supposed to get from parents. He was a musician who had given up his dream of writing music for Broadway in exchange for helping provide for a family by writing music for ads and other small marketing gigs. It paid well enough that he’d made peace with it, but I could always tell he longed for something more fulfilling than writing catchy melodies for commercials.

I called him twice and got no response. I spent the next several few hours returning calls, starting with friends. I began with Dillon, who had called me about an hour ago. Lo and behold, he was the only one who hadn’t called to ask about the money. His call had been an attempt to check on me to see how I was handling the breakup since we hadn’t talked after I showed up at Strange Mudd on Friday.  It shouldn’t have surprised me because Dillon never kept up with the news. I filled him in on the situation and enjoyed being the one to get to break the news to someone for a change. Needless to say, he was astounded.

Very few of my other calls were as fun. An uncle I hadn’t talked to in nearly five years mentioned he would be in town on business next month and wanted to take me to dinner. A great-aunt wanted to play catch-up with family news before mentioning that she would need foot surgery next month. Fortunately, I went through the calls faster than they were piling up, especially since many of them didn’t answer, since it was the middle of a work day. None of my siblings answered the phone when I called. It made for quick work, which was a problem in a way. It meant that there would eventually be one person left on my list, which was the one I should have started with - my mother.

Mom was well-known in the architectural community as one of the best designers in New York. She was also known as one of the few successful black women in the space, which was a testament to her skill. Working in a space dominated by people who typically dismissed her for over two decades had made her relentless and fierce. There wasn’t much she couldn’t do. Sometimes, it also made her very difficult to get along with.

That was who I was currently on the phone with.

“Well it’s not like you were all that forthcoming with me,” I retorted. “You said the money came from a trust fund created after Dad died.”

“I signed an NDA, Marcus! I couldn’t tell you anything! Knowing you, you would have told your entire fourth-grade class or tried to use it to get a date with Alicia Summers! You would have ended up getting both of us into a world of trouble. That’s very different from you inheriting that kind of money and going a week without saying anything to your own mother!”

“Okay, sure. I get the logic when I’m ten or fourteen, but twenty-eight? I could have gotten the message that I wasn’t supposed to say anything, Mom. I’m not mad about it. I just think it’s pretty hypocritical of you to blame me for not immediately phoning you about it when you’re guilty of not telling me who my dad really was for ten years of my adult life!”

“They’re not the same thing,” my mother retorted. “Look, I love you, sweetie. I would have told you if they hadn’t insisted that our lives would be destroyed if it ever got out that you were a Gerrard.”

“Who’s ‘they’? Who spoke to you?”

“I don’t know… it was so long ago. I think it was a man who worked for your grandfather. Some big man. He was really intimidating. Had some scars on his face… some kind of thug or strong man your grandfather used to scare people, probably. It was just you and me, and I didn’t know what to do. We needed the money he offered us. ”

I fell silent, imagining myself in that sort of scenario - alone after the death of the father of my child, trying to work my way through school in a field that didn’t appreciate my talents. I knew she had it hard before Henry came along, but on top of the intimidation and threats… it painted a desperate picture. “Okay.”

“What do you mean, ‘okay’?”

“I mean, I get it. Some goon scared you into signing an NDA and keeping quiet about the baby daddy. I get it.”

“Don’t you say it like that, young man! It was serious! I’ll-”

“No, I’m being serious, mom. The things people can get done and how fast they get them done when they have enough money… it’s kind of scary. They could have messed your life up completely. They could have been capable of anything. You did the right thing.”

She stayed silent for several beats before finally responding. “Thank you.”

My desk phone started ringing.

“Hang on, Mom,” I said and picked it up. “Hello?”

“Hey.” It was Natalie. “I was wondering if I could come up and see you for a minute.”

“Yeah! Come right up!”

I hung up the desk phone and returned to the call with my mother. “Mom, I have to go.”

“Why? I’ve been trying to call you for days, and you just now reached out. Now you have to leave, and it hasn’t even been five minutes?”

“It’s been more than five minutes, Mom. Someone’s stopping by my office, and I need to meet with them.”

I heard her huff on the other end of the line. “Okay, but can you call me back? I need to talk to you about Jacob.”

“Yeah. It’ll be later today. I have some stuff I need to get done.”

“Alright.” Mom sounded low-key upset, but with Natalie on her way up to see me, I barely even noticed. “When will you be coming out to the house?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to be careful when I do. Has anyone shown up out there asking questions since the story broke?”

“Someone called asking if we would be interested in doing an interview, and Henry saw some photographers when he went for his run, but other than that, not much.”

“Alright. I’ll call you later, and we’ll figure something out, so I can get over there to see you guys.”

The panel built into my desk lit up, indicating someone was trying to reach this floor. I checked the screen and saw Natalie in the elevator. Erin would have let her up, but she was currently out of the office working on the tasks we’d discussed earlier. I pressed the button to give the elevator access to the top floor for this trip.

“I’ve gotta go. I love you, and hug Dad for me.”

“Okay, cabbage. I love you.”

I hung up the phone, sat down, felt awkward about her finding me sitting in my chair, and stood again. Then I grabbed one of the files that contained a list of some of my grandfather’s assets and immediately opened it - it was a list of the paintings he’d collected. Moments later, there was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” I said, and Natalie entered, giving me one of her wide smiles.

“Hi!”

“Hey yourself,” I said, throwing the file back on the desk.

I approached her and slipped my arms around her waist. She placed her hands on my chest as I pulled her into me and we immediately sought each other’s lips in a sweet, gentle kiss that went on for a full minute and a half. Our tongues met and began softly caressing each other, and I almost melted when I heard her softly mewl into my mouth. We eventually parted, but I didn’t let her go. She slid her hands further up my chest to rest them on each side of my neck, rubbing my jawline with her thumbs as we studied each other’s eyes.

“You okay?” she asked.

“You heard?”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I’m okay. I just didn’t want it to come out this way. I wanted it done on my own terms.”

“Yeah,” she nodded, “I get that.”

“This doesn’t change anything?”

She shook her head, “It explains a lot, but I have a handsome man interested in me who turns out to be a billionaire. Why would anything change?”

Her words made me break into a huge smile, but she didn’t return it. Instead, her gaze studied my face. “Does this change anything for you?”

My grin faltered, and I had to wrestle with some hard truths quickly. Natalie and I had come a long way in the last week. We’d expressed feelings for each other, kissed, and came close to having sex. We were clearly on the road to something.

I was also regularly fucking my new lawyer Helen. I turned Bobbi Nanford into a sexual pet, and I had received blowjobs from two other women in the last twenty-four hours. No good woman in her right mind would tolerate that behavior from someone she was interested in, and Natalie was the best of women. I needed to navigate this situation carefully.

“Absolutely not,” I said and smiled at her again.

That was true. Nothing about my desire for Natalie had changed.

She cast me a doubtful look and her hold on my face tightened infinitesimally, “Are you sure? There’s a whole lot of women out there who would love to have a good-looking billionaire boyfriend.”

I studied her for a long moment as I tried to make sense of this line of questioning. Had Helen gotten to her? She had told me something very similar on more than one occasion. “Are you sure you’re not having second thoughts?”

“No,” Natalie insisted, “I mean…”

Her eyes wandered from my face as she seemed to search for words. I felt her hands slide down my body, and I let her slip free from my arms. She stepped back and then returned her gaze to my face. “I’m not having second thoughts. It’s just…”

“Just what?”

“You broke up with Jessica.”

“I did,” I confirmed, waiting for her to make sense. We’d already gone over the recency of my breakup, so what was she getting at?

“Did you break up with her after you found out about the money?”

Now I was truly confused. Why did that matter?

“No,” I said, “She told me about her affair that morning, and I told her we were through. Then I went to work. Remember how I was just there for a couple of hours? My lawyers called me while I was there, and I went to see them. That’s when I found out.”

I could see Natalie doing the math. After taking a few moments to digest what I told her, she finally nodded. “Wow… what an unlucky day for her.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “but lucky for me. We might have still been together if she’d known.”

She studied me with an unreadable expression for several moments; the silence was getting uncomfortable. Something felt off, and I didn’t fully understand why. “What is it?” I asked, breaking the silence.

“I’m just a little scared. You broke up with Jessica, and within a week, you inherited a lot of money, bought out the company, and now… whatever this is with us. I guess I’m just a little afraid that you’re… trying things out. Experimenting.”

“Experimenting?”

“You know… playing the field. Buying companies. Trying out new girls.”

“Oh.” I understood now. She was afraid of becoming a casualty in the billionaire’s journey of corruption.

“And it’s not just you,” she interjected before I could say anything. “Something was different for me after Jessica broke up with you. I mean, I’ve always liked you. I’ve always thought you were cute and a great guy. But my attraction was stronger after your breakup, and I’m a little scared because I don’t know why. Was it because you were available? Was it because something about you changed when you got the money?”

She shrugged and crossed her arms over her chest. “I like you, Marcus. I guess I’m just a little scared of how much I like you. I don’t want to get hurt.”

This wasn’t where I expected the conversation to go when Natalie started speaking this way. I thought she was about to tell me that things were too complicated and that despite how we felt about each other, maybe being involved wasn’t a good idea. My mind was already preparing for her to break things off before they began. Hearing her confess her feelings made it seem like my heart would burst, and I couldn’t help but smile at her. She was simply telling me she was scared.

“I like you too, Natalie. I’ve liked you for a long time, and I don’t want to hurt you either.”

“So what is this?” she asked.

“What do you want it to be?”

She didn’t respond, and I didn’t want to rush her, so I simply waited.

“I’m going out of town for the weekend,” she finally said.

“What?”

“One of my best friends is getting married, and I’m in the wedding party.”

“Oh,” I said. When she didn’t volunteer any information, I fished for more. “Did… you want me to come with you?”

“No,” she said. “I was just thinking maybe this would be some good time apart to think about what we both want. Can we pick up this conversation after I get back?”

“Yeah. That’s fine,” I said as I tried to hide the disappointment in my voice. I already knew what I wanted, and my mind had conjured images of us on the dance floor of a wedding reception.

However, if I were to be completely honest with myself, there was no way I could go to a wedding. I had too much going on here, and I still had some things to work through - namely three other women to consider. Truth be told, if Natalie had asked me to be completely exclusive a week ago, I would have said yes. Now… I would have likely said yes, but there was a growing part of me that wondered if exclusively dating Natalie was the best idea.

I wanted my cake while still having the ability to eat it.

“So… friends until I get back?” she asked, giving me a cautious smile. “Then we’ll talk?”

“Absolutely,” I said, meeting her smile with one of my own. I was disappointed, but I also felt good that Natalie was taking this so seriously. I was also feeling a little guilty at the same time. Natalie wasn’t fucking three guys while we were in talks.

“Good,” she said, closing the distance between us and pressing herself against me. She laid her cheek on my chest as we embraced.

“Thank you,” she said.

"You’re welcome,” I replied.

Wednesday, 9:45 pm

Ten minutes had passed and I hadn’t moved as I continued to stare at the phone - more specifically, at the name on the phone.

Jessica.

I’d just finished a thirty-minute phone call with my sister Emily. She’d been very understanding about the fact that I hadn’t said anything to anyone yet, admitting that she wouldn’t have told anyone if she’d inherited that kind of money. She had also commiserated with me that I hadn’t been allowed to keep my privacy longer. I’d always gotten along well with my sister—technically, my step-sister. We’d been inseparable when we were young. My mom and dad had met when I was four and she was six, netting me a sister and a best friend.

During the conversation, I’d gotten a call that I’d ignored. After ending the call with Emily, I’d looked to see who it was and had spent the last ten minutes completely dumbfounded at seeing Jessica’s name on the screen.

She’d heard about the money. It had to be that.

I wasn’t sure what to do. Part of me wanted to call her and casually ask how she was doing; it had been nearly a week since I’d seen her, and I was genuinely curious how things were working out for her and her new boyfriend. Part of me just wanted to gloat.

A tiny fraction of me wanted her back. She was a security blanket. An old movie I’d seen five -hundred times. She always smelled like peaches or flowers, and curling up with her had always been a comforting experience. I remembered those strawberry-red lips and silky, soft, ivory skin. I recalled the way she tasted as she would rest her tongue on mine. Her weight as she straddled me and played with my hair. Those always-mirthful eyes. And her tits. God those massive pillows of warm flesh that I could smother myself in while she slowly rode me.

The panel on my desk lit up and shattered the fantasy.

Bobbi was standing in the elevator with her thumb pressed on the button. I glanced at the clock on the wall to see it was nearly ten at night. What was she doing here this late? There was only one way to find out. I pressed the button to approve the floor request.

It would take her a few minutes to get to my office, and by the time I heard her knock on my door, I found myself scrolling through pictures of Jessica on my phone.

“Come in,” I said as I powered off my phone screen and tossed it on the desk. In truth, I was grateful for a distraction that prevented me from calling my ex back, a decision I would have regretted as soon as I hit the call button. Bobbi opened the door and entered. It was the first time she hadn’t barged into an office I was in as if she belonged there.

“Are you busy?” She asked. Her tone still had a sharpness to it, but there was an undercurrent of civility that I had only heard from her a half dozen times.

“Not really,” I said as I waved her in. “Just trying to do damage control.”

“Damage control?” Bobbi asked as she slipped in the door and closed it behind her.

I gestured at my phone. “Literally everyone has called me today asking me about the money. Everyone’s heard by now, I’d imagine.”

“The money?” Bobbi asked, still standing near the door. Something seemed a little off about her. It reminded me of Natalie’s demeanor when she first arrived earlier in the day.

“Yeah,” I said, “The money. I didn’t want it to get out like this. There are people I haven’t heard from in over a year who called today. I can’t say I’m surprised, or offended. More annoyed than anything. I wanted my privacy.”

“And you thought I told someone?”

“Yeah. You were one of three or four people who couldn’t be accounted for since you were at your friend’s house yesterday. You also hate me, so you had a motive. We ruled out the others, so I was sure it was you.”

“It wasn’t.” She said with a tinge of bitterness in her voice.

“Yeah. I know,” I said, suddenly feeling tired.

Silence filled the room for several moments.

“You aren’t going to apologize?” Bobbi asked.

“For what?”

“For what you did earlier. As punishment for doing something I didn’t do.”

I gaped at her, “You think I had sex with you as a punishment for telling people I was rich?”

“No. Well, kind of. More like you made me tolerate that woman touching me because you thought I told people.”

I laid my head back on the headrest of the office chair and sighed, “Sit down Bobbi.”

When she didn’t move, I added an edge to my tone and repeated, “Sit down, Bobbi.”

Three heartbeats later she finally moved, taking one of the chairs in front of my desk.

“I fucking hate you, you know that?” I said. It was a matter of statement more than anything emotional. I couldn’t bring myself to fill my words with any heat.

“Really? I couldn’t have guessed.”

That made me smile. I wasn’t sure why, but perhaps a small part of me was relieved to see that I hadn’t completely broken her. “Well, you make it easy to hate you. I get along with most people in my life. It’s just you. You always seemed to have it in for me.”

“I have it in for everyone,” she snapped back. “You’re not particularly special.”

That was a weird thing to admit, and strangely honest. “Why do you say that?

Bobbi shrugged and admitted, “I hate everyone.” Again, I was stunned by the sheer frankness of her answer.

“Why?”

Crossing her arms over her chest in a way that did a lovely job of accentuating her modest breasts, she didn’t respond. Instead, she stared just past my shoulder and out the window into the illuminated cityscape outside. The message was clear: She didn’t want to go into it.

“Why are you here, Bobbi?”

The soft lights of my office reflected off her unnaturally bright grey eyes - there were unshed tears in her eyes. I didn’t push her. I simply watched her and waited for her to answer in her own time. I didn’t feel like being any more cruel to her than I’d already been today.

“You canceled the room,” she finally said, desperately trying to keep her bottom lip from quivering.”

“My assistant had to cancel it,” I said. “News crews were starting to show up and I didn’t want to deal with them. I think I’m going to stay here tonight.”

She appeared to be struggling to say whatever was on her mind, so I let her sit in silence until she could pull herself together. When a full minute passed, I picked up my phone to stare at the name on the screen again.

“So what am I supposed to do?” She finally asked as I contemplated Jessica’s name.

I looked up from my phone and shrugged, “I don’t know. Go stay with your friend, I guess?”

“She’s not at home, and she’s not answering her phone.”

I looked up just in time to see her scrub away what I assumed was a tear and realization dawned that she had nowhere to go. I’d frozen her accounts and kicked her out of her own house, so it wasn’t that much of a surprise, but the fact that she didn’t have anyone else to pick her up or lend her some cash or a couch was bleak. What sort of sad life was Bobbi leading?

I wanted to point out how hating everyone tended to leave people friendless, but she seemed severely aware of that glaring fact. Instead, I opened the browser on my phone and found the first hotel near the Dunbar building. It cost $600 a night, which made me hesitate. Getting used to being a billionaire would take time, and certain old habits wouldn’t easily die.

“I’m setting you up with a hotel nearby. It’s four blocks from here.”

Bobbi nodded and didn’t say a word, rubbing her arms as if she were cold. She looked pathetic.

Looking back at my phone, I finalized paying for the room.

“You could have just turned me over to the police today. Why didn’t you? Why are you doing all this to me?”

“You haven’t been able to piece it together yet?” I asked. I held her gaze for a moment before she tore her eyes away to stare at the floor. “Because you made working here a living hell, but despite all that I’m severely attracted to you. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I imagined hate-fucking you.”

“So when the opportunity came, I had a moment of weakness. I wanted to break you, and I got it. Frankly, I’m surprised it happened so quickly. You’ve always been a force of fucking nature.” I shook my head. “You had me fooled.”

Bobbi simply continued to stare at the ground.

“You know, after I left yesterday morning, I regretted it. I thought about calling the cops and never having to deal with you again. Would you like that?”

Her gaze shot back up to me and she shook her head, “What!? No!”

“You’d rather keep on with how things have been the last couple of days?”

“No.”

"Well, I’m afraid that’s how it’s going to be,” I said. “I stand by what I said - your life as you knew it is over. You have to make a choice.”

“So what does that mean, exactly?” she asked.

I hesitated, still a little unclear on what she was to me. “It means that you’re mine. I get you whenever I want. You go where I want and when I want. And you exist to please me. That’s all you get. That’s all you are. My pet. In exchange-”

“That’s not-”

“In exchange,” I continued over her, “I’ll take care of you. You don’t have to worry about a roof over your head. You don’t have to worry about a job. You’ll never have to worry about buying anything. Compared to everyone you work with, you’ll have a nice life.”

“So, like… you’ll be my sugar daddy.”

I snorted, “Hell no! There’s no way our relationship will ever be like that. I don’t even really like you, but I do feel some sort of responsibility to you, maybe? And you’re hot. This whole thing might be a little… unseemly, but this is where we’re at.”

“And if I don’t want that?”

“Say the word. I hope you like orange,” I said with a shrug.

“I don’t want anything to do with Helen ever again. That was disgusting.”

“No. You don’t get to negotiate anything. If I tell you to get on your knees and stick your tongue up Helen’s ass, you do it. This will be the best life you could live, but it’s not free, and there will be work involved.”

For a full minute, the two of us stared at each other. I let my eyes roam over her delicate features, admiring the way her golden brown hair framed her angular face. Her lips were pink and lovely when not marred by the permanent sneer she wore. She took care of herself, which showed how much she valued her looks - her skin was like silk.

“Okay,” she finally said, her tone crisp.

I sent her the address of the hotel, “Go there. Get some sleep tonight and take the next two days off. I made the reservation under your name but paid in advance. Order room service and use any of the facilities they have available however you want. How many outfits do you have?”

“Two,” Bobbi said as she checked her phone.

“Do you still have the credit card I gave you?”

She nodded.

“Why didn’t you use it?” I asked.

“I…” She idly played with the strands of hair that draped over her shoulder. “I was afraid to.”

“Fair enough,” I said. It made sense that she would want to step lightly after what happened at Solomon’s Palace. “Go shopping. Buy some new outfits… perfume, shoes… whatever. Erin is going to make an appointment with a doctor. You’ll go to that, get a checkup, and ask for an IUD.”

Her head snapped back up. “What?”

“I’m not interested in becoming a father,” I said, “especially the father of your kids. Is that a problem?”

“I…”

I waited for her to respond.

“No,” she finally said.

“Okay then.”

“What about Natalie?” She asked.

“What about her?”

“Aren’t you guys starting a thing? It’s pretty obvious.”

“That’s none of your business,” I said, not liking the direction she was taking this conversation.

“Does she know about all this?”

I got up from my chair and rounded the desk so that I stood over her. She simply stared back at me. She tried to make her expression unreadable, but I could see the gleam of fear in her eyes as I glowered down at her.

“What are you implying?”

“Nothing.” She still looked like she could fall apart any moment, but under that unease, I could still see a bit of that old Bobbi lurking just under the surface. “I just don’t want to get in the way of you two.”

“Bobbi, get the hell out of my office and go do the things I’ve told you to do before I change my mind. Stay away from this office till I tell you otherwise, and if I hear you so much as your name up here, I am going to make sure you spend the rest of your fucking life in prison. Understood?”

She stood up slowly, her big grey eyes watching mine the whole time. She picked up her purse and slid it over her shoulder. And then gave me the sweetest smile I’d ever seen from her. She reached up with her hand, slid it around the back of my neck, and pulled me down so that our lips could meet as she gave me a kiss that threatened to steal my breath away. We’d locked lips before, but this convinced me she’d been holding back. This kiss was 100 times better than anything I’d had from her before.

The kiss continued for about thirty seconds before she pulled her lips back from mine, but kept her face close to mine as she looked me directly in the eyes. Her expression was still tearful, and she displayed a vulnerability on her face that was hard to miss, but through that mask of contrition, she offered me a sensual smile that made my cock grow another half inch.

“Yes sir,” she said, and parted from me. She turned and left the office without looking back, leaving me to try to interpret the number of mixed signals I had received from her. Helen was right. She was dangerous. I had a feeling Bobbi and I still had a lot to learn together. I needed to be careful.

And I really needed to make up my mind about Natalie.