The next day I woke up in the large king size bed, stretching my arm across it to find her luscious soft warm body. But the bed was empty. I jerked up and looked around wondering if something had gone wrong. Immediately my heart went into panic mode. Had she duped me all along?
"You alright there, slick?" her voice asked.
My head whipped around to find her sitting in a corner. "What are you doing?"
"I'm sketching you." She held up one of the pins and pads of paper that could be found in hotel rooms. "They’re not the ideal art tools, but it was all I could find and I absolutely had to sketch you. Did you know you're like an Adonis?"
It took a minute for my heart to settle back into my chest, but when I finally realized what she was saying to me, I gave her my sexy smile and patted the bed next to me. "Why don't you come over here and tell that to me to my face."
She gave me that sexy smirk of hers. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to get an up close view."
I pulled the sheet down, exposing my naked body, and my already growing erection.
She stood and sauntered over setting the pen and pad of paper on the side table. She dropped the robe she’d been wearing and climbed into bed with me. I knew then that we would be here the whole weekend.
Over the next week, I couldn't say that I was completely comfortable with the change in our relationship. There was still a little part of me that worried it could go terribly wrong. But I also knew I had very little choice but to see what happened. I clearly had no willpower when it came to staying away from Natalie.
However, we did resume a professional relationship at work. It was important to both of us that we be seen as professionals in our jobs. That didn't mean I didn't think about taking her on my desk every now and then, but I was able to restrain myself, or if I wasn't, I was able to arrange a long lunch break for us at a nearby hotel.
And while I did want to take her out on the town and do all the things that went with being in a relationship, I knew that there still could be media interest in our relationship that could cause a problem for her at work and also in her growing art career. So, I continued to see her in hotel rooms around the city, and even considered taking her out onto the family yacht.
I didn't like hiding anymore, because it made what we were doing seem sordid, when now, it wasn't. But until we sorted this all out, or her six months were up and she was not working for Strong Incorporated anymore, this was the way it would have to be.
The week was going well, as it had the week before when I was sitting at the desk re-reviewing the ad campaign heading to Europe. Andi walked into my office, shutting the door and coming up and tossing a magazine in front of me. "Have you seen this yet?"
"I don't even know what it is."
"It's the magazine with Natalie’s art profile in it."
I was already starting to fill with pride at what the magazine would say about the quality of her work and the future she had in the art world.
"Page sixty-seven," Andy said.
I turned to the page and began to read, but fairly quickly, I realized this wasn't a profile piece on Natalie's art. In fact, it didn't mention much of Natalie's art at all except for a sketch I’d never seen that she had of me in her apartment. Mostly, the piece focused on her relationship with the billionaire Hunter Strong. Along with the sketch, there were pictures of me and her coming and going from various hotels in the city. And like the gossip that had come out weeks ago, the article speculated that I was more than just a financial patron. I suggested that I was some rich man being taken for a ride by a young artist.
My eyes jerked up to Andi's. "What the fuck is this?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. But I thought you should see it."
"Why would she do this to me? Has everyone seen this? Am I the laughing stock of San Diego now?"
Andi flinched a little bit. "I don't know why you'd be the laughing stock. And I don't know who all knows about this."
I looked down at the article spread again. "She must've had somebody following us. She was using me the whole time to get what she wanted."
“Natalie’s not like that—”
I waved the magazine at her. “The hell she isn’t.” I had a profound sense of déjà vu. It turned out I’d been right the whole time. Women couldn't be trusted. And women wanted nothing to do with Hunter Strong. They only wanted my money and influence. And just like what happened to me before, I was going to cut my losses.
24
Natalie
I was shocked, but happy at Hunter’s change of heart. Not only did he want to continue to see me, but he seemed to want to see where things would go beyond a sexual relationship. Not that we were destined for a happily ever after because I knew that part hadn't changed for him, and of course I had my own goals I wanted to achieve.
In the past when we met, we were in bed or wherever we happened to be having sex within minutes of our arrival, but now we would have dinner or talk and even afterword we would talk some more. On occasion we'd even spend the night. Waking up in Hunter's arms was about as decadent as life could get.
While he had talked about the possibility of us going out in public and acting like a dating couple, in the end we both agreed that maybe that wasn't a good idea, particularly after the gossip that had come out about us. I still didn't want to be seen as a woman who was getting ahead because she was dating a billionaire. And Hunter didn't want to have his name in the gossip rags related to his dating life. In fact, he seemed to have a real phobia around being in the media at all. I was curious about where that came from, but I had never been brave enough to ask. Sure, we talked a lot about a variety of things, but still nothing that ever went too deep. In some ways I wish I could ask him about his deepest fears or biggest dreams, but even though he had let me in a little bit, the walls were still there. I didn't expect that I would ever be able to breach them, and that meant that while I was happy with where things were in our relationship, I needed to be careful because at some point it would end.