“So, now that you know what you’re getting into, do you think you’d still like to join me for dinner in my office tomorrow?”
She turned to me and I thought I saw tears in her eyes. Maybe it was just the flicker of the city lights playing tricks. But she smiled and leaned in to me. We kissed. I felt her small hands on my arm and thought how much I wanted to hold her tighter. Pulling back she gasped just a little as if her breath had been taken away. I hoped it had.
“I’ll meet you for dinner tomorrow in your office. If that is what I have to do to be alone with you then I’ll do it.”
We kissed again and again until the moon high in the sky shined down into the conference room windows.
So, as a businessman I was proceeding with this union in a slow and steady manner. I had been upfront with Natasha about my life, my intentions. Almost everything was on the table. But as I looked at my desk calendar I realized my time was running shorter than I thought.
It wouldn’t be long before the shareholder meeting when all the executives would be present, including my brother. It was unfortunate timing.
NATASHA
“How did you not know?” Diamond asked me leaning back in the booth as if bracing for my answer. I hadn’t seen her in several weeks. She kept giving me excuses whenever I asked to get together. Finally, after waiting for such a long time I stalked her after work, waited outside her building like a love-struck freshman and cornered her. It was actually kind of exciting since I had been dodging photographers and reporters as well. Dating a billionaire who liked to be seen out and about the town was apparently very interesting to a lot of people.
“I need to talk to you.” I begged. “You are my best friend. Even if I had all the money in the world it would never change how I feel about you. Life is just dull without my sista.” Joshua’s words about friends getting jealous stuck in my head like a bad pop song.
“I’m sorry, Nat. I know I’ve been busy. And, well, three is a crowd, you know. I didn’t want to get in the way. That’s all. No one can ever accuse me of getting all bent out of shape over a girl wanting to be with her man. You know, we hate those kinds of girls.”
She was smiling when she said it. I could tell there was something she wasn’t telling me. But, I also knew that with Diamond it was no use trying to push her into doing anything she didn’t want to. Her head could be as hard as her namesake.
“Yeah, we do.” I said, bumping her with my hip. It took a little sweet talking and the promise of a lift home in the limo if she’d have a drink with me and just talk. So much had happened and what was being printed in the papers was rife with inaccuracies. But since when has the press ever cared about getting a story correct? That fad went out with bell-bottoms and communes.
“I saw your picture in the paper.” Diamond said. “In fact I’ve seen quite a few pictures of you. In each one you look amazing.”
“Oh, you think? I always think I look ridiculous. They purposefully try to snap a picture when you are yawning or have a sneeze coming on or in the middle of chewing food.”
“Well, I wish I looked that good when I was yawning.” Diamond said, elongating her mouth out extra wide, bugging her eyes and stretching her arms over her head. Of course, we both laughed. It was interesting to me. I hadn’t laughed like that in a long time. I hadn’t realized but the last time I cracked up was when I was with Marty. But we weren’t talking about Marty right now. We were talking about Joshua. Or were we talking about Marty? No. We were talking about Joshua, the newspapers and the constant stream of undertakings that were becoming more of an annoyance than adventures.
“Yeah, well, it has been amazing but…”
“But what?” Diamond asked, taking a quick drink of water. We had slipped into a greasy spoon diner, took a booth in the back and waited on a couple of cheeseburgers to arrive while we caught up.
“Last weekend,” I started. “Joshua told me not to make any plans. He’s been telling me this for the past several weekends, Di. Every weekend he’s got something planned and…”
“And that’s bad?”
I took a deep breath.
“No. We flew in his private jet to Aruba.”
“I thought you looked tan.”
“Yeah. And then we spent a weekend in Aspen."
"Aspen? Do you know how expensive it is there? I take that back. Do you know how expensive it is just to get there? It’s straight up a flipping mountain!”
Diamond was laughing at me.
“You’re afraid of heights.” She said pointing her finger at me. “Didn’t you tell him?”
“Of course I did. But he would just kiss me and then…I’d forget and just…you know.”
“Okay, my sympathy meter isn’t really budging off the zero line.”
“And then there are the presents.”
Diamond’s smile fell from her face. She leaned in closer. Folding her hands in front of her she whispered.