“Do you seriously think I’d let you continue mopping floors to pay for art school, Amory?” I ask.
“I—I hadn’t even thought about it like that…” she says softly. The contrast between her gentle voice and my raging desire is almost painful. “I’m not looking for a sugar daddy…”
“Good,” I reply. “Because I’m not looking to be one.”
“But your money—”
“Is better spent on you,” I tell her. “I have every toy imaginable, sweetie. I’m going to pay for your tuition and you’re going to let me.”
I can see the reticence on her face slowly began to fade. “So I’m not just another toy is what you’re saying?”
She’s quick. I bet she’d be able to handle herself in a board meeting if she felt like it. I can feel myself starting to open up to her already. The thrill of being around her is beyond anything I’ve ever felt. Could she be the one to turn my life around? Rekindle the fire that once roared inside me?
“Amory, you are so not a toy,” I say, moving right in. “But I do want to play with you in so many ways.”
“Jesus…” she whispers as her face goes red. “You sure know how to talk to a girl.”
“Only you. I don’t talk like this to just anybody.”
“Yeah?” she replies. “So I’m special? Is that why you kidnapped me?”
Yes. I realize it now. Maybe this had to do with the Picasso before, but it doesn’t anymore. Now it’s all about me and her.
I feel something when I look at her – a feeling I haven’t felt in what feels like forever. Warmth. Excitement. Joy. Jesus, I can’t even remember the last time I felt actual joy. Triumphant maybe after closing a big deal, but never joy.
Have I been chasing the wrong things all this time?
“Or maybe you kidnapped me because you needed a new fix,” she says.
“A fix?”
“You’re a rich, powerful man,” she replies. “And as you said, you have
everything you could ever want. You could buy a Picasso. You could buy twenty girls who look like me, but where’s the fun in that?”
Christ, it’s like she can see right through me, and that’s no easy feat.
I’m about to respond when she looks up at me with a new confidence.
“So, what’s the plan, Mr. Duke? Were you just going to take me upstairs to your room and have your way with me? Don’t tell me a man like you has forgotten how to romance.”
Her sly smile leaves me breathless. “My private chef was going to make us dinner.”
“Tell him to go home,” she says. “I’m going to cook for you.”
I watch Amory as she moves about the kitchen. Never in my life did I think that I would find a woman cooking sexy—unless she was wearing a maid’s outfit or something. Still in her coveralls, Amory prepares a dish for us both as I try to get a handle on what’s happening to my life.
“Don’t tell me you clean too,” I say as she serves a risotto made with fresh Maine lobster I had brought in by messenger. “Because then I might just fall in love.”
“I do it all,” she says with an over-the-top wink. “My mom made a good woman out of me.”
“I like her already,” I say. “When can I meet her?”
“I wish you could, but she’s dead. So is my father.”
Jesus. My heart shatters. Something so terrible should never happen to someone so beautiful. My first instinct is to throw money at problems. There are very few problems that can’t solve. But this…a loss so painful it stays with you for a lifetime…money can’t fix that.
I want to know what happened, but I don’t want her hurting, so I table that conversation for another time and taste her dish.