Loving The Enemy

“Shit, in all this mess I forgot to find out who sold me out to the tabloids.”

“Oh that was Cindy, already taken care of.”

“What, what do you mean?”

“I mean; she’s lucky she still has her damn teeth.” I turned to look at her fully.

“What did you do?”

“Oh nothing, just reminded her of a few things she’d forgotten that I knew. Nothing for you to worry about. Now let’s talk about my plan.”

She rubbed her hands together and I almost felt sorry for Storm. Simone can be very determined and once she gets something in her head it’ll take a dynahoe to get it out. “Okay what’s this plan and it better not involve me making a fool of myself.” I have to get that out there because who knows what hair brained scheme she had cooking in her head.

16

Emily

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this. This has got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.” I hid behind the curtain looking out at the room that was quickly filling up with people, my resolve waning bit by bit. I thought I could do this, but now that it was crunch time I wasn’t so sure.

“Come away from there, you’ll be fine.” Simone pricked and prodded at me until I was ready to trounce her. “I should strangle you for talking me into this. Do you think the papers need more fodder?”

“I told you to ignore them. Don’t think about any of that, just focus on Storm. Trust me, I know what I’m doing.” She might, but I’m no longer certain that I did.

For the past couple days I’ve let her lead me around, taking her advice. At first it seemed like a great plan and if all else failed at least it was for a good cause. Now I felt like a lamb being led to the slaughter. What do I know about trying to make a man like Jason Storm jealous? This whole thing could blow up in my face.

And what about whoever I ended up going to dinner with? “I could be selling myself to an ax murderer for all you know.” Oh why did I let her talk me into this?

“Oh calm down and don’t be so dramatic. First off, you’re not selling yourself. This is for charity and in case you missed it there are a few others doing it.”

“I don’t see you going out there like a slab of meat.” She sucked her teeth and turned me around for the one hundredth time to make sure the skimpy bit of nothing she’d forced me to wear was just right.

“I can’t very well be one of the prizes if I’m running the show now can I?” Prizes, right, way to clean it up. I’d let this fool talk me into getting myself auctioned off for dinner and dancing for one night with the highest bidder. According to her, once Storm heard about this it would light a fire under him and force his hand so to speak.

It sure sounded good when we were in the plotting stage but now seemed so juvenile. “How’s he supposed to hear about it anyway? Didn’t you say he was in Arizona?” She scares me with the things she can do. Most people believe that if you have money you can do anything, find out anything about anyone at the drop of a hat. Not true!

Well in most cases it isn’t, but in Simone’s it’s pretty darn accurate. Her daddy lets her have her way in almost everything, and she uses his resources to get whatever her little heart desires. I don’t think it had taken her an hour to hunt Storm down. At least I’d talked her out of making me go after him. The girl is nuts.

“There’ll be photographers here remember. We’ll just have to make sure he sees you and reads all about tonight. I hope some hot young thing bids on you.” Oh she thought this was fun. My glare had no affect on her whatsoever, she just brushed it off and started fiddling with my hair. At least he won’t be in the audience when I make a complete fool of myself.

JASON

It’s been almost a week since I’ve been gone. A week in which I was ostensibly supposed to be getting my head on straight. I decided to put everything back there out of my mind for now, clear my head and look at things from a different angle. The plan was to get lost in the takeover I was undertaking, which shouldn’t be hard since I always go all in when I’m getting my grip on a new company.