Womanizer (A Standalone Novel) (A Steamy Alpha Billionaire Romance) (7 page)

Chapter 10

I saw her up
on
the balcony just as
they were ready to ring the final bell. Alicia looked like a deer caught in
headlights as she tried to listen to the man on her right. He whispered in her
ear and she laughed. Jealousy shot up inside of me.

I didn’t know who he was or what he had said to her, but I definitely
didn’t like that he had made her laugh like that. My blood boiled a little as I
watched their interaction.

He seemed to be very familiar with her and I racked my brain to try and
remember if he had been with her the other day when they rang the opening bell.
But I just had not paid much attention to anyone else except Alicia on that
day.

She stood up there with a tight pink blouse on that was sheer; I could
tell that she had a camisole underneath. I couldn’t see what else she had on,
but damn I wanted to. Her eyes were timid as she looked over the balcony at the
room full of traders. I urged her to make eye contact with me. I willed her
with my intense stare at her, but I never did get what I wanted.

When the closing bell had been rung, I followed her group of people and
joined in as they chatted about the upcoming big day.

“Monday is going to be epic,” one young trader said.

“Yeah, I think she is going to kill it. A total money maker,” another trader
said.

I couldn’t help but overhear them and it made me happy for Alicia. She
seemed like a good woman who had worked really hard to get where she was, I
hoped the best for her and her IPO. I
also
hoped Rebecca could get me the information I needed before Monday so I could
make a decision on whether to buy her stock or not.

I stood back and watched the chaos around Alicia as people asked her
questions and she talked a little about her company. It was one of the only
times people could get up close and personal with a CEO of a company, but in
reality nothing they had to say was of any help on investment day.

CEO’s didn’t know how their company was going to do any more than the
rest of the world. They, of course, had much more hopefulness that the IPO would
do well. But in the end, the opinion of the general public was what mattered
most.

Alicia looked really uncomfortable and like she wanted to leave. At one
point,
I even saw her turn away but that same
man pulled her back and she continued to answer questions. It was painful to
watch after about thirty minutes. So I did what I thought was best.

“Miss Warren, can you come with me? Mr. Taylor would like a word with
you.”

I walked with authority up to Alicia and grabbed her by the arm and led
her away.

Everyone knew Mr. Taylor was the CEO of Taylor Trading Incorporated and
the biggest trading company on the market. The others quieted down as we walked
away.

“Mr. Taylor?” Alicia smiled as we walked quickly off the trading floor
and into the hallway. “You better hurry, he’s
coming,
”
Alicia said as she looked behind us.

Sure enough,
the man that had been at her side all day
long had just come out the door to the hallway and was about one hundred feet
behind us.

“Alicia, where are you going?” he hollered down the hallway.

“I’ll be right back, Bill,” Alicia said as we quickened our steps.

When we turned the corner, the two of us were into a full on sprint as we
tried to make it out the door and into the street before Bill had seen where we
went.

It was fun, like when you were young and ran away from the mall security
guard. I laughed as we ran and Alicia did too. By the time we had made it
outside, we were both in a full on giggle.

“This way,” I said as I brought her up one of the narrow side streets.

We continued to walk quickly and soon had made it to China town where we
slid into a noodle shop and sat down.

We were both sweating, but I was very impressed with Alicia’s ability to
run. She surely must run for exercise. She had not had any problems keeping up
with me and I was almost in a full on sprint.

“So, who is Bill? A boyfriend?” I asked.

“Oh god, really, Evan. You think I like short bald guys?”

“
Well,
I thought perhaps he was a
sugar
daddy.”

As the words left my
mouth,
I knew
right away I shouldn’t have said them. Of course she didn’t want anyone
insinuating that she had some rich guy who was the only reason she was
successful. I had to do some damage control and quick. The look on her face
said that I was about thirty seconds away from getting slapped.

“I mean, he looks like the kind of guy who only has money going for him.
Not that you would date a guy like that. Oh god, I’m sorry.”

I physically took my shoe off and put it into my mouth.

I sat there with my shoe in my mouth and just looked at Alicia with the
best puppy dog eyes I could muster.

Finally,
she broke down and laughed.

“Put your shoe back on. That’s disgusting.”

“Thank you. It did taste a lot like pee. Probably that alley we went
down.”

I raised my hand for our waiter and ordered us some noodles and some ice
water. I really needed a drink, and fast. Putting my shoe in my mouth was
certainly not something I was used to doing and I didn’t know what had come
over
me at
that moment. But it seemed to
have gotten me out of the hot water my mouth had put me into, so all was well
that ended well.

“He’s my VP of finance. Pretty much the only reason we are going public.
He pushed for it at our corporate meeting last year and has been driving it
ever since.”

“Ah, so he’s the evil one.”

“Not so much evil as just very money driven. I was happy doing the small
stores and making things by hand. I didn’t need this level to be happy. I know
that sounds
petty
and exactly what people
shouldn’t say.”

“It makes sense. The bigger the company, the less you probably get to
actually design. It’s a
trade-off
.”

“Yes and not one that I’m liking.”

“Well after the big business dealings you’re doing, I’m sure you can hire
someone to deal with the paperwork stuff so you can spend more time doing what
you would like to do.”

“Thanks, I hope so.”

“Now, let’s get back to talking about me,” I said with a mischievous
smile.

“Oh, were we talking about you?” Alicia laughed and I was hypnotized.

Her red hair swung back and her chin lifted into the air.
Oh,
how I loved to watch her laugh.

“Um, yes. We were about to discuss you and I going on another date.”

“Hmm, I don’t remember talking about that.”

Alicia continued to giggle as our noodles arrived and I chugged my whole
cup of water. She obviously didn’t think me putting my shoe in my mouth was a
good idea either. But at least it had lightened the mood a little.

“So let’s talk about it now. When can we have our second date.”

“Right now.”

“What? No! Noodle can’t be our second date. I have big plans for that
date.”

“I don’t sleep with a guy until at least the fifth date. If you make it
that far.”

“
Oh,
then this is definitely date
two.”

She laughed again and I was smitten. The witty banter that went back and
forth between us was a first for me. I had never been with a woman who I felt
so comfortable with. I didn’t have to play my game and I didn’t think she was
playing one either. It was natural between us.

As much as I loved that, deep down I also really wanted to find out more
about her company to see if I should invest in the IPO or not. It was horrible,
I know it. I wanted her, she was deliciously cute. But I still had a business
to think about and I couldn’t stop thinking about making my clients money just
because the CEO of the company I wanted to buy stock in was fucking sexy as
hell.

We finished our noodles and walked back toward the stock market.

“You know, my apartment is right up there,” I said as I pointed at my
building again.

But she wasn’t interested. I could tell by how quickly she pulled her
phone out; there would be no bringing Alicia up to my condo . It
sucked,
though; one minute I felt like we had
an amazing connection and the next minute I felt like she was annoyed to have
to spend time with me. I just couldn’t figure her out.

“I’m going to head home. I promise I’ll call you for date number two,”
Alicia
smiled
and looked up at me.

Something bothered her; I could see it in her eyes. It wasn’t something
with me either, there was something deep going on in her life and it obviously
had her distracted. I hoped that after her IPO happened she would be able to
relax. But I wasn’t one hundred percent sure that it was the IPO that had her
so worried.

“Oh no, it’s date number three now. Noodles were date number two,” I said
as I winked at Alicia.

We both laughed as she raised her hand and a cab was there, again faster
than I had ever gotten a
cab in
all my
years of living in Manhattan.

“Monday night?” I asked as she got into the cab.

“Yes, Monday night. We can celebrate my going public.”

And just like that she was gone.

I watched her cab drive away and wondered just how much I would be able
to figure out about her company financials before Monday. It wasn’t likely that
I would be able to get much more information from the public records. Perhaps
Rebecca would be able to shine some more light on everything.

Chapter 11

Before I knew
it,
Saturday morning
was there and I was getting packed to spend a weekend
as
the fake boyfriend of Rebecca.

We had text back and forth over the last few days and I learned more
about her family than I ever wanted to know. She told me about her two brothers
and how they fought all the time. She told me about her mother’s battle with
breast cancer and her father’s heart attack. I could see why she wanted to
please her family so much. It was clear that she loved them and just didn’t
want them to worry about her.

At nine o’clock, I made my way to the front of my building and waited for
Rebecca to pull up. She had insisted on driving for the
six hour
trip and that was fine with me. I hated to drive and
didn’t even own a car. I suspected my driver’s license could have been expired
even,
since I hadn’t actually driven in many
years.

When Rebecca pulled up in her 2014 Tesla Model S my mouth actually fell
open. It was an all electric sports car and nothing like what I had expected
Rebecca to drive.

“Is it yours?” I asked.

In any other city that might seem rude to ask someone, but in Manhattan
it was a totally legitimate question. Not many people actually owned cars in
the city, and they certainly didn’t own sports cars.

“Yep, you like it?”

“Fuck yeah.”

“I have a condo over in Brooklyn. It was my present to myself for buying
such a hell hole of a place to live.”

“Nice present.”

We took off down the streets of the city and I quickly reached back and
put my seatbelt on. I regretted agreeing to letting Rebecca do the driving,
almost instantly. She drove like she was in a video game as she sped between
cars and didn’t seem to care at all if people stopped for her.

I wasn’t sure if she was driving like that to impress me or if that was
how she always drove, but it scared the shit out of me.

“So were you able to find anything good on ALL Warren Clothing?”

I figured we could do some business talk during the trip out to her
parents. Especially if she was going to drive like a maniac. I needed something
to calm my nerves as we swerved in and out of the traffic.

“Oh yeah, here let me grab the file,” Rebecca reached with one hand into
the back seat and I thought for sure we would die.

I reached over and grabbed the wheel just as she totally let go of it and
thrust her arm back far enough to grab the file she had been trying to reach.

“Shit, Rebecca. For someone who doesn’t like to do illegal things you
drive like a fucking lunatic.”

“I like to drive fast,” she said simply. “Look in there. I found lots of
good information for you.”

The file was thick, maybe sixty to seventy sheets of paper. I flipped
through it quickly but had no idea what I was supposed to be looking for, so I
went page by page and read through some of the information.

I must have looked like I didn’t understand anything that I read, because
Rebecca quickly chimed in to explain her findings to me.

“On the surface that company is perfect. In the public records I couldn’t
find a single number out of place. That in itself is a huge red flag. But as I
delved deeper I could tell there was something really sinister going on with
their books. I’m not exactly sure what it is, though, but certainly a neon red
stop sign for me.”

“So what do you think it is? I mean if you had to guess?”

“I’m not sure. They seem to have plenty of sales so I don’t think their
numbers are inflated. I just don’t know where to look yet. It will need someone
on the inside to really get you what you want. There was one other thing
though.”

Rebecca grimaced as she glanced over at me.

“What?”

“That little red head that runs it. She’s into some really dirty stuff in
her past. I don’t exactly know how she has kept this company afloat for as long
as she has. Her last company went bankrupt and two of her employees were
charged with money laundering.”

“Wow, really? She doesn’t seem the type.”

My mind spun with the idea that Alicia might be fully knowledgeable about
the wrong doings in her company. Up until that very moment, I had thought that
people who worked for her had swindled her good nature and were scamming her.
But if she was part of another bad company, the chances were very high that she
knew very well what was going on in her company now.

“Did Alicia go to jail?” I asked.

I saw a look in Rebecca’s eyes when I used Alicia’s first name. She knew
there was more to it, but she didn’t push it. She just smiled at me and raised
her eyebrow.

“No, she came off squeaky clean, which makes me think she was probably
the dirtiest one of the group. Not likely that she could have been the owner of
the company and not had a clue about money laundering that bankrupted her
organization.”

“Not likely, but possible.”

“Oh come on, Evan. Don’t be a jerk. Just because she’s a cute little
redhead doesn’t mean she can’t swindle people out of their money.”

It did certainly look like she would have known what was going on, but
since I didn’t know that much about the previous company I didn’t want to hold
that against Alicia just yet.

“Did you find out anything else about the company?”

Rebecca seemed caught up in her race car driving and ignored me for a
moment as she sped onto the interstate. I held onto the door for my life as she
took the corner going well over 60mph.

“Oh yea, there’s a guy named Bill Yobi, he’s bad news also.”

My ears perked up right away when I heard the name. That dude had looked
like bad news from the moment I first laid eyes on him. It was reassuring to
know that someone else thought he was just as bad as I did. It was more than
just the way he looked. There was something about the way he held onto Alicia
that reeked of evil.

“Yeah, I saw him there the other day at closing bell. What do you know
about him?”

“Well first of all, he is the only Finance VP I’ve ever seen who doesn’t
have an MBA in finance or accounting. His degree is in communications. Which
doesn’t seem that bad until you think about it. Why wouldn’t he be in charge of
their marketing department then instead of finance?”

“That’s odd for sure. But nothing to warrant him being bad news.”

“Yeah, so I dug into him a bit. He worked with her at the first company
and also avoided the money laundering charges. He was arrested originally, but
then let go. Nothing about his life matches up. I couldn’t find information
about where he went to high school. I couldn’t find anything about his family.
Something is off with that dude for sure.”

We sat in silence as Rebecca drove and I pondered the information she had
just given me.

Alicia didn’t strike me as the type of person who would purposely swindle
anyone out of money. She was either really good at what she did or totally
unaware of what was going on.

I found both scenarios to be very hard to believe. She was a bright
woman; I couldn’t see her running a company and not knowing what was going on
there. On the other hand, I certainly didn’t peg her as the type of person who
would go around stealing money from people.

The car ride was soothing, much better once we got away from the traffic
and onto the highway. I had expected the drive to take six hours, but
apparently Rebecca’s mock four driving skills had gotten us there in a much
shorter time.

We pulled up to her family’s Virginia estate and I instantly flashed to
ever corny movie I had seen. It was a picturesque place to live and I started
to feel a little nervous about having to meet them all.

In the last several years, I hadn’t actually met a woman’s family. It was
purposeful on my part, but still; I was out of practice.

“Any last minute questions before we go in?” Rebecca asked.

“Yes, do they know we’re sleeping together?” I said with a smile.

“Oh my got. Evan. Do not talk about sex at all. They are super churchy
and yes they will assume that we are sleeping together but please don’t bring
it up.”

I grabbed our bags out of the car and followed Rebecca up the long walk
and to her front door.

We had barely made it to the door before her two brothers were standing
there and staring at me like they were about to take me down.

“Who’s this?” the taller one said.

“He looks like an ass,” the shorter one added.

“Ken and Kermit, this is my boyfriend, Evan.”

“Boyfriend?” the taller one said as he shook my hand. “I’m Ken. Nice to
meet you, I guess.”

“Mom, Becca brought a boy home!” Kermit yelled as he went back into the
house.

It was going to be one hell of a weekend, I took a couple deep breaths
before we headed inside.