The Billionaire's Obsession

I stood on the little balcony outside my apartment and stared at the letter. I wondered if I should be insulted that he just assumed I would have nothing to wear to the Opera. I suppose that would be a safe assumption, considering that he’s seen where I live. I thought about a day at a spa and actually got a chill. I’d never had that, I’d heard Myra talk about it, and it was something her wonderful husband insisted she treat herself to monthly. I had seen it on television, but I had no real idea what it would be like, other than expensive and wonderful. I looked down at the laundry at my feet. If I was going to do this right, the laundry would have to wait. In another move that was uncharacteristic of me, I took the laundry and left it in my room and then I called my mother.

I got her voicemail which meant she was probably sleeping off whatever alcohol she was able to get her hands on the night before. I left her a message telling her that I wasn’t going to make it to do laundry because something had come up. Then I changed into one of my nicer skirts and blouses, put on a touch of make-up and swept my hair back in a bun. I didn’t want to go into a fancy spa or boutique looking the way I do when I do laundry.

Finally, I called Aiden’s driver. I apologized to him for letting him go and asking him to come right back. He laughed and said it was no problem. I would have taken a cab but I didn’t really have the money to pay one to take me to the other side of town. The driver must have still been up the street, because he was there in minutes.

“Where are we headed, Miss?” he asked. I gave him the address of the boutique and he helped me inside and as people gawked from the front of the complex, I leaned back into the plush leather seats and got comfortable. A girl could get used to all of this. A girl needed to remind herself not to.

When we got to the boutique there was an older woman with short, pixie-style platinum hair behind the counter. She was wearing a very nice, expensive looking bohemian style blue dress and the color of it brought out the bright blue of her eyes. She was one of those kinds of people whose class and breeding oozed out her pores. She looked me up and down and with a neutral look on her face.

“Good afternoon. How can I help you?”

“Good afternoon. My name is Holly, Aiden Scott sent me.” It was like watching a transformation in front of my very eyes. The woman’s face went from neutral to almost painfully pleasant. She came around the counter and offered me her hand. I wondered what it would be like for just your name to have that kind of effect on people. I’d have to guess that’s where a big dose of his confidence came from.

“I’m Gretchen and it’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said.

“Hi Gretchen. Like I said, I’m Holly. Holly Valentine. It’s a pleasure to meet you too.”

Then she insisted I be seated, and I took a seat in a plush, oversized chair that was arranged with its twin around a glass and brass coffee table. Gretchen excused herself and came back moments later with a flute of champagne. I thanked her and accepted, one glass wouldn’t hurt and I was being treated today after all.

“Can I get you anything else?” She seemed so desperate to please me that I almost felt sorry for her. I’m sure she’s hoping when I see Aiden I’ll give her rave reviews.

“Water would be nice, thank you,” I told her. While she went to get that, I glanced around the little store. There were only two racks of dresses. I found that strange because when I did shop for myself, which was rarely, I went to bargain department stores where there was rack after rack of clothing.

When she came back with the water she said, “What is your size Holly? About a two?”

“I think it would be more like a four,” I told her. “I haven’t bought myself a dress for a while.” I was significantly well-endowed as well as ample in the bottom area. She stepped back and looked me over.

“I guess that would be to accommodate your curves. Very well, Aiden’s told me where you’re going so what I did was pre-select a few styles and colors for you to look at and try on. Are you ready to get started?”

“I’m ready,” I told her with a smile. She showed me the dresses and I picked out three that I liked and tried them on. I fell in love with one of them instantly and Gretchen told me she thought I had excellent taste and that I looked like a princess in it. I know Aiden was paying her handsomely for her compliments, but it was nice to hear anyways.

The dress was made by the designer Carmen Marc Valvo. I had heard his name on TV, but that was as far as my knowledge of him went. His dress was lovely though. It was a sleeveless, ruffle waist party dress and it was a strawberry color and an A-line silhouette style made out of a super soft satin material. It had a V-neckline and stopped at just above my knees. I loved it.

Gretchen helped me pick out a gorgeous pair of silver strappy sandals and a few pieces of jewelry and a bag to accessorize it. Two hours later I walked out, outfitted for the Opera and feeling like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.

The driver took me to the spa next, and for the following three hours I was massaged and steamed and lotion-ed and creamed. By the time they finished with me my skin was so dewy I felt like I’d spent a week in the rain forest.

After all of that I was taken to the other side of the spa where my hair was shampooed, set and styled and my make-up was applied by a professional. The end result was someone I barely recognized and I loved it. My long dark hair hung across my shoulders and down my back in soft, feminine curls. My green eyes were lined and plumped and tinted with just the smallest amount of green on the eyelid to bring out my own color. I walked out of there around five p.m. knowing that I’d never felt this pretty. I felt like a princess and I was ready to go home, slip on my new dress and wait for my Prince Charming.

By the time Aiden knocked on my door, I was dressed and ready. When I opened it, the look on his face was something that I would remember forever. He didn’t even need to use any words, but when he did, I liked them.

“Wow, Holly you look gorgeous.”

I know I was beaming, but I couldn’t stop smiling. I felt gorgeous for the first time in a long time.

“Thank you, for all of this,” I told him. Then I really took inventory of him in his black tuxedo. He was the handsomest thing that had ever walked the earth I was sure. “You look very nice too,” I told him. It was a huge understatement. He had a little strawberry colored rose stuck in his lapel and I realized that it matched my dress exactly. “You’re matching me!” I said.

He laughed, “Yes, I cheated and asked Gretchen what color you picked out.” I had never known anyone who paid as much attention to details as he did. I suppose that was another thing that contributed to him being so wealthy at such a young age.

I took his arm and he led me to the car. My neighbors were really gawking this time, and I didn’t care. This time when I slid into the limousine, I felt like I belonged. The driver took us to an elegant restaurant in the city where once again we were treated like royalty. This time I believe that a few of the eyes were actually on me. It felt good to feel that I was standing out in the crowd for a change.

We dined on steak and lobster and cheesecake for dessert. Then the car took us to the opera house where I saw my first opera. It was a tragedy in Italian and Aiden translated much of it for me. I found out that night on top of his many other talents, he also speaks five languages.

We were sitting in our own private box and had an excellent view of the entire stage. It was a beautiful story, a beautiful performance and an all-around beautiful night. I wanted to pinch myself and make sure that I wasn’t dreaming. Aiden was such a gentleman and so attentive. He listened to everything I said like he truly believed it to be the most interesting thing he’d ever heard and I found myself opening up to him more and more. I told him about my father who had passed away a few years earlier and I touched on some of the lighter points of my childhood. The years before my father gave up his quest to get my mother sober were good ones, and those were the ones I shared with him. I still didn’t tell him about her, or the problems her addictions caused for me in my life. I was having too much fun, and I didn’t want to put a damper on any of it. Aiden made me feel like I deserved to be treated with respect, he made me feel pretty and smart and sometimes even funny. He was definitely a prince, and I could unquestionably see myself as his princess. I told myself, and that annoying little voice in the back of my mind, that I’d think about those feelings tomorrow and what I was going to do about them. For the moment, I was lost in a dream and I didn’t want to wake up.

I woke up to my alarm the next day, still reveling in the afterglow of that magical night. I smiled all day at work and Rose and Myra knew something was up, but I made them wait all day before finally giving them the details. They seemed as excited to hear about it as I was to be present for it. That was the great thing about my friends.

I still hadn’t allowed myself to think about the problems the feelings I was beginning to have for Aiden were going to cause to my emotional health. I was still floating on a high and I didn’t want to ruin it just yet. I was slapped in the face with reality every day. I figured a tiny bit of denial or delusion, whatever you wanted to call it, wasn’t going to hurt anyone. As I was leaving work that day he called to tell me he had meetings all evening but he’d like to see me for breakfast the next day. I agreed and hung up once again euphoric only at the sound of his voice.

After my shower and dressing in my pajama’s, that evening I sat down and called my mother. She’d never called me back the day before and I felt like I needed to at least check in. I got her voicemail again. There was something in the back of my mind that told me I should get in a cab and go over and check on her, but I talked myself out of it. I had done that many times before, and every time it had ended with finding her either drunk or passed out. I wasn’t in the mood tonight to see her either way. I wanted one more day at least to live in my fantasy world where I was finally the star. I fell asleep on the couch and dreamt of Aiden. In my dream we were on the beach and I was wearing a white dress and flowers in my hair. It was a wedding, and I was the guest of honor. I woke up to my alarm, startled.

When I got my bearings back I had no choice but to admit to myself that I was getting in too deep emotionally and I had to look at that whether I wanted to or not before I allowed my heart to get broken.

I fixed my coffee and took it out on the tiny little balcony on the back of my apartment. Sitting down in the old lounge chair I sipped my drink and thought over my situation. Aiden was gorgeous, that was a fact. He was also rich, kind, generous, intelligent….and wounded. He was deeply wounded and that had made him wrap a cocoon around his heart. What his wife had done to him, first cheating and then taking away the baby had left scars in him that ran too deep for someone like me to heal. He seemed so normal on the surface, but before I went any further, I needed to force myself to think about this rationally. What he was asking me to do, legal and acceptable or not, was odd to me. He was the city’s most eligible bachelor. Why not just work on finding a woman building a relationship, getting married and starting a family? Because he was afraid that it would all turn out the way it had before. With this plan, he was the one in control. He called all the shots and although it left him with no relationship, it left him with a baby…someone to give his wounded heart too. In the long run no matter how happy that baby made him, he’d still be left unable to trust and with a yearning in his heart. At least that’s what I thought.

I thought about going through with this, trying to help him at least mend a part of his heart. I thought about spending nine months with a child in my belly. That thought didn’t bother me. I was actually a little excited about the prospect of creating a life. I’d always wanted to have children…Then I did what I had been avoiding…I forced myself to picture walking away. I made myself think about what a child created from Aiden and my own genes would look like. I thought about the tiny little hands and fingers and toes that he or she would have. I could see big, dark eyes looking up at me, looking for security and comfort in its mother’s arms. I thought about putting the baby into Aiden’s arms and walking away from them both, never to turn back. I thought about years down the line how I knew I’d still be wondering and yearning to see it, and I knew that I couldn’t do it.

I got up and got another cup of coffee. Taking it outside again I sat down and thought about Aiden’s wounds and wondered if they could be healed if he were to fall in love again. I wondered if having a woman in his life that adored him and would be loyal and dedicated no matter what could chip away at those scars until they were eventually gone. I came to the conclusion that I believed to be the correct one although it wasn’t what I had wanted it to be: Aiden was like a bird with a snapped wing. He could be fixed, his wounds weren’t fatal, only crippling. But by what or whom he could be fixed was another story. I really didn’t think I was capable of doing that. I wasn’t strong enough. I’d been trying to change my mother for years, and look at her…

I showered and dressed and decided that I would tell him at breakfast. My chest ached at the thought of having to give him up. I’d let myself get too attached. But it had to be done and I was going to do it this morning if I had to beat myself into it. The longer I dragged it out the more at risk my own heart became. I don’t believe that having a baby for him will heal him and I don’t believe he would ever fall in love with me. If I walk away now, I’m doing us both a favor.

I had just picked up my purse and was ready to leave for my breakfast date with Aiden when my phone began ringing. I felt sick to my stomach when I looked at the caller I.D. It said, “Memorial Hospital.” I knew it was about my mother before I picked it up.

“Hello.”

“Hello, is this Holly Valentine?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Miss Valentine this is Bridgette Baxter. I’m a social worker here at Memorial Hospital. We have your mother here and you’re listed as her emergency contact.”

“Yes, what’s happened? Is she okay?”

“I was hoping you could come down and we could talk in person, you, me and the physician. Your mother is okay, for now physically, I don’t want you to worry about that. But we really need to talk about a long term plan.”

“Of course,” I told the lady. “I’ll be right down.” I called Aiden then and got his voicemail. I left him a message that I had to take care of a family issue and I would give him a call when I was finished. Then I called a cab and headed to the hospital to see what kind of trouble my mother had gotten herself into now.

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Chapter Seven

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