Mid-Thirties Slightly Hot Mess Female Seeking Billionaire: Chapter 24

Ethan

‘I cannot believe that woman,” I say as I stare up at the ceiling from my bed. The previous night had been one of the hottest nights I’d ever had in my life, and yet Sarah had walked away from me as if it meant nothing. She’d gone back out to the bar, and over to her friend, and they’d started dancing and jumping up and down. She hadn’t even looked around to see if I was watching, or still there.

I wasn’t sure why I’d gone to The Owl and the Pussycat the previous evening. Something had told me to go in for a drink, and when I’d seen her there dancing, laughing like she was having the time of her life, I hadn’t been able to believe it.

She didn’t seem bothered whatsoever about the fact that the afternoon meeting hadn’t been a date, or the fact that I’d said I wasn’t interested in a romantic entanglement. Maybe she wasn’t interested in me like that. Maybe she didn’t want to be in a relationship. Which I knew was not true because she’d put a personal ad.

‘She’s fricking literally looking for a billionaire,” I say as I pull up my phone to look at her ad again. She literally had been looking for me. I mean, maybe not me, but someone that was just like me. Maybe she really wasn’t satisfied by me, which I knew was a joke. The way she’d come on my dick the previous evening had told me just how attracted she was to me.

‘Maybe it’s just a physical thing,” I say as I pull the sheets off and jump out of bed. I’m annoyed again, and I’m fed up with feeling annoyed. I’m fed up of Sarah controlling my emotions. I’m fed up with thinking about her morning, noon, and night. This woman has gotten under my skin and I don’t even understand why. I’d slept with plenty of women before in my life, hotter women even. But yet, none of them had irked me the way that she does.

There’s just something about her, a lightness in her eyes, the way she smiles. Everything about her calls to me. Everything about her makes me want to fall at her feet and kiss them, and kiss up her legs, and have her sit on my face. Fuck, I’m growing hard. I know I need to have a shower. I know I need to get this woman out of my mind. I sigh. It’s going to be a long day.

I notice that Jackson’s called me several times, and I call him back as I head into the shower.

‘Yo, what’s up?’ I say as soon as he answers.

‘What you mean, yo, what’s up? You’re the one that called me.’ He sounds groggy.

‘I’m returning your calls. There were three of them.’

‘Oh, yeah.’ He grunts. ‘Lord Chambers wants to know if you’ve come up with the jingle. He wants to hear it because he’s got some marketing meeting with his PR company.” He groans, ‘I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but could you call him?’

‘I mean, I’m not the one working on the jingle; that’s Sarah,” I say, groaning.

‘Well, can you ask her when the jingle’s going to be ready?’

‘I didn’t particularly want to speak to her right now,” I say as I turn on my shower faucet. I think back to the previous evening. I wish she’d spent the night. I wish I could fuck her in the shower right now and then go about my business.

‘Dude, I thought you said whatever you guys had was not going to affect the workplace.’

‘We didn’t have anything, and it’s not affecting the workplace.’

‘Well, you did have something. And there’s no point getting an attitude with me, Ethan. I’m just saying Lord Chambers wants to know if you have the jingle. You handed that over to Sarah Kahan, right?’

“Yes,’ I grunt. “I just said that.”

‘Well, you need to find out if she’s finished the jingle. And if she has, she needs to record it and perform it or whatever so Lord Chambers can hear it. Because right now he’s not very happy.’

‘What do you mean he’s not very happy? Do you know how much money we paid him to be able to-‘

‘Ethan,’ he cuts me off, ‘Dude, get it together.’

‘I’ve gotten it together. I’ll call her and find out.’ I say. I hang up on him and take a deep breath. I do not want to contact Sarah. I do not want to talk to her. I’m not in the mood to play games with her this morning. But if I’m honest a small part of me is excited to see her.

I call her number before I can think. She answers on the second ring.

‘Hello?’ She says, sounding groggy.

‘Sarah, is that you? Are you still in bed?’ I practically bark into the phone.

‘Oh, my head. Why are you shouting?’

‘This is your boss, Ethan Rosser.’

‘Yes, sir.’ She says. ‘What do you want?’

‘As I just said, this is your boss. Talk to me with respect.” I don’t know why I’m teasing her.

‘Ooh, sorry, boss.’ She says, groaning. ‘How may I help you?’

‘I need you to-‘

‘If you’re about to ask me to meet you in another storage room to get fucked, no thank you.’

‘You weren’t saying no thank you last night.’

‘That’s because I wasn’t in my right mind.’

‘Seems like you’re not in your right mind a lot.”

‘What do you want, Ethan?’

‘I want to talk to you about your job. The reason why I pay you?’

‘Yes, and?’

‘Have you finished the jingle?’

‘For Lord Chambers, or?’

‘Yeah, for Lord Chambers. He wants to hear it. And before we play it for him, I need to hear it to make sure it’s up to standard.’

‘What, you think I’m just going to produce something that sucks?’

‘I don’t know, Sarah. I don’t know your work ethic, I don’t know if you’re-‘

‘What do you mean you don’t know? You’ve heard me perform stuff, you heard me sing. You said that-‘

‘Not right now, Sarah. See me in my office at 10:00 AM.’

‘Whatever,’ she says, ‘Goodbye.’

I hang up and I smirk as I get into the shower. I’d needled her. I could hear it in her voice. And while it shouldn’t make me happy, I was glad that I still had some effect on her. I was glad that she wasn’t always cool as a cucumber with me. I wonder if she’s thought about me since last night. I wonder if she woke up this morning wishing I was beside her. Unlikely, seeing as it sounded like I’d woken her up. The thought angers me and I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know what I’m thinking. But right now, all I need to focus on is the jingle. And the pendant light range. Once that was resolved, I would focus on the home stores. And maybe I’d take a trip to Japan, meet with some vendors, and get away from everything for a little bit.

I need to get my head on straight. I need to focus on what is important, and that is business. That is making money. That ensured that Rosser International stood long after I was gone.

There’s a knock on my office door, and I look up from my desk.

‘Come in,” I say, my heart racing.

‘It’s me, Mr. Rosser.’ Sarah steps in. There’s a slightly apprehensive look on her face, and I wave her in.

‘Good morning,” I say, looking at my watch. ‘Five minutes late.’

‘Sorry, sir.’ She says, ‘I was just-‘

‘No excuses, Sarah. Come and have a seat. And please, play me the jingle.’

‘Okay, I guess no niceties this morning.’

‘What would you consider a nicety?’ I say as I look over at her face. She’s wearing her thick black glasses again, and her hair is up in a bun. She still looks beautiful, though.

‘You just want me to sing the jangle?’ She says.

‘The jangle, the jingle, whatever you want to call it. I just hope it sounds good.’ I say, leaning back in my chair. She takes a deep breath and grabs her phone. ‘Now’s not the time for texting, Sarah.’

‘I’m not about to text. I recorded a melody to go with the song.’ She says. ‘It’s not like I could bring my keyboard in with me.’

“Touche,’ I say, nodding. ‘Play it.’

‘Well, that’s what I was about to do.’

“Good,’ I say. She just stares at me for a couple of seconds and mumbles something under her breath. ‘What did you say?’ I lean forward, crossing my arms.

‘Nothing.’ She says batting her eyelashes at me and glaring.

‘No, tell me what you said.’

‘I said that I can’t believe that I slept with you. That you’re a douche bag, and a jackass, and I don’t appreciate the way that you-‘

‘The way that I what?’ I say, raising a single eyebrow at her.

‘Nothing.’ She says as her fingers touch the screen of her phone. ‘I found the music if you’re ready.’

‘I’ve been ready,” I say. ‘I’ve been waiting.’

‘I was only five minutes late. Please don’t try and act like I was five hours late.’

‘You would keep me waiting five hours if you knew it wouldn’t get you fired.’

‘No, I wouldn’t.’ She says, though she smiles slightly and I know that’s a lie.

My heart twitches for a second, but I ignore it. ‘I’m waiting.’

‘Fine.’ She says, and presses a button on her phone and closes her eyes. I study her for a couple of seconds as the melody plays. It’s upbeat and fun, and I can already tell that it’s going to be amazing. I don’t know why she doesn’t want to look at me as she sings, but there’s something about observing her in her element that makes my heart soar just a little bit.

‘You want to be a royal?’ She sings. ‘You want to be a royal? Light up the lights, light up your life. Light up your every fantasy. Because if you want to be a royal, get Royal Lights. If you want to be a royal, get Royal Lights. If you want to, you want to, you want to be a royal, get Lord Chamber’s Lights.’

She pauses. Her eyes fly open and she looks at me. She looks apprehensive, and there’s silence in the room as I just stare at her.

‘Is that it?’ I say.

‘Yeah. You don’t like it.’ She scrunches her nose. ‘I’m sorry. I thought it-‘

‘It’s good,’ I say, smiling at her, ‘I think it’s really good. I think Lord Chambers will love it.’

‘You think so?’ Her eyes widen, and she looks happy. Happier than I’ve ever seen her before, and I wish she was smiling that way because of something she felt for me.

I ignore the thought immediately.

‘It’s good. You may or may not have some skill of a songwriter.’ I say, laughing. ‘You’re a good copywriter.’

‘I guess that’s why I work in copywriting.’ She says, laughing.

‘You could be a singer as well. You have a beautiful voice.’

‘You’re just saying that.’ She stares at me for a couple of seconds.

‘I’m not just saying it. You’ve got a nice tone.’

‘Thank you.’ She is silent for a couple of seconds. ‘So what do we do next?’

‘We call Lord Chambers,’ I say, ‘And ask him what he thinks, and if there’s anything he wants to change.’

‘Oh, okay. He gets a say in that?’

‘Not really,” I say, shaking my head. ‘But we make him think he has a say.’

‘Oh,’ she wrinkles her nose. ‘I guess that works.’

‘Trust me,’ I say. ‘Even if he says he wants to change some stuff, he won’t.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, this is how the conversation will go. I’ll say, ‘Hey, this is the jingle. What do you think?’ He’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s amazing. There are just a couple of things I’d like to change. Then I’ll say, ‘Oh, what you want to change? And he’ll say, ‘Can I get back to you in a couple of days?”

She giggles.

‘And I’ll say, ‘Sure, take your time.’ And then I won’t hear from him for a couple of days. And I’ll be like, ‘Hey, do you have those revisions you wanted me to make?’

And he’ll say, ‘Actually, I think it’s pretty good.’

‘And I’ll say, ‘Great.’

‘You don’t know that’s how it’s going to go.’ She says, staring at me.

‘I don’t know that it’s going to go exactly like that, but 95% of the time it goes like this. He’s not a songwriter. He’s not a musician. Any ideas that he has or thinks he has won’t make sense once he thinks them through. This jingle sounds pretty damn good.’ I laugh. ‘Or are we calling it a jangle now?’

‘We can call it whatever you want.’ She says, shaking her head. ‘I’m just glad that you like it.’

‘Did you think I wouldn’t?’

‘I don’t know.’ She says. ‘I mean, things between us are…’

‘Things are what?’ I prod her to continue.

‘I don’t know. I’m just saying that I wasn’t sure if you’d like it or not.’

‘I think it’s great. I think you’re an amazing songwriter. I mean, you’ve got a great voice. I just wouldn’t dance so much, seeing as you’re so clumsy.’

‘I’m not clumsy.’ She glares at me. ‘Trust me.’

‘I’m saying, it seems like you’re kind of clumsy to me.’

‘I’m not.’

‘I’m just saying that it’s a good thing that you’re not a stripper trying to get up and down that pole. Because…” I pause and laugh at the look on her face.

‘Excuse you. If I wanted to be a stripper, I could be.’ She says, glaring at me. ‘In fact, I could be the best stripper in all of the United States if I wanted to be.’

‘I don’t think so,” I say, laughing.

‘I could be. I could work a pole. I’ve got rhythm, I’ve got moves.’ She says. ‘Just because you don’t think I do, Ethan Rosser, doesn’t mean I don’t.’

‘Put your money where your mouth is,” I say.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, if you think you’re so good, prove it.’

‘Prove it how?’

‘Show me.’

‘Show you what?’

‘I think, if you think that you’re that great of a dancer and you can work a pole, I’ll give you $20,000. If you show me a dance on a pole that is worthy of the best strip club in town, that is.’

She stares at me for a few seconds. ‘$20,000?’

‘Yep. No questions asked.’

‘And I don’t have to do anything.’

‘Do anything like what?’ I stare at her innocently. I mean, am I hoping that strip dance will lead to us fucking? Of course. But I’m not going to tell her that.

‘I don’t have to give you a lap dance or do anything kinky?’

‘Nope. You just have to dance. And if I think it’s worthy of 20 grand…’

‘How do I know that you’re going to be fair?”

‘I’ll be honest.’ I put my hands up. “I promise.’

‘Fine,’ She says. ‘I will show you that I’m the best dancer you’ve ever seen.’

‘Really?’ I burst out laughing. ‘The best?’

‘Yes,’ She glares at me. ‘I am fly.’

‘Okie dokie, Sarah. This I got to see.’

‘Well, fine. Come over tonight, 8:00 PM. And bring the 20 grand.’

‘Okay. It seems like you really want that money.’

‘Well,’ she says, ‘You offered it. And you don’t seem to have faith in my dancing skills.’ She jumps up out of the chair and spins around, ‘But I’ll have you know, I’ve been taking classes for the last six months and my teacher says that I am a natural.’

She lifts her leg up and tries to touch her toes with her fingers. She doesn’t quite make it, and I can see the small grimace on her face. This is going to be an interesting evening.

‘And don’t be expecting any funny stuff either, Ethan.’

‘Would I be?’

‘Yeah, you would.’ She says. ‘Remember last night you fucked me in a storage room and-‘

‘And you loved it, don’t even lie.’

‘It was fine.’ She says. ‘Nothing to write home about.’

‘Uh-huh,’ I wink at her. ‘That’s why you were thinking about me all morning, right?” She stands there blushing, and we stare at each other. My heart races, and I realize that being around her makes me feel more alive than I ever have.