Ambition 2: A Dark Billionaire Romance (Driven) (8 page)

"There's a lot of mythical things about gryphons," Patrick replied, "but the reason I have it is because there is something about them that was common regardless of their cultural background. They mate for life."

Mark blinked, then shook his head before putting it in his hands. "I needed to read more classical mythology or something, because I'm getting lost."

"What it means is that Patrick and I have talked, and we've decided to move deeper in terms of our relationship," Tabby said.

"As in?" I asked.

"As in I asked Tabby to marry me, and she said yes," Patrick said.

I've been in a car crash once. I was nine years old, and riding in the back seat of the car while my dad drove me to piano practice when he was sideswiped by a guy who ran a red light in a pickup truck. I wasn't injured, but it did jar the hell out of me.

Patrick's words shocked me just as much. I looked from him to her, then to Mark, then back, my head moving in a sort of weird triangle. "Engaged?"

"Now, don't worry, we're not running off to Vegas like you two," Tabby said, reaching over and taking my hands. "We want to take our time. We haven’t even talked about a date yet. It’s more of just a declaration of us wanting to spend the rest of our lives together. We know its fast, and we know that it sounds strange."

Mark shook his head, and walked over to Tabby. She stood up from her chair, looking up into his eyes. They had bonded nearly as close as Tabby and I had, and they looked at each other for a long time before Mark opened his arms and wrapped her up in a hug. "Okay," he said, her head tucked under his chin like he was protecting his little sister, or his child. In fact, the mother growing inside me could see him doing that with our own daughter some day. "Okay. I love you, and I trust you. Congratulations."

He let go of Tabby, who turned to me while Mark turned to Patrick. "You know this doesn't mean I'm backing off on your training. If anything, I'm going to push you harder."

"Damn right you are," Patrick said. "I've got something more to come home to than just a couch and two goldfish now."

Tabby watched the two men shake hands, then looked at me. "Are you okay with this?" she asked me.

I pulled her into a hug, the woman that was most important in my life. “You’ve never been one to waste time when you want something. The real question is, are you happy?" I whispered in her ear.

"Yes," Tabby said, squeezing me tight. "Maybe I'm greedy or needy or whatever. But I need all three of you in my life."

"Then we'll be there," I said, squeezing tighter. "I love you, Tabby."

"I love you too, Sophie."

I
know
what Mark and Sophie expected of me and Patrick after we declared that we were engaged. After all, I'm supposed to be the hypersexual redhead, the girl that can't wait to get her itch scratched. And considering that I'd already gone over a month since Patrick and I had last had sex, I guess that assumption was a safe one.

But part of what Patrick and I had talked about, the thing that it took a couple of days for us to get used to and talk about, was that Patrick and I discussed the fact that, at least for the first part of our engagement, we wanted to actively avoid sex. It wasn't that we were in a total no-touch scenario, but rather that we were just not actively seeking physical intimacy.

It was the emotional depth we were looking for. It had come to me after Patrick told me about his past with Scott Pressman. I realized that, despite the wonderful side effects of sex, and however much I love it, the two people I was closest to in my life, I'd never had sex with. Sophie was closer to me than anyone else in the world, the yin to my yang, the woman who held more real estate in my heart and soul than I had even known I had. I would die for Sophie, but even more importantly, I lived for her too.

Then there was Mark. If Sophie was my match, Mark was just as much hers. It sounds so fucking weird, but it was true, and there was never any feeling of being shortchanged or jealousy in any of it. Mark was my brother, my mentor, my guide and my advisor. If Sophie was my heart, Mark was my strength. And it was the same with Mark and I. He'd come to me so many times for guidance, second only to Sophie herself. If I was the third wheel of the relationship, I certainly didn't feel like it.

So that was why Patrick and I made a conscious choice, not to have sex for at least a little while. We knew we were a match sexually, we’d already proved that. Nobody had ever satisfied me as much as Patrick had, even though it had been only one night. We'd found something there that was precious, and I wanted it again and again, I knew. But I also wanted more than that, and Patrick agreed with me.

"Tabby, the thing that was most painful to me was that I'd caused you pain," he had said to me while we sat in his apartment. He was about ten minutes from asking me to marry him, and we'd just finished the fighting.

"You didn't do anything intentionally," I said. "Although not telling me about Pressman is your fault."

"For which I’m very sorry," Patrick said, rubbing his jaw.

I smirked and reached over, patting his knee. We were sitting on the poor excuse for his couch, which from what I could tell tripled as his dining room and sometimes bed too. A true bachelor pad. Most people didn't keep a pillow for a couch cushion at least. "I understand, though. But it can't happen again."

"I know. Tabby, my life's an open book to you now. I promise, no more secrets. I'm not saying something might not come up and bite me in the ass, I have a lot of crap in my past, but I promise, no more hiding anything."

Later, we formed our plan. Part of it was to move in together. It sounded weird, sharing a house but not a bed, considering we were engaged.

Mark and Sophie hadn't blinked when I told them, however. Instead, they merely shifted their office into their bedroom, leaving Patrick with a small but adequate place to sleep temporarily. I could’ve just stayed at Patrick’s place until we found our own, but I think we both silently agreed that Zion was leaps and bounds better. “Hey, it's bigger than my living room already," he said when Mark showed him the empty space. "I'm just glad you didn't stick me in the bell tower."

"Can't yet," Mark replied. "Don't trust you with the automatic weapons yet."

Patrick looked sideways at Mark, then just shook his head. It was the sort of thing you got used to around here. Instead, he merely used the paycheck that he wasn't spending from the city to buy a simple twin sized mattress and set it up on the floor. It wasn't much, but it sent the right message. He was willing to wait a long time if need be, but he didn't want to wait forever to be invited to my bed again.

The whirlwind nature, at least to the public, of me and Patrick was probably the biggest side effect we hadn't counted on. I knew I'd gotten in the newspaper a few times. Sure, there were the occasional comments, but I mean, I wasn't a
celebrity
or anything. I didn't go to red carpet events, I didn't try to get on TV or anything like that.

Still, somehow Patrick and I ended up on the front page of the society page and the local politics page more than once over the ensuing months. When we went to a Spartans home game again, there we were, in full color. When Mayor Joe had a fundraising event for one of his favorite charities, Patrick and I had attended not to gain attention, but because I actually liked Joe and his cause was worthwhile. The pledge was because I agreed with him. Yet somehow, it ended up getting more press than Joe's actual speech.

One morning, as the first light snows swirled around the trees that lined the driveway up to Mount Zion, I got in my car to drive to work, and Patrick tapped on my window. "What's up?"

"I just wanted to remind you I'm going to be late tonight," Patrick replied. "Council meeting. I probably won't be home until ten at least."

"I remember. I'll miss having you for dinner," I said. Patrick smiled, and leaned into the car, kissing me quickly. Now, you'd think that two people who had said they weren't going to have sex wouldn't be affectionate at all. Instead, we were more affectionate than ever. We kissed almost constantly, to the point that Sophie had instituted a rule with me that when Patrick and I used the gym at the same time, I had to remain on the other side of the room from him at all times.

After our kiss ended, I smiled up at him. "I look forward to dessert," I told him, rolling up the window and putting my car into gear.

I knew I was distracted as I drove into the city, but when the police flashing lights came on behind me, I was absolutely shocked. I'd never gotten a ticket, and a quick check of my speedometer told me that I was still two miles under the limit. Pulling over, I turned off my engine and waited for the officer.

The guy who came up was your typical police officer, white, clean cut if a bit militaristic in his grooming, and carrying about fifteen to twenty extra pounds under his body armor. "Good morning officer, how can I help you?"

"License, registration and proof of insurance please," the cop stonily replied.

"Of course," I said, "it's in my purse, is that okay?" I was worried he was going to think I had a gun in there or something, even though it was a small purse.

He nodded, and I took out my license and car insurance card. The registration was in a little document holder clipped to my sun shade, so I got that out too. "Here you are."

He leaned in, and sniffed the air. "Ma'am, I'm detecting the smell of alcohol in your vehicle. Have you been drinking?"

So it was going to be like that then. "No, officer. It's not even nine in the morning. I'll be happy to take a breath test if you like."

What proceeded was perhaps the biggest jerk off job I've ever seen. His device, which curiously powered up just fine, didn't get a reading at all, and kept giving him an error message. When I offered to do a field sobriety test, in full view of his dash cam of course, he stated that the conditions were unsafe for doing so, as apparently a tenth of an inch of snow gusting around by the wind was too dangerous to let me walk in a straight line. I wasn't even wearing high heels, those being in the passenger seat of my car. I drove in running shoes.

I knew better than to reach for my phone to call anyone, or to try and make a scene. I might have been a local media attraction, and I might have been dating the best looking member of the City Council, but that didn't mean I couldn't catch an old fashioned police beatdown if the cop wanted to. Instead I waited the extra forty five minutes while another cruiser was brought in, and a police Sergeant got out. He had his dog with him, and I inwardly groaned.

Of course, as you'd expect, Rover started barking like hell and nearly pissing himself as soon as he got within sniffing distance of my car. "Open the trunk, ma'am," Sergeant Super-Cop said. "This is not a request."

"I understand," I said, keeping my temper in check as I shivered in the cold. I hadn't worn a jacket, and I was damn near freezing. "Just, do you mind if I call my house? I'm really cold, and they can bring me a jacket or something."

"Sorry, no phone calls," the first cop said. At least he said sorry.

My trunk was empty except for some dry cleaning that I didn't get out of the trunk the day before. Still, it was nearly another hour before the two cops decided that they'd hassled me enough. The first cop wrote out a warning for, quote, 'not approaching a red light at an acceptable level of caution' and let me on my way. As soon as I was in the office, Vanessa looked at me questioningly. "I was beginning to wonder if something happened to you, Tabby."

She'd gotten a lot better at calling me Tabby in the past few months. "Yeah, something did. Two of our local cops decided it was time to play screw around with the local supposedly anti-Union business leader," I grumbled. "Tell me, what am I late for?"

"Nothing I couldn't handle," Vanessa replied. "The general contractor dropped off a cost update of next month's renovations on the first center, and wanted the check for him to distribute out. I cut him a check, sorry I had to use your autopen."

"No problem, I trust you," I said, distracted. Vanessa did have access to one of the public MJT checking accounts for specifically purposes like this, where she could make online payments for different things. She rarely used it since we kept the level relatively low, mainly for accounting purposes. "Anything else?"

"Gene from the Spartans called, but he said he'll be out of the office for the rest of the day. They're in the playoff hunt you know, and I think he wanted to offer you and Patrick first dibs on playoff tickets if they get a home game."

"Okay, thanks. I'll try and reply. If I can get a box, you want to go? You know you and your... Vanessa, I have to apologize," I said in wonderment as the fact hit me. "I don't know what your social life is like at all."

"I've got a husband and ten year old boy," Vanessa said with a smile. "If you're offering, I'd love to come. Although I have to warn you about my son. He's got a crush on you."

"Isn't he a little young for that sort of thing?" I asked, amused and flattered.

"He's mature for his age. We're thinking of getting him a razor as a stocking stuffer for Christmas this year," she said. "I'm just saying, if he gives you the puppy dog eyes, you'll know why."

I shook my head in amazement. "Ten year old boys need to be fantasizing about Katy Perry or something, not me."

Vanessa laughed. “Oh what about your house staff? You know I've been working for you all this time and I've never met them?"

"I'll see. Joanna is getting a lot closer to delivery. If things go according to schedule, we're going to have a new baby in the house by Super Bowl time. But I can ask."

"Thanks. I've talked with her on the phone a few times, she sounds quite nice."

I smiled, thinking of my Sophie. "She is. By the way, any word from the attorney?"

"Not yet."

I sighed, my only sign of frustration since getting in. The Squid had been doing his job, using private investigators and delaying tactics to wear out Scott Pressman. If it had been just him or his family, he should have folded up by that point. Instead, his legal team was nearly as sharp as he was, counter filing motions and things constantly. I'd already had two depositions, and hated them both.

The evidence was clear, Scott Pressman was being backed by the Union. It was our best opportunity of busting him open. If we could make a connection between Scott Pressman and the Union, Mark had enough dirt on Pressman to tie him to the now defunct Confederation. There was no way that Berkobitch would want that to come out in the papers.

"All right, thanks. Let me get to work, and try and make up for some lost time. Patrick’s got a council meeting tonight, so I should be able to catch up.”