An Heir At Any Price: The Billionaire's Obsession - Contemporary Romance (6 page)

Holly,

Tonight I would like to
take you to dinner and the Opera. The dress at the Opera is formal
and I would love it if you’d allow me to help you with that. So,
here is the address of a boutique that you can go to and pick out
whatever you like. The woman there has strict instructions to be
very helpful and accommodating to you. The address just underneath
that one is for a spa. They’re also expecting you. Get whatever
treatments or services you are interested in having. The phone
number is to my driver, if you call him when you’re ready, he will
take you to the boutique and the spa and wherever else you need to
go. Have a lovely day; I will call for you at eight.

Aiden

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.