Hard Love: A Bad Boy Fighter Romance (11 page)

“Just go on the date,”
Jessica sighed. She turned back around to run her fingers through her shiny
brown hair, now at cute shoulder length, before turning back to face Alyssa.
She grinned. “Cute, right?” Jessica did a playful little flip of her hair
before chuckling at her own silliness. She walked over to Alyssa and patted her
hand. “Really though, that do you have to lose? Just go and have a good time!”

“It just doesn't make sense,”
Alyssa sighed. She was still hesitant in accepting Philip’s invitation to dine
with him. She thought it was odd that out of all the women at the gala he had
set his sights on her. She had only been there because her boss was a special
guest due to his latest project.

She didn’t belong there and
felt it more and more every minute she stayed there. More than that, she didn’t
even know how she should dress for the date if she were to accept it. Even her
gown for the gala had been a rental.

Jessica sighed dramatically
and made a show of rolling her eyes.

“You're always so full of
doubt and then you complain your life is dull. Take some risks, Alyssa, and
you'll see your life will be a lot more exciting. I'm not going to keep insisting.
If you don't want to go, then shoot him down.” Jessica looked at Alyssa before
turning on her heel and walking out of the bedroom.

Alyssa exhaled and looked up
at the ceiling as if she would find the perfect answer written up there, but it
was just as white and plain as always. She hopped off the dresser to follow
Jessica into the living room. Her friend was right. She needed to make a choice
and move on. Talking about it endlessly wouldn’t change the fact that she
either had to say yes or no.

She saw Jessica playing on
her phone when she walked into the living room. Just as she was about to open
up her mouth to bring up the Philip debate again she decided against it.
 
Alyssa could already tell her friend was
getting annoyed, so she thought it best to just let it go. She sat next to
Jessica and pulled out her own phone but realized there wasn’t really anything
she wanted to check. She sighed.

“I have to go,” Jessica said
suddenly as she stood up and snatched her bag from the coffee table. Alyssa
peered at her.

“Okay,” she said sounding and
looking confused. It was strange that Jessica had just suddenly decided to
leave, but Alyssa wasn’t going to question her about it.

She watched as Jessica walked
out the door and then leaned her head back against the couch.

“Philip,” she mumbled. She
thought that if she was debating it so much maybe a part of her was at least
curious to have dinner with him. After all, it wasn’t every day she had a
social call with an extremely wealthy and well-known man. She was curious to
know how he carried himself and to see how he was treated by others.

She was certain few people
went about life the way he did, but it wasn’t something she had every witnessed
on a personal level. She wondered if they would talk enough over dinner for her
to get to know the side of Philip that was never portrayed by newspaper and
magazine interviews. He wasn’t exactly a celebrity, but his name was quite well
known.

She unlocked her cell phone
and stared at her screen before opening up her contacts. There was his number,
stored but not labeled. She tapped on it and pressed the phone to her ear to
hear the ringing until his deep voice came on the other end.

“Hello?” Alyssa curled her
fingers inward as she felt her heart race. Calling him was a lot more nerve
wracking than she would have imagined.

“Philip,” she said in an
unsteady voice, “This is Alyssa. Alyssa McConnell, we met at-”

“The gala. Yes, of course I
remember. I did ask you out to dinner so one would hope I would recall who you
are.”

Alyssa felt like she had been
slapped in the face. He was so forward. She hadn’t expected him to bluntly
state his proposition, if he brought it up at all. The way he said things came
so easily that it threw her off. She had never spoken to anybody who spoke with
such ease, no matter the subject.

“Right,” she muttered with an
awkward chuckle.

“What can I do for you,
Alyssa?”

She heard background noise
that sounded as if he were standing outside or walking down a busy street.
Something inside her resisted the urge to tell him, but she had made the call
and so it was time to decided. She didn’t want to chicken out no matter how
fast her pulse was at that moment. She was just glad to already be sitting
down.

“I was calling you to, uh,
well,” she paused and took a deep breath. She felt so silly sputtering and
stalling. “I would like to accept your dinner invitation.”

Philip chuckled and Alyssa
felt her cheeks grow hot in embarrassment. Thank god she was on the phone. It
had been hard enough for her to actually call him and accept without having him
laugh at her.

“You make it sound so formal,
Alyssa. This isn’t a business dinner, you know.”

She calmed down a bit and
realized she had indeed made it sound like a business formal event when, in reality,
he had essentially asked her out on a date. At least she had assumed it was a
date. She felt panic well up inside her once again so she started to rush the
conversation.

She forced a chuckle and
responded, “Right. We can schedule it later, then?”

“Why later if I have you on
the phone right now?”

Alyssa clamped her mouth shut
and puffed out her cheeks. He had a point. She just wanted to hastily get off
the phone since she was being nonsensical.

“Right,” she said, but didn’t
say anything more, not even giving an indication of when would be a good night
to get together for dinner.

“Are you available Wednesday
evening?”

She could tell he was
carefully prodding her in the right direction. It was as if he could sense how
much trouble she was having just speaking to him and was finding a way to steer
the conversation without being pushy. Gentle guidance in conversation was practically
an art form and she catalogued it in her mind as something she liked about him.
That was a good start. Then she thought about the actual question he had asked.

“Yes,” she said slowly.

“Are you sure?” he asked
quickly.

Even from a one syllable word
he noticed how unsure she felt. Most people didn’t pay that much attention,
even if an entire speech was prepared. Alyssa wondered if he was always so
perceptive or if it was just part of his game he played with woman.

Because her suspicion had not
died down and she knew it wouldn’t even after having dinner with him. She would
be wondering for a while why he liked her enough to actually ask her out to
dinner. She started to feel the panic well up again, only this time she managed
to fight it off a little.

“Yes, I’m sure.”
  

“Great,” he shot back. She
could picture him smiling on the other end of the phone. She remembered the way
his smile looked when they met at the gala and she was thankful, yet again,
that she was already sitting, she was sure her knees would have felt quite
wobbly if she hadn’t been.
 

They agreed on deciding a
time and place closer to Wednesday and he bid her a good night before ending
the call. Alyssa sat on her catch staring at her phone in the palm of her hand
until the screen faded to black after a few minutes had passed. She had really
just accepted a date with Philip Walton, a well-known billionaire belonging to
the socioeconomic elite. That was when the panic hit her even harder than
before. She hurriedly called Jessica only to have her call forwarded to
voicemail.

“
No
dammit!” she whined before calling her again. It wasn’t until
the third call that Jessica actually answered.

“Is everything okay?” she
asked. Alyssa could tell her friend had stepped out of wherever she was to take
the call. She started to feel guilty about interrupting her when it wasn’t
really a pressing or time sensitive matter.

“Um,” Alyssa responded before
letting out a long breath. “Yes, sorry. I shouldn’t have interrupted you like
that.”

“Well, you did, so now you
tell me why you were calling like crazy,” Jessica told her bluntly. Alyssa knew
her friend well enough to know she was probably a bit annoyed. “Did he ask you
on a
date
?”

“Yea.”

Jessica sighed. “This is
really why you’re calling me?” She was definitely annoyed and Alyssa couldn’t
blame her.

“I accepted,” she said in a
hurry so her friend wouldn’t think she was still debating back and forth like
she had been earlier. She wanted Jessica to know she was now confused on what
exactly she had agreed to. She wanted the panic that had bubbled up inside her
to go away.
 

“You did?” Jessica sounded
genuinely shocked.

“Yes,” Alyssa replied. “But
now I don't know if he asked me out on a date or just, I don't know, dinner.”

Jessica laughed. It was a bit
mocking, but it didn’t bother Alyssa. In fact, that was something she would
have expected from her. “Of course he’s asking you on a date, woman. There's no
doubt in my mind about that.”

Alyssa wanted to ask how and
why she was so sure. She wanted Jessica to explain the logic to her and even
give her evidence based off something Philip might have said or done, but she
knew it was unreasonable.

 
She had already taken away enough of Jessica’s
time and had gotten her answer. She needed to let it go. Not everything needed
to be answered, at least not right away.

“Okay,” she responded before
ending the call with a sigh. She knew she shouldn’t need the constant
reassurance from her friend, but the whole thing sent her emotions whirling
inside her. She was nervous, excited, and scared; all bundled up into one giant
emotion.

Whatever was to happen, she
knew it would be interesting.

Alyssa walked into her
bedroom and went straight for her closet. As she looked through her clothes she
knew it was pointless. She wouldn’t find anything in there that she thought was
good enough to go on a date with a billionaire.

She found herself wishing
they had already decided on a place so she could look it up and figure out what
sort of outfit she needed to wear. As she closed her closet door and sat down
at the edge of her bed she wondered briefly if she was placing too much
emphasis on what to wear. He had met her at the gala and might have assumed she
was wealthy. Then again, she wondered if he would be the type to judge her for
not being wealthy and owning the kind of clothing she wore at the gala.
 

There was really nothing in
her closet she wanted to or felt comfortable wearing for her first date with a
man like him. She slumped down on her bed and pouted as she wished she could
invite Jessica over. But she was also aware it would have been selfish and
imprudent to call her friend, yet again. Then on top of that, to ask her to
dump whatever she was doing to run to her aid would be more than annoying to
her friend.

 
Maybe she was getting ahead of herself or
placing too much emphasis on the clothing. Maybe it didn’t need to matter all
that much.

Alyssa flopped back on the
bed and stared at her ceiling. It was as plain and as white as ever. Just like
before. There was no perfect answer written across it.

This was something she needed
to figure it on her own. After all, the key was for her to treat this date like
she would any other. But every time she thought about who she was going on a
date with, she found it impossible. It seemed unfathomable that she would be
meeting with
the
Philip Walton, so
how was she supposed to treat it like any other date? If she was nervous before
any date how could she not be in a near panic for this one? Now that Jessica
had indeed confirmed it was a date she was going on, Alyssa felt her stomach
knot into a jumbled mess whenever she thought too much on the implications of
that word.
Date.

It Monday afternoon when
Alyssa felt her phone vibrate on her desk, but she was too busy to look at who
was calling, much less was she able to actually answer the call. It wasn’t
until she was packing up and getting ready to leave the office that she saw a
new voice message from none other than Philip.

 
Her stomach squeezed and she felt the panic
shoot straight up her throat. As Wednesday night approached she got more and
more anxious. And now that he was calling her it all suddenly felt a bit too
real
despite how incredibly
surreal
it all was.

 
Alyssa lifted her phone to her ear, her hand
trembling slightly. She shut her eyes and took a few deep breaths. She hated
that she got that nervous about the date even just by thinking about it. She
hated the effect this all had on her since it wasn’t in her nature to behave
that way.

“He’s not above me just
because he has money,” she had told Jessica in the morning before leaving to
work. She couldn’t stand the fact that she was behaving as if Philip were above
her because of his status. Alyssa was a woman with a lot of self-worth and
self-confidence, but something about Philip shook all that up and rocked her at
her core.

Alyssa listened to the voice
mail. He was charming and friendly. Speaking came easily to him and he got
straight to the point without coming off as being too blunt or rushed. She
wondered how he managed all that and even showed it through something like a
voice message. It made her a bit anxious to think she would be the awkward one
at the table when they had dinner on Wednesday night.

Since he had asked her to
call him back and she very much wanted to know where they would be going in
order to prepare for it, she called him back right away.

“Sorry I missed your call,”
she blurted out as soon as he answered the phone. “I had a busy day at work.”

“Not a problem,
Alyssa
.”

He emphasized her name as if
to point out to her she had failed to announce who she was before babbling her
excuse. She felt like a helpless case of a woman with Philip and it only made
the anger she felt about that bubble up to the surface. But she was prudent
enough not to take it out on him. After all, it wasn’t his fault she was
crumbling in his presence or even just the thought of his presence.

“Right,” she told him feeling
the shame crawl over her body. If she was like this over the phone she didn’t
want to think of how she would behave with him on their date. “How are you?”

“Great,” he said and she
could sense the words
‘now that I’m
talking to you’
hanging off his lips, but he didn’t say them.

She could imagine him smiling
and she felt her knees wobble a little more. Holding on to the back of her desk
chair she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She needed to have better
self-control. She wanted to stop wondering why she could already picture his
face as they spoke on the phone or ‘sense’ something he wanted to say.

“How was your day? I hope not
bad despite how busy it was.”

“Not at all,” she responded
as coolly as possible. She wanted to practice speaking to him now on the phone
as preparation for their date. She cringed.
“Why
do I have to practice talking to him?”
she wondered. It was all rather
unrefined.

“Was there a specific reason
you called, Philip? You didn’t say in your message.”

“Oh, yes,” he responded.

His tone had changed slightly
and she suddenly fell into a panic. Had she been a bit too harsh? Did she make
him feel like she was cutting him off or didn’t have much interest in speaking
to him? She didn’t want him to think she was rude. She hadn’t meant to sound
like she was pressed for time or ready to get the conversation out of the way.
She was only curious about the reason for his call.

“I know this lovely place
with a great view of the city. Are you particular about where you eat or what
kind of food?”

“No,” Alyssa told him
honestly. She was open about to all kinds of food and had a wide variety of
tastes. But not knowing meant she couldn’t look the place up online for a
better idea of how to dress. She would have to go into it blind and she
definitely didn’t want to do that.
 

“Excellent,” he answered with
clear excitement in his voice. “I can have a driver by to pick you up at 7:15p,
will that work for you?”

Alyssa’s mouth went dry. Her
tongue felt like sandpaper and she couldn’t say anything for a brief moment.
A driver
? It wasn’t as if it would be
her first time being picked up and taken by a driver, but it was a rather odd
feeling with it being from her date.

She was unsure if she should
readily agree or decline it. Either way could be perceived as rude. Her mind
was a mess of thoughts and she couldn’t sort them out. She wanted to take the
driver so she decided to go for it since he offered. She needed to stop
worrying so much about how she came off.

“Um,” she said, “Sure.”

“If not, I can set up-”

“Oh,” she interrupted him.
She cleared her throat being all too aware she had cut him off mid-sentence.
“Oh, it’s not that. I just wasn’t expecting you to send a driver.”

“I see,” he said. “Well, it
would be no problem at all. I’d be glad to send him and he knows exactly the
location of the restaurant.”

“Right,” she said slowly.
“7:15pm will be a great time”.

She wanted to sound
enthusiastic without going over the top, but ended up a bit flat. The call
ended and she shakily slid down to sit on her desk chair. She held onto the
edge of her desk and looked at the wall across from her.

Now it was real.

The time and place had been
sent. He was even sending a driver to pick her up. And she still had no idea
what to wear.

“Jessica,” she muttered as
she grabbed her phone off the surface of her desk and quickly typed out a text
message.

“Take me shopping,” she
muttered.