The Science Of Love: A Billionaire BWWM Romance (6 page)

Jada
walked into the bathroom and looked at her natural hair. Should she
get it done for Saturday? She liked keeping it natural and smooth.
Maybe she would get it braided. She remembered David looking at her
hair in fascination the last time they were together, but she had it
much shorter at the time for college, not the thickness it was now.
Yes, getting it braided might be the right thing to do.

David
lay on the couch in his condo and thought about Jada. He had been
with a few women over the years, but she was always in his mind. Even
the ones he’d dated didn’t stay around very long because
they were always being compared to his image of Jada. It wasn’t
a question of wanting to see her again; he desperately needed to be
with her. How could he let her know how much she had meant to him all
those years ago? So much had happened in the meantime, but he didn’t
care. When she had walked those girls out of the studio and he saw
her, it was as if the clouds had parted. He felt his palms grow
sweaty. The old anxiety was returning, making him nervous beyond all
understanding. He feared it would destroy him, making his attempts to
woo her feeble. Even with all the money he and his company were
worth, one disappointing look from her would destroy him.

Jada was
ready Saturday night and looked up the location of the restaurant on
line. It was in the city, near a very swanky part of town. She
checked her bank account and made sure she had the money needed to
get her there and pay the parking ticket. She expected David would
foot the bill, he seemed traditional enough in that respect and he
had no money troubles as far as she could tell.

She
checked out her outfit and liked what she saw. It was a tight dress
which showed off her cleavage to anyone who wanted to check it out.
She’d bought it on a whim last year and had saved it for the
right occasion. It fit her dancer’s body to perfection. She
liked the way the color set her off. It was just enough red to draw
some attention, but not too much. Her make-up might need a little
fixing, but the rest of her face was in order. She picked up her
purse and went downstairs to catch the cab she had called to take her
to the restaurant. She didn’t want to risk parking downtown and
a cab was a good alternative. It might be a little on the expensive
side, but this was an important date. In some ways it was a reunion.

David
had the valet park his SUV and went in to see the hostess. She asked
if he wanted his usual seat and he told her no he was expecting a
female friend and could they put them some place a little more
private. She found a small table in the back of the restaurant which
overlooked the river and he thanked her. Now all he had to do was
wait for Jada.

While he
waited for her, David checked his cell phone for any important
messages. There were none he needed to attend to right away. The
email was routine and could be dealt with in the morning. He thumbed
his tie and hoped the knot in it was going to look good. He had
learned to tie a Windsor knot years ago, but didn’t do it
enough to remember how. This evening he’d actually gone on line
to find some instructions on how to tie one. He checked his
reflection in the window glass and felt a little bit of confidence.
He’d put on some weight since his college days by eating
irregularly, but not too much. David had avoided the late night pizza
and junk food diet which had plagued so many of his colleges.

“
Hello,
David,” he heard Jada say as he stood up to greet her. She
walked up to David and gave him a hug. He stood back and took her in.
If Jada had appeared to be an angel when she emerged from the dance
studio, she now looked like a goddess. He felt lucky enough to bask
in her radiance.

He
walked around and pulled the chair out for her, just as his mother
had taught him and pushed it in as she sat down. David returned to
his chair and asked her how she was.

“
It’s
been a tough week,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of
classes to teach and I’m still taking one or two of the courses
I need to get into a program at the college.”

“
So
you went back to school?” he asked her. “I know you left
when your father died.”

“
Yes,”
she told him, sipping her water from the glass in front of her. “I
finished my teaching degree down in Mississippi at the state college
so I could help my mother.”

“
Good
to hear,” he told her. “And how is your mother?”

“
Passed
away three years ago,” she told him. “It’s why I
came to Pittsburgh. Sold my parents’ house and used the money
to start over up here.”

They
talked for the evening on what each had done in the years since they
had seen the other last time. Jada talked about her hopes to obtain
an advanced degree in physics and do research at some prestigious
institute, such as Argonne near Chicago. She talked about her dance
classes and the difference between teaching younger girls and high
school science students. David talked about the years he had spent in
the corporate world and what made him decide to launch his own
company. He talked about the success he’d had with the on line
dating service. She’d heard about it on the Internet and was
curious how well it was working out for him. He told her better than
he ever could have imagined, but it could all fail tomorrow, such was
the validity of the Internet. She still wanted to hear more about it.

The food
was good. David had picked an excellent restaurant and the lighting
around them was soft. He didn’t tell her that it had the
reputation as the number one restaurant in the city for seduction. It
was rumored to promise “her clothes off by midnight or your
money back”. She did like it, he could tell. He loved the way
she had braided her hair for the evening and wanted to ask her about
it, but thought it might not be a good idea. He had heard black women
were very sensitive about their hair and woe be to any man who
touched on the subject without adequate preparation.

“
Do
you still play Go?” he asked her. “I remember you
teaching me all those years ago. I don’t think I’ve
played a single game since the day you left.”

“
I
still do,” she said, taking a bite out of her meal. “But
mostly on line. I just don’t have the time to go to any of the
clubs around here. And they have funny hours when they’re open.
I have been a few times and it was fun seeing the reaction on the
faces of the older men when I sat down to the board. I don’t
think any of them had ever played a black woman before.”

Dessert
came and David ordered a cherry pie. Jada was practical and had some
vanilla ice cream. David admired her nails and wondered how women
could keep the manicure with a regular job. It had to have something
to do with all the nail parlors he saw. There was one on every corner
these days. Must be a growth industry. There was a lot of discussion
at the board meetings which direction to go, could these nail parlors
use software devoted to just their needs? Health and beauty care
seemed to be an area which could use more support than it was
getting. What color underwear did she have on? Would he get to know
this evening? All David wanted to do was touch her. Just one touch to
make sure she was real and not some kind of cosmic trick being played
on him. Several times other men had walked by and slowed down to
check out Jada with admiring looks. What did they think of him? He’d
seen a few of the waitresses make a double turn when they saw them
together. Did they recognize him, or were they impressed he was out
with Jada. He might be worth a whole lot more than her, but David
felt vastly inferior to her.

The fear
was killing him. They were keeping the conversation casual, but all
he could see in his mind was her in his bed as he woke in the
morning. He didn’t have a fancy bed, but it had good latex foam
supports in it. Someone had told him they were the best kinds of
mattresses to use for sex. He had just bought the condo last month
when he’d relocated the company to Pittsburgh. In his mind he’d
bought the condo for Jada, even though he couldn’t locate her.
David was slowly realizing everything he’d done over the past
ten years was to please a woman he didn’t think he would ever
see again.

And yet
here she was in front of him. The one thing he thought he could never
have and yet had worked so hard to obtain for years. Did she
understand he’d do anything just to have a brief moment with
her? He had worshiped her so long from afar that it was an
anticlimactic event taking Jada out to dinner. In the ancient Roman
and Greek tales the gods sometimes came to earth from Mount Olympus
and walked among the mortals. Jada was his own personal Venus
Celestas, the goddess of love and seduction.

Jada
enjoyed the evening she was spending with him and yet she felt there
was something she was missing in the conversation she was having with
David. He continued to stare at her through the evening and wouldn’t
take his eyes off her. She was used to having men look at her from a
distance and found it a little annoying. One day a construction
worker had followed her down a block calling after her, wanting to
know if she had a boyfriend. She avoided the oafs who leered at her
from cars and buses, but it was not unusual to be viewed as a hunk of
meat by the men at malls too. Soon after arriving in Pittsburgh, she
had been enjoying some small talk with a young man at an electronics
store when a girl walked in, grabbed the man she had been talking to
by the hand and pulled him out of the store.

She
tried to decide if David was going to ask her home. Although Jada
played it safe, she hadn’t been on the pill in the past few
months. She never did like taking it; the pill made her cranky and
messed up her other cycles as well. Her doctor had tried to find her
a prescription which would work for her, but nothing seemed to be
right. The last man she had slept with was six months ago and he was
the father of one of the little girls she taught at the studio. The
man claimed he was going through a divorce and was quite the charmer,
but the wife who came by to pick the little girl up one day didn’t
seem to be divorcing. All she could talk about was her and her
husband’s upcoming trip to Europe. Jada had avoided the man
ever since.

“
I
have a Go board at home,” David told her. It was true; the
board was the first thing he’d bought after meeting Jada again
at the dance studio. There was a large coffee table in his condo
living room left there when he moved in, but he’d replaced it
the next day with a low oriental style table. He’s also bought
some cushions to go around it. The cases for the black and white
stones were on the table. He imagined her in the tight dance leotard,
sitting on the cushion, staring at her pieces thinking what to do
next. He’d put up a good fight, he didn’t want her to
think he was deliberately trying to lose to her, but he did want her
to win. He hadn’t told Jada, but he’d been taking Go
lessons when he could from a ranked champion in Ohio and now
Pittsburgh. He had known at some point, he would meet her again and
he wanted to be ready. He would watch her set him up for the final
blow, then slip out of her envelopment. They would play long into the
night and he’d tell her she didn’t have to leave if she
didn’t want to. He’d offer to sleep on the couch and give
her the bedroom. But she would say no, the bedroom belongs to you,
but I’d like very much to sleep with you…

“
David?”
she said and snapped him back to reality.

“
Oh,
I’m sorry, Jada,” he said to her, “I was just
thinking about something. So much to do with the company.”

“
I
can only imagine what you must be going through,” she said to
him.

She saw
and knew the look. He was addicted to her. It had happened before
with a few other men and she’d had to cut them off. For some
reason, her combination of features and skin tone just mesmerized men
of all races. But she was holding out for something better than she
might get from a weekend lothario. Jada wanted someone who could give
her a decent life. She had grown up in a small house in the delta
without central heating and wanted something better. Enough of the
screen doors and fly paper. She was going to be a research scientist
at a place where she would help change the future. Lately, she had
been reading about the advances in battery technology, there would be
a place to apply her talents.

The
waitress came with the check and David paid it without hesitation. He
felt it was a case of now or never. David desperately wanted to wake
up next to her in the morning and was ready to do anything to
convince her to go home with him. But he worried that if he appeared
desperate, she would sense his weakness. And he was not a weak man.
He had stood firm with several of the investors in his company early
on when there was doubt about the financing to acquire some of the
rival dating sites. He’d been right then just as he was right
now. He needed the woman who could compliment his drive to become an
internet sensation; he needed someone who could inspire him each and
every day. And he needed Jada.

He moved
Jada’s chair out for her and took her hand as they walked
through the restaurant and to the lobby. Jada wanted him to ask her
out again. She was fond of him. David had done so well for himself
over the years, unlike so many people she’d known. She’d
never believed in a “Mr. Right” or even a “Mr. Good
Enough”, but sometimes it was best to check your options. He
had taken her hand without even asking and she liked his forwardness.
He wasn’t over-weight, but he wasn’t skinny either. He
had a nice profile, she had to admit.