Page 3 of Consumed By Desire
“I want you to hear me clearly. I would never ask you to dim your light for me, Shannon. I’d rather you burn me under your fury than have you dim yourself in any way for me or anyone else. I don’t know who you have dealt with that has expected that from you, but I will never be one of them. All I am saying is you shouldn’t have to be like that all the time with everyone; it’s okay to find safety and rest in someone. I hope you can find that with someone, Shannon, being on all the time has to be exhausting. Find that person you can be safe to rest with,” I say to her, looking down into her eyes, and they are suspiciously shiny. “I overheard part of the conversation, and I just want you to know that even though you wouldn’t consider me your friend if you need me for anything, I’ll be here,” I tell her quickly, pulling her back to me, my fingers immediately find themselves tunneling through the hair at the base of her head.
“Now I have to go. I’ll see you later, Bella,” I tell her, reluctantly taking my hand out of her hair and pulling my body away from hers. She stumbles a bit from the loss of my body supporting hers, but I catch her, holding her until she finds her footing. The way she looks up at me has me moving without thinking. I lean over and grasp her chin to hold her still as I kiss her softly, gently, until I release her lips and kiss the tip of her nose and forehead before I tell her, “Go back in, Bella.” I watch her walk back into the reception, but she stops at the door to look at me before she disappears in the throng of wedding guests, and I think to myself, this is the first time she did not fight me. I finally go to my car and head home.
LEGEND
“Damn!” I throw the device across the room, taking some satisfaction when it hits the wall and shatters into a million tiny pieces.
“How was that helpful? That was the seventh prototype you destroyed,” Eli, my business partner, says.
“So what? They don’t work anyways,” I say.
“Yeah, but we could work on the prototype instead of starting from scratch.”
“Maybe we should start from scratch. Forget everything we’ve done and begin again,”
“I mean, we can, but that’s a lot of work; however, if that’s what you want to do, we can,” he says, and I can tell from his voice that this is not what he wants to do. Eli and I work as a team. I come up with the idea, and he brings it to life, but for whatever reason, this latest gadget isn’t cooperative; as soon as we fix one part of it, another part fails to work correctly.
“How about we just take a break,” I say. We have been trying to make this newest invention work for a while now, and we needed to step away from the situation. We had just sold one of our gadgets to one of the big home improvement stores, and we hadn’t even taken the time to stop and celebrate. “Let’s go celebrate our newest success.”
“I’m okay with that. Where do you want to go?” Eli asks.
“Let’s go to York,”
“Oh well, if we are big spenders tonight, we better go change,” Eli says as he looks down at his clothes and then over to mine.
“Good point. See you there in ninety minutes.”
Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I make a reservation with their online option after I call for a car to take me to my penthouse to change. Stepping through the door, I released my breath, relaxing now that I was home. Trinitee did an amazing job decorating my home, giving me everything I asked her for and more. She took all my sensory issues and created a home that fits my needs, is functional, and stylish. Thinking about my sister-in-law has a smile slowly creeping across my face. She and my brother went on their honeymoon and returned to both of our parents, hounding them for grandchildren. I am glad I am not in my brother's shoes. They have told our parents several times that they are not ready for children, but that goes in one ear and out the other.
I walk into my bedroom, heading for my bathroom to shower before I get dressed to meet Eli. Ever since I was able to sell the first invention to a huge interior design company, we have had several companies contact us to come to their companies to assess holes in certain areas of their business.
I went from selling my house to live with my parents, then living with my brother, to buying the entire top floor of a skyscraper and having more money than I know what to do with. Kruze looked at my newfound wealth and helped me reinvest some, save some, and spend some, mostly on clothes to look presentable when I talk to the CEOs and COOs.
Tonight, however, I won’t be wearing a suit. I’ll be wearing something a little more casual. After the shower, I slipped on some black slim-fit slacks, a black mulberry silk V-neck shirt, and a three-quarter-length cream and black trench coat. My black Belmont Croc skin leather wingtip combat boots and Roger Dubuis™ Excalibur Pink Gold 45mm Watch rounded off the outfit. I sprayed on my Lalique for Bently Blue Crystal Edition cologne™, checked my reflection, and headed to the restaurant. York is an exclusive restaurant in downtown Chicago where anyone who is anyone can be seen there. There is usually a waitlist for almost a year to get a reservation, but since Eli and I perfected a touchless order and pay system, all we had to do was make our reservation using our custom code, and no matter what, we have a reservation. I settle into the driver's seat of my gunmetal grey Bently Bentayga SUV and head to the restaurant.
As I walk into the restaurant, Aphrodite comes over to tell me Eli is waiting for me and leads me to our table. We walk past the fish tank that goes from the ceiling on the second floor, down the back wall to the bottom of the first floor, and down the spiral staircase to our table along the back wall. The navy blue, gold, and cream décor speaks of money and opulence; the restaurant is so exclusive it is invitation only. I shudder to think of all the zeros in this room right now. You must have at least nine zeros backing your bank account to get an invitation even to eat here. The chef is one of the most exclusive chefs on the planet, and you can eat all manner of exotic meals here, including foie gras, fugu, wagyu beef, and moose cheese. Personally, all I need is an aged tomahawk steak and potatoes, and I am good.
“Eli,”
“Took you long enough,”
“Whatever. Did you order yet?”
“Nope, there has been a change of plans,” he says, showing off all thirty-two pearly whites.
“What happened?” I ask.
“I have a date with Gisele,” he says but doesn’t elaborate, and I don’t push for more. We talk a bit more about the plans for next week before Eli checks his watch and leaves for his date.
I sit longer before I prepare to leave, but a familiar voice stops me.
“Trin, I don’t know what is happening. I saved that deal by the skin of my teeth. He would've backed out if he hadn’t already been locked in. He said something about how he doesn’t like to work with people like me, but when I pressed him on what he meant, he would not explain. I’ve got to get to the bottom of this,” I hear Shannon, who must be on the phone on the other side of my booth. The way these booths are set up against the wall causes the sound to carry, making it easy to overhear her conversation.
“Okay, okay, you’re right. “Okay, I’ll see you then,” she says in response to whatever Trintee says to her on the other end of the phone. “What the fuck is going on?” I hear her say to herself before she gets up from the table. I move from my table, hoping to catch her before she leaves, but she is gone by the time I make it around the wall to her table. I go to the bar to get my customary glass of Macallan Lalique 72 before I go back to my table and order dinner.
“Hey Stan, I need my usual,” I tell him as soon as he comes near me.
“Of course,” he says as he walks in the back to grab the one hundred seventy-thousand-dollar bottle.