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She saw the envelope on the night table and almost reached out for it, taking deep breaths to tell herself she shouldn’t, but that $1000 would help her greatly. Then Mikaela shook her head, allowing herself to feel such intense anger for him, that if he were to walk through the door, she could throw every expensive thing in his house at him and she wouldn’t feel the least bit guilty about it.
Mikaela had never felt this much anger for anyone in years and she didn’t want to see him, ever again.
Chapter4
It was six in the morning and his chin was resting on his hand as he looked on at Mikaela through the closed-circuit cameras he had installed months back. He saw her get up, looking a bit confused, then she moved about in the apartment, presumably looking for him. He smiled to himself when she walked into the kitchen, her mouth open, calling out for his name. Yes, that’s right, keep looking, he thought, as she walked around half-naked.
As the minutes ticked by, that was when she realized she was alone. He saw her lean down for the night table and he saw that she had seen the envelope. She picked it up and opened it, then she put it back down again. What? She was too good for the thousand dollars or something? It seemed like she needed it and he was doing her a favor.
Well, that was quite rude, wasn’t it? She didn’t even hold the envelope again. And that was when she called him, he could see her frantic movements when he didn’t answer her. He had left it at that. A thought formed in his head as he looked at his phone’s screen and her name blinked every second it rang. Mikaela called him three times to no avail. He would never answer her.
He saw her dress as fast as she could, and was disappointed as he had wanted to see more of her perky behind. He did really like holding it last night. Plus her breasts were just the right size, not too enormous for his taste. Everything in moderation, except for when it came to successful business dealings and some sex-related pleasure.
He couldn’t bear to keep having sex with someone he didn’t like in the least. It could be in the way she looked, or how educated she was, but mostly it was in the way that she looked and the way she spoke. Mikaela fit that. While she wasn’t a ravishing brunette, he found her appealing in her own, unpretentious manner. It was something quite refreshing to be with, even just for a night. But he didn’t want to be just for a night. He enjoyed the sex a lot. That was the plan that had begun to form in his mind earlier as he watched her move about.
She didn’t even steal anything and that penthouse was filled with expensive things. Even the sheets went beyond $500, but she didn’t take anything. It surprised him, actually. She had been honest about her job, and while being a barista paid satisfactorily, it wouldn’t support her dreams, whatever those were. He could tell she wanted something in her life but she just couldn’t get a hold of, yet. There was also this air of secrecy in her, even if she had been quite honest with him the first night they met. She was naïve, which was one thing about her. And he found her smart, yet stupid, which was perfect for the idea brewing in his mind.
Speaking of brewing, he wanted coffee, and he thought about Uncommon Grounds, but it would be in distaste if he went there to look for her, although he did want to tease her, and see the look on her face. Perhaps he was childish, after all. He did like to tease certain women, just to see how they would react to his whims and caprices.
There was still the child in him, and his mother did say he shouldn’t let this part go. Being a serious adult was part of his life though, because it was called for by his position. He was no Silicon Valley billionaire, and his offices weren’t that much fun either. Even his own office wasn’t filled with quirks any rich man could fill easily. His father had been a man who loved to laugh, while he wasn’t. He did miss his father who had been his solid rock and source of support, but he would never admit this to anyone. No one would want a CEO with weepy backstories. Everyone liked the enigma of Justin Henderson, and magazines and blogs, newspapers and mouths loved to make stories or heighten the stories surrounding him.
He wanted to toy with that fact, which was why he had come up with that idea in the first place. Everyone expected Justin Henderson to date this type of woman, a woman that fit into his mold. Someone that was educated, well-traveled, or someone whose face could grace magazines every month and no one would get tired of it. He didn’t want that, actually. But he wouldn’t pass on a pretty face, maybe date her a couple of times and have sex with her, if she wanted to, which was always the case. They all wanted him.
And suddenly, he wanted her, he wanted her to be his. He hadn’t known there was this part of him that existed, someone that went selfish, purely for physical reasons. He couldn’t date her out in the open yet. She wasn’t “Justin Henderson Material.” But it would make for an interesting tabloid story, wouldn’t it?
He chided himself for this thought. People weren’t dispensable, they weren’t objects, but he couldn’t help but want her all to himself. Purely for sex. She wasn’t a hooker now, was she? Perhaps he would have her investigated, maybe she was moonlighting as one and he didn’t know about it. She was a competent barista, and more than competent in bed. Didn’t that mean something?
No one was that good in bed, he thought, as he felt himself grow hard again. The footage showed she had left fifteen minutes after she went around his house. He was glad he didn’t bring her to his main apartment. If she had thought he only brought girls here, he was right. It was meant for that. His exes lived in their own apartments, and if he was momentarily single, it was the perfect place to bring women to. That way, they wouldn’t feel too trashy and he wouldn’t feel too concerned about how they felt. Justin did wonder how she felt, but the empathy was only in passing.
He switched off the monitor feed and stood up, still comfortable in his pajamas, in the confines of his home. It was a luxurious house, with a one hundred eighty-degree view of the Californian coastline. The room had six bedrooms, but it stayed mostly empty at least five months a year. His quiet, large house also had a professionally-equipped gym and a theater with movie-style seating, which could fit up to twelve people.
The family room had a view of the twenty-five meter infinity edge pool that seemed to cascade into the ocean. While he wasn’t too fond of pool parties, he still had those once in a blue moon for society’s sake, or if his adolescent sisters wanted to jettison their friends to California for a private retreat.
He didn’t bring his exes here that much, he was a bit selfish about the place and wanted it all to himself. So what he did was check in to every five-star hotel possible, or bring those exes to the penthouse if they wanted some peace and quiet, away from public eyes.
After taking a shower, he walked into his closet, which was quite large for a single man’s standards. His hands skimmed over the many suits in the closet and he picked one in a navy blue. He took out brown wingtip oxfords to match his suit, and he also picked a light blue silk tie. He didn’t bring a briefcase at all, just a thin laptop sleeve for his MacBook Pro.
His chauffeur was waiting for him at the entrance and three uniformed maids greeted him a good morning. These maids didn’t stay in the same house. They only worked from nine until five in the afternoon and clocked out via biometrics. His home’s security was top-notch, but subtle, and he had spent an additional few hundred thousand for it.
He spent odd hours in the office, depending on his mood and the workload for the day. He had a cardinal rule to never bring work home, unless he had guests who needed to be given a tour of the place, coupled with a few drinks. He liked to drink, albeit only casually, and his home had a wine cellar that housed around two hundred thousand dollars’ worth of rare or vintage wines and spirits. It would take another fifty years before he would run out of liquor, or maybe for a special event like his sisters getting married, give or take ten years.
They were happily dating between the ages of nineteen and twenty-one, while he just coasted along, dating for the sake of it. He was a man, he had needs, but he didn’t need to be tied down. They would always come flocking to him, even if he was past sixty, they’d still come for him, if not for his looks, then for his money. He didn’t want money to talk though, but if there was one thing he learned about the harshness of the world, money spoke in volumes. Even his father, rest in peace, knew that, no matter how jolly the senior Henderson had been.
The drive only took thirty minutes, and he liked the scenic route his chauffeur took every day. There was something about watching the sun along the waters, and the surfers on their boards paddling out into the crest, and the birds flying about in the air. There wasn’t much of this in England, where the water remained unmanageably cold and the air had barely any tropical feel to it.
Justin looked at his phone again, wondering if he could give her a text. What for, right? he told himself. He had never doubted himself before, all his decisions when it came to women were easy to make, done in a snap. But today, the thought of Mikaela unhinged him. He didn’t like this feeling of actually wanting her. It was distracting for his trail of thought, and distracting for work. It further strengthened his earlier idea of having her all to himself so he could appease the distraction.
She was probably angry after this morning’s abandonment, but he would make up for it. It seemed like she was a nice girl, apart from being honest. He would overwhelm her with kindness tomorrow, it could be a possible weakness. Maybe he could do it in public as well, so she wouldn’t have the courage to turn him down. It was like that for some women and he hoped his calculations would turn out to be correct that she would be weak with his advances.
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sp; Nice girls like that always bent under the right amount of pressure and a few gifts. He shook his head and realized he was in front of his office building. Two days from now, yes two days, he would see her.
***
“Mikaela?”
She had just begun her shift at seven in the morning and had gone to the backroom to check on a few deliveries when her co-worker Mary Anne called out for her from the backroom.
