Page 14 of Purchase Power
Chapter 5
Working from home was Noah’s preferred method of making money, but as the Chief Financial Officer of a real estate development company, he spent more than his share of days at the downtown office overlooking a river. Out here in the nearby countryside, where the February clouds reflected off ponds instead of rivers, Noah clacked away at this keyboard on an otherwise nondescript Sunday morning.
While working from home was ideal, working on a Sunday was not.
He had fucked off for most of Saturday, though, ambling his way home from New York after getting piss drunk with David at a Manhattan lounge. Noah wasn’t a stranger to hangovers, but he had not planned on one for his birthday.I spent my whole birthday having a hair of the dog and falling asleep in the back of a car.Not his finest birthday, but who was really checking for thirty-one?
Now that he had a clear head, it was time to catch up on the work he pissed away on his birthday. It also meant remembering what the hell he had done at the club Friday night, when he lay down untold fortunes to call a woman his own for a whole month.
Lucy. Her name was Lucy, and she was coming to his house that night.
Did I have sex with her? I don’t remember.He was lying. Of course he remembered. He simply didn’t want to recall her sassy mouth and tight pussy while responding to corporate emails. He may not remember every little movement as he fucked her against the couch, but he remembered… enough. Her hearty gasps. Her rolling eyes. The clenching.The goddamn clenching.Noah had no choice but to ride ‘til the end of the rodeo when Lucy insisted on being so…so!Nobody could tell Noah that she wasn’t some kind of professional. Those events always stretched the truth. Rumored virgins gave out the best hummers.
Noah knew why. He was a CFO. He knew all about stretching the truth to get the results the company needed. If he was in charge of the money behind a sex club, he’d sure as hell sell what got them the most money. Finding a twenty-year-old virgin who was completely green at all things sexy was like finding a needle in a haystack. He didn’t care how many freshman co-ed dorms the club scoured. Or how many fresh-from-high-school teens they interviewed in the lines for Broadway casting calls. It was 2020. That sweet, doe-eyed girl from Idaho had ridden more dicks than her mother had seen in her life.
Good thing Noah didn’t care about that. He wanted the exact opposite. He wanted to bring home a woman who didn’t need anything special from him. No warm moments. No special first times. That’s what had made Lucy so appealing on paper…
Then he saw her. In the flesh.
He felt her flesh. Touched her heat. Done everything except kissed her, because he would rather pull out his own teeth. He had been up front with her. Surely, she understood. Maybe Lucy was elated that she didn’t have to play his girlfriend. All she had to do was be available.
That’s the definition of mistress, you ignoramus.Noah almost wrote that line in an email to his assistant back at the office. Whoops.
“Mr. Gabriel?” A knock came to the door. It was Candace, the steward who kept the household running at optimal levels. Noah didn’t make her job easy, since he often fired half the staff to start all over again. It wasn’t always his whim, either. Sometimes, it was a matter of security. He wasn’t the only member of his family who had to get along with the staff, but he was the one who had to make the decisions about who to fire, and when.
No wonder he was so good at cold and calculating relationships. He never screwed the help, but he was detached in every interpersonal relationship he had. All except for one.
Candace was not that one.
“Yes?” Noah looked up from his tablet.
“Am I disturbing you, sir?”
“Obviously, but I’m supposing this is important for you to come barging in here while I’m working.”
“Yes, well…”
Noah lowered his reading glasses. “Is it my…”
“It’s about the guest we are expecting this evening, sir. I wanted to confirm which suite they were staying in, and for how long.”
Right.Noah had to put on his big man pants and act like nothing was out of the ordinary. Indeed, he made no habit of bringing women like Lucy home for extended periods of time. This was a private man who kept his work and home as separate as possible, except for in matters of email and research. Yet he also wasn’t above bringing the occasional girlfriend in to stay for a while. During the cold New England winters, it was sometimes better for his sexual health if he had an agreeable woman around. That’s why he hadn’t thought twice about housing Lucy in his own guest suite instead of putting her up in a nearby hotel.There are no hotels nearby here, anyway.The properties were too exclusive for Air B&Bs. The closest he could get was a friend’s vacation home three miles down the road, and if he were going to travel there, he might as well travel the five into the city and a proper hotel.
No, he would keep Lucy in his house. There was plenty of berth between the guest suite and the rest of Gabriel Manor, and Lucy was paid enough to obey simple orders likenever leave your suite.Besides, the last thing Noah needed to do was stay away from home more often, simply to ensure he got his money’s worth with Lucy. He had responsibilities there in Gabriel Manor. It was bad enough he occasionally went away for business or, God forbid, an actual vacation.When was the last time I was out of the country for more than three days?Was it a bachelor party in Hong Kong? How much had he regretted that by the time he was home?
A lot. He regretted it profusely.
“Ms. Craig will be staying in the primary guest suite over in the east wing, of course,” Noah said. “She will be here for twenty nine or thirty days. I won’t know for sure until she and I have a chat about it.” Technically, they had already used up their first day since Noah wanted an extra night to prepare the suite for her last-minute arrival. “She will provide me with a list of any dietary restrictions that I will forward to you and Bernard.” The chef was one of the few in the world who appreciated a good dietary restriction. He said it presented a “fun challenge,” and the more restrictions, the better. Good thing someone in that house wasn’t supposed to have any refined sugars or much gluten. There had been a time when Noah and his mother tried the non-dairy route as well, but that had proven a bigger challenge than gluten-free.
Not thathewas gluten-free, but somebody in that house had to be careful.
“Does Ms. Craig… know… sir?”
Candace was always like this about delicate matters. She never outright said what was she thinking, lest she offended Noah or his mother, who still occasionally visited the house where everything had gone to fucking hell many years ago. Yet it was infuriating, wasn’t it? Noah didn’t like coy words and beating around the bush. He was a direct man. His words may not always be simple, but the path meandering between them was more direct than the route from his house to the office.
“No. And she will not know about it. Ms. Craig will be under direct orders to not leave the suite unless I accompany her.” Obviously, she would want to get some sunshine and fresh air. Noah wasn’t a monster. He’d take her out to dinner or a show as time permitted. They may not be boyfriend and girlfriend, but the thought of making a woman aprisonerin his own home brought back other painful thoughts that hit him right in the gut. “Do you understand? Ms. Craig is my guest, but she does not have free roam of the house. I’ll have Peter keep an eye on the cameras leading to her hallway.” Yes, he knew that meant Peter from security would know exactly when Noah visited Lucy – and when he left.Just because I don’t get around as much anymore, doesn’t mean I’m shy about when I do.What was it to Noah if everyone in his house knew he was getting laid? As long as he wasn’t parading it in front of them, everyone would live fine, thank you.
Of course, as soon as they saw Lucy, they would know the exact nature of this relationship. Not the first time for that, either. Why did Noah’s staff think he paid them so well? Out of the goodness of his own heart? Sure, his staff had to feed themselves, but he had to protect his family more than anything else. If that cost him extra money, then so be it.
