Chapter 19: Forbidden Touch
"You do not have to worry Marci. I am nowhere near ready for that kind of drama. I have enough on my plate with Robert and Evan. I am just curious about Paul. Any advice?"
"He can be arrogant from what I hear," she said. "But excellent when it comes to sex. Katrina used to be his attached girl. She got married and he has been floating around since. He is not the romantic type but he will absolutely satisfy you."
"Thank you. I appreciate it."
We said our goodbyes and hung up.
Now. I sat there for a moment and then did what any reasonable woman in my position would do. I pulled out my laptop and googled all four of them.
I want you to know I am not proud of this. But I am also not going to pretend I did not do it.
I grabbed the notebook I had carried to the ball and never used and wrote their names on separate pages. I needed to know what I was dealing with. Two of them already had pieces of me I had not planned to give away. The other two scared me for completely different reasons and I needed information.
I started with Robert.
His net worth came up immediately. Very impressive. Fifteen car dealerships spread across Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. He had bought them first and then acquired the New Orleans Sharks when the franchise was headed toward bankruptcy. He and five other men purchased the team six years ago, rebuilt the program from the ground up and now they were ranked second in the conference and heading toward the Superbowl. He had been married once and engaged twice. I sat with that for a moment. Engaged twice. What had happened both times? There were pictures of him with various women over the years. Young, attractive, mostly white. It did not bother me exactly. But a small voice in the back of my mind asked quietly whether I was something new and different for him or something real. I chose not to answer that question right now. I took my notes and moved on.
Evan was next.
There were photographs everywhere. Him with some of the biggest names in music, smiling in most of them, but his eyes told a different story in almost every single one. The same sadness I had seen in the shower at two in the morning was there in every picture if you knew where to look. I flipped through quickly until I found a family photo from the opening of EMR Records five years ago. His parents Thurman and Dorothy. Two sisters with their husbands. A younger brother named Jeffrey. He had built the whole thing and then immediately started opening smaller studios in underprivileged neighborhoods to find new talent. He was genuinely a good person and that was honestly more inconvenient for me than anything else about him.
The last picture stopped me.
A woman. Brazilian looking, long flowing hair, high cheekbones, flawless. Standing beside him and both of them smiling in a way that looked real. Her name was Yaritza Pena. I stared at that photograph for longer than I should have. If she was the one who broke his heart I was genuinely irritated at her on his behalf. I wrote down some notes and closed the tab before I could spend any more time on her face.
Looking at his pictures made me miss him. I am just going to say that plainly.
Paul was next.
CFO of Orion Oil was just the beginning. He owned several other businesses alongside it. Oxford University magna cum laude. MBA from Stanford less than a year later. Recruited by Orion immediately after. He chose to stay close to his family which was why he was based in Houston but came to Louisiana once a month. Charity work. Groundbreaking ceremonies. And then photographs of him with Tara, dozens of them, and they looked so natural together it stopped me completely. The resemblance between them was remarkable. I looked at it a long time and then made a decision that it was not my business and moved on.
Last but absolutely not least.
Jacob Moore.
His photo came up alongside Garrett Ashford and I want you to understand that looking at both of them on a screen simultaneously was a lot to handle. Too handsome for their own good and certainly too handsome for my peace of mind. Jacob’s blue eyes sparkled even in a photograph. Garrett’s blond hair and hazel eyes looked back at me like a dare. I scrolled quickly past that particular image before it could do more damage.
They owned and sold property all over the world. Their offices were blocks away from Monroe Enterprises. They had recently moved into a ten thousand square foot building with over twenty five agents. Two twenty six year olds who could retire tomorrow if they chose to. Friends since elementary school. Business partners. Best friends. And I knew their secret, the one most people at that party would never have access to. I was certain they did not let just anyone into that world.
I am going to be honest with you. Thoughts of being with both of them made me shiver in a way I was not prepared to analyze at eight o’clock on a school night. I was not ready for them. That was a fact. But I was also not ruling anything out. Life had surprised me enough times recently that I had stopped making permanent declarations about the future.
I powered down the laptop and took a shower.
When I came back there was a text from Olivia. They had heard there was a ghost at the plantation and they wanted to stay the night. I texted back telling them to have fun because there was absolutely no universe in which I would spend the night somewhere haunted. I laughed imagining the exact moment something would inevitably scare them and they would be calling me at midnight begging to come home.
I climbed into bed and turned out all the lights. The moon came through the window and cast everything in a soft pale glow and I lay there thinking about all four of them. Robert with his pearls and his patience. Evan with his amber eyes and that mirror with my initials on it. Paul with his arrogance and Tara’s blue eyes. Jacob with his cologne still invisible in the air around me hours later.
I smiled in the dark.
Whatever was coming next, I was ready for it.
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