“The funds mean a great deal.” Funds was putting his contribution lightly. Last year I personally donated half a million dollars, six percent of the annual donations. His check covered ninety-two percent. It was enough to make him the honorary Chairman of the Board, though he’d never shown his face at the facility or the board meetings. We had heard, discussed freely over coffee and stale donuts, the rumors surrounding our chairman. Beth Horton, a sharp-tongued mother of seven, whose face carried a permanently dour expression, unless sharing an exciting piece of gossip, had brought up the escorts to me.
“There’s been hundreds,” she confided at last year’s board meeting, wedging an entire powdered donut into her mouth as I watched closely, as interested at the prospect of her choking as I was in the discussion of Sharp’s sex life. “My driver’s brother is a doorman at his downtown condo and said the girls show up all hours. Beautiful girls, but clearly prostitutes. He never leaves with them, and they only stay for a few hours.” I nod, half-believing the words. It would explain why he’d never been photographed with a woman. The man appeared to not date, a fact that drove the women of San Francisco mad and had sparked occasional rumors of homosexuality. The rumors never went too far… too many women who had met the man, worked for the man, dissuaded them. I liked the idea of prostitutes, of the man unleashing holy hell on a woman of the night in the privacy of his home.
The funds mean a great deal. He didn’t respond to the comment, and it hung between us. I took a sip of champagne. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Why is that?” The laser focus of this man was unnerving. When he stared at you, there was no wavering, no doubt that he would listen to your words and process them accordingly. I tried to relax, the pressure of an intelligent response high, the knowledge that I was in the presence of brilliance a heavy concept. I’d never been a woman to find intelligence sexy, four years in the nerd-fest that was Stanford curing any woman of that misconception. But this man… maybe it wasn’t his intelligence. Maybe it was the combination of that intelligence with confidence and intrigue, mixed in a martini glass of striking looks.
I shrugged. Took another sip of liquid courage. Wished for something stronger than champagne. Noticing that he had moved closer, I had the unnatural urge to lean into him and sniff. Test the waters by placing my hands on his tux’s lapels and tugging. Would he hold the eye contact? Would he step back? Or would he drag me somewhere private and fuck me senseless? My reckless confidence of earlier wavered in the presence of this man.
I swallowed. Tried to bring my mind back to the conversation. “You’ve never come by the campus. Or attended a board meeting. I just assumed that the spring fundraiser would also be skipped.”
“Thomas Yand is on the guest list. I’m hoping to speak with him. He’s been avoiding my calls.”
“Ahhh…” I stepped closer. Lowered my voice. “So this is an ambush.”
“That was the plan. A conspirator would help.” He playfully raised his eyebrows at me, and every feminine bone in my body came to attention.
Yeah, definitely not gay. I could understand why his female employees rushed to this man’s defense. I’d spent two minutes in his presence and my body had had about nine spikes of arousal. I swallowed. Painted an offhand expression on my face. “What do you have in mind?”
He didn’t need a conspirator. He was one of the wealthiest men in the world. As powerful as Bill Gates in terms of the tech community. But we played our roles well. Flirted over cheese trays and whispered over champagne. Celebrated with conspiratorial smiles when Yand was cornered—me on one side, Brant on the other. I let their conversation take off, then stepped away. Retreated to the other side of the room, where Anne Waters, a bleach-blonde with double D’s, accosted me, licking crab cake off her fingers and diving into a long tale of her spring shopping in the city. I nodded politely while my mind wandered, my resolution to live a different life strengthened with every unladylike lick of her fingers. I snuck a glance at Brant, saw deep focus as he nodded at Yand.
Inside me, there was a flicker of want, a pull that surprised me. I had certainly expected to respect the man—it’d be impossible not to respect a man whose intelligence doubled mine, whose annual donations were the blood that kept half of the city’s charities’ hearts beating—but my expectations, had I ever envisioned meeting the reclusive man, were that I would dislike him.
Reason #1: He was impossibly wealthy, had lived that lifestyle since he was a teen, been waited on and fawned over every day of his adult life. It was a tried-and-tested recipe for an asshole.
Reason #2: He was impossibly intelligent. I would have expected the ego to match the brains, creating a pompous, arrogant nerd. One who expected submittal in the form of worship. One who’d spout off uninteresting facts while staring at my breasts.