Dirk: A Stepbrother Romance(45)
“Baby, I don’t think I asked if you could afford Giglio’s, I asked if you would join me.”
“Uh…” Amy said, completely unsure of whether she should accompany the stranger to lunch. When she left her hometown of Black Rock, Arkansas to attend college at Berkeley, her father had warned her to be careful to avoid strange men…but this was no normal strange man.
“What?” the man asked, “Afraid to accompany a stranger to lunch?” he shrewdly asked.
“Um…yes, actually,” she answered, blushing a brilliant shade of scarlet.
“Fine,” the man said, holding out a hand, “My name is Houston Storm.”
“Amy Delaney,” she answered him as she took his hand.
“There…now we aren’t strangers,” Houston Storm told her as the elevator doors opened, displaying the magnificent marble of the Yuanfen Building’s foyer. “Now, will you accompany me? There’s my car at the door…I can drive us.”
Amy looked outside the glass fa?ade of the building and saw a completely gorgeous, blue Dodge Viper. “Uh, yeah…I mean, yes, I’d love to.”
“Excellent!” Houston exclaimed, flashing a smile which betrayed a perfect set of completely straight and brilliantly white teeth. “Here, let me get the door for you,” Houston said, opening the passenger side door of the Viper. “Thank you, Steven,” he said to the valet, handing the young man a $50 bill in exchange for the keys.
When Houston cranked the car, and pulled away from the curb, Amy said “Wait…lunch service stops at two o’clock at Giglio’s. How are we going to eat?”
The car’s clock and Amy’s cell-phone showed it as 2:02 p.m.
“Don’t worry,” Houston said with a laugh and another smile. “I own a third of the business.”
Houston could not believe his good fortune as he pulled the Viper away from the curb in front of the Yuanfen Building. His day had been going exceedingly badly until the gorgeous Amy Delaney agreed to accompany him to lunch. To start, he had received no less than four letters attempting to blackmail him. Apparently, there had been paparazzi near his pool house the previous week, and had captured the entire business between he and rising Japanese starlet, Willow Saito. The young woman had been in a very public dating relationship with a popular minor league baseball pitcher for the local Giants affiliate. There had been a lot of talk about the boy going across the country to play AA ball for the Richmond Flying Squirrels in Virginia.
Being an opportunist, Houston had swooped in on the opportunity to get some Asian tail after seeing Willow at a San Jose Giants game. The * photographer managed to get some very compromising pictures of Willow as she entered the pool house alone and clothed, and came out with Houston—naked. He seemed to think that he would want their new affair kept quiet.
Houston had spent two hours on his phone that morning with the paparazzi photog, explaining that he didn’t care who saw the pictures, and that he shouldn’t expect a goddamned dime from Houston’s personal coffers…it wasn’t as if his titties had been bouncing for the camera! Why would he care if the photographer sold the pictures to some tabloid?
Houston had always been a playboy…and being filthy, stinking rich had not changed this fact. Sure, he had gone from being a bar bouncer to pay for junior college to being the San Francisco Bay area’s second richest man, valued at just over $19.8 billion. He had even used his bad boy reputation to score new bedroom trophies.
The niche dating business was certainly lucrative.
The simple fact was, however, that he was still the same kid who had grown up as the only white kid on his block in Modesto, California, surrounded by Hispanic gang members. Growing up in this rough environment taught Houston skills that, while not useful in his failed attempt to graduate college, had certainly served to keep him alive. It wasn’t as if he was scared of some prima donna baseball player who was going across the country in a week’s time.
So it was that when Houston left the Larger Than Life Love, Inc. offices, he was in a distinctly bad mood…until he reached the fourth floor, that is.
As a Web Design major at his junior college, he had started largerthanlifelove.com to find the perfect bigger girl, and instead ended up in a string of bad relationships that were punctuated by intense sexual experiences. He loved the exhilaration of having a new lover every other week…almost always with the skinny-as-hell-model types that were only interested in his fortune. The thrill of the chase was the only thing that distracted him from the demons that still haunted his dreams, but these pencil thin types were not what he truly desired.
He wanted a woman just like Amy Delaney. There was a time a “Botticellian” woman was the ideal. Of course that had been five hundred years ago, but he thought it was time for a comeback.
When the gorgeous woman to his right had hollered for him to hold the elevator, he felt something he realized he hadn’t felt in a while…genuine attraction. This goddess of a woman kindled a fire deep inside him, and forced all thoughts of Willow Saito far from his mind.
Chapter 3
When they arrived at Giglio’s, Houston had the red carpet rolled out for his lunch guest. As they sat talking over their antipasto and waiting for their entrees, Houston surveyed his prey. Amy is average height, with wavy dark hair that falls carelessly passed her shoulders. Her eyes are beautiful almond, and she had a way about her that seemed to light her entire face up.