Dirk: A Stepbrother Romance(47)

“It’s no ‘f*cking’ problem,” Amy said to him with a wink, and flashing her perfect smile at him. “I don’t ‘f*cking’ mind.” This caused Houston to become even more attracted to her…not only was she physically exactly what he has always desperately wanted in a woman, but she didn’t mind him exactly as he was.


“What about you, Miss Amy Delaney? What’s your story?” he asked, taking a bite of linguine.

“Well, the usual, I guess…”

“Let me guess…cheerleader, dated the captain of the football team, homecoming queen, etc.?” Houston interjected, laughing.

“Ha ha, very funny,” she deadpanned. “Can you imagine this as homecoming queen?” she asks, indicating her body.

“If your classmates were voting for anyone else, then they were blind or stupid,” he answered.

“Well, they didn’t vote for me, or anyone else. We didn’t have homecoming…or a football team for that matter.”

“You didn’t have a football team?” Houston asked, surprised.

“Nope,” Amy answered, “We didn’t. The school was too small. I did play softball and basketball though.”

“Oh, well, there’s that,” Houston said, still trying to understand how a school could not have a football team.

“Yep…go Zebras!” she responded, pantomiming a cheerleader waving a pom-pom.

“Zebras? No wonder you didn’t have a football team!” He said, laughing once again.

“Yep, the Zebras,” she said, pensively. “I sometimes wonder what it would have been like to go to school at Walnut Ridge. They closed Black Rock down a couple of years ago, and all the students moved to Walnut Ridge, but that wasn’t an option for me.”

“Well, I’m sure you were the prettiest Zebra ever,” Houston complementing her.

“Thank you, even though I know you’re just being nice.”

“I mean it. I think you are the sexiest woman I have ever seen,” he goes on.

They sat there talking for the rest of their meal, and when all the food was gone, Amy looked at her watch and said, “Oh my god! It’s after 3:00! I really need to get back to the office!”

“Okay, let’s go,” Houston answered her, getting up to leave. They rode back to the Yuanfen building in his Dodge Viper, making quick work of the thick traffic in downtown San Jose. Houston could not help but wonder if this could be the beginning of something different and special between him and Amy Delaney after she thanked him for lunch, and he handed the Viper’s keys to Steven. Amy had to stand on tip-toe to do so, but she gave him a swift kiss on the cheek before running back inside and toward the elevator.





Chapter 4





“You certainly were gone long enough,” Alice said when Amy walked back into the office that afternoon. “What took you so long?”

“I got caught up,” Amy answered, beaming. “A man from upstairs took me to lunch at Giglio’s.”

“A man from upstairs?” Alice asked, bemused. “What man from upstairs?”

“Only the sexiest man alive!” Amy giggled, unable to contain herself from the amazing afternoon lunch that she had shared with Houston. “His name is Houston Storm, and he is a part owner of Giglio’s, and he was able to get us served for lunch there even though they were closed until dinner time! He drives a Dodge Viper, and is a real gentleman!”

“Houston Storm?” Alice asked, frowning slightly.

“Yes!”

“Houston Storm who owns Larger Than Life Love, Inc., Houston Storm?”

“Maybe…I’d say it probably is, because ‘Storm’ isn’t a very common last name, is it?”

“No…it isn’t,” Alice answered, looking positively alarmed now.

“Yeah, it’s got to be the same man,” Amy said, not noticing the look on her supervisor’s face. “Why do you ask, anyway?”

“Well,” Alice said with the air of someone who was picking her words very carefully, “Houston Storm is rich.”

“Well, duh! He owns a third of Giglio’s, and drives a Viper! Of course he’s rich.”

“No…you don’t understand. He’s not ‘oh, I hit the lottery’ rich, or ‘I own twelve cars’ rich…he’s ‘I bankroll the lottery and own twelve hundred car lots’ rich.”

“What are you talking about, Alice? Don’t you think he’d have told me all this?”

“Well, if you don’t believe me, look at this,” Alice said, handing her last month’s edition of The Californian magazine. On the cover was a black and white photo of the man who had just shown Amy a phenomenal time, right there on the cover. By contrast, the headline on the cover was in bright red, and Amy read this aloud: “Houston Storm: Most Eligible Bachelor in San Francisco Bay Area, page 24.”

Amy immediately began flipping frantically through the pages to find the article. When she did, she found a countdown of notable bachelors. She flipped quickly through the pages and was shocked at what she read.


“Houston Storm, thirty-two, has been named the ‘San Francisco Bay Area’s Most Eligible Bachelor’ yet again. The combination of his devilish good looks and fat wallet combine to make this man the single most sought after commodity out there. Valued at well over $19 billion, the San Jose playboy has his hands in every major business in the area, not least his own ‘Larger Than Life Love, Inc.,’ which controls seven of the ten largest online dating sites in the country.