Filthy Rich 1 by Scarlett Skyes Page A

what he wanted
out of the meeting.”
    “Well, that’s pretty cool. You
want salt on your rice and corn?”
    “Wait, I need help.”
    “With what?”
    “I know when his next meeting is
scheduled. I… I hope you don’t mind me saying… I’d kinda like to
flirt with him again. Can you help me with choosing the right kind
of thing to wear? Maybe we can borrow some clothes and make-up from
somebody. You always had such a great eye for that kind of thing,
you should be in the fashion industry.”
    My Mom was
being overly generous, as Moms are wont to do. She was always
saying how great I was at this or that and saying I should be in
various jobs or industries. I did enjoy following the fashion industry from a
distance though, she was right about that at least.
    “Yeah, of course. When is the
next meeting?”
    “Next Monday.”
    “OK. Well, let’s eat and then
see what we can come up with.”
    *****
    Against the grain of our luck,
it seemed that Cal and my Mom hit it off really well. After
dressing to impress the following Monday, a big bunch of flowers
and chocolates from an anonymous admirer arrived at reception on
the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, the next Monday, Tuesday and
Wednesday. On the Thursday a note finally came with them saying
that my Mom had to choose between going on a date with Cal or being
drowned in flowers and chocolates, because he could keep this up
for years.
    Suffice to say, she chose the
date, and a second, and third. From having to borrow clothes to
impress Cal, suddenly parcels containing expensive dresses were
turning up on our doorstep. My Mom never had to wonder about what
to wear, Cal made it easy, just wear what he sent. After their
dates, my Mom always brought home some of the food for me, I’d
never tasted anything like it, those expensive restaurants really
know their stuff.
    After several weeks, Cal came up
to our apartment to pick my Mom up personally and I finally had the
chance to meet him. Straight away I understood what she had said
about his presence, he was the classic tall dark and handsome with
a build and facial features that made him appear much younger than
his forty something years. Only his eyes betrayed his age, his
experience, his commanding nature.
    “This is my daughter, Nova,” my
Mom said.
    I felt like I should be
curtseying, like I was meeting royalty or something. Cal’s eyes
scanned me up and down and a flush of warmth rose up from my chest.
You know those dreams where you go to school and wonder why
everybody is looking at you funny, then you glance down and realise
you forgot to put your clothes on that day? That’s what it was like
being looked at by Cal Willis, like he knew all my secrets already,
like he was seeing me completely naked. I hoped he wasn’t going to
ask me to jump out the window, I wasn’t sure how many steps I would
have taken before I could have stopped myself.
    “Nice to meet you, Nova,” he
said, raising my hand to his lips.
    I was surprised at the
old-fashioned gesture, I thought people only did that in those
Victorian romance movies. In those movies, the gentlemen never had
the look of hunger that Cal had in his eyes though, which he never
took from mine until he had released my hand.
    “Y-you too, Mr. W-willis,” I
stammered out.
    “See you tomorrow, sweetie,” my
Mom said. “I’ll be back around noon.”
    “Have fun.”
    The door clicked shut behind
them and I leaned my back against the wall, letting out a huge
breath of relief. How my Mom managed to stay so calm around that
man I had no idea, it was almost impossible to think of anything
beyond ‘what does this man want me to do?’
    When she returned home the next
day, bow-legged and glowing with that dreamy look on her face
again, I knew they’d been somewhat further afield than second-base,
but that certainly wasn’t a subject I wanted to broach with her. It
all seemed too good to be true, Cinderella stories didn’t happen in
the real world, did they?
    When I