Filthy Rich 1

Filthy Rich 1

Scarlett Skyes

Published by Scarlett Skyes at
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Copyright 2013
Scarlett Skyes

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Author's note: All characters depicted
in this work of fiction are 18 years of age or older.

The flickering light in the
ramshackle old fridge sporadically illuminated the lettuce and
corn, and I had to make my choice quickly. The rust-bucket had
already lost the ability to freeze food, if I held the door open
too long and overworked it there was every possibility that it
could stop working entirely, and then we’d be down to whatever
wouldn’t spoil too fast in the cupboards. If our luck was really in
it might catch on fire too and burn the apartment block down.

I decided corn would go better
with rice and snatched it out, slamming the door shut. Voila! The
two ingredients for the meal I would be cooking were now selected.
My stomach rumbled when I thought of the kinds of things that my
classmates had for lunches at school, but I had to make do with
what I had.

The budget had always been
pretty tight, for as long as I could remember, but it had gotten
even worse a few years back when my Mom was in a car accident and
had ended up needing to pay damages to the other party. The whole
ordeal, legal expenses and everything, were far beyond what she
could afford, so the court had ordered her wages be garnished until
everything was repaid. This put even more pressures on our already
frugal way of life.

I didn’t hold it against her
though, how could I? She was the only family I’d ever known, it was
her and I against the world. I already saw in her eyes how sad she
was, how guilty she felt about not being able to provide everything
that my peers seemed to take for granted, why would I ever rub salt
in that wound?

I remembered one time when my
pen stopped working when I was doing my homework, I had to finish
the rest of it with a nub of a pencil that I had to sharpen with a
kitchen knife. My teacher had phoned my Mom at work and tried to
inform her of the ‘poor standard’ of my work. Judging by the
pale-faced apology the teacher gave me the next day, I thought my
Mom might have threatened to disembowel him or something. I knew
she’d kill or be killed for me, I’d do the same for her. You could
say we were close.

The bland meal was still cooking
in the pot when my Mom burst through the door with a look on her
face I’d seldom seen, she was smiling and had a kind of dreamy
faraway look in her eye. She dropped her tote bag on the ground and
slumped into the rickety couch, kicking her feet in the air like an
excited schoolgirl.

“Uh… good day in reception,
Mom?”

“Yeah, the SUPERBOWL of working
reception,” she replied.

“Whaddya mean?”

“Guess who Attison Technologies
Ltd’s newest customer is.”

“Abraham Lincoln?”

“Better.”

“Lady Gaga?”

“Who? I don’t know who that is,
but it’s better.”

“I give up.”

“Cal Willis.”

“No way!”

“True Story!”

“Did you meet him?”

“
Yeah! He
walked right in the front door like any other person, if other
people had bodyguards, that is. Told me who he was there to see and
talked with me while our CEO rushed downstairs like a chicken with
its head cut off. I literally mean he rushed down
stairs,
the
elevator was going too slow or something, so he ran down like Mr.
Willis had his family held captive.”

“Hahaha! He doesn’t strike me as
the fittest person, what kind of state was he in by the time he got
to the ground floor?”

“Not a pretty one. Bald head
shiny with sweat and all red in the face. Cal and I talked for the
few minutes while he was waiting, can you believe it? He flashed me
this smile, I think he was flirting with me! He said I was doing a
great job. Get this, he saw the picture of you I keep on my desk
and said that beauty must run in my family!”

“Wow! What happened then?”

“Well… then he had his meeting
and left,”

“Oh. Well, that’s a bit
anti-climactic, isn’t it?”

“I’d probably have had a heart
attack with anything more, Nova. My God, you wouldn’t believe the
presence this guy has, it’s like everybody was terrified of
displeasing him. I don’t doubt that he got exactly 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 turned eighteen, we
actually went out to a restaurant to celebrate it for the first
time in… ever. My Mom said it was for her and I to have some ‘us’
time because it was my special day and things might be very
different in our future. The way she was talking certainly raised
my suspicions, it was really odd, but when I questioned her about
it, she just said that today was all about me, about her and I
against the world, and to just have a good time. So I did.

The very next day, however, she
said we had to have a ‘serious talk’ and she sat next to me on the
sofa, pulling something out of her pocket. She opened the small
velvety case and showed me a ring with a huge diamond so bright
that I almost had to shield my eyes.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“
Really?
”

“Sort of…”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there are… uh… some
conditions.”

“Like a pre-nup?”

“Yeah… but there’s a little more
to it.”

“Just spit it out, I’m dying
here, we need to celebrate. Wait, you said yes, right?”

“No.”

“
What!?
”

“I needed to speak with you
first.”

I was almost floored. “No you
didn’t!”

“Yes, I did, it’s about the
conditions. They… uh… involve you.”

My heart sank and I began
thinking the worst. I had some issues about my lack of a Father.
Despite my Mom’s assurances, I always had to wonder if he left
because of me. What were these conditions? Was it that he didn’t
want me in their life? That would be the worst for me, another
rejection like that.

“Does he want me to… stay here
when you go to live with him?” I asked. “Because, if he does… you
should still say yes, Mom, I want you to be happy.”

“No, it’s not that. It’s…”

“Come on.”

“He wants you.”

“He wants me to what?”

“He wants
you
. He wants
an heir… uh… and he wants you to provide it for him.”

“He wants me to be his
heir?”

“No, he wants you to
provide
it for him, the natural way.”

“What? But…”

“I know… it’s insane, but he’s a
good man, really. And he can save us from all this,” my Mom did a
general gesture around our shabby apartment.

“But Mom,” I lowered my eyes and
whispered, “I haven’t even had sex yet.”

She paused for a moment and put
her hand out to place it on my knee.

“I know, baby… it’s too much to
ask, isn’t it? I’m sorry for bringing it up, I should have just
told him you wouldn’t do it… it was just so much harder to think
when he was right there.”

My Mom pulled her phone out of
her pocket and began pressing buttons, presumably to find Cal’s
contact details. I was surprised at the turmoil of emotions inside
of me. Indignation that he thought he could just use me to breed,
like I was his property or something. Embarrassment at having to
mention my sexual experience, or lack thereof, to my Mom. Shock at
the whole situation.

Those were all the emotions I
was expecting. What I
wasn’t
expecting was the flicker of
hope at having the power to change our lives. The urge to stop my
Mom from dialling that number was also there. Most unexpected was
the faint tingle of flattery and shameful lust. Cal Willis was
possibly the most eligible bachelor in the country… and he wanted
me
for sex and an heir.

I thought back to the times I
had met him, each encounter had left me feeling even more flustered
than the first, and now it all started to make sense. The lingering
stares, the borderline-inappropriate touching, like when he had
squeezed past me in the hallway, his crotch brushing against my
ass. I had
sworn
at the time that I felt a bulge in his
pants, but brushed it off as my imagination. Now I wasn’t so sure,
but the thought of him
taking
me had certainly sprinted
through my mind when it happened. I reached out and placed my hand
on top of my Mom’s.