Chapter 7 #2
She moved the last of her wardrobe into his apartment at Bellissima, and she felt very secure once she did.
She had told Billie that she would continue to pay her half of the rent until the end of their lease, which was a kindness to Billie.
She couldn’t have afforded to pay the entire rent, and she didn’t want to move in with Jason, even if she was sleeping there every night.
They still had the freedom to sleep at their own apartments if they wanted to.
She was happy for Mickie that things were working out for her.
She never invited Billie over, or offered to introduce her to Alex.
She kept her family in the background, and Billie didn’t expect anything different from her.
Families weren’t important to Mickie, nor to Alex, since his parents and grandparents were all dead and he had no siblings.
And he had never expressed a desire to meet Mickie’s sister since they didn’t appear to be close and Mickie had never talked about her.
Mickie was aware that Alex’s practice was booming.
He charged a fortune for some of the procedures and there were telltale signs that his income was increasing exponentially.
He bought himself an Aston Martin, which had always been his dream.
He chartered planes when his patients didn’t send theirs for him.
He no longer flew commercial, and he was always generous with Mickie, and had bought her several pretty pieces of jewelry from Van Cleef and Cartier.
Two bracelets and a necklace, no engagement ring yet, but Mickie wouldn’t be surprised if it happened.
He said he couldn’t live without her now, and she believed him.
And she enjoyed his lifestyle immensely, and kept him sexually satisfied no matter what it took to please him and live out his fantasies.
No woman had ever been as willing and creative as she was.
He got anxious if she left the house for more than a few hours.
He was obsessed with her. It was all-consuming, and all he could think of day and night.
Even when he was working, he thought of what he would do with her in a few hours.
Nothing was too outrageous for her, or off limits. He’d never known any woman like her.
Alex and Mickie spent Labor Day weekend at the home of patients in Mexico, and on the flight back on Monday, he told her that they had an important dinner engagement on Tuesday night.
He emphasized that it was important, and didn’t tell her with whom.
She never asked questions. He told her what to wear.
He didn’t tell her that he had rented a private room at Chateau Marmont until that afternoon.
He told her to wear something serious and sexy, on the more conservative side, for the dinner.
He looked intense when he said it, and added that it was a business meeting and he wanted her with him.
It was an important opportunity that would affect his business in future.
He mentioned casually that if it went well, he was thinking of leasing a jet for their use, so they could travel to see patients anywhere in the U.S.
at any time. He had just turned forty-three and he was already a very rich man.
Things had gone well for him ever since he opened Bellissima and he called Mickie his lucky charm.
They left Bel Air at seven, and were at the restaurant by seven-fifteen.
Alex employed two security guards at all times at the house now, and one of them drove them in a Bentley Alex had recently bought.
He let Mickie drive it whenever she wanted, and she had dropped by to see Billie at work to show it off.
She didn’t like going to see Billie at the apartment.
She didn’t want to run into Jason. Their mutual dislike was palpable whenever their paths crossed, so she avoided him whenever possible, and she didn’t see Billie often.
Their lives were very different now. Mickie’s star had risen high into the heavens at rocket speed in the last three months, thanks to Alex.
But once in a while, she liked to see Billie just to show her how far she’d come and rub it in.
Her wardrobe was no longer secondhand. It was all brand-new. Billie was happy for her.
Alex’s guests arrived at the restaurant at seven-thirty, and Mickie saw that Alex had rented a double room.
There was an anteroom for cocktails, and a space beyond it for dinner.
Three Asian men arrived looking like serious businessmen.
They looked at Mickie with interest, and spoke to Alex in low voices.
Two of them spoke fluent English, and they translated for the third.
She heard Alex say something about Korea at some point, so they were obviously Korean.
Mickie had no idea what the meeting was about, but from what Alex had said, there was a great deal of money involved.
The three men spoke with Alex in low voices over cocktails before dinner.
All three of them and Alex drank Scotch, and Alex had ordered very high-priced French wines with dinner.
None of them ever spoke to Mickie during the evening.
She was there purely as decoration or, she wondered, as an example of Alex’s work, if he told them that she was thirty-three or -four.
She was used to people thinking that was her age now, and she thought it was funny.
Now and then she acted her age, but usually only with Alex at night.
The rest of the time she was believable as being in her thirties, and her wardrobe added to that impression, since the clothes he paid for were so obviously expensive from the most expensive brands.
There was a very intense quality to the meeting, and Mickie had never seen Alex as serious.
There was clearly a lot on the line. When the evening had ended, Mickie couldn’t tell from Alex’s expression if it had gone well or not.
He looked exhausted. He didn’t speak in the Bentley on the way home, and she asked him gently as they got undressed, “How do you think it went?”
“I can’t tell. They spoke among themselves a lot. They play it very close to the vest. They said they’d let me know by the end of the week.” They stayed close to the house all day on Saturday and lay by the pool, still waiting for a call.
His cellphone rang at six o’clock on Saturday, and he grabbed it and walked into the house.
He sat down in the living room they used as a waiting room to take the call.
They were alone in the house. Mickie didn’t follow Alex inside.
He had been very subdued since the night before, and they had made love only that morning.
He was too distracted to even want to have sex with her again after that, which he usually would.
He was on the phone for a long time, and came back to the pool looking dazed. He sat down facing her, and a slow smile lit up his face. His electric blue eyes that his patients talked about were dancing.
“They’re in,” he told Mickie. He was shaking.
“They’re giving me ten million dollars to set up a center like Bellissima in Dallas.
They want it up and running in six months.
We really do need a plane now, if I’m going to be commuting to Dallas.
I haven’t figured out how that will work yet,” since no one did the treatments except him, or knew the formulas he used.
It was all kept secret even from his medical assistants.
“But ten million dollars.” It really was his dream come true.
“And if they’re happy with that one, they’ll give me another ten to set one up in New York. ”
“And you’ll be giving treatments in all three locations?” She looked incredulous.
“I’ll have to figure it out,” he said slowly.
“We’ll have to see how it works in Dallas first. It will be a good test market.
I have clients from there who will help us line up the patients.
” He named a few. “I’ll have to do three days in each city.
Or four and two. We’ll need to work out a system.
But ten million dollars, Mickie. Imagine it.
We’ve grown exponentially.” And then he thought of something he hadn’t asked her before.
“When are you going back to Stanford? When I met you, you said you were going back in January. Are you still planning to do that?” He looked anxious about it.
“I really need you here, close to me. There’s going to be a lot going on.
” She looked pensive as she considered it.
“I guess I could put it off till the fall semester a year from now,” she said, as though it was a major sacrifice for her.
She knew just how to play him, and didn’t hesitate to do so.
He walked to his desk then, took out a checkbook, and wrote a check, walked back, and handed it to her.
It was a hundred-thousand-dollar check made out to her.
“Will that help make the decision easier?” he asked her, and she smiled at him. He knew the way to her heart. For him it was sex, for Mickie, it was money. They were an even match.
“I think that will do it. Stanford can wait.” She beamed at him, and he pulled her into his arms and fondled her breasts. She never wore her bikini tops, and most of the time they swam or lay in the sun naked.
“Thank you for giving up school for me,” he said in a voice already husky with passion. He wasn’t sure which excited him more, the Korean investors or Mickie’s body.
“How soon will you have to start working on the Dallas center?” she asked him.
“It can wait a while. We’ll be able to put it together pretty quickly. But I think I’ll lease the plane now,” he said. He had other plans in mind, but he wanted to surprise her.
She was leading a golden life with him. The modeling job she had done for him for his ads and the brochure was the best thing that had ever happened to her.