Chapter 10
Coming back from a boat like the Marry Me, with a crew of twenty-five, was like being Cinderella after the ball.
For two weeks, every crew member had been at Mickie and Alex’s beck and call, waiting on them constantly, seeing to their comfort, making their every whim and wish come true.
They knew just when to disappear, being an impeccably trained British crew, and the boat had every imaginable comfort and luxury.
They were unfailingly discreet, and they would magically appear to provide yet another treat or service and then disappear again until needed.
Mickie had never enjoyed anything as much in her life, and Alex had finally relaxed with Mickie’s incomparable prowess in bed and ability to satisfy him beyond his wildest imaginings.
It was the perfect combination of sex and luxury, lust and fun, excitement and relaxation.
By the second week, they wanted to stay forever, and decided not to invite guests, and enjoy it on their own.
Lying on the sundeck one day, with a mojito in her hand and Alex next to her, gently stroking her leg, Mickie said with a sigh, “I want a boat like this.” When he glanced at her, he could see that she meant it. She looked dreamy and determined.
“You need a Russian oligarch boyfriend for that, or maybe a Saudi prince, not a plastic surgeon from L.A.,” he said, smiling.
“Can we charter it again?” she asked with a sigh.
“I think so . . . I hope so.” It had cost him two million, a million a week, because it was the holiday season.
Off season it might cost a little less, and he had the Korean money ready to spend to set up the Dallas center.
He had dared to spend that much of it for their pleasure because he had other investors in his sights who were sure to come through before he needed the money in Dallas.
He had talked to some major investors in L.A.
, and a young tech genius from Silicon Valley, and he had another Asian group who wanted to meet with him when he got back.
He had just gotten a text confirming a meeting with them a few days after he got home.
Money had been pouring in for the past few months, and if he made a deal with the Chinese when he got back to L.A.
, he would have more than enough money to spend a million for a week on a boat with Mickie.
She was getting used to the good life quickly, at an astronomical level, which he wanted to attain too.
They had similarly luxurious taste. Alex wanted to start a line of high-priced beauty products, specific to antiaging.
It was a lucrative market, particularly in Asia.
Products sold for anywhere from six hundred to a thousand dollars per unit, and endorsed by a doctor and properly marketed, he and his investors could make a fortune.
“What does it cost to buy a boat like this?” Mickie asked, curious.
“I don’t know. I’m guessing maybe fifty million.
You have to have a hell of a lot to spend that kind of money, and maintain it.
Boats are money pits,” he said. Several of his patients had yachts, and had invited him on them for a day or a weekend.
Most of them kept their boats in the Caribbean in the winter and the Mediterranean in the summer.
It was a lifestyle he and Mickie both enjoyed and would have no trouble getting used to.
Meals that were perfection, swimming in the sea, having sex in a secluded corner of the deck under the stars at night, a never-ending river of champagne, massages whenever they wanted them, a crew dedicated to their every whim.
It was easy to see why Mickie loved it, and so did he.
The art alone on the boat was worth more than the boat itself.
“It’s a long way from Iowa,” she said, smiling at him, and he laughed.
“I grew up in a wealthy family,” he said, “but it’s a long way from Palm Beach for me too. It gives us something to aspire to,” he said. He told her about the meeting with the Chinese then, and she looked puzzled.
“Why do you need more investors?” she asked him.
“So I can buy you a boat like this one day,” he quipped, and then looked serious.
“You can never have too many investors, or too much money. I want to start a line of high-end medically approved antiaging beauty products. There is huge money in that market. The group we’re meeting with from Hong Kong is worth billions.
They’re heavily invested in luxury brands and lifestyle.
The Koreans were just the beginning. Beauty is a big market there.
The Hong Kong boys are broader scope and more global.
My little center in Bel Air is peanuts to them.
” He had reached out to the Hong Kong investors himself and they said they were interested.
“You can’t tell anyone about any of this, Mickie.
No one. Not even your sister. Especially about our Asian friends.
The Korean group has very diverse investments and they don’t like anyone knowing their business.
We don’t want to upset them. They can be very tough to deal with.
The Hong Kong group is more refined, but you never know what rivalries exist between them. ”
“I don’t tell Billie anything. She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t understand anything at this level. She couldn’t even imagine it. She’s happy with her little job and her little life and her snotty boyfriend. He doesn’t ‘approve’ of me. You can smell it. He’s such an asshole.”
“You don’t need them in your life, forget them,” Alex said dismissively.
“They’re inconsequential people. You have me now, and all this.
” He waved grandly around him and Mickie agreed.
She didn’t miss her father, or her mother, and if it came to that, she knew she wouldn’t miss Billie either.
It had just been convenient to have her come out so she could keep the apartment.
But she didn’t need her anymore, with Alex in her life.
Alex had intended to ask Mickie to marry him while they were on the boat.
He would have done it if he thought he was at serious risk of a court case, but by the second week on the boat, he had regained his perspective and the two women in L.A.
threatening to bring charges against him seemed very far away now, and very small in the scheme of things, at the level on which he was operating.
If they got too strident, he would settle with them.
That would keep them quiet forever, and he could afford to buy them off with the investment money he was pulling in.
No one was going to listen to their pathetic claims, and they couldn’t prove anything.
It wasn’t his fault if they’d had a bad reaction.
Things happened in the practice of medicine that you couldn’t always predict.
And marrying Mickie seemed like too big a response to a situation that might never be a problem.
Lying in the sun, being waited on, floating on a superyacht in turquoise water with a drink in his hand and a gorgeous twenty-year-old girl perched on top of him made the two complaining women shrink to nothing in his mind.
It didn’t warrant a hasty marriage, which would cause other legal problems. Marriage had never been a goal for him, and he knew it wasn’t for Mickie either.
He was willing to be generous with her, but not give her half of everything he had, and people challenged prenups and sometimes won, or got big settlements.
Alex didn’t want to take the risk, and decided against a proposal, which seemed unnecessary to him.
He was no longer panicking, and he stopped thinking about the two women halfway through the trip.
Money was power and he had a lot of it now, and he was well on his way to more, and nothing was going to stop him and slow him down.
When they finally left the boat, reluctantly and with regret, having their own plane to take them home made the reentry process a little less painful.
They weren’t sitting on their suitcases on the dock, they were flying home in the utmost comfort, to see the Hong Kong group a few days later.
Mickie was all prepped to look spectacular and not say anything during the meeting or to anyone after.
Alex was using her as window dressing, and proof of his talent, and nothing more.
She was like a billboard by the side of the road.
One of their security guards picked them up at the airport with the Bentley. When they got home, Mickie unpacked as Alex went down to the office to check his mail. He was feeling relaxed and healthy, after swimming in the sea every day, and exploring beaches with sugar-fine sand.
When he got to his desk, he saw another registered letter.
The head security guard had signed for it and placed it on his desk.
The first two letters had panicked him, the third one didn’t.
He glanced through it, and it was more of the same.
The woman claimed to have been permanently disfigured by liquid silicone injections.
It had gone to her lungs and she’d nearly died.
Alex was blasé as he read it. Who would believe her?
She was some little housewife in Pasadena whom no one knew.
He never had patients sign releases because he didn’t want them knowing what was in the injections.
It was his own personal magic, and the less they knew the better.
He put the letter in the locked drawer with the others, and he went back upstairs to Mickie, lying on the bed in a pale pink transparent negligee watching TV.
She asked him what he wanted her to order for dinner.
“You,” he said simply, took his clothes off, dropped them on the floor, and joined her on the bed, much to his delight minutes later.