Chapter 7
Kairo
The house was big and echoey. Nightlight sconces shed pale dim light.
My body thrummed with excitement. I still felt Truce’s arms around me and that first kiss on my lips. My heart pounded in my throat.
I ran upstairs and flopped on my bed. Pillows went flying. I rolled and moaned out loud. My emotions filled me up to overflowing. I had no way to contain them.
I lay back and pulled out my phone. There it was. Truce’s contact number. My finger hovered over the call icon. I wanted to hear his voice but he’d told me to text. I began to type.
I texted that I was home safe. He answered right away as if he’d been waiting. The thrill of realizing that made me squirm again.
When he asked me where I wanted to go for dinner, I closed my eyes and swooned against my pillow. I let him decide. We exchanged more little texts. I thanked him. Then nothing.
I held Pinkster tight and rolled on the bed some more trying to get rid of all my excess energy. After a few minutes, my phone dinged.
Are you in bed now? Ready for sleep?
I giggled to see another text. My hand shot up in the air and waved around as if I’d just won a prize.
I am in bed but still wearing clothes. I might not be able to sleep right away.
Daddy wants you to get into your jammies now. Get under the covers. Is Pinkster still with you?
I was breathless to read his words. He sounded like a real daddy. The kind I’d only fantasized about.
Yes, Daddy. I have to put down the phone for a minute.
Go do as I say. Now. I’ll wait.
I hurried as I went through my bedtime routine, using the toilet, brushing my teeth, getting into my Shrek pajamas.
I had stuffies everywhere in the room and chose a red dinosaur named Jurassic to join me and Pinkster in bed.
I pulled down the covers and turned out the lights before jumping between the sheets. Phone in hand, I sent a message.
I’m in bed with the lights out. But my eyes are wide open.
I grinned when a message immediately came back to me.
That’s perfect. Relax. Close your eyes. Think of your favorite things.
I’m thinking about tonight. Was it real?
It was very real for me, baby. Now close your eyes. It’s very late. Tomorrow is almost already here. Go to sleep for me like a good boy.
Yes, Daddy.
Now turn off your phone and put it aside. Tell me you’re doing that now.
I will. But I don’t want this to end.
It isn’t ending. Tomorrow will come fast and we’ll be at dinner before you know it.
Okay. Nighty-night, Daddy.
Good night. Sugarplum dreams.
I couldn’t resist sending a sleepy emoji. Then, reluctantly, I obeyed him and turned off my phone. The room plunged into darkness.
I tried hard to do what he told me. If he was the real deal, everything he did and said would be for my own good and not just to control me. I needed him. Someone to take care of me. To make sure I got what I needed.
Grandfather had been my mentor. He hired help for the things he couldn’t do.
I had been well taken care of. After he died, everything went to me in a living trust to which I had all access when I turned twenty-one.
Although the staff did their best to feed me and give me whatever I needed, technically I had become their boss.
They were friendly. Nice. But not like best friends. Not like the daddy I longed for.
Grandfather had always warned me that people would take advantage of me for money and I should never allow it.
It had been a running theme for me growing up.
I learned the word for Grandfather was miser.
From him, I learned to stay to myself. When he died and the entire estate became mine alone, my isolation had already begun long ago.
But I was restless. I wasn’t old like grandfather. I had a life to live. So much energy. It had taken me four years to get up the nerve to go out to a gay bar. And now, two nights later, here I was. The most beautiful guy wanted me.
It all seemed like a dream. Suspicion threatened. What if somehow Truce knew who I was? What if none of it was real?
I tossed and turned the night away. I was bad for not obeying my new daddy, but I couldn’t sleep. Not soundly. Not peacefully. I sucked on a binkie for a little while but even that didn’t help.
It was dawn before I finally slept. I didn’t wake until late in the morning and missed breakfast. But my staff was used to it because sometimes I stayed up all night.
When I dragged myself downstairs, a lunch buffet of sandwich makings was all set up. I grabbed a huge plateful of food and took it into my TV room.
I tried to watch cartoons and eat but I couldn’t focus. All I could think about was Truce. What would I wear tonight?
I looked up the restaurant. It was a nice one so I prepared an outfit that was less showy than my usual. I studied the GPS to see how long it would be drive there. I didn’t want to be late.
By mid-afternoon I was dressed in my shiny black shoes, tailored black pants and a long-sleeved button up shirt. Purple. I couldn’t avoid being somewhat colorful.
I decided to leave early and drive around for a while, try to cool off my nerves. I said bye to Sorel who got a funny look on his face.
“What’s up?” I asked. “I’m just going out again, that’s all.”
“Sir, I thought you had dressed for the meeting. Because of the choice of purple for your shirt, I brought your black suit jacket and dark purple tie.” He brought his hands from behind his back and held them out to me.
“Meeting? What?”
He dropped his shoulders. “You forgot? I’m sorry, sir. I thought that was why you dressed up. I should have reminded you. The board for TBI meets tonight.”
I jumped from the couch. “Is it the last Friday of the month already?”
“Yes, sir. Donny has already brought the limo around.”
I had forgotten. I owned TBI, a corporation that paid me a substantial annuity split to twice a year.
But I didn’t run it. I didn’t have any duties except to show my face once a month at their board meeting, then go out to a five-star dinner with the richest of the rich.
Many on the board had known my grandfather for years.
They were always polite. But I didn’t talk business with them.
Nothing would change if I wasn’t around.
It was only my money and ownership that meant I often had to sign off on big deals.
I stared at the jacket and tie, my mouth going dry. “I can’t go. I have other plans.”
Sorel’s lips curved in a soft smile. “You’ll have to cancel those other plans. You know they’ve planned a merger. You need to sign off on it. This was the date set a long time ago.”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t remember and I made other plans. Important plans. But I could go in next week and sign.”
Sorel shifted foot to foot like he did when he worried about everything being just right. “What time are your plans for, sir?”
“Six.”
“The meeting is at 4:30. You could go and maybe be a little late for your other plans, couldn’t you?”
I lowered my head and kicked at the hard floor. “Those meetings can go for hours.”
“I can get Richard on the phone for you.”
I didn’t answer as Sorel turned away. He set aside my tie and blazer to take out his phone. He was talking in seconds to the president of TBI, then turned and held out the phone to me.
As I put it to my ear, Richard was already babbling. “Kairo, you already agreed to this. The merger will fall through if all the paperwork isn’t done by tonight. Then we’re taking the execs from both companies out tonight to celebrate. I already emailed you all the details several times.”
“Why am I signing last minute?” I asked. I didn’t have a head for all of this, but I’d learned common sense from Grandfather. If someone was rushing you into something, maybe there were reasons you didn’t know about.
Richard talked faster than I could keep up.
“You never come in, not that you’re required to.
We know you attend the last of the month meetings so we planned the final signing for then.
We have special pens. Everything set up.
I sent you emails and texts. You agreed.
Why aren’t you coming? Are you sick or something?
This will throw everything off if you don’t show.
The company could lose hundreds of millions. ”
Truce was all I could focus on. Truce was everything. Who cared about a stupid company? But then I remembered that company paid the salaries for over two thousand employees. They had bills. They had families.
The meeting started at 4:30. Maybe I could skip the dinner after-party and still see Truce later. He’d have to change the reservations.
“Why can’t a courier send papers now?” I asked.
“This is a big deal. We all need to be here. In person. This is no small thing or I wouldn’t be pressuring you. I know you may not realize it, but this is big. Really big. The signing meeting commences at 4:30. A courier would take too long. Are you ill? Why are you delaying?”
“I—I have other plans.”
“You have to cancel them. This is too important.”
To argue took energy. It was selfish, I knew that.
Money in the amount I was worth meant I could have anything, do anything, but it still came with a heap of responsibility and the heaviest of weights on my shoulders.
I delegated that weight as much as I could.
Grandfather taught me how and who to trust. But back then, a lot of the people who had been his contemporaries were now retired or dead.
New people had come in. I didn’t know them.
I trusted Sorel but he wasn’t my assistant.
He helped me a lot, but beyond the house and my personal liquid accounts, the money was always invested with so much going on.
I lost count of how many financial lawyers were attached to that money.
It was pretty awful to feel out of control of all of that. I had no clue, nor did Sorel, how to change it.
Now this.
I had no choice. I had to cancel with Truce. Or tell him I’d be late.
“Okay, Richard. I’ll be there.” I handed Sorel his phone and said, “I guess I’m going to a board meeting after all.”
Sorel helped me on with my suit jacket and tied my tie. Softly, he said, “Call your friend. Maybe meet later?”
My eyes burned. I’d looked forward to this dinner all night and all day. I’d lost sleep over it. I nodded, swallowed hard and said, “Thank you, Sorel.”
“Everything will be fine, Kairo. If there’s anything I can do, you know I will.”
“Yes, thank you.”
He escorted me to the waiting limo. Donny opened the door for me.
I got into the plush interior, all decked out in chrome and gray leather, and pulled out my phone.
I brought up Truce’s contact number and stared at the blank text box.
I thought about calling him, talking live to him, hearing his voice.
But what if he asked too many questions?
What would I say? It was easier to deflect for now using texts. I began to type.