Chapter 6
Varen Mattea Lake, b. May 31st, 1995 , the Wikipedia page said, in Fresno, California. Founder and CEO of Lake Technological Solutions based out of Portland, Oregon. Money Builder Magazine’s #5 most sought-after single of the 2020s with a net worth of over $1 billion.
Nala sat back in her seat, the cheap plastic of the chair squeaking loud enough to rouse her neighbor, an elderly man in serious need of assistance. “Does anyone know my password?” he kept asking, pointing to the email login screen. “I need to check my credit!”
The sounds of the local library continued to buzz around Nala, but she only had eyes for the grainy screen in front of her.
“A billion dollars, huh?” Nala wasn’t stupid.
She knew that wasn’t how much untaxed money Varen had sitting in her credit union account.
Varen Lake maybe had a few million at her disposal, tops. She was practically broke, like Nala!
“Thank you for visiting your local Multnomah County Library branch,” a sweet voice said over a speaker. “We will be closing shortly. Thank you.”
While the man beside her groaned in despair, Nala fumbled for a few dimes and printed off Varen’s Wikipedia page. Would be good reading later.
A billion dollars… She slipped into her rain jacket and pulled her backpack onto her shoulders.
I can’t even imagine. How did a woman make that much money?
She knew that Varen was in “tech” and developed “apps,” but that was as far as her knowledge in that field went.
Tasha would have known all about that. Truly, Nala and her sister were the opposite sides of the same coin.
While Tasha was inside reading science books and taking apart computers, Nala was outside climbing trees – and falling out of them.
In the beginning, it was their mother who came out to kiss the boo-boos and admonish the foolish youngest daughter for climbing yet another weak tree.
Then their father died, and their mother became a useless shell.
Tasha came outside after that. She was the only one there to kiss her sister’s boo-boos.
Well, she couldn’t do that anymore. Not unless the zombie horde had finally come to take over the world.
Nala shuffled through a thick mist down the sidewalk.
Her “house” was only a few minutes away from the library, but she wasn’t in a hurry to get back.
For one, her roommate Patrick was home. And for two, she had to get ready for her big “date” with Varen the stoic billionaire, which sounded about as exciting as pulling out her toenails.
She took that back the moment she walked through the front door. The thing as exciting as pulling out toenails was bumping into Patrick in the living room.
“Heeeeyyy Simba!” he called, already high off his rocker. The living room reeked of pot, but then again so did every house on that street. “Have fun learning books at the library?”
Nala shut the door behind her, scraped her feet on a mat, and went straight to the hallway closet where she slept. “Shut up. Don’t call me Simba.” He thought it was hilarious because her name was Nala. So when she displayed any aggression against that name, it made it worse.
Difficult for Nala to not show aggression when she wasn’t supposed to. Should make tonight’s date super fun.
“Whoa, that’s quite the dress.” Patrick hung over the back of the ratty living room couch, his chin scruff covered in cheese dust. “Where you going in that thing? Prom?”
God, he was in the clouds. Pot clouds, as thick as his head. “Uh-huh. Prom. ‘Cause I’m in high school.”
“Haaaaa.”
Rolling her eyes, Nala shut her “bedroom” door and dragged her new dress to the bathroom, also known as her walk-in wardrobe with water features.
The dress wasn’t anything special. It was the best she could find on short notice and with “only” two hundred dollars to spend.
Didn’t Varen the billionaire know that consignment shops in Portland were expensive?
They appealed to the trust fund babies who thought making a lark by riding bicycles, dressing in dumpster dive wear, and working at cafés for “real world experience” was the epitome of one’s 20s.
My ass is too flat for this shit. Nevertheless, Nala stood in front of the smudged mirror, pulling the skirt down until she was presentable.
Oh, sure, she was going to some tycoon’s sex club, but she wasn’t one to put herself on display and lure in the leers.
Quite the opposite. Nala wanted to blend in.
Be unseen. So when she bought this body-hugging strapless cream-colored sequin monster… perhaps she wasn’t thinking ahead.
I should have budgeted for shoes. Her same black heels from the other night would have to do. Hopefully, there would be no stairs to fall down this time.
Nala wasn’t a woman for makeup. Yet she knew that these assholes would want some semblance of propriety from a woman of her supposed standing.
What is my standing, anyway? Varen was paying her to be a fake girlfriend and submissive for however long it took them to get what they wanted from Xan Ravenwood.
That could last weeks. Months, if Nala could stomach it. I probably can’t.
For all her bravado, deep down Nala was still a scared little girl who needed her big sister to come kiss her boo-boos after falling out of a tree.
“How does this even…” She had stopped at a store after buying her dress to pick up some cheap makeup. Now she stood in front of that mirror, wondering how eye shadow, eyeliner, and blush worked.
Nala could fake the lipstick… maybe.
“I’m a fucking clown!” That was what she declared before promptly washing off the makeup and starting over. A dab of light pink lipstick. Some smoky eye shadow. That was it. They could deal with her tiny pimples.
Nala stumbled out of the bathroom and grabbed a small satchel. As she approached the door, a black sedan pulled up in front of the walkway. A figure lurked behind the wheel.
“You were right, Patrick,” Nala announced to her stoned roommate as she opened the door. “It really is prom night. Wish me luck in getting laid.” Not really.
She wobbled down the concrete path to the sidewalk, leaving the shambled craftsman's home behind her. Varen popped out of the driver’s side and opened the passenger-side door before Nala got that far.
“Hi,” she said, her breath appearing before her eyes. Even though she threw on a heavy black sweater before leaving, it wasn’t enough. The cold nipped right through the fabric. “Look at what two hundred bucks buys you around here.”
She said that flippantly, yet Varen leaned over the door and watched her get into the car. Nice ride. Leather interior. And clean!
“It’s lovely. You look… lovely.”
With a huff, Nala situated herself in the comfortable seat and reached to close the door… except Varen was still holding it open, her eyes boring upon Nala in that barely-there dress.
Okay, buddy…
Where did asexual Varen go? Where was that stoic woman from the sparse office? Where were the button-down and comfortable trousers?
Tonight, Varen wore a three-piece suit again, this time without the tie. Her hair was styled in place, still in a straight ponytail, and a new perfume wafted through the frigid air.
Very, very musky.
Nala may have been stuck in an endless cycle of tortuous grief and anger, but she was still a human. A human full of hormones and biological responses she couldn’t control, no matter what her brain did.
So, while her brain said, “What the fuck, girl? You’ve got a mission to accomplish!” her body said, “Hey, look at this hottie. She’s pretty clean-cut and sexy. Sexsexsexsex girl hey how about that mouth on her?”
Where did these thoughts come from? Nala had never been attracted to a woman before.
“You should shut the door. It’s cold.”
Varen’s demeanor remained unchanged as she closed the door against Nala’s arm. She sauntered around the front of the car before getting back into the driver’s seat. The light of the day had faded, so all Nala could see in that dark car was the outline of her fake girlfriend. Who smelled really good.
And was putting her arm around Nala, coming in with her mouth…
Her mouth…
“Wha…” Nala’s skull met the headrest as Varen lightly kissed her lips. Her scent overpowered her, infused her with more of those hormones that demanded she unzip her dress and get a feel of her. What? No way! Where was that feeling coming from… and why the fuck was Nala kissing her?
The kiss did not last long. Surely, it was only a few seconds, but in Nala’s world, it lasted more than ten lifetimes.
The universe slowed. Her eyes fluttered open and shut, one part of her wanting to lean in and savor those soft, tender lips and another part screaming at her to push Varen far away. Wasn’t this assault or something?
Varen sat back, her body still looming over Nala’s, but in a non-threatening way.
“We were going to have to do that eventually,” she explained, returning to her seat.
“At some point, we would have to kiss in front of those people. They do it all the time.”
She started the car, the soft purr of the engine sending tingles through Nala’s awakening body.
“I thought it would be best to do it now and get the awkwardness out of the way.”
Her words settled in Nala’s brain, but they did not mean anything as Varen pulled away from the sidewalk and drove toward the nearest boulevard.
Nala stared at her lap, at her hands clenched in it, wondering, wondering what this all truly meant.
I shouldn’t feel like this for her. This was a job.
A mission. She didn’t even know who Varen was, and she sure as fuck was not a girl who did things casually.
She had never even been in love before. The last guy?
She thought that was love at first but realized now she hardly missed him at all.
“Don’t do that,” she finally whispered. “If you’re going to kiss me, warn me.”
They were stuck at a stop sign. Varen glanced at her. “I’m sorry.”
Nala let out an exasperated breath. “You should be. You do that to every woman you take to sex clubs?”
The car turned, lurching poor Nala toward the window. “Apparently,” Varen said.
Things were quiet on the first boulevard.
Nala gazed out the window, watching lights come and go as they headed downtown.
Bridges loomed in the distance. Runners going for their nightly jogs signaled to cyclists who didn’t have a care in the world.
She kissed me. Nala touched her fingers to her lips.
She kissed me. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Varen sitting silently behind the wheel, taking them to an uncertain future.
She wasn’t Nala’s friend. She wasn’t even really a business associate.
She was a means to an end. Nala thought that she felt the same way about her… until now.
No, she was right. We have to kiss in front of those people eventually. They’ll want to see us do the bare minimum, at least. Kissing and touching and hugging… it’s better than the spanking and the whipping. That’s what she thought as they approached a notoriously long light.
“Varen…”
“Hm.”
Nala forced her spine straight and her face forward. “We should have a signal… some gesture for when the one needs to kiss the other. To keep appearances, of course.”
She cleared her throat. “That is a good idea.”
“Maybe a tap on the shoulder. A warning that a kiss is coming. I don’t like surprises.”
“I don’t like them either.”
“So, no more surprises?”
“Certainly not.”
Nala squirmed in her seat. “A tap on the shoulder. Then I’ll be ready for your lips.”
She tried to sound jovial. Why not, in this situation? Yet when she glimpsed in Varen’s direction, Nala discovered her staring at the road and putting her foot on the gas so they could cross the bridge into Downtown.
“I did some reading on you.”
“Did you?” Varen fiddled with the fan like she would with her watch or cufflinks. “Good. We should get to know more about each other before people interrogate us. Might not be a bad idea. What did you learn?”
“Well… you’re a Gemini, for one.”
Whenever Nala mentioned the Zodiac, she had no idea if she should anticipate laughter or scorn. Varen seemed like the type who would go for the latter. “Is that a bad thing?”
“No. I’m an Aries. We’re supposed to get along well.”
“You don’t strike me as the sort of woman into horoscopes and all that.”
“I’m not. My mother used to make a big deal out of it growing up.”
“Your mother?”
“Duh. I have a mother.”
Varen scoffed. “So do I.”
“Is that the woman whose picture is in your office?”
She glanced at Nala, forebodingly. “I do have a picture of her in there, yes.”
“And the other woman? Is that your sister?”
“The other woman…” Varen shook her head. “I don’t have any siblings.”
“Oh.” Nala didn’t pry any further.
“Someone who is no longer with me used to work for him, too.”
There wasn’t much time to consider that revelation. Varen made an abrupt turn onto a side street and parallel parked in a part of town known for its vehicular break-ins. Before Nala could say anything, the engine turned off.
“We’re here.” Varen tossed a simple black mask into Nala’s lap as a valet emerged from a nondescript building. “Time to start lying.”