Authors: Alyssa Kress
Tags: #humor, #contemporary, #summer camp, #romance, #boys, #california, #real estate, #love, #intrigue
Asking For It
ASKING FOR IT
by Alyssa Kress
Published by 4 Dolphins Press at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 Alyssa Kress
Cover Design Copyright 2012
by http://DigitalDonna.com
Discover these and other titles by Alyssa Kress at her
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http://www.alyssakress.com
The Indiscreet Ladies of Green Ivy Way
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, then please visit
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The characters and events in this book are fictitious, even those referring to actual or well-known entities. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank everyone who has given immense support and help in creating this and other stories: Julie Woolley, Kathy Bennett, Jenna Ives, Leigh Court, Cathy Yardley, Rose Murray, John Lovelady, and to Ruth Barges of blessed memory.
Special thanks go to James Green and David Ganezer for legal expertise to keep Kate out of jail, Sharona Justman for giving Griffith the best cell phone, Alison Wheeler, and Ken Tab, who donated his acreage for Griffith's housing development. All mistakes and unbelievable exaggeration are my own.
Table of Contents
Preview of Love and the Millionairess
"Don't answer it," murmured a female voice to the left of Griffith in his king-size bed, twenty stories above Los Angeles.
"Hm?" Griffith became aware of a buzzing sound to his right. His Blackberry was sitting on the night table, vibrating.
"Don't get it," repeated the voice to his left. The voice, Griffith now remembered, belonged to a fashion model named Mona. She appeared to want to keep sleeping.
Though Griffith did his best to accede to a lover's wishes, he always answered his Blackberry. He reached out from under Egyptian cotton sheets and fumbled for the phone. While putting it to his ear, he squinted at the numbers on the clock. Five a.m. That was a little early, even for him. "Hello?" he said.
"We financial types here in the west get up with the roosters," the man on the other end apologized. "But you told me to call you as soon as I found out."
In an instant, Griffith came wide awake, placing the voice and its import. It was Edward March, junior vice president at GoldFed Financial. Griffith tensed like a dog on point. "Did you get the meeting?"
"I got it," March told Griffith. "He'll see you at six o'clock tonight."
"Six," Griffith repeated. His heart drove to a happy speed as he twisted to a sitting position. "Bring him to my office. You have my card, right? It's on Avenue of the Stars."
"Will do," March said, then paused. "You're going to wow him, right?"
In his penthouse condominium, Griffith's mouth split in a grin too ferocious to reveal to the fainthearted March. "You won't be sorry you arranged a meeting between me and your boss."
Griffith barely heard Edward March's relieved, "Good." He was already hanging up the phone and jumping out of bed. He had thirteen hours to see that he did, indeed, wow March's boss, the president of GoldFed Financial. Some might claim the kind of presentation that could secure a loan the size Griffith was seeking couldn't be produced in a mere thirteen hours. Whoever said that didn't know Griffith Blaine.
As he made for the bathroom, stark naked, he punched in a number on the Blackberry.
"Oh, Ms. Marshal?" Calling his executive assistant from the bathroom sink, Griffith reached for his toothbrush. "Don't tell me I woke you?" His tone was innocent, but not the smile he gave himself in the mirror. "Sorry about that, especially if you're, uh, entertaining that new man of yours, but we have a rush situation on our hands. You know the Wildwood project...?"
While Griffith explained the charts and graphs he wanted his young and eager assistant to rush to the printer, Mona appeared in the mirror behind him.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"...so we'll need the numbers from our latest run-through," Griffith went on to Deirdre Marshal. "Put it on the good paper, in the new folders. Just business, sweetheart. That bit wasn't for you, Deirdre." Griffith shoved his toothbrush into his mouth and listened to the anxious obstacles Deirdre was imagining would get in the way of assembling the presentation Griffith
would
put together.
"Business," Mona repeated. "At this ungodly hour?" Though her blond hair was disheveled, it looked as though it was supposed to be that way. Her skin, her lips — everything about her appearance fresh out of bed and wearing Griffith's silk robe could have graced a magazine cover. She fit right in with the rest of the condo. Picture perfect. A real prize.
With a smug smile, Griffith finished brushing his teeth. "I know you can do it, Deirdre." He dropped his toothbrush into its holder. "You're my right hand, aren't you? Baby Griffith in disguise?" He laughed at Deirdre's dry reply, then clicked off the phone. Turning, he gave Mona a pat on her tiny bottom. "Gotta go, sweetheart."
She pouted. "I thought you were going to introduce me to that magazine executive today."
Actually, Griffith had told Mona, angling to get her into bed, that he
might
be able to get her an introduction. He'd never have been so foolish as to make a promise. "Well, maybe I still can..." he hedged.
Judging by the look on Mona's face, Griffith saw that he'd damn well better. He snapped his fingers. "We'll do lunch." He could make the time. Even with the big Wildwood presentation in thirteen hours — especially so — Griffith could find a way.
Mona, however, looked aghast. "
Lunch
? You're suggesting...
food
?"
"Uh...is something wrong with that?" To be truthful, the lady could use a few pounds on her. "I'll call you with a time and place." Smiling blithely, Griffith went to find his clothes. Well, okay, he'd picked one who was gorgeous, fashion savvy — and possibly nuttier than a fruitcake. She didn't eat food? Considering they'd been together nearly a week, he probably should have noticed by now.
Thirty minutes after watching Mona slink back to bed with a dark look in his direction — possibly still cogitating the evil suggestion of food — Griffith sat on an exercise bike at the L.A. Sports Club, pedaling madly. Well, yes, he had the presentation of his life to deliver, but he wasn't about to let a little thing like that prevent him from doing the million other tasks he needed to do that day, Mona's lunch included. It wouldn't be sporting.
Number one on his task list was making sure he didn't drop dead of a coronary, the way his father had. A worthy endeavor on many levels, Griffith thought, but mostly because he'd be doing yet another thing better than his father.
Exercising didn't stop work, however. While one of Griffith's hands gripped the bike's handlebar, the other held his Blackberry to his ear. "I'll make it worth your while," he told his favorite architectural printer. "Fifty percent more than we paid for our last job — if you can guarantee me delivery by five." Listening to the printer's remonstrance, Griffith looked at his watch. "Okay, sixty percent more," he said, and smiled at the printer's now affirmative response. How money did talk, and Griffith knew just how to make the stuff sing. "But not a minute past five," he warned.
Griffith was about to make another call when a text message rolled across his screen.
Griffith, you fucker, I'll get you for this
.
On the bike amid a forest of other businessmen riding madly to nowhere, Griffith laughed out loud. The message was from Simon Grolier.
It was at Simon's office that GoldFed's executives were supposed to have gathered this evening. It was to Simon's pitch for a loan they were supposed to have listened. But Simon's housing project, only fifty miles north of Griffith's Sagebrush Valley site, was too close for Griffith to allow Simon to get a loan. The bank wouldn't agree to finance both of them.
Accordingly, Griffith had cornered Edward March the day before with a portfolio of renderings and he'd been oh, so sweetly persuasive. Could Griffith help it that March had fallen in love with model C, a two-story Tudor with walk-in closets, master bath Jacuzzi, and outdoor barbecue — or that Griffith had promised to sell him one at a significant discount, should his project be the one that got the bank's loan? Griffith continued bicycling with a big grin on his face. He did like to win.
An hour later, showered, in an Armani suit, and behind the wheel of his Porsche, Griffith used the GPS religiously to drive through L.A.'s August heat. On the phone, he barked orders to Deirdre in between visiting four construction sites, where he took care of the usual obstacles that might hinder on-time completion, and subsequent payment on the office leases Griffith had already sold. Somewhere in there he managed to arrange a lunch date for the magazine executive, himself, and Mona.