The Scandalous Billionaires Collection (8 page)

"You had fantasies about him." David
continued. "He reminds you of the guy who used to bully you in high
school that you had a serious crush on."

"That's not precisely what I said David."

"Melissa, for God's sake, do you want me to
represent you to the committee or not? You said all of those
things."

"I did. I surely did, but I didn't say any of
them about Jason Demovic."

"What are you talking about?"

"I mentioned a good looking client by the
name of Jason who had momentarily thrown me off guard, but nothing
about Jason Demovic." If it was one thing Melissa had, it was a
great memory for conversation. Her odd exchange with David
yesterday was clear as a bell in her mind. She had never used his
last name, but her heart was pounding like a jackhammer at the
thought of lying to her counselor. Melissa didn’t do lies and now
was about the worst time in her career to start being economical
with the truth.

"So if I were to look at your case files then
I would see that there is a client by the name of Jason, an
attractive, wealthy man, who you saw yesterday for the first time
and that man is not Jason Demovic. Is that correct?"

"Are you asking to look at my client
records?"

"No. Of course not--"

"Then the subject is closed, right?"

"Melissa--"

"Is there anything else?"

He sighed heavily.

"Melissa, you're really forcing my hand
here."

"Forcing your hand to what exactly?"

"I didn't want to have to tell you this but
that Demovic guy isn't who you think he is."

Melissa waited. This was getting messier by
the minute. This was exactly why she never told lies.

"I'm not sure I'm comfortable talking about
this subject anymore David."

"Comfortable doesn't come into it Melissa,
this guy is out to ruin you."

Melissa laughed out loud. There was no
response from the other end of the line.

"Oh my God. You're deadly serious aren't
you?" she said mockingly

"How do you think he found you?" David
said.

"I told you he's not a client David, now can
we just drop this?"

"I sent him to you. That's how he found
you."

Melissa froze. This was getting too
weird.

"Okay." She said slowly, carefully. "And what
if you did? That doesn't change anything. He's still not my
client."

"He said he was looking for a female
therapist due to the nature of his problem and because he felt he
could open up more to a woman."

"So? That's not unusual."

"He said he wanted someone with an unorthodox
approach, someone who wasn't afraid to take risks."

"That's me. He's a very bright man and a very
successful one. I presume he is a risk taker himself and he
appreciates that in others."

"You're not the first female therapist he's
been to who has a reputation for being unorthodox."

"So he's still looking for the right fit.
None of this is anything other than completely normal."

"The last therapist he spent time with is
currently undergoing a disciplinary procedure as a result of the
relationship that he had with her."

Melissa choked a little, tried to respond and
then realized she had nothing to say.

"Stay away from him Melissa. I'm warning you.
This guy is very powerful and he is nothing but trouble."

"I don't understand, how do you know he had
an affair with his therapist?"

"That's not the point. The question is why
are you lying to me about him? Have you taken him on as a client
already? Just tell me the truth now and we can put all this behind
us."

"I… I didn’t take him on David. What do I
have to do to convince you of that?"

Melissa was trying to sound calm but her
picture of Jason Demovic was taking a battering and it was
profoundly unsettling.

"You don't need to convince me of anything. I
don’t care what you've already done, but just promise me this; tell
me you'll stay as far away from him as you can until next week,
okay? That's all. The hearing is on Tuesday, it's not that long and
they'll have a decision within weeks of that so until then you need
to treat this guy as though he has an infectious disease. Do you
understand me?"

Could it really be true? Was the gorgeous man
who had given her the kiss of her life really just be some kind of
sociopath out to ruin her?

"David, how do you even know all this about
him?"

"You know me Melissa, I can spot these
things. Something was off about him from the get go. He wasn't very
forthcoming about himself and then the way he was so specific in
what he wanted, well, I just have an instinct after all these years
of working with severely neurotic clients."

It was true that he had a reputation for
unerringly spotting clients for whom psychiatry or medication would
be better than psychotherapy.

"I'm just so sorry I gave him your number
before checking him out Melissa, but I knew you could use the
business so I was less thorough than I should have been. You'll
have to forgive me."

Melissa nodded her head but didn't say a word
into the phone.

"After I gave him your number I made a few
calls on a hunch and it turns out that the ethics committee know
this guy. He's the central figure in not one but two of their
ongoing cases. And in fact they are the
only
two cases in
process at the moment not counting your own. If they get wind of
you taking this guy on as a client--"

"Okay David. I understand. I'll try to get
rid of him."

"Try? What does that mean? I thought you said
he wasn't a client yet? Is there something else going on?"

Damn you David, can’t you just drop
something for once?

"Don't worry about it. It's just an
expression, I'll get rid of him. I
will
get rid of him."

David was silent while Melissa quietly fumed
in exasperation. He was always like this; always smelling a rat and
always like a dog with a bone.

"Melissa, can I count on you to protect
yourself from this guy?"

"Of course you can David. Look, I'm sorry I
doubted you. You're the best friend I have right now in this whole
thing. Don't worry about it. Demovic is history."

"Thank God for that. You don't know how happy
that makes me feel."

Melissa felt a momentary relief, her heart
lifting a degree or two.

"So are you free for lunch tomorrow?" David
asked. Her heart sank again.

"Excuse me?"

"I can pick you up at one if that's
okay."

"David, this is just getting weird, since
when do therapists and their supervising analysts do lunch
together?"

"We need to go over what's going to happen at
the hearing next week and tomorrow is the only day I have."

She cursed silently.

"Okay, one it is." She said slowly, as though
writing it down, but Jason Demovic's car would be waiting for her
at 8.30am.

"Actually scratch that." She added quickly.
"Can we make it dinner? Say 8pm?"

David hesitated, Melissa held her breath.

"Uh, okay, sure, even better." He said
finally. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"Eight it is." David continued. "And
Melissa?"

"Yes?"

"Wear something sexy."

Melissa froze in her chair, rigid with
shock.

********************

At the other end of town Zach tried to relax
his tightened expression. Listening to his brother's confession had
been a torture. He was a machine guy. A coder. He loved animals,
cars and computers, but people and their weird problems? He
honestly couldn't get his head around them and made a point of
avoiding them whenever he could.

"Jason… bro… I had no idea. No wonder it's
taken you so long to find a shrink who can fix you."

"Sensitive as always Zach."

"You know this isn’t my strong point, but if
it helps I think I can picture just how humiliating that must have
been. Just so I have it clear can you run it by me one more time
with a little more detail?"

Jason groaned. "How much more detail do you
need? This isn't easy for me to talk about. It is so damn true what
they say about software engineers."

"I'm not the one who's a virgin."

"That is not what I said. You have totally
misunderstood me."

"Essentially a virgin."

"No. Not even close. I'm not a virgin, either
essentially or in any other way."

"To all intents and purposes--"

"No. The problem is that I just cannot make
love to anyone. Not anymore. I wasn't always like this."

"'Make love to'? Since when does Jason
Demovic 'make love'?"

"Okay, I can't fuck anyone if that's the way
you want me to put it."

"I'm sorry bro, just not quite used to this.
Look, just help me understand a bit more. When did this begin? Are
we talking days, weeks, months?"

"It's been three years."

Zach hissed a curse, ground his teeth and
nearly slammed his phone into the table before composing himself
again to continue the conversation.

"Jason… why the hell did you wait so long to
tell anyone?"

"This really isn't helping Zach. Not one bit.
I practically had to beg you to hear me out and now you're asking
me why it took me so long to get help? You should really listen to
yourself sometimes."

"So this means you didn't do it with that hot
lady therapist?"

"Never laid a finger on her."

"So why the lawsuit? The legal team are
telling me the therapist could lose her license to practice."

"You don't need to sleep with a client to be
disciplined or struck off. All you need to do is come on to them
and trust me that woman should never be allowed to practice again.
The crap she tried to pull on me to get me into bed was nothing
short of scandalous."

"What about all those women you've been
running around with, selling their stories to the gossip
press?"

"All lies. They make things up because
they're too drunk to remember what happened or they have to because
nothing happened at all. I haven't been with anyone since the high
school reunion three years ago."

"That was the start of it all? That stupid
high school reunion?"

Zach had convinced him to go thinking it
would be fun to see all the assholes who had bullied them in high
school now that they were billionaire tycoons. He hadn't understood
his big brother's resistance to going along.

"She was there." Jason said. "I thought I'd
forgotten all about it. Then when I met her, God, I felt like I was
back in high school again--it all came back, just like I was
eighteen again. She played with me, teased me. She led me on and
then when we--"

"You mean at the reunion?"

"Yes. At that stupid fucking reunion. It was
crazy. A few drinks and some old songs and I had this crazy notion
that it could really happen this time, that maybe there were some
feelings there, but then at the last minute she did the same thing
again."

"But you aren’t the same person anymore
Jason, not even close. If she did the same thing again why didn’t
you press charges or--."

"No. That's not the answer. I can't blame
her. That doesn't help anyway. I've got to move on and get over
this myself and I think this therapist is the only one who can help
me but she's refusing to work with me. Besides, it’s not her
therapeutic skills I need-- it's
her
. She's the cure. She's
the only woman who's made me feel like this in three years, or
maybe ever. So look, are you going to help me out or not?"

Zach was listening alright, but he didn’t
like what he was hearing.

"It's not as simple as it sounds Jay. There's
a legal process in place here and most of it was initiated by me.
We can't just ignore all that."

"Since when did things like legal processes
ever get in
your
way? The rebel hacker guy? Don’t tell me
you wouldn't do the same if you found something you wanted. The
only person I know in the world who's more obsessive than me is you
or maybe our crazy little brother Harrison, but don't lie to me and
tell me you don’t fully understand what I'm talking about
here."

Zach didn’t respond. Like his older brother
he couldn’t be rushed or intimidated into anything. He would take
his time to consider even if his quick and decisive mind and
inevitably found an answer in short order.

"No way. I won't help you. Not like that
anyway. This isn't a game or a software program, this is our
family, this is you and this is Demovic Inc. You need to rethink
this."

Jason's jaw tightened. He knew his brother
well and he had counted on his willingness to help him where
hardball logic or begging would have failed. This was all new for
him. The opposition of the board, the refusal of Dr. Price to cave
in and cut a deal and now his brother standing firm against him--he
was beginning to feel like an animal being backed into a
corner.

But he still intended to get exactly what he
wanted, even if he wasn't sure quite how just yet.

"Okay Zach. I understand, I won’t ask you to
do anything that would risk your position, but at least promise me
that you will lay off until Dr. Price and I have a chance to work
things out more clearly between us. I absolutely guarantee that if
it's Demovic Inc and my mental health that you're worried about
then this is the way to go."

Zach let out a long sigh of resignation.

"You're an asshole Jay, but I'll hang back
for now if you promise me one thing."

Zach knew as well as everyone else in the
close knit family circle that a promise from Jason was iron
clad.

"Shoot." His brother said.

"Promise me you won't sleep with her."

"Screw you Zach. God damn it. Since when do
you get to tell me who I can and can't sleep with?"