What caught my eyes first was the gold lettering and gold borders on the card. The gold was probably real gold. My eyes focused on the words on the card.
Dear Ms. Sara Nolles,
It is my pleasure to invite you to the Saunders Empire private annual ball. As you are aware, this is an event for the most elite men and women in our country.
I enjoyed your company last time we met and hope you will join me again.
Your invitation package will be delivered within the next twenty hours. We eagerly await your response.
Sincerely,
Nick Saunders
I read the card over and over again, wondering what I was missing. Then I started picking apart the phrases. They must have made a mistake. For all the money and resources Saunders Empire had, they couldn't keep their guest list correct? Yeah, granted I had interned there, but how did I end up on their guest list? Did someone who knew me when I was there include me on the list?
Me, a part of the elite group of men and women? Elite men and women! Is that a joke? I can't even get a job with an elite man or woman, whatever the heck elite meant. I imagined elite meant "rich and stuck up," men who listed "playboy" as a hobby and women who hired maids to brush their hair and apply their makeup. This had to be a case of mistaken identity. Perhaps there was a Sara Nolles somewhere on their guest list and our names and address had crossed.
And what the heck did he mean by he had enjoyed my company? What exactly did the real Sara Nolles do for him? I only saw Nick Saunders once during my internship, and he had been presenting to a room full of his employees. He would never have noticed me tucked all the way in the back, and even if he had noticed me, I prided myself on not being the type of woman playboys like him dated – rich, skinny, obnoxious women. Nick’s reputation for having an insatiable appetite for women preceded him, and I did not want to be on his list.
I read the card again as I walked to my bed. I would call the next day and inform the company of their error. I was not elite, and the card was certainly not for this Sara Nolles.
NICK
Nick stared at the picture of the woman who had remained in his mind since the day she had served him coffee at a downtown coffee shop. She had looked familiar, but he couldn’t quite place where they had met because he knew nothing would have stopped him from making a move on her whenever they met.
She was one of those women he hated to admit were irresistible, the type he hated because they were too proud to admit their need of him and made the chase too hard. He had his private detective scoop her out once he’d left the coffee shop, and it hadn’t been hard to pin her down. Within hours, he knew everything he needed to know about her, including the fact that she had interned with him years ago. How had he missed her? So unlike him to let someone who looked like that get away without getting her into his infamous bed.
He flipped the pages of her file, re-reading her life for the millionth time. She had just been dumped by her boyfriend of four years and lived downtown in a dingy apartment. He had to get to her. Initially, he had planned to approach her straight, but he knew a woman like that was not one to be approached without a plan. Then he thought about using her friend to get to her, but that was cliché. Who still talked to girls through their friends? That was so last century.
He looked at her picture again, letting himself drown in her hazel eyes. Really pretty, definitely sexy face –a woman who stood out from all the girls he had dated– long, black, luscious curls that he wanted to get his hands into, lips so succulent he could only imagine kissing them until she moaned his name, and an attitude bigger than her delicate though curvy frame. She had to be his. No other way around it.
When she had served him coffee without an ounce of recognition, he knew she was going to be hard to get.
“Hello, welcome to Pixies,” she had said. “How may I help you?”
“Coffee.”
“What type of coffee, sir? We have several different varieties.” Her hazel eyes had stared into his, and in that moment, there had been an instant attraction. Her eyes never left his gaze, and he was not one to back down from a woman.
“What would you recommend?” he asked, momentarily forgetting that he only drank dark espresso.
“Well, how do you like your coffee? Sweet, strong, dark?” she asked, her gaze still on him.