Page 111 of Naughty Nelle

“Um…uh…I had to take an important (yeah, right!) call from my boss, Catherine. She’s very demanding.”

“I am too.”

I could actually see the smirk on his bronzed face in my mind’s eye.

“Please hurry.”

“I’ll be right there.”

“Oh, by the way, I’ve made friends with your cat. You have a very sweet pussy.” CLICK

Aflutter, I slammed the receiver back on the hook, and ran over to the stove. Phew! There was still enough water left in the pot to cook the noodles. Without wasting a second, I emptied the package into the bubbling water.

Five minutes later, I carried a steaming bowl of the noodle mix with a pair of chopsticks into the living room.

“Hi,” I chirped, already aroused at the sight of him.

Jo-Jo by his feet, he was staring at the large poster above the couch. His back was to me. God, what a great ass he had! Perfectly shaped buns of steel. And then as my eyes traveled from his narrow waist up his spine, something else captured my attention. For the first time, I noticed a grisly six-inch scar that ran down his right shoulder blade. The one imperfection on his otherwise perfect body. I wondered how he’d gotten it, but this wasn’t the time to ask.

“So you’re into Josephine Baker,” he said, not turning around.

“Not really. I sublet this place from a Broadway dancer. He’s away on tour.”

“Josephine was a great beauty. Like you.”

The bowl of soup almost slipped from my hands as I lowered it to the vintage trunk that also served as a dining table. Me, a great beauty? In the eyes of this god?

He moved a few feet and studied another portrait. A small oil painting of a little girl with long pigtails and big soulful brown eyes. The only object in this apartment that was mine.

“Is that a portrait of you?”

“Yes. My mother painted it when I was five years old. She’s an artist.”

“There’s deepness and determination in those eyes.”

I didn’t quite know what to say as he turned to face me.

“Are you an artist too? I’ve seen you sketching several times while waiting for the train.”

A shiver skittered down my spine. How long had he been watching me? More than six months?

“You were often weeping. What were you sketching?”

“Mostly images of my mom when she was younger so that I can remember her healthy and beautiful.”

Sadness swept over me knowing that she might never be that way again. And that she might not be around next year at this time if she didn’t receive more of her treatments. As much as I wanted to share my mother’s plight with this devastating billionaire standing next to me, I refrained. He’d probably think I was after his money, which I wasn’t.

“You’re talented. They’re very good.”

Unknowingly or not, he’d just revealed that he had leafed through my sketchpad while I slept on the train. I wanted to be mad at him but couldn’t. He sounded so sincere.

“What were those other weird things in your sketchpad?”

“Ideas for toys.”

Ari arched his thick flaxen eyebrows. “Toys?”

I smiled. “I want to be a toy designer when I ‘grow up.’ I’ve always been into toys.”

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