Page 6 of Rival Desires

Reluctantly, I shared the bare essentials: the liquid courage, the irresistible pull towards the mysterious woman in purple, the flirtatious banter on the terrace, the lost masks, and the enchanting night that ended tangled up with each other in my car.

“So, let me get this straight - you meet this drop-dead gorgeous woman, but you don’t even get her number?” Fury clicked his tongue disapprovingly when I finished my tale. “Amateur hour, my friend.”

In frustration, I threw up my hands. “I know, I know! Believe me, I’ve been beating myself up all weekend for not even getting her name.”

“Well, hey, you finally took the leap! You gotta applaud those baby steps, buddy.” He chuckled and gave me a solid whack on the back. “Look at you, getting some action!”

I rolled my eyes, a wry grin playing at the corners of my mouth. “Don’t go popping the cork just yet. I’ve got a feeling she was a one-time wonder, a stroke of pure luck.”

“Ah, don’t sell yourself short! Maybe this is just the beginning, the end of your dry spell and the start of a romantic deluge, eh?”A sly grin spread across his face. “If you’re in the market for some pointers on sealing the dealandgetting her number, I’d be more than happy to share a few tricks of the trade?—”

I raised a hand, cutting him off. “Nah, I think I’m good, thanks. Really.” I cleared my throat, steering the conversation back to safer waters. “So, uh, about the charity ball, I take it you left quite the impression that night...”

He launched into the tale of his own escapade - some socialite heiress who apparently hadn’t seen the light of day all weekend. I let his playboy banter wash over me, my thoughts drifting back to my own elusive enchantress. As much as I knew I should let her go, there was a part of me that mourned the lost opportunities, the chances that slipped through my fingers.

If only I’d been braver, bolder, and asked the right questions. But that had never been my forte with women. I thrived on strategy, data, solid numbers, and the comforting certainty of the business world.

Not the frightening unknowns of attraction and romance.

Fury’s voice yanked me back to the present, steering our chat towards business ventures and recent acquisitions. I resolved, for the umpteenth time, not to let my brain waste any more energy mulling over the mysterious woman. After all, I had a company to run.

“And I’ve got that startup CEO you were schmoozing at the party last week,” Fury added. “But more importantly, I’ve been looking into this new crew, Palmer Money Management, that’s been nibbling at our toes - or rather, our client base.”

I scrunched my eyebrows, drawing a blank at the name. “Who the heck are they?”

“That’s the million-dollar question,” Fury tapped his pen on the desk, his forehead creasing. “There’s this big Randall Palmer Management outfit in Sacramento. I figured they just opened a branch here in Palo Alto. But I called in a few favors, and I’ve got it on good authority that Randall Palmer isn’t connected.”

“So, it’s someone else, and they’re already snatching up our clients?”

He nodded gravely. “You got it. My sources tell me it’s run by some guy named Riley Palmer. Never heard of him. He appeared out of thin air and had already bagged a Facebook finance VP and an actress married to some Snapchat bigwig. Big fish, let me tell you. I heard a rumor they’re trying to reel in Jessica Zhang’s accounts, too. And you know we’ve been trying to land her for months.”

I pressed my lips together in a tight line. I’d built my career on predicting the market’s next significant moves, staying three steps ahead of any potential rivals. It was unnerving for a new firm to materialize overnight and already have enough clout to challenge our hard-won territory.

“Think this will mess with our quarterly numbers?” I asked, starting to fret.

Fury reassured me, “We should be alright for now. But if Palmer keeps this up, we might have to batten down the hatches.”

“I guess we’ve got ourselves a bit of a challenge,” I chuckled, rubbing my hands together. “We’ve got to polish up our image, make sure we’re the shiniest apple in the barrel.”

Fury shot me a grin, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “A little rivalry never hurt anyone, right?”

“You bet,” I nodded, pushing myself up from the chair. “How ‘bout we hash this out over lunch?”

He was already lost in a new task, but he gave a quick, absent-minded nod. “Sounds like a plan,” he said.

With a newfound determination, I strode out of Fury’s office, ready to zero in on this mysterious upstart who’d sprung up like a weed in the garden. Palmer Money Management, eh? Just who was this Riley Palmer character swiping our prized clients right from under our noses? It was time to roll up my sleeves and do some serious private eye work, uncover the dirt on him and his slick operation.

Ah, that enchanting woman from the ball, she’d have to remain a tantalizing memory, a wisp of perfume lingering in my thoughts.

FOUR

Rylee

I basked in the early sunshine as I stepped out of my apartment complex, the crisp morning air raising goosebumps on my exposed legs. The temptation to sprint back upstairs for a light jacket crossed my mind, but I dismissed it. The weather forecast had promised a balmy mid-70s by lunchtime, just right for the stroll I had in mind for my midday break.

Tugging on my hoodie zipper, I set off down the quiet street towards the office, a pleasant mile or so away - far enough to get my heart pumping, but not so far that I’d be a sweaty mess when I got there. I took a deep breath, letting the morning air fill my lungs, carrying a whisper of jasmine from someone’s nearby garden. I rarely got to enjoy this time of day just before the world woke up and chaos took over - the calm before the caffeine-fueled storm.

My thoughts meandered back to Sacramento, the city I’d just left a month and a half ago. Moving to Palo Alto had been a rollercoaster of emotions - on the one hand, I felt like I’d busted out of jail, escaping the tense relationship with dear old dadRandall Palmer, the hotshot finance honcho. On the other hand, there was a twinge of homesickness for my old familiar stomping grounds. I always wondered how life might’ve played out if Mom hadn’t left us so early. Would Dad have been less of a hard-nosed disciplinarian and more of a nurturing father if he hadn’t been alone?

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