Dancing in the Gray (32 page)

Elise whipped her head around and
headed back into the bedroom. He knew she would love it because his
mother and sister flipped when they saw it. The previous owner
turned two guest bedrooms into two separate his and hers luxury
closets. Trey pointed out the door that led to the hallway that
separated the two closets. “Mine’s on the right.”

Elise opened the door and her jaw
dropped. “This is freaking awesome!” She walked around the center
unit which was six feet by six feet and had a granite countertop.
The unit contained drawers all around it where he stored his ties,
socks, underwear, watches, etc. The three walls of his closet were
filled with his suits and other clothes. The fourth wall was
ceiling to floor shoes. Elise walked out of his closet and opened
the door to the other one. “It’s completely empty?”

“Yes, I just figured one day I’d have
someone to share all this with.” Elise turned and stared at Trey
with a perplexed look. “What?”

“Well, not to digress too much, but it
amazes me that you had such strong convictions about not being in a
relationship when we met, but clearly you had aspirations.” Elise
waved her hand behind her into the closet.

“I knew sooner or later I wanted to
eventually share my life with somebody and have a family.” Trey
swallowed hard before he spoke, “And, now I’m hoping for sooner,
rather than later.”

Chapter 25

Elise woke up in unfamiliar
surroundings. She was in Trey’s master bedroom. When she looked at
the clock, it said 10:45 am. Trey had left long ago for work and
left Elise all alone in his house. She fought her initial instinct
which was to run around the house and open every drawer, cabinet,
closet, and open piece of mail to find out more about Trey. But, he
did tell her to make herself at home last night after the tour of
the house ended in Trey’s bedroom, so she was planning on
continuing the tour on her own.

Once they found themselves in Trey’s
room, it was very hard to leave it. He told her he was ready to
share his life with someone which was surprisingly exciting for
Elise. She loved him, and she liked the fact that he was open to
the idea of forever. He wanted to introduce her to his family soon,
and even though the thought of that scared her a little, she wanted
to be absorbed into his world.

Elise crawled out of his bed and headed
downstairs to the kitchen for bottle of water. She took a couple of
sips of water then headed over to the other side of the house to
see the rest. Beyond the formal sitting room in the front of the
house, there was an office. It had wooden walls and floors with all
leather furniture. There was a huge desk with papers neatly stacked
on top of it, as well as a desktop and a docking station for a
laptop. A pair of reading glasses similar to the ones he was
wearing on the airplane the day they met sat next to his
computer.

There were bookshelves lining the walls
similar to the ones in his bedroom, but also tons of pictures of
him with his family. There were also awards and plaques for his
philanthropy spanning from AIDS research to the Walter Reed Army
Medical Center. Her hottie was a humanitarian.

Elise looked down at his desk calendar
and saw notes jotted all over it. The previous Friday was circled
and he had the words “Elise’s Award Banquet” written across it. The
Friday that was coming up in a few days had the words “Elise buyout
NY – time off” written across it. Elise smiled as she ran her
finger over the note. He was planning on taking the day off on the
day of her buyout, no doubt for some sort of support. She just
shook her head while wearing the cheesiest grin on her face. Was
there an end to the amazement of this man? She hoped to God
not.

Elise suddenly had a very naughty
thought that crossed her mind. She wanted to thank him for
everything he had done so far and all the things he was planning on
doing for her. So this idea was all about him.

Elise ran out of the office and back
upstairs into the master bedroom. She opened her overnight back and
took out a La Perla lingerie set that she bought in Paris. Trey
hadn’t seen this set…….yet. She went into his bathroom and styled
her hair into two pigtails and then put on her makeup and
lingerie.

Her set was lavender with a thin white
lace trim along the edges of the bra and panties. Elise grabbed her
digital camera out of her purse and went back into Trey’s bathroom.
She started snapping pictures of herself in mirror. The ratio of
totally horrible pictures that she immediately deleted versus the
ones that she could use was about 12:1 due to the crossed eyes,
dimples, cellulite she didn’t realize she had, bad poses, weird
shadows and a random finger in front of the lens. This modeling
thing was much harder than she gave credit.

She tried to get a couple of unique
views by climbing on the bathroom countertop, but after falling off
twice, sliding into the sink, and accidentally turning on the water
when her knee slid into the knob, she gave up on the artistic and
went straight to the raunchy.

She took pictures of herself in the
lingerie set, out of the lingerie set only wearing one of Trey’s
button down Armani shirts, topless sitting at his desk in his
office, and many other places in his house.

Elise scanned through all of the
pictures making sure she picked the super sexiest ones then drafted
an email to Trey. She giggled to herself wishing she could be there
to see Trey’s face when he opened the email.

~

Trey was sitting in a fundraising
meeting with Paul and a couple of gentlemen who had been small
business advocates. They were making a donation to Trey’s campaign
since he was a supporter of tax credits to small business owners.
Paul was walking the two gentlemen out of Trey’s office when his
BlackBerry buzzed on the conference room table. He saw a new email
that came through from Elise. The subject of the email
said:

Need Your Advice Regarding
Merger

Trey was wondering what merger Elise
was talking about. He figured it may have been an investment or new
business venture that she was planning on investing in and may have
wanted him to consult. He like that she trusted him not only in her
personal life, but in her professional one as well. Trey walked
over to his desk to open Elise’s email on his laptop so he could
get a better view of the attachments that were enclosed. In the
body of the email Elise wrote:

Please let me know what you think. You
can have closer examination of everything tonight.

XOXO

Elise

Trey took a sip of his coffee and
double clicked on the first attachment. It was a picture of Elise
in a purple-ish bra and panty set sitting behind the desk at his
home office. The shock of what he saw caused him to inhale quickly,
and he began choking on the coffee he just swallowed. Paul had just
come back into his office when Trey began coughing uncontrollably.
He started to make his way towards his desk, but Trey waived him
off in fear that Paul would see Elise on the monitor.

When he finally got control of himself,
he assured Paul that he was ok. He asked him for a minute of
privacy because he needed to call Elise. Paul happily left his
office and told him that he would head out for some lunch and to
just give him a call when he was ready. Trey immediately picked up
his cell phone and called Elise.

She picked up the phone on the first
ring. “Wow! Are you this quick to give feedback to all of your
clients? I see why you are so successful.”

“Very funny, Elise.” Trey cleared his
throat.

“So, were you going to need closer
examination tonight? Or did you want to discuss all the attachments
with me now over the phone?”

“Elise, I’ve only open one picture and
all I have to say is: DAMN GIRL!” Trey was studying the picture on
the monitor. Elise was hot as hell in her pig tails, and Trey was
proud that she was his own personal pin up girl.

Elise began hysterically laughing. “So
did you need time to look at the others on your own or would you
prefer me to give you the play-by-play?”

“I’m afraid to open the rest of them. I
may have to rush back to the house to get some relief.”

“Or, I could help you get some release
over the phone.”

Trey slowly inhaled through his nose as
a wicked smile crossed his face. Never a dull moment with Ms.
DePaul. “I would love to know how you would do that over the phone,
believe me. But, I was planning on finishing up my work early today
and rushing back home to be with you in person. Paul and I have one
more meeting after lunch then I’m all yours for the rest of the
evening.”

“I absolutely cannot wait for you to
get home so I can show you in person what I was planning on doing
to you over the phone. In the meantime, you should open the rest of
the photos. If you thought the first one was hot, it ain’t nothin’
compared to the rest of them.”

“Oh trust me, I will be opening the
rest of them. I may have to sit behind my desk for the rest of the
day to hide my erection, but I’m sure it will be worth it. And by
the way, I love how you just said that you couldn’t wait for me to
get home. I want you to feel at home there.”

“I do. I hope you don’t mind that I
checked out the rest of your house. Your office is very nice, and I
may have borrowed one of your shirts for the pictures.”

“I don’t mind at all. In fact, I’ve
already asked Maggie to have keys made for you.” He wanted to share
his life with her … starting now.

“Trey, you don’t have to do that. I…..I
mean…..are you sure?” Elise sounded excited which cause that warm
feeling to spread across his chest.

“Positive. I wasn’t joking when I said
I was devoted to you. I want you in my life, Elise. I want to share
my life with you. I love you.”

“You are simply amazing. I hope you
know that. And, I’ll get you keys to my townhome and my Porsche.”
Trey sat back in her chair and felt the warmth of those words
spread through his chest.

He picked up the framed picture that
Maggie brought in this morning. It was the picture of him and Elise
together backstage at the awards banquet. She looked so beautiful,
and Trey was proud to be there with her.

“Whatever you would like me to have,
I’ll gladly accept.”

“Then I will make the arrangements.” He
heard the smile in her voice.

“And, by the way, Maggie is now a
die-hard fan of yours, especially after she received the huge
basket of your products this morning. She ran into my office and
showed me everything that you put together for her. That was such a
sweet gesture.”

“It really was nothing. I had Jeremy
work his magic to identify her palate and asked him to rush
delivery since she helped me execute my plan to make you dinner
last night. I have three more being built for your mom, Sophia, and
Jessie. You know … for whenever I get to meet them.”

Trey ran his thumb down the side of the
picture. He couldn’t express how extremely lucky he was that Elise
was on the same flight as him, sat next to him, dropped her phone
in his lap, and made the first move. He could imagine his life
without her, and to think, he almost passed up the opportunity even
though it seemed that everything that occurred was pushing them
together.

“So when would you like to meet
them?”

“I’m the one with the schedule that’s
about to become very flexible, so whenever it’s most convenient for
them.”

“I’ll call mom and have her rally the
troops.”

“Please make it very clear to her that
she shouldn’t go out of her way for anything.”

“I will, and I’ll be home in a couple
of hours. I love you, Elise.”

“Not as much as I love you. Bye,
Love.”

~

Trey and Ronald pulled up at his McLean
home around 3 pm. His last meeting of the day ran a little longer
than expected, but it was still very early compared to the times
that he would normally leave his office pre-Elise. He couldn’t wait
to see her. The image of her asleep and completely naked wrapped in
his sheets with her hair wildly laying across his pillows didn’t
leave his mind all day. He was so hesitant to leave her again this
morning wanting to spend the entire day doing what they had spent
the entire night doing.

Ronald was a good distance in front of
Trey heading towards the house when the front door opened and Elise
came running out to greet him. She had her hair all pulled up into
a ponytail and was barefoot wearing a white strapless sundress that
stopped around mid-thigh. Elise ran by Ronald first saying, “Hey
Ronald!”

Ronald smiled, “Good afternoon, Ms.
DePaul.”

She shouted behind her as she continued
to make her way to Trey, “Call me Elise.” Elise was a few feet away
from Trey when she leapt towards him, wrapping her arms around his
neck. Trey caught her with one arm, since his briefcase and suit
jacket was in the other, and hugged her tightly to him. “YAY!
You’re home.”

“I’m home!” Trey was certain that every
single tooth in his mouth was visible from the smile that Elise
brought to his face. He loved this girl so much. He kissed her
temple before setting her down onto the ground.