The Scandalous Billionaires Collection (4 page)

"Good-looking?"

"Among other things."

"But you said 'good-looking'."

"Yes."

"How good looking?"

"Very. I would say unusually attractive."

David was silent for a moment, deep in
thought.

"Are you attracted to him?" He asked.

"Of course not." Melissa bit back, far too
quickly.

There was another silence. Melissa felt her
exasperation rise. It always did when David was onto something. The
man was like a blood-hound when it came to human analysis.

"Maybe a little bit." She conceded.

"How little is a little bit?"

"He reminds me of a guy I had a crush on in
high school."

"I don't imagine you as ever having had a
crush on anyone." David said.

It was an odd comment, but Melissa
instinctively trusted her supervisor. He had guided her through so
many difficult encounters in the past.

"Well I did. A terrible one. I was a total
geek and he was a total jock. An arrogant ass, just like this
guy."

"And what happened?"

"I fantasized about him. Just briefly."

"Well I presumed you would, it was a teenage
crush after all."

God damn it.

Melissa felt herself redden. She had
misunderstood David's question.

"Are you blushing?" David sounded awestruck.
He had seen the whole gamut of her emotions in his years with
Melissa, but he had never seen her go red with embarrassment.

"You were talking about your client, not your
high school crush." He said.

"No I wasn't."

"Yes you were. You fantasized about your
client while he was talking to you."

"I didn't."

"There's no point in lying to me Melissa, it
will only slow down the therapeutic process and besides, this is a
perfectly normal reaction. Therapists feel attracted to clients all
the time, we're only human beings, I don’t need to tell you
this."

Despite her discomfort Melissa felt relieved.
It was painful for her to talk about things like this but at least
it would keep David off the scent of the thorny issue of being
bribed for fake therapy. She lifted her eyes from the floor and
looked David directly in the eye.

"An image flashed through my mind. Just for a
second." She said.

"Would you like to share with me the image
that 'flashed' through your mind?"

When David asked if you would like to share
something it meant that therapy would go no further until it was
out in the open. Melissa sighed. The image flashed through her mind
again and she felt a thrill of pleasure run straight through
her.

God, this is ridiculous.
She thought.
He's just a guy not some archetype of male sexuality.

David was still waiting, still staring at
her, still waiting for an answer. She took a deep breath

"Tell me about the image." He said.

"I'd rather not."

"Was it sexual in nature? Is that why--"

"It was an image of him fucking me on the
carpet in my office." She blurted out.

David didn’t move.

"Don't tell me you've never had a fantasy
about an attractive client in your life David. Come on, you just
told me it's a perfectly normal reaction."

"That's a fairly graphic image Melissa. Did
something specific give rise to that train of thought?"

She searched back in her mind.

"It was something he said. When we shook
hands there was a crackle of static electricity and he said I
needed to change my carpet."

"Change your carpet?"

"Yes. And then I had the image of him on top
of me."

"On top of you." David said slowly.

How does he always do it?
Melissa
thought.
I show up promising myself to only talk about certain
things and he always gets to me.

"Do you want to go into any more detail?" He
said.

Come on Melissa, this is going to help
you.

"He was on top of me." She continued. "He
felt huge and primal and I was lost in it, as though he were using
me like a plaything." The words were having an effect on her. She
felt her nipples swell against her blouse and her panties were
beginning to moisten.

This was just crazy.

No client should make her lose control like
this and no client, hell no man had ever had this effect on her
before.

"And you wanted him to…" David hesitated in
his choice of words, "to fuck you." he said as though the
coarseness of his choice of words was distasteful but
necessary.

"Of course I did. Why else would I have a
fantasy like this?"

"I don't know. Do you normally fantasize
about attractive clients this way?"

"No. I do not. I never have. It has never
occurred to me."

She paused for breath. Good therapy was never
easy.

"He was on top of me and he had taken me
because I wanted him to, but then it was more than I could have
imagined. The thought of him... God, the thought of him inside of
me."

She had to stop again. Her breathing was
becoming rapid, her heart beginning to race. David's presence next
to her was profoundly uncomfortable.

"But then he reminded me of that boy at
school who never did anything but treat me like a joke, a laughable
geek. I thought I loved him because he was everything I wasn't;
athletic, popular, good-looking, but he turned out to be just an
arrogant bully, just like this client Jason--"

"Stop there Melissa. Don't tell me his name.
No breach of confidentiality, you know better than that."

She hung her head down. She did know better,
but it didn't seem to make any difference anymore. Knowing better
and doing better seemed to be growing further apart by the day.

"Look, Melissa, I've got to go now, but
there's a simple plan of action here. You can't see this client
ever again."

A jolt of fear went through her.

"Do you understand me? You and this person
cannot work together. It won't help either him or you and the
breach in professional ethics would be unforgivable."

Melissa was stunned. David had never
forbidden her to do anything before. Ever. Ultimatums weren't in
his therapeutic repertoire.

"This goes beyond therapy and into ethics and
will have serious repercussions on your ethics committee hearing if
it gets out that you are actively entertaining sexual thoughts
about another client."

"
Another
client? What do you mean by
that?"

"Your last indiscretion was also with an
attractive man."

"There was no indiscretion David, I thought
we had discussed all of this?"

"I'm sorry to have to break it to you like
this Melissa but with the hearing coming up we don't have time for
slow therapeutic breakthroughs. You have to set this denial aside
once and for all and acknowledge that what you did was wrong, learn
from it, and then change your behavior in order to move. If you go
down the same road with a new client then I will have no choice but
to report it to the board. Do you understand me?"

Melissa was reeling. David was helping her
through the process of dealing with the implications of her hearing
but he had never framed her actions in these terms. She felt as
though the ground were being taken away from under her feet; he was
supposed to be on her side. Without his support things were almost
guaranteed to go the wrong way.

"I didn't do anything wrong David, you've got
to--"

"Melissa." He stopped her firmly. "We don’t
have time for this denial of the facts. Come on!"

He held her in his famous fixed stare while
she tried to square up this new version of reality in her head.

"Okay." She said finally in a shaky voice.
"Maybe you're right..." Her voice trailed off.

"I may already have to discuss what you've
just told me with the board when I meet with them in advance of
your hearing." His voice was filled with disappointment and
disapproval, as though she were a child who had let him down.

She looked at him in amazement.

"Can I go now?" She said.

"Can you go now? Melissa, this is your hour.
This time is totally for your benefit. Of course you can go
whenever you please. You're a grown woman."

He stood up and walked over to her.

"It's getting late." He said.

"Of course. " Melissa stood up and gathered
her things. David escorted to the office door and then stood in
front of her blocking the way.

"Melissa, our hour is already up so this is
just from me to you, okay?"

He put his arms around her and gently kissed
her forehead. Her body stiffened instinctively against his. This
was something he had never done before--something totally
unprofessional and almost exactly the same action that now
threatened to ruin her career with the ethics committee--something
David knew very well indeed.

He lowered his mouth from her forehead and
then whispered into her ear.

"Everything is going to be okay Melissa.
Trust me."

"David, please… I'm not sure this is
okay."

He released her from his arms and looked at
her with his intense blue eyes.

"You're right." He said. "Is that how it felt
when you--"

"I don't get where you're going with this
David. Can we just--"

"No. You're completely right Melissa. I'm
sorry, I overstepped my boundaries there but I just… sometimes as a
therapist… as a person, you want to give more than just words. You
of all people should know that. I thought you would understand, but
I can see I was wrong."

It was true. She had never meant to upset
anyone. All she had wanted to do was comfort a man who had been
badly treated by life and who was falling apart in front of her
eyes--but then his reaction had been to blow things out of all
proportion. How could she hold the same simple action of human
comfort against David, one of her most trusted friends and
colleagues?

"It's okay David. I understand--really I do.
It's just been a difficult, uh… a difficult session."

"Don’t worry." He said with just the glimmer
of a smile on his lips. "We can work everything out Melissa. I'm on
your side." He pulled her in close again and squeezed her rigid,
resisting body against his own.

"No-one understands you like I do." He said
softly into her ear.

The knot of anxiety in her stomach tightened
another notch at the sound of his words.

Melissa sat on her couch looking at the tall, elegant
goblet of red wine she had poured for herself. It was from a case
that she and her ex-boyfriend Conor had ordered when they were on a
wine tour of Napa Valley. The relationship had ended on that
holiday. She hadn't wanted to go because she hated leaving Suzy
alone in New York City and because she couldn't bear the thought of
spending all that money when she needed cash so badly for medical
bills, but Conor had insisted that they needed a holiday. Buying
the expensive wine had been the last straw and now she had a case
of the damn stuff in her apartment that he refused to come an
collect but also refused to say was hers either.

She had been looking at the glass for
forty-five minutes straight but after her initial sip drinking it
was the last thing on her mind. She knew her intolerance to alcohol
would leave her senseless if she went too far, but a couple of
mouthfuls would leave her mercifully at ease after the weird,
uncomfortable day she had just had.

Blushing in front of her client.

Her client trying to bribe her.

The date for her hearing so soon next
week.

Blushing in front of her supervisor and then
her supervisor's weird and inappropriate behavior.

And then of course there were the usual
problems that never seemed to go away; her sister's illness, the
medical bills and even the damn rent on her apartment.

She took another small sip of wine from the
glass and set it down on the coffee table.

There had to be a way to make all these
problems go away somehow.

Sex with Jason Demovic.

The thought was fleeting but intense.

What the hell?

Her mind for years had been as predictable
and well ordered as her pristine office space but since her clients
meltdown from her simple act of human comfort it seemed no longer
to be under her control.

She snatched up the wine glass again and took
a large swig that spilled half of it onto the white rug on her
living-room floor.

She had imagined that she and Conor would
have a lot of fun on that rug but he had never shown any
inclination. He had liked bedroom sex only. Plain vanilla flavored.
Nothing else.

Not like Jason Demovic.
She thought
and then instantly remonstrated with herself.
Oh for Christ's
sake, Melissa. Please. You don’t know that.

She took another gulp of her red wine,
ignoring the fact that she had already passed her limit.

Red wine would help her relax, wouldn’t
it?

She took yet another sip of wine. Another big
one and then looked down at the stain on the rug. The fact that she
didn't care about it was a sure sign that she had already had way
too much. The rational part of her mind knew that she was doing
everything wrong to deal with her problems, but the neglected
emotional part sent her into the kitchen to find the open bottle of
the expensive Napa red and top up her glass. She knew how annoying
it would be to her ex when he finally came to pick it up and found
a bottle or two missing.

She returned to the sofa with a filled glass
and a tub of ice-cream from the freezer to keep her company.
Flicking through the menu on her smart TV she looked for something
brain dead to keep her entertained until the wine would make her
pass out. It probably wouldn't be very long. She stopped at
something called LiveWildCelebs that claimed to track celebrities
in real time on live TV. The goal seemed to be catching them in
meltdown mode and the theme seemed appropriate for how she was
feeling tonight.