The Scandalous Billionaires Collection (7 page)

Sandy left his words hanging in the air.

After years of profound self-analysis and
intense therapy with David, Melissa had every right to believe that
she had arrived at some level of self-knowledge. She found it hard
to swallow that her flamboyantly gay and mildly irresponsible
receptionist of all people should be the one to point out her
psychological blind spots to her. She certainly didn't need him to
remind her about the dangers of transference; the phenomenon of a
patient projecting strong feelings, usually erotic, about another
person in their lives onto the therapist.

"If I don't beat him off then you're as good
as out of a job. Flirting with clients is breaking the golden rule
in psychoanalysis."

"Only if you get caught." Sandy watched her
with a mischievous look in his eye. "Don't we all have little
indiscretions? Hell I'm a gay man from a small mid-western town,
don't you think I know all about forbidden love and keeping things
secret?"

"Sandy… God damn it…" This whole conversation
was crazy and would have been unthinkable even just a few weeks
ago, or maybe even a few hours ago.

"Life is short Melissa. Way too short to hide
who you really are."

"That's not it at all. I'm not hiding
anything, especially not who I really am."

Sandy's desk phone rang and he held up a
finger to silence his boss while he took the call.

"Dr. Price's office. Uh huh. okay. I'll see
if she's available." He put the call on mute. "It's David, I mean,
Dr.
Smith." Sandy had never taken to his boss's supervisor
in the one or two times he had interacted with him.

"He says it's urgent."

Melissa hesitated. Her mouth went dry.

I haven’t done anything wrong.
She
reminded herself.
He's not my client. Not yet. He's not anything
yet.

David had tried to call her just before the
session with Jason. He had ordered her to stay away from the man
who had just succeeded in putting her head into a tailspin.

But on what grounds and under what
authority?
She asked herself defiantly.

"I'll take it inside." She said and headed
into her office.

She sat down and picked up the receiver.

"Hello David, what's up?"

She looked at the cell phone on her desk and
saw that he had called her multiple times, at least ten, during the
time she had been with Jason.

"Why did Jason Demovic just leave your
office?"

Melissa set the receiver carefully down in
front of her and sat with her arms rigidly stretched out onto the
desk.

"Melissa? Hello? Melissa, are you still
there?"

Jason Demovic was still shaking as he walked
unevenly down the steps of Melissa's building. His experience with
Melissa was the last thing he had expected this morning--but then,
she hadn't given him anything he had expected up until now so why
should he be so rattled, so surprised?

"Fuck." He said slowly and ran a trembling
hand through his thick, tousled hair.

His limo slid up in front of him as though
the vehicle could read his thoughts. He got into the car without a
word, glanced at the child booster seat next to the passenger side
window and then took out his phone.

"It's me." He said. "Have the Boeing 727 at
my disposal for the whole day tomorrow." He put the phone back into
his pocket and then buzzed his driver.

"Where are we going today Mr. Demovic?" He
asked.

"The offices of Channel Five television."

"Very good sir."

Jason took out his phone again and called his
brother Zach.

"Asshole." His brother offered by way of
greeting.

"Good morning to you too little brother."

"Exactly what kind of stupid do you call this
stunt?"

"Which stunt would that be?"

"Upskirt? Channel Five? Ring any bells or
were you too drunk to remember?"

"I'm taking care of it. Nothing to worry
about. And I wasn't drunk."

"Taking care of it? Do you have any idea of
the shit storm I had to deal with this morning? There are companies
with very conservative values who are threatening to take their
business elsewhere."

"Social media companies? Don't make me laugh.
Half their traffic comes from people sex-stalking each other
on-line so don't talk to me about moral values. And besides, no-one
else does what we do. They can complain all they want but they need
our software or they'll be dead in the water. So relax little
brother. I'm fixing the channel five thing. I'm on my way there
now."

"Do you remember what I told you? I'm
serious. I'll start taking steps to have control of the company put
into my name until such time as--"

"You told me if I slept with my therapist you
would do that, not if I helped a reporter out of her wet
underwear."

"Stop there. I do not want to hear any
details."

"It's not what you think it is. She was on
the way to the powder room when--"

"I'll hang up."

"Okay, okay, but it really isn't what you
think it is and I'm calling you for a reason. I need your
help."

"Oh come on Jason. Since when do you need
anyone's help. You haven't needed my help since the day you were
born."

"Well I need it now."

Zach was uncharacteristically silenced. This
was a strategy that Jason had never used on him before. In fact
Jason Demovic asking for anyone's help was absolutely unheard of.
With his genius level IQ he had always been able to figure things
out for himself, even as a small child and it was one of the
reasons he was so intolerably arrogant. Jason helped other people
but nobody was ever allowed to help him.

"What is this Jason? What's going on? Are you
okay?"

"No. I'm not okay, not at all."

Zach took a nervous breath in.

"I'm listening." He said. If asking for help
wasn't Jason's thing then listening had to be Zach's weak point,
but for his big brother in crisis he was willing to give it a
shot.

"I told you my problem had a sexual component
right?"

"I'm not listening anymore. Did you hear me?
This is for your shrink, not for me."

"You threaten to take away control of the
company I built from the ashes of our father's ruinous behavior
because I might sleep with an attractive woman, but then you won't
even listen to me when I ask you for help with the single biggest
problem I've ever had in my life? Do you even want me to get
better?"

Zach was struggling. He had the same
impassive mien as his older brother but inside he was in turmoil.
He did want to help, but talking sex problems with his older
brother was going above and beyond.

"What is it?" He said with a deep sigh. "Some
kind of… some kind of premature--"

Jason let out a burst of laughter.

"Zach, for Christ's sake, stick to coding
little brother and forget the psychoanalyzing. It's nothing like
that."

"Is it erectile--"

"No! Stop it. You don't need to know. But I
do need your assistance with something else. Something you're
actually good at. Now are you going to help me or not?"

"Of course I am big brother. Are you kidding
me?" He was relieved. "I've been looking for a way to help you all
my life. If this thing finally gives me a chance to do this then
it'll be a blessing in disguise."

"I knew I could count on you Zach. And you're
the only person I really trust, except for mom and Harrison is on
his own little trip, but believe me she can't help me out on this
one."

"Come on then. Get to the point. I've got
people to meet. What is it I can do for you?"

"I need you to help me with this
therapist."

"What does that mean?"

"She's getting to me."

"And what does
that
mean?"

"I'll admit to you that I chose her because I
thought she would cave into a deal with me about signing off on
therapy sessions but I'm beginning to see that you've been right
all along about this. I do need help."

There was a gasp from the other end of the
line.

"Are you okay?" Jason said.

"I don't know. Jason Demovic just admitted to
maybe, possibly being wrong for once in his arrogant life. I have
to confess that I'm impressed Jason, really impressed, I wasn't
sure you'd be able to do this. Admitting you're wrong about
something is really something you should feel good about."

"Whatever Zach. This therapist is good.
Really good and I've got to keep on seeing her."

"Okay. So keep going to see her. I don't see
a problem with this."

"It's more complicated than that, but I know
she can help me."

"So like I say--"

"She's refusing to work with me."

"I don't get it. Why would she refuse to work
with you?"

"She won’t tell me why. I know she's in
trouble with her ethics committee so I believe it has something to
do with that, but none of this is important. I think I may have
found the one."

Zach held the phone away from him, cursed
through tight lips and then put the phone back to his lips.

"You know you can't do this." He hissed.
"She's your third try and you signed an agreement about this."

"I know what I signed and I know I can get
her to work with me, except that it may have to be off the
books."

"No way. It has to be official. You can't do
this Jason."

"I think you know I can and I think you know
I will, so therefore you should also know that it's pointless to
try and stop me."

"I don't know much about psychoanalysis Jason
but I do know that you aren't supposed to bone your therapist, on
or off the books. It confuses the fucking issues or something like
that."

"But you don't know what my problem is. And
she's not my therapist. Not yet. If you did know what my problem
was then you'd know that the only way for me to fix it is to be
with her. I can tell you about 'the problem' any time you want.
Just say the word."

Zach swallowed hard.

"Okay." He said. "Tell me. I'm ready. Is it
sexual?"

"Yes Zach. Little brother. The problem I have
is a
sexual
problem. Now do
you
have a problem with
that?"

Zach was anything but a prude and had no
issues with his own sexuality, but he balked at this and his
stomach twisted into an anxious knot.

He took a deep breath, looked at the phone
and then took another deep breath before putting it back to his
ear.

"Try me." He said.

********************

Melissa was furious and frightened at the
same time.

"How do you know who just left my office
David? Are you spying on me?" Her hand shook as she struggled to
hold the receiver to her ear.

"Forget the paranoid delusions Melissa. I
want to know if Jason Demovic is the same Jason you have been
projecting your high-school-jock-falls-for-geek fantasy onto. Now
answer me, was that Jason Demovic who just left your office or
not?"

"Where are you David? Are you watching me?"
She went to her window and looked outside. There was no sign of
Demovic or David.

"Are you looking out your window now?" David
said to her.

"Yes. Where are you?"

"I'm sitting in my office across town. I just
wanted to see if you were paranoid enough to check your windows to
see if your psychoanalytic supervisor was hiding in the bushes
staking out your office like a stalker."

Melissa's heart was racing again but not with
the wet excitement that Jason had provoked. Her palms were moist
and she was still wrestling with the remains of her hangover.

"David. You're beginning to make me nervous.
You need to tell me what's going on. How do you know who Jason
Demovic is and how did you know he was just here?"

"Well I didn't. Not until just now
anyway."

David was a smart guy but Melissa didn't
believe he was that smart. These were just mind games. The mind
games of a stalker. He had acted so strangely the night before.
Despite having known and trusted him for years and despite having
shared many of her life's most intimate and painful details with
him, she decided to proceed with caution.

"Okay." She said, trying to steady her voice.
"Jason Demovic just left my office but he is absolutely not my
client. So what is it that you need to tell me?"

"You've got to stop seeing him."

"I don't think it has anything to do with you
David. There's no issue here. I just told you he isn't a client so
this has nothing to do with you anymore."

"You are in danger of invoking some very
messy transference behavior here Melissa, not to mention questions
of ethics which at the moment you really can't afford to be seen to
indulge in. This isn't last year or even last month. You've got no
wiggle room anymore and you're meeting with the ethics committee
next week,
remember? If you are expecting me to weigh in on
your behalf then I've got to believe that you're staying clean. Do
you understand me?"

There was a crazy logic to it, but it was
still crazy. She no relationship to Jason. He had never been a
client and by the looks of it he never would be. David had no right
to interfere. On the other hand, David did have the power to make
things very complicated for her and as yet she had no reason to
think that Jason Demovic was anything other than a wild and
probably very short lived crush.

"What makes you think there is any danger of
impropriety with Mr. Demovic David? I had one solitary fantasy
about him--"

"God almighty Melissa, don't make me spell it
out for you. I'm on your side here for Christ's sake."

The vehemence of his response shook Melissa.
Was it possible that she really was just being paranoid? David had
always been someone she could count on. She hadn't been acting like
herself the last twenty-four hours so maybe he really was just
trying to save her from herself.