Confessions Of A Billionaire 1 (4 page)

She had thick natural-looking blonde hair that hung down her back, a sun kissed face, and a smile that seemed genuine. He got a good feeling off her right away. He went to the next photo, she was in running clothes at the end of a race, another darker haired girl stood next to her and they both smiled out at the camera. Connor reopened the message.

Connor T.
Hello

He had no idea what to say…mention the weather? Look for things in common? Everything seemed terribly silly at the moment.

Connor T.
Nice to meet you

He cringed. This was much harder than he thought it should be. But, what do you say to a complete stranger? I like your photo, maybe it’s love?

Madison S.
Do you work in Ellicott City?

He thought for a moment.

Connor T.
Yes, I work from home mostly.

That was roughly the truth.

Madison S.
Nice! I imagine it would be difficult to get things done from home.

Connor T.
It can be

There was a pause, she didn’t appear to be writing anything new and he didn’t know what else to say.

Connor T.
Maybe we could meet somewhere? Get a drink?

Too soon? Shouldn’t he have made more of an effort at conversation?

Madison S.
That would be nice

Connor T.
Tomorrow night?

Madison S.
Sounds good, I have to check my schedule so I will confirm later tonight if that suits?

Connor T.
Great, I look forward to hearing from you soon.

He sat staring at the computer screen biting his thumbnail. So, he’d just set himself up on a date…and he didn’t feel weird about it at all, in fact he was excited. He waited for another minute until he saw her message read,
offline
. Then he logged out, thinking it might not look good for him to just be hanging out online waiting for her confirmation. He would wait a few hours then check back in.

Chapter 7

Madison had just walked in from her run when her phone rang. She brushed sweat off her forehead and the side of her face with the bottom of her shirt then answered.

Madison smiled, “Just couldn’t live without me, huh?”

“You sound good,” Ana commented.

“I just got back from a run.”

“Ahh, the endorphins.” Ana paused, “What are you doing tomorrow night?”

Out of context Madison had to think about it, “Nothing I guess, why?”

“You have to go to the Judges Bench tomorrow at seven.”

“How do you even know about the Judges Bench?” Madison leaned back against the wall. This was strange behavior even for Ana. “What’s happening?”

“You’re going on a date.”

“With who?” Madison didn’t understand, a friend of a friend’s, or someone they’d known from college?

“I thought I would take one more look for you on that dating site…and I found a good one. Tall, handsome, dark brown hair, greenish hazel eyes.”

“I don’t follow. You found the perfect guy? Where? On what site?”

“On your site, I just logged in…”

“
You
logged in? Did you join just so you could impersonate me?”

“No, I logged into your account—I thought I might have more insight into the right guy for you…and since you were going to cancel it anyway…”

“I don’t understand. How did you log into my account?”

“With your password,” Ana said as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

“How did you know my password?”

Ana was silent and Madison could picture the look she must be giving the phone right now. “It wasn’t hard to guess Madison, you’ve used the same one since the Internet was invented.”

Madison put the phone down and rushed over to her computer and logged in to her account. She scrolled through her messages and found the conversation Ana had had on her behalf. She looked Connor T. over, staring at the three photos he had posted of himself.

She picked her phone back up, “I can’t go on a date with him.”

“Why not?”

“Because…because I just said I was done with dating and I went for a run and it felt really nice, and I think it’s because I decided to stop all this madness and just be myself, by myself for awhile.”

“Be yourself with him…on your date.”

Madison looked back at the screen, he
was
handsome, and it was only a drink…she could walk there from here, and then walk home when he turned out to be a weirdo.

“Hmm,” Madison was torn and she wanted to be mad at Ana, something that never quite worked out.

As she watched the screen the text box lit up and a message said,
Madison S. is writing
…

“Ana, you stop it. I didn’t say yes,” she sounded like a petulant child but she didn’t care.

She could actually hear Ana’s fingers over the keys then, as Madison waited, she heard the unretractable click of the enter button.

Madison S.
CONFIRMED! I will see you tomorrow night, 7pm, at the Judges Bench.

Madison stared at the screen then logged out unable to look at the screen without freaking out. She’d begun actually feeling nervous and panicky. She hung up on Ana knowing that she would call her back sooner than she wanted to, and that Ana wouldn’t be worried about Madison’s current state of mind.

As soon as she’d logged out she logged back in. She clicked on Connor’s profile again. She looked more closely, examining things that couldn’t possibly have any real relevance. Ana was right about one thing—he was handsome. He hadn’t provided much information about himself. He was in sales—not a good sign, Madison thought—lived nearby, had an MBA…but really he looked far too handsome to be normal. Her text box popped back up.

Connor T.
Great. I’m looking forward to it.

Madison read and reread the message a few times, then logged back out.

~

The entire next day Madison thought seriously about logging on and canceling her date. She was too nervous and that was just strange for her. She didn’t get nerves about things of this sort…so that had to be a bad sign. The universe sending her some grand signal to, “cancel now or else.” But every time she pulled up the webpage to log in she closed it just as fast.

After her last appointment of the day, it was five, too late to cancel and still be polite. She didn’t want to be rude, but that was the sort of thing that she got annoyed at other women for saying. But it
was
only one drink, so she was most certainly making too big a deal out of it. It was practically the same thing as one coffee, only with alcohol.

When she got home she took a shower. Her determination to dress casually and not fuss was soon over ruled by forces out of her control. She kept wanting to stop changing her clothes, as she discarded one item then another, but she couldn’t seem to make herself. Finally she was standing in her bra and panties and decided to put makeup on first then decide.

With makeup on, her go to black dress that hugged her body, nude heels, no jewelry to try and dress it down, makeup, and hair that had been done and then redone, she left the house. She’d had plenty of time to get ready but somehow time had gotten away from her and now she was running late. Madison hated being late.

Walking quickly down the street, turning onto the next connecting block, and finally turning onto Main Street, she kept imagining herself falling face first onto the pavement. Heels were not her strongest choice. They looked good, but she wore sneakers too often to be relaxed in them.

When she got to the Judges Bench she waited across the street for a moment despite being late already.

She tried to look through the glass but couldn’t see anything from her vantage point. A desire to turn around and go back home was beginning to tug at the back of her brain. Her legs overrode her brain and she began across the street anyway. Her hand was actually shaking a bit when she reached for the door and she was feeling truly annoyed at her body for being so unpredictable. She knew herself so well under physical duress, but apparently dating was out of her wheelhouse.

The door took a bigger push then she’d expected so she wasn’t as subtle walking in as she’d hoped to be. When she turned around from the door, she saw him. She knew him immediately from his photos and she also knew that she would have noticed him regardless of their date. His gaze was fixed on a beer in front of him. She wasn’t sure if she should be happy or upset that he’d ordered before she’d arrived. As she walked over she made the executive decision that she really didn’t care.

“Connor?” She was working her best confident person impression.

“Hi!” he said as he stood.

If his natural good looks weren’t enough, he was also tall just like Madison liked her men.

“It’s so nice to meet you.” He held out his hand and she shook it as if they were there for a business meeting.

Madison smiled and Connor smiled back. After what seemed like minutes, they both sat down arranging themselves physically and trying to escape the awkwardness of what to say next. When she finally was able to get a good hard look at him, she was absolutely enamored. His model looks were only complimented by his closely cut dark brown hair, greenish hazel eyes and the shadow of his beard was an added touch she loved.”

“I ordered a drink,” Connor stated the obvious. “What can I get you?”

“Oh,” she was used to buying her own drinks on these sorts of dates, it was one of the basic rules she’d made for herself. “I’ll have a vermouth cocktail.” The negotiations had begun immediately inside her head. She would let him pay, then she would get the next round, or she would let him pay and she would get the next date. Of course that was jumping ahead a bit much.

Connor ordered the drink and both watched the bartender make it without saying a word.

“You live close by?” she asked after she’d tried her first sip. Alcohol went through her quickly and she was immediately thankful for it.

“I walked over,” he said. He hadn’t thought about his living situation so he hadn’t prepared anything to say, he didn’t know where he would find a fake address and he’d never thought he would need one.

“Me too,” she said smiling.

“I’m surprised I’ve never seen you here,” he thought of all the dinners he’d had sitting in just this spot.

“I haven’t been here before.”

“That would do it,” Connor looked into her face. She was really incredibly pretty. The length of her jaw, the frame of her face, her coloring. Her body mesmerizing, a bit too mesmerizing. He had to force himself to focus on her words and not pay attention to the rest.

“Actually you do look familiar to me,” she said, taking Connor by surprise.

The blood began to rush from Connor’s face. This was exactly what he hadn’t wanted. He just wanted a few dates, a little bit of time to cultivate something that wasn’t built on his inheritance. Or at least something where he could know without a shadow of a doubt that it had nothing to do with money.

“We’ve probably run into each other before. Ellicot City can be a small town sometimes,” he hoped that he was right.

“Hmm, do you belong to Belvedere Health & Fitness?” she asked.

“Nope, I have a gym in my office building.”

“You said you work mostly from home.”

This was going to be more difficult then he thought. He looked at her and words just spilled out—she made him want to be normal and being normal for him was being his actual self. “I do, but I also have a brick and mortar office building to check in with.”

She nodded. He noticed that the edge of her lips kept turning up and that she was just as attracted to him as he was to her.

“I work at Belvedere—that’s why I asked. I’m a fitness coach. If you did work out there then I probably would have seen you there.”

“That makes sense,” he was alluding to her muscular frame but immediately tried to make it sound that it was her logic he was agreeing with.

“I’m in sales,” he responded in kind. He knew what question would follow, so he dove in himself, “I work for a wine label.”

“Which one?”

The question made him panic. It was possible that she was up on wine and would know his family’s name, know him. “Are you a wine connoisseur?” he asked trying to sound casually interested.

“No, not at all,” she laughed. “I’m usually a fan of the cheapest thing on the shelf, I’m sure you’ll think me a terrible philistine.”

“No, it’s nice, I talk too much wine in my day-to-day. I work for a small label out of Chile.” Lie number one, he thought. He knew this game and knew it would only get harder and harder to remember all the details of his story. He had to try to keep the outright lies to a minimum.

“That sounds like a nice job. What sort of training did you go through for that?”

“The company, Valenzuela, did most of that.”

He’d picked at random, naming a competitor he’d visited a few years ago that made an especially nice Merlot although they didn’t have any offices in the US only distributors.

“Well red wine is supposed to have great health benefits so I guess we practically work in the same industry.” Madison took another sip of her drink, thankful each time it went down. She was beginning to loosen up, her shoulders had relaxed a bit, her stomach was still a flurry but she thought it was mainly excitement from the situation.

“I like the way you think.”

“So you’re a wine guy that drinks beer,” she looked down at his drink.

“Can you blame me?”

“Well, I love running and working out despite my job so…”

He wanted immediately to tell her everything. He wanted to impress her—to let his family status win her over. He was afraid that he might not be able keep her interested alone.

“Do you play any sports?” she asked when he didn’t respond. He shook himself out of the thought. He wouldn’t be winning anyone over if his mind kept drifting off like this.

“I played rugby in college, then played with a men’s league for a few years. I broke my arm and realized that rugby may be a difficult sport to play as a grown up with an actual job and responsibilities.”