Dreams of Reality (18 page)
Authors: Sylvia Hubbard
“About six months.”
“It took her a six months to ascertain she wanted to spend forever with you?”
“She had nothing better to do than to plan a wedding. Her crowd considered me a good catch and she would be a fool to let me walk away.”
“That’s a cocky statement to make.”
“It’s not cocky, just over confident.”
She let out a breathless chuckle again. “I guess you didn’t bother to offer friendship first?” she asked surly.
Again he let out an earsplitting chortle tickled pink in her humor. He would have never imagined Skye had the wry wit just like his own, which he couldn’t believe how much he enjoyed.
“She’s gotten my sister, Melissa, in her good graces and both of them are here trying to pin me down.”
“Why would your sister want to do that? She should want the best for you. I wouldn’t understand her at all.”
“Join the club. Melissa’s agenda would be to find any and all ways to get her hands on more money. Would you believe she tried to sue me because she said since she helped me fill out my college application and study for the SAT’s she was entitled to fifty percent of my life earnings?”
“That’s crazy!” she gasped. “This is your real sister?”
“Half sister. She’s been spoiled to death and she married for love and not for money and her husband turned out to be a loser, so instead of divorcing him she cheats on him and she tends to ignore him.”
“Oh now that’s a lovely marriage.”
“I don’t ever want to be married like that. I guess seeing my mother being married three times and my sister unhappy at love, it’s made me rather aloof at marrying.”
“I can understand that.”
“What’s your excuse?”
“My excuse for not being married?” She shrugged laying it out for him. “I guess the right guy hasn’t asked me. I work too much. I don’t go out to social events very much, I have a smart aleck sense of humor that no one understands, but me, and of course the fact I was sexually abused when I was eleven does make it hard for me to be comfortable around men personally.”
He was slightly confused. She was open about that, and had honestly told him something quite personal. Skye would clearly understand if he found a reason to hang up. Usually men did try to get away from her after she told them. It was as if she was a damaged good. “You were trying to make me hang up, weren’t you?”
“I was only being honest,” this was a lie and truth. That had been a test to see if he would find an excuse to hang up on her.
“But the brittle way you presented to me, was rather . . .shocking.”
“True, but how else was I to say it?”
“We must work on your gentle side.”
“Only for those I truly care about.”
“Are there many of them out there?”
She paused hating to admit it, but knowing it was brutally true. “Maybe one or two.”
Again Thaddeus was strangely quiet, but this one was different than a nothing to say quietness. He did want to say something, but didn’t feel it was appropriate to say at this point. Urging him on, she asked, “What are you thinking about?”
“I don’t want to pity you. You don’t want that. I envy how you say it so calmly and have picked up the pieces going on with your life. That’s admirable to know. I’m glad to have you as a friend
Skye. You will teach me a lot about life.”
She blushed making that huff laugh she always did he was becoming to identify as her hidden amusement. “I’m glad you are my friend too, Mr... um... Thaddeus.”
This was encouraging for him and decided to go a bit further. “I plan to fly into town tomorrow for some business tomorrow night. I have all morning and afternoon free. Would you care to join me at the café where we first met?”
“I should think about it before I agree. Our friendship is so new. Meeting so early could jeopardize something, couldn’t it?”
“I will give you a chance to think about meeting and call you about eleven tomorrow morning. Goodnight Skye.”
She wanted to talk more, but would not admit her need for more conversation with him at that moment. “Goodnight, Thaddeus.” She didn’t want to push her blessings.
Putting the receiver down, she moved around until she was comfortable, curving the pillow into her body. That had been what she needed. A friend. For the first in many days, she fell into a deep sleep.
* * *
He starred at the phone a good minute before he realized he was just staring at the receiver. Putting it down, he leaned back in his chair and absently logged on to his Internet account. That had been productive and the conversation hadn’t hurt a bit. He was almost tempted to call her back despite the hour being past midnight.
Remembering what Thomas said about the Skye and the Case being the same was still on his mind as well. That would be his perfect woman, but for now, he would be content with this separation.
Sex wasn’t always important in a relationship and was an easy enough wall to conquer. Knowing Skye as a friend was important.
Chapter 16
The smell of lavender surrounded her. Her back arched as the sensations engulfed her pelvis. She could feel the moistness between her legs and if she grind her hips just a little more, “Yes, Thaddeus!”
Awaking in bed drenched in sweat, Skye covered her mouth as if she were a child shouting a curse out loud to her mother.
Looking around frantically, she almost felt as if the dream had been real. Too real. Someone had been here or there, or wherever the memory had come from. She had never had oral sex done to her in her entire life, so how could she experience something of that nature so clearly? Too clearly. True she knew about it, had written about it in her books, but never imagined something so vividly.
‘Maybe you really do have a good imagination,’ her brain tried to reason.
Snorting in disbelief, she responded sharply to herself, ‘Not that good.’
Covering her face completely with her hands, she forced her mind to go blank and quit replaying the dream over and over again. ‘No you will not go crazy. Not yet.’ Looking at the clock, she read eight AM. She was a little groggy from staying up way past her bedtime, but she managed to get out of bed and get dressed.
Getting back in front of her computer, she went straight to the Internet. Today her goal was to find more out about Trisha’s boyfriend. Skye remembered him being introduced as Alan Coleman. After thirty minutes of looking around with unsuccessful searches she decided to think about the other name Trisha called him. TREAVOR.
Typing this name in with Alan Coleman, the search was narrowed and she pulled up something interesting—TAC Enterprises out of Detroit.
Searching around some more, she found out TAC Enterprises was presently under FBI investigation for money laundering from an article in the Detroit News. The president and CEO, Trevor Coleman, Sr. a.k.a. Cole Forsythe a.k.a. Fats in the underground market. There were many legal and illegal businesses TAC Enterprises had all over the world and many connections to other enterprises as well.
The time was almost eleven so she decided to get dressed for lunch. His call was again a minute early. “Are you hungry?” he asked after greeting her a proper good morning.
“You never said specifically why you’re in town.”
“I do have a business to run.”
“Then why aren’t you running it?” she asked flippantly, wondering if he would understand her wit.
He did and shot right back at her, “I am also a master at multitasking. Are you making excuses not to go to lunch with me?”
“Oh of course not,” she lied, feeling he knew she was not being honest. “I don’t want you to feel you are obligated to entertain me just because we’re friends and you’re in town.”
“I am the one asking, aren’t I?”
“Alright. I will meet you for lunch, but only if you promise we can go Dutch.”
“That is what friends do. The café in thirty minutes?”
She confirmed, “till then, Mr. Newman.”
“Till then,” he reaffirmed stiffly irate by the formal name she'd reverted to.
Driving to the café she wondered if she was crazy? No, this was just an attempt in her life to actually be mentally normal. She was living her fantasy. Skye knew she could deal with this if she didn’t think about the so real dreams, yet she needed to talk about what was happening to her. Was it too soon to speak about this to him? She wondered to herself.
He was already there when she arrived five minutes early and stood up as she approached looking extremely handsome in a green three-piece suit.
She had worn a nice brown silk dressed ankle high with a matching jacket and an elegant scarf to wrap around her hair keeping it covered. Due to the extreme curliness of her long honey brown hair, she had little time to do something nice to it. She hated the difficult to manage curliness, because drying her thick hair took forever and her arms grew tired. Besides everyone was allowed to have a bad hair day, she just didn’t want Thaddeus to see.
Thaddeus didn’t feel nervous until she approached the table.
Her eyes were expressionless just as he remembered, and kept lowered. He didn’t know if this was on purpose. She greeted him with a firm, quick handshake as she sat across from him. The waitress came over to them to take their order. Skye told her “Water, for now.”
“You look traveled,” she noted. Usually he received compliments, maybe even a nice hug or kiss, but a handshake and a “traveled?”
What the hell does someone who looked traveled look like? He decided to ask.
She responded, “Tired, needing rest. Do you?”
“I don’t think so. Are you trying to avoid having this lunch?”
“That is the second time you have insinuated that question.”
“Is it true?”
“Yes, but I don’t like you pointing it out.”
Amused he asked, “What’s so bad about having lunch with me?”
“Nothing,” she lied.
“I think I smell something.”
“What?”
He leaned closer to her. “Bullshit.”
Skye giggled.
“What’s so awful about me?” he asked sincerely.
She bit her lip knowing he had found the source of her uneasiness.
“I’m just not comfortable with you. You’re too much.”
This was a new one. “What do you mean by too much?”
Exasperated, she said, “Your status, your position in life compared to mine, your looks, your height, your past. I could go on.”
“The differences bother you?”
“Yes and no.” She elaborated. “I’m honored by the friendship offered, but just the thought of being your friend is a lot to take in. I’ll be privy to being in the company of Thaddeus Newman. A man I’ve only seen in papers or heard in news articles that I can actually say I know. I’ve never had a celebrity in my life and it just takes some getting use to.”
“I don’t consider myself a celebrity.”
“I’m sure Denzel Washington says the same thing. But why did you me?”
He looked down at her hand and moved a thumb unconsciously up and down the length of her pinkie finger as he looked up at her. “When I see something in my business life that just stands out, I go after it. I obtain it, and I come out a better person and a wealthier man. For the first time in my life, I found something in my personal life that stands out, Skye. You. There’s an inner fire inside of you that I just can’t explain, but I want to warm my soul near it. You’ve opened my eyes, my heart, and my mind to an unbelievable experience.”
Skye’s breath caught in her throat as she snatched her hand away and held her palm as if the skin had been burned. Looking away from his face, she calmed her racing heart.
He chose his words carefully not wanting her to pull away emotionally as she just had physically. Sitting back a little, he spoke from his heart, “I... like you as person.”
“A person?”
“I don’t want you to feel that there is an underlying reason. Now can friends have lunch?”
She consented feeling a little better because he had changed the subject and ordered something light while he ordered as if he had not eaten in years. “Do you always eat heavy or is it just your size you please?”
“My size has nothing to do with it. I eat because I like the food here and I have no intentions of eating another meal until tomorrow. Maybe a snack tonight and tomorrow morning, but that will suffice until my flight Sunday night.” He leaned close to the table, which he noted she sat away from with no direct eye contact, yet he had a need to receive it. She was giving him brief looks then directed her eyes to the side. “Does my size bother you?”
“Yes. You played sports didn’t you?”
“I played football until a knee injury in college. Things happens and you go on, right? So why does my size bother you?”
“Because you aren’t average, you know this. It is kind of intimidating.”
He agreed taking her hand in his. “True, my size is rather intimidating, but I don’t think it is anything to be feared. I like being this size, but I don’t want you to ever fear me.”