Chapter One
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HOLLY
I smiled at the man with the hundred thousand dollar ring on his pinky and the three thousand dollar suit on his back as I poured him another cup of coffee. When I’m poised above him this way and the light hits him just right, I can see the tiny little black dots where his hair plugs had been put in recently. When he tilts his head up and smiles at me his upper lip pulls back so far that I can see where the tops of his veneers end along his gum line. If he turns to the right as the sun comes through the big picture window, I can see the loose skin along his neck that has slipped out of the knot the plastic surgeon has tied, likely more than once. His name is Bob Carlton and he is the CEO of some company or other and although he is at least fifty years older than me, he still seems to think that we’re hitting it off. Perhaps it’s because I’m nice to him, because I smile and ask about his day, but come on guy… I’m a waitress, that’s my job. It’s like being an actress. I look at it as working for my tips. Then again, I look around me and I can count at least three of my co-workers, one of them male, who would overlook the astronomical age difference if it involved early retirement and jet setting around the world.
It was Monday and it was passing slowly, as usual. I don’t understand why the days here always drag, it’s not like we’re standing around doing nothing. I don’t even have to go to the gym any longer; I get a great workout right here. Sometimes I think it’s because I feel like my life itself is just standing still. It never evolves or changes, it’s always the same.
I would love to be somewhere else, anywhere else. When I’m home at night, alone in the cocoon of my tidy little low rent apartment I dream about it, but there are bills to be paid and I’m the only one available to pay them. In other words, at twenty-four I’m taking care of my alcoholic mother as well as paying my own not so cheap rent. I don’t really dislike my job, but when you’re a little girl, no one ever says, “I want to be a waitress and spend my days kissing the asses of rich old men all day when I grow up.” I dream daily of a quick escape. I have a fantasy of a sudden opportunity presenting itself, but that dream never involves a Bob Carlton or a comfortable life in return for having to remove his withered old hand from my hip five times a day. So I work and I go home and I work some more and for the most part, I accept my lot in life. I was dealt a hand and I have to play it, or fold. I wasn’t ready to fold just yet.
I have to be grateful that I was able to get a job at this place. It’s an upscale café located in the heart of the business district. My customers are rich and most of the time their tips are big. It was the one area in my life where I could count myself truly lucky.
The lunch rush was beginning to subside and I was just starting to catch my breath when it was completely taken away again by the man who walked in the door. It was Aiden Scott. He came in almost every day at least once lately, sometimes twice. He was in his late twenties and tall, dark and dreamy, he added some color to my otherwise dark world. His dark hair was perfectly mussed at all times and his dark eyes were so intense that sometimes if I looked directly at them I felt like they were penetrating my very soul. My stomach fluttered just at the sight of him, but unlike Bob, when Mr. Scott smiles at me I swear my heart physically jumps up into my throat leaving my chest aching and my breaths shortened. The best part was that he would come in and make actual real conversation with me. I’d even started watching the news, a thing I hadn’t thought I had time for in the past, so that I could hold an intelligent conversation with him.
“There’s your boyfriend,” Myra, one of my co-workers whispered into my ear when he walked in the door. Myra was thirty-something and married to a man that she loved dearly and thought the rest of us should be married and as happy as she was. She was always trying to set me up, but since Aiden had been coming in for the past two months, she’d decided that he was the one for me.
“Yeah right,” I said with a laugh. I wasn’t sure what Aiden Scott’s background was, or what he did for a living, but I could tell just by the way he dressed and how he carried himself that he didn’t come from the same place I did. Unlike the other businessmen who came in, I never heard him talking about his business, or bragging about some big million dollar deal he closed. He made polite conversation with me, and occasionally others at the café, but it was never personal. Not about him anyways, he did seem interested in my life….not that I had much of one.
I had noticed that the other businessmen treated him differently than they did each other. There was no crass talk or backslapping. I wasn’t sure if that was because they didn’t really like him, or because they were for some reason, intimidated by him. Even the older wealthy guys are deferential to him. In the two months that he’s been coming in here to the coffee shop, and in all of the conversations that I’ve had with him I still had no idea if he was even married or not. I hadn’t asked him either. It wasn’t something a waitress should be asking her customers, and either way I was certain that he was way out of my league, I was okay with it. The last thing I had time for in my life was a relationship anyways.
“She’s not kidding,” Rose, another of my fellow wait staffers said. “He only comes in when you’re working, I swear. He’s memorized your schedule.”
“And he always sits in your section no matter how many other tables are open,” Myra added.
“And, he can’t take his eyes off of you. And he’s oh so dreamy…Now pick up your orders, all three of you and take your fine little butts out there on the floor and serve them before my food gets cold!”
That was Joe, our boss. He seems like an old grump and that’s probably good because that’s what he wants us and everyone else to believe, but the truth be told I have never worked for a better guy. He had a heart of gold, no matter how grumpy he likes to pretend to be. Joe was about fifty years old and built like a truck. Running a café for wealthy people is not something you’d think if you just saw him on the street. But he’d been successful, thanks in part to his baking and cooking skills and in part to his knack for hiring waiters and waitresses that fit in and stuck. His rate of turnover was very low.
To keep him from saying dreamy again, we did as we were told and picked up our orders. On the way to serve my table, I smiled at Aiden.
“I’ll be right back with you.” He smiled back and my heart
lurched once again.
“No hurry, Holly.”
For some reason when he said my name it sounded so much prettier than when anyone else said it. It may have been my imagination, sparked by Rose and Myra’s goading, but I swear I could feel his eyes on me the entire time I was serving my table. When I turned back towards him, he was still looking at me. I wondered if he knew how he turned my insides to mush whenever he looked at me that way.
“Are you ready to order Mr. Scott or do you need a few minutes?” I asked him.
“How’s the special today?” he asked. Our special of the day was, ‘Blackened Tilapia with rice pilaf.’ It was pretty good and I told him so.
He handed me his menu and said, “I’ll trust you on the tilapia, Holly.” He smiled again, never taking his eyes off of mine. His intense eye contact made me a nervous wreck sometimes, but it was incredibly sexy too. I swallowed hard around the lump in my throat.
“Just water to drink?” He always just had water to drink. He never deviated, no coke or tea or coffee, always just water for the two straight months he’d been coming in here every day. He must have some awesomely healthy kidneys.
“Yes, Holly. Just water,” he said. The way he said my name with almost every sentence he spoke was incredibly sexy as well. It made my mind take little trips down a road where we were laying together and he was whispering my name into my ear right before he kissed me...I told him I’d be right back and laughed at myself as I walked away. That man is not interested in a meek little waitress. I needed to leave that notion where it belonged…in my co-workers heads.
I got two other tables while I was waiting for Aiden’s order to come up. Both of my tables were on the other side of his so each time I went over, I had to pass his table and each time I did, he would smile and run his eyes slowly from my head all the way down to my toes. That sort of thing from a man I didn’t know generally made me uncomfortable. In Aiden’s case, it made me nervous, and it made me shudder, but in a good way. It wasn’t creepy, it was more….appreciative.
AIDEN
Holly knew I was watching her. I could tell by the way she would nervously tuck a piece of hair behind her ear as she walked by, or act like she was looking at someone or something on the other side of the room so she didn’t have to make eye contact with me. I didn’t want to make her nervous, that was not my intention, but I honestly couldn’t take my eyes off of her. This girl had no idea how pretty she is. I know this because when you make eye contact with a beautiful woman who knows that she’s beautiful she’ll hold your gaze and dare you to ask her out. A woman that doesn’t know she’s beautiful will get nervous and flustered when you look her in the eyes. Holly was definitely the latter, but that may work to my advantage.
I’d been coming in this little coffee shop every day for the past two months for the sole purpose of getting to know her. I know that simply asking her out might be a quicker approach, but if she accepted, and because of her meekness I’m not convinced that she would, people aren’t always themselves on the first few dozen dates. I figured that in her workplace when she was in her own element, she was more likely to be herself.
I was testing her, bringing up current events to see what she would say. So far, she was doing very well. Holly showed me time and time again that she was not only reading the news, but she was also using her brain to form her own opinions about it. She was definitely starting to look like she might be just who I’ve been looking for.
We talked about the weather and the changing climate. We talked about recycling and going green. We talked about where I was from and where I’d gone to high school. In every conversation I was impressed by her insightfulness and intelligence. Occasionally it was interjected with humor and she was raised in my mind to the next level of my plan.
I had to be sure she was perfect though before I moved forward. I don’t mean perfect in the sense that she has no flaws, I mean perfect for my needs, my purposes. I’ve done a lot of research on nature vs nurture. I’ve found out a lot about what traits are more than likely inherited, and which ones are likely learned. I needed to find a woman with strong traits in the area of nature, those that would be passed on to her offspring.
I can get pretty much any woman that I want, but this isn’t about a date, or even a relationship. I’m not looking for a girlfriend or a wife. What I am looking for, what I need is a woman who is healthy, attractive, intelligent, and witty and will be willing to help me create a beautiful, perfect child and then walk away.