Lauren White, in New York for a technology conference with her boss, arrives at a bar to meet an old friend. Stood up by the friend, she meets a handsome man, John Boyd, who steps in when an overbearing lounge lizard comes on to her. The flicker o...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The problem about working with a high energy millionaire is that sometimes he walked so damned fast it was almost impossible to keep up with him, especially if one was wearing heels. That is what faced Lauren as she tried to keep up with Ted as they walked from the restaurant to the conference centre. It became a certainty when she broke the heel of the new shoes she bought just for this conference.
"Ow!" she exclaimed as she fell onto her knees. "Ted, help!"
He turned around with an exasperated expression on his face which instantly changed to one of concern when he saw Lauren on the ground, her knees scraped and bleeding.
"Jesus!" he said loudly as he rushed back to her. "What the hell happened?"
"My heel broke trying to keep up with you and I fell," she snapped. "Fuck, I paid $400 for those shoes. My knees are killing me and I'm bleeding everywhere."
He grasped her under her armpits and helped her stand. She took her good shoe off, picked up the broken shoe and heel then stood there barefoot looking down at her knees, visibly bleeding through the torn hem of her skirt. As her mouth quivered, the tears started to fall and she broke out bawling like a baby. Strong just looked at her, unsure of what to do, until he gave her a tentative hug.
"You're okay," he said, patting her back. "I'll buy you new shoes and a new skirt. Let me hail you a cab to take you to emergency to get fixed up."
"What about your presentation?" she asked. "Who will take notes of what you say that isn't on the script?"
"I won't go off script," he replied. She looked at him sideways. "Okay, I'll try not to go off script. I can talk to the organizers and get them to send you the recording before they edit it for the conference archives." He looked at his watch, trying to hide his impatience. "Look, I have to be there in 15 minutes. I'm trying to give you options here. Do I need you, yes. Do I need you with bleeding knees and broken shoes, no. Get yourself fixed up and come to the conference centre when you can. I'll muddle along without you and I promise to get that recording to you. Now here's $500 for you to buy some new shoes. Fuck that, here's $1000. Buy a new outfit, with pants so you don't have to explain to everyone why your knees are all banged up."
He opened his wallet, giving her $1000 cash then whistled for a cab. The cabbie received $200 to take Lauren to the hospital, wait for her, then take her to a place to get new shoes and a pair of pants and bring her back to the conference centre. Ted looked at her, concerned, then patted her on the arm.
"You'll be okay," he said. "Take care of yourself first."
He opened the door of the cab for her then hurried off to the conference centre. The cabbie looked back at her as she shrugged.
"He's high energy," she said, "but he means well."
A hospital was fairly close by and the cabbie was nice enough to open the door for her, helping her into the emergency department. After showing them her insurance information she was brought into a cubicle right away, where a student nurse soon appeared with a bowl of soapy water to clean Lauren's scraped knees. She noticed a flap of skin and called a doctor, who looked carefully at it, gently touching it with his gloved fingers as Lauren winced.
