Lisa
"Lisa!" Danny was calling as he approached, with some blonde flavour of the month on his arm. I shoved my phone, where I'd been staring at my three unanswered texts to Jennie, back into my pocket and looked up at my primary investor with a forced smile. "There you are. And alone, is it? Damn, I was hoping to finally meet this elusive wife of yours."
"She's on her way." I told him, hoping that was true. But Jennie hadn't told me she'd left the house and I honestly had no idea if she was on her way or making a run back to LAX this very moment.
"Of course. The CEO's wife must arrive fashionably late." Danny replied, raising a brow as he watched me over the rim of his glass.
"Excuse me." I said, more curtly than I'd intended. I gestured to my empty glass and strode off toward the bar for a refill, while gritting my teeth all the way.
Danny had invested heavily into my company when it was just another big-dreamed start up in Silicon Valley. In the beginning, I'd owed much of Dynamo Mano's success to him. If I hadn't had the capital to hire more programmers and more artists, we never would have been able to make 'Retribution' into what it was today.
But he'd become insufferable since, always forcing me to attend board meeting after board meeting where they would ask me the same ten questions about IOI and analytic yields and budgetary forecasts. I hadn't started this business to be the CEO. I had started it to design games. The business end was something that I tolerated. But lately, it was taking up more of my time than I cared to admit and I had come to see Danny as the sole reason for that.
Suddenly, my phone buzzed in my pocket and I pulled it out as I gestured for the bartender. I looked down to see Jennie's name flash across my screen.
Jennie: Chill out, Manoban. I'm here.
I smiled at the text and raised my eyes to see the most beautiful woman that I'd ever laid eyes on smiling at me from across the room as she slipped her phone into her little black handbag. My eyes must have bulged out of my head.
"Jennie?"
She was intoxicating in a slinky little black number with a slit that showed every inch of her gorgeous legs as she walked towards me. Her dark hair was slicked back into a modern marvel of shining hair gel. Her lips were a tantalising dark red, puckered and perfect. Her eyes were shadows, shimmering in the dim light of the high-class bar. When she reached me and leaned forward to order her own drink from the bartender, I saw her full back and nearly passed out right there.
"Wow." I said, appraisingly. She pushed out a hip and did a little bow and I grinned, eyeing her from head to toe, unable to stop myself. "Incredible. Truly, I'm speechless."
"I doubt that." she answered, while rolling her eyes as she took her martini and sipped. I watched her red lips leave a stain on the crystal clear glass and cleared my throat. I'd never been so jealous of a beverage before.
"Fair enough." I replied, while leading her away from the bar with a hand against her lower back. When I touched there and felt warm skin, all of the blood in my body rushed South and it was everything that I could do not to wrap my other arm around her and pull her in for a passionate kiss, so deep that she could feel my years of pent up desire right then and there.
But I was reminded that we were currently at a work function surrounded by my esteemed colleagues at the approach of Teddy Park, a prominent member of the board and one of the only ones who had ever been kind to me. I smiled up at him as he approached, with his lovely wife of forty years on his arm.
"Teddy." I greeted him with a smile and a raised glass. "So good to see you. And you as well, Tiffany. Might I introduce my beautiful wife, Jennie?"
"Pleased to meet you." she replied, shooting Teddy a dazzling smile that made my heart hammer against my chest. I grinned from ear to ear, beaming with pride like a person with a pedigree show dog. "I've heard such wonderful things about you."
"Have you?" Teddy asked, raising a brow as he turned to her. "How curious. We've heard so little about you."
An awkward silence descended upon us but only for a moment before Tiffany swooped in to save the day.
"An affront that must be remedied, to be sure." she said genuinely, with a placid smile on her face as she reached out and squeezed Jennie's hand.
"Of course, of course." her husband waved with a nod in my direction. "I only meant this one doesn't like to share much about her personal life outside of the office."
"I like to keep my personal life... private." I replied as if there were any sort of explanation for keeping Jennie away from my company and parties like this for the last six years. But Teddy and Tiffany had the grace to nod and move politely away from us and to other colleagues and members of the board. Jennie released a breath that I wasn't aware she was holding as they strode away and looked up at me in a blind panic.
"Are they all going to be like that?" she asked, suddenly terrified. "So prying?"
I chuckled and stared at the brown liquid sloshing about in my glass.
"Yes." I answered honestly. "They're businessmen with heavy investments in Dynamo Mano. I'm the captain of the ship that they've poured millions of their hard-earned money into. They're worried that, if I'm not steady enough, I'll run us aground."
She blinked at me, totally stunned.
"They don't think you're capable?" she asked as if she was genuinely surprised that anyone could possibly think I wasn't in total control of my company. Her belief in me was almost more than I could take. That look of admiration in her eyes, that pride, that honour she felt for knowing someone who had accomplished as much as I had in so short a time reminded me of why I'd ever done this in the first place. It was a feeling I needed, and one that I could get all too used to.
"Come with me." I said then, grabbing her by the elbow and pulling her forward, away from the centre of the party and off to the edges. "There're some people that I want you to meet."
She didn't say a word in response, just strode gracefully after me, interested in where I was taking her and trusting me to find out.
"Nate." I said when I approached him. He had been standing up, holding his drink in one hand and gesturing to exaggerate the story he was telling to the group of young men and women gathered in the chairs in front of him with the other.
"Boss." Nate replied as he stopped his story and turned to face me. He was grinning but his smile faltered slightly when he caught sight of Jennie. "Whoa. Who is this Goddess that you've graced us with the presence of tonight?"
Jennie giggled and I smiled as I pulled her forward, into the light.
"Jennie, this is Nate, my lead game designer." I introduced. "Nate, this is Jennie, my wife."
Nate's eyes widened. There was a soft gasp and a few whispers from the open mouthed men and women behind him.
"And this is Nate's team. Designers, all of them." I told Jennie, pointing out each of them individually as I spoke their names. "Naomi, Richard, Tim, Alice, Mark, and Merissa."
"So lovely to meet you all." Jennie replied pleasantly.
"If she hired you, you can tell me." Nate said suddenly and Jennie chuckled at the joke. His smile broadened at her laugh and, encouraged, he continued. "No, seriously. Blink twice if this person has kidnapped you and forced you to tell a room full of snobby upper crust that she's your spouse."
Nate leaned down and looked into Jennie's eyes as if waiting for the blinks and everyone laughed along at the joke as soon as I chuckled first.
"Actually, we've been married for six years..." Jennie cooed delicately and then curled into me, with her leg wrapping around mine as her hand pressed against my chest. I had to focus on my breathing to remember to do it.
"... As of tomorrow."
