Billie Bossa Nova

21.

"Oscar Wilde?"

Billie glanced up at Kai across the desk. For almost thirty minutes, she had been sitting on the chair across from him and reading her book. He may have just noticed her presence, as he only looked in her direction now. After what had happened with Kayden, she was wary of everyone who entered Kai's office or anytime he would leave it. Kayden's vengeful voice was filled with promise as he swore that Kai would learn his lesson, and she was not keen on finding out how he would ensure that happened. When her break came, she went to his office and sat with him as he worked.

"Yeah, I guess." She had taken the book from his shelf among the others that were there, looking for anything to do so as to not appear weird or awkward. She looked at the cover of the book. The picture of Dorian Gray. She hadn't even been reading the thing. "Is it good?"

He nodded. "Very ideological. I first read it when I was sixteen. It gave me a good insight on gender philosophies."

Billie grinned. She liked when he spoke like this. When she finally did or said something that caught his interest to the point where he spoke more than a word or a three worded sentence. "Like what?"

"Dorian Gray was very aesthetical. Appreciated artistic value. I thought it kind of showed how men fall in love with appearances while women fall in love with intelligence and capabilities."

Billoe raised her eyebrows. "How funny. You concluded that, yet it isn't quite the case with you, is it?"

"I don't fall in love, I seek pleasure. It's irrelevant to me."

"Do you think that a woman who seeks pleasure seeks a man with intellect?" She placed the book down, far more interested in what Kai had to say.

"I think that women do not so much as glance in a man's direction unless he did or said the right thing. Whatever she considers that to be. Your words and actions represent your intellect. Meanwhile, a man doesn't need to like your personality in order to find sex appeal in a woman, so long as he likes her physicality."

She thought about it. About a guy or two that she may have crushed on during a mission but had to let go of because the assignment depended on it. Had they said the right thing? Done the right thing? She couldn't recall. She thought of Kai, of her forbidden attraction towards him. Was it something that he had said that made her like him? Did?

"You say you've never fallen in love?" The topic, for some odd reason, intrigued her. Kai Rivera, in all of his beauty and firm masculinity, had never given his heart to somebody else.

"It's a mistake. Self sabotage."

"Elaborate."

"It's a weakness. If a man goes to need a woman too much, he'll be at her mercy. Dominated, in every way, by her because that's what love does. It's a weakness."

She crossed her arms and relaxed back on her chair. "You fear love, Mr. Rivera?"

"I fear nothing. I don't avoid love because of fear, I avoid it because my company matters far more than such a distraction. Women are to be praised, but to love them would be giving them a part of yourself."

Kai Rivera's mind was a vast labyrinth. The way it worked, the way it pieced things together and drew up conclusions was a wonder to her. She wanted to know more, to explore it more, hear more of what he had to say. He was alluring in that way. It was then that she concluded that he was right. Women were suckers for words and actions and men for a woman's beauty. It was why they fell so easily for men's lies and men could simply grow to crave a woman as simply as seeing a speck of her skin.

"All these years and you've never met a woman that you were willing to try it out with?" It was a curious question, but there was some concern about it. Kai had been with many women, the thought that he had the ability to get intimate with them without feeling anything was concerning to his mental health.