One Reason

Chapter 1: One Special Night

Marci glanced at her black and 18 carat yellow gold Chanel Premiere Edition Originale watch for the fifth time in the last-she glanced at her watch again-twenty minutes.

Eric was late.

And it wasn't the first time. Over the last year he'd been dedicating more time to the office-going in earlier, coming home later, and sometimes not coming home at all. He had a small bedroom connected to this office suite where he'd stay the night if he ground himself to dust that day and just couldn't drag himself home before crashing. Before the past year, she'd had fond memories of that office, where they'd spent more than one lunch hour devouring one another on the bed. It had felt amazing, invigorating...forbidden.

Eric was the CEO of Black Orion Technologies, a title passed down to him from his father just a year ago-back when the late nights and being late had begun. She understood that the business was important to him; his grandfather started it more than sixty years ago, and his father had raised it from near bankruptcy into the multi-billion-dollar business it was today. And now that Eric was at the helm, the pressure to outdo his father was ever present.

She understood. Really, she did. Late nights and grinding long hours came with the billionaire-CEO lifestyle.

But tonight...tonight he should have been home. It wasn't just any night; it was a special night. And he'd promised to be there, to come home in time to shower and change for their night together.

Their special night together. A night she'd been planning for three months because it had taken three months to get the reservation for the new 5-star restaurant in Manhattan she'd had her heart set on. La Reve' was a French and Creole fusion restaurant that featured delicious and decadent meals prepared by high-skilled chefs from France and the bayous of Louisiana. She'd only heard great things about it, and as a native of New Orleans, one raised by her half-Creole, half-black grandmeré, she missed the taste of authentic food.

When she'd told Eric about it, he'd seemed as excited as she was, and she'd known that she wanted to share the experience with the man she loved on their special night. Not surprisingly, the waitlist was long-like six months long-but as the wife of one of the wealthiest men in the city, she'd been able to push that to three months, and with a little palm greasing, she'd been able to get an eight o'clock reservation for the night of her choosing.

Tonight.

She glanced at her watch again. Then she glanced at the door of their 10,000 sq.ft. penthouse apartment. It remained shut tight, as it had since she came home that afternoon after a day of primping and self-care at the spa. She wasn't usually one for the full spa treatment, but because tonight was a special night, she'd wanted to go all out. To show Eric that he was worth all that effort-because he was.

They'd met their freshman year at Duke, where he was attending on Matthews money, and she was attending on a private scholarship she'd earned because she was a minority, and because she'd been raised by her disabled grandmother. She liked to think she earned it because she never missed a day of school, and her GPA never fell below a 3.8, but the brass tacks of it was that the scholarship committee took one look at her living situation, her family history, and her heritage and saw her as the ultimate charity case-something they could "do-good" for back pats, tax deductions, and for snippets they could add to their fancy charity dinner speeches.

Honestly, she didn't care why she got the scholarship only that she had, and she'd used that money to attend a school where she met the man who would become her future.

Marci grinned softly at the memory of their first meeting. She was a big-boned, brown-eyed, kinky-haired thrift shop clothes wearing scholarship student who looked like she'd spent summers gorging on gumbo, and he looked like he'd stepped off the cover of GQ just to slip onto the cover of Men's Fitness.