Needing Her Read online

  I didn’t think this would go anywhere. And maybe it won’t. But I think I want it to.

  CHAPTER NINE

  9

  PEARCE

  I don’t know what just happened. I think I just went on a date. A date with an incredibly smart, incredibly beautiful woman. This wasn’t supposed to be a date. It was just going to be a conversation over coffee. But then I invited her to dinner. I hadn’t planned on that, but as soon as I saw her again, I knew an hour at a coffee shop wouldn’t be enough. I wanted more time with her. And even after four hours, it still wasn’t enough.

  Tonight was definitely a date. I haven’t been on a date since college and I promised myself I would never go on a date again. At least not a real one. Why would I? I have plenty of women to fulfill my sexual needs and it’s pointless to date when I know I’ll eventually have to marry whoever they choose.

  So what was I doing tonight? I can’t be with someone like Rachel. I know this and yet I made another date with her for Friday night. And even more troubling is that Friday night now seems very far away. It’s Wednesday night so it’s only a day away but I already want to see her again.

  I need to stop this. End it before it starts. But I can’t. I have to see her. I’ve never been out with a woman like Rachel. Someone who’s kind and generous and real. Those are qualities that are lacking in the women I’ve been with in the past or in any of the women I’m used to being around. I’m surrounded by socialites, women who care only about how they look and their standing among their society friends. That’s true for my mother as well, so I grew up thinking all women are like that. Of course, as I got older, I encountered many women outside of that world but I have still never met anyone like Rachel.

  She looked beautiful tonight. She looked beautiful when I saw her at Yale that day too. She has a natural beauty that is simply stunning. No plastic surgeon could ever replicate that type of beauty. I know women who’ve spent thousands of dollars trying to achieve that look and yet it always comes out looking fake. A nose that’s too small or too pointy. Eyes that are pulled too tight. Overly puffy lips. You just can’t replicate pure, natural beauty like Rachel has.

  I didn’t mean to stare at her all night, but I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Her dark hair hung in long, soft waves, framing her face. And I loved her dress. So simple and yet she made it look elegant. It was a sleeveless dress that showed off her arms. She has lean, toned arms. I wonder if she plays some type of sport. She didn’t mention it, but I don’t know how else she could be in such good shape. The dress was in a shade of blue that matched her eyes. Those eyes. I can’t get enough of them. It’s not just the color but the warmth and emotion they convey. And her smile. It lights up the room. I’ve heard that expression before but never believed it until I actually saw it for myself.

  Our conversation held my interest the entire four hours we were together. That never happens. Usually when people are talking for that long, my mind drifts in and out and I have to work to stay focused. But Rachel captivated my attention the entire time.

  And that kiss. I broke my own rule. No kissing. But then I put my arm around her narrow waist and looked into her eyes and before I could stop myself, I kissed her. And I don’t know what happened, but that kiss did something to me. Obviously, given my attraction to her, it caused a sexual response, but it was more than that. I felt this closeness to her that I’ve never felt when kissing a woman. I didn’t want the kiss to end. I don’t think she did either. But I felt that it should and so I backed away.

  I limited the kiss to only her lips. I would’ve liked for it to be a more intimate kiss, but I didn’t think that would be right since we just met. That makes absolutely no sense since I normally skip the kiss and have sex with a woman within a half hour of meeting her. In fact, I did just that the other night with Rielle. But I wouldn’t do that with Rachel. I wouldn’t feel right about it.

  I also held her hand. I never hold hands with a woman. It’s another rule and I broke it. But I couldn’t help myself. I had to touch her, and when I did, I couldn’t let go.

  I’m so consumed with thoughts of Rachel that I missed the entrance into my building. I turn around and drive back to the gate, stopping at the security guard station. I roll my window down.

  “Welcome back, Mr. Kensington.” The guard smiles at me as he presses the button to open the gate.

  “Thank you, George.”

  “Just getting home from work?”

  “No. I was out having dinner.”

  He nods. “Must’ve been one very special girl.”

  I raise my brows. “Why do you say that?”

  “I’ve just never seen you smile like that before. I figured it had to be a girl.”

  I clear my throat. “Yes¸ well, have a good evening, George.”

  “You as well, Mr. Kensington.”

  I drive through the gate to the underground garage and park in my assigned spot. I check my reflection in the rearview mirror. I’m not smiling. What was he talking about? Was I smiling when I drove up to the gate? When my mind was still on Rachel?

  This is very concerning. I do not let women affect me this way. I have sex with them. I take them to dinner or the opera or the ballet or a charity ball. But that’s where it ends. I do not get involved with them. I like to remain in control at all times. So why does it feel like I’m already losing control when it comes to Rachel?

  The next day at work, I try to concentrate on spreadsheets showing our latest sales numbers and projected earnings for next quarter but none of it is making sense. It’s just a sea of columns with numbers in them.

  Every time I try to focus on a certain column, my mind shifts to last night. I keep trying to analyze what’s going on with me when it comes to Rachel. There has to be a logical explanation for why I feel so strongly about her.

  I’m very logical and when I can’t find a rational explanation for something, it infuriates me. And there is nothing rational about my feelings for Rachel. The only thing I can come up with is that she’s forbidden, and when a person is denied something, they want it all the more. It’s simply human nature. Basic psychology.

  Rachel is forbidden on many levels. For one, going out with her breaks my self-imposed rule never to date. Two, she does not fit in my world and never will. She’s not wealthy. She doesn’t have the right last name. She didn’t attend the proper schools growing up. Three, she’s not allowed in my world. My parents would kill me if they knew I went out with her, and Dunamis would punish me. And lastly, if I continued to see her and was somehow allowed to be with her, it would never last because she would never be able to truly know me. She can’t ever see the side of me I keep hidden. The dark side. She can’t ever find out what I’ve done. She can’t know about Dunamis and what they do, or who the members are, or how I’m forced to do things I don’t want to do. She can’t know any of that, which is why I can’t pursue whatever this is I started with her.

  It’s noon and I decide to call her. I need to cancel our date tomorrow and tell her I’m busy. If she calls me again after that, I’ll keep telling her I’m busy and eventually she’ll get the message. It’s not what I want to do, but I have to. It’s for the best.

  She answers on the third ring. “Hello, this is Rachel.”

  Just hearing her voice I feel myself smiling. Dammit! I straighten up in my chair and try to maintain a businesslike tone.

  “Hello, Rachel, it’s Pearce.”

  “Hi, Pearce.” Her voice shifts to a slightly higher octave. “I didn’t expect you to call. You’re not canceling on me, are you? Because I did some research and came up with some interesting facts on the Civil War that even I hadn’t heard before. And I have a really fascinating story about one of the soldiers that very few people know about. I can’t wait to share it with you. I’m really looking forward to this tour. And, well, I really want to see you again.”

  There goes my plan. I can’t tell her no. Not now. Not after she said all that. I generally have no probl
em telling people no, but I can’t make myself do it with Rachel. She’s such a sweet girl and it was kind of her to do all that work preparing for my tour. And when she said she wants to see me again, I smiled even wider. A full-on smile, which I never do. But I couldn’t control it. I feel the exact same way about her. I can’t wait to see her again. Even if she hadn’t said all that just now, I still wouldn’t have been able to cancel our date tomorrow. Logically, I know it’s what I need to do, but logic seems to get thrown out the window when it comes to this girl.

  “I want to see you too,” I tell her, that damn smile still on my face. I hope nobody walks by. They’ll think I’ve lost my mind. “And for dinner, you pick the place. Wherever you’d like to go.”

  “Okay.” She pauses. “So were you just calling to say hello? I never gave you a chance to say why you called.”

  “I was thinking about you and wanted to see how your day was going.”

  “It’s going well. Thank you. And yours?”

  “It’s slow, but it’s going fine.”

  “By the way, I was thinking about you too, so I’m glad you called. I wanted to call you, but I know you’re busy at work and I didn’t want to interrupt anything.”

  “Call whenever you’d like. If I’m not here, just leave a message and I’ll call you back when I can.”

  “Okay, well, enjoy the rest of your day.”

  “You as well. Goodbye, Rachel.”

  “Bye, Pearce.”

  One of the secretaries appears at the door to my office. “Mr. Kensington, Jack Ellit just called. He said he’s been trying to reach you. You were supposed to meet him for lunch ten minutes ago.”

  I jump up from my chair. “Yes. I completely forgot. Thank you for letting me know. I’ll head over there right now.”

  Jack is my mentor at Dunamis. Every young man is assigned a mentor when we learn of our membership in this group. I learned about it when I was 16 but I wasn’t allowed to attend meetings until I was 20. That’s the age when most young men are told. But my father felt the need to tell me early. He said it would make me a man sooner if I learned the truth about how the world works.

  I hate him for that. He stole the last remaining years of my childhood. While everyone else my age was leading a carefree life, going to dances and parties and football games, I had to live with the fact that my father had killed an innocent stranger right in front of me, then listen to him tell me how this is done every day and nobody knows. Horrible crimes are committed by him and the other members. Leaders of society, who tell themselves they’re doing it for the good of the nation. The good of the world. After hearing that, what little innocence I had left from my childhood was destroyed. And when my father told me I’d soon be part of it, any hope I’d had for my future was gone.

  I wasn’t assigned a mentor until just this past year. I couldn’t have one before that because I wasn’t around. I was at Yale until I was 22 and then I went straight to grad school at Harvard. When I graduated and started working full-time at Kensington Chemical, I was finally introduced to Jack Ellit, my mentor. He’s 58, married, with two grown daughters, both of whom are married to members.

  So far, I haven’t spent much time with Jack. He owns a large telecommunications company and travels a lot for work. I see him at meetings and we meet for lunch once a month but that’s about it.

  The mentors are supposed to teach us how to follow through on our assignments and complete them successfully. They teach us the rules and make sure we follow them. They’re also there so we have someone to talk to when we’re struggling with being part of the organization. Being a member involves ethical dilemmas that can cause psychological and emotional stress. That’s not true for everyone, but it’s true for many, especially the younger members who haven’t been doing this for very long. Sometimes you just need someone to talk to, and since we can’t talk about this to anyone outside Dunamis, we have to talk to a fellow member.

  My father was angry when I was assigned a mentor. He wanted to train me himself, but it’s against the rules. Mentors can’t be relatives. Of course, that doesn’t stop my father from teaching me things he believes are important, mainly how to shut off all emotion in order to successfully complete your assignments so you can someday reach a higher position in Dunamis. I have no desire to be promoted to a higher level but I don’t tell my father that. I just let him tell me these things and pretend to listen.

  I meet Jack in the private dining room next to his office, which is in his company’s corporate headquarters. We have to meet in private dining rooms like this, because in a restaurant we risk someone overhearing what we’re saying. We need complete privacy and a secure location.

  “Jack, I’m sorry I’m late.” I walk in and see him standing beside a small round table covered in a white linen tablecloth.

  Jack is shorter than me, around six feet, and has a stocky build. His thick hair is all white and he has a tan from all the time he spends in the sun, golfing or sailing. He’s wearing a navy suit with a blue and yellow striped tie. He’s one of the few members who wears bright colors like that. Most everyone else wears ties that are silver or dark gray. And most of us wear black suits, sometimes mixing it up with gray, but rarely navy.

  Jack smiles as we shake hands. “It’s no problem, Pearce. We all get busy and time slips away.”

  “That’s not an excuse. I should’ve been on time. Again, I apologize. It won’t happen again.”

  He motions me to the table. “Shall we sit down?”

  We take our seats. On the table are two goblets of water next to two short fat glasses filled with scotch. Our meals are also sitting there, covered by a silver dome. The wait staff isn’t allowed in here during our meetings so we remove the domes ourselves and set them on the tray that’s next to the table.

  Our lunch consists of a small steak with a side of roasted potatoes and asparagus. Jack has a simple palate, another way he’s different than the other members. A good meal to him is an expensive cut of meat prepared to his specifications and served with a side of potatoes. The other members prefer gourmet meals made with ingredients that are difficult to obtain and therefore very expensive.

  Whenever Dunamis has meetings or parties, Jack always complains about the food. His complaints are not well received. The other members look at him with annoyance, but he gets those looks a lot so he’s used to it.

  Jack is a bit of a rebel. He pushes the rules to their limits and he isn’t afraid to voice his opinion when he doesn’t agree with something. His rebellious attitude is what I like most about him. Deep down, I’m a rebel too. My father constantly tries to get rid of that trait in me and make me more obedient, and for the most part he’s succeeded, but not completely. I still go behind his back and do things he wouldn’t approve of. Like going out with Rachel. He would be furious if he knew I was seeing a woman like her.

  My father knows Jack’s reputation as a trouble maker who challenges the rules, so he was outraged when he found out Jack was my mentor. He tried to get them to pick someone else but they wouldn’t do it. I’m a little surprised myself that they would pair me with Jack, given that we both have that rebellious streak. But then again, I keep that side of myself mostly hidden, so other than my father, the other members probably don’t realize it’s there.

  “So what have you been up to, Pearce?” Jack cuts into his steak, which is seared on the outside but so rare on the inside that blood is dripping out.

  “I’ve been busy with work. Sixteen hour days, seven days a week.” I cut into my own steak, which is cooked to a perfect medium-rare. The first time he meets you, Jack asks how you like your steak cooked. Then when he invites you for a meal, he makes sure his chef prepares it exactly the way you like it.

  “You need to get some hobbies,” he says. “Maybe take flying lessons. Get your pilot’s license. Or take up sailing. I could get you into my yacht club.”

  “My father doesn’t allow me to have hobbies unless it will benefit the company. Golf
ing is on his approved list, but only because it’s an activity we do with clients.”

  Jack takes a bite of his bloody steak, not bothering to finish chewing it before he speaks again. “When are you going to stop listening to your father? You’re a grown man. Holton shouldn’t be telling you what to do.”

  I laugh a little because if my father heard Jack say that, he’d probably strangle him. You never outgrow your obedience to your father’s authority. That’s what my father told me when I tried to use the I’m-an-adult argument. Telling him I was a grown man who could make my own choices did nothing more than cause a fight between us.

  “Jack, I think you know my father well enough to know that he will never stop telling me what to do. Over the years, I’ve learned that not following his orders is more difficult than following them.”

  “That may be true for some things, but for other things, you need to take a stand.” He stabs a chunk of potato with his fork. “Pick your battles. Isn’t that what they say?”

  “Yes. But it’s not that simple with him.”

  He takes a swig of his scotch. “What else? You got a girl in your life?”

  I smile at his sudden change of topics. That’s typical for him but I’m never prepared for it. Sometimes his topics or the things he says are inappropriate, or his timing is inappropriate. The other members call him out on this, but Jack just ignores them. He doesn’t care what people think of him.

  “No, I’m not seeing anyone.” I can’t tell Jack about Rachel. I can’t tell anyone about her.

  “I heard you had a date with Rielle Hanniford.” He stuffs a wedge of steak in his mouth and gnaws on it.

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “I’ve got eyes everywhere, Pearce. I have to. And as for Rielle, I gave her father some money to invest and now I have to keep an eye on him and his family to make sure they’re actually investing it and not squandering it. Years ago, I trusted a man with my money and ended up losing it in a Ponzi scheme. Since then, I’ve been more careful. Plus, spying on Hanniford gives me an opportunity to test out my latest surveillance equipment.”