In the end I end up skipping my Saturday shift just to spend the day with him. Julie called me and I had told her that I will make it up by using my free day the next week.
The plans Jeremy had made for us were simply spending our time together. He first took us to a public park where we had a picnic whilst basking in the sun.
However our time in there had been constantly disturbed by his ever ringing phone and a few people whom recognised him as the rich, philanthropist CEO of The Lawson Group one of the top grossing business companies in the whole of the country.
The people paid their respects, compliments but most who were women were just overly flirty and being blatantly ignorant of me beside him.
Like a good gentle man he is, Jeremy had just gave them brief smiles before paying his full attention to me so that they were forced to acknowledge me and the second they did they started to discreetly back away from us. I was so grateful of his attentiveness that I had practically thrown myself in his arms, giving him a peck on the lips.
He smiles shyly in response and I relish in the way the smile brightens up his features.
"It's my mom's birthday next week on Saturday." He tells me out of the blue.
"Really?" The surprise isn't lost in my tone.
"Yeah, she's having a gathering of family and friends, she wants to meet you."
"Meet me?" The surprise on my tone shifts to horror.
He nods, nervously; his whole face is as if he's trying to make out my reaction.
"You told your mother about me?" I ask.
He bites his lip while he nods. "I didn't exactly tell her forthcoming, she beat me to it. Her very exact word were, 'Jerry, you haven't called or visited me in for two weeks. I know you are hiding a lady in that penthouse of yours. Why don't you bring her for my birthday party? I expect you here with her next week.'"
My eyebrows quirk up suddenly at this revelation.
I am lost for words. "It sounds as if your mother has no knowledge of you ever having girlfriends."
"I know, I don't bring girlfriends to her."
"Why? What about Cassie? I thought you guys were together for a long time."
"Cassie again? When are you going get into your head that it's not Cassie that I want anymore. I told you before that we were over, and what made you think that we were together a long time?"
"You might not want her but from the last encounter she seemed very much into you and you took her on date Jeremy, right after I had left. You haven't given me an explanation why. Plus, when I'd eavesdropped on your conversation back at your hotel, you had said you thought you loved her so I assumed you were with her for long."
I realize how my speech makes me sound like, but I still can't shake Cassie off.
He has a frown marring his face as he regards me.
"Firstly to answer your first question. No, I never took Cassie to my mother, we'd only been together a month and secondly I've made it clear for her that we were done. Thirdly it'd never been a date, it'd been just dinner to finalise the end of our arrangement."
He has lost me. "What do you mean by finalise your arrangement, you sound as if you two being together had been a business deal."
He swallows nervously as he runs a hand through his hair. "Yes. It was sort of a business arrangement."
I frown not completely understanding what he is implying.
"I don't... I don't understand."
He takes a deep cautious breath before he speaks.
"Leyla, Cassie is an escort and a hooker."
"What?" I completely disconnect.
"She is a paid high class hooker and escort." He repeats.
"But...How?"
He twiddles on his thumb which is a un-Jeremy thing to do. He looks as if he's a petulant boy.
He sighs. "I don't do girlfriends--well I never had until you came along--I never liked the thought of being in a relationship and running a successful huge business made sure I never had time for it."
I blink at him, my brain trying to process this information.
"I was never celibate though," he continues. "I am a man with needs after all. So when women offered themselves to me I'd willingly oblige. However, some of them got too attached and I didn't have time for them. So I looked for an easy way to have women who will be presentable enough attend social meetings with me as well sleep with me. There are quite a few businesses that do this, trust me."
I don't know how my face looks at this moment but I am pretty certain my jaw has dropped and I am staring at him in a somewhat look of shock.
"That's where Cassie came along; there were other woman before her however Cassie is the longest escort I've been with. And so in order for them to keep this closed agreement a secret, I made odd papers for them to sign."
I close my opened mouth, my brain still processing the revelation he has thrust upon me.
"So, that's why I had been with her on that day, I'd been trying to convince her to sign off the arrangement. It wasn't a date like you thought."
I'm speechless. I am utterly rendered speechless. I have absolutely no remark nor any comment for what he has just told me.
I watch as he shifts closer to me on the picnic blanket. He takes my hand and starts rubbing circles on my knuckles.
"Say something." He commands.
"I...I don't know what to say."
He purses his lips in thought.
"Why did she cheat on you with Matthew?" I finally ask.
He shrugs, his jaw clenching, "Maybe to get my attention, or maybe she was bored of me, who knows she may have liked the thought of a feud between us because her."
"Oh."
"I don't entirely blame her; Matthew also has reputation of sleeping around with half of the city."
"So she had been with you for money and sex?"
He nods.
"Just like how I met you for the same thing?"
"No. That's different."
"How is it different?"
"Leyla, I told you I had an arrangement with her. You and I didn't. She had been with me for fame and money and so basically she'd been using me just as I used her, it worked both ways. But for you, you are different."
I shake my head. "How can I be? I got on that car with you for money." I look down at the grass.
He takes his other hand to tilt my chin up so that I can look at him.
"And you walked out on me without even a cent. You left me in a tumult of confusion, you left me thinking how being with you was different from being with all those other women. You left me basking in your scent which had been all over my bed sheets as if it were a constant reminder of how much you left a mark on me. You left me with thoughts of how alive you've made me feel for that day as if I hadn't known myself before you came along, as if I hadn't known happiness before. You just wrecked me into pieces only to then rearrange and mould me into something good, something better."
I gasp at his words. My heart lurches suddenly.
"From that day you left I knew had to have you in my life, I knew I would never feel this way with anyone even if tried looking. I knew that I had to find you again because I had to have you to myself. I knew you belonged with me and you gave me something so cherish-able, so beautiful, no one else was to have you but me." He declares.
I am finding it really hard to breathe because my heart is pounding against my chest like there isn't tomorrow for it to keep beating.
"You felt this way after I left?"
He nods. "You were what had been on my mind every second. I couldn't concentrate entirely."
I swallow and lick my now dry lips. I stare at him with a new emotion, a new understanding. It must not be just an infatuation he has with me; it must be something more, something imperceptible and incomprehensible.
Can it be that he must feel for me just as much as I feel for him? Especially right at this moment of time because right now, I am more than just in love with, I am beyond that and I'm scared.
"That's why it's easy for me to shower with everything luxury..." he adds.
"... Because I know that you've been brought up in hard situations and you have lived life in a constant struggle. The very thought of you begging pains me and I find myself angry with your birth mother and the man that owned that fraud foster home. Although I am gratefully of Greta to at least have given you a roof over your lovely head, I had almost lost it when she'd revealed she sold you off to my brother. I couldn't believe the thought. I had to get you out of there before I broke something off her and that would have been ugly."
"I guess what I am trying to say, Leyla, is that I don't want to lose you and I want you sorely under my protection."
"You won't lose me Jeremy. Thank you for telling me this, you sure gave me a lot think about. From now on I will be a lot kind into accepting your gifts in regard of your impeccable need to take care of me." I smile at him and I move my hand to caress his face, my fingers find the subtle of his growing beard and the feeling is rough but soft against my hand.
He grins back at me, as he takes my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles.
Somehow for some reason that kiss ignites my blood and the mark of the kiss he has left burns on my knuckles.
"Thank you for the regard," he smirks playfully.
"So back to my original question, will you come with me to my mother's birthday next week?"
"As if you need to ask again. Of course I will come. I'd like to meet your mom too." I grin at him.
He grins back as if my grin is infectious.
"You are adorably beautiful, do you know that?" He takes my face on his hands as he pulls me closer for a kiss.
The instant my lips meet his, my blood churns as fire explodes through me. I begin wrapping my arms around his neck and give him access to my mouth as I part my lips.
"Mmm, we should stop this now before we give these innocent people a show they are likely to never forget." I feel his smirk against my lips.
I laugh, the sound muffled and reverberating against his lips "Agreed." I tell him.
"Come, I think that's enough picnic for today." He breaks our kiss as he stands and offers my hand.
I start packing our basket and folding the blanket.
"Where are we going?" I ask him when I let him help me to stand up.
"Some place more private, I need you. Now."
***
Of course his version of a private place is at his hotel, counting that it were the only place near from the park.
We spent an hour there and the next hour with him convincing me to wear one of the expensive cocktail dresses one the staff of the hotel has brought instantly because he had failed to tell me beforehand that he had a charity event to attend to.
So I have now put on the strapless peachy coloured dress that hugs my upper body and from below it leaves floral traces of lace, as if the lace has been cut in spiral pieces and left hanging from waist to below. The spiral piece reveals the front of my legs but also covers the back of them.
It's very beautiful and Jeremy says it even looks more appealing when I'm in it.
I blush at his comment, giving him a grateful smile. He has scrubbed up well himself.
He has rid of the dark jeans and white t-shirt he'd been wearing earlier and now he's wearing a black suit, a white linen shirt with a bow. His attire makes him look even more stunning than ever.
"Like what you see?" He has noticed my gawking.
I bite my lower lip as I nod.
He smirks and then holds out black box set, which is leathery looking.
"For you."
The very words have me reluctant to take the damn box, however, I will my hand to take it from him out of curiosity.
He is appraising my reaction with a look of attentiveness. I tentatively open the leather set and within it, reveals two small shiny diamond-coated earing studs with gold surrounding them, there's also a matching necklace in the box.
I gasp at the beauty, my head snapping up instantly at him. He smiles shyly at me, his whole countenance is trying to ascertain if my reaction is positive or not.
"You like it?" He asks as he steps closer to me.
I stare back down on the jewellery in my hands, lost for words at the tremendous sparkly gift.
"They are beautiful."
"Put them on." He says.
I move to the mirror to put the earrings on, immediately they compliment my attire. Just as I am about put the necklace Jeremy appears behind me.
"Let me do it." He offers and I hand him the necklace.
I take the wavy curls of my brown hair and hold my hair out in order for him to place the necklace on my neck.
I feel his fingers brushing lightly on the skin of my back and instantly heat radiates from my skin into my bones.
I watch him through the mirror and he is concentrating fully on the task on hand. Once he has locked the necklace together, it drops to my upper chest, fitting perfectly near my collar bone.
I let my hair fall from my hands and I am still aware of Jeremy's fingers still at my neck. He is tracing his hands to my shoulders as he steps closer so that I feel him from my back.
He is a head taller than I and he dips his head on my neck. I feel his lips brushing on the line of my shoulders all the way to my neck.
I close my eyes for a moment as I relish in these sensations.
His hands then drape around me as he pulls away from my neck resting his chin on the side of my head as he looks at us through the mirror.
"You look absolutely stunning today, not that you never have before." He compliments me as he begins to sway our bodies side to side as if in a dance.
I smile at him through the mirror, catching his eye. "Thank you. You don't look so bad yourself."
He kisses the side of my head as he breathes in a chuckle. I watch him closing his eyes and I do the same enjoying the moment.
However it isn't moments later when he reluctantly breaks away.
"Come. Let's go before I decide to bail the party."
"It's a party?"
"Yes, a fundraising charity party which my Publicist demands I attend."
"Oh." My eyebrows pique.
He takes my hand and begins to drag us out of his pent suite hotel room and onto the elevator.