Drulisa knew they weren’t going on a real date, but that didn't stop her from making the hour-long drive to Norfolk to the mall. She’d made a beeline straight to Macy’s because she’d wanted to find something new to wear — something special.
She turned to the side and inspected her reflection in her full-length antique bedroom mirror. The hue of the salmon-colored dress that she'd found at a steal complemented her brown skin tone perfectly. And the cut was complementary as well. She smiled at herself in the mirror. She wasn't necessarily vain. But she knew the dress brought out all of her best body features.
She was happy that she'd taken her mother's advice and curled her hair into tousled waves that gently kissed her shoulders and framed her heart-shaped face. That particular style suited her look.
"Well, I guess that's enough primping and preening in front of the mirror. He'll be here any minute. I’d better get myself downstairs. I’ve had enough problems with time where Joshua Forrester is concerned."
Almost as if on cue, her mother’s doorbell began to chime. "Yep, he's here," she whispered under her breath. Then she began chiding herself for not being downstairs to answer the door. It had only taken her mother a few seconds to let Joshua into the home they shared, and she'd already drawn the man into a conversation.
Having the great listening skills that she did, Sonia Johnson heard her daughter the second she'd placed her foot on the bottom stair step.
"Drulisa, your date for today is absolutely charming, sweetheart. I'm sure you're gonna have a wonderful time with this one."
Joshua chuckled. "Flattery will get you everywhere Ms. Johnson."
Drulisa's mom giggled. "I've already told you...it's Sonia. Not Ms. Johnson."
"You did, didn't you? In that case, you're gonna have to call me Joshua."
Good grief. My mother has only known the man a few minutes and they're already on a first name basis. Drulisa couldn't help but to admit to herself that she felt a little jealous. Then she brightened up when he placed his eyes on hers and said, “Wow. You look lovely, Drulisa. Are you ready to go?”
She flashed him a smile. "Why thank you, Joshua. I'm ready."
As soon as he'd settled her into the passenger side seat of his Lamborghini, her eyes were drawn to the door that she had ripped off only days earlier.
Joshua opened the driver’s side door and took his place behind the steering wheel. Then he cranked the car’s powerful engine. He’d noticed the object of her attention so he smiled. That door had been the starting point for his and Drulisa’s relationship. “Do you think my mechanic did a good job replacing it?”
“Uh...yeah. I can barely tell that anything happened.” She shook her head. “No. That’s not at all what I’d meant to say. I actually can’t tell at all that your car’s door had been ripped off.” She smiled. “What really amazes me is that my car only sustained a tiny scratch on it’s bumper.”
He pulled the sports car out into the street and merged with the traffic. “You know I’d be more than happy to pay for the repairs don’t you?”
She shook her head. “Like I told you before. It’s not necessary. My car’s a rust bucket. One more little ding didn’t affect anything. Plus, I have the company car that you loaned me. And in a few weeks, I should be putting a down payment on a brand new vehicle for myself...compliments of your very generous contract of course.”
He smiled. “You know you earned the contract...right? I didn’t just hand it to you. You marched yourself into my office and won me over.”
She'd wanted to ask him about the generous terms he'd offered her. But at the last minute she changed her mind. In the end, she figured that how J.Forrester Enterprises chose to handle their contracts was Joshua’s concern — or the concern of some other executive in the corporation. She felt as if she really didn't have a right to put him on the spot about a business decision that he’d made. In her eyes, doing such would've been a tad bit presumptuous of her.
He grinned again. "Oh, yeah...before I forget, I’d like you to know that my grandmother was absolutely thrilled with her gift. She shared the cupcakes with a few of her girlfriends. They had a celebratory tea party in honor of her eighty-seventh birthday.”
Drulisa nodded her head. “Oh, I’m glad to hear that she enjoyed them. That’s one of the reasons I decided to service the public with my creations.” She grinned. “I like to make people happy. I like to see people smile.”
By this time, Joshua was more than sure that his attraction to Drulisa was very real. When he’d heard her make her little comment about making people happy, he couldn’t seem to stop imagining how he’d love to have her make him happy by moving those dainty little hands of hers all over his body. In fact, his manhood was starting to swell from just thinking about it.
He refused to say anything that was inappropriate to her, or anything that was out of place. Drulisa was sexy as hell, but her sexiness came in a natural type of way. She was a woman who was in touch with her allure and femininity, but who at the same time commanded respect. He’d been with plenty of women in his past who would’ve hopped in his car with him and immediately given him everything sexually that he’d wanted. But he knew instinctively that Drulisa Johnson wasn’t that type of woman.
"Did you hear me, Joshua? Uh, I mean Mr. Forrester?"
Joshua shook his head. "Oh, I'm sorry, Drulisa." He took his eyes off the road for a second and glanced over at her. "I got lost in a world of my own for a little while there.” He smiled. “By the way, is it okay for me to call you Drulisa? Are you alright with us being on a first name basis?"
She nodded her head. “It's okay with me, if it's okay with you. And I was asking whether or not you enjoyed living here in Everette County. Somehow I imagine that a place like here would feel slow and backwater to a person like yourself. I actually did my homework on J.Forrester Enterprises. I read that you started your company in New York City, and it’s your hometown. The lifestyle one would have in New York is a far cry from the type of living we do in our semi-rural area.”
He chuckled. “That’s the very thing my grandmother asked me before I made the move. But the thing is, my parents would send me down here to spend every summer with my grandmother. This area kind of stuck on me...got in my bones you know. I always said when I got older, I’d come back here on a more permanent basis. So here I am.”
She smiled. “Oh, that’s interesting. We’re almost flip-sides of the same coin. I’ve always wondered what New York was like...always fantasized about living there. But I haven’t had the chance to visit to see what it’s like for myself as of yet.” She was a little embarrassed to admit to Joshua that the furthest she’d ever been from her hometown had been approximately one state over. New York was a good thousand miles from her beloved Everette County.
“I think you’d like it, Drulisa. There’s plenty to do in the Big Apple and lots to see.”
She of course believed him. Thoughts of walking in Central Park and seeing the Empire State Building had been in her head ever since she’d been a little girl. I’m sure I’ll get there one day, she thought to herself. Then she settled in and spent the rest of the hour-long ride allowing Joshua to entertain her with stories of his hometown.
*****
Four Hours Later:
Drulisa was sure she had at least one potential new client. Maybe even two, she thought to herself with a tiny smile on her face. Just being by Joshua’s side had opened a world of opportunities for her. She knew that many of the people she’d hob-nobbed with wouldn’t have given her a second thought if she hadn’t had Joshua there to legitimize her.
“You ready to go, Drulisa?”
Drulisa nodded her head. “Yes. I think I am. I’ve had a very exciting day today. But all of the excitement has been a little tiring.” Then she giggled. She felt a certain joy on the inside from her experience despite feeling worn out.
"Don't tell Lexi I said any of that though. She always gets on me about me having an old soul. Here I am, experiencing one of the most exciting days of my life, and yet I want to cut the day short and go home."
He tucked his hand under her elbow and began to escort her towards the exit doors of the pavilion. Then he chuckled. "Don't you dare be ashamed at all. I’m sure that for you today was like Christmas was for us when we were little...when we were kids. I’m sure you remember it. We got ourselves so worked up thinking about everything we were gonna get on Christmas Day, that by the time the holiday had actually arrived, we’d tired ourselves out."
The faintest shadow of a frown made its way across her beautiful face.
Seemingly in touch with her emotions, Joshua grimaced as well. "Did I say something wrong, Drulisa?"
She placed what she hoped looked like a genuine smile on her face. She shook her head. "No you didn't say anything wrong at all. It's just that Christmas at my house wasn't always such a happy affair."
For some reason, Joshua wished that he could take away all the pain in her soft brown eyes. She was doing a hell of a job trying to disguise it, but he had seen the hurt expression. It had spoken volumes.
In an attempt to cheer up the dark mood that she'd inadvertently brought into their space, she flashed him a smile. “I think I got two solid prospects out of today’s little trip. Thank you so much for inviting me here, Joshua.”
He’d actually had a good time being in Drulisa's company that day. Therefore, he thought things should've been the other way around. He thought he should’ve been thanking her for agreeing to accompany him. He shared with her the thoughts that had been on his mind.
Drulisa smiled. She suddenly felt shy from his compliment. "Why thank you, Joshua. I’m happy you enjoyed yourself. For what it’s worth, I had a really good time, too. You’re enjoyable company."
By this time, they were back in his car. Joshua chuckled. "You make it sound like you’re surprised that I was actually a halfway decent companion today. You weren’t thinking you were gonna have the day from hell with me were you?"
Spending a good chunk of the day with him had made Drulisa comfortable in his presence. Grinning she said, "Oh, like I told you earlier, I did some research on your company before coming in to talk to you about getting my cupcakes into your resort. Needless to say, I ran into some very interesting articles about the CEO of J.Forrester Enterprises. In quite a few of the writeups, you were painted out to be a globe-trotting, arrogant, womanizing playboy who didn’t mind crushing other’s feelings to get what you wanted.”
Joshua sighed. A lot of that had been true about him in the previous years. He wasn’t proud of it, but he knew that being that type of individual had gotten him to the stage he currently was in his life. It had allowed him to become a self-made billionaire.
Keeping his eyes on the road he said, “I’d like to think that I’m not that same man anymore, Drulisa. I’ve learned my lessons from my mistakes. I know how to apologize when I’ve erroneously stepped on someone’s toes. I know how to admit my mistakes.”
She nodded her head. “About like how you apologized to me over the car accident?”
He sighed again. Then he smiled. “Yep. Definitely like that.”
They made the remainder of the journey back to Drulisa’s place in companionable silence. After he’d escorted her to her front door, he looked down at her and allowed his lips to slowly turn up in a smile. Everything about their day had felt like a date to Joshua, and Drulisa was standing right there in front of him looking so downright sexy and beautiful.
“Go on a real date with me, Drulisa. I’m really not that bad boy that the tabloids somehow like painting me out to be. I’d like to think that I’m a pretty decent type of guy.” He gave her another smile. “How about give me a chance to prove all of that to you?”
Drulisa had been totally unprepared for him saying the words that he just had. “A date?” she asked in disbelief.
He surprised her by reaching down and taking her hand into his. “Yes. I’m not the type of man who believes in beating around the bush, so I’ll be outright with it. I like you alot, Drulisa. You’re a complex type of woman...you intrigue me. You make me want to get to know more about you.”
She kind of liked him, too. Spending the day with him had proven that to her. However, she hated to imagine what the implications of dating him would end up being if they somehow started a relationship and things blew up between them.
"If you're concerned about losing your business relationship with J. Forrester Enterprises, you needn’t worry about that. You have a two-year contract that will cover you. If you go on a date with me, and for some reason you decide that you’d never like to see my rugged face again, there’d be no consequences to you making that decision.”
Despite liking him, she was still unsure of the wisdom of them going out on a real date.
He smiled again. “Tell you what, I’ll give you some days to think about it. I’ll call you four days from now on Wednesday. You can give me a yes or no answer then.” He stuck his palm out for a handshake. “We got ourselves a deal?”
Drulisa sighed. Then she gave him a tiny smile. Next she shook the hand he’d proffered. “Alright, Joshua. I’ll talk to you on Wednesday.”