The effective strategy
I had no idea what my mother told Lilith Hellman, but it worked very well, better than I liked. Two weeks had passed and Lilith had not so much as breathed my name. Her blog had disappeared and she was silent. One would think she had been wiped off the face of the earth. In fact, for a moment there, I thought my mother had killed her so asked Jared to investigate. Lilith was alive and well, enjoying the little time she had left before returning to work.Content rights by NôvelDr//ama.Org.
I never expected to ever say this but I actually missed her. I missed her articles about me, somehow, they made me feel important. Now I was back to the background, just like any other billionaire who wasn’t making any moves. Heron Mask, a tech billionaire was the one appearing on the headlines every now and then after he bought some popular app. I had faded into oblivion, just like Lilith Hellman.
My curiosity was growing each passing day. I knew my mother had perfected her people breaking skills but didn’t think Lilith would go down that fast. Heather’s words about sending a woman to catch a woman rang in my ears. Women were indeed something else. My mother didn’t need to study Lilith for days to figure out her weakness.
The car pulled in to the front of the house and stopped. The driver got out and opened my car. Getting my phone and wallet, I stepped out.
My eyes narrowed for a moment when I heard loud music coming from the back of the house. I sighed, remembering that my mother was still around. She was probably hosting a party for other members of the cool mothers, scratch that, cool wives club.
The door was opened by Heather adorned in a swim suit. When I stepped inside, she wrapped her longs arms around me and I frowned. Then I saw a couple of young women standing near the kitchen door. I forced smile upon realising what she was up to. She was showing me off, acting as though we were still dating.
“How was your day, darling?” she asked, pulling away.
“It was great, baby.” I said. I was only acting nice out of gratitude because she had been quite useful during the past few days. I kissed her lips. “Will you come with me baby?”
The two girls wandered back into the kitchen while Heather linked her arm around mine and we went up the stairs.
“What the hell are you trying to do?” I asked once we were in the landing, walking towards my bedroom. Opening it, I went inside and she followed.
“What am I doing?” she asked, giving me an innocent look. If I didn’t know any better, I would fall for her emotional blackmail. Under that façade, Heather was tough as nails. She just knew how to make her femininity work for her but I was not going to fall for it. “What have I don’t wrong? Is welcoming you back home bad? Or wait, are you mad about the party I’m holding?”
“So that’s you. I thought it was my mother.”
“She gave me permission.”
“This is my house, not hers. But I don’t really care about that. As long as your friends don’t come to this floor, I don’t mind.”
“You’re mad that I hugged you? That’s even worse, Jake.”
“We’re no longer in a relationship, Heather. I’m not mad but don’t think it’s necessary for us to act like a lovey-dovey couple. I’m not a tool you can use anytime you want to make your friends jealous.”
“So what have we been doing, Jake. I thought we were back together. Have you been leading me on all this time? You know that I love desperately, and you just did that. When did you become so heartless?”
I shook my head and went to sit on the bed. Placing my head on my palm, I sighed. “Stop acting like a love sick teenager, Heather. You’re a twenty seven year old woman for Pete’s sake. I did not say anything about getting back together. We were only having sex. Emotionally blackmailing me will not work and you know that.”
“What the hell do you want, Jake?” she asked, turning on the waterworks. I watched, not bothering to give her a handkerchief. There was a box of tissues on my bedside table so she could figure out how to get rid of her crocodile tears by herself. “What kind of woman do you want that is so perfect? I have tried everything but you don’t appreciate me.”
“I don’t know what kind of woman but when I meet her, I’ll know. Isn’t that how it works? For now, I’d rather we part ways because this will never end well.”
“Yeah, it won’t you bastard.” She said and stormed out of the room, slamming the door. The sound irritated my ears but I took a deep breath to keep myself from doing something bad to her.
Bringing her back was a terrible, terrible idea. At that point even my mother was more preferable, which was not a good thing. That woman deserved my hate more than anyone else in the world.
My life was on a downward spiral, bad decision after bad decision.
Suddenly the music became louder. Standing up, I walked to the window and saw about twenty young women in bikinis, dancing and drinking. Some were in the pool shouting and singing along to the songs like there was no tomorrow.
I saw Heather grab a microphone, and the music stopped. “Let’s parttyyy.”
She threw the microphone into the water amid cheers and the music restarted again. I shook my head, having realised that she was now trying to get a rise out of me.
Too bad for her that I was not interested in being baited to immature fights. Undressing, I went to the bathroom and showered. The party was still in full swing when I returned to dress up. I blocked my mind from it and focused on getting ready. When I was done, I sent a message to my driver and went downstairs.
There was a party at the house of a friend. James Milner, a ship owner was celebrating a partnership with another company in the business. They had partnered to increase the size of their operations in hope of making more profits. Initially I had not been in the mood for partying but it was either that or have to deal with Heather’s antics.
James and I had lived in the same apartment while studying at NYU. We had been through a couple of questionable adventures together and buried them in the past where we hoped they would stay. That was one of the reasons I did not want to go to his party, being in the same vicinity with him brought back memories of an extremely evil part of my life.
When we met, we acted like it didn’t exist. As we had a short chat, I wondered if his mind was also replaying all the bad things we had done together. As if that was true, James quickly moved on to another guest relieving me of the unwelcome thoughts. I figured I was going to permanently avoid him at one point.
Most of the big names of New York were there, with their wives. It was a pretty chill party, so much better than the juvenile get together at my house. I chatted with a few people but quickly got bored. There were a number of single women but all the single men were hoping to grab one.
My thoughts shifted to a certain woman who I suddenly wanted to have drinks with. I remembered how great the last time had been and decided to check out her favourite bar. I was probably wasting my time but considering that I had nothing better to do, that meant no harm.
Entering the small bar, I scanned the room. My heart leapt when my eyes found hers. She was in a corner table with two other women. They had been laughing but Lilith stopped when she saw me. Confidently, I walked to their table.
“Good evening ladies.”
The other ladies eyes widened as their jaws dropped to the floor. Can’t say I wasn’t expecting that.
“Good evening, Jake.” Lilith said, her eyes sharp and defiant as ever.
“May I talk to you, miss Hellman?” I asked.
“I don’t want to talk to you,” she said coldly. “Please leave us alone.”
Her friends seemed shocked by her answer but stayed silent.
“If you change your mind, find me in room 5.” I said, walking away. A woman who had been standing a few tables away from me quickly snapped a photo and ran out.
The manager of the establishment was soon by my side escorting me to the private room. I hoped Lilith would come. My only hope was on those friends convincing her.