The Billionaire's Salvation

NO DENYING THE FACTS

“That did not go as expected,” Nicklaus muttered to himself as he made his way to his black Lamborghini.

Loosening his tie a fraction of an inch, Nicklaus unlocked the car and slid behind the steering wheel onto his plush leather seat. 

He preferred having a driver because it gave him the ability to work in the car which saved him precious time. But because he wanted to keep this situation under wraps, he had decided to drive himself. The fewer people who knew about Vanessa and this potential scandal, the better.

“Damn Marcus for this,” he said out loud, his father hadn’t even given him time to pretend to grieve before his s**t hit the fan. He was already pressured as it is. What with having to reassure the board of directors that the company would continue to run smoothly in his father’s absence, shoring up the confidence of the stakeholders, settling his father debts and managing his estate, Nicklaus was at his wit's end. Plus, from his initial perusal, Nicklaus suspected his father had been embezzling funds from the company. Now to have to deal with a possible rape scandal! God, what was his father thinking? He swore and hit the steering wheel in frustration.

His father had raped his intern and gotten the poor girl pregnant. He no longer doubted her claims. He'd seen the stark fear in her eyes when he'd advanced towards her. His intent had not to been to intimidate her. He was just accustomed to using his presence as a tool to get his way. The way she recoiled, left him feeling disgusted with himself. 

God what a major cluster f**k this was. Even if the rape didn’t get out, the pregnancy was a big enough scandal to make his life a PR nightmare.

 He was now conflicted with himself, which was a rare occurrence. He could not recall the last time if ever, he felt his loyalties being pulled in two opposite directions. Having met the sweet little Vanessa Anderson, and looking into her eyes as she recounted her ordeal, Nicklaus now felt compelled to help her, to shelter her from what a fallout of this would cause in the media. She was so tiny and young, he wondered how she'd managed to survive such an ordeal. The raw emotions he saw play out on her face could not have been faked. There wasn’t an actress alive or dead who was that good. And besides, he had seen the panic on her face, the raw unadulterated fear clawing its way to the surface. She had tried her best to fight it and push it down, but he had seen it. He was now duty-bound to protect her and her unborn child.   

But he still needed to keep a lid on this. He could not allow his father's latest f**k up to get out. It would destroy too many lives to count.

God, his father had no business touching such a pure innocent child. And that was what she was, a child. She didn’t even look to be a year over fifteen. He knew she was older, but she looked so young.

Making his way into traffic, Nicklaus headed to his father’s company’s headquarters. Well his company now.

Damn.                                                                                                                                                            

It was going to take some getting used to, to think of this company as now his.

After graduating he’d turned his back on his father’s company, taken his trust fund and started his own shipping company.

Best decision of his life.

He’d netted billions in a matter of a few years and cemented his name as a business mogul.

But such was the irony of life. The one thing he was running from, he’d end up having to do – running his father’s company.

He wasn’t doing it for his deceased father. But rather, he was doing it to secure the legacy of his siblings and to secure the jobs of the company’s thousands of employees. 

He could not allow the scandal with Ms Anderson to get out. It would cripple the company’s shares.

He needed to review the security footage from that night the incident allegedly took place. Once he confirmed what he already believed, he'd do everything in his power to compensate her for her suffering.

Pulling into the parking lot, Nicklaus made his way to the elevator and up to the fiftieth floor which housed his father’s office --- well rather his office, since he had assumed control of the company the preceding week.

As he approached his office, his father’s secretary popped up from behind her desk.

“Nick –” she said breathily with an air of familiarity.

“It’s Mr Ramirez to you, Miss Dainty.”

 “My apologies, Mr Ramirez,” she said without appearing the least bit apologetic. “You have a conference call at 11:00hrs, and the CFO wishes to speak with you at your earliest convenience. Also, Mr Barrington is here to see you. He insisted on waiting in your office.”

“Thank you Miss Dainty that will be all.”

 Ignoring her seductive smile and her blow up Barbie appearance in her too tight too short outfit, Nicklaus made his way into his office.

Walking to the bar at the far corner of the room, he poured himself a scotch before turning his attention to his friend.

“Were you able to retrieve the footage from the security unit, Mark?” Nicklaus said by way of greeting.

 He had known fellow multi-billionaire Mark Barrington since he was a child, they were best friends and he trusted Mark with his life. That was the main reason he had confided in him about this latest potential scandal.

"Hi, Mark, nice to see. Thanks for taking time from your busy schedule to come all the way here to meet me. I really appreciate it. Would you like a drink?" Mark replied drily.

"Cut the bullshit. You know I'm grateful. Besides, if you wanted a drink you would have helped yourself. Now did you find the footage?" 

“Yes, I did not only manage to track the footage down, but I also had the chance to review it and it appears that the lass was telling the truth,” he said somewhat regretfully while looking at Nicklaus.

“Rest assured I am not at all shocked by your discovery, as I have just returned from meeting with Miss Anderson and have already accepted her story after speaking with her.”

Mark was no doubt surprised by Nicklaus’s admission.

“Nick, do you mean to tell me that you have accepted the words of a woman you have just met without any proof or confirmation?” Mark queried.

Taking another sip of his scotch, Nick shook his head. “It was not a hard task to believe her; I went there with the sole intent and purpose of putting her in her place and refuting all of her baseless accusations. But if you had seen her and heard her describe what that bastard did to her, you would believe her too”.

“Oh, so what is she like?”

“She surprised me,” he said, settling himself into his leather chair behind his massive oak desk. “When I heard she was one of my father’s interns and I got the letter she sent, I was expecting one of those blonde bimbo types my father seemed to gravitate to.”

“I told you from the file I collected she is a Harvard graduate, graduated top of her class and skipped a few classes altogether in high school.”

“Yeah, yeah, but I figured she had either slept her way through school or had a sugar daddy bribe her way through.” He shook his head. “She looked so young and innocent. I mean, aside from the fact that she is African-American, she is short and virgin-like, not at all what my father usually goes for.”

Mark laughed. “Virgin like? I'm afraid to ask, but what does virgin-like look like?”

“Yeah, you know, timid with huge doe-like eyes, long thick kinky black hair, heart-shaped face, button nose, plump lips and delicate ears. She appeared to be the human form of Bambi. She wasn’t wearing a speck of makeup. She looked soft,” he said, still trying to come to grips with his impression of Vanessa Anderson.

“Guess the novelty of her, is what attracted your father,” Mark speculated.

Nicklaus felt his chest tighten in a strange way. Why had his father damaged her? A woman like that should be cherished, loved, cuddled and pampered. Not attacked and raped. “Yeah. What a f*****g jackass.”

Vanessa was the perfect combination of soft and sensual. It was all too easy to wonder how that mouth of hers would feel all over a man’s body and how she would respond when her latent sexuality was awakened.

He felt himself grow warm at the thought and shook his head. He’d never been attracted to nice girls before. And never someone so young, he would be accused of cradle snatching. He liked his women mature and worldly, saved him from a whole lot of drama and made it easier for him to walk away when he grew tired of them, for they knew the score.