Her Forbidden Millionaire

“Excuse me, ma’am,” a strong voice spoke from behind her. When Phoebe turned around she couldn’t even speak. There he was in the flesh, all of his sexy flesh. Lincoln Gold was standing in front of her trying to get her attention. Pam’s descriptions of him, not even his social media pages, did him the justice of seeing him up close and personal. Phoebe was almost speechless.

She cleared her throat. “I’m sorry, yes?”

“The gentleman behind the counter has been trying to get your attention. I think your order is ready,” he said with a smile.

“Thank you.” Phoebe returned his smile with the feeling of butterflies in her stomach. Seeing the man she thought she would despise in person was different from everything she expected. He was polite, respectful, and probably a nice guy. She felt even worse about snapping on his lawyer. With a sigh and a heavy heart, she grabbed her order and took her food outside.

The table she picked was in a far corner, under the shade of the cafe’s awning. Phoebe sipped her coffee, and nibbled at her croissant. It wasn’t long before Lincoln came out of the cafe. He looked happy and surprised to see her there.

“I like that table too.” He smiled as he took a seat across from her.

Phoebe sighed as she rolled her eyes. Here’s the self indulgent celebrity she was anticipating. Lincoln didn’t pay too much attention to her foul mood, he simply introduced himself, “Good morning, I’m Lincoln Gold. How are you today?”

Phoebe stared at him perplexed. “I’m Phoebe, Phoebe Grissom. And as far as how I’m doing, I guess I’ve had better days.” She wanted to ask him so many things but his confidence was attractive and distracting. There wasn’t ever a time where she could think of that someone sat down unannounced and she accepted it.

“Well, I hope your day gets better, there’s still time.” He smiled.

“I guess you’re right about that,” Phoebe agreed.

“So the reason I wanted to have a word with you and imposed my presence on you here this morning was that I’d never seen you around before. I have an office just down the street there and in all my time of coming here, I’ve never seen you and then when you sat at my favorite table I figured that it must be fate.” He beamed. “So I wanted to ask you if you would like to go out and grab dinner some night this week?”

Phoebe was shocked. “Wow! Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Gold, as lovely as that sounds, I’m just not into dating celebrities. I know you live a very public life and I admire you for that. I just can’t be that open.”

Lincoln stared at her for a moment before nodding his head. “I get it. I really wish you’d reconsider, but I understand where you’re coming from. I was kind of hoping that you didn’t know who I was.”

“There’s nothing wrong with hope, but Crimson is too small for everyone not to know who you are.” Phoebe smiled. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d better be going.”

“Sure.” Lincoln rose from his seat to help Phoebe from hers. He was the perfect gentleman which made her feel even worse for turning him down. But suddenly, she remembered the looks his lawyer was giving her and decided that it was for the best. Thoughts of him ran through her mind constantly as she made her way back to the office.

Sure enough, Bobby was pacing in front of her door when she got back. She shook her head as she stepped past him to get inside of her office. “I hope you haven’t been here wearing a hole in that carpet this entire time.”

All Bobby could do was look at her.

“Jesus Christ, Bobby! You look a mess! Well, let me help you worry a little bit less. I didn’t get him.” Phoebe’s eyes fell to the floor.

“Why? What happened?” he asked more out of concern than disappointment.

“He had some woman as a lawyer, who kept making smart remarks to me and giving me the side eye because she walked in on me defending myself against Clayton,” Phoebe snapped. “You would think she understood. You would think she would take my side, but no… di*k wins again.”

Bobby huffed a bit, wishing it didn’t have to happen that way, but he knew that Phoebe would never back down from anyone. So if the woman really was stepping far out of line professionally, Phoebe wouldn’t have stood for it. He rubbed her on the shoulder. “Okay, I’m sure you did the right thing. I’ll make a call over to his company to make sure his professionalism is addressed.”

“Don’t! I’m going to do it on my own and then I’m going to file a complaint with FINRA. He’s such a slime bucket,” Phoebe snarled as thoughts of Clayton’s coy smile flashed through her mind.

“Miss Grissom, Mrs. Aimsley is here,” one of the interns stated from the doorway, interrupting her discussion with Bobby.

“Please show her in,” Phoebe told them. It wasn’t long before a short woman, with a huge sun hat and purse, strolled into Phoebe’s office. Bobby bent down to shake her hand and smile, while expressing his condolences to her for the loss of her husband. She thanked him with a sweet little hug before sitting herself down in the chair. Bobby gave Phoebe a quick nod before leaving her office and closing the door behind her.

Mrs. Aimsley always reminded Phoebe of her own grandmother. She was a sweet, older, black woman, and one of the few black women with the amount of wealth her and her husband had accumulated over the years. They had spent 40 years married and 65 years together. Phoebe admired them. She’d only been their adviser for the last 5 or 6 years but had grown so accustomed to them, she was indeed sad when learning of Mr. Aimsley’s passing. She sat down next to the woman and took her frail hand into hers, “How we doin’ today, Mrs. Aimsley?”