Robert, Her Billionaire Widower

Chapter 4

Today was going to be the first session and Vanessa was quite nervous. She had never really done anything like this before. She had taken interviews, of course, but the purpose of these interviews had been quite different. Usually, she had had to focus more on the questions she was asking rather than anything else. She had to think about how she could phrase her questions and get past the defenses of the person she was interviewing in order to fully understand the situation.

This was why the situation was so different. This was why she had to think long and hard about how she was going to handle this situation.

She needed her head in the game, so she had written out some basic questions that she was planning to ask Robert regardless of what he was going to tell her today. The difference between this and everything else that Vanessa had ever done was that she was simply not used to having an interviewee that was immediately forthcoming, someone that actually wanted her to know what was going on. She was not used to having someone that genuinely wanted to tell her the truth behind what was being discussed. She had a feeling that this honesty would disarm her, throw her off her game, which was why she needed to be prepared right now.

She went to Robert’s place and he greeted her with the exact same warmth. She enjoyed this quite a bit, as it made her feel like she was someone that he genuinely wanted to have around rather than somebody that he was simply paying to write a memoir about his wife. It gave her the drive to do what she needed to do well. It gave her the drive to work hard at her job.

“So,” said Robert. “Where shall we begin?”

“I think a good place to begin would be how you met her,” said Vanessa.

“That would be a good place,” said Robert, “but I think an even better place to begin would be to talk about the day I first found out about her and we can take it from there. What do you say?”

“Yes,” said Vanessa. “I think that would be lovely”

She had a feeling that this interview was going to be very productive indeed. She needed to get into his skull and gain an in depth understanding of what he was trying to say. He seemed very excited to start telling her about what had gone on behind the curtain, about the intimate details of their life together.

The day he had first heard about Marie seemed like a great place to start because this book was as much about Robert as it was about Marie. It would give the reader an in depth understanding of what he felt when he looked at his wife, the things that had first attracted her to him.

“So,” said Robert, settling into his armchair, “Shall we begin?”

*****

Robert was watching the news, flipping through the channels. He was quite stressed out because of the scandal involving the sweatshops. Although it had happened a year ago the scandal still plagued him. He felt like he had wronged a lot of people and his wealth was tainted by their suffering. He had a feeling that a lot of people thought he was a bad person and this was something that he simply could not bear. All his life he had strove to be good to people, to earn his money in a way that was not just legal but moral as well. He needed other people to understand this as well, to understand that he was not just another money hungry millionaire. He needed people to know that he was a good person that genuinely cared about other people.

He sighed. While he was flipping through the channels something caught his eye. It was a woman that was being interviewed. She was extremely beautiful, so beautiful that Robert was spellbound. He could not exactly describe what it was about her. She had short hair which Robert generally did not find all that attractive. However, in spite of the fact that it was the kind of thing that normally did not attract him all that much he couldn’t help but like it. It suited her. She was pulling it off, and this was something that really attracted him, the fact that she was wearing such a risky hairdo and pulling it off due to the fact that she was so confident.

He found out that this woman on the TV was none other than Marie Adams, the celebrated author that was being awarded the Pulitzer Prize in spite of the fact that she had only released a single novel so far. He really respected that about her, that she was such a formidable writer.

As Robert watched the interview he found himself getting more and more attracted to Marie, more and more attracted to how she spoke and how she presented herself. She was utterly confident, so much so that she did not seem intimidated by any of the questions that the interviewer was asking her. This was quite impressive because the interviewer was not going easy on her, he was asking her a lot of tough questions that most people would have started to get nervous about answering.

Not Marie, though. Robert would later find out that she was not intimidated by anything, really. She laughed in the face of actual danger, the thought of getting interviewed in an aggressive manner was the kind of thing that she would not even think twice about. She answered all of the questions confidently and eloquently until, by the end of it, the interviewer commended her for her answers and thanked her for her time, announcing that she had another book on the way that would be about the Italian mafia.

Robert was immediately enamored by her and went out and got her book. He found it engrossing and beautifully written and by the time he was done, he absolutely had to write a letter to Marie. He did not preface it with any kind of introduction, he did not assume that she would know him simply because he was not the kind of person that used his influence or his wealth to get the things that he wanted. No, he sent her a simple letter as a fan, hoping that she would reply simply because she liked what he had said about her book and her writing rather than the fact that he was such a rich and important person.

To his surprise, she replied and did so quite eloquently. She thanked him profusely for what he had said about her book, acting as if she never received compliments which was surprising because practically every single person in the country was treating her like one of the finest writers that had ever debuted in America in the past half century.