Chapter 04

"I'm sorry, sir," Brad Gilmore said shortly after hanging up his phone. "I shouldn't answer while I'm driving, but it was my ex-wife, and when she calls, I always get worried, thinking something might have happened to the kids."

"Don't call me sir, Brad. You must be a little younger than me," Harry replied from the back seat of the car.

"It's a matter of respect, sir."

"But you don't work for me, so I don't see the reason."

"Well... thinking like that. Alright... Harry," Brad said with a friendly smile.

"Better that way," Windson replied. "So... children?"

"Yes, yes... My kids," the young man's excitement increased considerably. "Jake and Grace... I wanted Neytiri, but I lost that battle." He laughed and, looking in the rearview mirror, noticed his interlocutor's puzzled expression. "Avatar?"

"Hmm? The movie?"

"That's it! My all-time favorite movie! Neytiri is the name of the Na'vi girl who saves Jake... The guy who's using the avatar." He saw Harry nodding, following his train of thought. "But anyway... my ex didn't accept it."

"You married and became a father early!"

"We had Jake when we were still in school. We used to fight a lot, almost broke up because she wanted to give him up for adoption. But then we sorted things out, got married when he was three, and a little over a year later, Grace came along. We wanted a second child, thought we'd be together forever, but when we started all over again... diapers, bottles, crying in the middle of the night, the fights began."

"I can't even imagine," Harry lamented.

"Now she just yells at me, as you probably noticed. Nothing I do is right or enough! Today, I get along better with her new husband than with her, can you believe it? I even let him boss me around." He laughed. "He's my boss," he added, realizing he had left the other guy confused again, and Harry was relieved it wasn't some perversion between Kath's security guard and the man living with his ex.

Shortly after the brief conversation between the two young men, the driver parked the car in the underground garage of the luxury building where Harry had been with Kath earlier that afternoon. The calm Harry had managed to maintain until then, distracting himself with Brad's argument with his ex-wife and later with the young man's explanations, disappeared instantly. He felt cold sweat on his hands and rubbed them repeatedly on his pants, taking deep breaths to try to control the rhythm of his heartbeats. The anxiety to see Miss Beauvoir and, especially, to find out what kind of game she would play with him this time made him tremble inside.

Brad and Harry entered the elevator and went in silence to the floor of Kath's apartment, where they were greeted by a young blonde woman who informed Mr. Windson that Miss Beauvoir was waiting for him in the same room where they had talked that afternoon. After confirming the directions that would lead him to Kath, he said goodbye to the two blond young men and went down the hallway, taking a deep breath and adjusting his posture before finally entering the room, which was well lit this time.

Although Harry had known since that afternoon that the all-powerful CEO Miss Kath Beauvoir had a secret life involving sexual games, he hadn't prepared himself enough for the image he saw at that moment. Many men would describe this Kath as a contemporary goddess, and she might even look like a high-end prostitute, but Harry wasn't so sure, as he had never been with one. For him, however, the perfect metaphor was that of a wild creature, a feline in heat, using her best weapons to attract her partner, marking her territory.

The Kath he saw, lying in an armchair with her legs high and crossed, swinging one of them incessantly, drew attention to the outrageously high-heeled shoe she was wearing and her incredibly long legs for someone her size. This was Kath in her natural habitat, the female, the hunter, while the CEO of the company, although she was also in control, was, in a way, an animal in captivity, trapped in social conventions, confined to a world that was still so male-dominated that she had to create characters to use in different situations.

"Good evening, Harry," she said, after realizing he had been there for some time and hadn't taken any action, interrupting his assessments, at least for now.

"H-hi," he said, tense.

"May I pour you a whiskey?" She asked.

"I'm not used to drinking, Miss Beauvoir."

"It's just a drink, Harry. It won't kill you, and I want some company," she said, always watching her own glass and stirring the ice inside it without looking in Harry's direction.

He put a lot of ice and just a minimal amount of the drink in the glass and took a few sips in silence. He didn't know what to say, and he didn't want to stare blatantly, but his eyes were searching for her insistently, impulsively, and the more he watched her, the more he felt drawn to her and the more he was surprised by her power to change and always look so beautiful in any of her roles.