I give them an apologetic smile. “Wrong number.”

Thankfully the rest of the meeting goes well. Everyone is on board with my idea. It’s just that no one has the money. It’s kind of the same story everywhere I go. I guess things are a bit easier for me because the money has already been put down – I’ve bought the building and that’s a huge chunk of fundraising I don’t have to ask anyone else to do. But I need to have income coming in in order to pay the mortgage and that’s where people are always coming up short. They believe in it – they just don’t have the means to help.

I leave them feeling particularly despondent about the whole thing. When I get home though and see Mrs. Williams in the hallway, the aging and disabled woman with too much heart and not enough strength, I’m reminded of why I’m doing this. I do want to help, to feel like I’m of fucking use for once in my life. Maybe it’s partly selfish – I don’t think you can make money unless you are – but it’s giving everything purpose.

And so is Nicola. She’s not working today since we have the gala tonight, so before I even head to my apartment, I do what I usually do and go to hers first. I have a key now – well, I’ve always had one – but now I’m using it because I’m her lover and not her landlord.

Lover. It’s not exactly the term I want to use to describe what I am to her, but I’m not sure what else will do. It’s funny how lover is seen as more appropriate than boyfriend when lover has, well, deeper connotations. But Nicola has seemed a bit cagey ever since Disneyland, which was a week ago, and I don’t want to push her.

The truth is, I consider us together. I consider her my girlfriend, though I wouldn’t dare say it in case it freaks her out. Still, she has to come around sooner or later. I know I’ve not been completely honest with her and I know I have a few skeletons in my closet that could bite me in the arse. I know this. I just figure it will all come out in time, and when I’m ready. I want to establish trust first, a strong layer of it, that won’t shatter when she really gets to know me.

It’s close. She’s close. I’m just not sure what I can do to make her let go with me. She’s come so far, become so open and free and, fuck, so sexually awake. But until I really get through her defenses and her fears, I don’t think she’ll trust me one hundred percent.

Still, when I open the door and step inside her apartment, breathing in that familiar smell, that combination of coffee and plastic toys and her sweet skin, I have hope that the trust is there. That this is the day she lets go and gives herself to me completely. And I’m not talking body – I’ve had that all along. I mean her heart and her soul, the rarest things of all.

“Hi,” she says brightly when she sees me. She’s dressed in just a towel, though her hair is all done and piled on top of her head and her makeup is perfectly applied. Too bad all that does is make me want to throw her on the bed, open up that towel and proceed to mess up all that time and effort.

But I don’t. I ignore my cock twitching in my pants and stride over to her, grabbing her by the shoulders. That delicate shower-soft skin so intoxicating beneath my hands then I kiss her on the neck. She smells like a dream. I could be buried here.

“You smell incredible,” I tell her.

She giggles, squirming a bit. I know my stubble tickles her but that’s always half the fun.

“Don’t get carried away,” she warns. “It took an hour to get my face and hair just right.”

I pull back and inspect her. “Don’t you always look this way?”

“Ha ha,” she says. “I need to get dressed and put in my earrings. But I’ll be ready in about twenty minutes. Ava’s just having a nap and Lisa should be here soon.”

“It takes you twenty minutes to get dressed?” I ask her, as I sit down at the kitchen table and split open a banana from the bowl.

She disappears into the bedroom, her voice carrying. “You know me. And you know I want to look good for this. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a black-tie event before.”

“That’s not true,” I tell her mid-bite. “There was Linden’s wedding. And I know you’ll get a kick out of this, but guess where the gala is?”

“Where?”

“That same yacht club on the other side of the bridge. Same as the wedding.”

I look over and I see her paused in the doorway of the bedroom, a long olive green dress in her hands.

“You’re kidding me,” she says.

“Nope.”

She looks impressed as she considers that. “Wow. It’s like we’ve come full circle.”

We’ll see, I think to myself as she disappears into the room.

Thirty minutes later – not twenty – we’re in the back of a black town car and heading across the Golden Gate Bridge. The sun is setting over the pacific, illuminating the stray patches of fog and low-lying cloud that clings to the downtown buildings. It’s absolutely beautiful.

And so is Nicola. She’s wearing a floor-length red gown with gold detail. It has a low back that just begs for me to lick up and down her spine, but a modest front. The material feels better than silk and thinner than a condom between my fingers and I deduce she’s not wearing any knickers either. I can see the outline of her breasts and it’s no wonder that I’m hard the entire ride. She used to lament that she couldn’t go without a bra because she had child-bearing breasts, but she’s become a little more free in that department and I’m grateful for it. In my opinion she has incredible tits.

Actually, she has incredible everything. As we get out of the car and enter the gala, everyone there dressed to the nines, the tuxedoed waiters going around and handing out canapes and shrimp cocktails and foie gras and truffles, there’s no doubt that she’s the most beautiful woman around.

And to think, to fucking think, she has no idea.

“You’re so gorgeous it should be illegal,” I tell her after we grab two flutes of champagne off a server and slowly walk around the grounds.

“You’re so handsome, it makes girls stupid,” she says and then jabs a thumb at herself. “Myself included.”

I know she’s completely joking but it’s something she used to say and believe so often, back before we hooked up, that it smarts just a little.

But I brush it aside and we continue to do the rounds. The truth is, situations like this have always made me a little nervous. I’m okay once I know someone, but here I don’t know a soul. I paid for both of us to be here and now that we are, I’m not sure who to approach. I’ve done my research and met with a lot of people thus far, but no one looks familiar.

It isn’t until a bit later, when some speeches start being made about the fundraiser and the need to further develop San Francisco into a city that’s accommodating to all people with the emphasis placed on jobs, that I see Mr. Bayswater from earlier today. He wasn’t the one who invited me and I had no idea he would be here, but then again, I was talking their ears off earlier about my plans that I probably wasn’t listening.

To my surprise though, at the end of the speech, he mentions my name. I have to do a double-take and Nicola nudges me in the side. I swallow, straightening my bow-tie, and stand up to show myself as Mr. Bayswater has asked.

Thankfully, I don’t have to say anything, he just mentions my project and what I’m trying to achieve and then moves on. But when the speeches are all done for the night, I find myself being accosted by a reporter and a cameraman.

“Are you Bram McGregor?” the woman with caked-on makeup and glow-in-the-dark veneers asks. When I tell her I am, and that I’m the man that Mr. Bayswater mentioned earlier, she thrusts the microphone in my face and starts interviewing me.

I don’t recall giving her permission to do so but this is a great opportunity and I use every second of it. Actually, it feels really good to be discussing it with the potential of it really getting in people’s ears, all while Nicola looks on proudly in the background.