Unwanted Heat

Nicholas

“Fuck!” I slam another magazine on my desk. “Melody get a meeting with Alex and my PR department in an hour. Move whatever you have to, just make it happen!”

I’m used to my face being on magazines… the paparazzi have been hounding me ever since I made my first million. Apparently becoming a millionaire at such a young age is newsworthy, which would have been fine if it were a one-time article. When I made my first billion it became even worse and now not a week goes by without my name appearing in some article or on some magazine cover. Typically they are business related articles and magazines, which doesn’t bother me, as they often refer to me as the shark of the financial world.

Lately though the articles have become personal, attacking me on a different level that I don’t understand. Why do they care who I’m fucking? What does it matter whether or not I’m seen with a woman on my arm or different women at different events? My business decisions do not change based upon who I’m fucking, so why is it necessary to attack my personal life? The magazine on my desk today is the icing on the cake:

Playboy Nicholas Parker… Can’t keep a woman happy

but can manage hundreds of employees? What is he hiding that prevents women from spending more than a night with him? How could so many people trust him with their investments while no woman can trust him in her bedroom?

The article shows several pictures of me attending various events over the last three months, each time with a different woman. Typically I don’t pay attention to this junk, but when Carter, my head of security, brought it to me after finding it in our staff lounge earlier today, I lost it. I can’t have my employees questioning my ability to run the company or the clients who trust my employees with billions of their dollars questioning my ability to make sound financial decisions.Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

Skimming the article in this magazine, the author states they are unable to speak with any of the women in the pictures. The women I’m seen with have already signed an NDA, so they would be in violation of it if they said one word to the media. They know I would have them in court within 24 hours at most. Of course the author speculates that this is because I’m hiding something and am just paying them off to keep quiet.

I never take them to more than one event with me because I don’t want to give them mixed thoughts on what they are to me. The last thing I need is a woman thinking long term and commitment, when that’s the last thing I want or need right now. However, my plan appears to be back firing because now the reporters are questioning why I’m with different women at events. Apparently six different women over the course of three months is considered excessive as far as the paparazzi is concerned. I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t. When I don’t go to events with women, they question my sexuality… when I do go to events with women, I’m a playboy who can’t manage his own company. Why the fuck they can’t just focus on the financials of my company and leave me hell alone is beyond me.

“Mr. Parker, everyone is in the conference room when you are ready,” Melody alerts me.

I take the magazine into the conference room next to my office, where my public relations department is waiting along with my vice president Alex Clark. Alex has been in the news as well, but nowhere near the amount or with the scrutiny that I have been. Alex married his high school sweetheart who accompanies him to nearly every event or business dinner so they tend to leave him alone. They never question Alex’s ability to hold his position at Parker Financial Services, but suddenly because I’m not in a “committed relationship” I can’t operate a multibillion dollar company-a company which I started from the ground up with barely a penny to my name?

“We will not be leaving this room until we have a clear plan of action as to how we are going to address this!” I slam the magazine down on the table, beyond pissed off and frustrated. The entire PR department jumps but of course, Alex who is no doubt used to my outbursts by now, doesn’t even flinch. “I’ve spent the last hour combing through this magazine and ten others just like it online that are now all calling me a playboy and questioning my ability to run this company. I followed your fucking advice and this is where it got me!!!”

“Mr. Parker… our advice-” Ms. Murphy begins.

“Did we not have a meeting less than three months ago when these pieces of crap were ruining my reputation?” They all nod in response. “I can have Melody pull the recordings from that meeting, but I guarantee they will show that you advised me to bring women to public events. Did you not?”

“Yes Mr. Parker, we did,” Ms. Murphy agrees.

“It was less than three fucking months ago that the paparazzi were publishing headlines that I was gay and afraid to come out of the closet because it would ruin my business or that I had some secret sexual fetish that would ruin me and that was the reason I was hiding my sexual preferences. Your advice was to be seen with women at public events to eliminate the rumors that surround my sexual preferences. I did that!

Fucking three months later we are back here!”

“Mr. Parker, with all due respect, we did not expect you would bring a different woman to every event-” Mr. Snyder says.

“What the fuck do you want me to do? I can’t fucking sit here and let them question my ability to run my company and in turn handle billions of other people’s money, based upon whether or not I’m in a relationship with someone. Everyone around this table knows I am not in a committed relationship right now nor do I plan on being in one in anytime soon. I keep my private life private for a reason! I don’t fucking date because I don’t want the paparazzi to see me out with different women and then gossip about them as well. This magazine, right here, is the exact reason I don’t fucking date!”