The Last Gamble Ch. 02

Once again I was back to square one- speechless. Finally I found the words to say," I will. I do not know if we can ever fully reconcile, but this is a start."

Finally, my father's gaze turned to Portia. "Thank you for making this moment possible. I owe you a debt that is impossible to quantify, but take this."

Saying this he lead us to his private vault, despite Portia's light protests. Inside were some of the most valuable antiques of all time. After some searching, he returned with a large diamond centred on a pendant of wrought gold.

"This is a very rare piece. Allegedly, Cesare Borgia could not openly show his affections for Lucrezia in the Vatican; so he decided to give her a diamond necklace. To others it was a gift from a brother to a sister, but to them it was a symbol of their forbidden love. Spent a small fortune bidding for it in a private auction in Taipei a few years ago."

He handed the necklace to me. "Go put it around her neck."

She seemed a little flustered at this and quietly thanked him.

"Would you like to stay for dinner?"

"No we already had dinner before coming. We really should be getting back now."

My father put his arms around me for the first time and held onto me tightly. I finally came to terms with the fact that he may not be as bad a man as I had envisioned. Shortly, we were heading down the road back to the airstrip. I looked at Portia and softly said," Thank you, for making me do this." She didn't say anything in return.

After sometime, we were back in her lavishly decorated Concorde. As it raced back to New York at supersonic speed, she had the bright idea of joining the Mile High Club. It was too tempting to resist, as we collided with raw uninhibited passion. Within seconds, we were both undressed and writhing on the bed.

This time we didn't have patience for the niceties of oral sex, so we went straight for the main event. She got on all fours and jiggled her butt invitingly. I got on my knees behind her and used my hands and fingers to part her soft folds. Her luscious pink lips peeked out from within. In one stroke, I buried myself inside her to the balls. She moaned appreciatively. I withdrew partially and then sank back in to the same depth. Gradually, we built a steady rhythm and she was moving her hips back to meet my thrusts. Soon, I was nearing climax and then I reached a violent orgasm. After some time, we just lay there hugging each other, in post-coital bliss.

"Looks like Macbeth will have to wait till much later. They just have one encore performance left, tomorrow and those tickets are sold out. Also the Master's Retrospective ends tomorrow. I am sorry that we had to blow them off for this."

"Actually...."she started, and then her voice trailed off as I took the hint.

"You have tickets for Macbeth tomorrow and passes for the Met", I said, naturally used to her ability to do the impossible by now.

"This date is incomplete until we get those two out of the way."

Soon we could see the bright lights of New York, approaching and got dressed up. The aircraft taxied to a halt before going back into the terminal. She had her limo waiting and we got inside. I gave the driver the directions to my apartment and we set off.

"What's wrong?", she asked.

"Nothing, why do you ask?"

"Last night there was something weighing you down. I can read facial cues pretty well. There was something on your mind. I was going to ask you then itself, but thought better of it at the time."

"It's work related." I started," A colleague took the credit for my hard work. He stole the final report I was preparing on a big investment deal between B&H and a large Chinese group. I worked my ass off for that and he took all the credit. Since that was the only copy I had, I have no way of proving him wrong. So, it's him that will be going to Beijing next week to negotiate with the investors. This opportunity was huge. These groups don't open their doors easily to outsiders. It will be at least a couple of years before, I can get another chance. Meanwhile he gets to ride up the stock-trading ladder."

"Sounds like a real piece of work. Who is he?"

"Carl Burgess."

Finally we reached my apartment. I kissed her goodnight and went up to my bedroom. I had accomplished a lot today, more than I thought possible.

The next day, there was virus which somehow found its way past our high level firewall and crashed the machines in my division. Thankfully, all our data is stored in a backup server. The guys from IT came over and rebooted every computer and we were up and running in an hour soon.

Then, I received an unexpected call from my division head. He sent me up to Robert Bruce's office. Mr Bruce was in a sombre mood as I entered.

"Mr Everett, it has come to our attention that you were unfairly treated here last week. It appears you made the investment proposal which Mr Burgess stole from your terminal and subsequently, for which he took credit. Is that correct?"

I gaped at him before stammering," Yes."

"We apologize for this incident and would like you to go to China instead of him next week. Mr Burgess has been fired with immediate effect."

I was glad but, puzzled at the same time.

The rest of the day finished quickly and soon it was time to meet Portia and complete our truncated date. I was adamant about picking her up. She was looking stunning as we entered the Broadway theater and took our seats on the balcony. Soon the three witches were on stage for the first scene.

The acting captivated as they unfurled Shakespeare's epic masterpiece. Soon it was time for Lady Macbeth to try and convince her husband to kill Duncan. Here I lean over and ask her," Do you think Macbeth would have done it if not for the events in this scene?"

She turned to me and smiled," It seems that like you, he needs some convincing to do what is needed. If you want something badly enough, nothing should stop you from trying to attain it."

The play continued with the hilarious Porter Scene. This rendition was the magnum opus of the theatre world. The scenes were beautifully executed as Duncan was stabbed in his sleep and the guards were conveniently blamed. Finally we reached my favourite part of the play, the Banquet Scene. Here I watch as Macbeth's guilt takes him over the edge and he makes his immortal statement- 'never shake thy gory locks at me'. The rest of the play went just as well.

After the final curtain call to a rousing round of applause and a standing ovation, we went to the Master's Retrospective. The Masters were out in full force as Degas, Matisse, Monet, Manet and a host of others adorned the walls of the main gallery. I was particularly intrigued by a Cezanne I had never seen before. It had a couple in a passionate embrace but their expressions were of pure hatred. The title was 'Desires Unknown'.

Portia stood by my side and studied the portrait intently. After a few minutes of silence she said," This piece somehow reinterprets romance and puts it in perspective with reality, when love is not just love anymore; but has an ulterior motive."

"What is your motive?" I joked.

"To reunite a boy with his father as of now" she said with a twinkle in her eyes. We both laughed at this. After seeing all the pieces, we decided to conclude the date with some intense lovemaking at my place.

Within an hour we were in my bedroom again, completely naked, awash with passion. She lay on my bed and called me towards her seductively. Just as I reached her, she seemed to remember something.

"By the way, can you get me a jade dragon from China when you go next week?" she said smiling as I tried to figure out how she knew that.

Finally, I threw my hands up in exasperation and said," Do you have someone to spy on me in the office, because that's the only way you could know."

"Have you considered the possibility that I may have had something to do with it?"

Now she caught me off guard. I looked at her and asked, "How?"

"Well, as you might know, I have a certain proficiency with computers. My knowledge extends to hacking. In fact, not to boast, but I am one of the best in the field. Today, I hacked into the B&H network. I looked up the terminal registered to Carl Burgess. He had the report locked under some encrypted folder. It was almost too easy breaking it. After that, I just made a separate copy of the report with your name on it and kept it on his Desktop. Also I put a few videos of hardcore sado-masochistic pornography. I also drained his bank accounts for good measure. After that it was the simple job of using a replicating virus to crash all terminals in the section. When IT rebooted the computer, I am sure they were more than a bit surprised by the contents on screen."

I just gaped at her, at a loss for words. She had ruined a fellow trader's life just because I told her what he did.

"Stop with the astonished look. I know you wanted to do something similar to him. He had it coming. Please, can we get back to fucking?"

As I sank back between her legs, still light-headed from her latest revelation; a voice popped up in some dark recess of my mind. This voice said "You are in bed with a dangerous woman." I chose to ignore it. I would realize much later that the voice had a point.

"So, violent porn eh? Nice touch."

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