Chapter 2: Pretending Disinterest and a New Assistant

To defuse any thoughts of inappropriate behavior between April and me, we moved in the other direction.

I gave April longer-term assignments that she went off on her own to do. Consequently, she wasn't in all the meetings I held. The downside was that when there was a follow-up item, I had to remember to tell her so she could track the commitment.

When we were in meetings together, April made it a point to sit off to the side and well behind me. This way there would not be eye contact most of the time, yet she could capture information or even slip me notes to remind me of some issue or situation she knew of related to the subject at hand. We even made a point to leave some of the notes behind so others would see that they were purely business.

We also started to involve Mary in some of the note taking that April had done in some meetings. Mary liked the challenge and took to the task like a duck to water. I also took Mary with me on a couple of trips a month, leaving April behind to look after things in the main office. I hadn't done this before, and Mary loved the travel and the mantel of being my assistant.

Whereas I'd made some appearances at social events with April on my arm, I made a point to squire several other women to these events, always with some press coverage and photographs. Mary had several of these photographs appear in the company newsletter.

I took Serena, my younger daughter, to a charity ball – her first. She was as stunning as her sister, and we had a good time before I had the company helicopter fly her back to Princeton. I asked for Megan, my ex-wife, to join me for a ribbon cutting of a battered woman's center in Manhattan, a cause dear to her heart. It was the first interaction we'd had that didn't involve the kids. I was already in New York, and the helicopter picked her up, dropped at the heliport on the East River, and we did the PR event, and then she flew home as she'd come. We didn't talk much, but the press coverage was outstanding and just what I'd hoped for.

Of course, Megan, April, and I were also present for Serena's graduation. I gave the main commencement address using a speech April had written for me. I got a standing ovation, a point I know that made April glow with pride. I added my own praise to her at a late afternoon reception when a few others were listening, among them the University President, Provost, and several deans. Serena seemed to know them all very well.

I had made a long-standing offer for both daughters to work in the company to assuage my guilt for being an absentee father. April had obviously taken me up on that offer. Serena had successfully ducked letting us know her plans until the night of graduation.

With some mirth in my voice, I finally asked her, "Well, Serena, when do we find out what you will be doing with the next phase of your life?"

She gave me the same coy smile that April was so good at, "Why Daddy, I'm moving in with you and April, and I'm going to be another personal assistant to you."

Megan apparently hadn't known her plans; however, she threw her head back and laughed uproariously. I guessed that she thought my daughters would cramp my style. I was rated as one of the most eligible bachelors in the country, aided no doubt by a net worth in the billions – at least on paper.

Serena's answer rocked me, but not for the superficial reason. I laughed and said all the right things to welcome her to the company and my home, but inside I was grieving. Serena's presence would mean that April and I would have to curtail our time together. Sleeping together would be out completely, and we'd have to be very circumspect about when we made love.

I'd always wondered about a forty-seven-year old man having a love relationship with a twenty-two-year old girl, and in my case an incestuous one. Realistically, it wasn't something that would last. There were too many pressures on the coupling to sustain it.

I also revisited in my thinking the illegality of what April and I were doing. Sure she wasn't a minor and was a consenting adult, but in many states that didn't make an iota of difference – incest was still illegal, and if the act could be proven we could each face a long prison term.

I glanced at April, but she apparently had known of Serena's decision and even applauded her sister's action. I knew the two of them could fight like cats and dogs, but in those looks I wondered if they'd put some of that teenage behavior behind them. I'd been out of the picture for so long, I didn't know what their relationship was like. Why had I avoided the family stuff all this time? The few comments April made about Serena seemed kind and forgiving.

Serena was twenty-one and about to add a year. She'd favored a lighter blondish look with shorter hair than her sister. She also looked more like Megan than April, including her hourglass figure and dimples. If anything, Serena was bustier that April, but for some reason I tried to push that observation out of my head. Here I was again, trying to think of one of my daughters as a sex object.

I got hints from some of Serena's classmates around the edges of the ceremony that she'd also been exceptionally social. Although we stuck together as a family, including my bodyguard, Serena seemed to know everyone, and everyone knew her. More than once I also got the feeling that many of the young men in her class knew her very well – very, very well. I even heard one express the hope that she'd be at a particular party that evening at one of the off-campus homes some upperclassmen used as residences. Maybe it was the tone of voice, but I heard something sexual in the invitation.

The other complicating factor in our graduation gathering involved Megan. Although she was only two years younger than I, she had shown up for the ceremony looking like a hot cougar about ten or fifteen years younger than her age. She was right in the age range of many of the women I dated, and I certainly found myself physically attracted to my ex-wife.

Megan had been bitter when we divorced. She'd been in her late thirties, and made a point to let me know that I had consumed the best years of her life. Our contacts became acrimonious, and dripping in sarcasm. I tried to take the high road by rising above such altercations. I also became a master of avoidance.

At Serena's graduation, Megan was positively bubbly. She was the perfect 'wife': conversational, helpful, inclusive, respectful, and thoughtful, especially of those we met. Her suggestions and guidance during the day were flawless. I had to look at her several times to be sure this was the same Megan I'd divorced seven years earlier.

As we were walking across campus to a special reception for the business students, Megan took my arm and pulled me close to her. No words were spoken. She just looked at me with a happy expression on her face.

I looked over at her, "Megan, I found being with you to-day truly delightful. Is it just me or have you dramatically changed in some major ways?"

Megan laughed and patted my arm, "Oh, good, you noticed. Yes, I've been on a self-renewal program – psychoanalysis, exercise, yoga, meditation, and all sorts of other things. I got so that I didn't like 'me, ' so I created a new one. I'm still in process, however. I love myself now, unlike all those years we were together. I'm sorry I was such a shrew and so indecisive."

"Well, I congratulate you. I like this new you ... it's more like the one I fell in love with twenty-five years ago."

Megan smiled and squeezed my arm to her body to thank me for the compliment. I found the proximity of my arm to her breasts a point of major interest and arousal.

As Serena made the rounds at the reception, April came up to me at one point when I was alone and in line waiting for a drink at an open bar. She teased, "Were you coming onto Mom, or was she coming onto you?"

"Errr, I don't think either of us were coming onto the other one."

"That's not the way it looked, and if you want to hookup with Mom, I'd be all for it."

I glanced deeply at April. "I'm surprised you'd share me."

"Maybe there's a side of me you don't know," she teased. "I think it'd be sweet for you and Mom to reconnect ... and don't worry, I don't get jealous."

I chuckled, "And what makes you think that she'd want to hook-up with me?"

April gave me her coy smile as she walked away, "She told me."

My brain went into a wild tumble of emotions; not only had I just learned that April would share me with others, I'd also learned that my ex-wife wanted to reconnect in some way.

With dozens of people around, being partly the center of attention, I couldn't pursue the conversation further with April. There were several thousand things I wanted to ask and know, but mostly I couldn't ever articulate the questions.

I went into 'meet and greet' mode with member after member of the business faculty and the graduating students and their families. I knew I was on 'display, ' and that April had set this up as part of my gesture of goodwill to the community. I couldn't help notice the several photographers who kept shadowing me and taking pictures. Often, April would bring someone for me to meet and chat with, getting us started with a bridge line or two, and then fading away. Several times Serena made the introduction.

After about an hour, April came to me and gently pulled me from a conversation with some dean. "It's time for us to go. No one else feels that they can leave until we do."

I understood immediately, and started to make my excuses. Ten minutes later, April and I were in the limo. I thought it would just be the two of us heading to the nearby airport to take the helicopter back to the house, but April had the driver wait.

A few minutes later, with roll-on suitcase in tow, Megan came down the steps of the august academic building we'd been in. The driver put her luggage in the truck of the limo, and she got in.

Megan said, "Thank you for the ride home. It'll save me hours."

I asked, "But didn't you drive up from Washington?"

"Yes, but I'm leaving the car for Serena to pack and drive home ... or more likely to your home. I'll catch up with her and the car in day or two. She had some serious partying to do tonight." Megan laughed.

April laughed and under her breath, so that Megan and I could hear, said, "Yeah, she wanted to get laid by her guy friends."

I tried to ignore the comment, so I just let it slide. I guess the younger generation was more open about their sex lives than I'd been raised to be. I also wondered just how promiscuous Serena was, and that led me to the further thought about what Megan had been doing about male relationships, and then reaching back almost a year, what April had been like in college. I mulled on those arousing thoughts as we drove the short distance to the Princeton airport.

The noise on the helicopter prevented any long conversations; however, with noise-canceling headsets on I did get an update from April about my schedule the next day, starting with a seven o'clock breakfast meeting with two senators about immigration policy, and then a nine o'clock coffee with the Secretary of Commerce. My companies in total employed about 45,000 people just in the U.S.

Megan listened in on the planning and discussion about the two meetings that would open Monday for us. She watched me with her eyes sparkling and an eager smile. I thought I saw a touch of awe ... and adoration.

Many of the changes in my lifestyle and the accoutrements of wealth had come to me since our divorce. I had not had the jet or helicopter before, although I had gotten to the point that a private limousine was de rigueur. I thought too about how I'd not forgotten about Megan, nor cast her totally adrift as my wealth accumulated. I had continued to support her in special ways, often with her protestations. I always tried to add a personal touch to my gift, asking her to take it as an apology for my mindless inattention to her needs during our marriage, or my errant ways with other women. She'd accept begrudgingly.

Megan was a lawyer specializing in tax and estate planning. She worked for a small firm in Bethesda named Harding, Roth, Berkshire, and Williams, or HRBW for short. She wasn't a partner and would never become one; it wasn't that type of firm. However, she was compensated well. I had gone out of my way to direct some of a subsidiary's business to HRBW so be sure they kept afloat and healthy.