by Katie Dowe
“I want you to find a woman worthy of your love darling,” she'd told him one night when he'd gone to see her.
“I hope I find one like you,” he had told her softly.
“I hope so too,” she had told him with a smile. “I want you to find a woman who doesn't care how much money you have. A woman who will love you for the person you are.”
“That’s going to be difficult considering that when they look at me all they'll see is dollar signs,” he had said cynically.
“Not all women are like that my son,” she had told him gently. “There are some women out there who will love you without doubt.”
“I hope I find a woman like that, Mother,” he had told her softly.
Now in his apartment he went back to the conversation he'd had with Afiya Lowe. She was the first woman who didn't give a damn that his name was King. He realized that was what was missing from the relationships he'd had in the past, including the one with Grace. They all saw him as a meal ticket and what was worse was that he knew that as well. He went into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of wine and took it with him into the bedroom, his light green eyes thoughtful. She wasn't his type, he told himself firmly.
Chapter 4
“Do you need anything else before I leave?” Gertrude stood in the open doorway and asked him. It was some minutes after six and he was expecting Afiya Lowe to come any time now. For some strange reason he didn't want anyone there when she arrived.
“Nothing, thanks,” he smiled at her. “Where to this time?” Ever since Gertrude had uprooted and come with him she'd made lots of friends and gotten involved in a number of activities.
“I'm helping with the planning of the fair for Saturday. I'm going to really miss this place when we leave,” she sighed.
“If we leave,” he said lightly.
She came further into the room. “Garrett Ian King what are you saying?”
He grinned at her. “Whenever you call out all my names like that I know I'm in trouble.”
“Maybe not this time,” she took a seat and folded her hands in her lap. “What gives?”
He shrugged a little. “The place is growing on me. You know I never settle at one place for too long. But here there's a peace and contentment that is starting to get to me. I think I might just build my dream home here.”
“Is there a lady that caught your eye?” she asked him suspiciously. “I saw how that skinny blonde looked at you when we had that meeting the other day.”
“Who?”
“Okay, it’s not her. I really don’t think Grace is going to like living here.”
“I'm not interested in Grace that way. I'm not interested in anyone right now and the woman I eventually choose as a wife will love living wherever I am.”
Gertrude stared at him for a long moment. “Look who's growing up.”
“Thank you,” he flashed her that roguish smile. “Now, go on to your planning and leave me to do some work.”
“Don’t stay too late,” she ordered.
“Yes, ma’am.”
He leaned back against his chair as soon as she closed the door and knitted his brow thoughtfully. He meant what he'd told her. He had work to do. Meeting with his lawyers to finalize the sales of the shops he was going to demolish, the town planner to get the final approval for the mall. The building of the road that would lead to the massive building and of course trying to persuade Afiya Lowe to sell her shop to him. His mind flashed to her and he felt his heart pick up speed. Whenever he was near her he felt something. He'd been pushing it deep into his subconscious but it kept resurfacing.
He shook his head and went back to work.
*****
Afiya had no idea why she decided to wash off the work dust and put on something nice. She locked up at precisely six and went straight upstairs to shower and change. She rifled through her tiny closet and frowned at the small selection. She pulled out a floral skirt and a plain white blouse. It had seen a number of years but it would have to do.
“It’s not like I'm going on a date or anything like that,” she muttered as she brushed her thick black hair and braided it down one shoulder. Her fingers hovered over the tube of lip gloss and then with a shrug decided to put it on. But she refused to put on anything else. She had no need to impress the man. He was only interested in showing her the plans for the mall and she was polite enough to go and look at them, and then tell him to his face that he wasn't getting her store. That was that. She picked up her purse and headed out. He'd given her directions but she knew exactly where the place was.
********
He was waiting for her downstairs at the glass door. He pushed it open and allowed her to enter. “You made it.” He made the obvious comment for lack of anything else to say. She was beautiful in an unusual way and he kept noticing it.
“I did.” She looked around. “No security?”
“No need for any,” he told her lightly as he preceded her. “As you said the other day at the meeting, the place is free of crime and people are welcome to come and go as they please.” He pressed the button for the second floor and they both got in as soon as the door opened. Afiya folded her hands over her purse and felt like the small elevator had gotten smaller. He certainly had a huge presence.
“And you want to change that,” she glanced over at him, and couldn't help but notice the casual way he wore the obviously expensive black cotton shirt.
“I told you otherwise,” he held the door open for her to get out and followed her. “Right this way,” he gestured to an open doorway and she went in, waiting for him to come behind her. “The conference room is through here.” He led the way into a mostly empty room with a large table with chairs surrounding the table. On the wall in front there hung a large projector.
“Would you like something to drink?” he asked her politely as he went to the cabinet.
“Orange juice if you have it. Thanks.” She wandered around the room and he watched her. “This place originally belonged to a man by the name of Sam Wyatt,” she passed her hand over the chairs absently, “we used to come here, my grandmother and I. He sold used cars and my grandmother purchased a car from him that gave no end of problems,” she laughed softly, unaware of the way it was affecting him. “She would come back time and again for him or his mechanics to sort something out on the vehicle and they would end up having coffee together. I would sit and watch something on the television while drinking water or some juice his wife made him. He was such a sweetheart but never had a head for business.”
Garrett handed her the orange juice and indicated for her to take a seat. He'd chosen to drink iced tea himself. He took the seat at the head of the table. “I never met him but his son was happy to unload the place. I figured he was too much in debt and wanted to see if he could salvage something from it.”
Afiya sipped her ice cold orange juice and looked at him. “Tell me about the mall,” she said suddenly.
His eyes flared in surprise and then his expression became shuttered. “I mentioned at the meeting that I look around for places where a mark could be made. That’s my specialty. I used to buy properties, fix them up and then sell them for a high profit but I went to a little place in Tennessee and saw a tiny community there and decided to do something about it. There weren’t any malls or shopping centers and the schools badly needed renovations so I decided to spend my money doing that. It's thriving even now.”
“So now you want to do the same for Roseville?”
He nodded as he got to his feet. He turned on the projector and went behind the laptop on the table. Afiya’s eyes were immediately glued to the 3D image on the screen. It showed stores with products already in them. It looked so real that she could almost believe that the mall was already built. She stared in fascination at the projection of people busy shopping, going from one store to another and the hive of activities going on. No wonder people were fascinated. The town of Roseville had never seen so much excitement.
“Wh
at do you think?” he asked her.
Her eyes snapped back to him and she responded honestly. “It looks fascinating.”
“But you're not impressed.”
“I am impressed,” she corrected him. “Look, I like the idea of having a mall with a movie theatre, stores and restaurants—“
“And bookstores.”
“And bookstores.” She smiled unconsciously, causing his skin to heat up. “But I love my store. It’s my grandmother’s legacy and selling it to you and having it torn down is not something I'm ever going to be comfortable doing.”
“What if there was a way around it?”
“What do you mean?” she asked him, puzzled.
“Ever since I came to the store and saw the inside of it I've been doing some thinking. With some fancy footwork and deviations from the original plan we could somehow manage to save your store.”
“That’s not possible.”
He smiled at that. “Nothing is impossible. Don’t you know that?”
“How would it work?”
“I'm chatting with the contractors and the designers.”
“What about the other stores around mine?”
“They're willing to sell. That only leaves you. I'm a very generous man, Ms. Lowe,” he told her in amusement. “And it helps that the stores are constantly losing money.”
“Mine isn't,” she retorted.
“So I noticed.”
“How?”
“I checked out the financials of everyone I wanted to do business with before I started the project. I am a very thorough business man Ms. Lowe.”
“Is that even legal?” she demanded.
“Absolutely,” he grinned at her. “But you have nothing to worry about. As I said, I'm going to find a way to work around it. You convinced me. Your store is quite a unique one and you are in fact making a profit.”
“Am I supposed to thank you?”
“You should,” he said with a straight face.
Afiya got to her feet and ignored his comment as she wandered closer to the screen. “It looks so real,” she murmured.
“Can you imagine the real thing?”
She turned back to him, not realizing that he'd come up behind her. “When is it due to be completed?”
“The foundation should be ready to be dug in October. We want to get that out of the way before it gets too cold. It will probably be ready in a year.”
“I suppose when you have money at your disposal anything is possible.” She made the comment without thinking.
His lips quirked. “Precisely. Do you always say what you think?”
She nodded with a smile. “I'm afraid so. When you look like me you have nothing to lose.”
“What do you mean?”
She started to turn away, regretting what she'd just said, but he caught her arm. His hand touching her skin was like an electrical charge entering the room and passing from him to her. They both stared at each other in shock as the emotions trembled through both of them, rendering them rigid with shock. He let go of her swiftly and backed away, his eyes turning almost a darker green as he stared at her. Afiya was rooted to the spot as she fought the electrical charge floating through her body. She fought the tremors going through her and couldn't say anything for a full couple of minutes. When she could she galvanized into action and, hurrying to collect her purse, she picked it up and held it in front of her. “I have to go.” She tried to clear the huskiness from her throat.
“Of course.” He forced himself to remain casual as he fought the waves of sexual tension pouring through his unsuspecting body. “I will walk with you—”
“No!” she took a deep breath. “I'll find my way. Goodbye, Mr. King.” He watched as she hurried out of the room and stood there listening to the doors slam. What the hell was that?
******
Afiya sat in her car and placed her trembling hands on the steering wheel tightly, willing her body to come back under control. Maybe it could be explained. He was a very handsome man and she hadn't been with anyone for a very long time. Maybe it was her body telling her that she was starved for sexual attention. The fact that he was this hot billionaire and she was a size twenty-two woman who came from a small town didn't make it any different. She was a woman and he was a man and that's what it was all about. She took a deep breath and turned the key in the ignition, backing out hastily. She was finished talking to him anyway. He was going to work at not getting rid of her store and that was all that mattered to her. It was a small town but they didn't have to see each other up. She rarely went anywhere anyway.
*****
Garrett poured a generous amount of whiskey in the glass and downed it. When it didn't serve to quell the turmoil inside him he poured some more, wondering if he was going to have to spend the night in his office because of how much he was drinking. It was a fluke, he thought grimly as he put the glass to his lips. It had to be. Of all the women in the world, all the slender women in the world that he met on his many trips and the functions he had been to, it couldn't be her. Fate could not be so cruel. She was not his type. She was twenty pounds too heavy so she couldn't be his type. He'd touched her and he'd felt the electric shock go straight through his body. He'd hardened immediately and right now he was still hard. He had gone too long without a woman. “Oh Christ!” he muttered as he walked with trembling legs to one of the chairs. “Dammit!”
*****
Afiya jumped every time the bell rang. She'd gone home the night before and gotten straight into bed but had taken a long time to fall asleep. She kept feeling his touch on her skin and had twisted and turned until she'd fallen into a troubled sleep. She'd peered at herself in the mirror and cursed the lines beneath her eyes. It was the middle of August and children on vacation wandered in at intervals, mostly to browse. Serious buyers were the ones who lived in town or some tourists here for vacation. A couple all the way from Ireland came in and bought some items, delighted when she told them that they could be shipped to their address back home.
Hillary came in the afternoon and she got some time to go back to her tiny office to do some paperwork. She sat behind the desk and stared at nothing in particular before shaking her head and starting to work. Her phone rang and she jumped, thinking it was Garrett, but it was her mother. “Mama I'm busy.”
“Melvin left and took everything with him!” she blurted out.
“What do you mean?”
“I went to work last night and when I came back not too long ago, everything was cleaned out, including my bank account. He's not answering his phone.” Her mother sounded very agitated.
“Mama, are you sure?”
“I'm standing in the middle of my empty living room girl, so of course I'm sure. He took everything. The no good son-of-a-bitch cleaned me out.”
“Oh Mama, I am so sorry! Have you called the cops?”
“And tell them what exactly?”
“That he took everything.”
“They're going to tell me that it's a family matter.”
“Call them. Do you want me to come over?”
“If it wouldn't be too much trouble.”
“I'm on my way.”
*****
Garrett had a bitch of a hangover and he wasn't in a very good mood. He'd spent the night drinking to get her out of his head and to get rid of his erection but it hadn't worked. Now he felt as if he'd been run over by a large truck and his head was pounding.
“Coffee, tons of it,” he growled as he walked past Gertrude without saying his usual hello.
“Good morning to you too,” she said to him.
“I'm not in the mood,” he told her as he strode past without stopping. “Get the contractors on the line. We have work to do.”
He walked into his office and closed the door quietly behind him. He leaned against it for a moment and then walked over to his desk and sat behind it, leaning his head back. The door was pushed open and he stifled a sigh. He should have known she wouldn't leave well
enough alone. “Here's your first cup,” she handed it to him and stood there looking at his blood shot eyes. “Since when did you start drinking?”
“Since last night,” he growled as he grabbed the cup and drank the steaming coffee. “I don’t want to talk about it. Did you get the contractors?”
“No, and you're in no mood to meet with anyone. I don’t want you chewing out the poor man for something that has nothing to do with him.”
“My mother is dead Gertrude, I don’t need another one.”
“Too bad.” She went over and pulled open the blinds, letting the sunlight in and causing him to curse beneath his breath. “I'm going to go into the kitchen and make you something for the hangover. You look like hell Garrett, so I suggest you put off all meetings until you don't look like someone the cat dragged in.” she marched out and slammed the door behind her, causing him to hold his head between his hands. He gritted his teeth as the pain pounded inside his temple. If she wasn't so valuable to him he would fire her immediately. But she was right, he was in no condition to meet with anyone.
