“Jason, Jason,” she cried. Ingrid arched her back into him, begging for him to go deeper and deeper. He slipped his hand between her thighs and stroked her sensitive flesh as he pumped in and out.
Ingrid felt as if she was melting into a pool of lust as sweat mixed with her feminine juices. Jason growled as she clasped her muscles around his penis. He couldn’t hold back a second longer and he exploded just as Ingrid cried out in pleasure. Lying on the sofa, he held Ingrid against his chest and their hearts seemed to share one beat. “I love you,” he breathed against her ear.
She smiled and kissed his chest. “So, do I.”
“So, about that talk,” he said.
“Umm, what talk?” she asked with her eyes closed and her arms wound around his waist.
“We can pick that up later, right now we need to get cleaned up.”
“All right, I’ll run a bath and you can wash my back.”
Jason rose from the sofa and Ingrid followed suit, then they headed upstairs to the bathroom.
Chapter Twenty-one
After Jason and Ingrid had made love again and finally taken separate showers, they sat down at the kitchen table sipping coffee and munching on homemade banana bread.
“So, you’re sure that you’re up for this?” Jason asked as he polished off another slice of bread.
“Yes,” Ingrid replied. “If this will keep the reporters from stalking me and my son, then I will stand up with you at this press conference.”
“What do you want to tell them about us and why you left without telling me you were pregnant?”
Ingrid took a timid sip of coffee. “The truth,” she said. “You’re not a deadbeat and I’m not a gold digger. Ruby thought she could still control us, but it’s time for her to be exposed.”
Jason took her hand in his and brought it to his lips. “I love the way you think,” he said then kissed her hand gently. “We can do the press conference at the hotel and end this media circus.”
“And if Ruby shows up, I’ll try not to slap her face off,” Ingrid said.
“Or at least wait until the cameras are gone,” Jason teased. Ingrid stood up and gathered their empty plates and coffee mugs.
“I have something I want you to read,” she said. “I’ve been working on my book late at night and early in the morning before work. The first draft is finished, but I think after this press conference, I might need to change the ending.” Ingrid reached in to the pantry and pulled out her manuscript.
“You did all of this over the last few months?” He held the nearly four-hundred pages in both hands.
“No, over the last three years. I just finished it, finally,” she said. “I want you to read it before I try and get it published.”
“Are you asking for my approval?”
“No, I just want you to be aware that after we do this press conference, people are going to think this book is all about you,” she said with a smile. “But, I will deny it.”
Jason flipped through the first few pages, “I get the feeling that I’m going to appreciate that.”
“I’d better call Christina and see if she can watch DeShawn a little longer,” Ingrid said, but before she got to the phone, she heard her best friend and son walking into the house.
“Well, well,” Christina said when she walked into the kitchen and saw Jason sitting at the table. “Guess all is right with the world again?”
“I was just about to call you,” Ingrid said. “Can you hang out here with DeShawn for a little bit?”
“Sure,” Christina said. “We can watch that Spiderman cartoon he’s so excited to watch, if he can stay awake.”
“Is he all right?” Jason and Ingrid asked in union.
“Calm down, he’s just tuckered out. We went to the park and ran around for a couple of hours. I need a nap myself. Oh, I ran into your mother.”
Ingrid groaned. “What did she have to say?”
“Basically you’re a fool and he,” she said nodding toward Jason, “is the devil.”
“And I imagine she threw her fit in front of my son?” Ingrid asked as she shook her head. “That woman is going to make me. . .”
“We’re going to have to deal with your mother after we take care of the press. In the future we can ignore the reporters, but we can’t ignore your mother. DeShawn loves her and she has to be a part of his life.”
“Not if she’s going to put her negativity off on him. I love you and you love our son, she can’t . . .”
“The press?” Christina interrupted. “You guys are actually going to talk to those vultures?”
“We don’t have a choice,” Ingrid said. “And if Ruby thought she was going to get away with this, she has another thing coming. She thought she could shape this story, but she’s the one who put this all in motion and that’s what we’re going to tell everyone.”
Christina clasped her hands together and smiled. “Great, because I don’t like that girl.”
“Join the club,” Ingrid said as she and Jason headed out the door.
Ingrid sat in silence as Jason drove to the Elmore Inn. She tried to look calm and pretend that she wasn’t a nervous wreck. Her insides shook like a leaf and she just hoped that when she spoke those reporters wouldn’t know how terrified she really was about telling the world her story. If it wasn’t for Ruby, Jason would’ve been a father to DeShawn and who knows, they may have had another child by now. She inhaled deeply and turned to Jason.
“Are you sure this is the only thing we can do?” she asked as her doubts took over.
“If you don’t want to do this, we don’t have to,” he said as he slowed the car down in front of the hotel. “I’ll go in there and tell all of the reporters and Ruby where they can go.”
“No, I said we were going to do this together and we will,” she said forcing steel into her voice.
Jason took her hand in his and kissed it as he pulled into the parking lot of the hotel. “Are you ready?” he asked.
Ingrid nodded and opened the door. She hadn’t expected all of the flash bulbs to go off. Jason hopped out of the car and bolted over to Ingrid and stood between her and the photographers. “Come on guys, give us some room,” Jason said.
“Who is she, Jay Slade?” one of the photographers called out.
“Is she your baby’s mother?” another yelled.
“No,” Jason barked back. “She’s my fiancée. Now, back up. We’ll be down in a few minutes with a statement.”
Ingrid clutched Jason’s arm and whispered to him, “Is it always like this?”
“No,” he said as they entered the hotel. Despite the fact that he asked the photographer’s to back off, they still snapped pictures of the couple. When they made it inside, Ruby was standing in the lobby talking to two reporters.
“I don’t know what this press conference is about,” she said. “I can only guess that. . .”
“She doesn’t know a damned thing and if she’s been your source on any story, expect to write a few retractions,” Jason snapped. Ruby whirled around, her face registered shock when she saw Ingrid standing there.
“Jay Slade, what’s going on?” Ruby asked as she looked from him to Ingrid.
“Should I tell her or make her wait like everyone else?” Ingrid asked in a syrupy sweet voice.
“What in the hell is going on here?” Ruby asked as she watched Terry Bradshaw, Jason’s tour manager burst through the lobby.
“Jay, I got a call from New York and was told to meet you here,” he said.
Jason’s face was a mask of confusion. “Why?”
Terry shrugged as he produced a Blackberry cell phone from his jacket pocket. “No one could get in touch with you and old girl,” he said with a nod toward Ruby. “Wouldn’t tell anyone how to reach you since your cell phone has been out of service.”
Ruby threw her hands up. “What am I? His damned keeper?”
“That’s what I’ve always heard you say over the years,” Ingrid mumbled. Ruby rolled her e
yes at Ingrid and crossed over to where Terry stood. Ingrid grabbed her arm, struggling to keep her disdain for the woman from boiling over. “What’s your problem?” Ingrid demanded. “What have I ever done to you to cause you to dislike me and my relationship with Jason? I’ve never stood in his way or your way so that he could become the star you wanted him to be.”
“Get your hands off me,” Ruby snapped. “I don’t have to explain myself to a nobody like you.” She tried to jerk away from Ingrid, but she tightened her grip on Ruby’s arm.
“Oh, no, you’re going to answer me.”
Ruby faced Ingrid and snatched her arm from her grasp. “What does it matter? You still trapped him. At least Angie Stone had talent and she could help D’Angelo. You were in the way three years ago and you’re in the way now. Jay Slade could’ve been bigger than Usher, he had the body and he has a voice like Teddy Pendergrass. All you wanted was to hang on to your meal ticket. I knew you were going to be nothing but trouble and it looks like I was right.”
“Trouble? The only person who has ever caused trouble for Jason has been and continues to be you. He could’ve been a part of his son’s life from day one had you not been such a spiteful bitch. Did making him a star launch your career? Are you afraid that people will see you for who you really are when Jason tells you to kiss his ass?”
“I don’t need Jason. He needs me. Not the other way around, know that,” she snapped.
“He doesn’t need you. The truth is, you’re a dime a dozen, but talent like Jason’s doesn’t come around every day. He made you, you didn’t make him. That’s why you wanted me out of the way. You wanted to pretend Jason was the Jackson 5 and you were Diana Ross. But this isn’t Motown, babe, and you didn’t discover Jason. He was going to make it with or without you. But you? You’re better suited to clean the toilets at Def Jam than to pick talent.”
Anger flickered across Ruby’s face and for a moment, Ingrid expected her to try and hit her. She was ready, reporters be damned because Ruby’s butt-kicking was three years in the making. Jason’s hand on her shoulder calmed Ingrid instantly. “Babe,” he whispered. “She isn’t worth whatever is running though that pretty little mind of yours.”
Ingrid turned away from Ruby, though she wanted to just knock her to the floor. Looking into Jason’s eyes, she nodded. “You’re right,” she said. “She’s not worth it.”
Terry walked outside and beckoned the reporters and photographers inside. Jason held Ingrid’s hand as they stood in front of the media representatives. “Ready?” Jason whispered to her.
She nodded and wiped her sweaty palm on her pant leg.
Jason cleared his throat then looked into the numerous cameras pointed at him. “I know you all have questions because of a story that was in the paper today about my son. Yes, I am a father. That’s a fact that I just recently learned, because when the love of my life was carrying my child, certain people who called themselves looking out for my best interest drove a wedge between us. I was young and I thought the most important thing to me was my music career. But I was wrong. The most important thing in my life is my family. Ingrid Russell has always been in my corner, from the time we were five years old and I sang my first church solo. She has been in my corner and I let her down,” he said.
“Is this Ingrid?” one of the reporters who had her pen pointed at Ingrid asked.
Jason kissed Ingrid’s hand. “This is my fiancée, Ingrid.”
“Ingrid, why did you keep your secret?” a reporter asked.
“I made a mistake, I thought Jason would’ve put his career before our family because it had been drilled into my head by his. . . Ruby Miller. She told me that I was going to be a liability to Jason’s career and made it seem as if he had something going on with another singer. When I found out that I was pregnant, it was the night before Jason’s first show at Madison Square Garden. Do I wish I had handled things differently?” She looked at Jason and smiled. “I do, because I know the real Jason. You all think Jay Slade is an amazing singer, but it is nothing compared to the kind of man he really is and has always been. I should’ve trusted that instead of listening to a woman who hated our relationship from the beginning.”
Ruby pushed her way to the front of the reporters. “I’m not going to stand here and be slandered by this woman. Look at her! She isn’t the kind of woman that Jay Slade could walk down the red carpet with. You all would’ve laughed him off the radar.”
Jason shook his head. “That wasn’t your decision to make.”
“So, it’s true?” a reporter called out. “Ruby, you conspired to keep these two hometown sweethearts apart?”
“If their relationship was so great then why was it so easy to send fatso packing?” Ruby sniped.
Ingrid flinched and Jason grabbed her shoulder to stop her from snatching Ruby’s weave. “First of all,” Ingrid said. “I’m proud of every curve on my body and just because I’m not the woman you wanted Jason to be with, it doesn’t matter because he loves me.”
“Whatever,” Ruby said with a wave of her hand.
“I do love Ingrid, I’ve always loved her and today, I’m announcing that as long as Ruby is with Def Jam, I’m leaving the company.”
Terry waved his hand and rushed up to Jason, Ruby and Ingrid. “This is why I’m here, Ruby, I’m taking over for you. Your services are no longer needed and your office is being cleaned out. Not only has Jay Slade complained about your strong armed tactics, but so have Debony and Megan Kelly. We can’t keep losing artists because you won’t stay out of their personal lives.”
“What?” she stammered.
Ingrid smiled brightly. “Well, this is the best news that I’ve heard all day.”
“I guess this press conference is over,” Jason said with a smile as bright as Ingrid’s.
“Have you met your son?” one of the reporters called out as Jason and Ingrid headed out the door.
“Yes,” they said in unison. The couple hopped into his car and headed back to her place. Jason took the long way to make sure they weren’t being followed.
“Can you believe it?” Ingrid asked happily. “Ruby is out of our lives and neither one of us will be going to prison.”
Jason gently stroked Ingrid’s knee. “I know you wanted to smack her a few times.”
“But Terry laid the ultimate smack down on her. She’s lost the one thing she had, her so called power. I wonder what will she do now?”
“Who cares? She’s not our problem anymore. You know, before Debony left, she was trying to tell me something about Ruby, but I wasn’t trying to hear her.”
“Maybe she was tired of doing Ruby’s dirty work,” Ingrid said. Jason pulled his car into the parking lot near Lake Elmore. “What’s going on?” she asked as she looked at their location.
“Remember when we used to sneak out here at night?”
She smiled and nodded. “Blankets on the shore and water fights.”
“I missed how simple things used to be. How normal we were and how good it felt when we first arrived in New York together. That’s why I want our wedding to be out here. Just me, you and DeShawn.”
Ingrid’s face lit up. “Really?”
“Yes,” he said. “We’ve lost too much time together and I will spend the rest of my life making up for it.”
“It’s not all your fault alone,” she said. “We both made mistakes.”
“Now is the time to make up for it,” he said happily. He took her face into his hands and kissed her lips. Ingrid pulled back from his, the smile on her lips waned a bit.
“We’ve only gotten one obstacle. There’s still my mother to contend with,” she said with a sigh.
“Let’s go over there right now,” he said.
Ingrid shook her head. “I’ve had enough for one day. Let’s just go home and start planning our wedding.”
“That’s the best thing that I’ve heard all day,” he said with a smile on his face.
“What? Going home?”
“No, our wedding,” he said then gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Let’s go.”
As Jason drove, Ingrid smiled, finally calm and ready to think of their future together. Still she had a nagging feeling that her mother would never accept her relationship with Jason. And it wasn’t because of who he was now, but what he’d been growing up. It wasn’t his fault that his parents had been poor and alcoholics. Jason had been a good kid and stayed out of trouble. It was funny to her that some of the same people who had laughed at Jason’s shabby clothes and dirty face were now his “biggest fans.”
Maybe that played into her decision to keep DeShawn’s parentage a secret for so long. Ingrid hadn’t wanted her son to face the problems that his father had and as judgmental as many people in town were, she couldn’t be sure that they wouldn’t. Moreover, she couldn’t be sure that her mother wouldn’t have been in that number treating her son differently because of his father. Jason glanced over at Ingrid, taking note of how quiet she’d become.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Nothing. I was just thinking about DeShawn and how all of this is going to really affect him.”
“We’re going to keep him out of the media’s spotlight without a problem, he’s not. . .”
Ingrid held up her hand as Jason turned onto her street. “It isn’t the media that I’m worried about. It’s the neighbors and residents of Elmore, South Carolina.”
“Why do you say that?”
She laughed. “Do you think this town has changed at all? People around here are as judgmental as they’ve ever been. Louis was about to lose his restaurant when I showed up here three years ago. People couldn’t accept who he really was so we had to come up with this lie to protect him and me. Despite the fact that the whole town eats there now, when people thought Louis was gay, they wouldn’t set foot in the restaurant. That’s why we started the website. It wasn’t until Louis and I had been married for a year that we took in a profit and started having crowds around here.”
“So, why do you think this will have an effect on DeShawn?”
She shrugged, not wanting to share her true fears with him. “Who knows with these people?”
If It Isn't Love Page 20
