Open Your Heart

by Cheris Hodges

  “That’s the best invitation that I’ve had in a long time,” he said. Charles wrapped his arms around her. She smelt fresh. He realized that his soap had never smelled this good on his skin. She made it sparkle. Made Irish Spring seem like a French perfume that belonged on Hollywood actresses. “You smell good.”

  “You feel better,” she replied as she stroked his hip. “A lot better.”

  “Yolanda,” he said as she stroked his penis.

  “We’re naked in a shower, what am I supposed to do with my hands?” She gripped his dick and gave him a soft squeeze.

  “Not that,” he moaned.

  She dropped her hands. “Fine, I’ll stop.”

  “You are such a tease. I don’t know what I’m going to do with you.”

  Yolanda stepped back from him and smiled. “I have a few ideas, but I’m going to keep them to myself for now.”

  Charles closed the space between them and captured her mouth. Her kisses were his weakness. If anyone had a magical mouth, it was Yolanda Richardson. She’d convinced him that he could love again.

  “If you kiss me like that again,” she said, “we’re not going to get clean in this shower.”

  “Is that a promise?” He stroked her backside. “I could do this all . . .” An alarm blared and Charles hopped out of the shower, grabbed a towel, and wrapped it around his waist. Yolanda couldn’t tell where the gun came from or how he moved as fast as he did without slipping on the damp floor.

  Charles rushed into his office and checked the camera and the alarm site. He set his gun on the desk when he saw two cats tussling near the garage. Taking a deep breath, he headed back for the bathroom. Yolanda had closed the door and locked it. He tapped on the door. “Yolanda, everything is okay. Just some frisky cats on the motion detector alarm.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Open the door, please.”

  She opened the door and Charles gave her a hug and a peck on the cheek. “I’m sorry if I scared you.”

  “You did that, sir. How in the hell did you jet out of here basically naked with a gun and not slip once?”

  “I’ve had to do this a time or two before. But are you all right?”

  She placed her hand to her chest. “I think my heart rate has returned to normal.”

  Charles scooped her up into his arms. “Come on, let me take you to bed.”

  “First, you need to get me some cookies,” she said. Charles smiled at her and realized that he was in big trouble.

  “I’m going to tuck you in and then bring you the cookies.”

  “A warrior and a gentleman,” she quipped.

  Charles walked into his bedroom and gently laid naked Yolanda in the center of his bed. “Be right back,” he said. He headed for the kitchen and grabbed a bag of the cookies Sheldon had brought over that day. The chocolate chip cookies were huge, soft and smelled delicious. No wonder Yolanda was trying to sneak into the bed-and-breakfast to get them.

  “These cookies are legendary, huh?” Charles said as he entered the bedroom.

  “You mean you didn’t take a bite of one before you made it in the room?”

  Charles shook his head. “Thought that might be considered rude,” he replied with a wink.

  Yolanda took the bag of cookies from his hand. “Normally, yes.” She pulled out a cookie and broke it in half. Then she brushed a piece against his lips. Charles bit into the cookie and realized that as sweet as the cookie was, it had nothing on how good Yolanda tasted.

  “And you grew up on these?”

  She nodded as she chewed on the cookie. “People love the bed-and-breakfast because of these cookies. I believe they’re my mother’s recipe.”

  “Really?”

  Yolanda nodded and polished off her cookie. “One thing I can’t do is bake these things. And it’s probably a good thing.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because I’d never be able to fit into my designs. I’d eat these cookies every day.”

  Charles thought about what he’d like to eat every day and glanced down at her thighs. “Well, I’d better take these and put them aside for another special occasion,” he said.

  “You mean the next time the cats start fighting?”

  He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “I’m going to move the monitor and talk to Mrs. Dena about keeping those animals in the house.”

  “I’d better get some clothes,” she said.

  “Or, you could sleep in one of my T-shirts, if you want to sleep in here with me tonight.”

  Yolanda smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Chapter 24

  Over the next month, Yolanda got good at pretending that she was taking trans-Atlantic flights and was bringing Nina dresses from Paris and Milan. She’d designed the dress her sister had chosen for her wedding reception, only she couldn’t tell her. The sisters were in Charlotte at Yolanda’s shop doing a final fitting before the wedding. Though Charles was keeping his distance from the sisters, Yolanda felt his presence. She even missed his touch.

  “Why are you so quiet?” Robin asked as they sat outside the dressing room. “Jet lag?”

  “No. Just thinking about everything that’s going on with you and Logan.”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on with you and Logan and when I can kick his ass?”

  “Stop it,” Robin said.

  Alex walked over to them with a bottle of wine and three glasses. “I figured you would’ve brought some French wine back with you,” she said.

  “I’ve been traveling light.”

  “I’m sure Dad appreciates that. Why is he bankrolling your . . .”

  “Are we going to do this now?” Yolanda snapped. “Dad knows that I’m going to launch my own line and he’s supporting me. Why do you have a problem with it?”

  Alex set the wine on the floor and handed each of her sisters a glass. “I’m just wondering when you’re going to start supporting your own dreams.”

  “Alex,” Robin said. “Don’t do this.”

  Yolanda folded her arms across her chest and thought about telling her sister the truth, but Alex was so damn judgmental. “Nah,” Yolanda said. “Let her get it out because I’m sick of her shit.”

  “And I’m sick of you acting like Dad owes you the world. Hell, Nina’s more responsible than you are and . . .”

  Nina walked out of the dressing room in a formfitting Simone Carvalli wedding dress. “This is the one,” she said as she spun around. Her entrance couldn’t have been timed any better. The argument that was brewing stopped in its tracks as the sisters fawned over Nina. Alex even pulled up a photo of their mother to show Nina how much she looked like her. And of course, Nina started to cry.

  “Nope,” Yolanda said. “No teardrops on the dress.”

  “Just beautiful,” Robin said.

  Yolanda figured now was the time to break out some champagne instead of the Chardonnay that Alex had chosen. “Let’s celebrate,” she said. “I’m going to grab a bottle of champagne.” She ducked into the storage room and ran chest first into Chuck. “Whoa.”

  “Y’all all right out there?” he asked.

  “It’s a Richardson thing,” she said with a shrug. “Have my stalkers found out that we’re here?”

  “Not that I can tell.”

  She eased past him and headed for the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of champagne. “At least Nina found her dress.”

  “I’m sure you helped, right?” Chuck smiled at her.

  Yolanda held her bottle up and smiled. “That’s what I do.”

  “How much longer are you guys going to be here?”

  “Um, I think Alex has one more argument in her, then we can leave. We’re probably going to get something to eat.”

  “Have it delivered. I don’t like you out in the open like this.”

  She offered him a mock salute. “I know I haven’t said it lately but thank you.”

  “I think
this is the first time that you’ve ever said it at all.”

  She pinched his forearm. “Whatever.” God, she wanted to kiss him. “All right, let me take this out here before they come looking for me.”

  “Good idea. But you should go a little easier on Alex.”

  She shot him a cold look. “Don’t defend her.”

  “I’m not, but you’re the one who decided that you didn’t want your family—meaning your older sisters—to know what was going on.”

  “Don’t.” She shook her head. “Because this was your idea. You said I needed to . . .”

  “Yolanda, did you have to make the champagne?” Nina called out.

  She rolled her eyes at Chuck then headed back into the showroom. “I had to make sure I had the good stuff,” Yolanda said with a forced smile. She couldn’t believe Chuck was really on Alex’s side when he said this lie was necessary. And she knew that Alex always felt some kind of way about their father investing in her business. It didn’t matter to Alex that Yolanda had paid Sheldon back and had shared her profits with her father from the store. Maybe she didn’t know, but it pissed Yolanda off to no end that her sister treated her as if she were a freeloader. Yolanda popped the bottle open and filled her sisters’ glasses. “Here’s to Nina and Clinton, may this wedding be the first step to a lifetime of happily ever after,” Yolanda said. As she and her sisters clinked their glasses together, Yolanda glanced at the storage room. She wondered if she and Chuck . . . No! She couldn’t let Nina’s wedding make her think that everyone was going to fall in love now. At least Robin was forcing a smile with her marriage being in shambles. Robin and her husband, Dr. Logan Baptiste, were in the midst of a divorce battle after a nurse at the hospital where he worked said that he’d fathered her son. Robin had been heartbroken and moved out of their Richmond home. While Robin tried to keep a brave face in front of her sisters, Yolanda knew she was hurt and that made Yolanda want to hurt Logan for breaking her sister’s heart. And Alex was just being Alex. By the time they’d finished the bottle of champagne, it had gotten dark outside and a small shiver of fear had attacked Yolanda’s spine. What if Chuck had missed the mystery killer and one of her sisters got taken out as they left the building?

  Chuck walked out of the storage room. “Are you ladies ready to go?” he asked.

  “Where did you come from?” Nina asked.

  “I’ve been here. And I ordered dinner for you all. Sushi, shrimp fried rice, and spring rolls.”

  “Wow,” Robin said. “You really know us. Please tell me you have some veggie fried rice on that order. I’m a vegetarian.”

  “I do,” he said. “Let me just do one last security check and then we can leave.”

  Alex and Robin exchanged a look. “Security check?” Alex asked.

  He didn’t reply as he headed out the door. Yolanda turned the lights off in the shop and checked the locks on the back doors. She couldn’t wait until she would be able to have the grand opening in her shop and make Charlotte her home. This life she was living, lying to her sisters, falling for a man who seemed to flip his feelings on and off like a light switch, and hiding from the world, was driving her crazy. Today would’ve been perfect if Alex wasn’t being an asshole.

  “Has Dad been paying you and Charles to roam around Europe?” Alex asked as they waited at the front door.

  “Shut up, Alex,” Yolanda snapped. “Why are you even like this?”

  “Because you’re taking advantage of our father, and if no one else is going to acknowledge it, I will.”

  “Guys,” Nina interjected. “We’re not doing this.”

  Robin nodded in agreement. “Alex, whatever Dad is doing for Yolanda, that’s between them.”

  Alex folded her arms across her chest and shook her head. “Whatever.”

  Yolanda closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Maybe she should’ve told them all the truth. Nina wasn’t in on the latest plan, but she knew why Chuck was with her. And since the last thing she wanted Nina thinking about before her wedding was this situation, she didn’t tell her what was going on. Besides, if she had Nina would’ve just blabbed to her sisters and that would’ve defeated the whole purpose of the ruse.

  It killed her not to be able to talk to Nina about her current situation, since she was the one whom she’d talked to the most. Tears welled up in her eyes and she wanted to just tell them everything. She didn’t want to fight with Alex; she wanted her sisters to rally around her and tell her that everything was going to be all right.

  Chuck walked back into the shop. “Let’s go, ladies.”

  The air was crisp, and it was quiet outside. Yolanda glanced at her watch and realized that Uptown Charlotte didn’t get bumping until the clubs and bars opened. Most people in the city were shopping in SouthPark or North-lake right now. Yolanda knew when she got into her shop full-time she was going to have to make her place the go-to spot for shoppers.

  But she couldn’t do anything until the threat against her life was eliminated. But what if Danny has given up because I haven’t gone to the police yet?

  “Yolanda,” Nina called out when she noticed that her sister hadn’t crossed the street. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m coming,” Yolanda said. She rushed over to Nina.

  “Is everything all right? I know you haven’t told Robin and Alex everything. But can you be honest with me?”

  “Everything is fine. All that matters right now is that you get down the aisle with Clinton.”

  “I’d like to think that my sister being alive is also important. Yolanda, what’s going on? Are you really just hanging out in Milan and Paris to hide from the people who want you dead?”

  “It’s complicated. And we can talk about this later.”

  Nina shrugged. “If that’s what you want.”

  “And by later, I mean not around Alex and Robin.”

  Nina shot her a thumbs-up sign. “That sounds like we’re going to be having cookies in bed tonight.”

  “Maybe not,” Yolanda said with a smile.

  “You’re sleeping with your bodyguard?”

  Yolanda started to say no. She wanted to pretend that she was doing the right thing and allowing Chuck to do his job. But over the last month, waking up in his arms and kissing him whenever she wanted to do so made her think that they had moved beyond being just an assignment.

  Even knowing that she was going to go to the police in Richmond was going to change things. She wondered what would happen once she and Chuck weren’t bound by his need to protect her. Would he move on to the next damsel in distress and forget about her?

  Stop it, she thought as she and Nina climbed into her car. She listened to her baby sister talk about her wedding and her fiancé. Yolanda was so happy that Nina was still around to talk to her. Part of her would always feel guilt that she thought Nina’s accident was her fault. Remembering the sight of her sister in that hospital bed and thinking that she was the reason why she’d been there, she now listened happily.

  “So, what’s going on with you and Charles Morris?” Nina asked when they pulled into the parking garage across from the town house.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t try to play me. I know that you have a lot of wine and champagne in your shop and it doesn’t take you that long to get a bottle. So, what is the deal and why haven’t those people after you been found?”

  “It’s complicated,” Yolanda said. “But Chuck is making sure they aren’t still out here stalking me.”

  “Is that why Daddy sent you to Europe?”

  “Don’t be little Alex.”

  “I’m just asking because I care. And I can’t wait to see you start your own line. Any samples you want to send me, I’m down.”

  As soon as they arrived at the house, Yolanda wanted to run inside and shield her sisters from the people who wanted her dead. Of course, if she made that kind of scene, she would have a lot of explaining to do.

  Chuck opened the front door for the
women and nodded toward Yolanda as she entered the house. She rolled her eyes at him, still a bit miffed that he had the nerve to take Alex’s side earlier.

  “Where’s the food?” Nina called out.

  “Three minutes away,” Chuck said, then grabbed Yolanda’s arm. “You all right?”

  She glanced down at his hand. “I’m fine,” she replied tersely. “I need to talk to my sisters.”

  He dropped his hand and shook his head as if he didn’t understand her attitude. When she walked into the kitchen, Robin was whispering into her phone and Alex was flipping through her e-mails on her smartphone.

  Robin ended her call and turned to her sisters. “I have to go back to Richmond. That asshole won’t sign the divorce papers.”

  “What are you going to be able to do tonight?” Nina asked.

  “I want to end this and I’m tired of this shit,” Robin snapped. “All he has to do is sign the papers, and if I have to take them to him and serve him myself, then I will.”

  “Don’t leave like this,” Yolanda said, images of Nina after her accident popping into her head. Seeing Robin show this much anger scared Yolanda. Her attorney sister was the epitome of calm, cool, and collected. But this outburst made her wonder what was really going on between Robin and Logan.

  “I’ll go with you,” Alex said. Yolanda and Nina exchanged wary looks.

  “Alex, I know what you’re trying to do, but I’m going to do this alone.”

  “I’m trying to make sure you don’t run off the road because you’re angry. Now, if you insist on leaving tonight, I’m going with you.”

  Robin sighed, “Fine. Let’s go.” Robin left the kitchen to grab her overnight bag. Alex turned to her younger sisters.

  “We’re going to Charleston because I don’t think Robin needs to see Logan like this.”

  “How are you going to make that happen?” Yolanda asked.

  Alex shrugged. “I’ll figure it out. When we get to the bed-and-breakfast, I’ll give you guys a call.”

  “Good idea,” Nina said, then gave Alex a tight hug.

  “And you two stay out of trouble,” Alex quipped. Chuck walked into the kitchen with the takeout order.