She stroked his leg and smiled. “You know just what to say to make a girl’s day. May I have my shoe back now?”
Devon kneeled down and placed her shoe on her foot. “There you go, Cinderella.”
“Why, thank you, Prince Charming,” she said in an exaggerated Southern drawl. “Maybe later, you can take them off.”
When she stood up, Devon pulled her against his chest and brushed his lips against hers and said, “Maybe the shoes are the only thing I want to see you in at the end of the day.”
Marie’s phone rang, her signal that the car service was downstairs. Kissing Devon quickly, she grabbed her oversized purse and headed out the door. She’d packed a pair of flats in the bag because she’d learned her lesson about wearing the wrong shoes in the kitchen.
When she got into the car, Marie released a calm sigh. “Excuse me,” she said to the driver when she noticed that they hadn’t moved an inch. “What’s the problem, I have an appointment.”
The driver turned around, revealing himself to be William. “The problem is, you won’t return my phone calls.”
“Are you kidding me? Where the hell is my driver?” Marie yelled and reached for the door handle. William locked the door.
“Can we talk for just a few minutes?” he pleaded.
“Unlock the door, now! I have nothing to say to you.”
“I miss you and we’re going to talk,” he said. “We’re supposed to be planning our life together.”
Marie grabbed her BlackBerry. “Open the doors or I will call the police.”
William started the car. “That’s extreme, don’t you think?”
“Move this car, and I swear, I will have your ass arrested for kidnapping.”
“Marie, I made a mistake and I want to make up for it. I love you.”
She released a thundering laugh and punched the back of his seat. “You are a damned joke. And let’s be real, we didn’t share love. I needed a husband to shut my father up and you needed my coattails. Now that Greta has kicked you out again, you think you can come crawling back to me?”
“That’s over because my heart is with you,” he said.
Marie looked at the time on her phone. She had five minutes to get to her meeting with her parole officer; playtime was over as she dialed 911. “Yes, I need the police,” she said to the operator. “I’m being kidnapped by a homicidal maniac. His name is William Franklin. I think he killed my driver and he has me locked in a Lincoln Town Car outside of ...” The door lock clicked. “Never mind, he’s letting me go.” Marie hopped out of the car and took off running down the street. She hoped that she could make it to the Gold Rush trolley in time. Heads were going to roll at the car company. I need my driver’s license back so I can run William over! she thought as she reached the trolley stop just as it pulled up. Maybe her morning wouldn’t be completely ruined.
Devon washed the breakfast dishes before leaving Marie’s place. When he drove by the front of the building, he was surprised to see the town car was still parked out front. Had something happened? Devon slowed the car and pulled up beside that vehicle. Turning his hazards on, he placed the car in park. Dashing to the driver’s side, he banged on the window. “Hey, is everything all right?”
The man Devon assumed was the driver rolled the window down and scowled at him. “Who the hell are you?”
“Where’s my girlfriend? You should’ve picked her up thirty minutes ago.”
The driver opened the door, nearly knocking Devon over. “What’s your problem, partner?” Devon growled.
“First of all, the name’s William Franklin. And secondly, Marie is my fiancée, not your girlfriend.”
“You’re delusional,” Devon said. “Everybody knows Marie came to her senses about what a son of a bitch you are and you two have been over. Now where is she?”
“I’m delusional? That would be you, buddy, if you think Marie Charles is going to stay with you and continue on this little I’m-a-saint-now routine. She’s a party girl, she likes being seen and talked about. That’s why we’re perfect for each other. Who the hell are you, anyway? Some nobody her father handpicked for her? Much like the punk I snagged her from in the beginning.”
Devon shook his head, wondering what Marie ever saw in this idiot to begin with. Still, he had to know if he’d done something to Marie. “Is she in the car?” he demanded.
“No.”
Devon pushed William aside and peered into the backseat. He didn’t see any signs of Marie. Turning around, he grabbed William by his shirt and threw him against the open door.
“Where the hell is she?” he asked, putting pressure on William’s throat with his elbow.
“Shh–she got out ... the car,” he gasped. Devon tossed him to the ground and glared at him.
“Stay away from her. Understand me?” he hissed, then jogged over to his car. Devon headed to the courthouse, hoping Marie made her meeting and that William hadn’t caused her any more trouble. He would’ve called her, but if she was in a meeting with her probation officer, the last thing he wanted was for the phone to ring and interrupt them. Besides, he did have to deliver his verification report to the probation officer—no time like the present.
After finding a parking spot and walking the block and a half to the courthouse, he was happy to see Marie exiting the building. “Devon,” she said when she spotted him. “What are you doing here?”
“Checking up on you. I saw the town car in front of your building as I left and your ‘fiancé’ was masquerading as the driver. I just wanted to make sure you’d made it to your meeting and see if you were OK.”
“Did that idiot really tell you he was my fiancé?” Marie asked as she shook her head. “I was just about to call the car company and give them a big piece of my mind. I can’t believe he just got rid of the driver and took over the car like that. What kind of bootleg organization are they running?”
Devon shook his head. “We can take care of that later. Since I’m here, we might as well ride to My Sister’s Keeper together. That way you won’t have to worry about running into William again.”
“Well, this morning hasn’t been all bad,” she said with a smile. “My probation has been completed early and my driver’s license will be reinstated in five days.”
“Wow. I guess you impressed the right people with your work.”
“That and a letter Elaine wrote on my behalf,” she said with a smile.
“So what does this mean for you and volunteering at the shelter now?” he asked.
Marie shrugged. “I don’t have to do it anymore. But it doesn’t mean that I plan to stop working with you and the ladies. My Sister’s Keeper has really grown on me, and I want to make sure things work out for Bria.”
Devon hugged her tightly and kissed her forehead. He couldn’t have been happier to hear her say that. Part of him thought she would stop working with My Sister’s Keeper. But the changes in Marie hadn’t been just for show. Now, he could believe it. He took her hand in his and kissed it. Looking in her eyes, Devon knew he loved her more than he thought was possible. Still, he wasn’t sure if he should put his cards on the table. Not that William had gotten to him, but he wasn’t sure if Marie was ready to settle down. She may have tempered her partying ways, but was she going to get bored?
“What?” she asked when she caught the gleam in his eye.
“Nothing,” he replied. “I was just thinking that you and I have some serious celebrating to do. Maybe we should actually go out.”
Marie shrugged, thinking that the only party she needed was with her man in the bedroom or on the kitchen counter. Smiling, she said, “I think we should go someplace ultra-exclusive, where we are tops on the guest list and won’t be worried about other people. And the food is always great.”
“Where is such a place?” he asked, though he knew exactly where she meant.
“In the heart of NoDa. I stay on this guest list,” she said with a wink as they got into the car.
“Is th
at so? Sounds like I need to have a talk with the owner of this establishment,” he joked.
“Yeah, I like him a lot. Coolest man on the planet,” she replied, then leaned over and kissed him. “Sexy as hell, too.”
“Is that so?”
She nodded as he pulled into traffic. Once they arrived at My Sister’s Keeper, the first thing Marie did was seek out Elaine so that she could give her a huge hug of thanks.
“Well,” Elaine said. “All I did was tell the truth. I hope this doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of you.”
“Oh, no,” Marie said. “I’m thinking that my company should add you guys to our company’s roster and help you when you need publicity campaigns.”
“Wow, Marie, that is so sweet, but I’m sure we wouldn’t be able to afford ...”
Marie cut her off. “Who said anything about charging you? What this shelter does for women should be on the front page of the Charlotte Observer, leading the local newscasts, and on the lips of everyone in Charlotte.”
Elaine hugged Marie again. “You’re too kind, thank you so much.”
“Anytime,” she replied. “Now, let me get into the kitchen before the boss gets mad at me.”
Elaine smiled. “I got a feeling that he’s going to be just fine.”
Inside the kitchen, Devon was trying to keep his students on task, but they kept asking him questions about his father, Marie, and the upcoming fund-raiser. “Hey, ladies,” he said, pointing to the dough in the middle of their workstations. “If we don’t knead and stretch, our bread is going to be hard and won’t rise.”
“We don’t care about the bread,” Bria said, her voice light and full of life. “When’s the wedding?”
“That’s right,” Shay said. She still participated in Devon’s class despite the fact that she didn’t live at the shelter anymore. “And I hope you set your dad straight. I read that mess on the blog and I wanted to hunt him down and beat him with my shoe.”
Devon laughed and started kneading his dough. “Join the club. But seriously,” he said as the door opened and Marie walked in, “we have to get this bread ready for baking.” She winked at him and walked over to the full trash cans and began gathering the bags.
“I saw that,” Bria called out as she kneaded her dough. “Marie, are you going to tell us when the wedding is?”
She turned around as she tied up the trash bags. “I defer to the chef,” she quipped and then made a hasty exit.
All of the women stopped kneading and focused on Devon. “Well?” Shay asked.
He looked down at his watch and smiled. “Don’t you have to go to work?”
She looked up at the clock on the wall. “Not for another three hours, which gives me time to question you into submission.”
“Not if that yeast doesn’t rise,” Devon said.
The women settled into the lesson and Devon thought about all of the wedding talk and wondered if his mind should even be going there. Was Marie ready for marriage? Her quip about deferring to him made him wonder if she had simply been trying to take herself off the hook.
Mrs. Devon Harris, Marie thought as she loaded the garbage into the green trash compactor. Marie Charles-Harris. Oh my God, I’m acting like a damned high school freshman. Just because someone said marriage, I can’t simply believe that it’s what Devon wants. He’s never mentioned it. She pressed the compression button and tried to think of something other than walking down the aisle in a strapless butter yellow Angel Sanchez–designed dress. Her cell phone rang and she reached into her pocket, hoping it was the car service so that she could give them a sharp piece of her mind. It was an unknown number, but she had an idea who was on the other end of the phone.
“What do you want, clown?” she answered, assuming the caller was William.
“Is that how Richard Charles taught his daughter to answer the phone?” an unknown voice said.
“Who is this?” Marie asked.
“This is Devon Harris, Sr., and we need to have a serious conversation about you and my son,” he said.
“Are you serious?” Marie inquired. “Your son doesn’t have anything to do with you, so what could we possibly have to talk about?”
“Young lady, I thought you would appreciate what family means; after all, unlike the last trollop my son was involved with, you were raised with class even if you don’t display it.”
Marie gripped her phone and gritted her teeth. “You’re going to give me a lecture on class when you went to one of the sleaziest blogs on the Internet to dish about your son last month?”
“The same blog that made you a star? Was it sleazy then?” Devon Sr. asked.
“I have nothing else to say to you.”
“Listen,” he said. “I honestly want to make peace with my son before I leave this planet. Maybe I haven’t done things in the right way, but he’s all I have left.”
“And what am I supposed to do about it?” she asked.
“I’d rather not get into it over the phone. But if you could talk my son into coming to Atlanta for a fund-raiser I’m hosting in his mother’s memory, we can talk about it.”
Marie released a low whistle; after what Devon had told her about his father and the abuse his mother had suffered at the hands of his father, this was going to be an explosive minefield that she wanted to avoid. “Does he know about this?”
“He would if he answered my calls.”
“I don’t want anything to do with this,” she said, then hung up the phone. Marie trembled as she tried to figure out how to tell Devon about the phone call she just received.
Chapter 21
When Marie and Devon headed to Hometown Delights after his class, he noticed that she was very quiet. “Is everything all right?” he asked as he turned into the restaurant’s full parking lot.
She glanced at him and nodded, still unsure how she should tell him about the conversation she’d had with his father.
“I don’t believe you,” he said, noting the somber look on her face. He shifted the car in park and turned his full attention to her. “You’ve been quiet since we left the shelter. Tell me what’s wrong.”
She sighed and stared into his eyes; concern and worry were etched on his face, and she knew what she was about to say would only make things worse. “Devon, promise me you won’t get too upset when I tell you this.”
“That’s not a good way to start a conversation,” he said. “But, I’ll try.”
“I got a phone call from your father.”
He mumbled a string of curse words that would’ve caused Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor to blush. Marie shook her head. “Devon,” she murmured.
“What did he have to say?”
“Well,” she said, chewing her lip as she considered her words. “Umm, he wants us to come to Atlanta.”
“Absolutely not. The last conversation we had was the last conversation we’re going to have.”
“But, ahh, he’s doing something that you should be aware of, and you’re not going to like it in the least.”
Devon folded his arms and narrowed his eyes at her. “What’s the bastard up to now?”
“Oh, God,” she moaned. “He’s sponsoring a fundraiser.”
He shrugged. “So what? He lends his name to everything. If only people knew what kind of asshole they were worshiping, they would—”
“It’s in your mother’s name,” she blurted out, dropping her head in her hands as if she were bracing for an explosion.
Devon unfolded his arms and hopped out of the car. His silence made Marie worry as she got out of the car herself. Crossing over to him and touching his shoulder, she didn’t know what to expect.
“You know,” Devon said quietly, “he’s done a lot of things that I’ve ignored. There was a time early in my career where his people wanted me to participate in some event he had going on in Atlanta. I told them to go straight to hell. But this. This shit here is beyond tasteless. He wants me to show up. Well, I will. And I’m finally going to rip tha
t mask of I-give-a-damn-about-people off his smug face. That son of a bitch doesn’t have the right to mumble my mother’s name, and he wants to do this?”
“Devon, no.”
He faced her, anger contorting his face into something she barely recognized. “Marie, I love you and I know that you’re close to your father. You love him and he loves you. But the only thing my father has ever cared about is himself and his image. He will not sully my mother’s reputation to add a further feather in his cap. I don’t give a damn if he’s dying or not, I won’t take this lying down.”
She opened her arms to him and hugged him. “Is this what you’re going to need to do to release the anger and find peace? Devon, I don’t know what it was like for you with your father, but he’s dying. Yes, he hurt you and your mother in painful ways that I can’t imagine. But don’t you owe it to yourself to let it go?”
“Every time I think about trying to make real peace with him, he pulls some bullshit like this. All I can do is sever this relationship, and what I plan to do at this fundraiser will do just that.” He started to storm away from her, but Marie grabbed his arm.
“Devon,” she said quietly. “Calm down. Look at me.” He turned and faced her, and she could see his face slowly softening. “Don’t run from me, I want to help you. You’re in pain and I don’t like this.”
He stroked her cheek and tilted his head to the side. “And what am I supposed to do?”
She closed her hand around his. “Forgiveness isn’t about the other person winning; it is about you. You finding peace within yourself. You can’t love if you’re holding on to hate for your father,” she said, her eyes bubbling with tears.
“Is that what you think?” he asked. “You don’t get it. You know what it’s like to have a real father.”
“And that’s why I know you need to see him. Maybe not at this fund-raiser, but you should talk to him, Devon.”
He shook his head and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “I can’t. I’m going to take a walk,” he said.
Recipe for Desire Page 20
