Although Kari maintained her smile, her heart felt faint. Not because of what some silly school kids were saying, but because of what their saying implied. “I’m no beauty queen, Jordan,” she said honestly. “And I doubt if Alex sees me that way.”
“But then why is he with you if he doesn’t think you’re beautiful?”
“It depends on what type of beauty you’re looking for, son. Some men want a beautiful face. Some men want a beautiful body. Some men want a beautiful mind. Some men want it all. Some men just want a beautiful heart.”
“You definitely have a beautiful body,” Jordan said. “The guys are always talking about how nicely shaped you are.”
Kari rolled her eyes. Boys!
“And I can attest to you having a bombshell of a mind and a bombshell of a heart,” Jordan continued. “And even the guys say you’re cute. But they think if you don’t have an exceptional, bombshell of a face, then you don’t deserve a great looking rich guy like Mr. Drakos. They even claim that they read somewhere how Mr. Drakos has a beautiful woman in every town in America, and in every country in the world. If that’s true, why would he want you, they ask me? I don’t know what to say to that.”
“It’s not for you to say anything, Jordan. It’s not your job to go around defending my looks. I’m quite pleased with how I look and I don’t need a defender. You just do your work, get it done, and ignore the questions. Can you do that?”
“I just wish they would stop asking the questions.”
“Since that’s not going to happen,” Kari said, “you have to stop worrying about it. Boys will be boys.”
It’s not just the boys, Jordan wanted to say, but didn’t have the heart to say it. Girls were questioning him too. They figured a man of Alex’s stature deserved better. Or, as their questions implied in the super-white private school he attended, he deserved whiter. Like them. But Jordan kept it to himself.
But as they continued on their way, both of them were concerned for different reasons. After a few moments, Jordan voiced his concern. “I just think it’s stupid,” he said. “They don’t know you or anything about the kind of good person you are.”
“Don’t judge them too harshly, J,” Kari said. “When you first see a girl, what do you automatically determine about her? If she’s smart, has a good heart, or if she’s pretty?”
Jordan thought about it. “Pretty,” he had to admit.
“Right,” Kari said. “That’s just how the world works.”
Jordan looked at his mother. “It doesn’t bother you?”
“No,” Kari admitted. “And you know why?”
“Because you have to live in this world? Because you didn’t make the rules, but you have to live by them?”
“Hell no,” Kari said, and Jordan laughed.
“It doesn’t bother me,” Kari continued, “because I know who I am. And if a man doesn’t want to get to know me, and what I’m about, then to hell with him. I don’t want that man anyway.”
“Did Vito get to know you?” Jordan asked.
Vito was Kari’s now-deceased ex-boyfriend, a man who also happened to be a made man for the mob. “Vito was a body man. If you had a smoking body, and a sassy mouth, he was interested. I had both when I was young and dumb.”
“You’re still young, Ma. I mean, compared to Mr. Drakos anyway.”
Kari laughed. “Yes, compared to him!”
“Twenty-nine isn’t old,” Jordan added.
But as Kari stopped on the side of the road and they both stared at the massive, fenced-in construction site that would one day become Alex’s hotel and casino, she felt old. Because Kari owned a small maid service in town, Alex wanted her to spearhead the entire housekeeping operation for both his hotel and casino once they were built. One local newspaper reporter wrote that it was like asking a kid with a lemonade stand to head up one of the most important departments in a Fortune 500 company. The reporter, in other words, doubted if she could handle it.
Although she knew she could do it once she figured out how she was going to do it, it still felt daunting. Sometimes it felt like such a herculean task that she questioned if she was really up to the job, and if that reporter might have a point. Especially since Alex hadn’t taken the time to sit her down and put any plans in place, or to hear her ideas for how she was going to manage such a task. But she knew, in time, he’d give her some of his valuable time.
Kari put her car in gear to drive away. But Jordan wanted to stay longer. “Ma, don’t leave yet!”
“Alex is coming back in town in a few hours for the groundbreaking ceremony,” Kari said. “Maybe after school he’ll take you onsite to see everything.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Jordan said. “Or maybe he’ll just leave town again.”
Kari knew what her son meant. Alex was out of town more than he was in town. “He runs a major corporation, Jordan, that’s headquartered in New York. His primary residence is in New York. He’s never going to be in Apple Valley all the time.”
“I know. And I understand that. But I just don’t want him neglecting you.”
Kari smiled. And ruffled his soft, low-cut afro. “Don’t worry, son. I won’t let him. How about that?”
Jordan smiled too. Then he immediately perked back up. “Are you as excited as I am, Ma?” he asked as they looked at the backhoes and tractors and other major equipment on site.
“I’m excited for Alex. This will be the first time he invested in a hotel I think. And I’m happy for Apple Valley, too,” she added. “It’s going to be, by far, the biggest job producer in town. Yes. I’m very excited.”
“Imagine the man who owns all of that,” Jordan said, still looking at the construction site, “is the man who loves us. That’s something right there!”
Kari smiled, although she felt a little alarmed too. Jordan was as invested in Alex as she was. He loved them, Jordan the romantic was saying, although Kari could never be certain of another man’s heart. Or even if he felt as deeply about them as they felt about him. She wanted to put up a caution light for her son. She could take a heart break. She’d been there before, and she knew, deep down, she could take it. But she didn’t want her son to take it.
And as Kari drove away from the site to get him to school on time, Jordan sensed it too. He looked at his mother. “It’s not true. Is it, Ma?”
“What’s not true?”
“What those guys at school said.”
“They said a lot, Jordan. Tell me which one of their sayings you’re talking about.”
“About Mr. Drakos having a woman in every town and country.”
Kari exhaled. That! “I can safely say that it’s not true,” she said. “Alex doesn’t have a woman in every town and country.”
Jordan smiled. “I already knew that. I knew he wouldn’t hurt us like that. I already knew it!”
But what Jordan didn’t know, Kari thought as she turned the corner, was that Alex didn’t have to have a woman in every town or country. Kari knew that it would only take one woman, in one town or in one country, to break their hearts.
CHAPTER TWO
The Boeing 787-8 BBJ landed at the Apple Valley airstrip and Alex Drakos, late for his own groundbreaking ceremony, alighted his plane in swift steps and made his way across the tarmac. Following him off the plane were his personal assistant, Priska Rahm; the chief financial officer of Drakos Capital, Matt Scribner; and Jimmy Hines, his chief investigator. Following them were an additional army of assistants needed for most business trips: Alex’s army. They all walked swiftly, too, and piled into the waiting fleet of SUVs. Along with a handful of policemen on motorcycles as escorts, with their sirens blaring, the SUV drivers followed the cops and whisked them away from the airstrip.
“V.I.P. treatment,” said Jimmy Hines as he watched the officers ride those bikes in and out of lanes, stopping traffic, blowing through red lights. “This town knows how to put on a show!”
“We’re late,” said Matt as he continued to text their advan
ce people already on site. “Show or no show, we’re late.”
“We’re late,” said Priska, agreeing with him, “but who cares? It’s a groundbreaking ceremony for crying out loud, Matthew. There is no way they’re going to start without us!”
“Us?” Jimmy asked. “What do you mean us, Pale Face?”
Priska had to smile and shake her head. “I meant Alex,” she said, and they all laughed.
All except Alex. This was dead serious for him. This brand-new hotel and casino, in the heart of the Florida Panhandle, was going to be the opening salvo of what he envisioned would someday be the most profitable chain of hotels and casinos in the world. The Apple Valley location was first in his grand scheme, and it would be the test. If the test succeeded, then his larger plan, which was already in the works, would go into overdrive.
Priska looked at Alex. He sat slouched down in his seat, with his hand beneath his chin, staring out of the window of the SUV. He was an introspective, brooding man who kept his own counsel on most days, but he appeared particularly introspective to Priska on their ride to the site. But she knew, somewhere in there, he had to be over the moon. “Excited?” she asked him.
Alex didn’t immediately respond. He just wanted to get the damn thing built. Besides, after an entire week away, he was more excited about seeing Kari again.
But that wasn’t Priska, or anybody else’s business. “Yes,” he said with a smile, to be rid of her and her questions, and all of his entourage, led by Priska, relaxed within the private confines of their own anticipations.
CHAPTER THREE
The groundbreaking ceremony was a well-attended spectacle for a Monday morning, as townspeople stood around the construction site and hobnobbed with the Governor of Florida, with the mayor of Apple Valley, and with a who’s who of local dignitaries. A live band was playing percussion-heavy Top 40 music as if it was a political rally, and the sun was beaming down as if it had given its stamp of approval too.
Although it all looked marvelously spontaneous, given the festiveness of the crowd, nothing about that ceremony was. Everybody, including the local dignitaries, were under tight movement restrictions, and that included where they could stand. And when word came from the motorcycle cops that the caravan of SUVs was a mere block away, everybody had to make haste to get to their assigned places.
For the politicians and other dignitaries, their assigned place was up top, on the makeshift platform.
For Kari Grant and her three closest friends who stood beside her, their assigned place was in the back of the crowd.
“Why do we have to be all the way back here?” asked Lucinda Mayes, the owner of a local diner, as she jerked her long, blonde hair back. “Don’t they realize who you are, Kari?”
“Those jokers know exactly who she is,” said Faye Church, a real estate broker. Standing alongside her husband Benny Church, an attorney, she was Kari’s best friend. “But they couldn’t care less. If they pretend she’s not the girlfriend, then maybe she’ll just go away.”
“Go away?” Lucinda frowned. “What on earth are you talking about, Faye Church? Why would they want her to go away?”
Faye placed one hand on her narrow hip and gave Lucinda a sidelong look. Of the three lady friends, it was Faye who was the beauty. “I know you aren’t asking me a question like that, Lou.”
“I know I am asking you a question like that, Faye,” Lucinda shot back, placing her hand on her hip too.
“Oh, so you want to play dumb now?” Faye asked her. “Okay, play dumb. I’m about to take you to school.”
Kari and Benny laughed. “Here goes!” said Benny.
“For your information,” Faye said to Lucinda, using her hand as if she was utilizing sign language, “Alexander Drakos is, without question, the most prominent, the richest, the most powerful man Apple Valley has ever had in this town, let alone he’s building what would be the largest business in this town. Apple Valley is 99.99 percent white and almost every one of y’all are interconnected to each other. Kari Grant, like Benny and I, is 99.99 percent black and, other than her relationship with Alex, not connected at all. These city leaders want one of their own to hook up with Alex and, by extension, hook Alex up with them so he can give financial backing to their power grabs and latest get-rich-quick schemes. And you’re asking me why I think they want her to just go away?”
Lucinda couldn’t help but smile. “Point taken,” she said. “Although I’m sure it didn’t take all of that signing and drama queen going on the way you love to do.”
“I know Jordan hates missing the ceremony,” Benny said to Kari, to quickly change the subject before his wife and Lucinda became too animated.
“He does,” Kari responded. “You know how excited he is.”
“You and Alex talked about it?” Benny asked her.
Kari found that question odd. Jordan was Kari’s son. Alex was not his father. “There was nothing to talk about,” Kari said. “He wasn’t missing school for this.”
Lucinda shook her head. “You are so strict,” she said.
“When it comes to my son and his education? Damn right I am!”
Before Lucinda could fire back, the mayor hurried over to the podium and made an announcement. “Ladies and gentleman,” he said excitedly, “our guest of honor has arrived!”
Everybody looked toward the entrance gate as a convoy of SUVs drove on site. Kari’s heart began to swell in happy anticipation as the doors to the SUVs swung open, and Alex stepped out of one of them. She hadn’t seen him in a week, and she missed him terribly!
Applause broke out when Alex stepped out, and the band began playing Gonna Fly Now, the theme song from Rocky. Kari smiled as Alex, a frown on his face, put on his suit coat and made his way toward the platform. Kari was smiling because she knew just how passionately he hated that particular song!
Lucinda leaned toward Kari as they watched him. “That is one gorgeous man,” she said. Lucinda, like Kari, was single too. “If he wasn’t yours, or if he was yours and I didn’t know you like I know you, I’d be all over that fine line of meat!”
“But since he is hers,” Faye leaned over and interjected, “and since you do know her like that, your wishful thinking is of no consequence to anything at all!”
Lucinda rolled her eyes. “You always have something to say, Faye Church. I was talking to Kari.”
“And I was talking to you.”
“Cool it, ladies,” Benny said. Faye and Lucinda’s legendary bickering were as much a part of their relationship as their closeness and sisterhood. But it also annoyed the crap out of him. “Let’s keep it dignified.”
“Please tell Lucinda that,” said Faye to Benny.
“Please tell Faye that,” said Lucinda to Benny.
“Please bow your heads,” said Mayor Lonnie Wilder from the podium to all in attendance, after Alex took his rightful place beside them, “for the opening prayer by Chaplain McCartney.”
As the chaplain prayed, and as they all bowed their heads in prayer, Faye and Lucinda, standing on either side of Kari, held her hands. They knew how important this moment was to her. Alex lived and worked out of New York City. This soon-to-be-built hotel and casino was his only connection to Apple Valley, Florida, and was the reason he came to their town to begin with. She needed this to succeed, her friends felt, so that his connection to Apple Valley, and to Kari herself, wouldn’t be severed.
When the prayer was completed, the Governor gave remarks of encouragement that Alex knew, given the governor’s verbosity, would drag on. Since Alex had already heard his rah-rah let’s get it done speech many times before, he wasn’t listening nor looking. His eyes, instead, were looking for Kari.
It was so obvious that he was searching the faces in the crowd for a particular face in the crowd that Lucinda elbowed Kari. “He’s looking for you, girl,” she said.
Faye, realizing it too, raised her hand from the back of the crowd and then, when Alex looked in that direction, pointed at the top of Kari
’s head.
“Babe, quit!” Benny said when he saw what his wife was doing, but Faye smiled when it worked. Alex, she could tell, finally saw Kari! And he frowned when he realized where they had positioned her.
Without hesitation, Alex walked off of that platform right in the middle of the governor’s speech!
“He’s coming for you, Kare,” Faye said. “He’s coming for you!”
Lucinda was shaking her head and smiling too. “I don’t believe it,” she said. “He left that stage to come get you!”
But Kari’s heart was hammering. Not because of his bold move, but because of what that move meant to her. She’d always had struggles in this life. She was always considered the girl least likely to succeed and the one so many people in this world looked down upon. Life for her, as the Langston Hughes poem Mother to Son proclaimed, ain’t been no crystal stair. Life for her, as the poem continued, had been bare.
But for some crazy reason Alex Drakos chose her. And just like Jordan’s friends said, he chose her out of all the women he could have chosen. And it wasn’t a private choice either. There was nothing undercover about their relationship! Alex, even more so than Kari, had no problem whatsoever letting that same world that cast her aside know that she belonged to him. And he let them know it every chance he could.
The surprised townspeople moved aside as Alex made his way to the back of the crowd. Although the Governor continued to speak, he also continued to take harsh glances at the mayor for not controlling their guest of honor better.
But if he knew anything, he knew nobody was controlling Alex. Especially when it came to Kari.
Alex reached out his hand to Kari when he was close enough to her, and Kari took his hand. A chill ran up his spine when she touched him, and his heart warmed when their eyes met. The idea that they would place her in the back of the crowd, when they knew she was his woman, angered him.
Alex Drakos 3_What They Did For Love Page 2
