And as he escorted Kari from the back of the crowd all the way up onto the platform, still holding her hand as she took her rightful place beside him, he gave the mayor a look that made it clear just how he felt about that little slight. The mayor hunched his shoulders and tried to smile it off so that the crowd wouldn’t notice the tension. But Alex wasn’t playing along.
“Wow,” Faye said as they watched it all unfold.
Benny was equally impressed. “That man has balls,” he said.
Lucinda agreed, in a different way. “I’ll bet he does,” she said with a grin, as she stared, even from afar, at that thick package between Alex’s legs too massive for even clothes to conceal.
Benny, who didn’t mean that at all, looked at his wife. And then both of them gave Lucinda a hard, give it a rest will you please look.
CHAPTER FOUR
After the ceremony, and after the ceremonial upturning of the ground by Alex and the other dignitaries in attendance, all in hardhats and with ceremonial shovels, Alex momentarily broke away to walk Kari and her friends to their cars. Kari had driven her own car. Faye and Lucinda had come in Benny’s. But as they approached Kari’s Toyota, Lucinda was shaking her head.
“I don’t know why you won’t kiss that Tercel goodbye and get yourself a new car,” said Lucinda.
“I have a perfectly fine car,” Kari replied. “It gets me from point A to point B without me having to pay one dime of a car note. Why would I waste my hard-earned money on another car when I have a perfectly fine one already?”
“I’m sure Alex would spring for a new car for you if you’d only ask him,” said Faye, and she and Lucinda high-fived and grinned.
Alex was smiling too. Mainly because he’d already gone around the block with Kari about that car of hers on numerous occasions. He understood her now. “She has a car,” he said to her friends. “And I appreciate that she wants to keep it. She worked hard. Paid it off. I respect that.”
“Thank you!” Kari said with a grin of her own.
“You’re saying that now,” said Lucinda to Alex, “but I’ll bet you any amount of money that when you guys get married---”
Kari was alarmed. “Married?” she quickly asked. “Who said anything about marriage?”
But Faye agreed with Lucinda. “When you put a ring on it,” she said to Alex, “I guarantee she won’t be styling around town in no old-behind car then!”
Alex smiled. “Damn right she won’t,” he said, and everybody laughed.
Kari smiled and shook her head. “Very funny,” she said.
“Enjoy your freedom while you can, Kare,” Benny said jokingly as he, Faye, and Lucinda broke away from the Tercel and began heading toward his BMW. “He’s telling you what you can expect in your future!”
Kari laughed at Benny’s joke, but she knew it was hardly a laughing matter. “Where are you guys headed?” she asked them.
“We’re giving Lucinda a lift to Pensacola to pick up her brand-new car,” Benny said. “That’s why they’re harping on cars so much. Lou’s getting one.”
“Didn’t you just buy one last year?” Kari asked Lucinda.
“Yeah, so?” Lucinda asked Kari.
“She leases those cars every year, Kari,” said Faye.
“And how is that her business?” Lucinda asked Faye. “Don’t hate.”
Kari laughed and shook her head. “Enjoy your car payments,” she said to Lucinda.
“Oh, I shall,” Lucinda replied with a laugh as she, Faye, and Benny got into Benny’s car.
After they drove away, Alex was pleased to finally have a private moment with Kari, although the groundbreaking festivities were still in full force. They stood at her opened car door. Alex was standing so close to her that his aroused penis was pressing against her thigh. Kari could feel how hard he was, as they stared into each other’s eyes.
“Do we get to keep you for a few days?” she asked. “Or will you have to go back to New York today?”
“I need to get back,” Alex said, “but I’m not going back.”
Kari smiled. “You aren’t?”
“Not today, no.”
Kari was elated. Having Alex around was what excited her!
Alex was excited too. He was seeing Kari again. And despite where they were, and who might or might not be watching them, he leaned toward her and kissed her.
It was a chaste kiss, given where they were, but it was enough of a tease to get Alex throbbing. “I hate that I have to hang around and hobnob with these fools,” he said.
Kari laughed.
“I’d rather be with you,” he added.
Kari would rather too. “It’s needful,” he said. “You’re the best show in town right now. They want a piece of your glitter. Besides, you have to do what you have to do,” she added.
“They purposely placed you in the back of that crowd,” he said. “You know that, right?”
Kari nodded. Nothing she wasn’t well accustomed to! “I know.”
“Small-minded motherfuckers,” Alex said. “If this town wasn’t a means to an end for me, I would have you and Jordan out of this shithole so fast it would leave them reeling.”
“Hold your horses, pal,” Kari said. “This shithole is our home. It’s a town that has its share of fools like everywhere else, yes, it does, but that doesn’t negate the fact that it’s a very nice place to live. And most of the people are very nice.”
“You like it here?”
“That’s why I’m still here. Yes, Alex, I like it here. Very much.”
Alex knew that would change if he insisted. But now was not the time.
“Anyway, I see the governor giving me the side eye,” Kari said as she got into her car. “I’d better let you get back to them. Although I see the mayor’s left already.”
“He says he has some meetings he had to attend. But he didn’t get away before I gave him a piece of my mind about that little stunt he pulled on you.”
Kari smiled. She saw the tongue-lashing from afar.
Alex closed her car door, Kari cranked up and pressed down the window, and Alex rested his arms on the window frame. “You’re coming over later?” he asked her.
“You know it. But first you’re coming to dinner. Jordan wants to see you, too, you know, and I have this new recipe I want to try out. A Greek dish.”
Alex smiled. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he said. And they stared at each other again, looking forward to being together tonight. “Need anything?” he asked her. “Other than me, of course.”
Kari smiled. “No, I’m good.”
“You still haven’t used that credit card I gave to you, Karena.”
“I’m good.”
Alex understood. Kari wasn’t giving up her stubbornness without a knockdown drag-out. He was going to win that fight, he knew, when she became his wife, but there was a time and a place for everything.
He kissed her on the lips again, backed up, and she drove away.
CHAPTER FIVE
“The mayor will see you now.”
Cal Fleck and Josh Brown stood up, buttoned their suitcoats, and made their way into the mayor’s big office. They were impressed, but it was also nothing they weren’t used to.
Lonnie Wilder, the mayor of Apple Valley, Florida, rose to his feet, offered them a sit down in front of his desk, and sat back down after his guests. He left the groundbreaking ceremony early because of this meeting. But there were no friendly smiles. This was not that kind of meeting. This was all a matter of business.
“You reviewed it?” Cal asked him.
The mayor closed the folder that sat atop his desk in front of him. “I reviewed it.”
“And?”
“I was surprised how easy it came together.”
“It’s all arranged, as you can see,” said Josh. “Do it now.”
The mayor shook his head. “It’s not that simple.”
“It has to be.”
“But it’s not.”
“The f
acts are laid out before you,” Josh said.
“Carefully laid before you,” added Cal. “You have to act now while we still have time.”
“But you don’t understand,” the mayor said. “Alexander Drakos is one of the most powerful businessmen in this country, if not THE most powerful. If we try this shit against a man like him, and it fails--”
“It won’t fail.”
“But if it does--”
“Stop with the excuses,” said Cal. “It won’t fail.”
“But you don’t understand,” the mayor said again. “You don’t understand at all. They’re talking about running me for governor someday. They’re talking about a possible cabinet post if I keep my nose clean. If anything goes wrong, and I mean anything, this will destroy my political future.”
Cal jumped out of his seat and hurried behind the mayor’s desk and forced himself into the mayor’s face. “Your political future?” he asked angrily. “Fuck that,” he said, and then pulled out a gun and placed it to the mayor’s head. “What about your life?”
The mayor flinched. He knew these men meant business.
“Do it,” Josh ordered. “Do it now.”
CHAPTER SIX
“One ham-and-cheese with cappuccino to go, coming up!”
Kari was ordering lunch inside Lucinda’s, the diner owned by Lucinda Mayes that happened to be next door to Maid for Mom, Kari’s cleaning service. That was how Kari and Lucinda met and became fast friends: the proximity of their businesses. Although Lucinda was in Pensacola picking up a new car and wouldn’t be at the diner today. But that wasn’t new either: Lucinda was rarely at the diner that bore her name.
While waiting for her lunch, Kari walked over to the bakery side of the diner and looked at the cakes on display. She saw the woman when she first walked in. She was such a strikingly beautiful woman, new to Kari’s eyes, that she did give her a second glance. And Kari eventually noticed how she was looking at her. But she didn’t think anything nefarious about it.
She still didn’t, even when the woman made her way over to the bakery area too. “Lucinda loves her cakes,” the woman said.
“Yes, she does,” said Kari. Was she a friend of Lucinda’s? “And they’re delicious too.”
“You’ve tried them?” the female asked.
Kari looked at her. She was a tall white woman, almost a foot taller than Kari. “You haven’t tried Lucinda’s cakes? You must not be from around here!”
The woman smiled. “I’m not. And I haven’t tried any of her desserts, I’m afraid. But I heard so much about them.”
“Girrl, you’re missing out!” Kari said. “They are excellent.”
“Kari,” the worker behind the counter yelled, “your to-go is ready!”
“Try the red velvet,” Kari said to the woman as she turned to leave. “You’re love it, I promise.”
The woman placed her hand on Kari’s arm, stopping her progression. Kari looked at the woman. And suddenly, as if a lightbulb had come on, she could sense this woman was not the friendly bystander she, at first, purported to be. “Yes?” Kari asked her.
“Leave Alex Drakos alone.”
But even with her sudden perceptiveness, Kari didn’t expect to hear those words. “Excuse me?”
“Leave Alex Drakos alone.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Leave him alone. You know what I’m talking about.”
“And you are?” Kari asked her.
“Don’t worry about who I am,” the woman said. “You worry about what I’m saying. You need to leave Alex Drakos alone.”
Kari stared at her. “And if I don’t?”
The woman gave her a hard stare. “Leave him alone,” she said, and walked out of Lucinda’s diner.
At first, Kari just stood there. The nerve of that chick! Who did she think she was to warn her off of her own man? And then Kari decided she needed to find out. She needed to know just who she really was! She hurried out of the diner behind the woman.
“Kari, you forget your lunch!” the man behind the counter yelled out. But Kari kept walking.
When she got out onto the sidewalk, the woman was opening the door of her car.
“Why are you so concerned about my relationship with Alex?” Kari asked from the sidewalk.
“You heard what I said.”
“Yeah, but who are you, and why are you saying it?”
The woman got into her car, cranked up, and began backing out.
Kari immediately pulled out her phone and pressed number one, her code to call Dan Drysdale, the man Alex placed in charge of her security detail. He was not onsite, but she wanted his men, who were always hidden from view but very much viewing her, and who were onsite, to follow that woman.
“Is everything alright, Miss Grant?” the security chief asked.
But before Kari could answer, the woman who had backed away from the diner, suddenly threw her gear out of Reverse and into Drive. And then she pressed that gas and floored it. Her car suddenly, almost comically sped up, jumped the curb, and then, uncomically, headed straight for Kari!
Kari’s heart fell through her shoe when she realized that crazy woman had hit the gas and was about to run her over. Kari backed up as the car began careening toward her. She didn’t want to make her move too soon or that car would have time to change course and veer toward her.
But backing up was only backing her right into the line of that vehicle’s rage. She knew it. But she waited.
She waited until the last possible second, and then Kari dived out of the way to avoid a certain destiny with death. The woman, who could not or would not stop, plowed through the window of Lucinda’s diner, shattering the glass and knocking over tables that could have easily been occupied by customers, until the crash itself stopped her.
And the men Alex paid a small fortune to protect Kari came running out of the woodwork, groups hurrying over from two different directions. Some sped over in cars, some ran over on foot.
They helped Kari to her feet with their guns drawn, creating a circle of protection around her, and their eyes were hypervigilant for any new ambush. But Kari was still stunned by the sudden and dramatic ambush she’d just experienced. And her eyes were on the driver of that vehicle, a vehicle now halfway inside the diner, as customers fled in panic and shock.
Some of Alex’s men had already made their way to the driver side door of the vehicle, ready to drag the woman out. But even Kari could see there was no use for that. Even Kari could see that the woman, who had warned her off of Alex as if it was a final warning, did not survive her own attack.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The glad-handing was getting old really fast, but Alex knew he had to stay and take it. Those people were state and local leaders who could create problems for him on an exponential scale if he wasn’t careful. Matt Scribner, his CFO, was particularly astute at such ceremonies. He and many of the top leaders were chatty and very friendly. But that damn governor, the one Alex had to entertain, was more interested in how Alex could line his pockets, rather than what he could do for the state of Florida.
That was why, when Priska, his personal assistant, and Jimmy Hines, his chief investigator, hurried to his side, he felt as if he was being saved by the bell. Until he found out why the bell was ringing to begin with.
“It’s not about me,” the governor was saying. “As you know, my job title alone will make me a draw no matter what or where. But if you and I join forces, and you publicly support my bid to run for the Senate, and financially support that bid, of course, then I think we both can benefit tremendously. I think--”
“Excuse me, sir,” Priska Rahm said as she interrupted the governor midsentence.
“Excuse me,” said the governor. He did not like the interruption, especially not when he had a chance to gain millions in political support. “Don’t you realize we’re having a conversation?”
But Alex ignored the governor. “What is it, Priss?” he asked his assistant. His p
eople knew not to interrupt him unless it was absolutely necessary.
“There’s been a situation, sir,” Priska said. But when she added, “involving Miss Grant,” Alex’s heart dropped.
“Excuse me,” he said to the governor, not caring if he liked it or not, and immediately moved aside with his people. “What’s happened?” he asked, his suit coat opened, his hands on his hips.
“According to the security detail,” Jimmy Hines said, “a woman had words with Miss Grant outside of Lucinda’s diner, got into her car, and then attempted to run her over.”
Alex couldn’t believe it. “To run who over? Kari?”
“Yes, sir.”
Alex’s heart dropped even further, and he began running for his fleet of SUVs. “Where’s Karena now?” he asked as he ran. “Is she okay?”
“She’s still at the scene, sir,” Jimmy said, running to keep pace. “And yes, she’s okay. The woman didn’t hit Kari, but she drove her car straight through the window of the diner.”
Alex looked back at Jimmy as if he had to be needling him. “Get the fuck out of here!” he said.
“I know,” said Jimmy. “And from what they’re telling me, the car is still sitting inside that diner and the woman who was driving it is dead.”
Alex could hardly believe it. Kari had just left his side!
“She’s shaken,” Jimmy added, “but they say she’s otherwise okay.”
That was reassuring to Alex, but it wouldn’t stop his heart from pounding until he saw Kari for himself.
He jumped into the SUV, Priska and Jimmy jumped in with him, and the driver sped off.
He held onto the coat hook as the SUV swerved and turned sharp corners and flew through the streets of Apple Valley. He couldn’t get to Kari fast enough, and the driver demonstrated that fact.
But when his SUV approached Lucinda’s diner, and Alex saw that car half inside the diner and half on the sidewalk, his heart sank. He realized how fast she had to be going to cause that kind of damage. He realized just how close Kari had to have come to certain death!
Alex Drakos 3_What They Did For Love Page 3
