A troubled look appeared in Nikki’s big, brown eyes. “I know.”
“He’s going to blow a gasket when he finds out that his precious little Nikki got herself in a shouting match with the mayor.”
“It wasn’t a shouting match.”
“But that’s how the local press is playing it up. They’re calling it a shouting match.”
“That’s ridiculous. I asked him tough questions, that’s all I did. Anybody who watches that press conference will see that I wasn’t even disrespectful like he claimed.”
“But you’re not dating anybody. You’re dating the senior vice president of the largest company in this state, Nikki. And he’s a conservative man too? And an older man? Child please. He expects his little princess to comport herself in a way befitting his rank and status. And I assure you, my dear, going toe to toe with Mayor Bainbridge is not the kind of comportment he means.”
“Yeah, well,” Nikki said, that feeling of regret coming over her in a wave of embarrassment, “it is what it is. I wish I didn’t have to go there today, but I had to do my job. Todd Bainbridge is ratchet, and somebody had to say something. So I said something. And I’d say it again if I had to.”
Val smiled. That was why she, above any friend he’d ever had, was his best friend. “Good for you,” he said. “Keep giving them hell, Nikki. But be prepared,” he added, pointing his drink at her. “You give them hell, they’re going to give you hell right back. Especially Daniel when he finds out. But he’s not gonna just give you hell. That man is gonna beat your ass.”
Nikki laughed. “That is so not true! He’ll understand.” Then her smile weakened. “Sort of.”
“Yeah, right.”
“He will! It’ll be after he beats my ass, but he’ll understand.”
Val laughed too. “That’s why we love you, Nikki. You always keep it real.”
The waiter returned to take their lunch orders. After Val settled on a salad and Nikki on a burger, the waiter left.
Val looked at his friend. “So how’s all of that going these days?”
Nikki didn’t immediately respond. Then she exhaled. “It’s going . . . okay. I think we’re in a pretty good place right now.”
“His friends still not feeling you?”
“And they never will,” Nikki admitted. “After being with him for four years now, I’m resigned to that fact. It’s like they figure a stately man like Daniel, a former criminal court judge as they love to remind me, should have an equally stately female with an equally august career.”
“In other words,” Val said, never one to mix words, “they figure he should have him an old, rich, white woman.”
Nikki smiled, and then laughed. “I don’t think it’s like that at all.”
“It’s exactly like that,” Val corrected her. “But even I can see the way that man looks at you. I don’t know why they can’t see it. He wants you, not some rich, old anything, and they may as well accept that. And if they don’t accept it then fuck’em, shit. They probably want that fine specimen of a macho man for themselves anyway.”
They high-fived. “That’s what I’m saying,” Nikki said.
When their gaiety died back down, however, Val looked at her. He worried about Nikki. She loved Daniel so much that if it didn’t work out for her, he didn’t think she could survive it. “So,” he said with an exhale in his voice. “Still no ring, hun?”
Nikki sipped from her glass of Coke. “No,” she admitted. Then she frowned. “But who says I want a ring? I knew the deal going in. Daniel made it crystal clear that there was not going to be any marriage at the end of our rainbow. No matter how much he cared about me, he said, he wasn’t ever going to marry me or anybody else. He made that clear from the outset.”
“Yeah, but the outset was four years ago. I guarantee you when that man made all of those pronouncements he never dreamed he’d be with you for four long years. And he fell in love with you too? And I mean for real love? Because I think he loves you above anybody else on the face of this earth, Nikki. I’m not a betting man, but I’d lay a bet on that. But why he won’t snatch you up and make you completely his is a mystery to me.”
“I am completely his,” Nikki said in a voice she knew sounded too defensive. “He made that clear too. We’re in a committed relationship.”
“Yeah, but still. Being girlfriend and being wife are two different things. Sorry girl, but it is. He should take you off the market, that’s all I’m saying.”
“And I hear what you’re saying. I wonder about it too, I’m not gonna lie. But I don’t know, Val. I think he feels I’m not ready for marriage.”
“And why would he feel that way? There’s an age gap, so what? There always was an age gap. There always will be an age gap. I don’t know why that would disqualify you.”
“I don’t think it’s my age. I think it’s me. He feels I take too many risks, and jump on too many crusades, and I just worry him too much, I think. And. . .
“And what, girl?”
“And I’m always questioning him about those females that love to hang around him.”
“Hell yeah you question him!” Val said without hesitation. “You’d better question him.”
“But he doesn’t like it. He thinks that means I’m still maturing, as he puts it, and that I don’t trust him enough.”
“When it comes to sensual matters, I wouldn’t trust him either. He’s too good looking. I’m sorry, but that man is too gorgeous. And the way he used to put it on you too?”
“Put it on me?” Nikki said with a laugh. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about. I used to live with your ass, don’t forget that. Whenever you went out on a date with that man and he would bring you home, you could barely walk. And your eyes would be all glassy, like that man took you to outer space somewhere. ”
Nikki laughed again.
“He’s got honey in that equipment,” Val continued saying. “And when there’s honey, the females are gonna swarm. They can smell it. So I don’t care what he doesn’t like. You’d better keep questioning him.”
Nikki smiled sadly. “Maybe the only man for me is you. Maybe in our old age we can move in together and keep cats.”
“I have a better idea. Maybe you can ease up on the crusades and figure out a way to marry that rich, handsome Daniel Crane. And maybe I can find the love of my life too. Now that’s what I want in my old age. I don’t want no damn cats!”
Nikki laughed just as her cell phone began ringing. “You’re a mess,” she said to laughter from Val. “Hello,” she said into her phone.
“Is this Miss Graham?”
“Yes, it is. May I ask who’s calling?”
“Hello, Miss Graham. I’m Ida Lundford. Mr. Poindexter’s secretary.”
Nikki’s heart dropped. Herbert Poindexter, the publisher of the Gazette, never requested to see a reporter unless that reporter had done something grand, like win a Pulitzer. Or something horrific.
“Are you there, Miss Graham?”
“Yes, yes, I’m here. I’m sorry. When does Mr. Poindexter need to see me?”
The secretary hesitated as if she could not believe Nikki would ask such a question. “At once,” she said, and hung up the phone.
Daniel Crane stepped off the elevator on the top floor of the Dreeson Corporate headquarters building and made his way to his suite of offices. As soon as he entered his suite and greeted his secretary after a weeklong absence, and spoke to his extensive staff in the offices that surrounded his own, he made his retreat. His plan was to check his numerous messages, pick up some necessary paperwork, and then head home. But he wasn’t in his office five minutes before Phillip Grayson, the Public Relations Director and a young man very much in the know, was walking through his door.
“Make it quick, Phillip,” Daniel said as he stood behind his desk shoving papers into his briefcase. “I’m on my way out. I wasn’t planning on coming by here at all.”
“Wel
l welcome back, Daniel. I was lost without you.”
Daniel chuckled and the two men exchanged a warm glance. Although their relationship was a wary one, they still held each other in some regard. But it was usually Phillip, the blond-haired, blue-eyed twenty-something with dreams of rapid advancement, who often forced the contact. If left up to Daniel they would rarely speak.
“I just wanted to make sure you knew,” Phillip said.
“Knew what?” Daniel asked, his attention completely on the papers he needed to take with him. “That you’re lost without me?”
“I wanted to make sure you knew what happened with Nikki.”
Daniel stopped shoving papers and looked at the PR man. “What happened with Nikki?”
“Well, my friend, Miss Nikki Graham managed to get herself into a major confrontation with the mayor today.”
Daniel frowned. “She did what?”
“She got in a confrontation with the mayor.”
“What kind of confrontation?”
“The kind that made him kick her out of his press conference. Oh, it was bad.”
Daniel tossed the papers in his briefcase and unbuttoned his suit coat. He placed his hands on his hips. He had just flown in from Florida and was all parts exhausted. And now this. “What was this confrontation about?” he asked.
“That road improvement plan of the mayor’s. Nikki seems to think there’s not enough minority contractors involved in the process. She and Todd Bainbridge went toe to toe about it.”
Daniel dismissed Phillip’s description because he knew of his director’s penchant for hyperbole. But it was still disconcerting news. Why the hell should she feel it necessary to become the spokesperson for rich minority contractors? They could fight their own battles.
“Okay, Phil,” he said to his director. “Thanks for letting me know.”
Phillip’s expression was one of disappointment. Was that it? He’d just given Crane the heads up and all he got in return was a generic thank-you? He at least expected some real outpouring of gratitude from the man, or at least some venting of frustration about that out-there girlfriend of his. But just thank-you? That’s it? Thank-you?
Daniel looked sternly at his director. He knew what he wanted from him. But he wasn’t getting it. “I’ll talk to you later,” he said, making it clear, by his eye contact alone, that the matter was over and he was, in fact, being dismissed. Daniel never discussed details about his relationship with Nikki, and he certainly wasn’t about to start now.
Phillip didn’t like it. But what could he do about it? Daniel wasn’t just the boss, he was Phillip’s boss’s boss.
Phillip left.
And less than half an hour later, Daniel was in his Jaguar, driving across the Tatem-Warren Bridge, fighting anger and exhaustion on his way to Nikki’s house.
CHAPTER SIX
Daniel drove his pearl-white Jaguar onto the narrow driveway of Nikki’s townhouse. It was late evening in Wakefield, with an overcast sky, and Daniel, too, was taking it slow.
He got out of his car, walked across the sidewalk, and then slowly up the steps to her front door. His oak-brown, Versace suit, a suit that fitted his muscular frame with snug perfection, blew wildly in the wind. His shoes were Italian import, too, shining brightly as he walked up the steps. And with his wavy mane of dark-brown hair and his dazzling hazel eyes, and with his tanned face stern but undeniably handsome, he struck a mighty pose. Ever since he arrived in Wakefield, after resigning his position as a criminal court judge in Florida, every unattached female had tried to get their hooks in him. He would date occasionally, including a couple of them he dated more than a few times, yet it never went beyond a sexual interest for him.
But it would end up being Nikki, a young, opinionated black woman, that would turn out to have that lasting power. And although their relationship was one of the most contentious he’d ever had, often with the kind of turmoil that kept him up nights, it was also the most gratifying relationship he’d ever experienced. He loved her, not just because she had that rare combination of smarts and irresistibility, but mainly because she was all heart. She was a friend to the friendless. She fought for those least able to fight for themselves. And he loved her for that.
But he was just about ready to throttle her when he heard the news about her encounter with the mayor. That was why he didn’t phone her immediately. That was why he slowed his walk even now as he made it to her front door. She was known as a loose cannon and a firebrand, a woman who spoke her mind no matter what the consequences, but he was known as a hothead himself when he was fired up enough. So he knew he couldn’t confront her without taking a serious set of deep breaths, and slowing himself down.
But when he rang the doorbell and received no response, and then turned the knob just to make sure she wasn’t up to her old tricks again, and the door opened, he couldn’t take it slow a moment longer.
He entered the townhome quickly, closing and locking the door behind him as he yelled her name. How many times did he have to tell her to stop being so damn trusting? Yes, Wakefield wasn’t some crime-ridden big city. Yes, she lived here all of her life. But that didn’t give her license to pretend there were no assholes out there. There were plenty. And it terrified Daniel to think that one of them could have harmed his woman as easily as walking through her front door.
When she didn’t respond to him calling her name, and she was not in the living room or the kitchen of the two-bedroom home, he headed upstairs.
Nikki was upstairs turning off the water tap and stepping out of the shower when she heard footsteps on the landing. She knew it was Daniel, because he was the only somebody who had a key to her home, and she had already assumed he would be coming over tonight. She also assumed, given what happened with the mayor earlier today, that he was going to be pissed.
But that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to stand her ground. Mayor Bainbridge couldn’t continue to get away with his foolishness and somebody had to call him out on it. She wasn’t about to back down just because she was the one who had the guts to do so.
She removed her shower cap, shaking her head to release her shoulder-length hair as she did so, and pulled a towel from the rack. She was just about to call his name, to ensure that it was indeed Daniel, when he called hers instead.
“Nikki!” he called out with a voice that had that impatient edge she knew so well. “Nikki!”
“I’m in here!” she replied with a yell of her own.
Daniel made his way across the hardwood floor of her master bedroom, and onto the marbled tile of the adjacent bath. He hadn’t seen her in an entire week, and had missed her terribly, but he was too upset with her to give such sentiment a second thought.
Yet, as soon as he saw her, standing there dripping wet, her big brown eyes looking up at him with the sincerity of a loyal friend and the sensuality of a masterful seductress, he immediately softened. And remembered why he loved her in the first place.
Nikki’s heart swelled, too, when he appeared at her bathroom door. And just like every time she saw him, she was amazed that this very conservative, distinguished-looking older man was her man.
Daniel leaned against the doorjamb. His tired eyes trailed down the length of that naked brown body he often craved, from her sizeable breasts that stood out taut and full, to her flat, toned stomach, to her gorgeously unblemished legs. She had that look he loved and that only the most confident of women displayed: that look of complete self-possession. That look that made clear that she was who she was and if you didn’t like it, then that was your problem, not hers.
And just seeing her again, after an entire week without seeing her at all, caused his heart to feel that sweet warmth inside that no other woman had been able to elicit.
He told her at the very beginning of their relationship that marriage was not going to happen. And although she accepted his terms wholeheartedly, something was beginning to change. But oddly enough, it wasn’t changing in her, it was changing in him. He
had expected her to start pressuring him about marriage as the years came and went, even though she knew at the start it wasn’t going to happen. But she never pressured him at all. She never even brought it up. It was Daniel, to his own amazement, who was actually giving marriage serious consideration.
“What time did you get back in town?” she asked him.
“I just got back.”
“I called your cell phone.”
“I know you did.”
“Numerous times.”
“I know that too.”
“Why didn’t you call me back, Daniel? I could have wanted something important.”
“Didn’t I tell you about leaving that door unlocked?”
Nikki looked at him. What door, she almost asked. “I didn’t realize I left it unlocked,” she finally said. “I came in with an armful of groceries, and I thought I had gone back and locked it. I guess I forgot.”
“This isn’t the same town you grew up in, Nikki. How many times do I have to tell you that? There are real nut-jobs out there waiting for an opportunity. Stop giving them an opportunity.”
“You act like I did it on purpose. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“But you did it, that’s the point, Nikki. I want you to stop doing it. You’re always out there defending everybody else’s rights, defend yours a little better and stop being so gotdamn trusting.”
“Okay.”
“You hear me?”
“Yes, I hear you,” Nikki said. Daniel could be so forceful when it came to her safety that she couldn’t help but hear him loud and clear. But it wasn’t always that way. There used to be a time, early in their relationship, when she wondered if he loved her at all.
It was mainly because of his actions that filled her with doubt. When they first started dating four years ago, and he would frequently go out of town on business trips, she would phone him every day, sometimes multiple times a day, just to hear his voice. Then she realized something startling: she was always phoning him, but he rarely ever phoned her. So she stopped doing it. And whenever he would return from those trips, she used to go to his big, beautiful home and would cook him a big dinner and wait for him in the most seductive clothing she owned. He would be thrilled to see her, and would make love to her on the spot, but she began to wonder if she was forcing the issue. So she stopped doing that too.
DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN Page 7
