Jill laughed throatily. “Work keeps me really busy. I don’t have a lot of time to date.”
“I hope I can change that. You’re too pretty not to have a life outside of an old office building.”
She cast her eyes down shyly. “It’s getting pretty late,” she said.
“You know what they say about time flying when you’re having fun,” he said as he rose to his feet, holding his hand out to help Jill to her feet.
Electric currents of unspoken desire passed though them as their hands touched.
When Jill stood, her breasts brushed against Darren’s chest, sending a ripple of lust down his spine. He was tempted to ask her if he could take her home, but Jill wasn’t the kind of woman that he could see hopping into bed with a man she barely knew. Besides, he wanted more than something physical with Jill. She was a woman who deserved love, commitment and respect. If she would allow him, he’d give her all of that and more.
Chapter Four
Jill waved to Darren as the taxi took off from the curb. She wished he were sitting beside her, going home with her. But it was way too soon for that and if a one-night stand was all Darren wanted from her, she would be sorely disappointed. She couldn’t deny that she’d had a great time with him, though. Darren was funny, sexy and made her smile with just a touch. Jill used to look at couples and wonder why they smiled at each other all the time, whether it was possible to be that interested in one person and what they had to say. She now knew the answer was yes.
Jill closed her eyes and relived the memory of their dance at Red. The way he moved his body against hers had ignited a fire inside her that had been dormant for so long. Jill was surprised by how boldly she’d danced with him, bumping and grinding against him, wanting to feel his erection pressed against her. She loved knowing that he wanted her. That fact sent her body into overdrive. Maybe that was why she’d pretended not to notice his longing as she danced like she was twenty years old again. She hummed the John Legend song as the driver took her home. The only thing that could have made the evening more spectacular would’ve been a kiss from Darren.
When he was checking her out in Red, she’d noticed that his stare lingered a little longer on her lips. All he had to do was lean over, because she wanted to taste him so badly she ached for it. And when he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her into his hips, she’d waited for the kiss, wanting the pleasure of tasting him, feeling his lips pressed against hers.
“Miss, this is your stop,” the driver said.
Jill opened her wallet and handed him a $50 bill. “Goodnight,” she sang as she exited the car. She didn’t walk into the building; she danced inside, feeling happy from the inside out. And for the night, it didn’t matter that she was playing a game of charades with Darren.
* * *
The next morning as she was getting ready to catch up on her financial reports from the office and the work that she’d planned to do on New Year’s Eve, her cell phone rang. Anyone who knew Jill knew Sunday morning was not the time to disturb her. She reserved Sunday for twenty-four hours of solitude. Since she didn’t golf, no one ever bothered her for a Sunday meeting, but Jill knew on those golf courses, men were planning, plotting and scheming. So in the quietness of her penthouse, she did the same.
“Hello?”
“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” Darren said. “I was just making sure my dance partner made it home safely.”
She smiled and removed her reading glasses. “Yes, I did. I was going to call you later to see where we’re watching the game.” She also made a mental note to call Malik. She knew he would jump at the chance to have her 50-yard line seats in the Georgia Dome. She just hoped Shari would forgive her for taking Malik away from anything they had going on that day.
“Where else, the ESPN Zone?”
“That works for me. I’ll meet you there at two. The Falcons play at four, right?”
Darren laughed. “As if you didn’t know. You’re probably in your living room watching ESPN.”
She looked up at the TV. He was right. She always worked with the NFL Countdown show on mute. “You got me.”
“I’ll see you later. And by the way, I had a great time last night.”
“So did I.”
“Well, I don’t want to keep you from whatever you’re doing.”
After saying goodbye to Darren, the last thing Jill wanted to do work. She picked up the phone and called Malik.
“Hello,” Shari said.
“Shari, it’s Jill, how are you?”
“Good. Is everything all right? I know you don’t usually come up for air on a Sunday.”
Jill laughed. “I know. Do you guys have any plans for today?”
“No, what’s up?”
“I’m not going to use my Falcons tickets today and I was wondering if Malik wanted them.”
“You know the answer to that. Hold on.”
Jill smiled as she heard Shari call out for her “honey.”
“Falcons tickets!” Malik said excitedly. “I would love to go.”
“Great, if you can stop by my place around,” Jill leaned back and looked at the clock, “eleven-thirty, I’ll give you the tickets.”
“What’s the deal, Jill? You never give up your tickets. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine and if you must know, I have a date.”
“What? Why don’t you take him to the game? Show him a good time in your executive suite.”
“I’d rather not. Darren and I are going to the ESPN Zone for football, wings, and beer.”
“Hello, is this Jill Atkinson, Ms. Caviar, and Cristal? The woman who has almost as much money as God? And you’re going on a date to the ESPN Zone.”
Jill heard Shari ask, “She has a date? With the fireman?”
“Malik, we’re just having a normal date, and he should be the one impressing me.”
“And all it takes is ESPN Zone and chicken wings? Wish I had known that when I was single. Ouch! Shari, I was just kidding.”
The next voice Jill heard was Shari’s. “So you have a date?”
“Second date,” Jill said excitedly. “We went out last night. He had tickets to the jazz concert at the Fox. Then we went out for drinks and he called this morning to make sure I made it home safely.”
“He sounds like a keeper.”
“I wouldn’t go that far, we’ve just met and I haven’t exactly been forthcoming with him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Girl, I haven’t told him who I really am. He asked what I did and I blurted out marketing research.”
“Jill, this isn’t something you can hide. Cameras follow you.”
“Last night he suggested going to the Shark Bar and you know I had to say no. I just don’t want this to be like every other relationship where he leaves me because I own my own business and make more money than he does or where he becomes a male golddigger.”
“What is lying to him going to solve?” Shari probed. “Tread lightly. You know you can’t build a relationship on a lie.”
“I know, I know,” Jill lamented. “I’ll tell him the truth.”
“And when you do, you’ll see that you were worrying for no reason.”
Even though she said she’d tell him the truth, Jill knew she wasn’t going to do it today. Today she was going to be a marketing researcher and have a regular date with beer and chicken wings.
Jill was going to have to get to know Darren to find out what kind of man he really was. And that was just impossible to do after two dates. It wasn’t time for true confessions yet.
* * *
A few hours later, Jill has pulled into the last free parking spot in the ESPN Zone parking lot. She emerged from her car dressed in a pair of jeans and a fitted Michael Vick jersey. She’d never worn her jersey before, it wasn’t something that a CEO was supposed to wear, but today she was going to be a football fan with a date.
When she walked in, Darren was sitting at the bar watching the door
. She waved to him and he crossed over to her, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
“Look at you. A true Falcons fan.”
Jill did a twist like a runway fashion model.
“We can try to get a table, but everything looks pretty crowded,” Darren said, holding his hand out to illustrate how crowded it was. “The Falcons draw a crowd when they’re winning.”
They headed for the bar. Darren tapped on the lacquered top. “Excuse me, are there any tables?”
“I think there’s a booth over there.” The bartender pointed to a spot underneath a TV screen.
Darren and Jill rushed through the crowd to get the booth. Once they were seated, she made note of his outfit, a pair of well worn black jeans and a Falcons turtleneck.
“I see you’re quite the fan too,” she said.
Darren winked and handed her one of the menus. “My brother may be stopping by. Number one, he doesn’t believe I’m on a date and number two, he can’t believe I found a woman who loves football.”
Jill prayed that his brother didn’t know who she was.
“You don’t have a problem with that, do you?” Darren asked, misreading her silence.
“Oh, no. But why would your brother need to see proof of you being on a date?”
“Quiet as it’s kept; I don’t go on a lot of dates. Not that I don’t have the opportunity, but I’m cautious about who I let into my life.”
“I hear that,” Jill said.
A waiter dressed in a referee’s uniform walked over to the table and took their orders. Darren ordered a pitcher of light beer and a platter of chicken wings with both hot and mild ones.
Normally, Jill hated it when a man she was dating ordered for her. Maybe it was because she knew at the end of the date that somehow she’d end up paying for the rock lobster and caviar that he’d ordered to impress her.
Today she decided to go with the flow. Darren wasn’t trying to be flashy by ordering for both of them. She liked him because he lived like a man who wasn’t trying to prove anything to anyone. He wasn’t a poser. So, how would he react when he found out that she was one?
When the waiter left, Jill had every intention of telling Darren she was the CEO of DVA, but as she opened her mouth, she changed her mind and asked, “So, why aren’t you married, Darren?”
“Well, I was. But she committed the ultimate sin.”
“What was that?”
“She lied to me. I can forgive a lot of things, except lying. When a person lies to you, they’ve made a conscious effort to deceive you. You tell one lie and you have to tell many more to cover it up.”
His words were like jabs from Mike Tyson in his prime. She needed a beer and fast as Darren continued his litany.
“There is no excuse for lying. For some reason people today don’t want to take responsibility for their actions, so they lie. I think Bill Clinton was a great president, but when he lied about the intern, I lost respect for him. And don’t get me started on Bush. His lies have cost thousands of soldiers their lives and still we don’t have any weapons of Mass Destruction and Bin Laden is still on the loose.”
“Yeah,” was all Jill could say.
“I’m sorry,” Darren said. “I hopped on my soapbox when today was supposed to be about football.”
“It’s refreshing to hear your thoughts…”
“Big brother, what’s up,” a tall man with dreadlocks said.
Assuming he was Darren’s skeptical brother, Jill smiled at him.
“Jill, this is Cleveland, Cleveland, Jill.”
Cleveland and Jill shook hands. “Miss Jill, you are too fine to be hanging with the likes of my brother. Now, if you want to join me, I’m going to be sitting with a rowdy bunch of brothers over there.” He pointed to a table a few feet away from where they were seated.
Darren playful punched Cleveland on the arm. “Don’t make me put you back in your cage.”
“Whatever.” Cleveland turned to Jill. “So, my brother kept telling me about this woman he met who loves football so much she has season tickets to the Falcons.”
“I don’t know why people find it so odd that women like football. I mean, really, what’s not to like? Brothers in tight pants, muscles rippling, and grown men crying when they don’t make the playoffs.”
Cleveland nudged his brother. “See, women always have an ulterior motive when it comes to liking sports.” He smiled. “I’m going to get out of your hair. I’ve got to meet the guys. Jill, it was nice meeting you.”
“Nice meeting you too.” Inwardly, she released a sigh of relief. He didn’t know her; at least he didn’t seem to.
“That’s my brother, got to love him because you can’t shoot him.”
“You guys are close?” she asked.
Darren nodded at her while he thanked the waiter for the beer. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” he asked.
“I was an only child. So it was a little lonely growing up. But my mom put me in every after-school program there was so that I would realize the world didn’t revolve around me.”
“Cleveland and I made up our own after-school fun. We worried our poor momma to death, I believe. She keeps telling us when we have children they are going repay us for everything we did to her. A vision I hope she’s wrong about, because we were a couple of hellions.”
“Your mom is still living?”
He nodded. “Down in Marietta. Maybe you’ll get to meet her one day.”
She smiled. Not since high school had someone talked to her about meeting their parents. Jill had lost her parents in consecutive years. Her mother first, from congestive heart failure. That was one of the reasons why Jill worked out and ate right, no matter how busy she was.
A year later, her father died of a broken heart. After his wife’s death he was overwhelmed with sorrow. He barely ate, didn’t talk much and wouldn’t leave their Macon, Georgia, home unless he was prodded, pushed and thoroughly convinced that he needed to do so.
Jill didn’t like talking about her parents’ death. She envied adults who still had their parents. She wished her mother and father could have seen her success. Joel and Clara Atkinson would have been proud of their “baby girl.”
Darren and everyone in the restaurant erupted in cheers as the Falcons took the field. Jill cheered too, all the while watching Darren’s big hands as he clapped. It felt very warm in there as she let her imagination run riot about those hands touching her in secret places, making her scream in delight. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been so sexually charged. But that’s what looking at Darren did to her. Maybe it was the fantasy of being rescued and knowing that Darren could do that—and had done it—that turned her on. A man hadn’t taken care of Jill since her father. Most of the time, when someone met Jill Atkinson, romance, love, and femininity weren’t things they thought about. It was always a job interview, an investment opportunity, a corporate partnership. But she was ready for more than that. She wanted a personal partnership, a love story where she played the central part. If the universe smiled on her and made Darren that man, she would be happy. But she knew that if she didn’t hurry and tell him the truth, the universe would make her pay for her lie.
“You’re kind of quiet over there,” Darren said, glancing at her.
“I was just thinking about something.”
“Care to share?”
Jill took her bottom lip between her teeth. “It was work related. Sometimes I have a one track mind.”
“I do too,” he said. Without warning, but much to Jill’s delight, Darren leaned over the table, lifted her chin and planted the softest of kisses on her lips.
“I’ve wanted to do that since I met you,” he said, not letting her chin go.
Heat rose to Jill’s cheeks because she had wanted him to do it from the first time she looked into his eyes. “Can we do it again?” she said. “Just to make sure we really liked it.”
This time, Jill took the lead in the kiss, pressing her lips against his and ope
ning her mouth slightly as if inviting his tongue to visit and explore. Darren took the invitation, slipping his tongue inside, tracing the inside of her mouth as if he were Christopher Columbus exploring the new world.
When the crowd erupted into another round of boisterous cheers, they broke off their kiss and watched Michael Vick run 20 yards for a touchdown. Jill stood up and cheered, but her happiness had less to do with Vick and more to do with the kiss she and Darren had shared.
By the time the Falcons won the game, 34 to 13, Jill and Darren were stuffed with wings. They decided to take a walk downtown while they waited for traffic to clear out. In the slight breeze, which blew across them as they headed down Peachtree Street, Jill shivered and wishing she’d dressed a little warmer.
Darren draped his leather bomber jacket over her shoulders. “Better?”
“Much. Thank you.”
“I like you, Jill. You’re a breath of fresh air, you know.”
“I like you too, Darren.” She felt like a school girl flirting with her high school crush.
Darren reached out and took her hand. “Man, I wish I could get my hands on some playoff tickets. The Dome is going to rock.”
“I know. Atlanta hasn’t had home field advantage in the playoffs in a long time. The fans are really going to come in big time when the other team is on third down, especially if it’s a passing situation,” she said. “Maybe I can score us some tickets.”
“Really? Are you connected or something? Those tickets are going to be hard to come by.”
Since she knew someone in the Falcons front office, Jill could get the tickets just as easily as taking her next breath. But they couldn’t be her normal luxury suite tickets. However, they damned sure couldn’t be some nosebleed tickets either because she needed to be up close and personal with the Falcons en route to the Super Bowl.
“My company did some work with the Falcons and we did such a good job they are indebted to us,” Jill said, then quickly covered with. “If I ask my boss nicely, I’m sure he’ll get me a set of tickets.”
Business of Love Page 4
