by A. C. Arthur
It had been so easy to lean on Alex today and Monica figured it was a good thing he was there. What would she have done differently if he wasn’t? Nothing, probably. Still, she liked that she’d been able to lean on him when her father had read her the riot act. And as much as it went against the kind of woman she’d tried desperately to become, she liked that he was here with her now.
As she let herself into the apartment, she watched with dismal disinterest as Alex moved about the apartment ahead of her. She knew what he was looking for—another box from Yates, a letter, pictures, anything that would show the man had been inside her place again. Her heart hammered in her chest the entire time he moved around, but she went to the couch and sat down instead of following him.
She was tired, so tired of carrying all these secrets and living this life of the strong, undefeatable, unobtainable Monica Lakefield. Now what she really wanted to do was go someplace and sleep, finally sleep restfully in some quiet locale away from all that was stressful in her life. The ringing phone beside her startled her right out of that reverie.
Alex was back in the room eyeing her closely. Monica looked at the caller ID. “It says unavailable.”
“I’m going to ask Sam to put a tracing device on the phone but he can’t get into the city for another hour or two. Go ahead and answer it.”
She nodded and picked up the cordless phone from its base. “Hello?” she answered tentatively.
“Hello?” Monica repeated when there was no answer.
“Hang up. He’s just toying with you,” Alex told her.
But Monica didn’t listen. She wanted to hear Yates’s voice, wanted another chance to tell him where to go and how fast he could get there. “Hello?” she yelled into the phone just before Alex took it out of her hand and pushed the off button.
“He’s going to keep trying to get to you, Queen. You’ve got to be one step ahead of him. Now,” he said, sitting on the couch next to her. “When Sam gets here he’ll put the trace on your phone and place another agent downstairs in the lobby.”
“Another one?” she asked.
“Yes, he’s had a guy down there since I left here last night.”
“But Yates had already been here.”
“Unfortunately, that’s true. But now we have Yates’s name and a current picture Sam got from his DMV records. If he shows up here they’ll know and they’ll catch him.”
Monica nodded, sitting back on the couch and letting her head fall back. She closed her eyes, trying to push this mess out of her mind. But it wasn’t working—she was thinking about her job, about the gallery opening in Miami in the fall, about her sisters and her parents.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was coming after you because of me?” she heard Alex ask.
“I didn’t know until today when he called,” she answered but didn’t open her eyes.
“So he’s been following you all along, taking pictures and watching what you do with your life. I guess for the last few years your self-induced single life made him damn happy.”
She shrugged. “I guess it did.”
“And now he believes you’ve found somebody else, that you’ve moved on to love without him.”
“I don’t know what’s going on in his head. He’s crazy and unpredictable.”
“He’s damn smart to have figured us for a couple even before we became one.”
Her eyes did open then. “Are we a couple, Alex? I mean, really, we spent a few nights together because our families set us up. If we’d stayed here would we have been at this point? Would Yates have even come out of the woodwork?”
“He knew before we went to Aspen, Queen. The fact that we were away together probably pushed him closer to the edge. We’re both relatively well-known in this area and your sister just married a Donovan, a family who are almost like royalty in the African-American communities across the world. If he was keeping tabs on you all this time he would have definitely seen us together before Aspen.”
“I know.” She sighed. “But we weren’t a couple then.”
“But we are now,” he countered.
His words seemed quiet in the room and Monica closed her eyes again. “I don’t know what we are or what we’re not. All I know for sure is that I’m jobless and confused and tired of all this crap.”
Alex took her hand in his. “When it’s all over I’ll take you to a secluded beach where you can get some rest.”
“Are you going to tranquilize me? You know I don’t sleep at night.”
“I think once you let go of the anxiety of your past, once you’re sure Yates is in your past, you’ll be able to sleep just fine. Besides, every night that I’ve been in bed with you, you’ve slept like a baby.”
And that was the truth. That night they’d spent at the inn she’d slept curled in his arms throughout the entire night. He’d had to wake her up in the morning to get ready for their flight. She’d even slept through the New Year because Alex was beside her.
“I don’t know what we’re doing, Alex,” she admitted finally. “I swore I’d never get involved with another man. After Yates it just all seemed like a waste of my time.”
“How did you find out he was married?”
“His wife found out about me. Actually, I think she always knew he had affairs. At least that’s what she told me when she called me to their house. She said he liked to pick young women at the college, that he didn’t want a woman his age or an older woman, for that matter. His wife’s older than he is by five years. She’s an heiress to a sugarcane fortune or something like that. Anyway, it wasn’t a surprise to her. And that’s what I don’t understand. If this was part of Yates’s routine, why didn’t he just move on to another girl when I left?”
“You’re not an easy woman to forget, Queen.”
He’d said it so simply, so sincerely, she looked at him and almost smiled. Alex, her hero, still wearing his navy-blue dress pants and stark white dress shirt and blue-and-white paisley-print tie that he’d most likely worn to work this morning.
“Oh, I almost forgot. How did your meeting go? You didn’t miss it because of me, did you?”
He smiled. “No. I moved the time of the meeting up because I wanted to come into the city to spend the evening with a beautiful woman. Everything went fine. We’re all set for the launch. I’ve done more interviews and posed for more pictures than I ever care to again in this lifetime but it’ll all be worth it.”
“Yes, it will. Bennett Industries will be a bigger success then it already is. I believe that.”
“I’m glad you believe it because I didn’t want to be the only one wishing for its success.”
She shook her head. “Never. I want only the best for you, Alex.”
“And I want you for me,” he said, leaning closer and resting his forehead against hers.
“I’m not so sure that’s best,” she whispered.
In the car parked in the garage Yates slammed his hands on the steering wheel.
That slickster was with her!
He’d waited in this garage for Monica to return home from work only to be angered when he saw her getting out of a gray Mercedes with that man. Oh, he knew who the man was, Alexander Bennett, prince of the Bennett fortune. He looked like a foreigner with his inky-black hair and smooth light brown skin. Yates had done thorough research on the Bennetts. The mother was from Brazil, a pretty enough woman with exotic looks and a regal air to her. She’d married simply enough, a thriving black businessman who built an empire for her and their five children. Alex was next in line to inherit everything from his father. That alone made Yates despise him.
He hated the rich, the ones who were born into privilege and carried it around like crowns on their heads. His own parents had been blue-collar workers—his mother sewed zippers into dresses at a small factory in Gilbert, South Carolina. His father worked as a runner at the local drugstore until his legs couldn’t carry him anymore. They’d both died as poor as the day they were born. That’s when Yates
had changed his name from Hinton Beauford and moved out of Gilbert. The new identity gave him a chance to be something his parents never cared to work for, a success. The first part of that success was going to college on a scholarship he’d received for running like the wind in high school. Back then it was beyond astonishing to see a skinny little black boy run faster than the milkman’s truck could drive. Yates had parlayed that scholarship into a degree, then a master’s and had used his Southern charm to court the richest woman in town, Roslyn Smith, heiress to Smith Sugarcane.
Marrying Roslyn and being on staff at the college gave Yates money and prestige. But Roslyn was a cold older woman with no intention of ever changing. Yates needed more and found it in the fresh young faces that came to the college. He’d hit pay dirt with Monica Lakefield, who had something none of the other girls before her did.
Monica was beautiful, there was no doubt, and Yates was immediately attracted to her sleek, sexy body. But beyond that she was intelligent and she came from a good family that started out in South Carolina, as well. The Lakefields were rich and getting richer, and Monica was going to work for her daddy the minute she graduated college. That was all she could talk about.
So Yates wanted her and her money immediately. And for years he’d had her. Until Roslyn found out and destroyed any bit of happiness Yates could have had.
He’d never forgotten Monica, never would. He was determined to keep her with him one way or another. If he hadn’t let Roslyn and her drunken threats keep him from Monica this time, he wasn’t about to let this pretty rich boy do it.
After climbing out of his car, Yates went to the truck and pulled out a bag. Then he grabbed his cell phone and made a call. “I need you here at Monica’s building right now.”
There were some excuses and some background noise on the line that Yates didn’t have time to decipher.
“Just get your ass down here now before I make you sorry you ever took my money!”
Snapping the phone closed, he put the bag on his shoulders and slammed the trunk closed.
Monica’s little boyfriend was going to be more than sorry he’d ever touched what belonged to Yates, that was for damn sure.
Chapter 21
“We’re going out to dinner,” Alex said, following her into the bedroom.
Sam was in the living room putting some contraption onto her phone. She’d wanted a moment alone to get away from the probing eyes of each man and the possible thoughts going through their head about her relationship with Yates.
“I’m really not in the mood to go out, Alex.”
“Come on,” he said, threading his arms around her waist and pulling her back against him. “Are you really willing to keep hiding from this guy, to keep living this sheltered life to keep him at bay?”
“That’s not what I’ve been doing. I just didn’t want to go through it all over again, the betrayal, the lies, the…”
“The shame. I know what it must have done to you to find out he was married. You trusted him, believed in him, probably thought you were in love with him. But, Monica, what you need to understand was that all of this was Yates’s fault. He was older, more mature. He had a wife and a responsibility to her, to his job. He pushed all that aside to toy with an innocent young woman. What happened was his fault, not yours.”
She listened to his words and knew there was truth to them.
“How is going out to dinner tonight of all nights making that better?”
“It’s showing him that he hasn’t beaten you. He didn’t all those years ago because you came back to New York and made a name for yourself and for your father’s company. Going out tonight will show him you’re better than him again.”
“What’s in it for you?” she asked.
“Me? What makes you think I have an ulterior motive?”
She shifted in his arms so she could see him. “I just have a feeling you and Sam cooked this dinner up long before you came in here with me.”
He smiled, looking into the brown eyes he’d come to love and hearing the voice that made him want to get down on his knees and beg her to marry him.
“My family’s coming and so are yours. We’ll have a nice family dinner then come back here so you can get some sleep.”
“Both our families? Are you crazy? You saw how my father acted today. I’m the last person he wants to see.”
“You’re the first person he wants to see because he wants to make sure you’re all right.”
When she started to protest he stopped her. “You think your father only looks at you with business eyes. I suspect your sisters think he looks at them with less than pleasing thoughts, as well, because you’re all girls. But today, I saw something different in your father. He’s worried, Queen. Worried that this man might hurt you, that he might hurt what you’ve worked so hard to create. Sure, he showed it badly today but I think he was trying to do what he thought was right.”
“I don’t think you were looking at my father. But because my head is hurting too much to keep this argument going I’m going to shower and change. Then we’ll go out to dinner. I’d tell you to do the same but your place is too far away.”
“Never fear, Sam brought some of my clothes by when he came.”
Narrowing her eyes at him as she pulled out of his embrace, Monica quipped, “Yeah, you had this planned all along.”
Alex’s reply was a deep chuckle and a warm feeling inside that the woman he was desperately in love with was about to meet his family.
Gabriella Bennett was a cheerful beauty with her long curly hair and big smile. Adriana was stunning, tall, leggy, busty, every man’s dream. Rico had a cool air to him, but when he smiled she saw the twinkle of humor in his eyes. Renny was definitely gorgeous, in the GQ magazine sort of way and he loved his wife, the petite but boisterous Bree, to pieces.
Sam was Sam and Karena was Karena, both grinning wildly at any mention of their pending parenthood. The elder Bennetts were just as in love as Monica thought they probably were the day they first met. When she looked down to the end of the table where her parents were seated, Monica thought that perhaps if she’d been meeting Paul and Noreen for the first time she would think the same about them. But this wasn’t the first time she’d seen her parents together so it was different to see her father taking her mother’s hand and kissing its back as they laughed about a memory Noreen had just shared with the elder Bennetts.
“See, not as bad as you thought,” Alex whispered to her.
“Score one for you, but this doesn’t mean anything. We’re just having dinner,” she was saying when he kissed her lips.
“Alex,” she scolded.
“That’s my boy,” Marvin Bennett said. “Never been afraid to take what he wanted.”
“I’ll warn him now to be careful with my daughter,” Paul said with a chuckle.
Monica couldn’t believe what she was hearing and seeing. This wasn’t her father. It wasn’t the man who’d just hours ago fired her.
“So, Monica, I hear you’re opening a gallery in Miami later this year,” Adriana said after sipping from her wine.
Monica looked at her father, who gave her a nod to proceed. “Yes, we are. We were very fortunate for the help of my mother’s business partner, Alma Donovan, who referred us to DNM, Donovan Network Management. They’re based in Miami and have a great staff of agents in the entertainment, literary and art industries. Through them I was able to hire a manager and freelance a few scouts for the opening. We’re very excited about the expansion.”
“So is Alex, he couldn’t stop talking about all your accolades when he came over yesterday morning,” Adriana said, looking toward her brother. “I hope you don’t find this too forward of me, but seeing as we’re probably going to be family soon, I was wondering if you could refer me to an agent at DNM.”
Ignoring her remark about them becoming family, Monica nodded agreeably. “Of course. I have Jaydon Donovan’s number on speed dial. She manages DNM and would be glad to help y
ou out.”
“Thanks, I really appreciate it.”
“No problem.” Monica stopped quickly because she’d almost said that’s what family does for each other.
They weren’t family, not officially. And maybe not ever. This thing between her and Alex wasn’t etched in stone. Hell, she didn’t even know what this thing between them was.
Dinner proceeded without a hitch and before she knew it they were back at her apartment.
“I really enjoyed meeting your family,” she said after Alex helped remove her coat and hung it in the closet with his own.
“They enjoyed meeting you. And your father was on his best behavior. Weren’t you proud?”
Monica chuckled. “Yes, I was. You know what he said to me after dinner?”
“No. What?”
“He pulled me to the side and apologized for hurting my feelings. He said he was only doing what he thought was best to protect me. I’ve never thought my father would protect me from anything.”
“That’s because you think you’re the only one capable of doing the protecting.”
He’d taken her hand and was walking her to the bedroom.
“You’re right. I used to think that.”
“And how hard was it for you to just admit I was right?”
“Very hard,” she said, smiling up at him as he pulled her into his arms.
“But I thank you anyway for giving me that much at least. Let’s go to bed,” Alex whispered. “You’re staying?”
“Of course I’m staying. Until this maniac is caught and maybe long after that.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Alex. You have your own place and your own life in Connecticut. Moving here with me isn’t logical.”
“Being away from you isn’t an option.”
She could have argued more, but Monica really didn’t have the strength. Besides, she realized she’d love nothing more than to curl up next to Alex tonight and sleep. Finally.
But sleep wasn’t meant to be for Monica.
