“Are there any eagles left on the island?” Crystal asked.
“I’ve seen a few.”
“Didn’t putting in the tea garden disturb their habitat?”
Joseph patted the hand tucked into the bend of his elbow. “No. That is one thing I insisted upon when the engineers dredged the land. They were not to upset the balance of nature. Although I negotiated for the sale of one hundred acres, we cleared only the land needed for planting. The rest of the garden is surrounded by water and swamp that’s home to gators, water snakes, egrets and of course fish. Watching the sun rise over the swamp is an amazing experience.”
“It sounds primordial,” Crystal remarked reverently.
“It is,” Joseph said, agreeing with her. “I did promise to take you on a tour, so anytime you’re ready just let me know.”
“I’m off until Tuesday, so I’m available to take the tour whenever you want to take me.”
“If that’s the case, then we can go either Sunday or Monday.” Joseph was anxious to show Crystal the undertaking that had taken over every phase of his life for the past two years. And once the tea was harvested and processed, his focus would turn to the construction of his new home.
“How do you get to the island?” she asked.
“The way is the ferry. Unlike with Wadmalaw, there’s no road connecting it to the mainland. I have to warn you that it’s very rural.”
“If I can play competitively on a girls’ basketball team, then I’m certain I’ll be able to adjust to a rustic countryside.”
“Do you have another commission after this one?” he asked after a comfortable silence.
A shiver of excitement swept over Crystal. “Yes. I’m going back to New York City to decorate a jazz club. The owner inherited the town house from his grandparents, who ran a speakeasy during Prohibition in an adjoining property.”
“They were never busted by the police?”
She laughed softly. “You don’t get busted when you have high-ranking police officers on the take. After the repeal of Prohibition they turned it into a rooming house. Unfortunately someone smoking in bed started a fire that nearly destroyed the three-story building. Renovating it was too costly for the owners, so they boarded it up and many years later a high-profile actor bought and renovated it because he wanted homes on both coasts. By the 1980s the Lower Manhattan neighborhood was transformed into an upscale, trendy residential area.
“Last year my client decided to convert the basement into the Speak Low late-night jazz club. It’s probably the only concert venue in New York City with a doorbell. Just like with a speakeasy, you’ll have make reservations and be buzzed in through the front door. Then you head downstairs through a narrow, chandelier-marked hallway and into the club.”
Joseph found himself intrigued with the idea of running a modern-day speakeasy.
“Have you seen it?” he asked Crystal.
She shook her head. “Not yet. However, I did see a video of the entire house and it’s magnificent. It was built in 1860, a year before the start of the Civil War, but wasn’t completed until 1866, because some of the men working on the house had enlisted in the Union army. I’ll show it to you when we get back to the hotel. Tell me about your brother,” Crystal said, deftly changing the topic of conversation. “Where is he living now?”
“Harper and two of his friends bought an uninhabited island in the Caribbean they plan to turn into a vacation retreat.”
“That sounds exciting. What did he do before becoming part owner in a private island?”
Joseph waited for the light to change before he and Crystal crossed the street leading down the block to the hotel. “He was a sports agent.”
She smothered a laugh under her breath. “It looks as if your family is really into vacation resorts.”
“It works for those who run them.”
Crystal thought she detected a hint of wistfulness in Joseph’s voice. “What about you, Joseph? What would you have done if you hadn’t gone into law? Would you be managing one of the resorts?”
“No. I always knew I wanted to practice law.”
“You didn’t have a Plan B?” she drawled teasingly.
Dropping her hand, Joseph put his arm around Crystal’s waist, pulling her closer to his side as they made their way up the path to the Beaumont House. “Not at that time. Little did I know I’d become a farmer. Now I’m going to ask you the same question. What would you have been if you hadn’t become a decorator?”
“A dancer.”
Joseph stopped in midstride, causing Crystal to stumble. He caught her before she lost her balance, and then stared at her as if she’d taken leave of her senses. “You’re kidding.”
She recovered quickly, her smile spreading to her eyes. “No! My mother decided dance lessons would make me graceful, so she signed me up for ballet and modern dance. What she didn’t know was that I wanted to be an Ikette or a fly girl, and when I told her I wanted to take hip-hop classes she stopped paying for the classes. I could’ve gone to my father for the money, but I didn’t want them arguing with each other again, so when I went to Italy and France in my junior year as an art student, I spent more time in the clubs than I did at the museums or on field trips.”
“Did your parents know you were out clubbing when you should’ve been studying?”
“Of course not, or I would’ve had to beg, borrow or steal to pay for my senior year’s tuition. Daddy is pretty laid-back but not so laid-back that he would approve of me clubbing when I should’ve been studying.”
Joseph laughed loudly. “Did you pass, Miss Dancing Queen?”
“It wasn’t a pass/fail course, but that’s not to say I didn’t keep up with my coursework.”
“It’s still not too late to become a rump-shaking, twerking diva,” he teased.
“It is too late, Joseph. Number one, I’m too old and it’s been a while since I’ve gone out clubbing, and I really don’t need any of my clients seeing me shaking my butt like a backup dancer in a hip-hop video.”
“They don’t have to see you if we don’t go out. Instead of hanging out at Chez Crystal, we’ll go to Club José,” Joseph said, grinning from ear to ear. “I’ll arrange for dinner to be served in my apartment. That way we don’t have to cook or clean up afterward, and then we’ll dance.”
Crystal’s heart made a crazy flip-flop motion as she anticipated dancing again. It wasn’t that she hadn’t danced recently, but it was always alone.
Stopping, she turned slightly and grasped the front of Joseph’s jacket. Going on tiptoe, she fastened her mouth to his, deepening the kiss before ending it. “Thank you.”
Joseph’s arms went around her shoulders. “You’re very welcome.”
He liked Crystal’s spontaneity, yet what he was beginning to feel for her went beyond a mere liking. He’d asked her to establish the requisites for their relationship and she had determined the parameters as to where it would lead and end. However, the more time he spent with Crystal, the more he wanted to spend with her because it was no longer about wanting to make love to her. He wanted to do and share all of the things couples experienced when dating: weekend trips, going to the movies, dinner, dancing and eventually extended vacations.
Joseph realized his time with Crystal was limited, but he intended to take pleasure in the shared encounters she parceled out like sips of water to a man dying of thirst, while attempting to make the best of it, knowing he would be left with the memories of their time together.
“Good evening, Mr. Wilson, Miss Eaton. Beautiful night for a walk,” drawled the liveried doorman standing at the entrance to the Beaumont House. His warm greeting matched his inviting smile.
“Yes, it is,” Crystal and Joseph said in unison as the man opened the door for them.
The hint of a smile tweaked a corner of he
r mouth. She enjoyed what little time she and Joseph were spending together. He treated her like an equal, unlike other men her age who were hell-bent on power-tripping.
Despite being born into wealth, Joseph did not flaunt it, Crystal discovered. His clothes, sans designer labels, did not come off a department rack, and other than a watch, he wore no other jewelry. There were no visible tattoos or piercings, which led her to believe he was a very conservative thirtysomething.
As they strolled hand in hand across the lobby, she experienced a measure of safeness and protection she hadn’t had in a long while, and she had to admit, once again, Joseph was right when he mentioned her living with a much older man had been the result of her not growing up with her father. Crystal had thought of herself as a young sophisticate. After all, she’d grown up in Miami, spent six months in major European cities and lived in Washington, D.C., as an undergraduate student, so the decision to go to graduate school in New York City had been an easy one for her.
When she met Brian in a local coffee shop, they began an easygoing friendship that eventually led to their sleeping together—Crystal’s life changed the moment he suggested she share his studio apartment. The arrangement was advantageous for both. Brian didn’t have to troll clubs looking for someone with whom to sleep, and she had a live-in lover and protector. And because she wasn’t his student, Brian didn’t have to concern himself with reprisals from college administrators if their liaison ended badly.
Despite the differences in their ages, Crystal had a normal relationship with him. He didn’t relate to her as her father and herself as his daughter. And since meeting Joseph she wondered, if they’d met years ago, how changed would she have been from the connection? At that time and even now she still felt she wasn’t ready for marriage, and she didn’t have to go to a psychic to know her reluctance was the result of her parents’ unstable relationship with others.
She’d grown up listening to Raleigh accusing Jasmine of deliberately getting pregnant so he would marry her. What Crystal didn’t understand was that if her father was so opposed to marriage, then why had he married so many times? She knew the volatile and spiteful allegations had shaped her views toward marriage, and secretly vowed she would never coerce a man into marriage because she was carrying his child.
The elevator arrived and they entered the car along with several other hotel guests. It rose quickly to the top floor. Joseph held the door as they exited. They walked abreast along the carpeted hallway. Crystal slipped the card key into the slot, waiting for the green light, and then opened the door. Kicking off her running shoes, she left them on the thick floor mat, and then hung her jacket on the coat tree by the door.
Slipping out of his jacket and dropping it on one of the chairs in the entryway, Joseph followed Crystal through the living room and into the space set up as an in-home office. He smiled when he saw her workstation. Unlike his—strewn with paper, books, newspapers and magazines—Crystal’s was free of clutter.
Selena had returned the proposal he’d sent her with a number of legal queries and a cover letter from Myles Eaton. Earlier that morning he’d begun drafting a response. Crystal’s neat desk, her leaving her shoes on the mat at the door and not waiting for housekeeping to come and clean up the kitchen, spoke volumes about the woman who now occupied his waking thoughts. She was a neat-freak.
Crystal pulled over another chair over to the workstation. “Come and sit down.”
He stared at her enchanting profile, wondering if Crystal knew how innocently sexy she was. Joseph hadn’t missed the admiring glances from men when they entered the Watering Hole. Although slender, she had curves in all the right places.
His cell phone chimed a programmed ring tone as he was sitting down. The call was from one of his frat brothers. “Excuse me, but I have to take this,” he mumbled, rising slightly to take his phone out of the pocket of his jeans. “Hey, Drew. What’s up?” He placed his free hand over Crystal’s much smaller one while giving it a gentle squeeze.
“Frank’s leaving for Denver on Tuesday, and the rest of us decided to give him a surprise send-off this weekend. We contacted his fiancée about the get-together and she’s flying in Friday night. Frank still doesn’t know she’s coming.”
Geothermal engineer Francis Lynch had accepted a position with a Denver-based energy company after his cardiologist fiancée moved from Miami to Denver. “I already have plans for this weekend.” Crystal tapped Joseph’s arm, garnering his attention. “Hold a minute, Drew.” He placed his thumb over the mouthpiece. “What is it, baby?”
“We can take in a game some other time.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Yes, we can. If you have season tickets, then we can always go to other games together,” she said sotto voce.
Joseph paused, mentally weighing his options. He looked forward to spending three consecutive days with Crystal and he also wanted to see his frat brother and former college roommate once more before Frank moved across the country. Winking at her, he mouthed a thank-you. If she was talking about other games, then perhaps they would continue to see each other once they’d returned to Florida.
He removed his thumb. “I’m back, Drew. I thought Frank wasn’t supposed to leave until April.”
“He got the call earlier this morning that they want to bring him on board early,” Drew explained.
“What are you guys planning to do?” Joseph asked, his gaze meeting and fusing with Crystal’s. Light from the desk lamp cast a flattering glow over her flawless dark skin, causing him to hold his breath for several seconds. She was breathtakingly beautiful with or without makeup.
“We need you to run interference.”
A slight frown appeared between Joseph’s eyes as he pulled his attention back to the voice on the other end of the connection. “What do you want me to do?”
“We’re going to tell Frank that everyone’s coming up to Charleston Saturday night to celebrate your birthday with you.”
“My birthday isn’t until next weekend,” Joseph reminded him.
“Next weekend is the Super Bowl and some of the brothers are flying out to the West Coast for the game. That’s why we decided your birthday is the perfect excuse to hang together.”
The seconds ticked off as Joseph mulled over the plan. “Okay. Count me in.”
“Thank, bro. Now, I need you to give me the names of a few restaurants where we can party.”
“Forget about a restaurant. If it’s my birthday, we’ll party here at the Beaumont House.”
“Are you sure you’ll have enough room? The brothers are bringing their wives and girlfriends.”
Joseph smiled. “There’s plenty of room. I’ll arrange for the hotel to cater the party.”
“Thanks, brother. We’ll reimburse you later.”
“Forget about it. What time should I expect you?”
“We’re renting a party bus so we don’t have to come in separate vehicles and—”
“And you don’t have to worry about designated drivers,” Joseph quipped, perceptively finishing Drew’s sentence.
“Bet to that,” Drew countered, laughing. “Look for us to arrive around seven.”
Ending the call, Joseph placed the phone on the desk. “I’m sorry about—
“Please stop apologizing,” Crystal admonished, interrupting him. “Think about the fun you’ll have with your friends when they celebrate your birthday prematurely.”
He draped an arm over her shoulders. “It will only be fun if you’re with me.”
Easing back, Crystal stared at Joseph, committing everything about his face to memory. And she knew she would only have memories once they parted. “No, Joseph. They’re your friends and they’ll just view me as an interloper.”
Picking up his chair, Joseph moved it closer to Crystal and cradled her face between his han
ds. “When you asked a stranger to come with you to your cousin’s house for brunch, did you think of me as an interloper?”
“No.”
He smiled. “I rest my case.”
Crystal affected a sexy moue, bringing his gaze to linger on her mouth. “You like saying that, don’t you?”
“Only when I have to,” Joseph drawled, pressing a kiss on the bridge of her nose.
“One of these days I’m going to overrule you, counselor.”
Joseph’s smile grew wider. “Should I be afraid?”
Crystal rubbed noses with him. “You should be very, very afraid, because you’re not going to win every difference of opinion.”
Curbing the urge to kiss her mouth, Joseph lowered his hands because he didn’t trust himself not to take Crystal into his arms, carry her up the staircase to her bedroom, strip her naked and bury his flesh so deep inside her they’d become one in every sense of the word.
Aside from her beauty, Joseph wasn’t certain what it was about Crystal that drew him to her like a moth to a flame. Perhaps it had something to do with her outspokenness. Under the veneer of poise and sophistication was a woman in complete control of her life—something he’d just come into. Joseph left the court to take on a role at ColeDiz because of family loyalty. It hadn’t been easy working with Diego, whom he initially regarded as a despot. Whenever he challenged his cousin, Diego’s stance softened and their working relationship had become one of mutual respect. When the CEO accused him of not being a risk taker like so many other Coles working for the family-owned company, Joseph reminded Diego his mind-set was law, not business.
He’d become a businessman who’d found himself enthralled with a businesswoman, although they were like ships passing in the night, acknowledging each other for a while before sailing on to other ports of call.
“I’m ready to see what you plan to do with the former speakeasy.”
Sweet Silver Bells Page 13
