I halt, with one foot hovering over the next stair down, eyeballing the swinging door at the bottom. “Denied, Foreign.”
“My father’s dead, Mr. Tommy,” she says softly behind me.
I look back. Can see the shit storm gathering in her life that’s rippling in the air over her somber face, about to hit the fan. Her family won’t be glad to see her, but Foreign wants to pay her respects so she’ll have no regrets, even though none of the Torres will want her there. Nevertheless, I’m betting she has more than a few regrets already, since she won’t be able to make amends with her father.
“His funeral is Friday. I’ll fly in and fly out the same day, so I can be on time for work the next day. His service will be in—”
“California,” I finish for her because, like I said, I know my employees’ damn business. “Approved day off. I’m sorry to hear that about your father.” I lift a finger in the air. “But he better really be dead, or you’re fired. Faking a death in the family is too low of a level to stoop just to dodge work, so you can skinny dip at a beach in Cali.”
Her usual smile makes a break for her lips. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Woman, I know that, but seriously, give my condolences to the family. Send me the address of the funeral home after you touch down. I’ll send a flower arrangement there from Tommy’s Cuisine on your behalf.”
“I will, and thank you.” She tilts her head to the side, and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t make her more gorgeous. And approachable.
Time to go.
“You’re welcome, Domestic.”
I finish walking down the stairs, never staying in the same vicinity with her for too long when we’re not working to fill backed-up orders in the kitchen. I hate to leave her on the steps alone in not-so-obvious pain. She needs comforting after taking a hit of this magnitude. I’ve lost my father too, and I would hug her through the loss, but who knows how far that’ll go? I don’t, and don’t want to find out the hard way. Foreign is a risk I’m not willing to take. I’ve been around her long enough to know she doesn’t view me as a father-figure, and that she’s only attracted to and dates older men. That would be her father-issues manifesting.
I’m not a sounding board to work out her hang-ups on, nor am I a psychologist.
Besides, we have an unspoken understanding that we’re just intern and boss and nothing more. Even if she doesn’t understand it, I sure as hell do and will understand enough for the both of us. Before Katara, I could’ve envisioned a life with soft-spoken but fiercely loyal Foreign. She’s just not the one I want that with, and she probably doesn’t want it either. I said she dates older men; I didn’t say she stays with them for long. Until she comes to terms with her father being who he was when he was alive, she’ll always be unconsciously looking for what she won’t ever find in other men: the acceptance her father denied her every time she refused to go along with what he wanted.
I’ve already met the woman of my dreams and taught her what I like in bed while learning what made her body sing. Forget starting over in that arena again, which is unfortunately a must if I’m going to settle down with someone else besides Katara. Starting over isn’t something I want to do ever, and though I haven’t left a string of unsatisfied lovers in my wake, I can only imagine growing old with one very satisfied and satisfying woman.
As I push the door open to the busy main floor of the restaurant, I wonder where my old flame and should’ve-been-wife is now. I still have the ring that I planned to propose to her with in my home only a few miles from Tommy’s. I cannot bring myself to get rid of it or grab ahold to a life that doesn’t have Katara Johnson in it.
Goddamnit, Kat, what did you do to me?
Chapter Two
~Katara Johnson~
Same day in London, England
I could spit bricks at Orion Townsend, who’s perching on the end of my glass desk with a Cherrywood bottom, his wrists crossed over his lap. A pleading look wears his chiseled face constructed of high cheekbones, cleft chin, aristocratic nose, and dark-gold eyes. His DNA is the mandatory melting pot of races needed to produce that extraordinary shade of his pupils and the cool blush tone of his skin. European, Brazilian, Caucasian, Egyptian, and last but sure as hell not least in my book, African-American. Let’s just say his family reunions are interesting whenever he returns to Arrow to participate in the functions.
He pushes the long fingers of his left hand through his auburn hair that’s tapered and clipped to within an inch of its life on the sides and back. Since I met him in the middle of my five years of college in Colorado, I’ve sworn his hair coloring comes out of a bottle and he uses a curling iron every day. He keeps promising it doesn’t, that the big, shiny curls arching to a point at the edge of his right temple is natural after every haircut.
Well, he does manage to find one hell of a barber, no matter what country we’re in. I wouldn’t pay a hairdresser the amount of money Orion does to attain that springy spiral that drapes across his eyebrow. It’s like a siren call to almost every woman on both sides of the pond, begging to be pulled on in the middle of hot, sweaty sex. Just not by me. I’d have to get over Tommy Owen’s ass first.
Orion’s the kind of man that makes you want to hang on to him. No thank you very much, I’m good with rare, thoroughly protected one-night stands outside the place that provides my accustomed living standards, or I was good until about three years ago when my biological clock started ticking away like a time bomb. If I had ever considered sleeping with Orion, I’ve certainly changed my mind now with what he’s just asked me to do for him.
“Kat, I really, truly need you to represent this company in Arrow the day after tomorrow. I know it’s last minute, but this merger seems to be eating up every ounce of time I have. I haven’t slept since this thing started a month ago. I’d go to Arrow myself, but Malcolm fucking Destin keeps changing the terms of the deal like he does his underwear and has me at his every damn beck and nuisance call and dinner date.”
“Which is daily,” I pipe in as Townsend’s Cellular Global corporate lawyer who is more scorned woman than professional right now.
I thought Orion and I were friends before colleagues. What he’s asking me to do is just as bad as pitting me against a ticked off cobra: schmoozing his connects that live too close to Tommy. Somebody is going to get hurt. That’ll be me if I agree to do what my boss wants.
He’s not the only one who hasn’t slept fitfully in a month. Every time Malcolm changes his mind about something to do with combining Townsend Cellular Global with Destin Towers, which produces the best radio transmitters and receivers worldwide, I get to make sure the changes Malcolm wants implemented in the negotiations are square with the law in just England for now, and benefits TCG.
A cushy job but not the easiest.
Pushing my hair back behind my ears, I contemplate saying no to my boss, my not-so-much-friend right now. No to going back to Arrow to support a valued business associate and our old friend from college at his wedding. But is saying no going to cost me my job and friend that might just be worth losing at this point?
Why the hell did O have to buy this company ten years ago that can affiliate and merge with other big communication corporations owned by his friends that can demand he show up for their functions? What’s wrong with making microwaves and car parts in Timbuktu where nobody really knows the location of or ever heard of anybody from there?
There’s a reason that I should say, ‘Hell no!’ to Orion. Bumping into Tommy is absolutely not worth what seeing him again is going to do to me. And I know it’s going to do something to me. It’s why I took Orion’s job offer and transferred all the way to England to get away from Tommy—why I haven’t been back to Arrow since I threw my mother’s prized chrysanthemums at him for cheating on me.
I don’t want to recall but I can’t help remembering the day Edison personally drove me to the site of Tommy’s betrayal: Benita Arnett’s apartment that Tommy’s car was parked outside of.
The tramp had been sniffing after him since before Tommy and I got together my first year of college. I didn’t lose my shit right then, but I so wanted to, by knocking on Benita’s door then tearing her, her home, and Tommy to pieces.
I like to think I’m too classy for that though, wasn’t about to give Edison the satisfaction of seeing me show out on Tommy. Edison’s motive for taking me there so I could see Tommy as a two-timing snake were made crystal clear with his subtle hints of how much I needed a good man in my life, one who isn’t afraid to tell me truth, even show me if he had to. And no, Edison didn’t get the satisfaction of me becoming his girl as well. I did leave Benita’s street with a broken heart and the inability to believe a damn thing men say without it being heavily researched and notarized first.
You can’t research if someone loves you though. Since I couldn’t, I got the hell out of Dodge before I took Tommy back. He may not have loved me, but I completely loved him.
Still do.
I loathe the truth instantly, didn’t want to admit that. If I can still say Tommy has my heart, I shouldn’t go back to Arrow. I won’t. Especially now that my biological clock is clanging so loud in my ears I can see the actual damn bells going off in between them.
I cross my legs and sit back in my chair before dead-eyeing Orion. “Mr. Townsend—”
He huffs. “Oh hell, if you’re being official, you’re about to turn me down, but Kat, listen. We need to support everyone now who’s on our team before and after this merger. You know Devlin is investing a cool ten billion in our expansion overseas after we get Malcolm to sign on the dotted line here, and we need Devlin like air if we’re going to compete with the likes of Verizon and T-Mobile. Giants in the industry.”
Screw Orion’s ambitions. That cool ten billion will go in his pocket, not mine.
Respectfully, I ask, “Who is ‘us’? I’m just your lawyer.”
“Us as in everyone that makes a living with TCG and wants bigger bonuses this year. And you’re my friend first. The best one I have. Always have been. The only woman not trying to use me for something. I can’t even claim that of my own mother. Look, I know why you don’t want to go. All you have to do is stick close to your house in the suburbs until the wedding, and then book it to the next airport before Tommy even knows you’re in town. Don’t even unpack. Simple.”
Not so simple. I don’t know why I kept the house after my parents gifted it to me for buckling down and finishing college half a year early. They moved to Florida shortly afterwards where I have no troubles visiting at least four times a year. Why couldn’t the damn wedding be there?
Someone in Arrow is going to see me. Someone in Arrow is going to report back to Tommy that I’m in the area. Someone is going to be unable to resist Tommy if he comes looking for me for old times’ sake… or if I lay eyes on him. I know my damn limitations. Apparently, Orion doesn’t recognize the most important half of the battle that he’s throwing me head first with no weapons into: keeping Tommy at arm’s length.
“So, if you know why I don’t want to go, O, why are you asking me to?”
He leans over, arm propped on his muscular thigh. “Because Devlin likes you as much as he does me and knows you as well. You’re the only one that he can talk shop with like he can me. You were in from the ground floor up when I bought this company, know every aspect of it, and can reminisce about our old times at our Alma Mater with him.”
I sigh, beyond frustrated. “O, you two can do all that over the phone, so you’re going to have to give me a better reason than those.”
He’ll never do better because I’m not going, but Orion will keep at me until I do.
“Okay, how about this?” He gets a scheming look on his face, and usually his schemes involve me, something I don’t want to do, and is mentioned mostly in the name of joking just to get a rise out of me… now that we’re adults, that is. “You get to rub in Tommy’s face how well you’re doing without him. If he’s disgustingly happy, we’ll go back to Arrow soon and pretend we’re dating just to piss him off. Hell, we’ll even pretend you’re pregnant if it hurts him enough. He used to suspect I was competition. I would’ve been if you wanted me back then. Maybe he still does suspect that I’d date you in a heartbeat, and if that’s true… then we can flatten the bastard without laying one hand on him. People don’t generally like the idea of their old flames being with someone else even after they’ve moved on.”
It’s true that Tommy felt a little on the outside of my chosen crew for hanging and studying with during college, and he sourced out the whore in Orion the minute I introduced them, but…
“O, not only do I not want to hurt Tommy, I don’t want to see him. Don’t even want to think about if he’s married with kids.”
Truthfully, I’ve frozen the Tommy I loved before we split in time. Couldn’t handle seeing him any other way, especially disgustingly happy without me. Or with kids. I don’t begrudge him all the above, just don’t want to see it up close and personal. Not after I promised him and myself as soon as my career was off the ground and his restaurant was solvent, we’d build a family together. That’s not likely anymore, but my stupid body, along with my idiot heart, doesn’t seem to be interested in a family with anyone else. Not even the gorgeous, filthy rich Orion Townsend, best friend who I’d usually do anything for, can tempt me with even a fake offer of a family, let alone a real one.
I was always supposed to be with Tommy, but those days are over. Why the hell can’t I get over him?
“Then go back to face him, Kat. See for yourself that Tommy doesn’t hold you in his grip like you think he does. Sometimes, we don’t know we’ve moved on too, until we confront our past. Sometimes, we have to see that what we thought was the biggest obstacle in our life was knocked down a long time ago before we realize we can take a step into the future.”
God, I detest when Orion makes a valid point that I can’t refute. It usually has to do with something concerning me. As usual, he’s right. How can I move on if I haven’t let go of the idea of a life with Tommy? I’ve been holding on to it, to him, strangling the memories of what we had and were supposed to have been.
I am stuck emotionally. Mentally.
Career-wise, I’m standing strong, but my career doesn’t keep me warm at night. Can’t knock me up with a child. I will have to face Tommy to put him in my rearview mirror for good. If I can. Not being able to, is what terrifies me the most.
I palm the hard, black plaster arms of my chair. “Okay, you’ve swayed me, but if this backfires on me, you’ll be paying for my therapy.”
Orion grins so hard all his perfectly-straight, white teeth on display remind me of a cunning predator. “I pay for all of your other medical needs with the insurance package that comes with your job anyway. Therapy just might be the cheapest thing your doctor puts in a request for payment for.”
“I hope not,” I snipe, getting up to go home and pack.
“You’re just mad because I’m right. Oh, and Devlin has a seat at your table for your plus one if you decide to take anyone… like one of the meaningless encounters you insist on having.” Now, that’s a chair that will remain empty much like the significant other spot in my life it seems.
“Rub it in, why don’t you, jerk?” I utter under my breath.
He laughs. “I heard that. Oh, and your plane takes off in two hours. Your ticket is at checkout, but you should leave now. Security is a bitch everywhere.”
The fucker knew he was going to talk me into going back before he even knocked on my office door. Am I that damn gullible?
I guess so.
I slam my laptop closed, grab it up along with my purse from my bottom drawer, and leave Orion still sedentary on the edge of my desk with a shit-eating grin in the middle of his pie-hole. In the underground garage, I fling myself in my Audi A3, then attempt to collect myself, nerves fraying on the ends.
Tommy. Cannot. Hurt. You. Anymore, Kat. Just walk into his restaurant, say hello, see he’s grown fat an
d bald and ugly. Let him see that you haven’t changed. Much. Just a little thicker from sitting at a desk. A lot stronger from him breaking you down though. Then, go to the wedding and haul ass back to London. Easy as pie.
I start the engine and merge with the fast-moving traffic in the business district. I better take a cab wherever I go in Colorado. After driving on the left side of the street for ten years, I’m going to kill everybody on the road in Arrow if I get under a wheel there. I know this for a fact because I damn near murdered everyone by car here the first twenty times I drove in London—reflex had me wanting to be on the right side, which is the wrong side in London. I don’t think it’s going to be any quicker to reprogram my instincts in the states. Once they commit to something, usually they stick to it, therefore Tommy’s hold on me.
Without bothering to unload the car of my purse and computer, I enter my double-bedroom flat. I traverse through the average-sized beige and white living area, pass the short, reverse L-shaped wall separating it from the kitchen with black cabinetry and stainless-steel appliances. The atmosphere is neutral in my space, neither happy nor sad. Just is. The way I like it after Tommy. I don’t want to feel anything, except I can’t stay in this zone with a family. Unable to feel therefore unable to love. My children, all children as a matter of fact, and whoever I create mine with should get much more than detachment from me.
I enter the tiny hall connecting the guest bathroom and bedroom. Past those is the master’s and ensuite bath. I duck inside my closet and extract a carry-all bag that I’ll be able to take on the plane. While swiftly stuffing it (before I change my mind) with a few changes of clothes, a wrinkle-proof, fire-engine red dress, and matching stilettos, I dial up my mother’s closest friend. Retired Millie Lomax maintains the upkeep on the house in Arrow for me.
She answers on the third ring. “Hey, Miss Johnson. How are you?”
“Lord, Miss Millie, I’m fine, and I’ve asked you a thousand times to call me, Katara, or Kat like you used to do when I was a child.”
Dangerous Bonds Page 15
