“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“I don’t have any other women,” Reno said pointblank. Trina looked at him. “Joey was full of shit when he insinuated that I do. I don’t. Are you asking me if I have had my share of females? Yes, I have had my share and probably Joe and Mo’s share too, I ain’t gonna lie to you. But I’m with you now. That’s over. I’m with you.”
Trina stared into his tired blue eyes. He seemed so sincere, so serious that she believed him. Instantly she just believed him. Then she glanced back at the limo. “That’s not gonna work,” she said.
Reno’s heart dropped. “What’s not gonna work?”
“That limo in my neighborhood. No way, no how.”
Reno smiled. “Okay, no problem, I’ll ditch the limo and we can call a cab or something. Because honey, I ain’t catching no bus.”
Trina laughed at just the thought of this big man, the owner of the PaLargio no less, riding the city bus. “What you say, Reno, you ain’t catching no bus?”
He pulled out his cell phone. “I ain’t catching no bus.”
Trina smiled and moved up to him, put her arm in his. He smiled. “Hey, Rupert,” he said into his cell phone, “this Reno. I need you to call me a cab. I’m over here near Boyzie’s. I know I got a limo, I know what I got, did I ask you to tell me what I got?” He looked at Trina. “Can you believe this guy? He’s telling me what I got.” Then he talked into his cell phone again. “Just call me a cab wise guy, don’t worry about what I’ve got.” He slammed shut his phone. “Sometimes I think I’m surrounded by imbeciles.”
“Either that, or they’re surrounded by one,” Trina said with a laugh and immediately began to run back toward Boyzie’s.
“Oh no she didn’t say that,” Reno said with a smile. “No you didn’t say that,” he said to her when he realized she was running away. He told the driver to shove off, he’s off for the night, and then he ran, too.
+++
He had planned to talk to her. That was the plan. All the way on the plane back from Jersey, all the way in the limo from the airport, he was working out in his mind just how he was going to explain everything about his life, his family, to her. She was no fly-by-night, no booty call or friend with benefits. He wouldn’t leave Jersey early, canceling the remaining meetings, for just anybody. This woman had him jacked up, had him constantly thinking about her, even to the point of turning down all kinds of offers from females he almost never used to turn down. But their sex couldn’t touch hers, and their personalities couldn’t compare to hers. She had the inside track at this point in the game, big time advantages over any other, and he knew he had to cue her in eventually on just what she was getting herself into.
And he thought he had a plan. Thought he’d get her alone and just lay it out, tell her all there was to know about him and his life. Especially now that she soon would be working right under his nose, on his turf. He was going to lay it all on the line. That was the plan, anyway.
But as soon as they entered her apartment, and the door shut, and he pulled her into his arms, all plans were off. He kissed her, his lips slowly circled hers, remembering how she tasted and wanting to taste her even more. And soon they were tongue to tongue, teeth to teeth, kissing as if it were going out of style if they weren’t careful. And it was on from there. They ended up naked in bed as quickly as their feet could carry them, and he was all over her, kissing her, fondling her, entering her, before either one of them could get a word in edgewise.
Trina closed her eyes as he entered her, as she could feel the sheer power of his manhood poke and prod and slide around deep within her. And when his gyrations began to quicken, she held onto him as if she were upside down on a monkey bar. He pounded, and she held on, all the way until they both were lifting up in elation, and then crashing down in satiation.
They laid there, both drained, and eventually fell asleep in each other’s arms. They would have stayed that way probably till morning, as they were both bone tired, but Reno eventually woke up.
He stayed in bed, however, staring at Trina. He was falling for her, for her laughter and her uniqueness, for her beauty and the fact that she didn’t realize just how beautiful she really was, for the unyielding sense that this woman was the catch of the century. And the idea of losing that, of losing her when he barely had her to begin with, terrified him. He couldn’t tell her, not yet. He had to secure her first. He had to make sure that she was his, and that she wanted him as badly as he wanted her.
SIX
Over the next week, Trina and Reno were inseparable. He was spending all of his free time with her, and she was spending all of her free time with him. They were, in fact, growing closer every day. And Trina, to her own surprise, was enjoying every moment of their time together.
But one night at work, she thought she saw a ghost. She was heading to the kitchen, and she saw something in her peripheral vision. When she walked back into the kitchen to wait for Louie to plate the food, and then returned to the dining hall with her tray, she looked again. And to her shock, to her amazement, Scotty Labaray, the ex-boyfriend she once fled, was seated at a table in Boyzie’s. She almost dropped her tray.
He was at table eleven, looking gorgeous in his expensive suit, a pair of prescription glasses on his tanned, handsome face. She would have ignored him, would have pretended like she didn’t see him after serving the food to table five, but he was staring at her the entire time; staring with those magnetic soft blue eyes that made her fall for him in the first place, one of the biggest mistakes of her life. She walked over to his table.
“Hey,” he said, with a smile on his face.
“Hey yourself,” Trina replied.
“You are not an easy girl to track, you know that?” he said. “I went all over Reno looking for you.”
This concerned Trina. She remembered how controlling he used to be, how violent. “And why exactly were you looking for me?”
He smiled again. There was a time she actually loved his smile, though he had a kindness, a sweetness about him, thought he wouldn’t be as hard, as rough as her ex-boyfriend sometimes could be. She was wrong on all counts. “You know why I’m looking for you.”
“If I knew, Scotty, I wouldn’t be asking you. Why were you looking for me?”
Again, he smiled. “I want you back. There ain’t no two ways about this, sister. I want you back in my life, in my bed, as my woman. You the only one knows how to do me, and I want that back. How’s that for bluntness?”
Trina could not believe the nerve of him. After how he treated her, he wanted her back? He couldn’t be that far gone. “And how’s this for bluntness,” she said: “You must be out of your gotdamn mind.”
His smile left then. And the true Scotty was revealed, every inch of his anger, his bitterness, his out of control violent streak. “You left me in the middle of the night, like I was some monster you was sneaking away from, and I don’t appreciate that.”
She lowered her voice, leaned over to him, both of her hands on the table. “I didn’t appreciate your body blows, either. I didn’t appreciate that black eye, either. I didn’t appreciate that I had hooked up, not with a man, but with a pimp who thought he was going to prostitute me for income, either. There’s a lot of things we don’t appreciate. But appreciate this: I don’t give a good gotdamn what you don’t appreciate.”
It came so quickly, Trina could barely react. Scotty took his glass of wine and threw the liquid contents into her face. Then he stood and slapped her hard across the face. Although the wine had her dazed, the slap reinvigorated her. And she slapped him back even harder than he had slapped her. He was about to come at her again, he was that kind of bully, but two waiters pulled him back.
“Are you crazy?” she could hear Boyzie, the owner, running toward Scotty. “Get the fuck out of my establishment!”
“You messed up now, chick,” Scotty was saying as the two waiters drug him out. “You messed up now!”
Jazz had run over to
Trina’s side as she wiped her face with a napkin. “Are you all right, girl?”
Trina couldn’t speak. Her anger was still too raw. She began to head in the back, in the kitchen.
Jazz followed her. “I didn’t see when he threw the wine on you, but I saw when he slapped you.” She grinned. “I said, oh, boy, he fooling with the wrong one this time. ‘Cause every fool from around here knows you don’t play.”
“He’s not from around here,” Trina said, sitting in a chair to calm her nerves, still wiping off the wine.
“What happened to you?” Louie the cook wanted to know.
“None of your business,” Jazz said, sitting beside Trina. “Just cook, cook.” Then Jazz looked at Trina. “What you mean he’s not from around here? You know him?”
Trina nodded. “That’s Scotty Labaray.”
“Get out! He’s the dude from Reno? The pimp?”
Trina nodded.
“Wow,” Jazz said. “I don’t know why I just assumed this Scotty person was a black dude. But he white too, hun?”
Trina looked at Jazz. “Why you say it like that?”
“I’m just sayin’. Dang, girl. You got these white men falling out of trees wanting you.” Then she paused, leaned back in the chair. “And speaking of white men, are you going to tell Mr. Hot Temper Gabrini about this little incident?”
“I am not.”
“And why the hell not?”
“Because of exactly what you just called him. His hot temper. You saw what Reno did to that acne-faced kid. He broke that kid’s nose for just pinching me, something that happens to us every day of the week in a joint like this. You think I’m gonna tell him about this incident, which means I’ll have to tell him about my relationship with Scotty? That I’m gonna say, oh, by the way, this guy here also beat the crap out of me one night to where I was throwing up blood. And he beat me because I told him I’d rather eat nails than prostitute my body for money. I got away from him that same night, but you think Reno gonna just say good, great job getting away, kid, and forget about it? Come on, Jazz. Even your old man Nathan, who idolizes you, would say you’re nuts if you think that.”
Jazz exhaled. “I get your point,” she said.
“Reno would probably be locked up for murder before the night is out,” Trina added.
“Okay, I get it.” Then she looked at Trina. “You can pick’em, can’t you?”
Trina looked at her friend. She didn’t know if she was talking about Scotty only, or both Scotty and Reno. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked.
“You can pick’em. I mean, Reno with his temper is bad enough. But at least he owns a hotel and gave you a job and is helping you out.”
This bothered Trina. Ever since she told Jazz about Reno, and how they’d been spending time together, there had been a kind of snide attitude in Jazz, a kind of bitterness there. “You think I’m seeing Reno because he owns the PaLargio?” she asked her friend.
Jazz frowned, as if nothing could be further from the truth. “Why would you say something like that?”
“The same reason you implied it.”
“That not what I mean. But it is a fact that he gave you a job, a job you start next week. He’s your friend and friends look out for each other like that. They get ahead, they pull their friends along with them.”
So that was it. Jazz figured that Trina should be, in her words, pulling her along, too. “I am gonna help you out, Jazz,” Trina said. “But my feet ain’t even in the door yet. You saw how Reno wouldn’t even let me be a manager there. He’s creating some apprentice job for me, so I can shadow seasoned managers and learn the tricks of the trade. I can’t hire nobody, I’m not even in the door myself yet.”
“But your boyfriend is. He owns the joint, Tree, come on. All you got to do is say the word and he’ll hire me as an apprentice, too.”
Trina shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“Oh, I see. You can ask him to take you on, but you can’t ask him about me.”
“I didn’t ask him to take me on, Jazz, what are you talking about? I didn’t know that man existed when I applied to work at the PaLargio, something, by the way, that you said I was crazy to even attempt.”
“Okay, okay,” Jazz said, smiling now, “I didn’t mean to make a federal case out of it. Get a grip, girl.”
“You get a grip,” Trina said, smiling too, although her heart was hammering. Scotty was back. And although she was only with him for less than a month, and was on the rebound from her ruined relationship with her ex from Dale even then, she knew him well enough to know that he wasn’t searching high and low for her as he claimed, just for the hell of it. Maybe tonight spooked him enough to keep going. Maybe after tonight he’d go on about his business, or at least leave her out of it. But if she saw hide or hair of him again, she was telling Reno. She didn’t want to, because she knew Reno would be almost irrational with anger, but Scotty could be a very vile and violent person. And if he showed up again, she’d know he meant business. And the only person she knew who could handle a dude like that, was Reno.
+++
To her amazement, however, word had reached Reno that same night, and by the time she and Jazz were walking out of Boyzie’s and saying their goodbyes, he was leaned against his Bentley, his arms folded, a look of disappointment all over his face.
“I thought you would be in meetings all night?” Trina said as she approached him. She was usually thrilled to see him, but that scowling look on his face made her apprehensive.
“Where’s the cab?” he asked. “I don’t see no cab. You were supposed to call and catch a cab every night after work, Katrina. You wouldn’t let me do it my way, you won’t let me get you a car, but you said you would at least do that.”
“What are you doing here?”
“You’re giving me a heart attack, you know that?” He said this and then walked around in a circle, as if he was trying to control himself.
“What is it?” she wanted to know.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
Trina frowned. “Call you for what?”
“When that guy threw liquor in your face. When that guy slapped the shit out of you!”
Trina could not believe it. Did Jazz phone him? But Jazz didn’t even have his number, and she wouldn’t betray her like that. “How did you know about that?”
Reno leaned back against his car, folded his arms again. “I know about that.”
“But how, Reno?” Then it became as clear to Trina as the nose on her face. “You’ve got somebody watching me, don’t you? Somebody following me?”
“What you think? You think I’m gonna let my lady work in a joint like this, walk home in the dark to that war zone she lives in, and I’m gonna just let it happen?”
Trina just shook her head. “It hasn’t been Joey, so who has it been this time?”
“Friends of mine.”
“Friends? More than one?”
“A different one every night. What, you think I’m stupid? Have the same guy sitting up there every night?”
Trina shook her head again. Jazz was right. She could sure pick’em. She began walking away.
“Where you goin’?” Reno asked, grabbing her by the arm.
Trina snatched away from his grasp. “I’m going home. And you and your goon, wherever he is,” she said this as she looked around, “are not invited. So leave me the hell alone tonight, Reno. And I mean it.”
She began walking away again.
“Okay, I’m sorry,” Reno yelled, but she kept on walking.
Reno just stood there, scratching his forehead. He should just let her go, who needed this shit, anyway? The least little thing happened to her and his heart was pounding out of his chest. He couldn’t get here fast enough when his man called him about that incident tonight. He hated feeling like this, he hated being so hooked on some female that he couldn’t think straight half of the time unless he was thinking about her. He should just forget about her and
go back to his life. She was great in bed, but so what? He knew a dozen women off the top of his head who’d gladly jump in his bed tonight at the snap of his finger. Why was he wasting his time, his energy, his very heartbeat, on her?
Because he loved her, he said aloud as he jumped into his Bentley, sped up, slung his car in front of her, and got out.
“Okay, you win,” he said, walking up to him. “Get in.”
“No thanks, Reno.”
“Just let me take you home,” he said, “see you safely inside your apartment, all right? And then I’ll leave, and leave you the hell alone just like you want. I promise you that.”
He said the last sentence with bite, something that wasn’t lost on Trina. Would he just dump her, just leave her alone forever like that? He certainly looked like he would, like he’d had it up to here with her. And the thought of it happening, of Reno leaving her, shook her resolve. It would actually hurt if it happened, she realized. And what about the new job at his hotel she started next week? How would that be affected if he stopped seeing her? Why did she sleep with him that second time, in his office/apartment, when she knew at that point that he would be her boss? She could just kick herself for being that stupid. And now her heart was involved, too. Because she was beginning to fall for Reno, and fall hard.
ROMANCING THE MOB BOSS Page 5
