City Vibes - Complete Series (BWWM Interracial Billionaire Romance)

by Violet Jackson

  “But what about me?” She demanded. “What about what I'm comfortable with?”

  He glowered at her with cold eyes as he crossed his arms and set his jaw. “If you would just leave it alone, we could be happy. I honestly can't understand why you keep wanting to have this fight.”

  Reese stopped pacing as she realized Daniel was walking towards her. She held fast to her stance, keeping her shoulders square and her gaze hard and unwavering. “I don't understand why you can't just give yourself to me.” she pressed.

  He ducked his head, his eyes going wide. He dramatically gestured with his arms at the apartment around them. “I have given you everything.”

  “No you haven't!” Reese yelled. She whipped her body around and gazed out of the large window at the rapidly rising sun. “I don't know why you keep saying that. It isn't true!”

  “Why can't you just be grateful for what you have?” Daniel roared.

  Reese flinched at his voice, but kept her eyes trained out of the window. “You are condescending.” She croaked.

  “Oh, don't be sensitive.” He spat.

  Reese sucked in a deep breath, then turned to face him again. “Don't be selfish.”

  “Selfish?”

  “Yes, Daniel, selfish. You stow me away in your little apartment day and night. You talk to me when you feel like it, but when you don't feel like it, you just expect me to fall into line. You ask me to trust you with my heart when, half the time, I have no idea what's going on in your head.” She paused to take a few breaths and because her voice was catching in the beginnings of tears. “You're using me.” she whispered the realization as it came to her.

  His hands dropped to either side of him, but other than that, he barely reacted to anything she had just said. “That's complete bullshit and you know it.” he muttered darkly before turning around and making his way to their bedroom.

  Reese's jaw hung open as she struggled to process the fact that he wasn't even going to attempt to think about what he had just said. A scream of frustration welled up at the top of her chest, but she gulped it down, struggling to hold it in.

  Yet, she was so mad at him she could kill him. Her eyes flickered to the door and she actually contemplated leaving. But that wasn't enough. He was hurting her. He was killing her slowly and he didn't even know it. Even if he did, he obviously didn't care. She longed to hurt him back, if only a little. Before she could reign that though in, the words, “I kissed Jack!” flew out of her mouth.

  He stopped in his tracks. Reese watched as his shoulders slowly rose and fell with his deep breaths. She watched as his trembling fingers folded into fists and as those fist grew so tight his knuckles turned white. Finally he turned around and Reese immediately regretted, if not what she said, how she said it. “What?”

  Reese had never felt so guilty and so relieved at the same time. Stray tears fell from her eyes as she stepped away from the window and slumped on to the couch, burying her face in her hands. “I know you heard what I said.” She replied.

  There was a movement on the couch as he sat next to her.

  She was still feeling too embarrassed, too guilty to look him in the eye.

  “Was this-?” He started,

  “The day you lost your job.”

  “When you-?”

  “... went to the Whitney with him.”

  Reese could hear him exhale and long breath. “Well, you've got my attention now.” His voice sounded somewhere between calm and cruel.

  “What are you talking about?” Reese finally took her hands away from her face and looked at him. However, her fierce expression melted at the sight if his worn-out, weathered one.

  “That's what this was right? A ploy for attention?”

  Reese's eyes went wide and she slipped as far away from him on the couch as was physically possible. “I'm not a child!”

  “So what was it then?” He demanded. “Do you love him or something?”

  Reese frowned, leaning back into the couch. She could see what he was getting at... and it kind of made sense. He was right. She didn't love him. But, “this wasn't about you.” she murmured.

  He looked away from her, an expression of deep thought on his face. “Wait.” He shook his head, as if trying to reject a thought. “Do you actually like him?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  His eyes flickered shut as he released a breath of relief.

  “But I didn't do it because I thought it would make you notice me. It's not like it was some elaborate ploy of attention. I don't know why it happened, but.... I just know that you had just walked out on me, after bailing on me again... and that you were hiding something from me, which you still are. He just happened to be there out of some sick coincidence.”

  Daniel moved away from her. “I don't understand this.” He muttered.

  “What?” Reese breathed.

  “Am I losing you?” He demanded.

  Reese shook her head. “No, Daniel of course not. I'm not going anywhere.” She reached for his hand, but he snatched it away.

  “Then why did you do it?”

  “I-I honestly have no idea.”

  He stood up and walked out of the living room. Reese followed him. “Daniel. Wait! Say something.”

  He whipped his body around, an action that put him less than a foot away from Reese. She impulsively wrapped her arms around him and kissed him, willing this embrace to wipe away all of the conflict between them, to remind the two of them that they love each other, but he broke away from her the first chance he got.

  Reese heart plummeted, landing like a rock in the pit of her stomach. “Daniel?” She muttered with a heavy voice.

  “I need time.”

  Chapter 23

  Reese sat against the back shelf of the walk-in freezer ignoring the cold just so that she could get away from the Friday night rush. She had gone four days without having a conversation with Daniel and even then, it was just about whether or not they should order pizza. He was unresponsive and silent for much of the rest of the time and it was starting to get to her.

  Her own home felt like the inside of a Study Hall session led by a teacher that hated her. And even though she regretted letting Jack kiss her, in the back of her mind, a tiny part of her hoped that this whole thing might bring them closer together.

  She thought about his words: “Am I losing you?” She thought about how she had hastily denied that. But now, looking back on everything and constantly having to painfully ignore the texts and facebook messages she constantly received from Jack, she realized that that first answer had not been completely true. For, in all honesty, Reese didn't know how she felt. It was like a constant struggle with Daniel over the same thing; over his consistent inability to compromise in any way and it hurt her.

  It made her believe that she wasn't worth the consideration. But Jack, well, Jack had a girlfriend on tour and still pursued her, so that didn't necessarily make him better. In fact, his only redeeming quality was the fact that he made her feel justified in her unhappiness with Daniel.

  She sucked in a quick breath at the unmistakable click of the door being opened. She tensed, wrapping her arms even tighter around her knees, praying that it wasn't Jack on the other side of that threshold.

  “Reese, I really can't keep taking all of your tables. The tips are shit and I'm real tired.”

  Reese released a sigh of relief at the sight of Maria, who stood just inside of the doorway, her cheeks flushed.

  Reese nodded and stood up, wincing at the sensation of the unbearably hot air that hit her in the face on her way out of the freezer. She frowned at the sounds of people yelling orders at the cooks, the cooks yelling at each other and Frank yelling at every body. A permanent haze had settled over the kitchen, no doubt caused by the previous five hours straight of cooking.

  “Oh, and there's a man sitting in your section that wants to see you.” Maria added as they reached the end of the back hallway.

  Her heart skipped a beat as she i
mmediately bounded over to her section, but stopped at the sight of Jack sitting in one of her booths, his legs crossed and extended out under the table, a menu covering his face.

  “Why are you here?” She snapped.

  Jack seemed completely unphased by her apparent attitude. He slowly closed his menu, then looked up at her with a gaze and a smirk that sent a chill through her body. She gulped and blinked twice, trying desperately to silence that little part of her that was happy to see him.

  He shrugged. “Well, you haven't been answering my calls, or my texts, or my messages, so I figured I would have to stalk you to give this to you.” He gestured at a white envelope she hadn't noticed until then.

  “What is it?”

  Then, to her surprise, he stood up and slipped on his jacket. “Just open it.” He leaned into her , placing a suggestive hand on her arm. “You can thank me later.”

  Reese opened her mouth to refuse, but by the time the words had been packaged in her head and were ready to come out, he had already walked away. Unable to fight her curiosity, Reese snatched the envelope off of the table and ripped it open. In the next second, she found herself holding a check for five hundred thousand dollars addressed to her and a note that read: “So you can cure cancer and stuff.”

  Her research.

  Reese's knees went weak and her heart beat so fast, she felt physical pain in her chest. Her jaw hung open and her mouth ran dry as she stared at what was about to make her career. Then, without thinking anything of it, she raced to the hostess stand and snatched up the phone, already formulating what she was going to say in her head. This was exactly what she needed to break out of this rut.

  “Hello?”

  “Daniel?” She gasped, finding it difficult to hear herself over her pounding pulse.

  “Is there something wrong?” His voice was spiked with concern.

  “No, no.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I'm running the experiment! I have the money now!” She practically screeched.

  “Oh my God, Reese, that's wonderful.” Even though his voice sounded fatigue, there was genuine excitement. “Did you get a grant.”

  “No, Jack gave it to me!” It wasn't until she said those words out loud, that she realized telling him was a horrible idea.

  “You're taking money from Jack?”

  “... Yes?” Reese replied with a shaking voice.

  “Reese, why would you do that? Why didn't you ask me? I could have paid for it before I lost my job.”

  “Daniel, I have been trying to get this thing going for six months. I talk about it every day to you. It's not like you didn't know. And, besides, I didn't ask Jack either. He just gave it to me.”

  “He's trying to bribe you into an affair!” Daniel shot.

  Reese's eyes stung as she realized what was about to happen. “So, you don't want me to take it?” She asked breathlessly.

  “I will not let him buy you away from me.”

  “But he's not-”

  “I've known him nine years. He's the kind of sleazy fuck who would do that.”

  “Daniel-”

  “If you take that money, don't come home.”

  There was a click as he hung up the phone. Reese, forgetting her tables, forgetting her job, walked right out of the front door of Per Se. With her back against the window, she sunk down to the cold, concrete ground, hot tears streaming down her face.

  Chapter 24

  Reese sat on the ground, ignoring the way the cold, damp concrete pressed against her thin dress pants. She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them and resting her chin on them. Her arms trembling from the rain that battered her back and head. She blinked her dry eyes and stared out ahead of her at the almost barren, midtown street struggling to find something to fixate her eyes on just to distract her from her own empty head. Yet, beyond the odd middle-aged woman, the over-privileged teenagers stomping around and the businessman rushing home to his family, or his lover, she could find nothing. She scoffed at herself, shoving her head in between her knees, hoping that would protect her from the latest bout of nerves that threatened to render her even more helpless than she already was.

  “Mmmmm.....” she hummed to herself, anything to preserve the moment of relative calm happening in her head. Yet it didn't work. She hummed again and again and again until her hums had turned into full blown sobs. She sat there, doubled over, heaving out every last tear in her body as she contemplated how close and yet, how far away she was from the ultimate goal of her study. She wept, mourning the beginning and the end of one of two things; the love of her life, or her future. Questions assaulted her mind; questions she couldn't possibly have answers for; especially now.

  With one particularly dramatic sigh, she considered the fact that she was finally able to conduct her study. In fact, she was so close to it, she could taste it. A smile dared to tug at the edge of her lips as she considered being able to walk into the office Monday morning with the check in her hand. She could confront her supervisor, complaining that Jack believed in her; someone believed in her. She would tell her that if... when this study blew up, when it made the cover of Time; when she reached fifty major citations within less than a year, that she would not hesitate to be honest with the world about the fact that her own supervisor didn't believe in her at all.

  She could see herself saying all of these things with such vibrancy that they might as well have already slipped from her lips and out into the air in front of her. Yet, they remained in her mind along with the other side of this: the heart-wrenching possibility-no- probability, that she was losing the only man she ever really loved. Guilt tugged at the most sensitive corners, the most vulnerable areas of her mind at the realization that if she took this money, she would, no doubt, be betraying Daniel in a way. She had already kissed another man. Now, she was going to be as horrible as to take money from that man.

  Yet, with this guilt, came resentment. Who was Daniel to question Jack's motives and how could he be so cynical to begin with? Was it so hard for him to believe that Jack was just donating to a cause that he believed in? What could have possibly been wrong with that? Was Daniel so jealous that he couldn't handle the idea of another man believing in her? Reese couldn't believe that the man that she loved, the man that was supposed to build her up, was tearing her down because of his own inclinations. Anger as hot and unbearable; as suffocating and impossible as New York in July, sucked her into its molasses-like pit. She reached with her arms, her fingers curling like claws as she struggled to grasp; to clutch anything that could drag her out of that pit. But from the bottom of all of this, with the weight of the world on her shoulders, it seemed completely and utterly impossible.

  Chapter 25

  Reese heard the sound of the restaurant door opening. It came to her as if through a pool of water. She opened her eyes to find herself staring at a pair of gripped, steal-toe shoes. She followed the curve of the shoe with her hands, scanning the thin legs, the soiled white shirt, the frizzy hair tumbling down each shoulder, and, finally, the wary face of Maria, who looked like she had just been through a culinary-charged battle, in which she had literally sweat blood and tears. It then occurred to Reese that since she had walked out, on her shift, someone would have had to take over her shift. Since the human who would add three tables to their eight would have to be a special human being with exceptional skill to go with their gargantuan reserve of compassion; and since Maria was the only one who fit all of those criteria, it necessarily followed that her massive lapse in emotional capacity had landed Maria with the worst, yet most lucrative shift of her life.

  The remorse of this, coupled with the realization that she had probably just thrown away at least a hundred dollars and possibly her job as well added a new layer of negative feelings to what was now becoming a full cocktail.

  “Reese.” Maria sighed.

  She met Maria's sharp eyes with her sad and tired ones, “Yes?” It was all she could man
age to say.

  Maria scoffed. “Is that all the fuck you have to say?” She snapped.

  Reese flinched. “God, Maria. I'm sorry.” She mumbled, before resting her head back on her knees.

  Maria moaned, then, out of nowhere, Reese looked up to find Maria's hand jutted out towards her.

  She furrowed her brow at this. “What are you-” She started, confused that Maria would be so kind to her after she had just pulled the worst move a waitress could possibly pull.

  Maria just rolled her eyes. “Oh God, Reese, are we gonna do this? Are we really gonna do this?” She demanded.

  Reese's lips stretched into a tight, straight line. She understood where Maria was coming from and now that she thought of it, the last thing she wanted to do was call Maria out on her uncharacteristic kindness. Yet, that set aside, when she thought of herself standing up and walking, when she thought about moving from this one place, where nothing seemed to happen and she was allowed to stew in her grief, she just could not bring herself to take Maria's hand. “I can't.”

  In the pause that followed, Maria knelt down next to her. “Ugh.” She muttered. “This is disgusting. There should be a best friend appreciation day for things like this.”

  Reese found herself cracking a half-genuine smile in spite of herself. “Come on, Maria. You know we're not best friends.” She replied.

  Maria's hand flew to her heart as she feigned insult. “I can't believe you just said that.”

  Reese just rolled her eyes. “You know what I meant.”

  Maria cocked her head to one side. “You're right, but handling all of your tables... and under you account too, for the entire night... and coming out here to check on you when the Lord knows I would much rather finish my cut-work so that I can go home, definitely makes me that.”