The Contract: Sunshine

by McCarver, Shiree

  The thing she could understand was his utterance of her name repeatedly against her mouth. Sunshine felt a secret thrill knowing that even if she never saw him again after tonight, Yoon would always remember this time. How could he not? This was one of those memories that others had and she only dreamed about.

  Chapter 4

  Out on your butt and down on your luck...

  Neither of them said a word as she got into Yoon’s Aston Martin V12 Vantage.

  The silence continued ten minutes into the ride before Yoon chanced speaking first. “Sorry that you’re going to be making it home later than you expected. But I will miss an important video conference call with the board of directors of a company I’m negotiating with in Japan.”

  “It’s okay really,” Sunshine replied with a smile. “I’m just grateful I don’t have to ride home alone in a taxi cab this time of night.” She looked sheepishly at him out of the corner of her eye and added, “Even though I led you to believe earlier I’d be okay with it.”

  He chuckled softly and said, “It’s the least I can do after...what you did for me...”

  Her face burned in the darkness as his words trailed off. She wondered if his thoughts had traveled to where her thoughts seemed to want to linger. Her body still felt sated from their impromptu romp against the wall.

  “Um...” she began. “Thank you for taking care of my situation at the restaurant without me. I was just too mortified to walk back in there. What if someone had recognized me when I went back in?”

  “Sunshine--”

  “My God,” Sunshine groaned. She nervously smoothed her hair behind her ear. “If you noticed what I did, there could be a chance someone from the paparazzi did too. If they start harassing my grandmother’s assistants and staff again...she will be furious.”

  “Hey, you know you don’t have to keep lying about being an heiress,” Yoon told Sunshine. “Just be yourself, whoever that may be.”

  That was unexpected. She thought he was still being nice to her because of who her family was just like everyone else did after learning her identity. Albeit he did owe her simply because he was the one to strike the bargain; however he also could have not honored any of it and there wouldn’t have been a thing she could have done about it.

  She looked over at him and he glanced at her. She recognized his smile in the dim light that went in and out of the vehicle as he sped under the highway of overhanging street lights.

  Sunshine turned to look out the window on the passenger side once more. It wasn’t like she could see anything but she could think better without the distraction of his sexiness clouding her thoughts. She was in trouble and she had no idea what she was going to do after tonight. Tomorrow if she didn’t have the money to stay, the TDY Apartment would be rented out from beneath her.

  Although she had sassed Yoon, it wasn’t him she had been mad at. She was mad at her mom for putting her in this situation...again. She was also mad at her grandmother for deciding now of all times it was time for her to learn her lesson once and for all. The old woman had outright refused to let her move back into her room in the main family homestead.

  As upset as she was with her dysfunctional family, she was mostly angry at herself for trusting her mother yet again to reimburse her the rent money she used to buy this designer suit and heels that her mother had picked out for her. Damn, what am I going to do?

  Sunshine released a long sigh. At least this time she lasted three whole days before she gave in to her mother’s usual whims and agreed to go out with the preacher that had been after her since she went to church with her mother a year ago.

  With her actions this evening with Yoon against the wall, she figured he was probably wondering why she didn’t just have sex with the preacher and save herself all the grief. The simple fact was she hadn’t found him sexy and he hadn’t offered a piggyback ride for the first time in her entire life. Her father never got around to giving her a piggyback ride.

  She was thankful for the semi-darkness of the vehicle to mask the desperation of her situation that was setting in. Even with an eviction notice tucked in her shoulder bag and twenty-three dollars and thirty-three cents to her name, she wasn’t going to take any more money from Yoon. She wouldn’t feel right about accepting it, especially now. She would feel like she was being paid for her services against the wall and she enjoyed that so much she probably would have paid him if she had access to her trust fund.

  She chucked softly.

  “What’s so funny?” Yoon asked breaking into her thoughts and already grinning without waiting for her to let him in on her humorous thoughts. As if she would. NOT!

  “Nothing,” she replied softly and leaned her head back against the leather headrest. “I get silly when I’m tired.”

  “Ah,” he nodded. “Not much further.”

  She snorted and laughed again. That’s what he said when he was carrying her on his back and look how that turned out.

  This time he didn’t ask. He just chuckled and shook his head.

  Oh what to do? What to do? She groaned inwardly. The smile faded to muted wretchedness. Sunshine knew what she did was wrong regardless of how she looked at it. Her grandmother would be so ashamed of her if she were to find out. How many times had she heard her grandmother tell her about the small general store her grandfather’s father started back when a Black man had to worry about it getting burned down by the Louisiana Klan?

  Her grandmother taught her a lot and she never learns. She definitely taught her better than to run out of a restaurant without paying the bill. She would remind her that she was stealing from the restaurant owner’s children’s mouth.

  Sunshine wasn’t even allowed to take anything off the shelves of the chain of grocery stores her family owned without paying for it and she learned that the hard way.

  She was nine and her mom was on husband number two—the academy award winning actor—when she was sent off to a new boarding school. Finally, the most popular girls noticed her and if she wanted to be their friend, she had to take them to one of her family’s grocery stores.

  Sunshine had gone into the store, pumped up with pride and showing off by flashing her identification and telling them she was going to own that store one day. Perplexed on what to do, the manager let her and her new “friends” shop. Unbeknownst to her, he also was making a phone call to the corporate office.

  The girls got their goods and called her a “sucker” for her troubles as they giggled and ran away with their bootie in tow at her expense. Tearful and embarrassed, Sunshine was on her way out the door when she was caught by the shoulder and escorted to the manager’s office for her grandmother’s assistant to fly in on the private jet to escort her back home until her mother returned.

  Myrna—what her mother preferred her to call her—was in Cannes with her current husband at the film festival and Sunshine was anxious for her to return and rescue her from her grandmother before she came up with some way to chastise her for her actions. She had been thinking on it for weeks and Sunshine was terrified at what she would come up with.

  Sunshine preferred to be spanked like her mother would do to her and get it over with. But her father’s mother was too well-read for corporal punishment. She disciplined with what she called, “life lessons.”

  By the time Sunshine’s mother returned from Cannes, she was looking for husband number three and she had to get use to being in her Nana’s strict care once again.

  For her audacity to steal—yes it was still stealing since the manager of that store had to account for every product that was on those shelve, her “friends” had done one hundred dollars and thirty-nine cents worth of “shopping.”

  She prayed that they had choked on everything they took from the grocery store while she was spending her summer break learning her “life lesson” by picking up trash in the parking lots of all the Dupree Food’s grocery stores; under her grandmother’s driver’s supervision of course.

  As soon as her phon
e was charged, she would try to reach her mother first and tell her she needed the money she promised to reimburse her. Then she would hopefully buy more time with her apartment manager by being only two hundred dollars short instead of not paying at all.

  In a way, Sunshine was relieved Yoon didn’t believe her about being an heiress. It had been years since she threw her name around to get away with something. There was only so many “life lessons” a poor girl could take, but her she was again on the ultimate “time out” from her grandmother. She wasn’t going to think about the why. She’d dwelled on the past quite enough for one evening.

  Any fear she had that Yoon was being nice to her for any other reason than he felt he owed her for helping him with Leslie was put to rest as long as he believed she lied about who she was..

  Sunshine’s eyes closed.

  That was the crux of her life. Her mother paid men to try and seduce her so she could get married and have a child to secure the future of Dupree Food’s as stipulated in her father’s will. At first Sunshine couldn’t believe her father—the only one that she felt wanted the best for her and loved her no matter what—would require such a thing in order for her to gain her inheritance.

  Cedric Dupree had left his daughter a final private video explaining to her why he had put stipulations on her inheritance:

  Princess, it is my dream for you to know true love in your life. I knew it once and if my first wife hadn’t died...well, you know the story. I can’t be too bitter for if I hadn’t met and married your mother, I would never have you...the purest thing I’ve ever done in my life. I look at you and I’m so proud. I thought I could not have children and when I had long given up, I was blessed with you.

  It is my final wish for you to find a good strong man, not as in physical as much as in character. Pumpkin, you will need a man that has established his own presence in the world. You need a man who is as concerned about your welfare as he is his own. A good man won’t care about nothing but you.

  I wish I had been a younger man when you came into my life so that I might have had more time with you; check out the man myself; walk you down the aisle at your wedding. But who believes they will die of cancer and in their mid fifties.

  I know you were hoping to gain this money to get your freedom from your mother and your grandmother, but I know you. You are more like me than I care to admit. Like me, your personality gets swallowed up in the strength of the two women in our lives. Your mother will have you depleted of funds before you know it.

  I chose a year because I think that would be long enough for you to know if it’s a real marriage or not. If you have a child in the first year, all the better, but I won’t push it.

  Decide on a career of your own. If you don’t want to be a part of the running of the stores, then don’t and don’t let your grandmother order you to do it. This is why I did this where not even she, with all her infinite power and self imposed wisdom, can intervene what is to be your ticket to independence and happiness.

  Sweetheart, don’t marry a cuckold man like your father. Take your time and search for a strong man that will allow no interference in your lives from your grandmother and mother.

  I hope what I have done is for the best, because that was my intention. Forgive me if I was wrong. It would kill me all over again to know I only made things harder for you. I love you and I will always be watching over you, Princess Sunshine.

  Sunshine thought she had come close to fulfilling her father’s wish at least twice in her thirty years. But her grandmother had proved to her she was a bad judge of character. It was the second time she thought she was in love she found out her mother was the reason these men had come into her life. She didn’t realize telling them about her inheritance was defeating instead of helping her in her quest for a good man.

  Why should these men take a year out of their lives, taking care of you in a loveless marriage waiting for money and you may not choose to stay with them after you gain your inheritance? Her grandmother said.

  With my offer they have a sure thing. Now, Sunny Girl, if you tell your bitch of a mother to stay out of this matter, you might actually find a man that really loves you, but if she goes around telling every man about it, what is the point of the matter? You should have never told her that your father left you anything.

  Oh, my. Child, you didn’t know your mother was behind this rash of men so interested in you. Plain as you are, you should have known better. I thought I taught you better than this.

  Tears slid out of the corners of her closed eyes leaving a wet trail along her cheek. She kept her head turned away from him. Behind her lids it seemed as if extra light was now streaming through the car windows.

  She opened her eyes and saw they were no longer on the main highway. She hadn’t felt it when he veered off. Sunshine quickly wiped her face dry. Had she snoozed off?

  Yoon slowed and stopped for the light to change. She looked at the clock on the dashboard and wherever they were it was about twenty minutes from the downtown area.

  “Sunshine, were you sleeping or are you so quiet because I hurt your feelings by saying I know you’re lying about being the Dupree Food’s heiress?” Yoon asked.

  The light changed and she looked down at his strong thickly veined hand shift the gearshift from one gear to another. Her heart fluttered as her thoughts revisited the intimacy of his touch.

  What could she say? If she denies it’s a lie, he wouldn’t believe her. If she said it was the truth, she would be the liar he thought she was.

  “I’m not upset about it,” he assured her. “What right do I have considering my approach? I sincerely apologize.”

  Covering her hand resting on her knee with his own hand, he squeezed it briefly before removing it to shift gears again. Her hand felt warm and tingly from his touch and she found herself wanting him to touch her again.

  “I understand how it feels to be desperate,” Sunshine spoke so softly she saw him lean more towards her in the bucket seat. Louder she said, “Especially today when I was hiding out in the ladies room before I ran out. I was so scared; I also stayed in there because I couldn’t stop using the bathroom.” She laughed softly. She could laugh now but it wasn’t so funny a few hours ago.

  “I wondered how you were keeping yourself busy in there,” Yoon laughed with her. “I thought maybe you were enjoying those chocolate mint Andes they keep in there.”

  “How did you--” She halted abruptly. She knew how he would know. The kisses they shared. Her fingers fluttered to her neck where she felt a prickly heat creeping up the side.

  He smiled knowingly at her, “I admit I enjoyed the candy from Piccolo Bellissima more this evening than I have any other evening that I’ve eaten dinner there.”

  With a saucy wink his way, Sunshine said, “You’re welcome. I bet I was the best company you ever had there too if Leslie is an example of your previous dinner dates. Maybe next time you will actually order me dinner.”

  “I thought I did,” he stated with a significant lifting of his brows. Yoon’s lips widened with a slow, secret smile before saying, “You and your horny preacher man.”

  “Seems like he wasn’t the only horny man there tonight,” Sunshine murmured, cutting him a side glance.

  A twinkle of streetlights caught his eyes as he glanced her way. It was brief for he had to return his attention to the rode as he drove another block and turned left but the indefinable emotion she saw there for that quick second made her curious to what he truly thought about her and her actions this evening.

  He stopped at a security gate entrance to a lush condominium community and pressed buttons on the key pad causing the large white gates to swing wide and close behind him as he passed through.

  “This is nice.”

  “Nice?” He balked and pushed a button on some gadget overhead. “It’s better than nice. I always make sure I buy the best. Wait until you see the inside.”

  “I’ve seen them,” she spoke without thinking staring
at the rows of buildings. The grounds were lit up with decorative lights making it well lit at night. “They would be better than nice if they had a more open floor plan.”

  “With whom?” His Asian eyes narrowed to sparkling slits. She could see his face really well now that he eased the sports car into a well lit open garage and parked next to a silver-colored 4-door SUV. He shifted the gears one last time, pulled up on the clutch and applied the emergency brake, then cut the engine off.

  Sunshine realized her slip up. “What?” She looked away taking a little longer than necessary to release her seatbelt.

  “You said you’ve seen the inside of these condos before. Do you know someone who lives here?” He released his seatbelt and pushed the button overhead again. The garage door closed, encasing them in.

  She wondered why she wasn’t frightened to be alone with him. She barely knew Yoon, but for some reason she wasn’t afraid. As a matter-of-fact, she didn’t think she’d ever met anyone she felt safer with.

  She looked away from his searching eyes as she made up some excuse. She had to be more careful. If she wasn’t the heiress, she couldn’t use her real experiences. He would just assume she was lying again.

  “I came here during an open house.” She laughed nervously. “I like to do that sometimes. Pretend that I could afford a place like this.”

  “Sunshine, why are you still lying to me?”

  She released an inward groan of frustration. She couldn’t win here. When she told the truth, he thought she was lying. Now she really was lying and he still thought she was lying. So what did he want her to say?

  Instead, she asked a question of her own. “Why do you keep saying that I’m lying when I’m not?” She asked loudly.

  “Because,” he replied just as loudly.

  “Because what?”