24 1/2 Kisses (A Bashir Family Romance) (5 page)

“There are a lot of beautiful women in New York,” was his calculated answer.

I hastily grabbed my recorder and stood up to go. I wasn’t going to endure another second of this. My professional demeanor was shattering into shards.

This was too personal. Too painful.

“And I’m sure you’ve had them all, Dev. I’m late for another appointment. If you want to reschedule, please let me know. Otherwise, I’m fine if we end this now.”

I left the office before he could answer.

As I approached the elevator, I could feel him on my heels. He grabbed my arm and turned me to face him. Something about his touch felt…
possessive
.

“Scarlett, you have more time. I mean, I can give you more time.”

He wouldn’t let go of my arm and his eyes had a hint of desperation in them.

Dev, what’s your angle?

“I’m ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow. You should come see it. And I’ll give you the rest of the interview. Then we can do whatever you want. Go our separate ways.”

He asked like he was inviting me to his sixth grade soccer championship. “
Come watch me play, Scarlett…”

I untangled myself from his hold and stepped into the open elevator.

“I don’t have much of a choice, do I.” I said, tasting the bitterness on my tongue.

The doors shut and I was finally free of him, but I knew that was just a temporary feeling.

You’ll never be free of him…

Stop it, Scarlett.

As the elevator descended, I tried to push all my feelings down with it. They were emotions I had ignored for so long—ones that I had worked to keep buried below the surface, and now they were threatening to tear my heart open.

Be strong, Scarlett.

The next morning, I took the subway to the New York Stock exchange. Bill thought it was a great idea to see Dev in action and a decent photo opportunity, so Eric met me out front. His eyes lit up as usual when he saw me.

“Bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning, Scarlett,” he greeted me with a disarming smile.

I sipped some hot green chai from my to-go mug and tried to look alive.

“Ready to see the epicenter of New York greed in action?” I asked as we entered through a door under the large, neo-classic Greek pillars.

We watched from the crowded floor of the exchange as Dev approached the upper platform surrounded by his well-heeled posse, dressed in sharp suits and avariciou
s
smiles. As he rang the bell announcing that the market was open for trading, I could almost see dollar signs dancing in their eyes and hoped Eric could catch the unbridled greed on camera. As soon as the bell rang out, the floor became alive with brokers and traders grasping to make a buck on the day’s action.

I had never seen Dev so in his element.

Eric took several pictures and then pulled me aside.

“Sorry to leave you but I have another shoot in twenty minutes.”

I panicked.

“No, no, Bill said I had you for the entire day if I needed you.”

“Yeah, but Paul got sick today. I have to cover him for a shoot in Miami.”

His seemed to pick up on my dread of being left alone. He rubbed my arm tenderly—his touch was comforting and slightly
intimate
.

“Can I take you out later tonight—like on a real date?” He asked, his gaze turning serious and sweet.

I glanced up at the platform behind Eric and caught Dev’s intense stare. I needed to move on from him. Maybe Eric could help me.

“Yes, I would love to.”

“I’ll pick you up. There’s a place I want to show you.”

“It’s a date.”

He quickly pecked my cheek and left me standing there, like a lamb left in a den of wolves. And the biggest and meanest of them was on his way over to me.

Barely a minute after Eric was gone, Dev was standing in front of me in his dark suit with his matching eyes.

“What did you think, Scarlett? With our latest merger with Lincoln Community Bank, we’re expecting at least a twenty five percent jump today. There’s still time for you to get in early.” He sounded enthusiastic, like he was soaking up the energy from the room, whereas I felt myself being quickly drained by it.

“I don’t follow the markets nor do I want to. Where can we finish the interview? It’s pretty loud in here.”

Dev grabbed my arm and led me outside where a shiny Bentley limousine was waiting on the curb. The driver opened the door for us and he escorted me in. If my churning stomach was any indicator, I was suddenly sitting much too close him.

Gasoline, meet lit match.

“Are we going to your office?”

“We’re here.”

“I seem to remember sitting in an office. Are they remodeling today? Changing out the grey and black décor for something warmer—like charcoal?”

He forced a stale smile at my attempt at humor.

“I work from the car sometimes when I have a busy day. I thought you could ride along.”

Before I could tell him how stupid and arrogant that sounded, his cell rang. He picked it up while simultaneously opening up a small laptop.

I looked around the limo—it was outfitted with every convenience and electronic one could want or need.

“Two thirty four already? That’s got to be record. Actually check to see if it is and get a press release ready for the end of trading. Thanks.”

He hung up and tapped away at his laptop for a few moments then shut it abruptly as if he suddenly remembered I was sitting there. He angled his body toward me and his left knee rested lightly against mine.

“Sorry about the interruption. Please, go ahead and conduct your interview. I’m all yours.”

For a moment I didn’t register what he was saying though I heard words come out of his mouth. I was consumed by his body touching mine. It felt…
so right.

I inched away from him just enough that the connection was lost. It seemed to help and I regained my train of thought.

“What was your knowledge and involvement in the loan scandal in Zambia?”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Going for the jugular, Scarlett?”

I said nothing. The best interviewers know when to be quiet.

He shifted in his seat.

“First off, that’s an unfair question. You’re assuming there was scandal. There wasn’t. Franklin Bank has been cleared of all allegations by the U.S. Senate, the FDIC and the Zambia government. Secondly, I wasn’t involved in international loans or any affairs outside of the U.S. That was an effort guided by Gerald Franklin and his son, Rhett Franklin.” He looked away from me when he said his name.

Rhett Franklin. The college friend—your possible half-brother—who tried to rape me.

With a little effort, I shook off the jolt of hearing his name.

“Okay, so you weren’t directly involved in what was happening in Zambia. When were you aware that Franklin Bank was making high-interest loans to farmers and landowners who were clearly unable to pay them back?”

He tried to look unaffected, but I could tell this was a difficult topic for him.

“Like I said, it’s a completely different department. I wasn’t involved nor did I have any knowledge what was happening in Zambia.”

“Do you agree with the actions of Franklin Bank in Zambia?”

He leaned back in the black leather seat and started to loosen his blue silk tie.

“The economy—the world’s economy—exists because of loans. As much as banks are reviled, so should they be praised. When new money enters a growing economy, it can thrive, expand. Someone has to take the risk to change the world and I don’t see any of our critics lining up eager to hand out cash in Zambia. It’s a risky environment, and yes, some people got in over their heads. Just like borrowers do in the United States.” He looked at me directly. “Tell me, Scarlett, do you think banks are excited when a borrower can’t pay a mortgage? Of course not. Put simply, banks lose when loans go bad. We
all
lose.”

He was slick, but I wasn’t buying it.

“Nice speech, Mr. Bashir. So you’re telling me that Franklin Bank did not benefit from the bad loans in Zambia? What about the profits that were made when the land was sold for mineral rights?”

He kept his straight face.

“Profits? Franklin Bank almost went bankrupt. As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.”

“Really?”

“Listen, I don’t care to linger on Zambia. We’re not there anymore and we don’t engage in small lending of that nature any longer.”

I wasn’t going to let him off that easy.

“Thirty-five Zambians committed suicide and hundreds of women and children lost everything. I guess you don’t want to linger on their memory either.”

Silence.

Even with all the pomp and the power and the money surrounding him, he suddenly looked weak, ashamed—just for a moment. I wanted to ask him,
really ask him
, what had happened. Just how involved was he? Did he really have no soul left that he could be so calloused? Did his relationship with his real father—Gerald Franklin—cloud his judgment?

But I knew I wouldn’t get any real answers from him today. Probably never. The wall between us was too high for me to breach.

His cell rang again and a look of relief covered his face. I listened as he got another update on the stock price.

“You’re kidding? We broke three hundred? It’s barely eleven.”

I watched him return back to his normal self, in control, focused like a laser beam on his sole objective: making money and expanding his empire. As he talked about stock splits, record numbers, press releases and potential mergers into his phone, I looked out the window and soaked up the view of Lower Manhattan.

I remembered when Dev and I used to walk around these same streets, and the gleam he would get in his eye like he had a secret he wasn’t telling me. Did he know back then that he would become one of the most powerful men in the city? Did he know about his father? I wanted to ask him, but I couldn’t. His lawyers made it a condition of the interview.

He hung up the phone.

“Okay, where were we? Something about Franklin Bank being the cause of all the world’s suffering?”

I scanned my list of questions. I knew I wouldn’t get any closer to knowing the truth about Zambia, so I decided to move on.

“Why did Gerald Franklin make you CEO at such a young age when there were other more obvious choices?”

“Nicely veiled insult, Scarlett. Did you learn that in journalism school? Didn’t they teach you that honey attracts more flies than vinegar?”

“You cannot deny that it was surprising when you were made CEO so abruptly after Gerald Franklin stepped down. You were a director at a very young age and with little experience. You’re still very young now. Please tell us why you’re uniquely qualified—or what Mr. Franklin saw in you that the rest of the world did not—besides your aptitude for using well-worn idioms of course.”

He snorted at my icy tangent of words.

“I guess he saw that I—and only I—had what it would take to rebuild Franklin Bank into something worthy of the name.”

“And what is that?”

He shifted in his seat, crossed his arms and rubbed his chin in thought—like he always did when he was thinking hard on some problem. It almost seemed like he was really searching for the answer, and I was curious to hear what he would come up with.

After a moment, he had his answer.

“Some people are born with…a drive, an energy, a hunger to do something great in the world. It’s a uniqueness that isn’t easily defined with common words, but you know it when you meet someone with—with
it.
Quite simply, it’s a certain quality that separates the ordinary from the extraordinary.”

“And you have this quality?”

He looked at me closely before answering. “There are a few of us in the world.”

For a moment I was looking at the Dev I used to know.

Then he pulled out something from his black leather briefcase and set it on the table in front of me. It was my book.

“That reminds me, could you sign my copy of your book?”

It was the last thing I expected him to do and I was completely caught off guard, but a tiny bit of hope sprung from my chest at his gesture.

“You…
read my book
?”

He snickered. “I didn’t say I
read
it. I happen to know how hard it is to find signed first edition books, so if you don’t mind.” He pushed the book across the table. “It might be worth
something
one day.”

I felt my face go hot. He was toying with me. Years ago I imagined what it might be like to celebrate my first published book with Dev—and even what heartfelt inspiring inscription I might write in the copy I would give to him.

It didn’t quite look like this.