Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1) (15 page)

Jenay
didn’t think she had asked anything odd.
 
She remained steadfast.
 
“Yes.”

Beatrice
smiled that smile again.
 
“I know you’re
tired,” she said.
  
“You’ve had a very
long drive.”

“It
wasn’t that long,” Jenay pointed out.
 
“Little over three hours.”

Beatrice
and Paige exchanged a glance.
 
Beatrice
looked back at Jenay.
 
“I suggest you get
some rest,” she said, “and start fresh in the morning.”

“I
would rather start fresh now.
 
I would
like to look around.
 
At the guestrooms
first and foremost.”

Beatrice
exhaled and looked to Paige for help.

“That’s
really not necessary,” Paige said to Jenay.

Jenay
looked at her.
 
“You work here also?”

“No.”

“Then
what’s not necessary?”

“Your
insistence on seeing the guestrooms.
 
You
just got here.
 
Bullying the staff is not
necessary.”

Bullying
the staff?
 
By making a request?
 
Jenay was floored.
 
“And you are again?”

“I’m
Paige Springer,” Paige said proudly.
 
“I’m Charles’s girlfriend.”

Jenay
was taken aback by that assertion, but she wasn’t surprised by it.
 
It was only two days ago that Charles had
decided that they should see where their brand new relationship led.
 
She was certain she wasn’t going to come to
his hometown and find that he had no love interests already here.
 
She expected to find plenty love
interests.
 
She was just surprised to
find it in her face so quickly.
 

But
she wasn’t about to let
the girlfriend
know her true feelings.
 
She looked at
Beatrice.
 
Charles hired her to do a job,
and she was going to do it.
 
“Show me
every available guestroom,” she ordered.

But
if she thought it would be as easy as giving an order, she was mistook.
 
“There are none,” Beatrice said, and Paige
smiled.
 
They were a united front.
 

“There
are no vacancies?”

“None,”
Beatrice said, grabbed her clipboard off the countertop, and began to walk
around the desk.
 
“But I’ll be happy to
show you the facilities if you like.
 
We
can begin in the kitchen.”

Paige
grinned.
 
Exactly where she needed to
begin, she wanted to say.
 

Jenay
knew she wanted to say it too, and it would not have mattered.
 
She wasn’t about to lower herself by arguing
with some girlfriend and a woman who was actually her subordinate.
 
They wanted that.
 
They wanted the conflict and some knock-down
drag-out so that they could run back to Charles and tell him what a major
mistake he made by hiring that woman.
 
But
it wasn’t going to happen.
 
Jenay
actually smiled.
 
“I’d love to see the
kitchen,” she said. “Lead the way!”

Beatrice
hadn’t expected that response.
 
And Paige
either, whose grin was gone.
 
Black girls
had hot tempers, or so she’d heard.
 
She
was expecting fireworks.
 
What in the
world?

Beatrice
was expecting it too.
 
But now that it
was clearly not going to happen, she was on the hook.
 
“Right this way,” she said, and began
escorting Jenay to the backside of the inn.

Paige
fell against the countertop when they left.
 
She was floored.
 
She immediately
pulled out her cell phone, and waited for her friend to answer.

“You
will not believe,” she said into her phone, “what Big Daddy has hoisted upon us
now.”

It
was nightfall before the meetings ended for the day.
 
Negotiations were going nowhere, and Abe and
Ethan was leaving it all up to him.
 
But
as soon as he plopped down in his chauffeur-driven Town car to make the journey
back to the hotel, he pulled out his cell phone.
 
Jenay was on his mind.
 
But when she answered his call, she didn’t
sound as upbeat as he had hoped.

“Hey,”
he said.

“How’s
New York?” she asked.

“Tense.
 
How about there?”

Jenay
hesitated.
 
But then spoke the
truth.
 
“Tense,” she responded.

Charles
didn’t expect to hear that.
 
He had warned
Beatrice he didn’t want any bullshit.
 
“You’re in Jericho?”

“I’m
here.
 
I’m at the Inn.”

“What
are you doing?”

“Right
now I’m in the hotel’s restaurant looking over the financial records.
 
The bookkeeper---”

“Megan?”
Charles asked.

“Yes.
 
She’s been very nice.
 
She pulled the records for me.”

“Good.
 
What about Beatrice?
 
How has she been?”

Jenay
didn’t mix words.
 
“Not so nice.”

Charles
was cautious.
 
He had to make sure Jenay
wasn’t just being too sensitive.
 
“She’s
treating you disrespectfully?” he asked.

“Oh,
she smiles and is as friendly, conversation-wise, as she can be.
 
But she still wants to control
everything.
 
Contrary to what you may
think, Charlie, she’s not ready to hand over the reins of power to anybody
yet.
 
Especially not me.
 
Maybe not even you.”

“That’ll
change, don’t worry.
 
So what do you
think about the place?”

“What
I’ve been able to see of it, it’s quite wonderful.”

“What
do you mean what you’ve been able to see?”

“I
wanted to see the guestrooms.
 
First
off.
 
That would let me know just how
well run this place really is.
 
But that
didn’t happen.”

Charles
frowned.
 
“Why the hell not?”

“We’re
booked solid.
 
According to
Beatrice.
 
No rooms to show.”

Charles
knew better than that.
 
And now he was
fuming.
 
“Other than that, you’re okay?”

“I’m
okay,” Jenay said less convincing than she realized.
 
“Adjusting, that’s all.”

Charles
felt like a prick.
 
Like a monumental
fuck-up.
 
How could he allow her to go
into that lion’s den alone?
 
He knew
there would be some resistance.
 
There
usually were whenever he made changes to his business command structures.
 
But he’d let Beatrice have the run of that
place far too long.
  
She wasn’t ready
for the change.

“I’ll
let you get back to work,” he said.
 
“You
take care of yourself.”

“You
too,” Jenay responded, and the call ended.

Charles
was about to phone Beatrice Moynihan and read her the riot act, but that
wouldn’t solve his immediate concern.
 
Jenay and her happiness, and her adjustment in his world, concerned him
more.
 
He made another phone call,
alright, but this time to Abe.

“I’ve
got to get back to Maine,” he said over the phone.

“But
you’re our lead negotiator,” Abe reminded him.
 
“You can’t just leave!”

“You’ll
have to take the lead, Abe.
 
Something’s
come up and I’ve got to go.”

“What
came up?”

Charles
frowned.
 
Abe knew him better than
that.
 
“Don’t you worry about what.
 
You handle negotiations.
 
You, not Ethan.
 
Keep me posted by phone.”

“Yes,
sir,” Abe responded.
 
He didn’t exactly
have a choice in the matter.

And
Charles ended the call.
 
He leaned back
and exhaled.
 
He had already decided that
he was more than determined to try and make it work with Jenay.
 
Businesswise and especially personally.
 
And no devil in hell, and none in Jericho
either, was going to sabotage his determination.
 

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The
VIP suite was a luxurious suite and Jenay was in the garden tub, soaking and
sipping wine at the end of her busy day, and trying her best to keep it
upbeat.
 
Beatrice Moynihan was going to
be a problem.
 
A major one if she didn’t
figure out how she was going to handle the situation.
 
Her relaxed style worked today.
 
She, at least, didn’t get in any knockdown,
drag-outs with her or that so-called “girlfriend” of Charles’s.
  
But what about tomorrow?
 
It couldn’t wait until Charles returned.
 
She had to deal with this now.
 
People were funny.
 
You give them an inch, they actually did want
to take a mile.
 
And she wasn’t about to
be that kind of manager.

She
leaned her head back and closed her eyes.
 
She had hoped, after she left California, that it would get easier for
her.
 
Quince was behind her, and all of
that craziness during their divorce was behind her too.
 
Her hope had been that it would have gotten
easier.
 
Not easy.
 
But easier.
 
Now that was being threatened too.

She
heard a sound, and quickly opened her eyes.
 
Then she started hearing footsteps in the suite.
 
She immediately sat straight up, her heart
pounding.
 
“Who’s there?” she
yelled.
 
She couldn’t think of anything
else to yell.
 
“Who’s there?”

“Who
do you think?” a very familiar voice yelled back, and Jenay’s heart went from
horror to happiness.
 
And then he
appeared, walking into the bedroom like the man she was growing increasingly
fond of.
 
And when she saw him, after
such an unsatisfying day, she couldn’t help herself.
 
She stood up and jumped from the tub.
 
As he entered the bathroom, she was running
into his arms.
 

Charles
was elated when her face lit up like a kid on Christmas and she ran into his
arms.
 
He wrapped her wet, naked body tightly
and lifted her up.
 
She wrapped her legs
around him.

“You
didn’t say you were coming back tonight,” she said with joy in her voice.

Charles
looked at her pretty face.
 
“Are you
disappointed?”

She
smiled.
 
“You know I’m not.
 
I don’t think there’s anybody better I would
have wanted to see.”

Her
revelation, that she was into him too, warmed his heart.
 
He gave her a kiss on her lips.

“Why
did you come back?” she asked him.

Charles
was not a sentimental man.
 
But seeing
Jenay’s happiness, and holding Jenay’s wet, hot body, made him more prone to
take a step.
 
“I wanted to make sure your
first day wasn’t a total bust,” he admitted.
 
“I didn’t like the way you sounded on the phone.”

Jenay
suspected she was the reason, but after experiencing nothing but hope turned to
despair in all of her previous relationships, there was still that seed of
doubt.
 
But when Charles kissed her
again, and he kissed her in a way that made clear that she was absolutely the
reason, she wrapped her arms around his neck and returned the excitement of his
kiss.

Charles
started moaning as he moved his face from side to side and enjoyed the
sweetness of her kiss.
 
He felt her.
 
He felt the skin of her smooth, black face
against his hard, white face.
 
He felt
her toned arms around his neck, and her legs around his waist, and her breasts
pressed against his chest, and her vagina pressed against his penis.
 
It felt so wonderful to him that he wanted
more of her.
 
He knew at some point on
his return, he would want her this way.
 
But he never dreamed it would be this desperately.
 
He wanted her, all of her, right now.

He
lifted her, to where her breasts were in his mouth, and he feasted on
them.
 
And as he sucked her, and licked
her, and nibbled on her, he carried her into the adjacent bedroom.

When
he laid her on the bed, he immediately began to undress.

“I’ll
bet you didn’t expect your night to end this way,” he said as he undressed, and
stared at her gorgeous face, her beautiful body.

“You’d
win that bet,” she said, just as he stopped undressing, got down on his knees,
and began making love to her, between her legs, with his mouth.
 
She clenched her teeth, as he ate her, and
her body reacted by releasing those vaginal juices Charles was waiting for.
 
He ate her harder when she released, and she
squirmed in delight.
 
Until the
squirming, and her juices, and her fantastic taste, was too much for Charles.

He
flung off his shirt, dropped his pants and boxers, stepped out and kicked his
clothes aside, pulled a condom from his wallet, and then pulled her further
onto the bed.
 
He moved onto the bed too,
and positioned his penis in direct aim of her vagina.
 
He was about to pound the shit out of her.
 
He wanted her just that badly.

But
then he looked into her eyes, and saw that spark, that tenderness that
attracted her to him in the first place, and he felt a thump in his heart.
 
That odd thump he felt before when he was
with her this way.
 
And instead of
putting it in her right away and giving her that pounding his dick was clearly
ready to give to her, he leaned down, kissed her again, and then pulled her
into his arms.

Jenay
felt a swell of emotion when he held her.
 
She knew her body was the object of men’s affection.
 
She often wondered if that was all men wanted
from her.
 
She’d even wondered if it was
all Charles wanted from her.
 
But now, as
he held her, as he kissed her so lovingly, she was beginning to feel
differently about Charles.
 
She suspected
he could be somebody special.
 
Now she
believed he was.

Charles
couldn’t let her go.
 
Even after his body
betrayed him and he guided his rock hard penis into her soft, wet pussy, he
continued to hold her.
 
He fucked her,
long and hard, but he still couldn’t let her go.
 
And when they came, within seconds of each
other, Charles, too, felt a swell of emotion.
 
What in the world was going on, he wondered as he stared at her.
 
What was it about this woman, of all the
women he’d ever had, that made him want her so completely?

But
he wanted her.
 
As he poured inside of
her, as he filled her up, as he fucked her senseless, he wanted her.
 
Life could very well become an impossibility
without her.
 
And that reality, for a man
like Charles Sinatra, was a hell of an amazing thing.

“Another
one,” Charles said later that night, as Jenay laid in his arms.

They
were still naked, under cover, he on his back, she on her side, with her head
on his chest.
 
She smiled.
  
“Not another one, Charlie!”

“Another
one,” he said again. “I like the way you taste.
 
Up and down.”

Jenay
kissed him yet again.
 
Charles enjoyed
her kiss and fondled her bare butt as she laid her head back down on his chest
again.
 
After a moment, he spoke again.

“So
you like my hometown?”

“I
haven’t seen it yet.”

“So
you like Jericho Inn?”

“From
what I’ve seen of it, yes, it’s beautiful.”

“You
don’t like the name, do you?”

“It’s
a simple name.”

“It’s
supposedly a simple town.
 
People like
simple around here.”

“But
it’s not the people around here who stays here.
 
Jericho is on the way to other places, including Canada.
 
Those world travelers hear Jericho Inn, they
may think a dinky motel.
 
But if they
hear, say, Berkshire Bed and Breakfast, or some such name like that, they will
check it out and be willing to pay the price.”

“So
you recommend I change the name?”

“Yes,”
Jenay said.
 
“I know I just got here, but
yes.
 
We’ve also got to build a website,
and that’s on my To Do list too, but we need the right name first.”

“Compile
a list of names,” Charles said, “and I’ll take a look.
 
But this place has been around for over
twenty years with that same name and it has some loyal guests.
 
I haven’t owned it for even a year.
 
I’m disinclined to change the name at this
point, but I can be persuaded.
 
Do your
research, compile the list, and I’ll see.”

Jenay
nodded.
 
“Fair enough,” she responded.

“Tell
me what happened with Beatrice,” he said and began rubbing her between her
legs.

“She
isn’t pleased with your selection,” she said, closing her eyes to his rub.

“That’s
a conclusion.
 
Tell me what she did.”

“She
went out of her way to make it clear to me that I wasn’t coming in here running
anything.
 
The way she made it clear was
to march my black behind straight to the kitchen and introduce me to the
housekeeping supervisor.
 
She thought it
was funny.”

“Yeah,
it’s funny alright.
 
The funny part is if
she thinks I’m going to put up with anybody’s racism b.s..”
 
Then he looked at Jenay.
 
“I guess you know what it looks like, don’t
you?”

“What?”

“Racism.
 
Racial hatred.”

“Oh,
yeah,” Jenay said.
 
“I know what it looks
like.”

“How
do you handle it?”

“I
don’t.
 
It’s not my problem to
handle.
 
I keep doing what I’m doing and
trust that good will always triumph over evil.
 
Because guess what?
 
It always
does.”

Charles
held her tighter.
 
“So Moynihan decided
you belong in the kitchen.”

“That
was her point, I’m sure.
 
I think she
thought I was going to react some kind of way, but that didn’t happen.
 
So then she showed me around the rest of the
building, but she wouldn’t honor my request to see a single unoccupied
guestroom.
 
According to her, there were
no unoccupied rooms.”

“She
lied,” Charles said, “but go on.”

“It
was just general disrespect,” Jenay went on.
 
“That was the main thing.
 
She and
your girlfriend were like a tag team coming at me.”

Charles
looked at Jenay.
 
“My what?”

“Your
girlfriend.
 
At least that’s who she said
she was.”

Charles
stared at her.
 
“What was her name?”

“Paige
somebody,” she said.
 
“I asked her who
she was, since she was putting her two cents into my conversation with
Beatrice, and that’s what she said.
 
She’s your girlfriend.”

Charles
exhaled.
 
“She’s not,” he said.

Jenay
looked at him.

“She’s
not,” he said again.
 
“No.”

But
Jenay knew there was more to the story.
 
The woman looked arrogant, but she didn’t look delusional.
 
“Who is she then?
 
You know her?”

“I
know her, yes.
 
She’s somebody I used to
. . . I used to have sex with.”

“So
she used to be your girlfriend?”

“She
was never my girlfriend.
 
Let’s get that
straight.
 
She used to be somebody I had
sex with.
 
Period.”

Jenay
decided to go there.
 
“You mean she used
to be to you what I am to you now?”
 
She
then looked at him, as if his reaction to the question was just as important as
his answer.

Charles
snuggled her closer against him.
 
And he
frowned.
 
“Nothing like you,” he said,
and kissed her on the side of her face.
 
And he meant what he said.
 
“There’s no way I would have left New York in the middle of negotiations
if all you meant to me was what you could give to me in bed.
 
No way.”