BWWM Interracial Romance 2: Open Heart (6 page)

Tony took the hint. He managed to get Vince up and on his feet; he half-carried the older man out of the club and to his car, put a bottle of water in his hands and stuffed him in the passenger seat. All the while, Vince was muttering—mumbling confused, drunken gibberish that Tony could barely make out about how women were all the same, how he shouldn’t let someone get him all wrapped up in game. Then the older man’s drunken wisdom continued onto other subjects, and Tony started to lose even the slightest amount of interest in what his friend had to say. He took the keys and pulled the Maserati out of its parking spot, starting down the road to drop Vince back at his home. He called Ben, telling him to meet him there—he wasn’t going to stay at Vince’s.

The night had been a massive bust, Tony thought bleakly as he made his way carefully to Vince’s house. Vince was still going on next to him, and although Tony was barely paying attention to the muttering, mumbling, stumbling words, he caught one phrase; Vince was saying something on an unrelated subject, and then looked at Tony and said, “You know, kid, you remind me a lot of myself at your age.” Tony didn’t catch the reason for it; the words themselves gave him a chill. Tony reminded Vince of himself? The drunken mess in the passenger seat was not—at least at that moment—the kind of person that Tony would aspire to be. Vince was wealthy beyond imagining, and he was certainly well-connected on top of it, but he didn’t seem to be all that happy.

“You stick with me, kid; we’ll just keep on having fun ‘til they put us in our graves.”

Tony pulled into Vince’s driveway and got out of the car. How did he remind Vince of himself? Was he that superficial? That shallow?

It occurred to Tony that in spite of Vince’s business acumen, there didn’t seem to be much of merit he could take from the man for living advice. His mentor had passed out once more in the passenger seat, and Tony hauled him out. Did he really want a life like the one Vince inhabited? He thought there was a lot of fun in Vince’s life—but there wasn’t much else. He had a huge house and very rarely anyone but himself and his staff in it. He had tons of money, all the freedom to travel that anyone could desire, but what did the man really get from his travels? It seemed to Tony that Vince only ever went to the clubs and restaurants of any place he went to—never somewhere high culture, like a museum or the theatre. Tony thought that it wasn’t a very fulfilling life; even if it was fun, there wasn’t anything deeper to it—not even an appreciation for the things he had. Maybe, he thought, softening as he handed Vince off to one of the security guards that patrolled the older man’s house after night, he was just feeling bleak because Vince had decided to get messy, pass-out drunk when he was supposed to be showing Tony a good time.

Ben was waiting for him, and Tony got into the car, faintly relieved to be going home instead of bringing some drunken girl to Vince’s house. He had looked around again and again in the course of the evening out, but he hadn’t managed to find any woman at any of the clubs that attracted him the way that Ashley had; the almost immediate, instantaneous interest he had felt in the young doctor had been as much a fluke in his life as anything could have been. As they wove through Miami traffic, Tony was looking out through the window. He thought he spotted Ashley’s car—he had seen it briefly at the beginning of their one date. Ben pulled up next to the car at a red light, and Tony peered through the window to see if it was her. He craned his head, thankful that his windows were set up to be opaque from the outside, though he could see through just fine. The driver in the next car was a woman—but it wasn’t Ashley, instead some blonde, squirming and seat-dancing. Tony shook his head and sat back as Ben pulled onto the Expressway, scrubbing at his face.

It was impossible, Tony thought. He could see some kind of wisdom in his friend’s words—it didn’t do any good to be hung up on Ashley, to obsess over her if she wasn’t interested in him. But he didn’t think he would be going out to any clubs again anytime soon, whether or not he was able to get another date with Ashley. He thought about his brother, and Amanda. He hadn’t realized what a hunger he had developed for something deeper than just going out and having fun, sleeping with a woman and then seeing her to the door in the morning—or seeing her a few times and then extricating himself from her over-interested grip. It was flattering to have women throwing themselves at you until you came to the point where you realized that the only reason they were doing it was your money and the thought of nabbing themselves a steady situation. He didn’t want a trophy wife; he wanted a woman who was his complement, who could understand that he was driven to work long hours. A woman who wanted him because of who he was, not because of what he had.

When he finally arrived at his home, exhausted, Tony took his phone out and flipped through his list of contacts until he came to Ashley’s name. He stared at her number for a long time, thinking about the text messages that they had sent back and forth. For the first time in years, Tony felt nervous and apprehensive about sending a woman a message; he wondered if he had the nerve to try asking her out again. But he looked at the messages—she had said she would get in touch once her schedule cleared up. He would have to wait a few days at least before he could reasonably check in on her again.

Ashley had fallen into the normal fast-paced routine of her day; it had been almost three weeks since she told Tony that she would get in touch with him when her schedule began to clear. She had been nervous at making that excuse—thinking that it would lose him for good. It was a valid excuse; she had actually been so busy that on any day she didn’t have to work, she was either sleeping or taking the time to rest and recuperate. Ashley managed to fit in some time with her family and friends, but she was constantly exhausted. The death of one of the best Emergency Room doctors on the staff had thrown a wrench into scheduling, and Ashley was pleased when the department head asked her to take over as many of the responsibilities as possible. She was making overtime pay, which was great—and she thought that she would definitely be in line for a future promotion, thanks to her eagerness to take on more responsibility, but the doubled-up schedule left her so little time to relax that she treasured what few hours of non-stressed time she had.

The first sign that Ashley had that her steady day of rounds and consultations was going to be shattered to smithereens was a text message from the guard at the non-emergency entrance to the hospital.
Someone’s here to see you,
the message read.
You got time, or should I tell him to hit the road?
Ashley felt her heart pounding. Who could it be? Her mind immediately latched onto the fact that it might be Tony; she wasn’t sure whether she felt more appalled at the fact that he was coming to visit her in spite of the fact that she’d told him that she’d get in touch when she was free, or intrigued that he had taken the initiative to come and see her. That would be like him, she thought with a little grin to herself, thinking of the way he’d secured his first date to her. She texted the guard back that she’d be at the entrance in a few minutes and took a second to check herself in the mirror. She wished, fleetingly, that she had the kind of job that would allow her to wear makeup; she knew some of the other attending doctors did, but it was against stated hospital policy, as was perfume. Ashley had always been a stickler for adhering to policy—besides, she knew that a lot of her patients had allergies, and the need to touch up her makeup throughout the day would have only frustrated her.

She made her way quickly to the main entrance of the hospital, her heart fluttering in her chest. If it was Tony, she decided, she would agree to a second date, provided he wasn’t acting like some kind of lunatic. She felt her hands starting to tremble and scrambled down the stairs instead of waiting for the elevator.

She reached the front desk at the main entrance of the hospital, looking around for any indication of who it was coming to visit her. Ashley approached the guard in confusion. “Hey, where’s this guy you were talking about?” she asked him, thinking that she didn’t have time to wait around.

“Right behind you.” The familiar voice in her ears made Ashley’s heart race faster for just an instant—until she realized why it was familiar. She turned around slowly and came face to face with Kent. She crossed her arms over her chest, immediately feeling an inclination to tell him to get the hell out of her way and go back to her rounds. But she had agreed to see him—she might as well find out what he was there for.

“Who died?” she asked, looking up at him. Kent was taller than she was, and heavily built. He came from mixed-race heritage, with a British mother and an African father, and at one point, Ashley had been utterly transfixed by his beauty: green eyes, full lips, reddish hair—even a few freckles dusted across his cheeks—Kent had been all she had wanted when she first met him.

“No one died; what are you on about?” Kent shook his head at her. “I came to see you because you’re not returning any of my calls.” Ashley sighed. She had gotten two or three calls from him in the past few months, each one the same character: half-drunk pleas for her to take him back, without any offer of what he would do to make it worth her while, or any understanding for why they had broken up. Just “I miss you baby, I’m a different man, I made a huge mistake leaving you.”

“Look, Kent—” Ashley started, stepping back as he started looming into her personal space.

“Please, Ashley, just give me a chance. I know we had a rough time of it, but you know we were great together! You haven’t even let me show you how I’ve changed—you won’t even return my calls. I’m a different man, Ashley. I can be the man you need.”

Ashley shook her head. It was exactly the way it had been when they were together, she thought; he would cajole, and she would eventually get worn down enough to give in and go out with him, or to stop nagging him about spending so much money for a while. And then everything would go back to the way it was.

“Listen to me, Kent,” she said firmly, interrupting him even as he fell to his knees in front of her, trying to take her hands in his. “If you want to prove to me that you’re a different man, actually listen to me. I haven’t answered your calls because I’m busy and because you haven’t given me even a single hint that you’ve actually changed—you’re just calling me at all hours of the night saying you’re sorry. I’m not interested in giving you a chance until you can prove to me that you understand why everything went wrong in our marriage.” She stepped back from him and glanced at the security guard, thinking that if she needed backup to take care of the problem of her ex-husband, he would be the person to turn to. But Kent just sighed, cast her a baleful look, and left in a huff, barely looking at her.

Ashley turned to go back to her duties, thinking that she would forget about the ill-timed meeting soon enough—her shift was over in a few hours, and she’d be so busy that it would be easy to forget all about her ex-husband. “Ashley!” a familiar voice called out, and Ashley almost groaned in frustration; then stopped in her tracks as she realized that this familiar voice wasn’t Kent’s. She turned around slowly.

Tony was approaching, a bouquet of daffodils in his hands. Ashley’s blood rushed into her face, and she pressed her lips together, staring at him in shock. He was, as usual, in a fine tailored suit, and the bouquet was absolutely stunning, already tucked into a vase of water. “You said these were your favorites, right?” he asked her with a little smile.

Shocked, almost breathless, Ashley nodded slowly, looking from the bouquet to Tony’s face.

“Well then take them, woman!”

Ashley reached out and took the vase of her favorite flowers into her numbed hands, continuing to stare at Tony for a long moment.

He looked down at her with a little smile on his face. “I know you said you’d contact me when you were free for another date,” he said, looking sheepish, “But I found out daffodils were in season, and I thought of you. Are you free tonight?”

Ashley wracked her mind; she would be off in a few hours, and she didn’t have to work the next day either. His timing was impeccable. “I… I’m free tonight,” she said hesitantly.

“Would you be willing to go out with me again? You don’t have to say yes—you can keep the daffodils anyway.”

Ashley laughed, shaking her head at the fact that he thought she would believe he’d take the flowers back if she said no. “You have the most amazing timing,” she told him, thinking of the fact that her ex-husband had just left. “Yes, I’ll go out with you. You’ll have to come and get me from my house—and give me time to get ready.”

Tony nodded, a bright smile curving his lips. “Just as long as you’re ready to leave by 8pm, it will be perfect.”

Ashley considered; it would be close, but she could make it. “It’s a date,” she said.

Tony started to lean in to kiss her—and stopped. Ashley was almost disappointed, but realized that he was aware of the fact that she was on the clock, that she needed to stay as professional as possible. He pressed her hand and turned to leave.

Ashley realized as she started to go back to her rounds in the Emergency department that she had been thinking of the playful billionaire ever since their date—she hadn’t been able to quite get him out of her mind. The fact that he remembered that she loved daffodils was a testament to the fact that at least he’d been paying attention to what she said; he had remembered it for months after the fact. That was definitely a mark in his favor. Ashley blushed as the nurses and medical assistants all asked her who the daffodils had come from, and held her peace, shaking a little on the inside with excitement and anxiety. How would the date go?