Commitment (75 page)

“Not at all.
What’re you drinking,
Riley
?
H
e turned to call
one of the waiters
.

“
Pinot grigio
would be great.
Thank you
.”

Shawn pulled her
closer
so that
she was leaning against him.
Riley
took a sip of the wine John Sampson handed her.

“I was just telling Shawn how since I’ve been in this business, I haven’t seen as much of a merging of so
unds as there is out there now.
It used to
be that his sound wouldn’t play—
and wou
ldn’t sell
—
on the West Coast. But not anymore.
Might be
a story in there for you.”

“What do you do?”
Riley
asked him.

“John’s a VP at Virgin,” Brendan said.

“
I tried to get
your husband
to sign with us,” he
said
.
“But he didn’t feel we had enough of a track record wit
h rap
. . .” John shrugged.
“. . .
and he’s right.
But just don’t tell anybody
I said so
.”
He grinned and emptied his glass.

Riley
was smiling back at him when she spotted a familiar face
just outside the VIP area
.
She squinted
in disbelief, but it was true. It was the girl from Xander’s.

Keisha
.

Her
heartbeat
accelerated
and her temples throbbed
.

Why
was she here?
All th
e way in California?
After everything that had happened, did Shawn still allow her to dance in his shows?
Or were they still . . ?

She couldn’t even allow he
rself to complete the thought.

If she’d had any doubt at all that this was the same
girl, the way she was staring,
no,
gla
r
ing
,
at her
effectively
eliminated
every ounce of it
.
Keisha
’s
eyes
were
directly on her
and did not waver
though i
t was clear she’d been spo
tted.
Riley
turned around to face Shawn.

“
I’m going to the Ladies Room
,” she said. 

“You okay?”

For him to have asked the question, t
here must have been something on her face, or in her eyes, that clued him in that everything was most definitely
not
okay.

“No,” she said.

Behind them, John and Brendan had
sensed that something was afoot and had discreetly
turned away
,
talking about Mike and Darryl’s
settlement
.

“Why?
What’s wrong?”

“An old friend of yours is here,”
Riley
said.

“Who?” Shawn looked puzzled.

“You should know.”

He
narrowed his eyes in confusion.
“Old
frien
. . .”

“Keisha.”

A s
eries of looks crossed his face—
surprise, confusion, anger and finally comprehension.

“Mike must’ve brought her ou
t
for the party
,
Riley
, I swear
.”

She
sighed, wanting
to believe
.
Not knowing
whether she should.

“
Riley
, look at me.
I
didn’t bring her here.”
Shawn held her chin be
tween his thumb and forefinger.
“
That’s my word
.”

Riley
twisted free.
“I have to go to the Ladies Room, I’ll be right back.”

“
Riley
. . .”

“I’ll be right back
!
”

S
he wrenched
away from him
and pushed her way through the crowd, not
knowing where she was headed.
She wandered aimlessly for a couple of minutes until finally she saw
the
neon sign
lighting
the way.

She
was
halfway
there when someone touch
ed
her sho
ulder.
Thinking it was Shawn
, she spun
around
to
tell
him
again that she’d be back.
But
it was Keisha.

She was
shorter than she
appeared
from a distance
,
and
had a combative a
nd determined look on her face.
Riley
stared at her impassively, wa
iting.
If Shawn was still sleeping with her, this girl did not look like the type who would be anything other than proud of that fact and more than willing to share it
with whoever would listen
.
And god, Riley thought, she was beautiful. There was no getting around that.

“You
Smooth
’s wife, right?”

“And you are?”
Riley
said coolly.

“Keis
ha.
I know you
prob’ly
ain’ even heard of me.
But
I have something to say to you.

“Go ahead,”
Riley
prompted, trying to appear only mildly curious.

The music was loud, but not so loud that they
needed to raise
their voices
to be heard
.
Keisha
’s
hands
were
on her hips, and legs planted apart
.
No doubt she had
been waiting for this moment for a long time. 

“When we was in Houston, during the
Strictly Ol’ School
Tour?”
S
he paused for effect, swallowing a
nd then licking her lower lip.
“Me and
Smooth
?
We was . . . intimate.
And I just thought you ha
d a right to know ‘cause
. . .”

“T
hat’s very considerate of you,”
Riley
cut her off.
“To think of my
rights
.”

Keisha’s face fell a little, but she did a good job of keeping it almost immobile as
Riley
spoke.

“But here’s the thing, Shawn already told me.”

A l
ook of complete and utter shock crossed
Keisha’s
face, and was quickly replaced by defiance.
“Yeah, well did he tell you he was swe
atin’ me for weeks before that?
That he was the one
what sent me the plane ticket?
He was . . .”

“
Was
,”
Riley
emphasized, staring the girl right in the eyes
.
“But
maybe
now it’s time for all of us to move on
.
”

Keisha blinked
and
appeared to be thi
nking of something else to say.
“Well,” she
sai
d finally.
“Your man ain’t
about shit.
He did it once, he’ll do it again.”

Riley
forced a
tight
smile. “
What
concern
is that
of yours
?”

Her only education in these messy and sordid confrontations
came from movies and television—
she never dreamed she would be involved in one.

Keisha’s ne
ck started working on its axis.
“For your information, I don’t
want
him.”

“Good,”
Riley
said coldly.
“
So
we agree on something.”

Over Keisha’s shoulder she could see Sh
awn making his way toward them.
He looked downright frantic and she couldn’t help but enjoy his discomfort a little bit.
His worst nightmare realized.
If it was a fraction of what she’d felt when she found out about Keisha in the first place, it was punishment enough.

“Yeah?” Keisha asked
sarcastically.
“What
’s that
?”

Riley
gave her a sweet smile.
“That you should stay the
hell
away from my husband.”

Just saying the words gave her a
rush
.
Lorna would disown her if she k
new she’d been engaged in a cat
f
i
ght over a man, of all things, b
ut it felt good on
a
deep primal level.
Keisha
turned on her heel and flounced away, b
rushing by Shawn as she did so.
Then he was standing where Keisha
had been, his face almost gray.
He d
idn’t seem to know what to say.
Th
ey stood staring at each other
for a few moments until
Riley
decided to put him out of his misery.

“
I’m fine
,” she said, her voice flat.

He studied her face for a few moments more and then s
he could see
his
frame
begin to
relax
.
“You sure
you’re a’ight?
What
’d
she say to you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Knowing she wasn’t angry se
emed to fuel Shawn’s own anger.
He glanced over his shoulder in the direction Keisha had gone.

“That fucking bitch don’t know . . .”

“Forget
it,”
Riley
said, taking his arm.
“And don’t call her a bitch.  She didn’t get here all on her own.”

“Baby
. . .
”

“
Forget
it.”

The confrontation with Keisha had actually made her feel better. She
got
it now.
Shawn’s betrayal had only been part of what nagged at her these past months. His betrayal
was something
they would have to deal with between them, and
if they were lucky,
maybe they could
get through it
.
But now she knew that t
he other part that tormented her was her unfulfilled need to affirm that he was hers and no one else’s.
And now she had.

The thought hit her like a sledgehammer. She was Lorna Terry’s daughter for heaven’s sake. She should not need this as much as she did. She shouldn’t, but she did. Shawn had told her once that she
“
belonged
”
to him and she couldn’t, or didn’t want to understand what he me
ant. But she understood it now.

Looking Keisha in the eye and claiming him had not made her feel weak, or dependent, or deluded. It made her feel empowered. Shawn was her husband. He belonged to her, and she to him.

Riley
grabbed a belt loop on either side of his slacks and pulled him toward her so that they we
re pressed against each other.

“
I want to know right now
.
Am I
going to have to worry about
there being
other Keishas out there?”

Shawn
looked her directly in the eye.
“No.”