Games Divas Play (A Diva Mystery Novel) (17 page)

We were both deep in our own thoughts as we made our way to my apartment in Chelsea when Terrence’s phone rang. I looked over at the screen as he pushed “Talk” and saw that it w
as Vivica.

“Hey, baby,” he said into the phone. My stomach clenched at the sound of him calling another woman “baby” although I knew I had no right to
be upset.

“Busy day. I just left a crime scene in Brooklyn, and I’ve got a couple of other things to wrap up tonight, so I don’t think I’m going to make dinner.” I could tell she wasn’t happy about
that news.

“I’m sorry, Vivica,” he said, lowering his voice as if he thought I couldn’t hear him seated next to me. I could hear that her voice was elevated, but I couldn’t make out the exact words. “Look, I’ll call you later, and we can discuss it further. Do what you ha
ve to do.”

“Ouch,” I said. “Every
thing OK?”

“Yes, everything is fine,” he said as his knuckles gripped the steer
ing wheel.

“You can just let me out here, and I can grab a cab the rest of the way if you need to be s
omewhere.”

“It’s fine, Nia. Just leave
it alone.”

“OK, my bad . . .” We rode the rest of the way in silence. When the car pulled up in front of my apartment building, I began to gather my things t
o get out.

“Uh, you’ll let me know about that Quantico report, right?” I said, turning to lo
ok at him.

“Oh shit. I forgot we were supposed to discuss that today. Do you want me to come up and we can go over it
quickly?”

“Uh, sure. Co
me on up.”

Why was I suddenly nervous? Terrence and I were just going to look at a file, discuss the contents, and then he was going to leave. No
big deal.

I unlocked the door to my apartment and walked in, flipping on the light
switches.

“Nice place,” he said as he surveyed
the space.

The one-bedroom loft wasn’t large at only six hundred square feet, but the floor-to-ceiling windows in the sunken living room looked out to a terrace garden with a deck. The twinkling lights of the city as my backdrop had attracted me to the pricey apartment, which I decorated in a soothing palette of taupe and chocolate furniture with pops of citrus accents in the pillows. Some of my favorite elements were the bleach-blond wood floors, modern silver wall sconces, and mini crystal chandeliers. The galley kitchen, which I never used since I was in the city of endless takeout and delivery options, held my overflowing shoe and accessories collection in the cabinets. I was thankful I had resisted the urge to use the stainless steel refrigerator for more closet overflow. I grabbed a bottle of pinot, two wineglasses from the only cabinet where I stocked actual stemware, and walked back into the living room. Terrence had taken a seat on the low-slung black linen sofa and spread the contents of his briefcase out on the glass cof
fee table.

I placed the wineglasses on the table and took a seat ne
xt to him.

“Thanks,” he said as he took a sip of the wine. “V
ery nice.”

“Thanks. So what do we have here?” I grabbed the manila folder with the Quantico seal on the front and perused the profile they had worked up on Vanessa’s stalker, but it was hard to focus with Terrence seated so close to me. I could feel the heat from his thighs as his leg pressed against mine when he leaned in to point some
thing out.

“See, this indicates the stalker leaving the notes isn’t Carlo. My guy has worked up motives and other identifiers to try to understand his, or her, behavior. For this person, the target—that would be Vanessa and Marcus—is personal. This is someone who feels a familiarity and more importantly feels like he or she is owed something. That’s not the MO of Carlo and the Diablo Negro gang who are much more direct in how they conduct their business. What they do is never personal and is always about increasing their bot
tom line.”

“But Vanessa told me she thought he was going to rape her. That seems
personal.”

“I’m not sure. I doubt he was sent to rape Vanessa. And he may have ended up dead because he failed at his task. But we’ll learn more about that when we have his text messages tr
anslated.”

“Text
messages?”

“One of the officers securing the crime scene found his cell phone stuffed under the cushion of the chair he was sitting in when his throat was cut from behind. Going back through his exchanges, we saw a message with a photo of Vanessa
attached.”

“Oh my God,
Terrence.”

“We’re running down the number. Hopefully it’s not a disposable phone, but these guys in Diablo Negro aren’t stupid. I doubt they’d take a chance communicating with a relatively low-level player like Carlo on one of their regula
r phones.”

I took a large gulp of wine from my glass. The cool liquid did nothing to calm my nerves. I felt like Vanessa was in even mo
re danger.

“Look, relax, Nia,” Terrence said, taking my wineglass and setting it on the table. “I know you’re worried about your girl, but the NYPD is all over this, and we’re going to keep a patrol car on her building around the clock. And I’m sure Kareem is stepping up the private security as well. We’re going to catch
this guy.”

I felt the sting of hot tears prickling in my eyes, and I blinked to keep them from falling. Terrence picked up the wine bottle and poured me another glass, which I accepted. I took another deep swallow to calm my fears for Vanessa and to hopefully tamp down the quickening of my pulse from being so close to Terre
nce again.

Suddenly he pulled me into his arms. I rested my head on his chest and against my better judgment inhaled deeply. I could feel his heart beat through the soft material of his V-neck sweater, and before I could stop myself, I placed my hand over it. It felt familiar to be in his arms again. I felt like there was something still between us. I was wondering if he felt it, too, and then I felt
his lips.

He kissed the top of my head softly and stroked my short hair. I looked up at him, and then our lips
connected.

Our mouths opened easily to each other, our tongues dancing like old friends reunited. His mouth was warm and wet, tasting of melted chocolate and a hint of fresh mint. Delicious and
hypnotic.

I shouldn’t be doing this. What we had was over. He’
s engaged.

But none of that seemed to matter as the rising heat of passion began to spread through both of our bodies and our limbs became entangled. His lips rained down kisses along my neck as I leaned into him, hungry
for more.

He laid my body down on the sofa, and his long hard body was on top of mine. He kissed me again deeply on the mouth, his large hands moving slowly up and down the sides of my body before slipping underneath my thin T-shirt. His lips soon found my hard nipples straining up against the thin fabric of my shirt, and he pulled at them gently, torturing me. His hot breath moved over the tops of them, teasing me through the fabric. I arched up against him, my body betraying me by begging him for more. I didn’t want him to stop. But as I felt the growing hardness in his pants and the silky wetness in my own panties, I knew we had to stop now or there would be no tur
ning back.

“We shouldn’t,” I said huskily as I attempted to push him away, but he responded by pulling
me closer.

“Nia,” he groaned in my ear, his voice thick with desire. He wanted me just as much as I wanted him. I forgot the way he said my name and how that always made me tingle
all over.

“No, seriously, Terrence. We have to stop.” This was getting out of hand. As much as I didn’t want to, I forced myself to push him away and to stand up. The room was hot, and I felt like I was suffocating. I took off the thick sweater to try to cool myself off and threw it on the chair. Terrence stood up and gathered his things as I took the wineglasses and bottle back into the kitchen. Outside of his view, I set down the glasses and bottle and leaned against t
he fridge.

Dammit, what had we started? I raked my fingers through my hair and tried to calm myself down. I reasoned that we hadn’t actually done anything, so there was nothing to worry about, but then he hit me with a question that felt like a punch in th
e stomach.

“Where did we go wrong, Nia?” His dark eyes searched mine for answers and caused me to look down as I picked at invisible lint on my blac
k T-shirt.

“Look, Terrence, what we had was a long time ago, and I don’t think we should get into rehashing all of that. We both wanted and needed different things back then. And we just couldn’t give it to ea
ch other.”

The truth was the breakup had been hard for both of us, but we didn’t have a choice. After Terrence was shot, I told him I was offered a new job in LA and that I hoped he’d come with me. Seeing him unconscious in that hospital bed was the worst night of my life. I prayed that he’d pull through and God answered. But when I begged him to leave the force and move to LA with me, he said he couldn’t do it. And I said I couldn’t watch him risk his life every day and wait for another phone call like the one I had received, not knowing if he was alive or dead. I couldn’t live like that for him, and he said he couldn’t give up on his dre
am for me.

“I’m sorry, Nia,” Terrence said as he closed his briefcase and put on his jacket. “This won’t happ
en again.”

I was sorry, too. I was sorry we had stopped. But I couldn’t say that to him now. He wa
s engaged.

“It was my fault, too. I’m sorry. You’re right, it won’t happen again. I’ve never been the other woman, and I’m not about to s
tart now.”

As hard as it was for me to say, I knew it was the right thing to do. Terrence belonged to someone
else now.

CHAPTER 12

Laila

T
he Glam Network camera crew trailed me as I pretended to shop at Suga’ n’ Spice, a trendy lingerie and sex toy store. We’d been running all over the city, shooting snippets of content so that they could cobble together clips for a ten-minute show reel they were producing to start teasing the show’s premiere. And each stop required wardrobe, jewelry, a handbag change, and a new hairstyle so that all the clips looked like things were happening to me on different days. For this scene, I’d had the hairstylist put my hair up in a ponytail, and the stylist pulled some gold-threaded Miss Sixty jeans and a flowy black Narciso Rodriguez off-the-shoulder silk blouse with a keyhole design to show off my cleavage and six-inch crystal-studded Christian Louboutin Daffodil platform heels. The jeans were going to be murder to get off in the dressing room, but they appeared as if they had been painted on my body and made my ass look unbelievable on camera, so it was well worth the
sacrifice.

Since the news broke that Glam Network was shooting my reality show,
Whatever Laila Wants
, the press and blogs had been going crazy, so the premiere date had been pushed up to capitalize on all the excitement and to coincide with the NBA All-Star weekend. The producer assigned to my show, Tanya Peoples, had set up this afternoon’s scene as an outing for me to purchase some new goodies for an upcoming rendezvous. As I walked through the shop that was decorated like a French boudoir, I discussed my desires with the skinny blond salesgirl, Stacey, who was eager to be
on camera.

“Welcome to Suga’ n’ Spice. What can I help you with today?” Stacey drawled as she pretended to greet me for the first time. It was the third time we had shot this setup because this dumb salesgirl couldn’t even get those two simple li
nes right.

“I’m looking for something sexy in red to surprise my boyfriend,” I said as I sipped the champagne Stacey had poured for me upon my arrival. Unlike Stacey, I could remember my lines
perfectly.

“What sort of style do you prefer?” Stacey asked as she led me over to a wall of expensive red corsets, teddies, and bra and p
anty sets.

“Well, we haven’t seen each other in a while. He’s been on the road, so I want to really blow his mind. What would you recommend?” The Glam Network legal team was nervous about my actually using Marcus’s name in the show, so Miki told me to push as close to the line as possible without actually opening the network up to
a lawsuit.

“Oh, that sounds fun,” Stacey purred. “What kind of business is your boyf
riend in?”

“Let’s just say he’s in professional sports and likes to go one-on-one
with me.”

We both laughed as I winked at Stacey and took another sip of champagne. Stacey pulled down some of the items and spread them out on top of a table so that we could select the best ones to try on. I selected three: a bra and crotchless panty set; a leather and lace corset; and a sheer teddy, and headed for the dressing room in the back of
the store.

“And, cut,” I heard Tanya yell to the cameraman, who had practically been running to the dressing room, hoping he was going to film me changing into this lovely lingerie. Sorry, Charlie. You’ll just have to jerk off to your imaginat
ion later.

“OK, Laila, for this next scene we need you to try on the lingerie and come out to look at yourself in the mirror to see if you like the looks,” Tanya said to me. “You’ll ask Stacey for her opinion. And don’t worry about any of the peek-a-boo parts on the lingerie; we’ll blur those out on TV. Miki also suggested that you pull some things for tomorrow’s photo shoot for your Times Square billboard promoting
the show.”

“Gotcha, Tanya,” I said over my shoulder as I walked back into the dressing room. Once inside and well out of earshot of the camera, I set my champagne flute down on the small white table in the corner of the dressing room and then reached into my black quilted Dior bag for my cell phone. I hadn’t been able to reach Marcus for nearly two days. Most of my text messages, e-mails, and calls went unanswered. All I had received was a short text saying he’d get back to me soon. This was not li
ke Marcus.

Of course I had read about his wife’s attack on Bossip, and it had been running on what seemed like a nonstop loop all over the TV news, but that was no reason to ignore my calls. When the news broke about the attack on Vanessa, Miki called right away, concerned that this would impact the story line in the show about my relationship with Marcus. I assured her that Marcus was fine. It wasn’t like his wife was dead or
anything.

But if everything was fine, why wasn’t he returning my calls? Had something changed like Mi
ki feared?

There was only one thing left to do. I had fought, clawed, and fucked my way to this point, and nothing was going to get
in my way.

“Everything OK in there?” Stacey said, interrupting my thoughts with her pe
rky voice.

“Yes, Stacey. I’ll be out in a minute. Why don’t you go grab me some more champagne?” I needed to send her away from the door so that I could make
the call.

I turned off the microphone pack strapped to my waist, removed the strips of black tape securing the tiny microphone to the inside of my blouse, and set them both on the table next to my handbag. No way was I making the rookie mistake of letting the Glam Network sound engineer listen in on my conversation. I picked up my cell phone and dialed a number. The phone rang a few times and then went to v
oice mail.

Dammit, I can’t reach him, either. I don’t hang up the phone; it’s time to leave
a message.

“Kareem, this is Laila,” I hissed in a low voice as I unbuttoned the tight Miss Sixty jeans to unpeel them from my body so that I could slip on the lingerie for this next scene. “You better return my call tonight. I’m not playing with you. We have a plan to follow. So don’t even think about trying to fuck me over or you’ll be ve
ry sorry.”

I disconnected the call and then tossed the phone back into my handbag. I was sure Kareem would call me back soon. After all, he and I both knew he didn’t have
a choice.