Some Came Desperate: A Love Saga (8 page)

When he opened the door, he found a tall, gorgeous woman with jet-black skin, the whitest of white smiles, and a perfect, soft, man-cut Afro.  It was Delia (pronounced Dell-ya) Fleming, his long time girlfriend, a woman he thought was still on assignment in France.  She gave him one of her rueful smiles, a smile that still warmed his heart.

“Surprise!” she said and laid her hands on his broad shoulders.  “You can tell those females to forget it now because Delia’s back in town!”

Nick smiled at her boasting, a boasting he knew only shielded her insecurity, and shook his head.  “It’s too late,” he chided.  “There’s a couple under the bed right now.” 

That response brought a booming laugh from her, a laugh that was heartfelt, but that he also knew was tinged with the phoniness that jet-setters often perfected as they networked and partied.  She was an internationally famous model, a woman who, in her younger days, was even among the ranks of the super-models, and Nick still regarded her as the most captivatingly beautiful woman he’d ever seen. 

She was the first black woman he had ever been with, and he used to love the way having such a gorgeous, sophisticated black girlfriend made him appear super-cool in the eyes of his friends. 

But even as he pulled her and her garment bag into his apartment, and then her into his arms, it was that feisty kid with the light green eyes, that very unsophisticated lady who carried a backpack instead of the Gucci bags his lady favored, that his heart, mind and big, muscular body was also holding onto.

SEVEN

Jules and Jeremy sat in a back booth at Rico’s listening to the live Jamaican band and munching on a small tray of nuts.  Jeremy, his ponytail freshly done, was dressed casually, in jeans and a paisley shirt, while Jules still had on her business suit.  Jeremy had agreed at the last minute to celebrate Simone’s twenty-third birthday with her and she therefore left work, picked him up before he could change their mind.

“Where is she, anyway?” Jeremy asked impatiently as he bobbed his head to the beat and looked around the crowded club. 

“In the restroom,” Jules said.  “You know how she is about places like this.  She’s not comfortable here.”

“Then why did you bring her here, Jules?”

“Because she needs to expand her horizons.  All she does is go to work and go to church, work and church all the time, and that’s not right for somebody as young and sweet as Simone.”

“Sweet?”  Jeremy said with a snide laugh.  “Yeah, right.  The girl who tried to murder me is sweet.”

Jules exhaled and looked at Jeremy.  In a lot of ways she still couldn’t understand her attraction to him.  He was arrogant and bossy and didn’t seem to give a flip nickel about anybody in this world but her.  And maybe that was the attraction, the fact that she had his heart even though so many females wanted him.  But Jules also believed there was more to it than that.  She fell in love with Jeremy Druce when she was sixteen years old, from the moment she laid eyes on his perfect lean body and intelligent-looking face, at a time when he was so very kind and generous and seemed so concerned about her welfare.  He wasn’t kind anymore, even she would concede that, and she wouldn’t hear the last of it if Simone ever found out just how turbulent her relationship really was with Jeremy, but she loved him still.  He was her first love, her first sexual experience, her first everything and she was hell bent and determined to become his first (and only) wife.

“I can’t believe I’m even here,” Jeremy said, shaking his head.  “That girl hates me and I hate her.  Why would I want to celebrate any birthday of hers?”

“Because I asked you to.  Because if you really knew Simone you’d know that behind all of her big talk and toughness, she needs us, Jeremy.”

“Ha!  She should have thought about that when she was trying to kill me.”

“Please don’t start that again.”

“Don’t start what again?  It’s a fact.  She tried to stab me to death.”

“She barely bruised you and you know it.  Besides, she paid for what she did, I think more than we’ll ever know.  That’s why I wanted you here tonight.  It’s been seven years since that terrible night, seven years, and I think it’s high time you and Simone patched up your differences.”

“What differences?” Jeremy said with some degree of anger.  “I never did anything to that girl except take her in, feed her, give her a place to stay.  And how does she repay me?  With a knife in the belly, that’s how!”

Jules exhaled and shook her head.  Jeremy knew Simone was out of her mind that night. That was why she ran for that butcher’s knife.  That was why she was crying and behaving so hysterically.  But let Jeremy tell it you’d think Simone had schemed and plotted and was lying in wait for his behind.  But Jules didn’t question it - she never really questioned any of Jeremy’s off the wall beliefs, but Lord did she pray that he’d keep them to himself sometimes.

“I’ll go see what’s keeping her,” Jules said as she sat her napkin on the table and excused herself to the back of the club.  Jeremy shook his head, just thinking about that Simone Rivers

made his blood boil, and he tossed another handful of nuts into his mouth.  Then he sat back and checked out some of the hotties in the club, and he did see a few that were fine as wine, in his well-experienced opinion. 

He leaned back and smiled because he knew he had the edge.  He knew all he had to do was just mention the fact that he was a surgeon and they’d be begging to be his woman.  He wasn’t being arrogant, he felt, he wasn’t being cruel.  He was just telling it like it was.  He was a thirty-two-year-old great looking doctor with a booming medical practice and a woman he still craved.  He had it all.  That was just a fact as far as Jeremy was concerned.  And as he looked around that nightclub he also knew he could have any hoochie in the room.  If he wanted them.

They certainly wanted him, no doubt in his mind about that.  They all wanted to be just like Jules, not because of who she was, but because of
whose
she was.  She was his.  His woman.  He took her in when she was sixteen years old, broke her in when he finally got her ready to handle it, and now she was twenty-five and every bit the beauty he always knew she’d become.  And after all of that hard work, all of that blood, sweat and tears, he wasn’t about to let some other man slide on over and try and stake some claim to her.  He’d kill him first.  In fact just thinking about it made him want to hurt somebody.  He even began looking around, to see if there were any brothers in particular he needed to keep his eye on, and that was when he saw this woman eyeing him, this hot mama in a tight leather short set.  When she smiled and gave him that knowing look, that look that made it clear he could have her if he wanted her, he wiped his hands, looked to see if Jules was on her way back yet, and then rose and walked over to her table.

Nick Perry was also in Rico’s.  One of his old college buddies was the owner of the place and he agreed to come by sometime and check out his set.  He was comfortably dressed in a pair of jeans and a black turtleneck, both tailored so perfectly to his body that they gave great definition to his muscular arms and chest.  Nearly every female in the club had given him a look-over, but he had chosen not to engage any of them. 

He, instead, relaxed in his seat, his legs crossed, a cigarette between his fingers, the steady beat of the Reggae sound making him mellow.  The swirl of activity in the room, however, also kept him alert, from the couples on the dance floor to the loudmouths putting on private shows at their own tables.  And while he was watching them he saw her.  She was walking from the restroom area with another woman, a tall beauty of a woman, and he might not have recognized her if she hadn’t looked up and revealed those startling light green eyes.

Simone.  How could he forget her?  The last time he saw her she was sitting at a bus stop telling him to take a hike.  That was nearly a year ago and for a good time afterwards he couldn’t seem to get her out of his mind.  He had even thought about tracking her down, to see if those strong, odd feelings she evoked in him were just a fluke or what. 

But he didn’t do it.  He already had a woman, a long-time girlfriend who kept him in enough turmoil as it was.  Just like him, his girlfriend was quickly leaving her youth behind, but unlike him she was bitter about it.  Not just because she hated getting old, but also because she knew her modeling days were numbered when all she’d ever known was modeling.  Even then he knew he couldn’t just dump her, not after she’d given him the best years of her life, so for her sake alone he forgot about those feelings Simone had evoked in him and went on with living.  Those feelings were just a fluke anyway, he concluded.

Only they weren’t.  He realized it now, as he watched her, as she walked in short strides, almost as if she were walking on the tip of her toes, across the room.  She wore a pair of snug-fitting white dress pants and a nice silk blouse, revealing just how shapely she really was.  And her intensity was still there, he could see it in those unforgettable eyes of hers even from across the room.  But he could also see it in her small body, a body that seemed almost unnaturally tight as she moved, as if something invisible was dragging her down.

The tall woman beside her was gorgeous, Nick thought, the absolute perfect picture of any man’s fantasy, with her cat-like eyes and long hair, her beautiful, slinky body as lean as his lady Delia’s body - and Delia was a professional model. 

But it was Simone that had his full attention.  He even sighed worriedly as he watched her, as he wondered if she was all right or still unable to balance those out-there emotions of hers.  Even in that short time that he knew her, she remained the most passionate woman he’d ever met, somebody determined to swim against the tide no matter what waves tried to knock her off course.  An admirable but dangerous way to be.  And for some odd reason it disturbed him that she was that way.  That was why he puffed on his cigarette and found himself watching her as if he were stalking her.  He couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

Simone had no clue she was being watched.  She was too busy watching Jeremy hit on some female in the corner.  Jules was trying to make excuses for what they were witnessing, trying to sell Simone some line about how the woman had probably been a patient of his at one time or another, but Simone wasn’t buying.  She was his patient all right, she told Jules. 

But Jules dismissed such nonsense.  Jeremy was a lot of things, and she’d be the first to admit that he was no saint, but he loved her too much to even think about cheating on her.  That she was certain of.  And when Jeremy arrived back at their table, talking about how the woman was the daughter of a colleague of his, Jules ate it up.  She even looked at Simone and smiled, as if Jeremy saying it was so had to make it so.  Simone just shook her head.

“Enjoying yourself, Simone?” Jeremy asked with a mocking smile, as they all sat at the table.

“Yes, I’m having a blast,” Simone said with a deceptive smile of her own, making certain not to give Jeremy any satisfaction on her birthday.  “Thank-you for inviting me.”

“It was Jules idea I assure you.”

“I know.”

“Because if it was up to me—”

“Okay,” Jules said, interrupting him.  “Let’s just settle this right now.  I know you two don’t like each other.  I know Jeremy has always given you a hard time, Simone—”       

“What hard time?” Jeremy asked but Jules kept talking. 

“And I also know that Simone owes you an apology, Jeremy.”  That got Simone going.  She gave Jules a sidelong look that Jules quickly waved off.  “Don’t look at me like that,” she said.  “You might have been only sixteen, but you did stab him, Simone.  You could have killed him.  You need to finally admit that you were wrong that night.”

“I did admit it, you know I did.  But that doesn’t change the fact that what he did to you was wrong, too.”

“He didn’t do anything to me.”

“He was supposed to be our guardian, Jules, and he took advantage of that.”

“Woman, please,” Jeremy said in a dismissive tone.  “I didn’t take advantage of a damn thing.”

“You did, Jeremy, I don’t care what you say.  You were supposed to be looking out for Jules, not taking her to bed with you!”

“Let’s get one thing straight right here and right now,” Jules said.  “Jeremy didn’t do anything to me that I didn’t let him do.”

“You were just a kid,” Simone said.  “Jeremy was the one who knew better.  He was the one who was supposed to be looking out for your interest not molding you into his possession.  Telling me to apologize.  He’s the one who needs to be apologizing.  He’s the one who messed up.”

“He messed up?”

“Yes!”

“And the solution was for you to try and kill him?”

“I wasn’t trying to kill him and he knows it.  I just wanted him to stop hurting you.”  Simone said this and looked at her older sister.  Jules let out a frustrated exhale.  To Simone life was so black and white.  There were the good guys and there were the bad guys.  But Jules knew better.  Life wasn’t simple, it was complicated, and messy, and sometimes the bad guys were good and the good guys were bad and if you hang around long enough and fall in love hard enough those lines become even more blurred to where you don’t know which is which anymore.  She looked away from Simone.  Jeremy was no prize in a lot of areas, but she belonged to him.  And that was what it was all about for Jules.  She
belonged
.

“I just wish y’all would forget about all of that past stuff and get along,” Jules said.

Jeremy laughed a one-syllable,
ha
laugh.  “You want me to forget that she tried to kill me?  You must be crazy.”