The Savvy Sistahs (2 page)

Tonight would be a night for purging their souls.

Carla was the one who spoke up next. “I haven’t slept with anyone since the night I spent with Craig’s father.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then Amber spoke. “That’s been almost three years, hasn’t it?”

Carla smiled. “Yes, and that was my first and last time, so I only got a little taste.” She felt a thickness in her throat when she immediately remembered what a nice size man he’d been. “I mean, I got a rather big taste,” she said smiling sheepishly.

Brandy leaned forward, definitely interested. “And?” she asked, encouraging her.

Carla went back in time as she recalled her one and only affair. “I met him at a party. In fact, it was a birthday party that Sonya’s parents had given her. Jesse Devereau was in town doing business with Sonya’s father and was invited to the party. We met, were immediately attracted to each other, and made plans to spend the next day together, which was Thanksgiving.”

“You made plans to spend the holiday with this guy instead of your family?” Amber asked, surprised.

“Only because my family made plans to spend Thanksgiving without me,” Carla said as a bitter taste flooded her mouth. “After Dad died it became the norm for Mom to go her way on Thanksgiving and my brother Clark to go his, which left me alone with little or nothing to do.”

Carla stopped speaking as she recalled the tragedy that had struck her family a few weeks after that. “I wish things could have been different, since that was the last Thanksgiving before Clark was killed.” She took a sip of her wine, then added, “I think Mom would have preferred it was me in that car that night instead of Clark. She’s never hidden the fact that he was her favorite.”

“Thank you, Lord, that I’m an only child,” Brandy said, throwing her braids over her shoulders in a motion of bravado. “I’m blessed that my parents have never given me grief.”

It was only when Amber jerked her head around to stare at her that it became obvious what Brandy had done. In her own usual “make it real” way she was being the drama queen. Every so often they needed one; especially when their talks got too somber.

“Forget about your mama for now, Carla, since we established the fact a while back that she wasn’t operating with a full deck. Let’s get back to this Jesse guy,” Brandy said, gripping the edge of the table. “Why do I get these vibes that this brother was fine, fine, fine. Maybe it’s because you’ve said many times that Craig took his looks from his father, and we all know that kid of yours is going to have all the women swooning in about fifteen years or less.”

Carla smiled. “Trust me,Jesse Devereau was indeed one fine brother, and I fell in love the moment we met. We went to a nice restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner, went dancing, and then later went to his hotel room. By the next morning I was no longer a twenty-nine-year-old virgin, and in the span of twelve hours I had learned bedroom techniques that I’d never heard of before.”

Amber grinned. “Sounds like a pretty good way to end an evening to me.”

Carla chuckled. “Yeah, and we used a condom, so he was either too big or I was too small. In any case, the blasted thing didn’t work and I found out less than two months later that I was pregnant.”

“Did you contact him to let him know about your condition?” Amber asked.

“No. Although the night meant everything to me, for him it was just a one-night stand, and I didn’t think he would appreciate me interrupting his life to tell him that he was going to be a father.”

Carla couldn’t hide the hurt in her features when she added, “I later found out that he had lied to me. I had asked him the night we met if he was involved with anyone and he said that he wasn’t. I discovered that he
was
involved with someone and had been for a while. An older woman. A
rich
older woman.”

A dignified snort came from Brandy. “Men are such assholes.”

Amber couldn’t just sit there and listen anymore. She had to finally add her past woes. “My time,” she said softly. The pain in her eyes made the other two women hurt, too. “I came home from work after suffering a bad bout of morning sickness to find my husband in bed with another woman. I was three months pregnant and forgot about my condition, went ballistic and began throwing anything and everything I could get my hands on at their naked behinds. When the whore tried running down the stairs to get away from me, I took off after her, lost my balance, and fell the rest of the way…and lost my baby.”

Amber’s hand trembled from the pain she still felt as she picked up her glass of wine and finished off what was left. “Do you know that Gary not once came to the hospital to see me? And the day I came home he moved out. Before he left he looked at me and said I was one crazy-ass bitch and that I should have been more appreciative of him, since no other man wanted a size-twenty woman anyway.”

She sighed deeply as she remembered his constant verbal abuse. “He would always say mean and nasty things about my weight. My self-esteem had gotten so low I didn’t think that anything could ever get it up again.”

Amber studied the almost empty wine bottle a moment before continuing. “More than once I wished that I had listened to my mama and never married him. Even his own mama had warned me that he was no good, but he was so good in bed that I didn’t listen to anyone.”

She put down her empty wineglass and reached for her glass of water, took a sip, then said, “After our divorce, I decided to leave Nashville and start fresh here in Orlando. I saw Gary last year when I went back home for his mama’s funeral. He took one look at me and saw I had slimmed down to a size sixteen and his eyes and penis got as big as his head. For some reason he thought it would be real easy to get back into my panties, but I told him that he could kiss my black—”

“Would any of you ladies care for more wine?”

The three women looked at each other and held back the laughter that threatened to pour forth. Brandy winked at Carla and Amber before clearing her throat and saying to the waiter, “No, that’s all for us tonight. Thank you.”

As soon as the waiter walked off, they burst out laughing. Each of them had a lot to be joyous about. They had been through some extraordinary mess with men and somehow they’d had the insight to make some positive changes.

Moments later the table got silent as they took the time to reflect on what each of them had gone through. “I think we should pray,” Carla said.

Brandy smiled at her. “That’s a good idea.”

They joined hands, bowed their heads, and closed their eyes.

Amber prayed.

“Father, in whom are hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge, thank you for bringing us over. Please give us the strength not to look back, but to look forward, because we believe through you are brighter days. And we will continue to overcome whatever trials and tribulations may fall upon us, because in our hearts we believe that we can do all things through you, who will continue to strengthen us. Amen.”

Chapter 1

B
randy closed her eyes. She felt a headache coming on. If one more thing went wrong today she would absolutely scream. She had a million things to take care of before leaving for California, and the last thing she needed was to be on the phone listening to her mother rant and rave about what Valerie Constantine called “those damn Bennetts.” She sighed deeply and reopened her eyes. Whenever she could manage to get a word in she would have to remind her mother that her daughter was one of those Bennetts and proud of it.

After a few minutes, when it became obvious her mother would not let up, Brandy had no choice but to cut in. “Mom, don’t you think you’re getting a little carried away?”
As usual
, she wanted to add but thought better of it. A part of her wondered if her mother and her father’s family would ever get along. Sometimes Brandy had a feeling that Valerie Constantine enjoyed the rifts she always managed to cause within the Bennett family. And Brandy had to admit that for a long while, she had been right there with her mother. But that was before she had discovered what a blessing the Bennetts were. Each one of them had stepped up in some form or fashion and offered their support after what happened with Lorenzo.

“No, I am not getting carried away,” Valerie Constantine snapped. “They deliberately did not invite me to your father’s surprise birthday party. I have a good mind to tell him about it and ruin it for everybody. If your Grampa Ethan were alive he wouldn’t stand for this. Nobody’s behind this but those two heifers, Otha Mae and Cuzin Sophie. They never could stand me and they’re the reason Victor never married me.” After a brief pause she added, “And I don’t appreciate you taking sides with them, Brandy.”

Brandy shook her head. “Mom, I’m not taking sides and I think you should ask yourself why they didn’t invite you. As far as everyone knows, you and Dad aren’t actually a couple.”
No, the two of you just get together occasionally to do the nasty
, Brandy thought as she sat in the chair behind her desk. This conversation would not be ending anytime soon.

It had always amazed Brandy how her parents seemed to enjoy sneaking around like they thought they were fooling somebody. Brandy could never forget how many times, when she was still a kid living with her mother, she would wake up to find her father sneaking out of the house, trying to leave before she woke up. It had been downright shameful. She often wondered what excuse he gave his wife about being out all night. And now her father had recently gotten a divorce from his third wife. As far as Brandy was concerned, there was no reason her parents could not go public with their thirty-two-year-old affair, but neither seemed inclined to do so. In fact, over the past year, they had seemed to be enjoying their “secret” fling more than ever. She’d been tempted on more than one occasion to ask her mother what in the heck was going on with them, then decided not to. If her parents preferred sneaking around, then it wasn’t any business of hers—which her mother wouldn’t hesitate to tell her even if she did say anything.

Brandy decided to change tactics. “Mom, it could have been an oversight.”

“It wasn’t an oversight. They just wanted to be downright nasty. No matter how they feel about me personally, I had a baby for Victor and that should count for something.”

Brandy wanted to tell her mom that she wasn’t the only woman to have a baby for Victor Bennett, Senior. But then she knew her mother considered herself a cut above the rest of her father’s women. Strangely, Brandy knew her mother was probably right. For some reason Valerie Constantine was an addiction that Victor could not shake no matter how much he tried. And Valerie used her hold on him to make him regret that he had not married her when she’d gotten pregnant at sixteen with Brandy.

Brandy was proud to admit that her mother looked good for her age—something else her father couldn’t seem to ignore. And her mother took pride in flaunting just how good she looked, and that she still held Victor’s interest.

Brandy couldn’t help but wonder how different things would have been if her parents
had
married when her mother got pregnant. She couldn’t say things would have been better, but she had a strong feeling they would have been interesting. There was never a dull moment when her parents got together. They were very passionate, hotheaded, and stubborn individuals. There was no doubt in Brandy’s mind that her mother would give any man she married pure hell. But her father was the only man she’d ever known who could actually handle Valerie Constantine.

“I can see that talking to you is useless now that you’re in with that family.”

Brandy sighed deeply. “Mom, I’ve always been ‘in’ with the family. I’ve just never appreciated it before.”

“That’s because you let those hellion cousins of yours talk you into making a complete fool of yourself at your wedding. I get embarrassed every time I think of what you did. Why would any woman in her right mind want the world to know that she couldn’t satisfy her man physically and that he had to seek out another woman?”

Immense pain clouded Brandy’s eyes. No matter what anyone thought, she felt confident there was nothing inadequate about her in bed. The only two men she’d been involved with since Lorenzo had been Grant Hoffman, a man she’d had an affair with on the rebound, and Thomas Reynolds. Neither man had complained about her performance in the bedroom. The only reason she could come up with for what Lorenzo had done was the simple reason that he was a dog.

“I think my plan was wonderful and I don’t regret what I did. It cost Lorenzo plenty and he’ll think twice about dogging a woman out like that again.”

A few minutes later Brandy ended her conversation with her mother after promising that she would call her when she returned from California. She was about to take a few moments to inhale when her secretary buzzed. She pressed her intercom button. “Yes, Donna, what is it?”

“Miss Bennett, Mr. Ballentine is here to see you.”

Brandy blinked. “Mr. Ballentine?”

“Yes. Mr. Lorenzo Ballentine.”

Brandy inwardly groaned. Her ex-husband was the last person she wanted to see. The last time she had seen him had been over a year and a half ago when they’d met with her attorney and Lorenzo had grudgingly signed the St. Laurent over to her. “Send him in, Donna.”

She got to her feet and watched him walk into her office, cool and confident as ever. At one point that certain arrogance about him had been a total turn-on for her. Now it was a complete turn-off.

“Why are you here, Lorenzo?” she asked bitterly, getting straight to the point and dispensing with niceties. She was upset that he had shown up unexpectedly and wondered how long it would take for him to finally accept that she didn’t particularly enjoy seeing him, nor would she ever forgive him for what he’d done.

“Just hear me out, Brandy. This is strictly business,” he said, taking a chair without waiting for her to invite him to do so.

“Like there’s any other reason for us to have anything to say to each other,” she said through gritted teeth.

He leaned back in the chair. “I want to help you out.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Help me out in what way?”

He smiled as if her question showed definite interest on her part. “I want to buy the hotel back from you.”

Brandy’s anger clearly showed on her face. “This hotel is not for sale, Lorenzo, and even if it was, you would be the last person I would sell it to.”

He frowned. “I can see that you still feel anger toward me.”

She gave him a forced half-smile. “I don’t feel anything toward you anymore, Lorenzo.”

His frown deepened. “I’ve told you how much I regret what I did, Brandy. I was wrong to sleep with Jolene but she came on to me pretty strong at a very weak moment, so it really wasn’t my fault.”

Brandy could barely keep from cursing him out. That was Lorenzo for you, saying he was sorry in one breath, and in the next trying to lay the blame at someone else’s feet.

“Look, Lorenzo, I’m not interested in selling the hotel. It belongs to me and I intend to keep it.”

He leaned forward in his chair. “You’ll ruin it.”

She tried not to react to the harsh tone in his voice. “After a year and a half, I’ve done pretty damn good so far. And if I do ruin it, it’s mine to ruin, isn’t it?”

He shook his head. “And you despise me that much?”

Brandy glared at him. “Like I said earlier, I feel nothing for you. Whatever feelings I had for you were destroyed the moment I saw that videotape.”

“And when was that, Brandy?”

She lifted an arched brow. “I beg your pardon?”

“I asked, when was that? I have reason to believe that you and your cousins orchestrated that entire ordeal at our reception. I started thinking about it and put two and two together. Everything that happened that day seemed a little too pat. And after talking to the guy who coordinated our wedding, he said he’d received explicit instructions from you to play a certain tape during the reception dinner. Do you know anything about that?”

Brandy smiled. “And if I did, so what? It was my wedding and I could request to show any videotape of my choosing. No one told you to be stupid enough to tape your lovemaking session with Jolene.”

Anger, more than she had ever seen in him before, covered his face. “You set me up, didn’t you?”

“You set your own self up by not being able to keep your pants zipped,” she snapped, feeling her own anger take over. “You got exactly what you deserved.”

“I don’t appreciate what you did, Brandy,” he said with a deep Jamaican accent that sent chills up her spine.

“And I didn’t appreciate what you did either, Lorenzo. We have nothing to say to each other and I would appreciate it if you never come to this hotel again. It belongs to me and you’re not welcome here.”

“Not even as a paying customer?”

“Not even as a paying customer. There are plenty of hotels in this town to choose from and I’d rather you use one of them. The less I see of you the better.”

Lorenzo stood slowly. “You’ll regret the day you set me up, Brandy.”

“And you’ll regret the day you ever screwed around on me, Lorenzo. I deserved everything I got from our divorce.”

Lorenzo glared at her one last time before finally walking out of the room and slamming the door behind him.

Brandy released a deep sigh, determined to pull herself together. Lorenzo was mad, angrier than she’d ever seen him before, but that was his problem and not hers.

She checked her watch. She had a number of things to check on before leaving for the airport. She would be flying to L.A. for her cousin Alexia’s twin sons’ birthday party. It was hard to believe they were two years old already.

Her thoughts then drifted back to the hotel. The St. Laurent was a beautiful and elegant hotel. She fully understood why Lorenzo hadn’t wanted to part with it and why he wanted it back.

Not long after taking things over, Brandy had discovered that staffing was one of a hotel’s most important management functions. It was essential to work with people she could depend on and trust, so Horace Thurgood, the man who had been manager for years when Lorenzo had run things, had done her a favor when he resigned, saying he didn’t feel comfortable working for anyone but a member of the Ballentine family.

Thurgood’s departure would have left her in a bind had it not been for Kathie Gaines, one of her college friends who happened to be a former hotel manager for the Marriott Corporation. Kathie had come highly recommended and out of friendship agreed to come work as hotel manager at the St. Laurent until Brandy was ready to take over the entire operation. Kathie had stayed on and helped out up until six months ago when she left for France to marry a guy who worked as a chef for one of the country’s most renowned restaurants. Since then, Brandy had basically been on her own.

She knew that the key to her success as an entrepreneur was gaining both occupational and business skill with which to operate her business more efficiently and productively. She had taken a nine-month course, had gotten on-the-job training as a front desk clerk, housekeeper, bellhop, sports bar manager and chef. Today, before she left town, she intended to spend time with her sales director.

Brandy glanced around the room. Often she was tempted to pinch herself that this office was really hers and that she was in charge of running things. Usually things ran pretty smoothly, but it seemed that today was destined to be the day from hell.

It had started when she’d gotten up early, as she normally did, to take a tour of the hotel to see how things were going. She’d discovered that a conference room booked for a breakfast meeting for the Nurses Association of Florida had not been cleaned. With less than twenty minutes to get the room presentable or face a service breakdown or the possibility of losing the Association’s future business, she had immediately placed a call to Wilbur Green, the hotel’s food and beverage director. Apparently there had been some sort of mix-up in communication with Wilbur and his staff, and the problem was rectified immediately.

A few hours later another problem had arisen when she received a call that one of the hotel’s elevators was malfunctioning. That was all she needed with several large groups planning to check out that day. She could only imagine the chaos of tired vacationers who were ready to go home being delayed because an elevator was on the blink.

Brandy shook her head. Over the past year she had discovered that customers demanded prompt and efficient service as a condition for their continued patronage of hotels, and her aim was to please them. She met with her staff every morning to brainstorm ways to guarantee that her hotel would always provide a high level of service.

She flipped her calendar to the month of November. The St. Laurent was one of the hosting hotels for the Florida Classic, the big rival football game between Bethune Cookman College and Florida A and M University. Over a hundred thousand people were expected in town, which meant hundreds of guests would be arriving expecting top-notch service, which she and her staff intended to give them. Things were going to be insane and she was going to love every minute of it.