Winter Kisses (14 page)

“He can't do that,” Monica said, sounding horrified at the thought.

Paul shook his head. “I don't think he'll do much damage seeing as he's the one that was married at the time, not you. But it's a hit I don't want us to take, especially considering how close we are to expanding.” Taking a deep breath, Paul looked directly at Monica. “I want you to take a leave of absence.”

“What? Are you kidding? You're firing me because of this maniac?”

“Mr. Lakefield, with all due respect, sir, I don't think giving in to this guy is the way to go.”

“And how do you think we should handle this, Mr. Bennett? Since it seems you're the man she's seeing now, how do you suppose I keep my company's name
in good standing with this type of scandal looming over us?”

“I don't think it's that big of a deal. So she slept with a married man—it was almost ten years ago and she hasn't had any contact with him since then. These pictures seem bad but we could always claim they were altered. That's a normal occurrence nowadays. I think you should be looking to prosecute him for harassment instead. Fight back instead of backing down.”

Paul shook his head again. “Young men, I tell you. You have the energy and gumption to suggest fighting back. Well, I'm a businessman and I'm thinking about my business.”

“But what about your daughter? Did it occur to you that firing me plays right into his hands? He wants me vulnerable because he thinks that'll run me right back to him. Apparently he's been keeping close tabs on me. He had to if he found out about me and Alex when there wasn't even a me and Alex. If I'm not at the gallery it won't stop him, but it'll devastate me.”

“I'm sorry, Monica. You'll have to deal with that on your own. And I'm not firing you. I'm simply asking you to take some time off, distance yourself from the gallery for a while.”

“You want me to go away so you don't have to deal with me or the issues you believe I'm bringing to your precious gallery. Never mind that I'm the one who put the wheels in motion for the expansion to Miami and to Atlanta. I found the location, I personally interviewed the managers, I've been developing the marketing plans and searching out new artwork to show. I've worked my butt off for this expansion, for this gallery all my life
and this is how you repay me? Well, thanks a lot, Dad. Thanks a whole helluva lot.”

Alex let her hand go and she stormed out of the room. She needed to be alone to get herself together. Breaking down in front of her father was not an option for Monica. He got that. What he didn't get was Paul Lakefield's attitude toward a child he so obviously loved.

“She'll get over it,” Paul said when it was just him and Alex.

“You sure about that, sir?”

“Are you questioning my judgment? I'm her father, for goodness' sake! I know what's best for her.”

“I don't think you know her very well, Mr. Lakefield. And that's the real pity of this situation. She's your daughter and she's dedicated her life to pleasing you, but you can't see that. Or you're too stubborn and egotistical to acknowledge it.”

“Now, wait a minute, young man. You might be sleeping with her, but I'm her father. I'm the man who raised her, who taught her everything she knows about this business.”

“And you're the one who just broke her heart, again.”

Alex left Paul Lakefield with those words to chew on as he headed to Monica's office.

He wasn't surprised to find the door closed, but it wasn't locked so he walked in. She was packing, throwing things from her desk into a box, tears streaming down her face.

Touching her wasn't going to be a good idea even though all Alex wanted to do right now was hold her. She'd rebel and push him away, so he didn't bother.

“I'll take you home,” he said instead.

“I can get a cab.”

“You can, but I'm here so I'll take you.”

She looked up at him as if she was going to argue but stopped. “I can't believe this is happening. I want to kill Yates Hinton, that bastard!”

Alex nodded, knowing exactly how she felt. “Let's just get you home then we'll figure out what to do about Yates Hinton.”

But Alex had already figured it out and while he'd walked to Monica's office from the lower level of the gallery he'd sent Sam Desdune a text message letting him know what his plan was.

A
lex parked in the garage located on the first two floors of Monica's apartment building. On the elevator up he held her hand even though she didn't want him to. He was good at doing things she didn't want. And she was getting even better at letting him.

It had been so easy to lean on Alex today and Monica figured it was a good thing he was there. What would she have done differently if he wasn't? Nothing, probably. Still, she liked that she'd been able to lean on him when her father had read her the riot act. And as much as it went against the kind of woman she'd tried desperately to become, she liked that he was here with her now.

As she let herself into the apartment, she watched with dismal disinterest as Alex moved about the apartment ahead of her. She knew what he was looking for—
another box from Yates, a letter, pictures, anything that would show the man had been inside her place again. Her heart hammered in her chest the entire time he moved around, but she went to the couch and sat down instead of following him.

She was tired, so tired of carrying all these secrets and living this life of the strong, undefeatable, unobtainable Monica Lakefield. Now what she really wanted to do was go someplace and sleep, finally sleep restfully in some quiet locale away from all that was stressful in her life. The ringing phone beside her startled her right out of that reverie.

Alex was back in the room eyeing her closely. Monica looked at the caller ID. “It says unavailable.”

“I'm going to ask Sam to put a tracing device on the phone but he can't get into the city for another hour or two. Go ahead and answer it.”

She nodded and picked up the cordless phone from its base. “Hello?” she answered tentatively.

“Hello?” Monica repeated when there was no answer.

“Hang up. He's just toying with you,” Alex told her.

But Monica didn't listen. She wanted to hear Yates's voice, wanted another chance to tell him where to go and how fast he could get there. “Hello?” she yelled into the phone just before Alex took it out of her hand and pushed the off button.

“He's going to keep trying to get to you, Queen. You've got to be one step ahead of him. Now,” he said, sitting on the couch next to her. “When Sam gets here he'll put the trace on your phone and place another agent downstairs in the lobby.”

“Another one?” she asked.

“Yes, he's had a guy down there since I left here last night.”

“But Yates had already been here.”

“Unfortunately, that's true. But now we have Yates's name and a current picture Sam got from his DMV records. If he shows up here they'll know and they'll catch him.”

Monica nodded, sitting back on the couch and letting her head fall back. She closed her eyes, trying to push this mess out of her mind. But it wasn't working—she was thinking about her job, about the gallery opening in Miami in the fall, about her sisters and her parents.

“Why didn't you tell me he was coming after you because of me?” she heard Alex ask.

“I didn't know until today when he called,” she answered but didn't open her eyes.

“So he's been following you all along, taking pictures and watching what you do with your life. I guess for the last few years your self-induced single life made him damn happy.”

She shrugged. “I guess it did.”

“And now he believes you've found somebody else, that you've moved on to love without him.”

“I don't know what's going on in his head. He's crazy and unpredictable.”

“He's damn smart to have figured us for a couple even before we became one.”

Her eyes did open then. “Are we a couple, Alex? I mean, really, we spent a few nights together because our families set us up. If we'd stayed here would we have been at this point? Would Yates have even come out of the woodwork?”

“He knew before we went to Aspen, Queen. The fact
that we were away together probably pushed him closer to the edge. We're both relatively well-known in this area and your sister just married a Donovan, a family who are almost like royalty in the African-American communities across the world. If he was keeping tabs on you all this time he would have definitely seen us together before Aspen.”

“I know.” She sighed. “But we weren't a couple then.”

“But we are now,” he countered.

His words seemed quiet in the room and Monica closed her eyes again. “I don't know what we are or what we're not. All I know for sure is that I'm jobless and confused and tired of all this crap.”

Alex took her hand in his. “When it's all over I'll take you to a secluded beach where you can get some rest.”

“Are you going to tranquilize me? You know I don't sleep at night.”

“I think once you let go of the anxiety of your past, once you're sure Yates is in your past, you'll be able to sleep just fine. Besides, every night that I've been in bed with you, you've slept like a baby.”

And that was the truth. That night they'd spent at the inn she'd slept curled in his arms throughout the entire night. He'd had to wake her up in the morning to get ready for their flight. She'd even slept through the New Year because Alex was beside her.

“I don't know what we're doing, Alex,” she admitted finally. “I swore I'd never get involved with another man. After Yates it just all seemed like a waste of my time.”

“How did you find out he was married?”

“His wife found out about me. Actually, I think she always knew he had affairs. At least that's what she told me when she called me to their house. She said he liked to pick young women at the college, that he didn't want a woman his age or an older woman, for that matter. His wife's older than he is by five years. She's an heiress to a sugarcane fortune or something like that. Anyway, it wasn't a surprise to her. And that's what I don't understand. If this was part of Yates's routine, why didn't he just move on to another girl when I left?”

“You're not an easy woman to forget, Queen.”

He'd said it so simply, so sincerely, she looked at him and almost smiled. Alex, her hero, still wearing his navy-blue dress pants and stark white dress shirt and blue-and-white paisley-print tie that he'd most likely worn to work this morning.

“Oh, I almost forgot. How did your meeting go? You didn't miss it because of me, did you?”

He smiled. “No. I moved the time of the meeting up because I wanted to come into the city to spend the evening with a beautiful woman. Everything went fine. We're all set for the launch. I've done more interviews and posed for more pictures than I ever care to again in this lifetime but it'll all be worth it.”

“Yes, it will. Bennett Industries will be a bigger success then it already is. I believe that.”

“I'm glad you believe it because I didn't want to be the only one wishing for its success.”

She shook her head. “Never. I want only the best for you, Alex.”

“And I want you for me,” he said, leaning closer and resting his forehead against hers.

“I'm not so sure that's best,” she whispered.

 

In the car parked in the garage Yates slammed his hands on the steering wheel.

That slickster was with her!

He'd waited in this garage for Monica to return home from work only to be angered when he saw her getting out of a gray Mercedes with that man. Oh, he knew who the man was, Alexander Bennett, prince of the Bennett fortune. He looked like a foreigner with his inky-black hair and smooth light brown skin. Yates had done thorough research on the Bennetts. The mother was from Brazil, a pretty enough woman with exotic looks and a regal air to her. She'd married simply enough, a thriving black businessman who built an empire for her and their five children. Alex was next in line to inherit everything from his father. That alone made Yates despise him.

He hated the rich, the ones who were born into privilege and carried it around like crowns on their heads. His own parents had been blue-collar workers—his mother sewed zippers into dresses at a small factory in Gilbert, South Carolina. His father worked as a runner at the local drugstore until his legs couldn't carry him anymore. They'd both died as poor as the day they were born. That's when Yates had changed his name from Hinton Beauford and moved out of Gilbert. The new identity gave him a chance to be something his parents never cared to work for, a success. The first part of that success was going to college on a scholarship he'd received for running like the wind in high school. Back then it was beyond astonishing to see a skinny little black boy run faster than the milkman's truck could drive. Yates had parlayed that scholarship into a degree,
then a master's and had used his Southern charm to court the richest woman in town, Roslyn Smith, heiress to Smith Sugarcane.

Marrying Roslyn and being on staff at the college gave Yates money and prestige. But Roslyn was a cold older woman with no intention of ever changing. Yates needed more and found it in the fresh young faces that came to the college. He'd hit pay dirt with Monica Lakefield, who had something none of the other girls before her did.

Monica was beautiful, there was no doubt, and Yates was immediately attracted to her sleek, sexy body. But beyond that she was intelligent and she came from a good family that started out in South Carolina, as well. The Lakefields were rich and getting richer, and Monica was going to work for her daddy the minute she graduated college. That was all she could talk about.

So Yates wanted her and her money immediately. And for years he'd had her. Until Roslyn found out and destroyed any bit of happiness Yates could have had.

He'd never forgotten Monica, never would. He was determined to keep her with him one way or another. If he hadn't let Roslyn and her drunken threats keep him from Monica this time, he wasn't about to let this pretty rich boy do it.

After climbing out of his car, Yates went to the truck and pulled out a bag. Then he grabbed his cell phone and made a call. “I need you here at Monica's building right now.”

There were some excuses and some background noise on the line that Yates didn't have time to decipher.

“Just get your ass down here now before I make you sorry you ever took my money!”

Snapping the phone closed, he put the bag on his shoulders and slammed the trunk closed.

Monica's little boyfriend was going to be more than sorry he'd ever touched what belonged to Yates, that was for damn sure.