View Park, page 11
Avery didn’t handle guilt well. She tried to excuse the feelings that made her want to kiss Carter, by claiming temporary insanity. With everything happening with Craig and her love life in a shambles, she didn’t know what she was doing.
It was early Monday and Calabra had already banished her to the back of the shop because she had enough attitude to fill a stadium and needed to get her act together. She was trying desperately to figure out at what point her life had turned in this direction. She was engaged to a man who had taken to treating her only a step above a booty call. She’d put her trust in a partner willing to betray her the first time someone waved a few bucks in his face.
Then there was Carter and his underhanded attempts to take Essentials. Why didn’t she hate that man? She had every right to, every reason to. Maybe she was taking the whole Christian principal of forgiveness too far. Especially considering he hadn’t even apologized and she knew he never would.
It was all part of Carter’s game, she was sure of it. He had done something to make her think she was attracted to him. He was smooth, but she had a defense against him that he would never understand. Values and morals were Greek to Carter, but Avery had lived her life by them and they were going to keep her strong.
She answered the phone wishing that it was Alex but it was Karen McNamara, the lawyer she hired to deal with Craig’s settlement.
“Do you have Craig’s check ready?” Avery asked after greetings.
“You know I haven’t been able to reach him.”
“So we mail it to him.”
“That’s really not the problem.”
Avery had a feeling things were going to get much worse. “What’s wrong, Karen?”
“I’ve gone over your records several times and…we need to talk.”
“Just tell me now.” Avery gripped the edge of her desk.
“Well.” Another long pause. “It looks like Craig has been stealing from you.”
Avery put the phone on her lap and stared into space. She took a deep breath before putting it back to her ear. “I’ll be over in ten minutes.”
Janet definitely approved. Sitting poolside over tea with Giovanna Bridges, she knew she made the right choice. She always made the right choice. Giovanna had class and pleasant grace, and even though she was a newcomer to L.A. society, Janet knew almost everything about her.
Giovanna’s father was a famous black general who married an Italian woman just a few steps removed from what used to be royalty. Giovanna made her way to the States via Harvard University, where she married a prominent Boston doctor and raised one son. Recently named head of Internal Medicine at Los Angeles County Hospital, her husband uprooted the family to L.A. only six months ago.
Janet felt for her. In high society circles, there were hierarchies and that made it difficult to move into a new group, especially one on the other end of the country. She was a smart woman, knowing the first person she needed to get to know was Janet, who hadn’t been too quick to receive her. Only now that she remembered there was a thirty-year-old single son who was now in L.A., things would be different.
“Leigh will come around.” Giovanna sipped her tea. “She’ll see things your way.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Janet said. “That girl is the jewel of my heart, but I just worry about her so much.”
“She is an exceptional young woman. All you need is to find something to direct her interests elsewhere. There has to be a cause or—”
“No cause will take her mind off of this.” Janet appreciated the setup. “I was thinking more along the lines of a man.”
Giovanna’s smile showed the tiny lines on her sixty-year-old face. “They can be a distraction or a disaster if you don’t pick the right one.”
“None of these young men in our circles are the quality of their fathers. They’ve lowered themselves to acting like—”
“Any other man,” Giovanna finished. “But they aren’t any other man. They’re our sons and they don’t seem to want to hold that responsibility. Not like your sons, Janet.”
“Or yours,” Janet returned.
Janet assumed Giovanna’s turning away to clear her throat was nerves, but found it an unusual reaction anyway.
“Leo is something,” Giovanna said. “I was so happy when Goldman Sachs agreed to transfer him to L.A.”
Janet had made calls to her contacts in New York, but hadn’t been able to get much information on Leo except that he was very private. It was okay. Giovanna and her husband were aboveboard and Leo was only intended to be a distraction.
“Is he dating anyone?” she asked.
He had no appetite. His mind was all over the place. He was full of anxiety. Carter was beginning to feel sick at the sight and smell of the uneaten food on his desk. He couldn’t think about anything but Avery and Essentials.
His father coming to his office had really thrown him off balance. Steven never came to anyone, especially his sons, and he hadn’t been too impressed with Carter’s plan to back away and pounce when Avery was off-guard. Carter didn’t take the bait when his father gave him one of his Nazi pep talks. He had his own plan.
Craig was of no use to him anymore, so he refused to take any of the several calls he had made to him in the past few days. There had to be another way and he needed to find it quick. He wanted her; there was no denying that, but she was a hard one. He would need more than his usual skills to get her in bed, considering he was going to take away the thing that mattered most to her.
Spin the press and make her believe Essentials was no longer in play because he was more interested in her than her business. He would get her into his bed and then she would be his. She wouldn’t deny him anything—including Essentials—after that.
He would have everything he wanted. Essentials for Chase Beauty, a taste of Avery Jackson for himself and his father off his back.
Carter knew he was crazy to think he could get away with it. He wasn’t Michael and Avery wasn’t going to be anywhere near that easy anyway. She knew who she was and what she stood for. She didn’t care about his money or his name. She would fight him to the death no matter what it cost her. She was the only woman to keep his attention for more than a minute in a long time and that made him think his outlandish idea was worth a try.
“Carter.” Patricia, his secretary, came over the intercom. “It’s the queen of England.”
Patricia had obviously not gotten over the way Lisette had treated her years ago. “Send her in.”
Lisette rushed into the room with the urgency she always had about her and sat like a queen on her throne in the chair across from him. “You’ve got to do something about her.”
“I’d be nothing without her,” Carter admitted. “And if you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.”
“How genuine.” She rolled her eyes. “Carter, I’ve been calling you.”
“I’ve been busy working on something for my father.”
“I’ve been reading.”
“What can I help you with?” He hadn’t seen her since she was waiting for him at his apartment a few weeks ago. The sex was great and she was gone before he woke up the next morning, which he was grateful for.
“I need your help,” she said.
Here it comes. “Your dictionary says that means money.”
“You know me too well, Carter.”
“Unfortunately.” He leaned back in his soft leather chair.
“You have it and I need it.”
“You have it, too. Last I remember your second husband left you plenty.”
Lisette pressed her lips together to stifle her anger. “I don’t want to talk about that. His damn kids have taken it all back. I’ve got nothing. Honestly, Carter, I’d rather be dead than poor.”
“Wouldn’t we all? How much are we talking about?”
She took a deep breath. “Somewhere in the area of one hundred grand would keep me going until I find…”
“A new sponsor,” he said.
Lisette had a devilish smile. “Like I said, you understand me.”
“And when could I expect to see this hundred grand back?”
Her brows rose. “You want it back?”
Carter didn’t smile. “I’m really busy, Lisette.”
“Carter.”
“You have got to be kidding me,” he uttered more emphatically.
“I’m not,” she said. “I’m desperate, Carter. I would only tell you that and if you repeat it, I’ll put a contract out on your life.”
“With what?” he asked. “You don’t have any money.”
Lisette wasn’t laughing now and Carter was inclined to believe her. He had given her money before and never expected to see it back, but one hundred grand was a lot.
“Carter, I’ve burned bridges and I don’t have anywhere else to turn. I have some things in motion now. I’ll be able to pay you back sometime.”
“Things in motion?”
“There are a few gentlemen who I’m building a strategy on.”
She couldn’t have been divorced more than a year, but money was all that mattered to Lisette and this was the easiest way for women like her. “Would I be mistaken to assume these few gentlemen are on the wrong side of seventy-five?”
“Fuck you, Carter.” Lisette was obviously tired of the damsel in distress act.
“I’ll have to think about it,” he said. “It’s a lot of money to just give away.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that,” she said. “I’m sure there’s something I could do for you.”
When Richard slid a shot of Scotch toward Leigh at the bar, she recoiled a bit. She was already regretting her promise.
“You can’t back out now,” he said, taking his own shot. “A promise is a promise.”
Richard’s promise had come the weekend before their first date, dinner in Studio City. The clinic would have all its necessary furniture by the end of the week. Leigh didn’t doubt him, but she was feeling a little superstitious. Things were going too well. Since finishing the paint job, Alicia had secured an advertising firm pro bono and secured interviews with the top three urban radio stations to announce the opening. Leigh found a neighborhood company to cater the opening and Richard promised a full waiting room, examination rooms, offices and front desk and she was getting a little nervous.
Whoever loses buys drinks, real drinks straight up. Not that she needed an excuse to see him again. Richard was a brother on top of his game. He had a rugged guy’s look about him, loved sports and listened to something other than rap. He was politically aware and could carry a conversation about the cover of Newsweek and Black Enterprise.
“Let’s go.” He brought the shot to his lips.
Leigh did the same, her eyes shutting tight as if that would spare her anything. She could smell it and she thought she was going to throw up.
“One…two…three.”
Leigh felt like she was on fire, and from the look on Richard’s very amused face, she must have looked the same. Richard ordered two more shots.
“Hey! I only said one.”
“You said shots,” he argued. “Notice the s on the end? I remember distinctly.”
“How can you be so sure?”
His smile softened. “I remember everything from that night. Don’t you?”
Leigh knew she was in trouble. This guy was hitting all the right notes with her and she wasn’t in a place to defend herself against a seduction. The truth was, she was horny as hell. She hadn’t been dating before leaving for Africa and barely had time to sleep let alone think about a man while she was there. Looking at Richard, sitting only a foot away with that earnest smile, she wanted to jump on top of him. The careless way he carried himself was so sexy and it made Leigh want to put her inhibitions aside.
“One more.” She wrapped her fingers around the shot glass. “This time, I count.”
“Go ahead.”
“And I toast.” Leigh thought for a moment. “To Hope Clinic!”
“To Hope Clinic!”
Leigh hit the shot, gripping the edge of the bar to take the fire that trailed her throat. When she looked at Richard the look in his eyes told her he was ready for whatever she wanted. It was all up to her. Everything was going her way.
Zipping through L.A. traffic, Carter was having another one of those moments. He called them family moments, pondering the state of his family and his position within it. He was thinking of his father and the rift that seemed to eternally exist between them. He wanted to blame Steven, but he knew he was just as much at fault. He loved the man, and in many ways he worshipped him. When other men had drug dealers, prisoners or deadbeats for fathers and some not even knowing who their father was, Carter knew he was lucky.
He had been brought up in a loving home with two married parents who loved each other and led their lives as an example for him. He went to sleep every night knowing his father was down the hallway and would be there when he woke up. He had always felt loved, needed, believed in and safe. He also always felt expected of, pressured and obligated. That was at the root of it. Steven wanted his firstborn to be just like him and Carter wanted to be like no one but himself. That wasn’t understandable to a man like Steven, who, like any self-made man, worshipped his creator.
He was thinking of Michael and Kimberly, wondering why Michael had been the one to find real love. Although it was mostly cloaked in a sexual obsession they had for one another, Carter knew that they would do anything for each other. The boys only brought them closer in a marriage that everyone was certain was doomed from the start.
He was thinking of Leigh and how close they had once been, but he had practically ignored her since she returned. Not to mention Haley, whose life was in grave danger and he couldn’t even remember to call her. He had to find a way to make it up to the little brat even though he didn’t expect her to respond.
Then there was Avery and that image of her in the red dress with those sad eyes. It was sketched on his memory and it made him doubt if he had the balls to go through with this. He had been calling her every day since deciding to take the seduction route, something he would have never, ever done for any woman. She wouldn’t take his calls and never returned his messages. If she thought that would do the trick, she had a lot to learn. Carter knew he was a selfish bastard, but come hell or high water he wanted everything, and he was going to get it. He wasn’t so different from his father after all.
“Carter here,” he said into his cell phone as he answered it.
“It’s your best friend, brother!”
Whoever it was, they were drunk as a skunk. “I’m about to hang up.”
“It’s Craig Moon, Chase.”
“The offer is off the table, Craig. That’s what happens when you take too long to make up your mind.”
“That bitch messed up everything for everyone, but you and I can make a new deal.”
Carter turned off the expressway. “You’re drunk. Otherwise you’d know you had nothing to offer.”
“I’m doing you a favor.” Craig’s tone was clearly angry. “This is just as much for you as it is for me, brother.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“You can get Essentials!” came out quickly.
“I’m listening,” Carter said.
“You need the location, right?” he asked. “You can build a shop there.”
Carter didn’t respond. This didn’t sound good.
“I can give you the location,” Craig said. “After tonight, it’ll be yours.”
“Go on.”
“After tonight, Avery is gonna regret ever crossing either of us.”
Carter pulled alongside the curb. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“And if you don’t pay me what I want,” Craig continued, “I’ll make it look like you did it.”
Carter tried to use the calmest voice he could find. “Okay, Craig. Tell me what you’ve done”
“Essentials is gonna blow tonight, and after that she won’t have anything. Her loopholes are ghosts. She’ll have to sell to you at whatever you offer her. I think I deserve something for that.”
What an idiot. “Someone could get hurt!”
“The shop closed an hour ago. Now let’s talk about…”
Carter tossed the phone in the passenger seat as he swerved back into traffic. He could only hope that Craig was a crazy drunk, but he had a distinct feeling that he wasn’t; and if that was true, all hell was about to break loose.
As soon as he opened the double doors to the Chase mansion, a smiled crowned Sean’s face at the sight of Haley coming toward him. When she reached him, he barely had time to duck before her closed fist came swinging at his head. Haley went falling forward and he caught her in his arms.
“What’s the matter with you?”
She pushed him away so mad that her stomach hurt. “You’re a liar.”
“What did I do now?”
“You know what you did!”
Haley had been willing to give Sean the benefit of the doubt after he stood her up on Monday. No one stood her up, but when he told her what he’d been doing she forgave him. Only, he’d done it again today. He was supposed to be here in the morning, but it was almost nine. She was more frustrated that all of her hard work seemed to have no effect on him. He should be willing to do anything to see her, but he obviously wasn’t.
“No, I don’t, but I’m not inclined to care if you’re gonna act like this. I came over here to give you good news.”
Hands on her hips, Haley tilted her head. He was frustrating the hell out of her and she had to put a stop to it. It was her game, not his.
“I’m sorry I’m late, but we got a break in the case and I had to stick around.” He knew his attraction to this damn high-maintenance woman was gonna be the death of him.
“That’s no excuse.” Haley turned to walk away. “I don’t want to talk to you now.”
