After walking down a short hall, and up a flight of stairs, Alexander found Nisha standing in her office doorway, her arms crossed. "I know this isn't about my brother. If there was a problem, you'd have called, not made a personal trip."
"I'm only here for today. I came to take you to dinner," he said, as she stood aside and waved him into her office.
Shutting the door behind him she returned to the other side of her desk and leaned over it. Resting her palms on the edge of her desk, she feigned interest in a piece of paper that was lying on her blotter. She looked up at him and said, "What are you doing in Philadelphia?"
“I had business in Pittsburgh and decided to make a side trip to take you to dinner.”
“You flew to Philly to take me to eat?” she asked, her voice full of skepticism.
“No. I didn’t fly. I drove,” came his reply.
“You drove five hours to see me?” she asked incredulously.
He nodded in response.
She glanced down at her desk and looked back at him quickly. “You should’ve called first. I’m busy tonight.”
He held back a smile. "Cancel it."
She stood up straight and crossed her arms. "No. I'm not going to cancel my plans because you happen to be in town for one day. Why don't you stay longer and I'll have dinner with you tomorrow night?" she asked.
"Because I didn't pack a bag. I took care of business in Pittsburgh first thing this morning and drove here. I made a reservation out of Philadelphia for tonight. I'm on a 2:30 a.m. flight home. What time should I pick you up?"
"I'm not having dinner with you tonight!" She would never tell him that she already had a date. A date with a man that she found attractive. A man whose company she'd enjoyed on their first and only date two weeks ago. Nicholas Weems was a smart, responsible and extremely successful senior partner in another law firm. She'd had to cancel on him twice, and her instincts told her three strikes and she'd be out—she’d likely never hear from Nicholas again.
"You have to. I drove here just to take you to dinner." He gave her a level look. Not a pleading look. Not an apologetic look. His expression was one of authority. He was a man who wasn't used to taking no for an answer.
He reminded her of Anthony.
"Why in the world would you drive all this way just to take me out?” She huffed out a breath like she'd been reprimanding an errant child and was losing patience. "And what if you'd gotten here and I was out of town?"
"When you stayed at my place and made me dinner I told you I owed you one. And if I got here and you weren't here, I would've asked where you were, and I would've booked another flight and found you."
She rolled her eyes. "Gee, you take your oaths seriously. A bit over the top if you want my opinion."
He obviously didn't want her opinion because he just stared at her.
His eyes could be unnerving, but she refused to look away. Since Alexander had no intention of taking no for an answer, her mind did some mental gymnastics while she tried to figure out a way to cancel with Nicholas and remain in his good graces. Then she reminded herself that she was an attorney and was certain that the right amount of smooth talking combined with some sensual prodding would work. She knew that Nicholas was attracted to her. She would ask him out next time, and if he refused, she would try Alexander's tactic. Bullying.
"Fine," she finally said. "Pick me up at six o’clock."
“Six thirty,” he countered as he opened the door to leave, chuckling to himself when he heard her gasp.
Alexander spent the next few hours walking the streets of Philadelphia and visiting some shops. He spent a long time perusing one in particular. It was a store that specialized in every kind of knife known to man. It didn't matter if you were a chef or a hunter. They had a knife for every profession and every occasion. He eventually settled on a sleek switchblade that was calling his name. After making his purchase, he noticed the time. He had fifteen minutes to get back to the offices of Perkins & Wallace.
Nisha hadn't been able to speak to Nicholas, so she'd left a message with his assistant telling him she was very sorry, but that something important had come up. He still hadn't returned her call by the time 6:30 p.m. rolled around. She was outside, walking down the steps when she looked up.
Alexander was already there, leaned up against his rental car across the street. Even from a distance, she could feel his piercing blue eyes as they raked over her body. She couldn't deny the way his stare made her feel. She shivered despite the warm balmy weather.
They drove in silence to a restaurant he'd picked out during his mini-tour of Philly. She agreed with his choice. It was a casual place, off the beaten path, that catered to all types of clientele. It was an old house that had been converted to a restaurant in the thirties. After entering what used to be the home's stately front door, the patrons could go to the left where there was a bar and laid-back seating area, or the right where there was a more formal dining room. But not so formal that Alexander's jeans and dress shirt would seem out of place.
They were shown to a table, and after giving their drink orders, they perused the menu. The waiter returned with their beverages and a basket of warm bread. After writing down their selections, he retrieved the menus and told them the wait wouldn't be long.
"Why so quiet on the drive over?" Alexander asked. He took a sip of his drink and set it down.
"I don't know. I guess I'm trying to figure you out." Nisha shook her head. "I can't understand why you would come all this way to take me for a meal.” There was a pause, and her eyes narrowed. "Unless that's a lie. You're here for something else, and I'm filling in some empty space because you have time to kill." Although it was never discussed, she wasn't naïve about Anthony's other business. She secretly hoped that Alexander knew her brother from the landscape office, but her gut told her otherwise. Alexander wasn't the type to ride a mower or wear gardening gloves. She'd known it from the moment she met him, but didn't want to recognize it.
"I'm here for you. Only you." His words and the way he said them caused her insides to tingle. She immediately dialed back her reaction and feelings. "But?" There was a long pause before she asked, "Why?"
He wasn't going to answer her question, so he changed the subject.
"Did you know Anthony is serious about someone?" he blurted out. Of all the subjects to try and divert her questions, why had he chosen this one? "But you can't tell him you know. He doesn't know I'm here and you know how private your brother is. When he's ready, he'll tell you about her."
That was one point Nisha wouldn't argue about. Alexander was right about Anthony being private. It wouldn't bode well for Alexander if she gave him up. Her eyes went wide as she leaned across the table.
"You're lying." She paused. "Tell me everything," she said with a devious grin.
He couldn't help but smile at her contradictory statements, and he proceeded to fill her in on everything except for the things she couldn't know. He told her it was the girl Anthony brought home that day and that her brother had fallen hard and was now referring to her as his woman.
"Wow," Nisha exclaimed, leaning back and reaching for her drink. "Falling hard doesn't sound like my brother, but calling her his woman this soon does. I don't need to tell you how territorial Anthony is and after he's made his mind up about something it's a done deal. The minute he decided he loved her, there would be no going back for him."
The pager on Alexander's belt interrupted the moment. He reached for it and squinted, not sure if he was seeing it correctly. It was displaying a number that meant there was an emergency at the camp. He couldn't do anything about it from Philadelphia, but he still needed to make a call to see what was going on.
"I have to answer this," he told Nisha.
She nodded and said, "I know there's a pay phone on the second floor by the restrooms."
"I won't be long," he said as he stood up and pushed his chair back in.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Naples, Fl
orida
After Dr. V drove away, Shasta mustered up the courage to go outside and tell the men the pretty doctor had been lying and was using them to take vengeance out on a woman that Anthony cared about.
They laughed at her.
Andrew stood up and walked slowly toward her. "And we're supposed to take a drug addicted slut’s word over the woman that drove away in a fifty-thousand-dollar car?" he asked before slapping her hard across the face.
"Everybody knows Anthony don't care about no woman," one of the men added.
"Yes, I think he does. Weren't you here when X had everybody looking for her?" Shasta pleaded as she raised her hand to where her cheek stung.
The four men exchanged glances and one spoke up, "Ain't heard nothing about it."
Shasta knew they were probably telling the truth. They weren't regulars and only showed up occasionally to execute a drug deal, have sex with the women or to be included in some of the camp’s more unsavory business. She glanced over at Denny's charred hand.
"I'm telling you what I heard. Dr. V never got a phone call telling her to relay a message. I heard her call a woman and lie about Anthony being hurt and asking the girl to come to the camp." She was begging them to believe her.
That comment earned her a kick to the stomach. She fell back onto the hard brick and clutched her abdomen as she tried to catch her breath.
Andrew stood over her and said, "Don't matter anyhow. We'll be out of here tonight and don't plan on coming back."
When she was able to stand, she ran back to the office and paged Anthony. She looked down at the phone, her breathing heavy, and tried to remember Alexander's number. She tried twice, before she finally got it right.
She stood over the phone and willed it to ring. She knew Anthony would be heading back from Miami and she wasn’t sure he would be able to get a page if he was already crossing the Alley. When the phone rang she immediately snatched it up and accepted the collect call from X. She rattled off everything that had transpired. When she finally stopped to take a breath, X told her in no uncertain terms what she needed to do, and reassured her that Anthony would insist she do the same.
Her breathing back to normal, and with a newfound confidence, she picked up the phone and was ready to make the call when the office door flew open and the receiver was smacked out of her hand. She felt a hard punch to her face and staggered backward. She held up her hands to try and ward off the punches, but they were no match for Andrew's meaty fists. "I'm sorry," she whispered to no one who mattered. She thought about Anthony, X and the woman she'd never met. The woman named Christy. "I'm sorry," she said, once more before her world went black.
After meeting with his client, Anthony made the long lonely drive across the Alley and thought about the woman who was waiting for him at home. The woman who had changed his life completely in less than a month’s time. A change he'd first denied, then resisted and now embraced. He smiled when he thought about the weird facts she shared about herself, the naïve innocence in her vocabulary like the term “none of your beeswax,” and her addiction to pistachio nuts and peppermint patties. Not to mention her huge oversized blue eyes that matched the size of her heart.
He was certain he knew the reason why she'd refused his official marriage proposal, so he had no regrets about taking things into his own hands days earlier. He would ask her again tonight and explain that this second proposal was only a formality. As far as he was concerned, they were already married. But first, he would make love to her. Just the thought gave him an erection. And since he didn’t want to drive the rest of the way home in agony, he put Christy out of his mind and concentrated on the business transaction he'd just made. It was going to be quite prosperous. For years, he'd been pouring money into the most impoverished Native American reservations in the country, doing his best to anonymously offer monetary assistance where it was needed. This deal would be lucrative enough to finance a school, clinic and community center at one particular reservation out west.
The sound of his pager broke his train of thought, and he unclipped it from his belt. His brow furrowed as he read the digital numbers. It was a code that said there was an emergency at the camp. He sighed, wondering what it might be. It could be anything from a fight over a woman or drugs, to a murder. He was ten minutes from the Alley's exit and another twenty minutes from the camp. And there were no pay phones in between. He'd have to go there. He pressed on the accelerator as he mourned the time that wouldn't be spent holding his woman in his arms.
His woman. Yes, Christy was his woman, and she would come to realize soon enough that she belonged to him.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1978
Nisha watched Alexander walk out of the dining room. She took a sip of her drink and tried to wrap her head around what was happening mentally. His hair had gotten longer since she last saw him and she couldn’t help but notice the admiring glances he got from other women who were in the restaurant. Looks aren’t everything, she reminded herself as she broke off a piece of bread and buttered it.
She sighed when she thought about the short amount of time he’d played host to her. They did nothing but bicker with each other. It seemed that every time she opened her mouth, he would challenge her. She tried to offer a truce by making him dinner, but he became unusually quiet during the meal. After he had helped her clean up the kitchen, she excused herself and spent the rest of the evening in his guest room reading. And she could've kicked herself for letting him distract her with the story about Anthony. He'd expertly avoided her question—a tactic she'd used many times.
Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard a voice say, “I guess he’s the ‘something important’ that came up.”
She dropped her bread on the plate and looked up. Nicholas was standing over her, a frown on his face and his body language unwelcoming.
“You followed me?” She couldn’t mask the surprise in her voice.
“No, I didn’t follow you, Nisha. After I got the message that you canceled…again…I decided to meet some friends here for drinks.” He nodded toward the other side of the restaurant.
Of all the restaurants in Philly, he had to show up at the one where she was having dinner with Alexander? She had crummy luck.
“He’s a family friend who came to town unexpectedly,” she stammered. She stood up and tried to take his hand, but he pulled away before she could. “Honestly, Nicholas, it’s not what it looks like.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, Nisha, it’s how to read people. I watched you two. You’re definitely into each other.”
She blinked. “That’s ridiculous. We’ve been here less than fifteen minutes.”
“And the other thing I’ve learned is that when someone starts a sentence with ‘honestly,’ they’re being anything but.”
Nicholas walked out passing Alexander who was coming back from his phone call.
Nisha sat back down and let out a sigh.
“I have to leave,” Alexander announced as he removed his wallet and threw two hundred dollars on the table. “That’ll cover dinner and a cab ride home for you.”
Alexander was more rattled by the phone call to Shasta than he wanted to admit. He knew that Christy was in grave danger and since Anthony wasn’t anywhere near the camp, he insisted that Shasta call the police. She was reluctant at first, but Alexander told her it was the only option. Unless other gang members that were regulars and loyal to Anthony showed up at the camp and would be willing to take on the other men, Shasta had no choice. He was relieved when he convinced her and knew that even though there was nothing he could do from Philadelphia, he had to catch an earlier flight home. There would be a major fallout to deal with at the camp, and he had to be there.
She stood up again. “What do you mean you have to leave?”
He didn’t seem like he was going to offer an explanation as he looked at her with those icy blue eyes. Eyes that weren’t apologetic or sorry. She could feel
the anger start to build.
“Because I accepted this dinner date with you, I risked ruining a relationship that had potential,” she hissed in a low voice. “And he confirmed that I did indeed destroy any chances I may have had with him.” She nodded toward the door where Nicholas had just exited.
“That’s unfortunate,” Alexander told her.
“Unfortunate?” she asked. It was something her brother would’ve said. Alexander didn’t make excuses for himself or apologize. Apparently, he had picked up some of Anthony’s cruder personality traits. She caught sight of her waiter coming toward them with their meals. “And dinner will be here in five seconds. What do you expect me to do?” she asked in an irritated tone.
He grabbed her and kissed her softly on her lips. “You’re a smart girl. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” He turned around and walked away. She gritted her teeth and threw her cloth napkin at his back.
“You, you…” Her anger was so thick she couldn’t think of a vile name to call him so she called him one word that would cover every imaginable detestable name in the book. A word she hadn’t thought about in decades. A word that dredged up a long-suppressed ache in her soul. “You Owani!!!”
He stopped, and for a split second she thought he might turn around, but he didn’t. He kept going.
The waiter set their plates down and gave her a questioning look. “Can you pack those up to go, please?” she asked as she downed the rest of her Brandy Alexander in one long gulp.
“Why does my favorite drink have to have his name in it?” she asked out loud as she watched the waiter walk away carrying a plate in each hand.
Two hours later, she soaked in her bathtub and let the hot water soothe her. She’d been livid down to the marrow in her bones when Alexander not only left the restaurant without explanation, but mucked up any chance she may have had with Nicholas. She wanted to hang on to that anger to eradicate what that brief kiss did to her insides. She was now feeling relaxed and looked forward to a hot cup of tea and immersing herself in a novel she’d been meaning to read.