Hamilton was young, stylish, and beyond creative. Although he’d only been with her firm for the last few months, she loved his aesthetic and was constantly testing him to see his growth. He looked more like a football player than a designer, and that made her respect his eye even more. “Much better,” he said with a nod as he picked up a large white binder on the corner of her desk and flipped through swatches of tile. “There’s more room under the cabinets and this pattern won’t seem as busy if you use it now.”
Madison gave her a surreptitious wink as she tapped her stylus against her Kente cloth-covered iPad.
Jaime looked at the navy subway tile fashioned into a herringbone pattern. “This is the first tile I considered,” she said, stroking it with her fingertips before cutting her eyes up to him. “You remember that?”
Hamilton nodded. “I thought you should design the entire kitchen around it,” he said.
He was right.
“Let’s put it on the virtual board with the second color palette for the client to choose from,” she said firmly to Madison.
“Right away,” she said, rising from her seat.
Hamilton did the same.
Jaime pulled up her calendar on her private iPad. “What time is their appointment?” she asked, furrowing her brow as she looked at her busy schedule for next week.
“Tomorrow at three,” Madison said, pausing at the door with her hand on the handle.
Madison was taking lead because Jaime and Luc were leaving for an extended weekend in Miami. “I won’t be off the grid so keep me updated to their choices and definitely if something goes wrong,” Jaime said.
“Absolutely,” Madison said, before opening the glass door and leaving.
Jaime glanced up when Hamilton paused, and she saw the hope in his eyes. “Not yet,” she said with a gentle smile meant to be encouraging.
She generally didn’t allow new design consultants to attend appointments—where they might be unexpectedly asked by a client for input—until six months of employment.
He nodded in understanding before leaving.
Jaime began checking emails, swiftly swiping her fingers across the touch screen to delegate them to trash or to respond.
“Knock-knock.”
She glanced at the door to find her administrative assistant, Katie. “How much of my time do you need at this exact moment?” Jaime asked as she directed her gaze back to the screen.
“Less than a sec,” Katie promised, wearing a fuchsia pantsuit and bright green glasses that somehow worked. “You have a delivery.”
Jaime looked surprised. “I wasn’t expecting anything,” she said.
“And your mother is on line one.”
Jaime frowned as she rose from her seat behind her desk, an A-frame base of wood with a glass top. She smoothed her hands over the bright red pencil skirt she wore with a red silk tank and heels. “Package first, then my mother,” she said taking long strides across her glass-enclosed office situated in the middle of the two-thousand-square-foot office space.
Katie reclaimed her seat at the glass desk in front of Jaime’s enclosure while Jaime continued to the front doors to find a large, flat box. “How are you today?” Jaime asked the uniformed delivery man as she looked down at the package now leaning against the chairs in her reception area.
She gasped and paused for a second as she recognized the slashing handwriting.
“I’m good, and you?” he said.
Normally she opened packages upon delivery to ensure nothing was damaged and it was the correct item she had ordered for clients. She decided to forgo that as she took the machine he offered to sign for the delivery. “Thanks,” she said, even as her heart continued to flutter.
For a long moment after he walked back out through the glass doors etched with her name, Jaime eyed the package.
“Everything okay?” Katie called over. “Should I get it taken down to the warehouse?”
She rented two storage areas in the basement to keep design elements that she owned and used for staging or to sell at a fair price to clients.
Jaime clasped her hands together and shook her head. “No, this is for me,” she said, picking it up and finding it not too heavy for her to manage as she carried it into her office to sit on one of the four easels she kept for design presentations with her staff.
She felt silly for how her hands trembled as she undid the tape running along the seam on the side of the box. For some reason, she thought it might be a nude Graham painted as he remembered the heat fueled sex they shared against a door in Grenada six weeks ago.
His raw and rough cry as he climaxed seemed to echo around her.
She grunted a little and gave herself a shake to release the memory while she opened the lid with trepidation. To prevent her employees who were working at their stations around her glass office from seeing the wrong thing, she leaned in. The sight of her face surprised her, and her mouth fell open at the beauty of the sketch. Not her beauty—this wasn’t about ego—but the exquisiteness of his artistry. His skill.
Graham was truly a master.
With bated breath similar to what he evoked in hot passion, she removed the framed sketch from the box and held it in her hands as her eyes devoured it. Missing not one detail. Not even the effort he placed into a strand of hair that tended to fall over one of her eyes. The pout of her mouth as if ready to be kissed. The softness of her shoulders before the charcoal faded, leaving the viewer to imagine what should come next.
And her eyes.
So haunting. So full of raw emotion she recognized as the vulnerability of love. The sweet mix of fear and excitement.
“Oh, Graham,” Jaime whispered, unable—or unwilling—to accept the cause for the tears that rose.
Beneath her right thumb was his signature. G. Walker. She stroked it and felt an odd energy course through her body. She couldn’t explain it and didn’t want to accept it. That awareness of him continued to pulse even in his absence.
Raising her thumb, she eyed the date. 2016. Sometime after the rooftop farewell. A lifetime ago.
She settled the frame back on the easel and walked backward away from it as she continued to study herself in the sketch. All of her that he saw and captured. Long after she reclaimed her seat and leaned back in it as she crossed her legs, she turned to face the window. But even in the reflection, her eyes sought the picture. Got lost in it.
Wondered just what it meant for Graham to send it to her.
No message was included.
Or was she missing it?
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m done. It’s over.”
She eyed the picture again. He was so talented. And this was a piece from years ago. She thought of the mural that she loved at just half its completion. Curiosity nipped at her. Unable to fight it, she turned to her computer.
“Graham Walker,” she said as she typed his name into her favorite search engine.
There was an article announcing the mural but no full photo of it. Would she have to go back to Grenada to see the final product?
And was Graham back in the States?
A click of his upcoming events link revealed he had an art show coming up in a couple of weeks. In New York. Her heart raced at that.
“I don’t think I can ever be what you need, or understand, or fully forgive. Our past together is the very reason I just don’t believe we can have a future.”
He was right.
Had she loved him? Without question.
Had she struggled to see a future for them? Absolutely.
Just seeing a woman eye his good looks and towering physique led to her fear they were an old client—someone who had shared the body of the man she loved. There had been plenty of heated arguments and frigid cold silences.
“Jaime? Your mother,” Katie reminded her.
She leaned forward and pressed the button to talk. “Put her through. Thanks,” she said, answering the call and placing it on speaker. “Hello, Mother.”<
br />
“I hate calling there,” Virginia said, her tone haughty.
Jaime arched a brow. “And she’s off to the races,” she muttered with sarcasm.
“What’s that?” Virginia asked.
“When you say there like that, do you mean calling me at work?” Jaime asked. “At the business I own that has employees who rely on me to provide salaries so that they can contribute to society and feed their families? Is that the there you speak of?”
Virginia sighed. “Now that you’re getting married... again,” she whispered.
Jaime rolled her eyes.
“I don’t see why you need to keep doing that.”
The that was as condescending as the there.
She tensed and rolled her neck to relieve it. Every time her mother would show a sliver of growth in changing her antiquated views of gender roles, Jaime held out hope that a tiger could change its stripes.
And every damn time I’m wrong.
It was her mother’s hand in her raising and mother-to-daughter chats when out of earshot of their husbands that had molded Jaime into the Stepford wife willing to take mental abuse behind closed doors as long as the façade stayed pristine. Even after his affair with Jessa was revealed and Jaime left, her mother had formed an alliance with Eric’s parents to convince them to remain married using everything from his Catholic religion to shaming her for wanting more for her life than a marriage that had been framed with disdain and coldness.
And so much hate after that misdial led to him overhearing me and Pleasure having sex . . .
Pushing aside the hurt that still lingered over her mother’s choice of marriage by any means over her own daughter’s happiness, Jaime settled her gaze on the sketch. There in her eyes was also the sadness of never feeling good enough for her mother. With a shake of her head and lick of her lips, Jaime closed her eyes. “Mother, the influence you had on me during my marriage with Eric will not be the same with Luc and me, please know that,” she said, not caring that her tone was clipped.
“The influence?” Virginia asked.
Jaime was sure she was clutching the string of Tiffany pearls around her neck.
Miss Prim and Proper Pearls.
She smiled, remembering Graham’s old nickname for her during his days as Pleasure the stripper, when his sultry dick-slinging performances awakened desires in her and caused sensitive spots to tingle like she never knew they could in her innocence.
“You know, Mother, you need a little pleasure in your life,” Jaime said with a chuckle.
“I have my bridge tournaments and charity work for the church,” Virginia insisted, ever the wife, mother, and socialite extraordinaire.
The chuckle grew to a laugh.
“What’s funny?” she snapped.
“Nothing, Mother,” Jaime said tucking her jet-black blunt bob behind her ear.
“I like Luc—”
“You also loved Eric, who was horrible to me and tried to kill his pregnant mistress after stalking her, while he was trying to reconcile with me,” Jaime interrupted, so desperately wanting her mother to see the error of her own ways. “You also loved his parents, and one is now serving time for the attempted murder of Jessa’s daughter. You liking Luc is most definitely not a selling point, Mother.”
The line went quiet.
Jaime dropped her head in her hands. She wasn’t sure if Virginia Osten-Pine’s feelings were hurt or if she was feigning that they were. The master manipulator. Virginia’s little stunts had taught Jaime how it felt to be manipulated by others. She wasn’t here for it anymore.
Not from her or anyone else.
So she remained silent, adamant to no longer play the “Mother, I’m Sorry” game.
Virginia surprised her by just ending the call, causing Jaime to eye the phone.
Hmmm That’s new.
She twisted her mouth as she tapped the phone against its base, fighting the urge to call her mother back before she finally hung up the receiver. “Nope,” she said, determined not to fall for her mother’s newest chess move.
“And my obedience is the queen she’s trying to capture,” Jaime said dryly.
Knock-knock.
She looked up from logging off her computer and smiled at Luc standing in the now open doorway. “Hey, you,” she said, surprised and pleased to see him like they hadn’t just had breakfast in their kitchen that very morning.
Things were good. Damn good.
Rising from her desk, she crossed the room to reach him, loving the way his dark eyes missed nothing about her body as she came to stand before him. Her heels raised her height, and it was so easy to press her hand to his chest and kiss him. “You would think we didn’t live together,” she whispered against his mouth before giving it a quick lick. “Why are you sooooo fuckable, Luc Sinclair?”
He pressed his hand against her lower back. “Why is your office glass?” he asked, dipping his head to press a kiss to the spot behind her earlobe. “Because I would fuck you right now.”
Warm with desire, Jaime looked at him. “On the jet then?” she asked.
His eyes darkened. “On the jet,” he promised before gently sucking the tip of her tongue into his mouth.
“Shit,” she swore in a gasp when he freed it.
They both had been so busy clearing their schedules for their weekend getaway that they hadn’t made love in a few days. It was clear they were more than ready. “Let’s roll,” she said, turning to cross the office and gather her purse and briefcase.
“No briefcase,” Luc said.
“No briefcase,” she agreed, putting it back inside the short wooden file cabinet near her desk.
“Damn, this is dope as hell.”
Jaime froze and cut her eyes over to see Luc—her beautifully sexy Luc—standing before the easel studying the large sketch of her. “Yes, it’s pretty cool,” she said lightly as she tucked her designer clutch under her arm and grabbed her keys. “Did you get my luggage?”
“Yeah.”
She trailed her glossy almond-shaped nails across his back as she passed him to reach the door. “Babe,” she called to him, willing him to turn from the sketch made by her ex. She still couldn’t explain why he had sent it to her.
The same ex she’d fucked during the trip the man staring at the drawing had paid for.
“Where’d you get it?” he asked, glancing over at her.
Fuck.
“I commissioned it,” she lied. “Years ago. I forgot about it ’til recently.”
Luc reached out and stroked the glass before sliding his hands into the pockets of the vintage denims he wore with a crisp striped button-up shirt.
Jaime felt uncomfortable as he continued to stare at it. Her nerves felt shot. “Luc, you ready?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m ready,” he said, finally turning to join her outside the office.
She turned off the overhead lighting before closing and locking the door.
“Have fun this weekend,” Katie said with a wave.
Luc’s phone vibrated with a call and he reached for his phone from his back pocket. “Luc,” he answered.
“We will,” Jaime said, sliding her hand into his free one.
He squeezed it even as he began giving sharp instructions to his assistant. She raised his hand in hers and pressed her nose to his wrist to inhale the scent of his crisp and cool cologne.
I like the warm spiciness of Graham’s better.
Her eyes widened at the impulsive thought just as Luc brought his arm up to wrap around her shoulders and bring her body back against his, their hands still entwined as he continued his phone call. She worried about where the comparison between her past and her present came from. She nibbled on her bottom lip, her eyes finding and locking on the drawing until the elevators closed and blocked it from her view.
* * *
Jaime leaned against the railing of the yacht as she sipped a flute of La Fête du Rosé, a Black-owned rosé made in Saint-Tropez, France. The South Beach Miami s
un was hot, but the speed of the vessel caused a cool draft to blow against her body as she took in the view of the water and the lavish beach homes lining the shore. Another surprise from Luc. The private jet landed but instead of being chauffeured to the home she thought they were renting, they spent the weekend aboard a luxury yacht complete with staff.
The setting, atmosphere, food, and vibes were good, but things were off between them.
She turned and leaned against the rail, her sheer cover-up pressed to her body by the wind, as she eyed him sitting on a deck chair swiping away on his phone. Their argument that morning still lingered between them. They’d spent most of the day in the same room or area of the yacht but pointedly on other sides of the space.
“Excuse me, Mr. Sinclair.”
Jaime looked over at the steward, a fit man in his mid-thirties with a bald head and full beard in a navy polo shirt, cargo shorts, and deck shoes.
“Lunch is served on the aft deck,” he said.
“Thank you,” Luc said, turning off his phone to look over at her. “Hungry?”
She nodded. “I could eat,” she replied.
Ever the gentleman, Luc rose and waved his hand for her to go up the stairs before him.
She had to admit with his black aviator shades on and tattoo-covered chest bared, Luc’s sexiness could not be denied—even in the coolness of their annoyance with each other. Instead of going straight to the stairs, Jaime sauntered up to him and ran her fingers along his stomach.
Luc grabbed her wrist and held up her hand. “Stop playing games, Jaime,” he said. “I didn’t like them much as a kid and I damn sure don’t give a fuck about them now.”
“I’m not playing games, Luc,” she said, leaning toward him as she looked up at him. “I need to make up for this morning.”
He snatched off his shades and tossed them onto the deck chair beside him. “This morning,” he scoffed. “Don’t you mean all damn weekend?”
True.
She reached down between them to grip his dick. “I like to have sex when I’m in the mood,” she began, rising on her toes to lick at his lips. “I wasn’t in the mood... so no sex. That’s my right. I’m not fucking any man on his demand.”
Her Pleasure Page 7