He listened to her leave-a-message spiel, all the while smiling at his last image of her; but when he heard the beep, he hung up.
“Don’t be stupid, Jonas. You’re not ready.”
“Do you think a man could be too handsome?” Toni asked Maria out the blue while picking over her meal.
Maria’s heavily Botox’d face already held a look of surprise. “What do you mean?”
Toni shrugged as a way to downplay her question, but in truth, she hadn’t been able to get Jonas Hinton’s pretty-boy looks out of her head. Those curly lashes and deep-pitted dimples, and he had an adorable mold on the line of his jaw that she’d noticed during their long talk.
“I don’t know,” she finally said. “There was this guy I met yesterday-”
“Yesterday? You mean, on the airplane?”
“Actually, the bar at the airport.”
“Sheesh. You’re picking up men at the airport now?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I know it’s nowhere as respectable as the grocery store.” The barb was a direct hit, since it was well known between the girlfriends that Maria would spend hours on hair and makeup before trolling the wine and beer aisles at her local Albertson.
“Men have to eat.”
Toni just shook her head.
“What?” Maria asked with her defenses high.
“Nothing. It’s just that...”
Maria crossed her arms as a sign of annoyance, but her expression remained the same. “It’s just what?”
“Well...do you ever think that maybe you try a little too hard?”
Her friend jerked back as though she’d been slapped.
“I mean, you’re a beautiful woman and you have a lot to offer, but you have this habit of acting like you’re the last item in a bargain bin.”
“Excuse me, ladies,” the waitress interrupted. “How is everything?”
Toni welcomed the interruption; she suspected Maria was just on the edge of ripping her a new one for brute honesty.
“The food was wonderful. Thank you.” To her surprise, the waitress placed a new Apple Martini in front of her. “I didn’t order another drink.”
“This is from the gentleman at the bar,” the waitress informed her with a smile and then placed a business card down in front of her.
She and Maria turned in their seats to see a handsome blond hair and blue-eyed gentleman holding up his drink in salute.
Toni smiled and nodded her thanks. “Chase Tillman,” she read the card.
Maria, however, folded her arms and stabbed her with an icy glare. “You just attract all shapes and sizes, don’t you?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
It was Maria’s turn to be blasé. “Nothing. I mean, everywhere we go, men are always buying you drinks or slipping you business cards. Meanwhile, I can have a friggin’ neon sign on my head and no one gives me the time of day.”
Toni sighed. How do you go about telling someone that men, animals that they are, could sense desperation off a woman? Men respond to confidence.
“I have to get back to the office,” Toni said, taking a healthy sip from her new drink and then reaching for her purse. “Lunch is on me.”
Maria pressed her lips into a hard line and also reached for her purse.
Toni wished she could say something more encouraging to her old college friend, but it wasn’t like they hadn’t had this conversation before. It’s inhumane to keep beating a dead horse.
“Are you going to call him?” Maria asked when Toni slipped her admirer’s card into her purse.
Toni flicked another look at the man at the bar but could feel nothing but disappointment that he wasn’t her airport dreamboat. “I don’t know. I might. After all, Atlanta was Atlanta and this is L.A.”
“I never knew that you were into the interracial dating thing.”
Toni laughed. “Honey, when it comes to men, I’m an equal opportunity kind of girl.”
Jonas had long suspected that he wasn’t the easiest person in the world to work for; but at least there was one woman in his camp that was more than up for the challenge: Michelle Gunn.
For the past ten years, Michelle made sure everything in Jonas’s life-personal and business-ran smooth. Her job title was personal assistant, but Jonas had long thought of her as his right hand.
“You’ve been drinking,” Michelle stated after a brief glance in his direction.
“Shh. Don’t call my parents.”
Michelle’s normally friendly expression failed to crack a smile.
Convinced there was a judgmental glint in her eyes, Jonas experienced a wave of irritation. “I don’t have a problem,” he hissed under his breath.
Michelle just turned away. “Your schedule is sitting on your desk and Sterling is waiting in your office.”
He was the boss, yet he was the one being dismissed. Definitely another sign of the direction his life had taken.
“Morning, Sterling,” Jonas greeted as he breezed into his office.
Sterling stood from the leather couch and glanced at his watch. “Actually, it’s noon.” His gaze followed Jonas to his chair. “You’ve been drinking?”
“What? Do I have a sign on my head?”
“Your eyes. They’re bloodshot. Plus, yesterday would have been the anniversary of-”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. I’m over it.”
Sterling lifted a dubious brow and slid his hands into his pants pockets. “Are you honestly going to tell me that you didn’t spend the day remembering what could have been?”
The problem with trying to lie to not only your brother, but your best friend, is that it’s a waste of time. After all, it had been Sterling who’d clued him in on his wedding day that he was about to marry a woman in love with someone else.
“I’m not going to tell you anything, Mr. Know-it-all.” Jonas plopped into his chair. “What do you want?”
“I have a business proposition for you.” Sterling waltzed over to Jonas’s desk and planted his hands. “I’m talking about a business deal that’s also going to help you reap a little revenge on Solomon Bassett.”
“I’m listening.”
Revenge is best served cold...
Chapter 4
Six months later...
“It’s not you. It’s me,” Toni told Chase over the phone. Her spring fling with the business manager had finally limped on its last legs and it was time for her to move on.
Toni was a Georgia Peach, no matter how hard she tried to meld into the L.A. scene. In the end, she turned down a partnership at her practice, and was now packing up her things to return to Atlanta.
“What? Was it something I did?” he asked, sounding shocked by this latest development.
Toni tried her best to reassure him that he’d done nothing wrong, but it didn’t sound as though he believed her. In the end, he accepted the breakup, and asked her to call if she ever changed her mind.
Maria hated to see her go, but understood Toni had to do what was best for her.
When she landed at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, an old memory stirred as she walked past the Crown Room and she was even tempted to poke her head into the bar to see if a familiar face with deep dimples could be found in the crowd.
She didn’t.
She’d left the ball in Jonas’s court and he’d never bothered to contact her.
C’est la vie.
There were definitely other fish in the sea and she was determined to catch as many as she could.
Instead of transferring back to the Atlanta branch of Kaplan, Grey & Kaplan, Toni decided that it was time to open her own law practice. Gutsy, but suddenly a necessity. Her friends had asked whether she was going through some type of midlife crisis. Maybe she was, maybe she wasn’t. She just needed a change—a challenge. A few weeks later, the law office of Toni Wright was in business.
As luck would have it, her first client would bring back an old familiar name.
Solomon Bassett had to sit down.
“I see you’re as shocked as I am.” Marcel Taylor, president of T& B Entertainment, stood up from behind his desk and began pacing the long length of his office. “That man is out to destroy this company.”
Solomon was too angry to speak, but his hands clenched and unclenched at his side.
“Fifty percent stake in our company. What the hell?” Marcel paced some more. “This is war. You know that, don’t you?”
“I’ll kill him,” Solomon finally seethed. “He steps one foot in this building and, I swear, I’ll kill him.”
“Stand in line.” Marcel’s pace quickened. “How could Warner screw us like this? We should have had first dibs to purchase their share in T&B.”
“They assured us they wouldn’t sell their share. Our profits are solid. We have eight acts currently in the top twenty on Billboard. How could they do this to us?”
“We should have checked into this when Warner’s financial troubles were first reported six months ago,” Solomon groaned. “Fifty percent. That makes him an equal partner.”
Marcel and Solomon fell silent as they continued to reel from the news of Jonas Hinton Enterprises purchasing Warner Music Group stake in their company. What did it mean? What would their new partner do? Hell, did he even know anything about the music business?
“Mr. Taylor?” Kathleen, Marcel’s latest secretary buzzed him over the intercom.
“Not now, Kate!”
“Um. There’s a Jonas Hinton here to see you.”
“I said-What?”
Solomon bolted up from his seat.
“Mr. Hinton,” she stated again, and then lowered her voice to a whisper, “He insists that you want to see him.”
Marcel glanced over at Solomon.
“He’s a bold asshole, isn’t he?”
“Send him in.”
Solomon and Marcel drew a deep breath and attempted to collect themselves, but the moment Marcel’s door opened, Solomon launched across the room with murder in his eyes.
“You vindictive son of a bitch!”
Jonas had just cleared the doorway before being tackled to the floor. Years of wrestling with his brothers also gave him an advantage in successfully hauling Solomon off of him.
“Get your boy before I hurt him,” he barked,
Marcel hesitated, undoubtedly weighing whether he wanted to interrupt or jump into the match himself.
Solomon threw a one-two punch.
Jonas ducked one, but caught the second one dead in his mouth. He retaliated with his own punch and watched Solomon’s head snap back with a resounding crack.
Marcel finally jumped into the fray and for a frightening moment, Jonas thought he was actually going have to take on both men...and likely lose, but instead Marcel pulled his best friend and business partner off of him.
“You have a lot of nerve showing here,” Marcel growled.
Panting, Jonas touched his lip and then tamped down his anger at the taste and feel of blood. “Why wouldn’t I show up here? As a partner, I have an invested interest on how things are being run.” He wobbled as he pulled himself off the floor.
“I’m sorry but I have to do this.” Marcel stepped forward and sent his own punch careening across Jonas’s hard jaw.
With a grunt, Jonas collapsed back onto the floor and literally warred with whether to throw caution into the wind and just take on the angry partners in an all-out brawl or continue to get his butt kicked. He wanted to show a little maturity about this. But damn it, he wasn’t a saint.
“Are you two finished?” he croaked.
The two men above him grumbled something, but at least they backed up and gave him a little more space. Jonas restrained from thanking them while lumbering back to his feet.
“Just tell us why you did it,” Marcel snapped.
“Humph. I know why he did it,” Solomon sneered. “He’s a sore loser.”
Jonas laughed, though it was probably a dangerous thing to do.
“Are you going to deny it?” Solomon challenged.
He could, but it would be lying. He was a sore loser. “Let’s just say that I’m in the business of making money and you two are my new cash cows.”
“You’re insane,” Solomon challenged.
“Perhaps.” Jonas dabbed his bleeding lip and waltzed to an empty chair across the room. “I’m going to forget this...outburst because I understand you two are a bit emotional right now. If I were in your shoes I might be a little angry myself.”
Marcel and Solomon just watched their new partner make himself at home.
“Yes, well,” Jonas continued when neither man spoke. “I just wanted to stop by and assure you both that you don’t have to worry about me getting in the way around here. Judging by your past profitable annual reports, you two are obviously good at what you do.”
“So you’re more like a silent partner?” Marcel asked.
“Silent may be stretching it a tad. I might show up for the occasional staff meeting. You know, sort of poke in and out from time to time. I might have a suggestion here and there.”
“In other words,” Solomon spoke up, “you’re going to be a regular pain in the ass.”
“Ah.” Jonas’ smile broadened. “Now, that sounds like a more accurate description.”
By the time Jonas left T&B Entertainment, he was practically on cloud nine at seeing the absolute misery on his new partners’ faces. When Sterling first brought this investment venture to him, he thought the opportunity was too good to be true, and then he thought it all sounded too good to pass up.
But perhaps he did take things a little too far in the end when he inquired about Ophelia and the baby. If Marcel had not been in the room, Solomon would have been looking at a sentence of life without parole.
Regardless, Jonas slipped into his waiting limo with a smile on his face. He arrived at his new office in the heart of downtown Atlanta in less than twenty minutes.
“You have a visitor,” Michelle informed him the moment, he entered the office. “What happened to your face?”
“Nothing to concern yourself with,” he assured her.
As far as Jonas was concerned, she could have told him it was time for a prostate exam and it still wouldn’t have ruined his mood. “Send in whomever it is,” he told her, and continued into his office.
He wanted to celebrate. He actually wanted to dance, which was probably not a good idea since dancing was not his strong suit. But he gave it a try anyway. He swiveled his hips, pumped his fist into the air and even combined it with some strange kickboxing moves. All in all, he was feeling good.
“Should I call a medic?”
Jonas jumped and turned around. However, the last person he expected to see was standing in his doorway. “Toni.”
Chapter 5
A wide smile eased across Toni’s full lips. “You remembered my name.” She closed the door behind her and glided into the room. “May I ask what has you in such a good mood? And did you catch the name of that train that ran into your face?”
Astonished, Jonas absently touched his swollen lip but couldn’t quite find his voice. She looked good.
Damn good.
Her legs in her short, black mini business suit went on for forever, while the rest of her body curved like nobody’s business. He’d never guessed all this lay beneath her casual jeans and plain top the last time he’d seen her.
“I take it you’re surprised to see me?”
“That’s putting it mildly,” he managed to say. “This office just opened.”
“Yes, I know.”
He frowned, not knowing how to take that answer. “Um. Look, I was meaning to call you,” he began.
“No you weren’t,” she said, smiling. “But it’s kind of you to lie.” Toni moved farther into the room, glancing around as if she was inspecting the place. “Nice.”
“Thanks.” He waited, wondering wildly why she was there; but when it was apparent that she wasn’t giving the information freely, he decided to prompt her. “Just in t
he neighborhood?”
“No. I came to see you,” she said with a teasing wink. “And I must say you’re looking extremely well. At least you’re not drowning your sorrows at a bar.”
Jonas tensed.
Her gaze raked him openly. “You sure know how to fill out a suit, Mr. Hinton.”
The tension left Jonas as a smile returned to his lips. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were flirting with me.”
Her eyes caressed him once again. “I like flirting with you-even though it doesn’t seem to have much effect.”
Judging by his quickening pulse and the room’s rising temperature, she was definitely wrong about that.
“Or does it?” she asked.
“Are you trying to get inside of my head?”
Their gazes locked.
“I can think of something else I’d rather get into.” Her eyes dropped to below his waist.
Her boldness startled him and he turned away before she could see how much her teasing was actually getting to him. When he reached his desk, he used it to literally hide his growing erection.
Toni’s eyes twinkled like she knew exactly what he was doing. With a widening smile, she followed and approached the desk like a lioness stalking its prey. “You’re not afraid of me, are you?”
Feel The Fire (Unforgettable Series) Page 3