Whitney sniffed. "A cafe and bookstore at the Palms Springs Shopping Center on Glouchester. Really high end place. It gets quite a bit of traffic from the people who lunch set."
Which was Whitney's set up until a few years ago when she started taking her business degree seriously.
Whitney continued. "It was making a profit for a while but now it is haemorrhaging money. That's why the accountant Burrell, contacted me. You know he is a stickler for these kind of things.
Burrell doesn't understand why Brad keeps overdrawing on that business account. I was shocked. I didn't even know about this business. So I asked Burrell to investigate it and he found that not only does Brad have a secret business, he has been hiding a leased apartment at the Rose Hall Suites for the past two years! That's a month after our marriage!"
Noah frowned. "How long have you known that Brad is seeing this girl?"
"Since before Christmas," Whitney whispered. "I couldn't tell anyone. It was Christmas! Everybody loves Bradley. You were his best man at the wedding."
She said it with a little accusation that Noah thought was uncalled for.
"Because you made me do it," He pointed out animatedly. "Whitney, you were the one who fed me a story about how he doesn't have any family in Jamaica and his friends are scattered all over the world and can't make his wedding. I don't know him that well, and as it seems, neither do you."
"I just know that I love him." Whitney shrugged before he could continue. "I still do, and I am not going to leave my husband so that he can be free to be with this Raine Childs person."
Noah sighed. "Dotty says..."
"I don't want to hear about what Dotty said," Whitney snarled. "Dotty hates Brad!"
"Maybe she has cause," Noah said to his sister who had gotten up and started pacing. "Surely if he is paying for her business and her rent this is more than a fling."
Whitney fanned him away. "It is not serious with her, at least not anymore. It can't be. Bradley comes home at night. For the past year he has been coming back from the office early! He is more attentive than ever. He doesn't have any correspondence with her on his phone, no emails, no perfume on his shirts. Nothing!"
Noah sighed. "So why do you think he is having an affair, then?"
Whitney reached for her bag and picked up her phone scrolling through frantically. "I visited the bookstore after Christmas just to see if I am overreacting. Here she is."
She pushed the phone toward Noah and he took it.
"For God's sakes, Whit!" He reacted to her aggressive shove and then looked down at the phone screen at the exotic looking girl smiling in the camera.
Nutmeg skin tone, thick well defined eyebrows, a cute button nose and full well proportioned lips that were turned up at the corners in an impish way.
She was the kind of girl he imagined would be handing out tracts to a church event or doling out soup at a homeless shelter. There was a sweetness about her that was endearing. She was the very definition of cuteness and health. She radiated with it.
"You took this with your phone camera?"
"Yup." Whitney nodded.
"And she looks like this in real life?"
"Uh huh." Whitney nodded again. "The lighting was perfect, she was smiling with a customer. And that's her real hair."
Whitney touched her recently cut bob. "He insisted that he liked shorter hair. He begged me to cut mine off."
Whitney's eyes filled with tears again.
"Oh, Whit." Noah took a step closer to her but he was sweaty he patted her shoulder. "Your hair looks gorgeous, whether it is long or short, you know that."
Whitney sniffed. "You are my brother, you have to tell me nice things to cheer me up."
Noah looked at the picture again; Raine Childs had long thick big curly hair that clouded around her face in artful disarray. She was refreshingly pretty and un-mistress-like. Why would a girl like her find a married man attractive? She could get anybody to marry her in a heartbeat.
He looked up at his sister. "What on earth can I help you with? You said you need my help earlier."
"Buy the shop." Whitney wiped her eyes. "You have always wanted to own a bookshop type of business."
"Yes, but...I..." Noah snapped his mouth shut. He had waxed poetic about owning a bookshop and cafe where he could write surrounded by books and hot chocolate. He had said as much a couple weeks ago at Christmas dinner at his mother's place after his mother had casually mentioned that she had enough books in her old apartment to open two bookshops and she was looking to off load them.
Maybe that was why Bradley had been looking at him with such intensity as if he wanted to suggest something but felt cornered. Maybe because he had a bookshop and couldn't admit to it.
"I am selling the bookstore...cafe...whatever," Whitney said, "putting it on the market first thing tomorrow. I am selling it as is. You have first dibs. If you see it and like it, there is no need to wait to claim it. I'll give it to you for the same price Bradley bought it. It's a deal."
Noah nodded. "Yes it is. Are you sure about this?"
"Yes," Whitney shrugged. "I have no use for it. I also instructed the accountant to not renew the lease agreement on the apartment. It should expire this week. It is time this gold digging hussy know that her sugar daddy is running out of sugar."
"So you are punishing the girl and not your husband?" Noah asked incredulously.
"Oh, I am punishing Bradley." Whitney smiled at him thinly. "I am putting him on an allowance. All financial decisions in our various businesses have to go through me now. And I am auditing him every three months. He can't buy a mint without me knowing. I am not going to be quite as trusting as I used to be. Think about the shop and let me know by tomorrow."
She exited the gym, her shoulders squared, as if she was about to do battle.
Chapter Three
Noah didn't finish his workout. He went upstairs passing through the kitchen on his way to hit the shower.
Dotty was busy arranging his breakfast.
He gave her a potted version of the conversation with Whitney before she could ask. He knew that if he didn't report to her he would be hounded for the day.
"That's my girl," Dotty said in approval. She wiped her hand on her apron. "Though I would have preferred if she left him. He's bad news. He's an opportunist."
Noah ran his fingers through his hair. "Dotty, please. It's January 1, didn't you have a resolution to leave Whitney's relationship alone?"
"Do you think I should?" Dotty asked him a serious look on her face.
"Yes you should." Noah nodded. "Whitney is twenty-six, she is living her life the best way she knows how. Everything will work out the way it should without us interferring."
He changed the subject quickly, "What about the bookstore idea? What do you think?"
"It sounds good." Dotty allowed the subject change, only narrowing her eyes a little to show she was aware of his tactics to get her to stop talking about Whitney.
"Go for it. You have always been interested in that sort of thing. Get somebody to run it while you write. I need you to write part two of Matters of the Heart. The book club is hoping for a resolution to King's story. They haven't stopped asking me for updates on where you are with it."
"Yes." Noah nodded, "I want to write it. I desperately want to but it's as if my heart is taking custody of my head."
Dotty frowned. "Are you still obsessing about your new heart and all the little things it is supposedly making you do?"
Noah slowly backed away through the archway toward the safe relief of the dining area. He had forgotten that Dotty had declared him stark raving crazy a couple days ago when he had mistakenly declared that his heart operation had messed with his writing. Maybe he shouldn't have mused aloud that his new heart belonged to a non-creative person.
"Where do you want your breakfast, patio or formal?" Dotty asked looking at him with her 'I am going to fix you' face.
Noah sighed. He wondered who she was plotting to call
—maybe a psychiatrist who would casually show up on the front steps to give him an impromptu session.
He was going to stop telling people his theories about his new heart especially those closest to him. Dotty, his mom, and his sisters were officially off the list.
He might keep his brother Oliver on there. He was a sympathetic listener and he was a doctor. Besides, their relationship was still relatively new, he was probably not going to jeopardize it by calling him names like his closest family would.
"Give me five minutes." He headed to his suite. His five minutes turned into twenty after his phone call to his business manager, Arnold Smith.
Arnold was a left over from his stepfather's days. He took care of acquiring and divesting holdings, for the family.
He was a shrewd man with a law degree and the mind of a calculator. Noah valued his wisdom. Arnold had no problems with him calling on the holiday.
Arnold concluded that it wasn't a bad idea to buy the place. It was a well sought after area and had good resale value.
"I need to see figures for this place though." Arnold said.
"I'll tell Whitney to send them to you."
"Good," Arnold muttered. "Why did Whitney buy a bookstore in the first place? I can't recall her running this by me."
"Bradley bought it," Noah said carefully. Arnold had a personal dislike for Bradley. After years of managing Whitney's holdings, they were snatched from him by Bradley, who said that Arnold was a dinosaur when it came to business decisions.
Noah was almost sure that old dinosaur Arnie would soon be getting back Whitney's accounts, because of Bradley's infidelity but that was not for him to tell Arnold.
He hung up the phone after arranging to meet Arnie at the bookstore tomorrow to check it out first hand.
He headed to the shower, and looked at his scar critically. It was completely healed and his heart was beating in perfect rhythm. He should be happy. So why did he occasionally feel anxious? A feeling of urgency as if there was something he had to do?
The feeling was real, it wasn't in his head. He stepped under the shower and waited for it to pass. These days he only felt it in drips and spurts not as intense as when he just had the operation but today it was back in full force.
He closed his eyes and inhaled, allowing the water to thoroughly wet his head. The familiar yearning for Cassandra assailed him. And then just like that it passed.
He seriously needed to do something about this. He finished his shower and stood in the middle of the bathroom pondering his situation. Should he really get a detective instead of trying to find who his donor was and who this Cassandra Green was?
Surely he would be better off if he got professional sleuthing help. These feelings were not going to go away, they seemed to be getting sharper.
****
Noah woke up groggily the next day and looked at the clock. He was used to staying up all night and writing but last night was different, he had stayed up because he had been researching once again, not on Dean Long, that was obviously a dead end but he was watching the film, Of Hearts and Minds. He did so to reassure himself that he was not one step away from crazy.
The documentary by filmmaker David Malone explored the human heart; he compared the modern scientific view of the heart as a mere pump, versus its long history as a symbol of love and the center of innate wisdom and human character.
Noah stretched. He was a real living testimony that his heart had neurons and emotions of its own that were quite separate from his brain. He got up and prepared to meet Arnold at the bookshop. Arnold had insisted that they be there by nine.
He had just a few minutes to get ready because he wanted to be there long before that. He wore semi formal clothes; it was going to be a business meeting after all.
The traffic at that time of the day was not very heavy and he ended up reaching the bookstore much earlier than planned. He drove up into the near empty parking lot of the Palm Tree Place and sat in his car looking around. It seemed like a resort entrance. It had a cobblestone walkway instead of asphalt, there was an attractive flower garden below a fountain in what looked like a roundabout. The shops were positioned in a semicircular manner. All the shops had little palms imprinted on boards with the shop names on them. He spotted the name Bookalicious at the far end to the right. It had only a small garden to one side and a real estate office on the other.
It was at the perfect spot for a bookstore/cafe. Noah stepped out of the car and headed toward it.
The opening time was supposed to be nine but he saw movement inside of it. When he reached closer he could see the typical cafe set up. Rows and rows of books behind comfortable chairs and settees scattered around some quirky little barrel like tables.
Raine was in there. He could see her. She was in blue jeans that hugged her shapely derriere lovingly and a t-shirt that was quite tight with the name Bookalicious splattered across the top.
Her hair was pulled back in a high ponytail and she was chewing gum and cleaning the counter where he could see a host of pastries being displayed.
He stepped back from the glass for a while and inhaled.
Déjà vu
He felt as if he had seen this before. This exact scene. Raine Childs, wiping the counter, in blue jeans and black shirt.
Even the pastries looked familiar.
He stepped back and looked around the plaza. To his knowledge he had never been in here. He pushed his hands into his pockets and looked around again. She had spotted him.
She smiled and then opened the shop door.
"Hey, you are like half an hour early. We open at nine."
Noah swallowed. He couldn't answer. He was transfixed by her smile and her face in general. Whitney's photos had not done her justice and it hadn't showed him her body.
Her shape was incredible, wide hips, slim waist. He dragged his eyes back up to her face and forced himself to nod.
"Yes, I see that."
"You can come in," She said gesturing him in. "I am not going to turn you away because of a couple of minutes."
Noah nodded and walked inside passing her and getting a whiff of her perfume, it was something fresh and summery.
She closed the door behind him. "How are you?"
A polite enquiry that had his heart racing.
"I am fine," he said it almost breathlessly. He was assailed by a million and one sensations.
He knew this place. He knew her perfume. He had this insane reaction to give her a hug, sink his face in her neck and never get up again. He sat in the nearest sofa instead.
"I am good," he finally croaked out.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "You okay?"
He nodded.
She smiled. "Good. Welcome to Bookalicious. I have never seen you here before. What do you like to read?"
Noah drew a blank. These days, anything to do with the heart and brain relationship. He hadn't picked up a fiction book in months.
He must have looked confused because she sat across from him and grinned. "I have a recommendation, last night I read An Impossible Love by Noah Ess. I really want to discuss it with somebody. Want to read it today? We have quite a few Noah Ess books; we could discuss it by week's end if you read fast."
Noah smiled. She was friendly and she was pushing his books. He liked that. He should reveal that he was Noah Ess, that he had written that book two years ago after a particularly bad bout of depression when he thought that he wouldn't get a new heart.
He had needed a happy ending in his life then. He didn't particularly want to discuss that book now. Of all his books, that one brought back painful memories.
"No thanks," he said with a smile. "Not now at least."
She looked disappointed and got up. "You don't like romance, huh? We have mystery and detective, sci fi..."
"I do like romance." Noah shrugged. "I am sorry. I am not here to read."
She looked at him fiercely with her hands akimbo. "What are you here for? Coffee? Hot Chocolate? Pastry? Th
is place has video cameras and twenty-four hour security."
She looked so pretty with her face screwed up in fierce lines.
"No, no," Noah said quickly. "Do I give off a pervert vibe or something?"
She narrowed her eyes at him. "No, but the customers who come in here are usually readers or writers and are quite willing to discuss books. You were looking at me earlier through the window…"
"Yes, sorry." Noah inhaled. "I had a faint sense that I had seen you before. Actually, I am here because I was told this place is for sale. I am here to check it out with my business manager. He'll be here at nine."
There was no need to hide the truth from her he already knew that he was going to buy the place. He liked it. It felt right.
"Oh," she opened her mouth and then felt the chair with her hand and sank down into its folds. "That's... er... unexpected. The owner of the shop didn't say he was selling."
Noah didn't say anything to that, he was too busy looking at her closely. Familiarity cloyed at him.
He even felt as if he knew her nervous reactions when she started fidgeting with her hands. Her nails were short and unpainted she would rub her thumb with her index finger together in a rolling motion.
"Now this sucks." She expelled a breath, her bosom heaving up and down with the movement.
He dragged his eyes from her fingers toward her bosom and then her face. He had been focusing too long on the letters that spelled 'bookalicious' on her shirt.
"Are you going to keep it as a bookstore? Will you need a manager?"
This was not the kind of reaction he was expecting from a mistress. She didn't seem angry with Bradley for selling out behind her back. She was concerned about her job like an employee.
Interesting. He rubbed his chin as if he was considering her question but the truth was, he was a little bit intrigued as to why he felt as if he knew her and why he felt this feeling of déjà vu just talking to her.
"I will probably keep it as a bookstore." He nodded to her questions, "and yes, I'll need a manager."
"Oh. Good!" She sighed in relief. "I know this business inside and out. I have been running things here for the past year. We have a good clientele. I... erm...I don't know your name." She paused in her running commentary and smiled sheepishly. "And you probably don't know mine. I am Raine Childs," she held out her hand. Noah looked at her long tapered fingers before folding his hands in hers.
Scarlett Heart (The Scarletts Page 2