Business of Love

by Hodges, Cheris

  Stop it, she told herself. He’s not going to bite you. He’s a man, not a monster.

  Jill pressed the doorbell, hoping that Cleveland would be home alone. The last thing she needed was to interrupt a romantic evening between Cleveland and his woman. When the porch light shone on her, Jill shielded her eyes.

  Cleveland snatched the door opened, frowning at Jill. “You have some nerve coming here.”

  “I know and I really don’t want to cause any trouble, but I have to talk to you about Darren.”

  “Haven’t you caused my brother enough pain?”

  “Please, let me in, so that I can explain myself,” Jill pleaded.

  Cleveland moved to close the door, but Jill wouldn’t be denied. She pushed the door to hold it open.

  “Please,” she said. “I love him.”

  “Yeah, you love him so much that you lied to him. Lady, get off my doorstep.”

  “I’m not going to leave until you talk to me. I know Darren still cares about me and if he’ll hear me out, then I know we can get back on track.”

  “Then why are you here? Why not head over to Darren’s house and talk to him. Don’t put me in the middle of your mess.”

  “You have every right not to want to talk to me or help me. But I have to know. How is Darren? Is he okay?”

  Cleveland seemed to ponder the question. “He’s getting there. And he doesn’t need you.”

  “But I need him to understand that I wasn’t trying to hurt him or embarrass him. Please, help me. I know you don’t have a reason in the world to help me, but I love your brother and I know he loves me.”

  “If you loved him so much, then what was the big secret about, Jill?”

  “You don’t know what it’s been like with men trying to use me. At first I was just trying to protect myself.”

  Cleveland folded his arms across his chest and glared at her. “What, you thought Darren was one of those men that wanted something from you? My brother doesn’t roll like that. When he cares about a woman it’s because of who she is, not what she has.”

  “I know that, but this wasn’t about Darren. It was about me and my insecurities.”

  “Save it with the shoulda, woulda, couldas. Darren is doing fine without you, and I don’t know what you thought coming here would accomplish. Do you expect me to call my brother up and say, ‘Jill came by, she wants you back, give her a chance?’ Give me a break.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I want you to do.”

  “Lady, you need to leave. I’m not letting you hurt my brother again. You’ve had your chance.”

  Jill turned to walk away, but stopped at the last step. “Cleveland, you thought I was good for Darren. What’s different? I know not telling him that I was CEO of DVA was wrong, but I didn’t set out to hurt him and the other stuff in that paper wasn’t true.”

  “What?”

  “That paper is published by the man who tried to steal my company. When I bought the company he worked for and fired him, he wanted to get back at me and this was how he did it. I know I was wrong for not trusting Darren enough to be honest. As much as I want to blame David and his tabloid, I brought this on myself. Your brother is the kindest and most gentle man that I’ve ever known, and I can’t just let him go without trying to make things right.” Tears threatened to spill from her eyes. “I just wish I could talk to Darren and let him hear my side of the story. If he doesn’t forgive me, okay, but he has to know that I didn’t set out to hurt him.”

  Cleveland bounded down the steps as Jill began to cry. “Look, Jill, I’ll try to talk to him, but I can’t guarantee you anything.”

  Jill wrapped her arms around his neck, sobbing and hugging him tightly. “Thank you.”

  As Jill drove home, she felt hopeful for the first time in weeks.

  * * *

  Darren woke up reaching for Jill’s supple body. That was her he’d danced with at Red last night, wasn’t it? He grabbed a handful of pillow and sat up in the bed. His throbbing head reminded him that he’d had a little too much to drink last night. The fuzzy memories were starting to come back to him.

  He’d gone to Red, hoping that he’d catch a glimpse of Jill out with some business associates or her friend Shari. Darren had planned to talk to her if he indeed did see her. The last two months without Jill had been pure hell. Despite his bruised ego, Darren still loved her and he knew he hadn’t been fair to her. He hadn’t listened to what she had to say about the article or her reasons for hiding the truth from him. In short, he’d overreacted.

  So, last night, he’d sat at the bar, downing shot after shot of tequila. Then a woman had slid onto the stool next to him. In the red glow of the bar and through his alcohol hazed eyes, she looked like Jill.

  “Hi there,” she’d said.

  “How are you, beautiful?”

  She’d smiled at him and Darren had turned to face her. Yep, that was Jill. “What are you drinking tonight?” he’d asked.

  “Sex on the beach.”

  Darren had banged on the bar and ordered the mystery woman her drink.

  “Baby, I’m sorry that we’ve come to this,” he’d told her, reaching for her hand.

  “What?”

  “I know that article didn’t mean anything. I love you.”

  “You’re crazy and drunk. I don’t know you.”

  “Jill, please, don’t treat me like this.”

  “Jill? Who’s Jill?”

  Swinging his legs over the side of the bed, Darren realized what a fool he’d made of himself last night.

  Why did she think I would give a damn about her money? She should have known that I was in love with her, not what she had to offer. And how much of that article was true?

  According to the magazine, she was a player. He’d read that article more times than he cared to admit over the past two months. If Jill was a playgirl, she had fooled him into thinking otherwise.

  Rising from the bed, Darren tried to fight the image of Jill in the arms of another man. Or maybe she was lounging at the spa with some of her girlfriends, just laughing about how she’d played him. As much as he wanted to believe that Jill was cold and evil, it went against everything he knew about her.

  I can’t keep worrying about Jill, he thought. I don’t need her. The lie burned in his brain. He did need Jill, even if he wouldn’t say it out loud. The only thing that actually stood between him and Jill was his foolish pride. He wanted to call her and say all was forgiven, but how could he when he still hurt? The room felt as if it were spinning when Darren walked into the bathroom. He’d lost count of the number of drinks he’d had the night before. Luckily, the bartender planted him in a cab so that he would make it home safely.

  He turned on the shower. Standing underneath the steady stream of water, the lick of the water against his skin reminded him of Jill’s gentle touch. Closing his eyes, he remembered making love to her, feeling her lips against his, plunging deep into her. Her scent still lingered in his mind.

  What he felt couldn’t have been a lie. What she’d said to him couldn’t have been a lie. As the water ran cold, Darren stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around his waist and sprawled out across the bed. Staring up at the ceiling, his mind wandered back to Jill and the future they’d planned. The telephone rang, breaking into his thoughts.

  “Yeah,” he growled into the phone.

  “Darren, it’s me,” Cleveland said. “What do you say we go and have breakfast?”

  “Not in the mood.”

  “You need to stop hiding in your house. The only time I see you is when you come into the station.”

  “Maybe that’s the only time you need to see me.”

  “Darren, I’m your brother and I know what you’re going through. You need to let someone be there for you.”

  “You act like she died or something. We broke up because she’s a liar.”

  “Have you talked to her?”

  “Nope.”

  “Maybe you should.”

&nbs
p; Those words prompted Darren to sit up. “What?”

  “Jill came to see me and she’s all torn up about what happened between the two of you.”

  “So what?”

  “You know that took a lot for her to come to my place to talk to me. It’s kind of obvious that she still cares about you. All she wants is for you to hear her out. You don’t have to take her back, but maybe you need some closure to deal with this situation.”

  Darren snorted, pretending that he wasn’t the least bit interested in what Cleveland was saying. But he was still compelled to ask, “So what did she say?”

  “You need to talk to her. A lot of the things she said made a lot of sense.”

  “I’m not calling her,” Darren said, trying to convince himself more than Cleveland.

  “And I’m going to sprout wings and fly. Darren, you need to call her, talk to her, hell, get back together with her and maybe then you’ll stop being such a jackass.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Cleveland sighed loudly into the phone. “These last few weeks, you haven’t been easy to get along with at work, at home or anywhere.”

  “Meaning?” But Cleveland didn’t have to answer because Darren knew just what his brother was talking about. At work, Darren seemed to have a Caution: Contents under Pressure tattoo on his forehead.

  He yelled at people for no reason, snapped at someone for just saying hello and jumped down anyone’s throat who had the audacity to ask him a question.

  “People are starting to complain. Maybe you need a vacation.”

  “So you know what I need now?” Darren snapped.

  “I know you need to calm down. You still love her, don’t you?”

  “I’m through with her.”

  “You can’t even say her name.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  Cleveland snorted. “You haven’t said it since we’ve been on the phone.”

  “Jill,” he spat. “Happy?”

  “Nope. You need some fresh air on your face. Let’s go shoot some hoops since you don’t want to eat.”

  “Fine. When and where?” Darren asked.

  “Our usual spot, let’s say in two hours?”

  Darren hung up without saying goodbye, and then dressed in a pair of shorts and an old jersey. The exercise would do him good. He could work off some frustration and tension. Better yet, it would take his mind off Jill.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Jill held her breath as she waited in the dark gym. What if Cleveland couldn’t convince Darren to meet him? Suppose Darren walked in, saw her standing there and ran away? And what if he’d truly moved on with his life and didn’t want anything to do with her?

  This is the dumbest idea I’ve ever come up with, she thought as she paced back and forth. The door to the gym opened.

  “Yo, Cleveland, what’s up with the lights?” Darren called out.

  Frozen in place, Jill watched as Darren flipped the light switch. Then she walked out of the shadows.

  “Darren.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I-I needed to see you,” she said. “You won’t return my calls. It’s been two months.”

  “I know how long it’s been.”

  “Darren, I never meant to hurt you.”

  “No? You lied to me over and over again. Since the article, I guess it’s kind of hard for you to play the ‘I’m just a DVA employee role’ now,” he snapped.

  Jill closed the space between them. “Darren, I wasn’t trying to play any kind of role. It’s just that when I first met you, I wanted you to see me for me. I was wrong because once I got to know you; I knew that my job wouldn’t matter. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Darren.”

  “I know you’re sorry. You knew how important honesty is to me, but you lied to me over and over, one lie after another,” Darren snapped.

  “I didn’t lie to hurt you. Darren, have you ever met someone who just wanted to use you to further their career? Met someone who claimed to love you so that they could gain enough information about you just to take over your company?”

  He turned his back to her. “You know the only thing I wanted from you was your love.”

  “And I gave that to you and…”

  Darren held his hand up, cutting her off. “I think you got to know me well enough to know that it didn’t matter if you were the queen of England. I fell in love with you, not what you had or what I thought you could do for me. Did I ever ask you for anything?”

  “No, but this wasn’t about you.”

  “What the hell was it about then? You felt like you couldn’t trust me, like you had to hide something and lie. Why do you want to be with someone you can’t trust, Jill? Do you just want a warm body in your bed?”

  “No, I want you; I want what we had in Charleston.”

  Darren laughed sardonically. “Everything we had was a damned lie.”

  Jill tentatively placed her hand on his shoulder. “No, it wasn’t, it isn’t a lie. I love you and that’s the truth. If you would hear me out and try to understand what I…”

  “Understand? What I understand is that I was totally open with you. I laid everything on the table and you held your cards close to your chest, punishing me for what some other man did. I spent years after my divorce believing that I would never trust another woman. Then you came into my life and I thought you were a woman I could trust, the woman I was going to spend the rest of my life with. Then I find my face plastered all over the street with this sleazy tale about this horny CEO who seduces men for her own carnal needs.”

  “And you believe what was written about me?” Jill snapped. “That was written by a man who wanted to humiliate me because I fired him.”

  “Jill, what am I supposed to believe? You didn’t tell me you were CEO of DVA. What else did you lie to me about? Did you even love me?”

  “I love you,” Jill said. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”

  He removed her hand from his shoulder. “I’m going to go,” he said. “We don’t have anything else to talk about.”

  “Darren, please don’t walk out of my life. Whatever it takes to regain your trust, I’ll do it.”

  He took a few steps back from her. Jill took just as many steps toward him.

  “Do you remember what you said to me when we first met?” she asked. “You said that I didn’t know how to let someone take care of me and that was the truth. When you came into my life, I was able to let go, relax and let you take care of me.”

  “I don’t want to hear this right now,” he said. “Jill, I told you that I wouldn’t forgive a lie. There was no good reason for you to lie to me. Not once did I give you any reason to believe that I wanted anything from you. Hell, I knew you had money. You own a penthouse and you wear more labels than a rap star. That never mattered to me, I saw past all of that and I thought I was getting to know you.”

  “You were,” she exclaimed. “Darren, David…”

  “David, the man that you said broke your heart and the man that you said you could handle, seems to know more about you than I do.”

  “He doesn’t. I didn’t agree to that interview. He made that stuff up because he failed to steal my business from me and I bought the company he worked for and then fired him. He’d been trying to get back at me for years.”

  “This is too much to take in,” he said. “I don’t know who you are anymore.”

  “I haven’t changed. I made a mistake, a huge mistake.”

  Darren glared at her. “Let me get this straight. Because this David person hurt you, you didn’t trust me enough to be honest with me. You allowed him to humiliate me in his drive for revenge.”

  Placing her hands on her hips, she stood flat-footed in front of Darren, forcing their eyes to meet. “So, Darren, is this about your ego? Just how in the hell do you think I feel? Coming here was a mistake. I don’t know how many more ways I can say I’m sorry.” Jill turned on her heel to walk out the door. With each step she took
, her heart crumbled. She was praying that Darren would stop her.

  “Jill,” he called as she grabbed the door handle.

  Turning and facing him, she raised her eyebrow as if to say, “What?”

  “My ego was bruised, but what really got me was the fact that you didn’t trust me enough to be honest with me, to tell me that you owned the company. I had to read it in a magazine. What does that say about how you feel about me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You lumped me in the same category as all of those other men that you said used you and wanted to further their careers and causes through you. That’s never been me.”

  “I came to understand that,” Jill said as she walked toward him. “But at first, I was trying to protect myself. Darren, you made me feel like a woman, not a businesswoman, but someone who was desired and needed because you loved me and cared about me.”

  “I still do,” he replied in a voice barely above a whisper.

  “What?”

  “I’m not going to lie and say I don’t still love you. Hell, Jill, I wanted to marry you.”

  Tears blurred her vision. “Marry me?”

  “Yeah. I was going to propose the day the magazine came out. But after seeing that, finding out that you’d been lying to me all this time, I needed some time to myself.”

  “Why couldn’t you talk to me?”

  “Maybe the same reason you couldn’t tell me the truth.”

  “So where do we go from here?”

  Darren shrugged his shoulders. “Do you want to go grab something to eat?”

  She released a sigh of relief inwardly. “Yes.”

  “Hopefully we won’t end up on the front of another paper,” Darren said as he pushed the door open.

  As Darren followed Jill to a small bistro in College Park, he thought about what she’d said about his ego. Did she have a point? It wasn’t as if he’d stopped loving her.

  But he’d tried. No matter how much he’d wanted to turn his feelings off for her, he hadn’t been able to. At night when he went to sleep, he dreamed of her. First thing in the morning, he longed to kiss her and yearned to feel her body against his. But he couldn’t tell her that, or more aptly put, he wasn’t going to tell her that.