by H. H. Fowler
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, honey…” Sasha began to back away, praying Drake hadn’t picked up on her change of mood. “Thank you for blessing me with the car of my dreams…” She then managed a little smirk, more so to provoke Levi to jealousy. Maybe then he would respond to her text. “However, in our private time, I will thank you in a better way, if you know what I mean.”
And with those words, Sasha disappeared through Hunter’s front door. Drake was grinning from ear to ear, Levi grinning along with him. But inwardly, Levi was wrestling with his old demons. Wow, that woman just tryin’ to make me jealous. She shows she cares about me and it makes her mad that she can’t do anything about it. And even though Levi was bothered by the fact that he’d thought of such a thing, he felt a sense of vindication. It was about time Sasha experienced what he’d been feeling all of these months – the pangs of unrequited love. His phone vibrated and for some odd reason, he knew it was Sasha sending him a text. He turned away from Drake to verify his intuition.
“I never thought I would ever say this to anyone…” she typed, “I hate you and you know the exact reason why!”
Levi smiled, as he turned his attention back to Drake and pulled him into a manly hug. He thanked Drake profusely for being so kind and forgiving. And right before he whisked out of Hunter’s driveway in his new car, Levi promised to meet up with Drake tomorrow afternoon at the Shale to officially celebrate the start of a new era in their friendship. Levi was feeling good, despite Sasha’s little tantrum. He would not have allowed her to dictate how he spent his time with her husband anyway. It was obvious Drake still wanted his friendship and Levi had every intention of being that friend that Drake needed. The hell with Sasha and her miserable antics!
Chapter Thirteen
The Smithson Hotel
Lewis wasted no time in pushing his agenda, regarding Rena and Armando. Once he’d collected all of her things out of Room 9112 and had loaded them in his car, he returned to the front desk. He would have checked out of the room the same time but Lewis didn’t want to create any additional problems for Rena. So while on her way to the airport tomorrow, he would allow her to check out of the room herself. Feigning a concerned expression, Lewis tapped on the counter to get the clerk’s attention.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Could you kindly call Mr. Armando Beckford and let him know that his lawyer is in the lobby to see him?”
“May I have your name please?”
“Rena Henderson.”
The clerk gave Lewis a guarded look. “Rena?”
“Yes…Mr. Beckford is well acquainted with that name.”
“Give me a minute and I’ll try to contact him for you.”
Lewis hadn’t been sitting down for five minutes when he heard the elevator doors ‘binged’ open. Armando stepped out, looking around as if he was lost.
“Over here, Mr. Beckford,” Lewis called out to him. “I’m here on behalf of Rena Henderson.”
It showed that Armando didn’t recognize Lewis and he would have brushed Lewis off had he not mentioned Rena’s name. “Where is she?” he asked.
“She’s at my house,” Lewis answered.
“And who are you?”
“I’m her father’s lawyer…I’ve known Rena since she was a little girl.”
It was enough information for Armando to give the old man the benefit of the doubt. But it in no way took the worried glint out of his eyes. “So why would Rena send you to me?”
“She didn’t…I came of my own accord.” Lewis guided Armando into a more secluded spot before diving into his reason for coming. “I don’t normally do things like this, but I am extremely concerned about Rena. She confided in me about the incident between her and your wife and it has got her shaken up pretty badly. She doesn’t even want to step foot back into this hotel.”
Armando squeezed his temples to help ease an instant headache. “How much did she tell you?”
“How much I know is irrelevant. What is relevant is that she is leaving tomorrow afternoon to go back to Paris…and I really think she means it this time.”
“She can’t go back to Paris,” Armando blurted out.
“And I agree, not without this situation being resolved. You should talk to her and see if you can get her to change her mind. I have a feeling she would respond to you better than anyone, especially with being in the comfort of my home.”
“Take me to her,” Armando said eagerly. “My utmost concern is to see if she’s okay. Anything after that, I can’t promise.”
Lewis shook his head inwardly. The man had it real bad for Rena. Whatever made Rena think that running away from this man would stop him from crossing the ocean to find her? Now what was to become of Armando’s marriage to Annalise remained to be seen. Because in Lewis’ eyes, one who’d dealt with dozens of divorce cases in his profession, didn’t see it lasting much longer.
It took the men no more than twenty minutes to arrive at Lewis’ house. Rena was staring out of the window when she saw them walking up the driveway toward the front door. Rena, of course, bristled with contempt, because Armando was the last person she wanted to see. The hell is he doing here? I don’t care to deal with him! And, Lewis, you should know better than to bring this man to this house! By the time the men entered through the front door, Rena was blowing smoke through her ears.
“So this is how you betray my trust?” she spat at Lewis. “I should have known that you were up to no good when you asked for the key to my hotel room.”
Lewis stepped forward. “Rena, don’t be upset… I did what I thought was in your best interest.”
“By bringing him here?” Rena huffed. “Wrong move, Lewis and I will never forgive you for it! In fact, I don’t even want to stay here anymore…what in hell possessed you to do something like this?”
“Rena, please, calm down,” Lewis tried, “because you are not thinking straight.”
“You are not thinking straight,” she fired back. Her fiery gaze landed on Armando long enough to see how broken he was over her reaction. But she couldn’t care less. “I told you that I would handle this situation the way I see fit. I don’t need any of you making things more complicated for me –”
“There’s a missing gun with your name attached to it,” Lewis announced firmly. “Your fingerprints can be lifted for identification and that doesn’t scare you? Certainly, you don’t expect me to let you go back to Paris without trying to talk some sense into you, do you? And if I can’t do it, then certainly I’ll get someone else to do it.”
Rena jabbed a hand to her side. “Bringing Armando here is a complete waste of both your and his time. I intend to handle this situation my way and no one is going to make me change my mind.”
Lewis sighed. “My dear girl, you have no idea how serious this situation is.”
“Rena…” Armando called in that voice that got Rena’s attention every time. “I didn’t come to convince you of anything; I’m here simply to see how you’re doing. I was worried sick about you when you ran out of the hotel yesterday.”
“Well,” Rena folded her arms, “as you can see, I’m doing quite fine. I could have sent you an email and saved you the trip. And besides, aren’t you the least bit worried about the reaction of your wife once she finds out you’re here?”
“Who’s going to tell her?” Armando moved his gaze to Lewis and said, “Can we have some privacy?”
“Of course!” Lewis removed himself promptly out of the room.
Armando refocused his gaze on Rena, noticing she’d turned slightly away from him. He walked up behind her, aching to rest a supportive hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry for what Annalise has done to you,” he said. “I had no idea –”
“How could you?” Rena spat. “You were too busy trying to rip my clothes off rather than focus on getting help for your crazy wife.”
Rena’s words pierced Armando straight through the heart. “You have every right to be upset with me, but is that fair of you to say?”
�
�About your wife?”
“No…about us.”
“There is no us.”
“There would be if you would stop running away and –”
Rena held up her hand. “Armando, please. We’ve been down this road a dozen times. End this conversation quickly and be on your merry way. I have a very long day tomorrow and I would like to have an early night.”
Armando ran a hand through his dreadlocks, as was his habit, visibly frustrated over Rena’s cold attitude toward him. “What do you want from me?”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
“Of course you do…I know you do.”
“Okay…I’m not gonna waste my time arguing semantics with you.”
“What if I get a divorce?” Armando deadpanned. “Will that change your mind about us?”
Rena stared at Armando with disgust, even though it was hard to, considering how fine he looked in that white netted shirt. “How convenient,” she said. “It took Annalise attacking me to get you to see how crazy that heifer is. Now you want to divorce her when you shouldn’t have married her in the first place. But who am I to tell you who to marry? You did say you care about her, right?”
“I do care about Annalise, but not in the way –”
“No, thank you!” Rena yelled. “I want no part of your guilt-ridden decision. Why are you still trying to get with me, when you know quite well we won’t work?”
“We will work…and we do work. And I will prove it to you right now.”
With one swoop, Armando yanked his netted shirt over his head, revealing a toned chest, smooth and unquestionably pleasing to Rena’s eyes. A thin trail of hair began at his navel and ran toward his hidden jewels. And if that wasn’t enough to get Rena’s juices flowing, Armando proceeded to unbuttoned his pants, allowing them to drop halfway down around his butt. His satin boxers left little to the imagination, which clearly showed he was no stranger to getting what he wanted.
“You have got to be out of your mind,” Rena said, her gaze shifting nervously around the room. “Put on your clothes before Lewis walks back in here.”
Armando smirked, pulling at his satin boxers. “I don’t care about Lewis right now. Either you lose the attitude and talk to me like you do care about me or I will walk around Lewis’ house all night in my birthday suit.”
It was a threat on which Rena didn’t want to call his bluff. She backed away, her voice almost to a plea, “Please, put your clothes back on.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s indecent!”
“I want your heart, Rena; not your sarcasm. Is this what I have to do to get your attention?”
“Put on your clothes, Armando! And I mean it!”
“No…I’m tired of you telling me what to do from what I can’t do. For once, allow your body to enjoy what it wants.”
“How presumptuous! You don’t know what my body want –”
Armando didn’t give Rena the opportunity to finish her diatribe. He drew her into him so swiftly that by the time Rena figured out what had happened, they were smashing their lips together with burgeoning levels of intensity. Electricity glued them together, shutting out the voices of reason. Fear of the unknown surrounded them, but in the spur-of-the-moment that their lust had consumed them, false hope and false security undergirded their rationale. That night, their worlds would change forever.
Lewis happened to pass by, nursing a warm cup of chocolate. He simply smiled and continued up the stairs to his bedroom. His plan had worked out exactly the way he’d hoped. There was no way Rena would leave Devin’s Cay anytime soon. And even if she did, she would be back, sooner than she thought.
Chapter Fourteen
Raffie wasn’t his real name, though most on the street called him that. Rafael Ahmed Dubar was more like it. However, he wasn’t from India or Dubai, for that matter. And he certainly didn’t own a jewelry store, an airplane, nor could he claim a large clientele. It was all a ruse smartly put together by that flirtatious witch. He was the product of mixed parentage, who moved from the United States to Devin’s Cay in hopes they would flourish selling used car parts. Seventeen years old at the time, Raffie was doing well alongside his parents in the family business until eleven years later when tragedy struck. Both of his parents were instantly killed in a head-on collision.
The business struggled along for another three years, eventually going bankrupt. Because even though Raffie was good at convincing people, he was horrible at managing the books. By then, he was married with two small children, a mortgage and two car payments. He also had expensive taste and though his wife would encourage him to cut back and save the little income that was coming in from her fabric store, he would splurge the money on himself. His belief was that if you looked like a million bucks, people would treat you as such.
However, Raffie soon discovered that his wife’s money wasn’t enough to sustain the needs of him and the family. He started gambling heavily, hoping to cash in big. And when he did, he put a stash of hundreds in his wife’s hand and then took the rest to Vegas, only to gamble away everything he had won that night. It was during one of those trips to Vegas when he met Shiloh, who shared a table with him at the casino. But Shiloh’s intention that night wasn’t really to gamble, but to flirt, and ultimately seduce the first good looking man to fall prey to her charms.
Raffie may have been half drunk when Shiloh shoved her hands between his legs and squeezed, but he was quite aware of the sensation that shot from his head to his big toe. Taking his reaction as a positive sign, Shiloh pulled him up from his chair and dragged him toward the elevator. By the time they got to Shiloh’s hotel room, they were one clothing article away from being completely naked. That night they satisfied their lust in grand style, trying out some of the most dangerous sexual positions that Raffie would never think of having with his wife.
The next morning they said their goodbyes with the hopes of getting together that evening. But Raffie never saw Shiloh again. She did, however, leave him a brief note explaining that she would contact him whenever her travels took her to Devin’s Cay. Three years passed without any contact from her. And within that time, both Raffie’s drinking and gambling habits had taking a turn for the worse. It got so bad that he and his wife ended up separating because of the constant arguments about money. She moved out of the house, taking the kids along with her.
Raffie still had a mortgage to pay and with no income coming in at all, he agonized over his options or lack thereof. It would be one of those mornings when he went looking for work that he saw a young drug pusher counting a wad of money before stashing it away in his pants pockets. Raffie knew he sold drugs because he’d tried to sell some to Raffie before. Raffie’s initial thought was to beat up the youngster and take his money, but Raffie knew far worse would happen to the young lad if he showed up to his boss with missing money. Raffie had a better idea.
He approached the youngster and asked to be taken to his boss. Raffie was then introduced to Waldo St. John and the rest, as they say, is history. Raffie quickly learned the tricks of the trade and the routes he was to mark as his territory. In a matter of weeks he was making more money in a day than the average person made a month. Of course, the bulk of the money always went to Waldo, who was one of the main suppliers of Meth and other common drugs that sold quickly on the streets.
Two months ago, Raffie was scheduled to drop off a huge shipment, but was intercepted by a group of thugs and was brutally attacked. They took his knapsack containing drugs that were worth some fifteen thousand dollars, maybe more, if Raffie factored in the higher cost he’d planned to sell the drugs. But the drugs didn’t belong to him and he knew that he would be in a lot of trouble, even though it wasn’t his fault that the drugs had gotten away from him.
It took Raffie almost three days before he called Waldo with the bad news. The conversation ended with a threat on his life and ever since then, he’d been ducking and dodging Waldo. It was fate when Shiloh called him out o
f the blue and told him that she had a gig paying fifty thousand dollars and if he did accept, she would send him five thousand dollars right away to let him know how serious she was. Of course he accepted. He didn’t even question why she took three years to call him.
And as Shiloh had promised, the next day, she wired five thousand into his account and with it, he was able to rent the Cadillac for two weeks, buy some new threads and all the technical gadgets he would need to make this gig a success. That was why Raffie was banking on Hunter to return with a favorable response to the package he’d left in her care. Or else he would have no choice but to put a bullet in that pretty face. It was either his life or hers and Raffie certainly didn’t love a woman that much to stand in her stead.
He sighed away the pathetic memories of his life, as he inconspicuously pulled the luxury sedan a few yards from Suanne’s house. He saw Hunter’s Jaguar parked next to the picket fence. The audio feed suddenly came to life with prolonged static before it cleared enough for Raffie to understand what was being said. Hunter was discussing something with Kevin and by the sound of it, Raffie knew it had to do with his visit to Hunter’s office.
“I want to talk to you about something,” she said.
“Okay…I’m all ears.”
“A gentlemen paid a visit to my office…nice-looking chap, clean and well-dressed…”
“Are you trying to make me jealous?” Kevin quipped.
“You must be pulling my leg,” Hunter said “Because you know there’s no other man for me, but you.”
“You sure?”
“Quit teasing, I’m trying to tell you something serious. Besides, my charming prince, you are by far the finest man I’ve ever met…no comparison at all…”
Raffie rolled his eyes. How sappy could two people get? Despite himself, he upped the volume to make sure he heard everything Hunter was about to relay to Kevin.
“Now as I was saying,” she continued, “this guy shows up in my office and says his name is Raffie Ahmed. He’s from Dubai and according to him, he has great knowledge in trading gold, diamonds, precious stones and other articles of luxury. He now owns Sierra Gems, one of the leading traders and manufacturers of luxury jewelry in Dubai. Here’s the part that concerns me: this guy flies all the way from Dubai to hand me an envelope. And then he had the audacity to invite me on his private jet – so that he could give me a tour of his facility.”