The Boy Next Door
Page 9
“Vivian, I’m not going to be surprised if I come in here in the next teb minutes and see you already eating without me. You’ve never been one to resist something that was delicious. I don’t even dare bring you those blueberry scones anymore.”
At the very mention of those delicate treats, my mouth started to water and I turned my attention towards the Styrofoam container that is still warm to the touch. “Vivian, try to have some restraint.” This was my only remaining vice. I had quit smoking when I left my other firm. That was five years ago and I still crave that cigarette. That sweet release of toxic fumes was still tempting after a long day’s work.
“Brad, for once I am going to wait until noon. You wait and see. It’s just a matter of will power.”
He smiled, most likely knowing that I would never be able to take myself at my own word.
When I entered into a courtroom, people didn’t take me seriously. Maybe they thought that I was too dainty at five-six, one-thirty-five, with long black hair that went down to the small of my back. Maybe it was the kindness of my emerald eyes. With all of this going for me, I would lull them into a false sense of security. Once I got going I was a pit bull and I had no problem taking down a corporation for illegal dumping or any other atrocities.
Recently, I had been turning my attention towards contractual law and that was what I majored in at law school. I guess I was lured away from my morals by big money and promises of becoming a partner.
I had dusted off those contractual law skills and found that I was finally finding my niche. Word of mouth was where I got most of my clients. I would not stoop to the level of advertising on a park bench or the side of a bus. McKenzie law was now synonymous for helping those small companies to survive in this dog eat dog world.
I have a client that just hired me to make sure that their interests were my main concern. They told me that they thought that this big company that wanted to merge with them was trying to pull a fast one. They had given me the contract and I had gone over it with a fine tooth comb. If I wasn’t that damn good, I probably wouldn’t have found it. There was a fine print amendment that said after the first year that if the smaller company didn’t reach a certain level of productivity than the bigger company could take it over without any monetary supplement. That was in layman’s terms and it took me a long time to unravel the legal jargon that this company’s high priced lawyers had put together.
I had a meeting with that company’s owner and I was going to unceremoniously tell him that this was never going to fly. He wasn’t going to like it, but he was going to have to live with the fact that we were going to have to come up with something that would benefit both companies and not just one.
I looked at the photo on my desk. The smiling face in the picture had always brought a tear to my eye. She was always going to be my little girl, no matter if she was in heaven or not. Her death had hit me hard and I think I finally realized that God does work in mysterious ways. Her loss afforded me the opportunity to look at myself more closely. At the time I had been working my nails to the bone just to continue the party line making the rich richer and the poor poorer. I wanted to be better than that and make Angela, my little girl, proud of me as she sat looking down from her cloud above.
She would have been ten years old today and I have this tradition of one small cupcake with boiled icing on top. It was my little girl’s favorite and here it was sitting on my desk, as a treat after a meal that was fit for a queen. I had to give myself credit for holding back for as long as I did. It was ten minutes to noon, when I finally couldn’t take it anymore. By the time Brad came in just a few minutes later, I was already polishing off the last noodle.
“I knew it! I should’ve gone with my instinct and came in here earlier. At least you saved the best part for last.”
Brad and I were able to work together and even flirt a little. He wasn’t even gay. He wasn’t my type, and he was already married anyway. I’d met his lovely bride and we had gotten along famously. He was completely void of hair and I’d heard him talk often about swimming professionally. The stubble on his cheeks was cute. If he hadn’t been married, maybe I would have tried something. Eaten him up like I was going to eat that cupcake.
“I think that we should share that in the memory of your daughter,” he suggested.
I cut it straight down the middle with a very sharp metal letter opener. I passed him his piece and we raised our halves in salute to her memory. We savored that small morsel and then we sat in silence for the next five minutes in silent prayer. I was holding onto my cross and I was reliving those memories that made it easier for me to get up in the morning.
“I know that I’m early, but this is the only time that I have.” I raised my head and came face to face with this giant of a man. He was wearing this charcoal suit with a red power tie that was meant to intimidate. His dark hair was cut short and he looked every bit the professional that I was. “If you can’t do it now, then I can’t do it at all.”
He was obviously trying to usurp my authority and take control of the meeting. What he didn’t know was that I had the smoking gun and I was going to lay it at his feet and see what his reaction was going to be.
Chapter two
He stood by the window with his hands behind his back, trying to get underneath my skin. It wasn’t working and yet he was still trying to play the big man on campus.
“Mister Young, I thought it best that we meet in private, so that we could go over this contract. I use that term loosely, because we both know that it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. You’re used to getting your own way, but I can’t in good conscience allow you to play fast and loose with this company’s future. They hired me to do a job and I have given them my word that I will make sure everything is aboveboard. You know as well as I do that your lawyers have a way of making those that don’t know legal jargon scratch their heads. Unfortunately, I do know what they were trying to say.”
He turned and I could see that he was well put together and that he was no stranger to a gym. “Miss Mackenzie, I think that we can agree that negotiations are a bit tricky at the best of times. I’m sure that we can come to an arrangement.” He pulled out a blank check and put it on my desk in front of my beloved Angela’s face. “Whatever it takes to sooth your conscience.”
He was trying to bribe me and I wanted to slap him across the face, but I thought it better that I play with kid gloves. “Do not even pretend to know who I am, Mister Young. I can not be bribed and there is no number that is going to make me betray the confidence of my client. I would like to tell you where you can stick that check, but I don’t think that you’ll like it much.”
He sat down and he crossed his leg with his two hands firmly planted on top of his knee. “Come now, Miss McKenzie. We both know how hard it is for a woman to make it in this profession. It has to be doubly hard for an African American woman.” I couldn’t believe that he was using that card. “This would make your life a whole lot easier and all you have to do is look the other way.”
With each word that was coming out of his mouth, I wanted to wrap my hands around his throat and choke him, until there was no life left in his eyes. “Oh, I see…you thought that since I was a woman and Black that you could walk all over me like a doormat. I can assure you that that’s not gonna happen and the sooner that you get that through your thick skull, the better off the both of us will be. Now, I may not like you. Actually I despise everything that you stand for, but that’s beside the point. It doesn’t mean that we can’t work together. I would really like to tell my clients that you are being reasonable. If not, they’ll take their business elsewhere. I’ve done my research on you and your company and we both know that you’re not the one that’s helping them. In fact, it’s the other way around. Your numbers have been stagnant for the last three years and you need this new product to make yourself a growing concern again.”
I was wearing a very tasteful black pantsuit, the picture of a comp
etent attorney, and if he was looking to give attitude, then he was going to get it back tenfold.
“Nobody talks to me like that, young lady. I’m not sure if I should like it or hate it. Let’s say for argument’s sake that you’re right and that my company is in a financial crisis. I don’t see how that matters and if this benefits your clients, then why wouldn’t you go to bat for them?” He was good. He was trying to turn it around and was doing a pretty good job of it.
“I would love to make this work for all parties concerned, but we’re going to have to go over this contract and make some drastic changes. There will be no flowery words and no legal jargon that’s going to make my clients look at it and wonder what the hell they are getting themselves into.” With the way that his company was floundering, it wasn’t any wonder that he hadn’t declared bankruptcy. “You can see that I can speak my mind with the best of them.”
I was waiting on pins and needles to see what his response was going to be. I half expected him to tell me where to go, but his demeanor had slightly changed and softened somewhat.
I think he was using that awkward silence to see if I was going to say something, but I was not going to fall for that kind of bait. Instead, I looked at my mahogany desk and remembered it being in my father’s study. It gave me back a sense of family and even though my parents had died, didn’t mean that I didn’t think of them fondly. I had a lot of loss in the past twenty years, but I was strong and confident. I had come out on the other side relatively unscathed.
“I am willing to concede to go over the contract, but I don’t want to do it in a stuffy office. I’ll come by around six and we can go to dinner and go through this in a more pleasant setting.”
I’d never been attracted to White guys, because they really didn’t know how to approach a woman. Brothers were more blunt with their intentions and you knew where you stood from the moment that you saw them playing with those gold chains around their neck.
Before I could even respond, he was already out the door, leaving me completely tongue tied and wondering what the hell happened. It started off with animosity and a back and forth exchange that was quite heated. Now we were going to dinner together and frankly I couldn’t stand the man.
If that was true, then why was I staring at his ass and wondering what it would look like with my teeth imprints in each cheek. I shook myself from that naughty thought. I don’t mix business with pleasure.
“Are you OK, Vivian? I heard what he said to you. I bet it took a lot for you not to kick him square in the balls.” Brad made me smile and then I burst out laughing with no idea where it came from.
“I will admit that I was this close, but he surprised me. I guess we’ll see what happens when I go to dinner with him and then go over this contract. If he thinks that he is going to seduce me into siding with him, then he’s sadly going to be mistaken.” I still couldn’t believe that I was going to dinner with. I do have to say that his company was unique and their service was certainly something that people could use. Unfortunately, he did not believe in advertising and word of mouth was only going to get him so far. He needed to get his name out there and I had a few ideas about using social media to make that happen for him and my client. I knew it worked, because I had done it for my business.
“You can’t be serious,” Brad remarked. “Going to dinner with him was the last thing that I was expecting to hear from you. You like to have home field advantage. I think that he just tricked you into a compromising position.” I hadn’t thought of that before, but it did stand to reason that he would want to change the venue. This way, he could use that to his advantage. What he didn’t know was that I wasn’t going to play that game. This would be nothing but a professional meeting, even though I was thinking of him in a more Biblical sense.
“I hadn’t thought of that before, Brad. I guess having you around is a good thing.” I was only teasing him. “I just have to make sure that this doesn’t become personal.” I don’t think that was going to be an issue, considering that I really didn’t like him to begin with. He was a nice package and there was no denying that he had a physique that would probably be better on somebody else. He was arrogant, cocksure of himself and those were not attractive qualities in my opinion.
I was going to call him and cancel, but I thought it best that I should at least hear him out. I stood at my window, overlooking the city that I loved. It cost me a small fortune to have this office, but it was worth it to have the kind of view that greeted me every morning. I sometimes found myself getting in early, just so that I could see the sun coming over the buildings. It was enough to think that I was just a small part in this thing we call life. I sighed in contentment and then I took a deep breath to steel myself for the day ahead.
I was going to change, but that would only send mixed messages to a man that thought he had all the cards in his favor.
I waited until five minutes before he was going to pick me up and then I slowly made my way down to the lobby. I was maybe a few minutes late and he looked quite perturbed and that made me smile inside.
“Has anybody ever taught you punctuality, Miss McKenzie? It’s very rude to make somebody wait. Never mind, it doesn’t matter and our reservations isn’t until six-thirty. That gives us plenty of time to get over there. I hope you like Italian.”
Actually, Chinese was my favorite, but Italian was second to none. I often found myself making my own pasta sauce on the weekends, as a way to while away the time. It also let my creative side come out and play. I had a delicious recipe for a Fettuccine Alfredo that would melt in your mouth. Add a few shrimp to that recipe and it became something decadent.
“I just want to reiterate that this is a business supper.” I don’t know why I had to say that, but I thought it best that we got that of the way from the very beginning. I did find that he was a gentleman. He opened my door and allowed me to slide into the passenger side. You could tell that he was trying to make up for some kind a shortcoming. This red sports car was a cry for help and most likely some kind of midlife crisis. He didn’t look like he was old enough to have a midlife crisis and what I could see of his equipment outlined behind his zipper made me think that there was no reason for him to be feeling shortchanged.
We arrived at the restaurant and I had to admit that it was very tasteful and not at all something that I would frequent. It was formal and I was still trying to save every dime, so that I could go on vacation when those frigid winter months arrived. Two weeks down in Cuba was my way of recharging and then I would be able to come back and face a new set of problems and clients that were clamoring to get me to take their case.
“I’ve arranged a private table in back, so that we can have privacy and go over everything that we need to go over. Just don’t forget about the food. The chef is a personal friend. He would take offense to us not enjoying ourselves.”
I shrugged my shoulders, not quite knowing how he wanted me to respond. I followed him. It was a place with tablecloths on top of the table which was followed by the faint glow of a candle on each table. There was a server that was just going around with a bottle of ice water.
There was a moment there that I had undressed him with my eyes and maybe that was his way of using a different form of seduction. He was using the ambience and the atmosphere around us to make me more complacent to his requests. At first, I felt a little overwhelmed, but then I decided to let the business woman in me take over.
I couldn’t help but notice that he was staring at my chest and I have to admit that god did bless me in that department. I tend to unbutton the first couple of buttons, just to make a man look at me. It didn’t matter if it was in the courtroom or in the boardroom; I always had a way to turn the advantage my way.
I had the Primavera and it wasn’t as good as I made, but it was very close. When the dessert arrived, we had gone over five pages of the fifty page document. He was being reasonable, but he was also trying to get his way.
The dessert was this c
herry tart that melted in my mouth. If there was chocolate combined, then I probably wouldn’t have a need for sex. Mmm. As I was thinking about sex and in that scenario, I could see Mister Young in a more personal way. I stripped away all of his pretenses and his clothes in that order. I could envision him in his birthday suit.
“I don’t know if I should be flattered or insulted that you are staring at me, Vivian.” This was the first time that he had used my first name and I didn’t even know that we were on a first name basis. “I will admit that your unwillingness to take a bribe was not something that I was expecting. Everything about you is different than what I imagined. I thought that since you were this one woman army that you would be willing to play ball. I was a little disappointed, but I was also quite aroused.” This came out of left field and it was so casual that it almost seemed natural. “I find you very desirable and I’ve wanted to kiss you from the moment that I got a whiff of your perfume.”
“Um, I can’t say that I’m not flattered, but I don’t think it’s a good idea that we mix business with pleasure.” I was actually thinking it was a great idea and I knew that I had one in the chamber that needed to be released. I hadn’t had sex in over three months and there’s just so much that I could do with my fingers and well placed toys
I felt his foot grazing my leg and I could’ve stopped him, but I didn’t want to. I felt this catch in my throat and I touched my neck to feel the heat that was being generated between the two of us. I was flushed, my hands clammy, uncomfortable in my own skin.
“I think that we can table these contract discussions until tomorrow.” The temperature had risen and it wasn’t because anybody had touched the thermostat. “I like you. You’re unlike anybody that I’ve ever been with. Women tend to submit to me and you can imagine how old that can get. I get the sense that you can give as good as you get and that is quite intriguing. It might be just you’re sensual eyes talking, but I see you as a sexual creature that can’t be tamed.”