Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1)

by Monroe, Mallory

  Charles glanced at Jenay when Buzz used that derogatory term. Jenay noticed his glance, but ignored it in front of Buzz.

  “Let me know how it goes,” Buzz said as he was about to leave. “And nice meeting you again, Jenay. I hate losing money, but if it works out for you and Charles, then I’ll be willing to lose. . .I’ll be willing to . . . Never mind. I hate losing money!”

  She laughed. Buzz left. “He’s a breath of fresh air, Charlie.”

  “Yeah, he is. We’ve been good friends for years.”

  “Your best friend?”

  “If I had one, I guess so.” Then he looked at her. “Ready?” he asked.

  “Always,” she said.

  Charles began walking her, with his hand in the small of her back, to the door. “I’ll need to make a quick stop first.”

  “To urge whomever you guys were discussing to leave wherever you guys were referencing?”

  “That’s right.” Then Charles looked sidelong at her. “Aren’t you curious?”

  “About what?”

  “Why some people would call me Big Daddy Sinatra?”

  “Why it’s because of your penis, of course,” Jenay said as if that was the only possible answer, and left the office.

  Charles, taken aback, smiled at first, and then laughed a great laugh. “Yeah,” he said as he walked out behind her, feeling actually pretty good, “that’s it. That’s the reason.”

  He took the scenic route, showing her the beautiful Jericho countryside. He showed her the coastline, and the farms and the plains, and some of his businesses. He showed her Jericho Mutual, his bank, and Sinatra Motors, his car dealership. He showed her Sinatra Sails, his boat rental business, and even his personal sailboat. He showed her rental homes he owned, an old factory he owned, and even a funeral home he hadn’t been able to unload yet.

  She could understand, on one level, how people could really resent him. It seemed like too much for one man to own. But on another, more substantive level, she admired him. He was a smart and shrewd go-getter. He was the epitome of the American dream of working smarter, not harder, and going for it. She looked at him and smiled. If he was trying to impress her with the vastness of his holdings, he had.

  But he kept on driving. He didn’t brag or explain. It was all self-explanatory to him. She liked that about Charlie. He never felt a need to prove anything.

  His Jaguar drove down a long, dirt road until it ended at the front porch of a small, wooden-framed log cabin-style house. An elderly woman was sitting on the porch, and a handful of kids, from small eight year olds to twelve and thirteen year olds, were sitting on the steps.

  “Wait here,” Charles said to Jenay as he got out of his car and made his way, walking around kids, up to the old lady. He kept the car running, so Jenay pressed down the window on her passenger side of the car. She was praying this visit wasn’t about evicting that old woman out of this old house. Charles could be hard, but this, to her, would be outrageous.

  “Hello, Miss Winifred,” Charles said as he approached.

  “Hello, Big Daddy,” the old lady responded.

  “Buzz told me you wouldn’t listen to him.”

  “I don’t trust him,” the old woman said. She was so wrinkled her skin looked like scales. Jenay figured she had to be at least eighty or more. What in the world was Charles thinking?

  “The note came due on this property, Miss Winifred,” Charles said, “and you’re well aware of that. We’ve sold it from under you, and the new owners will be taking possession.”

  “I know what y’all did. You don’t have to tell me what y’all money grubbers did.”

  “Then why haven’t you packed up and moved?”

  “Because I don’t have anywhere to go.”

  “That’s not my problem,” Charles said firmly. “You’ve been given ample time to find another place. More than ample time. You decided not to do so.”

  “I’m not leaving my land.”

  “This isn’t your land. This is my land. Land that I have sold. And you are leaving, even if the Sheriff has to come on this property and drag you away from here.”

  “Ain’t nobody dragging me away from nowhere!”

  “Fine,” Charles said. “You want to put on a show for your grands, fine. Do so. Don’t leave of your own volition. Let the Sheriff drag you out. Because you are leaving this place and you’re either doing it tonight under your own authority, or tomorrow under mine. But you are leaving here. We’ve given you months to find a suitable alternative and you have chosen to do nothing.”

  “This is my home and I’m keeping my home!”

  “This is not your home!” Charles shot back. “You haven’t paid your rent in six months. We’ve been more than patient with you. Now enough is enough, Miss Winifred. I will not continue to allow this. I’m not a charity and you will not treat me like one. You get more than enough money each month, from Jesse’s retirement and from your own social security, to easily pay that rent. You chose not to pay it.”

  “It’s too damn high,” Winifred blared. “I’m tired of paying these high rents.”

  “There’s nothing to pay now. You have to leave.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Fine,” Charles said and began heading for his car. He was wasting his time.

  But Jenay couldn’t believe it. When he sat back inside, she looked at him. “You’re going to evict her? You’re going to just evict that sweet old lady?”

  “Sweet?” Charles asked, as if Jenay had to be kidding.

  And sure enough, that “sweet” old lady was on her feet now, standing at the porch rail pointing her cane at Charles. “Rot in hell, Big Daddy!” she spat out. “Rot in hell! You’re worse than the worse devil there! Rot in hell!” Then she looked at Jenay, who was staring empathically at her. “What are you looking at motherfucker?” she asked Jenay.

  Jenay was stunned. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. What your nigger ass looking at? My pappy used to string up people like you, and you looking your nose down at me? I knew Big Daddy was a nigger lover. I knew it all along. He’s got all their tendencies. Taking people land. Treating people like dogs. Get your nigger-loving-self off of my property, Big Daddy, and get off now!”

  Charles stared at Jenay as the old woman continued to rail on and on in their ears. “Didn’t I tell you about putting feelings into anything related to business? Didn’t I tell you that, Jenay?”

  “Yes,” Jenay admitted.

  “And roll up that window!” Charles demanded. “Nobody wants to hear that trash!”

  Jenay quickly rolled up the window. She shook her head. “She seemed so . . .nice.”

  “Oh they’re always nice in the beginning. And then they get cocky. Then they stop paying rent for some reason that makes sense only in their own heads. Then they suddenly decide that they own the place and they have this awesome sense of entitlement. They’re entitled to my land. That’s her.”

  Charles and Jenay looked up on the porch as she continued to rail. Her grands, who were used to her histrionics, ignored her and continued to do whatever they were doing before she stood up. Charles never argued with his tenants, especially over his own property, so he didn’t argue with that old woman either. He drove away. But his anger was still there.

  “Now I’m the bad guy,” he said as he drove. “Now she’s highly offended that we dare call her out on her mooching and demand she either pay up or leave. Now, let her tell it, she doesn’t owe a thing. But that’s the Jericho way. Once you try to work with these people and give them a break like any human being would try to do, they want the whole damn thing.” He looked at Jenay. “So what am I supposed to do?”

  “Stop giving them breaks?”

  “Yes!” he yelled as he hit his steering wheel. “Don’t give not one of them a break! They won’t appreciate it. They won’t think you’re some wonderful, caring person. They will cuss you out and tell you what you can do with yourself.”

  Jen
ay looked out of the window. Disheartened. Not that she expected a bed of roses or any kind of kindness from these strangers in this strange town. But she’d always heard such nice things about small towns. And Maine was supposed to be so progressive! She looked at Charles.

  “I hate to be so hard on you,” Charles said. “But you have got to learn this town if you expect to survive in it.”

  “So you’re telling me there are no good people in Jericho?”

  “I’m telling you there are plenty of good people in Jericho. But none of them owe me back money. The people who owe me are always the dissipaters. They’re always the people who want something for nothing. They have the means to pay, or they would have never gotten the loan. They just don’t have the will. And consider me a terrible person, but I will not sit up and feel sorry for a man who would rather feed his own desires and ego, than pay his debts. He can feed that ego. That’s fine. But not on my dime.”

  Charles was speeding now. This was the sorest of sore spots for him. Jenay knew it now. It seemed like such an idyllic, postcard kind of town. And a good chunk of it probably was. Only not the chunk she was going to encounter.

  She shook her head. “And I thought Boston was bad,” she said.

  Charles laughed. Jenay smiled too. Although, in truth, it was hardly funny.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Jericho Yacht and Country Club was bursting with activity. Paige Springer was there, with her group of friends, sitting at her usual table and chitchatting. She had, in fact, received a beforehand notice that Charles would be dining there, and with that woman, so she put in her reservation too.

  Abigail Ridge had also reserved a table and was there with her circle of friends. And although her motive for being there tonight was the exact same as Paige’s, the outcome went far deeper. For Paige, it was all about revenge and umbrage, and making clear that nobody was going to upstage her.

  For Abby, it was all about her life, and her man, and keeping that status quo static so that nobody could ever come along and rock her boat. But if this new lady panned out the way some in town were suspecting she could, her boat could not only be rocked, but walloped. She wasn’t a kid anymore. She gave up on marriage and her own life to be Charles Sinatra’s invisible woman. The woman he could always count on to be discreet. She had nothing to recommend her anymore, outside of what Charles provided for her, and nobody was going to take that away from her.

  Abby saw them enter the club’s restaurant first, but she continued to eat as if they were of no interest to her.

  But Paige was animated.

  “That’s her,” she said to the ladies at her table. “That’s the witch.”

  Charles kept his hand in the small of Jenay’s back as the waiter escorted them to his usual table. Jenay could feel eyes on her, but she would not have expected anything less. She was with one of the wealthiest and most attractive men in Jericho. People were going to talk. Women were going to be angry.

  But they weren’t seated two minutes, before they were interrupted. But it wasn’t some female. It was a middle-aged businessman.

  “Meet Skip Gardner, Jenay,” Charles said. “He runs our Chamber of Commerce.”

  “Hello ma’am,” Skip said with a nod of his head.

  “Nice to meet you, Skip,” Jenay said. She knew now to never call anybody Mr. or Ms.

  “What can I do for you?” asked Charles.

  “We need you to settle the issue.”

  “What issue?”

  “The Knights or the Curves.”

  Charles smiled. “Our two high school football teams,” he explained to Jenay. “There’s always a bet going on.” He got up. “I’ll be right back. If that’s okay?”

  “Go, it’s absolutely okay,” Jenay said, and pulled out her phone as he went. It was a good time to text Norm and Denise and see how they were doing. Both remained in Boston, but only Norm had found employment. Denise would have, except she supposedly fell in love. She was mainly checking up on Denise, and this new and, according to Norm, distracting love.

  But as she struck key after key, she realized someone had arrived at her table. She assumed it was the waiter bringing their drink orders, so she didn’t bother to look up. But then that someone spoke.

  “Who do you think you are?” she asked.

  Jenay stopped texting and looked up. It was Paige.

  “Excuse me?” she said.

  “You don’t belong here,” Paige said. “You know it, and I know it. He belongs to us. He’s ours. You show up yesterday, you just got here, and already you’re taking over? We will not allow it. We will not be mocked that way.” Then she clenched her teeth. “Who do you think you are?”

  Jenay continued to stare at her until she finally walked back to her table. It wasn’t Jenay who ran her away. Paige had seen Charles returning.

  “Was she bothering you?” he asked before he sat down.

  “She thought she was, but no.”

  Charles sat down. “What did she want?”

  “You apparently. And she wanted to remind me that she was the queen and she wanted to know who did I think I was. ‘Who do you think you are?’ That was her big question. Who did I think I was. I didn’t say a word, and she left.”

  The waiter arrived with their drinks. Charles glanced over at Paige, who was staring at him, and at Abby, who wasn’t even looking his way but was probably more bothered than Paige. And for the first time he was concerned. But he didn’t let it show.

  He ignored the room and focused on Jenay, enjoying her company and her ideas about improving the Inn.

  But after dinner, as they were leaving, he placed his hand on Jenay’s back and made a beeline for Paige’s table. Her girlfriends elbowed Paige, but they didn’t have to bother. She was already looking.

  “Hello Charles,” she said, when they arrived.

  Charles pulled Jenay forward. “Her name is Jenay Franklin,” he said clearly. “She’s the general manager of my B & B. She’s the woman I intend to have a future with. She’s my lady. That’s who she is.”

  He stared at Paige, in case she had any further doubt, and he looked at Abby, in case she harbored doubt too. And then he escorted Jenay out, his arm around her waist as he did. Paige was aghast. But her friends, who didn’t much care for her anyway, couldn’t help but smile.

  He was lying in the middle of his bed, and she was on top of him with her back against his chest. His fully erected dick was inside of her sliding up and down along her wet pussy in a grind that had both of them moaning. His hands were tightly around her small, brown body, and they were already sweating as he pumped into her with deeper and deeper thrusts. Charles had a penis that filled her narrow passage with so much thickness that she was amazed it could move at all. But it did. And when it did, her feet were on his thighs and slid her body up higher along Charles’s muscular body until they both were in a rhythm that had Jenay in tears.

  Maybe it was the newness of it all. Not just being in the big arms of a man like Charles, which was wonderful. But maybe it was where she found herself at this stage in her life. She wasn’t that kid anymore who just wanted to be in love and happy. She was a woman now. A thirty-two year old woman who couldn’t afford too many more do-overs. At some point, she had to get this right.

  Not that Charles wasn’t right, she thought, as even her bare ass felt the grind of his skillful strokes. But Charles was in demand. That Paige chick wasn’t willing to simply turn him over as if this magical dick didn’t do to her what it was doing to Jenay right now. Charles was giving her the best sex she’d ever had! Even she would have a difficult time without it, and they were just getting started in their relationship!

  And that was the other part, she thought, as he squeezed her breasts and continued to fuck her in a way that made her feel even more raw and satisfied. Where was this relationship really going? Was he going to give up so much variety out there and be truly committed to just her? He was a great looking guy. He could have his pick any day of the
week. Her past experience always ended badly when she gave her heart to great looking guys. It didn’t work out with a not-so-great looking guy either, but that fact didn’t help. It made her question if any man could be fully committed to her and her alone. Especially a man of great means like Charles. Did he understand there would be no open relationship here? They never really discussed it. She assumed it went without saying. But did he?

  “Aaaarh!” Charles suddenly moaned in her ear as he folded his body, and hers, nearly in half and pushed in so hard that it felt like a hard slam. And he began to cum.

  He thrust into her harder and held her tighter as he released. And he continued to caress her, and push into her, and enjoy the feel of her soft, pliable body, and wet slick pussy against his hard maleness. He loved how she made him feel! He loved how her small body felt on top of his big body, and how she felt in his arms. And Paige had the nerve to ask who did she think she was. She was Jenay. She was this wonderful person that suddenly appeared in his life. And she also happened to be, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it, the best fuck he’d ever had.

  He was Jenay’s best too. By leaps and bounds. And that was why, as soon as she began to feel his throb, she immediately forgot all of those side issues that weren’t doing her a damn bit of good in the here and now anyway.

  And her orgasm broke free too. And she came. She started riding his dick and crying out his name and cumming in that hardness and intenseness his sex required. She didn’t know if it was going to work out between them. She didn’t even know if she was going to be able to live in a town like Jericho. But Charles made her want to try. To be with him, to be with this man, was more than worth the effort.

  She got up early the next morning to surprise Charles with breakfast. She had no fear of him waking up and discovering her since he was no early riser and was hard asleep when she first woke up. She got out of bed, showered quickly until she had a chance to get to her suite at the Inn and shower properly, and then put on his dress shirt and headed downstairs. This was her first time in his home, and it was a grand affair: big, opulent, with the sweeping dual staircases and the cathedral ceilings and the expensive furnishings and wall prints and paintings she would have expected from a seemingly tasteful man like Charles. And his kitchen was a chef’s kitchen: big, bold, and classic. Bright cabinets, dark granite, marbled floors. Gorgeous, Jenay thought.