Lance glanced toward one of the room’s two windows. It hadn’t really crossed his mind that his car might not be safe. Before he could obsess on that though, Shonda reached a hand out trying to get into one of the bags.
“Not yet,” Lance said. “Anybody have any questions?”
He looked at the kids, hoping someone would have a question while he thought of any other rules. But to a teen, they each shook their heads.
“All right, then. The second ground rule is . . .”
“How many rules you got?” Fly asked.
Lance remembered. “Just two. For those of you interested in pornography.”
The boys perked up, grins splitting their brown faces.
“Forget it,” Lance said. “I had filters put on all your laptops.”
“Laptops!”
The teens all jumped up and Lance started handing out the gifts. For each teen, he’d purchased a laptop loaded with educational software and games. A carrying case, diskettes and other goodies filled the shopping bags.
“These really for us?”
“On one condition.”
Fly tossed down a black leather carrying case. “I knew it.”
Even Shonda looked disappointed. “What’s the condition ?”
Lance took a moment to look each kid in the eye. Then, only after making the connection with each did he continue. “The condition is that you use this computer to learn all you can about the world. There’s so much more out there than what you see around you.
“Last week you each told me a place you wanted to go one day,” he said. “Use these computers to learn about those places, to plan a life journey that will eventually take you there. Set some goals. Then work to achieve them.”
Surprised at his own solemnity and advice, Lance aimed to lift the mood. He pulled out his cell phone and called a number.
“All right, we’re ready for you.”
A few minutes later, a technician arrived and gave a private lesson in computing with a laptop to five stunned teenagers from the city’s East End.
Lance watched as they got their lesson and realized he’d just learned one as well.
“There’s a problem I need to speak with you about.”
That was not the greeting Lance wanted to hear from his accountant. He knew it could be about only one thing. And for a moment, the joy of spending time with T.J.’s kids at the center was diminished. What if he really couldn’t afford the largesse? It wasn’t the cost of the computers that concerned Lance—just a few thousand dollars. It was whether he’d be able to maintain his lifestyle, which included lavish, spur-of-the-moment gifts to friends, girlfriends and, in the case of five pre-juvie delinquents, virtual strangers.
He’d agreed to meet his accountant on the James River Fishing Pier. They could walk the length of the pier on the river, and if things were really bad, Lance could just jump and get it over with.
A wry smile tilted his mouth. That would create a headline sure to send his grandmother into spasms. She hated it when the Hearts were in the headlines for anything other than corporate public relations—in other words, announcements she controlled.
“So, how bad is it?” Lance asked as they walked by a trio of fishermen squabbling about the best bait for rockfish.
“Nigga, please. How many times I got to tell you, that shit don’t work. This what you got to use.”
“Huh. That don’t work. I’m telling you, to get croaker, you got to . . .”
On another day, Lance would have paused to see what was being displayed. But his mind was on other things and the conversation among the three old men vanished.
“I wouldn’t use the term bad,” Nathan said.
“You said there was a problem.”
Nate nodded and kicked a crushed Coke can out of the pathway. “It’s more to do with a surplus.”
“Surplus? What kind of surplus?”
“You have too much cash, Lance. And it’s not earning you any money. I’d recommend an investment. Or two.”
Lance cut a glance at him. “You pitching a product or start-up?”
Nathan looked affronted. “I am not. I wouldn’t do that.”
“Global Communications dot com.”
As Lance knew he would, Nathan flushed at the reminder of the one seriously bad investment Lance had made on Nate’s recommendation. The dot-com leaked cash like water running through a sieve. Within six months they were bankrupt and looking for another handout. Disgusted, Lance had walked away.
Nathan had been trying to make it up to him ever since. Lance’s consolation was that he hadn’t been the only investor sucked into the dot-com craze only to wind up with nothing. He had, however, gotten a building out of the deal. It sat unused because Lance hadn’t figured out what to do with an office complex that no one wanted to lease or buy.
“No, Lance. I’m not making a recommendation or pitching you in any way. I’m just saying, at this rate you’re losing money. Even real estate would be a good buy now.”
“I’m not interested in being a landlord. And I already have a building I don’t know what to do with.”
“So be a developer.”
Lance opened his mouth to shoot down that suggestion, then snapped it shut. “Hmm . . .”
He and Nate had worked together long enough that Lance knew he could trust him. He’d better. The man handled his money, with the exception of the portion Lance always forked over to Cole for safekeeping—a practice they’d developed when Lance, as a teenager, got his first job with Heart Federated.
“What, exactly, did you have in mind?”
Lance then laid out his ideas for Guilty Pleasures.
Lance and Viv walked along the boardwalk in Virginia Beach. He licked a swirl of chocolate ice cream from a cone.
“You said you wanted to talk to me,” Viv said. “About Guilty Pleasures?”
“Yeah, the store. But also us.”
Viv stopped walking. “Lance, there is no us,” she emphasized by bracketing us with air quotes. “We had hot sex one night. That’s the extent of it.”
Lance frowned. This scene was just all wrong. If he were writing a novel, maybe he’d delete this part and make Viv wild for him. Wasn’t the woman supposed to be the one clamoring for a deeper relationship? Wasn’t he supposed to be the one backing away? Without being conceited he knew the combination of his good looks and both his personal and family money made him a good catch. How come Viv didn’t seem to know or appreciate any of that?
“I don’t understand you.”
“You don’t know me, Lance. We had sex. It was good. End of story.”
How many times in his life had he longed for a woman to have just this attitude about sex—an attitude like a man’s? A good lay had nothing to do with anything else. Now that he’d found such a woman, he wanted her to want him, to attach all of the emotional strings women loved to get worked up about.
Lance tossed the ice cream in a trash receptacle, wiped his hands with a napkin then tossed it, too, before taking Viv’s arm to get them walking again. She didn’t pull away from him, but she didn’t exactly drift into his arms the way Rochelle—or any other woman he’d ever slept with—would snuggle up.
“So you don’t find me attractive?” He knew that couldn’t be the reason, but maybe she went for slack-eyed short men with no teeth.
Vivienne shook her head. “You’re a trip, Lance. And I’m not even going to answer that.”
He frowned. “So what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m just not interested.”
Lance stopped walking. He shook his head as if trying to clear it. He was rich. Sort of single. Straight. Handsome. They’d had great sex, and she wasn’t interested.
“You’re a lesbian, right?”
She sent a quelling look his way.
That would explain it, Lance thought. Maybe he’d been her experiment. The thought of such a beautiful woman batting for the other side disappointed him, particularly since she was so go
od in bed. But it went down a little easier—pun intended—to know it wasn’t him. She was the one with the issues. He grinned. Maybe she’d let him watch her with one of her girlfriends. Now that would be hot.
He’d used his share of women in his time. He supposed it wasn’t so bad to be someone’s research project. She’d had a good time with him, until the tears started flowing. Maybe he’d convinced her to swing the other way and she’d been thinking of a girlfriend.
“If you don’t want to talk about Guilty Pleasures, I do have things to do,” she said.
Switching gears and thinking pragmatically, Lance figured with sex out of the way they could focus on business.
“No,” he told her. “Tell me how you came to start the shop.”
She sent a dubious look his way. One that clearly threatened, “If this is another line . . .”
“I really want to know,” he said. “It always helps to get a sense of what drives people.”
Viv was quiet for a moment, then she nodded as if she’d decided to take him at his word. “All my life I wanted to be the center of attention. I was the center of attention.” She glanced at Lance. “I liked it when boys tripped over themselves to ask me out, to buy me things, to look at me. I got a rush from it.”
“But?”
She met his gaze. “There is no but. I liked it. Thrived on it. Sometimes I’d feel a pang of guilt, but a bracelet or a date or just a pretty compliment would make me feel better.”
“What’d you feel guilty about?”
She shook her head, then she paused at the railing, draped her arms over it and stared at the ocean. Children and adults played in the surf. Out in the distance a couple of people rode the waves. A lifeguard’s whistle blew, and music from a party a ways down beach drifted on the air. Hip-hop, maybe Missy Elliott.
Vivienne was quiet for so long that Lance thought she wouldn’t answer his question.
“My sister,” she finally said. “She has some . . . some problems.”
Again Viv fell silent and looked away.
Lance watched her for a while, enjoying the view, waiting for her to get her thoughts together. Then he offered her the out. “If you’d rather not talk about this . . .”
She shook her head. “It’s a part of it, a part of why I started Guilty Pleasures.” Taking a deep breath and focusing all the more intently on the water, not the man beside her, Viv continued. “It was pretty much a given from the time I was twelve that I’d be a model. I started when I was thirteen. The money was fabulous.” She shook her head, refuting what she’d only just said. “The money was phenomenal. I was a fresh face, one that the camera loved. By the time I was eighteen, I’d been working long enough to know the looks would fade. Time does that. And I wasn’t interested in having work done. No implants or Botox for this girl.”
Damn. Those were real? Lance’s gaze dipped to her breasts, and he felt himself grow hard.
She touched the area at the corner of her eye and rubbed it slightly as if willing away wrinkles. If there was any blemish or imperfection there, Lance couldn’t see it.
“I knew I’d need something to fall back on.”
“So you went to Brown.”
“So I went to Brown,” she said.
“Beauty and brains. Brown’s not easy to get into.”
She bit her lip. “Yeah. Well. Anyway, I wanted to do something permanent, something that would help women who maybe didn’t feel so beautiful. The silky lingerie I modeled came to mind. There’s nothing like the right sensuous lingerie and the right bath oil to make anyone feel gorgeous.”
“I’ll have to take your word on that.”
She smiled.
“A lot of my coworkers back then, they spent their money on vacations or the three C’s.”
He lifted a brow.
“Clothes, cars and cocaine. But me, I hoarded every penny, knowing the gravy train wouldn’t last forever. After I left the business and before I got bored, my sister and I came up with a business plan and we launched the store.”
“Boredom is a problem with you?”
“It can be. I need new thrills to keep life interesting.”
“Like one-night stands with strangers?”
Her breath caught, but she didn’t hit him. “Yeah. Something like that.”
They stood at the railing for a while, neither saying anything.
Lance heard a lot of gaps in the story, but he didn’t press her for details. “Your sister, is she the one I met?”
Viv tensed and her sharp gaze connected with his. “Where?”
“At the store. She said her name was Dakota. Tall, voluptuous. Eyes the color of burnt honey.”
She chuckled and relaxed against the rail again. “That’s a good description of her. But no, Dakota isn’t my sister. She works at the shop. She’s also a catalog model. She does lingerie and plus-size work.”
“And Betty Boop?”
Viv’s hearty laughter rang out. Several men paused and turned. Lance moved closer to her, establishing his territory, letting them know the beauty was off limits.
“That would be Leticia. And, no, she’s not my sister either. Vicki doesn’t work at Guilty Pleasures.”
For a while they just stood there listening to the surf, soaking in the warmth from the afternoon sun.
“The shows I loved the most were for lingerie,” Viv told him. “It’s real. It’s there. It’s sexy and alluring and soft.”
Lance had to agree with her, but his mind was elsewhere, stuck on the sexy image of Viv in bed with another woman, both clad in frilly underwear.
“After we developed the business plan, I went looking for investors.”
He cleared his throat, trying to stay focused on the topic. “How many did you need?”
Viv smiled. He was immediately struck with the notion that her smile was the kind women bestowed on men who’d pleased them, enormously. It was the sort of smile Lance was used to seeing women send his way. That he wasn’t responsible for Viv’s right now pricked his ego. Some other man made her get that faraway, smoky look.
“Just one,” she said, that softly indulgent smile still tugging at her mouth. “His name was Ellison.”
A sugar daddy, Lance surmised. Her expression was the kind reserved for someone very special. And she’d already said she didn’t have any qualms about taking gifts from men.
“He died two years ago.”
“And you weren’t in the will?”
She glanced over at him. “What makes you say that?”
He shrugged.
Her smile was a little sad this time. “No. I wasn’t. I don’t think his wife would have appreciated that very much.” She didn’t elaborate. Lance was sure he didn’t want to know the rest of the details. “Between my own money and his seed money for the start-up, Guilty Pleasures was open for business. I haven’t looked back.”
“And now?”
“And now I want to expand. It’s time to branch out.”
“So you’re looking for a sugar daddy.”
The warmth in her voice disappeared. “No, Lance. I’m looking for an investor or investors who believe in and support my vision for Guilty Pleasures. Your family was already on my list—a list of twelve, by the way. You’re the one who sought me out.”
He had to give it to her there. He’d spotted her in Providence at that reunion and fell into immediate lust. He’d made it a point to introduce himself to her, not realizing that she literally lived in his own backyard.
“I didn’t mean to offend.”
“Well, you did.”
He liked her honesty, even when it stung like a jellyfish.
“You assumed and offended just like you did when you came to the conclusion I’d fall into bed with you again.”
“So it was that terrible?”
She looked at him, shook her head and walked away.
“What?” Lance was clearly dumbfounded. “What, Viv? What did I say?”
“This isn’t going to work,” s
he said. “Thank you for your interest in Guilty Pleasures, but I don’t think . . .”
Her words were cut off when he grabbed her arm and pulled her to him.
“Lance.”
His mouth closed over hers and whatever she was about to say was lost under the onslaught.
He was a masterful kisser, and Viv felt herself succumbing. She fought the urge, fought the sensations guaranteed to be her downfall. She pushed at his chest even though she really wanted to draw him closer.
“Stop it.”
“You know you want me as much . . . Oomph.”
He stumbled back, rubbing his side where she’d leveled a solid hook.
“The next time you try something like that, I’ll use my knee and you won’t be standing up and you’ll be talking tenor.”
Lance backed off even farther, his arms held up in front of him. “I got the message.”
“Good. Now get this one,” she said. “I don’t want to do business with you. We had sex. That doesn’t entitle you to liberties, no matter what you may be used to. Yes, my company needs money. But no, it doesn’t need it so bad that I have to take your bullshit. Good-bye.”
He didn’t bother to chase her or even follow. Lance Heart Smith had lost his cool. Despite his grandmother’s low opinion of him, he’d never behaved like that toward a woman.
Of course, he’d never been summarily dismissed either. Not once, not twice, but three times now. Who did she think she was?
She turned and called out to him. “And by the way, Lance.”
He looked up, shielding the sun from his eyes.
“I’m not a lesbian. I just don’t like you.”
10
Viv didn’t regret her brash words, but she did regret the bravado with which she’d said them—and the lie. She did like Lance and wished they’d met under different circumstances.
She’d really done it this time though. She’d just alienated the deepest pockets on her list.
“The deepest pockets with retail experience,” Dakota pointed out. “You can always downscale the plan. That way, you won’t need as much up-front capital.”
Vicki had suggested the same when Viv went home to vent her frustration rather than immediately returning to the shop and taking it out on her employees.
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