Sunday Love

by K. J. Lewis

  Sunday Love

  © 2017 by Kj Lewis Books

  ISBN: 978-0-9976414-4-8

  All rights reserved. No part of this novel may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or actual events is entirely coincidental.

  Editing by Anna Esquivel

  Cover Design by Regina Wamba at maeidesign.com

  Interior Design by Champagne Formats

  Proofing by Monique Tarver

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Also by KJ Lewis

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter 11

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Also by KJ Lewis

  Taylor Made

  Taylored to Perfection

  To all my girls looking for their Sunday Love.

  Will I ever learn? I’m a smart, organized, efficient woman. You’d think experience would have taught me by now to allow for a visit from that bitch, Karma. Man, she can hold a grudge. How long must I continue to pay for yelling at a kid on a bike? In my defense, I was sixteen, and I didn’t know he was handicapped until I had already shouted for him to get out of the middle of road.

  Evidently, I am a slow learner, despite being top in my class, and Karma’s a sadistic whore who seeks pleasure in the little things that trip up my day. I should know better. The cues were all there. If I had just gone back to the hotel and my bed after I spilled cranberry juice down my blouse I could be asleep right now.

  It was a full night of work that ensured I was up till the wee hours, which ensured I overslept this morning. Then she caused a run in my hose when I tripped and broke the heel on my sensible pumps. The only ray of sunshine she bestowed on me today was that all of this happened only steps from my hotel, so I was able to run back and change. Of course, I am out of stockings, and the only dress shoes I have are my 5 inch Louboutins that I brought for a formal dinner. Now I am running late to a meeting where I am about to fire people. Not only are they being fired today, but I can’t even show them the respect to arrive on time.

  Having adjusted my wardrobe malfunctions at lightning speed, I’m rushing into the twenty-floor skyscraper in downtown Philadelphia when I run chest first into a wall of a man in front of me, causing him to drop the folders he’s carrying, losing his papers like a ticker tape parade, and me to land on my ass. By the time I make my apologies and help him gather everything, I am officially ten minutes late.

  Exiting an elevator of wall-to-wall people, I am greeted by a young woman who shows me to a conference room where the meeting has begun without me. Par for the course, I am the only female in the room. I take the first open seat I find, only to see that Harold Smith, the current CEO of the telecommunications company our client recently acquired in the hostile takeover, is seated across from me.

  “Miss Donovan. Glad to see you decided to honor us with your presence. Always looking to make an entrance.” His eyes rake over me with idle disdain. If they were claws, I swear I would be gutted where I sit.

  Harold and I have not seen eye-to-eye on much these last few weeks. Beckett Enterprises, who purchased the company a few weeks earlier, had hoped to leave the CEO in place, but my time here has only solidified what I assumed all along. A company in this shape doesn’t get there by accident. It was achieved by poor leadership and fragmented decision-making processes from the top. Not only is he threatened because I am a woman– hear me roar and all that comes with that- but he doesn’t appear to appreciate me as a person in general. Go Figure. I happen to be absolutely lovely.

  “My apologies, gentlemen,” I offer to the men in the room. I’m familiar with Harold’s team whom I have been working with, but to my right are three men I haven’t met before today.

  “I was just filling in the team from Beckett.” Harold passively motions to the three unfamiliar men. I turn to greet them with a nod, and am not prepared for the irritation I am met with from the good-looking man sitting closest to me. The mouth-watering, wet your lips, crawl to him, if he asks, kind of good-looking. His obvious displeasure is enough to halt my wayward thoughts and return my focus to Harold as he begins his slideshow of the changes that have occurred over the last four weeks.

  “As you can see,” Harold concludes, “we have made great strides thanks to our home leadership. I believe the information you gentlemen have been given is more than a little exaggerated. I consider that is to be expected given the nature of the reporter, if you understand what I mean.” Harold looks at me. A monkey could understand his slam about my gender.

  “Thank you, Harold. Everything looks in order,” says one of the men from Beckett.

  “Happy you’re pleased. If there’s nothing else?” Harold asks. The men move to stand before I stop them.

  “Again, gentlemen, I apologize for my tardiness and if I am asking a question that was previously answered.” Begrudgingly they take their seats again. “Harold, who provided you this presentation?”

  “Excuse me?” He makes no attempt to hide his enmity at my question.

  “Who provided the data for this presentation? Did you pull these numbers on your own or were they provided to you?” My voice is a sugar-coated firmness.

  “Let me educate you on how a company works. There’s a CEO, that’s me,” he says with an effective pause. “Then you have a CFO, a COO, CMO, the list goes on and on. I ask for numbers and people deliver.” The bulk of the men in the room snicker at his comments. “As a team we pull the numbers and go over them. Normally, we have a secretary put it in a presentation format, but since we have you on the team now, we thought you could make yourself useful and” with a wink, “clean it up.”

  “Oh, it’s been cleaned up enough.” I address the men flanking him. “Who participated in this collection of information?”

  I wait. After no response, I ask again.

  “If you are part of the team Mr. Smith is referring to, please raise your hand.”

  “They aren’t school children Miss Dono…”

  “Raise your hand if you support this presentation,” I ask more forcefully. His entire staff raises their hand in what I assume is a show of defiance.

  “Is there anyone on the team who does not agree with this report?” I wait about three beats. “Last chance to withdraw your support.”

  I pull some papers out of my folder and pass a copy to each person at the table.

  “I’m disappointed, gentlemen. Not one of you has the moral character to stand up for yourself or this company.” I stand and start sliding manila envelopes with individual names across the table to their respective receivers. Their hands shoot out to stop them. “Mr. Smith, you and your team are hereby relieved of your duties. You will find your separation papers in your respective envelopes.”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are talking to?” He raises his voice while coming to his feet. Strains of red climb from beneath his dress shirt collar to his face.


  “Your misrepresentation of this company and these numbers are proof that you either have no idea what you are doing or that you are a thief. I believe it’s the latter. You have been falsifying financial reports, and I have the evidence to prove it.”

  “You have shit.” He starts walking around the table, and I brace myself for what I am sure will be a verbal beat down.

  I nod through the conference room window to an assistant assigned to work with me. He enters with several investigators from the SEC.

  “You stupid bitch! Who the fuck do you think you are?” he spits and lunges for me but draws up short when one of the Beckett associates pushes him face down on the conference room table, pinning his arms behind his back. I’m holding my breath, not out of fear, but out of disorientation. There’s a hand splayed across my stomach and a hard body molded to mine from behind me. His breathe tickles the spot just south of my ear and his scent wraps around me. Clean with a little bit of spice. He shifts me to his right as he leans over to say something to Harold. The man nods to his associate and Harold is released. Standing, he buttons his suit coat, runs his fingers through his hair, and glares at me. “You haven’t seen the last of me.”

  “One can only dream,” I counter with sarcastic sweetness.

  “Thank you,” I tell the man who, to my disappointment, has finally released me. I motion to shake his hand and when our skin touches, a current dives through me, pausing my eyes to linger on his for a moment. His eyes are like a two-sided coin reflecting both harshness and a softness to them.

  “Elise.” The head investigator from the SEC pulls my attention and asks me to sign some papers.

  “Of course,” I answer him before turning to the three men from Beckett. “Elise Donovan, I apologize; I didn’t know Mr. Beckett was sending a team today. I’m actually headed to a retreat where I’ll see him. If you speak with him before I do, please share the numbers I provided and let him know I don’t feel the company can be salvaged. He should move with the contingency plan my team has designed. Break it off and sell it in pieces. I believe he should make a tidy profit.”

  “Sign here and here.” The investigator is back with papers in front of me, peppering me with questions. When I finally look up again, it’s been almost forty-five minutes and the team from Beckett is gone.

  It takes me another thirty to wrap up and when I finally call Theo from the taxi, I have just enough time to grab my things from the hotel lobby where they are holding my luggage and make my flight.

  “How was the meeting?” Theo asks.

  “Informational. I’ll fill you in when I get there.”

  “Don’t go to your flight,” he says as I hear him thanking someone in the background. When he comes back to me, I hear the inside of a car dinging.

  “Where are you?”

  “Picking up a few supplies. Listen, Beckett sent a team today…”

  “I know. They were in the meeting.”

  “He said you might as well take his plane since it has to come here for him, anyway. His team is going to fly back on their own.”

  “That was nice of him. How did he know I was here?”

  “I told him.”

  “Is he there yet?”

  “No. When I talked to him this morning he said he was making a stop and wouldn’t be here until this evening. I have a car waiting for you when you land to drive you here. The two of us can have dinner before I go to meet him at the airport.”

  “What about the team?”

  “What about them? I haven’t seen you in six fucking weeks. You’re mine first.”

  “Sounds perfect to me. I need a little debrief time.”

  “Have a safe flight. I love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  My boss, childhood friend, and CEO of Jacobs Inc., Theo Jacobs, accepted the challenge to turn around a fledging telecommunications company in four weeks. I have been living out of a suitcase for the last six having jumped from one client to another to be onsite to put in place new strategies and business plans. But mostly to problem solve. I figure out how to get fresh blood into a broken company that should be thriving. This is what we do. We fix things. Companies, people, images, you name it. We are the best in the business. Our team is a mixture of education and street smarts.

  Theo and I have been partners since we were five. Every day he would pick me up at my door and we would ride the school bus together. He was the first boy I kissed and the first boy I showed my “juice box” to in a six-year-old’s game of “You show me yours, I’ll show you mine.”

  Theo is a man’s man. A guy’s guy. Football and basketball captain in high school, he twice led our school to a state championship. Everyone wanted to be Theo. We attended the same schools before choosing different universities, both in the same city so we were never far apart.

  It was our freshman year of college when Theo finally admitted aloud what I had known since we were ten. He struggled with having feelings for other guys. He had never been with a guy or girl, and in true Theo fashion, didn’t think he could know for sure without exploring all the options available to him. So, like Theo and I do in everything, we handled it.

  We locked ourselves in Boston’s Ritz-Carlton for a weekend (courtesy of his parent’s emergency credit card) and lost our virginities to one another. As far as sex goes, it was not what I expect most people’s first times to be like. Ever the Boy Scout, Theo came prepared with a game plan. It felt natural to share another first together. Neither of us expected it to lead to anything, but it was a safe way to learn and explore what we liked. By the end of the weekend, we were having some hot, explosive sex for being newbies, but we both knew it was only sex. Our own little sex-ed class.

  That next weekend I introduced Theo to Ross, and Theo declared without a doubt that he is gay. They have been happily married three years.

  Throughout college, Theo and I were fixers. Having always been level-headed, see-the-forest-through-the-trees kind of thinkers, we realized we were always pulled into situations where others needed someone to shape the narrative. To put a play in motion, to move something or someone forward. Theo used these tools to create Jacobs Inc. We have been working together for the last seven years. With Theo’s connections at Harvard and my connections at Boston College, we had an instant clientele.

  No time has been more challenging for Jacobs Inc. than these last two months. Business has expanded faster than either of us can maintain, and our teams are stretched to capacity. It was this momentum and sheer volume of clients that drove Theo to accept a deal with a friend from Harvard to merge with his company so that we could grow and expand our business. Have the ability to try some new things.

  With our current crisis keeping me out of the office for the last few weeks, I haven’t participated in the merger meetings. I’ve been communicating through emails late at night once I make it back to my hotel room. Normally, I would have already researched about the company we are merging with, but I trust Theo and know he has done his homework. That’s why I didn’t know who the Beckett men were at the meeting. My plan was to get up to speed at our company retreat this week.

  Two years ago I implemented a company retreat for our team. While Theo trusts me implicitly, he’s not as quick entrusting decisions to others. Despite my talents, I have yet to master cloning and therefore cannot be in six places at once. I had thought some time out of the office and away from the daily grind would help his comfort level and communication with the team. Since our first retreat, we have grown our yearly revenue from 3 million to 30 million in two years. Some of it by luck and being in the right place at the right time, but most of it has been strategic. That and some of our wealthier clients have been in some pickles that they paid a great deal of money to have fixed or to have disappear.

  My next stop is our retreat in Colorado. I give the taxi driver the terminal information Theo passed along. Thirty minutes later, we pull up to the plane on the tarmac. I’ve flown in a company jet often enough that this isn’
t a special treat, but the thrill of not having to go through security and deal with all the layovers is never lost on me. I am so glad I packed a change of clothes in my travel bag.

  “Miss Donovan,” the captain greets me.

  “Hello,” I smile back.

  “Just you today ma’am?”

  “Just me.”

  “Have a seat and we’ll get going. All the pre-checks are done, and we’re ready for departure.”

  “Thank you.” I snag the first seat I come to and greet the steward, who introduces himself before disappearing to the front of the plane.

  The captain signals that we are taking off, and after a smooth transition, we are in the air. Shawn, the steward, informs me lunch will be served in two hours. It’s a little more than a four-and-a-half-hour flight. Standing, I get my first real look at the jet. It’s stunning. There are multiple seating areas with four doors along the wall at the rear of the plane. Two are marked “lavatory.” The second opens to a personal office that is obviously used by Reid Beckett himself, and the fourth opens to a bedroom.

  I enter and close the door. What I wouldn’t give to lie down and sleep till we arrive. More than exhausted from six weeks of short nights and long days, I sit on the edge of the bed for a minute and think about the meeting this morning. In our line of work, you would think I wouldn’t still be shocked by people’s callousness, but it never ceases to amaze me. Things people will do for money and fame. Standing, I stretch and remove my jacket, which thankfully covered my earlier cranberry incident. This shirt will never recover from this stain, I muse as I roll it in a ball. My bra choice this morning was based on the see through shell I was wearing, but wasn’t the most comfortable choice. Right now I just want a tank top. I have been dressed in work clothes every day for the last six weeks. I don’t know what I am looking forward to more this week, my sweats or sleep.

  Stepping out of my skirt, I grab the lotion out of my bag. The Philadelphia climate wreaked havoc on my skin, and in my haste to get ready this morning I didn’t follow my daily moisturizing routines. Taking my time, I apply the crème onto each arm and my stomach, giving myself a light massage as I go. My eyes close and I take a minute to enjoy working the warm lotion into my shoulders and chest. It feels heavenly. With a deep sigh, I finish circling each breast and smooth the lotion over my nipples, elongating them as I go.