Scarlett Sinner (The Scarletts

by Brenda Barrett

  Chelsea felt a sharp shard of jealousy lodge in her chest. So Troy was trying to be super parent and take away her only child? She felt paranoid thinking that, but she was almost sure it was true. He was waging a war on her through her child. Dahlia had come home yesterday crying that she wanted to go back and she wanted to live with her Daddy and her brother.

  He must have put her up to it. Just as he had arranged for Yuri to call her and warn her about Ricky.

  Ricardo Mills, of all the people in the world. He was shaping up to the best employer ever. If he was so bad, why had Yuri been a friend to him for so many years?

  She had listened to Yuri and then told him thank you and hung up.

  She parked in her designated parking space and fumed silently. Yuri's phone call could not have come at a worse time. Last night her parents had broken the news that they were going to migrate in a matter of weeks instead of the months she had originally thought.

  Her father had gotten a lucrative job offer, and her mother was relishing the prospect of moving closer to Nelson and his family in Houston, Texas. Her brother had managed to have two perfect children with his perfect wife, and they were living perfectly uncomplicated lives together while hers was crumbling around her.

  Because of her mother’s gushing about Nelson and his perfect family, and her daughter’s babbling about her father, and Yuri's warning about Ricky, she was feeling very under the weather.

  She closed her eyes and said a hasty prayer. "Lord, please guide me through this day. Help me not to yell at anyone."

  She got out of the car and looked around the parking lot where the admin offices were. She was the first to arrive for work.

  She walked up the single flight of stairs, smoothing down her burnished orange skirt as she walked. She had tried to dress bright and colorful in contrast to her mood. When she walked into her office she couldn't help herself. She had to groan aloud. There was Chef Nathan sitting in the visitor's chair with a scowl on his face.

  And there was hunky Kadeem around the six-seater conference table with every surface of the table covered in papers. He had his head studiously down but he glanced up when she entered.

  "Good morning." He smiled at her and his eyes held her gaze like he was caressing her.

  Chelsea was the first one to break eye contact. Now she felt flustered. "Good morning everyone." Her voice was low and husky as she included Nathan in her greeting. She cleared her throat quickly.

  "Morning," Nathan snapped. "I am just here to let you know I am quitting."

  Chelsea suppressed her groan at that statement and then spent the next half an hour convincing the chef to stay. When he left she sighed loudly and leaned back in her chair.

  "You handled that well," Kadeem said from his position at the table.

  Chelsea glanced over at him. "Thanks, I think. We'll see."

  "You are good with difficult people," Kadeem murmured. He was punching information into his computer while he talked.

  "Thanks." Chelsea allowed a small smile at the compliment.

  "I am going to have to book some time with you," Kadeem said, holding up a stack of papers, "reconcile some of the data I have here with yours."

  "Yes." Chelsea swung her chair around and looked at him fully. She could not get used to the fact that he looked like a rugged ball player instead of the stereotypical accountant.

  He caught her looking at him and grinned. He was confident. Chelsea could see that clearly. He weathered her stare without feeling the need to comment self-consciously.

  "Is lunch time good for you?" Kadeem asked. "We could have a working lunch today and then tomorrow. Maybe you could book me in for most of the day. Most of my data are for this office."

  "Yes, sure." Chelsea nodded, sitting up straight and clearing her throat.

  "Good," Kadeem said briskly.

  He worked silently for most of the day; sometimes he puckered his brow over something that was causing him problems. When he found the solution he would grunt in satisfaction.

  Sometimes his hand would fly over the keyboard and Chelsea could hear him typing away, and she wondered why she was so aware of him. She had admired guys before but she had never been so aware of one.

  He was handsome and hunky and he exuded maleness. He looked like a guy who knew how to treat a woman.

  Maybe because today she felt low and out of sorts. Maybe she wanted someone to tell her that everything was going to be fine.

  Maybe she needed that something that only Troy could give: a calming presence, a gentle reassurance. She squashed the thought as soon as it had come up in her head. She was a woman on the brink of divorce. She couldn't forget what her husband had done. There was no use thinking about him now, and what a calming influence he was.

  She needed to stop feeling sorry for herself and stop all the wishy-washy feelings running through her head and concentrate on the job in front of her.

  She ran through her list of things to do and ordered lunch for her and Kadeem. He had told her that he would have whatever she was eating. He had said it while he looked preoccupied so she ordered a variety of dishes and waited for it to be brought up.

  The waiters set up a corner of the table and they ate buffet style.

  Chelsea barely touched her food. It was good; Chef Nathan was a really good chef and he had an excellent support staff, but her appetite was almost gone.

  "You are not eating," Kadeem said after a while.

  Chelsea pushed away her plate. "I don't have much of an appetite today."

  "Mmm." Kadeem nodded. "Want to talk about it?"

  "No." Chelsea shook her head uncertainly and then sighed. "Well...no."

  "Personal stuff?" Kadeem asked kindly. He had deep brown, penetrating eyes.

  Chelsea was tempted to just blurt out her business under his magnetic stare.

  "Just changes all around."

  "Ah." Kadeem whistled. "That can get a person in a funk. I remember two years ago I was going through some personal upheaval and I was overwhelmed. Of course, what happened was all my fault."

  Chelsea's curiosity was piqued now. She folded her hands under her chin and raised an eyebrow. "Care to elaborate on that?"

  "If I share my stuff with you, you have to share yours," Kadeem said seriously. "Deal?"

  "Deal." Chelsea nodded.

  "My ex-wife ran up some bills." Kadeem shook his head. "She had a bit of a gambling problem and I almost went bankrupt trying to pay them off. If it weren't for Ricky I would be rotting somewhere in debtors’ prison."

  Chelsea smiled. "He's a good man."

  "I agree," Kadeem murmured. "He bailed me out. Now I am back to where I was before the whole thing."

  "Ah." Chelsea sipped her orange juice. "I guess I have marital problems too. My husband has another child outside of our relationship."

  "Whoa." Kadeem shook his head. "Not good."

  "I am leaving him." Chelsea put down her glass and wondered why she always felt so empty when she said it.

  "Marriages are not easy; divorces are even harder on a person than you can imagine, though. It is like a death in the family."

  Kadeem placed his hand above hers and gently rubbed his thumb over her fingers. "If there is anything that I can do to help..."

  Chelsea swallowed and pulled away her hand slowly. "No, I am fine."

  Kadeem nodded. "I don't believe you. Tell you what, I am staying in one of the villa suites; you can come over and watch the sunset with me. No pressure, just two single people...well, one single person who has gone through the agonizing pain of divorce offering silent companionship to another."

  Chelsea stood up jerkily. The air had gone tense and almost electric with unspoken words.

  "No, I can't. I have to pick up my little girl from school. She was with my husband this weekend and on the weekdays I only ever see her after her grandmother has bathed her and fed her and done all the things I should be doing."

  She was babbling.

  Chelsea excused her
self and left the office heading for the washroom, her legs shaking.

  No, she would not even contemplate what was in her mind. She wouldn't give the thought legs. She was not a cheater and even though Kadeem was super attractive and seductive, she was still married. But Troy had betrayed her and had sex with Erin Irving... Remember her? If she had an affair now, it would make them even.

  No. No. She pushed the restroom door open and stumbled to the mirrors. No.

  Her head was screaming no. This was the absolutely worst thing to do. What was wrong with her?

  Chelsea's office phone rang shortly after she left for the bathroom but she was not there to hear it and it wasn't her call anyway. It was a call for Kadeem.

  "Smooth move," Ricky said when he answered. "She's almost putty in your hands."

  "Yep." Kadeem chuckled. "She's going to be easy. The ex-wife story did the trick."

  "Don't be too confident," Ricky cautioned. "She is feeling guilty about not spending time with her child. I like that guilt. Poor Chelsea wanted to be a career girl; I am going to have to let her feel what that really means."

  "What's the plan?" Kadeem asked, looking down on Chelsea's desk. She had a picture in her car key ring of her and her daughter and who he assumed was her husband. They looked like a clean-cut, good-looking family.

  It almost gave him a pang of remorse for what he and Ricky had agreed to do to her, but a guy had bills to pay and he had been honest when he told Chelsea that Ricky bailed him out of a tight financial situation. He owed him big time. Besides it wasn't totally a hardship to be pursuing Chelsea. He found her extremely attractive.

  "Stop looking at that and listen to me," Ricky said in his ear.

  Kadeem's head snapped up and he grinned. "I forgot that you had this office bugged to the hilt."

  "Don't forget it." Ricky snorted. "And don't go feeling sorry for Chelsea and her so- called problems either."

  "I won’t," Kadeem said, "I told you, you can count on me."

  "Well, good," Ricky murmured. "Because I am giving you a full week of unfettered access to Chelsea. There will be a missing file and other accounting problems that you need to sort out with her, and those things will keep her at work very late. Added to that, I have all sorts of problems lined up for her.

  "She'll be crying by week’s end when I am done with her. As of now all staff problems, no matter how minute, should be directed to Mrs. Scarlett."

  Kadeem shook his head. "You are devious. I wouldn't want to be your enemy."

  Ricky laughed. "Then don't be. You need to play Chelsea right. Get her to your villa. Get her in that office. I don’t care what you have to do. Let’s see how the little cookie will crumble under the stress I am about to exert on her."

  Chapter Ten

  Whatever could go wrong in her life was going wrong, Chelsea decided on Friday. She was sure that she had been making headway with kitchen disputes but as soon as that cleared up there was one with housekeeping and then a very fractious group of guests who complained about everything, even that it was raining outside.

  She was in the middle of dealing with a guest from Spain who had gotten a bite from a wasp and had an adverse reaction to it. Her hands were swollen and she was raining down invectives on the villa in Spanish, and added to that, there were a million and one calls coming in to Chelsea’s cell phone.

  She looked at the screen discreetly while the guest and her husband aired their complaints and saw that the latest call was from Daisy.

  Daisy's calls were more important than anybody else's because they usually related to Dahlia. She excused herself from listening to the guest’s rant and answered the phone.

  "I am so sorry to call you at work," Daisy said cheerfully.

  Chelsea's tightened shoulder muscles eased a bit. At least she didn't sound like something was wrong with Dahlia.

  "This is just a reminder. We are going to Kingston this weekend to spend some time with our newest grandson; we are actually going to leave now." Daisy continued, "which means that I won't be able to pick up Dahlia from school or drop her at Troy's. You did say you were okay with her spending the weekend at Troy's again?"

  "Yes, I did say that," Chelsea agreed. In her churning mind she could recall bits and pieces of this same conversation with Daisy. And because she was so swamped and run off her feet, she knew she would probably have no time for Dahlia this weekend.

  She looked at her watch; it was near picking-up time. She would have to leave now to get Dahlia and then personally take her to Mount Faith this weekend. She would finally know where Troy lived. She had been a little more than curious these past weeks, especially since Dahlia described it as a palace.

  She looked around for the guest relations supervisor and found her talking to a guest at the counter. She was going to have to do some nifty juggling in the next couple of hours.

  "Have you found the file yet?" Kadeem asked her as soon as she walked into her office.

  "No," Chelsea sighed. "I had a fire to put out downstairs. I can't for the life of me understand what happened to the thing."

  "Just take your time," Kadeem said soothingly, "but the expenses report is pretty important."

  "Yes, thanks. No pressure." Chelsea grinned at him. They had developed an easy rapport over the last couple of days, especially after they worked together late into the evenings. Apparently Janet Long, her predecessor, had not kept accurate records because everything was missing or filed in inconspicuous places.

  "We need to discuss your petty cash report for the last three months," Kadeem said, rubbing his chin and looking at the paper in his hand and then at her.

  Chelsea sighed. "When?"

  "Today, if possible." Kadeem indicated the desk, which looked as if it were piled even higher with papers.

  "Is it important?" Chelsea asked helplessly, sitting down hard on her chair. "My daughter, I have to..." tears came to her eyes and she blinked them away. She couldn't act like a weakling in front of Kadeem.

  "You have to...?" Kadeem was looking at her with compassion in his eyes.

  Chelsea took a deep breath. "I have to pick her up from school in a couple of minutes, then I have to take her to her dad. Then I have some stuff to do for church which I haven't even touched yet, and I promised. I have been skipping church lately, exhausted from this job." Her lips trembled, "and I can't... I don't think I can cope."

  "Ah Chelsea." Kadeem got up from where he was sitting and came over to her and hugged her.

  Chelsea sobbed in his neck like a baby. She had had it coming. She was not the strong, independent, capable woman that she thought she had been.

  "Here." Kadeem handed her his handkerchief.

  She took it and blew her nose. "I am sorry. I didn't mean to cry. This week was crazy."

  "You look beautiful when you cry," Kadeem said gently, wiping away a tear from her eyes.

  "I doubt that." Chelsea pulled away at arm’s length, feeling uncomfortable at their intimacy.

  "Tell you what," Kadeem said gently. "I will take the report with me while you drive up to your ex’s place. On the way there we can run through that and the housekeeping invoices. Some of them have your signatures."

  "Yes. Thanks." Chelsea breathed in tremulously. "Thank you for being so understanding."

  *****

  Kadeem, true to his word, had meticulously gone over all the details that he had needed to go over. He was silently tapping away at his computer and Dahlia had grown bored with the adult talk and was asleep in the back.

  Chelsea called Troy for directions to his place and felt ridiculously happy to hear his voice.

  Like she had been starving, she had asked him to repeat the directions because she had wanted him to stay on the phone.

  Memories that she had tried to repress of how good they were together kept swimming to the forefront of her mind. Troy had always been a good listener and he gave good advice too. It would be so nice to just imagine that she was going home and they could spend the weekend toge
ther unwinding.

  She needed to unwind. She felt as tightly pulled up as a string. This job had just begun to become stressful and she wondered again why on earth she had romanticized getting a job in the first place. She had been a less than content housewife but she had not felt as stressed out and frazzled as she felt now.

  "Penny for them," Kadeem said, closing his computer.

  "My thoughts?" Chelsea glanced over at him. "Well, I was just pondering the question, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up, Chelsea?’"

  "Ah yes," Kadeem nodded, "that question. I ask myself on days when I am stressed out too. I wanted to be an astronaut or the man that drove around and sold ice cream. I imagined that my life would be perfect if I were an ice cream man."

  Chelsea laughed. "Really? An ice cream man? I would probably not have any goods to sell when I finished with the merchandise."

  Kadeem laughed. "So what did you want to be, Chelsea?"

  "It depends on when." Chelsea frowned. "There was a time when I wanted to be a pilot like my brother Nelson, but I figured I only wanted to be a pilot because Nelson was a pilot.

  "And then there was the phase when I wanted to be an engineer like my dad. And then I always wanted to dress up and go to an office like my mom. And then this model scout saw me at my high school graduation and told me I would make a striking model.

  "But curiously, I never wanted that. My mom wanted it, not me. To think of it, so far, my very best job was home-schooling Dahlia. I loved teaching her new things and watching as she grew and developed."

  Chelsea looked back at her sleeping daughter. "Maybe I should have just gone on a vacation when I got miserable and felt stuck at home. Because really, being a manager at a guesthouse is not for me. I suck at it."

  "You are just having a bad day." Kadeem's voice took on a soothing quality, which she realized she had come to appreciate from him. "You'll survive and thrive."

  "I'll survive," Chelsea whispered. "Thrive? Not so sure about that."

  She turned down a side street. She knew this area. When she was a student at Mount Faith she used to walk here in the mornings for exercise. It had beautiful views with some steep hills to really work out one’s glutes.