Read Feel The Fire (Unforgettable Series) Online
Authors: Adrianne Byrd
Feel The Fire (Unforgettable Series) (3 page)
“Wow. Why are you taking this so personally? You’re acting like Brian is your brother or something.”
“You stay the hell away from my brothers.”
“What?”
“C’mon. If you were a guy, you would be what
we
call a dog. You’re a wham-bam-thank-you-sir kind of girl.”
“That’s not true. Brian and I had a little office fling a few years ago and it just didn’t work out. End of story.”
Maria laughed. “You have to have more than sex to have a relationship, Toni.”
“When you’re as busy as I am, it’s hard to find time to have more than just sex. I work ninety hours a week in a law office that expects a hundred and the only vacation I get is our annual December weekend trip.”
For the past twenty years Toni and her college friends Brooklyn, Maria, Ashley, and Noel would travel to New York for holiday shopping and Broadway plays. Like her best friend Brooklyn, Toni didn’t think the girls got together enough, but as each of them had such busy lives, one weekend was better than nothing.
Toni and Brooklyn had once lived just miles a part in Atlanta, but once Brooklyn remarried and moved to Texas, Toni decided it was time for a change as well and high-tailed it to L.A and now lived just miles from Maria.
Ashley still worked at the American Embassy in England. Noel resided in New York but was no longer “the only white girl in rap,” as they once teased.
The only evicted member from their group was Macy Patterson and that was only because she had broken a golden girlfriend rule: sleeping and then stealing Brooklyn’s first husband.
Maria laughed and brought Toni’s thoughts back to the present. “Hold on. Let me get my violin out.”
“Not funny.” Toni made her way to the kitchen and grabbed a soda. Maybe she shouldn’t have slept with Brian. He was always the overly emotional type. She was only in Atlanta to help her practice with one of her old cases, but one night one thing led to another.
“Did you at least win the case?”
“Of course.” Toni popped the cap off her soda and took a deep celebratory chug. “Toni Wright never loses a case.”
“I got to hand it to you, Toni. You are good.”
“In six months, I’ll be a full partner at Kaplan, Grey &Kaplan. Mark my words.”
Maria sighed as if indifferent to the idea.
“What?” Toni asked defensively.
“What what?”
“C’mon, what’s with the long sigh?”
“Nothing,” Maria lied unconvincingly.
“Spit it out.” Toni left the kitchen and made a beeline to her bedroom and then the bathroom. “If you have something to say just say it.” She plugged the tub and turned on the water.
“Well, it’s just that everything is always business with you.”
“A minute ago you said it was sex.”
“All right. Business and sex. What about romance? When are you going to find a guy and just settle down?”
“Oh, not that again,” Toni moaned and took another swig of Diet Pepsi before reaching for her bath salts.
“Yes that again. Don’t you ever get lonely?”
“I don’t have time to get lonely. Besides, marriage isn’t for everyone. If I see too much of someone I just break out in hives.”
“That’s not true.”
“It feels true.” Another chug. “You want to know the truth?” she asked.
“Please.”
“I get claustrophobic in relationships,” she admitted. “Seeing someone day after day, night after night. I don’t see how people do it.”
“Oh, God. Are you sure you don’t have a penis?”
Toni laughed and shut off her bath water. “I’m sure.” However an unexpected image of Jonas Hinton floated across her mind. “Besides, love is a woman’s greatest downfall,” she quoted her mother.
“I don’t believe that. But if you’re happy, then I’m happy.”
“And I am,” she reaffirmed; but after she ended the call, the apartment’s silence bothered her.
It was too quiet.
Then just as quickly, she laughed the whole notion off. “Don’t let all that relationship talk get to you, girl. You like your life just the way it is.”
Chapter 3
“The best thing for a hangover is another drink,” Q announced, handing Jonas a tall, stiff one.
Jonas moaned, waved off the glass and stumbled to his feet. How did he allow himself to get in this condition? He was doing so well.
“Whatever you do, don’t tell me you were drinking over
her
again,” Q said, keeping the vodka for himself and eyeing his oldest brother. When Jonas didn’t respond, he had his answer. “See? This is what I’ve been trying to tell you and Sterling,” he continued. “When it comes to women, keep your emotions out of it.”
“Somehow I keep forgetting you’re an expert.” Jonas wavered on his feet but managed to make it to his adjoining bathroom and, more mercifully, the shower.
The icy water was more than enough to quell his nausea and clear his foggy head while he repeated the vow he’d made over a year ago. “Never again.”
By the time Jonas stepped out of the shower, he’d nearly transformed into a human Popsicle. But at least he wasn’t hung over.
“I don’t know how the hell you do that,” Q said, draining the last of his drink and standing up from the leather chaise inside his brother bedroom.
Jonas didn’t know how his brother always had a way of looking like he was ready for a GQ photo shoot. His hair and clothes was always picture-perfect and his eyes were always clear despite a hangover.
“Why are you here?”
“I need a favor.”
“If it involves money, the answer is no.”
“C’mon. I’m good for it.”
“No, you’re not. When mom and dad cut you off, they didn’t mean for you to come crawling to me to support you. Get a job.”
Q shuddered repulsively and held his fingers up like a crucifix.
“Not funny. Get a job.” Jonas finished toweling off and pulled out a pair of silk boxers. Every week they had this same conversation about Q’s financial situation and the result was also always the same: Q would avoid joining the work force by finding some gullible, wealthy woman to take care of him.
“Look, everyone will be a lot better off if they just accept I’m not like you and Sterling. I have no business in Corporate America.”
“Then do something else,” Jonas responded without sympathy, and selected a suit from his closet. “Find something you’re good at and do it.”
Q fell silent.
“There has to be
something
,” Jonas added, though he was hard-pressed to thing of anything himself.
“Well, I am good with the ladies,” his little brother bragged with a jiggle of his eyebrows. “I haven’t had a dissatisfied customer yet.”
Jonas stopped and looked at him.
“I’m talking about bedroom performance only,” Jonas amended. “I’m no good with that sticking around stuff.”
“Q, grow up. You’re thirty-three years old, still trying to live off Mommy and Daddy’s money.”
“Spare me the speeches, Jonas. A simple yes or no to the loan will suffice.”
“Then the answer is no.”
“Big surprise.” Q turned toward the door.
“You want a surprise, ask me a different question,” Jonas said.
“What—and miss out on our precious brotherly chats? Not on your life. Same time tomorrow?”
Jonas laughed. Q would never change. Their parents, an eccentric ex-Broadway actress and a much older real-estate tycoon were fair as far parents went, and they always encouraged their sons to work hard and pursue their dreams. It worked for Jonas and Sterling who were both wealthy men in their own right; however, Quentin only pursued having a good time.
His father’s new strategy was to cut Q off. Jonas and Sterling agreed not to offer any financial support. Six months later, Q was still living the high-life. All in all, he was one lucky son of a bitch.
Jonas, however, delved in an array of business adventures. Once upon a time,
BusinessWeek
magazine had hailed him as the CEO with the Midas Touch. Lately? Not so much.
Since his disastrous wedding, he seemed to have lost his mojo. No matter what he did, he was unable to get it back.
He would, he vowed. He had to.
Jonas quickly finished getting dressed and as he grabbed his keys and wallet from his clothes from the day before, Toni’s business card flittered to the floor. He stared at it and then slowly reached for it. Instantly a smile curved his mouth, just thinking about the attractive attorney with the come-hither eyes and seductive perfume.
Her casual attire just hinted at the curves that lay beneath and he had to admit, although grudgingly, he was curious.
Turning, he walked to the phone next to the bed and started dialing the number on the card. On the first ring, his conscience asked:
what the hell are you doing?
On the second ring, he realized he didn’t know. By the third ring, he started to hang up when the call was transferred to voice mail and Toni’s sexy, almost husky, voice greeted him.
He listened to her leave-a-message spiel, all the while smiling at his last image of her; but when he heard the beep, he hung up.
“Don’t be stupid, Jonas. You’re not ready.”
“Do you think a man could be too handsome?” Toni asked Maria out the blue while picking over her meal.
Maria’s heavily Botox’d face already held a look of surprise. “What do you mean?”
Toni shrugged as a way to downplay her question, but in truth, she hadn’t been able to get Jonas Hinton’s pretty-boy looks out of her head. Those curly lashes and deep-pitted dimples, and he had an adorable mold on the line of his jaw that she’d noticed during their long talk.
“I don’t know,” she finally said. “There was this guy I met yesterday-”
“Yesterday? You mean, on the airplane?”
“Actually, the bar at the airport.”
“Sheesh. You’re picking up men at the airport now?”
“Yeah. Yeah. I know it’s nowhere as respectable as the grocery store.” The barb was a direct hit, since it was well known between the girlfriends that Maria would spend hours on hair and makeup before trolling the wine and beer aisles at her local Albertson.
“Men have to eat.”
Toni just shook her head.
“What?” Maria asked with her defenses high.
“Nothing. It’s just that...”
Maria crossed her arms as a sign of annoyance, but her expression remained the same. “It’s just what?”
“Well...do you ever think that maybe you try a little too hard?”
Her friend jerked back as though she’d been slapped.
“I mean, you’re a beautiful woman and you have a lot to offer, but you have this habit of acting like you’re the last item in a bargain bin.”
“Excuse me, ladies,” the waitress interrupted. “How is everything?”
Toni welcomed the interruption; she suspected Maria was just on the edge of ripping her a new one for brute honesty.
“The food was wonderful. Thank you.” To her surprise, the waitress placed a new Apple Martini in front of her. “I didn’t order another drink.”
“This is from the gentleman at the bar,” the waitress informed her with a smile and then placed a business card down in front of her.
She and Maria turned in their seats to see a handsome blond hair and blue-eyed gentleman holding up his drink in salute.
Toni smiled and nodded her thanks. “Chase Tillman,” she read the card.
Maria, however, folded her arms and stabbed her with an icy glare. “You just attract all shapes and sizes, don’t you?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
It was Maria’s turn to be blasé. “Nothing. I mean, everywhere we go, men are always buying you drinks or slipping you business cards. Meanwhile, I can have a friggin’ neon sign on my head and no one gives me the time of day.”
Toni sighed. How do you go about telling someone that men, animals that they are, could sense desperation off a woman? Men respond to confidence.
“I have to get back to the office,” Toni said, taking a healthy sip from her new drink and then reaching for her purse. “Lunch is on me.”
Maria pressed her lips into a hard line and also reached for her purse.
Toni wished she could say something more encouraging to her old college friend, but it wasn’t like they hadn’t had this conversation before. It’s inhumane to keep beating a dead horse.
“Are you going to call him?” Maria asked when Toni slipped her admirer’s card into her purse.
Toni flicked another look at the man at the bar but could feel nothing but disappointment that he wasn’t her airport dreamboat. “I don’t know. I might. After all, Atlanta was Atlanta and this is L.A.”
“I never knew that you were into the interracial dating thing.”
Toni laughed. “Honey, when it comes to men, I’m an equal opportunity kind of girl.”
Jonas had long suspected that he wasn’t the easiest person in the world to work for; but at least there was one woman in his camp that was more than up for the challenge: Michelle Gunn.