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  Dylan was right behind her. His body tensing on that last thrust so that he was completely embedded inside her as his release poured into the condom. His hands tightened around her ankles and she could hear his loud moan followed by a soft curse. Moments later when they were both still, except for the rapid beating of their hearts, Dylan slipped out of her. He eased her legs down onto the bed. Cris opened her eyes just in time to see him move off the bed to the side where he untied her first wrist. Going to the other side he did the same with the second one. And then he was gone. He walked past the bed and continued going until she heard the soft click of a door.

  “Well, damn,” Cris whispered. If this is what she had to look forward to for the next twenty-three hours, she was thinking that forfeiting her savings may have actually been worth it.

  But then she heard the door open again. He was coming back. For round two? So soon? Well, this time she definitely did not want her hands tied. She wanted to touch him and…Cris’s thoughts were cut short as she came up to rest on her elbows and saw Dylan, still naked standing beside the bed.

  “This was a mistake. I’m giving you a full refund.” His curt words were followed by a stack of cash being tossed on the bed.

  Cris was so stunned by the sight of the bills fanning out over the rumbled sheet that she barely noticed the naked guy walking away, again.

  3

  He was an idiot.

  A rude and foolish idiot who was now hiding in his bathroom like a scared child.

  Dylan rested his palms on the counter around the sink. He dropped his head and sighed deeply.

  What the fuck are you doing?

  How many times had he asked that question only to repeatedly come up with no answer?

  This was never supposed to happen. Ever!

  He and Cris were only ever meant to be friends. Dylan had accepted that a long time ago. He’d accepted a lot of things because he’d had no other choice. Life wasn’t meant to give everybody exactly what they wanted, when they wanted it. Those were not the rules.

  Speaking of rules, he’d broken so many of them tonight.

  First and foremost, there’d been too much talking and touching. Cris was always the talker of their duo. She always had questions or commentary about everything from the weather to writing letters to congressman. In fact, she was part of the reason Dylan had chosen his professional path. Cris was fearless and tenacious. She was smart and intriguing and could light up any room she walked into. The latter usually led to every guy in that room flocking to her like bees to honey. Every guy except Dylan.

  He lifted his head and looked into the mirror frowning at the eyes staring back at him.

  Cris was not for him.

  There’d been so many nights he’d recited those words after being with her. What she deserved—a loving relationship with a man who respected and cared for her well-being—was not something he was able to give. Whether by choice or circumstance, it was a simple fact. Dylan was not into romantic connections. He’d been born into a loveless marriage with two people who had professional plans. Those plans never included a child, but when he came along they did the best that they could, carrying him from state to state and sometimes country to country as they continued on with their business. And the moment that was not possible, they’d dumped a seventeen year-old Dylan at a home in Chicago to live with complete strangers for the second half of his senior year in high school.

  Which was how Dylan came to be in his current predicament. Mama Peaches meant a lot to him. So when she’d called him with a request, Dylan hadn’t been able to tell her no, especially after learning what was at stake. He still remembered that conversation.

  “It’s about time you answered that phone. I know you keep it glued to your hip so you must have been ignoring me.” Peaches Brighton had spoken the moment Dylan answered the phone at a little after seven one morning three weeks ago.

  “Hey, Mama Peaches. No I haven’t been ignoring your call. I’ve just been really busy with a case that’s getting ready to go to trial.” The moment the words were out Dylan prayed he hadn’t just set himself up for a speech. Mama Peaches, as he’d been told to call her the morning his parents dropped him off at her house, was not one for excuses. She believed everyone should always take full responsibility for their actions, whether good or bad.

  “You work too hard. But I guess you got that honestly,” Mama Peaches continued. “But I’ve got something to fix that. I need you to clear your calendar for the last weekend in March. Book yourself a flight and come out here to help me save Southlake Park.”

  Southlake was the area in Chicago where Mama Peaches lived and Dylan had stayed for six months. It was a small tight-knit community situated along Lake Michigan.

  “We need to raise some money to help rebuild the neighborhood. Now that my Harold’s gone, I gotta get this done before the good Lord calls me home too. Now, we’ve got some support from some of the small business owners that have managed to stay in business, but we gotta get more. That’s where you come in. I want you to be part of the Bachelor Auction. A fine looking gentleman like you can bring in some big bucks.”

  For a moment Dylan had thought he was dreaming. Was Mama Peaches really asking him to sell himself so that she could raise money to rebuild a failing black community? The latter was the only reason Dylan continued entertaining the conversation. That and the fact that hanging up on Mama Peaches was definitely not an option.

  “How about I just make a donation,” he’d suggested.

  “How about you stop playing with my nerves and do what I told you to do. You are not too old and educated to get a whop on the head. Probably what you need to get yourself together anyway.” Mama Peaches was never one to mince words.

  “Who’s running this project besides you, Mama Peaches? Have you contacted your congressman about the neighborhood and its contributions to the community? There has to be a way to get some state help in keeping Southlake Park alive.” Dylan was not going to deny how much he’d learned during his time in Southlake or how much he’d seen the black business owners and community leaders sacrificing to make the best environment possible for the children growing up there.

  “Geraldine’s helping me but I don’t know about no politics and stuff. I just know we have to stand up and fight for what’s ours because nobody else gives a damn. So you get on back here and plan to look sharp and pull in a lot of money for us. Who knows, you may end up finding someone you can spend more time with. Cause that work ain’t ‘gon keep you warm at night.”

  That conversation had been short and sweet and an hour later Dylan had made his flight and hotel reservations. He was going back to Chicago. He was also going to do some investigating into the Southlake Community Restoration Project.

  Now, however, he needed to figure how something that had started out with his best intentions had gone so horribly wrong. He rubbed a hand over his face and recalled more recent memories. Like the night he sat at The Corporation watching Cris, watch him get a hand job. Dylan shook his head. He turned on the water and cupped his hands beneath the flow, bringing them up to douse his face in the cool liquid. He did not want to relive that moment at The Corporation. Not the feel of that woman’s hand on his dick, or the look of pure unadulterated arousal on Cris’s face as he came.

  Dylan shut off the water, pushing the faucet with much more force than was necessary. He reached for a towel and pressed it to his face. Inhaling deeply and then releasing the breath slowly he cursed and tossed the towel down onto the counter. What the hell was he going to do now that he’d had sex with the one woman he’d sworn to never touch?

  Cris pressed her arms into her jacket and pulled it onto her back with jerky motions. She grabbed her purse that she didn’t even recall setting on the table with the towels and headed to the door. When her hand touched the knob she paused. Her twenty-four hours wasn’t up, but he’d refunded her money, so it didn’t really matter what the agreement was. She turned back, looking at the money
on the bed. She hadn’t touched it, not to count it and not to curse Dylan any more than she already had.

  For someone without all the details it would appear she’d just been paid for her services. Cris knew that wasn’t what the money was for, but she couldn’t help feeling irritated anyway.

  How dare he toss money on the bed and walk away as if dismissing her. And why had she readily foregone any clean-up time in the bathroom and dressed so hastily she’d forgotten to put on her bra? It was now stuffed into the front pocket of her jeans. Leaving was exactly what he wanted her to do. But staying would be mortifying.

  She opened the door and walked out before she thought to do otherwise. Slamming it closed behind her was only momentarily rewarding. Pulling her phone out of her purse she called for an Uber as she entered the elevator and tried like hell to convince herself this wasn’t as bad as she thought.

  But it was.

  And two hours later when Cris stepped out of a steaming hot bath and picked up her vibrating phone, she knew that without a doubt.

  Meet me at Tony’s tomorrow at 5.

  The text message seemed like a simple request, but Cris should have remembered, there was never anything simple about her life.

  “Hello?”

  Cris barely opened her eyes as she grabbed the phone from the table beside the bed and swiped a finger over its screen.

  “Well, hello. Nice of you to answer this time. I thought I was going to have to get on a plane and fly up there just to speak to my child.”

  There was a frosty tone to Celestine Palmer’s voice. It was joined by the judgmental silence that always followed her words. Cris fell back onto the pillows dropping an arm over her eyes and cursing herself for not looking at the phone screen to see who was calling before answering. Not that she would have continued to ignore her mother for too long, but she definitely wasn’t in the mood to speak to her today.

  “Hey, Mama.”

  “Don’t “hey” me. I’ve been calling you for the past two days. Your voice mailbox is full. That’s not professional, you know. What if it were an emergency? You cannot just ignore my calls, Cristine. It’s rude and disrespectful.”

  “I was traveling,” Cris said knowing the excuse would not be accepted.

  “Traveling? Again? When do you plan to settle yourself down and act like an adult? You left New York a couple weeks ago. Then you were in D.C. Where are you now? And what traveling are you doing if you’ve quit your job?”

  Cris didn’t know what time it was but she was betting that it was too early to be questioned with this much intensity. She pulled the phone away from her ear and lifted her arm slightly so she could peek at the screen. Seven-thirty-five. Who in the world called a person to yell at them at seven-thirty-five in the morning? Celestine Palmer, that’s who.

  “I’m back in D.C., Mama. I’ll be here for a while.” At least that was Cris’s initial plan. She had a couple of interviews lined up at firms and was going to look for apartments this week. The quick jaunt to Chicago caused her to cancel an appointment to look at one apartment building. She would call them back today to see if she could reschedule.

  “Why D.C.? You know you belong here in Charleston. Your father has an office waiting for you at the company. He’s been holding that position since the day you graduated from law school.”

  “I’m not coming to work for Daddy.” Cris had repeated those words at least five times a year since she graduated from law school.

  Jeremiah Palmer owned Goldpike Insurance Company, one of the largest home, auto and life insurance companies on the east coast. Each of his three sons had followed in Jeremiah’s footsteps attending Clemson University and going to work at the insurance company after their graduation. Cris was the only one to break the mold. Her parents had not taken kindly to that.

  “You’re being stubborn and for no good reason. You have no business running around from state to state on your own. Not when you can come back home where you’ll be safe.”

  “I’m not unsafe, Mama. Besides that, I’m an adult. I can take care of myself wherever I live.”

  “But if you came home I could keep an eye on you. And don’t argue with me about that, I’m your mother and it’s my job to take care of you.”

  Not for my entire life. Cris wisely did not speak those words. Instead she tried to take slow and steadying breaths. It was the only way to survive conversations with her mother.

  “Anyway, I’m calling for another reason. You know your father’s sixtieth birthday is coming up and I’m planning a big celebration. I want to make sure you’re going to be here. Daniel Sanderson is coming. His parents own that department store franchise and Daniel was responsible for their international expansion.”

  And now she was matchmaking. Cris resisted the urge to groan and hang up the phone.

  “Of course I’ll be there for Daddy’s party. And yes, I remember Daniel. But I’m not looking for a husband.”

  This was something else Cris had to tell her mother numerous times a year. Actually, this conversation had begun the day after Cris graduated from high school. Because Celestine married Jeremiah when she was seventeen years old, she thought it made perfect sense for Cris to come right out of school, find herself a good husband and settle down to have a family. Cris wasn’t totally adverse to the idea of building a family, she just had a professional plan she wanted to see to fruition first.

  “Nonsense, you’ll be thirty years old next year. If you think your body is going to wait forever to make babies, you’re mistaken. Things dry up and stop working in no time at all for women. You don’t have any more time to waste. Now, Daniel is a nice boy. He’s handsome and has a house down here. I think his mother said he also bought a vacation home on some island, you know how Earlene likes to brag about her boy. So you should get here a week before the party so we’ll have time to shop for a dress.”

  Cris rolled over, pulling the pillow over her head while her mother continued to talk. There was really no need for her to speak at the moment because Celestine wasn’t going to hear a word she said. Once her mother started with a plan she was like a primly dressed bulldozer.

  4

  Dylan sighed heavily when the door to his office finally closed. It was almost four-thirty and this was the first time today he’d been alone. He had meetings with two clients this morning and this afternoon he’d met with the three associates in his group. As one of the youngest partners at Loman Regent, Dylan supervised the firm’s lobbying division. He was currently involved in training the three associates to not only serve as registered District of Columbia lobbyists, but to also offer their clients the assurance that other lobbyists they selected were also complying with all registration and reporting requirements.

  In addition to his full workload, Dylan had been making calls to a few businesses in Chicago in an effort to get a better handle on what was going on in the Southlake area. He was currently waiting for a call back from the owner of one of the few black-owned banks in the Chicago area. In his calls Dylan had uncovered a rent control issue that local business owners and residents had been dealing with for far too long. He wanted to do something about it sooner rather than later.

  Dylan had just sat back in his chair, letting his head rest on the soft leather and closed his eyes when there was a quick knock on his door. He lifted his head and was saying “come in” as his assistant, Gwen, was entering the office.

  “Leiland wants to set up a conference call at four-thirty. I told him you had an out-of-the-office meeting on your schedule, but that I would check to confirm your unavailability. So, I’m confirming, you’re not available, because you skipped lunch. You should leave now, get an early dinner, catch a movie, take a walk, do something besides sit up in this office and work.”

  Gwen Harris was a fifty-four year old black woman who didn’t look as if she was a day over twenty-nine. Today she wore a dark green dress with a black jacket and flat black shoes. Her hair was neatly styled in big curls that circled her f
ace, while her gold-rimmed glasses sat atop high cheekbones on mocha-hued skin. She’d been his assistant for the past eight years he’d been with the firm but tended to act more like a mother hen than a paid employee. After spending six months with Mama Peaches, Dylan was able to stand a little mothering. He hardly ever wondered why his biological mother had never been able to do what had come so easily to these other two women.

  “You’re right, I am unavailable. Leiland wants to talk about the Channing Group and their push for laws lowering the age of gun permit applicants.”

  Gwen shook her head as she placed a folder on top of Dylan’s inbox and removed the letters he’d signed from the outbox beneath it.

  “And that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. With all these mass shootings going on around the world, that’s the last thing anybody should be thinking about. Hell, I didn’t know if I was coming or going when I was eighteen, no way I would have known how to handle a gun responsibly.”

  “I agree. I’m starting to think that twenty-one might be too young as well, but we definitely weren’t hired to lower the minimum age. I’d really prefer he work with Mike Hall or Pete Bivins on that.”

  “Well, you know why he wants you, because you’re the best in this group. Mike and Pete may have seniority but you bring in more high-paying clients and you’re better at keeping existing clients satisfied. Plus, he likes how you still remain involved in all the bar activities and you’re not out here creating a bad reputation for yourself like most of the young lobbyists and politicians around town.”

  Dylan loosened his tie as Gwen talked. She was his biggest champion in the firm and likewise when it was review time, Dylan had always given Gwen the highest praise. She was his right and left hand at work and he readily acknowledged that he could not do his job half as well without her. As for the reputations she just mentioned, Dylan had made a point of keeping his tarnish-free. Leiland Regent’s grandfather had built this firm with his best friend Kreiger Loman. Today the firm was forty-five years old with seven locations around the world. They prided themselves on an impeccable professional relationship and frowned greatly upon any employees who did not do the same. As the only black partner in the D.C. office, Dylan knew he had to walk the straight and narrow at every point in his life. Which is why his membership at The Corporation was under a different name and he never drove his car to the elite sex club, but always used the club’s private car service.