“Jayda. The girl you want for the party.”
Harrison looked over at Raymond. “I’ll get back with you shortly, gentlemen,” he said into his car phone and ended the conference call. He looked at Raymond.
“Why on earth would she say no?” asked Carter him.
“She said she’s got a bad feeling about it. Like she don’t trust y’all. Like y’all are gonna abuse her or something, and she ain’t that kind of girl.”
“Oh for crying out loud!” said a flustered Carter. “Nobody wants to abuse that child.”
“She ain’t a child, Mister.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” said an even more flustered Carter.
“How can she be persuaded?” Harrison asked Raymond.
Raymond thought about it. “Her old man dumped her and left her holding the whole rent bag by herself. Which she can’t pay on her own. She’s gonna be evicted by next month ifshe don’t be able to pay her full rent. Maybe an advance would help.”
“Anadvance?” Carter was livid. “Who pays a waitress an advance?”
But Harrison wasn’t so dismissive. He’d already made up his mind that she was who he wanted. “It would force her to show up at least,” Harrison said to Carter. Then he looked at Raymond. “Are you sure that will do the trick?”
“I’ll be honest with you. She’s scared. She need the money, but not like that.”
“Like what?” asked Carter. “Why do you keep insinuating that we’re sex traffickers or something?”
“Where is she now?” asked Harrison.
“She’s working. Where else she gonna be?”
Harrison began unbuckling his seatbelt.
Carter frowned. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Harrison didn’t want to be bothered with this any more than Carter did, but he felt he needed to intervene. She was the only woman he was going to consider taking to his father’s estate. She was the only one he wanted to consider. And she was also, if he were to be honest with himself, the only woman at present that he wanted in his bed. “She needs to be persuaded. I’m going to persuade her,” he said as he got out of the limousine.
Vincent, his bodyguard, hurried out from the front passenger seat, suddenly caught off guard by the boss’s quick move. But Harrison was already out and heading for the restaurant’s entrance by the time he made it in front of him and opened the restaurant door for him. Carter hurried out behind them, and he and Raymond hurried inside too.
Inside, Raymond escorted Harrison, Carter, and Vincent to the employee break room, and then went and got Jayda.
“Some breakroom,” Carter said as he looked at the cheap table and chairs and the microwave and snack machine. He ran his fingers across the table and dust appeared. “Filthy too.”
Harrison sat sideways at the small table and crossed his legs. He couldn’t care less about the state of that breakroom. He just wanted to get her onboard and then get the hell out of there. His usual evening headache was coming on.
Although Vincent remained standing against the wall so that he could see who was coming and going out of that breakroom, Carter finally sat down too. “I can see your point about impressing your old man with a move like this. I can see where you’re going with it. But why this girl? Why not a black woman in a social status more like ours? There’s plenty I can recommend. And I’m talking some foxy ladies. Why this nobody waitress? Whyher?”
Harrison exhaled. It was a feeling, that was why. It was his reaction to her. But that was his business. “Why not her?” he responded.
“Okay. Maybe her low social status is a part of your scheme. I can get that too. But there’s other black women in this place who won’t pull all this diva shit she’s pulling. The black lady bartender for instance. That manager said she was down for whatever. Why don’t you go with her? She might not be so hard to get as this nobody waitress appears to be. We don’t need a hard-to-get. We need a willing participant.”
When Harrison said nothing, Carter continued. “Why did you single her out anyway after what she did to your car? And it wasn’t like she was some superstar waitress at our table. To me she kind of sucked. Wouldn’t flirt. Wouldn’t joke around. Just all business all the time. But you seemed smitten with her even while you were looking at her on that security monitor in your office.”
“I’m not smitten with anyone,” Harrison quickly pointed out. “My interest in her is strictly business.”
Carter inwardly sneered. Strictly business his ass. But that was Harrison.
“She’s a means to an end,” Harrison continued. “No more, no less. You said it yourself. For Father to choose me, I need to get the upper hand. Given my father’s affinity for the African American race, I’m inclined to believe she may be able to give me that advantage. My father wants the head of Bainbridge Oil to be a married man. It’s ludicrous to me, but I accept that. Once he sees who I’m engaged to marry, he very well might be quite pleased.”
“I agree with that,” said Carter. “In theory, anyway, I agree. But the way you were looking at her seemed less about your father’s needs or interests, and more about your own.”
