“And then?”
“And then find out all you can about the girl. You haven’t been giving me good intel if he has some new love interest we knew nothing about.”
“And then?”
“And then we find out what she truly means to him. That will be the key. Because getting somebody alone with him again might prove difficult. I don’t have a pile of socialites in my pocket. It was a good plan, but it blew up in our faces. And we didn’t see it coming. That had better not be the case a second time. Now get to work!”
“Yes ma’am.” And the call ended.
Felicity, standing in the doorway of the powder room, looked at Melissa. “Does this mean I won’t get the rest of the money?”
Melissa looked at her with a chilling look. “What do you think bitch?” she asked her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
When Joy woke up later that morning in his bed, it felt as if she’d never had a better night’s sleep. But when she turned to look at him, he wasn’t there. And that was when she remembered this was a work day. She had to be at HR by eight a.m.
She jumped out of bed, hurried down the hall to the guest bedroom, and quickly cleaned off, brushed her teeth again, and then combed her hair and got dressed. She wanted to take another long tub bath, but that was out of the question. She grabbed her purse and phone and hurried downstairs.
But William wasn’t in the living room either. Which surprised her. He wasn’t upstairs. She didn’t hear a sound upstairs. And he wasn’t downstairs either? What if he went to work and left her? What if he decided she was some no-account lay-about and left her to figure it out for herself? What if he regretted what happened and didn’t want her around as a reminder? She was beginning to panic!
And that was when she heard voices coming from the kitchen. The sound of people talking. When she heard William’s voice among them, her panic eased. She was known for leaping to conclusions without knowing all the facts. He wouldn’t have left her. What was she thinking? He was still, right there, in the house. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t angry with her for getting up so late.
What time was it anyway, she thought, as she hurried for the kitchen. She was so busy getting dressed, certain she was way too late, that she had forgotten to look. But when she lookedat her phone and saw that it was only a few minutes after seven am, all of her rushing and fears disappeared. And she shook her head.Get it together, Joy. Get it together! She even pulled out her comb and compact mirror and tried to freshen up her hair again.
She stared at herself in that little mirror. Her hair was a natural length below her neck, and those curls still held. It looked nice. She put on her lipstick and used her compact to put on a little face powder too, something she also didn’t think she had time to do before she actually checked the time. Now she felt better. She felt more put together. And even though the dress she wore was nothing fancy, it fit her like a glove. She was satisfied.
But before she went into that kitchen, she steeled herself to calm her nerves, let out a long exhale, and then walked on in.
William was standing behind the huge center island, while a black man and that Sloane lady were seated on the stools on the other side from where William stood. Joy was surprised to see a big fat cigar in William’s hand, and what looked like a glass of wine he was sipping. Especially at that time of morning. But maybe that was how the rich rolled. What did she know about that lifestyle?
But she did feel excited to see him again. She loved falling asleep in his arms. It made her feel so protected. But where in the world could it lead? Was she just another notch on is belt? If she was, it was her own damn fault. If he told her to take a hike, she couldn’t blame anybody but herself.
But right now, she had to face the music. She put on her best big, bright smile. “Good morning!” she said cheerfully as she made her way to the countertop.
William, Bobby, and Sloane all looked at her as she walked towards them.
For William, it was all about how she made him feel. Which was warm and inviting and even joyful. He was happy to see her. And the way it felt when he first went inside of her was giving him a warmth of a different kind. He still felt those shockwaves. And although he regretted going all the way with her, he didn’t regret how she made him feel. Because just seeing her again looking so refreshed and bubbly, with her thick brown hair bouncing against her back as she walked, and that smile on her face that lit up his heart, made him want to take her right back up those stairs and do her again. She turned him on. In every way.
For Sloane, it was a dislike that bordered on hatred. That little girl spent the night with William when even she had never been afforded the opportunity.That little whore? How could that be? It was crazy to Sloane!
But for Bobby, he was blown away. Where did this little gem come from? “Well hello there,” he said to her, putting on his best smile too.
William glanced at Bobby. Unlike him, Bobby preferred his ladies to be much-younger than he was. Although he was thirty-five, he often dated twenty-year-olds. His reasoning was that younger ladies were easier to please. Give them a Birkin bag and rent money and they were happy. But William would be damned if Bobby was going to try to add Joynetta to his long list of Birkin bag/rent money whores. She was off limits.
But although they all were looking at her, it was William that Joy was looking to see when she first walked into that kitchen. She looked into his eyes when she first walked in to see if he was pissed with her for not being dressed and downstairs sooner. His temper seemed to come out of the blue that way. But she didn’t see any signs of anger.
What she saw were eyes that seemed to light up with that familiar look that undercover lovers gave to each other wheneverthey were in a room where nobody was supposed to know their secret. He even glanced down the length of her body when he saw her, as if he was still thinking about earlier that morning the way she still was. He took a long puff on his cigar as he continued to stare at her body. As if he couldn’t stop thinking about it and remembering every inch of it. How it felt. How ittasted. Which made her blush with heat.
But as for Sloane, Joy could see the phoniness in that heifer’s smile a mile away. She saw a designing woman who couldn’t wait to get her hooks into William. Joy saw it last night. Even Stevie Wonder could see it. It was even clearer that morning when she was so shocked and disappointed when Joy walked into that kitchen that a feather could have knocked her over.
Joy could also see that the black man seated beside Sloane did a double-take when he saw her, and she gave him a full look too. Mainly because he was black like her in William’s world that, so far, seemed so ultra-white. But also because he was a very attractive man. Maybe even more so than William. And younger than William too. Not exactly her age kind of young. He might have had ten years on her too. But he definitely had the look of a man the ladies would love. In Bridell, she would view him as one of those uptown brothers who wouldn’t give a woman like her from the wrong side of the tracks the time of day.
But she wasn’t in Bridell. She was in a rich man’s house. He probably figured she belonged there and was on his level too. “Good morning,” she said to Bobby specifically, since he was the only one to say anything to her so far, but she was looking at all three of them.
Bobby found himself staring at Joy as he stood to his feet on her arrival. In his eyes she had a soft, clean, understated beauty about her that made her, in many ways, strikinglybeautiful. She was the kind of sister his beloved parents would love for him to marry. “No need to bring home no white girl, they told him. “We come in every color. Pick one.”
But she looked rather young too. Like easily in her early twenties. Which would certainly disqualify her as William’s type. But why was she at his house? Where in the world did she come from? “Of whom do I have the pleasure of meeting?” he asked her as he extended his big, bronzed hand.
