“Why I got to show you that? I ain’t lyin’ on that gal.”
“Do you or do you not want her rent paid?”
He wanted it. “Just a minute,” he said and closed the door in Edmund’s face.
Edmund looked around at the building. It was nicer than most they passed by, but still substandard in his view.
But that apartment was the last thing on his mind. The way Maude pushed him out of that apartment was front and center on his mind. He’d never been kicked out of anyplace at any time ever. But that young lady did it without batting an eye. All because he did what exactly? He simply pointed out that she didn’t pay her rent. Or did he say she didn’t pay her bills? Either way, it was the same side of the coin. And that upset her?That?
He didn’t understand women. He knew he didn’t. Didn’t want to either. But he truly didn’t understand Maude!
The door opened again and the landlord shoved a receipt book toward him. It was stained with food so Edmund didn’t touch it. But he did see receipts for Maude’s rent payments. Up until last month. And this month. Her rent was fifteen hundred dollars per month, and she was two months behind.
“How much does her late fees total?”
“That’s five hundred dollars for every month she’s late,” the landlord said. “So that’s a thousand dollars by itself.”
Edmund gave him a nasty look. What a ripoff, he thought. But he knew there was no arguing with people like him. Therefore, with the two months Maude was behind, and the additional five months left in the year, and the thousand dollar late fee, Edmund wrote a check for eleven-thousand-five-hundred dollars and made it payable to the name on her otherreceipts: Dillon Rental Properties. He wrote what the check covered and Maude’s apartment number in the memo section, and then tore it out of his checkbook and handed it to the landlord.
The landlord saw the amount and then looked at Edmund in pure shock. “You’re paying her rent all the way to the end of the month?”
“With the two months behind and the late fees included. Yes.”
“Wow. She must be your woman. I thought she was your trick,” he said, and as soon as he said it Edmund punched him with such force that he fell on his ass with a drop so hard that he screamed out just from the fall alone. And then he held the side of his face. “You hit me!” he yelled out. “You hit me!”
“Make certain you get that receipt to Miss Drayton. And after that, you leave her alone. Do I make myself clear? Or do you want another reminder?”
The landlord was nodding his head. The sting of that punch was still reverberating in his body. He wasn’t about to experience that again. “Yes sir. I mean, she won’t hear a peep out of me ever again after I give her that receipt. You can count on that.”
Edmund gave him a hard look and then headed out of that building. And when he got outside and saw an old Buick driving by that was leaned to the side with shiny rims and with loud rap music banging from its thousand-dollar speakers, he shook his head. He took a leave of absence from his job for this? It seemed so implausible to him. But here he was, in the middle of nowhere, paying money he didn’t want to pay for a woman who’d just kicked him out of her apartment as if she was the Queen of Sheba and he was one of her minions. He hurried down those steps and got into his Rolls.
“Where to, Boss?” Wyatt asked when Don closed the back passenger door and got onto the front passenger seat.
“To Atlanta,” he said. “I’m not staying in this hick town another second. Donnell, call my secretary and tell her to book me a suite at the Ritz-Carlton.”
“Yes sir,” Don said. But not before looking at Wyatt, and Wyatt, equally confused, looking at him. Because they both wondered why would he come all this way, land in Dillon, but decide to stay an hour and a half away in Atlanta?
They’d never understand rich people to save their lives.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The next day, after Maude had a long, sleepless night, knocks were heard on her apartment door. She answered quickly, hoping it was him again, but it wasn’t. It was Don.
“Yes?”
“He wants to see you.”
“Then he should come and see me.”
“That’s not gonna happen.”
“Then have a nice day,” she said as she began closing her door.
But Don stopped her. “He’s not gonna take no for an answer, Maude. After how you behaved yesterday,” he added, “it’s amazing he wants to see you at all. Because real talk? That man does not take any shit from anybody okay?And especially no female. I don’t know what you put on that man, but you put something on him. He ordered me to come get you and bring you to him, and it wasn’t a casual command. It was like I’d better do it or lose my job kind of command.”
Don was exaggerating about the job part, but he felt he was understating the fact that Maude did have some kind of hold on Keating.
It wasn’t as if Maude didn’t want to be bothered with him. She hated how they parted ways last night, especially after that man had flown her all the way to Dillon on his own dime and on his own plane. And the fact that she was angry with him because he wanted to help her, not hurt her, didn’t sit right with her either. But the fact that he insinuated that she was a deadbeatwho didn’t pay her bills was the worst offense of all. That went to her character. And she wasn’t going to allow that.
