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Chapter Two
~Katara Johnson~
Same day in London, England
I could spit bricks at Orion Townsend, who’s perching on the end of my glass desk with a Cherrywood bottom, his wrists crossed over his lap. A pleading look wears his chiseled face constructed of high cheekbones, cleft chin, aristocratic nose, and dark-gold eyes. His DNA is the mandatory melting pot of races needed to produce that extraordinary shade of his pupils and the cool blush tone of his skin. European, Brazilian, Caucasian, Egyptian, and last but sure as hell not least in my book, African-American. Let’s just say his family reunions are interesting whenever he returns to Arrow to participate in the functions.
He pushes the long fingers of his left hand through his auburn hair that’s tapered and clipped to within an inch of its life on the sides and back. Since I met him in the middle of my five years of college in Colorado, I’ve sworn his hair coloring comes out of a bottle and he uses a curling iron every day. He keeps promising it doesn’t, that the big, shiny curls arching to a point at the edge of his right temple is natural after every haircut.
Well, he does manage to find one hell of a barber, no matter what country we’re in. I wouldn’t pay a hairdresser the amount of money Orion does to attain that springy spiral that drapes across his eyebrow. It’s like a siren call to almost every woman on both sides of the pond, begging to be pulled on in the middle of hot, sweaty sex. Just not by me. I’d have to get over Tommy Owen’s ass first.
Orion’s the kind of man that makes you want to hang on to him. No thank you very much, I’m good with rare, thoroughly protected one-night stands outside the place that provides my accustomed living standards, or I was good until about three years ago when my biological clock started ticking away like a time bomb. If I had ever considered sleeping with Orion, I’ve certainly changed my mind now with what he’s just asked me to do for him.
“Kat, I really, truly need you to represent this company in Arrow the day after tomorrow. I know it’s last minute, but this merger seems to be eating up every ounce of time I have. I haven’t slept since this thing started a month ago. I’d go to Arrow myself, but Malcolm fucking Destin keeps changing the terms of the deal like he does his underwear and has me at his every damn beck and nuisance call and dinner date.”
“Which is daily,” I pipe in as Townsend’s Cellular Global corporate lawyer who is more scorned woman than professional right now.
I thought Orion and I were friends before colleagues. What he’s asking me to do is just as bad as pitting me against a ticked off cobra: schmoozing his connects that live too close to Tommy. Somebody is going to get hurt. That’ll be me if I agree to do what my boss wants.
He’s not the only one who hasn’t slept fitfully in a month. Every time Malcolm changes his mind about something to do with combining Townsend Cellular Global with Destin Towers, which produces the best radio transmitters and receivers worldwide, I get to make sure the changes Malcolm wants implemented in the negotiations are square with the law in just England for now, and benefits TCG.
A cushy job but not the easiest.
Pushing my hair back behind my ears, I contemplate saying no to my boss, my not-so-much-friend right now. No to going back to Arrow to support a valued business associate and our old friend from college at his wedding. But is saying no going to cost me my job and friend that might just be worth losing at this point?
Why the hell did O have to buy this company ten years ago that can affiliate and merge with other big communication corporations owned by his friends that can demand he show up for their functions? What’s wrong with making microwaves and car parts in Timbuktu where nobody really knows the location of or ever heard of anybody from there?
There’s a reason that I should say, ‘Hell no!’ to Orion. Bumping into Tommy is absolutely not worth what seeing him again is going to do to me. And I know it’s going to do something to me. It’s why I took Orion’s job offer and transferred all the way to England to get away from Tommy—why I haven’t been back to Arrow since I threw my mother’s prized chrysanthemums at him for cheating on me.
I don’t want to recall but I can’t help remembering the day Edison personally drove me to the site of Tommy’s betrayal: Benita Arnett’s apartment that Tommy’s car was parked outside of.
The tramp had been sniffing after him since before Tommy and I got together my first year of college. I didn’t lose my shit right then, but I so wanted to, by knocking on Benita’s door then tearing her, her home, and Tommy to pieces.
I like to think I’m too classy for that though, wasn’t about to give Edison the satisfaction of seeing me show out on Tommy. Edison’s motive for taking me there so I could see Tommy as a two-timing snake were made crystal clear with his subtle hints of how much I needed a good man in my life, one who isn’t afraid to tell me truth, even show me if he had to. And no, Edison didn’t get the satisfaction of me becoming his girl as well. I did leave Benita’s street with a broken heart and the inability to believe a damn thing men say without it being heavily researched and notarized first.
You can’t research if someone loves you though. Since I couldn’t, I got the hell out of Dodge before I took Tommy back. He may not have loved me, but I completely loved him.
Still do.
I loathe the truth instantly, didn’t want to admit that. If I can still say Tommy has my heart, I shouldn’t go back to Arrow. I won’t. Especially now that my biological clock is clanging so loud in my ears I can see the actual damn bells going off in between them.
I cross my legs and sit back in my chair before dead-eyeing Orion. “Mr. Townsend—”
He huffs. “Oh hell, if you’re being official, you’re about to turn me down, but Kat, listen. We need to support everyone now who’s on our team before and after this merger. You know Devlin is investing a cool ten billion in our expansion overseas after we get Malcolm to sign on the dotted line here, and we need Devlin like air if we’re going to compete with the likes of Verizon and T-Mobile. Giants in the industry.”
Screw Orion’s ambitions. That cool ten billion will go in his pocket, not mine.
Respectfully, I ask, “Who is ‘us’? I’m just your lawyer.”
“Us as in everyone that makes a living with TCG and wants bigger bonuses this year. And you’re my friend first. The best one I have. Always have been. The only woman not trying to use me for something. I can’t even claim that of my own mother. Look, I know why you don’t want to go. All you have to do is stick close to your house in the suburbs until the wedding, and then book it to the next airport before Tommy even knows you’re in town. Don’t even unpack. Simple.”
Not so simple. I don’t know why I kept the house after my parents gifted it to me for buckling down and finishing college half a year early. They moved to Florida shortly afterwards where I have no troubles visiting at least four times a year. Why couldn’t the damn wedding be there?
Someone in Arrow is going to see me. Someone in Arrow is going to report back to Tommy that I’m in the area. Someone is going to be unable to resist Tommy if he comes looking for me for old times’ sake… or if I lay eyes on him. I know my damn limitations. Apparently, Orion doesn’t recognize the most important half of the battle that he’s throwing me head first with no weapons into: keeping Tommy at arm’s length.
“So, if you know why I don’t want to go, O, why are you asking me to?”
He leans over, arm propped on his muscular thigh. “Because Devlin likes you as much as he does me and knows you as well. You’re the only one that he can talk shop with like he can me. You were in from the ground floor up when I bought this company, know every aspect of it, and can reminisce about our old times at our Alma Mater with him.”
