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“Maybe.”
“Wow! Are you serious?”
“Maybe.”
“Then maybe I’ll talk to Baby Girl and maybe I won’t.”
“I really need to think about it, Nick.”
“We’ve known each other for four years and been hitting the sheets for the past twelve months and you still need more thinking time?” He stopped eating and pushed the food away. “I don’t want any more of this.”
He was getting mad and I needed to chill him out. “Just twenty-four more hours.”
Nick’s eyes were cold. “Why?”
The truth was I’m just plain commitment phobic but he was in no mood to hear anything like that so I shifted the blame to my sister. “I need to give you 100 percent, Nick. After all this time you don’t deserve any less, but most of the time I’m wondering what really happened to Saundra or how to get her back with Yero
or should I give up the apartment. Stuff like that.”
“And how are you going to solve all that in twenty-four hours?”
I massaged his shoulders and kissed his neck. “I don’t want to lose you. I just said that to buy some time.”
He started kissing me back. “Just say you’re my woman and we’ll solve your problems together.”
It was the moment of truth and I knew that if he walked out that door, we were over.
“I’m your woman,” I whispered softly.
Nick grinned like he’d hit the Lotto and it made me feel better than I had in weeks.
Chapter 44
SAUNDRA
Asha had been humming and singing to herself for the past two days and that could only mean one thing. She had a new man in her life. Ever since the situation with Brent and his wife, I had been living in fear that Asha’s lifestyle was going to get me killed. The fear made me realize that I wanted to live and worked to give me new energy. Who was this new guy? Was he married? Did he make a living doing something legal? I had to know. So, one morning after Asha left for work, I violated her right to privacy.
There was nothing noteworthy in her bathroom cabinet—cold cream, Midol, aspirin, diet pills, rubbing alcohol and throat lozenges.
In the bedroom, I sorted through her desk drawers. The cancelled checks told me that Asha paid her rent, cable, electricity and phone bills on time, which was surprising. Her bank statements showed electronic deposits of her paycheck plus a regular sum of money that made me gasp. Where on earth did Asha get $10,000 on the first of every month to put in her bank account? I riffled through those papers, my heart beating fast. Was she a mule for some drug dealer? I learned that she had started receiving the money exactly twelve months before which meant that she had somehow gotten her hands on $120,000 and it wasn’t through her work as an accessories buyer. Why? How? I would just have to confront her about it and take my punishment for snooping. If I could somehow stop Asha from doing whatever it was and possibly save her life, the anger that she would unleash on me for snooping would be a small price to pay.
I shut the drawer and shifted my attention to the boxes on the top shelf of her closet.
The smallest one was the size of a shoebox. It was crammed with naked pictures of Nick Seabrook. Standing. Sitting. Lying on one side. Lying on another side. Up against the kitchen wall. In the shower. Standing on the edge of the tub. On a beach. In a car. On a car. Jesus!
My fingers shook as I flipped the latch on a large, floral decorated container. There were dozens and dozens of letters. The outside envelopes were addressed from Roger Mitchell to Lola Smith and the postmarks told me that Mama had received them from Asha’s father when they were both just teenagers. I was tempted to read them but were the young thoughts of Roger Mitchell any of my business? Asha obviously didn’t think so because she’d never mentioned this treasure to me.
It was all so unfair, I thought as I left Asha’s bedroom. It was wrong that Roger had been either unable or unwilling to fight whatever demons that had led him to the crack pipe. It was terrible that Mama’s weakness for Roger had led her to stay in that relationship until it damaged her spirit. It was despicable of Philip to use Mama’s body to try to figure out whether he liked men or women and then leave her with another baby to take care of. It was unfair to both me and Asha that Mama worried so much, ate so much, drank so much that she finally keeled over from a stroke before we had a chance to figure out a path for our own lives.
Chapter 45
ASHA
When Mr. Delrossi took his seat at the conference room table, I tapped my water glass for order. Several of the senior staff, my associate buyer, and our guests turned to look at me.
Tucked firmly in my Ann Taylor skirt suit and wearing pearls, I said, “Thank you all for stopping by to meet Splash Brady and Reena Sendo who are partners in Splash Sendo, a brand-new two-woman firm that manufacturers a line of the cutest little handbags to hit the scene since Kate Spade.”
I took a breather and looked at the two perky blondes, barely out of their teens, whom I was talking about. Splash was the trendy girlfriend of an Emmy Award–winning actor and Reena was a party girl about town who seemed to get a truckload of media attention just for walking down the street. Both of them seemed very sullen considering the fact that I had recently ordered $100,000 worth of merchandise from Splash Sendo.
