The Best Thing He Never Knew He Needed (16 page)

“
Oh, so I should be
flattered.” Sherita took a sip of coffee.

“
Yes, you should be,
Sherita.”

“
I see. Well, thank you
for breakfast and thanks for buying my coffee a week
ago.”

“
You’re welcome,
princess.” He bit into another waffle, his second one, dripping
syrup.

“
And stop calling me
that.”

He shook his head.
“Nope.”

“
I demand you stop calling
me that,” Sherita said, withholding a smile.

He laughed. “Your demands
don’t scare me.”

“
Seriously, though…I don’t
want to be grouped in the same category as your other women. I’m
sure you have plenty of princesses in Asheville.”

“
You’re being presumptuous
again.”

“
No, I’m not. I’ve heard
about you…heard women telling stories about you at the coffee
shop.”

“
Forget what you heard,
Sherita. I only have one princess, and again, you should be
flattered.”

She looked at him, held his
gaze for a moment, then watched as he crammed the rest of the
waffle inside of his mouth.

Desmond wiped his mouth
with a napkin, took a sip of coffee then said, “Now, back to
business…Victor Westwood isn’t new to The Champion Corporation.
When we first opened our doors, we wanted to do business with him,
but he turned us down…said we weren’t ready. Now that we’ve grown
our company into a multi-million dollar empire, he sees our
strength in the market and the value and expertise we bring to the
online business field. Therefore, he wants us to develop a
top-notch website and phone application for his new company. My job
is to come up with a comprehensive marketing strategy for the
launch of his company.”

“
The marketing part of it
sounds a lot easier than building a website and phone
application.”

“
Quite the contrary. Do
you know anything about marketing, Sherita?”

“
No. If I did, I’d have
more clients.”

“
Clients?” Desmond asked
with raised eyebrows.

“
With my photography
business.”

“
Oh. Right,” he said. He
picked up his iPad, quickly pulled up a search engine and typed her
name. He clicked on her website and saw how unorganized it was
right away. “Okay, so you know the importance of marketing. You
just don’t know how it’s done.”

“
Correct.”

“
Well, just to give you a
little lesson, marketing is the life of a business or product. I
don’t care how good of a brand you are. You can have the best soda
or be the best designer or, in your case, photographer – if no one
knows about you, your business is as good as dead. That’s where I
come in. I create ads, run social media campaigns, get people and
their products on television in front of millions of viewers. The
process is not as easy as you may think.”

“
I guess I was
wrong.”

“
You were, but I won’t
hold it against you.” Desmond took a sip of coffee. “Now, what I’m
about to tell you is highly confidential, and I never want these
words to pass through your lips.”

Sherita nodded, nervously
twirling her diamond ring underneath the table.

“
Victor is creating a
service swap company. From what I’ve found, there may be a few of
them in existence, but they don’t seem to be taking off in the
mainstream. People are accustomed to paying for services, not
bartering services. So I’m going to take his company and present it
to the world like it’s a completely new concept even it’s not.
After a few online campaigns as well as TV advertisements, his
company will be number one in a matter of months.”

“
You seem pretty confident
about that.”

“
I am.”

Sherita hid a smirk.
Nothing was sexier than an intelligent, confident man. She wouldn’t
tell him that, though. His ego was big enough already. After a few
moments of silence, she said, “This is off topic but how much was
this ring?” She placed her hand on the table.

Desmond glanced at the
ring, then looked at her. “Why do you ask? Do you not like
it?”

“
I do like it. It just
looks expensive.”

“
It was…paid eighty-two
thousand for it.”

Her mouth fell open. “Why
would you pay so much money for a temporary ring?”

“
Because anything attached
to my name has to be the best.”

“
I see.” She finished the
last of her coffee. “Well, I’m going to get my things organized. We
can go over this stuff again later if you would like.”

“
I’ll leave that up to
you.”

“
All right,” she said
standing. “I’ll let you know, then.”

After throwing her
container in the garbage, she exited the kitchen, feeling the heat
of Desmond’s eyes as she did so.

CHAPTER 18

She didn’t want to ride
with him. The last time they were in a vehicle together, she nearly
lost her breath and her senses. When she saw him standing in the
foyer, clean-shaven, wearing a black suit, matching tie and white
shirt, she was certain that being in close proximity to him would
give her the same effect.

“
Ready?” she asked him,
watching his eyes sweep over her. She was wearing black, too, as
Desmond had suggested, and her hair was hanging straight with a
hint of a curl on the ends.

Desmond lost his thoughts
as he studied her, loving how well the dress fit her body. And she
wore a pair of black heels that accentuated her calf muscles and
made her about five inches taller in the process – that made her
face a little closer to his face. Her lips a little closer to his
lips. And she wore her hair down. He’d suggested that too, but
didn’t think she would oblige. He was happy to see that she did,
but it made him wonder how he would resist the urge to sink his
hands into her beautiful head of hair.

“
Desmond?”

“
Yes. Ready. Let’s go,” he
finally answered.

* * *

“
Victor Westwood, it’s
good to see you again,” Desmond said with a tightened jaw, shaking
Victor’s hand.

“
You as well, Desmond,”
the man said. “And this lovely lady must be your wife.” Victor
reached for Sherita’s hand, brought it up to his lips, then took a
kiss from the backside of her hand.

Desmond hid a grimace and
said, “Yes. This is my wife, Sherita. Sherita this is Victor
Westwood.”

“
It’s nice to meet you,
Mr. Westwood,” Sherita said.

“
Oh, darling, the pleasure
is all mine, and please, call me Victor.”

“
Okay, Victor,” Sherita
said, pulling her hand away from his grasp.

After speaking to Emily,
Dante, Melanie and Dimitrius, Desmond pulled out Sherita’s chair,
made sure she was comfortable before he sat down next to
her.

“
I was just telling your
brothers that my Florence is under the weather, but she says
hello,” Victor said, speaking of his wife.

“
Well, tell her we said
hi,” Desmond told him.

The waitress brought over
three bottles of champagne and the men each poured a glass for
their wives.

“
So, Desmond, now that
I’ve gotten the skinny on your brothers, how long have you and
Sherita been married?”

“
Two years.” Desmond
looked at Sherita and smiled warmly.

“
Love is a beautiful
thing, isn’t it?” Victor said. “When I first met Florence, I knew
she was the one.”

“
Really?” Sherita asked.
“Was it love at first sight?”

“
It was indeed. I still
remember how she looked at me that day. We were at a train station,
Grand Central, and I turned around to see how long the line was and
our eyes connected instantly.”

“
Aw,” Sherita said,
placing her hand over her heart. “Desmond and I met at a café. I
was sitting alone, and he came over to strike up a conversation
with me. Of course I played hard to get.”

“
Oh, yes…you women know
how to play that game.” Victor chuckled.

“
Yeah, but I had to play
that game with Desmond because,” Sherita turned to look at Desmond,
holding his gaze, and continued, “I didn’t want him to know the
kind of affect he had on me…didn’t want him to know that whenever I
was around him, my heartbeats became rapid, I couldn’t think, could
hardly even breathe because he was the most handsome man I’d ever
seen in my entire life. And now he’s my husband.” Sherita leaned
towards Desmond, pressing her lips against his, smiling when they
separated.

Emily smiled, thinking that
Sherita was doing a good job of pretending. She was actually
impressed, along with the rest of the family, especially,
Dante.

Desmond, on the other hand,
was a bit confused. He thought he’d be the dominate
conversationalist between the two. He hadn’t expected Sherita to
come with her ‘A’ game, especially after she seemed so
uncomfortable when they were practicing at home.

While Dante and Victor were
knee-deep in a discussion about online businesses, Sherita leaned
over near Desmond, her lips a breath away from his ear and
whispered, “I meant to tell you in the car…this lipstick won’t rub
off, so don’t worry about me leaving any on you.”

She moved her head back
away from him so she could see his eyes again. She saw confusion in
them and couldn’t understand why. Was she not doing what he asked
her to? What they’d practiced?

Dimitrius had explained to
Victor the process of developing the application and, afterwards,
Desmond gave Victor a high-level overview of the marketing strategy
he had in mind, all to Victor’s liking.

When Desmond was done,
Sherita took his left hand into her right, interlocking their
fingers then bringing his hand up against the side of her face,
rubbing her face against his hand – those strong, sexy hands that
she was glad she had the opportunity to play with. When she lowered
their hands to the table again, she traced the thick veins of his
hand, drawing invisible circles before bringing that same hand to
her nose, drawing in a long breath, inhaling the scent of him and
closing her eyes like it gave her a drug high.

Desmond swallowed hard,
feeling his entire body react to her touch, yet he tried to keep
his composure by taking a sip of champagne. That didn’t help much,
especially when she began pushing her lips against his hand. He
watched her do this several times over before he leaned close to
her ear and whispered, “What are you doing?”

A smile grew on Sherita’s
face when she looked back at him. Leaning close to his ear, she
said softly, “I’m kissing your hand, Desmond, but I’d much rather
be kissing your lips.”

He looked at her, deep in
her eyes and decided he’d much rather be kissing her lips, too. So,
leaning forward for her, their lips collided, in front of everyone,
while they kissed with a hunger that desperately needed to be
fulfilled. Their mouths had merged, mended and with her hands
against the sides of his face, she parted her lips just enough to
drive him insane, releasing a soft gasp when she felt him take
over. For a moment, he forgot they were still at a restaurant, not
like that would’ve made a difference. Her lips were too good to let
go. Even when he heard Emily clearing her throat, trying to
distract them or get them to stop kissing, he kept on deepening the
kiss, moaning deeply, pulling her lips. He loved her lips. Craved
them. Savored them. Okay, so this was for show, all a pretense, but
that didn’t mean he couldn’t take advantage of this opportunity,
right?

He finally pulled his mouth
away from hers, then smiled at her.

Sherita smiled
back.

“
Okay, looks like we need
to wrap this up so the lovebirds can get home,” Victor said,
grinning.

“
Looks that way,” Dante
said.

Sherita smiled big, threw
her arm around Desmond and squeezed him as tightly as she could.
She’d gone above and beyond to convince Victor that she, and
Desmond were a real couple. But she couldn’t deny that she loved
taking advantage of the situation to do things to him that she
secretly always wanted to do – like hold his strong, muscular hand,
whisper seductively in his ear and initiate a kiss. She felt a
level of satisfaction that she was able to do so, and Desmond was
none the wiser.

* * *

After dinner, the men
congregated near Victor’s car, still talking business while Emily
and Melanie were drilling Sherita about her
performance
.

“
Sure looked real to me,”
Melanie said.

Sherita giggled. “It wasn’t
real and if you think it was, maybe I’m in the wrong
profession.”

“
Maybe you are,” Emily
said. “You couldn’t keep your hands off of Desmond.”

Sherita crossed her arms.
“And you couldn’t keep your hands off of Dante, Emily.”

“
Newsflash…Dante is my
husband.”

“
And Desmond is sort
of
my
husband,”
Sherita said. “Look, this wasn’t my idea. I just went with it, and
I think I did a pretty good job.”