Big Daddy Sinatra 3: The Best of My Love (The Sinatras of Jericho County) (5 page)

“Her
husband isn’t going to turn anybody against anything around here,” Steve
said.
 
“He’s universally hated around
here.
 
They even call him Big Daddy as a
way to show their disdain.”

Matt
didn’t get it.
 
“How is calling somebody
Big Daddy disdainful?”

“The
same way Uncle Aaron isn’t a term of endearment either.
 
He’s like Big Brother trying to control their
lives because he owns half the town and therefore employs a lot of their family
members.
 
But he shows no mercy.
 
Most people says he’s meaner than a junkyard
dog.
 
The only people who seem to love
him are his wife and kids.
 
And from what
I hear they really love him.
 
Unconditionally.”

“So
what is this Charles Sinatra some old curmudgeon?” Matt asked.
 
“Some old geezer?”

“Hell
no.
 
That’s the thing.
 
He’s younger than you are.”
 
Matt had just turned fifty.

“So
this Jenay got her little certificate in hotel management, married the junkyard
dog, and saved his struggling B & B for him?
 
That’s her story?”

 
“Pretty much,” Steve said, looking over his
notes.
 
“She married some loser when she
was like twenty years old or something like that.
 
Her first marriage.
 
He died like six years ago after a shootout
with police.”

Matt
couldn’t believe it. “A shootout?”

“I
know, but it’s the truth.
 
Sinatra’s
ex-wife had some involvement too in all of that craziness and is now serving
twenty years in prison for her part.
 
She
thought she was going to get off with a slap on the wrist, but she was badly mistaken.
 
So Jenay and Sinatra took over custody of her
ex-husband’s two teenage daughters, adopted them and raised them.”

“How
did that turn out?”

“Good.
 
Both are in college now.
 
The youngest is at Harvard.”

Matt
nodded his head.
 
“Impressive.”

“Indeed.
 
And the oldest is a party girl, and I mean a
party hardy girl, who could only get into Berkskill.”

Matt
smiled.
 
“What the hell is Berkskill?”

“One
of those colleges that caters to the wealthy and well-connected.
 
Her grades weren’t going to get her anywhere
else.
 
But she’ll be graduating soon, so
even her story turned out well.”

But
Matt was not thinking about her story as an end within itself.
 
He was thinking about what kind of leverage
he was going to need if this Jenay Sinatra didn’t go along with his plans.
 
Because he was going to have his way.
 
Everything was on the table as far as he was
concerned.

He
took a sip of his wine and was about to shove another forkful of pasta into his
mouth when his property manager motioned toward the entrance.
 
Jenay Sinatra had arrived.

Matt’s
fork lingered mid-way to his mouth when he laid eyes on Jenay.
 
“Wow,” he said.
 
“I’m surprised.
 
This Big Daddy Sinatra has got some taste.”

“She’s
nice looking, that’s for sure,” Steve agreed.
 
“When I went over to Jericho Inn to request this meeting, I was
impressed too.
 
But don’t get too
enamored.
 
Word around town is that Big
Daddy is very protective of his little lady.
 
It’s the only thing they give him credit for.”

But
Matt was not enamored with her, or even looking at her that way.
 
She was just another pretty face to him on a
nice, slender frame.
 
He was looking at
her weakness.
 
Because it had been his experience
that good looking girls always had a weakness, and that weakness was usually
good looking boys.
 
He smiled.
 
If this meeting didn’t go his way, and the
odds were that it wouldn’t, her looks alone could give him yet another weapon.

“Mrs.
Sinatra, so good to see you again,” Steve said with a grand smile as Jenay
approached their table.
 
He and his boss
both stood up, and Steve extended his hand.

“Good
to see you again as well,” she responded, shaking his hand.

“And
this gentleman right here is the man I told you about.
 
My boss, Matt Dellum.”

“Mr.
Dellum,” Jenay said as she and Matt shook hands.
 
“Nice to meet you.”

Matt
put on his best charming smile.
 
He was
not bad looking either, and he knew how to woo the ladies.
 
“Nice meeting you too, Mrs. Sinatra,” he
said.
 
Then he decided to disarm her so
that he could test her.
 
“May I call you
Jenay?”

Jenay
hesitated.
 
This guy was her competition,
not some friendly acquaintance.
 
“At our
very first meeting?” she asked.
 
“You may
not.”

She
could tell he didn’t like her response, as his blue eyes took on a colder hue,
but she didn’t care.
 
It had been her
experience that whenever she allowed a businessman to disrespect her as a
businesswoman, they took too many liberties with her that she would later have
to beat back.
 
She just as soon not even
go there to begin with.
 
Especially since
he was, she once again reminded herself, her direct competition in the Bed and
Breakfast trade.

Although
Matt smiled off her response, she was right: he didn’t like it at all.
 
But it gave him information.
 
She was not a pushover. He was going to have
to bring his A-game.
 
“Please have a seat,”
he said.

Jenay
sat midway on the empty banquette booth seat across from them.
 
Matt and Steve also sat down.

“It’s
a pleasure to finally meet you, Mrs. Sinatra,” Matt said.
 
“But I thought Steve said your husband would
also attend.”

“He’s
on his way.”
 
Jenay was disheartened when
she arrived at Marymount and didn’t see his Jaguar already in the parking
lot.
 
She thought he would beat her
there, but she should have known better.
 
Charles never just went where he said he was going to go.
 
He went ten other places, and then he
arrived.
 
“I apologize for our
tardiness.
 
I just text my husband.
 
He’s only a couple blocks away.”

“Good,”
Matt said.
 
“We’ll wait on him then.”

They
all sat back to small talk as Jenay ordered drinks for herself and Charles, and
within minutes Charles arrived.
 
Like a
ball of fire, Matt thought, when he laid eyes on him.
 
He was not especially tall, but he was
compact and strong, a well-dressed man of good looks and toughness: a rare
combination.
  
If he thought Jenay might
be a handful, he could already sense that that husband of hers was going to be
an armful.
 
He had his work cut out for
him.
 

Jenay
remained seated and slid further across her seat as the men stood and greeted
Charles with handshakes and more small talk.
 
Charles then leaned down, kissed Jenay on the lips, and sat beside
her.
 
The waiter immediately brought the
drinks for Jenay and Charles.

“So
you weren’t on time either,” Charles said with a smile when the waiter left.

“No
thanks to you,” Jenay responded, reminding him by those words alone about his
insistence on sex this morning; sex that went far longer than it should have,
and that made her late to begin with.

Charles
had a different response.
 
His dick
stiffened at just the thought of how it felt when he was inside of her.
 
And how he wanted in again.
 
They even exchanged a knowing glance just at
the thought of it.
 
And that, to Charles,
was priceless.
 
He had a soulmate
now.
 
And if making their competitor wait
longer was the price he had to pay to enjoy his soulmate the way he enjoyed
Jenay this morning, he would gladly pay it again and again.

“It’s
nice to be in Jericho,” Matt said.
 
“Lived here all your life, Mr. Sinatra?”

Jenay
found it instructive that Matt did not bother to ask Charles if he could call
him by his first name on their first meeting, but it was not worth mentioning.

“I
was born and raised here, yes,” Charles responded.

“So
it’s a nice town then?”

“It’s
alright.”

“Well
I’m sure it’s better than alright for you, Mr. Sinatra,” Matt said with a
smile.
 
“You own practically half of it.”

Charles
didn’t respond to that fact. He stared at Matt.
 
Although Matt thought he was getting info on Charles, Charles had his
radar on him.
  
And his radar, whom he
trusted with his life, was already telling him that this was a snake that was
looking to bite.
 
“What can we do for
you, Mr. Dellum?” he asked.

Matt
smiled.
 
“You want to get down to
business, in other words?”

“What
can we do for you, Mr. Dellum?” Jenay asked.
 
She’d already detected the snake in him too.

Matt’s
smile left.
 
These two were no country
bumpkins, that was for damn sure.
 
“Let’s
get down to it then,” he said.
 
“As you
know, I recently purchased a Bed and Breakfast here in town.
 
It was once the town’s most successful B
& B, but over the last few years it has declined.”

“It
hasn’t declined,” Charles said.
 
“It
remained the same.
 
Jericho Inn outpaced
it.
 
My wife busted her ass, worked
harder than everybody else, and made it the success it is today.”

“You
can put it that way,” Matt said, refusing to cede even that little ground.
 
“Jericho Inn is certainly doing better than
the one I purchased, yes.
 
But the point
is, I think we both can do far better than that.
 
We can do far greater things than running
some country-ass hotels.”

If he
expected Charles and Jenay to eagerly ask what those “far greater things” were,
he was mistaken.
 
They remained silent,
which left Matt no alternative except to fill the quiet with his own words.

“How
about a world class, first rate resort?” Matt asked.
 
“Right here in Jericho.
 
We can even call it the Jericho Inn.
 
Or, even better, the Sinatra Inn.
 
I don’t care.
  
But it’ll be world class and will turn this sleepy little town into a
hip, jumping resort town for millionaires and billionaires.
 
It’ll be the Aspen of Maine.”

Jenay
had not expected him to go there.
 
She
wanted to look at Charles, to see if he was surprised too, but she remained
stoic.
 
This was a matter of business,
and Charles was the best businessman/negotiator she’d ever met.
 
She was going to take her cues from him, not
the other way around.

Matt
waited for a response.
 
But again,
Charles only sat there.
 
And again, Matt
had to fill the void with his own words.
 
He had to state his full intentions.
 
“To make it all happen, however,” he said, “we will need to merge both
of our hotels first and foremost.
 
That’s
because we simply cannot have any upscale competition whatsoever.
 
The town’s various motels can remain, but our
resort will be it in terms of a luxurious place to stay, and we will keep the
city council well fed, if you know what I mean, so that nobody else can come
and try to usurp that position from us.
 
So what do you guys think?
 
About
merging our hotels I mean?”

“You
aren’t here to merge any hotels,” Charles said.
 
“That’s the last thing on your mind.
 
You’re here to merge money.
 
Specifically to merge my big money with your not-so-big money.”

Matt
and Steve both smiled.
 
“I’m sure that’s
not it, Mr. Sinatra,” Steve said.
 
“Mr.
Dellum is a very wealthy man.”