Enchanted Heart (12 page)

Lance bowed his head. He wasn't used to dealing with teenagers, particularly sharp street kids. His frustration mounted.

“Everybody in here is human,” he said. “I drive a nice car and wear nice clothes. I live in a nice place. If you want those things you can have them, too. By staying in school, by working hard.”

“Where you work?” Chrysanthemum asked.

The question threw Lance for a loop. He realized with a jolt that he stood before these kids demanding honesty from them when he wasn't being straight with them. Lance hadn't worked since the Heart Federated Department Stores were sold to Knight and Kraus. His days and nights were spent carousing—and spending the trust fund money that had been left to him, not earning any.

“I used to work for my family's company,” Lance said.

“What happened to it?” Chrys asked.

“We sold it,” he said. That, after all, was the easiest explanation for a protracted family battle that ended with harsh words, hurt feelings and relationships irrevocably damaged.

“Musta been for a lot of money,” Fly said.

“It was. But my share was considerably small.”

“So where you work now?” The girl was persistent.

Damn good question.

“I'm between positions.”

“Hey, you made us tell you where we wanna go in the world. What about you? Where do you wanna go?”

Lance's smile grew broad. “There's a little island off the coast of Tahiti . . .”

“Where's that?” Ro asked.

“In the Pacific Ocean,” Lance said.

“Past California,” Fly said. “Right?”

Lance nodded.

“What's in Tahiti and on that island?”

“Sand, sunsets and beautiful women.”

Fly snorted. “What's so special 'bout that. People in Virginia Beach got the same thing.”

Lance wasn't about to get into the whys of his island dream. “Doesn't anybody want to know what's in these bags?”

“I do,” Shonda said. “Y'all stop interrupting the man.”

“Thank you, Shonda. There are some ground rules,” Lance said, making them up even as he talked. “If you sell it or you let it get stolen, that's on you. I'm not replacing it. You can just trot on over to a public library.”

One of the kids frowned. “You bought us some books?”

“No, and listen to the rest of the rules. Owning property, expensive property, is part of learning to be responsible. Just like my Jaguar outside. If I do something irresponsible, like leaving the keys in the ignition, I have to own up to that.”

“Shoot, just parking it outside in that lot is dangerous,” Fly said.

Lance glanced toward one of the room's two windows. It hadn't really crossed his mind that his car might not be safe. Before he could obsess on that though, Shonda reached a hand out trying to get into one of the bags.

“Not yet,” Lance said. “Anybody have any questions?”

He looked at the kids, hoping someone would have a question while he thought of any other rules. But to a teen, they each shook their heads.

“All right, then. The second ground rule is . . .”

“How many rules you got?” Fly asked.

Lance remembered. “Just two. For those of you interested in pornography.”

The boys perked up, grins splitting their brown faces.

“Forget it,” Lance said. “I had filters put on all your laptops.”

“Laptops!”

The teens all jumped up and Lance started handing out the gifts. For each teen, he'd purchased a laptop loaded with educational software and games. A carrying case, diskettes and other goodies filled the shopping bags.

“These really for us?”

“On one condition.”

Fly tossed down a black leather carrying case. “I knew it.”

Even Shonda looked disappointed. “What's the condition ?”

Lance took a moment to look each kid in the eye. Then, only after making the connection with each did he continue. “The condition is that you use this computer to learn all you can about the world. There's so much more out there than what you see around you.

“Last week you each told me a place you wanted to go one day,” he said. “Use these computers to learn about those places, to plan a life journey that will eventually take you there. Set some goals. Then work to achieve them.”

Surprised at his own solemnity and advice, Lance aimed to lift the mood. He pulled out his cell phone and called a number.

“All right, we're ready for you.”

A few minutes later, a technician arrived and gave a private lesson in computing with a laptop to five stunned teenagers from the city's East End.

Lance watched as they got their lesson and realized he'd just learned one as well.

 

 

“There's a problem I need to speak with you about.”

That was not the greeting Lance wanted to hear from his accountant. He knew it could be about only one thing. And for a moment, the joy of spending time with T.J.'s kids at the center was diminished. What if he really couldn't afford the largesse? It wasn't the cost of the computers that concerned Lance—just a few thousand dollars. It was whether he'd be able to maintain his lifestyle, which included lavish, spur-of-the-moment gifts to friends, girlfriends and, in the case of five pre-juvie delinquents, virtual strangers.

He'd agreed to meet his accountant on the James River Fishing Pier. They could walk the length of the pier on the river, and if things were really bad, Lance could just jump and get it over with.

A wry smile tilted his mouth. That would create a headline sure to send his grandmother into spasms. She hated it when the Hearts were in the headlines for anything other than corporate public relations—in other words, announcements she controlled.

“So, how bad is it?” Lance asked as they walked by a trio of fishermen squabbling about the best bait for rockfish.

“Nigga, please. How many times I got to tell you, that shit don't work. This what you got to use.”

“Huh. That don't work. I'm telling you, to get croaker, you got to . . .”

On another day, Lance would have paused to see what was being displayed. But his mind was on other things and the conversation among the three old men vanished.

“I wouldn't use the term
bad,”
Nathan said.

“You said there was a problem.”

Nate nodded and kicked a crushed Coke can out of the pathway. “It's more to do with a surplus.”

“Surplus? What kind of surplus?”

“You have too much cash, Lance. And it's not earning you any money. I'd recommend an investment. Or two.”

Lance cut a glance at him. “You pitching a product or start-up?”

Nathan looked affronted. “I am not. I wouldn't do that.”

“Global Communications dot com.”

As Lance knew he would, Nathan flushed at the reminder of the one seriously bad investment Lance had made on Nate's recommendation. The dot-com leaked cash like water running through a sieve. Within six months they were bankrupt and looking for another handout. Disgusted, Lance had walked away.

Nathan had been trying to make it up to him ever since. Lance's consolation was that he hadn't been the only investor sucked into the dot-com craze only to wind up with nothing. He had, however, gotten a building out of the deal. It sat unused because Lance hadn't figured out what to do with an office complex that no one wanted to lease or buy.

“No, Lance. I'm not making a recommendation or pitching you in any way. I'm just saying, at this rate you're losing money. Even real estate would be a good buy now.”

“I'm not interested in being a landlord. And I already have a building I don't know what to do with.”

“So be a developer.”

Lance opened his mouth to shoot down that suggestion, then snapped it shut. “Hmm . . .”

He and Nate had worked together long enough that Lance knew he could trust him. He'd better. The man handled his money, with the exception of the portion Lance always forked over to Cole for safekeeping—a practice they'd developed when Lance, as a teenager, got his first job with Heart Federated.

“What, exactly, did you have in mind?”

Lance then laid out his ideas for Guilty Pleasures.

 

 

Lance and Viv walked along the boardwalk in Virginia Beach. He licked a swirl of chocolate ice cream from a cone.

“You said you wanted to talk to me,” Viv said. “About Guilty Pleasures?”

“Yeah, the store. But also us.”

Viv stopped walking. “Lance, there is no us,” she emphasized by bracketing
us
with air quotes. “We had hot sex one night. That's the extent of it.”

Lance frowned. This scene was just all wrong. If he were writing a novel, maybe he'd delete this part and make Viv wild for him. Wasn't the woman supposed to be the one clamoring for a deeper relationship? Wasn't he supposed to be the one backing away? Without being conceited he knew the combination of his good looks and both his personal and family money made him a good catch. How come Viv didn't seem to know or appreciate any of that?

“I don't understand you.”

“You don't know me, Lance. We had sex. It was good. End of story.”

How many times in his life had he longed for a woman to have just this attitude about sex—an attitude like a man's? A good lay had nothing to do with anything else. Now that he'd found such a woman, he wanted her to want him, to attach all of the emotional strings women loved to get worked up about.

Lance tossed the ice cream in a trash receptacle, wiped his hands with a napkin then tossed it, too, before taking Viv's arm to get them walking again. She didn't pull away from him, but she didn't exactly drift into his arms the way Rochelle—or any other woman he'd ever slept with—would snuggle up.

“So you don't find me attractive?” He knew
that
couldn't be the reason, but maybe she went for slack-eyed short men with no teeth.

Vivienne shook her head. “You're a trip, Lance. And I'm not even going to answer that.”

He frowned. “So what's wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong. I'm just not interested.”

Lance stopped walking. He shook his head as if trying to clear it. He was rich. Sort of single. Straight. Handsome. They'd had great sex, and she wasn't interested.

“You're a lesbian, right?”

She sent a quelling look his way.

That would explain it, Lance thought. Maybe he'd been her experiment. The thought of such a beautiful woman batting for the other side disappointed him, particularly since she was so good in bed. But it went down a little easier—pun intended—to know it wasn't him.
She
was the one with the issues. He grinned. Maybe she'd let him watch her with one of her girlfriends. Now
that
would be hot.

He'd used his share of women in his time. He supposed it wasn't so bad to be someone's research project. She'd had a good time with him, until the tears started flowing. Maybe he'd convinced her to swing the other way and she'd been thinking of a girlfriend.

“If you don't want to talk about Guilty Pleasures, I do have things to do,” she said.

Switching gears and thinking pragmatically, Lance figured with sex out of the way they could focus on business.

“No,” he told her. “Tell me how you came to start the shop.”

She sent a dubious look his way. One that clearly threatened, “If this is another line . . .”

“I really want to know,” he said. “It always helps to get a sense of what drives people.”

Viv was quiet for a moment, then she nodded as if she'd decided to take him at his word. “All my life I wanted to be the center of attention. I
was
the center of attention.” She glanced at Lance. “I liked it when boys tripped over themselves to ask me out, to buy me things, to look at me. I got a rush from it.”

“But?”

She met his gaze. “There is no but. I liked it. Thrived on it. Sometimes I'd feel a pang of guilt, but a bracelet or a date or just a pretty compliment would make me feel better.”

“What'd you feel guilty about?”

She shook her head, then she paused at the railing, draped her arms over it and stared at the ocean. Children and adults played in the surf. Out in the distance a couple of people rode the waves. A lifeguard's whistle blew, and music from a party a ways down beach drifted on the air. Hip-hop, maybe Missy Elliott.

Vivienne was quiet for so long that Lance thought she wouldn't answer his question.

“My sister,” she finally said. “She has some . . . some problems.”

Again Viv fell silent and looked away.

Lance watched her for a while, enjoying the view, waiting for her to get her thoughts together. Then he offered her the out. “If you'd rather not talk about this . . .”

She shook her head. “It's a part of it, a part of why I started Guilty Pleasures.” Taking a deep breath and focusing all the more intently on the water, not the man beside her, Viv continued. “It was pretty much a given from the time I was twelve that I'd be a model. I started when I was thirteen. The money was fabulous.” She shook her head, refuting what she'd only just said. “The money was phenomenal. I was a fresh face, one that the camera loved. By the time I was eighteen, I'd been working long enough to know the looks would fade. Time does that. And I wasn't interested in having work done. No implants or Botox for this girl.”