healing-hearts (7 page)

Oh, hell.
There’s the full-blown smile.

Yasmine had to make herself look away from his mouth. Her heart leaped, then sped up. She crossed her legs underneath the table to quench the full tingling at the apex of her thighs. His smile appeared both sweet and sexy at the same time.
He should always smile,
Yasmine thought.

Jason’s voice brought her mind back around to the conversation at hand.

“Yogurt, grain breakfast bars, fruit smoothies...” Jason scanned the guide.

“Mr. Richardson, there are other things you can have.” Yasmine turned the page as she pointed out some things. “If lunch is something you don’t get to very often there are a lot of protein drinks you can down in between your meetings.”

“You don’t mean the slim drink things, do you?”

She laughed at his appalled expression. “No. Look here, sir, and I’ll show you all the different brands and types.”

Yasmine flipped a few pages and showed him the list of energy drinks.

“Now about your dinner.” Yasmine bit one side of her bottom lip as she concentrated. “Your
micro
meals are going to have to go.”

“How did I know you were going to say that?”

Yasmine shrugged her shoulders as she got up and went to her filing cabinet and stooped down to pull out some paper from the bottom drawer. When she stood and turned back toward the desk, she caught a glimpse of a strange expression go swiftly across his face, but wasn’t sure what had caused it.

Disregarding it, Yasmine walked back to her desk and handed him a stack of papers stapled together. “These are copies of twenty-minute balanced recipes that you can make in the evenings for dinner. On the last page of the guide, it will also have tips on what things would be best for you to order when out at a restaurant.”

Jason took a brief moment to look at the last page of the booklet. “Are we done now?”

“Pretty much we are. I usually like to keep track of my clients for the first two or three months to see how they’re doing or to modify the plan if the need arises. But, since I know this is not something you particularly care to do, then I just hope it helped or gave you something to think about.”

Yasmine watched him begin to gather up the booklets and papers preparing to leave. “Before you go, Mr. Richardson, we never touched on your stress level.”

He stood. “I work, therefore I have stress.”

She rose along with him. “I did notice that on the sheet you left out extracurricular activities. I hope it was an oversight, because I can’t stress how—”

“Important it is having some way to relieve the stress…is to my overall health.” Jason finished her sentence.

“Well, I guess you’ve heard that a few times.”

“You have no idea. If I believed in signs, I’d think God was trying to tell me something.” The smile too briefly touched his lips again. “Good thing I don’t. I’ll give your suggestions a thought and get back with you.”

The desire to reach out and trace his lips with her fingers assailed her. “I won’t hold my breath.” Yasmine gave him a smile of her own.

“You may on this one.” Jason winked, then walked out the door.

Yasmine barely had time to catch the blush daring to tint her face at the small flirtatious gesture, before Leigh entered the room.

“Let me guess, soft honey-gold.” Leigh bubbled with excitement.

“That was him in the flesh.” Yasmine retook her seat.

“Girl, I can’t believe you let that sexy Eddie Cibrian lookin’ hunk just walk out the door.
I’m
not even down with vanilla and I’d have given him my number.” Shaking her head, Leigh questioned, “Tell me you got a date or something?”

“Leigh, first of all he is a client, and second of all I’m sure he’s not lacking social company.”

“But you are—”

“Not looking.” Yasmine gathered up Jason’s papers and put them in his folder.

“You don’t have to be starving to grab a quick bite—you just need to know you haven’t eaten in a while.” Leigh leaned forward on her desk. “Old Mother Hubbard, you don’t have to go to your cupboard to know that it’s bare.” Standing back up to her full height, Leigh told her, “It probably has cobwebs.”

“Whatever...” Yasmine wadded up a sheet of paper and threw it at her friend, missing her completely before it fell to the floor.

“I can see your aim isn’t any better than it was in freshmen year when you played basketball.”

“Okay—like a white girl can jump.”

“You have to be inspired to jump—like that man who just walked out the door. He could make even
your
honey-pot
drip—”

“Suficiente!
Can we move on to another topic? Like lunch. Let’s go, your treat.”

“Fine, then you’ll listen while I tell you about how handsome stared at your
ass
ets while you were bending over by the file cabinet.”

“I don’t want to know.” Yasmine pulled her purse out from the desk drawer and lead the way out of her office.

“Then what’s up with the sashaying you got going on?” Leigh called to her exiting form as she left the building.

~ML~

Jason rolled over in his four-poster king sized bed and looked at his alarm clock for the fourth time that night.

11:49
it read.

He had gone to bed almost two hours ago and had not gotten one wink of sleep. The meatloaf microwave dinner was sitting in his stomach like lead. After his mother’s great cooking he had found it difficult to digest the processed food. He should have ordered carryout from PF Chang’s.

Jason threw the covers off his body and padded down the hall of his Town Center apartment in his T-shirt, boxers, and socks toward his extra bedroom that doubled as a home office; even though he hardly ever used it. There were a lot of things on his mind tonight. Work was just one of them.

Ms. Sousa was another of them. He normally wasn’t a man that obsessed about women, but since he had left the registered dietitian’s office he had not been able to get her out of his mind. If he was perfectly honest with himself, he had not gotten her out of his thoughts since the briefing she had given him in the hospital.

All day he had been telling himself that the only reason his brain kept giving her attention was because everywhere he turned someone was telling him that he needed to add a little extracurricular activity in his life to burn off steam.

Hell, even she had told me as much
. Jason thought to himself as he turned his computer on. He sat down and connected to the Internet to check his instant messenger service to see who was on-line.

He smiled as he looked at his friends list; which consisted of Teddy, Lisa, and his college roommate Isaac, who had opened up his own club in Chicago. They were both busy and only got time to speak on occasion. A smiley face was bouncing next to
polarbear
, signifying that his brother was on-line. His own login name was
jayatwork
, since that was where he spent most of his time.

Good, talking to his brother would give him something to do to pass the time away until he could sleep.

Jason clicked on his brother’s screen name and began typing.

Jason waited just seconds for his brother to respond. It was a large reason why they corresponded this way instead of regular e-mail. It was hard to carry on a conversation if you had to wait five minutes for the person’s response to be sent back.

polarbear:
Jay, what are you doing up at this hour? I’m the night owl remember?

jayatwork:
Haha, couldn’t sleep.

polarbear:
I should ask you what’s up.

jayatwork
: Lot on my mind.

polarbear:
Beating around the bush?

jayatwork
: Guess so.

polarbear
: So.

jayatwork
: Okay, a woman.

polarbear
: That’s new. Girl from the office?

jayatwork
: No.

polarbear
: Not going to play that game again.

jayatwork
: Look, I don’t even know why I’m bringing her up.

polarbear
: Yes, you do.

Jason ran his hands across his face. Did he really want to go there? He had only met the woman twice.
It isn’t that complicated,
he said to himself.

jayatwork
: I think I’m just tired.

polarbear:
Jason...

jayatwork
: Girl I met and thought she was cute.

polarbear
: All this over cute?

A quick image of Yasmine squatting down at the file cabinet flashed into his mind. He could still remember how her backside looked pressed tight to the fabric of her pants as she bent over. He had noted there was an absence of a panty line; which made his mind conjure up the image of her wearing a thong.

jayatwork:
Having a drought, mind overreacting.

polarbear:
Where did you meet her?

jayatwork:
She gave me a briefing about health after heart attack.

polarbear
: Ask her out.

jayatwork:
I’m her client...thanks to my doctor.

polarbear
: What is she...?

jayatwork:
Dietitian.

polarbear:
What happened with the skirt at your office?

jayatwork
: Lost interest.

polarbear
: Didn’t she do the tongue thing and swallow a sausage whole?

jayatwork
: Oooooh, yea, LOL.

polarbear
: ROLF! Well, if can’t get diet girl off your mind, go for it.

jayatwork
: Don’t think I have time.

polarbear
: Make it. I did.

Jason considered the possibility, but disregarded it. He just didn’t have the time, while he was trying to make vice-president, to date. Mr. Coleman’s advice came back to his mind and he pushed it away. “I’ll worry about that later if I have to.”

jayatwork
: I’ll think about it.

polarbear
: Anything else?

jayatwork
: Nope.

Jason typed as he stifled a yawn.

jayatwork
: I’m gone.

polarbear
: Nice talking to you, little brother, call if you need to.

jayatwork
: I will.

polarbear
: Ask her.

jayatwork
: G-night.

Jason logged off before his brother could respond and padded off to bed. He knew he would never see Yasmine again, he wasn’t planning on going back to her office for another session and he wasn’t going to end up back in the hospital if he could help it. So, it was irrelevant.

“Out of sight, out of mind.” Jason quoted to his pillow as he lay on his stomach and went to sleep.

“Terrance Jordan, please,” Jason spoke to the receptionist who answered the phone at Scorpio’s.

“May I say who’s calling?”

“Jason Richardson, from Coleman and Weary, he’s expecting my call.”

Jason listened to the soft jazz music playing in his ear while he waited to be connected to Mr. Jordan.

A male voice came on the line. “Jordan here.”

“Mr. Jordan, when can we meet? I have a proposal for you to look over.”

“That’s great, Jason. I was wondering if you had forgotten about me while you were out recuperating. Where were you, in Tahiti lounging around the beach with some olive-skinned beauties?”

Jason laughed. “I should be so lucky. What’s your schedule like on Monday, say ten o’clock?”

“Give me one moment to pull up my schedule and I’ll let you know.”

Jason listened to Terrance Jordan, president of Scorpio, hum as he searched his calendar for available slots.

“I can’t do ten, but eight to maybe nine-thirty is free.”

Jason looked at his schedule up on his computer. “I’ll see you at eight.”

“Eight it is.” The other man confirmed, then hung up.