Love Me Now (10 page)

“Obviously,” Trey said, half chuckling.

“If that's the case then you can blow her off.”

Trey smiled. “No, not so fast. It takes a lot of guts to stand
on a man's doorstep with the sole intention of demanding retribution. I think I'm going to give her a bit of leeway.”

“Oh, man,” Joshua said, shaking his head, “I can see it on your face. You're like a cat with a toy mouse ready to play.”

“Come on, I seldom get to play with such a worthy and attractive adversary anymore.”

“There's a reason for that—you don't play fair.”

“Fair, what's fair?”

“Why is she demanding the company back?” Joshua asked. “It makes no sense.” Trey shrugged. “Unless, of course, she doesn't have the whole story,” he said.

“I'm guessing not,” Trey said.

“Trey, play nice, drop it now while you can. You don't need drama and distractions right now,” Joshua suggested, knowing that he wouldn't.

“Actually, there is a small snag.”

“You mean the fact that she probably most definitely hates you?”

“Okay, maybe a couple of small snags. But the one I'm concerned about is Louise Gates.”

“Mamma Lou? What about her?” Joshua asked, looking suddenly stressed.

“She stopped by the house while Kenya was there. Mamma Lou assumed we were together.”

“Now let me guess, you let her.”

“I didn't see any reason to disappoint her. I figured it was a way to keep her off my back.”

“Enter drama and distractions.”

“Not at all, I can handle Mamma Lou.”

“Famous last words, man. One of these days that old lady is gonna have you cornered. And all the dancing in the world won't get you out of it. She's already gotten, what, how many of your friends and family?” Joshua stood to leave.

“Nah, none of that matters. I'm too fast for her. You see, my theory is if you move fast enough and see her moves in advance, there's no way she can get you.”

“Didn't your cousin J.T. say the same thing?”

“Ah yes, but J.T. got distracted. That's not gonna happen with me, I assure you,” Trey said smugly as he stood and followed Joshua out the door. “I'll be down in the nursery.”

Joshua shook his head and watched Trey go. He headed to his own office just down the corridor. He and Trey had also been friends, although the bond of brotherhood was delayed for years. A product of an illicit affair, Joshua had the same father as Trey, a man they both despised and with whom they never communicated.

They met in prep school and even then Trey was a master planner. Usually quiet and reserved in public, he was often misunderstood. The press branded him the Iceman, cold and unfeeling. Notably, they continued to write that he stabbed at his competition, decimating them into oblivion. But the truth about Trey was known to the small inner circle of family and friends around him. He was nothing like that.

Trey was a fiercely private man. Public interviews were rare, as he was often distrustful of those whom he didn't know. He'd been burned and used once too often. Trey had learned too much of human nature. Those who took, he took first. In business, he never went after a company unless they first made a move on him. The Whitaker incident was a perfect example. To stop Whitaker was to take him down completely. He had no choice.

Had James Whitaker been up-front, he would still have his company and still be enjoying success. Instead, he greedily wanted more. And that was his failure. It was a blow because Trey actually liked the old guy. But greed was often a man's downfall.

Joshua knew that Trey had great insight. When it came to business he saw beyond the surface. Joshua chuckled to himself as he sat down at his desk. Shame that Trey didn't have that same insight now or with Mamma Lou. As of this morning, he was already a goner.

He obviously didn't have a clue. Just like J.T., he'd been distracted since the second he walked into the office. There was no way the old Trey wouldn't have made the connection between the last names. Obviously he had no idea that he was already a goner. The only thing left to do now was start planning the bachelor party, and have his tuxedo cleaned and pressed.

Trey smirked and chuckled as he took the elevator down to the second floor. He was completely assured of his invulnerability. Mamma Lou had no idea with whom she was dealing. Sure, all the other guys had gotten themselves trapped—albeit loving traps—but not him. He had no intention of taking that walk.

A few minutes later Trey walked into the Li'l Tykes nursery, located on the second floor of the office building. He had added the nursery a few years ago when he noticed some of his employees having child-care problems.

He stood at the window and saw Mrs. Thatcher, his new nanny, sitting with the twins and a few other children. The place was full. He walked in. Several workers immediately looked up, smiled and nodded. He returned their gesture then walked over to Mrs. Thatcher and the twins.

“So, how are the three of you getting along?”

“Famously,” Mrs. Thatcher said happily. “They are adorable. And just like twins, I believe they have that psychic connection.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Trey said as he sat down at the small table. “Here's the contract as per our discussion. I
believe you'll find everything in order. But, by all means, have your attorney look it over.”

“I'm sure that won't be necessary. I've been told that you're an honorable man.” She pulled a pen from her purse and quickly signed her name, then handed it back to Trey.

“Thanks for the compliment, but to whom do I owe the graciousness of such astute accolades?”

Mrs. Thatcher chuckled. “If you want to know who told me about you, it was a mutual friend.” She smiled pleasantly, obviously not willing to say more.

“Discretion, I like that. So where are you from, Mrs. Thatcher?” Trey asked, knowing he would get the information he wanted eventually. All he had to do was keep her talking and off guard. She'd tell him without even realizing it.

“All over, but mostly Manchester,” she said.

“New Hampshire?” Trey asked.

“England. We were army brats. I spent most of my time overseas. Then I married and lived in England for some time. After my husband died I moved to the States, although one of my sisters recently moved back to England.”

“Hence the accent,” he noted.

“I didn't realize it was still discernable.”

“Barely,” Trey said. “So where are you now—D.C., Virginia, Maryland?”

“Not too far. I'm staying with my other sister.”

“Where's that?”

She smiled at his presumed cunning. “Not too far.”

Trey nodded casually, having hit a wall with his questioning. “So what does your sister do?” he asked.

“She and her husband own a cleaning service. And that's the end of this line of questioning.”

Trey laughed. He'd been found out. “Mrs. Thatcher, you and I are going to get along perfectly.”

She smiled and nodded her agreement. “I was told that, as well.”

Trey laughed again. “Okay, so how were they?” he asked as he watched the twins play with the few remaining children.

“Angels, of course,” she said. “We did have a little discussion about sharing our toys with others, but other than that, we got along famously.”

Trey nodded. “Okay, about this evening—” Before he finished his cell rang. “Excuse me.” He stood and stepped aside. “Hello?”

“Trey, it's Mamma Lou,” the soft, sweet voice announced. A sudden chill shot through him as his heart instantly lurched, and not in a good way.

“Hello, Mamma Lou, what can I do for you?” he choked out, hearing his voice almost crack for the first time since puberty.

“Question, dear—what time will you be stopping by the boutique this evening?”

“What boutique?” he asked.

“Kenya's place, of course. Otis and I are visiting friends and we've decided to stay for dinner. We won't be dropping by until later.”

“Mamma Lou, that really isn't necessary. I'll be happy to stop by with the twins. There's no need to drive into the city.”

“No, no trouble at all. We're already in the city. I'm looking forward to a nice long visit with my great-grandchildren and, of course, Kenya. She seems like a very nice young lady. I'm looking forward to seeing her again and, of course, seeing her boutique.”

“But, Mamma Lou, Kenya's probably going to be busy.”

“Then we'd better not stay too long.”

“What I mean is that…I'm sure the shop isn't quite ready for visitors.”

“Oh, we're not visitors, dear, we're almost family.”

“Family?” Trey repeated. “Mamma Lou, I'm sure she'll be too busy with—” he began, then went blank. For the first time in as far back as he could remember words failed him.

“Oh, dear, dinner's on the table, we'll have to chat later. Now you go ahead and take care of those angels. I'll see you at the boutique later this evening.”

Before he could come up with an excuse Louise had hung up. There was no way he could get out of it. Louise Gates was meeting him and his girlfriend of four months this evening, and she obviously wasn't taking no for an answer. She was good, very good.

K
enya was finally able to concentrate on her work. Ideas popped into her head so quickly, she could barely sketch them. Excited, her thoughts flowed like an open dam. She barely kept up. Dresses for little girls, in bright colors with bows and ribbon, pants and tops for little boys, in muted hues with trucks and patches—she envisioned them all. They were fanciful, delightful and perfect.

She successfully traced and basted four designs in muslin. Then she cut, pinned and tailored a garment to a form and then began outlining basic patterns. She'd just finished painstakingly gathering, ironing and forming pleats along the waistband of a dress when her cell phone rang. Startled, she hurried to grab it. “Hello?”

“Hey, girl, what's up?” Asia said happily.

“Hey. Nothing much. What's up with you? How was that audition the other day?”

“Which one, the commercial or the soap?” she asked.

“Either, both,” Kenya said excitedly.

“I knocked it out of the park. I got the commercial job. But I'm still waiting to hear back about the soap opera. I have a callback tomorrow.”

“Are you serious, you got the commercial and a callback for a soap? Asia, that's fantastic. I'm so proud of you,” Kenya squealed.

“Yep, I got it. My agent called me this morning. It's not really acting. It's more modeling with dialogue, but it's something, my foot in another door. Plus I still have the off-Broadway production gig going on.”

“Asia, you're seriously gonna be a star.”

“And you're gonna design my clothes and clothing line and Sidney's gonna manage us both.”

“In that case we're pretty much doomed.”

“Be nice,” Asia said, as usual taking on the the middle-child role of peacemaker. She was the balance between the two extremes. Where Kenya was levelheaded and focused, and Sidney was spontaneous and unpredictable, Asia was even-tempered and calm. “Now, speaking of Sidney, she called me earlier.”

“Don't tell me you two are at it again.”

“No, no, nothing like that, we're fine. She was right—he was a jerk. I guess I was too lazy to see it.”

“You know what,” Kenya began, “I think we seriously underestimate our little sister. She has an astute ability to read people.”

“She gets it from Mom. She can be really good at reading people when she puts her mind to it.”

“You're right. Anyway, what did Sidney want?”

“She didn't want anything, she was concerned about you. What's going on down there? She said you were all upset about something this morning.”

Kenya sighed. Sidney was far too intuitive her for own good. It was something Kenya, to her dismay, had never really mastered. “Nothing,” Kenya lied too quickly.

“Wrong answer,” Asia said. “Try again. Acting and lying are seriously not your forte.”

“Fine, but you have to promise you won't tell Sidney. You know how she can be when she's upset.”

“Okay, but now I'm worried.”

“Before they left for Africa, Dad told me and Mom that there's a problem with the money.”

“What kind of problem?”

Kenya took a deep breath. “It's all gone.”

“What?” Asia said.

“Yeah, that's pretty much what I said. As far as I know, the house, the trip to Africa, the cars, your apartment, Sidney's education and my place here are all safe. But everything else is gone.”

“How is that possible? Where did it all go?” she asked.

“That's a good question,” Kenya said.

“But he's a millionaire, literally.”

“Not anymore.”

“That can't be right. Wait, so what about Dad's business?” she asked.

“He said that it's gone, too.”

“Did he sell it?” Asia asked.

“No, according to him, he was swindled.”

“Swindled from him, like from a con man or something?”

“See, that's the part I don't really get. He dropped this bomb on us two hours before they were leaving. I never got a chance to get all the details. I asked him about it when he called to say they arrived safely. He just said not to worry, and that he'd take care of everything when he got back.”

“That's a whole month from now. Anything can happen in that amount of time.”

“Tell me about it,” Kenya readily agreed.

“So wait, how can someone just take somebody else's business like that? It just doesn't make any sense.”

“Actually it does. It happens all the time—takeovers, mergers and boardroom coups. You hear about it all the time in the news.”

“How is that possible? I thought that he was doing so well.”

“I'm still confused about all that. But from what I gather, Dad made some bad investments and dried up all the cash. Apparently he put a lot of the money in real estate funds and they tanked. So he kept sinking more and more money into them and then all of a sudden there was nothing left. He lost everything.”

“I can't believe this. Didn't he talk to somebody? Maybe he was given bad advice. Dad knows real estate. He doesn't know investments.”

“That means he should have researched the business himself. There's no way he was given bad advice. How could he not know that his investments were tanking? No, something's up. None of this makes any sense.”

“Well, can't he get the money back?”

“Asia, when a person's investments tank, there are no second chances, no do-overs. You can't ask for your money back.”

“I know that, but what if it was deliberate? And what about his so-called investment advisors? What were they doing all this time? Weren't they supposed to protect him from this?”

“That's what I'm checking in to. Apparently his investment advisor owns the business now.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I know. That's definitely suspicious. I think Dad was right. He did get swindled.”

“What about his partner, Calvin?”

“I tried calling him yesterday. I even stopped by Dad's office. It's weird, everything is exactly the same. It's like nothing changed. I asked about Calvin. He's MIA. The people at the office said that he quit working there months ago.”

“So the company is still open.”

“Yes,” Kenya said.

“But I thought you said that he lost the business.”

“He lost it to someone else. They're keeping it open.”

“See, this makes no sense,” Asia said firmly.

“I agree, none of this makes any sense.”

“Do you think Dad just gambled it away?” Asia asked.

“I hope not. I really hope not,” Kenya said. Asia sighed on the other side. There was silence as each considered the reality.

“So wait, Dad told you all this right before they left. Where was I?”

“You and Sidney were arguing, then both of you went into the house and she went to the store.”

“That's why everybody looked so shell-shocked when I came back down. I knew there was something going on. Okay, so what happens now?”

“I looked around in Dad's files and came up with a name. It's the guy that owns the company now. I paid him a visit this morning.”

“What happened, what did he say?”

“We didn't get to really talk about it. I'm gonna pay him another visit.”

“What can I do?”

“Nothing. Dad didn't even want you to know. But I guess I just had to talk to somebody.”

“I'm glad you told me.”

“Sidney can't know,” Kenya warned. “She'd be devastated. Then only heaven knows what she'd do.”

“I understand,” Asia said. “So, when you try again and don't get anywhere with this person, I guess we're just gonna have to wait until Mom and Dad get back.”

“We'll see,” Kenya said, knowing that there was no way she was just going to let it drop like that. She intended to get every last penny back before her parents came home.

The sisters went on to discuss possible solutions, then ended the conversation talking about their parents in Africa. “Okay, do me a favor, keep me up on what's going on,” Asia said.

“Yeah, definitely,” Kenya promised. “Good luck with the commercial and the soap opera callback.”

“Thanks. Call me later. See ya.”

After hanging up Kenya went back to work. Surprisingly enough, she was more focused than ever. A few hours later she looked up. Shelly was walking back in loaded down with packages.

“Hey, have you been sitting there working like that this whole time?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Kenya responded. “What time is it?”

Shelly looked at her watch. “It's a little after five o'clock. Holy cow, Kenya, look what you did,” Shelly said, astonished.

Kenya glanced around. Shelly was right, the workroom was a disaster. There were bits and pieces and scraps of fabric and swatches everywhere. Cut ribbons and threads littered the floor. Bolts of fabric lay half-unrolled, some on tables, chairs and even across a sewing machine. The only thing that wasn't a mess were the six children's designs on the forms against the wall.

“You're right. Oh, man, look at this place.”

“Who cares what the place looks like, I'm talking about the garments,” she said as she walked over to the forms. “Look at these outfits. They're fantastic.”

Kenya walked over to stand beside Shelly. She tilted her head and squinted. She had to admit, the designs were good. Some of the outfits were in the beginning stages, while others were already complete.

“Girl, what came over you? This morning you were saying that you were losing your focus and now this.”

“I guess I got it back.”

“I'll say. Oh, my goodness. I know exactly what will go perfectly with this one. Hold on,” Shelly said, rummaging through one of the shopping bags she'd brought in with her. She pulled out a small baseball cap, grabbed a straight pin and a swatch of fabric. She cut, then pinned, a basketball on the cap, then placed it on top of a form. The outfit was complete.

“Perfect, and what about—” Kenya began.

“Ah, yeah, and we can do this,” Shelly finished.

“Oh, cool, now how about this on the tracksuit. We can—”

“Yeah, yeah, definitely, I like it. Maybe we can—”

“Wait, over here on the dress—”

A few minutes later they were both on a sewing machine. They added finishing touches and strokes of bold color. One cut a pattern, while the other designed and embroider-stitched an appliqué. They worked together, then separately, then back together again. Like a well-oiled machine, their technique was masterful. When they had finished, they stepped back to examine their work. “Girl, we are good,” Kenya said. Shelly nodded.

They took a moment to review each of the outfits. Caps, socks, purses, belts, dresses, shirts, pants, sweatsuits—everything was perfect. This time they were complete outfits, head to toe.

“I love them,” Shelly said.

“Me, too,” Kenya added.

“Each piece is exactly perfect.”

“Talk about a signature style. Girl, I think we found it. These are fantastic.”

“These are more than fantastic, they're us.”

Kenya and Shelly squealed happily while jumping and hugging each other. Maybe today wasn't a total loss after all.

“Okay, that's it. I'm through for the night. My eyes are beginning to blur,” Shelly said, stretching.

“Why don't you go on home. I'll clean this mess up.”

“I think I'm gonna take you up on that. After the long drive to Baltimore, getting stuck in traffic, searching for remnants in a seventy-five-year-old shop, I'm exhausted. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“All right, good night.”

Kenya walked over to the designs. She readjusted several items then grabbed her sketch pad and made a few notes for the clothes manufacturers. She removed a garment, turned it inside out then sat down at the sewing machine. She'd just tucked it beneath the metal foot when she heard something. She looked up to see Shelly walk back into the workroom. “I thought you were leaving,” she said, readjusting the needle and stitching.

“Oh, I left, but then on my way out, we had a customer.”

“A customer,” Kenya said, looking up from the sewing machine. “That's impossible. We're not open yet.”

“You've been holding out on me. Now I know why you were so late and so frazzled this morning.”

“What?”

“There is a gorgeous man out front, with two adorable kids.”

“What?” Kenya repeated. Her heart thundered. She knew exactly who it was. She got up and peeked out the door. She turned back. There was no one out there. She turned again and saw him standing up by the front counter. He had on a dark chocolate open-neck shirt with perfectly cut jeans and he
looked good enough to eat. “Oh, no, I'm not ready for this. Get rid of him.”