The Venture Capitalist (15 page)

“Keisha.” Nate narrows his eyes. “Is Keisha African American?”

“And Brazilian.”

“You know what my teammates say about going black?”

“I’m sure I don’t want to know.”

He answers anyway. “You never go back. So, tell me. Is she good?”

“That’s a crass question which doesn’t deserve an answer.”

Nathan laughs. “So you have tapped it. You just don’t want to engage in a little locker room banter with your brother. I see where you’re coming from.”

“Where I’m coming from has nothing to do with anything. Let’s just talk about this possible business venture you want to invest in.”

“No, no I want to talk about Keisha. You have to finish telling me why you think she’d make a good submissive.”

“She shows all the classic signs of being a true submissive, and maybe a part-time Domme.” I grin. “She’s bossy.”

“She’s a strong bi-racial woman, that’s all. My teammates talk about that, too.”

“Is there nothing sacred in that damned locker room?”

Nate thinks for a minute. “Nope. I’m surrounded by eighty-five percent African Americans on my team alone. Most of whom grew up in the lower socio-economic bracket of American society. Their pastimes growing up were shooting hoops and playing the dozens, also known as telling horrible jokes about each other’s mamas. What do you think?”

“How do you stand it? What with Mom...?”

“I’ve never told them our mother is dead.”

“They have to have heard it during an interview you’ve had over the years.”

“Maybe so, but I prefer they treat me like the rest of the guys, so I let them do their worse.”

I had no idea my brother had to endure jokes that maligned our mother in that way. Now he’s saying he’s come to terms with it. If I were on his team, I’d be fighting like a juvenile delinquent in an urban schoolyard. There are two people I cannot abide anyone speaking ill of, possibly three now: My mother, Aimee Gabriel, and Keisha Beale.

The stewardess comes out and takes our drink orders as soon as the fasten seat-belt sign goes off, and Nathan and I have entered our own head spaces. I have a text message from Velasquez, with a photo of Keisha taking care of a customer in her store. I thank him for checking up on her, then I text Keisha:

Why haven’t you answered my calls? I’m flying to Atlantic City to look at an investment with my brother. Talk to you tomorrow.

I look over the financials for the business I’m evaluating for Nathan for the remaining duration of the flight. We tour the casino that he and several of his teammates are thinking of buying, and when a few red flags pop up, I dig in asking pertinent questions of the CEO, CFO and COO, so I can give my brother and his friends an honest assessment of the property and its financial viability, or lack thereof.

By the time I discover from Darryl through his contact at Dun & Bradstreet that the company’s DUNS number is in the toilet, I know also why they’ve been calling their creditors in advance about their receivables, and slow in making their payables.

I pull Nathan aside at four thirty in the evening, just after receiving the text from Darryl.

“You don’t want to buy this business, Nathan. It’s in trouble, and unless you’re going to get this casino for a lot less than they’re asking, fire the lot of the C-level management, and start over, you’ll be chasing bad money with good until something comes along and tanks the company once and for all—like a huge winning payout and a couple of law suits.”

“I trust your judgment,” Nathan says. “Thanks for taking a look, though.”

“Let’s just shake hands now and tell them we’ll be in touch in a few days. Yeah?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

We extricate ourselves from the failing casino as fast as we can and re-board my plane. However, air-traffic control keeps us grounded until a storm blows over in the Midwest. When we are finally cleared for take-off it’s a quarter past ten, and we’ve had dinner, after-dinner drinks and a long nap on the plane. I don’t check my phone again until we prepare for takeoff. Sometime around eight pm Keisha left me a voice mail. I listen to it quietly before we take off:

“I think I’m going to pass on our arrangement,”
she says.
“There’s got to be another venture capitalist who will back us that I don’t have to sub for.”

My heart sinks. Well, I’ll be damned. She didn’t accept my offer even after I pulled out multiple stops to ensure she would. I guess that goes to show I don’t know women half as well as I think I do, and I’m furious that I might have lost the one woman who’s done anything for me in—forever.

“Fuck!”

“Hey, what gives?” Nathan says.

“Keisha just refused to sub for me.”

“Really? Why?”

“I don’t know—” I say, but Nathan isn’t buying it. He glares at me until I sigh and come clean. “I might’ve attached their business loan to the deal.”

“What? Tristan, no woman likes to be made to feel cheap.”

“I wasn’t trying to make her feel cheap. I just wanted to ensure she would accept my offer.”

“By blackmailing her into it?”

“I didn’t really blackmail her. I just told her if she’d agree to be my submissive, I’d give them the capital to start their business. And it was in the bag. Or so I thought.”

“Not until your indecent proposal gave her second thoughts.”

“I can’t believe I fucked that up,” I say.

“Call her,” Nate suggests. “If you make an appeal quickly, she might change her mind again.”

“It’s late. I’d just as soon talk to her tomorrow.”

Nate shrugs. “Suit yourself.”

Landing at Midway after midnight, the car service is crossing Western at sixtieth, when I mention casually to Nathan, “Keisha doesn’t live far from here.”

“No shit?” Nathan perks up. “Let’s do a drive-by.”

“Why?”

“We could just see if there’re any lights on.”

“And then what? You’re just curious to meet her. It’s not polite to visit anyone at this time of night. Unannounced.”

“Time out for being polite. She was a possible submissive and you’ve gotten busy with her least once, right? She might need a little cuddling to take the edge off tonight.”

“Is that what we’re calling booty calls now?”

“I was just phrasing it that way to keep you from being offended. Anyway, she’s the one who turned your offer down over voice mail. You need to go see what’s going on.”

Twin brothers are notorious for talking you into shit.

I give the driver Keisha’s address before I can talk myself out of going over there at this ungodly hour, and a couple shots of single malt gives me the liquid courage to resist changing my mind.

Nathan rings the doorbell like the maniac he is hopped up on single malt and curiosity.

“They’re not going to come to the door any faster because you keep pressing the doorbell in rapid succession,” I say.

“They need to know the urgency of this visit,” he says. “I hope her roommate is home and she’s smoking hot.”

“Shut the fuck up, okay?” The light from the unit next door to Keisha and Jada comes on. “See, you’ve woken up their neighbor. Just be quiet. I think I hear someone coming.” There’s a whispered exchange behind the door that I can’t make out, then the door to Keisha’s unit swings open.

“You were two seconds away from getting the cops called on your ass,” she says the moment she sees us, addressing me specifically. “What the hell are you doing here this time of night?”

I check my Rolex. “It’s technically morning.”

“You know what I mean.”

Before I can explain, we hear the neighbor’s chain lock jingling next door. Keisha gestures quickly to us. “Get in here. Now!”

Nathan and I follow her orders without hesitation, smirking because I warned him this would be her reaction. She regards us through narrowed eyes. Her annoyance becomes something akin to awe when I introduce Nathan to her.

“Nathan, this is Keisha Beale. Keisha, Nathan.”

She does not control her excitement at meeting my brother, the celebrity. “Wow! The Buffaloes point guard in my living room. It’s so nice to meet you, Nathan.”

“Likewise,” Nathan says, really pouring on the charm with a genuine smile. Not the plastered-on one he uses sometimes when he’s making nice with fans.

Keisha’s star-struck status only lasts a moment before she turns on me again. “What was so damned important it couldn’t wait until morning? You woke me and my roommate up, as well as our nosy neighbor. What’s wrong with you?”

“You were right, Tristan, she does sound like a Domme,” Nathan says.

Remarkably my annoyance with her earlier has disappeared for the most part, and I’m proud to introduce this gorgeous creature before me to my brother. “Tell me about it.”

“I asked you a question, mister.” She says, not at all enthralled by our late-night visit, or the basketball superstar I have in tow.

“I got your voice mail,” I explain, as if that’s all the explanation she needs.

Her jaw drops, but she doesn’t have time to respond because, at that moment, Ms. Jameson enters the room looking as if she hasn’t been awakened in the middle of the night by one horny, and one curious twin. Nathan might be horny too, but that borders on TMI for even close brothers. Keisha blinks wide-eyed as her roommate breezes into the room.

“So, you’re the infamous Tristan White,” Ms. Jameson says and offers her hand to me to shake.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Jameson. From the business plan you drafted, you’re every bit of the shrewd businessperson your father is.”

She waves me off elaborately. “Daddy might have said something similar about you. Oh, and call me Jada. We’re going to be business partners after all.”

“I certainly hope so,” I say and glance at Keisha before I turn to introduce Nathan who is anxiously elbowing me in the ribs. “Jada, this is my brother, Nathan.”

Nathan’s salacious stare and the interested one Jada returns isn’t lost on me, as Ms. Jameson clasps Nathan’s hand in hers.

“This guy needs no introduction. We see you in our living room almost every week during basketball season.”

Nathan squints and says, “Have we met?”

“I don’t think we have.” Then she back-pedals. “Well not formally, anyway. We may have attended some of the same… events, but then we were both in the presence of other companions, I’m sure.”

What the fuck? Is that code for her having been to some lifestyle events? At any rate, I seriously don’t have any further fucks to give. I need to be inside my woman like a junkie needs smack. I grab Keisha’s hand, then turn to my brother and Keisha’s roommate.

“Jada, Nathan, play nice. I have something I need to square away with Keisha.” I head in the general direction from whence Jada came. Keisha follows, half-running to keep up with me. I stop in the middle of her meager hallway. “Which room is yours?”

She points right and I drag her into her bedroom, shut the door, and pin her against it, and kiss her without preamble. She resists briefly, but my tongue plunders her hot mouth, removing all the remnants of sleep until our taste buds are pickled by the scotch I just consumed in the limo.

Only when I know that I, and sense that she, need to breathe do I release her abruptly to scold her.

“How can you say no to this kind of passion? What are you afraid of? Do you need to do a trial run?”

“I just don’t like the idea of being involved with you when we’re doing business together. I’m going to apologize to Princess Danai and see if she’ll take on our project.”

“I wouldn’t approach her right now if I were you. I had to talk her out of pressing criminal charges and filing a civil lawsuit against you.”

I’m not an outright lying son-of-a-bitch in this matter, either. Darnelle did threaten suing in a rare fit of anger, but suffice to say, I made it worth her while not to pursue any legal action. I want this woman as my submissive so badly, I’d say or do anything to make that happen.

She looks appalled, but only says, “Oh.”

“If you’re going to open in a little over three weeks, I’m the only shot you have,” I say.