Bad Girls Finish First (16 page)

“You're a wild one,” David said. He and Raven were again seated in her chair, but now they were only half-dressed.

“And I'm bad, too,” Raven replied. At least she'd tried to be, but David wasn't having it. He let her smack his butt, but when she dug her fingernails into his shoulder, David grabbed her hand and held it. When she'd reached for his throat with her other hand, he changed positions, pulled her down to the edge of the desk, put her legs over his strong shoulders, and lightly pinned her arms. “Don't get rough with me,” he'd growled. “Ain't but one man here.

“I like my women bad,” David said, and moved to kiss her again.
Can't get enough of her lips,
he thought.

They were interrupted by a knock on the door.

Raven started to move, but David put his arm around her waist, and motioned,
shhh.
The knocks came again, and then a voice: “Raven, honey, are you in there?”

It was Michael.

 

 

Over a late lunch, Christopher told Genie, “She's done it again.”

“Who did what?”

“Your boss. She went to State Representative Smotes about the pension bill. Got nasty with him.”

Genie put down her fork. She didn't know what went on with Smotes, and she didn't care. Genie was able to work for Raven because she was able to decipher her moods and because she was outstanding at her job. Today Raven was hell on wheels. She'd yelled at Genie twice already, and once even swore for good measure.

Genie couldn't snap back at Raven but she could take her frustration out on Christopher. “Stop being so immature, Chris. Calling Raven “she,” “your boss,” or “his wife” isn't going to change the fact that Raven has a name. You ought to use it sometimes.”

Immature? She didn't think I was immature last night.
“Okay. How about this: Raven Holloway Joseph, the future governor's wife, went to Representative Smotes and talked to him, or rather, at him, about the pension bill. She—excuse me—Raven Holloway Joseph, the future governor's wife, belittled Representative Smotes and badgered him to the point that he voted against the pension bill. How's that?”

Genie looked skeptical. “Raven wouldn't do that. She wanted the bill to go through as much as your father did.”

“Aren't you listening, Genie? I didn't say she intended to make Smotes to vote against us, but her style is so raw, alienating him was the end result. It would be nice if she stayed in her place, stopped messing everything up.”

“And what place would that be?” Genie asked sharply. Christopher was as stressed as Genie. When he had talked to Michael earlier, his father's anxiety had disturbed him.

“I could tell you where Raven's place is, but you're just like her, so it wouldn't do any good,” he snapped back.

Christopher didn't often say things that stung Genie, so his words caught her off guard. She felt a twinge in her chest and her lips twisted oddly, but she didn't respond.

“Both of you,” Christopher continued, “are so ambitious you can't envision anything about the future except for your own climb to the top.”

“Christopher, that's not true!”

“Yes, it is. That's why, no matter what happens, you're always on her side. Why do you always take up for her?”

Genie threw down her napkin and mimicked Christopher in a baby voice. “‘Always taking up for her. Always on her side.' You're such a baby, Chris. And you have the audacity to talk about getting married and having kids.” Genie stood, took one last sip of her soda and said, “You need to grow up your damn self.”

 

 

When Michael knocked at her office door, Raven's eyes widened and she tried to move again, but David held her tighter and shook his head back and forth,
No
. He had a little experience with sneaky office sex, and knew the worst thing to do was make a sound. Out of nervousness, Raven felt an irrepressible need to laugh; she couldn't help herself. David put one hand over her mouth, and the look on his face, which had gone from lustful to distressed, made her want to laugh even more. Raven's body shook from the effort of keeping the sound inside; David could feel her stomach muscles contract against his own.

Standing outside the door, Michael took the key to Raven's office from his pocket. He knew she was in there, Dudley had just told him so. Michael slid the key into the lock and gave it a half turn.

Then he thought better of it, tried to figure out how a good husband would handle the situation.
I acted a fool earlier today. If she doesn't want to be bothered with me, that's her right.
Michael put the key away and headed back to his Senate office.
I'll get my secretary to send her roses.

David counted to twenty, and then took his hand from Raven's mouth. She laughed and he did too, but not for long.

“What's wrong?” Raven asked as she rubbed her hands over his face. “Feeling disloyal to Michael?”

“Yes.”
He's not the only one I've betrayed,
David thought. He leaned back in the chair and looked at her. His eyes masked most of what he felt. “You're beautiful, you know that?” David reached out and traced the curve of her beautiful lips with his finger. Remorse and the thrill of almost getting caught got all mixed up together and lit the fire again.

Next door, Dudley walked away from the wall he shared with Raven. He poured himself a drink in the glass he'd been using to try to spy on the couple. They were so loud he didn't need it.

 

 

“Are you coming to bed now?” Michael asked sheepishly. It was two in the morning and Raven was sitting at her computer, playing a game.

“Nope,” she said without looking up. “I'm working on something important.”

“Honey, I said I'm sorry.”

Raven kept playing her game. Michael waited for her to say something and when she didn't, he went back to bed. As soon as he left, Raven got up from the computer and got a blanket and pillow from the hall closet. She stripped, got comfortable on the sofa, and drifted off to sleep.

The next thing Raven knew, she had the sensation of being lifted.

“This isn't where you belong,” Michael said as he walked toward the bedroom with Raven in his arms.

“I'm sorry about the way I acted today. Honey, please forgive me. Don't deprive yourself of our bed or of all this.” Michael took off his boxers.

Raven decided that she and Michael needed to have more fights. He believed in giving his all when it was time to make up.

As she drifted off to sleep, Raven thought,
Seduced by two men in one day. I must be doing something right.

A week after they began the move from the old office to the new office, Monica and Christopher prepared to close down for the night. She looked around at the boxes, stacked three levels high, which took up all the space in the main area. The boxes formed a maze around the room. “Okay. We made it into our new office, but we've got our work cut out for us if we want to be open for business Monday morning,” she said.

“There must be over a hundred boxes here,” said Christopher.

“One hundred six, to be exact.” She scooted along one of the narrow aisles created by the rows of boxes and flipped off a light switch at the back of the room.

“Oops!” Monica accidentally bumped one of the boxes and the stack started to tilt.

“I'll get that. You go ahead, hit the lights.” Christopher made his way down the aisle and secured the boxes. “I should have asked Genie to fly in and help us. Tomorrow and Saturday are going to be hell.”

“We'll be fine without her. She called me with the computer codes, so I'll be able to bring the center online with your dad's network in an hour or two. Prada and unpacking don't mix anyway.” Monica turned off the last light and made her way back down the darkened row.

“Where are we going for dinner?” Monica asked.

“Mmm. How about somewhere fun,” Christopher said.

Monica was almost next to him now. “Anywhere with you is fun, Chris. Which brings me to a question. Does Genie know how to have a good time?” Monica stood with her thumbs hooked into her pants pockets. “She doesn't look like it, if you ask me.” Monica leaned close to Christopher. “She tried to act like she's all that when she was here last week. When we talked on the phone today, she was still on some more.

“Where's she from, Boston, some shitty, stuck-up place like that?” As she talked, Monica began squeezing past Christopher, but the space, filled with boxes on both sides, was too small.

“Let me get out of the way,” he said and started to sidestep down the row.

“That's all right, you're good just where you are.”

Monica brushed against him and lingered.

Uh-oh.

Monica stayed right in front of him, their bodies barely touching, until she was certain he got the message. “I've been meaning to tell you,” she said. “When you come to town, you don't have to stay with your mother. You can come over to my place, check a sister out. Unlike Genie, I'm so much fun I should be illegal.”

16

A
lthough he was concerned about what Erika might be up to, Dudley hadn't forgotten that with each passing day, Raven became more of an obstacle to his success. It didn't take him long to locate one of Omar's former fiancées, Tanisha Malveaux Sawyer. She had moved back to her hometown of Baton Rouge and was married to the mayor.

“After the drama with Omar, it was hard to go to class every day and endure the whispers and the stares,” she told Dudley during a telephone conversation. “I thought about transferring to Southern, here in Baton Rouge, but all my life I'd been the type to run away from hard situations and I didn't want to live that way anymore, so I stuck it out at Monroe.”

“Did you ever hear from Omar, or get hang-up calls that could have been him?”

“No. I hoped for a long time that I would but it never happened,” Tanisha admitted.

On his end of the line, Dudley smiled, but he made sure that his voice sounded a little sad. “What do you think happened to him?”

She thought for a moment and then said, “Omar left home to meet Raven and no one's seen or heard from him since. I think the situation speaks for itself.”

 

 

“I've got no problem whatsoever—let me not exaggerate—I don't have
too
much of a problem when it comes to getting in trouble for the things I do. But to get blamed for something I didn't do, the way Michael blamed me for the Smotes disaster? I can't stand for that, Dudley.”

Raven and Dudley were on the telephone. They were obsessed with finding out why Michael's agenda was falling apart. Dudley wasn't trying to get Michael elected for the fun of it and nobody was going to cheat him out of his place of power behind the throne. Raven was just starting to have fun as the future governor's wife, and she wasn't ready for the ride to end any more than Dudley was.

“Who's around us that we can't trust?” Dudley asked.

“Ted Ballentine?” Raven offered.

They sat silently, each thinking the exact same thoughts about Michael's running mate. If Raven and Dudley could be said to revel in the cushy life that would come with a move to the governor's office, Ted Ballentine was drunk with the idea; he'd already become addicted to the advantages that came with being a candidate for the position of second in command. He didn't much care for Texans, but they loved him—at least the ones with money to spend did. Ballentine walked around with a big price tag on his forehead and a “for sale” banner draped across his ass. For anybody who wanted to buy a politician, for any reason, Ted Ballentine was the man to see.

“You really think it's him?” Dudley's tone was doubtful.

“Doesn't make sense, does it? Ballentine's scum, and he's dumb as a drum with a hole in it, but even he's smart enough to know he can't stab Michael in the back until after we win the race. He wants to be in the governor's office as much as we do,” Raven said.

“True. It's got to be somebody who can play both ends, who can work their agenda with or without Michael.”

“Let's look at the people who've let us down, the endorsements we've lost. The one's we've been able to count on before now.” Dudley ticked them off. “Midland Oil, Smotes, the Rice Association, which we can blame on Addison, Riley, and that dust for brains Watkins, as you like to call her.

“Who has the clout to influence them all?” Dudley mused.

They said it at the same time. “Erika Whittier.”

 

 

“Mom, I'm sorry it's so noisy,” Christopher said as he looked around Cantina de Carlos. “I didn't know there'd be so many kids here.”

“It's Friday night, Chris. Families always take this place over on Fridays. We used to come here all the time when you and Evan were small, always on a Friday. Don't you remember?”

Christopher leaned closer to his mother so he wouldn't have to shout. “A repressed childhood memory, huh? No wonder I like coming here.” He leaned to one side to avoid a little girl of three or four, who was running down the aisle, her arms flailing. “If you knew it would be a zoo, why didn't you suggest we go somewhere else?”

“A zoo?” Grace looked around her and smiled. “Maybe to you, but I call it life. I'm glad we came here, Chris. Reminds me of good times.”

Her smile shot love through Christopher like a lightning bolt. He felt the urge to get up from his seat and give her a hug, but he settled for saying, “Well, I'm glad you're having a good time.” Grace wasn't just having a good time; she'd taken Carolyn's advice and started looking good, too. She had on a tan calfskin jacket—which went quite nicely with her honey-blond streaked hair—jeans and ankle boots.

“That I am. But what about you? You seemed a bit distracted on the drive over. Anything you want to talk about?”

He'd been thinking about Genie. And about Monica's tattoo.

“Nah, I'm straight. Just thinking about the election.” Christopher threw out the explanation that he gave Genie whenever he didn't want her to really know what was on his mind. Too late, he realized his mistake. Christopher tried not to mention anything remotely related to his father to his mother.

One corner of Grace's smile dipped, then her eyes widened in surprise. The same little girl who'd run by before, careened directly into Grace.

“Whoa, sweetie. Slow down,” Grace said as she pulled the child onto her lap.

“Shinquintana, didn't I tell you to sit your butt down?” The girl's mother said as Grace handed over the child.

Shinquintana broke into loud sobs. The mother jerked the girl by one arm. “Come on here. You so bad!”

Grace reached out and touched the mother's arm. “Oh, I didn't mind her bumping into me. She a precious little thing, just as cute as can be.”

“Yeah,” the mother's rough exterior gave way under Grace's kind words. “She's been sitting still for hours, getting her hair done. I guess that's why she's got so much energy.”

“She looks absolutely beautiful,” Grace said.

Christopher looked at Shinquintana. She would have been a cute little girl if her mother had enough sense to leave her alone and let her look like a child. Christopher didn't know much about children, but he did know that one of the prettiest sights on earth was a little black girl, too young to have her hair permed, who still wore thick puffy plaits. Poor Shinquintana was wearing enough weave to give long locks to two grown women. The hair was braided, and it curlicued down her back all the way past her tiny shoulder blades.

Shinquintana's mother picked her up and kissed her. “Come on, boo boo. Let's finish eating.”

“Mom!” Christopher whispered after Shinquintana and her mother went back to their table. “Why'd you tell her that hairdo looks good? It's ridiculous!”

“You know what I always say, Chris. A little lie never hurt anyone.” Grace tried to look serious but she couldn't hold it. She burst out laughing and kept it up for so long that her eyes watered and she started coughing.

Thank God for little Shinquinwhatever,
Christopher thought as he watched Grace.

When Christopher got Grace home, he hugged her the way he'd wanted to all night.

“Mmm,” Grace said as she held him tightly, “your Uncle John is right. Hugs have healing power.”

Christopher held her at arm's length. “And so do you. That girl and her baby at the restaurant sure felt it. You've got a way with people, Mom, especially young ones.” He winked at her as he walked off. “Stop wasting it.”

He pointed his car in the direction of Austin, but he really didn't want to make the trip back. Not that he was tired, just the opposite. Christopher was a bundle of energy, and didn't really know what to do with himself. He refused to call Genie—they were okay on the surface, but inside Christopher seethed over the flippant way she had treated him. He couldn't get over the disrespectful things she'd said to him recently, like calling him immature. He didn't feel like driving to Austin and he didn't want to go back to Grace's. Where else could he go?

Just the thought of Monica caused shame to knot Christopher's throat and heat to rise in his groin. He had never come close to cheating on Genie. They promised from the beginning that no matter what, they would always be honest with each other.

Christopher recalled Genie, her voice oozing with superiority, telling him what a boy he was. He made his decision.
A little lie never hurt anyone,
Christopher thought, recalling Grace's favorite phrase. He added his own twist,
especially if the person being lied to never finds out.

He picked up his cell phone.

“Hey, Monica.”

“Hey, Chris.” Monica didn't sound surprised that Christopher was calling her on a Friday night.

“Look, uh, I'm still in town, nothing to do.”

“So you decided to call me as a last resort?” Monica didn't sound pleased, but as she talked to Christopher she walked to her linen closet and took out a set of fresh sheets.

“No, no, it's not like that. I just thought I could stop by, take you for a drink, maybe.”

Monica laid the fresh linen on her bed and walked to her lingerie drawer. “I'm not dressed to go out.” She had just gotten home from dinner with her girlfriends when her cell phone rang. She hadn't even taken off her shoes.

“Oh.”
Cut it off now, before you get into trouble,
Christopher thought, but he said, “We could just talk or watch TV.”

“Let me give you directions,” Monica said.

On his way to Monica's place Christopher told himself that they were two adults who were perfectly capable of holding a decent conversation or watching a movie without getting physical. He passed a drugstore, made a U-turn, and bought a packet of condoms.

When Christopher knocked on Monica's apartment door his heart was racing. She answered wearing a transparent black teddy. He could see her butterfly tattoo through the flimsy material.

Christopher took one step inside and the next thing he knew Monica was in his arms, her legs circling his waist. He gave a backward kick to close the door and laid Monica on the sofa. Then he went down for a closer look at her tattoo.