Enchanted Heart (14 page)

“Ta-da!”

“Have you lost your mind? You look like a PTA mom.”

“But I'm about to secure a whole lot of money for us. Wish me luck.”

Dakota followed Viv out of the office. One look at Virginia Heart and Viv knew she faced a true test here. Lance had a one-track mind that occasionally ventured onto rails leading to serious thought. The woman standing before her looked like all business, all the time. Viv's smile was genuine as she held a hand out to Mrs. Heart.

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Heart. I'm Vivienne la Fontaine. Would you like tea?””

“No, thank you,” Virginia said. “I understand my grandson is in discussions with you.”

“Yes.” Viv indicated the office. “We can speak privately in my office.”

“That won't be necessary. I wanted to come have a look at your . . . establishment.”

Viv smiled as she took in her store. “We're very proud of what we do here.”

“Is that a fact?”

“In the last nine months, through a combination of target marketing and promotion in key sectors, we've increased sales by fifteen percent.”

“And you have a toll-free number?”

“Yes. As a matter of fact, we do.” Viv reached for a business card on the counter. She offered it to Virginia who hesitated a fraction of a second before accepting, long enough to put Viv on guard, long enough for her to realize she'd made some sort of tactical error. Should she have offered coffee? Insisted they speak in the office? “I'm looking forward to an alliance.”

“Alliance?”

Viv cringed inwardly. She
had
assumed too much. “Well, that may be the wrong word. My plans for Guilty Pleasures are ambitious, but within the realm of possibility.”

“Hmm,” Virginia said as she took another dubious look around the store. “Well, I believe I've seen everything I needed to see.”

Viv sensed the opportunity of a lifetime slipping away. “Mrs. Heart?”

Virginia faced her, the cream-colored business card held just barely so between two fingers.

“I realize the circumstances may not have been typical when I met Lance Heart Smith, but I can assure you that Guilty Pleasures means more to me than just about anything in the world with the exception of my family and close friends. Expanding this store and branching out in new directions is something that will infuse both energy and revenue into the company.”

A look crossed Virginia's face, almost as if she were reassessing her opinion of both the woman and the lingerie shop.

“Well,” she finally said, “that will be taken into consideration.”

A few minutes later, the store was empty of the Virginia Heart presence. Viv groaned. “Back to the short list.”

“What? It seemed to go okay to me,” Dakota said.

Viv shook her head. “That was a polite kiss-off. Had she really planned to consider my proposal she would have done more than walk in, announce her presence and leave five minutes later.”

“And maybe, just like she said, she was just here to look around.”

Viv didn't agree at all, but there was no sense in arguing about it. That energy could be put to good use in wooing the next financier. The Partnership for Pride was also on her short list. They liked funding projects with potential. And if nothing else, Guilty Pleasures had potential.

On the ride back to the Peninsula, Virginia placed a call.

“Mrs. Heart. It's been too long. How have you been?”

“Until today, just fine Henderson. And you?”

The private investigator filled her in on chitchat that Virginia ignored.

“But I know you didn't call to hear about me. How can I be of service to you?”

Henderson Foster's family had been on the Heart family payroll for years. His father's first assignment from Virginia had been to document her husband's extramarital affairs. The second-generation private investigator was very good at his job and he remained available for any Heart family member in need of discreet investigative services.

Virginia sicced him on Vivienne la Fontaine, then leaned back on the smooth leather of the Bentley to enjoy the view of the ocean.

11

“I
don't understand what he wants.”

“All men what the same thing, honey.”

Sonja considered her mother. Edith Pride wasn't exactly an authority. She'd fallen in love with one man, married him, and when he didn't come home from Vietnam, she kept right on loving him. There'd never been another for her mother. Sonja, just past her one-year anniversary, wasn't sure she had that kind of emotional staying power. Maybe she didn't love Cole enough.

Consumed with a revenge agenda most of her life, she hadn't let herself experience the broad range of possibilities out there. She'd been no innocent when she and Cole hooked up. But she'd never had a man like Jack Spencer. Someone whose sheer presence could sweep a strong woman off her feet.

A stab of guilt lanced through her at the adulterous thought. But the truth of the matter was Cole's friend Jack had paid more attention to her in the few minutes they'd been alone together than Cole had in the last six months.

“Sonja?” Edith snapped her fingers.

“I'm still here.”

“Well, you don't look like it. Are you all right?”

“I'm fine, Mom.”

Edith peered a little closer, then her gaze took in her daughter's breasts and then her waistline. “Are you pregnant?”

Cold, icy fear clenched her. “God, I hope not!”

“Don't take the Lord's name in vain.”

“Yes, ma'am,” she mumbled, the response as automatic as it had been when she was young.

It wasn't that Sonja didn't want a child. When she'd married Cole, she'd been full of the dreams and desires of any young bride. Except Sonja wasn't all that young anymore and the tick-tock of the dreaded biological clock grew louder and more insistent with each birthday. She didn't want to be pregnant, because that would tie Cole to her in a way that would ensure she'd never, ever know if he was with her out of love or out of duty. Just another Heart responsibility.

On that point, Sonja had not a smidgen of doubt. There were too many illegitimate children and half-siblings in the Heart family. Before Cole's generation, few Hearts were even familiar with the concept of personal responsibility. Cole would want a Coleman IV to carry on the Heart legacy, one he could personally transform from the debauchery of his father and his uncle. Besides, Cole was one of the last remaining full-blooded Heart men. He was expected to father children.

But could they, together, given the unstable relationship they now had, in good conscience bring a child into the world?

Sonja put a hand on her flat stomach. She had no reason to believe she might be pregnant, but now that the seed had been planted, so to speak, she worried about it.

“What's the thing men want?” she asked her mother.

“To be fed well and to have a warm body to sleep next to.”

“That's it?”

“They don't need anything else. Think about it. If a man can pull up to his woman's table and leave satisfied, then get in her bed, have sex and fall asleep satisfied, there's not much that's gonna make him stray.”

“What about intellectual capacity? Fulfilling work?”

Edith shook her head. “That's where you and Cole got it all wrong, baby. You two come at it like research scientists. You both work like the world is coming to an end tomorrow and you have to get to the finish line. But what about passion? Do you two have any of that?”

Sonja didn't answer.

“And when was the last time you cooked for him? I don't mean one of those fancy dinners where the restaurant delivers it and you present it on a pretty plate. When was the last time the two of you stood barefoot in your kitchen and put together a meal? Fried some chicken or kneaded some bread?”

“Cole? Barefoot in the kitchen?” Sonja chuckled at the mental image.

“Um-hmm.” Edith smirked. “That's what's wrong with your marriage.”

She'd always had an open and honest relationship with her mother, so Sonja didn't hesitate asking the question that had been on her mind for days now. “Mom, do you think we're going to make it?”

Edith regarded her daughter over her crossword puzzle. “I don't know, baby. That's something you and Cole have to work out. But before you do that, you have to know whether or not it's worth fighting for. And you need to know whether or not you love him.”

Sonja's troubled gaze met her mother's. “What would make you think I don't? I married him.”

Edith chuckled. “Baby girl, getting married has nothing to do with love. You don't need one to have the other.”

“But it helps.”

“That's a fact. So?”

“So what?” Sonja asked.

“Do you love him?”

That was the million-dollar question.

At one time, she could have unequivocally answered yes. Without even thinking about it. Now though, she did think. And the conclusion she came to troubled her. Yes, she loved him, like a brother, like a good friend.

But was she in love with her husband? Did she
need
to be to make their marriage work?

 

 

That night, Lance sat up staring out at the river wondering if Gayla still thought about him. Wondering what had become of the girl with whom he'd fallen in love.

He nursed a Heineken and tried to imagine what his life would have been like had he and Gayla stayed together. They'd have a couple of kids by now, maybe even three. They'd live in a large house on the water with lots of trees and flowers. Their kids, enrolled in private school, would play soccer and lacrosse, and Gayla would be the perfect picture of a Junior Leaguer.

That was the image Virginia had in mind when she said she wanted him married and settled down.

Lance, of course, would be bored and considering a discreet affair, maybe with one of the Little League moms, but he would, he knew, still deeply love his wife . . . if not his life.

He wasn't the settling-down kind. Yet, the picture perfect life he disdained was the American dream, the very thing thousands, millions of people aspired to. At the heart of it, Lance knew he'd never bothered to actually divorce Gayla because having her there lurking in his background made it safe for him to do what he wanted, when he wanted.

Lance wondered if Gayla played a similar game with herself. She'd never tried to contact him; he'd never gotten any papers. So she'd either remarried and was now a bigamist and didn't care, or she was still by herself. He well knew that being “by yourself ” had little to do with vows, commitment or even living together.

He took another swig of beer, held it in his mouth for a moment then let the cool liquid glide down his throat. Gayla's small, lithe body used to slide over him like that, smooth and easy. He'd always thought she had the perfect female form.

Then, at a class reunion in Providence, Rhode Island, he'd met Vivienne la Fontaine. His ideas about female perfection had changed over the years. Vivienne was every waking fantasy he'd ever had, every wet dream he'd had as a teenager come to life.

And for some freaking reason, she didn't want anything to do with him.

 

 

The following week, Lance drove down Jefferson Avenue headed toward the East End and the community center. A block-long line of people two and three deep stood in a ragtag formation leading to the front doors of the rec center.

When he drove by, somebody hollered at him. He waved and kept driving. In the blighted neighborhood, his gleaming Jag stuck out like a beacon saying, “Steal me. Steal me.”

It crossed his mind that if he was going to be coming down here on a regular basis, a less conspicuous car might be in order. Unfortunately, he didn't own anything inconspicuous. The fully loaded shiny, black Cadillac Escalade he also drove was just as expensive and just as much a temptation to would-be car thieves. He thought about just bailing and heading to the oceanfront. But his grandmother's taunting words echoed in his head.

Circling the block, he pulled in the back way and parked next to T.J.'s blue Chevy Cavalier. He rang T.J. on his cell phone. “Open the back door so I can get in.”

“What are you doing at the back door?”

“Waiting for you to let me in.”

He knocked on the back door until T.J. appeared.

“What are you doing, man?”

“Trying to get in here. What's going on out there? People are lined up for a block out front.”

Lance followed T.J. across the gym floor and toward the office.

“They're here to see you.”

“Me?”

T.J. dropped a clipboard on his desk and sat on the edge of it regarding his friend with, yet again, a mix of disgusted amusement. “You really know how to shake things up.”

“What? What'd I do?”

“Word is there's some rich guy here giving away free computers.”

“Shit.”

Lance moved around the desk and peeked out the barred window at the line of people. There had to be a hundred people out there. Little kids on bikes, teenagers in baggy pants and cornrows, girls with baby strollers, and even desperate-looking adults impatiently waited for the rec center's doors to open.

“Shit,” Lance said again.

Outside, the crowd was growing agitated.

“They ain't got no computers up in there,” somebody hollered out. “Y'all a bunch of fools for standing around out here.”

“Then why you here?”

Laughter erupted at that. But the heckler wasn't daunted. “Shoot, they giving away computers, I'm gettin' me one, too.”

The chuckles and jostling in line continued. Somebody turned on a boom box and hip-hop music swelled over the crowd.

A kid rode up on a purple-and-white ten-speed. “What's going on?”

“Hey, Tarique,” another kid called out. “Whatchu doing?”

“Just riding around.” He nodded toward the door. “What's up?”

“Rumor 'bout some computers. You should get in line. They free.”

Tarique smirked. “Don't need no computer.” He wiped some imaginary dust from the handlebar of the bike.

A couple of other kids joined them. “Hey, that bike look just like Juanito's. You know his got ripped off the other night.”

Tarique's eyes narrowed. “Too bad for him.”

The other boy folded his arms and took a step forward. “Matter of fact, I think that is Juanito's bike. You know his mama worked a lot of overtime up at the hospital to buy it for him.”

Tarique yawned. “Nice story. Don't mean nothing to me though. This my bike.”

“Where you get it?”

Tarique glared at the kid. He knew he could take him out. But if he got off the bike, he knew it'd disappear—just like it had disappeared off the back stoop of Juanito's apartment. “My mama bought it for me.”

Not a one of the other kids looked like they believed him. The crowd surged forward toward the door. “Better hurry up,” Tarique told them. Yelling had already commenced about who'd been in line first.

The boys who'd challenged Tarique looked at the line and then back at Tarique. With one final glance at the bike, they chose the computer line. Tarique sped away.

“His mama a crack head,” one of the boys said. “She ain't bought him that bike.”

“Come on, man. Forget him. We gonna miss the computers.”

Inside, Lance was still trying to convince T.J. that the idea was ludicrous. Would never work. And even if it did work, they wouldn't be able to control the crowd.

“Just follow my lead, Lance. You're the one who got us into this mess.”

The truth hurt. Lance didn't like it one bit.

T.J. pulled fliers off the copier and handed the sheaf of paper to Lance. “Hurry up and cut those in half. I think I made enough.”

“You're just gonna let them all in here?”

“It's a recreation center. We want them here. This is going to be great. You'll see.”

T.J.'s plan was to get all the people inside the gym. Then he'd make a pitch about the programs the rec center offered. He'd calmly explain that the computers that were provided to the teens last week were part of a special program, just one of many offered on a regular basis. It would get dicey on the next part of his plan.

Miraculously, the center's staff got everybody inside without an ensuing stampede. Lance asked only to be identified by his first name. Keeping the Heart family name out of this would be in everybody's best interest.

T.J. addressed the crowd from a chair.

“The center can't provide computers for everyone,” he said. An angry crescendo buzzed in the room. Cussing and saying, “I knew it,” several people stomped out. T.J. held up his hands.

“Here's the deal,” T.J. told the sixty or so who remained. “The center's benefactor has agreed to provide five more computers. PCs.”

“Yeah, and what's the catch?”

“The catch is it'll be done by a drawing.” T.J. glanced over at Lance who just nodded. T.J.'s brainstorm was about to be announced. “In two weeks, there'll be a block party here.”

Lance stood up straight. So did all the spectators.

“Music. Food. Some games. And we'll have the drawing for the computers then.”

“That's a gyp. We were here first!”

Lance just shook his head. T.J. held up his hands. “I know. That's why when you fill out the registration forms that are being passed around right now, five people in this room will be lucky winners. One entry per household. Pencils are coming around. One entry per household.”