Read Feel The Fire (Unforgettable Series) Online
Authors: Adrianne Byrd
“What? I spread love and happiness to beautiful lonely women. By my estimates I should be the next Powerball lottery winner.”
Jonas opened his mouth for a rebuttal, but then thought better of it.
The hostess finally arrived at her podium. “How many are in your party?”
“Three. We’re expecting one more,” Jonas told her.
She nodded and reached for menus and silverware. “Follow me.”
The brothers fell in line behind her and navigated through a maze of tables. Suddenly Q’s hand clamped onto Jonas’s shoulder. “Oh, there’s Sterling.”
Jonas stopped and followed Q’s gaze.
“Looks like you were right. He did find a woman. A damn fine one at that.”
Jonas had stopped breathing at the sight of Sterling and Toni hunched, laughing and ogling like a pair of lovebirds.
“Would you like to join them over there?” the hostess asked when she realized that they had stopped following her.
“No,” Q said. “I think we should leave them alone. I haven’t seen Sterling glow like that since Tracy Mathis.” He started to walk away.
However, Jonas marched toward the couple.
“I stand corrected,” Q said. “It looks like we will be joining them.”
Damn right we are.
Enraptured by Toni’s L.A. stories, Sterling didn’t see or hear his brothers’ approached; but when Jonas cleared his throat, he jumped as though he’d been caught with his hands in the cookie jar.
“Jonas. Quentin. What are two doing here?” He frowned and did a double take on his older brother. “What happened to your face?”
“He got his ass kicked for kissing another man’s wife.” Q laughed.
Toni’s brow shot up at the information.
“We were also all supposed to meet for lunch to celebrates Jonas’s new business venture, remember?” Q asked.
While Quentin and Sterling chatted, Jonas’s gaze zeroed in on Toni.
She returned his stare with a benign smile. “So we meet again.”
Sterling and Q stopped talking.
A constant but pleasurable occurrence,” Jonas replied in his velvet baritone.
“You two know each other?” Sterling asked; his gaze ping-ponged between the two.
Toni curled toward Sterling, her smiled turned syrupy. “We’ve met.”
Suspicion crept into Sterling’s handsome features.
“And the plot thickens,” Quentin joked.
“Will you be joining this party?” the confused hostess asked.
“No/Yes,” Sterling and Jonas said in unison.
Q tried to suppress a grin while Toni’s smile slid as wide as Texas.
The hostess remained standing with the menus suspended halfway toward the table.
Jonas pulled out a chair and sat down, all the while avoiding making eye contact with Sterling. “So how do you two know each other,” he asked. “I’d think that would be something that you would have mentioned.”
Quentin hurried to take a seat so he could watch the drama unfold.
“We, uh, just met,” Sterling grudgingly admitted and then turned to Toni. “But, um, you didn’t tell me you knew Jonas, either.”
Toni shrugged their light interrogation off. “You didn’t ask and I don’t see why it’s relevant. We have a business relationship. That’s all.”
Sterling visibly relaxed while Jonas clenched his jaw in irritation at the truth.
“Oh.” Sterling perked. “For a minute there...”
“What?” Jonas challenged, finally finding his brother’s gaze. “You thought it was something personal? Would you’ve backed off if there was?”
Caught off guard, Sterling searched his brother’s face to judge whether he was being serious.
“There’s no need to ask hypothetical questions.” Toni said, rescuing Sterling. “The point is: there
isn’t
anything between us.” Her hand slid across the table and all three men’s gazes tracked it until it covered Sterling’s. “As far as Sterling and I, I’m open to the possibilities.”
Sterling straightened in his chair as he sandwiched Toni’s hand. “That makes two of us.”
Jonas’s gut clenched.
Over my dead body.
Chapter 8
At the end of the day, Toni returned home exhausted and excited at the same time. One thing for sure, it was going to be a lot harder starting her own business than she initially thought. By harder, she meant more expensive. Licenses, office space, furniture and employees were draining her bank account so fast it made her head spin. Which was why when Nora Gibson walked through her office doors last week, she nearly wept with joy.
When she left home this morning, she never dreamed she would flirt with Jonas and then wrap his younger brother around her finger. Though it was a boost to her ego, there was no doubt she was in a tricky situation.
“It really is a small world,” Toni told Maria over the phone after relating her day.
“That or it could be fate,” Maria suggested.
“Fate?” Toni laughed. “Only hopeless romantics believe in such things. “I, on the other hand believe in luck and opportunity. And I’m going to take this opportunity to get to know
Sterling
Hinton better.”
“I can already tell you he’s
not
the one for you,” Maria said nonchalantly. “Pulling out your chair, ordering for you and showering you with compliments? He’s too much of a Boy Scout.”
“Does that mean I’ll get a merits badge if I get him in the sack?”
“Hardly,” Maria laughed. “It means you’ll find him dull. Give you a brooding bad boy, however, and your panties practically melt off your body. You’re weird like that. But if you want to send this Jonas Hinton out to California, then I’ll gladly show papí a thing or two.”
“It’s bad form to beg for people’s leftovers,” Toni joked, but reflected over Maria’s words. The problem with having lifelong friends is they had the tendency to know you better than you know yourself. What Maria had so eloquently pointed out was one hundred percent true. Nothing turned Toni on more than a bad boy.
A challenge.
Looking back on that day in the airport, it had been Jonas’s sullen and brooding mood that had caught her eye. Even today, though he struggled with restraint, Toni was certain there was a bad boy dying to get out.
The question was how to help him do that.
“Are you there—or did you just call me to hold the phone?” Maria said, annoyed.
Toni blinked and retreated from her wandering thoughts. “Yeah, I’m still here. I have a lot on my mind.”
“Uh-huh. I was telling you I was thinking about getting my implants removed.”
Toni rolled her eyes. “Didn’t you just increase their size last year?”
“Yeah, but I’m starting to have some pain and swelling-not to mention half the time my back feels like it’s going to snap in half.”
Toni suppressed the urge to say “I told you so” and instead said, “You should definitely get it checked out. Are you just thinking about going down a size or...?”
“I’m going to get rid of them all together. See how I like being au naturel for a little while.”
“Good for you,” Toni praised, but in Maria’s next breath, she was talking about the latest and great liposuction technique available, and Toni’s mind wandered again. She continued to lend Maria half an ear while she ran the bathwater and removed her makeup.
When the call ended, Toni soaked in a tub with lavender-scented bubbles while her mind replayed the scene in Jonas’s office. However, her imagination altered things a bit and Jonas, instead of suppressing his attraction, had knocked everything from his desk, ripped off her clothes and screwed her brain out.
She had no doubts he knew his way around a woman’s body. Probably even knew a few tricks she’d never tried before, but ones she would be more than anxious to try.
Then her thoughts shifted to the restaurant. For as long as she lived there was no way she would ever forget the jealousy teeming in Jonas’s eyes. Had Sterling been any other man, it was safe bet that Jonas would have thrown a punch.
Hadn’t the youngest brother said that Jonas had gotten his fat lip from kissing a married woman?
Her fantasy bubble popped. She was willing to stake her life that the married woman was Ophelia Bassett.
Aware of her bath’s cooling water and vanishing bubbles, Toni quickly washed up and climbed out of the tub. When she finally curled into bed, she’d convinced herself she’d imagined Jonas’s jealousy.
The phone rang and Toni rolled over to answer it.
“Hello.”
“I hope it’s not too late to call.”
Toni’s heart raced. “Jonas?”
There was a pause and then, “No. It’s Sterling.”
Solomon took the couch. It had been hours but he could still clearly see his wife standing before Jonas with her chin lifted to receive a kiss. He would have never believed her capable of such a betrayal; but there she was, tearing out his heart.
“Sol, please come to bed,” Ophelia said from the living room’s doorway. She stood, arms crossed, in a sheer thigh-length nightgown and matching high-heeled slippers. “This is childish.”
“Don’t,” he warned. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Neither did I,” she insisted. “I had no intentions of kissing him.”
He jerked up to glare at her. “
He
had every intention of kissing you and I saw no resistance on your part.”
“Sol-”
“You were going to kiss him in front of
my
child.”
“She’s
our
child,” she snapped, and then quickly cooled off her temper. “Baby, I’m sorry.
But
nothing happened.”
“Because
I
walked in.” He shrugged. “Is that supposed to make me feel better? Nothing happened because I walked in?”
Her gaze fell from his to find a random spot on the floor.
Solomon whispered, “Do you still love him?”
Her gaze shot back up and her heart melted at the sight of his pain. “No, baby.” She crossed the room to kneel before the couch. “Not in the way that you think.”
He stiffened. “But you still have feelings for him?”
Ophelia took hold of her husband’s hands. “I will always
care
for Jonas, but I’m not in love with him. I’m in love with you and no one else. Surely you can look into my eyes and see that I’m telling you the truth?”
Solomon did look into her eyes; seconds later a crooked smile jagged across his lips and he gathered her into his arms. “Oh, baby. I’m so sorry.” He squeezed her tight. “I just feel that old jealousy curl in my gut whenever he’s around.”
“Shh. It’s all right.” She peppered kisses across his face. “Just know this-no man can ever take your place in my heart. I am your woman. Forever and always.”
Solomon crushed her lips against his with an animal-like groan. He had loved this woman since June of ’82 when they were thrown together in Ophelia’s cousin’s closet during the game Ten Minutes in Heaven. In that darkened closet, he had kissed a scrawny girl with a mouth full of wire and who smelled wonderfully of strawberry Bubble Yum. It was a kiss that had changed his life and enslaved his heart forever.
“C’mon, baby. Let’s go to bed,” Ophelia said.
“You got it.” Solomon climbed to his feet and swept his wife into his arms and carried her off to the bedroom.
Jonas lost count on how any drinks he’d tossed back. All his thoughts and emotions were a complete jumble so he gave up trying to decipher them. It’d been quite a day, after all. He’d gotten his butt kick—
twice
, nearly kissed his ex-fiancée and discovered his own brother dating his...what?
Technically Toni Wright was little more than an acquaintance. They shared drinks in a bar over six months ago. He had no claim on her.
Then why did it feel like Sterling had crept into his private safe and stolen his most prized possession?
“Women,” he mumbled, pouring the last of the Jack Daniels.
Before Ophelia, Jonas had a slew of bad luck when it came to women. For the longest time, he seemed to only attract gold diggers or pampered trust-fund princesses. Both sets of women were void of any real emotion.
Ophelia was the first woman who didn’t give a damn about his money and he was getting the same impression about Toni Wright. Yet, how could she flirt openly with him one moment and then curl in some dark corner with his brother the next?
Jonas drained the rest of his drink and then strolled across his penthouse to his opened window to stare out at the vast glowing lights along Atlanta’s beautiful skyline. How sad it was to have everything that money could buy and still be the loneliest man on earth.
“I’ve become a walking, talking cliché,” he grumbled, disgusted.
Exasperated, Jonas turned away from the window in a huff and nearly stumbled in the process.
“Whoa there.” Q said, walking through the door with a girl hooked on one arm. “Are you having a private party in here?”
“Something like that,” Jonas mumbled and found himself envious of how his youngest brother moved from woman to woman with his heart still intact.
“Let me show you to my room,” Q whispered to his playmate and disappeared for a moment. When he returned, he approached Jonas with concerned. “You all right, bro?”