My White Lottery Winner (BWWM Interracial Romance) (7 page)

“
Don’t worry. I will do it and I will do it perfectly,” Desiree said, smiling. “What time will you be heading out?” she asked. Taylor looked at his wrist watch and gave her a pained look.

“
Actually, right now,” he said.

“
I was wondering what the whole breakfast thing was about,” Desiree said.

“
I was hoping it would be some kind of bribe,” he said as he took a long sip of his coffee.

“
Really? You would have to do much better than this,” she said, looking into his eyes.

“
Fine, then I’ll make it up to you when I come back tonight,” he said. She smiled at him and nodded.

"Deal," she said. “I think I’ll head on home sometime during the day and see what’s going on down there. I don’t want my family to think I’ve deserted them,” she said. Taylor smiled and nodded.

“
Sure,” he said before kissing her forehead. “See you tonight?” he asked. She nodded in agreement.

“
See you tonight,” she said as she watched him walking out.

After she’d had her breakfast, Desiree cleaned up and then sat in front of the TV and flipped through the channels. Before she knew it, she was fast asleep…and she was asleep for quite some time too. The loud ringing of her phone was actually what woke her up a couple of hours later. She looked at her phone and groaned when she saw the familiar work line.

“Hello,” she said in a groggy voice.

“
Hey Dee. How is everything?” her manager asked.

“
Good, you?” she asked wondering why he was calling her.

“
I’m fine too. Just checking up on you,” he said.

“
Oh come on, you would never just call me on my time off just to find out how am doing. That is virtually impossible,” she said.

“
Well, you better believe it,” her manager said.

“
Okay, just get to the point,” Desiree said as she sat up.

“
Okay. Would you mind covering me today? I know it is your time off and everything but it is kind of an emergency,” he said. Desiree took a long deep breath. This was something he always did and she was getting real tired of him.

“
I would if I could but I am not even in the state,” she lied.

“
Really? I thought that new cashier guy saw you and your boyfriend having dinner in town,” he said.

“
Well, it must have been my look alike or something. I am going to be traveling back home today. So, too bad,” she said, surprising herself at how easily her lies seemed to roll off her tongue. 

“
Okay fine. Thanks anyway,” he said before hanging up.

Desiree shook her head when he hung up. She hated lying to him but in the past year she had covered for her manager almost seven times and he had never once agreed to cover for her when she had her own emergencies. Furthermore, his emergencies were never really genuine. He was the kind of person who termed a Prada sale an emergency and Desiree was not about to go to work on her fourth and last day of her time off for anything, especially not her manager’s lame excuses.

She walked back to the bedroom and took a long shower before slipping into a long top and a pair of shorts. She pinned her hair up and sat on the bed with Taylor’s laptop. She had decided to do some research on the investments right now before she went home because once she got to talking with her family, she was sure she would never get any work done. As she scrolled through the various pages, she realized that this was not a decision she should make alone. Now more than anything she wished Taylor was there with her so that he could make a decision on what he wanted to do, or what he preferred to do. She slammed the laptop shut and then changed from her shorts and into a pair of skinny jeans. Maybe a change of scenery would make her think a bit more clearly.

When she got to the apartment, her sister had just woken up. She looked evidently worn out.

“Do I even want to know?” Desiree asked as she looked at Rochelle, who was shaking her head.

“
I think telling you anything would make me lose whatever little respect I may still have from you,” she said smiling.

“
Fair enough,” Desiree said. “Don’t you have school or something?” she asked.

“
Not until later on in the day. And what about you? We rarely see you nowadays,” Rochelle said. “You should not even give this as your address anymore,” she added, laughing.

“Come on. It’s not like I’m gone that much,” Desiree said.

“Really? Last week out of seven days, I saw you once. What do you make of that?” Rochelle asked. Desiree shrugged.

“Sometimes two people need some time alone to…reconnect,” she said. Rochelle smirked.

“Is that what we are calling it now, reconnecting?” she asked. Desiree smiled. “At this rate it would be simpler to get a house together and just move in,” Rochelle said as she grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. Desiree smiled as she watched her sister taking long gulps of the water.

“Oh, I have thought about it all right,” she said. Rochelle looked at her.

“And?” she asked. Desiree shrugged and smiled.

“I guess we just have to take everything as it comes, Roch. There is no rush,” she said as she looked at Rochelle. Meanwhile, she was thinking of how different her life would be if she and Taylor lived together. Or, maybe it wouldn’t be much different at all.

As Desiree looked through the various ways to save money on the internet, she could not help but feel overwhelmed. There was so much one could do with excess money. There were stock options, investment banks, business ideas…she just couldn’t decide what was best to pitch to Taylor. Everything looked so promising, so good…maybe even too good. She hated being in a position where she had to decide exactly how to help out. If she was the one who had won the money, maybe she would have had an easier time in making a decision. She could not help but think of what would happen if she made a bad decision.

Would Taylor despise her?

Would he be able to forgive her if she made the wrong decision?

She took a long deep breath and buried her face in her hands, wondering what exactly she was going to do. She was still in this position when her supervisor Lucas, knocked on her door.

“Geez, Young. Is the job that bad?” he asked. She looked up and smiled. It was strange to see Lucas around, especially since he was always busy. He had been charged with managing three stores in the area and he almost never had any time to check in at Desiree’s store or when he did, it was always when she wasn’t there.

“
I’m sorry, sir. Some things at home are a bit…crazy, to say the least,” she said, smiling.

“
Well, if I had a penny for every time someone told me that,” he said with a sigh. She laughed.

“
So, what brings you here? I thought that ours was the one store that didn’t need any supervision,” she said, looking at him. Lucas shrugged and sat down in the chair in front of her desk.

“
Well, I had to make sure everything was in order lest you thought we had forgotten about you,” he said. “Plus, we have a new product line coming in. Some chamomile based skin care product. They are doing pretty well in our other stores. This is the only place we have not introduced them yet.” Desiree shrugged.

“
Good,” she said. “Anything to make this place a little more successful than it already is,” she added, smiling. Lucas looked at her as a smile played on his lips.

“
Desiree Young, is that pride I hear in your voice?” he asked

“
What? This store has tripled in performance since I took over as assistant manager,” she said laughing.

“
Yeah, I heard you guys did a new approach. Taking the store to the people, was it?” he asked.  Desiree smiled and nodded.

“
Yeah,” she said. Lucas leaned in and shrugged.

“
What the hell inspired that idea?” he asked.

“
It was simple, really. There are two main retailing stores in the area and we did our homework and noticed that our competitor was a few cents more expensive on almost everything. So we did the one thing they didn’t do. We started a delivery service for all purchases over seventy-five dollars,” she explained. “We realized that most people would rather spend the extra twenty to thirty dollars if it meant doing it from their living room,” she added.

“
Wow, then that must mean that you had to improve your online presence,” Lucas said.

“
Actually, it was almost non-existent until we sat down with our techs and came up with the whole idea. Think of us as the eBay of retail,” Desiree said.

“
You are better than the eBay of retail. I don’t know what name to give you,” Lucas said. Desiree smiled.

“
Perfection at its best,” she said.

“
So, now that I’m here, maybe I should let you know that you need to make a plan for marketing these new products because I don’t think many people have any idea what they are. They are fairly new, not like Nivea or Olay. We will need to be their marketing partners for some time,” Lucas explained.

“
What do you mean, be their marketing partners?” she asked.

“
Well, since we took a risk in getting their product in the market, they agreed to give us a small percentage of their marketing budget,” Lucas said. Desiree raised an eyebrow and smiled.

“
Does that mean what I think  it means?” she asked. Lucas nodded.

“
If you are thinking bonuses, then you are most definitely right,” he said smiling.

“
Up top,” Desiree said and gave him a high five. “This is the greatest news I have had in a long time,” she said, smiling.

“
Well, I guess it is but we have to sit down and make a decision as to how much each employee is going to be getting,” he said.

“
Sure. Just let me know when we are going to be doing that and I’ll avail myself,” she said.

“
Good, then I’d best be going. I still have to have a look around the store before I leave,” Lucas said as he stood up. Desiree smiled and nodded.

“
I will just be right here trying to figure out some other great ideas,” she said. Lucas shook his head.

“
Could you at least pretend to be modest?” he asked. She shook her head and shrugged.

“
Hey, I’m just being me. It’s what we great people do,” she said as Lucas walked towards the door. He turned around and smiled at her.

“
Nice to see you, Young,” he said before leaving.

Desiree focused her attention back to what she was researching. She could still not make a decision. She took her phone and dialed Taylor’s number. He picked up after the second ring.

“Hey there, beautiful. Miss me already?” he asked.

“
You wish. Maybe it was just a misdial,” she said, smiling.

“
So, I should hang up?” Taylor asked. Desiree shook her head.

“
It’s a joke, Ericson. Roll with the punches,” she said. Taylor laughed.

“
I know, I just wanted to make you work for it,” he said. “So, how is it going?”

“
I don’t mean to whine, or anything. But this is harder than I thought,” she said.

“
What is?” Taylor asked.

“
This whole figuring out what you should do with your money thing,” she said. “There are so many things on the internet and I know for a fact that the internet is not always right,” she said.

“
That’s why we are only doing some researching work for the moment,” he said.

“
Yes, but what if I make the wrong decision and you end up losing all your money? I don’t think you will ever forgive me,” she said.

“
You know, maybe that’s the problem,” he said. Desiree shook her head as if he could see her.

“
What is?” she asked.

“
You thinking of it as my money,” Taylor said. Desiree was confused. How else was she supposed to think of it?

“
But it
is
your
money.
You
won it,” she said.

“
Yes, but if it were not for you I would have spent it all by now. You made me realize something. This is for our future, me and you. So it is actually
ours.
Think of it like that, and then maybe everything will be so much more clearer,” he said. Desiree smiled as she listened to him.