Was it Good for You Too? (2 page)

The blonde nodded, whipped out her cell, and went to work.

When Tailan noticed the team publicist eye hustling the actor, she snapped, “Hey, get your head back in the game, woman.”

Elona cringed and turned impishly to Tailan.

“I want you on the phone like yesterday,” Tailan directed. “Ask Ella Curry to put out a blast that Delvin Germaine's going to be at the Woodland in Indianapolis and to post the announcement on all major social media feeds.”

Tailan studied Delvin's progress down the narrow aisle. A taloned hand landed on his upper thigh, halting his movements. She wasn't surprised that the owner of that obscenely expensive manicured hand was none other than Nona, the woman who had purred out the initial challenge.

Delvin looked down, assessing the proximity of Nona's hand to his family jewels. “A woman's hand should never be that close to the business end of a man unless she's washing or servicing. Since you're doing neither, I'd appreciate it if you'd allow him”—he gestured toward his groin—”to mind his own business.”

Nona winked suggestively, stroked his thigh as though she was sizing him up for purchase, then pulled back and blew him a kiss. Hoots of laughter echoed around them.

These four divas—Nona, Shannon, Chanel, and Traci—were giving Tailan a special kind of headache—the kind that didn't go away with two aspirins and a call to the doctor in the morning. The foursome was forced on Tailan as a compromise—which now felt more like a punishment—for requesting that four
New York Times
bestselling authors be part of the tour. While the four she wanted, all mature women over fifty, were a literary event planner's dream, The Divas were more than a handful. They had missed their flights, missed the information briefing about the tour, insisted on costly upgrades at the hotel, and then somehow convinced the limo driver to cart them to a nightclub last night instead of straight to the hotel.

All of this forced Tailan out of bed at three in the morning to yank them out of the club, get them in the right rooms, and provide an hour-long briefing to cover the information they had missed earlier in the day. Operating on a mere two hours of sleep had Tailan ready to strangle all four of them. She gave each one a warning look before signaling to the driver to head out.

“There's plenty of room up here,” said Traci, another scantily clad woman who was sitting next to one of the more outspoken divas on the bus.

Delvin ignored her and didn't stop until he reached Tailan. “Is this seat taken?”

“Yes.” The novel Tailan pretended to be reading now commanded her complete attention. At least, that's how she hoped it appeared.

“Really?” he countered.

Tailan turned the page and gave him a haughty lift of her chin. “My imaginary friend is sitting there.”

“Well, she won't mind if I sit on her lap,” Delvin smirked.

Tailan turned another page. “She's a he.”

“Makes no difference to me.”

Tailan's right eyebrow winged up. She tilted her head and grinned. “So the rumors are true … you do swing both ways.”

“Watch it, Tai!” he said through his teeth.

She smacked her novel closed, grabbed her bag, and tried to angle past Delvin. Tailan was determined to vent her frustration where it belonged—on David.

Delvin blocked her escape with a firm grip around her wrist. “I'll follow you wherever you go.”

“No you won't,” she said through her teeth. “You'll get lost just like you did the last time.”

Chapter 2

Delvin didn't have a quick comeback for Tailan. He could only take in the anger flashing in her soft brown eyes. She had creamy golden skin, a pert nose, almond-shaped eyes, and inviting lips—a beautiful, exotic combination thanks to her Black mother and Asian father. She looked absolutely sexy with a touch of magnificent thrown in to give him an erection that could plow through rush hour traffic.

Anger often made Delvin play dirty. He tossed over his shoulder to David, “I see I'm not the only star on this bus.”

The warning look David flashed Tailan made her whisper to Delvin, “I'm going to put you over my knee and spank that ass.” But she sat back down, scooting over to the window seat.

“Was that a promise or a threat?” he drawled.

She threw him a look that could melt the North Pole.

Delvin ignored her animosity and joined her. She kept her gaze firmly fixed outside the window, but he plucked the novel from her manicured fingers to get her attention and placed the book behind his back. “How've you been?”

Tailan's eyes nearly cut him in half as her head snapped in his direction. She dashed a quick glance to David, who continued to throw daggers her way. She took a deep breath and mumbled, “I was wonderful until you showed up.” She gave a quick “I'll get to you later” nod in David's direction before turning her heated gaze again to Delvin. “You're playing with my livelihood, Delvin,” she strained through a tight smile. “David is the Vice President of Nelson Entertainment Group. Because of you, he's watching me more closely during one of the most challenging events of my career.”

“It's your own fault. All—”

“Shut it,” Tailan commanded, snapping her fingers together like a duck's beak. “It's taken me months of fancy footwork and my best impression of James Brown's
baby, baby, baby pleeeeeeeassse
, to get the publishers
and
big-box retailers on board.” Her eyelids dipped over her incredible eyes. Her lips pursed in a thin line, and Delvin realized he wanted to kiss them. She rubbed her temples as she continued. “Everyone expects this tour to fail. David has already warned—hell, more like flat-out threatened—that if this tour doesn't meet the projected numbers I guaranteed …” Tailan shook her head and turned away.

Being in her presence was pleasure and pain. Delvin had loved this woman since the summer he had found her hiding in a classroom at school. She had no place to go and had eaten her last meal two days before. Even in her most vulnerable state, she was still the most courageous person he knew. He loved her to this day, and he knew that would never change. He had to make things right between them.

Tailan dug in her bag for another book. He confiscated that one too.

She looked over to David, who was now completely absorbed in his tablet, then back to Delvin.

Delvin waited. Tailan said nothing. Delvin waited some more. She still remained stubbornly silent.

He blew out a weary breath. “Talk to me.” Delvin held out her coveted novel, and she placed it on her lap. “There's nothing to talk about.”

“I've missed you.”

Tailan waved her hand dismissively. “No doubt,” she taunted. “Is your wife still serving it up to every Tom, Dick, and Harry, Sally, Sue, and Mary Jane?”

Delvin felt the volcanic rush of blood through him. “That was low, even for you, Tai.”

“Really?” she asked with a toothy grin. “I learned from the best, so I'll take that as a compliment.”

Delvin's surrogate-turned-last-minute wife had caused Tailan years of unnecessary tears and grief. Evidently that grief had turned into an anger so large it needed a zip code of its own.

After shooting three movies back to back, he had hoped this tour would afford him some quiet time to reflect on his next move in life, especially since Gabrielle's publicist recently leaked a “major alert” that they weren't divorcing—a blatant lie. His agent sold him on being part of the Woodland tour to promote his new novel. But Delvin saw the move for what it really was—a way to keep Delvin away from Gabrielle until this new issue was sorted out.

“You were engaged to me,” Tailan attacked, effectively pulling him back from his trip down a memory lane that had more potholes than a Chicago street. “She lied to you and you married her instead. You made your choice.”

“She was pregnant with my child—a child, may I remind you, that you told me to have with her!” he shot back. “Because you swore up and down you weren't having one.”

Tailan sank deeper into her seat and studied him. The way her eyes traveled along every inch of his body triggered tremors of desire in him but also sparks of caution. He was right to be cautious, as she wasn't about to let him off the hook.

“Are you really that dense? That child isn't even yours,” she countered. “If it is, that was the
loooooongest
pregnancy known to man. Ten-and-a half months, right? She was on a movie set those first two months. Last time I checked, numbers don't lie. The truth is plain. But then again, I didn't marry her, so that's not my business.”

Delvin felt humiliation erode his normally stoic features.

“So, you still want to talk, sweetheart?” She flipped open her novel and looked down at the pages.

* * *

Twenty minutes out from the tour's first stop, Delvin finally had enough of Tailan ignoring him. Even in her finely practiced calmness, she was still the sexiest angry woman he had ever laid eyes on.

“Did I ever tell you just how grateful I was for how you were there for Jason, Tai?”

Tailan's sensually curved lips lifted at the corners as though she was struggling to keep her thoughts to herself.
Finally, a tiny crack in her resolve.
Her shoulders relaxed a bit, and for the first time since he stepped on the bus, Tailan was looking at him with something other than fire or ice in her eyes.

“How is he?” she asked.

He rewarded her with a warm smile. “Jason took being apart from you very hard.”

Jason, Delvin's stepson, had bonded with Tailan in a way that defied reasoning. Her tender loving care and Delvin's had saved the boy from a life filled with the psychotropic drugs Gabrielle preferred to shovel into him so she could focus on her movie career and not have to deal with another child she never wanted in the first place.

If Jason was given his choice, he would have left his biological mother and lived with Tailan permanently. And if Gabrielle wasn't such a self-centered, cold-hearted shrew, she would have put the needs of her child ahead of her own. But then again, she never had been one to worry about what someone else wanted.

Delvin smiled as he added, “That boy still keeps your picture on his nightstand. Pisses Gabrielle off every time she lays eyes on it.”

The instant Gabrielle's name cleared his vocal cords, Tailan's softening expression turned to stone.

“You want to talk about something,” she snapped. “Let's talk about the fact that you changed the rules when you didn't stand up for what you wanted.” Her eyes searched his for a moment. “And I thought you wanted … me.”

“You think I
wanted
to give you up?” he asked in a low tone. “I had her sign that surrogate contract to make sure we were all on the same page. She changed the rules, not me.” He reached over and stroked the delicate curves of her hand.

Tailan snatched away. “You got what you wanted. I'm done talking about this.”

Delvin refused to shoulder all the blame for what had happened between them. Definitely time for a history lesson. “And let me remind you, there wouldn't have been a need for her in the first place,” he challenged, “if
you
had been more open to having a child.”

“What did you just say to me?” Tailan's tone would've given the Grimm Reaper the shivers.

“All I wanted was one child, Tai,” he continued. “
One child.
Was that too much to ask?”

“You know what happened to me growing up,” she retorted, folding her arms over her full breasts. “There was no way I was going to bring a child into this world.”

“I would never leave you to fend for yourself, especially with my child.”

“You wouldn't leave me to fend for myself?” she scoffed. “That's funny because that's exactly what you did when she laid a guilt trip on your door.”

That mistake had left Delvin raw to the bone. He agreed wholeheartedly with Tailan's hostility towards Gabrielle. He had never loved that woman. He had only married her for one reason: she had flipped the script the moment her pregnancy was confirmed and penciled in her own agenda. The new agenda left Tailan Song, his fiancé, completely out of the picture.

Gabrielle's selfish act had cost Delvin seven years of happiness with Tailan. He had more than paid his dues. The reality of his choice was painfully clear. His sacrifice was based on a lie. Delvin had always shied away from the truth about his daughter. But at the time, he couldn't take the chance. Gabrielle was too lethal, too diabolical and would not have hesitated to terminate the life growing inside her. It was that one threat that forced him to yield.

He turned from his internal war to focus on Tailan. Her tense form was immersed in the book she was reading. A little smile lifted the corner of his features. He couldn't let a little thing like her desire to chop his balls off deter him. No sir!

Delvin noticed a tiny chip in her index fingernail. He reached out and stroked it lightly, causing her to tremble. Then she stiffened and tried to pull away. Delvin held firm. “Later, when we're done with all this tour stuff, we really need to talk.”

She yanked her hand back, answering his gentle declaration with, “No.”

“Do you still love me?” he asked. He stroked a fingertip across her cheekbone, eliciting another reaction.

Delvin saw it—the glimmer of desire and something he couldn't quite name. Faint, but it was there all the same. A spark of love? Something he could build on? Whatever it was, it gave him hope that he could get her to fall in love with him once again.

“Answer the question,” he demanded, his gaze focused on her. “Do you still love me?”

She looked past him, and he followed her line of vision. Across the aisle from them, Valarie, an erotica author, tore her gaze from the laptop stationed on her fleshy thighs and looked their way.