скачать книгу бесплатно
“I’ll be sure and do that, Vince,” Ciara said sarcastically, sauntering past him toward the dressing rooms. Who did he think she was—his secretary? Ciara climbed up the back staircase to the small apartment Diamond and Vince shared and knocked on the door.
“Coming,” a voice rang out from inside. Diamond opened the door seconds later and Ciara was rewarded with a loud screech.
“Ciara! Oh, baby girl, it’s so good to see you.” Diamond kissed either cheek and squeezed Ciara’s shoulders. A hug that Ciara did not return. “Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you since yesterday.”
Ciara looked her mother up and down and was embarrassed. Her mother was overly made-up, wearing a tight bustier that revealed her ample bosom. She’d paired the bustier with some tight leather capris. How did Diamond always manage to find clothes that made her look trashy? She was forty-five years old for heaven’s sake. Why didn’t she dress like it?
“I do have a life, Diamond,” Ciara replied, walking inside. She looked around the modest apartment for a place to sit, but the tiny living room was cluttered with clothes and paper. Diamond didn’t work and could easily clean up the place. What did she do all day? Ciara wondered as she stepped over clothes and brushed some newspaper onto the floor and off the couch to make room for a place to sit.
“Don’t be a grouch.” Diamond closed the door behind her daughter and plopped down in her recliner to watch Judge Mathis. Picking up her bottle of ruby-red nail polish on the coffee table, she returned to polishing her toenails.
“I’m not a grouch,” Ciara said, throwing her purse on the side table.
“If you say so,” Diamond huffed. She knew her daughter didn’t approve of her, but she didn’t care. As long as she was happy with herself that was all that mattered.
“Well?” Ciara raised an eyebrow. “What do you want, Diamond? Because I’m on my lunch hour and have to get back to work.”
“It’s like I said when I called,” Diamond replied. “I need to borrow a little cash.”
“Why? Isn’t Vince bankrolling you?”
“The bar isn’t doing so good,” Diamond replied, “as you can probably see from the lack of customers downstairs, and I need a few things. And Vince is being a real tightwad with his cash these days. He says I’m spending too much.”
“Is that true?” Ciara asked. She was sure it was. Diamond went through cash like water.
Diamond smiled guiltily. “I suppose I may have overspent a little, but I just had to have a pair of these tall four-inch boots that were on sale at Macy’s. Wait here and I’ll show you.”
Diamond rushed off toward the bedroom and minutes later returned carrying a pair of tiger-print leather boots with a four-inch heel. “So, what do you think?”
Ciara shook her head in amazement. Her mother would never change. She had no idea about the value of money because she’d never stayed in one place long enough. She’d always gone from one man to the next; moving her and a young Ciara from place to place after each one of her relationships had successively failed.
Ciara had hated each and every one of them. Every guy was usually only after one thing and poor Diamond never figured it out until it was too late and he was moving on to the next person. Until Paul Williams had come along. Nearly forty years her senior, he’d married Diamond and had later left her his fortune, which she’d had the bad sense to waste. “Diamond, how much did those boots set you back?” Ciara asked.
Diamond looked down sheepishly and didn’t answer.
“Diamond, how much?” Ciara’s voice rose an octave.
“Oh, two hundred dollars,” Diamond whispered.
“Two hundred dollars! Are you insane?”
“I know, but I just had to have them,” Diamond explained. “They fit my new knit jersey dress to perfection.”
Ciara was so frustrated at her mother’s lack of discipline. Every time she was low on cash, she came knocking on her door.
“And you want me to bail you out, I presume. Why do you always do this, Diamond? Do I look like your personal ATM?”
“Of course not,” Diamond replied and on cue tears began to form in her dark brown eyes. “It’s just, you know I haven’t had an easy life. I grew up on the streets and had to raise you all on my own.”
Ciara sighed. She’d heard this song and dance a million times. Diamond had run away from home at sixteen and had met up with some Las Vegas showgirls who’d taken her under their wing and taught her how to get by. Ciara understood all that because she’d lived through it with her, so she would not be made to feel guilty because Diamond was a spendthrift.
“It’s not my fault you ran off with another man and didn’t tell Daddy. He would have helped, you know. Taken care of the both of us.” From what she’d heard, her father had adored Diamond and when she’d become pregnant, they’d quickly gotten married. Diamond hadn’t been content as a married housewife and mother, but she’d been young and gullible and had run off with the first smooth talker she’d met, leaving Ciara’s poor accountant father with a broken heart. And when that relationship had failed, Diamond had returned to the only thing she knew how to be: a Las Vegas showgirl.
“So, you blame me for your horrible life?” Diamond questioned her.
“Who else should I blame? You are the parent. Aren’t you?” Of course, Ciara wondered about that sometimes. Many a time, she’d had to help a tipsy Diamond up the stairs after one too many or had been forced to listen to her get it on with some stranger.
Diamond shrugged her shoulders. “What’s done is done, Ciara. I can’t make up for it, baby girl. But you are in a position to help your mama. You’re a big-time reporter now.”
Little did she know, thought Ciara. Her reporter’s salary barely fed her. Ciara stood up abruptly. “I have to go or I’ll be late.”
“And the money?” Diamond turned on the puppy-dog eyes. Ciara shook her head. She should let Vince kick Diamond out, maybe then she would learn her lesson. Of course, then she would have no place to go and where would she end up? At Ciara’s doorstep. No, no, it was better she give her the money and hope for the best.
“I don’t have two hundred.”
Diamond smiled and lightly touched her cheek. “Whatever you could give me would be great.”
Ciara leaned over, grabbed her purse and pulled out a hundred-dollar bill from her wallet. “How about one hundred?” Ciara held up the money.
Diamond quickly snatched it and stuffed it down her bustier.
“Thanks, kid, you’re a real lifesaver.”
Ciara glanced down and her watch read a quarter to two. “I’ve got to go, Diamond.”
“Listen, Ci-Ci, I really appreciate your coming by. You always help your mama out when I need it.” It meant the world to Diamond that even though her daughter had moved up in the world, she hadn’t given up on her.
“Please don’t get all mushy and sentimental, Diamond. It doesn’t suit you,” Ciara retorted, walking to the door. She may have agreed to help her, but Ciara didn’t get the warm fuzzies from her mother.
“Okay, okay.” Diamond knew a good thing when she had it and wouldn’t push. “I’ll see you later,” she said, closing the door behind her.
Ciara breathed a sigh of relief and took the stairs two at a time to get out of the dingy bar. Thank God that was over, she thought rushing back to her car. Now she could look forward to her evening with Jonathan and all that implied.
Chapter 4
When Ciara arrived at Capital Grille, she found Jonathan waiting for her at the bar having a Scotch neat. Ciara was somewhat nervous about her attire. “I hope this is okay?” she asked, referring to her buttercup business suit. She hadn’t had the time to go home and change.
“Of course it is.” Jonathan grinned widely. “You look beautiful.” From where he was, he liked everything he saw.
“Have a seat, you’ll love this place. They make the best lobster bisque.”
“Ooh, it sounds delicious,” Ciara said. “And I’m starved.”
“CG has excellent entrées and a great selection of wines.”
“Sounds mouthwatering,” Ciara licked her lips in anticipation.
Jonathan followed the tiny action, mesmerized by her mouth.
“Your table is ready,” the hostess said, interrupting them.
“I’m curious as to why a guy like you would choose to get involved with me, a television reporter. I’m sure your family advised against it.” Once they were seated, Ciara wasted no time cutting to the chase.
“True, they don’t agree,” he replied. “But I make my own decisions.”
“In a political campaign, I doubt that’s even possible,” Ciara said aloud.
“So you think I’m a puppet and my father pulls the strings?”
“No, no, no,” Ciara explained herself. “I merely meant that you probably have a lot of people telling you how to dress, how to talk, how to act. It must be extremely difficult. I’m sure they’re the reason you didn’t announce your candidacy today. I think that was a wise decision.”
“Thank you.” Jon smiled. At least someone appreciated his game plan. “I thought I might appear too eager to the public and not respectful of my father’s tenure if I announced my candidacy five minutes after he resigned from office.”
“I agree with you. The public can be somewhat fickle, but that’s what makes the news so exciting and unpredictable.”
The way she talked about her job with such passion made Jonathan envious. It must be nice to decide for yourself the direction your life would take. For him, his life had been planned out since birth: private school, Harvard, law school, and now running for office. “Have you always known you wanted to be a reporter?” Jonathan asked. “Because you seem to enjoy what you do.”
“Well, of course,” Ciara replied as if the thought to do anything else had never crossed her mind. She’d always wanted to be a reporter. That was why she’d run her high school and college newspapers. “I love what I do. Being a journalist is in my blood. I live it, I breathe it, 24-7.”
“Wow, say how you truly feel!” Jonathan said, overwhelmed by the sheer enthusiasm in Ciara’s voice. He wished he knew what that felt like. Yes, he was good at being a lawyer and politician. He’d trained his whole life for it, but was it his true passion? He didn’t know. He’d never been allowed to find out.
“Don’t you love what you do?” Ciara asked.
“No, not always,” Jonathan answered truthfully.
Ciara was surprised by his answer. Did the golden boy have problems like the rest of the human race? What troubles could someone like him, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, ever have that couldn’t be solved by one flick of his father’s wand?
“Why not?” Ciara asked. “From what I can see you’re a natural. The camera loves you,” she said. She wondered if she could get an exclusive interview for WTCF.
“Thank you.” Jonathan blushed, causing Ciara’s heart to go pitter-patter.
“You’re welcome. But I’m sure I’m not telling you something you haven’t been told before. You have the it factor, now you just need to show that you can back it up.”
“Well, that’s exactly what I intend to do. I intend to showcase issues important to my community like educating our children and taxes.”
“Sounds like you know the issues and that’s important. Because trust me, the press won’t let you get away with a pat answer.”
“Don’t I know it,” Jonathan replied.
The waitress came back with their lobster bisque and placed it in front of them. “This looks delicious.” Ciara wasted no time in digging her spoon into the creamy mixture with chunky bits of lobster. She tore into the bowl and it was empty before Jonathan had hardly had a bite.
He’d been so busy watching her facial expressions as she devoured the soup, he’d barely touched his. She’d looked up several times and found him openly staring.
“Mmmm, was that good,” Ciara commented. She placed her spoon in the empty bowl and peeled a nibble off the warm loaf of bread the waitress had brought to accompany the soup.
“I can tell.” Jonathan leaned over and wiped some of the liquid off the corner of her mouth with his finger and licked it off with his tongue.
Ciara was the first to break their gaze and speak. “Enough about our respective careers. I’m curious as to what makes a man like you tick.”
“What do you want to know?”
“C’mon, something tells me you’re a man of many talents,” Ciara replied flirtatiously. “You’re surrounded by all that money and power, it must be intoxicating.”
“Sometimes it is,” he responded. And sometimes he wished for a moment of peace. Over the next three months he wouldn’t have much of it with the special election coming up in November. That was why he’d been so hell-bent on keeping his date this evening. The women he typically dated were all the same.
Beautiful, well-bred socialites skilled in the art of conversation, parties and none of whom had the least bit of substance, which was why Ciara Miller intrigued him. He was sure he’d barely touched the surface of such a complex woman.
“And you’re unattached because?” Ciara asked.
“I choose to be. And you? Why is a beautiful woman like you still single?”
“I’m not the settling-down type,” Ciara stated. “I didn’t grow up with a white picket fence with dreams of having a family. I was raised by a single mother and grew up poor with barely a roof over my head.” Ciara drew her water glass to her lips and took a generous sip.
Jonathan’s brow rose. Her statement revealed a lot about Ciara. Clearly there were some things in her past that had affected her deeply because hurt was etched across her face, but just as soon as it surfaced, the pain was gone.
“I can’t wait for dinner,” Ciara said, smiling again while she changed the subject. “Because if that bisque was any indicator, dinner ought to be darn good.”
After a leisurely dinner and light conversation about their various interests, they shared a decadent chocolate mousse that afterward left Ciara feeling frisky. Could it be because Jonathan had removed his overcoat, rolled up his sleeves and unbuttoned his top button? Just that little bit of skin was making Ciara all kinds of horny. What was it they said about chocolate?
“Listen, I enjoy my freedom,” Ciara said after regaling Jonathan with tales of her bad-girl youth. “No restrictions. You know what I’m saying. I like being completely uninhibited.”
“I like uninhibited,” Jonathan said, leaning in closer until their arms touched.
“Do you?” Ciara scooted closer and lightly rubbed his arm.
At the slightest touch of her hand, all the hairs on Jonathan’s arm stood up at attention. He was more aware of her than ever.
“Yes, I do,” Jonathan said. He appreciated a woman in touch with her sexual side and one so completely unpredictable. “So let’s get out of here and perhaps we can get uninhibited together.”
“No can do, sweetheart,” Ciara replied and rose to her feet. “I have to work tomorrow and with the way my boss has been riding me I can’t afford to be late again.”
“Oh, you’re no fun.” Jonathan pouted.
“I’ll make it up to you,” Ciara replied, seductively leaving Jonathan no doubt of her intentions.
“Promise?” Jonathan raised a brow.
“I promise.”
“I’m home,” Ciara yelled later that evening as she walked inside the apartment.
Rachel poked her head out from the kitchen and wiped her hands against her flowery apron. “How was your day?”
“Oh, it was rough,” Ciara said, kicking off her shoes and flopping down on the chaise on their sectional sofa. She tucked her legs underneath her and laid her head against the armrest.
“How about a glass of wine?” Rachel suggested.
“That sounds wonderful,” Ciara said, massaging her temples.
