KENSINGTON BOOKS

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      Contents

      Chapter 1

      Chapter 2

      Chapter 3

      Chapter 4

      Chapter 5

      Chapter 6

      Chapter 7

      Chapter 8

      Chapter 9

      Chapter 10

      Chapter 11

      Chapter 12

      Chapter 13

      Chapter 14

      Chapter 15

      Chapter 16

      Chapter 17

      Chapter 18

      Chapter 19

      Chapter 20

      Chapter 21

      Chapter 22

      Chapter 23

      Chapter 24

      Chapter 25

      Chapter 26

      Chapter 27

      Chapter 28

      Chapter 29

      Chapter 30

      Chapter 31

      Chapter 32

      Chapter 33

      Chapter 34

      Chapter 35

      Chapter 36

      Chapter 37

      Chapter 38

      Leila

      1

      “You’re on the line with Carmelicious—what’s on your mind?” The smooth, husky-timbered voice poured like milk chocolate into Leila’s Jeep.

      Leila uttered a mild curse, coming to a near halt in the bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-35N, due to an accident further up the highway.

      Damn.

      Just her luck. Of course there would be an accident, when she needed—desperately needed—to make good time.

      Her eyes darted to the flashing numbers on the clock on her dashboard. She couldn’t be late for the appointment she had scheduled with the investor. Too much was riding on this meeting.

      She blew out a frustrated breath of air, smoothed one of her locs behind her ear, and turned up the volume on the radio.

      “Yeah, yeah—hey, Carmelicious, this is your boy, Andre.”

      “Hello, Andre, I’m listening…what’s on your mind?”

      “Well, now see, this is my first time listenin’ to your show, and girl, I don’t know what you women are thinkin’ saying it’s a man’s job to take care of the financial end and whatnot of a relationship! Y’all done got it twisted!”

      “Oh, yeah, Andre? And how have we ‘done got it…twisted?’” There was only a small change in inflection in her softly accented southern voice, a change Leila knew good and well boded ill for the hapless caller—one he was too dense to pick up on.

      Andre continued, “Yeah, that’s right, this is the new millennium and last time I checked, it was women who started all this equal rights stuff way back in the day. If y’all want equal rights on jobs and thangs, why stop there? Why get all hot around the collar if a man expects the woman to chip in, you know, to—”

      “Earn her keep, Andre?” Carmelicious smoothly supplied.

      “Yeah! You know what I’m sayin’, girl! That’s it, that’s it! Earn her keep! Ain’t nothin’ for free these days, is what I’m sayin’. So, if a woman expects a man to do for her, well now she damn sure needs to do somethin’ for him. Remember that song from back in the day: ‘If you do for me, I’ll do for you?’ Yeah, that’s what time it is!”

      “And just what is she supposed to do for him?” Carmelicious asked, and despite her frustration, Leila smiled at the DJ’s oh-so-innocent voice.

      “Like that last caller, asking if it’s wrong for a woman to want a man to take her out to a five-star restaurant—to wine and dine her. Hell, yeah, there’s something wrong wit it! Women been gettin’ a free ride for too long! Why a man gotta bleed his pockets dry to show a woman a good time in order to get a little sniff of that kitty cat? See here, I can make that cat purr, baby, I can make it purr…groowwl…you hear me?” Andre asked, warming to his topic, now on a roll.

      “Uh huh, I hear you, Andre, I hear you! You’re even giving Carmelicious sound effects! So no, I ain’t mad at you! Go on, Andre.”

      The caller laughed, foolishly encouraged by Carmelicious’s antics as she egged him on further, thinking she was on board with his craziness. Leila shook her head and inched along in the mad rush-hour traffic, checking the clock on her dashboard, for the third time in the last five minutes.

      She had less than twenty minutes to get to her appointment with the investor.

      Or with the man she hoped would be an investor. God, she needed some serious cash pouring in right about now if she planned on landing a lucrative account with a local fundraising group, catering all their special events, including all their deliciously lucrative political dinners. Leila visualized her near future with a nearly orgasmic shudder of anticipation.

      Landing the account would mean bumping up Aunt Sadie’s Café, and its new catering side to the next level. Taking Aunt Sadie’s to a higher level would mean she could stop working night and day at the café, and hire more people to work for her. She’d be able to enjoy life for the first time in years.

      She didn’t know the last time she’d gone out and had fun, just a day of shopping without worrying about a check not clearing, or charging one credit card to pay another, robbing Peter to pay Paul. And then there was Mary, with her hand out constantly, asking where her money was. She’d be able to stop playing a juggling act with her food distributors in order to get the supplies she needed to run her business.

      And the latest bit of information, that a land developer wanted to buy out the entire two blocks of land where Aunt Sadie’s Café had resided for forty years, along with the other small neighboring businesses, was a headache she most definitely didn’t need.

      Just the thought of her last exchange with Brandan Walters created an instant knot of tension at the back of her head. Damn him.

      Leila blew a tired breath of air, and blindly reached for the ever ready bottle of Motrin in the middle of her console near the gear shift.

      She couldn’t let Aunt Sadie’s fold, and she was damned if she’d sell it out to the highest bidder. That was not going to happen. She had to make Aunt Sadie’s a success; it was all she had left of her great-aunt.

      The memories of the two of them working side by side for years, from the time she was a small child and then came to live with Sadie were ones Leila cherished, and no amount of money would lure her into selling the property.

      She’d worked day in and day out at the business, along with her small, overworked staff, in order keep the business afloat after Aunt Sadie died. Leila had let things slide then, but felt guilty when she’d climbed out of her grief long enough to see what had happened to the business. She became more determined