Diary of A. . . (16 page)

“Well, according to the paper, he’s dead. I
don’t think you should hurt her like that. Why would she lie to
you?”

I shrugged a shoulder. “To cover up five
million dollars.”

“You want me to look at this a little more?”
she questioned. “I mean, I checked that the document was signed by
the morgue director and that the hospital records confirmed that
the real time of death was really the date the morgue director
signed it. But I could look further.”

“If you could.”

She nodded. “No problem.”

A knock on the door interrupted us. It was
Peter. He was holding a folder.

“Was I interrupting?” he questioned, looking
a little nervous. I saw a little bit of ‘I’m glad but not glad to
see you’ in his eyes.

Why on God’s green earth was this man asking
for punishment? Peter never came to see me unless he wanted
something. By now I was positive he would avoid me.

“Yes,” I said. “But that’s all right.” I
checked the time to see that it was going on five o’clock. “It’s
the end of the day, Cassandra. Go home.”

“I could stay late,” she offered.

“No. I’ll be fine.”

When she was gone, Peter went over to the
door and locked it. I wasn’t scared, but his docility was
intriguing. I hadn’t requested him, so why was he here?

“I bumped into the girl at research and told
her I was on my way to see you.”

“Oh really?”

He placed the folder on my desk. “She said
you requested this information.”

I opened the sealed folder briefly to see
that it was the Sroban company information that I had requested. As
quickly as I opened the folder I closed it right back, not really
wanting Peter to see what I had received.

“How was New York?” he inquired.

Annoyed, I snapped, “Peter, I don’t chit
chat.”

He bowed his head submissively and walked
around the desk. I tried not to show my own shock as he went down
on his knees by my chair.

Since his eyes were looking at the ground, I
was able to shield my stunned expression. Standing up, I pulled
down my underwear and pulled up my dress, glad I had worn garters.
I rested one leg on my desk. Before I could even finish resting my
back in the seat again, Peter’s mouth had made contact with my
womanhood.

Oh Damn! It was great to be back in
Detroit.

Entry Twenty-Six

To be totally honest, I think Peter got more
pleasure out of tasting me than I did. And I was positive I saw a
hard on between his legs after I kicked him out my office once I
received my own pleasure from his mouth.

This thought occurred to me as I was being
chauffeured over to where Mack awaited me. He had bought out the
Sweet Georgia Brown restaurant and so the staff was at our beck and
call.

Mack spoiled me with three-dozen pink, white
and red flowers and he couldn’t stop kissing me.I was enthralled
with the man’s attention. At the end of the night, Mackeroy had the
waitress deliver a diamond bracelet surrounding one of my favorite
desserts.

Kissing him was so pleasurable and I was
totally in love with my bracelet. He reserved a room for us at the
expensive five star Athenaeum downtown. There was a Jacuzzi in the
middle of the room. We spent hours in it just having fun touching,
kissing, and rubbing against each other. Which ended with me riding
him to ecstasy.

Afterwards, we adjourned to the bed in thick
hotel robes. We sipped champagne and ate white chocolate covered
strawberries that were so delicious!

By this time it was like one in the morning.
I knew I should be going home, but I was having so much fun being
pampered and spoiled.

“Are you going to take my suggestion and
just take off of work and let me continue to pamper you?” Mack
asked, stroking my leg.

“When?”

“Why not tomorrow?”

Was he smoking crack?

I decided to give Mack the benefit of the
doubt. He probably didn’t know what was going on at the company and
he really didn’t need to know. He was a client and I was not about
to cost the company any money by opening up my mouth and telling
him how we all felt we were going to lose our jobs.

“Tomorrow won’t do, Mack.” I kissed him
apologetically. “But Friday looks good.”

He opened my robe and suckled gently on a
nipple. A pleasurable buzzed softly vibrated through my body. The
chocolate strawberries were soon forgotten. Passionately, Mack
kissed me. He cupped my face, licked the chocolate off my lips and
then entwined our tongues together.

I was so in heaven at the gratification of
being this intimate that I could barely focus on what Mack was
asking me.

“Sheryl, you know you’ve come to mean a lot
to me, right?”

I didn’t know how to respond to this. Damn,
it was only like a week and Mackeroy was already talking serious. I
hated when guys started this pussy whip shit.

I didn’t say that out loud, but that was
what I was thinking. “Why, Mack?”

He gathered me in his arms and smiled
tenderly. “You’re smart, sexy, beautiful – inside and out, and you
make me lust for you twenty-four seven.” He kissed me deeply and
then pulled away. “I want to make you happy. Anything you need,
baby, okay?”

I let him kiss me again, but my thoughts
were on his statement. The weird thing was that I wasn’t feeling
any guilt about it.

When he stopped kissing me, I said, “Yes,
baby. Anything.”

He kissed me more deeply and we began to
remove each other’s robe. I knew this time was going to be
different. He was taking his time and relishing my touch and
kisses. Rolling on my back, Mack indulged in kissing my neck, chest
and then moved down to my stomach.

I didn’t stop him as he continued down. My
thighs rested on his shoulders. I smiled to myself. Just the way I
like them.

Gawd, this was the one, I told myself. He
was rich, powerful and …

I stopped that thought as my body culminated
with gratification. Mack then moved up and entered me easily,
rocking my hips. His manhood was stiff and I enjoyed the ride. At
first when I reached up to kiss him, knowing my essence was on his
lips, he seemed reluctant to kiss me. As if he did not know if I
would agree to kissing my flavor from his mouth. He soon allowed me
to draw him down. He groaned as I passionately tasted myself all
over his mouth.

There was a soulful connection between us
and I revered every second of Mack and I joining.

We came together and a tear welled in his
eye. Our bodies trembled together and Mack nuzzled his face in my
neck and whispered, “I love you, Sheryl.”

I forced myself not to stiffen.

Oh, fuck!

Entry Twenty-Seven

As much as I try to think it over, hearing
Mack say that was just too soon, but it’s crazy to break it off.
Out of all the prospects of a possible solid relationship that I
have going right now, he is my best bet.

And wasn’t I just admiring Tanner and Devlin
and wishing for something like that?

So Mack could be my duke. Right?

I’m just going to have to get some kind of
control over myself and allow myself to open up to him. This isn’t
the first time a great guy wanted to get serious with me. It’s just
that in the past, I never wanted to get serious with any of them in
return.

Mack and I got along well in and outside of
the bedroom. And along with his wealth, he actually knew how to
treat a woman. He made an effort to want to be with me. Plus, he
really was attracted to me as a person, not just by what he saw on
the outside.

On that particular level, I felt the same
way about Mackeroy. I just hadn’t allowed my heart to become
involved with him.

But he loved me!

True, those words might have come from a man
who said them by mistake too early, but it was just a notification
for me to know how much I was beginning to mean to him. Love didn’t
look at time. Love was about the heart.

So was I afraid to love?

***

The prior entry was done in the middle of
the night after Mack had gone to sleep. Instead of starting a new
one, I just went off of the last one.

After I left the hotel at two in the morning
and got home, I couldn’t sleep so of course I grabbed my work brief
and pulled out all the things I needed to take a look at.

Although the Sroban file was on top, I
pushed this aside and picked up the manila envelope on my father’s
information. With my laptop on the bed, I went on the Internet to
find out if there were prior stories about E. Heasley bilking
investors out of millions of dollars.

It left a sick feeling in my stomach to know
my own father had done illegal activities. In a way I could
understand why my mother had gone through such lengths to not tell
me I was breed from such an evil man.

Sadly, I found several stories about it. It
seems that E had promised elderly investors almost triple their
return on a business venture, only to steal all their savings in
the end.

After reading the articles, I kept seeing
Hillsborough County. Yet when I looked at the death certificate it
was signed by the city of Sunnybrook. Usually counties signed death
certificates. I assumed that maybe with so many old folks in
Florida this was remanded over to city officials.

I did a search on Sunnybrook, Florida and
found out that the city was down near Miami, which was out of the
county of Hillsborough.

WTF?!

I spent over two hours trying to justify
this, but I couldn’t.

I finally came to the conclusion that my
father may still be alive and that I needed to face Nina about
it.

At seven, I dressed and made a detour
towards my mother’s house. I had a key, so I walked right in. I
found her in what my sister and I used to call her trophy room. It
was the back family room where Nina kept all the family awards,
even those she had received from her work. It was a shrine to our
family and she never allowed us to go in there with friends because
she made it seem like it was a sacred place.

Nina was up and looking refreshed from her
yoga. She greeted me with a kiss and a hug, then beckoned me to
follow her to the kitchen for a cup of green tea.

“I’m not on a social call,” I said
immediately after declining the tea.

“I’m fine in case you wanted to know,” Nina
said sarcastically.

“Momma, is my father still alive?”

Nina looked appalled that I should ask
something like that. “I have worked my fingers to the bone as a
single parent raising you and your sister.”

“I’m not knocking your parenting skills,” I
said firmly. “I just want the truth.”

“What lies did she put in your head?” Nina
slammed her cup of tea on the table and went over to the wall phone
to dial Lauren’s number.

I followed her, snatching the receiver out
of her hand and hanging up the phone. “Lauren doesn’t know half of
what I know. If she did, she would be here questioning you, too.
Did you know Uncle E was bilking people out of money?”

“He hit some hard times. He did what he had
to do to provide for you all. He did all he could.” She looked
hurt.

I hated seeing her like that. I wish I
hadn’t asked her the question, but I wanted to know the truth. On
paper my father wasn’t dead, but my mother said differently.

“Just go!” Nina hissed angrily. She left the
kitchen and went into the trophy room in an attempt to get away
from me.

I followed her. “I’m sorry, Momma,” I said
solemnly. “But I’ve been doing some looking around and I’m confused
about everything you’ve told me. I want to know the truth about my
father. I want to know if he’s alive and I don’t want to leave
until I know he is.”

She wiped the tears that had welled up in
her eyes. “Why can’t you believe that Lauren’s talking crazy?”

“Because things just don’t add up on paper.
Now answer the question and I’ll leave,” I demanded.

“You’ll leave this matter alone?” she asked
hopefully.

“I’ll leave it alone, Momma, if you just
tell me the truth about my father.

She took a deep breath and said, “He robbed
those people and he gave me some of the money. I didn’t want to
accept it, but like I said, I was so poor. We were living off rice
up here and I didn’t know what to do. But I used the money for
good, even though it was ill-gotten gains. You got a good
education, didn’t you?”

I felt horrible from the inside out. Oh
lawd, my father was a dirty rotten thief and I had lived off his
dirty money. I felt dirty all over.

I leaned against the wall near some of my
mother’s plaques, feeling queasy. I wanted to throw up knowing who
my real father was.

My mother continued talking. “He killed
himself. It wasn’t an accident. He killed himself, because he knew
he would forever be on the run. He didn’t want to live his life
like that. What was I supposed to say? Your father was a
coward?”

My eyes began to water. I fought the urge to
cry at the horrible reality I was being presented.

“So he’s dead?” I asked.

“And good riddance to him. I used up all the
money paying Lauren’s bills and keeping her quiet.”

“She knew about the money?” I asked, even
though Lauren had already discussed this part with me.

“She saw some of it when I was sick. I
didn’t expect her to find out because of the nature of where the
money came from. I felt it should be used to do good. But Lauren
has always been so shallow and spoiled and so wanted most of it for
herself, though I never felt she deserved any of it. Yet because I
didn’t want to explain this to you, didn’t want to see you hurt
knowing that your father was like this, I gave Lauren whatever
amount she asked me for. But now that all the money is gone and I
can’t pay her anymore, she thinks she can just divide us by doing
this.” Nina came over to me. “Come on, baby. Let’s have a cup of
tea,” she insisted.