Lovers and Takers (21 page)

They walked hand in hand across the lobby of the Varnadore Hotel, through the revolving doors, and up to the waiting limousine.
 
And when the driver opened the door, and Roni took a seat in the backseat, Jake leaned in and kissed her on the lips.
 
The idea of her leaving him was a depressing thought.

“You stay sweet until I get back,” he said to her.

Roni smiled.
 
“Stay sweet until you return?
 
And then what?
 
I can cut loose?”

Jake moved closer to her, as her smile enraptured him.
 
“With me by your side,” he said, “yes.”
 
They kissed again.

Roni looked at Jake when their lips parted.
 
She needed to be certain.
 
“Jake?” she asked.

“Yes, sweetheart?” he replied.

“What does this mean?”

“For you and me?”

“Yes.”

Jake exhaled.
 
“It means, Veronica
Wingate, that
we take this one day at a time.
 
So far, so good,” he added, “but we’ve both seen good starts not end so well.”

Roni nodded.
 
“I agree.
 
We can do this fast, or we can do this right.”

Jake smiled.
 
He knew he had a soul mate.
 
“But,” he added, “
that
doesn’t mean, should some joker ask, that you’re available.
 
Because you’re not.”

Roni wanted to shout, but she kept it together.
 
“And you?” she asked.
 
“Are you available?”

“Hell no,” Jake said, and she smiled that bright white, gorgeous smile again.
 
And he kissed her again.

“All right, babe, I’d better let you go.
 
I wish I could go back with you.”
 
He meant it deeply.

“How much longer do you think you’ll need to stay?”

“At the rate negotiations have been going, it’ll probably be weeks.
 
Three or more at the earliest.”

“Goodness,” Roni said.
 
She’d never heard of such longwinded negotiations.
 
But, then again, she’d never in her life been anywhere close to
these
kind of million-dollar, high-stake deals.
 
But months of negotiating?
 
That still seemed excessive to her.
 
“You think striking a deal with the Russians
are
worth all of this?” she asked him.

“With Berkshire?
 
Absolutely.
 
This deal could catapult Varnadore Global into the elite of elite companies overnight.
 
It’s worth it.”

Roni nodded.
 
“Understood.”

What Jake loved about her was that he knew she was savvy enough to fully understand.
 

They stared at each other longer, as a feeling of great affection welled inside both of them.
 
Jake couldn’t help it.
 
He whispered in her ear.
 
“Keep that thang warm for me,” he said, “and I’ll see you as soon as I get back.”

Roni could feel her womanhood grow warm just hearing him telling her to keep it warm.
 
“Don’t worry,” she said.
 
“Nobody but you will ever get near it.”

Jake felt pride of ownership when she said that, and he wanted to kiss her again.
 
But he didn’t want to overdo it.
 
He smiled instead, closed the door, and waved as the driver whisked his love away.

Albert McCaskill, his general manager, came up beside him as he waved.
 

“Will you need me for anything else, Jake?”
 

“Yes,” Jake said.
 
“I want you to pull all you can on the Wingate Law Center out of Miami, Florida.
 
I’m mainly interested to see what kind of sponsorship they have, and if they have solid backing.”

“The Wingate Law Center?
 
As in Veronica Wingate?”

Jake felt prideful again when Albert said her name.
 
“Yes,” he said.
 
“As in Veronica.”

ELEVEN

It would be another full month later before Jake would see Veronica or any of his children again.
 
And on the day of his arrival, as he sat on his company jet sipping coffee and reading through documents, thrilled to have a deal in tow and to be landing in Miami, he would be shocked to know who else was in town.
 
For while his plane was cruising onto the runway, Dena Varnadore, his ex-wife, was seated in his living room, on his Corinthian leather sofa, holding his daughter’s hand.
 

Although Pam’s Lupus was mostly dormant for her, there would be times when it would afflict her in such a debilitating way that she sometimes had to stay in bed for days on end.
 
This was one of those times.
 
These bouts, in fact, were the main reason she still lived at home with her father.
 
She didn’t particularly like to be babied whenever the flare-ups occurred.
 
But to have her mother with her during this particular episode, babying her, warmed her heart.
  

Mother and daughter, in fact, had been reminiscing for hours, almost exclusively about the past and Dena’s life abroad, but Pam still seemed uncomfortable.
 
She was still as happy as she was when her mother first came over, but there was something beneath the surface.
 
Dena could tell, even after all of these years.

“What’s the matter?” she asked her daughter.

Pam looked at her mother.
 
“Nothing.”

“Sure it is.
 
What is it?”

Pam hesitated.
 
Then shrugged her shoulders as if it didn’t matter anyway.
 
“It’s just that when I phoned you earlier this morning, and told you I wasn’t feeling well, you said you’d be over this afternoon.
 
That stunned me.”

“Stunned you?” Dena asked.
 
“Why would it stun you?”

“Because, Ma,” Pam said as if it were obvious, “I thought you were still in Botswana.”

“Oh!” Dena said with her best smile.
 
“You’re right.
 
The last time we talked I was still there.
 
Yes, that’s right.
 
I only just arrived here, in Miami, a few days ago.”

But Pam didn’t understand, as she usually didn’t where her mother was concerned.
 
“You were in Miami for days,” she asked, “and you didn’t phone us?”
 

“I was certainly going to phone you, and visit all three of you, but I was taking care of a little business first.”

“What kind of business?”

The kind that would give me leverage with your father
, Dena thought.
 
“Just some real estate matters,” Dena said.

And that was all, she knew, her mother would say about it.
 
Because that was how her mother had always been.
 
She didn’t remember much before the divorce, since she was only five years old, but she did remember after the divorce and how her father would try his best to keep them in touch with their mother.
 
Sometimes it would be a challenge, and he would have to hire private detectives just to find out where in the world she was, but their mother would never give a reasonable explanation when they did find her.
 
“I know I haven’t phoned in months,” she’d say, and that was all she’d say about it.
 
It was a little disconcerting even
to
little Pam, and especially to Aubrey.
 
It was downright infuriating to their father.

“So,” Pam said, knowing to leave that alone, “let’s talk about something far more important than this little bump in the road.
 
What’s Botswana like?”

Dena smiled.
 
“That’s more important than your health?”

“Of course it is!” Pam replied, prompting her mother to laugh.
 
“Daddy took us to Africa when we were little, but I don’t remember anything about it.
 
Except that it was hot there.”

Dena touched her daughter’s long hair.
 
“It is that,” she said.
 
“But so much more.
 
It’s a place of beauty, and kindness, and people treat their neighbors the way they want to be treated.”

“Perhaps I’ll visit you there someday,” Pam said, and looked at her mother for a reaction.

Dena smiled a smile that still turned heads.
 
“Perhaps,” she said and pinched her daughter’s nose.
 
“Or who knows,” she added.
 
Then she, as she usually did, moved on.
 
“So,” she said, “how’s Aubrey?”

“Aubrey’s great.
 
He looks more and more like the black version of Daddy, and he works all the time like Daddy.”

“But Snug still looks out for you, right?”

“Too much,” Pam said and Dena smiled.
 
“He thinks he’s my daddy number two.
 
I remind him that he’s only six years older than I am, thank-you, but he acts as if he’s eons older.”

“Is he seriously dating anyone now?”

“One of the secretaries in his office, but I don’t think he’s all that serious about her.”

Dena could hardly believe it.
 
“A
secretary
?”

“Or file clerk or whatever she is, but yeah.”

“And your father allows this relationship?”

Pam smiled.
 
“Of course Daddy allows it.
 
Why wouldn’t he?
 
Kara’s nice.
 
Besides, Daddy lets us make our own decisions.
 
To a point, anyway.
 
I’m still dating Druce, and Dad allows that too.”

“Yes, but at least Druce is a senior manager with the company.
 
This secretary is hardly worthy of Aubrey’s time I’m sure.
 
And I’m just stunned Jake would allow that.”

Pam didn’t like anyone, not even her mother, speaking ill of her father.
 
“Daddy lets us make our own decisions,” she said again.
 
“He’ll only step in when we go too far.
 
Like when Druce proposed to me.”

Dena looked at her daughter.
 
“He proposed to you?” she asked, surprised.

Pam smiled.
 
“Yes, ma’am,” she said, and then showed her mother the beautiful engagement ring.
 

Although it looked only adequate to a well-traveled woman like Dena, she smiled anyway.
 
“I see,” she said.
 
Then she looked at her daughter.
 
“But your father objected?”

“He said not now.
 
He thinks I’m too young still.”

“Nonsense!
 
He and I were married when we were eighteen.”

“I know, right?
 
But Daddy wouldn’t sanction it yet.
 
And Druce says, out of respect for Daddy, we can’t marry until he does.”

Shrewd man, Dena thought.
 
He assumed Jake would cut his daughter off without a penny if she went against his wishes.
 
He would never do that to his daughter, but given his reputation as a hardnosed asshole, nobody would understand that he wouldn’t, except for Dena, Aubrey, and Pam herself.

“What about your father?” Dena asked.

“What about him?”

“Is he dating someone seriously too?”

Pam was taught at an early age to never discuss her father’s private life with anyone because they may feed that information to tabloid newspapers or some unethical company in competition with his own.
 
“You know Daddy,” she said.
 
And then moved on, to a discussion about her mother’s “fab” wardrobe.

And Dena discussed her wardrobe with her daughter, but her mind was on Jake.
 
He hadn’t remarried in the fourteen years that they’d been divorced, which gave her some hope still.
 
But the problem was the history.
 
She broke his heart.
 
And not in the
sick for a few months
way, either.
 
She devastated his heart.
 
Now she wanted, no, needed to get back into that same fractured heart.
 
But as she stroked her daughter’s hair and discussed wardrobes with her, she was bound and determined to get back in.
 
She could do it the softball way, by getting him to crave her sexually, but she wasn’t above playing hardball, either.