The Game of Seduction (Arrington Family Series) (18 page)

“Thank you,” the older lady smiled. “I knew your mother very well. I know she’d want her bracelet to be exquisite for the young lady you’re giving it to.”

Mrs. Harris set the bracelet back in the black leather case on the jewelry store’s glass counter. Rasheed admired it once more. The new diamond in the middle was flawless, flanked by the two new emeralds on either side. He decided since he’d taken the first diamond out to make an earring for himself, he would have the emeralds made into earrings for Brooklyn and give them to her for her upcoming birthday.

“Mrs. Harris, thank you for shutting down your store for me on such short notice today.”

“No problem. Anything for Elaine’s son and one of my best customers over the years. Now, you mentioned this morning that two or three carats were out of the question and you can handle much more. How about something between ten or twenty carats? I have a flawless yellow diamond around twenty carats.”

She pulled out a case from under the counter, unlocked the case, pulled out another case from it, and pushed in a computerized code.

“Damn, it takes all that to open that case?” he asked as he stared at about twenty diamond engagement rings.

“When most of these rings are worth well into the millions, yes. This case is usually locked in a special place with a security guard guarding it among other precious jewels.”

Rasheed glanced over to the two security guards that were flanked on either side of the door to the store. He nodded to them, and they didn’t budge.

“Where did you get them from, Buckingham Palace?”

“You were always a jokester, just like your father.” She took out a ring and held it up before placing it on her finger. “What about this one? It’s twenty carats for five million.”

“Whoa, sister. You gonna give me a heart attack. One of the reasons why I still have most of my millions is because I don’t spend them on extravagant things. Besides, she’s a doctor. That would be too big for her. Plus, she has small fingers. I was thinking about something around five carats.” He scanned the case and smiled when he saw a ring that reminded him of Bria. It was classy and cute like her. He pointed to it instead of touching it. He was scared Mrs. Harris would slap his wrist or the case would shock him with some type of laser because it didn’t recognize his finger.

“Very wise choice, young man.” She handed him the ring. “This is a five-carat, flawless princess cut diamond. It’s 1.5 million, and you did say money’s no object.”

He admired the ring. It was perfect for Bria. Not too small. Not too big. It was just right for her dainty finger.

“You’re right. When I want something I get it, and Bria deserves the best. I’ll take this one. Send the bill to my accountant. I’ll call him in a few to give him a heads up so he won’t have a heart attack.” He knew Derek would’ve wanted to be consulted first, but at the end of the day, it was Rasheed’s money that he also kept track of.

“Perfect. I’ll wrap everything up for you. Have a seat in the waiting area. I’ll have Christi bring you a glass of champagne.”

“Tell her to bring the whole damn bottle. I just spent my entire salary this year from
Sports Fanatic
, but it was worth every penny.”

Rasheed took out his cell phone to send Bria a text message. When he didn’t hear back within ten minutes, he decided to call her, but it went straight to voice mail. He left her a message.

“Hey, Bree. I’m having dinner at 5:00 with Jeff at the Sundial on top of the Westin hotel. He called earlier to tell me he’s bringing his fiancée, Cindy, you know, the cheerleader you saw me chatting with. Since she’s coming, you should come too. I just had the reservations changed to four people under Vincent. I can’t pick you up because I have an appointment at 3:00 that I’m headed to in a few. Can’t wait to see you, baby. I love you. Call me back.”

He clicked off with a huge smile. Everything was perfect. They would eat dinner with Jeff and Cindy and then once they left, they would head down to a suite he reserved for the evening at the Westin Hotel. He would present her with the bracelet and a plane ticket to fly to New York with him the next morning. At the game the following evening, he would pop the question during halftime.

He smiled as everything had been falling into place. He’d almost gotten caught that morning but was glad that Bria believed him and trusted him enough to know he would never do anything to make her beautiful smile leave her beautiful face. He loved her too much.

*****

Bria held her breath as she stood in the glass elevator of the Westin Hotel with Megan and Jade on either side of her. It was a little after 5:00, so she assumed Rasheed would already be there with Jeff, at least she hoped. She had decided if he was indeed there with Jeff, she would turn around and say nothing. If he was there with some woman, she didn’t know what she would do.

They stepped off of the elevator and into the lobby area of the Sundial. The hostess smiled as Jade gave her the information, and they were shown to their seats. Jade had already informed the hostess to seat them away from Mr. Vincent’s table but close enough to where they could still see him, just not the other way around.

As they sat down, Bria spotted him right away alone, sipping on a cocktail—probably rum and Coke—and looking at his cell phone. A few minutes went by, and he was talking on the phone and checking his Rolex but still alone. She started to breathe a little easy until he stood and hugged a woman and her heart dropped. It was that damn cheerleader from the game that he claimed was his producer’s fiancée.

A waiter interrupted her thoughts as he stood in front of her blocking her view from Rasheed and the cheerleader.

“We’re not ready yet,” Jade interjected before Bria was going to yell “move out the way.” “Just bring some waters, please.”

He nodded politely and walked away.

The ladies continued watching as Rasheed and the cheerleader talked and laughed like old friends. Their waiter came over, the girl said something, and they all laughed.

Bria felt her heart sinking and breaking, but she refused to cry.

“Bria, we can leave if you want to,” Megan suggested, reaching for her purse.

“No. I want to see everything so if he tries to lie and beg me to forgive him, I’ll know with my own eyes that he’s nothing but a dirty dog that can’t be trusted.”

Rasheed was doing most of the talking, probably laying on the charm and the lies. Whatever he was saying, he was excited about it, and his face was sort of glowing like a pregnant woman. Damn. Was he that happy to be with some young, bubbly cheerleader? Then his face lit up even more when he pulled a black velvet box out of his suit pocket, and slid it to her.

“Oh no he didn’t,” Jade said, with a slight neck roll.

The girl clapped, opened it, and pulled out a bracelet and held it in the air before putting it on, admiring it. A tear came to Bria’s eye when she realized whose bracelet it was or whose bracelet he said it was. She felt herself get weak in the knees and faint as the cheerleader oohed and ahhed over the gold clasp bracelet that he said belonged to his mother.

“We need to go,” Megan said.

“Wait a minute,” Jade said. “Bria, what do you want to do because I got your back.”

Bria was numb. She couldn’t think, breathe, or move. “That’s the bracelet he told me belonged to his mother, and she made him promise to give it to the woman he loved. But I see now that was one big lie. Because if that was the case, he would be giving it to me.”

Megan rubbed her back. “What do you want to do?”

“Girl, what are you going to do because I have things in the trunk of my car for situations like this, and I always carry something in my purse. Don’t let this pretty face and bougie attitude fool you. I grew up on the streets of Atlanta. I will and have cut a ho, and will do it again. Just let me know what you want to do.”

Bria whispered. “I want to leave.”

*****

Damn
.

Rasheed checked his watch and his cell phone for the millionth time. It was almost 6:00, and he hadn’t heard from Bria at all. This wasn’t like her. Her cell phone was off and the voice mail box was now full with all of his messages. He kept looking toward the door thinking she would enter at any moment. Jeff had finally made it up to the restaurant after finding a parking space.

Rasheed sipped his second rum and Coke and tried to listen to Jeff about the upcoming game and the players who did and didn’t want to be interviewed. Rasheed wasn’t really concerned with that. He’d played with most of them at one point, so even the ones who didn’t want to be interviewed would speak to him.

But that wasn’t the reason for his discontent at the moment. He was wondering where the hell Bria was. The bracelet box was burning a hole in his right jacket pocket and the ring box was in the other. By 6:45, he figured she wasn’t coming. Jeff and Cindy had left at 6:30 and Rasheed followed at 7:00, racing to his home to see if she was there. She just had to be there. They had left each other on a good note that morning, he thought. Sure, she blew up about the phone call with Mrs. Harris, but he couldn’t tell Bria the nature of the call. It would’ve ruined the surprise.

When he pulled into the driveway, he pushed the garage button praying to see her Lexus SUV, but it wasn’t there. All kinds of questions ran through his mind as he ran through the house upstairs to the bedroom. Maybe she was out with Taylor or Megan. Maybe she was at the Sundial looking for him, and he’d somehow missed her.

Everything looked normal in the bedroom. The bed was made, the drapes were closed, but when he looked at the nightstand on her side of the bed, her Kindle Fire wasn’t sitting there. His heart stopped for a second, and he took a deep breath as he walked into the bathroom and saw all of the toiletries from her vanity were gone. He opened the door to her closet, and it was bare except for a piece of paper sitting on the island in the middle of the closet with a Tiffany box on top of it.

He grabbed the paper and sat down on the floor to read it as his legs went weak from the crippling of his heart.

Rasheed,

I can’t do this any longer. I’m going back to Memphis tonight. Please don’t try to contact me. Just let me move on.

Bria

He balled it up and threw it across the closet. He opened the Tiffany box and saw the necklace he’d given her for Christmas when they were just friends. When everything was cool between them. When she was his best friend. When she was the one person he trusted to tell everything to. He couldn’t figure out what the hell he’d done wrong.

He looked at his keys sitting on the floor next to him, and then he looked at his watch. He grabbed his cell phone as his adrenaline rushed through his veins, and he called his main assistant.

“Emma, I need you to be the personal assistant of the year,” he said to his assistant based in Memphis. She’d been with him for over ten years. She was a sweet lady that reminded him of his mother.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Vincent?”

“I need a private jet ASAP to take me from Atlanta to Memphis. I need to be on it within the next hour. It’s an emergency.”

“I’ll call you back in a few.”

While he waited, he tried calling Bria again but an automated computer voice kept telling him the voice mail box was full.

“Dammit!”

When his cell phone rang fifteen minutes later, he prayed it was Bria, but it was Emma.

“Mr. Vincent, there will be a helicopter arriving at your home in about twenty minutes to take you to a private air field. I also arranged for a car to take you wherever you need to go once you arrive in Memphis.”

“Perfect, I’m going to go downstairs and wait now. Thank you, Emma.”

Bria meant everything to him, and he wasn’t giving up without fighting for the woman he loved.

Chapter Fourteen

Bria drove and cried along the interstate to Birmingham, Alabama. She had about five more hours before she made it home to Memphis. After she returned to Rasheed’s home, she threw all of her clothes into her suitcases, and what she couldn’t fit in them, she threw into the backseat of her SUV.

She reached for her cell phone from her purse on the passenger seat to call Raven, but it wouldn’t turn on it. She plugged it into the car charger, but it wouldn’t even charge. She’d been having problems with it for the past few months, and now the battery had officially died. She slowed down and leaned over to the glove compartment to grab her emergency phone that her patients called her on. A few condom packs fell out, and she was painfully reminded of the time she and Rasheed had pulled over on the side of the rode to have sex on the way to Atlanta. Was that his way of smoothing things over? After the stripper called, he wanted to have sex. This morning after he lied and told her the girl on the phone was a business associate, he wanted to have sex. Why couldn’t she see through his player ways?

“Hey, baby sis,” Raven said when she answered. “Why are you calling from your work phone?”

“Because my personal cell phone has died. Anyway, I’m on my way back to Memphis.”

“Right now? Is Rasheed with you?”

“I’m driving through Alabama now, and hell no that bastard isn’t with me,” she yelled with tears running down her face. She grabbed another Kleenex. “I never want to see that lying bastard ever again.” She proceeded to tell Raven what happened at the Sundial.

“He actually gave that bracelet to some other chick? Hold on, let me call Shelbi on three-way.”

“I can’t believe this has happened,” Shelbi said after Bria told her everything. “I’m so surprised. Justin said the other day how much Rasheed was in love with you. I can’t believe he would cheat on you and give his mother’s bracelet to someone else.”

“Well, I saw it with my own eyes.”

“Maybe, he was just letting her see it,” Shelbi suggested.

“Nope. She was very excited. She put it on and held it in the air to admire it. He just sat there grinning ear to ear.” She pushed the cruise control button so she wouldn’t go over sixty-five. The last thing she needed was a speeding ticket.