Three of Diamonds (Hamden Series) (8 page)

“Ms. Amico. I’m Matt Travis, Senior Vice President, for DiLorenzo & Associates. This is Adam Philips, our Business Manager and Wes Thompson, Vice President of Commercial Design. Wes’ team will hopefully be your architectural team. Even though he won’t have his fingers in it, per say, he is the best,” Matt said, enjoying the beauty of Aimee Amico. Being here, at this meeting was going to be no hardship at all; getting to look at such eye candy was just the icing on the cake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, face to face, finally. We look forward to working together to get this great foundation expanded, to help that many more kids.” He finished, as he took her small hand between his two larger ones.

Oh my!
Matt Travis looked just as gorgeous as she had envisioned, after hearing his voice over the phone. Not that any of the three were uneasy on the eyes, but Aimee had a soft spot for tall, dark and gorgeous. The nervousness in her stomach increased but this time for an entirely different reason.

“You, as well. Please gentlemen, follow me. I thought we could go through the proposal over some refreshments, then head on over to the desired location.” Aimee said, as she led the way to the conference room.

Aimee and Jerry waited for their guests to take their seats, before taking their own. Perfectly timed, Lola came in carrying the tray. She skillfully and elegantly placed the tray on the credenza, and then started to set up the contents on the table for easy accessibility. She was just placing the ceramic coffee mugs on the table, when she caught sight of the person sitting closest to her. She felt all the oxygen leave her lungs as she, was once again caught, in an all too familiar blue gaze. She dropped the mugs, causing one to break, ultimately resulting in a few chipped pieces of burgundy ceramic landing in his lap.

Realizing she needed to say something, “Oh, I’m so sorry, sir.” She said, unable to pull her gaze away from the blue depths. Her words caused a reaction once again. The blue pools widened, before quickly recovering.

“It’s quite alright.” He said, aware of the audience that was watching the interaction. He picked at the pieces in his lap, stood and carried them over to the receptacle. He watched as Lola quickly cleaned up the mess on the table, and listened as her raspy voice muttered apology after apology.

“No worries, Lola. You gave us the perfect icebreaker.” Aimee said, as smiles filled the faces around the table. Lola purposely avoided looking across the table again. “Gentleman, this is Lola Nash. She is our top volunteer here at Aaron’s Place and a very important part of our family. I’ve asked her to join us, rounding out Aaron’s Place representation.”

Wes was unable to draw his eyes away from the woman who had become the focal point of most of his idle thoughts and time. He watched as she sat across from him, successfully averting her eyes from him. For the life of him, he tried to listen to the meeting, but he just couldn’t help but look towards Lola every few minutes. Her position in the chair was stiff and rigid. With her head turned toward the front of the room, where Aimee Amico sat and drove the meeting, gave Wes the opportunity to study Lola’s profile. Her long black hair was down, hanging in onyx layers that looked soft as silk. She kept tucking her hair behind her ear, which not only exposed a small lobe with delicate silver hoops, but also a gorgeously long neck. Wes was entranced at how the smooth stem showed the intricate work of muscles beneath. He watched as those smooth muscles completed a task as normal as swallowing a mouthful of water. Her upper body, which could be seen above the table vibrated rapidly. Assuming if he looked under the table he would see her foot bouncing at the same beat. He smiled as he continued to appreciate the incredible result. His eyes focused on the quiver of her full breasts beneath her steel blue V-neck lightweight sweater. He could see the tight bud underneath, poking out from the thin material. Wes couldn’t help but wonder how responsive she would be to nipple play. Has she ever been clamped before?

As if she could hear his mental question, she turned to him and unlike before, did not stray when their eyes connected. God, her eyes were beautiful. The beauty did not come from the heavily made up cosmetic effect, but her steel gray coloring was so unusual, yet looked perfect on her. The dark outline, tipped up at the end giving a dramatic effect. Her coated lashes looked long and perfectly wisped and curled. Wes wasn’t normally so familiar with women’s makeup preferences, but since it had to do with Lola Nash, he found it was just another aspect of the enigma who was the beautiful creature across from him.

Aimee’s voice brought Lola’s attention away from him, once again. “That rounds out the proposal. Now if you would like, we can head out to the site location.”

With a collective agreement, people rose and headed toward the door, all except Wes. Lola started cleaning up to bring the tray back to the mess hall.

“Lola, how nice it is to see you again.” Wes said, keeping his voice low and intimate.

Lola was aware the indescribably sexy man, hadn’t vacated the room yet. She thought she was going to go into cardiac arrest when she saw him sitting at the table. She couldn’t for the life of her figure out who she pissed off enough to place such a curse on herself. Would these unexpected run-ins with this man ever cease? While she sat and listened to Aimee’s speech, she could not help but feel his eyes on her. The conceited bastard gave up trying to hide his attention toward the end. She knew from her peripheral vision that he spent more time looking at her than he did looking at anything else. Nonetheless, it was her feelings his presence caused, that was truly what had her uneasy. The more she tried to focus on anything other than this man, the more her body reminded her he was but four feet away from her. He sat in such a position, with his right elbow leaning on the arm of the chair, distinguishably holding his face between his spread fingers along his cheek and his thumb at his chin. While his other long, tanned hand stretched out on the table in front of him, toward her, as if breaking the distance, toyed with a pen. He twirled the relatively inexpensive pen between his fingers, bringing thoughts of his dexterity abilities to her mind.

“Is it?” Lola asked, unable to keep the sarcasm from her voice. She continued to place everything on the trays, but she knew he was staring at her. He rose and stepped closer to her. Not that she couldn’t smell him before, but now, she could taste his heavy scent. She never thought anything smelled as good as Adonis did.
Stop it Lola!
He is not a God. He is flesh and blood, and he is Wes fucking Thompson! But, even that thought, backfired terribly, when she started thinking of all his flesh, especially the flesh that was behind those golden drawstring pants. She couldn’t get those images out of her mind.

Knowing they only had another minute before someone came to gather them, Wes crowded her further, until there was but only an inch separating them, and easily took the opening offered to him.

“Whenever I get to lay eyes on you, is a moment I consider nice.” He whispered so close to her ear; if he just extended his tongue out, he would have easily speared the small hoop that was there.

Before she could think of a retort, she watched his tall form exit the room.

Now, what the hell did he mean by that?
Lola didn’t want to think about Wes Thompson any longer than she had to, but she also knew she wouldn’t be able to think of much else. She was stuck in this thought, when Aimee popped her head back in to the conference room, waking Lola from her mental stutter.

“Lola, come on, we’re waiting on you. Just leave that stuff, we’ll clean up afterwards.” Aimee said as she looked at her reflection quickly in the mirror on the wall, as she smoothed down her hair.

“Aimee, I think I better just stay here. You go on. I wouldn’t be doing anything but standing there with nothing to contribute.” Lola said, praying for the reprieve.

“No way. You promised. I need you there to help with my jitters. Matt Travis makes me nervous.” Aimee said, not telling Lola what kind of nerves she was feeling. Aimee forcefully pulled the tray from Lola’s hands, placing it back on the credenza and pulling her along in her wake.

“Right this way gentleman, hope you are up for a walk?” Aimee said, trying to keep her eyes averted from Matt’s.

Lola hung back, allowing Aimee and Jerry to lead, followed by the visitors. But even after only a few of steps, she realized she should have kept pace with Aimee. From here, she had an unobstructed view of Wes Thompson’s ass. Even under his expensive looking casual clothes, Lola could tell the strength that was present there. His gait was smooth and masculine. Lola enjoyed how the bright sunshine showed how light his hair was. His close cut, gave an almost military look, but he was no jarhead. Lola was lost in thoughts of hard muscles under golden skin, large white couches and a private party for two when she collided with said hardness. With an oomph, Lola was caught around her arms by strong but gentle hands, before she landed on the ground.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” Lola responded, causing a faint expression of familiarity on Wes’ face.
Oh, how perfect would that timing be for him to remember that now?

Lola gave her head a curt nod of thanks, and walked away to take haven next to Jerry. Lola listened to Aimee explain the reason this location was picked and her thoughts of what the building and grounds should look like after completion of the process. Lola tried to focus on the professionalism and grace Aimee had, but she just couldn’t. She was falling victim to the blue eye stare coming from the other end of their loosely wound circle. She silently prayed he would still be in the darkness, or at least realize their connection when she wasn’t around.

Aimee pulled Lola from her thoughts. “Lola, was the one who suggested the equestrian center for another program and activities for the kids. She has done a lot of research on the connection between horses and children with special needs. She even went as far as approaching and swooning, the most successful riding instructor in this field, until he agreed to lead our program here at Aaron’s Place,” Aimee said, pride filling her voice. She continued, “Without Lola around here, Aaron’s Place would not be what we always dreamed it would and could be.”

Matt looked toward Lola, wanting to acknowledge her involvement for the wonder it was, but also, since Lola seemed important to the foundation, and ultimately Aimee, a little brown nosing would go a long way. “Congratulations, Ms. Nash. Sounds like you’ve done a service to this foundation and its potential. Wes, over here, is quite the horse lover himself.”

Matt and Adam engaged Aimee and Jerry into questions and ideas for the project. Giving Wes an opening, he walked over to Lola, allowing them a bit of privacy.

“That is some wonderful praise, Lola. You mean a lot to this organization.” He said, as he stood in front of her, stopping her from looking at any of the others and focusing on him.

Still no response. Wes prided himself on his self-discipline and patience, but Lola was grating it, and at an amazing pace.

“Look, you can’t ignore me forever. I will wear you down, and you will actually have to talk to me, especially now that we will be working closely together.”

Was he really this arrogant?
The fact that he had to be the most attractive man Lola has ever set eyes on, was a moot point.

“How, exactly, did you come to that conclusion of us working together hot shot? I’m a volunteer, not an architect.” Lola answered snidely, knowing she was being completely rude, but she had to pop the balloon of his ego.

With a smile that was both gorgeous and full of dirty intent. Wes winked at Lola, turned his body toward the others and said, “Matt, I know we had talked about the handling of the design and my participation, but in light of this new info, and as you said, my own feelings on riding, I’d like to handle the design myself. I’d also like to request, with Ms. Amico’s approval, of course, that Ms. Nash have full involvement of the entire process.”

He didn’t!

“I think that is a wonderful idea. Of course!” Aimee answered, unaware of the fury burning inside her friend.

She didn’t!

“It’s settled then. Let’s get you that donation check we talked about, and get the ball rolling on your expansion,” Matt said, enjoying the joy that radiated off Aimee’s beautiful face. The quartet walked off, heading back to Aimee’s office, without knowing Lola or Wes hadn’t followed.

Turning back to Lola, Wes said, “That is how a hot shot like me, came to that conclusion, partner!” With that parting shot, Wes walked toward his associates, with a smile and a new bounce in his step.

“Come on. Please, Lola. Just this one shift, that’s all I ask. I don’t want to lose the spot, and if I call in, Gitta will replace me faster than you can snap. The only reason she didn’t fire me last time, was I promised her fresh meat, that’s you by the way.” Rebecca pleaded through the phone.

She couldn’t. She just couldn’t go back to Olympus knowing he would be there. It was bad enough he had set up this ridiculous schedule, through Aimee of course, of when they could meet to discuss the first round of designs for Aaron’s Place. Falling short of getting down on her knees, wrapping her arms around Aimee’s legs, and telling her she would not let go until Aimee told her she didn’t have to work with Wes Thompson, Lola had tried everything to get out of the partnership. All Aimee could do was praise her and tell her that because of her, the expansion was going through and she should lap the rewards of it. Honestly, Lola just wanted to wash her hands of the whole thing. Until, of course, Wes Thompson’s involvement was finished, anyways.