desire,” he told Mataeo before turning back toward Sanford. “If you view your marriage as less than a blessing, perhaps you should consider improving your role as a husband.”
Manson didn’t wait for Sanford’s response but turned his focus back to Mataeo. “There anyone special, son?” he asked and shot Sanford a glare when the man chuckled over the question.
Mataeo shrugged, finding no cause to be less than honest. “There’re actually several special someones.”
“Ha!” Manson dragged a hand through a shock of white hair. “Nonsense—no such thing. There can only be one,” he declared with a wink and a smirk.
“Business can be sweet when it’s successful but it can be a cold bitch on most nights.” Manson paused to take a swig from the fresh, chilled bottle the waiter set before him. “Love, marriage and family are what keep a man sane and keep him in the game.” He downed a healthy swig and then waved at someone across the sunlit dining room. “Fellas, I see a friend I should speak to.”
“Don’t let the old man fool you,” Sanford cautioned Mataeo when they were the only two at the table. “When it comes down to passing along that client list of his, it’s gonna be about who has the better cold bitch of business—not the better wife or…special someones.”
Mataeo supplied a cool smile and barely raised a brow. He and Sanford enjoyed their drinks in silence until Manson Yates returned.
Chapter 2
“Are we still headed for Ms. Grahame’s, boss?”
“Yeah,” Mataeo mumbled raggedly as he made his way into the Maybach following his nerve-trying lunch with Manson Yates and Sanford Norman.
Feeling edgy regarding the close of a business deal wasn’t a thing he experienced regularly. In truth, it wasn’t the deal that had him on edge. He’d be damned if he could understand why marriage, or the lack thereof, would get to him when it never had and when he’d doubted it ever would.
Yet there he sat in the back of a ridiculously expensive car, bought and paid for with his own sweat and blood, and pondered his worth as a man.
Special someones were things most often taken lightly. Still, they came in quite handy on the nights when the “cold bitch” of business was kicking his butt.
So why had he done his damnedest to avoid them for the better part of the past five months? Had it been longer? Was he disillusioned? Did he need to freshen up his stock? Were Manson Yates’s words truer than he cared to admit?
“Crap,” he muttered, having whipped open the bar to discover his favorite whiskey was running dangerously low.
“Ro?”
“Yeah, boss?” Roland Sharp called from the front of the car.
“We need to restock the bar back here.”
“I’m on it, boss.”
Mataeo drained the last from the blocky bottle. He settled back against the comfortably cool leather seats while musing that his drink was one “special someone” that never disappointed. He closed his eyes and let his mind go blank for a time.
Perhaps he really did need to just freshen up his stock, he resolved upon opening his eyes. The current lineup, while beautiful and seriously eager to please, had fallen into the same mode of behavior as so many others who had come his way in the past.
Despite knowing they weren’t the only ones who warmed his bed, each fancied herself the one who would give him cause to abandon his freedom. Then what Sanford Norman referred to as “nagging” began. It never failed to intrigue Mataeo how rigorously a woman could “nag” when the possibility of commitment loomed far off into the horizon. This behavior ran the spectrum from the most freaky and promiscuous to the most intelligent and reserved.
Replenishing the stock wouldn’t be a problem at all for Mataeo. Not when his physical gifts were so dangerously appealing. Even women already schooled on his success with the opposite sex were unfailingly lured to the provocative flame he generated. His massive build was just shy of 6 foot 8 inches, which made it easy for him to command attention the second he arrived in a room. The honey-toned skin was as flawless as the taut muscles it covered. A deep-set smoky brown stare was fringed with shamefully long lashes; they even had the nerve to curl at the ends. Such was also the case for the curve of the mouth, equally as seductive and made more sensual by the striking dimple in his chin.
Yes, the assets were many and erotically powerful. Refreshing the stock wouldn’t be a difficult or boring chore. So why did he cringe at the thought of it? Roland’s voice mixed into his thoughts.
“We’ve arrived at Ms. Grahame’s, boss.”
“I got the door, Ro.” Mataeo had answered his own question before he stepped onto the sidewalk outside the condo tower. Replenishing the stock made him cringe because somewhere along the way he’d lost complete and utter interest in it.
“You’re early.” Temple glanced at the wall clock in her living room when she opened her front door.
“Told you I’d see you after lunch.” Mataeo brushed past her on his way inside.
It didn’t take much more to clue Temple in to his sour mood. She tossed her coarse, wavy hair, loosened from its usual confines of a chignon or coiled braid, and took note of the stiffness in Mataeo’s wide back.
“Well, I’m taking a call in the back so…grab a drink or something.”
“What do you think I’m on my way to do, Temp?”
Temple rolled her eyes and waved him off as she headed back to her home office.
“Damn.” Mataeo figured it just wasn’t his night, having opened the cabinet to the bar to find the Jim Beam running dangerously low there, as well. Shaking his head, he poured what remained into a stout glass and dialed the car from his phone.
“Ro? Grab an extra bottle of Beam for Ms. Grahame, will you?” With a quarter-filled glass in hand, Mataeo strolled into the living room.
In spite of his frightful mood, he couldn’t help but smile as he often did whenever he spent time at Temple’s place.
If the term “old school” ever fit anyone, it was Temple Grahame, he thought. The second oldest in a huge Southern family, her old-fashioned nature was a thing one could almost see.
Mataeo passed the sound system that, while state of the art, didn’t garner half as much use as the record player Temple had inherited from an aunt, who also left her prized possession of classic soul vinyls.
Mataeo studied the back of an album cover, nodding to the beat of the Curtis Mayfield piece that filled the room with its slick melody. Laughter in the distance caught his ear below the rhythm. Mataeo set down the cover, emptied his glass and headed toward the sounds.
Temple sat on the edge of her desk with her back to the door. With her bare feet propped on the seat of her chair, she faced a gorgeous view of late-afternoon Wilmington. As the sun set, the skyline gradually illuminated, offering a more brilliant picture of the city.
