Big Daddy Sinatra: Papa Don't Play Read online

  BIG DADDY SINATRA

  PAPA DON’T PLAY

  BY

  MALLORY MONROE

  Copyright©2016 Mallory Monroe

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  AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING

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  THE AUTHOR AND AUSTIN BROOK PUBLISHING.

  This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The specific mention of known places or venues are not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished or imagined for the story’s sake.

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  He watched as she made her rounds. She was moving from table to table like a goodwill ambassador in heels. Her husband owned the hotel, from what he was told, but she ran it, and ran it well by all accounts. She’d moved up in the world. She had herself a nice, comfortable spot here in little Jericho. But he was going to blow the lid off of this charade. He was going to lead her down a rabbit hole, and then bury her ass.

  But as she approached his table, he buried his head in his newspaper.

  “I didn’t know they still made those things.”

  It was her soft, friendly voice. She was never the conversational type, but that wasn’t the only thing that had changed about her now that she was a hotel magnet. He slid the newspaper down and away from his round, dark face. Jenay Franklin, at least that was her last name when she was married to his brother, stood at his table inside the Jericho Inn restaurant and bar smiling that wonderful bright white smile as if she was courting him too.

  He glanced down the length of her. She was still lovely; he’d give her that. She still had that pretty face and smoking body. Outwardly he liked what he saw. But she still was rotted meat inside. “Yeah, I’m one of the few who prefer the feel of a newspaper in my hands every morning. I know it’s outdated, but to see the words on paper as opposed to that cold internet experience is what I live for.”

  Jenay laughed, and then she hesitated. He looked familiar. She knew him! But she couldn’t place him. “Do we know each other?” she asked.

  He, at first, began to shake his head as if he didn’t think so. And then, as if a lightbulb had suddenly gone off, he pointed at her. “Wait a minute. Wait-a-minute! You aren’t Jenay Franklin, by any chance?”

  Jenay smiled. “Yes. Well, I was.” But she still couldn’t place him. “And you are?”

  “I’m Miller. I’m Quincy’s brother, remember? I mean, we only met a couple of times, and that was a long time ago, but yeah, I remember you. I’m Miller Franklin.”

  Jenay couldn’t believe it. “Miller!” She smiled. “Goodness gracious, that’s right!”

  He folded his newspaper and stood to his feet. “It’s been a long time, girl,” he said as he extended his hand. “How the hell are you?”

  “I’m good,” she said. “But I’m a hugger. No handshakes here. Come here!” They hugged and then released. “So how about you? How have you been getting along?”

  “I won’t complain even if I can,” he responded, and they laughed. “Have a seat,” he offered. “You got a minute?”

  Jenay didn’t have another second to spare. She was working her way out of the room to get to a meeting. But it wasn’t everyday her ex-husband’s brother showed up. “Sure,” she said, and sat down at his table. He sat down too. “I should have recognized that Franklin family look off the bat,” she went on. “But it’s been so long. I saw you once when I was married to Quincy, and then I saw you once more the day I left California, I think.”

  “You were off to see the world, you said.” Then he nodded. “I didn’t blame you after what happened. Quince was my brother, and I loved him to death, but he was not an easy man to live with.”

  Jenay didn’t want to think about that hellish time. “So what are you doing in Maine?”

  “I live here! Well, not exactly,” Miller corrected himself with a charming smile of his own. “I own a timeshare in one of your old, historic homes.”

  “Oh, okay. So this is your weekend, I take it?”

  “I get three weeks a clip, ten weeks per year. But I plan to stay here all three weeks this time because my daughter wants to have her wedding at the house in a couple weeks.”

  “Oh, that should be a lovely affair,” Jenay said. “Those historic homes are gorgeous.”

  “They are, and it will be,” Miller responded. “But I was checking out this Inn for the reception. She plans to bring an army with her, and they aren’t tearing up my house.”

  Jenay smiled. “I see.”

  Miller decided it was time to cut to the chase. “So do you work here or what?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Jenay said. “Well, that’s not entirely true. My husband owns it, and I run it.”

  Miller feigned surprise. “Your husband owns the Jericho Inn? This beautiful place?”

  Jenay nodded. She was proud to tell it. “Yes. And thank you. I think it’s beautiful too.”

  “But hold on,” Miller said. “I was told Charles Sinatra owned this place. Somebody everybody in town calls Big Daddy because of his power and ruthlessness. At least that’s how he was described to me. Don’t tell me that’s your husband?”

  “Not the caricature the town paints of him, no. But Charles is my husband, yes.”

  Miller smiled. “I’ll be damn. I heard Big Daddy Sinatra practically owns this whole town. I heard the people in this town are working like crazy to take their town back.”

  Jenay didn’t respond to that. Ever since Herb Cruikshank became the new mayor of Jericho, he’d been after the Sinatra brand. First he tried to fire Police Chief Brent Sinatra, her stepson and Charles’s oldest child, but Brent quit on his own. Brent’s wife Makayla, who was the district attorney, quit too. But now Cruikshank was asking the citizen oversight board to invoke eminent domain over more than half of Charles’s properties in town so that the government could seize them and use them for what Cruikshank called “the good of the entire town, not just one man.” The Sinatras were fighting that request, but it wasn’t looking good for them.

  “But anyway,” Miller said, when he realized Jenay wasn’t going to discuss it, “is it even possibl
e for my daughter to have her reception here?”

  “Of course!” Jenay responded. “We have them all the time.”

  “Do you think you could show me around the place? I would love to see it.”

  “I sure can,” Jenay said. “But it’ll have to be this afternoon. I’m booked solid this morning. But I can have one of my employees show you around if you prefer to do it this morning.”

  “No, this afternoon would be perfect,” Miller said. “I have some work to do this morning anyway.”

  “So what line of work are you in now, Miller?” Jenay asked, as she rose to her feet. “Insurance still?”

  “You know it,” Miller said, rising too. “I’m a regional Vice President now. This region. My home base is Boston. Now that I know you’re this close, that my former sister-in-law is in my neck of the woods, we should be seeing a lot more of each other.”

  Although Jenay agreed and smiled, said her goodbye, and headed out of the restaurant and into the hotel’s lobby, her feelings didn’t match her gaiety. She was glad to see Miller. He was the only bright spot in that sorry family of Quincy’s. But she was concerned too. Mainly because of the contentious relationship she had with her ex-husband, and the fiery way he died. But also because Miller was the biological uncle of Quincy’s two daughters Ashley and Carly, and Jenay and her husband had adopted them after Quincy’s death. Miller didn’t do anything to stop the adoption, and didn’t file an objection at the time. But that didn’t mean he didn’t object.

  She pulled out her cellphone, to talk to Charles about this turn of events, but Donald, her stepson, hurried downstairs running toward her. “A water line busted, Ma,” he declared. “It’s spilling fast and all over the place!”

  “Where?” Jenay asked.

  “In the ballroom.”

  “Get Wilkie,” Jenay said urgently as she began heading for the ballroom.

  “Will do,” Donald said as he hurried to get the maintenance supervisor.

  And Jenay hurried too. They were a business family, and business always came first when they were on the clock. She and Charles would have to deal with any fallout from Miller Franklin’s presence when they made it home, from their respective jobs, later tonight.

  CHAPTER TWO

  It was a warm day in Boston as Carly Sinatra sipped the last of her latte and parked her SUV in her designated parking space. She looked up, over her steering wheel, at the massive name high atop the massive building. REESE MARKETING, it read. And the man himself, Trevor Reese, was her man.

  She got out of her SUV, placed her clutch under her arm, grabbed her briefcase, and headed for the entrance. Sometimes it seemed so surreal that her life was this life, and that her man was one of the most powerful men in Boston with one of the most successful consulting firms in the country. But most times, when she realized how little she still knew about him, and how often he was out of town on what he called “other” business, it seemed all too real. He was her boss and her lover, which was in and of itself a complication, but Trevor was more boss than lover these days. By far. And it was beginning to concern Carly.

  She entered the crowded lobby just as her assistant, Bridgett Collier, spotted her and hurried to her side. “Thank God you made it,” she said as she hurried over.

  “What’s wrong?” Carly asked as Bridgett took her by the arm and began ushering her toward the elevators.

  Bridgette didn’t stop her movement as she spoke. “We’ve got a situation,” she said. “We’ve got ourselves a headache.”

  Carly hated the sound of that, but she wasn’t Trevor’s public relations director for nothing. It was her job to put out fires. It was her job to deal with arrogant big wigs who found themselves in public shitholes over and over and over again. “Give me the who, the what, the where,” she said.

  “Bo Midas is the who,” Bridgette said as they made it to the elevators. She pressed the button, and then looked at Carly. “A suicide is the what.”

  Carly pulled away from her assistant. “Suicide? Who? The married girlfriend?”

  “Her husband,” Bridgett said. “And the husband’s family has already taken to social media blaming, not the deceased’s wayward wife, but Bo.”

  “Already?”

  “Already, girl,” Bridgett said as the elevator doors opened and they stepped inside. Bridgette was an older white woman, nearly twice Carly’s young age, and she was feisty. “What makes it so bad is the way they’re going after Bo. They’re calling the man a murderer without even considering that maybe their loved one’s wife had a hand in this tragic turn of events too. But it’s all about Bo. They’re calling our little pop star every name in the book.”

  “Where’s Bo now?” Carly asked. “At his house? I’ll need to get a team over there before his thin-skinned butt responds publicly to their accusations.”

  “He’s not home,” Bridgett said as she pressed the button to the top floor. “He’s here. He’s in the office of our CEO.”

  Carly looked at Bridgett. “Trevor’s office? He’s in Trevor’s office?”

  “Like it’s his office,” Bridgette responded. “I told him that’s not allowed, but does he listen to me? His feet are up on the desk and everything.”

  “But what’s he doing here? Trevor’s out of town. Did you tell him, Bridge?”

  “Yes, I told him! But he’s not listening. He thinks he’s such a big star that Mr. Reese should be at his beck and call, no matter what. I tried to tell him to go home and wait, that we’ll do everything in our power to get Mr. Reese back here to deal with this, but he has no concept of what I’m saying. He says he’s not going anywhere until Mr. Reese shows his, and I quote, ‘sorry-ass’ in this building right now. Can you imagine somebody talking about Mr. Reese like that?”

  Carly shook her head. That man/child pop star didn’t know who he was dealing with. She was only glad Trevor wasn’t in town to show him just who.

  The elevator stopped and they got off on the fourth floor, by far the busiest floor as consultants were all over the place, running back and forth, talking loudly on cellphones as if they lived for a crisis. “Assemble my staff in the war room,” Carly said as she stepped off. “Once I get him calmed down, we’ll discuss strategy then.”

  “If he’ll even talk to you.”

  “Once he realizes I’m all he has to talk to,” Carly predicted, “he’ll talk.”

  Bridgett remained skeptical, but she did as she was told. She and Carly went in different directions.

  But when Carly walked into Trevor’s office, and saw Bo sitting behind the desk just as Bridgett had described, she became skeptical too. He looked like a Justin Timberlake imitator, only with longer hair and sharper facial features. And his entourage, all beefy black guys, surrounded him as if he were the king on his throne. She hated dealing with these pampered pop stars. The least thing could set them off. She hated days like this. “Hello, Bo,” she said to the pampered one.

  “Don’t hello, Bo me,” Bo responded. “Where’s the boss? Get his ass in here now!”

  Carly closed the door, as his voice was already too loud. “Mr. Reese is out of town,” she said to him.

  “Bullshit! That’s bullshit!”

  “He’s out of town,” Carly said again, careful to remain calm. “You may not care to believe it, but it’s true. Perhaps I can handle the situation.”

  “You? You must be joking! No dame can handle this! I need Trevor and I need him right now! My ass on the grill and they give me some female? Get the fuck out of my face!”

  “Fine,” Carly said, and reopened the door. “You may leave.”

  Bo and his men looked at her as if she had lost her mind. Bo even stood up and walked around the desk and up to her. His henchmen followed him. Dante, a consultant who worked under Carly, walked into the office and stood at her side as soon as he saw Bo approach her. Bo’s men looked at Dante, as if they knew some nerd looking brother like him wasn’t trying to divert their man. But their man, Bo, was looking only at Carly.
“What did you just say to me?” he asked her.

  “I said you may leave if I can’t help you. Mr. Reese is not here right now. We’ll notify him as soon as possible, and he’ll get in touch with you personally. But none of that is going to happen right now. I’m sorry.”

  Bo frowned. “Bitch, I don’t care about how sorry you are! I want TR and I want him now! Instead of talking about how sorry you are, you’d better get his sorry ass in this office right now! You’d better get his sorry ass before I go postal up in this bitch!”

  Carly touched Dante’s arm. “Get Security,” she ordered him.

  “Security?” Bo asked derisively as Dante hurried to do what he was told. “Who the fuck cares about some crappy security guard? Do you realize who I am? I’m fucking Bo B, bitch. Bo Midas. I got the Midas touch! I got your security right here,” he added, grabbing his balls, “you tight-ass cock-sucking son-of-a-bitch!”

  “It takes one to know one,” Carly responded before she could stop herself.

  But it was enough. Thin-skinned Bo reacted without thinking too. He leaned back and slapped her so hard that Carly’s knees buckled, and her head and hair jerked wildly.

  But she didn’t hesitate. As soon as she realized what he had just done to her, she did it right back to him. She slapped the shit out of him too. It was nothing compared to the force of the slap he had put on her, but it was enough to get Bo started. He lunged at her, and was about to take her down, but his henchmen pulled him back.

  “We don’t want no trouble from TR, man,” one of his henchmen whispered in his ear as he bear-hugged him to keep him from striking back. “You know how he likes the bitch. Probably sleeping with her ass. We don’t need that kind of trouble. Let’s bounce. Let’s get the fuck out of here. We got enough problems. We don’t need any more!”

  It was obvious to Carly, and all of the consultants who suddenly stopped doing what they were doing to assess the situation, that Bo wasn’t ready to leave. Not by a long shot. But he listened to his man and eventually did leave. But not before purposely brushing against Carly as he walked by her. Dante, who was just returning from the receptionist desk in the middle of the wide open area, looked at Carly.