Alex Drakos: His Forbidden Love Page 10

  He motioned for her to go in front of him as they made their way across the driveway to his car. Kari could feel his eyes burning her ass he was watching it so hard. But she couldn’t focus so much on him. She was trying herself not to trip and really show her nervousness. She hadn’t been out with a guy, working dinner or not, in years. She was as nervous as nervous could get.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The drive to dinner was quiet for Kari, as Alex kept fielding phone call after phone call related to what she could only surmise was his vast business empire. She allowed him to do his thing. He had to run his business, even while he was in Apple Valley. And it was an education to see Alex in action. She didn’t complain at all.

  But when they ended up, not at some swanky restaurant as she fully expected him to be taking her, but at an airstrip outside of Apple Valley, and she saw the private plane waiting on the tarmac, she was confused. She looked at Alex when he ended his call. “What’s this?” she asked him.

  “Dinner,” he said. He stopped his car in a parking space, and turned toward her. “I’ve got to take a quick trip to New York for a meeting I can’t phone in. We’ll have dinner on the plane while we fly. It’ll only take a couple hours to get there, and that includes runway time. My meeting shouldn’t take over an hour tops, and then we’ll be back in the air and back here in no time. I know you have a teenage son. You’ll be back to him around midnight. It will be no different than a regular night out.”

  Kari couldn’t believe her ears. “Did you say New York?” she asked. He spoke of flying to New York on the spur of the moment as if it was no different than driving across town! This was so out of what she was used to, and so out of her comfort zone, that she knew she looked scared as hell. She didn’t mean to, but she couldn’t help but look that way.

  Alex saw it, too. Her eyes hid nothing. At least nothing from him. He exhaled. “This is how I roll, Kari,” he said bluntly. “If you expect to be with me,” he added, “you’d better get used to it.”

  If you expect to be with me, Kari repeated in her brain. What was he talking about? Since when were they expected to be together? Or, she wondered, did he mean being with him in terms of working with him? In terms of sex? In terms of a full-blown relationship? She was so out of her depth!

  But he still sat there, waiting for her to make a decision. Either she was going to go with him on the wildest working dinner of her life, or she was going to go back to her little house and her little life in Apple Valley.

  Then another phone call came in, and he answered it. A reprieve for Kari. It gave her time to think. She would be taking a monumental risk if she got on a plane with this man. She knew that. It could be all about business. Or it could have nothing to do with business. That was the risk, and it was a big one, for Kari.

  She sat there, as he talked on his phone, and she still felt as if she was trapped. As if she was torn between two worlds, and neither one of them offered comfort. One world she knew, and therefore knew to expect very little from it, and one world she had no clue about, but had a fifty-fifty shot at a whole lot more.

  But then, as if she had willed it herself, a particular song came to her mind, a song she was always playing at work. It was Tracy Chapman singing Fast Car. And as crazy as it sounded, it gave Kari the courage.

  “You got a fast car.

  I want a ticket to anywhere.

  Maybe we make a deal.

  Maybe together we can get somewhere.

  Anyplace is better.

  Starting from zero, got nothing to lose.

  Maybe we’ll make something.

  Me myself, I got nothing to prove. . .

  You got a fast car.

  Is it fast enough so we can fly away?

  We got to make a decision:

  Leave tonight, or live and die this way!”

  And suddenly, it made perfect sense to Kari! She’d never been a timid person. She’d never been somebody afraid to dare, to dream, to get out there and give it a shot. Why was she acting this way now? Because he was different? Because this idea of dinner on his private plane would have been bat-shit crazy to her just an hour ago?

  She made a decision. She did not want to be one of those females who lived their lives in regret of what they didn’t do. What they didn’t try. Where they didn’t go.

  When Alex ended his call, she looked at him. “Ready?” she asked.

  Alex smiled. She had been so frightened, he assumed she was a no. But now she looked like the confident gal he had taken her for. “Yes,” he said. “I was born ready!”

  “Yeah, right,” Kari said with a smile of her own, and Alex grinned a gorgeous, rakish grin as he got out of the car and made his way to her door. He felt like a kid again!

  Kari felt great, too. Not that she wasn’t terrified. She was. This was all so new to her, and she was all kinds of scared. But she knew herself, she thought, as he opened the door and assisted her out of the car. It wouldn’t be like her to see a challenge, no matter how difficult it was, and choke. It wouldn’t be like her at all.

  “We got to make a decision:

  Leave tonight, or live and die this way.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  When they got onto his luxurious plane, it could have been the moon it felt so foreign to Kari. Leather, cream-colored seats. A kitchen. A bar. A bedroom with a shower and tub for crying out loud! It was like something in a magazine. And a full crew were on board. It had to cost a fortune to take it anywhere, let alone house it and keep it well-maintained, Kari thought. It seemed so excessive. But Vito used to always say if you have the money, flaunt it. But he was a fool, so she never really listened to him. And he never really had much money. But apparently Alex had the same philosophy. He spared no expense living his life.

  They settled at a beautifully decorated table and, to Kari’s surprise, their dinner was already set up and waiting, complete with wine.

  “Hope you’re hungry,” Alex said as he pulled out the chair for her.

  “I am,” she said. “I’m starved actually.”

  “Then good. Eat as much as you like,” he said, as she sat down. “I need to take a private phone call,” he added, “but I’ll be back in a few.”

  “Oh. Okay,” she said. She wasn’t sure how she felt about eating alone, especially with the entire kitchen crew staring down her throat. But she knew she had to take it in stride. He was not going to baby her, even though she felt like a newborn in his world.

  Then Alex came through for her. “Stop staring at her,” he admonished his staff. “Get out of her face.”

  “Yes, sir,” the chef said. “I apologize, sir.”

  “If she needs something, she has a mouth. She’ll call for assistance.”

  “Yes, sir,” the chef added, and then sheepishly hurried his staff out of the dining room.

  Alex leaned down, at her ear. She could smell his fresh cologne. She could also feel his lips touch her ear. “I’ll be back,” he whispered in her ear in such a sensual way it was daunting. And then left to a back room where a crew member opened the door for him, and then closed it back once Alex was inside. The crew member stood guard outside of the door. Why he felt a need, since they were on a plane that was taking off, made no sense to Kari. But what did she know?

  She pulled the hand sanitizer out of her clutch, cleaned her hands, and then ate. It wasn’t her kind of food; it looked more like the cuisine you’d see on something like Top Chef or The Chew. A lot of roughage and such. But it looked great and actually, after she gave it a chance, was tasty too.

  By the time Alex made it back to the table, she was nearly halfway done with the main course. But she quickly found out that Alex was a fast eater. He wolfed that food down as if he was starved, too, and caught up and surpassed her rather quickly. The fact that he had such a ferocious appetite made Kari smile. She was beginning to believe that there wasn’t a pretentious bone in this man’s body. But she also knew when people were rich, they could afford to be themselves.
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  After dinner, with Kari barely touching her wine, they settled in what could only be described as a private sitting room. There was a full-sized bar in the room, and a leather couch and loveseat. Alex personally dismissed the bar attendant, who closed the door behind himself, and then Alex poured both of them a drink. He didn’t ask what she wanted, and she didn’t care. They were flying above the clouds. She had to keep her wits about her. She wasn’t about to drink not a tap of whatever he prepared for her.

  Although there were other seats in the room, Alex handed her a drink and sat down on the loveseat beside her. Because of Alex’s bulk, it made for close quarters. So close that their arms, their hips, their thighs touched. So close that Alex had to cross his legs and turn sideways to be able to look at her.

  And what he saw was nothing but pleasing in his sight. Gone was the fright he saw at the airstrip. Her happy was back. And it wasn’t a drunk high, either. She didn’t take a sip of alcohol. Not at dinner, and not now, which actually pleased him too. This lady had good instincts, even if they were wrong in this case. He was going to bed her; no doubt about that. But he wasn’t going to rape her or force himself on her in any way. He never had to do that to get what he wanted from any woman. But he was going to have her and that very nice body of hers. He couldn’t stop noticing that either. He was looking forward to their coupling.

  “Tell me,” he said after their small talk ended, “what makes Kari Grant tick?”

  Kari smiled. That was easy. “My son,” she said.

  “His name?”

  “Jordan. Jordan Grant. He’s my fourteen-year-old little man.”

  “Great kid, is he?”

  “He is. Yes. I know every mom says that, but I’m telling the truth.”

  “And those other moms were lying their heads off, hun?”

  Kari realized that was how it sounded. She couldn’t help but smile, too. “I didn’t mean it like that!”

  “I know. I’m just messing with you.”

  Kari inwardly smiled at his vernacular. Most times he came across as so beyond reach: so high class. But other times, she could tell he had some street in him, too.

  “Listen, Alex,” she said. “I have a confession to make. When you invited me to this dinner, I did a little research. I Googled you, in other words.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’m sorry about what happened with your child,” she said. “With your son.”

  Alex’s demeanor changed slightly. Kari saw it. “I’m so sorry what happened,” she said again. She also read where his daughter was arrested for stealing millions from him. The paper said they had a terrible relationship, but it still had to hurt.

  But Alex didn’t say a word about it. He hadn’t spoken about it since the day it happened. Not to his friends. Not to his employees. Not to anyone. Kari understood. She would have been speechless too had something that tragic befallen her. She decided to move on.

  “But yeah,” she said, “Jordan’s a great kid.”

  “Where’s his father?” Alex asked. “From what I’ve heard, you’re a single mom.”

  He could ask her questions, she decided, but he was apparently off limits. Since she was on a job interview of sorts, she didn’t complain. But his comment caught her attention. “From what you’ve heard?” she asked. “From whom did you hear this?”

  Alex smiled. “I have my spies.” What he actually had was a very sophisticated team of investigators who were tasked with getting intel on her after that car chase. Just in case.

  “Why would your spies be spying on me?”

  “That’s what spies do. They spy on everybody. Especially if I’m considering them for a contract.”

  Kari wasn’t thrilled to hear that. Her past wasn’t exactly stellar. It could possibly knock her out of contention for that cleaning contract. “And what did your spies learn?” she asked him, and then looked her big eyes at him intensely.

  Alex didn’t usually share his findings with the subject of the search, but he didn’t usually take the subject on a business trip to New York with him, either. Kari, he already knew, was different in his eyes. “They found out that you were born and raised in Miami, in a part of town they call Liberty City.”

  Kari nodded. “That’s right.”

  “They found out that your father was a drug dealer. Or is he still one?”

  Kari felt embarrassed. “I haven’t seen him since I was a kid. I have no idea.”

  A sore subject, her old man, and Alex decided to leave that alone. She had many sore subjects in her background. But that wasn’t a disqualifier for Alex. Whereas some girls liked a guy with a little thug in him, Alex liked his girls with a little thug in them. Kari seemed to have it, and then some.

  “They also found out,” he continued, “that your mother moved, with you and your brother, to Chicago. You met Jordan’s father in Chicago.”

  Kari nodded. “That’s right. His name was DayVon. I was fourteen and he was fifteen when we met. Just stupid kids doing grown folks things. I was fifteen when I got pregnant. He died before his eighteenth birthday.”

  Alex knew, for such young, puppy love, that had to be devastating. “What happened to him?” he asked.

  “He had some sort of heart valve disorder. He had a weak heart, they said.”

  “That had to be difficult for a young girl to have to deal with.”

  “A young girl with a one-year old son,” Kari said. “And DayVon was such a good guy. Smart and sweet. The best man I’d ever met, and he was just a kid like I was. DayVon would have made a great father.”

  “Sometimes the good die young.”

  “Yup. Sometimes they do.” Then Kari moved on. “My mother passed away when Jordan was six, and that was tough, too.”

  “I can only imagine,” Alex said.

  “What about your folks?” Kari asked. “Are they still alive and kicking?”

  “They are, yes,” Alex said.

  “Where are they?”

  “Greece. In Athens.”

  Kari smiled. “Yes, I read just the other day that you were Greek. But I didn’t read anything about your parents.

  “You won’t. They’re very private people. At least my father is.”

  “Why so private?” Kari asked with a smile. “Is he one of those reclusive Greek shipping magnets like Aristotle Onassis or something?”

  It was no laughing matter to Alex, and Kari could tell it wasn’t. “No,” he said. And he decided to tell her the truth. She needed to have some idea who she was dealing with. “He’s a crime figure in Greece, Kari,” he said.

  A crime figure? Kari knew about crime figures. Vito was a made man for the Pataki crime family in Chicago. She knew all about crime figures. But Alex hailed from that background too?

  “You know about that, don’t you, Kari?” Alex asked.

  “Not that close. I mean, my old man used to drop dime bags and did shit like that, but nobody would have been calling him a crime boss or anything of that caliber. Your old man sounds as if he’s all into the wrong side.”

  An odd look crossed Alex’s eyes. “I hope that doesn’t disqualify me,” he said.

  “Because your father is a gangster?” She smiled. “I lived with one for four years. I have no stones to throw.”

  Alex laughed. Then his look turned serious. “You stayed with a particularly nasty one for those four years.”

  “Vito Visconni,” Kari said, nodding her head. “Or Money as they called him. I refused to. He’s due out of federal prison this week. If he hasn’t gotten out already. They won’t give me the exact day, in case I was plotting to kill him. To kill him, mind you. They’re looking out for him. But yeah.” Then a look of regret crossed her eyes.

  “Do you think that guy who tried to run you off the road was affiliated with him?”

  “It’s possible, but I don’t know that. Normally, I wouldn’t put it past him to do something that messed up. But it’s been so long. Why would he care? He never gave a shit about Jordan, and he neve
r treated me right.”

  “You left him before he went to prison?”

  “I left Vito the day before they arrested him. I was tired of his bullshit. And then he hit my kid. When he did that, it was on. I packed my bags, my son’s bags, and we just left. The next thing I know, I hear he was arrested and in federal custody. I’m like damn. So, I kept it moving. Was glad I got out when I did. And I ended up in Apple Valley.”

  “Why here?” Alex asked.

  “My car broke down when I was passing through.”

  Alex laughed.

  “No, it’s a true story,” Kari said. “The people were really nice, which was something I wasn’t used to. They didn’t want anything from me. So, I said what the hell. Because I interviewed well, I was able to get a decent job fairly quickly, which eased my landing too. Apple Valley just seemed like a good fit.”

  A good fit, Alex thought, as he glanced down at her breasts. That was exactly what he was going to be when he got inside of her.

  Kari caught Alex’s downward glance, but waited until he looked back up, into her eyes. “I don’t have the kind of background that’s going to pass many background checks,” she said. “I’ll be honest with you. Most people would see the kind of guys I associated with, and the fact I had a child when I was only fifteen, and close the book on me real quick. I know that.”

  “You were very young, Kari,” Alex said.

  “I wasn’t that young. I was nineteen when I hooked up with Vito.”

  Alex smiled. “That’s young, Kari.”

  “But I stayed there too long. I should have gotten out long before I did. That was my biggest mistake. And regret,” she added, with pain in her eyes. “And I’m not playing dumb, either. I knew Vito had prostitution and gambling and you name it going on in that club. I knew what time it was. But I’ve been trying to make amends. I’ve been trying to live a life that is pleasing to God, to my child, and to everybody who knows me. I’ve been trying to turn it around.”