BIG DADDY SINATRA 2: IF I CAN'T HAVE YOU, Book 2 Page 3

  Knocks were heard on her car’s window. When she looked and saw two young police officers, she rolled down the window. “Yes, officer?”

  Branson, the younger of the two officers, smiled when she rolled down the window. “We took the statement from the guy who rear-ended you, ma’am. I just need to see your license and registration too, and get a statement from you.”

  She handed him the information she had already retrieved.

  “You’re very beautiful if I must say so myself,” he said as he took her info. “I’m new in this town. Brand new. Applied for the job, came and interviewed, and they hired me on the spot.”

  Jenay smiled. “Well good for you.” She always liked somebody excited about their vocation.

  “What about you, gorgeous lady?” Branson asked. “Are you from around these parts? I doubt it, given your sophisticated nature, but what do I know?”

  His partner elbowed him. He frowned and looked at him.

  “What’s wrong with you?” his partner whispered in his ear. “That’s Big Daddy Sinatra’s wife. That’s his baby on her lap. And you’re hitting on her? Are you crazy?”

  The young rookie swallowed hard. He was floored. He was new in town, and he didn’t know much of anything, but he’d already been schooled on who to avoid. Big Daddy Sinatra topped that list.

  “Do you need us to call a wrecker?” his partner leaned in and asked Jenay when Branson suddenly became less assertive.

  “No, thank-you,” Jenay said. “I already called Triple A. And there’s my stepson,” she added when she looked through her rearview mirror and saw Robert getting out of his Corvette, and heading her way.

  The officer looked back and saw a car behind the car that had rear-ended Jenay, and he saw a blond guy in his early twenties heading their way. He knew it was Robert Sinatra.

  He took Jenay’s license and registration from Branson, and handed them back to her. “We won’t be needing these, Mrs. Sinatra,” he said. “You’re free to go.”

  Jenay accepted her information back and reached for her huge diaper bag on the passenger seat. She would never understand this town. They seemed to despise everything about her husband, but they were yet so deferential to him that it sickened even her. As if Charles was the kind of man who would do them or their careers great harm if they didn’t give him and his loved ones preferential treatment. If they bothered to get to know Charles even peripherally they would realize how utterly ridiculous that was.

  “Need help?” Robert said as he walked up to her door.

  At twenty-two, Robert was only thirteen years younger than Jenay, and the second youngest of Charles’s four sons, but he was the one Jenay viewed as the sweetest. He adored his father probably above any of Charles’s other children, although they adored him too, and he seemed fond of Jenay. They weren’t exactly close, but Jenay felt they were in a good place. She felt they were getting there.

  “You must have flown,” she said happily as he opened her car door and took Bonita out of her arms.

  “When I get a call from my stepmother that she and my baby sister are in a car crash,” Robert said, as Jenay got out of the car, “then I’m flying.” He hugged Jenay with one hand and then looked at her. “You okay?”

  “We’re good. And it wasn’t a crash. Just a little fender bender.”

  “Front or back?”

  “Back,” Jenay said and Robert, with Bonita in his arms, went to the rear of the car. A dent was there, a sizeable dent, but nothing dramatic. He smiled as he walked back toward Jenay. In the sunlight his dark blonde hair and bright blue eyes sparkled. “Barely a fender bender,” he said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Then why is your car completely disabled?”

  “Your father would say because it’s a hunk of junk,” Jenay said, lifting her diaper bag onto her shoulder.

  “And what say you?” Robert asked.

  Jenay looked at her beloved Ford. “A hunk of junk,” she responded. “But don’t you dare tell your father I said that.”

  Robert laughed. “I won’t.”

  “Do you need a ride to your destination, ma’am?” Branson, who had backed off when Robert first arrived, moved back closer and asked her.

  “Thank-you officer,” Robert said, “but I think I can take it from here. See that Corvette down there? Yeah, that’s her transport. She’ll be fine.”

  Branson gave Robert a nod, but his partner took him by the arm and they went back to finalize matters with the driver who had rear-ended Jenay.

  Jenay looked at her stepson. He was a charmer, and adorable as they come, but Charles didn’t worry about him and his activities for nothing. “And how can you afford a Corvette?” she asked him after the officers walked away.

  “I can’t,” Robert admitted. “Especially since Dad won’t give me anything above an entry level position in his corporation. It belongs to a friend.”

  “A girl?” Jenay asked.

  Robert smiled that charming smile of his. “Are there any other kind?”

  Jenay shook her head. “I don’t fault you guys. I can’t. A female offers up money and ass, you guys are going to take it every time. It’s these silly girls out here trying to buy love that I blame.”

  “I know, right?” Robert agreed with a grin. “I mean, all they have to do is look at me and know I’m up to no good. But they don’t believe what they see.”

  “That’s because sometimes looks can be deceiving,” Jenay responded. “Take your father. First time I looked at him I took him for a player too.”

  “He was a player, are you kidding?” Robert said this proudly. “And he was great at it too. I watched him and learned everything I know. He was a master player. Until he met you.”

  Jenay nodded her head. “Well that’s one thing I’m pleased he’s no longer a master at.”

  Robert laughed. “Ready?”

  “Yeah. Oh, wait. Let me leave the keys under the floor mat for the tow driver, and let me try to retrieve my cell phone. It slipped from my hand.” She went back into the car, left the key under the mat, and searched for her phone.

  Robert began making funny faces at his kid sister, causing her to look at him as if he was a lunatic. But when he looked away from her, and saw a black Jaguar fly past him, pulled over onto the shoulder of the road in front of them, and then began backing up, all smiles were gone. “Uh-oh,” he said.

  Jenay stood back up. “Uh-oh what?” she asked as she looked at Robert. Robert nodded toward the Jaguar.

  When Jenay saw Charles’s Jaguar backing toward them, her heart dropped. “You called him?”

  “No! I came straight over. I didn’t want to hear his mouth any more than you did. One of his flunkies here in town must have seen you parked on the side of the road and, instead of offering to help the way a real man would, they probably called and told him just so they could score some brownie points with him. Pathetic pieces of shit. Whoever made that call.”

  But it was a moot point now, as far as Jenay was concerned. He was here. Instead of talking about him with Robert, which she rarely ever did anyway, she prepared herself for the onslaught of that I told you so mantra he was sure to unleash.

  Charles looked through his rearview mirror as he unbuckled his seatbelt. His wife was standing beside Robert, and the baby was in Robert’s arms, so at least his family was intact, he thought. And that car of hers didn’t appear to be any worse for wear.

  But he still didn’t like the fact that he had to find out through his secretary that his wife had been in an accident. He wanted to be Jenay’s go-to man. He wanted to be the one person she called as soon as something happened to her, good or bad, small or massive. But just as he tended to handle his problems on his own the way he’d always handled them, she handled hers the same way. And for the most part he loved that independence she so fiercely guarded. But sometimes, like right now, it concerned him too.

  He got out of his car and began walking toward them. Jenay stood there in her winter white pantsuit,
with a red scarf thrown around her neck that matched her red high heels, and just seeing her made his heart palpitate. Even though her gray eyes against her dark skin lit up any space, and her slender body with just the right combination of big breasts and curves would cause any man’s penis to throb, gorgeous was never the first word he thought whenever he laid eyes on her. Because she was so much more to him than a pretty face and a shapely frame. There was a subtle elegance about her, a kind of unfiltered naturalness, that made her, not just beautiful, but exquisite to Charles.

  Like her feet, for instance, he inwardly thought with a smile. Her feet tended to veer out, as if she was on the verge of slue-footedness, but she never tried to correct it. No matter where she was. She never tried to draw them in or turn them closer together. She let them veer-out wherever they veered-out because that was what they did.

  Like now. She had the baby’s big diaper bag on her small shoulders, her hands in the pockets of her suit coat, and her little feet’s position could almost match a penguin’s. But that was his woman right there. A mixture of strength, beauty, slue-footedness and brains. And with an undeniable stubbornness, he thought sadly as he made his way toward her, that sometimes shut him out.

  Jenay and Robert had both started looking at Charles from the moment he got out of the Jaguar, buttoned his tailored Valentino suit, and headed their way. Although Jenay never viewed him as a man given to flashiness of any kind, he did have impeccable taste and was always well put together. And his beauty, she thought. His strapping sons had nothing on him. From his jet-black wavy hair, to his large, glimmering green eyes, his face was handsome in a way that bespoke ruggedness, hardness, and yet incredible prettiness all mixed up into one great looking guy.

  And his body. From his thick chest and biceps, to his muscular legs and thighs, he had the body of a linebacker more so than the quarterback position he once played in high school. A very big, well-endowed linebacker, Jenay added fondly, as she stared at him.

  Robert looked at his father approaching with that same pride of association he always felt whenever Charles entered his orbit. But what he didn’t like, and hadn’t liked since his father’s marriage, was how Charles seemed singularly focused on Jenay and the baby as he came toward them, and not at all on him.

  “What brings you here, Dad?” he decided to ask to wrestle away some of that attention.

  “What brings you here?” Charles asked him back. Did Jenay call you instead of me? But he didn’t bother asking that, nor did he wait for an answer to his first question. He, instead, was staring too completely at Jenay, as he placed his hands on her arms. “Are you alright?” he asked her. “You and the baby?” he added, looking past her at the baby in Robert’s arms.

  Jenay was nodding her head. “We’re fine, thank God.”

  “Thank God,” Charles said, and pulled her gently into his arms. His heart had been pounding ever since Mary told him the news, and all he could think about was getting to his wife. He also knew Bonita was with her, and that only heightened his alarm. Now they both appeared safe and sound. And Robert had been there so that they weren’t alone. He was grateful.

  He loved the feel of her in his arms, and he held onto her tightly even though they were on the side of a busy street. When they stopped embracing, he reached over and took Bonita out of Robert’s arms. “Thanks for checking on them,” he said to his son as he did.

  “No problem,” Robert responded, feeling like a fifth wheel. Before Charles married Jenay, he remembered when he and his brothers were the center of their father’s universe, and how they cherished that special place. Now it seemed as if Jenay and Bonita were the spotlight on their father’s stage, and the rest of them had to beg for the mike. Brent and Tony were taking it just fine. It was a good thing for their father to be in love and have someone, and therefore a good thing for everybody, they felt. Robert and Donald, the two youngest sons, weren’t taking it well at all.

  Even Bonita loved that specialness. She smiled a grand smile when Charles hoisted her into his big arms. Charles smiled too, which wasn’t easy for a stern man like him. But just like his four boys before her, she melted his heart too. “Hey, sweetheart. Hey, Daddy’s little girl.”

  “How did you find out?” Jenay asked him.

  “Not from you,” Charles said, and then looked at her. She could see a glimmer of hurt in his eyes, but because he was not a man given to sentimentality, it quickly faded. “My secretary saw your car when she was driving by.”

  Jenay and Robert looked at each other and nodded their heads. “Miss Mary,” Robert said. “Dad’s pit bull. We should have known.”

  “Yes, we should have,” Jenay agreed with a smile.

  “Where’s the damage?” Charles asked, bouncing his baby girl.

  “Back here,” Robert said, walking with him toward the back.

  Officer Branson and his partner, seeing Charles, hurried toward him like the butt-kissers they were, and attempted to explain exactly what had happened. Just as they did, the Triple A tow truck arrived and stopped, in the road, beside Jenay’s car. Charles saw the truck, and headed back toward his wife.

  “What do you need a wrecker for? It’s barely scratched.”

  Jenay hated to admit it, but she knew she had to. “It wasn’t badly damaged, but it still won’t start,” she said.

  Charles frowned. “Again?”

  “Again.”

  Charles shook his head.

  “It’s probably a minor matter,” Jenay tried to reason with him.

  But Charles gave her that chilling look he could turn on like a faucet. “Bullshit,” he said to her, and he said it in a voice so quiet it shook her.

  And Jenay knew that said it all. He’d given her chance after chance to prove him wrong about that car of hers, the last thing she ever purchased with her own, rather than her husband’s money. He didn’t understand the significance of that. Because just by saying that one word, she knew her chances were up. He was not a man of many words, and he was not about to argue with her. The gig was up. She was no longer just his girlfriend, but was now his wife, and was transporting his child. She could kiss her old car, and perhaps a significant portion of her independence, goodbye.

  Arianna Sinatra lifted her shades on top of her thick, blonde hair and stared at the handsome man in the photograph. Her investigator, Ed Anderson, sat on the side of the lounge chair next to her chair as the pool man cleaned out her pool. Ed had more photos in his hand, tons more, but Arianna was still stuck on the first one. He was being paid by the hour, so he didn’t complain. He allowed her to take all the time she wanted.

  “And who is this person exactly?” she asked him.

  “Quincy Franklin.”

  “She was married to him?”

  “For several years, yes. Her parents disapproved of the marriage, they thought she was marrying beneath herself, but she went ahead with it anyway.”

  Arianna looked at Ed. “Why would he be beneath her? I thought you said he was an attorney, no?”

  “Not when they first got married, he wasn’t. He was an unemployed single father with two little girls who was looking for a meal ticket, by all accounts. Mrs. Sinatra---”

  “Don’t you dare call her that!” Arianna snapped bitterly. “I’m Mrs. Sinatra. The first, the last, and the only. She’s a wannabe. She’s a pretender. She’ll be nothing more than his temporary fling when I’m done with her! I have my own money now. Richard died, left me a handsome settlement. I can do things now. I can get rid of her, and regain my rightful place.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Ed said quickly. “What I meant to say is that Jenay was working at a the Pick and Pay---”

  “The Pick and what? What on earth is that?”

  “A grocery store. She was a cashier.”

  Arianna shook her head. “A cashier. This is the woman Charles replaces me with. A cashier. Honestly!”

  “She went on to graduate from some hospitality institute in Boston,” Ed pointed out, “which is how she
met your husband. She was a part of the crew that catered Donald’s wedding.”

  “A wedding I wasn’t invited to,” Arianna said bitterly. “That was Charles’s doing also. He turned all four of my sons against me. And Donald’s marriage didn’t last a year. What father would allow his eighteen year old son to marry anyway? An irresponsible one, that’s what kind! But I digress. So this Quincy married a meal ticket.”

  “Yes,” Ed said with a nod. “And she was a good one too. She worked, took care of his girls, and paid all the bills while he went to school. As soon as he was about to get his degree, he divorced her and married a different kind of meal ticket.”

  Arianna looked at him. “Different? How different? You mean white?”

  “No, she’s black. But unlike Jenay, she was a well-established corporate attorney at the time. She could help him go places.”

  “So he married a corporate attorney?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you still feel he can be bought?”

  “Oh, yes. Everything has changed for the little come-upper. He’s still practicing law, but he tried to steal from his bosses and was kicked out on his rear. He’s still practicing law, but he’s not real good at it and it’s barely paying the bills. His wife divorced him after his thievery and kicked him out of the big house. He’s renting some three-bedroom cookie cutter, but it’s not the same. He can be bought alright. He can be bought with no money down.”

  Arianna smiled her bright white smile. “My kind of guy,” she said.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Jenay stepped out of the master bedroom’s en-suite shower and grabbed a towel off the towel rack. She stared at the floor-length mirror facing her as she dried her wet body. Sometimes she could look at herself and understand easily why Charles was so attracted to her. But other times, like right now, she was mystified. She viewed herself as nice looking and she had a nice body even after Bonita’s birth, but where was the wow factor? And it had to be one. Charles wasn’t about to give up all of those gorgeous girls he had been fooling around with unless there was something seriously different about her.