BIG DADDY SINATRA 2: IF I CAN'T HAVE YOU, Book 2 Page 5

  And his face. She marveled at his intense, chiseled face. He had wavy black hair that dropped down to his shoulders, and piercing green eyes that, even from across the room, shocked in their fierceness. Tony had those same green eyes and that same jet-black hair, but it worked differently on Brent. Tony’s features were attractive, even inordinately beautiful in a soft sort of way. But Brent’s features were hard. In every way. And Denise liked it. Hard men made soft beds. Or so she’d heard!

  But even with a body as hot as his, it was his face, his stern, no-nonsense, to hell with small talk face, that actually made her smile.

  “Wow,” she found herself saying as she checked him out too.

  You better leave that boy alone.

  It sounded almost like a warning from a distant place. Denise looked around first, and then turned around. And there was Norm, standing in the kitchen at the pickup window, sitting the food he’d just plated onto the countertop.

  “You said something, Norm?” Denise asked her.

  “You better leave that boy alone,” Norm said again.

  “What boy?” Denise asked.

  Norm gave his best friend one of those don’t play with me girl looks. Denise smiled and turned back around. “Who says I’m bothering him?”

  “Your big-ass eyes say it. And I’m telling you don’t even think about it, Dee. You’ve got too much going for you to be a plaything for any of those Sinatra boys.”

  Stephie looked at Norm. “What do you know about the Sinatra boys? You’ve only been in town a week.”

  “And I’ve heard all I need to hear about them,” Norm made clear. “I get around, okay? I know how all of these foolish girls are throwing themselves at those brothers like they were rock stars. But not you too, Dee. You just got out of a train wreck of a relationship. You don’t need to go into another one.”

  But Denise continued to peruse every inch of Brent Sinatra. Because if she did go down that road with him, and she had enough confidence in her seductiveness to believe she could if she wanted to, it wouldn’t be about having any relationship with the man. It would be sexual. Pure and simple. And she would make no bones about it.

  “Why is food just sitting there?” a voice asked and they all turned to the sound. It was Jenay, walking toward them in her beautifully tailored Chanel pantsuit and heels.

  “I was just getting it, ma’am,” Stephie said nervously, sat the plates of food onto her tray, and hurried away.

  Norm smiled. “You show up and they suddenly want to work. Go figure.”

  Jenay smiled. “Good morning, Norm. “How are you this wonderful morning?”

  “Blessed and highly favored,” Norm said.

  Denise laughed and high-fived him. “I know that’s right!” she said.

  “And how are you, Miss Dee?” Jenay asked.

  “I’m good,” Denise said.

  “Good.”

  “Still want to waitress, or have you decided to take me up on my offer?”

  “No, I still want to waitress,” Denise said. “Being your assistant sounds too challenging. I want nice and easy right now. At least until I can figure out what Mark is going to do.”

  “What do you mean what he’s going to do?” Norm asked her. “He kicked you to the curb. That’s what he did. You need to go on with your life, girl.”

  “Norm’s right,” Jenay said.

  “Are we still on for lunch today?” Denise asked, changing the subject.

  Norm and Jenay glanced at each other. “That’s dinner tomorrow, Dee,” Norm said. “Nobody’s got time to have lunch with you. She’s a busy woman.”

  “We’re still on for tomorrow,” Jenay said. “Charles hope to join us too.”

  “Oh, good!” Denise said. It’s about time, she wanted to add.

  “But, in the meantime,” Jenay added, “let’s get back to work.”

  Jenay left.

  “That’s right,” Denise said to Norm. “Where’s my orders anyway?”

  Norm smiled. “I thought you’d never ask,” he said, and put her orders that had been in the warming station, up on the countertop.

  She rolled her eyes at him as she grabbed the plates.

  “What?” he asked. “You were talking!”

  Denise placed her plates on her tray. Norm laughed, and then went back to work.

  “Need some help?” Stephie asked Denise as she walked back up to the pick-up window.

  “I’ve got it, thanks,” Denise said.

  “The beautiful people have arrived,” Stephie whispered.

  Denise immediately looked toward the entrance. A small, blonde woman, with her posse behind her, was walking in. Denise knew her face. She came in often, always with a group of girls who were cute, but none as attractive as she was. But as the pretty blonde walked past Brent and gave him, not just a glancing look, but more like a glancing blow of a look, Denise smiled. “Whoa, you saw that?” she asked Stephie. “What was that about?”

  “That’s just Kerstin being messy,” Stephie said. “She and Brent used to date, and she still wants him.”

  “He dumped her?”

  “Like a pot of hot grease.”

  “And I’ll bet you can tell me why?”

  “Too much drama is what I heard,” Stephie gossiped. “She was too insecure. Brent couldn’t turn around without her constantly in his face, accusing him of cheating because some girl was trying to give him her number, or was in his face, or whatever. Kerstin’s crazy like that. She’s not fooling me, but she knows how to fool these men. They all want her because she’s blonde and petite and supposedly so beautiful. Every boy in this town wants her.”

  “Not every boy.”

  Stephie smiled. “Yeah, I think Brent’s done with her this time. And she can’t stand it, either. I think she’s one of those fatal attraction bitches. If I was Brent, I’d watch my back.”

  “Watch this,” Norm said as he tossed yet another plate of food onto the pickup counter. “Lobster roll, burger and fries, lobster cakes up.”

  “For table twelve?” Stephie asked, looking at the order.

  “What are you asking for?” Norm asked irritably. “Yeah, table twelve. You should know your orders by now.”

  “What about the wings?”

  “What wings?”

  Stephie looked at him. “For table twelve, Norm, now come on! I told you they ordered an add-on. Ask Denise, she heard me tell you.”

  But Denise was already out of earshot. She’d wasted enough time. She hoisted her plate-filled tray onto her narrow shoulder, and hurried to serve her hungry consumers.

  Brent was now sitting at Tony’s table, and Tony elbowed him when he saw Denise across the room. She was walking sideways because of the crowd, as she made her way to the table across from theirs. Brent looked too. All he could see, when he looked, was the back of her. She was average height and on the slender side, with brownish hair that dropped along her back in a thick ponytail. She wore one of those peach-colored waitress getups: a short mini-dress that fit well enough to hint at curves and a tight ass, but loose enough to prove ultimately inconclusive. Her legs were slender like her frame, and she had what he would consider good posture. But he didn’t see where there was anything particularly special about her.

  “She’s got a nice figure,” Brent responded to his brother’s urgings. “But so what? Jericho’s full of girls with hot bods.”

  “Yeah, but she’s black like you like it.” Tony said this with a grin.

  Brent didn’t understand that reference. Just because one of the girls he dated at college happened to be black, didn’t mean he dated black women exclusively. He dated all kinds of women. And the woman he dated the longest of them all, Kerstin, was as white as white could get. Sweden had nothing on Kerstin. But you couldn’t tell that to Tony.

  But when Denise moved over to the opposite side of the table she was serving, to place a plate of food in front of one of her customers, and Brent was able to see, not just her body, but her face as well, he u
nderstood. He got it. And was pleasantly surprised. This girl was actually hot! Big, smoky brown eyes that looked like pools of chocolate cream. Deep, dark-toned skin that looked smooth as velvet. A small nose, full lips, and rich, natural eyelashes that were so long and flowing that her eyes looked closed whenever she looked down. Tony usually struck out in the female department. The women he usually found attractive were almost never very beautiful to Brent. But this time, Brent thought, his kid brother hit it out of the park.

  Tony knew she would be Brent’s type. “She’s cute, right?” He was smiling as he asked it.

  But Brent played it cool. As the oldest Sinatra, his siblings looked up to him. He learned how to keep it together in all matters, even minor ones. “She’s okay,” he said.

  Tony was offended. “Okay? Okay my ass! She’s hot, Brent, come on!”

  “Lower your voice,” Brent ordered. “Don’t make a spectacle of the girl.”

  Tony leaned toward his brother, with a lowered voice. “But you have to admit she’s hot.”

  “She’s hot. Sure I’ll admit it. How old is she?”

  Tony frowned. “How should I know how old she is? She graduated that same school in Boston Jenay graduated from, I know that much. So she’s legal if that’s what you mean.” Then he leaned back, confused. “I don’t get you. I thought you’d be all over that.”

  Brent was intrigued, that was for damn sure, but that wasn’t Tony’s business. And even when Denise finished at the table across from them and made her way over to their table, he continued to keep his cool. Although, when he saw her up close, he became even more intrigued. She was stunning.

  Denise looked at Tony first. “Your order should be up next, alright?” She said this as she pulled out her order pad. “Norm’s a little slow this afternoon.”

  “Norm’s always slow,” Tony said with a smile. “But in spite of the slow service, my very generous offer is still on the table.”

  Brent looked at his brother. “What generous offer?”

  “I told her I would be honored for her to have my baby.”

  Brent rolled his gorgeous eyes. Denise laughed. “What can I get for you, sir?” she asked Brent.

  “Sir?” Tony asked. “He’s no sir, he’s my brother! Dee, I want you to meet my big brother who thinks he’s my Dad. His name’s Charles Brenton Sinatra, Jr.,” Tony said. “But we just call him Boss.”

  “Well I won’t be calling him that,” Denise said with a smile.

  Brent found himself smiling too. Not only were her teeth pearly white, but her eyes seemed to twinkle when she smiled.

  She extended her hand. “Nice to meet you, Brenton.”

  “Call me Brent, and nice to meet you,” he said as they shook. “Dee, is it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “As in?”

  “Denise.”

  “Denise.” Brent said her name in a slow, careful drone, as if he was trying it on for size.

  And he did not release her hand, a move that was not lost on Tony. Brent was a smooth operator, but his coolness wasn’t fooling Tony.

  “You’re certainly not from around here,” Brent said.

  “You’ve got that right,” Denise said.

  Brent noticed how she had a natural ability to be blunt without being offensive. Refreshing for a pretty girl.

  “I’m from Boston,” Denise added. “I’m just working here for now. Helping your stepmother out.”

  “My stepmother? Jenay? You know Jenay?”

  Tony smiled. He knew Brent already knew that she and Jenay were friends. But he went along with Brent’s act too. “She sure does,” he said. “Odd isn’t it? You wouldn’t think serious Jenay, Dad’s wife, would hang out with people our age.”

  “That’s why they called me, Norm, and Jenay the Three Oddateers in college. I was young and wild, Norm was gay and white, and Jenay was divorced and serious and could have told both of us to take a hike. But she didn’t. She allowed us to latch onto her and hang around her and the three of us became best friends.” Denise smiled. “I’m her best friend.”

  “It is odd,” Brent agreed. “Especially since you don’t look a day over eighteen.”

  Denise nodded her head. “Thanks.”

  Oh, my, he thought. He was getting an erection. Just looking at this slip of a girl was giving him an erection! “But you are eighteen surely?” he asked, feeling guilty.

  Denise didn’t understand that sudden shift. “Excuse me?”

  “He wants to know if you’re legal,” Tony said, “so he can have his way with you.”

  Denise inwardly smiled. Good, she thought. He was interested. But she wasn’t making any moves just yet. “May I take your order, sir?” she asked.

  After she took his order, the cheeseburger special with a Coke, she headed back to the kitchen. Brent looked at his younger brother with anger in his eyes. “So I can have my way with her? Seriously, Tone?”

  Tony laughed. “I was just kidding around, Brent, geez! She knows I like to kid around.”

  “You take that shit too far. You embarrassed her.”

  “I did not!”

  “You did too! Everything isn’t a joke, Anthony. You need to stop kidding so much and get your ass serious.”

  “I am serious. And when she has my baby, I’ll get even more serious. You need to lighten up,” Tony added. “That’s the real problem.”

  Brent glanced at Denise, as she stood at the pickup counter. He hadn’t had sex in a month, since he and Kerstin broke up, and that was a record for him. He was itching for some. He looked down at her body, thought about all the other bodies around town he could spend a night with, and decided he preferred hers.

  “Whatever,” he said to his brother, and actually hoped she hadn’t been offended.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Isn’t that him?” Denise asked, and Jenay and Norm both looked where she was looking: at the front portico of the Jericho Yacht and Country Club’s dining hall entrance. Charles, who had been with the club for nearly a decade and was its most prominent member, was standing near the entrance shaking hands and holding a conversation with what appeared to be a couple of businessmen. One of the men Jenay recognized as the president of the Chamber of Commerce.

  “That’s him,” she said as she looked fondly at her husband. He left for Baltimore yesterday and was apparently just getting back in town. It had only been a day’s separation, but she missed him terribly.

  Norm nodded approvingly as he watched Charles. He’d only met him twice before, both times in Boston and both times very briefly, and both times he was impressed with his physical attributes. And still was. “Still gorgeous after all these years I see,” he said.

  Denise rolled her eyes. “You would notice that,” she said. Then she looked at Jenay. “So what was he doing in Baltimore?”

  “Jenay smiled. “He was meeting with his business partners,” she said.

  “As far as you know,” Denise said.

  “Oh please girl,” Norm fired back. “Every man is not like Mark.”

  “I didn’t say they were,” Denise said. “I was just being honest. I didn’t mean to offend you, Jenay.”

  “You can’t offend me,” Jenay said. “Not about Charles. I know him.”

  Norm and Denise exchanged glances. That’s what they all say, their looks seemed to say. But Jenay ignored them. She didn’t know everything about Charles, but she felt in her heart of hearts that he wouldn’t do something like that to her.

  Norm looked at her. “It would kill you if he cheated on you. Wouldn’t it?”

  It would, and Jenay knew it would, but she wasn’t going into that with them. “He’s not a cheater,” was all she’d say.

  “Ha!” Denise said. “None of them are cheaters. Until they cheat. Then they’re dirty dogs. To wit, Mark.”

  Norm laughed. “She thinks every man is Mark now. Don’t try to reason with her about it anymore. She’s officially a bitter old woman.”

  Denise smiled. “I am n
ot old and I am not bitter. You, on the other hand---”

  “Let’s keep it clean children,” Jenay said. “This is supposed to be a respectable joint.”

  They all laughed. Norm and Denise didn’t realize that all eyes were on them, especially when they laughed or spoke loudly, but Jenay did. She was used to it. Even when she and Charles had dinner there, and she would look up from her plate, some busybody or other would quickly look away from her as if they’d been staring at her the entire time.

  Charles finally broke free of the talkative businessmen and made his way toward Jenay’s booth. Norm, who was seated beside Denise, stood and shook his hand.

  “How are you, sir?” Charles asked Norm as they shook.

  “Very well, thank-you,” Norm said. He’d heard all kinds of terrible things about Jenay’s husband, or Big Daddy Sinatra as the townsfolk called him, but Charles was alright in Norm’s book. He never seemed to look down on him, or treat him differently because he was gay. And in a judgmental town like Jericho, Norm thought, that was a big deal.

  Charles nodded toward Denise, who was seated on the inside seat. “Hello Denise.”

  “Hi,” Denise responded with a smile. She had forgotten how great looking the guy was. He was just as gorgeous as his son Brent. Maybe even more so.

  Charles moved over to Jenay, leaned over and kissed her affectionately on the lips.

  “How did it go?” Jenay asked him as he sat down. “Made a deal?”

  “We did actually,” Charles responded. Then he looked at his wife. “How about with you? Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s good.”

  “My baby?”

  “Your baby’s fine. Both of them.”