Mick Sinatra_Heat Wave Read online

  “Lose track again,” Mick warned, “and you’ll lose your position here.”

  She believed that warning. “Yes, sir,” she said, and hurried out of his office.

  But Roz was coming in just as she was hurrying out. She immediately saw that Gloria was crying. “Glo, what’s wrong?” she asked her.

  But Gloria wasn’t interested in sharing her pain. “Nothing’s wrong,” she said, and hurried past her stepmother.

  “What do you mean nothing’s wrong?” Roz asked. “Glo? Gloria?”

  But Gloria kept walking, past Roz, past Blair’s desk, past all of the assistants’ desks until she was out of the suite of offices and heading for the restrooms.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Mick’s heart squeezed when Roz walked in. She looked so stunning, he thought, in her red, form-fitting dress that showed off her curves in a way that made his penis begin to throb. It had been a hectic few days, as he had been called away on business time and time again, and seeing her was like a needed respite.

  But when Roz entered the office, closing the door behind her, she was passionate too. But not like that. “What was that about?” she asked him.

  Mick was glad to see his wife. Her presence always gave him a sense of calm. But he was also frustrated with himself for allowing her to see him blow it in the father department yet again. He tossed the pen he had just picked up back onto his desk, and let out a harsh exhale.

  But Roz didn’t give a shit about his frustration. Not now. Not when his child just left his office in tears. “Your daughter was crying,” Roz said as she headed toward his desk. “You realize that?”

  “Why wouldn’t I realize it, Rosalind?” he asked, showing that frustration.

  “Don’t get snippy with me,” Roz said, as she walked behind his desk. “Why was she crying?”

  Mick leaned back and looked at his wife. She could see the strain all over his face. She could also see his erection.

  “Come here,” Mick said to her.

  Roz was already there technically, so she didn’t move. But when he opened his legs, and she understood where he meant for her to come, she moved in-between them. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her. Even now, Roz still felt a tingle whenever Mick touched her. And when he lifted her onto his lap, onto his stiff penis, that tingle began to pulsate between her own legs. She didn’t come here for this. They didn’t have time for this! But that never stopped Mick before, and it wasn’t stopping him now.

  He continued to kiss her as he held her, with her body sideways on his lap. He even reached beneath her ass and unzipped his pants, pulling out his penis. And when he began to move down, from her mouth to her neck, and then to her breasts, Roz began to anticipate the wonderful way he sucked her breasts, and was about to suck them now. He unzipped her dress, and pulled down one shoulder, until her bra was revealed. Then he pushed the right bra cup down, beneath her big, brown breast, and looked at it.

  “You’re beautiful, you know that?” he said, his eyes hooded.

  “Me, or my breast?” Roz said with a smile.

  “Both,” he said, and began sucking her hard.

  Roz squeezed his hair with her hands as he sucked her. It was as if, in that moment, they could be in a fantasy world where they had no problems at all. And they both loved being there. Until the office door suddenly opened, and Blair stepped in.

  “Oh, sir,” she decried, when she saw the state they were in. “Excuse me!”

  Although she stepped right back out, closing the door behind her, Roz had already risen to her feet pulling up her bra cup, and Mick was putting his penis back into his pants, and zipping back up. Blair knew better than to just barge into his office, but it was done now. They would have to continue what they started tonight.

  Roz moved over to the floor-to-ceiling window behind Mick’s desk, a window that overlooked a sweeping view of Philadelphia. Mick got up and moved beside her, zipped her dress, and then leaned against the window jamb.

  Roz folded her arms and looked at him. She hated how tired he looked. He was not getting nearly enough rest. “You alright?” she asked him.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and finger. “I’m alright,” he said.

  “Just tired as a motherfuck,” Roz said. “I don’t know why you push yourself so hard, Mick.”

  “I’m not pushing myself.”

  “Getting up before dawn three mornings in a row isn’t pushing yourself? Then what the hell is? Especially when Teddy could handle whatever it is. Or even Joey.”

  “I don’t allow anybody to handle what I need to handle. And until I’m able to walk away from that part of my existence--”

  “Which is never,” Roz said bluntly. Mick might be the one to lay down the truth to his children, but Roz was the only one who could lay it down to him.

  “Which is probably never, you’re right,” he admitted. “Not at the rate it’s going right now, with all of the fuck-ups. But if the day comes when I can walk away from that part of my life, and until it happens, I have to handle what I have to handle.”

  “Why was she crying?” Roz asked him.

  “She wanted to run my Boston office. I told her that wasn’t going to happen. She didn’t like it.”

  Roz could sense there was more. “And?” she asked.

  Mick looked at her. “What makes you so sure there’s more?”

  Roz didn’t respond. She, like Mick, knew he knew what she was talking about.

  “And,” he continued, “she didn’t like the fact that I’ve asked Carly to run that office.”

  Roz didn’t expect to hear that. “Carly? Big Daddy’s daughter?”

  Mick placed his hands in his pant pockets. “Yes,” he said.

  “You never told me you were considering Carly, let alone already offered her the job.”

  Mick looked at his wife. What did they expect of him? It took every ounce of emotion he had to ask her to re-marry her and publicly reaffirm his commitment to her and, by extension, to the children. What more did they want from a man like him? To become some fucking pussy and tell them all of his innermost thoughts?

  “It was my business,” he said as diplomatically as he knew how, “and I was handling it. What the fuck I look like getting permission?”

  But Roz fired back. “I wasn’t talking about getting permission, Mick. Why do you always have to take it there? I was talking about common curtesy. Pillow talk. Letting a bitch know something! But you always have to turn it into an oh I’ll look weak thing.”

  “I didn’t tell you. End of discussion.”

  Roz knew Mick gave her a lot of liberties with him that nobody else on the face of this earth enjoyed. But there were limits for her too. End of discussion was his code word that a limit had been reached.

  She moved on, instead, and thought about his decision. Carly was talented. Harvard-educated. And she would be one of too few African-American women running a corporate branch of SI’s caliber. She immediately saw it as a shrewd move. “I think Carly could be a very good choice,” she said. “I would have never thought of her that way, but I see how it could work. What did she say?”

  “She’s thinking about it.”

  “Good. Good for her. Because the fact that we can see her there isn’t enough. She has to be able to see herself there.”

  “Right.”

  “What about Trevor? What’s he saying about it?”

  “Damn if I know. I’m offering the job to her, not to him.” Although Mick did once offer Trevor an opportunity, not in SI, but in his underworld situation. As one of his underbosses working alongside Teddy. He had yet to give him an answer. “It’s up to her to discuss it with him.”

  Roz couldn’t disagree with that. “But you had to know how your decision would affect your daughter.”

  By the look on Mick’s face, Roz already knew the answer. “No,” he admitted. “I didn’t expect her to get emotional about it. She and Carly are in a different category. She should have realized that.
She should have seen that herself.”

  “All your children see are you, Mick. And Glo’s no exception. She sees that you’re her father. She’s your daughter. She’s older than Carly, although she’s still very young herself. But I’m sure she believes that if anybody in the family should get that job, it should be her.”

  That was such a ridiculous conclusion by Gloria, if that was her conclusion, that Mick wasn’t even interested in addressing it. He loved his children dearly, especially Gloria. But he didn’t cuddle them. He didn’t pretend they were what they weren’t. And like most concerns in their lives, when he didn’t see where he could fix it, he moved on. “What are you doing here?” he asked Rosalind.

  She had good news, and bad news. But with Mick, both could be bad. She decided to deal with the weightier matter first. She pulled the bag out of her pocket, and handed it to him. “Bella Caine came to see me,” she said. “She said you left those at her place in Paris last week.”

  Roz stared at Mick’s face, to gauge his reaction, as he opened the bag. When he pulled out the briefs, he looked at her.

  “Belle said you left them there,” she said.

  Mick began putting them back in the bag. “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay? Is that all you have to say? She said she found them in her bed when she was making it up. In her bed.”

  “I was in town on business. It was Paris fashion week.”

  “I know that.”

  “There wasn’t a hotel to be had. So I knew Belle would be crazy-busy and wouldn’t hardly be home. She never is when she’s showing that week, and she did have a show. So I crashed at her place.”

  Roz didn’t want to hear that. But even that wasn’t the issue. “How could you leave your underwear there?” Roz asked. “And in her bed?”

  “I didn’t leave anything in her bed. That’s just Bella being messy.”

  Roz believed him. Mick was no liar. But still! “And that’s okay with you? That she would come to your wife with this nonsense?”

  Mick smiled. “You can handle Belle. I know that.”

  “I didn’t say I couldn’t handle her, Mick.”

  “Is this the only reason you came by? Because this is a non-issue as far as I’m concerned. Bella does what Bella does. And you know that by now.”

  Roz exhaled. “Why did you have to go to her place? Teddy has a chateau in Paris. Why couldn’t you go to his place?”

  “I didn’t arrange it with Teddy. I didn’t have a key. What the fuck difference does it make? I didn’t even see Bella while I was in town.”

  “You should not have stayed at her place. If there was no hotel to be had then sleep on your fucking plane. Your bedroom on that plane is more luxurious than most five-star hotels anyway!”

  But Mick could see beneath her anger. “What’s going on, Rosalind?” he asked.

  She wanted to tell him about that call from Marc Mason, but she hadn’t even had a chance to confirm it was him. Besides, that wasn’t it. “I wanted to make sure you were okay,” she decided to say. “You’ve been leaving so early in the mornings, the twins and me rarely get a chance to see you. It’s as if I have to fend for myself lately.”

  “Only because I know you can handle it.”

  “You figure I can handle a lot, don’t you?” said Roz.

  “That’s a compliment.”

  “To you maybe,” Roz said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “We need to talk, Mick. That’s why I’m here. You leave before I wake up. You come home after I’m asleep in bed. It’s like you’ve been avoiding me when you know we need to talk.”

  “I told you nothing happened, Rosalind.”

  “Then why did you spend the night at her place of all places?” Roz asked. “Something could have happened.”

  Mick rubbed the bridge of his nose again. “Nothing happened.”

  “But what if it did?”

  “Nothing happened.”

  “I didn’t ask you that.”

  “But that’s my answer.”

  “An answer to a question I didn’t ask.”

  Mick said nothing.

  “You heard me? What about what I asked you?”

  “I told you what I’m going to tell you. Take it or leave it.”

  Roz’s anger flared too. Who the fuck did he think he was dealing with? “You are such an asshole!” she said with bite. “I’ll leave it, thank you,” she added, and began hurrying out of his office.

  But Mick felt the sting of her bite immediately. “Rosalind,” he said, but she kept walking. He hurried toward his office door as she hurried through it. “Rosalind,” he called again. “Roz?”

  But Roz kept walking just as Gloria had done moments before. And all of his assistants, led by Blair herself, were staring at the Sinatras. Especially Mick, whom all of the assistants referred to as Ice. He never showed any emotions, and definitely not the type that would have him chasing after a woman!

  But there he was, Blair thought, revealing to all what she’d already witnessed time and time again: his weakness was that black wife of his. And she seemed to know it the way she treated him, Blair thought. But Mick, realizing he (and his heart) was on front street, went back into his office, and closed the door.

  Blair longed to go in that office behind him, and show him how a real woman would treat her man. And it wouldn’t be the way some angry, uppity black woman would, either, she thought. And all of the other assistants began verbalizing similar sentiments too.

  To their shock, Mick reopened his office door and stepped out, looking at them as if he had it up to here with their pettiness. “That’s my wife,” he said to them, as if they forgot. “Find somebody else to gossip about.”

  And then he went back into his office, slamming his door behind him.

  The assistants were stunned, and scared out of their minds that their foolish, harmless chatter could get them fired.

  Every one of them got back to work.

  But as Mick began to head back toward his desk, he knew he had blown it. What in the world was he thinking?

  He hurried back out of his office, through his suite of offices, and toward the elevator. He didn’t give a shit who saw him. Roz was waiting at the elevators.

  She was surprised to see Mick come her way. Whenever they fought, he never gave in. Not that he was about to give in now, she thought.

  She looked at him as he walked up.

  “I want you to come with me,” he said to her.

  “Come with you where?” she asked.

  “To see Bella Caine,” he said.

  The elevator doors opened, and he waited for her to get on.

  And Roz, unsure why he would want this, but certain they needed to get this matter resolved, got on the elevator just to see where it was all going to lead.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Bella Caine took another forkful of spinach and smiled at her assistant.

  “Why are you so happy?” Dena, her assistant, asked. They were still in Philly, in the hotel’s restaurant, and Bella was unusually chipper.

  “My collection sold out. I have a new contract with Nordstrom’s. Why wouldn’t I be happy?”

  “And?”

  “And,” Bella added, “I get to see my daughter while I’m in town. We’re going to have lunch together.”

  “And?” Dena continued to ask.

  Bella smiled. “And I gave that bitch something to worry about.”

  The bitch, Dena knew, meant Mick’s wife. “I still can’t believe he married her,” Dena said. “She’s not even a model. And the idea that he’s going to renew their vows? Yuk!”

  “Yeah, right?” Bella was in total agreement with her assistant, who, like Bella, was a former model too. “I mean, Mick renewing vows? It’s guilt pure and simple.”

  “Pure and simple,” Dena said. “I agree. He done probably slept around with some female, the way he always slept around on you, and don’t want her to leave his ass.”

  “And t
hat’s what I gave her to worry about,” Bella said. “She thinks that that somebody he slept around with is me.”

  Dena smiled and shook her head. “So you’re killing two birds with one stone?”

  “That’s right,” Bella said. “They told me I had to disrupt their happy union, and they would buy out my entire collection. I disrupted it. I told them what I told her, and they were satisfied. And they held up their end of the bargain.”

  “Already?” Dena asked.

  “Already, girl. I called Paris and they said the transaction is done.”

  “Boy! That was fast! I was really leery of having anything to do with these gangster types, especially when they wouldn’t even give us their names. But you pulled it off, Belle. You pulled it off!”

  “That’s because I know how to deal with them. I was with Mick, remember? His ass taught me a lot.”

  “What about Glo?” Dena asked. “Is he teaching her, too?”

  “He won’t let her near that part of his life, what are you talking about? He’s very protective of our child. That’s why I love him. He knows I don’t play when it comes to Gloria. She works at SI. She’s legit all the way. Although I still don’t agree with him demoting her, but that’s Mick for you. He can be hard as a rock when he wants to be.”

  “You better make sure he never finds out about this deal you made with whomever you made it with.”

  “Do I look stupid to you? He won’t find out shit from me!”

  Dena looked worried.

  “What?” Bella asked.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “What?”

  “Did you invite him to breakfast?”

  “No. Why?”

  “He’s here. He just walked in.”

  Bella, excited, turned quickly. When she saw Mick heading her way, her heart soared. But then she saw him wait, as Roz came into view from around a partition, and her heart sank. And the way he placed his arm around Rosalind’s waist as they headed her way, as if he wanted the world to know that she was his, nauseated Bella. He never showed her off like that. He never showed any other woman off like that. Why this bitch, she wondered.

  “She must have ran straight to him,” Dena said, “as soon as you left her office.”