Provocative Territory Read online

  “Oh, no, no, Stan, nothing like that.” Clarissa’s head shake warded off the man’s concerns. “I was on this end for another meeting so I thought I’d stop by and check on it before heading out to Jaz’s for a long weekend.”

  Stan rubbed his whiskers. “Well, there’s some stitching that needs to be completed but I expect that’ll be done in time for a Tuesday delivery before closing.”

  “Oh, that’s perfect.” Clarissa clasped her hands but winced. “Are you sure it won’t put you behind with your other clients?” She chanced a look at Elias Joss who still regarded her with unreadable eyes.

  Stan threw up a hand to wave dismissively. “You don’t even worry your pretty li’l self over that, you hear?”

  “Thanks, Stan.” Clarissa was beaming once again. “I hate to rush off, but you know how Jaz can get.”

  “That’s one lady who doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” Stanford chuckled, his kind hazel eyes crinkling at the corners. “I’ll have the dress sent to the hotel. You’re at the Peabody, right?” he asked, citing the name of the hotel where Clarissa stayed whenever she visited from California.

  “You got it.” Clarissa moved close to hug Stan again. He gave her a squeeze when she kissed his cheek.

  Pulling back from Stan, Clarissa sighed and looked over at Eli. “Nice meeting you, Mr. Joss,” she lied in a subdued tone.

  “Sweet li’l thing,” Stan complimented once Clarissa had gone. “It’s a wonder some cat hasn’t taken her off the market.”

  Elias smirked. “Has she ever been on the market?” His question was rhetorical. Like most people in Philadelphia, he knew of Jazmina Beaumont as well as her place of business. Until today, he’d never seen or met the woman’s niece.

  Stanford’s laughter came as a huge burst of sound. “Well, if you ask Jaz Beaumont, the answer would be an emphatic ‘Hell no!’”

  “She’s the protective type?”

  “That’s puttin’ it a might subtle, kid.” Stan glanced toward the staircase Clarissa had taken up and out of the shop. He shrugged, saying, “Guess it’s understandable. In Jaz Beaumont’s biz, she’s seen all kinds. Makes sense she’d wanna protect her sister’s kid from it.”

  Elias returned to the raised platform where Stan had been taking his measurements. “I wonder if looking so much like her aunt gets her in trouble.”

  Stan nodded while making note of a measurement on the pad he’d pulled from the burgundy smock he wore. “That answer would be an emphatic ‘Hell yeah.’ Ain’t easy bearing the face of a woman who’s been successful at sleepin’ with most of the married or attached men in town.”

  “Guess not...” Elias muttered.

  Stan realized the weight of what he’d just said. “Sorry, kid, that was truly crass.”

  Elias clapped Stan’s shoulder. “Crass but true,” he said in a reassuring drawl.

  Stan nodded and Elias withdrew into his thoughts, wondering if he’d just treated Clarissa David in a less-than-polite manner because of her aunt’s history. It was, of course, a history he knew more about than he cared to admit.

  “I believe I got everything I need, son,” Stan was announcing as he closed his measurements pad.

  “So she doesn’t live in Philly?” Elias almost didn’t recognize his own voice. He cleared his throat and made a pretense of studying his phone while leaving the platform. He put it in the pocket of his walnut-brown jacket when Stan fixed him with a curiously comical look.

  “Only off and on when she does business for her aunt.” Stan decided not to question Elias’s reason for asking. “She has a place out in California somewhere,” he added.

  “Hard not to be interested in a curvy beauty like that, huh?” Stan finally queried Eli’s motives while observing the younger man knowingly.

  Eli only shrugged. “So when can I expect my suits?”

  “Right.” Stan understood and silenced any further questions regarding Clarissa David. “Time frame’ll be same as usual, Mr. Joss.”

  Eli grinned. Stan only addressed him as ‘Mr. Joss’ when he thought his client was being pompous. At any rate, Eli went over to shake hands with the man.

  “Have my mother home by midnight,” Elias ordered in pretend gruffness.

  Laughter rumbled again between the two men. Soon, Stan was clapping Eli’s shoulder and telling him that he’d see him around.

  Chapter 2

  “Now’s just as good a time as any,” Desmond Wallace kept his voice low as he spoke into the phone. “He’s humming.”

  “Right.” Desmond had to confirm what he’d just told the person on the other end of the line. “He came in humming. How often does that happen?...Right.” Desmond ended the call and then headed for his boss’s office.

  At the door, Desmond applied a soft knock to the wide slab of mahogany and waited.

  “Yeah.” The quick reply was an invitation.

  “What’s up, boss? How’d the fitting go?”

  “Stan’s getting ornery in his old age,” Eli said in response to Desmond’s cheery greeting.

  “Ornery.” Desmond laughed over the word when Elias grinned. “That sounds pretty bad.”

  “Worse than bad. But he’s my mom’s problem now.”

  “Oh?” Desmond lifted a bushy brow.

  “He’s taking her to the Reed House Jazz Supper in three and a half weeks,” Eli explained.

  “I’m impressed you’d allow that and haven’t threatened the man with bodily harm over even looking at Miss Lil,” Desmond chided, referencing Eli’s mother, Lilia Joss.

  “I told him to have her home by midnight. I’d say that signifies progress.”

  “Indeed,” Desmond mused, silently acknowledging that folks often thought twice before they even asked Elias Joss about the weather. For the man to allow someone to date his mother with ease was definite progress for the serious, sometimes unnerving, entrepreneur.

  Desmond often marveled over the number of friends Elias Joss could claim. Desmond himself had almost turned tail and run the day he met Elias for a job interview. Desmond would wager he didn’t swallow a quarter of the food ordered during their lunch.

  Still, somehow Elias had an uncanny knack for drawing people in. He could set them just enough at ease to allow him to determine whether they were worth his time. The technique definitely worked its magic on Desmond, and Eli was pleased enough to take him on as a personal assistant.

  Even so, it was no mistake to label Eli as a workaholic loner. While his disconcerting demeanor never tipped the scales completely over to menacing, there was the element of unease he could instill that not many dared to rouse.

  “You had a few visitors that weren’t on the books,” Desmond announced, shuffling through the message slips he’d brought into the office. He passed them to Eli. “Maybe we could set some face time with them during the next week. And Mr. Rodriguez and Mr. Brooks are on their way over.”

  “Crap, what’d I do now?” Elias murmured absently while he scanned the messages that Desmond had taken. His partners Santigo Rodriguez and Linus Brooks had also been his friends since nursery school.

  “They have some papers that they need you to take a look at. They’ve been wanting to schedule some time for a few days now.”

  “A few days.” Eli was still browsing through the messages. “Takes that long to make it across the hall, huh?”

  Desmond smiled at the sarcasm. The three men each had corner offices on the top floor of the striking black downtown skyscraper.

  “They’ll need to square away more than a few minutes to talk to you about this,” Desmond said.

  Harboring his own share of rapt perception, Elias took note of his assistant’s tone of voice. “So what’s up?” he asked, leaning back in the large gray armchair behind his desk.

  “They should rea
lly be the ones to talk to you about this, boss.”

  Rolling his eyes, Eli grimaced at Desmond’s stance. This wasn’t going to be a conversation he’d enjoy.

  “So is this it?” Eli waved the message slips and opted against forcing Desmond to share the reasons for his partner’s visit.

  “Uh...” Desmond’s dreads hid his face when he bowed his head. He looked even less thrilled about sharing the next order of business and appeared as though he’d been delivered when a quick rap fell to the door before it was pushed open a tad wider.

  Linus Brooks walked in with Santigo Rodriguez close behind. Elias observed his partners with a mix of curiosity and amusement. The three of them had been friends since before any of them knew how to put together a sentence. As an only child, Eli had considered them the brothers he’d never had.

  Santigo Rodriguez wore a smile even when he was fit to be tied out of rage. The trait often proved to be rather disturbing, for one could never truly track Tigo’s moves. That aspect of the man’s personality proved quite handy though at the negotiating table.

  Linus Brooks was almost Tigo’s exact opposite. Linus’s most distinguishing characteristic had to be his stinging, outspoken nature. The man wore his emotions and opinions on his sleeve, but always made a point of verbalizing them to ensure they were communicated.

  The curiosity lurking in Eli’s bright gaze gradually gave way to more curiosity. That day may have been the first time in...ever that both men wore twin expressions...of unease.

  “Two things,” Linus began once the door had closed behind Desmond’s hastily departing figure.

  Eli rocked back in the gray leather and suede chair behind his beech wood desk and spread his hands urging his partner to continue.

  Linus cleared his throat first, saying, “Cleveland Echols is putting his project on hold.”

  The news nudged some of Eli’s curiosity out of the way to make room for confusion. “The framework and foundation have already been laid, right?” He watched his partners display solemn nods of confirmation. “Reason?” Eli spread his hands again.

  “Said his investors pulled out.” Tigo went to sit on the edge of the desk and toyed with a baseball paperweight that lay there.

  “All of ’em?” Elias asked, watching as his partner nodded again.

  “Every last one,” Tigo added, stroking the light beard shadowing his face.

  Eli rocked back in his chair again. “That’s crazy... There was all that support for it.”

  Cleve Echols’s charitable endeavors in Philadelphia were well-known. It was the man’s more upscale endeavors that earned him a lucrative portfolio and respect in the business world. The financier owned and operated branches of banks throughout Pennsylvania and Delaware. There were even prominent locales in Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Miami. Echols’s plan to construct a new bank was a major bit of news. The latest establishment was to serve as the headquarters for the successful branches.

  “So what does this mean for us?” Eli asked.

  “Means we come out smellin’ good.” Linus’s wide mouth curved into a satisfied smile but he shrugged. “Not as good as we’d smell with a full project paid for, but our preliminary charge and phase one fees have already been settled so...”

  Eli leaned close to his desk and propped his elbows along the edge. “We should keep our ears to the ground about this—see if we can pick up what may have motivated it.”

  “We’re already on it,” Tigo said.

  “So what’s the other thing?” Eli queried after silence dominated the office for several seconds. Amusement returned to his extraordinary stare as it shifted between Tigo and Linus. “Haven’t y’all already rehearsed how you’re gonna tell me?”

  Santigo mussed the wavy crop of hair covering his head. “You won’t like it. No matter how we tell you.”

  “You’d be a fool to put the kibosh on this, considering the Echols’s mess,” Linus blurted, staying true to his trademark outspoken persona.

  “Then let’s hear it.” Eli smoothed the back of his hand across his goatee.

  “We’ve been offered a remodeling expansion project. Given the scope of the thing...it’d draw on our offices across the country.”

  Santigo nodded in agreement with Linus’s explanation. “It’s huge, El. Way bigger than the Echols deal and with the potential to keep us in the black for years.”

  “More in the black than we already are,” Linus included, reading the look on Eli’s face.

  “Sounds like an offer we shouldn’t refuse.” Elias reared back in his chair again. “So why don’t you think I’ll like it?”

  “It’s not the offer we expect you to dislike, but who it comes from,” Tigo said, then cringed.

  Linus stepped over to drop a folder on the desk. Elias leaned closer and brushed his fingers across the label marked with the name Jazzy B’s.

  * * *

  Clarissa David stared across the den at the decorative facial tissue dispenser but she didn’t trust herself to make the short trip to retrieve one. Instead, she used the backs of her hands to smear away the water that pooled in her large eyes and made a continuous stream down her cheeks.

  She’d been sitting immobile for the last ten or twelve minutes. Intermittently, she’d been plagued by bouts of shaking her head in confusion as if some remark had just been made which prompted her disagreement.

  No words had been spoken. Clarissa was alone in the room, dazed and in disbelief. Confusion was but one of the emotions filtering her mind at that point. She’d arrived in Media, Pennsylvania, two miles west of downtown Philadelphia in time to have her final conversation with her aunt Jazmina Beaumont. It was hardly a conversation. Clarissa twisted her mouth into what could have been a grimace. The purpose of the gesture, however, was to hold down the sobs crowding her throat. She’d gotten to her aunt’s bedside in time for the woman to tell Clarissa only a few things at best. While they were lovely and inspiring, they had barely grazed the surface of all the questions skipping around inside Clarissa’s head. Not to mention everything Clarissa herself had wanted to say to the woman who had helped raise her.

  Clarissa sat perched on the very edge of an armchair cushion. She resembled a frightened animal ready to take to flight. She was clenching her hands so tightly that they had an ashen appearance. Frustrated by the sight of them, Clarissa hid her almond-brown face in her palms and shuddered.

  Soft rubs to her shoulders caused her to jerk upright a few moments later. Clarissa tried and failed to produce a smile for her aunt’s oldest friend and business manager, Waymon Cole. Desperately, she reached up to tug on Waymon’s hand until he was seated on the arm of her chair.

  Clarissa rested her head on the man’s thigh as she cried.

  “It’ll be all right, sugar.” Waymon’s calm, easy tone was almost as assuring as the manner in which he stroked the wavy, dark hair that tapered at Clarissa’s nape into the chic boyish cut that she sported.

  In spite of Waymon’s words, Clarissa cried harder into his pant leg.

  “I just—just talk—talked to he-her.” Overwrought, Clarissa barely hiccupped the words. “I came out—out here to see her and—and to talk. I—Terry made a stop. I—I asked him to stop and...” The sobs grew heavier as she bawled. “If I hadn’t told him to—to stop, I could, I would have been here before...”

  “Shh...stop this now.” Waymon brought the firmness back into his voice. “You stop that, you hear? It’s no time to sit around blaming yourself.” Waymon bent to kiss the top of Clarissa’s head. “Jaz wouldn’t want that and you know it. Especially not now when you’re about to have so much on your plate.”

  “I don’t even—even know what she wanted.” Still in the throes of remorse, Clarissa’s words sounded somewhat garbled. “She didn’t have time to—tell it—tell me anything—I didn’t kno
w. I don’t know what to do, Way. She didn’t have time...”

  “Clarissa? Stop. You know that’s not true. One thing everybody knew about Jaz was that she never skimped on the chance to tell folks what she expected of them.”

  Clarissa shook her head against Waymon’s thigh before looking up. “I don’t mean that.” She blinked tears from her red eyes. “She wanted me out here...had something she needed to talk about.”

  “Something about the club?” Waymon’s long attractive face appeared haggard from all the crying he’d done that afternoon.

  Clarissa rubbed the back of her hand across her nose. “I don’t know, she wouldn’t talk about it on the phone. She just said to get out here ASAP.” Clarissa buried her face in her hands and shuddered again.

  Waymon was back to massaging Clarissa’s neck when Jazmina’s doctor walked into the den.

  “Dr. Raines.” Clarissa was on her feet the moment she saw the man.

  Steve Raines had been Jazmina Beaumont’s physician for years. Speculation ran high that the two had enjoyed more than a doctor-patient relationship. Of course, neither party had ever owned up to the rumor but, when such talk centered around the likes of Jazmina Beaumont, chances were highly in favor of its accuracy.

  “How long was she sick?”

  “Clarissa.” Steve Raines sighed but he had no intentions of providing a sugarcoated response. Jazmina’s niece was far more perceptive than Jaz had ever truly realized. “You’ve always been a smart one,” he said.

  Clarissa unfortunately was in no mood to be complimented. “How long was she sick?” she repeated, her dusky gaze was like stone and fixed on the handsome fifty-something Jamaican.

  “May I at least ask you to sit down?” Steve waved a hand toward a sofa that matched the armchair Clarissa had just vacated. He nodded when she obliged.

  “Jaz never wanted you to worry,” Steve began once he was patting Clarissa’s hands where she held them clasped on her knees. “She didn’t want you feeling that you had to be here full time. She’s been having heart problems for years and we—” he pressed his lips together proving how difficult the moment was for him, as well “—we diagnosed her with heart disease. She had a triple bypass three years ago.”