Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1) (5 page)

“College
is important to you.”

“Very.
 
I didn’t get to go, but my sons will.
 
That is, if they don’t do like Donald did and
throw a curve, in the form of a pregnant girlfriend, in the plan.
 
So what about you?
 
You have any kids?”

“No,
none of my own.”

Charles
didn’t understand.

Jenay
didn’t plan to discuss anything with him when she first sat down, but his
candor seemed to awaken hers.
 
“While I
was married,” she said, “I had two stepchildren that I loved dearly.
 
They were one and three years old when I
first married their father, and just a joy to know.
 
I was a stay-at-home mom until they got in
school.
 
Stay-at-home stepmom, that
is.
 
Then I worked as a cashier at a
grocery store while my husband went to law school.”

“So
you’re no longer married and no longer a stay-at-home mom?”

“Or a
mom at all,” she said.
 
“Part of the
divorce settlement: I’m to stay away from his children.”

Charles
frowned.
 
“Why?”

Jenay
hesitated.
 
It was three years ago but it
was still raw with her.
 
“He felt, my
ex-husband that is, that his children loved me more than they should have.
 
He felt I would be disruptive to his
relationship with his children, and since he had every intention of marrying
his mistress as soon as the ink dried on the divorce decree, he felt I would be
disruptive to his new bride’s relationship with his children as well.
 
And the judge agreed.”

Charles
was shocked.
 
“The judge agreed?” he
asked loudly.
 
“Are you kidding me?
 
So he didn’t give a damn how the children
felt about it?”

“Right,
yeah?
 
I couldn’t believe it either.”

Charles
considered her.
 
“You raised his kids
while he was off getting his career together, while he was cheating on you, and
then he treats you as if you’re the problem?
 
That must have been a pretty bitter pill to swallow.”

She
could never remember that hellish time without feeling an ache deep
within.
 
“I was devastated,” she
replied.
 
“To say the least.”

“And
here you are now, thirty-two years old, and just beginning your career.
 
It has to be, on some level at least,
bewildering.”

“It’s
scary as hell,” Jenay said honestly.
 
And
it wasn’t as if, a mere three years later, she had it all together.
 
She didn’t.
 
She wasn’t just nervous about her future, she was terrified.
 
“But it’s done now,” she said.

“Yeah,
sure,” Charles said.
 
“You’re living with
it now.
 
You’re turning lemons into
lemonade.
 
You’re making the best of a
bad situation.
 
Or whatever other
soothing cliché people who never been through shit love to throw your
way.”
 

Jenay
laughed.
 
This man was too much!

“As
if words are going to make you feel any better,” Charles went on.
 
“Your ex-husband was an asshole, that’s all
there is to it, and he ruined your life.
 
At least the life you thought you were going to have.”

Jenay
looked at Charles.
 
And her laughter was
gone.
 
Never, not when she found out he
was cheating, not during or after the divorce, had anybody blamed Quince.
 
It was all about her and her bad decision to
marry him in the first place.
 
Nobody
blamed Quince and his bad decisions.
 
Until now.
 

“And
you thought that prick was faithful as a birddog,” Charles went on.
 
“Didn’t you?”

“Yes,”
Jenay admitted.
 
“That’s what I
thought.”
 
But reliving all of that past
pain wasn’t helping anything, and she had a life to get on with.
 
She stood up.

Charles,
surprised, stood up too.
 
“What?
 
You’re leaving?”

“I
need to get back to work, yes, sir.
 
Unlike you, Father of the Groom, I’m not a guest at this reception.”

But
Charles wasn’t convinced.
 
“Was it
something I said?” he asked her.

“No,”
Jenay said firmly.
 
“What you said was
the truth. You call it like you see it.
 
That’s a good way to be.
 
Too many
men love to flatter us ladies with sugary words, and then their actions tell
the harsh truth after they get what they want.”
 
She smiled and extended her hand.
 
“It was nice talking to you, Mr. . . .”

“Charles,”
he said as he shook her hand.
 
“Charles
Sinatra.”

“Nice
meeting you, Charles Sinatra.”
 
She
attempted to retrieve her hand from his grasp, but he placed his other hand on
top of hers, sandwiching her in.
 
Her
eyes met his gaze, and she was transfixed.

“What’s
your name?” he asked her.

“Jenay
Franklin,” she said.

“Je-
nay
,” he said.
 
“I like that name.”

“Thank-you.”
 
She moved to release from his grasp, and
devastating gaze, but he kept talking.

“But
you know what?
 
You look like a woman
with a nickname.
 
Only very special
people have nicknames.
 
Do your friends
call you
Jean
, or
Nay
for short?”

He
really was a very perceptive man, she thought.
 
“Both,” she said.

“Depends
on the friend?”

She
laughed. “Right,” she said, and then, with considerable effort, slid her hand
out of his enclosure.
 
She had work to
do, and not even a charming man like him was going to distract her.
 
“I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening,”
she added, and then she quickly walked away.
 

Charles
looked at her as she walked away.
 
That
ass was on fire, as it sashayed beneath that tight skirt she wore.
 
His dick was still throbbing at just the
sight of it.
 
And she thought it was
over?
 
She thought he was going to enjoy
that kind of view, and the joy he felt being around her, and just forget about
it? Charles finished his remaining slither of a drink in one gulp, and then
buttoned his Versace suit.
 
She was out
of her beautiful mind if she thought this night was over.
 
It wasn’t over by a longshot.
 

He
began mingling again, doing his due diligence as the father of the groom.
 
And although he was attentive to the needs of
his son and his new daughter-in-law, and to their friends and the bride’s
obnoxious family, he also kept an eye on Jenay Franklin.
 
She was moving through the crowd, making sure
everything was going well, being the hospitality expert she was learning to
be.
 
But she wasn’t fooling Charles.
 
Every time he was within a few feet of her,
she moved further and further away.
 
She
was avoiding him like the plague.
 
He
found it amusing that she would think she could.

CHAPTER FOUR

Later
that night, when the bride and groom were off on their honeymoon and only the
stragglers remained at the reception, he proved his point.
 
He found her, or, as he liked to think of it,
cornered her
, in the kitchen.
 
She was standing there, listening to an older
man in a chef’s get-up as he went on and on about the complaints he received
about the food.
 
Charles perched himself
beside the exit, folded his arms, and listened.

“But
only a handful complained,” Jenay was saying.
 
“Out of hundreds of guests, only a handful.
 
You can’t please everybody.”

“But
I worked my butt off, Jenay!”
 
He was
much older than Jenay, by ten or more years, and seemed awfully sensitive for a
chef.
 
Charles wondered if he was an
intern at that school too.
 
All of these
old-ass interns!

“We
all worked our butts off, Norm,” Jenay reminded him.
 
And rightly so, Charles thought.
 

“We
all work hard, yes, we do,” Norm responded.
 
“I know that.
 
But I don’t have
great grades like you.
 
I have to pass
this internship or I won’t graduate!”

“You’re
going to pass,” Jenay assured him, squeezing the man’s arm.
 
“You passed this mid-term with flying colors
today.
 
Dr. Lander can’t fault you
because every single person wasn’t pleased.”

Norm
looked at her, his blue eyes blazing with concern.
 
“You really think I passed?
 
You really think so?”
 
Although he was miles older than Jenay,
Charles thought he acted more like an intern than she did.
 
Jenay looked like a seasoned, experienced
hand compared to him.

Jenay
smiled.
 
“You passed, Norman.
 
You received rave reviews from most of the
guests.
 
I heard them singing your
praises myself.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Will
you tell Dr. Lander then?
 
About them
singing my praises, I mean?”

Jenay
found his insecurity off-putting, Charles could tell, as any strong person
would, but she managed to smile.
 
“Of
course I will,” she said, and then began to move away.
 
“Stop worrying, Norm.
 
You’re going to be fine.”

But
when she started walking toward the exit, and saw Charles standing there, it
was her face that suddenly looked worried.

“Charlie,”
she said, surprised to see him in the kitchen area.
 

He
smiled.
 
No-one had ever called him
Charlie
before.
 
No-one had ever dared.
 
But he liked the name on her lips.
 
It sounded like a far more affectionate name
than Charles.
 
“Thought you had a clean
getaway, didn’t you?”

She
smiled, and then glanced at Norm, who was staring at them.
 
She began walking out of the kitchen, and out
of the earshot of her colleague.
 
“I
thought you left with the other guests,” she said, as she began walking out.

“That
would have been nice,” he said as he followed her, “but I’m spending the night
at this hotel.
 
I have some business in
town tomorrow before I head back home.
 
What about you?
 
You have a room
here?”

“I
live in Boston,” she said.
 
They were in
the nearly empty ballroom, near the back bar.
 
“I attend school here.
 
BHI,
remember?”

“Boston
Hospitality Institute. How can I forget?
 
You’re interning now, and then you graduate.”

“In
two months, you are correct.”

“That
soon?
 
Is everything contingent upon you
passing this internship?”

“Well,
you certainly can’t graduate if you fail your internship.”

He
smiled.
 
“But knowing you,” he said, even
though he didn’t know her really at all, “you’re pretty confident you passed.”

“I
had zero complaints filed, zero problems or incidences in all of my time at
this hotel.
 
My grades are otherwise
good.
 
Why wouldn’t I pass?
 
Why wouldn’t I be confident?”

“But
I have it on good authority there was one complaint.
 
Today as a matter of fact.”

Jenay’s
heart pounded.
 
“A complaint?”

“Yup.
 
And it wasn’t a minor one, either.”

Jenay
looked at him with eyes so worried he almost wanted to take it back.
 
“What was the complaint?” she asked him.
 

“You
were ignoring a particular guest all evening.
 
Going out of your way, in fact, to ignore that particular guest.
 
Some would call that rude and insulting.
 
But who am I to judge?”

Jenay
realized what he was talking about immediately.
 
And she smiled.
 
And relaxed.
 
“I wasn’t ignoring you.
 
I wouldn’t call it ignoring you.”

“Oh
yeah?
 
What would you call it then?
 
Avoiding me?”

“Avoiding
distractions,” she said instead.

“Oh,
so I’m a distraction now?”

“You
know what I mean.”

He
looked down the length of her, and then into her eyes.
 
When she looked into his eyes too, he held
her gaze.
 
“I know exactly what you
mean,” he said.
 
“Why don’t we go
upstairs, to my room, and further discuss the meaning?”

Jenay
could feel the heat again.
 
“What if I’m
still on duty?” she asked.

“Then
get off duty.
 
And come with me.”

 
“I’ll get off duty.
 
But I’m going home.
 
It’s been a long day.”

Charles
was disappointed, but he wasn’t about to give up.
 
“I’ll drive you home,” he said.

She
began to walk away.
 
“I have a car.
 
But thank-you.”

Another
blow.
 
But he still wasn’t ready to throw
in the towel.
 
He wanted her.
 
“I’ll walk you to your car then,” he said,
and began walking with her.

Jenay
knew they were playing with fire, but she didn’t see where allowing him to walk
her to her car could do any harm. So she agreed, clocked out, and they headed
out into the chilly Boston night.

“So
what are your plans for the evening?” Charles asked her as they exited through
a side exit and made their way along a bush-lined walkway that led to the
parking lot.
 

“I
don’t have any plans,” Jenay admitted.
 
“Other than to get some serious rest.”

“It’s
been a tough day?”

“A
very long day,” Jenay replied.
 
“I was in
that ballroom since six this morning making sure everything, on the hotel’s
end, was in place.
 
I am so glad it went
off without a hitch. You don’t know how glad I am.”

Charles
liked her enthusiasm.
 
“You did a good
job.
 
My daughter-in-law’s family, who
bankrolled this wedding, were very pleased.”

“They
were?”

“Oh,
yes.
 
No complaints.”

“Not
even about me ignoring them?”

Charles
smiled.
 
“Not even that.”

They
continued walking.
 
Charles felt a
closeness to her as they walked, and he wanted to touch her somehow.
 
But his pride wouldn’t allow him to go there.
 
She wasn’t interested.
 
He wasn’t going to beg her.

“This
is it,” she said when they arrived at the driver’s side door of a maroon Honda
Accord.
 
It looked kind of boxy to
Charles, but otherwise appeared to be in pristine shape.

“This
your car?”

“This
is my baby,” Jenay said proudly.
 
“It was
only three years old when I bought it.
 
I
purchased it with the alimony payments my husband was forced to make.
 
Although, in truth, it was his new, wealthy
bride that was doing the paying.
 
But
just as long as I got paid.”

Charles
laughed.
 
“Good for you,” he said, and
meant it.
 
“A car like this doesn’t give
you any trouble?”

“Now
that the half-ass warranty is off, it’s been trying to, but nothing major so
far.
 
Thank God.”
 
She unlocked and opened her car door, and
then stood between the door and the driver’s seat.
 
“Well, Mr. Sinatra,” she said, “goodbye
again.”

Charles
hated to say goodbye to this woman.
 
For
some strange reason he just hated it.
 
But she sat in her car.
 
She
didn’t seem to share the same angst about leaving him.
 
“Goodbye, Jenay,” he forced himself to
say.
 
“Have a good evening.”

Then
he stepped back as she closed the door, cranked up, and then drove away.

Jenay
had mixed feelings as she watched Charles in her rearview, but she was a firm
believer in fate.
 
He backed off, she was
about to graduate and begin her career, why bother with the aggravation of even
a one-night stand?
 
He was a man of
means.
 
She heard people at the wedding
talking about how wealthy the groom’s father was.
 
What would he want from a woman like her, a
woman of decidedly modest means, anyway?
 

That
was why, as she stopped at the stop sign that led out onto the busy Boston
highway, she stopped looking back.
 
She
did that before, and all it got her was a lot of wasted time.
 
She wasn’t going back that way again.

Charles,
too, stopped looking back as he walked toward the hotel’s entrance.
 
Not that he was looking forward to a night
alone, he wasn’t.
 
But he was getting
well acquainted with lonely nights lately.
 
It had been a long time since he saw a woman who caught his interest the
way Jenay did tonight, but what was he going to do about it?
 
She wasn’t interested enough to say yes, and
he was too proud to beg.
 
They had no
choice but to go their separate ways.

But
as soon as he made his way to the side door entrance, he heard a bang so loud
it actually startled him.
 
He turned around
quickly, and hurried back up the walkway, looking across the highway.
 
When he saw that there had indeed been an
accident, and saw that one of the wrecked cars was Jenay’s little Honda, he
took off running.