Never Keeping Secrets (13 page)

 

M
onica looked across the long expanse of their black glass dining room table at Cameron's empty seat. His table setting, coffee cup, and the traditional newspaper he preferred to the digital editions sat waiting for him. But he would not appear.

Just like he hadn't in the month since he was forced to resign as the CFO of Braun, Weber.

They usually had breakfast together, discussed their days, and listened to the CBS morning show via the house's surround system as they exchanged ideas over all of the latest finance news—hers via her iPad and his via his papers.

Her eyes fell on the stack of folded papers. A dying tradition. She was beginning to suspect her man felt the same way about his career.

Halston stepped into the dining room, dressed in his navy slacks and vest with a crisp white shirt, carrying a coffeepot.

“Did he at least get breakfast in his office this morning?” she asked him as he refilled her cup.

“No, ma'am.”

They had just barely gotten back into the groove of their lives when that particular piece of funky shit hit the fan.

Monica nodded even as she felt her disappointment sting. She took another sip of her coffee—already light and sweet the way she liked it—and dropped her napkin atop her breakfast of an egg-white omelet with spinach and feta cheese. She uncrossed her legs and rose to make her way across the room to where their matching offices sat.

When Cameron first called to let her know that he had been forced to resign from Braun, Weber she knew there would be some adjusting to it all. Cameron had risen through the ranks of the company off his own achievements to be appointed as chief financial officer. For the board to appoint a new chief executive officer with whom Cameron clashed over his more aggressive, hands-on approach was difficult enough. For the man to make a power play to have Cameron ousted—with the board's majority approval—had to be disheartening and was completely fucked up.

Still, Monica had no clue that the man who once served as her mentor in the industry would let the power play rattle him. In the beginning days after the press release announcing the “amicable parting of ways,” she honestly believed Cameron would dust it off and glide right into another position with a rival company or firm.

It didn't
quite
go down like that.

Monica looked through the glass of the ebony French doors at him still in his pajamas looking out the window at the New York landscape. She knocked lightly on the glass twice before opening the door and entering. Everything about the black walls and the ebony floorboards spoke of the power and confidence of Cameron.

“Morning, Cam,” she said, coming around his oversized desk to lean against the wall and look down at him. The smooth brown of his skin was darkened by the shadow of a beard. He had lost weight and his cheekbones were a bit more prominent.

He spared her a brief glance before shifting his dark eyes back out the window.

“I miss you at breakfast, you know,” she said lightly, reaching out to stroke his chin. “That was our thing. Our ritual.”

He grabbed her hand and pressed his lips against her palm. “I know,” he said. “Just trying to process everything and make some plans.”

She nodded and hitched the charcoal skirt of her dress up to her waist and straddled his hips. She brought his hands around to cup her full bottom. She smiled when his fingers massaged circles into the soft flesh.

“Where are your panties?” he asked, running his hands up her ass until he felt the lace of her thong. “Oh.”

Monica laughed.

He lifted his face and lightly bit her chin.

Monica sniffed the air. “You brushed your teeth?” she joked.

Cameron bit down a little harder.

Monica sighed at their lighthearted mood. In that moment she was almost able to forget Cameron's drama
and
the drama of her own that she was facing alone. The text messages taunting that someone was watching her came with more frequency and intensity. Each time the e-mail address was different but the message the same.

And she was sick of it and whoever the unfunny motherfucker was trying to play in her life.

“Until my black ass finds a new job we can do this as our new morning ritual,” Cameron said softly against her flesh exposed in the vee of her dress.

“You know there's an open invite to join Winters Investment Services,” she said, letting her head fall back until the ends of her hair tickled her ass.

“Yeah right,” Cameron balked.

Monica froze and jerked her head up as she leaned back to eye him. “Uhm . . . excuse me?” she asked.

“What?” Cameron asked, looking completely lost.

“I'm serious,” she said.

Cameron's face filled with disbelief. “No thanks, baby,” he said.

Monica politely rose up on her heels and then climbed off his lap. “I know my little boutique firm cannot compare to the seven figures you made in salary and bonuses,” she began, smoothing her skirt back down over her hips and legs. “But there is some sense of security that my fall will be of no one's making but my own. See I can't be forced out. I
own
my shit.”

“Monica,” he said, reaching out for her hand.

She jerked away. “I have a business dinner so I'll be home late. Don't wait up,” she said over her shoulder as she strolled out of his office.

“Monica, I didn't mean it that—”

She slammed the office door on the rest of his words.

Monica turned away from the elevator just as it closed. When she turned to walk back to her office the smile was gone. She had just finished a lengthy meeting with a prospective client but in that moment her growling stomach was her focus. “Jamal, could you please order me some lunch?” she asked him as soon as she walked into her office suite.

He nodded. “What do you feel like, boss?” he asked her, sliding on glasses to look through the folder of takeout menus they kept stashed.

“Honestly?” she said, her hand against her flat stomach. “I want some down-home, greasy, gonna-cause-gas, need-a-Pespi-to-make-you-belch-while-you-eating, line-up-the-Ex-Lax-afterward soul food.”

He smiled. “I know a place but they don't deliver. I'll have to go get it,” he said, already rising to his feet behind his desk.

“Sounds like a plan,” she said, going in her office to take a crisp hundred dollar bill from her wallet. She came back in the outer office and handed it to him. “I want something smothered, some greens—collards, and mac and cheese. The works. I'm just blowing the calories today.”

“Got you,” he said, tucking the money in the pocket of his fitted vest before he left.

She walked back into her office and took her seat behind her desk, tucking her hair behind her ears as she studied the finances of a comedian who was looking to downsize in preparation for his formal retirement from touring at her suggestion. She tapped her pen against the desk as she studied his list of monthly bills. “A'ight now,” she said at the monthly bill to a doctor well known for his work in correcting erectile dysfunction.

There was nothing else that revealed more about a person than their financial statements.

“Shit,” Monica swore. She meant to put the phone on silent. She reached for her iPhone with her left hand, even as she continued perusing the reports and making notes with her right. She swiped the screen with her thumb and looked down at the incoming message.

Monica's heart seized for a few precious seconds. She dropped the phone and sat back in her chair to eye it like it bit her to the white meat. This was the first harassing e-mail she had received. “First text. Now e-mails. What's next, fucking Skype?” she snapped, hating how anxious she instantly felt.

Was this the same fool or a new one?

She rolled her eyes and slammed her hand against the desk. She hated this shit. She reached for the iPhone.

As the image of her in the same outfit she was wearing began to fill the screen, Monica felt real fear for the first time since the harassment began months ago. There was no denying the photo was snapped that morning and either they were less than five feet from her or had one helluva zoom on their camera.

“What the fuck?” she said, jumping up out of her chair to look out the window down at the street.

Her eyes moved swiftly, taking in every spot someone could have been to take the picture. The lobby of the office building next door or across the street. It could have been taken when she left the house that morning.

“Or downstairs,” she said. She turned and raced out of her office and across the outer office to lock the door.

“Jamal's ass just gonna have to knock,” she said, moving back into her office and leaving the door wide open.

Monica checked her diamond watch as she let her driver, Sampson, help her down from the Denali. “Thank ya, thank ya,” she said, turning back to grab her Céline bag.

“Yes, ma'am.”

Monica paused and turned to look over her shoulder at the man. Sampson had been her driver for a year. He would definitely be in a position to “watch her.” She was sure there were plenty of conversations he overheard that he could use to make her life uncomfortable. But there honestly wasn't a blessed reason she could think of why he or anyone else might hold a grudge against her.

She'd already side-eyed the doorman at both her residence and her business, her assistant, business associates, the delivery guy, a random man who stared at her too long, and now her driver.
This bullshit got me fucked all the way up.

She turned and made her way inside the restaurant. “I'm Monica Winters and—”

The maître d' instantly nodded. “Your party is waiting for you. Right this way,” he said.

Monica followed him through the upscale soul food restaurant to a large table in the corner where Kelson, Usain, and a beautiful redhead were sipping on drinks. “Hello, everybody, I'm sorry I'm late,” she said, remaining standing as she shook everyone's hand.

“This is my date, Veronica,” Usain said.

“Nice to meet you,” Monica said, but her eyes went back to Kelson. Gone were the shades and tacky diamond jewelry. He wore a lightweight cargo jacket with a crisp white V-necked T-shirt and a bold brown leather watch. Urban casual. She liked it and it looked more authentic on him. She started to tell him so but decided to mind her own.

“It's good to see you again, Monica,” Kelson said.

She nodded and looked away from him, realizing that she was staring at just how nicely his greenish brown eyes looked against his deep caramel complexion. Without all of the fuckery in place she could see why so many women enjoyed seeing him on the television screen every week. The rap career? That K-Hunta bullshit? Negro please. She still wasn't buying it.

“Kelson told me how the first quarterly reports of his investments were looking and we both thought we should have a congratulatory dinner for him getting his finances in order under your guidance,” Usain said, motioning for the waitress with a flick of his fingers.

She instantly appeared with a bottle of champagne and four flutes. She filled each one halfway with a flourish.