Refuge! Jayden forced a bright smile to her face while moving around the party, but her eyes weren't seeing the guests or monitoring the flow of drinks and food. She wasn't observing the wait staff any longer. She needed a private place. She needed a place to scream and vent and rail against the unfairness in the world. Her role as the manager of Trois Coeurs Catering would just have to be put aside for a few moments while she found a place to rant about the injustice of the world! Well, perhaps that was a bit dramatic, but she sure could tear up the letter she'd received right before they'd stepped into the catering van for this event.
The door to the left! She knew that the hostess had declared that room off limits for the night. Normally, she respected those edicts, but right now she needed a private place and an off-limits room was the only place she could think of that wouldn't have other people milling about.
She burst into the room, clutching her leather notebook against her chest and almost sobbed when she closed the door behind her. "No!" she whispered, bending over as if she were in pain. "This can't be happening! It just can't!" She let the worry, pain, anxiety and fear crash over her, knowing that she was finally alone. "It's not fair!" she sobbed.
Slamming her leather notebook down on one of the tables, she grabbed the offending letter, reading only the first few sentences before she couldn't go any further. She'd already read it right before the guests started arriving, so she knew the contents. Reading them once again wouldn't make them any more palatable.
Tearing it up, she crumpled the pieces, growling as she let her emotions rule the moment. She rarely let things like this upset her, always ready to figure out a way around problems. But this one confounded her. This one was too big, too powerful. She felt impotent and vulnerable and she hated that feeling. And she hated the man who had created that vulnerability. She wished he were here so she could scratch his eyes out, punch his chest and maybe do some other horrible things to him.
"Bastard!" she gasped, tossing the now crumpled pieces of paper onto the ground.
Of course, just because she'd torn up the letter, that wasn't going to keep the words from changing her world. The horrible man had been threatening her for months and she'd fought it. Goodness, she'd fought against his demands every time!
The letter clearly stated that the company the man represented wanted to buy up her property. He'd sent several other letters, saying almost exactly the same thing but the offer amount had changed. No matter how many times she'd rejected the offer, he continued to send additional offers.
Now things were getting nasty. He was threatening her with a lower price and loss of business if she didn't comply.
Jayden didn't want to change! She loved their little family operation. Jayden – along with her triplet sisters, Jasmine and Janine – worked their catering business out of the kitchen on the ground floor of a quaint two story building in a low cost area of the city. The rent was perfect and the area wasn't so bad that they felt uncomfortable. Every day, the sisters created their culinary masterpieces and met clients downstairs in the kitchen area. Upstairs, she lived with her sisters and her two nieces, Dalia and Dana, who were the cutest four year old girls a person could ever meet.
Janine might still resent Dalia and Dana's father for his desertion, but Jayden was secretly happy with their little family unit, which was completed by three obnoxious but loving animals, Ruffus, the laziest dog in the world, Odie, the wiliest cat and Cena, a tiny pig that Dalia had begged Janine to get her for weeks. Cena now pranced around on his little hooves, nudging the cat with his chubby nose which caused Odie to hiss and sputter, and take his frustration out on Ruffus. There were crazy moments with so many people and animals living
together. It got even more wild when her mother, Maggie, and her mother's twin sister Mary, stopped by with their husbands. Well, and Mary's kids, and all the extended family…yes, it was a zoo at times with so many people in a small space, but it was warm and wonderful and she couldn't imagine working and living any other way. They were a family and one didn't just up and move a family. That would change things and she couldn't guarantee that they would change for the better, so she was digging her heels in. They were happy, damn it! This man couldn't mess with a family's happiness!
Aunt Mary and her mom watched Dalia and Dana while the three of them went out for their evening catering events. The triplets' dad, Tom, was a mad scientist that liked to create signature cocktails that were part of the brilliant service of Trois Coeurs Catering. Even Aunt Mary's husband, Uncle Joe, helped out whenever there was a grilling component to an event. He loved mixing up spices and rubs for the roasts or ribs. The spices were so much in demand, Jayden had started to market those separately. Uncle Joe's spices and rubs were a huge internet hit!
All of their success was due to the love and energy that was focused in their building. Without Janine's fabulous cooking or Jasmine's mouth-watering baking, they would be out of business. Jayden, as the business manager, had the easiest job because of her sisters' genius. She simply brought samples whenever she went on a marketing call and their food sold their services immediately. The clients fought to have Janine and Jayden's foods at their events now.
Moving to a new location would change everything!
"Perhaps I can help?" a deep voice said from the shadows.
Jayden jumped up, looking around, frantically wiping the tears from her face. "Who's there?" she demanded angrily. "This room is off-limits."
The extremely tall, extremely handsome man came out of the shadows towards her, drink in one hand, the other in the pocket of a beautifully hand-made tuxedo. "I'm sorry to have invaded your privacy," the smooth, deep voice said but Jayden didn't think he was very sorry.
Jayden stared at the man. She could honestly say that she'd never seen a man as handsome and attractive as this one. Her whole body trembled with the awareness of him, the sheer power and size of this man. It wasn't that his features were perfect, in a classical sense. The exact opposite was true, and it surprised her to realize she liked that in a man. His jaw was too hard, his nose perhaps too thin and his eyes….his crystal blue eyes looked like they could see into her soul. The strange, blue depths actually scared her as she looked up at the incredibly tall man approaching her, making her think of a dangerous, black cat stalking its prey. The way his features were put together gave her a premonition of sensual awareness unlike anything she'd ever experienced before.
Was he real? Or was he just something her muddled mind had conjured up in order to get her to stop worrying about her business problems? Perhaps he was just a figment of her imagination. If that were the case, she thought as her breath hitched in her throat, she had to give her imagination kudos! This man was magnificent!
Her body's reaction to this man startled her and she looked back down, trying to temper the way she was reacting to him. She focused instead at the crumpled papers, now littering the floor at her feet. She looked back up at him, unaware of his almost intimate perusal of her body. Jayden had never felt like this before and every instinct inside of her was telling her to run away, get away from this dangerous man. But her feet were frozen in place, her body trembling as he came closer. "No. I'm sorry. You were obviously here first. I've invaded your privacy," she said, forcing her body to bend down to pick up the pieces of the letter she'd ripped apart, hugging them to her stomach. "I'll get out of here."
Dante watched the woman carefully, intrigued by the combination of her startlingly lush figure and her strangely innocent green eyes. The eyes and the body were such a contradiction. Her soft, feminine figure said she was made for passionate interludes, for taking to bed and letting a man forget his old sins and start creating new ones. But her eyes, wide and green and surrounded by perfectly white skin with just a hint of a blush, tried to portray that she was innocent. That she wasn't one of those stunningly beautiful women who used their bodies, looks and brains to seduce men into believing there was love and hope and all of those other silly, naive emotions.
The contradiction was extraordinary. And alluring. He suddenly realized that his body was reacting quickly to her long, slender legs and the way her black dress shifted higher on her sexy thigh as she bent down to pick up a stray piece of paper. He wanted to inch that dress up higher, to run his fingers over her soft skin and discover the texture.
Never had a woman affected him this powerfully. Nor so quickly.
"Is there anything I can do to help?" he asked, thinking this woman knew exactly what she was doing to him.
The reminder of her problem brought Jayden back to the present. Gone were the churning, sexual fantasies that popped into her mind with this man as the star. The disastrous business problem came rushing back and Jayden felt a burst of hysteria bubble up inside of her. She pushed it down mercilessly, but the sexual need combined with her current anxiety caused her mind to be less agile than normal. "No. Thank you very much for your kind offer, but this isn't something anyone can help me with."
Dante looked down at the astoundingly lovely profile of the woman. He'd already noticed her lush figure hidden by the hideous black dress. He was a connoisseur of women and could see the curves, evaluate the possibilities of any woman despite the clothes she used to try and hide her curves. Not many women of his acquaintance challenged him in that way, which was why this woman was so refreshing. Her soft, porcelain skin was just now showing a touch of rose colored pink, and her almond shaped green eyes were free from tons of makeup to accentuate that delightful color. She wore only mascara and a touch of gloss, revealing to the world the natural splendor of her lovely features. He was intrigued by the fresh beauty that was free for all to observe. It was a fascinating counterpoint to the sensuous curves that were hidden to the world.
"Let me see the paper," he commanded, trying to keep his voice low so as not to scare her. "I probably can help more than you know." She clutched the papers closer to her, shaking her head. Of all the people in the world she didn't want to know her shame, this man with his dark, good looks and his intelligent eyes, not to mention the erotic hum she felt at the moment…well, he would be the absolute last man she'd want to know about her problem. "No. Thank you very much but…" Surely this man would never be trapped into a no-win situation, she thought. Nope, he was probably the man who would put others into a bad pickle like she was in now.
A moment later, the papers were inched out of her hand and the tall, handsome stranger was reading her shame.