Of Blood and Sorrow Read Online Free PDF Page B

eager to get the hell out of there.
    “But it
is
a problem!” He glared at me, then at Troy.
    “Leave Troy alone, and let the woman go, Treyman. Just let her go and find my grandbaby. Please!” Nellie’s voice was firm but patient, as if speaking to a beloved but wayward child. Wyvetta had it wrong. She probably knew everything there was to know about this man, and she loved—or hated—him with everything she had in her. But she was shrewd about displaying it, crafty. She seemed vulnerable, but I sensed she always got what she wanted. I’d seen that style in other women I’d known—shrinking violets with deadly thorns.
    “Nice to have met you.” I edged toward the door determined to make my getaway, and I did this time. I closed the door behind me as soon as I was out, leaving them to play out whatever scene they were playing. I could hear the son screaming like a demon as I waited for the elevator.
    I tried to put them out of my thoughts as I rode down to the lobby. My mind was on my money and my money on my mind, as my son says, quoting one of his favorite rappers. I’d go straight to the bank, then straight to my wastebasket, I figured. I’d had enough of Lilah Love for one lifetime, and I wanted the folks who came with her out of my world as soon as possible. But something made me glance up as I was signing out of the visitors’ sheet.
    I hadn’t seen him in eighteen months, hadn’t heard from him in ten—long enough to tell myself I didn’t give a damn and that any man who waited that long to call wasn’t worth waiting for. What we had—or what I’d thought we did—made no sense in daylight. Sure, there were good things about him: he loved and respected me—body and soul—in ways that thrilled me every time I thought about him. He had never lied to me and had risked his life protecting mine. I didn’t know how he made his money or the lines he crossed to do it. I did know the very thought of him turned me inside out.
    The sound of his voice when he said my name was an instant seduction, and the last two hours—last twenty-four—evaporated without a trace. Yet I wasn’t going to let my feelings about him get the better of me. I was involved with Larry Walton, a respectable, responsible man. We were involved in a respectable, responsible relationship, and I was determined to cool the fever that overtakes me whenever he enters my life.
    “So, when did you get back in town?” I forced myself to look at him despite the danger.
    Basil Dupre was an amazingly handsome man, his skin a deep coppery brown, nearly the color of the Blue Mountain coffee I love but can’t afford. His high cheekbones betrayed his Arawak roots, his eyes, which could flash from tenderness to passion in a blink, were as mysterious and sensual as the island on which he was born. Whenever he spoke, his voice took me back to the last time we made love.
    “Day before yesterday.” He stood back slightly, and his eyes swept my body. “You look good, but you always do,” he said with the smile that charms me.
    Why,
I wondered,
had I worn this ridiculous suit?
    “I called you last night. Left a message with your son. I take it you didn’t get it.” He was right, of course. Jamal instantly forgets phone messages that aren’t for him. But how dare he assume that after ten months of silence, I would jump to the phone the moment he called?
    “What are you doing tonight?” He didn’t wait for my answer.
    “Busy.” It was a half lie. Larry had mentioned he might drop by, but it wasn’t definite.
    “Tomorrow night?”
    “Sorry.”
    “When?”
    “Never.”
    “So, I’ve waited too long?” His smile teased me, as if we were playing a game, which was what our conversations always became—a playful seduction that usually ended in bed.
    But I wasn’t playing this time.
    “I’m seeing someone now. I’ve been with him for…well…let me see…ten months.” I said it with a schoolmarm’s scolding tone and raised eyebrow