DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN (2 page)

Good comeback, Daniel thought.
 
“Point taken,” he said.

And with that, Nikki got to work.
 
She had already written many of the questions
she wanted to ask, so she went down the list.
 
Although he denied each and every one of the allegations she presented
to him, he did surprise her when he admitted that Dreeson could do a better job
on the enforcement end.
 
They had strict
rules in place, he pointed out, but he also admitted that the managers over in
China might not always enforce those rules as effectively as they should.
 
“Something I’ve dealt with daily since I’ve
been here.”

“You speak as if you haven’t been with
Dreeson long?” Nikki asked.
 
She didn’t
know why she suddenly veered off script and asked it, but she did.
 
And stared at him as he answered.

He folded his arms.
 
“I came onboard a couple years ago,” he said.

“As senior VP?”

“And head of operations, yes.”

“By operations, does that include the
domestic plants, or just the foreign ones?”

“Foreign and domestic.”

Nikki wrote in her notebook,
stretched too thin
, with a question
mark.

“Just for background, sir,” she said,
“before you headed up operations here at Dreeson, were you doing the same at a
different company, or were you doing something altogether different?”

 
“Altogether different.
 
I was in the law profession before I accepted
the position here.”

That was odd, Nikki thought.
 
You were a lawyer, sir?” she asked.

“And eventually a judge, yes.”

“Oh, a judge?” Even odder, she
thought.
 
“Then surely you, above anybody
else, would understand just how serious these violations are.
 
If they’re true.”

“If they’re true, yes, they’re quite
egregious.
 
But they aren’t true.”

“As far as you know they aren’t
true.
 
Which, even you admitted, your
knowledge is limited when it comes to effective implementation.”

He studied her.
 
She was sharp, he thought.
 
She knew how to boomerang a conversation back
to her advantage.
 
The board had decided,
in an effort to contain any damage, that he, not any low level staffers, should
be the one to address the allegations.
 
The thought was that his gravitas alone would intimidate the local press
to where they would only toss him softball questions, if any germane questions
at all.
 
But not this kid.
 
She was firing from all cylinders. She might
have looked young as the dickens, but she didn’t act young.
 
That commission report was gospel in her
eyes, the way she was tossing around accusations.
 

And he let her toss away.
 
He leaned back against his desk and watched
her challenge every one of his responses.
 
She was nervous as hell.
 
She
tried hard not to show it, but he could see it in the tremble of her notebook
whenever she lifted it off of her lap, or the very slight flutter of her bottom
lip.
 
She was a trouper, and she asked
the tough questions, but she was having a real time controlling her nerves.

And he was having a real time
controlling his libido.
 
Which surprised
him.
 
Ever since his messy divorce just
over two years ago, he rarely even went out on dates.
 
To be turned on like this was something he
certainly wasn’t expecting.
 
Especially
since females her age almost never turned him on.
 
They were too inexperienced for his taste,
and usually too silly.
 
But this one
definitely did turned him on.
 
He, in
fact, found her most attractive.
 
From
that flawless skin and those big brown eyes, to her nicely stacked breasts and
slender body, he was pleased with the view.
 
Although her hair, which appeared to be shoulder length, was in some
sort of unattractive ponytail, he was certain if she took it out of that band,
it would only enhance her beauty.
 
Because even with a ponytail, he thought, she was striking.

And her lips.
 
His eyes kept roaming down to those
lips.
 
They were small, but naturally
puckered lips, and he found himself thinking about sucking as he looked at
them.
 
Mainly about her sucking on
him.
 
Repeatedly.
 
But also about him sucking her at a place
much lower than those lips, but undoubtedly just as warm.

Then he caught himself.
 
He couldn’t believe it.
 
What was wrong with him?
 
He hadn’t been this horny in years!
 
But just looking at her had him aroused.
 
Seriously aroused.
 
So much so that he found himself unfolding
his arms, and placing his hands across his midsection.

Yet, despite his erection, she kept on
making her case.
 
She kept on asking
question after question, until they were the same questions, until she started
to sound redundant.
 
Why would the human rights commission lie?
 
What would be their motivation?
 
Why would an international organization
single out Dreeson?
 
Aren’t you concerned
enough about the allegations to at least find out if they contain a kernel of
truth?
 
Why won’t Dreeson at least look
into the allegations?

Of course he’d looked into those
allegations personally when they first surfaced.
 
And although there was some minor truth to
them, and he was correcting those issues even as she sat there, he wasn’t about
to share that information with her.
 
And
he also decided, given her youthful tenacity, that he wasn’t going to be
sharing her body either.

Although he was tempted.
 
For the first time in a long time he was
seriously tempted.
 
She seemed like she
would be such a sweet piece of ass to have that he considered setting something
up with her.
 
Maybe a one-off in some
nice hotel somewhere.
 
He used to do so
regularly before his marriage, but after his divorce he rarely bothered.
 
Even one night stands weren’t worth it to him
after that.
 
Yet he was actually
considering it now.
 

But ultimately he decided against the
bother.
 
She was so young, and probably
so easy to take any act of lust and try to turn it into love, that he knew it
would be a fool’s errand to even think about going there with her.

He was wasting his time.
 

He stood to his feet.
 

She had been asking, and he had been
denying, and they were going nowhere fast.
 
She had her story.
 
Even though,
unfortunately for her and perfect for Dreeson, it was a non-story.
 
“I’m afraid I’ve run out of time, Miss
Graham,” he said, forcing her to rise too, even though it was obvious she still
had many more questions to ask.
 
“We’re
going to have to consider this interview concluded.”

She was disappointed.
 
She felt as if he was listening.
 
She thought that she might have even gotten
him to admit errors by Dreeson.
 
“Yes, sir,”
she said, “but I actually had more to ask.”
 
She started flipping through her notebook, amazed at just how many
questions remained unasked.

She looked up at him.
 
He sighed when she looked those large sad
eyes up at him.

“There’s so much more,” she said.

“I don’t know what more there could
be,” he said.
 
“I’ve answered all of your
questions.”

“About Beijing, yes, sir, you have,”
she said.
 
“But I also have questions
about Dreeson’s stateside plants and their questionable environmental
records.
 
I haven’t asked any questions
about that.”

That was what she got for asking the
same questions fifty different ways, he thought.
 
“We’ll have to discuss your remaining issues
another day, I’m afraid.
 
When I have
more time.”

“You mean I can call and set something
up?”

“Of course.”

Nikki smiled.
 
“That would be excellent, sir.
 
Thank-you so much.”

“You’re quite welcome.”
 
He extended his hand.
 
Yes, quite attractive indeed, he thought, as
they shook.
 
“And have a nice day,” he
added.
 

Nikki left Dreeson feeling as if she
was on top of the world.
 
Although Daniel
would later not even remember mentioning anything about a second interview with
her, Nikki left believing that little throwaway comment of his to be the
defining moment of the interview.
 
The
first session netted next to nothing in terms of news.
 
But maybe the second interview, where she
would be more prepared, would be far more fruitful.
 
She even told her editor that he had agreed
to a second interview.

“In exchange for what?” the editor had
asked her.

“In exchange for nothing.”

“Oh, come on, Nikki!
 
He didn’t try to ask you out or anything like
that?”

“No, nothing.”

The editor was skeptical, but pleased.

And Nikki was pleased too.
 
Until she phoned Dreeson that very next day
to schedule that follow up interview.
 
They wouldn’t let her speak to him.
 
And when she finally did get one of his actual assistants on the phone,
and not just some secretary, she was told in no uncertain terms that Daniel
Crane would have no further comment for her or her newspaper.
 

She was disappointed that he didn’t
keep his word.
 
She didn’t think of him
as somebody who would make a promise he wouldn’t keep.
 
But he had done just that.
 
And it bothered her.
 
She didn’t know why it did, but it did.
 
She had somehow thought that Mr. Crane was
different; that he was the kind of man where his words were his bond.
 
But they were just words.
 
Empty words.
 
The kind of words she’d been hearing all of her life, from guys who
wanted to get inside her panties, and from businessmen who wanted to get her,
and her crusade, outside of their offices.

CHAPTER TWO

Two months later, Nikki stood near the
entrance of Mocasey’s, a high-end restaurant in east Wakefield that was
frequented by the city’s elites, passing out flyers.
 
She was so busy handing out flyers, in fact,
that she barely bothered to look at the recipients, especially since almost all
of them were either taking the flyer without breaking their stride, or refusing
it altogether.

Daniel parked his pearl-white Jaguar
in a rare vacant spot across the street from Mocasey’s, got out, and then made
his way to the restaurant’s entrance, buttoning his Armani suit coat as he
did.
 
Mike Olsen, his lunch companion,
who had also just arrived, greeted him on the sidewalk.
 
The two men shook hands and began a
conversation as they headed for the entrance.
 
That was when Nikki shoved flyers in their faces.
 
Although Mike refused the offered flyer,
Daniel did accept it.
 
But he was too
immersed in his conversation to even bother to look at it, let alone to notice
who it was that had handed it to him.

“Free the Newsome boys,” Nikki shouted
as she handed him that flyer.
 
“Help us
free the Newsome boys, mister.”

Daniel didn’t break his stride as he
and Mike made their way inside.
 
They had
business to take care of.
 
Nikki remained
outside in the scorching sun and continued handing out as many flyers as people
would accept them, but after about a half hour later the crowd had thinned to a
trickle.
 

She looked toward the opposite end of
the sidewalk, at the older woman who was also handing out flyers, and the crowd
on that end was beginning to thin out too.
 
They had been there for nearly three hours, and had netted very little
money and no offers of support.
 
They did
better, Nikki realized, when they stood on the corners in the hood.

But when she saw two well-dressed
gentlemen emerge from Mocasey’s, she hurried toward them.
 
And once again, since she was unsure if she
had accosted them before, she shoved flyers into their faces.
 

 
“Free the Newsome boys,” she said as she
offered them flyers.
 
Daniel once again
accepted the flyer, and his companion once again ignored her.
 
But after his companion shook his hand,
promising to consider his offer and get back with him, and then left, Daniel
decided to read the flyer this time.
 
The
previous one was still in the restaurant, on his table, ready to be trashed
along with the half-empty plates of food, and near-empty glasses of wine.
 

And it was only then, while he stood
there fishing his reading glasses out of the pocket beneath his coat lapel, did
Nikki realize who he was.

“Help us free the Newsome boys,
mister,” she said almost by rote, and then she blurted it out:
 
“You’re Daniel Crane,” she said, as if she
was finally certain herself.

Daniel looked at her just as he pulled
out his glasses.
 
And he remembered her
too, but it was a vague remembrance.
 
And
the only reason he remembered her at all was because of her eyes.
 
He remembered those eyes.
 
They were golden-brown and large, almost
overwhelmingly so, and they seemed to hold within them every emotion the young
woman ever felt.
 
If she smiled, her joy
showed in her eyes.
 
If she looked
puzzled, her confusion showed in her eyes.
 
If she was enlightened, her brows knitted, and her eyes danced.
 
Daniel remembered those eyes.
 
He glanced down, at her small, petite body,
at that thick ponytail she wore that made her look about twelve, at those
breasts.
 
There was a general sadness
that seemed to cloak her, and he remembered that sadness too.
 
He remembered her.

“Hi,” he said, staring at her now for
clues to when and where their paths had crossed.
 
“And yes, I’m Daniel Crane.
 
But I’m afraid your name escapes me.”

“I’m Nikki.
 
Nikki Graham.
 
I interviewed you---”

“For the Brannon University Press,” he
said with a smile, suddenly remembering.

“That’s right,” Nikki said, unable to
smile.
 
He had let her down.
 
She didn’t see what there was to smile
about.
 
“You had promised to give me a
follow-up interview to discuss questions about Dreeson’s environmental record.”

Daniel certainly didn’t remember
that.
 
“Did I?”

“Yes, sir.
 
But you didn’t keep your word.”

That didn’t sound like him.
 
He rarely made promises he didn’t keep.
 
“Did you try to contact me about this
follow-up interview?” he asked her.

“Oh, yes, sir.
 
Several times.
 
But finally one of your executive assistants
came on the phone and told me that you wouldn’t be available for any more
interviews.
 
Ever, she said.”
 
Then Nikki looked up at him with those
expressive eyes of hers.
 
He could see
her disappointment.
 
“You didn’t keep
your word,” she said again.

Daniel studied her.
 
She seemed genuinely hurt by that fact, as if
she had thought he was better than that.
 
Truth was, Daniel had so much on his plate that he barely remembered
being interviewed by her, didn’t remember promising a follow-up interview, and
word of her constant phone calls never made their way up the chain to him.
 
Not once.
 
But that was no excuse.
 
“I
apologize for that,” he said.
 

Nikki was surprised by his
apology.
 
Most people in his position
always found a way to blame it on their lowly staff, or even the person
leveling the complaint.

She also was surprised by his hazel
eyes, and how they sparkled so brilliantly in the sun.
 
And that suit he wore, which was undoubtedly
expensive, fit him so well that he looked far more buff than she remembered him
looking a couple months ago.
 
And he
didn’t look as old as she remembered either.
 

But what did that have to do with anything
? she thought.
 
Who cared how his eyes looked, and his suit
!

She got back down to business.
 
She remembered how he said he used to work in
the law profession, and how he was once a judge.

“The Newsome boys can really use your
help, Mr. Crane,” she said.

Daniel realized he was staring at her,
and was wondering why there was such a sadness about her, but when she got back
down to business, he caught himself too.
 
“And who are the Newsome boys?” he asked, as he put on his reading
glasses and turned his attention to the flyer.

 
“They’re two brothers who were arrested and
thrown in jail over in Clayton for allegedly killing a school bus driver.”
 
Clayton was a small, bedroom community
outside of Wakefield.
 
“One is seventeen,
and the other one is nineteen.”

“And you want me to help them how?” he
asked, glancing at her over his reading glasses.
 
In the glare of the afternoon sun, her
smooth, brown skin was radiant.
 
And
again those expressive eyes.

She was a looker, all right, he
thought, but her look was so serious, and so intense, that whatever attractiveness
she did possess was lost in the sheer gravity of her concern.
 
She was so committed to her cause, it seemed
to Daniel, that he suddenly felt petty focusing on her looks.

“We need funds to hire adequate
representation for them,” she said, answering his question.
 
“Their trial starts next month and the lawyer
they have now, an overworked public defender, isn’t worth sweeping out the
door.”

Daniel smiled at her phrasing.
 
“Public Defenders are usually excellent
lawyers,” he said as he began to walk toward his car.
 
Nikki walked with him.
 
“Are you sure it’s not that the attorney
might have a bad case?”

But Nikki would have none of
that.
 
“It’s not the case, it’s him.
 
He’s really terrible.
 
He’s only seen the boys two or three times
since they’ve been arrested, and he keeps trying to get them to make a deal
with the prosecution and plead guilty for a crime they insist, with everything
within them, that they never committed.”
 

They began walking across the busy
street.
 
“And I take it you’re certain
they’re telling the truth?”

Nikki frowned.
 
“I have no idea if they’re telling the
truth.”

Daniel nearly stopped in the middle of
the road.
 
He didn’t expect that
response.
 
“I don’t understand,” he said,
as they continued to head toward his car.
 
“Why would you be out here defending two young men who might be guilty
of murder?”

“I’m defending their right to adequate
representation.
 
They’re poor boys, Mr.
Crane, and I know what poverty is like.
 
They don’t have a dime to their names.
 
If they were rich and could afford a good lawyer, they probably wouldn’t
have been arrested in the first place.”

“And why is that, Miss Graham?
 
Simply because they’re two poor, black
kids?
 
Do you think our judicial system
is that arbitrary?”

“I didn’t say our judicial system was
arbitrary,” Nikki said.
 
“And I
definitely didn’t say they were arrested because they were two black kids.
 
Because they aren’t black.
 
They’re white.
 
The only point I’m making is that they’re
poor, and a lot of times poor people get caught up in the judicial system and
don’t get that fair shake.”

For the first time in a long time,
Daniel Crane was taken aback.
 
He spent
most of his days making all kinds of assumptions about risk and reward and if
this was best for Dreeson or that wasn’t best for Dreeson, based solely on past
market behaviors alone.
 
But then this
young lady, this slip of a girl really, woke him out of his almost robotic
stupor.
 
She wasn’t some stereotypical
black woman who only cared about black issues.
 
She wasn’t some stereotypical bleeding heart liberal who accepted the
word of two alleged murderers just because they were poor.
 
Both of those assumptions he had made about her
were wrong.
 
All she wanted was to give
those boys a fair shot.
 
She didn’t care
what race they were, and she wasn’t taking their word for anything.
 
She wanted them to have a fair chance.

They made it to his Jaguar.
 
Nikki glanced at the fancy car, and felt a
little out of her depth, but she kept her focus, and it was exclusively on
getting help for Miss Newsome’s boys.

“You do realize, Miss Graham,” he
said, a little embarrassed that he had prejudged her, “that those boys can
still get convicted even if they have adequate representation?”

“Yes, sir, I realize that.
 
They might very well get convicted.
 
But I also realize that if they don’t get
excellent representation, and get it real soon, they will definitely be
convicted.
 
There’s no
might
in it. They won’t stand a
chance.
 
I’m asking you to help give them
a chance.”

Daniel exhaled as he leaned against
his Jaguar.
 
He looked at her.
 
She was so intense, he thought, as if the
very future of those Newsome boys were solely in her hands.
 
And it disturbed him for some reason.
 
Why wasn’t she out at the beach on this
beautiful, sunny day?
 
Why wasn’t she at
the mall with her friends, or at a museum?
 
Why was she so damn
intense
?
 

“They’re in custody in Clayton you
said?” he asked her.

“Yes, sir,” Nikki said, a sense of
hope welling within her for the first time all day.

“Any bail set?”

“No, sir.
 
The judge wouldn’t grant them bail.
 
They’ve never been in trouble a day in their
lives, but she still wouldn’t grant them bail.”

Daniel had no intention of getting
involved with anything like this when he stopped to read that flyer.
 
But he also had no idea that he’d run into
such a passionate advocate like Nikki Graham either.
 
He therefore found himself reaching into his
back pocket and pulling out his wallet.