DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN (38 page)

“It was another dimension, I’m telling
you.”
 
Then she paused.
 
“You think Val heard us?”

“I would hope not.”

“I doubt it.
 
The door was closed.
 
But if he
did, I’ll never hear the end of it.
 
Dang, I hope he didn’t!”

Daniel smiled.

“I met with the attorneys today,” Nikki said.

“Yes, they told me.”

“It’s so many.”

“We plan to mount a vigorous defense.”

“Thank-you,” she said heartfelt.
 

Daniel kissed her on her forehead.
 
“You know you’re welcome, baby.”
 
And then he thought about something and
stopped stroking her hair.

“I have a question, Daniel.”

“Fire away.”

“Why did you fire Melanie?” She asked this
and looked up at him.

He exhaled.
 
“She came on to me sexually, I rebuffed her, and then I fired her.”

Nikki stared at him.
 
“I should have known that was what had
happened.
 
I’m sorry, Daniel.”

“Don’t be,” Daniel said, pulling her into a
bear hug.
 
“I should have seen her
interest from the beginning.”
 
But then
he looked at her.
 
“Now I have a question.”

“Fire away.”

“What brought this on?” he asked.

Nikki looked back up at him.
 
He loved the way she looked, with her ruffled
hair and big, brown eyes.
 
He kissed her,
again, on the forehead.
 

“What brought what on?” she asked him.

“You could barely speak to me without getting
upset.
 
Now you open your front door and
literally jump into my arms?
 
Why?”

“Because I love you.”

“You loved me when you couldn’t stand me.”

She laughed.

“So what changed your mind about me?”

Nikki hesitated.
 
“Two reasons,” she said.

“Number one?”

“I saw the news.
 
Dreeson selected Fastower.”

Daniel hesitated, and then nodded.
 
“That’s right.”

“It’s unfair, Daniel.
 
The only reason they gave it to him was
because of me.
 
What I do shouldn’t have
anything to do with you.”

“Well, it does, Nikki.
 
You have everything to do with me.
 
That’s just the way it is.
 
And I didn’t lose out to Mike Fastower
because of you.
 
He was the best man for
the job.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

“At this time in my life, yes, he was.
 
I’m not particularly interested in taking on
any more responsibility.
 
Not now.”
 
Then he smiled.
 
“You’re enough.”

But Nikki didn’t return his affectionate
gesture.
 
“The second reason for my
change of heart,” she said as she laid her head back onto Daniel’s shoulder,
“is because of Val.”

“Val?”

“He talked to me.
 
He reminded me of how selfish I can be
sometimes.
 
He said you were so worried
about me you couldn’t hardly function.”

Daniel began stroking Nikki’s hair
again.
 
“Oh, yeah?”

“That’s what he said.”
 
She then looked up at Daniel.
 
“Was it a lie?”

Daniel looked at Nikki.
 
And smiled.
 
“What do you think?”

“Daniel, I don’t know.
 
That’s why I’m asking you.
 
You’ve got to start telling me how you
feel.
 
You’ve got to stop holding
everything in like you do.
 
I can’t read
your mind.
 
If you’re in pain, say
so.
 
If you’re worried about me, tell me
that.
 
We’ll both feel better if you open
up some.”
 

There was a long pause.
 
Nikki waited for a response, but Daniel
didn’t say a word.
 
She exhaled and laid
her head back against his chest.

“Bear with me, Nikki,” he finally said.

Nikki hesitated.
 
“I think I’m over you,” she said.

As soon as she said those words, Daniel’s
hand began stroking her hair slower, with much less vigor, as if he was
suddenly caught in an absentminded, slow-motion time warp.
  
“What’s that?” he asked.

She looked up at him.
 
“I think I’m over you.”

His heart dropped and his entire body felt
limp as he looked into Nikki’s sexy, beautiful, but now confident eyes.
 
“Are you?” he asked.

“I think so.
 
The obsession.
 
The
desperation.
 
The insecurities.
 
I think I’m moving beyond that now.
 
You told me a long time ago to make friends,
you remember that?”

Daniel hesitated.
 
“Yes,” he said.

“You said they aren’t going to be perfect, so
don’t expect them to be.
 
And Val sort of
said the same thing tonight.
 
He said I
expect perfection from people.
 
Especially from you.
 
But not
anymore.
 
You aren’t perfect.
 
That’s what I never fully understood.
 
And I don’t expect you to be.”

“In other words,” Daniel said, trying to
smile but too mortified to pull it off, “I’m not your hero anymore.”

Nikki looked at Daniel and Daniel stared into
Nikki’s eyes.
 
For her, it was an
exhilarating feeling.
 
An awakening.
 
For him it was terrifying.
 
“That’s right,” she said.
 
“I don’t think I need one now.”

Daniel tried to smile again, and then he
pulled her closer to him.
 
He was
concerned with the implications, deeply concerned, but he understood them.
 
It was a painful but necessary rite of
passage for Nikki.
 
She had seen
enough.
 
Now even the mirages stung.
 
And she had to protect her heart.
 
But not with insecurity or desperation the way
she had tried to do it all along.
 
Now
she was protecting her heart with strength.
 
And courage.
 
And peaceful
contentment.

Nearly two hours later and Nikki came
downstairs.
 
Val was practically asleep
lying on the sofa, and that fact wasn’t lost on Nikki.
 
“I know you don’t have your funky feet on my
couch,” she said with a smile.

Val looked at her.
 
She had on a robe and bedroom shoes, and was
all aglow.
 
He smiled. “And I know the
last thing on your mind is this couch.”

Nikki sat down on the sofa, quickly placing
Val’s head in her lap.
 
His dreads were
always so neat, she noticed.
 
“You heard
everything, didn’t you?” she said, rubbing his hair.

“What?”

“Don’t
what
me.
 
I’ll bet you heard it all.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Okay.
 
Play dumb.
 
But I’ll tell you
what, you should have been there, sweetheart.”

“I was there, sweetheart,” Val said with a
smile.
 
“I thought that bed was coming
through the roof.”

Nikki laughed.
 
“I knew you heard us!”

“Where’s Daniel?”

“He’s coming down.”

“He can hang a long-behind time for an old
man.
 
I mean, damn.
 
You think he’s taking Viagra?”

Nikki slapped Val upside his head.
 
“No, he ain’t taking no Viagra!
 
Are you?”

“If I needed to I would.
 
But I estimate I’m about fifty years from
that need just now.”

“Yeah, right,” Nikki said as Daniel, fully
clothed in his suit and tie, began walking downstairs.
 
Val sat up to get a good look at him.
 
Although Val was smiling, Daniel looked like
his regular, serious self.

“Hey, stud, how was your nap?” Val asked and
Nikki playfully hit him.

“My what?”

“Your nap.
 
Nikki said you was up there all those hours getting some rest.”

Nikki was smiling too.
 

“Did she?” Daniel said, still serious, still
unable to take the joke for what it was.
 

“She did.
 
You must have been tired, is all I can say.”

Nikki broke into laughter.
 
Daniel glared at her as he stepped into the
living room.
 
“Come walk me to my car,
Nikki,” he told her, and she began getting up.
 
Daniel looked at Val.
 
“I’ll talk
to you later.”

“Sure thing.
 
And make sure you get you some more rest.”

Nikki rolled her eyes.
 
Daniel glanced at Val and then headed out the
door.

“What’s his problem?” Daniel asked Nikki as
she followed him outside.

“He’s just trying to be funny.”

They walked slowly to Daniel’s car.
 
Once he made it to his car’s door, he turned
and looked at Nikki.

“I’m sure my neighbors appreciate this
scene,” she said, looking down at her robe.
 
Daniel looked at it too, unable to forget the round of lovemaking they
had just endured.

“Is Val joking around,” Daniel asked,
“because he heard us?”

Nikki nodded.
 
“Yep.
 
We were pretty loud from
what he claims.”

Daniel smiled.
 
“Oh, well.
 
That’s what you get for having a houseguest.”

Nikki laughed.
 
“You’re the one who called him.”

“And you’re glad I did.
 
Aren’t you?”

“Yes.
 
Yes, I am.
 
Thank-you.”

Daniel nodded as he continued to stare at
her.
 
He was staring so hard at her body,
in fact, that she became uncomfortable and folded her arms.
 

“You’d better get out of this weather,” he
said.
 
Then he reached out and hugged
her.
 
She fell into his warm
embrace.
 
“I love you, Nikki,” he said as
he held her.

She closed her eyes.
 
And paused.
 
“I know,” she finally said.
 

Daniel’s heart dropped as he held her
tighter.
 
He had never felt more alone,
and more needy, in his life.

When they stopped embracing, Nikki looked
into his bright hazel eyes, and she smiled.
 
“Drive carefully,” she said.
 
And
without waiting to hear his response, she began walking back toward her house.

“I’ll call you later,” he yelled after her.

“Good night, Daniel,” she yelled back,
without turning around.

 
Daniel
watched her, as she moved toward her front door, looking more graceful and
sophisticated now, and he suddenly had an urge to run to her, and hold her
again, but he resisted.
 
His loneliness
wasn’t her problem.
 
And he wasn’t going
to make it her problem.
 
He, instead, got
into his car, cranked up, and drove home.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

There would be no good news for two solid
weeks.
 
Nikki and Val, whenever he could
come to town, put all of their skills as probing journalists to work, while
Daniel kept the fire under the feet of his investigators.
 
But nothing panned out.
 
Day and night their entire existence was
devoted to clearing Nikki of what they were convinced were trumped up charges,
and day and night they kept firing blanks.
 

Until nearly three weeks later.
 
Val was in town and he and Nikki were in the
Gazette newsroom scouring over every article that had a byline by Nikki.
 
Luke allowed them to use the conference room
and they were hard at work on two computers.
 
Until Nikki came across one particular story.
 
The Fresh Air Now (FAN) activists’
story.
 
The cops never did question her
again about it, even after she wrote the story.
 
But as Nikki thought about that story, and if there were any possible
enemies she could have there, she began thinking beyond the story itself.
 
Then she realized that it was after that
story, the day after, when she first met Melanie Chandler.
 
And there was another factor.

She looked up from her computer screen and
looked over at Val.
 

Val looked at her.
 
“What is it?” he asked.

“Melanie Chandler,” she said.

“Daniel’s assistant?”

“Yes.”

“What about her?
 
I thought he fired her.”

“He did.
 
But all of the troubles I’ve been having with Daniel didn’t really get
started until after she came into Daniel’s life.”

“All what troubles?
 
Your arrest?”

“My doubting Daniel. The nude pictures.
 
The telephone call from that woman claiming
to have that long term affair with Daniel.
 
And the arrest, yes.”

Val was interested.
 
“So what are you saying?
 
You think she set you up?”

“She’s the only variable that occurred in our
lives prior to that stuff happening.
 
I
mean, she hits the scene and I get arrested, just a few months later, for
trafficking drugs.
 
We’ve been focusing
on my enemies to find out who might have set me up.
 
Like something negative I wrote about
somebody.
 
But what if it was one of
Daniel’s enemies?”

“But his investigators looked into that,
Nikki,” Val said.
 
“They even
investigated Michael Fastower to see if he tried to discredit Daniel to win
that CEO job.”

“I know.”

“And they concluded he had nothing to do with
it.”

“I know.
 
But what about Melanie?
 
They
never even considered her.
 
And Daniel
had fired her?”

“You’ve got a point.
 
But you’d think they would have looked into
it.
 
I mean, she was fired and a few days
later you were arrested.”

“Right.”
 
Nikki began typing in Melanie’s name on Google.
 
“Bing her, Val,” she said to Val.

Val typed in Melanie’s name in Bing.
 
But there was nothing out of the ordinary at
all and very few info to choose from.
 
They even attempted to review her criminal record, a service they both,
as reporters, had access to.
 
But she
didn’t have a record to review.
 
Val
looked at Nikki.
 
She began shutting down
her computer.

“Let’s go to Daniel,” she said.
 
“Let’s see if these high-dollar investigators
he hired have even thought about checking out Mel.”

Daniel was sitting behind his desk, his feet
propped up, his reading glasses on as he perused a stack of acquisition
projections, when his desk intercom buzzed and the voice of the front desk
receptionist could be heard.
 
“Mr. Crane?”

Daniel became immediately upset that the
receptionist was not adhering to his instructions.
  
He reluctantly pressed the button.
  
“Yes, Whitney?” he said.

“This is Helen, sir.
 
And I apologize for disturbing you, sir, but
. . .”

“Where’s Whitney?”

“She’s off.
 
This is her day off.”

“Today?”

“Yes, sir.
 
She’s off today and tomorrow, although she said she might come in for
half a day tomorrow.”

Daniel exhaled.
 
“What is it that you wanted, Helen?”

“Oh.
 
Yes.
 
I didn’t mean to bother you,
but Miss Graham is here to see you, sir.
 
I tried to explain to her that you weren’t seeing visitors without
appointments but she . . .”

“Send her back,” Daniel said.
 

“Sir?”

“Send her back.”

“Oh.
 
Yes, sir.”

“And Helen?”

“Sir?”

“Wherever Miss Graham comes to this office
she’s to be let in without exception.”

“Yes sir,” Helen said.
 
“I did not know, sir.”