Money Shot (27 page)

Zaira pulled up in front of Trent’s community after taking off from work. She’d come right over from the Thompson and Theago after speaking with her boss and she had the best news to share with Trent. And of course she wanted to celebrate with food and sex. She could hardly wait.

She pulled up in an empty parking space designated for her unit, grabbed her tote, and exited the car.

Her promotion to manager had come right on time. She didn’t have much time left on the assignment at Svelte, which was good given the circumstances, but at least she knew that she was one step closer to obtaining her goal of making partner at the firm.

It wasn’t until she reached Trent’s unit when she saw him and a woman standing next to a red car parked right in front of the his building. She stopped dead in her tracks after identifying who the woman was. Her initial reaction was rage.

Eve. His timeshare agent?

All of Zaira’s breath rushed forcefully out of her. It felt as though someone had hit her in the back with a sledgehammer.

Supposedly she was just an agent, but they were in a heated conversation that no client and agent would have if they were professionals.

What was she doing over here? He’d told her that he had no girlfriends in his life right now.

What the hell?

Zaira’s face grew red-hot and her veins flooded with anger and embarrassment. Her tote bag almost slipped off her shoulder as she brought her hands to her mouth in surprise.

It was like some bad soap opera re-run. She couldn’t believe her eyes at the turn of events no matter how farfetched.

Trent pointed his finger at a red Ferrari parked right next to them and said something to Eve.

Just as Zaira was about to take a step back, that’s when Trent glanced her way. He blinked several times as though he couldn’t believe his own eyes. Eve turned too and that bitch’s mouth dropped open in surprise too.

“Is it because of her?” Eve raised her voice.

“Shit,” Zaira said to herself before turning around swiftly and running all the way back to her car.

Tears blinded her as she started up the engine, put the gear in reverse, and maneuvered herself aggressively out of the parking lot.

Her world had crumbled in a matter of seconds.

Relationships were like a poker game. A woman could have what she thought was the best man in the world, but still only have fifty percent of his heart.

Less than twenty minutes after Zaira arrived home, her door buzzer rang. Not once, but twice. She didn’t even need to check the video to know that it was that bastard, Trent Stone.

She ran off to the bathroom and splashed her face with cool water, trying to ignore the fact that he was there, but there was no use. Her cell phone buzzed next.

We need to talk about this
, it read.

Zaira pushed the power button on her phone and shut it down. She then walked into the kitchen to pour a tall glass of ice-cold water. What she really wanted to do was throw stuff, but that wouldn’t solve a thing. She couldn’t even think straight knowing that Trent was standing on the other side of the door wanting to talk. Well, he had all the time in the world to tell her that he was fucking Eve, his damn timeshare agent.

He had told her a blatant lie. Hadn’t he?

She ran her hand though her hair and took several deep breaths in and out. The migraine she was developing was so painful that the only temporary cure right now seemed to be sleep. She got up and made her way to the bed.

Just as she was about to pass the door, she paused beside it. “Are you still there?”

“Yeah.”

Zaira jumped at the sound of his voice, half expecting him to have given up and gone home after a few minutes of standing there.

“Okay, you can go now,” she said. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

“I know what you saw looked strange, but the truth is that Eve sort of dropped by to pick up some papers.”

“Bullshit.”

“There was an upcoming due date and I’ve been pushing it off for the past few days. As my agent, she has a monetary interest in seeing that my timeshares do well. She came by without notice.”

“It also looks like she had a vested interest in other areas as well,” she said. “Look, please leave—”

“There is no one else, Zaira. Ever since we reconciled, I haven’t been with anyone else.”

Zaira paused. “Then why does she feel entitled to you?”

“Let me in and I’ll tell you.”

“Hell no!” she screamed at the door. “Tell me what’s going on between you two right now.”

“I had sex with her a few months ago.”

“Jesus, Trent.” She backed away from the door.

“Just like any other female acquaintance, we had sex one time. I play by rules and I’ve never led anyone on. I’m a man, and if I want sex, I tell women that. I can’t love Eve or any other woman. I can’t because I love you, Zaira.”

The moment Zaira swallowed, the tears spilled despite here efforts to keep them contained. “You know what, Trent? You can go fuck yourself and get the hell out of my life.”

Zaira walked away, entered her bedroom, and slammed the door behind her. She didn’t even bother with a shower or removing her work clothes before she climbed onto the bed, hugging a pillow close to her body.

Chapter Fifteen

Zaira was happy to see her dad back after his absence to take care of some business in Italy. What she was not happy with was having to drag herself into yet another impromptu meeting called by him. Not only did he insist that she be there, he also arranged for all department heads to be there too. This meant that Trent Stone was in attendance as well.

She made sure to sit way on the other end of the table from him, but that turned out to be a bad idea. With him at one end of the long conference room table and her on the other end, it wasn’t easy to keep her eyes off of him. A couple of times, they’d look up at the same time, catching each other staring.

Zaira had gotten over most of her animosity toward Trent even though it had taken a couple days after the incident. She should have known that Trent came with baggage with his magical magnet dick. Just thinking about it sent her blood past the boiling point again.

She reached for the bottled water on the table in front of her and took a long swig. The next time she caught Trent staring at her, she cut her eyes at him. Of course, he wore a poker face that no man or animal could decode.

Her cell phone screen lit up on the screen in front of her. The silent mode didn’t distract anyone’s attention except the guy sitting right next to her, who was also the head of Svelte’s IT department. He was also nosey as hell.

Zaira picked up the phone to read it.

Trent:
Your hair looks beautiful that way
.

Her face became flustered and she looked up quickly to see him fumbling with his iPhone on the table.

She might as well just put everything out on the table for him even though he failed to do that with her. She texted him right back.

Zaira:
I’m going out to dinner tonight with my Dad and Phil, from the graduate school he mentors at.

His response came immediately.

Trent:
Let’s hope Phil doesn’t get any ideas about being with you.

Before she could object or respond, her Dad called for the meeting to begin. His secretary, Ann, adjusted the settings on the projector as he spoke about the items on the agenda. After his summary on a meeting he had with his Italian investors, Zaira sort of drifted off. She perked up at the mention of certain keywords that concerned her, but after taking another look at the agenda, she realized that the accounting and finance portion of the session was further down on the agenda.

“So there are three main things I want us to accomplish between now and December of this year…” her dad continued, clicking from one screen to the next as he spoke.

Not only did Zaira’s mind wander, but her eyes wandered as well.

Hell in a hand-basket! Why did Trent Stone have to be so goddamned fine? He was engrossed in her dad’s presentation, but the dark, serious expression on his face would have had any woman swooning. Somehow, he must have known about the meeting because he was groomed well. No five o’ clock shadow on his face. His hairline was groomed. His dark mane was lightly slicked back, and he was dressed to the nines in business attire.

Her gaze dropped to his big hands just as he began to write something on his notepad. Suddenly she got a flash of his car-greased palms gripping her ass as he pounded into her pussy. She grabbed her bottle from the table and chugged down some more water.

Zaira turned her chair slightly to face the presentation, so she wouldn’t be tempted to take another peek at the man whom she both loved and hated. It was a curse to feel both ways at the same time. She was certain of that.

“Now, I have a short video clip to play from Mr. Barrett, one of our investors. He wished he could have been here today, but his flight got mixed up at the last minute,” her Dad informed them.

Ann fiddled with the laptop once again as he spoke.

“He’ll meet with each of you individually sometime next week.”

The last time Mr. Barrett spoke at a Svelte meeting, she was utterly bored. The man was nice and pleasant to his core, but he always took ten minutes to say what could have taken two minutes.

When the video started playing, the screen was black but there were a few audible noises in the background. The voice coming from the speakers didn’t belong to a man. It was a woman speaking.

“Ann, is this the right clip?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, you handed me the diskette this morning to include with the presentation.” Ann rose and walked back over to the laptop. “There must be something wr—”