Queen of His Heart (12 page)

A
fter an eventful day and night, Jalila had returned home late and collapsed on her bed, dress and all. Her only mistake was not putting Cujo outside for the night, because the sound of his barking early the next morning ensured her waking up with a head-splitting migraine. Someone somewhere was pounding on something.

“Go away,” she moaned into her pillow.

A bell was added to the mix.

When the pounding, the barking and the ringing of the bell continued, she tried to bury herself under the pillows. The racket only intensified until she had no choice but to bolt out of bed with a major attitude. “I'm coming!” she shouted.

Jalila marched out of the bedroom in last night's dress and torn stockings to give whoever it was at her
door a good piece of her mind. Reality didn't settle in until she threw open the door and Cujo leaped at a surprised cameraman.

“What the—” Bam! He and Cujo hit the tiled porch.

Jalila was instantly awake. “Cujo, no!”

Growling, with his canine teeth exposed, Cujo made it clear that he was in the mood to have the cameraman for breakfast.

“Cujo, stop! Oh, my God.”

The rest of the crew, including Nitara, scattered.

“I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.” She grabbed Cujo's collar and tugged. “Are you all right? Give me a second. I'm going to just put him in the backyard. I totally forgot you guys were coming.”

She dragged Cujo, barking and slobbering like a rabid animal, through the house. Getting the dog to the backyard was harder than usual because she still had on her stockings. She seemed to slip and slide more than anything else. Once Cujo was in the backyard, she felt as if she'd had a complete workout. The camera crew still looked hesitant to come inside the house.

“Please, c'mon in.” She smiled reassuringly. “I swear it's safe.”

Nitara crept in first, her eyes darting around as if she expected the bogeyman to leap out at her. “Girl, what are you doing with something that big in here?”

“A single girl needs protection,” Jalila joked. “C'mon. Make yourself at home, I'm just going to run up for a quick shower and I'll be right back.” She turned and raced up the stairs, her face still burning with humiliation.

After her shower and a quick change, the rest of the day went rather well. Cameras rolling, Jalila gave America a quick peek into her life. She led the cameras through her house, introduced her dog—through the sliding glass door since the cameraman didn't want any more up-close-and-personal encounters with Cujo for the rest of his life.

Next, she took the camera crew to Body by Jalila, where she introduced her employees and explained her business and her products.

 

Sidebar:

The next stop was at her parents' place. When Jalila had told her parents about the crew coming over, she'd asked them to behave normally. However, when they opened the door, her brain couldn't process this version of her mother, dressed like Donna Reed, replete with pearls and diamonds.

“Oh, hello, dear,” Bettye Goodwyn cooed and gave Jalila a dramatic kiss on the cheek.

Her father, God bless him, showed up at the dinner table in a suit and tie that he must have dusted off from his high-school-principal days. Too bad it was a little too tight after his retirement diet—i.e., a whole lot of all-you-can-eat buffets.

Jalila tried her best to hide her amusement, but when their normal meatloaf or lasagna dinner was replaced by some fancy French food her mother had never cooked before, Jalila excused herself from the table in order to have a good laugh in the bathroom.

 

Sidebar:

Jalila smiled at her doting parents as the cameras rolled. Their happiness was so apparent it only deepened her desire to find the kind of love that they'd shared for thirty-five years. To her surprise an image of Keenan flashed before her eyes. She quickly shook it out of her head.

She wanted love…not lust.

 

The next day, Jalila was more prepared. She was up and dressed by 7:30 a.m., Cujo was in the backyard and she even had coffee made by the time the camera crew arrived. She was only dealing with half a crew because the other half was with Dontrell Smith, taping his preparations for today's date.

Jalila didn't know what was in store. Only that the date was going to last most of the day and well into the night. At noon, flowers were delivered and she had to do at least four different reaction takes before the director and Nitara were satisfied. Once that was done, she was finally allowed to open the note that came with the flowers.

“Hope you like water. Dress light,'” she read. Now what on earth did that mean?

At two o'clock, she found out. In all of her thirty years of living in Los Angeles, Jalila could honestly say that it had never occurred to her to go surfing. Something about playing in a polluted ocean with sharks didn't quite tickle her fancy.

But today that was apparently about to change.

But Jalila wasn't a fool. She didn't have to be an Einstein to know that Dontrell chose to have their first date frolicking on the beach because he wanted to see her in a swimsuit.

When he picked her up, she was wearing an electric-blue bikini, a white sarong and heels.

“Oh, my…
damn!
” There was no need for a second take of Dontrell's reaction.

“I assume that you like it?” Jalila asked, turning to give him a 360-degree view.

“What's not to like?” He grinned and offered her his arm.

 

Sidebar:

Jalila slipped her arm around Dontrell's bulging bicep and smiled openly at him. And though he was not at all hard on the eyes, in her mind she couldn't stop comparing him to Keenan. Both men exuded an
extraordinary amount of confidence and strength. However, Dontrell was a little more flashy, with his bulging muscles and formfitting clothes.

To be fair, Dontrell couldn't have picked a more beautiful day to surf at Malibu. The sky was a blinding blue and the winds were a gentle caress. The camera crew took a few playful shots of Dontrell and Jalila walking on the beach, sometimes pretending that they were fascinated by something in the sky.

When it came time for her surfing lessons, Nitara produced a wet suit for Jalila to change into, and two new surfboards, made by some company who'd paid for advertising and product placement, were given to them.

“I don't know about this,” Jalila said as she stood on the sandy beach with the water just high enough to cover her feet. “There are living things in there.”

Dontrell chuckled behind her. “Don't worry, I'll protect you.” Holding his surfboard in one hand, he draped the other around her waist.

Despite his words, Jalila was anything but comforted, and the farther she crept into the ocean the more the frown on her face twisted in fear. The water was astonishingly cold and she kept thinking that something was crawling across her toes. It was gross and she was squealing like a teenager in a horror movie.

Dontrell apparently thought that she was adorable and loved that she kept clinging to him and bumping up against him. Eventually, she calmed down long enough for Dontrell to try to explain the tides and how they affected surfing. For beginners, it was best to surf at the
lowest possible tide, which generally happened later in the day. But since she was with him, he promised to pay extra attention to her so that nothing would harm her.

When he delivered those words, his face was mere inches from hers. His eyes made it clear that he wanted to sneak a kiss, but Jalila demurely turned her head.

“Aaaaannndddd…
cut!
” The director, whose name Jalila couldn't remember, waded out into the ocean in his own wet suit. “Let's go back and hold the pose where you were staring into each other's eyes. I think we can really work that with some music.”

Dontrell and Jalila nodded, but they were both clearly uncomfortable replaying—or faking—an extended intimate moment. The rest of the surfing lesson went from bad to worse or from funny to funnier, depending upon one's point of view. Each time Jalila tried to follow Dontrell's instructions on how to go from sitting to standing on her surfboard, she ended up doing some interesting backflips. These always resulted in her swallowing a mouthful of water or getting some nasty seaweed tangled in her hair. When Dontrell finally ended the lesson, Jalila nearly wept with joy.

 

Sidebar, camera one:

Sidebar, camera two:

After a quick beach shower, a change into a long white summer dress and an emergency hair and makeup rescue, Jalila joined Dontrell for the next phase of their date. Turns out it, too, would be on the beach—a beach picnic. On a huge blanket, Dontrell had sprinkled rose petals. Beside it, he had dug a deep hole in the sand and lit a couple of fire logs.

The whole setup was beautiful. In the picnic basket were sandwiches, strawberries and even some marshmallows to roast over the open fire. Jalila was almost willing to forgive Dontrell for her horrible surfing lesson. However, after such an intense workout, she'd hoped for something a little more filling than sandwiches.

They quickly fell into easy conversation, but when the sun began to set, Jalila's mind was transported to the sunset she'd watched with Keenan. She could almost taste those thick juicy steaks they'd shared, and instead of the light champagne she was drinking now, she craved the heavy tequila-laden margaritas she'd whipped up.

“Earth to Jalila,” Dontrell said.

“What?” She blinked and jerked her head toward him. “I'm sorry, what did you say?”

“You zoned out on me,” he responded.

“It's the sunset,” she admitted. “It's my favorite time of day.”

He looked toward the sky. “Don't be fooled by the colors. It's just smog,” he said, killing the moment. “L.A. has the worst smog in America. If it wasn't for the surfing I would have left this city a long time ago.”

Jalila loved L.A. “Where would you go?”

He shrugged. “Hmm. I don't know. Maybe Florida or somewhere east.” He smiled at her. “Think you can see yourself in Florida?”

She shrugged, not wanting to hurt his feelings. “Florida is okay.”

He bobbed his head. “I'm looking at Miami to open my next club. They have nice beaches. And Lord knows, with a body like yours, you could put most of those hard-body babes to shame.”