The Pleasure's All Mine (33 page)

Eric became still. “You’re leaving us here to fend for ourselves?”

“Serves you little buzzards right. I couldn’t bring any of my acts with me—none of the ones who had
natural
talent.” Pierce clapped his hands. “So it’s up to you two to find me some new talent. I need to do some administrative work back at the office.”

Thirty-five minutes later, Pierce walked into the space where Ava had set up a makeshift war room. She was still fighting to get some of his artists from MEG, but Sim and his people were giving her a hard time. Although she was tenacious, Pierce knew if they didn’t come up with some decent acts soon, those promises of new jobs he’d made to his former employees would be broken.

“Why do my friends—and their boyfriends—continue to insist I enter a practice I know nothing about?” Ava grumbled. “First Brandi Spencer’s lawsuit about her husband’s mistress, then Raven and her custody mess. Now you with this deal.”

“Right now, you’re the only one I can trust; you won’t let them buy you off.” Pierce gave her a faint bitter smile. He wouldn’t add that having Ava around also helped him keep tabs on Raven, the main reason he wanted to keep her working with him. “And it’s practically your fault anyway.”

“Oh, don’t put a guilt trip on me. That only works on married people and children.”

“You’re married, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” She waggled a finger. “But not to you.” Ava went back to clicking away on her laptop.

He groaned, settling into his comfortable chair. “This has been so out of control.”

“Sort of like being with Simeon?”

“Different. The people I hired for MEG are holding out until I get my act together. My best acts are at his mercy because things weren’t done decently and properly in the first place, and I just wasted hours in a ballroom, listening to wannabes screech at me.” He leaned back in the chair and stared up at the fluorescent lights. “What I’d really like to do is restructure my old MEG acts. Make Grace and DeMarco a duet. Put two of the girls from Sisters on the Edge with Urban Griot to form a new group. Then I could put the remaining two sisters with two new women to get another sound.”

Ava paused, flipped open a folder, whipped out some documents, and scanned for a minute. “You can do that.” She passed him their contracts. “Doesn’t say anything about them being part of certain duos or groups. They’ll just have to work under a new name until their contracts run out with MEG, then break out into their original formations a little later.”

Pierce jerked up. “I’ll be damned! Why didn’t I think of this before? If Sim wants a beef, he’ll at least have to offer them more money to keep them from buying out their contracts, and he won’t do that if they go real high.” He stood and began to pace. “And if I can at least get one movie project going and a soundtrack, we’ll be on the map.”

“Raven said she’ll do it for points on the back end.” She scowled at him. “Against my advice, I might add.”

He stopped pacing. “She’s willing to get paid
after
the movie’s done?”

“Yes. You’ll be able to spend more up front to get it completed.” She shook her head. “She insists that I represent both of you, and it’s trying my ethics here.”

Pierce leaned against the window overlooking Park Avenue, closed his eyes, asked quietly, “How is she?”

“She’s doing…fine, I guess.”

“That sounds more like a question than an answer.” He frowned at her. “Are you keeping something from me? You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”

Ava’s gaze focused on him, hazel eyes filled with worry. “Not if she made me promise not to.”

He nodded. “But you’d let me know if she was in danger or if she really needed me, right? Regardless of that?”

Seconds passed before Ava nodded.

Pierce let out a long, slow breath. “If you think she wants to know, tell her I still love her, and I’m here if she needs me. All she has to do is call.”

Ava looked away. “I have a colleague in L.A. who can help with everything with the movie studios.”

Disappointed that Ava didn’t say more about Raven, he asked, “This is going to work, right?”

“Yes.”

“Wish I could say the same for Raven and me,” he muttered.

“It will, Pierce, just give it time. You have to understand that she’s been single the majority of her adult life. She’s not used to compromising.”

“Doesn’t she know that love requires compromises?”

“That’s the problem.” Ava touched his beefy hand. “She’s never been in love before.”

That stopped him cold. “Never?”

“Never.” She lowered the screen on her laptop. “That’s why her books come out so strong on romance and erotica. She’s writing what she
wants
to experience, not what she already has.” Ava ran a manicured hand through her auburn tresses, then pushed her laptop aside. “Pierce, I’m going to tell you something here—and I’m telling you because I know you really care about Raven.”

“I don’t care about her,” he shot back. “I love her, more than I need to.”

Ava told Pierce about Raven’s background, the pain, the abandonment by her father, both of her mothers, mistreatment by her brother and sister, then being kicked to the curb at eighteen by Eric’s father—things that Raven
should
have told him. “She’s built this shell around her. I feel it, too, and I’m her best friend. But I know she only keeps her guard up because she has no choice—for so long,
no one
loved her, no one really took care of her—at least not any of the people who mattered. Her own mother saw her every single day and didn’t want to be bothered. She was without love for so long that now, she doesn’t know how to let anyone in to give it to her.”

Pierce absorbed that bit of info, chiding himself for not being the type of man that Raven felt she could share this information with.

“Words have been her salvation. Whenever she was hurt, she wrote about it in her journal. Whenever life dealt her another blow, she wrote about it and kept moving.” Ava waited until he looked at her before saying, “If I know Raven the way I think I do, she’s scared, Pierce. Real scared. And she’ll use any excuse to walk away from you before you let her down, too.”

Pierce felt like such an ass. “I don’t want to do the back and forth from New York to Chicago thing. I want what you have—marriage—waking up every morning next to the person I love. Long-distance relationships almost always fail. I didn’t ask that she do it then and there. I just wanted her to consider it.”

“You’ve come on so strong and so fast, and she wasn’t expecting it—just like you weren’t.”

“Wrong, I’ve
always
expected it,
always
wanted it.” Pierce ran a hand over his bare head. “I envied my parents’ closeness. Sometimes, it was like I didn’t exist. Unlike Raven, my parents were actually there—and yet they weren’t. They were so into each other, I felt like I was an intruder.”

Ava tilted her head.

“I want that kind of love—that kind of bond—a strong, stand-together-through-all-type-of-whatever love. My parents survived racism and class discrimination, laughed with life, enjoyed each other, and never tired of being together. I want that. I had hoped Raven wanted it, too.”

“She does. She just doesn’t want to admit it.” Ava touched his shoulder. “Pierce, I’m rooting for you. So is Eric. Eric wanted to make sure his mother experienced love and was with a good man before…”

“Before what?”

“Nothing,” she said, extracting her hand from his broad shoulders.

His gaze narrowed on her as he gripped her hand. “What is it?”

She remained silent for several minutes, then walked to the window, keeping her back to him. “Eric has a tumor in his pituitary gland and another in an area of the brain not far from it. They’re both operable, but he’s refused to have any invasive treatment. The first tumor could make him go blind, and the second tumor…he could die at any moment.”

“Why didn’t anyone
tell me?
”

“He didn’t want anyone outside of family to know.”

“So why are you telling me now?”

Ava turned to him then, sadness filling her eyes. “If you have to ask, then you don’t realize how important you are to them.” She walked back to the table, her fingertips gliding over the case of her laptop. “Eric handpicked you solely because his mother admired you on a television show, Pierce. Her one little comment caused him to postpone going to college in order to intern with you. To watch you. To learn from you.”

Pierce dropped into the chair across from Ava, too numb to say anything.

“So time might be on your side, but it’s not on his.”

“I would never be able to tell. He’s so…vibrant…he’s…so young!” Pierce lowered his head into his hands. “Damn!”

“He’s made his peace with it, and that’s more than I can say for the adults around him. He respects the circle of life—understands the bigger picture.”

Ava grabbed her jacket and began putting it on. “We’ll have to continue this discussion later. I have to get back to Chicago for a...ahem…funeral.”

Pierce eyed her suspiciously.

“But I will say this.” She took a deep breath. “I almost lost Raven as a friend because I was protecting that boy’s wishes. It’s hard, even with his positive attitude, to let him go his own way. I want him here with us, and not just spiritually, as he calls it. But I’ve learned more from his attitude toward dying than from my own beliefs about living.”

Pierce looked at her for a long moment.

“So don’t go letting pride screw things up,” she said softly. “There are so many things right with you two. Your stubbornness and hers could land you both where you don’t want to be—alone.” She placed her hand on top of his. “And you know as well as I do, you really, really belong together.”

He remained silent then whispered, “Eric could die?”

She nodded. “And he wants to walk his Mom down the aisle—no crutches, no bandages—all of him intact.” Ava gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “Don’t let our hard work be in vain—especially when it’s so obvious that Eric was right.”

“Hey, you two.” Eric entered Pierce’s office, but froze when he saw Ava’s tears and Pierce’s stricken expression. “Aunt Avie?”

She couldn’t meet his eyes.

“You told him?”

She nodded, then added quickly, “About your tumors,” before he could mention Jaylon’s death.

Eric slumped into the nearest chair, dark brown eyes flashed with anger. He was silent for a moment, stunned by Ava’s willingness to admit she hadn’t kept his secret. “But why? I asked you all not to—”

“Marie called me, Eric.” Ava’s gaze flickered to him. “She’s scared. I could’ve sworn you said you were going to wait until you got married before having sex.”

“I did.”

“So what happened?” she said in a voice laced with disappointment. “Hormones get the best of you?”

“I did,” Eric repeated.

“Yes, I know you did,” she snapped, hands gripping the table.

Eric’s jaw went slack. He looked at Pierce, who shook his head and said, “Ava, what he’s trying to tell you is that he
did
get married.”

Hazel eyes went wide with shock, her hand froze midway toward her hair, but as realization took over, she jumped to her feet, eyes blazing. “You
what
!!!”

“I got married five weeks ago.”

Ava bore down on him. “How could you do that without parental consent?”

“My birth certificate says that I’m…eighteen…”

She frowned up at him. “But you’re seventeen. I know that for a fact.”

“Well, that’s what it said a month ago,” he countered, letting the meaning carry. “Parental consent isn’t needed in New York for eighteen-year-olds…”

Ava walked away, hands balled into fists by her sides. Then she stood ramrod straight in the middle of the carpeted floor and took several deep breaths. She whirled to face him. “You did it without even telling us? How selfish of you. I would’ve wanted to—”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” he shot back, trembling with anger or fear. He couldn’t figure out which. “You and Mom would’ve tried to talk me out of it.”

“Damn straight! You’re too young to be taking on a wife. You’re only—”

“A man with principles who knows that time isn’t my friend and that waiting five more months might not happen, not only because of my…
condition,
but also because my penis gets hard when a strong wind blows my way.”

Ava flinched. Pierce’s eyebrows shot up. Both had the presence of mind to remain silent.

Eric reached out for her, softening his tone a little. “I did it because I love Marie. You think it was easy for me not to tell the two most important women in my life? You think it was easy to see how sad it made Marie not to have your blessing? Mom’s blessing? Not have you there? Or Pierce?” Eric ignored the stab of pain in his chest. “Well, forgive me if I learned it’s better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.”

“That’s lawyer talk and you know it,” Ava snapped.

“It works just the same. So forgive me for making Marie my wife instead of my whore.” Eric let out a long, slow breath. “Aunt Avie, I know you’re upset, but imagine if you heard that we were having sex and we
weren’t
married.” Her expression remained blank, and he moved in closer. “You wouldn’t be as upset, would you? Why? Because it’s better to not be married and have sex, as long as we’re careful?”

Ava gasped, then her honeyed skin flushed with color.

“I don’t want that! I don’t want to be like everyone else, Auntie. You and Mom taught me to respect women. If I had the time to court her for a couple of years, then maybe we wouldn’t be in such a rush. I love Marie. If being moral is wrong, then I erred on the side of doing the best I could.”

Her lips quivered as Eric threw himself into her arms. Her tears landed on his polo shirt.

“I did what was right for me,” he explained gently.

“Yes, you did,” she assured him, patting his back.

“So you’re not mad?”

“Not mad. Disappointed.” She laid her forehead on his shoulder. “I wanted to see you get married.”