Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man (The Sinatras of Jericho County Book 1) (4 page)

He
looked around the room.
 
Everybody was so
festive.
 
Yet he was alone again.
 
Then he realized he actually preferred the
solitude, although he was rarely able to enjoy it, and took a seat in one of
the round, arch-top chairs and continued to observe the boisterous crowd.
 
It wouldn’t take long, he knew, before
somebody else would discover such a peaceful haven too, so he had to enjoy it
while he could.

He
sat back, unbuttoned his suit coat, and relaxed.
 
He noticed several attractive women in the
crowd, and spent most of his time watching them.
 
He had to spend the night in Boston, to
attend business meetings he had tomorrow morning in town, and having a nice,
soft body to warm his bed wouldn’t be a bad option.
 
But one body in particular, a woman with the
most captivating smile, held his attention the most.
 

And
when he saw her coming toward the haven, after admiring her from across the
room, he crossed his legs and continued to enjoy the view.
 
There was something about her that radiated
warmth.
 
Even her walk, where her feet veered
slightly outward, as if she was almost slue-foot, amused him.
 
She wore a blue skirt suit, not expensive by
any stretch, but well-made, and matching high heels.
 
The middle section of her jacket was buttoned
up, revealing big breasts that jetted out beyond the form of the jacket, and a
flat stomach that appeared toned and tucked in beneath the button.
 
But despite the breasts, she was an overall
small woman.
 
But with curves.
 
A slender woman with curves.
 
He was going to enjoy this up close and personal
view, he thought, as she arrived.

CHAPTER THREE

She
nodded her hello as she sat down in the chair across from him, but it was
obvious she wasn’t there for chitchat.
 
She slanted her shapely legs sideways, removed one of her high heels,
and began massaging her slender toes.
 
Relief washed over her pretty face as she massaged.
 
He first noticed her when she kept declining
various invitations to dance from the men in attendance.
 
He noticed her within minutes of his arrival
at the reception.
 
The music was loud,
the ballroom was festive, but she was moving in and out of the crowd like a
woman with more than a party on her mind. She was talking and smiling when it
suited her; listening and looking serious when it didn’t.
 
He noticed her throughout the evening.
 
And it wasn’t just because she was the only
African-American in the room, even though that very distinction made her
noticeable in and of itself.
 
But mainly
because, even from his vantage point far away from her, he thought her
stunning.

“Feet
bothering you?” he asked her.
 

Jenay
Franklin looked up at the man across from her.
 
His legs were crossed, he had a glass of wine in his hand, and his suit
was far too expensive to mistake him as Staff.
 
“I do believe my feet have grown a full inch since I purchased this
particular pair of shoes,” she replied.

Charles
nodded his head.
 
“I’m sure that’s the
answer.”

Jenay
grinned.
 
“Yes, they are killing me.
 
And I know it looks strange, massaging my
toes in the middle of a wedding reception, but I couldn’t hold out another
second.”

“Damn
right,” Charles replied.
 
“If I had to
walk around in those stilts all day long I’d be rubbing toes too.
 
Rub away,” he added, lifted his glass in a
toast, and took a sip.

Jenay
rubbed away, and was pleased that he didn’t find her behavior
objectionable.
 
But she also took a peep
at him as he sipped his drink.
 
Late
thirties.
 
Average height.
 
Athletically built.
 
A square-lined jaw and strong chin.
 
But it was his vivid green eyes and fair skin,
contrasted with his wavy jet-black hair slicked back, that garnered most of her
attention.
 
Movie stars had nothing on
this man.

She
wondered which side was he on, because that was the feel in the room.
 
Two sides coming together, not because they
wanted to, but because they had to.
 
The
bride’s side were, by and large from what she could decipher, Irish.
 
And the groom’s side was almost all
Italian.
 
It would have been easy for her
to assume that he was with the Italians, but she learned later in life to never
assume anything.
 
“Bride or groom?” she
asked him.

“Groom,”
Charles said.
 
“I’m the father of the
groom.”

“Oh
the
father
,” Jenay said,
surprised.
 
The wedding was held at a
different location, at a church rather than the hotel’s ballroom, and she
didn’t attend the wedding.
 
She heard
talk and loads of gossip about the groom’s father as she moved around the room,
mainly from the bride’s side of the wedding party, but she never bothered to
seek out who this man was.
  
Now she was
sitting in front of him.
 
She was
surprised she hadn’t noticed him earlier, because he definitely stood out.
 
“Congratulations,” she said to him.
 
“Now I see my observation was right.
 
To have a father your age, the groom has to
be very young.”

“He’s
eighteen,” Charles responded.
 
“So yeah,
you’ve got that right.
 
He’s very young.”

“Very,”
she said.
 
She got married young, when
she was twenty-two.
 
But eighteen?
 
“I don’t think my father would have allowed
me to even think about getting married at eighteen.”

“It’s
not that unusual where I come from,” Charles pointed out, “but that doesn’t
mean it would have been my preference for him.
 
It wasn’t.
 
I talked to him about
it.
 
But he was sooo in love with the
girl he considered to be the catch of the century, that he made it clear if I
objected, he was going to run off and get married and I would never see him
again.”

“Oh
my,” Jenay said.
 
“What did you do?”

“I
slapped the shit out of him,” Charles said, and Jenay laughed.
 
When she realized he wasn’t kidding at all,
she turned serious too.
 
“I still noted
my objection,” Charles continued, “but I didn’t stand in his way.
 
You marry young when you blow it.
 
My son got carried away one night and got his
cute little girlfriend knocked up.
 
Now
the kid’s expecting a kid.
 
He blew
it.
 
He played the piper, now he’s got to
pay the piper.
 
Her old man is some judge
of some sort, and he wasn’t about to let his daughter shame their supposedly
blue blood name, so he’s shot-gunning this wedding as if he had sharpshooters
on the roof.”

Jenay
was surprised that he would be so candid.
 
She wasn’t quite sure how to take it.

“Don’t
worry,” he said.
 
“It’s no secret.
 
It’s like a point of pride with young people
nowadays.
 
They know all about condoms
and birth control, but they don’t use either.”
 
He looked at Jenay, at those sizeable breasts of hers, and then into her
big, gorgeous gray eyes.
 
“I’d bet you
wouldn’t be so reckless.”

He
and Jenay exchanged a glance.
 
Whatever
passed between them when their eyes met, caused a searing heat to rise within
her.
   
Which, her experience taught her,
meant that it was time to go.
 
Although
her feet were still killing her, she began putting back on her shoe. “I’m sure
they love each other very much,” she said as an aside.

“Love
each other my foot,” Charles responded as a fact.
 
“They lust each other.
 
They want it and want it all the time.
 
This isn’t about love.
 
This has lust written all over it.”
 
He glanced at the curvature of Jenay’s
waist.
 
And then at her breasts
again.
 
So plump and tight.
 
He could suck the life out of those two
breasts.
 

He
leaned forward, as his dick began to throb.
 
“What would an eighteen year old kid know about love?” he
continued.
 
“But I’m sure it’s all my
fault, so what can I complain about?
 
They say these things are cyclical; that they run in a vicious
cycle.
 
My oldest son is twenty-two.
 
I was seventeen when I knocked up his mother
so definitively that she was showing within a week.”

Jenay
laughed.
 
“Yeah, right.”

“No
lie,” he said with a smile of his own.
 
“And her old man was the same way.
 
‘You impregnated my daughter,’ he said to me, ‘you’re going to marry
her.’
 
So I called myself doing the right
thing and we got married.
 
A shot-gun
affair too.
 
Now my boy, my youngest, is
in the same predicament.”

His
smile dissolved.
 
“Other than the sons my
marriage produced,” he said as he looked across the room at one of those sons,
“it was the worst mistake of my life.”

Jenay
was taken aback by the man’s bluntness.
 
Rarely did she get to hear raw truth anymore.
 
It was refreshing.
 
She looked across the room where he was now
looking.
 
His son, the groom, an upbeat
young man still in his tuxedo, was grinning like a kid as his new bride shoved
a handful of cake into his mouth.

“Probably
going to be the worst mistake of his life too,” Charles said as he watched his
son.
 
“Poor kid.”
 
He had sadness in his voice.
 
Jenay looked back at him.
 
He had sadness in his eyes too.
 

“But
what can you do?” Charles added regrettably.
  
“He’s a grown man now.
 
He came to
me mildly, told me what he needed to do, so I didn’t object.”

Jenay
smiled.
 
“Mildly?
 
Why would you say he came to you mildly?”

“My
sons know the deal.
 
They come to me
right, or not at all.
 
He came to me
respectfully, I guest would be the better word.”
 
Charles had a flashback, of his children as
little children again, and they were running away from him.
 
He kept trying to catch them, but they kept
running away.
 
They kept telling him they
had to go.
 

Then
he dismissed such thoughts as unproductive, and looked, once again, at the
woman across from him.
 
“That’s my excuse
for being here,” he said to her.
 
“What’s
your excuse?
 
Classy broad like
you?”
 
Jenay smiled.
 
“You’re with the bride’s party then?”

“Neither
party,” Jenay said.
 
“I’m Staff.
 
Well, sort of.
 
My job is to make sure there are no problems
or delays or any disagreements.
 
And
since there hasn’t been any, I guess I’m doing my job.
 
I guess I’m passing the test.”

“So
you work here at this hotel then?”

“I’m
actually a student at the Boston Hospitality Institute.”

“The
Boston what?”

She
smiled.
 
“The Boston Hospitality
Institute.
 
BHI.
 
I’m studying hotel management.
 
I’m finishing up my internship.
 
I’m interning at this hotel.
 
This reception is my mid-term exam.”

“You’re
an intern?”

“That’s
right.”

Charles
couldn’t relate to that on any level.
 
“Aren’t you a little old to be somebody’s intern?”

Jenay
smiled.
 
Raw
truth indeed!

But
Charles saw something else in her eyes, beyond her smile. Something that told
him he had hurt her.
 
And, for some
reason, that disturbed him mightily.
 
“I
didn’t mean to be cruel,” he suddenly said.
 
“Please forgive me.
 
I thought you
could take it.”

“You
weren’t being cruel at all,” Jenay reassured him.
 
“ And I can take it!
 
You were only stating the obvious.
 
I’m not exactly twenty-two or twenty-three
anymore.”

“More
like thirty-two or thirty-three?”

“Thirty-two,
yes,” she said.
 
Then she smiled.
 
“Most men wouldn’t have the nerve to suggest
an age like that.
 
They’d be too afraid
they would get it wrong.
 
On the
too old
side of wrong.”

“I
know.
 
My sons are always telling me I’m
too blunt, I’m too hard, I need to calibrate.”

“To
lie, in other words,” Jenay said.

“Exactly,”
Charles said with a smile.
 
He liked this
girl.
 
“I told them what they can do with
their calibration.”

Jenay
laughed.
 
Charles looked down, at her
thighs.
 
They almost opened when she
laughed.
 
He could hardly wait to taste
what was between them.
 
And he decided
right then and there: he was going to taste her.
 
“As I’m sure you’ve already surmised,” he
went on, “I embarrass my children to no end.”

“That’s
the nature of parenthood,” Jenay agreed.
 
“They can take you, or leave you.
 
How many children do you have?”

“That
I know of?”

Jenay
laughed. “Yes, that you know of.”

“Four
sons.
 
Stair-steps, except for my
oldest.
 
But the good news,” he said with
a smile, “is that all of them are grown and gone.
 
Except for Anthony, he’s my
twenty-year-old.
 
He dropped out of
college and thinks he’s going to travel the world, on my dime, with some
Christian missionary group.
 
He’ll be
back in school next term.”