Lovers and Takers (3 page)

“Stop saying that!” Kara Wingate admonished her older cousin as they stood in the bedroom and looked at the dress Kara had just brought over.
 
“It fits.
 
You look fab in this thing.”

But Roni, her older cousin, wasn’t feeling it.
 
“How in the world do I look good in a dress that’s too low on the top and too high on the bottom?
 
Come on now, KayKay.
 
This looks way too tight to me.”

“
Duh
?
 
It’s supposed to look tight!
 
I told you he likes to see his women that way.”

“What way?” Roni asked.
 
“Too tight to move?”

Kara rolled her cat-like, dark eyes.
 
“He likes to see some skin, you know what I mean.
 
And with your body, and the way you’re styling this little black dress right here, girl please.
  
That man is gonna eat you alive!”

Roni moved from side to side looking at
herself
, and at different angles of the fit in her full-length bedroom mirror.
 
She had a big-breasted, curvaceous figure and a serious, intelligent face that she felt was made beautiful only because of her big, hazel eyes.
 
She knew men found her generally attractive, but only just.
 

And she also knew that men could be funny about your body.
 
Some men liked the curvaceous look.
 
They craved it even.
 
But other men, like her ex, were ultimately not interested.
 
From all she’d ever heard about this Jake Varnadore that Kara was determined to set her up with tonight, he, too, favored the stick-thin, supermodel types.
 
Which, Roni could also see right in front of her, was exactly what she was not.

She turned sideways once again, looking in the mirror, trying to see what Kara declared she saw.
 
She remembered sadly how her ex-fiancé once told her that she was pretty, and she had a lot of personality going for her, but she had too much junk in her trunk for him.
 
When she reminded Kara of that very fact, Kara laughed.

“Remember the source,” she said.
 
“Curtis liked
those
skinny, skanky women, as we discovered way too late.”
 
Although Kara said this casually, that discovery had been an earth-shattering revelation for Roni.
 
She and Kara exchanged a glance.
   

“What I’m trying to saying,” Kara continued more diplomatically, “is that any woman who has any kind of ass at all would have too much junk in her trunk for Curtis.”

“I hear what you’re saying,” Roni said, “but this Jake Varnadore likes his women skinny, too.
 
At least from everything that I’ve seen.”

“Oh, Roni, please,” Kara said.
 
“That man likes women, period,
not
just skinny ones.
 
You’re just nervous because he’s white.”

Roni looked at her cousin.
 
The last thing on her mind was that man’s race.
 
She wondered sometimes if her cousin knew her at all.
 
Or, in truth, if she truly knew her cousin.

“You’re probably having some misgivings about dating a white man with all of these brothers out here,” Kara clarified.
 
“That’s all I’m saying.
 
And I feel you.
 
I was the same way when
me
and Aubrey first hooked up, and Aubrey’s only half-white!
 
But Jake Varnadore isn’t like that.
 
He loves the ladies, he doesn’t care what color they are.
 
And besides, his ex-wife, Aubrey and Pam’s mother, she’s as black as we are.
 
So that’s not an issue for him and I don’t see why it would be for you.”

Roni sighed.
 
“It’s not an issue, Kara, okay?”
 
Then she frowned.
 
“I just don’t know if this whole thing is a good idea.
 
That’s the issue.”

“Why wouldn’t it be a good idea?
 
You’re an attorney with her own business, you’re smart, you’re savvy,
you’re
just as good as any of those Varnadores.
 
Why wouldn’t it be a good idea?”

As usual Kara had it all wrong.
 
Roni never viewed herself as less than anybody.
 
That wasn’t what it was about for her.
 
“I’m not interested in meeting some overgrown playboy, that’s why it’s not a good idea.
 
And I know he’s not interested in meeting somebody like me.”

Kara looked at her cousin.
 
Although Roni would never admit it, ever since Curtis dumped her that confidence Kara used to admire took a pretty heavy beating.
 
Now Roni had that heart of hers under lock and key, and her womanly needs right along with it.
 
But two years was entirely too long to play the nun, in Kara’s view.
 
Time for cousin to get laid, and, while she was at it, help get Kara on Jake Varnadore’s good side.
 
Which, for Kara, was the entire point for her begging her cousin to go to this dinner with her tonight.

“Will you stop worrying for two minutes?” she said to Roni.
 
“Girl, look at you.
 
Women would die to have that tight, titillating figure of yours, now, come on!
 
And that face, help me please.
 
Mr. V.’s gonna eat you up, I declare he is!
 
You look so serious, and sophisticated.
 
But soft and pretty, too.
 
He’s not about to let this piece of fine brown meat get away from him tonight.
 
No ma’am.
 
Watch what I tell you.”

“And that’s another thing,” Roni said, turning completely toward her cousin this time.
 
“Since when are you so tight with a man like Jake Varnadore that you’d know his taste in women?
 
Especially since it goes counter to any type of woman I’ve ever seen him with.”

This surprised Kara.
 
“And you’ve seen him when?”

“I didn’t mean it literally, Kara.
 
I’ve never seen him in person.
 
But I’ve seen his face on the cover of enough business magazines to know that every time he has a woman on his arms she’s rail thin and gorgeous.
 
And usually blonde.
 
And I mean always, KayKay.”

“Will you please give me credit for some brains?
 
I wouldn’t ask you to do this unless I knew something about the man’s interest.
 
He’ll like your type.
 
He’ll like you.
 
I know what I’m talking about.
 
I do date his son, you know.”

“Yeah, you date Aubrey.
 
And you guys are the best of friends.
 
But you also work for Aubrey.”
 
Roni looked at her cousin.
 
“As his secretary.”

Kara knew what Roni meant.
 
She knew how status was everything in Miami Beach.
 
But she also knew that she was going to have Aubrey if it was the last thing she did have.
 
“That’s only temporary,” she said to Roni.

“That’s what you said three years ago when you first took the job.
 
Yeah, you and Aubrey went to college together and became close friends, and he offered the job and you took it.
 
But you have a teacher’s license, Kara.
 
Why are you wasting your time doing something you don’t even like doing?”

“Because an executive secretary at Varnadore Global pays more money than a starting teacher would ever make.
 
And, besides, Aubrey doesn’t care what my profession is or he wouldn’t have gotten me the job in the first place.
 
He just wanted me to be with him, that’s why he hired me.
 
I know what I’m doing, all right? Yeah, I’m his secretary.
 
But I get paid well, and I get to see him every day, and our friendship is growing stronger and stronger every time I turn around.”

Roni looked at Kara.
 
“Your friendship?” she asked.

Kara was mortified.
 
She didn’t mean to reveal that awful truth just yet.
 
“I mean our relationship,” she corrected with a smile.

Roni gazed at her cousin.
 
She knew Aubrey seemed more friendly than affectionate with Kara whenever she saw them together, but surely Kara wasn’t that far gone.
 
Surely she wouldn’t claim Aubrey as her boyfriend when he was just a friend of hers.
 

“The point is,” Roni said, getting back on point, “you’re still his secretary, KayKay.
 
And it’s a noble profession, don’t get me wrong.
 
But you’re still his secretary.
 
That wouldn’t matter to people like us, no.
 
But I’m
sorry,
I don’t see an image-conscious man like Jake Varnadore overlooking that fact.
 
I can’t see him approving of his son going down that road.
 
I know you think you know Jake Varnadore’s type of women and all that, but you don’t really know him like that.
 
That man doesn’t hang out with people like us.”

“Of course he doesn’t!” Kara said, surprised that she would even suggest it.
 
“He barely says two words to me.
 
And, yes, you’re right.
 
He doesn’t think I’m good enough for his precious Aubrey.
 
I don’t think he thinks any woman is good enough for his son.
 
But he can kiss my ass.
 
I’m going to be Aubrey’s wife whether he likes it or not.
”
 
And you, my book smart but street-dumb cousin Roni
, Kara inwardly added,
is going to be my insurance policy just in case the big man doesn’t like it.
 

“Besides,” Kara continued, “what would a man like him look like hanging out with us?
 
Everybody be terrified when he even comes into a room, even his own children act terrified.
 
Why would we want him hanging out with us?”

Roni looked at her cousin.
 
“And this is the man you want me to date?
 
A man his own children are terrified of?”

“Stop worrying, Roni, damn!”
Kara said with a grin this time.
 
“It’s just his swagger, that’s all.
 
But he’s got two eyes, doesn’t he?
 
And I’m telling you girl, in this dress right here, you will definitely catch the attention of both of those eyes.”

But Roni wasn’t feeling it.
 
Not at all.
 
From what she saw of Jake Varnadore’s photographs in those magazines, that man was all about status.
 
And the women he favored seemed just as superficial.
 
Why would he want to spend his evening with the likes of her when he could have a Miss America at his side?
 
And why, she also wondered, would she subject herself to such an evening?
 
Besides, she had just purchased a good eBook she had planned to read.
 
This was cutting into her reading time!

And just the thought of what a drag this evening was likely to be made her make up her mind.
 
“Nope,” she said out loud, and moved away from the mirror.

Kara’s heart dropped.
 
She needed Roni to make a connection with Jake Varnadore tonight if she ever stood a chance at getting that ring from Aubrey.
 
Aubrey respected his father too much to go against his wishes.
 
That was the one thing she most hated about Aubrey: his unshakeable devotion to that arrogant father of his.

But if that father was distracted by a good woman like Roni who could speak up on Kara’s behalf, and who could encourage him to go along with his son’s choice in mate, then Kara truly believed she stood a chance to be a Varnadore herself someday.
 
And given how long she’d been with Aubrey with absolutely no movement on the romantic front, Kara inwardly believed that Roni might very well represent her only chance.

“What do you mean nope?” she nervously asked her cousin.

“I’m not wearing this tight-ass,
hoochie-mama-written-all-over-it
dress you bought over here,” Roni said as she headed for her closet.

“But you’re still going to the dinner tonight?”

“I’ll still go,” Roni said, causing Kara to literally sigh in relief.
 
“But I’m going to dress comfortably, in an outfit of my own choosing.
 
And if you don’t like it, and if Jake Varnadore doesn’t like it, then tough.
 
At least I’ll get a good meal out of the deal.”

Kara laughed.
 
Roni could be stubborn something fierce, but she always came through for her in the end.