The Best Thing He Never Knew He Needed (26 page)

Later in the evening, he’d
spent a couple of hours working out – lifting weights and running
on the treadmill. He did what he had to do to keep his mind off of
Sherita. He hadn’t spoken to her all day. He had a decision to make
about her – to leave her alone or love her. Both options struck
fear within him because he did care for her, and he, for sure,
didn’t want another man stepping in and doing for her what he
couldn’t do. Still, it wasn’t fair to lead her on to think their
relationship would be anything more if that wasn’t his
intention.

* * *

On Monday, Desmond sat at
his desk, fully committing himself to phase two of the marketing
plan for Service Swap. He’d just dismissed key members of the team
he put together for this project when Dimitrius had come by his
office to leave Sherita’s bank statements – the ones he had
requested. Dimitrius didn’t even bother asking him why he wanted
them. He just dropped the manila folder on Desmond’s desk and
walked away.

Desmond looked at the
folder. He was on a roll with the marketing plan, and he didn’t
want to stop, but the statements left him curious. So, taking the
folder in his hand, he set the marketing plan off to the side and
began going through Sherita’s bank statements. Line-by-line he
browsed her purchases, paying more attention to the bigger
transactions like the withdrawal she made every month for
fifteen-hundred dollars. Then there was another transaction for
seven-hundred dollars. Her ending balance last month was close to
eight-hundred dollars.

Desmond leaned back in his
chair. He had no clue where the fifteen-hundred was going since it
was a cash withdrawal, but the seven-hundred had been paid directly
to a leasing company – the rent for her apartment, well when she
had an apartment.

Desmond scratched his head.
Why was he going through her bank statements anyway? Initially, he
wanted to see her statements so he could determine how she was
doing financially since she had jokingly made a comment about how
she had been struggling. He looked at her account again. She hadn’t
paid rent for two months, so shouldn’t her ending balance have been
more than eight-hundred dollars? And where was this fifteen-hundred
dollars going?

He thought back to the
note she scribbled in her planner, the one that said, M/D Mortgage.
She didn’t own a home, so why did she have something about a
mortgage in her planner. Then it hit him.
M/D
was Mom and Dad. She was paying
her parent’s mortgage. He frowned. According to her bank
statements, she couldn’t afford to support herself and pay her
parent’s mortgage, but she was doing it anyway. She
was
struggling.

Desmond looked up when he
heard taps at the door. He watched Dante enter.

“
What’s up, Des? Thought
I’d come in here to catch up with you for a second.” Dante made
himself comfortable in a chair in front of Desmond’s
desk.

“
How was the zoo on
Saturday?” Desmond asked.

“
It was nice. The kids
enjoyed it. You should’ve seen how Ezra was looking at all the
animals. And little Grace went nuts in the aquarium. That little
girl loves water. Dimitrius is already talking about swimming
lessons when she’s old enough.”

Desmond cracked a smile.
“That’s a good idea.”

“
Yes it is. So let’s talk
phase two…Service Swap…where are we on that?”

“
It’s a work in progress,”
Desmond told him. “In phase one, I laid out the target
audience—”

“
Speaking of the target
audience,” Dante interrupted, “Just wanted to mention this to you
while it’s on my mind. Victor doesn’t think we should only market
this concept to middle-class families. He thinks it would be a
major benefit to the upper and lower class.”

“
As long as he’s okay with
increasing his budget, I’m good with taking that
approach.”

Dante nodded.

“
Which leads me to phase
two,” Desmond continued. “During this implementation stage, I’ve
met with my team this morning to lay out who’s doing what.
Everybody has their assignment, and the team knows how important
this account is to us.”

“
Sounds like we’re moving
right along then.”

“
We are. After reading
that article on Victor, I knew just where to take phase two. Thanks
for texting me about it.”

“
No problem,
bro.”

Desmond glanced down at
Sherita’s bank statements again. “Hey, Dante, I meant to ask you
something.”

“
What is it?”

“
Back when we were
discussing what it would take to secure this deal with Victor and
you proposed Sherita and I get married, I told you she wouldn’t go
for it, but you were confident you could get her on board, which
you did. How did you do it?”

“
I told her what was at
stake and how much the deal would mean to the
corporation.”

Desmond lifted a brow. “And
it was that easy?”

“
Well, she didn’t want to
do it initially, but using my persuasive powers—” Dante paused.
Laughed. “I’m kidding. She agreed to do it after I begged. She
hated the idea. No offense.”

Desmond smirked. “None
taken. I figure she didn’t want to do it. I just assumed you’d
offered her money.”

Dante checked his watch. He
had a meeting in a few minutes and wanted to make sure he was back
to his office in time. “I did offer her money…offered her a million
dollars.”

Desmond glanced down at her
bank statements, then with a look of disbelief, he asked, “You
offered her a million dollars?”

“
I did.”

Desmond grimaced. Sherita
had come down hard on him about using her for the million dollar
contract with Victor when she was paid a million dollars to go
through with it. She was no better than him. And since she took the
money, did she really love him like she claimed?

He looked at her bank
statements again. Confused. Something wasn’t making sense. Surely
that kind of money would’ve been deposited in her bank account. So
where was it? Another bank perhaps?

He looked up at Dante again
and saw a smirk on his face. Dante was studying him. Reading him.
“Are you telling me the truth, Dante?”

Dante crossed his legs and
brushed a finger across his mustache. “I am. I offered her a
million dollars.”

“
Did you give her a check,
or did you wire the money to her account?” Desmond
asked.

“
Neither.”

“
How’s that possible?”
Desmond questioned, growing irritated.

“
Easy. She turned it
down.”

His face went blank. “She
turned it down?”

“
Sure did. She said she
wouldn’t take any money from me…said Emily and I were like
family…said I was like a brother to her.”

Desmond slumped forward,
leaning over his desk, burying his face in his hands. She didn’t
take the money. She was struggling to pay her parent’s mortgage,
had dreams of owning a portrait studio, and before he bought her a
laptop, she had to use Emily’s computer, but she declined a million
dollars.

“
Is there a problem?”
Dante asked. He wouldn’t force Desmond to talk to him, just like he
couldn’t force him to see Sherita was a good woman. He had to
figure it out all on his own.

“
Nothing I can’t handle,”
Desmond responded.

“
Well, I guess I’ll get
back to my office.” Dante stood up.

“
Wait, before you leave, I
need to talk to you about something.”

“
What is it,
Des?”

Desmond sighed then said,
“I’ve never been in love, Dante, and I’m not sure if I’m…I don’t
know if…I—” Desmond shook his head. “Never mind.”

Dante sat down again.
Desmond wanted to talk about love. That was a good thing. It
must’ve meant he was referring to Sherita. So, to answer what he
think his brother was trying to ask, Dante said, “Could you imagine
this woman making love to another man? Seeing her holding hands
with another man? Sharing a life with someone else? Can you
honestly say that if you never spoke to this woman again, never saw
her face again you would be okay?”

Desmond dropped his head.
No, he couldn’t imagine those things. He couldn’t bring himself to
think about Sherita having a life with someone else.

Dante stood up and said,
“Think about it. I’ll chat with you later.”

“
Yeah. Later.”

* * *

At home, sitting on the
sofa in the same position that he’d remembered holding Sherita
there once, Desmond dialed her number. He hadn’t talked to her
since Saturday and now that Dante clarified a few things with him,
he knew he had to talk to her. He didn’t like how things had ended
when he’d left the beach without even saying goodbye. He just left,
didn’t give a thought to how she may have felt when she got up in
the morning and saw that he was missing.

He listened as the phone
rang, waiting to hear her voice. Needing to hear her
voice.

“
Hello,” she said
unenthused.

“
Hi, Sherita.”

After a brief pause, she
responded, “Hi.”

“
How are you?”

She sighed. “I’m okay. Been
busy. How are you?”

“
Been busy, too.” He
sighed heavily. “I haven’t spoken with you since Saturday, so I
thought I’d call. I didn’t like the way we ended
things.”

“
We?”

“
Yes,” he said.

“
You weren’t even supposed
to be here. You were upset because I wouldn’t agree to call you
every thirty minutes, and you flew here just to confront me about
it.”

“
I flew there because I
was worried about you…because I kept having these visions in my
head of something bad happening to you, and I needed to make sure
you were okay.”

“
Let’s not rehash that
again.”

“
Agreed,” he
said.

“
I am glad you called,
though, because I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and this madness
between us has to stop,” Sherita said. “It’s not like we’re going
to end up together.”

This from the woman who
said she loved him.
Why was she ready to
give up so easily?

“
Umm…so,” Sherita
stammered. “We can remain living together if it’s required for you
and your brothers to secure this deal, or I can check with Dante to
see if I can go ahead and move out. That’s probably the better
option.”

Desmond felt a tightness in
his throat. This isn’t how he imagined the conversation would go.
“You want to move out?”

“
At this point, I think
it’s the best thing to do…for the both of us.”

“
This point? What point is
that?”

“
You’re a very intelligent
man, Desmond. You know what I mean. I’m…” She stopped herself from
saying what was on the tip of her tongue because she didn’t want to
offend him in any way, but then something came over her that didn’t
care if he was offended or not. It was time to put her feelings
first. “I’m done with falling in love with men who can’t love me in
return. So I’m moving out. That way, I can come and go as I please
without disturbing you, and you can entertain your guests without
worrying about me.”

Entertain your
guests.
He already knew she was referring
to women. He had told her before she was the only woman who had
ever been inside of his house. So why was she alluding to something
she knew wasn’t true?

Desmond closed his eyes and
pulled in a breath. “Sherita, first of all, I told you I don’t
invite women over to my house.”

“
It doesn’t
matter.”

“
It
does
matter. Why would I lie about
that?”

“
Why do you do half the
things you do, Desmond? I don’t know, and I don’t care. I just know
this back-and-forth between us is over. I’ve already been checking
out a few places, and I think I found a nice apartment. It’s only a
studio, but that’s all I need short term.”

“
And you’d rather move out
of my house to go back to a studio apartment?”

“
Definitely. You have a
massive, five-bedroom house with all the trimmings, but’s it’s just
as cold and shallow as your heart. I know I can do
better.”

Desmond forced himself to
breathe, feeling like his heart was slowing to a steady
stop.

“
Are you done talking?”
Sherita asked. “I’m not feeling well and was just about to lie
down.”

“
How did we get here,
Sherita?” Desmond heard himself asking when he couldn’t find any
other words to say.

“
Easy. I fell in love with
a man who doesn’t want me.”

“
I do want you. I’ve
always wanted you, Sherita.”

“
I’ve said it before, and
I’ll say it again…if it wasn’t for this deal, you wouldn’t be the
least bit interested in me. Desmond Champion doesn’t settle down.
Desmond Champion doesn’t want a wife and kids. Desmond Champion is
Asheville’s most eligible bachelor. He has all the women thinking
that, like his brothers, he’d settle down too, but not Desmond
Champion. He doesn’t marry for love. He marries for money. For the
sake of a company. He could care less about the women he damaged
along the way. And I know there were plenty of fools before
me…plenty of women who thought they found a winner when all you are
is a cold-hearted, womanizing, self-gratifying, narcissistic jerk
with a fancy house and a big bank account. Yeah, I can do
better.”