Chapter 4

            It had been a week since the HIV research charity event, so Charles thought that was more than enough time for Toni to cool off.

            He held a bouquet of white roses as he waited for Toni to answer the door. Michelson Investments held the title to the Hull Building There were only two penthouses on each floor. Calvin and Yvonne owned the massive penthouse on the top floor.

            Toni opened the door. She was holding a fried chicken leg in one hand. One of her socks was blue and the other was white. She wore bagging gray sweatpants and a sky-blue T-shirt. Her short dark hair was straight, and it framed her face. Charles adored her button nose.

            He gave her his most devastating smile.

            Toni turned her nose up and remained silent.

            Wow, she’s tough. “I came to apologize. I had more than a little bit of champagne the night of the charity event. I also say foolish things when I’m blinded by a beautiful woman such as yourself.”

            Toni bit into the chicken leg. She slowly chewed as she examined him. “Well, those are pretty flowers, and it has been a long time since a man has given me flowers,” she said with her mouth full.

            “They’re yours for the taking, Toni,” he said with a soft smile.

            Her face softened as she reached out for the bouquet. “Thanks,” she accepted with half a smile.

            “May I come in?”

            “Sure,” she said as she shrugged.

            Charles closed the door and started following Toni down the hallway. Of course, the Hull Building was a perk for top executives and brokers. Years ago, Calvin had let Yvonne live in the penthouse. A year later, she got a roommate – Toni. After Calvin had married Yvonne, he let Toni stay in the penthouse.

            He followed Toni to the light brown couch. He sat down a few inches away from her. Fried chicken filled his nostrils. There was a bucket of KFC chicken on the coffee table along with a box of biscuits, a container of macaroni and cheese, and a container of green beans. There was a paper plate with three chicken bones on it.

            “You want some?” she asked as she pointed her chicken leg at the food on the table.

            “No thanks. Marjorie has spoiled me when it comes to soul food. I can’t eat anyone’s chicken but hers,” Charles said as he stared at Toni.

            She cradled the roses in one arm and held the chicken leg in her other hand. A memory flashed of Toni eating at Yvonne and Calvin’s wedding. Her plate had been piled to the hilt. She had even gone back for seconds. At the time, Charles had assumed that she hadn’t eaten all day, but now that he had seen Toni in her natural habitat, it was obvious that she was a compulsive eater, and she was thin as a twig. “Are you hypoglycemic?” he asked.

            “Hypo what?”

            “Hypoglycemic.”

            “Considering that I don’t know what that is, no,” she answered and bit into the chicken.

            Charles nodded. “I came over here this afternoon to ask you out to dinner. Maybe we can get to know each other better.”

            Her eyebrow arched. “Okay, I’m going to apologize in advance for what I’m about to say. I don’t like messing around. Are you asking me out because you are generally interested in me, or do you want to take me out to dinner so you can fuck me later?”

            The side of Charles’s mouth kicked up with amusement. “My, you do cut to the chase. Believe it or not, I do want to get to know you better. You’re attractive, and something tells me you’re a lot of fun. As far as . . . fucking you . . . let’s say this. If you offered, I wouldn’t say no.”

            “Uh huh,” she mused. “Just because you caught me with Max doesn’t mean I’m easy.”

            “I know,” Charles said. “If I thought that, I wouldn’t have asked you out on a date.”

            “Good point. But where did this interest come from? You have to admit, it is out of the blue.”

            He nodded. He didn’t blame her for asking the question. “I’ve decided that it’s time for me to grow up. I’m looking for a relationship. I . . . I can’t believe I’m admitting this to you, but I want you to know that my intentions are good. I’m looking for a companion. Someone who likes doing the same things I like to do. A woman who has the same interests as I do.”

            Toni stared at him for a moment. “I have to say this is a surprise. You think I could be the one for you?” she asked with astonishment.

            “Possibly.”

            “Mister . . . Charles, I’m a chick from the hood; straight-up ghetto blood, born and raised. I seriously doubt we have anything in common.”

            “Don’t sell yourself short.”

            “I’m not. I’m just trying to save both of us time. I like rap and hip hop. I can only act like I got some sense for eight hours a day, and I save that to do my job at Michelson Investments. I barely graduated from high school, and I only went to community college for one year. I’m not book smart. I know nothing about New York society, nor do I want to.”

            “You’re Yvonne’s best friend. She’s from the hood, as you put it, and she has blended in fine with society.”

            “Wrong,” Toni said. “Yvonne only lived in the Bronx for five years. Before that, she was a wafe from West Virginia who grew up in a stable home and had a formal education. Granted, she had enough street smarts to survive the old neighborhood, but she was raised by her parents and extended family in a middle-class neighborhood.”

            “Is this your way of letting me down easy?” Women didn’t brush him off often, but he knew a brush off when he heard one.

            She gave him a soft smile. “Not necessarily. You are a sexy man, but I don’t think we have enough in common to make a relationship work. However, I wouldn’t say no to a nice friendship.”

            Charles was disappointed, but he wasn’t devastated. He was acting on a whim anyway. “Platonic friendship is fine. Although . . . what about friends with benefits?” he asked with a boyish grin.

            Her head went back as she laughed. “We’ll see, but I’m not making any promises.”

            “Keep an open mind, sweetheart. You won’t be sorry,” he quipped with a smile.

            “I don’t know. The stories about you at Michelson are legendary, and I’m not trying to lose my job,” she said and placed the chicken bone on the plate. Toni stood up. “I’m going to put these in some water.”

            “Hold on. What stories?”

            Toni chuckled as she walked into the kitchen.

            Charles stood and followed her.

            The kitchen walls were sky blue. There was a four-chair, light wood dining table in the middle of the room.

            “I haven’t been at Michelson for almost seven years,” Charles said. “My old office is probably being used for storage.”

            Toni giggled. “Doesn’t matter. You’re a Michelson. For your information, your office is still available. Housekeeping cleans it once a month.”

            Charles frowned. “Truly? What in the hell for? I don’t have any intentions of returning to the company. Granted, I have kept my broker’s license up, but I do it out of habit.” The thought of being stuck in an office again made his skin itch.

            “Not sure, but the order comes from my boss, Geoffrey Mason. Maybe he hopes you will come back to grace us with your presence on the nineteenth floor once again,” she said with a smirk. Toni placed a glass vase under the faucet and turned it on.

            “Well, I hope he’s not holding his breath,” Charles said as his lip turned up. He loved dealing with stocks and bonds, but he liked doing it on his own terms. “What about the things people say about me?” He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall as he watched her.

            Toni turned off the faucet and faced him. “No one has a bad word to say about you. The employees that knew you said you were a joy and lit up the place. But they do talk about the . . . escapades you have had at the building.”

            “Escapades?”

            “Don’t act innocent,” she said as she walked to the table. She picked up a pair of scissors. She cut open the plastic that was around the roses. “I heard about the two secretaries you banged on the fourth floor . . . at the same time,” she said with a smirk.

            Charles cleared his throat. “One of the girls said the broker went to the Exchange, and she didn’t think he’d be back until two.”

            “And she was wrong. Poor guy walked into his office to see a threesome he wasn’t invited to,” Toni said with a smirk as she clipped the stems of the roses.

            Charles couldn’t help but chuckle as he remembered. The broker’s eyes were so bugged out Charles thought they were going to pop out of his head.

            “From what I understand, you didn’t even stop.”

            “What for? We were caught by then,” he joked.

            Toni laughed. “Naughty ass.”

            “Never said I wasn’t,” he said proudly.

            “Oh, and the orgy in the twentieth-floor conference room is the king of all the stories.”

            “What?” he said with wide eyes. “I . . . I . . . people found out about that?”

            “Yep,” she answered as she started to place the roses in the vase. “I was told that a security guard walked in on it.”

            Charles blinked. “Honestly, Toni, I got so drunk and high during that party I don’t remember a guard coming in. I do remember having a damn good time though.”

            Toni laughed again. “Well, the security guard remembered. He said he had never seen anything like it. Something about a sex machine?”

            “Ah, he was probably talking about the Love Glider Sex Machine. You can rent them—”

            “I don’t need to know,” she said quickly.

            Charles laughed. “You don’t mind knowing about it, just me telling you where to get one?”

            Toni shook her head with amusement. “That poor guy. He said there were naked women, white powder, and liquor bottles everywhere. He said you looked up at him as you were getting a blow job and said ‘Dive in.’”

            Charles cracked up. “Did he? I don’t remember.”

“He said he just backed out of the conference room and jogged down the hall to the elevator. From what I understand, that security guard hasn’t been the same since.”

Charles grinned at the memory of him and his buddy licking coke off of a girl’s breasts. “What happened to him?”

            “He took an early retirement.”

            “Well, at least he didn’t have a heart attack. Was that before or after Uncle David died? I can’t remember.”

            “After. Calvin had just taken over as president and CEO.”

            Charles eyebrows furrowed. “I can’t believe Calvin didn’t give me hell about it.” Or did I just block him out as he was?

            “Yvonne covered for you. She told me this part personally. She came into work early the next day, and she saw the conference room door wide open down the hall. She got the shock of her life when she saw . . . well.”

            “Now, that I remember,” Charles stated. “I woke up butt naked on top of the conference room table with a bunch of beauties around me and my buddies passed out on the floor. Yvonne was flustering around the room, using her foot to wake everyone up. She said everyone had to get out of there before the rest of the employees and Calvin came in.”

            “That’s right,” Toni concurred. “She called housekeeping to clean up the mess, but they could only do so much. The carpet had stains on it that they couldn’t get out; some of the chairs, too. She ended up calling the company decorator to come and replace the carpet and repaint the walls. By the time Calvin got to work, the decorator’s team had removed the carpet and furniture, and the workers were painting the walls.”

            Charles grinned. “Yvonne was efficient when she was Calvin’s assistant.”

            “Yep. She told Calvin that the conference room was outdated for a new, young CEO, so she called the decorator to give the room a fresh look. Calvin didn’t ask any questions because he trusted her. You know, I don’t think he knows about the conference room orgy to this day.”

            He chuckled. “I don’t think I ever repaid that debt to Yvonne. I should buy her something nice. She was Calvin’s cleanup girl, not mine.”

            “I can’t believe you don’t remember.”

            “I remember bits and pieces. I definitely remember the hangover I had when Yvonne woke us up.” The memory of him nursing a bottle of vodka to chase the throbbing in his head away as Yvonne was ushering him on the elevator with a bunch of strippers came into his mind. “You have to understand, I had a weekend that lasted two years. I left the company a month later.”

            “To Yvonne’s relief, I think. I’m not sure if she could have taken care of you and Calvin at the same time back in those days.”

            “No doubt,” Charles admitted. “So, how about I come back tonight and pick you up for a night out on the town? Just as friends, of course.”

            “I would love it,” Toni said as she picked up the vase.