Miami After Hours. Yahrah St. John
Daniel wiped his mouth with the napkin from his lap. “Excuse me for just a moment,” he said, and quickly left the private dining area.
He found Joshua and Ashton both standing outside the open doors. “Do you have any idea that everyone can hear you?” Daniel snapped, closing the double doors behind him.
“I’m trying to explain to this dinosaur that he’s stuck in the Stone Age,” Joshua replied. “We need to be capitalizing on all the positive press that a social media blitz and good press could do for The Aunt Penny Foundation. Hell, for us, too, but he refuses to see it.” Joshua paced back and forth as he ranted.
“There is no such thing as good publicity,” Ashton replied, calmly. “Not in this day and age. Are you so blinded by your animosity toward me that you can’t see that? Prescott George is about lifting people up. All the press knows how to do is bring people down. Furthermore, now isn’t the time to be discussing this.”
“You have to know how to spin publicity,” Joshua replied, “which clearly you don’t but I do. I’m a master puppeteer at getting the press to report exactly what I want them to.”
“Like the fact that you steal other people’s money?” Ashton said. “Did you give them that tidbit, too?”
Joshua steamed beside him and Daniel thought he might deck Ashton, but instead he turned to Daniel. “Tell him.” He pointed to Ashton. “Tell him I’m right.”
Both pairs of eyes turned to Daniel. He hated that Joshua was putting him on the spot like this.
“I think both of you are upset right now and need to let cooler heads prevail,” Daniel returned. “Ashton is right. Now isn’t the right time to discuss this.” He watched a smirk cross Ashton’s face. “But I think Joshua’s suggestion merits further discussion.”
“You’re agreeing with him?” Ashton wasn’t happy that Daniel wasn’t taking his side. It was clear that Ashton was not a fan of Joshua’s. Daniel had long since suspected that he thought Joshua was an interloper who’d smooth-talked his way into the organization. It certainly had been one of the younger members who’d invited Joshua to join Prescott George. If Ashton had his way, Daniel was sure there would be only legacy members. But it was a new dawn and a new day, and Ashton was soon going to realize that Prescott George had to change with the times.
“I’m keeping the peace,” Daniel said. “As leaders of the organization, you both need to go back in that room and show them there is no friction.”
Ashton huffed, but opened the doors and walked back in while Joshua fumed outside.
“Why do you always try to play mediator?” he countered to Daniel. “Eventually you’ll have to choose sides. Mine or his.”
Daniel rolled his eyes. “How about neither?” he responded, and turned on his heel and walked back into the room.
When he returned to the table, Angela asked, “Is everything okay?”
He nodded. “Yes, everything is fine. Just a difference of opinion. Sometimes we men get rather loud.”
But Daniel feared this wasn’t the end of Joshua’s beef with Ashton; he suspected that the stakes were about to get significantly higher.
* * *
His mind was elsewhere, Angela thought when Daniel returned to the table. She tried reengaging him in conversation, but it was clear that the night was over. She supposed she should be thankful that the electricity she’d been feeling earlier in the evening had cooled. She’d felt stirred by Daniel, and that would never do. He was her boss who’d asked her to accompany him to a business dinner. She mustn’t forget that.
As the evening came to a close, Angela and Daniel said their goodbyes, and shortly after they were seated back in the town car.
“Would you like us to drop you home?” he asked her.
“I left my car at the office, remember?”
“Oh, of course. I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I’ve been a bit distracted this evening.”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not. It was incredibly rude of me. Allow me to make it up to you by following you home.”
“Follow me home?” Angela’s heart began hammering in her chest. “That’s not necessary. I’ve got it.”
They drifted into a comfortable silence until the driver eased the town car next to hers in the garage. Daniel requested he keep the engine idling and turned to face her. “I had a really good time tonight.”
“So did I. Thanks again.” Angela didn’t wait for his response and quickly opened the passenger door. She wasn’t sure what was going on between them, but she wasn’t sticking around to find out.
She was in her car within seconds and was about to pull out when she saw Daniel had rolled down the rear window and was motioning to her. Sighing, Angela lowered the window. “Yes?”
“I’m following you home.”
“I told you that’s not necessary. I’m a big girl.”
“You are, but I’d feel more comfortable, so we’re just going to follow behind you.”
Angela rolled her eyes. She didn’t want Daniel to see where she lived. Her apartment building was ordinary and certainly nothing like the luxury ones they sold. Now he would know that she was merely acting and dressing like she was one of them. He’d see she was a fraud. But she had no choice because he’d already raised his window.
When she arrived at her apartment building thirty minutes later, Daniel was still behind her in the town car. She sighed when he exited the vehicle and turned off the engine.
Oh Lord!
He came around to the driver’s side of her car and opened her door. She exited, but all she could do was stand there, holding on to the door. For what—support? Or to escape back inside so she wouldn’t be faced with the potent magnetism that exuded from Daniel’s every pore?
“You really didn’t have to do this,” she began, but he placed an index finger over her lips. Angela sucked in a deep breath at the light contact.
“I understand why you didn’t want me to come, Angela, but it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.” Daniel glanced up at the building. “Before my parents divorced, I grew up in a middle-class community. It was a far cry from where I live now.”
“Yeah, well, some of us can’t live as upscale as all that,” Angela responded.
“I know that. So be proud of who you are and where you come from.” He reached out and tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. Doing so brought his sensual mouth entirely too close to her own. “It’s made you who you are.”
She glanced up at him. And in that moment, she wanted him to kiss her. Oh, how she wanted it. She would instantly surrender if he tried.
Instead his hands moved from her hair to slide across her cheek. “Get inside safe and I’ll see you at the office on Monday. Nine o’clock sharp.”
All Angela could do was nod and walk with leaden feet to the door of her apartment building, feeling as if she’d been kissed even though he’d barely even touched her. And that could only mean one thing. Trouble.
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