Rivals in Paradise. Gwyneth Bolton
of the huge media firm Mainstay, she was well-known all across Miami for her business acumen and savvy. She’d had a style and flair for business that made money appear with such ease folks had hardly realized that money was moving.
Now, however, her new passive-aggressive, anal-retentive division leader, Leonard Stone, barely gave her breathing room, and the workplace had become a hostile environment.
Her new division leader had graduated from FAMU, as she had, and she’d tried on numerous occasions to build a better working relationship with the insufferable man. But he wouldn’t budge, and she was starting to think that she might need to start pounding the pavement, looking for another position.
She’d had hopes of moving up the corporate ladder. She’d hoped to try her hand at corporate development so that she could work in mergers and acquisitions and really make deals, not just get the money to make the deals happen. She’d thought she was a shoo-in to get the division leader position in the corporate development department when it opened up. But she had no such luck.
The promotion should have been hers. It would have gotten her away from the division leader from hell and in charge of her own department. Instead, she’d just found out, it was going to some interloper who was more than likely a friend of Leonard “The Evil One”—as she had grown fond of calling him—Stone.
Home sweet home was usually her space of refuge, a place to wind down and relax. But now she had come home after a particularly hard day at work to find her nice, quiet, nerdy, handpicked-because-he-would-never-hurt-her boyfriend Isaac in the bed with another woman.
Can a sista catch a break? Seriously?
He was supposed to be waiting for her so that they could celebrate the promotion she’d thought was hers when she came back from celebrating with her girls. Thirty-year-old Cicely had just given the cheater a key to her place after a year and a half of being a couple. It seemed like the logical next step, since her biological clock was ticking loudly. It was starting to sound like a hurricane warning tone on full blast. And he had seemed like the perfect candidate for a future husband. Nice. Safe. Sweet. A little bookish…okay, maybe totally nerdish…but sweet…definitely sweet…
And he wasn’t supposed to hurt her like this!
She took a deep breath as she reached the door. His cheating just proved her original beliefs, the ones she’d had almost all her life… No man is safe when it comes to matters of the heart.
The only person who can protect your heart is you.
It’s better not to fall in love.
She’d decided a long time ago that she would never get caught slipping and falling in love. But she did have deep feelings for Isaac, the kind of camaraderie they could have built a nice, strong, sturdy lifetime on…
She was certain that if she was really in love with Isaac, the lying, cheating, humping-another-woman-in-her-bed jerk, she wouldn’t be able to open the door and calmly do what needed to be done.
That’s why love was a problem. If she loved him she might have thought twice about kicking his faithless behind to the curb!
She opened the door and saw exactly what she thought she would see. Isaac was screwing some floozy.
She slammed the door behind her and cleared her throat.
The startled lovebirds broke apart, each grabbing for the cover.
Cicely frowned because she had purchased those 500-count ecru Egyptian cotton sheets just a few weeks ago and now she would have to burn them or at least throw them in the trash. Because there was no way in hell she would ever sleep on them again. She glanced around at her recently remodeled—so it wouldn’t look so girlish and make the cheating boyfriend she had just given a key to uncomfortable—bedroom. Everything from the chocolate duvet to the ecru sheets would have to go.
“Sorry to interrupt. But since this is my bedroom in my condo and all…I’d appreciate it if you both get your nasty asses out. Now!” Cicely put one hand on her hip and pointed toward the door with the other.
Isaac grabbed his glasses off of the mahogany-and-nickel nightstand and the sheet dropped. The woman pulled more of the sheet over herself, and Cicely wondered when they were going to get their nasty behinds off of her platform bed.
Yuck. Just. Yuck. Would she have to get a new bed, too?
She rolled her eyes as Isaac struggled with the woman for the sheet and tried to explain himself at the same time.
“Baby, I can explain…. She means nothing to me…. It was just a one-night thing…. She’s been throwing herself at me for months…. I’m just a man…. Baby, please…” Isaac’s words started to jumble together as he leapt from the bed and pulled on his trousers.
Once the other woman resigned herself to getting out of the bed, she at least had the good taste to get dressed quickly and quietly. Cicely did notice that the woman cut Isaac more than a few nasty looks while he was rambling out his apologies and explanations.
The woman was pretty if you liked tall, slim model types with perfect chocolate skin, big doe eyes and cute, pixie-style haircuts. Once clothed, she wore a rather nice purple pantsuit and killer matching shoes. Cicely had to give it to Isaac; at least he picked a really attractive woman to cheat with.
The woman walked over to the bedroom door where Cicely was firmly posted. With her arms folded across her chest, Cicely gave the woman the once-over and, with one scathing look, dared her to say anything out of line.
The woman took a deep breath and bit her lip.
Cicely arched an eyebrow.
“Look. I don’t want any trouble. He misrepresented his situation to me. And for what it’s worth, I apologize for my part in this. I’d just like to leave now. I didn’t mean you any harm, Cicely.” She turned to Isaac and spat out, “You’re a jerk!”
Shocked that the woman knew her name, Cicely gave her a more thorough once-over. She realized she knew the woman. She was the lobby receptionist in the office building that both she and Isaac worked in.
The accounting firm that Isaac worked for was on the ninth floor of the building, and the company Cicely worked for was on the fifteenth floor. Cicely couldn’t help rolling her eyes then.
If Isaac and she had initially hooked up by meeting in the elevator of that building, then why not Isaac and the lobby girl? With so many other companies and employees located in the high-rise office building, who really knew how many other women this geek-nerd-jerk of a man had been with or was still sleeping with?
As if he could tell where she was going, Isaac began pleading his case again. “This was the first time. I have never… I would never, ever do something like this to you. You gotta believe me, baby. I love you…. I just started to get cold feet, that’s all…. Things were starting to get real serious between us, with us exchanging keys and all…it’s a big step…”
Both Cicely and the lobby woman sucked their teeth at the same time.
Cicely stared at the woman again.
Pam!
Her name was Pam. Cicely now remembered that she had always thought that Pam’s smiles and greetings were a bit false whenever the woman would say hello as she signed into the building in the morning.
Now she knew why.
Cicely stepped aside and let Pam leave. Hearing the front door close, Cicely turned her attention back to the cheater.
Isaac’s usual toasted-cinnamon complexion was looking almost ruby-red. He ran his hand across his close-cropped hair several times. He always did that when he was thinking. Now Cicely thought it might be a sign that he was trying to think of a lie.
“I love you, Cicely. You gotta know that…” Isaac started. “I thought you were going out with your sister and girlfriends for happy hour?”
The mention of her canceled girls’ night