“If we need refills, I’ll call you over,” April told her. She wiggled her fingers toward the counter. “You have customers to take care of. Why don’t you go and do that?”
April cast a cursory glance around the room and discovered that Jelissa wasn’t the only one with eyes trained on their table. Most of the females in the room were staring openly at them.
It wasn’t as if April could blame them. If there was one thing Damien Alexander had always been, it was easy on the eyes.
April had done her share of looking over the years.
Oh, who was she kidding? She’d nearly sprained her eyes staring at him.
She could remember the way her skin tingled that very first day she saw him, back when the two of them first met as sophomores at George Washington Carver High School. His features had become more refined over the years, but that strong jaw and chin, those thick eyebrows over whiskey-brown eyes, and that sensual dip in his lip had been there from the very beginning. Many a girl had fallen under the spell of those arresting features. Herself included.
Thankfully, April knew better than to act on it.
Oh, she could still appreciate the sheer devastating beauty that was Damien Alexander, but April had managed to tamp down her lustful thoughts where her friend was concerned. While other women openly stared, making downright fools of themselves, she was content to just eye him from afar. It became obvious over the years that she and Damien would always be friends, but nothing more. April had come to both accept and respect that.
Wait, she hadn’t noticed any pigs flying in the sky on her way in here this morning, had she?
Okay, so maybe she wasn’t completely accepting of her relationship with Damien. Or, her lack of a relationship, as it was. But at least she no longer pined for him as she had when they were younger. She would eventually be at peace with the idea of being nothing but a friend. It’s just that the road to peace was long and unwieldy.
April turned her attention back to Damien. “Before we get to the reason you’re here, you must tell me how this top ten bachelor thing came about.”
Damien released an agitated sigh. “Must we?”
“We must,” April answered. “Now spill it. I want to know who managed to talk you into posing for that picture.”
When she’d opened her copy of Get to Know NOLA magazine last week and spotted that picture of Damien in a suit that fit him to perfection, she’d nearly fallen off her kitchen chair. She’d managed to stop herself from tearing it out of the magazine and framing it, but just barely.
“Can’t we talk about this later?” Damien asked.
“Nope. I want the skinny.”
His annoyed look didn’t deter April one bit. One of the benefits—if one could call it that—of being a platonic friend was that she could get away with pushing his buttons. Damien ran a hand down his goatee and took another sip of his black coffee. “This is good, by the way,” he said, holding up the cup.
“Thanks. I’ll make sure the kids know you said so. Now out with it.”
“Bossy, as usual,” Damien said. He took another sip of coffee before continuing. “Someone at the magazine contacted me out of the blue a couple of months ago. And you know me—I’m never one to turn down free publicity, so I said yes. I never thought it would take off the way it did. I mean, who even reads Get to Know NOLA magazine?”
April raised her hand. “I’ve been a faithful reader since it launched a couple of years ago, and after that photo spread, I’ll bet there will be a lot more people reading it. Whoever came up with the top ten bachelors idea is a genius. It’s gone viral. You should be happy, you’re getting the publicity you wanted.”
“No.” Damien shook his head. “This is not the publicity I wanted. This is the exact opposite of what I wanted. When I agreed to do that photo shoot, I thought it would be a way to bring attention to my business. That’s why I insisted the shoot happen in my office instead of out on the lakefront where they first suggested. The goal was for Alexander Properties to get some action, not me.”
“Because you’ve got all the action you can handle, right?” April asked.
It was no secret he’d had his share of beautiful women. It had been that way throughout high school. And even though they’d seen each other only sparingly over the past decade, Damien never failed to have some gorgeous beauty on his arm.
“I’m not in the market for that kind of action right now. Being involved with a woman is a complication I don’t have time for,” he said. “That’s why I’m here to see you.”
“I’ll try not to be offended,” she drawled.
He grimaced. “That didn’t come out right.”
“Forget about it,” April said with a wave of her hand. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know where she stood. “What exactly is it that you need?”
“Let me see if I can set this up for you,” he said. He spread his fingers out over the table. “I hadn’t mentioned anything prior to today because I wasn’t sure if this was going to go through or not. But it did go through, so I can finally talk about it.”
“Can you be any more vague?”
“Have you always been such a smart-ass?”
“Only when it’s warranted,” April answered. “What is the it that you can finally talk about?”
He tapped his fingers on the table, revealing a hint of that nervousness she’d sensed in him earlier.
April reached across the table and covered his hand. “Damien, what’s this all about? It isn’t like you to beat around the bush this way.”
“There’s a huge abandoned lot around North Galvez and Kentucky Streets, not too far from the train tracks.”
“Yeah, I know it. There’s still some blighted houses that way, and a bunch of overgrown lawns,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s it. Well, I own all of it now.”
April’s mouth scrunched up with confusion. “Why?”
“I’m in real estate, April. That’s what I do.”
“Yeah, but you’re in corporate real estate. Do you really think you can convince any of your clients to move their companies from the Central Business District to the Ninth Ward?”
“I have something else in mind for that property,” Damien said. “Something that can potentially be a game changer. But I can’t do it on my own. Alexander Properties does okay, but I’m still small potatoes when it comes to the kind of capital I’ll need to pull this off. It’ll require other investors—several of them—if I’m going to get this project off the ground. And that’s where you come in?”
April’s brow arched. “Just in case you’ve forgotten, you’re the one I come to when A Fresh Start needs some cash,” she said. “I’m just a lowly musician, getting work where I can find it.”
“Yeah, right. You’re turning down work left and right,” Damien said.
That was true. She’d just turned down an offer with an orchestra in Thailand.
“But that’s not the kind of help I need from you,” Damien said. He took another swig of coffee, set the cup back on the table then took both of her hands in his.
With an intense stare directly into her eyes, he said, “I need you to be my girlfriend.”