Maritza looked up to see her supposedly silent business partner, Terrill, doing what he seemed to do best, talking.
She rolled her eyes and kept flipping through the latest magazines making sure that the clients she needed to set up various photo opportunities for made it into this month’s issues. It didn’t make sense to make sure your habitually drunk driving, heiress client spent every Saturday morning volunteering at a soup kitchen or ensuring that she used her driver and wore her underwear when she went out partying if the paparazzi didn’t get the good shots to counteract all that negative media.
She was also checking out the latest fashion styles and trends for when she went shopping for some of her other clients. New Images by Keys and Morales offered a variety of services to their clients. They could help you clean up your image, figure out how to spin a negative to a positive and keep you looking good to boot. Their chic offices were on the third floor of the office building Terrill owned downtown.
Maritza’s office was all white furniture with clean, straight lines. She liked to think her office represented her straight-no-chaser outlook on life. Plus, she needed a clean canvas for an office because she brought enough color and style to fill the space.
“So you’re doing your little ignore-Terrill-and-he’ll-go-away thing. That’s cute, Maritza. Unfortunately, I don’t have time for that. I have a plane to catch. I have to be there for Penny at Big Mama’s funeral. If I hurry, I can make it in time for the wake, at least part of it.”
For some reason, that really made her want to roll her eyes but she refrained.
She didn’t know what was worse—the fact that he was going to be there for their best friend and business partner, Penny Keys, and she wasn’t, or the fact that he was always coming to Penny’s rescue. It had to be the former because she could really care less about the latter.
Plus, that was just the way it was. Girls like Penny got rescued and girls like her got…
Well, we get what we get, don’t we…right?
So what if he had some sick need to be his best friend’s personal knight in shining armor?
So what if that same knight morphed into a nagging bridge troll where she was concerned?
Okay…a really cute, honey-toned-hazel-eyed-built-like-one-of-God’s-warrior-angels nagging bridge troll, to be fair, but an old mean and nasty bridge troll nonetheless…
He was fine, though…
He had looks that could best be described as Michael Ealy’s face on Boris Kodjoe’s body. And he knew exactly how to work those looks to entice even a sane woman like her to think about doing something crazy—like making a play for him when she knew it would never, ever, ever work out between them.
He was Mr. Do Everything Right Can Do No Wrong, and the world loved him. She was Ms. Do What She Likes or What Feels Right, and she didn’t care what the world thought. In short, they weren’t meant to be. It was a good thing she’d had sense enough to figure that out the first time she set eyes on him and had managed to keep a nice healthy distance from her desire.
But times like these with him all in her personal space…
She had to keep her wall up and abrasiveness worked best in that regard.
“By all means hurry then, Terrill. You really didn’t have to come here, you know. You could have called. You could have sent an email. Hell, I don’t know, you could have minded your business and let me do my job.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “Any number of things…” She kept her game face smile locked in place, but all the while she was shooting laser daggers at him with her eyes.
“Listen, I know you think I’m overstepping my boundaries and maybe I am. But I am a silent partner here. And Da Stunnas is one of our biggest new clients at my record label.” He stopped midsentence and ran his hand across the deep waves in his Caesar haircut. “I didn’t send them to you all because that would have been a conflict of interest. But now that they are working with you guys of their own accord, I need to be sure that the label’s interests aren’t jeopardized.” He sighed again as if he was just entirely too irritated for words.
“You are going to turn the biggest hardcore rap-rock group ever into a bunch of punks in the public eye and we won’t be able to market them the way we had planned.”
Maritza hissed. Before she knew it she was out of her desk and in Terrill’s face.
“Those fools destroyed a stage and almost burned down a club full of their fans! Tell me you can give away their album now? Isn’t that the reason they came seeking help with their image in the first place? Aren’t your A&R people fit to be tied? Hasn’t the album been pushed back several times now? El stupido!” She turned and walked away. There was no talking to him. She would just have to let Penny handle him because if she had to keep talking to him she was going to punch him or worse.
“Who are you calling stupid, girl?” His strong hand pulled her back to him with a quickness she wasn’t expecting and she stumbled right into his arms.
When she looked into his eyes, his very beautiful hazel eyes, she didn’t like what she saw there. Gone was the know-it-all-jerk who barged his way into her office like he owned the place.
Well, technically he did own the place, New Images by Keys and Morales leased from one of the office buildings he owned. And he had put up the major capital for them to get started. But that didn’t mean he had the right to make himself a nuisance.
And now something else, something sexy and dangerous, was simmering in his eyes and she couldn’t look away.
“Let go of me, Terrill!”
He pulled her closer and let one hand trace her face. “Promise me you’ll at least think of some different ideas for Da Stunnas.”
“No. My ideas are great. Now let me go!”
He had the nerve to chuckle and it had the nerve to sound sexy.
Had she fallen and bumped her head and ended up in bizarro world? The Twilight Zone? What crazy altering of the universe was this where she was thinking anything that Terrill-get-on-her-last-nerve-Carter did was sexy?
“You know what? I have often wondered what it would take to shut you up.”
Maritza smirked and filled her expression with more brazenness than she felt at that moment. “Funny, I’ve often wondered the same thing about you. Unfortunately, Penny would miss you if I followed through on any of my ideas.”
Terrill chuckled again, all throat and bobbing Adam’s apple. It was masculine laughter at its finest. “Hmm…good thing my idea will shut us both up for a while…then we both win.” His sexy face leaned in, further invading her space.
She gulped. And she willed herself to pull away. But she leaned forward instead. It was as if some magnetic force was moving her head, twisting and contorting it to find the right angle for his lips to meet hers.
It couldn’t be of her own free will. Could it?
She did not want this. Did she?
His lips connected to hers and she sighed. It sounded like a contented kitten that had just lapped up the last bit of milk. More like a sigh and mewl mixed together, but nevertheless problematic…
His tongue traced her lips and more shocks went through her. Her heart seemed like it wanted to pound its way right out of her chest and into his hands.
Stupid heart, she thought as she opened her lips and allowed her tongue entry into his mouth.
She wasn’t letting her heart out. But there was no reason her tongue couldn’t come out and play.
She wrapped her arms around