Czytaj książkę: «An Elite Event»

To my husband, Henry, for your unconditional love and support. Through the years of our relationship, you have continued to encourage and uplift me. When we first met, I knew you would be an important person in my life, and now that we’re embarking on a new future, I’m so excited to continue our journey together. Thank you for being my rock…my strength…and my once in a lifetime love!

To my cousin, Shenelle, for your advice and constant encouragement. When we get together, there’s never a dull moment, and it’s been that way ever since we were kids. Your comic impersonations, spirited personality and infectious smile bring joy to others. You’re so easy to get along with, but there’s more to you than meets the eye. In order for people to truly get to know you and see what’s inside your heart, they must take the time to peel back the layers of your personality, to find the treasures that lie beneath. You have such passion for delicious dishes, and I love your unique and warm demeanor. When I was thinking about the qualities that I wanted Lex to have, you were definitely my muse.

Thanks so much for all the inspiration!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Introduction

About the Author

Title Page

Dear Reader

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Epilogue

Copyright

Prologue

“To buy or not to buy,” Lexus Turner said to herself as she admired the pleated lilac babydoll in her hand. She’d been in Bare Sophistication lingerie boutique for over thirty minutes and had yet to find something sexy to purchase. Earlier that morning, she had listened to an audiobook of a female motivational speaker who stressed the importance of feeling and looking good. Lexus didn’t have a special someone in her life, but she was tired of the frumpy, yet comfortable, undies she often wore.

Would this even cover anything? she thought to herself as she observed the uncomfortable-looking tiny silk thong that accompanied the babydoll. She then pulled out the silk G-string placed next to the thong. Now this I like. She may have been contradicting herself by disliking the thong yet liking the G-string, but to her there was a big difference. The couple times she’d worn a G-string, she felt as if she was wearing nothing at all. The one and only day she wore a thong, she’d felt as if something was stuck between her butt cheeks all day. That feeling had caused her to not-so-discreetly adjust herself by shaking her leg as she walked.

She looked through the rack at the other lilac panty options. “Oh, now this is different,” she said as she held up a panty with a slit in the middle for easy access to her feminine treasures. She could only imagine all the naughty things one could do in a silky lace boyshort with a slit in the center of the panty. It was attached by intertwining ribbons on each side adding to her visual imagination.

“Oh, yes, I love this,” she said aloud as she paired the silky lace boyshort with the pleated lilac babydoll. “Perfect match.”

“I think you settled on a great set,” a deep voice said behind her. Startled, Lexus turned around quicker than anticipated, running right into the solid chest of the man with the low timbre voice. She jumped back from the intensity of the direct contact and misjudged her steps. The oversight of the large rack caused her to trip over her feet and sent her tumbling right into a pair of powerful bronzed arms.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said as he helped her regain her balance.

Lexus tried to speak, but she couldn’t formulate any words. Oh...my...goodness. The man looked tastier than the tiramisu she’d sampled earlier at a local coffee shop. His eyes were chestnut brown with gray specs sprinkled in the coloring. And from what she could tell by the outline of his clothes, he had the body of a god. She was pretty sure she was drooling, which probably didn’t look sexy at all.

She tried to stop her eyes from looking him up and down in admiration, but she couldn’t help it. He was wearing jeans and a button-up with quarter-length sleeves. He looked slightly familiar and had the sexiest deep dimples she’d ever seen on a man. She couldn’t have met him before because she was sure she would have remembered a man this fine.

“Do you need me to help you with that?” he asked.

Lexus squinted her eyes together in confusion until she followed his gaze and noticed that all of the belongings from her purse had fallen out and were scattered across the floor.

“Oh, crap,” she whispered as she bent down and began picking everything up. The man bent down to help her, and although Lexus wanted to tell him not to, she still couldn’t speak. She’d met attractive men before, but none had left her speechless.

“You sure do have a lot of lipstick,” he said with a laugh as he handed her two of the six tubes that had fallen near his feet.

Come on girl! Say something, Lex chanted in her head. Still nothing. Not a single word. Instead, she gave him a big smile and tried to make a sexy I love lipstick and look good in it sort of laugh, but it came off as an I have issues please don’t ask me any more questions type of laugh.

Big fail. Why do I even try?

“Would you like me to ring that up for you,” he asked as he picked up the lilac babydoll and boyshort that had fallen on the floor, as well. Lexus timidly nodded her head in agreement.

Making her way to the counter, she admired his walk and the way his butt moved in his jeans. She looked down at her outfit, wishing she’d chosen to wear cute skinny jeans, a flattering top and stylish shoes rather than leggings, a simple T-shirt and gym shoes that needed a good cleaning. She’d just left a nearby workout facility so she was sure the once smooth edges of her hair were now in little curly cues. Her fellow cofounders at Elite Events Incorporated always told her to dress in sexier workout gear, but she never listened. I should have taken their advice. Or at least worn a headband.

When they got to the register, he began ringing up her items. She noticed that his eyes lingered on the panties a little more than the babydoll. When he lifted his face back to her he seemed amused. She couldn’t tell if he wanted to flirt with her or laugh at her since it seemed she had no business buying such raunchy underwear. The fact that she couldn’t tell the difference from the expression on his face was even more unsettling.

“You don’t talk much do you?” he asked her as he bagged her items.

“Hahaha, um, yeah. Oh, boy do I.” Huh! What did she just say? The amused look on his face turned into a hearty laugh. Lexus only felt it fitting to awkwardly laugh along with him although she saw nothing funny about her current situation.

“You’re adorable,” he said as he handed her the receipt. Adorable? Lexus thought as she raised an eyebrow at the man. She definitely didn’t want the hot guy thinking about her as adorable, cute or any other word best used to describe a bunny, not a woman he found attractive. She had to hightail it out of there before she embarrassed herself any further.

Grabbing her bag, she flashed him a small smile before turning to the door. She arrived at the front entrance of the boutique just as a woman was entering. “Thanks so much, sweetie,” the woman said as she hastily made her way to the man that had helped her and gave him a tight hug. “You’re the best,” she continued as she gave him a kiss on the cheek.

Oh, well...you win some, you lose some. And there was no doubt in her mind that she wasn’t winning this man even before his girlfriend walked into the shop.

When Lexus stepped outside, the hot August air did nothing to calm the inferno the man inside the shop had ignited within her. She hastily walked to the edge of the block before rounding the corner. Briefly stopping to lean on a nearby wall, she took a couple minutes to think about the recent course of events. The motivational audiobook she had studied said that she should take charge of her life and be aggressive. Well, she definitely hadn’t taken charge of that situation. And even though she didn’t have an aggressive bone in her body, she’d wished she had at least tried to be the aggressor back in the lingerie shop.

“It doesn’t matter. He has a girlfriend anyway,” she reminded herself as she thought about the exchange between him and the woman who entered the store when she was leaving.

Getting up from the wall, Lexus put her headphones back in and began listening to the motivational audiobook she’d downloaded through iTunes. She only had a couple hours to get ready before her business partner and cousin Cydney Rayne’s dinner party in the Chicago River North area. Cyd had just gotten back from a weeklong vacation in Anguilla with her boyfriend, Shawn Miles.

As she walked back to her condo the words coming through her headphones almost made her want to cut off her phone completely. “You are in control of your own destiny. You can be the aggressor. In order to love someone else, you have to love yourself. There is nothing wrong with a vocal woman. You can do it. Just give it a try.”

Lexus blew out a frustrated breath as she continued to listen to the voice coming from her headphones. “Yeah, yeah...be the aggressor. I got it,” she huffed aloud.

* * *

Lex hopped off the CTA Red Line train and glanced at her cell phone. She was rarely late, but the glass of red wine she’d had after returning home from the lingerie shop had caused her to fall asleep. When she woke up, she’d realized she only had thirty minutes before the dinner started.

“Hello, I’m here for the Cydney Rayne dinner party,” she said to the hostess when she arrived at the restaurant.

“Right this way, miss.” Lex followed the woman to the private room. After apologizing for her tardiness, she gave hugs to everyone in attendance including her other two Elite Events business partners, Imani Rayne-Barker and Mya Winters. She took one of the two vacant seats at the end of the dinner table when Cyd’s boyfriend, Shawn, tapped his fork on his wineglass.

“Now that almost everyone is here, we have an announcement to make,” Shawn said.

“Shawn and I are engaged!” Cyd finished as she stuck out her hand to reveal a gorgeous three-carat diamond ring.

“Oh, my gosh, congratulations!” Lex exclaimed as she jumped from her seat and rushed over to hug Cyd, followed by others offering their congrats.

“I guess I missed something,” said a familiar baritone voice from the doorway of the room. What the heck is he doing here?

“Everyone,” Shawn said gathering the attention from the group and making his way to the man. “This is one of my best friends and my business partner, Micah Madden. He just moved to Chicago last month and if he accepts, he will be my best man.”

Lex watched with eyes wide open as the two men embraced while Micah shared his congrats. She barely heard Cyd’s story of how Shawn proposed in Anguilla because she was too busy staring at Micah, hoping that he wasn’t the same person she thought he was.

Unless he has a twin, that’s definitely him. As if he knew she was analyzing him, his eyes landed on her and slowly looked her up and down before he began walking toward her. She had to get out of there.

“I’ll be right back,” she said to the group of women, although they were too busy listening to Cyd’s story to hear her. She turned and walked around the table in the opposite direction Micah was walking.

Once she was in the hallway, she slipped into a nearby bathroom and took a deep breath. He’s just a man. A normal man. She glanced at her reflection in the mirror. Who was she kidding? He wasn’t a normal man. He was a fine man. A tempting man. A man with a nice round butt begging to be grabbed. Lex was a sucker for a man with a nice butt. And why the heck am I just meeting him! Shawn and Cyd had been dating for eight months. She didn’t remember Micah at any of Shawn’s previous get-togethers since he hadn’t lived in Chicago. But she definitely knew his name. Both Cyd and Shawn had mentioned him on more than one occasion.

Last year, Cyd had planned a series of appreciation events for the Peter Vallant Company and had gotten kidnapped at the winter formal. Shawn and Micah had been securing the series of events and Shawn had saved Cyd from a crazy woman who’d become obsessed with her. Micah had been at the formal, but Lex hadn’t arrived until after he was assigned to watch Cyd so their paths had never crossed that night. If she hadn’t had another event that day, she probably could have met him that night and saved herself some embarrassment. Usually, when Lex met an extremely attractive man for the first time, she performed a ritual to help settle her nerves. The ritual started with a quick pep talk in the mirror similar to the one she was giving herself now and it ended with a conversation with Mya who often gave her witty things to say so she could keep the guy on his toes. An unprepared Lex equaled embarrassment and she had already been embarrassed enough for one day.

“Okay girl,” she said to herself. “You can’t hide in here forever.” Fluffing her curls and reapplying a coat of red lipstick, she exited the bathroom, running right into a solid chest. Caught off guard, she tripped over his feet and twirled around so suddenly that she sent them both tumbling to the ground.

“Ouch,” she said, landing hard on the man. When she heard him let out a loud groan, she looked up at his face. Oh, great.

“I’m sorry,” she said as she attempted to get off of him.

“We have got to stop meeting like this, lingerie girl,” Micah said, not easing his grip on her. Lingerie girl...that’s kinda cute. Unfortunately, the way her purple summer dress was gathered high on her thighs was not cute at all. She was sure a part of her panties were showing.

“Can you let me go now?” she asked as she struggled out of his arms. He finally let her go. When she stood, she nervously glanced around to see how many people were around to witness their fall.

“You’re so adorable,” he said to her before taking a step forward.

Here we go with this word again. She took a step back. “I’m sure you say that to your girlfriend, too.” Real subtle Lex.

“What girlfriend?”

“The one who kissed you on the cheek in the lingerie shop today.”

“That woman was my cousin, Winter Dupree,” Micah said with a laugh. “She owns Bare Sophistication lingerie boutique and she needed me to watch the store for a few hours. The store just opened and she doesn’t have much staff right now.”

Cousin? Just kill me know. “And on that embarrassing note, I think I’ll go back to join the group,” she said leaving him in the hallway.

“Don’t turn around. Just keep walking,” she said to herself. But even with the warning, she had to know if he was staring at her. When she reached the end of the hallway, she slightly turned her head. Micah was still standing there with his hands in his pockets and a sly smile on his face. He looked handsome. And downright dangerous. Mercy.