Provocative Territory

“Crap, what’d I do now?” Elias murmured absently while he scanned the messages that Desmond had taken. His partners Santigo Rodriguez and Linus Brooks had also been his friends since nursery school.

“They have some papers that they need you to take a look at. They’ve been wanting to schedule some time for a few days now.”

“A few days.” Eli was still browsing through the messages. “Takes that long to make it across the hall, huh?”

Desmond smiled at the sarcasm. The three men each had corner offices on the top floor of the striking black downtown skyscraper.

“They’ll need to square away more than a few minutes to talk to you about this,” Desmond said.

Harboring his own share of rapt perception, Elias took note of his assistant’s tone of voice. “So what’s up?” he asked, leaning back in the large gray armchair behind his desk.

“They should really be the ones to talk to you about this, boss.”

Rolling his eyes, Eli grimaced at Desmond’s stance. This wasn’t going to be a conversation he’d enjoy.

“So is this it?” Eli waved the message slips and opted against forcing Desmond to share the reasons for his partner’s visit.

“Uh...” Desmond’s dreads hid his face when he bowed his head. He looked even less thrilled about sharing the next order of business and appeared as though he’d been delivered when a quick rap fell to the door before it was pushed open a tad wider.

Linus Brooks walked in with Santigo Rodriguez close behind. Elias observed his partners with a mix of curiosity and amusement. The three of them had been friends since before any of them knew how to put together a sentence. As an only child, Eli had considered them the brothers he’d never had.

Santigo Rodriguez wore a smile even when he was fit to be tied out of rage. The trait often proved to be rather disturbing, for one could never truly track Tigo’s moves. That aspect of the man’s personality proved quite handy though at the negotiating table.

Linus Brooks was almost Tigo’s exact opposite. Linus’s most distinguishing characteristic had to be his stinging, outspoken nature. The man wore his emotions and opinions on his sleeve, but always made a point of verbalizing them to ensure they were communicated.

The curiosity lurking in Eli’s bright gaze gradually gave way to more curiosity. That day may have been the first time in...ever that both men wore twin expressions...of unease.

“Two things,” Linus began once the door had closed behind Desmond’s hastily departing figure.

Eli rocked back in the gray leather and suede chair behind his beech wood desk and spread his hands urging his partner to continue.

Linus cleared his throat first, saying, “Cleveland Echols is putting his project on hold.”

The news nudged some of Eli’s curiosity out of the way to make room for confusion. “The framework and foundation have already been laid, right?” He watched his partners display solemn nods of confirmation. “Reason?” Eli spread his hands again.

“Said his investors pulled out.” Tigo went to sit on the edge of the desk and toyed with a baseball paperweight that lay there.

“All of ’em?” Elias asked, watching as his partner nodded again.

“Every last one,” Tigo added, stroking the light beard shadowing his face.

Eli rocked back in his chair again. “That’s crazy... There was all that support for it.”

Cleve Echols’s charitable endeavors in Philadelphia were well-known. It was the man’s more upscale endeavors that earned him a lucrative portfolio and respect in the business world. The financier owned and operated branches of banks throughout Pennsylvania and Delaware. There were even prominent locales in Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, San Francisco and Miami. Echols’s plan to construct a new bank was a major bit of news. The latest establishment was to serve as the headquarters for the successful branches.

“So what does this mean for us?” Eli asked.

“Means we come out smellin’ good.” Linus’s wide mouth curved into a satisfied smile but he shrugged. “Not as good as we’d smell with a full project paid for, but our preliminary charge and phase one fees have already been settled so...”

Eli leaned close to his desk and propped his elbows along the edge. “We should keep our ears to the ground about this—see if we can pick up what may have motivated it.”

“We’re already on it,” Tigo said.

“So what’s the other thing?” Eli queried after silence dominated the office for several seconds. Amusement returned to his extraordinary stare as it shifted between Tigo and Linus. “Haven’t y’all already rehearsed how you’re gonna tell me?”

Santigo mussed the wavy crop of hair covering his head. “You won’t like it. No matter how we tell you.”

“You’d be a fool to put the kibosh on this, considering the Echols’s mess,” Linus blurted, staying true to his trademark outspoken persona.

“Then let’s hear it.” Eli smoothed the back of his hand across his goatee.

“We’ve been offered a remodeling expansion project. Given the scope of the thing...it’d draw on our offices across the country.”

Santigo nodded in agreement with Linus’s explanation. “It’s huge, El. Way bigger than the Echols deal and with the potential to keep us in the black for years.”

“More in the black than we already are,” Linus included, reading the look on Eli’s face.

“Sounds like an offer we shouldn’t refuse.” Elias reared back in his chair again. “So why don’t you think I’ll like it?”

“It’s not the offer we expect you to dislike, but who it comes from,” Tigo said, then cringed.

Linus stepped over to drop a folder on the desk. Elias leaned closer and brushed his fingers across the label marked with the name Jazzy B’s.

* * *

Clarissa David stared across the den at the decorative facial tissue dispenser but she didn’t trust herself to make the short trip to retrieve one. Instead, she used the backs of her hands to smear away the water that pooled in her large eyes and made a continuous stream down her cheeks.

She’d been sitting immobile for the last ten or twelve minutes. Intermittently, she’d been plagued by bouts of shaking her head in confusion as if some remark had just been made which prompted her disagreement.

No words had been spoken. Clarissa was alone in the room, dazed and in disbelief. Confusion was but one of the emotions filtering her mind at that point. She’d arrived in Media, Pennsylvania, two miles west of downtown Philadelphia in time to have her final conversation with her aunt Jazmina Beaumont. It was hardly a conversation. Clarissa twisted her mouth into what could have been a grimace. The purpose of the gesture, however, was to hold down the sobs crowding her throat. She’d gotten to her aunt’s bedside in time for the woman to tell Clarissa only a few things at best. While they were lovely and inspiring, they had barely grazed the surface of all the questions skipping around inside Clarissa’s head. Not to mention everything Clarissa herself had wanted to say to the woman who had helped raise her.

Clarissa sat perched on the very edge of an armchair cushion. She resembled a frightened animal ready to take to flight. She was clenching her hands so tightly that they had an ashen appearance. Frustrated by the sight of them, Clarissa hid her almond-brown face in her palms and shuddered.

Soft rubs to her shoulders caused her to jerk upright a few moments later. Clarissa tried and failed to produce a smile for her aunt’s oldest friend and business manager, Waymon Cole. Desperately, she reached up to tug on Waymon’s hand until he was seated on the arm of her chair.

Clarissa rested her head on the man’s thigh as she cried.

“It’ll be all right, sugar.” Waymon’s calm, easy tone was almost as assuring as the manner in which he stroked the wavy, dark hair that tapered at Clarissa’s nape into the chic boyish cut that she sported.

In spite of Waymon’s words, Clarissa cried harder into his pant leg.

“I just—just talk—talked to he-her.” Overwrought, Clarissa barely hiccupped the words. “I came out—out here to see her and—and to talk. I—Terry made a stop. I—I asked him to stop and...” The sobs grew heavier as she bawled. “If I hadn’t told him to—to stop, I could, I would have been here before...”

“Shh...stop this now.” Waymon brought the firmness back into his voice. “You stop that, you hear? It’s no time to sit around blaming yourself.” Waymon bent to kiss the top of Clarissa’s head. “Jaz wouldn’t want that and you know it. Especially not now when you’re about to have so much on your plate.”

“I don’t even—even know what she wanted.” Still in the throes of remorse, Clarissa’s words sounded somewhat garbled. “She didn’t have time to—tell it—tell me anything—I didn’t know. I don’t know what to do, Way. She didn’t have time...”

“Clarissa? Stop. You know that’s not true. One thing everybody knew about Jaz was that she never skimped on the chance to tell folks what she expected of them.”

Clarissa shook her head against Waymon’s thigh before looking up. “I don’t mean that.” She blinked tears from her red eyes. “She wanted me out here...had something she needed to talk about.”

“Something about the club?” Waymon’s long attractive face appeared haggard from all the crying he’d done that afternoon.

Clarissa rubbed the back of her hand across her nose. “I don’t know, she wouldn’t talk about it on the phone. She just said to get out here ASAP.” Clarissa buried her face in her hands and shuddered again.

Waymon was back to massaging Clarissa’s neck when Jazmina’s doctor walked into the den.

“Dr. Raines.” Clarissa was on her feet the moment she saw the man.

Steve Raines had been Jazmina Beaumont’s physician for years. Speculation ran high that the two had enjoyed more than a doctor-patient relationship. Of course, neither party had ever owned up to the rumor but, when such talk centered around the likes of Jazmina Beaumont, chances were highly in favor of its accuracy.

“How long was she sick?”

“Clarissa.” Steve Raines sighed but he had no intentions of providing a sugarcoated response. Jazmina’s niece was far more perceptive than Jaz had ever truly realized. “You’ve always been a smart one,” he said.

Clarissa unfortunately was in no mood to be complimented. “How long was she sick?” she repeated, her dusky gaze was like stone and fixed on the handsome fifty-something Jamaican.

“May I at least ask you to sit down?” Steve waved a hand toward a sofa that matched the armchair Clarissa had just vacated. He nodded when she obliged.

“Jaz never wanted you to worry,” Steve began once he was patting Clarissa’s hands where she held them clasped on her knees. “She didn’t want you feeling that you had to be here full time. She’s been having heart problems for years and we—” he pressed his lips together proving how difficult the moment was for him, as well “—we diagnosed her with heart disease. She had a triple bypass three years ago.”

Horrified, Clarissa covered her mouth with both hands. Her speechlessness didn’t last for long.

“You should have told me!” she lashed out, her eyes shifting in fury between the two men.

Steve was shaking his head. “I couldn’t, love. She absolutely forbid it.”

Clarissa turned her accusing glare toward Waymon.

“It’s true, sugar,” he confirmed with the same slow, sad shake of his head. “You know better than we do how protective she was over you.”

Clarissa let her head fall as though she had no strength to keep it up. She couldn’t refute the truth in Waymon’s words. How often had she listened to her aunt advise her, over the last five years especially, to not let the business become her life or even her passion. Remaining true to form, Clarissa had allowed business to become precisely that.

Feeling defeated, Clarissa left the sofa and went to overlook the rose garden Jaz had cherished. Behind her, she could hear Waymon speaking with Steve about the funeral preparations. She turned to rejoin them.

“No. You don’t need to sit in for this, baby,” Waymon said.

“It’s okay, I’m fine.” Clarissa’s sigh proved otherwise but she maintained. “I need something to stay occupied.”

“Occupied?” Waymon mixed laughter with the word. “I promise you’ll have more than enough of that. But this is something you should let others handle for you.”

“I need to stay busy, Waymon.”

“Not now you don’t.”

She knew the man well enough to know that was the end of it. Deep down—though she’d be hard-pressed to know exactly where—Clarissa knew he was right. Stifling her arguments, she returned to look unseeingly past the bay window.

* * *

Elias had been unnervingly silent since Linus dropped the Jazzy B’s folder on his desk.

“We’ve already taken the early meetings,” Tigo explained, averting his dark eyes to pull on his shirt cuffs. “We’ve pretty much done all that we can without your approval.”

Eli applied a quick tug to his earlobe and then brushed his fingers along the edge of the legal-sized manila folder. When he’d brought his best friends into his father’s business, it was with the understanding that they’d have an equal say in the operations. Unanimous approval was needed before any project was green-lighted.

“The prelim work shows that the project is sound,” Linus chimed in. “The pertinent departments have reviewed the various aspects of the deal and everyone’s in agreement.”

“We can set up new meetings with everyone involved if you’d rather hear it from them,” Tigo offered.

“You don’t need to do that.” Eli’s voice was quiet.

“We know, given the history, that you might be hesitant here, man,” Linus chimed in again as he expected the worst with good reasons. “If you could just try blocking all that out. Think about the money on the table with another nationwide project in hand....”

Eli looked up from the desk. A smirk triggered the dimples slightly shaded by the goatee he wore. “You’ve sold me.”

Tigo and Linus expelled twin sighs of relief.

“What’s the catch?” Linus was first to recover from the easy feelings floating around the room.

“I’ll sign on two conditions.” Elias reared back again in the desk chair.

Tigo dismissed some of his easy feelings then, as well. “Conditions.”

“You two continue to work with Jazmina Beaumont and her people—” he shrugged “—I don’t want to find myself spending time with her while this thing’s in progress.”

Linus and Tigo tried to mimic their partner’s shrug. Blatant uncertainty slowed their movements even though working with Jaz and her people was pretty much the manner in which things were going anyway.

“What’s the second condition?” Linus asked.

Elias pushed back the Jazzy B’s folder across the desktop. “I deal exclusively with Clarissa David.”

Chapter 3

“How do you know about her?” Santigo blurted, his easy persona completely vanished. “Why do you get the best part of the deal?”

Elias pushed away from his desk, saying, “Because my name’s on the door.”

“And wouldn’t Mr. Evan be rollin’ in his grave if he knew that was only because you had a lucky night at cards?” Linus accused, his slanting amber eyes appearing thin as slits as they narrowed.

The partners had gone back and forth for weeks about changing the company name. They then went back and forth about what to change the name to. Elias apparently had no allegiance to keeping his family name prominently displayed on the building’s masthead. Linus and Tigo were no strangers to the tense relationship Elias shared with his father. Nevertheless, it didn’t sit altogether right with them to completely strip away every trace of Evan Joss’s existence.

When Eli suggested they settle the matter by a game of poker, Linus and Tigo figured it’d be the only resolution that would be agreed upon. Linus and Santigo often wondered who had been more perturbed when Elias won—them or Elias.

“Clarissa David lives in California, you know?” Linus folded his arms over his chest and moved closer to the desk. “She only comes back here a few times a year to check in on her aunt’s East Coast clients. She’s not even heavily involved in the construction end...”

“Yet you two have met with her, or am I mistaken?” Eli focused on the bridge he made with his fingers. He knew both men well. They’d have certainly made a point of meeting with Clarissa David during one of the few times a year that she visited Philadelphia.

“Is this about business or somethin’ more personal?” Tigo challenged, leaning against the desk.

“What difference does it make?” Eli countered.

Playful accusation brought a sparkle to Linus’s exotic stare. “You met her, didn’t you? ’Course you have.” He rolled his eyes.

“When?” Tigo finally moved off the desk.

“How?” Linus tacked on.

By then, Eli was rolling up his sleeves in an attempt to ignore the gradual mounting of his frustration. “When and how I met her is my business.” His tone was soft, yet cold.

Linus was undaunted. “It’s our business, El. We can’t afford for you to let a personal...”

“Ancient,” Tigo interrupted.

“...beef with the woman’s aunt to cause us to miss out on this deal,” Linus preached.

“I take offense to that.” Elias’s voice remained low but not quite as chilly. “I already okayed the project. Last thing I’d try to do is sabotage it.”

Linus and Santigo couldn’t argue the truth of Elias’s words. Despite the dramatics that made up their partner’s relationship with his father, they knew Eli was of a mind to see the business remain among the top construction companies in the country.

“At least tell us why you want her all to yourself.”

Tigo groaned over Linus’s question. “Idiot—he just told you that he met her. That’s all it’d take.”

Elias lost his battle against smiling and shook his head. “I met her while Stan was fitting me for a new suit.”

“Humph,” Tigo grunted.

Linus nodded and eased his hands into his trouser pockets. “She’s a real sweetheart, El—nothin’ like what we’ve heard and what you know about her aunt.”

“Apple doesn’t always fall far,” Eli muttered.

“Well, in this case, it fell and rolled right out of the yard,” Tigo championed.

“But don’t take our words for it.” Linus waved his hands. “Could you at least tell us what your plan is?”

Elias laughed. “What the hell, fellas? You think I’d hurt her?”

“I just don’t think it’d be good for anyone involved for you to hold Clarissa David responsible for what went down back in the day between your dad and her aunt.”

“That’s what I’m trying to prevent.” Eli’s words were genuine. “You guys went behind my back to put this deal together and had the chance to get to know her in the process.” He gave a one-shoulder shrug. “I only want the same chance.”

Linus and Tigo didn’t appear totally convinced. At any rate, they eventually gave their consent with a round of slow nods.

“You wanna keep that?” Linus looked toward the Jazzy B’s folder.

“Leave it with Des.” Eli massaged the side of his nose. “He’ll tell me if there’s anything I need to know, and I’ll sign whatever crosses my desk.”

Left with nothing further to argue, Tigo and Linus slowly retreated from the office. Alone, Elias’s relaxed expression was replaced by pensiveness.

* * *

“Do you really need to be doing this now? Mr. Cole already told us what happened.” Rayelle Keats’s round café-au-lait-toned face was a portrait of bewilderment.

Clarissa set aside another one of the folders that was in the tall stack of folders she’d been reviewing, to acquaint herself with the club’s most pressing local business concerns. “They should hear this from me.” Her manner was a smidge absent.

Rayelle took a deep breath, hoping her “soft touch” didn’t fail her then. “I understand what you’re saying, Clay,” she began, using her pet name for Clarissa. “But nobody expects you to jump mountains today, this week or this month if truth be told.” When Clarissa continued to shuffle through the files, Rayelle came over to put her hand over the folders.

“Jaz was like your mother and you just lost her yesterday.”

The reminder caused Clarissa’s lip to tremble and the folder’s contents to cascade to the floor.

“Honey.” Rayelle pulled Clarissa up from the desk and into a squeeze.

“I have to be involved in something, working on something. If I don’t—” she inhaled sharply “—I’ll lose my mind. I know I will, Ray.”

“I know, honey.”

Clarissa pulled back from the embrace. “No, you don’t.”

Rayelle, a former dancer and choreographer, currently served as manager for the Jazzy B’s clubs in the northeast. She was used to dealing with servers and dancers and the stressful situations they often encountered in the profession. Therefore, it was easy for her to detect the chord in Clarissa’s voice that had little to do with grief.

“You wanna talk about it, hon?”

Clarissa stooped to collect the papers that had fallen. If there was anyone she could or would talk to, it would have been Rayelle Keats. The woman had started working for Jazmina when she was eighteen. Something had always told Clarissa that Ray’s introduction into the world of adult entertainment had come much sooner than that, but Clarissa had never asked. Rayelle always said that her life began when she met Jaz.

Clarissa and her aunt accepted Ray and the circumstances of her life without question. Clarissa had taken an instant liking to the Miami-bred Rayelle, having met her during summer visits. They had been friends for almost twenty years.

“We’ll talk.” Clarissa nodded when Ray looked over at her from helping with the papers. Clarissa glanced at the silver watch adorning her wrist. “Later though, after we’re done with the girls, okay?”

“You only get to brush me off once,” Rayelle warned and then hugged Clarissa over the stack of papers.

Clarissa was slipping on a pair of clogs in time to meet the dancers. Jazmina Beaumont had established her first club in the late sixties. The seedy (or less nurturing) side of Philadelphia in those days was where Jaz was born. Who raised her had always been something of a mystery for Clarissa. All she had ever known of her aunt’s childhood was that when the Beaumonts picked up their roots and decided to start over out west, young Jazmina had refused to leave.

Clarissa knew that the woman had been on her own since the age of fourteen. How she’d survived was a tale Jaz had never shared with her niece.

Clarissa had a fine idea. Looking into the faces of the young, lovely women who made their living at Jazzy B’s Gentlemen’s Club, Clarissa guessed a lot of her aunt’s history ran parallel to theirs. Clarissa, whose job was akin to recruitment, saw those same hopeful yet guarded women when they were at their most frightened and defeated.

The stories of their upbringings were far removed from fairy tales and romance. Clarissa learned a lot about her aunt through the very girls she gave purpose. In them, she saw her aunt’s fears and shame but also the woman’s strength and intelligence.

The dancers walked into the expansive room. It had served as Jazmina’s office, lounge and private dance studio. The girls arrived in a silent, somber stream. They all charted a path right to Clarissa for warm hugs and cheek kisses. Once each girl had found a spot to sit in the vibrantly decorated room, Clarissa moved to stand in the clearing.

“By now you’ve all heard about Jaz’s passing. Yes, Meri?” Clarissa pointed to the young woman whose hand was raised.

“Um...we didn’t even know she was sick.” The petite girl’s tone was whisper soft.

A murmur of voices filled the room for a short while before Clarissa raised her hand for silence.

“I talked with her doctor. She’d been taking heart medication for a while and um...” Clarissa cleared her throat when emotion suddenly crowded it. “She didn’t want anybody to know, not even me.”

Rayelle came over to grip Clarissa’s hand. Clarissa welcomed the contact, which gave her the power to keep talking.