Rivals in Paradise

“Fine. We have a no-strings affair. No questions. No promises. No problems. And you can reserve the right to change your mind if you feel the need. But—”

He cut her off with a kiss so potent it left her breathless. His tongue was almost acrobatic in its mission. It twirled and flipped and spun in her mouth as if it were the star attraction in the greatest show on earth.

She couldn’t be outdone so early in the game, so she moved her tongue slowly in and out of his mouth, interrupting his pace, slowing it down but keeping the heat of the kiss. She arched her back and moved her hips, swiveling them and rocking them against the hard press of his masculinity.

He let her slide down off the wall. His eyes were hooded in desire as he gazed at her. He lifted the hem of her sundress, his hand inching up her thigh in a slow seductive manner until he reached the part of her inner thigh closest to her core.

“Just relax and enjoy the ride,” he whispered.

GWYNETH BOLTON

was born and raised in Paterson, New Jersey. She currently lives in central New York with her husband, Cedric. When she was twelve years old, she became an avid reader of romance by sneaking books from her mother’s stash of Harlequin and Silhouette novels. In the ’90s she was introduced to African-American and multicultural romance novels and her life hasn’t been the same since. She has a B.A. and an M.A. in English/creative writing and a Ph.D. in English/composition and rhetoric. She teaches college-level classes in writing and women’s studies. She has won several awards for her romance novels, including five Emma Awards and a Romance in Color Reviewers’ Choice Award for new author of the year.

When Gwyneth is not teaching or working on her own romance novels, she is curled up with a cup of herbal tea, a warm quilt and a good book. She can be reached via email at gwynethbolton@prodigy.net. And readers can visit her website at www.gwynethbolton.com.

Rivals in Paradise

Gwyneth Bolton

MILLS & BOON

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This novel is dedicated to all my sistah-authors, for writing the amazing books that keep the genre of Black Romance alive. Nikki Giovanni told us that black love is black wealth and I know it’s true every time I read your books. Keep on writing and making this a genre that I am so proud to be a part of….

Dear Reader,

There is something about the rivals-to-lovers story that never gets old for me. Most of my favorite television couples have some element of rivals to lovers in their stories.

Who can forget A Different World, when Dwayne Wayne and Whitley Gilbert traded barbs in the early days of the show when he thought he was head over heels in love with Denise Huxtable? We all know how that turned out—with the famous wedding-crasher show and Dwayne begging… “Whitley, I love you! Please, baby, please!”

And then there is my all-time favorite couple, Maxine Shaw and Kyle Barker from Living Single. They took the “I hate you! I love you!” push and pull of rivals to lovers to passionate new heights.

These couples made crossing that thin line between love and hate oh so much fun! And if you enjoy journeys to love that are just a little vexed but also a whole lot of fun, then you are going to enjoy Cicely “Cee Cee” Stevens and Chase “The Wolf” Yearwood’s trip down love’s rocky road immensely.

From the minute Cicely stepped on the scene in If Only You Knew, I knew she’d have a wonderful story to tell one day. This younger sister was spicy and sassy and I knew I had to find just the right hero for her. It took me a minute, but I found him. You’re going to love Chase. He’s smooth, funny, 100 percent alpha male, every bit of fine and he loves Cicely to distraction (even if it takes him a minute to realize it). I hope you enjoy Cicely and Chase’s story. Be sure to look for my April 2011 release, At First Kiss!

Much love and peace,

Gwyneth

Acknowledgments

I want to acknowledge my family, because without their support I wouldn’t know what love is or be able to write about it. Special thanks to my husband, Cedric Bolton, my mom, Donna Pough, my sisters, Jennifer, Cassandra, Michelle and Tashina, my nieces Ashlee and Zaria and my nephew Michael.

To all the readers, thanks so much for all your emails and notes. Hearing from all you smart and savvy readers always makes my day!

Thanks to all the book clubs who have read my novels, especially SistahFriend, Sexy Ebony BBW African American Book Club, Sistas’ Thoughts from Coast to Coast and the Prominent Women of Color Book Club.

I also want to thank the ladies of the Live, Love, Laugh and Books Yahoo Group. The readers, writers and aspiring writers in this group, along with my fellow host authors—Shelia Goss, Michelle Monkou and Celeste Norfleet—are one amazing group of people.

Finally, I want to send an extra-special dose of love and appreciation to the Shelfari Black Romance Reading Group. I have so much fun talking about black romance novels with you all. I’m sure my local bookstore thanks you, too, because we are all so willing to enable each other’s book-buying addictions!

Contents

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 1

“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod. Oh. My. God! Harder. Harder. Harder!”

Cicely “Cee Cee” Stevens walked toward the master bedroom of her condo with her eyes and mouth wide open. There was no way she could possibly be hearing what she thought she was hearing.

Not in her house.

Not in her bedroom.

No damn way was this happening to her after the day she’d just had at work!

But the squeaking of the bedsprings and the bang, clunk, bang, clunk, bang of the headboard didn’t lie. Isaac was cheating on her….

That lowlife had another woman in her bedroom. In her bed! And he had better be thankful that she didn’t own a firearm. The old adage that God protected babies and fools was obviously true, because if she’d had a gun…heaven help the fool!

At one time not all that long ago, Cicely’s job had been all-important to her. She had known that she was damn good at it. As an executive in the corporate finance department 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 out celebration focused her attention on yet another reason why this had to be the worst night ever. After finding out that she had been passed over for the promotion, she’d called her two best friends and her sister to cancel their impromptu celebration. She’d felt like curling up on the sofa with some Chunky Monkey ice cream, her favorite torn sweatpants and FAMU T-shirt, a blanket and her boyfriend, feeling sorry for herself.

Is that really too much to ask for? Seriously?

Instead, she came home to her boyfriend in her bed with another woman.

Isaac reached out and touched her shoulder, trying to pull her closer to him.

“Uh-uh. No. Don’t you ever touch me again! And I want you out of my condo. Give me your key and get the hell out. Take anything of yours here because you will never be coming back!” She turned and walked out of the master bedroom.

She couldn’t stay in the condo tonight. Finding him in her bed with another woman had left her feeling almost violated. He had tarnished the sacred space of her home. She had to get out of there. At least for a little while….

He followed her with his pants half-zipped. Ironic.

“Baby, please don’t do this. Please don’t go. Where are you going? Are you going to your sister’s place?”

“It’s none of your business where I’m going. And why are you still here? Give me my keys and get the hell out.” She hissed out her words with all the venom she felt for him.

“I don’t want to go. I don’t want our relationship to end. Can’t you give me another chance? Can’t we work this out?” He gave her a pleading look and a nervous grin. “I made a mistake. But if you love me, we can get past this.”

If she loved him…

She cared about him deeply. She had committed herself to building a life with him because he was supposed to be a safe bet. But she didn’t love him in that way that always landed women in trouble unless they existed in some make-believe romance novel or chick flick where everything always turned out perfectly and everyone always lived happily ever after.

That’s why she had thought she would be safe. She knew enough not to believe that fairy tales existed in the real world. That’s why she’d picked Isaac. He wasn’t the fairy-tale type, far from it. But he was her shot at a nice, staid, secure and somewhat happily-ever-after life.

Was this her fault for settling into a relationship she thought was safe?

She shook her head.

No.

This wasn’t her fault.

It was his sorry, no-good, trifling fault. She went to her closet and started packing a bag. She was normally a nonviolent, peaceful person. But she had to get out of there before she caught a case.

Isaac reached out and touched her shoulder. She turned and glared at him, giving her eyes just enough squint to show that she meant business.

“If you want to keep that hand, I suggest you keep it off of me. And get out!” Speaking through clenched teeth, she counted to ten in her head.

Woosah…Woosah…

He pulled his arm back quickly and she continued packing in silence.

She had no idea where she was going to go. She just knew she had to get the hell out of there. She thought about going to her sister, Latonya’s, house. But then she’d have to put up with her older sister feeling like she had to fix things for her baby sister. And her brother-in-law, Carlton, would probably make it his business to put Isaac in his place.

And if she went to Gran’s house, her grandmother would probably put a hurting on Isaac worse than anything Carlton or Latonya could ever do. Even in her eighties, Gran wasn’t anyone to mess with and she didn’t tolerate people messing over her girls.

No, it was best that she go to a hotel for the night. Yes, a luxury hotel with lots of amenities and a top-of-the-line snack bar to raid would be the perfect place for her to lick her wounds. She would pamper herself for the night, or maybe even the weekend, and come back as good as new to her now-defiled condo. She would be ready to face it then. Maybe buy some new sheets and a new duvet on the way home from the hotel.

I can do it, she told herself.

She pulled up the handle on her small rolling suitcase, cut a sneer at the now sniveling idiot sitting on her bed and walked over to him with her hand out.

“Key, please.”

He reached in his pants pocket and took her key off his key ring.

“Finish getting dressed and get to stepping.”

She watched as he slowly finished dressing, then walked him to the door, barely resisting the urge to kick him in his backside as he exited her condo.

She waited for him to be good and gone before she exited, too. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew she was getting the hell out of there.

Chase “The Wolf” Yearwood took a sip of his drink after toasting to the good old days and brand-new beginnings with his college buddy, Leonard Stone. Chase’s taking the job as the head of the corporate development division at Mainstay Media where Leonard was the head of the finance department was the reason for their little happy-hour celebration.

At thirty-three years old, Chase had made more than a name for himself in the business world. Chase had made his former employer lots of money by relying on his keen kill-or-be-killed instincts. His instincts helped him in his personal life as well, especially in his relationships with the opposite sex. His law-of-the-jungle approach to dealing with the selfish, money-grabbing women he had become used to reinforced his nickname of “The Wolf,” in both the bedroom and the boardroom.

But in the boardroom, his former superiors had started to second-guess him and question his actions in unproductive ways. Chase refused to be stifled. So, he landed a sweet new position based on a tip from his old college buddy, Leonard Stone. He planned to start the new job just as soon as he took a trip to Dahinda, the island he’d been born on and the place he still called home.

His narrow focus on work and only work had caused him to miss the chance to be at his grandmother’s bedside when she’d passed away. He felt more than a little guilty about missing her passing and missing the chance to tell her how much she had meant to him. He planned to use the trip home to reevaluate his priorities and reconnect with what was important. He wouldn’t let work keep him away from the rest of his relatives, especially his mother, Margie.

The job at Mainstay was slightly different from Chase’s former job. He would still be in charge of mergers and acquisitions. However, the “corporate raider” aspect of his former job would be missing. He would be more hands-on in development instead of swooping in and gobbling up struggling companies so that they could be taken apart and sold off piece by piece. He would be building things now.

“You’re going to love it at Mainstay, Yearwood!” Leonard slapped him on the back and let out a chuckle.

Leonard hadn’t changed all that much in the years since college. He was tall and still somewhat lanky. He had what some would call a swimmer’s build. His formerly thick, wavy hair was now making a slow creep away from his forehead, but he hadn’t gone the shave-it-all-off route that most men went when faced with balding. He had a weird comb-it-all-to-the-front thing going on that really did nothing to hide the fact that he was going bald. His hazel eyes were still astute and focused and didn’t give anything away about the man behind them.

“And I’m going to love the fact that everyone knows I was instrumental in bringing you to Mainstay. It gave me major points with the boss, and as long as you do your thing the way you’ve done it in your previous job, I’m sure we’ll both be moving on up to the vice president slots soon.”

Chase squinted a little. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Leonard lumping their possible future promotions together like that. He had always been a man who went by his own merit, played by his own rules and made his own way. When he’d pledged Omega as an undergraduate, he’d earned the line name “The Lone Wolf” because he’d pledged solo with no line brothers, just himself. He had been an only child. He always had been, and always would be, his own man.

He hadn’t needed Leonard to get the job, and he certainly wasn’t going to allow Leonard to ride his coattails to a promotion. Leonard telling him about the position was not equivalent to his hard work and preparation giving him the experience and tools he needed to get hired into the position. He didn’t like at all what Leonard was insinuating.

But rather than spoil the celebratory mood, Chase just made a mental note to watch Leonard.

“It’ll be great, man. Just like old times when we ran the student government at FAMU,” Leonard added.

Chase frowned. “I’m looking forward to the new job and developing my strengths in other areas. The change will be nice, and it will keep me sharp, help me keep my edge.”