Heart's Secret

“Thank you, Henry.” Zora drew a deep breath and steadied her nerves. It didn’t matter how many times she’d done this, she still got a little nervous being in front of a camera.

Beatrice finished working her makeup magic and gave Zora the last five minutes alone before she went out on set. However, thirty seconds in, there was a knock on the open door.

Zora glanced over her left shoulder and then laughed. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Melanie Harte beamed from the doorway. “I want to go on record that you have to be the hardest chick to find in Manhattan.”

“Apparently not too hard.” Zora stood up from her chair and met Melanie halfway across the small room for a tight, heartfelt hug. “How have you been doing, girl?”

“Fine. Fine. Like you. Busy as ever.” Melanie, a fashionista herself, rocked a cute off-white pantsuit and a sharp pixie cut. In the fifteen years Zora had known Melanie, the woman didn’t look like she had aged a day. Zora had the stray thought that maybe Melanie should get into the business of selling her beauty secrets.

“I dropped by hoping I could take you to lunch.”

“Today?” Zora blinked, trying to think what she had on her schedule. Most likely she was loaded down with meetings and appointments. Mainly because that was how it was every day.

“C’mon. Say yes. It’s been months since we’ve gotten together and just girl-talked.”

Henry reappeared in the doorway. “Two minutes, Ms. Campbell.”

“I’ll be right there.” Zora glanced back down at her friend and felt the tug of playing hooky.

“Don’t front. You know you want to,” Melanie pressed.

“All right. All right.” She glanced at her watch. “It’s going to take about two hours to film this twenty-minute infomercial. I can call—”

“How about I wait here on the set?”

Zora blinked. “You want to wait?”

“Sure. Why not?”

Zora’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What are you up to?”

“Huh? What? Nothing.” She tried to cover with a bright smile, but it only made her look guilty.

“Ms. Campbell, we need you on set.”

“I’m coming.” She moved toward the door, but then stopped. “I’ll go to lunch with you, Mel, but don’t think I don’t know you’re up to something.”

“Who? Me?” Melanie batted her long lashes at her friend.

“Please. You ought to know better. That’s my signature move.” She wagged her finger. “You’re definitely up to something.”

Melanie pressed her lips together in order to remain mum.

Zora laughed. “All right. I’ll go to lunch with you but whatever else you have in mind, my answer is no.” Zora winked at her friend and rushed to the set.

Melanie stayed behind with a huge smile on her face. “We’ll just see about that.”

“You know you’re going to hell for lying to that sweet old man,” Kitty Ervin warned with a wave of her finger. She softened the admonishment with a smile. In the three years she had known Jaxon Landon she couldn’t remember a time she could ever stay mad at the sexy multimillionaire. In fact, it was hard enough just to be in the same room without having the impulse to rip off his clothes and try to screw his brains out.

“Sweet old man?” Jaxon Landon chuckled as he sat down behind his office desk and pulled out his checkbook. “You can’t possibly be talking about my grandfather.”

“Of course I am,” Kitty insisted, leaning a hip against his sturdy mahogany desk. “Despite your efforts to inform your family of my lucrative career choice, every five minutes, your grandmother was nothing but kind to me the entire time I was there.”

“My grandmother, yes. Carlton—that’s a horse of another color.” Jaxon’s rich laughter filled the large office. At six foot four and caramel candy–coated, Jaxon Landon managed the impossible feat of being both pretty-boy fine and alpha-male rugged at the same time. He was always immaculately groomed from head to toe, and the way he walked exuded a certain wild and dangerous grace. And his voice! His voice alone had the power to weaken the strongest sistah’s knees.

“Besides, old money is nothing if not civil. It’s what is being said behind closed doors that really matters. Trust me. My grandmother is likely crying to everyone who’ll listen that her mother is rolling around in her grave—no—rolling around, keening in her grave at the very thought of me marrying a stripper. I love her dearly, but she does tend to be overly dramatic from time to time.” He laughed, shaking his head.

Kitty’s back stiffened. She wasn’t ashamed of her profession. It was the idea that someone thought it eliminated her from landing someone like Jaxon Landon. Just because he was the new “Prince of Wall Street” and was cloaked in money, power and respect didn’t mean that he was out of her league. It just meant that she would have to step up her game.

Jaxon noticed that Kitty’s playful smile had vanished. He lowered his gold pen and rose from his chair. Jaxon kept forgetting people—mainly women—tended to be thrown off by his bluntness. He smiled as he moved around the desk. When he placed his large hands on her small shoulders and started massaging, he could tell by her twinkling eyes that all had been forgiven. “Sorry, Kitty. But I warned you before you accepted the job not to take anything that happened personally. My family can be closed minded and cruel sometimes.”

She laughed, and then spoke before thinking. “It’s not your family you should be apologizing for.”

Jaxon’s hands stilled on her shoulders. “What do you mean?”

Kitty mentally kicked herself. “Nothing.” She gently shrugged off his hands and moved from the desk. “My check?”

Jaxon couldn’t let such a flippant comment go. “Are you saying you thought I was somehow being unreasonable?”

Kitty really didn’t want to get into it. After all, it was none of her business whatever drama went on between him and his family. Chances were that she would never see them again anyway. Plus, she didn’t want to piss off Jaxon to the point that he would stop coming to the Velvet Rope. The women that competed for his attention grew more fierce every time he showed up. As it was, she was already the envy of every dancer in the place. Mainly because she had the advantage of knowing that it took more than big breasts, a slim waist, onion booty and a pretty face to grab and hold his attention.

Jaxon was an unusual client when it came to his visits to the gentlemen’s clubs. He wasn’t there to zero in on certain body parts. No. He generally enjoyed the art. He was particularly fond of the burlesque style as opposed to straight grinding on a pole and booty poppin’ in a sequined string thong.

Smiling, Kitty leaned forward and let her expensive breasts press against his chest. “I would never suggest that you were ever unreasonable,” she assured, blowing her strawberry scented breath up at him. “You have to be the kindest, most generous man I know.” And she meant it. Jaxon Landon was known for many things: a son of a bitch when it came to business, dangerous when it came to those who crossed him and a heartbreaker when it came to women who had the misfortune of falling in love with him.

But the one thing very few people knew about him was that he genuinely had a heart of gold when it came to people he cared about. It was no accident that she was the one to land the ten-thousand-dollar job to pretend to be his fiancée for the weekend. Kitty knew that word had gotten around the club about her grandmother’s increasing medical bills.

Last week she was sobbing into her pillow, worried about where she was going to come up with an extra ten grand for her grandma’s surgery and then the next thing she knew, Jaxon was on her doorstep with a job for the exact amount of money she needed. That day she swore she could see a halo encircling the man’s head.

And now, she had just insulted him.

“Then what are you saying?” Jaxon asked, standing up straighter.

“Oh, you know,” she said, trying to stall.

Jaxon’s smile flatlined while he waited.

Cornered, Kitty licked her lips and tried to swallow the growing lump in her throat. Whenever Jaxon leveled his intense mahogany eyes on someone, it had all the potency of drinking a bottle of truth serum. “I just meant that you seemed more…tense when you’re around your grandparents,” she confessed. “Once or twice, you may have come off a little short.” She shrugged and then tried laughing. “But, hey, I’m the same way around my folks. I don’t understand them and they certainly don’t understand me.”

The office grew as silent as a tomb for two seconds. The longest two seconds of Kitty’s life. It wasn’t that she feared that Jaxon would suddenly erupt and fly off the handle. He would never do that. It wasn’t his style. It was all about his expressions and body language. A flicker of disappointment from him had the same effect as a parent scolding a child and whenever his beautiful eyes narrowed it was like a dagger piercing a heart. And if his rich baritone dipped to a rumbling bass, you knew your ass was in serious trouble.

Then out of the blue, Jaxon’s smile was back. His perfect pearly white teeth and full, luscious lips had a way of making her feel like Cupid’s bow had pierced her heart. It was crazy how easily Jaxon could turn her on. It was like flicking on a light switch. More than anything, she wished that she meant more to him than just a plaything.

“You’re right,” Jaxon admitted, chuckling. “I do tend to get…worked up around Carlton.” He pivoted and returned to his chair to finish writing her check.

“May I ask you something?” she ventured.