Pamela Yaye - Promises We Make

Niveah raised her head. There was a warning look in her eyes, and he read the message clearly: say a word and you’re a dead man. For now he’d play her game, but this was far from over. Disgust clogged his nostrils as he watched her. Niveah Evans was one hell of an actress. Drama students should take pointers from her, he decided, sliding a hand into his pocket. Recalling how she’d screamed and cursed as she climaxed, made him grin. The creative director might be able to fool their colleagues, but he knew the real Niveah Evans. The sultry, bad-ass chick who was a freak between the sheets.

Damien examined her. Remembering how she’d purred when he’d sucked her nipples into his mouth made it impossible for him to stare at anything but her chest. He dragged his gaze back up her face, only to have it dip back down to her cleavage seconds later. Worldly wise, there wasn’t much that got past him, and one glance at Niveah, sitting all prim and proper in her padded chair, told him she was a fraud. A fake. A woman with more faces than Lady Gaga. Why else would she look like a sex kitten on New Year’s Eve and a sexually repressed librarian three days later? Niveah was trying to pull the wool over his eyes, but he wasn’t having it. Before the end of the work day, he was going to get to the bottom of things—and retrieve his watch—because no one tricked him and got away with it.

“Dammit, Jeanette! Quit laughing, this is serious!”

“I can’t help it,” she admitted, still tittering, “This sounds like an episode of Desperate Housewives, and you know how much I love that show!”

More giggles flowed over the phone line.

Niveah leaned against the tiled wall and crossed an arm under her chest. Sneaking off to the bathroom in the middle of the staff meeting to call Jeanette was risky, but she couldn’t handle being in the conference room a second longer. Not with her hands and legs shaking furiously. Shocked didn’t begin to describe how she felt when her boss introduced her to Damien Hunter. Ashamed and mortified were more suitable words, but she wasn’t about to tell her best friend that. Besides, Jeanette was too busy busting a gut to realize the severity of the situation. “I can’t believe this is happening. This is my worst nightmare come true, and you’re cracking up like you’re watching a Chris Rock HBO special.”

“Girl, I’m sorry, but this is just too rich!” Her tone was filled with awe. “Okay, let me make sure I got this straight. Your one-night stand—the guy you had, and I quote, ‘the most amazing sex of your life with’—is the clown from the East Coast office? The man Mr. Russo expects you to work with on that big Discreet Boutique account?”

Niveah cringed. Again.

“I could kick myself for calling in sick today. I would have given anything to see the look on your face when that Damien guy came into the conference room.”

“Believe me, it wasn’t pretty.”

“I bet. You’ve gotten yourself into one hell of a jam, and I’m dying to know what you’re going to do next.”

“Nail the Discreet Boutique campaign, that’s what.”

“No, not about work, about this Damien guy. Are you going to approach him, or pretend your rumble in the jungle didn’t happen?”

“Can you stop saying that?” Niveah snapped. “It’s not funny.”

“You were the one who said the sex was wild and primitive, like two animals mating in the jungle,” she said innocently. “Now back to my original question, are you going to talk to—”

“Why would I do that? We had our fun, and now it’s time to move on. I have a campaign to finish, and a presentation to prep for. I don’t have time to worry about some man I …” had hot, steamy sex with. The words rose in her thoughts, but she said, “I’ve already forgotten about.”

“I wouldn’t be able to work with someone I’ve had sex with, but if anyone can do it, you can. Your employees don’t call you ‘the Heart of Darkness’ for nothing.”

The bathroom door swung open, and two women from the human resources department sauntered inside. “Hello, Ms. Evans,” they greeted.

Niveah nodded, then whispered into the phone. “We’ll talk later.”

“Sure thing. Try not to worry. Everything will be fine.”

Doubtful of that being true, she ended the call, switched off her cell phone and slid it into her jacket pocket. Determined to make a hasty getaway, Niveah reached for the door handle.

“What do you think of the new guy?”

Niveah glanced over her shoulder, realized the brunette was speaking to her, and plastered a smile on her face. Each company had at least one employee who lived for gossip, but Access Media and Entertainment had been cursed with two, and since she didn’t want to be the next casualty on the rumormill, she decided to be nice to the Olsen twin lookalikes. “I only spoke to him briefly, but he seemed okay. Why?”

“The female employees are placing bets on who will nail him first. Essence Jackson, over in the finance department, is leading the pack.”

What was with the women betting all of a sudden? Snippets of her conversation with Roxi on New Year’s filled her mind. A cold shiver crawled up her back, and a scowl tightened the corners of her lips. Her friend was to blame for the trouble she was in. If Roxi hadn’t goaded her into having a one-night stand, she wouldn’t be hiding out in the women’s washroom now. Okay, so Roxi hadn’t had put a revolver to her head and forced her to have sex with Damien, but Niveah needed someone to blame and big-mouth Roxi was it.

“Damien Hunter puts the f in fine, and if I wasn’t happily married, I’d be all over him.”

I hear you, girlfriend, I hear you.

The shorter woman stopped preening in the mirror, a contemplative expression on her oval-shaped face. “I don’t know what it is, but every time he looks at me I get knots in my stomach and I break out in goose bumps. It’s the strangest thing.”

Tell me something I don’t know, Niveah thought, remembering the first time she’d seen Damien at the Ritz-Carlton bar. Six feet tall, dreamy eyes, shrouded with muscles. He was confident, persuasive and smoking hot. What more could a woman want? And then there was that dark, penetrating gaze of his. The sexual energy between them was crushing, the single most devastating thing she’d ever experienced. His voice had had a calm, soporific effect on her, and before she knew what she was doing, they were headed upstairs to his executive suite. There, he’d further broken down her defenses, making her believe with every kiss that it had never been like this for him.

“A bunch of us thought it would be fun to take Damien out for drinks after work,” she continued, turning back to the mirror. “If you don’t have other plans, you’re more than welcome to join us. We’re meeting at the bar up the block around five.”

Curious, Niveah asked who was going.

“Everyone,” they answered in unison. “Since there’ll be over twenty of us, I went ahead and made reservations for one of their back corner rooms. That way we can talk and mingle, and drink our martinis in peace.”

“Thanks for the invitation, but I’m afraid I can’t join you. I’m working late tonight.”

“I told you she wouldn’t come,” grumbled the shorter woman to her friend. “She doesn’t believe in fraternizing with her subordinates, remember?”

Anxious for the conversation to end, Niveah yanked open the bathroom door. She hurried out into the hall, and ran smack dab into her wickedly handsome one-night stand.

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