Gwyneth Bolton - At First Kiss

She was finally on her way to the big time—cohosting her own show and not just doing entertainment and girl-about-town slots on someone else’s show—and her mother wasn’t going to be there to enjoy it with her.

“Jasmine, is that you?”

That voice…

Good grief, not now!

Why did she have to run into the self-proclaimed playa of the decade in the middle of the Grantley Adams International Airport when she was looking and feeling like crap? And what the hell was Mr. Lover Lover doing in Barbados in the middle of January, anyway?

Troy Singleton, the jet-setting playboy, probably didn’t even need a reason to be on a tropical island in the middle of the winter. He was probably just taking a spur-of-the-moment trip.

And why was he still calling her Jasmine when everyone called her Jazz? The only person that got away with calling her by her full name was her mother.

I can’t stand Troy Singleton!

He walked over to her and she gave him a quick once-over. He would be looking all good when she looked like a hot mess. The man was tall, built like a power forward basketball player and the color of rich, deep caramel. He was, in a word or two, hella fine. “It is you.” He quickly embraced her and she gave him the half-pat-butt-poked-out-and-away church hug.

They both let go just as quickly as they could. They couldn’t get away from each other soon enough.

She had no idea what his deal was, but she knew her own reason for the quick hug all too well. Un til she’d met Troy, she had never met a man she wouldn’t let wine and dine her. She couldn’t afford to let Troy Singleton buy her a hot dog on the street, let alone anything else at all.

She lived by the motto “Men are like buses. Miss one? Next fifteen minutes another one will be passing by.” She was a serial dater and proud of it. They would never catch her slipping, and her player card was certified platinum.

“You look like death warmed over, Jasmine. What the hell happened to you?” He looked her up and down with a twisted-up expression on his face.

She glared at him and ran her hand across her head. The cute twist out she’d had when she first arrived in Barbados was long gone, and her bright auburn natural hair was now pulled into a rather funky ponytail.

And it was too darn hot for makeup, even if she had dark circles the size of tea bags under her eyes.

While her sweatsuit might not have been Juicy Couture and was instead Hanes mix and match, it was comfortable for the long plane ride.

And who the hell was Troy Singleton to be telling her what she looked like, anyway?

She narrowed her very tired eyes. “Well, hello to you too, Stud.”

He frowned at her little nickname for him.

If he refused to call her Jazz like the rest of the known and free world then she made it her business to call him anything but his name. Her favorite was variations of Stud, from Studly to Studster to Studalicious and then some.

He sighed, and she could tell the exact moment when he chose to ignore her.

“Were you at the Jazz Festival? It was amazing, wasn’t it? Are you covering it for those little spots you do in Boston? Oh, wait, Alicia said you’re moving to Detroit soon. Are you going to be working for my competition?” She smirked. If you only knew, Studdy Boy…

“I didn’t even realize the Jazz Festival was going on, I was too busy. My mom passed away and she wanted to be buried here, at home in Barbados. So I had to do that—”

He hugged her and it startled her so she stopped speaking.

“I’m so sorry to hear about your mom, Jasmine. Alicia didn’t tell me that you were here burying your mother. I would have come to the funeral to pay my respects. I was here all week shooting footage for Detroit Live.”

She cleared her throat and tried to pull away, but he held her close. “Alicia didn’t know that my mom passed away. I didn’t want to upset her. She’s in the last stages of pregnancy with my godchild, after all.”

“Our godchild,” he corrected. “And she is going to be so mad at you! Alicia’s going to be heated! You know she has to know everything. That’s why she eavesdrops all the damn time. And when she finds out that your mom passed away and you didn’t tell her…” He shook with mock fear.

“It’s not like she could do anything. She can’t fly this late in the pregnancy, and it would have only upset her and given her something else to worry about. I figured I’d tell her when I move there in a couple of weeks.” She pulled away from him.

“You know that won’t be enough to appease Alicia. She could have sent Darren, her mother, her father, my sister and Kendrick, heck, she could have even sent me to be here with you and give you moral support.”

He made a show of looking at her chest, and she crossed her arm in front of her breasts.

“I’m just looking for the S on your chest, because you must think you’re Superwoman or something, Jasmine. Everyone has to lean on someone sometime.”

Jazz knew he was right. But growing up the only child of a hardworking immigrant mother, she had learned early on how to fend for and count on herself. Even though Alicia Taylor-Whitman had been her best friend since college, and through her Jazz’s extended family had grown immensely and she really did have people she could count on now, people that apparently included the bane of her existence, Troy Singleton, she still had a do-for-self attitude.

Great! Now her best friend was going to be pissed at her, too, just when she was finally moving to Detroit and they’d be living in the same city again for the first time since they had graduated from Mount Holyoke.

Alicia could hold a grudge like nobody’s business, too. The woman had stayed separated from her husband the entire nine months of her first pregnancy because he had lied to her about their fathers arranging their marriage.

And Troy might have been boasting about how he would have been there for her, but when she moved to Detroit and took her new job, he would be singing another tune. Even her favorite playboy frenemy probably wouldn’t give her the time of day once she moved to Detroit and he found out where she was going to be working.

She wouldn’t have anyone…

Before she knew it a tear started working its way down her cheek, and it was soon followed by another and then another.

She tried to stop them.

She was Carlyne Stewart’s strong daughter for God’s sake and she did not cry in public. She hadn’t cried in public during the entire week of funeral planning, the funeral or the horrid meeting with her mother’s lawyer. No way was she going to break down in the middle of the Barbados airport in front of Troy Singleton of all people.

Her lip quivered.

Oh, damn. Damn it all to hell!

Troy shook his head and frowned at her before taking her ticket out of her hands and walking away.

She thought about calling after him and asking him where the hell he thought he was going with her ticket. But the tears where falling full speed now and she felt the beginnings of hiccups and snot and all kinds of things that probably wouldn’t have been at all dignified. And she wanted to look at least halfway dignified when she got up the gumption to cuss Troy out. So she ran off to the restroom instead to have a nice good cry in the privacy of a stall.

Troy shook his head as he walked over to the ticket counter after telling his cameramen that he wouldn’t be flying back to Detroit with them. Somebody had to look after Jasmine. The woman was clearly in no shape to look after herself. Case in point, he had never seen her looking like anything less than a million bucks and today she looked as hopeless as a penny with a hole in it.

She was still fine as all get out with her Coke-bottle figure that made a man have all kinds of thoughts and her flawless toasted-cinnamon skin.