CHAPTER NINE
But Grayson didn’t see a ghetto queen in Latoya at all. He saw a woman standing up for herself. And he couldn’t agree more. “Good,” he said to her.
Dena looked at him. Good? Did he say good? That woman had just showed who she truly was, ghetto fabulous and all, and all he could say was good?
“Keep going,” he said to Toya.
And Toya kept going. “So I fought back,” she said to him. “His wife came in the breakroom where we were, and she saw that he had torn my blouse and everything. But she blamed me. She said I was fired and that she would call the cops if I didn’t leave Leonard and Lowe and never look back.”
“She fired you on the day of your promotion?”
Toya fought back tears. She could only nod her head.
Which broke Grayson’s heart. Poor girl. “What did you tell her when she threatened to phone the police?” he asked her.
“I told her to go right ahead and phone them. He assaulted me and I fought back. I wasn’t running away like I did something wrong.”
“Damn right,” Grayson said. Dena looked at him again.
“People have something like that over your head they’ll always use it against you later on. But,” Toya added with a kind of resignation in her tone, “the police didn’t believe me. I got arrested.”
Grayson was enraged. “You got arrested?”
“They said it was because he had burn marks and bumps and bruises for when I took that pot of grits and threw it on him, and then I beat him with the pot.”
“Grits?” asked Dena. “Beating people with pots? Who are you?”
But Grayson smiled and nodded his head. This woman was something else, that’s who she was. But then he realized what she had said. “But they released you, right?”
“Three months later.”
“Three months? Why would they keep you that long?”
“That was nothing to them. They were looking at giving me years in prison based on those lies Richard Lowe and his wife were telling them. The prosecutor said if I didn’t sign an agreement where I would drop all charges against Richard, because I did press charges against him, then he would drop all charges against me.
But they also said I had to accept being fired and not even apply for unemployment nor ever attempt to sue him later on.
And he agreed to never sue me. It was like they wanted me to pretend that my entire thirteen-year career never happened. ”
“Ridiculous,” said Grayson. “He certainly got the better end of that deal.”
“I know right?”
“But why would they believe him over you? I assume he’s physically a big man.”
“A very big man.”
“And look at you.” She was overall smallish. “Why would they believe him?”
““He was a well-known man in Ocala. He was successful. I was a nobody. That’s how they treat powerless people like me in our judicial system. Money talks man. The rich gets away with murder. We do time for crimes we didn’t even commit.
And I knew that was going to be my fate. So I had to sign the deal.”
Sadness appeared in her eyes. “I had to walk away from my thirteen-year career and not even put all those years of experience on my résumé.” Then she smiled. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this of all people.”
Grayson smiled too, but he was still enraged by the way she was treated.
And then the phone rang. And sure enough, they asked to speak to Grayson. “Mr. Hamilton wishes to speak to Mr. Carrington,” Toya said as she looked at him. He shook his head no. She got back on the phone. “I’m afraid Mr. Carrington is indisposed at the moment, sir. May I take a message?”
They apparently said yes because Toya looked around, realized there was no pad or pen to take a message with.
She jumped up with the cordless phone in her hand, hurried over to Grayson’s desk, moved over to the side that Dena was not standing on, and grabbed the two-thousand-dollar pen that was laying on his desk and a Post-it note, and she took down the information.
“I’ll let him know,” she said, and then ended the call.
But she continued to stand beside him.
“Is there anything else?” Dena asked her.
“No ma’am.”
She was about to tell Toya that she could go back to her seat, but Grayson interrupted her. “That’ll be all, Dena. You can take off now. We’ll see how Ridgeland shakes out before I make any further moves.”
“Yes sir,” Dena said, although Toya could tell she didn’t want to be dismissed. But she began leaving. “See you later tonight.”
Grayson looked up. Toya could tell he was puzzled. “Tonight?” he asked. “What’s happening tonight?”
“The opera, remember? They’re performing La Traviata.”
“Again?”
“They perform it every single month, and have been for the past several months. Haven’t you noticed that yet?
I think it’s because your father loves it so much.
But also because he’s their greatest patron.
But, of course, the opera house will never admit that.
But he made it clear that you had better be there.
And that I had better be there too.” She smiled when she included herself. “Remember?”
Toya looked at Grayson. He didn’t look like a man who would let anybody tell him what he had better do. But a parent was still a parent, she supposed, even to rich people like him.
“He told me he wanted me there too,” Dena said again. And then she smiled again, as if she wanted Toya, who was her rival in her mind only, to understand whom she was dealing with. “He makes it his business to include me in all family functions. He’s such a wonderful man.”
“How about that?” Grayson said dryly, as if he wasn’t exactly onboard with the wonderfulness of his father.
Grayson also wasn’t onboard with the fact that his father would have undoubtedly invited Charlotte along as well. Which, he also noticed, Dena failed to mention.
“See you tonight,” Dena said airily, as if she was so looking forward to it, and began leaving once again.
But when she gave Toya a glance as she was walking out that door, as if she was warning her to back off of her man, Toya was offended.
She didn’t want her man anyway, and her man didn’t want her.
They didn’t even know each other! But that was how women always treated her.
As a threat for reasons she didn’t believe they even understood.
Especially when she posed no threat at all.
But Dena’s concern, Toya conceded, probably had more to do with Mr. Carrington’s reaction to her than her own actions.
Because she would be lying if she said she didn’t notice, when she first walked into that office, how Mr. Carrington seemed to pay more attention to her presence than to anybody else’s.
And when he insisted she answer the phones from his conference table.
It felt as if he couldn’t take his large, beautiful eyes off of her.
Every time she looked in his direction, he was staring at her. Dena had to have seen it too.
Normally that kind of unwanted attention creeped Toya out.
Every man she ever been with always had one thing on their minds when it came to her.
Always. They never viewed her as a life partner.
They never viewed her as somebody worthy of winning their heart.
She was just a body in a bed to them. And when that wasn’t enough, they left her high and dry because although their hearts never got involved, hers always did. She swore off men years ago.
But she found that she liked the attention when it came from Mr. Carrington. Because he wasn’t like them. His look didn’t seem lustful at all, but more inquisitive. Like he was trying to figure her out. Like she was somebody worth figuring out. She was unaccustomed to that kind of attention.
Of course her liking his attention might have more to do with the fact that he held the power to keep her employed, or to fire her. But it didn’t feel like that was what it was.
But whatever it was, it was nothing like his chief-of-staff seemed to think it was. “I’d better go and find Miss Javits before she leaves too,” Toya said. “I don’t know my hours or what time to even report to work tomorrow.”
“The hours here are ten to six. The hours at Carrington Capital are 6 to whenever my executives chose to leave. Naturally, I have a team of secretaries answering phones at Carrington. You won’t be needed there.
You’ll be working here. Which is 10 to 6.
I don’t like people at my home too early nor too late.
Be on time. And if you must come early, do not come any earlier than a quarter to ten unless it is a special occasion, which we occasionally have. ”
She was a tad disappointed that she wouldn’t be at the main office, which she was certain would offer more opportunities for advancement, but she had to take what she could get.
That mansion, with all those people employed there, offered many opportunities too.
“Yes sir,” she said, and was about to walk away.
“Oh. I almost forgot.” She handed him back his pen.
“And here’s the name and phone number of the man who left the message. ” She handed him the Post-it note.
He watched her as she walked over to the table to grab her purse. She had a very nice figure, he noticed, with all of her curves proportioned perfectly on her slender body that made her seem like a perfect fit.