Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
When Joy heard the whirring of the custodial staff’s cleaning tools, she knew she’d been at the office too long. A quick glance at the time in the corner of her computer screen confirmed it.
She used the alone time to formulate her plan based on Glock’s reports and the resources she now had at her disposal.
She ripped the pages out of her legal pad that housed the notes she took about the political and business associates the Kings had and stuffed them in her purse.
Beside each name was a problem her organization was having that a connection with them could help solve.
Ports, law enforcement, real estate, taxes.
“If you come to me with problems, I’m coming to you with a bullet. Bring me solutions,” her father had preached to her and the soldiers.
She’d heard about the elder Kings’ anniversary party coming up and that it was considered a grand affair with lawyers, politicians, and businessmen from across the country set to be in attendance. Joy figured that would be the best time to make some contacts and wanted to be prepared.
With a deep sigh she stood and gathered up the copies she’d made of her work earlier. She’d leave them on Ace’s desk for him to see in the morning then she’d drag herself home.
Joy hated to admit it but she was lonely.
The only thing her father couldn’t train out of her was her desire for companionship.
Luckily, she’d had Glock and her soldiers and even Jermaine when he wasn’t being an asshole.
Now, it felt like she had no one. Mel and Glock both tiptoed around her, both trying to change her into a version she no longer was or would never be.
This is your penance, she reminded herself. The sooner she became normal, the sooner she could go home and be released from this purgatory.
The halls were empty and dimly lit. The building was almost eerily silent with everyone having left hours prior. With Jessica gone, she walked right past the reception desk and pushed the door to Ace’s office open.
“Oh!” Joy startled, taking a step back.
Ace sat in his chair with his suit jacket discarded and his tie loosened. His eyes, the same color as the scotch he was sipping on, looked up from his computer screen to meet hers.
“Sorry, I thought you were gone,” she apologized, hovering in the doorway.
Ace just stretched his full lips in a grin. “You good. Come in,” he waved her inside.
Ignoring the way his face lit up when he saw her, Joy walked deeper into the office with the folder in her hand. “I was just going to leave these here for you. They’re copies of all of the motions I filed with the court. They’re time stamped in case anyone tries anything funny.”
Ace accepted the folder and placed it on his desk. “‘Preciate you, Rose. Have a seat.”
Part of her said she should drop the files and leave but the other part, the part that didn’t want to go home alone and was becoming increasingly more intrigued by Ace, sent the message from her brain to her limbs to do as he said.
“What are you still doing here?” Joy asked, lowering into the seat across from him. When she crossed one leg over the other, her dress rode up, revealing more of her thighs. She smirked watching Ace fight not to zero in on the movement.
He sighed. “There’s still a lot to be done until I can call it a night. Why are you still here?”
Joy shrugged. “I was in a groove and wasn’t ready to leave yet.”
He tilted his head. “You spend a lot of your Friday nights at the office?”
“Didn’t have anything better to do. Do you spend a lot of your Friday nights at the office?”
Ace chuckled. “I’ve spent my Friday nights working for a long time.”
“Gotta pay the cost to be the boss, right?”
Ace gave a solemn smile. “Exactly,” he nodded.
Joy stood, trying to escape Ace’s eyes and walked over to the floor to ceiling window behind his desk. She looked out at the Downtown Brooklyn skyline and the bustling city below them.
“New York is a beautiful city,” she mused aloud.
She heard Ace’s chair shift and felt his body heat as he came to stand beside her. “You think so?”
“Mhm. It’s loud and chaotic but I love it.”
“Yeah. Chaos on the outside quiets the one inside.”
Joy dragged her gaze to Ace. He’d stolen the words straight out of her mouth.
He was already looking at her and that same sensation that she felt the night they met, the one that made her feel like she was in the presence of someone familiar, had returned.
He looked at her like he saw her and for a moment she wished that he did.
That she could show him the real her and still want her.
A weighted silence hung between them and Joy got the overwhelming desire to bolt. Their eye contact was just that but it felt intimate and bare and she needed to escape.
“Anyway, I’ll let you get back to—“ Joy began as she backed away but Ace cut her off.
“Stay,” he said in that demanding tone she’d overheard on the phone. “You don’t have to go. I was about to order dinner. Join me. We can have a working dinner,” he softened.
Joy wanted to decline but she wasn’t ready to go back to being alone just yet and the desperation in his expression told her that he wasn’t either.
“Sure,” she smiled. “Let me go grab my things.”
A little over an hour later, they sat side by side on Ace’s couch with Chinese takeout spread out on the coffee table in front of them.
Joy leaned across one arm of the seat and Ace leaned against the other, facing each other.
With a few drinks between the two of them accompanying their meal, they were both feeling loose.
“Wait so what did you do?” Joy cackled, listening intently to the story Ace was telling about one of his celebrity clients who shot her cheating husband.
“Fuck you mean? I left. I’m a defense attorney not a marriage counselor. Sent that invoice as soon as I got in the car too.”
“I know that’s right. Love makes folks do some crazy shit.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Joy watched the liquid in her glass move as she swirled it around. “You’ve never been in love?” she asked without looking up.
“Nah,” Ace answered around a mouthful of orange chicken.
“Never?”
“Nope. Have you?”
“Nah,” Joy shook her head. “I’m not really focused on that right now.”
“What are you focused on?”
Joy sighed and looked out at the skyline in front of them. “Getting my life together. I kinda left a mess when I left Texas. I’m hoping once I get it together I can go back home.”
“What kind of mess?”
“I… I lost control. And it cost me my job. My family. My… everything.”
“Is that why you’re so rigid and phony?” Ace asked.
Joy gasped and threw a fortune cookie at his solid chest. “I am not phony,” she protested.
Ace chuckled, tossing the wrapped cookie back at her. “You phony as hell, love. I’ll admit you have the first lady persona down to a tee but it’s fake as fuck.”
Joy wanted to protest. To insist that who she presented herself as was who she was but the lies wouldn’t fall past her lips. It was fake as hell but if fake is what she needed to be to go home then she’d be that. If Ace wasn’t fooled though, would her father be?
Joy swallowed her doubts. “Whatever. I don’t know why you think you have a PhD in Joy but this is who I am.”
Ace gave her a sidelong glance that told her that he wasn’t buying it but he didn’t comment. “When you say you lost control… What do you mean by that?” he asked instead.
Joy released a humorless chuckle. “I had a little breakdown,” she admitted.
“Oh?” Ace raised a brow.
Joy nodded. “I made a mistake that cost us a business relationship. I’m hoping once I prove I’ve learned, I can go home.”
Ace nodded. “So that you can get back to working for your dad?”
“Hopefully.” She sighed wistfully, looking off into the distance. “It’s all I know. I was groomed to take over my daddy’s business since I was a little girl…” she trailed off, her eyes becoming distant, getting lost in memories and seeing far beyond the New York City high rise.
“My older brother wasn’t built for it so all the pressure was on me to ‘secure the legacy’,” she spoke with air quotes.
“I was such a daddy’s girl I would’ve done it anyway just to spend time with him.
I didn’t get to do the things my brother and other girls got to do though.
My only friends were my cousin and the nephew of one of my dad’s associates.
” She ended her statement with a bitter laugh.
“Anyway,” she said. Whatever emotions she’d let slip were quickly masked again as she turned back to Ace.
“What about you? Are you looking for love or are you one of those niggas who are gonna hoe around until they’re 50 and realize they don’t want to die alone.”
Ace chuckled. “Nah never that. I honestly never thought about love or marriage much before. My life has been all business since I could remember. I get what I need when I need it but other than that, women have been the furthest from my mind. Just a distraction I don’t have the capacity for. Especially now.”
Joy listened as he relayed his reasoning with such practice, she wondered if he was trying to convince her or himself.
“I can understand that,” she said.
They sat there for a moment longer, their gazes and the silence lingering.
“Anyway,” Ace exhaled sharply, snatching his eyes away like he was shaking off a trance. “Guess we should get back to work,” he said, rolling his shoulders as he stood.
“Mhm,” Joy agreed.
Both of them having had enough sharing for the night, Ace took his place at his desk and Joy sat across from him.
Silently, they divided up tasks and fell effortlessly into sync.
“I went through the nearby camera footage and there were a few interesting things in there that I think can help us,” Joy announced, pulling files and blown up photos from her folder.
“Show me what you got,” Ace waved her over.