CHAPTER SIX
The next morning, after showering and dressing, Hawk made his way downstairs for breakfast. His home that had been pin-drop quiet overnight was now bustling with activity inside and outside as his maids and butler and grounds crew did their daily work around his home.
But when he walked down lower levels of his staircase and saw that same young lady he had thought about all night sitting on his sofa, he stopped in his tracks.
She couldn’t see him unless she turned her body at a nearly ninety-degree angle, but he could see her.
And that sense that she was completely different than the average girl returned.
And captivated him as he stood on his stairs.
It wasn’t her clothing. There was nothing sexy about her clothes.
She wore the same thing she wore yesterday, except in a different color: A pair of slacks, a tucked-in blouse, and that same blazer she wore last night.
It was like a uniform for assistants, he assumed.
But no assistant had him throbbing like he was throbbing just watching her. No assistant came close.
And it wasn’t in her manner either. She wasn’t the nicest young lady he’d ever met.
But it was in the way she carried herself. There was a proudness about her. There was a sense that she might not be on the same level as her employer, but nobody was better than her. She had gravitas in her own, quiet way.
He was also certain that she knew she was in the home of a man who owned a record company. She knew she was traveling in rare air. But it didn’t seem to faze her at all. Because last night, despite what he saw was interest in her eyes too, she still turned him down.
At the top of the staircase, staring down, was his mother. She was watching him watch Janita. And that view brought a smile on her face.
The first time she met Janita two months ago, when she was opening the car door for her and she got a chance to look the young lady in her eyes, she knew she was the one for Hawthorne.
He was always so exacting like his father.
He wanted himself a “pure” woman. Janita wasn’t pure.
She saw that early on too. But what woman was?
Janita, she believed from the moment she first met her, was the one for her son.
And he needed someone desperately in Reecie’s eyes. More so now than ever after she read about that shooting. That shooting, despite how much Hawk tried to minimize it, scared the life out of her.
She also believed, even before she met Janita, that if any one of her six children were going to get married and give her a grandchild, it was going to be Hawthorne.
Somehow she knew it in her bones despite how much he always recoiled at even the thought of marriage.
But that was only because he was looking at marriage through the eyes of his parents.
His lens was blurred by their trauma. But she believed that Janita, although eleven years younger than Hawk, was strong enough to get him beyond his black-and-white views of marriage. She was the one.
At least that was her hope. That was why she stood there staring at her beloved son as he stared at Janita. There was a spark there. She saw it when his eyes locked onto Janita’s eyes last night. But did they see it?
Hawk apparently did because he was still staring at that young lady like he wanted to eat her, and Reecie was still staring at him.
Until a maid on the landing behind her dropped a bucket of supplies.
Which caused Hawk to turn around to see what the commotion was about.
Which caused Janita to turn that ninety-degree angle to look up at the staircase too, where she saw Hawk, and his mother further up, standing there.
When they both saw Reecie, she had no choice but to make her way downstairs. “Your maids are loud and clumsy,” she said as she marched down those stairs in her stiletto heels, her smallish overnight bag in tow.
When she made it to the bottom of the stairs, she hugged her son. “Good morning,” she said, which he knew was her way of making up for the tension last night.
“Good morning, Mother,” Hawk said, returning her hug.
His mother, with her arm still around his waist, forced him to walk with her into the living room where Janita sat. Janita stood up by the time they made it up to her.
“Good morning, Janita,” Reecie said with her usual grand smile.
“Good morning, Mrs. Webster.”
But Janita’s heart was hammering by the time she got up the courage to look into Hawk’s eyes.
She’d been thinking about him all night, and the fact that he hit on her.
She knew what that was about: He wanted a one-night stand.
But the oddest thing to her was that his body was saying he wanted her for sex and sex alone, but his eyes seemed to be saying something different.
Like yeah, he was attracted to her. But it was not just a physical attraction.
Which made no sense because the man was so aroused last night that he couldn’t hide it.
But she saw much more than that in him, and she couldn’t explain it away.
“Good morning,” she said to him as their eyes met.
But it was a very brief meeting because she quickly looked away.
“Walk us out,” Reecie said to Hawk as she continued to keep her arm around his waist.
Janita hurried ahead of them to open the front door, and Reecie could see how Hawk was staring at Janita’s nice little tight body. As if he already had gotten some from her and wanted some more.
But Reecie didn’t believe it. She would bet her husband’s fortune that Hawk tried to hit on Janita last night alright.
That part she was certain was true. But she would bet her life that Janita didn’t go for it.
Reecie couldn’t see that particular young lady allowing that. That young lady was nobody’s whore.
And if Hawthorne did come onto Janita, it was only a test in his eyes because Reecie knew that her son, unlike many in their family, and despite what the tabloids said, was nobody’s whore either.
After they made it outside and up to the waiting Mercedes, Janita hurried in front again and opened the back passenger door for Reecie.
But before getting into the car, Reecie placed her hand on the side of her son’s handsome face and stared at him.
“You don’t know how happy I am that you didn’t get hurt,” she said.
“But I was so hurt that nobody told me.”
“Nobody knew, Mother.”
“Not even Matty?”
“Not even Matty. All everybody knew was that there was a shooting at Eagle Records in the early hours of the morning, and nobody but the shooter was harmed. That’s all they knew. That’s all the cops know. That’s it. I purposely kept myself out of it.”
“But you were right in it, though. That gunman was gunning for you.”
“He was gunning for Eagle Records, which, in his pea brain, is me. It goes with the territory.”
“Which is why I hate your profession and always will,” she said as she kissed him on the cheek. “Take care of yourself.”
“You as well,” he said to his mother.
Then Hawk looked at Janita. A part of him wanted to get to know her better so badly that he considered asking if he could come and see her sometime. But he dared not do it. She had her own life, her own routine, and probably her own man.
And besides, his mother was right. It was hard out there for a music mogul.
People were gunning for him. Not necessarily violently the way his mother meant, but there were many people in the music industry that wanted to take him down from his perch at the top.
That hate was real. Why would he want that young lady in the middle of that war?
He didn’t. Besides, he steered clear of twenty-somethings for a reason. They were still cooking. They didn’t know shit about shit. He wasn’t wasting his time on a half-baked meal.
But still! Those eyes and that face haunted him throughout the night.
And seeing her again, in the bright morning light, made it worst. She had the sweetest little face he’d seen in a very long time.
And although she wasn’t what he would classify as bubbly: she was way too serious to be so young.
But she still managed to have the kindest eyes.
“You take care of yourself too,” he said to her in a way so heartfelt it stunned him.
It stunned Janita, too, because a part of her believed he meant it. “Yes sir,” was all she could think to say.
Reecie actually smiled. Did that child just say yes sir? Poor thing. She had a long way to go to get next to her son. But she was convinced that her son would eventually see the light.
But just as Reecie had gotten onto the backseat of the Mercedes, a car busted through his security gate and began racing toward them.
Terror suddenly gripped Hawk and his mind immediately went to Janita.
He grabbed with all the force he had and threw her onto the backseat of that Mercedes alongside his mother.
Although his small J-Frame pistol was still inside his Queen Anne drawer in the foyer, the Glock he carried everywhere he went was on his person.
And he pulled it out quickly and got in position ready to fire at that wayward driver.
Janita, who had been stunned when Hawk pushed her so violently into that car, was attempting to pull out her weapon too.
But then Hawk saw who that driver was and his ready to shoot stance changed. He stood upright. Because he knew who that driver was as her Land Rover came to a screeching stop in front of the Mercedes and she jumped out.
Even Janita knew who it was when she jumped out of that Land Rover. It was Kemberly, her brother’s favorite recording artist.
And she was red hot. That was why Janita, with her weapon drawn, got back out of the Mercedes Hawk had thrown her into. But Hawk had his Glock to his side, no longer ready to shoot, as Kemberly hurried to him. She was crying through her rage. “You dropped me?”
“I didn’t drop you.”