If It Isn't Love Page 3

  “Thank you so much!” she exclaimed.

  Jason headed for the door and as he opened it to walk out, he collided with Ingrid. She’d changed into a pair of jeans and a tank top and looked stunning. “Wow,” he breathed.

  “Why are you still here?” she snapped. “We’re closed. Dina, I’ve asked you not to have people in here after we close.”

  The young waitress, who’d been wiping down the counter, dropped her rag. “I’m sorry, Miss Ingrid, but someone told everybody in town that Jay Slade was here and the whole town showed up for pictures and autographs.”

  “I hope you sold some food too,” Ingrid said as she side stepped Jason. The angry look in Ingrid’s eyes should’ve forced him out the door and the fact that he was extremely tired should’ve been all the urging he needed to go to his hotel room. But he was a glutton for punishment.

  “Ingrid, since it’s my fault that Dina had to close up later, why don’t I stay here and help you close up?” he asked.

  “I don’t need anything from you,” Ingrid said then she turned Dina. “You can go home and I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

  Dina reached underneath the counter and pulled out her purse. “It’s okay, Miss Ingrid,” she said then dashed out of the restaurant as if she knew something was brewing between Jason and Ingrid.

  Once they were alone, he braced himself for a sharp retort from Ingrid, but she didn’t say a word. She just counted the till and pretended he wasn’t there. “Why didn’t you tell me your husband was dead?” Jason asked after moments of tense silence.

  “It’s none of your business.”

  “I guess you’re right. Still, I’m sorry for your loss. You must have really loved him,” Jason said.

  Ingrid glared at Jason and continued counting the restaurant’s take for the evening. “Are you going to just ignore me?” he asked as he stepped closer to her.

  “Isn’t that what you did to me the last three years?” she asked as she placed the money in bank deposit bag.

  “I wanted to reach out to you and tried, up until I heard that you were married.”

  She placed her hands on her round hips and glared at him. “If you wanted to talk to me, you could have because I’m pretty sure you’ve done everything else you damn well pleased. Jason—Jay Slade—or whatever the hell you call yourself, get out and don’t come back.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

  Ingrid zipped the bag and stuffed it in her purse. “I’m out of here and you are too, unless you want to spend the night in this diner.” She stomped toward the door not looking at him, but Jason got a lovely view of the way Ingrid filled out those blue jeans.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow for breakfast,” Jason said after they made it outside to their cars.

  “I can’t stop you from coming here, but leave me alone. You made your choice a long time ago and this isn’t the time to go back and try to make things right.”

  “Then when is the time, because I’m going to be here until you change your mind,” he said as he slipped into his Mustang.

  Ingrid waited for about ten minutes before she started her car. Jason couldn’t mean what he said about staying until she changed her mind. How could he do that and keep his career going? He’d chosen his career over her before and what had changed? Shaking her head, she drove home not wanting to entertain the fantasy that she and Jason could be together. The house was quiet when Ingrid arrived at home and she plopped down on the sofa not feeling like dragging herself upstairs to her bedroom. Kicking her feet up on the coffee table, she grabbed her remote and turned the television on. Moments later, Christina came bounding down the stairs.

  “I thought I was going to have to call the sheriff,” she said when she spotted Ingrid on the sofa.

  “I’m tired.”

  Christina stretched out on the love seat and looked at her friend. “So, did you see him again?”

  “Did you hear me when I said I was tired?” Ingrid asked, her voice peppered with annoyance.

  “And I did you a favor by staying here with my godson and not eating the Ben and Jerry’s in the freezer. The least you can do is humor me and tell me that seeing Jason didn’t make your heart flutter and your pulse race.”

  “First of all, this is not a Lifetime movie and my heart doesn’t flutter nor does my pulse race when I see that jackass,” Ingrid lied.

  Christina rolled her eyes. “Sure. I take it that he was still at the restaurant when you made it back?”

  Ingrid sighed. “Yes, he was there. And Dina, with her sweet self, told him all of my business.”

  “That girl is talkative,” Christina said with a laugh. “She’s Elmore’s version of CNN.”

  Ingrid sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. It was at that moment when she realized that her hair had been a bushy mess all day and Jason had seen her looking a hot mess. “I need to go see Harriet tomorrow,” she said, referring to her hair dresser.

  “Why? You obviously haven’t been in weeks,” Christina said, eyeing Ingrid’s frizzy ponytail. “Could it be that someone is all ‘twisted up in love, love, love.’”

  “Shut up and go home.”

  Christina yawned. “Nope, you have to open the restaurant in the morning and your son invited me to spend the night.”

  Ingrid shook her head and snorted. “I ought to call Dina and let her talkative ass open up.”

  “What did she tell him?”

  “That my husband was dead, that I had a son. For all I know, she could’ve given him the code to the restaurant’s alarm system.” Ingrid laughed nervously.

  Christina sat up and swung her legs over the side of the chair. “I know you hate to hear this, but you know you and Louis didn’t have a real marriage.”

  Ingrid dropped her feet from the table and glared at her friend. “We loved each other and that was enough.”

  Christina shook her head. Though she wanted to tell her friend that the only man she’d ever loved was Jason, she held her tongue. “All right, I don’t want to argue with you tonight.”

  “Good,” Ingrid said as she rose to her feet. “I’m going to bed.” She headed upstairs to her bedroom. The last thing she wanted to talk about was her marriage to Louis. It was true that she loved him and he’d loved her but it was far from a romantic love. They were more like brother and sister. But when Ingrid had returned to Elmore pregnant and alone, she needed someone and Louis helped her. Even if it was the new millennium, there were some things in Elmore that didn’t change. Some people still wanted to brand single mothers with a scarlet letter. After the humiliation she’d suffered in New York, she hadn't wanted to come back home to face more.

  Ingrid crawled into her bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Much of her life in Elmore since she’d returned from New York three years ago had been a lie. Was it time for her to come clean?

  When Jason walked into his hotel room at the Elmore Inn, he was happy to be alone. But the moment he plopped down on the king sized bed, he realized being alone in the same town where Ingrid lived wasn’t a good thing. Smiling, he recalled the last night they’d been alone together on a king sized bed in a hotel room. Ingrid had been wearing a black lace gown that skimmed her knees and she’d surrounded herself with red rose petals.

  “What have I done to deserve this?” he’d asked when he walked into the room.

  “You love me,” she’d replied.

  “Yes, I do.” Immediately, Jason had begun to take his clothes off so that he could join Ingrid in the bed. As he’d stared at her luscious body, he salivated thinking about every place he wanted to taste her. Ingrid opened her arms to him, pulling her man on top of her and kissed him deeply as if he’d been gone for weeks instead of six hours. He’d been signing CDs at the Virgin Megastore with Debony. Then he’d performed outside of the MTV studios. Though the applause and catcalls from the crowd had excited him during his performance, nothing could compare to Ingrid’s touch and how it turned him on.

  “You looke
d great out there.”

  “And you look great in here,” he’d said before swooping in and capturing her full lips. Ingrid’s moans had been music to his ears as she parted her lips allowing his tongue to explore her hot mouth. Jason had slipped his hand between her thighs, feeling the hot wetness collecting there. Inching his hand forward, Jason pressed into her folds of flesh seeking her bud of desire. Her body vibrated as his long fingers danced across her throbbing bud. “I’ve been thinking about this all day,” he whispered before closing his lips around her neck. She moaned in a heated response as his tongue danced down the column of her neck. Ingrid had returned his kisses with some of her own on his chest. As her tongue swirled around his nipples, Jason had nearly climax. His thick erection rested at the v of her thighs and without thinking of protecting them, Jason slipped into her wetness. As he thrust forward, Ingrid had matched him stroke for stroke. She had been so wet and hot that Jason exploded. He held her against his chest and had mumbled about this only being round one.

  Jason opened his eyes and half expected to find Ingrid in bed with him, but he was left with an aching erection. Turning over on his side, Jason thought about what he could do to win Ingrid back. The first thing he was going to have to do was extend this trip. Def Jam wanted to send him on a promotional tour for his album, but he needed to figure out a way to stay in Elmore until Ingrid forgave him and allowed him to love her again.

  I know what I can do! he thought excitedly. Jason pulled his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Ruby’s number.

  “This is Ruby,” the Def Jam executive said.

  “Rube, it’s Jason.”

  “Jay Slade, are you enjoying the boondocks?” she said with a laugh. “Your show is in a few days, right?”

  “You know that. And I’m enjoying Elmore,” he said trying desperately to hide his annoyance with her.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “I have a great idea. Def Jam South is trying to be about more than hip-hop, right?”

  “Yeah, but what does that have to do with you?”

  Sighing, Jason willed himself not to tell Ruby what he really thought of her and her condescending attitude. “Elmore is filled with great singers. What if we staged a month long talent search? We could draw people from all over the state here and I can promote my new album on the cheap.”

  “We have a plan for your promotional tour,” Ruby said. “Changing plans now would cost us more money.”

  “Not if we find the next big R&B star. You don’t understand the talent in this town and people love me. They would come out.”

  “Def Jam doesn’t run American Idol, OK.”

  “Listen, this is my last album on Def Jam and you guys want to resign me, right? My agent called me last week with an offer from Jive Records.”

  Ruby laughed, “You’re trying to blackmail me into letting you stay in Mayberry? I don’t believe you.”

  “I was planning to stop recording and write songs for Def Jam artists, but if you can’t work with me, then I’ll just have my agent messenger me the contracts from Jive and take those songs I was working on for some of your people and record them myself.”

  Ruby groaned. “I think I liked you better when you were a naïve little country boy who only wanted to sing. Give me a couple of days to arrange some stuff. You’re still going to have to make those concert dates.”

  “That’s fine and I need one more thing,” he said.

  “What else, superstar?” she asked sarcastically.

  “I need a place, a house or something because I can’t stay in a hotel for an extended period of time,” he said. “This isn’t New York.”

  “Don’t I know it. I’ll call around and see what I can find for you and the A&R rep who is going to come and oversee the contest. What’s this really about, Jay?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “Umm, that fat girl still lives down there, doesn’t she?”

  “Ruby, I’m going to hang up now, because you’re about two words from me telling you what I really think about you.”

  “What was her name? Imogene?”

  “Ingrid, you twit!” Jason shouted. “And don’t you ever mention her name again.”

  “Such anger.”

  “Ruby, I know what you did. Are you such a bitter bitch that you don’t want to see anyone happy?”

  “You didn’t complain when you were selling all of those records and dating the hottest women in the industry. Would you have been able to do that with Ingrid hanging on your shoulder in the hottest Lane Bryant gear?”

  “Shut up. At least I knew what we shared was real.”

  “You’re a sex symbol. You have to be a fantasy. If you’re going to have a woman, she has to be as sexy as you are. And if you and Ingrid had something so real, why did she take my word about the end of your relationship. She saw the writing on the wall.”

  “Get what I need down here as soon as possible,” Jason said through clinched teeth. He snapped his phone shut not waiting for Ruby’s reply. A smart man would’ve left the record company after finding out what Ruby had done. But Jason’s star was rising and he had developed an ego that made him think no one would leave him. While he had been on Debony’s world tour, Ruby had gone to Ingrid, telling her that the rumors about Debony and Jay Slade being lovers were true.

  By the time he was scheduled to return to New York, Ingrid was gone and Ruby had been more than happy to tell him that his lady love had left the hotel and didn’t leave a forwarding address. Jason had known she’d returned to Elmore and when he made plans to go home, Ruby had informed him that he was about to headline his own twenty city tour because his album had just gone platinum. If he went to Elmore, she’d told him, he could kiss his career goodbye. At first, he’d said he didn’t give a damn about his career and he was going to make things right with Ingrid. Then Ruby had threatened him with a lawsuit that would’ve taken everything he had. She’d given him twenty-four hours to make the right decision. After she’d left, his agent had called and implored him to go on tour. He’d promised to reach out to Ingrid and have her at his show in Atlanta, Georgia.

  The concert had gone off without a hitch. The crowd fell under Jay Slade’s spell as he sang songs from his debut album and a few of his favorite old school R&B hits. When he’d run off the stage after his last song, he was expecting to see Ingrid waiting back stage for him. The only person who was there had been Debony Blair.

  “Ruby sent me,” she’d said. “She said she’s sorry about Inga.”

  “What?”

  Debony handed him a print of an e-mail sent to Ruby. Jason had read the e-mail three times. Still the words didn’t register with him.

  Tell Jay Slade to kiss my ass. I don’t want anything else to do with him and I don’t want to hear from him. If it’s over then fine, it’s over. I don’t want to hear from him or anyone who works for him as long as I live.

  “Come on,” Debony had said. “Let’s celebrate your success.” Jason didn’t say anything, he just linked arms with her and headed out to get his mind off Ingrid.

  Now he was willing to do anything to get Ingrid back, just what he should’ve done three years ago.

  Chapter Four

  Ingrid woke up at five a.m. even though she didn’t have to be at the restaurant until seven. Her cook, Felix Martin, always opened up and started baking biscuits at five-thirty. By the time she and Yolanda, her part-time waitress, got to the restaurant three people would already be there eating sausage biscuits and drinking coffee. By seven-forty five, the place would be packed with more regulars who wanted some of Felix’s buttery grits, omelets and fluffy biscuits. One person Ingrid looked forward to seeing every morning was artist Celina Hart-McRae. Despite the fact that she was a famous artist who had painted pictures for presidents and worked in Paris, France, she was so down to earth. She loved talking about her son, Darius Jr. She and Ingrid bonded over diaper rash ointment. Every morning, Celina ordered the same thing, a cup of Fre
nch roast coffee, grits with no butter and a fruit cup. On days when it was slow, Ingrid would sit down and talk with Celina about her gallery.

  Throwing her legs over the side of the bed, Ingrid knew the reason she couldn’t sleep was because of the man who said he’d be at the restaurant this morning. Jason. Normally, she’d turn the radio on when she woke up, but she didn’t want to hear Jason’s melodic voice crooning over the airwaves today. She knew every woman in the world thought Jay Slade was singing to her, but once upon a time, Ingrid knew those songs were about their relationship.

  You were probably wrong about that. If Jason loved you as much as he said he did, you two would still be together. He said the music business would not come between us and it did. Him and Debony Blair, she thought as she padded toward the bathroom to take a shower. As she stepped underneath the tepid water, she tried not to think about the day she found out Jason had been untrue to her. Ruby had been more than happy to show her pictures and play a recording from back stage of Debony and Jason. It was the same day that Ingrid had taken a home pregnancy test and found out that she was having a baby.

  Had it not been for the pictures and the recording – showing an intimate moment between Debony and Jason, Ingrid would’ve stayed and questioned Jason about Ruby’s allegations, but she got on the next plane to Columbia, South Carolina and never looked back.

  After finishing her shower, Ingrid headed downstairs to brew a pot of coffee for her and Christina. Then she looked at the clock, it was five-forty five and she knew Christina wasn’t going to get up anytime soon. Ingrid placed the coffee back in the cabinet and headed back upstairs to look in on DeShawn. As she opened the door to her son’s bedroom, her heart swelled. That little boy was everything to her and as he slept, he looked like a little angel. She had to make sure DeShawn grew up surrounded by love and people who wouldn’t abandon him. That’s why she’d been so happy that Louis Harrington adopted him at birth. No one had to know that he wasn’t her son’s real father, not even DeShawn. Though Christina had her suspicions, Ingrid did nothing to confirm the truth about her son’s paternity. But anyone who knew Jason as a child had to see DeShawn’s resemblance to him. When he smiled, his brown eyes sparkled just like his father’s. He had the same head full of unruly curly hair that Jason had as a little boy. His skin was the same color as Ingrid’s and that threw some people off, causing them to say he looked just like her. But she saw the older DeShawn got, the more he began to take on his father’s characteristics.