Duke Read online

  Creed warmed a bottle in a pot of water on the stove. “Talicia got her insurance money, and she’s thinking about opening the club again.”

  “Stefan’s not going to let her do it alone.”

  “Exactly, and I’m not going to sit by and let my baby brother put his life in danger. From what Shada’s said, any peace she and Talicia have gained will be out the window if that club opens. She thinks Talicia is being selfish.”

  Duke rubbed his jaw, thinking about it. He didn’t like the idea of Stefan going back to that side of town either, but he had lived in rougher areas himself over the years. His experience and Stefan’s were two different things. In a way, Stefan was an innocent. He had his bodyguard Jerome, but Jerome was one person. Against a gun, he might not be ready for what came his way. Yet, Duke already knew Stefan would give in to anything Talicia wanted.

  “Maybe I can help,” Duke said.

  “No! This is what I meant by you sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. Stay out of it.”

  Duke grinned. “Is that an order, chief?”

  “Shut up.”

  Duke left the house chuckling and thinking hard about how he could block Talicia from reopening her club, or at least redirecting her interests. Then his mind moved on to Takiyah. Should he stop bothering her?

  As he passed through the security gate and left Creed’s property, he brought up an image of the woman in his mind. Sexy, beautiful, with a mouth so sweet, it was like tasting honey, she tantalized him. “Wait, what am I thinking?”

  He shook his head to clear it. The influence of his cousins marrying black women must have warped his desires. He tried to recall the blond and failed. None of her details came to mind except for the slender figure and the hair. Maybe if he slept with her, it would erase thoughts of Takiyah. Hell, if he slept with any other woman it might.

  Forgetting the stroll he intended, he returned to the house to grab his car and drove to Café du Monde. Once inside, he scanned the people at the tables. His prey wasn’t among them, so he ordered a coffee and found a spot where he could watch the comings and goings of the patrons.

  Duke had already done some reconnaissance previously, so he pretty much knew Talicia’s habits outside of the restaurant. By that, he had learned some of Adele’s as well. Most days, Adele wandered into the café to grab a beignet and a coffee and to sit with a book for an hour or so. He wouldn’t have put her down for the reading type, but he supposed everyone had multiple sides to them.

  He didn’t have to wait more than twenty minutes before she showed up, and he pretended to be absorbed in the creamy drink between his hands. The last few times he stopped by the café, he had kept himself out of sight, so neither she nor Takiyah had ever met him there. Duke was aware when she received her order and had spotted him. From the corner of his eye, he saw her hesitation and then heard the click of her heels as she approached the table.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  He glanced up and affected a startled expression. “Amy.”

  She scowled. “Adele.”

  “I knew you couldn’t stay away long.” He gestured for her to sit down. “Changed your mind about waiters?”

  She flashed a bright white smile at him. “Did you win the lottery?”

  “Afraid not.”

  She sighed. “Where are all the rich men?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  She pouted and leaned forward. “Do you know where Takiyah works?”

  Her question surprised him. “She hasn’t told you? I thought you two worked at a call center.”

  “Not that. I mean the restaurant. That girl is being secretive, and I don’t understand it. We tell each other everything, but every time I ask for details, she gets cagey. I’m thinking about tailing her.”

  He laughed. “Do you know anything about tailing?”

  “No, but it can’t be too hard.”

  “Shall I save you some time?”

  “How?” Her eyes widened, and she leaned so far over the table as to give him a good look at her cleavage. He waited for the attraction he had felt the first time he saw her. The sensation was still there but greatly dulled. While he had come to the café to seduce her, now that he was there, he felt less inclined to follow through.

  “Have dinner with me,” he said.

  “That’s your trick? You don’t know, do you?”

  He shrugged. “You can take a chance and find out tonight. Or you can try tailing her as you put it.”

  “All right. Fine. I’ll go, but you’re not getting lucky.” She pursed her lips and studied his face. “Are you sure you don’t have any money, Duke?”

  He grinned. “Would you like to see my bank account?”

  “I believe you’d let me see it for real. No, thank you. Dinner it is, and you better break your piggy bank because I like class. You might not have money, but I shouldn’t suffer because of it.”

  “How is it the two of you are close friends but so unalike?”

  “Because we went to school together. I don’t mind Takiyah’s hand me down clothes, and she accepts my love affair with Michael Kors.”

  “Kiyah is pretty interesting.” He bit his tongue, thinking he’d given away the allure she had for him. Adele eyed him in silence for a few seconds. He sensed he had raised her suspicions, but he wasn’t overly worried about it. A few choice words could redirect her line of thought.

  “The one thing I know about my best friend is, Takiyah doesn’t like nicknames. You better be careful calling her Kiyah.”

  “I’ve been calling her that from the beginning. You’ll find I do whatever I want at any given time.”

  “I bet your talents include figuring out what buttons to push.”

  “Bingo.” He stood. “Seven good for you?”

  “Five-thirty. I have an overnight shift, and I want to get some extra sleep.”

  He touched a knuckle to her chin. “I’ll pick you up. Wear something nice.”

  Her cheeks pinked. “Wait, I haven’t given you my address.”

  “Text me.”

  He gave her his number and left the café rethinking his plan. No doubt about it, Takiyah would be pissed off that he had brought Adele to Marquette’s when she had been hiding the information. Duke wasn’t worried about the blond seducing his cousins. They were all devoted to their wives, and from what he had seen, the honeymoon for each was still in full swing. The reasons he was pulling this stunt were clear, but he pushed them away and chose not to think of anything other than enjoying himself.

  Having the night off work, he normally found something of interest to do around New Orleans. Once, he’d decided to behave like a tourist and tour the French Quarter. What started with trying to gain an appreciation of the one-hundred to three-hundred-year-old buildings with the red-tiled roofs, wrought iron balconies, and courtyards with fountains lapsed into ducking in and out of souvenir shops, galleries, and old hotels. Eventually, he settled on downing as many beers as possible amid a myriad of jazz spots.

  At first he’d become bored, but then he met the gaze of a beautiful woman and it had gone from there. Come to think of it, he had almost been arrested then too. The woman in question never told him she was married, and before they got to the fun stuff, her crazed husband had burst in on them. Duke had escaped out the window. His training came in handy so often.

  He chuckled, thinking of the experience. Creed was right. He was reckless, but he needed something to keep him moving, to keep life from getting stale. When it came to responsibility, he and Takiyah were as different as night and day. So why was he drawn to her? Then he thought of her son. There was trouble brewing there. He had a nose for it. Maybe he should follow the kid and see what he was up to, head off whatever Takiyah might not be able to handle even if she did claim she didn’t need anyone.

  When Duke realized he’d spent far too much time thinking of Takiyah, he dismissed her from his mind and went about a few errands. By five-thirty, he was ready to pick up Adele to see where
the night would lead.

  Chapter Five

  “You sit right there, Keen,” Takiyah commanded her son. “Don’t move. I’m going to get my people settled in with their orders, and then you and I are going to talk.”

  “Ma, I told you it’s nothing.”

  She glared and looked at his eye, swollen shut. “It is something when fools think they can pick on my baby and get away with it. And for you to think you can hide it from me, oh no, pal, we’re talking. Period. I’ll be right back.”

  “Ma,” he called after her, but she ignored him. Keen liked to keep everything bottled inside, and earlier he’d hidden out in his room claiming he wasn’t hungry. She wasn’t falling for it, and she’d barged in to find his eye swollen. The school was going to hear from her tomorrow. She would have gone down there today if Keen hadn’t tried to hide. First the alley incident and now this.

  For a moment, tears welled up, but she swallowed and blinked them away. She would handle it. Keen had said the fight had happened on school grounds. What she wanted to know was where the hell were the teachers? She would get names and phone numbers, and if the principal didn’t fix this the way she wanted, then… Well, she wasn’t sure what she could do yet, but she would find out.

  As she laid a white cloth over her arm, she thought about how she could pick Keen up after school. Her shift at the call center ran right into the end of the school day, but she would talk to her boss. If he wasn’t willing to let her leave early, then she would call Ed, her ex. That was the last thing she wanted to do, but she didn’t have much of a choice.

  Takiyah headed into the kitchen for an order and ran into a conversation between Shada, who had come in with her baby for the workers to see, and Talicia, who Takiyah believed was the wife of one of the brothers. She didn’t really follow the Marquettes like the Kardashians as some people did.

  “What I do has nothing whatsoever to do with you,” Talicia snapped.

  “I beg to differ.” Shada handed her baby over to another woman in the Marquette family. “When it comes to Stefan, it does. You are not risking his life for your selfish dreams. We tried to accept you but—”

  “Accept me?” Talicia looked Shada up and down. “I don’t give a damn what you accept or don’t accept. We went shopping the other day because Stefan asked me to. The way you and your husband try to rule the whole family isn’t going to wash with me. What I do is between me and mine.”

  “Ladies, please don’t fight,” the other woman said, rocking the baby gently. “You’re going to scare the baby.”

  Nobody listened to her. Takiyah glanced around the kitchen. Every member of the staff had stopped what they were doing to watch the blowout. Shada moved up close to Talicia and pointed in her face. “What you think you have going with Stefan won’t last. I guarantee it if you keep acting like this.”

  Talicia’s eyes narrowed, and her jaw worked. Takiyah had the feeling she held her temper in check. Any second she was going to let go and clock Shada. How a woman as tiny as she was could stand up the heavyset Shada, she didn’t know. Takiyah was jealous because the pounds crept onto her hips and thighs when she wasn’t paying attention. Right now, her weight wasn’t what she worried about. The two women having a slugfest in the restaurant was.

  “I’m giving you one warning, Shada,” Talicia said. “After that, I’m swinging, and you’re going to find your ass on the floor. Get out of my face!”

  “Bitch, I’m not scared of you. Bring it, and then Stefan can see what kind of woman he married.”

  Talicia’s fist came up, and Takiyah braced for impact. The door burst open, and someone brushed by her. Duke knocked Shada aside and deflected Talicia’s fist. He caught her wrist and twirled her around as if they were doing a dance. She jerked on his hold and tried to fight him, but Duke shuffled her along the hall.

  “Let me go, Duke. I’m not playing with you.”

  “Yes, yes, the usual threats,” he teased as he kept her moving.

  Takiyah watched them go and then collected her order to leave the kitchen. Just outside the door, she spotted Stefan hurrying toward the kitchen. Someone must have told him about the fight. Creed was in another corner trying to smooth over an incident with a waiter. No one must have told him, and she didn’t blame them. Creed had a hot head, and she tended to stay out of his way.

  Duke reappeared while Takiyah was refreshing a cup of coffee, and she pretended not to notice when he spotted her and started in her direction.

  “Duke,” Keen called out, and Takiyah whirled to signal to her son to lower his volume. She froze when she spotted Adele at the table where she had left her son. Adele was dressed in a Herve Leger white bandage dress. One of Adele’s previous boyfriends who loved to spend his money on her had bought the dress. Adele had showed her the price tag when she brought home the spaghetti strapped mini. The dress cost almost a thousand dollars.

  Adele’s makeup made her look even more ethereal than usual, and she had piled her hair atop her head in an elegant style that showed off her swanlike neck and accentuated her breasts.

  Keen almost bounced in his seat as he waved at Duke. The man had made a huge fan in her son from the incident in the alley. Takiyah looked from her son and Adele to Duke and noticed for the first time that he wasn’t dressed in the restaurant uniform. Rather he’d donned a suit and tie. The jacket fit his broad shoulders to perfection. He looked too damn good.

  Takiyah frowned seeing him sit down at her table and begin to chat with Keen and Adele. Her girlfriend touched Duke’s hand with a delicate lily white one of her own. From her expression as she leaned toward Duke while talking to him, Takiyah could just guess what she said. “I didn’t know you were a Marquette. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Yeah, let Adele smell money, and she was all over him. Takiyah strode over to them to burst her friend’s bubble, but Duke beat her to it.

  He gazed almost lovingly into Adele’s eyes and then had the nerve to flick his gaze to Takiyah for an instant. “I’m the genuine article. Feel free to use me for my name.”

  Takiyah dropped into a chair, scowling at him. “Would you please take your seduction elsewhere. My son doesn’t need to be exposed to this mess.”

  Keen didn’t seem to notice her or Adele. “Duke, where did you learn to fight?”

  Duke grinned. “You haven’t seen me fight.”

  “And he never will. Go away, Duke.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather keep me close?” he said.

  “No.”

  Adele looked back and forth between them. “Is something going on with you two?”

  “Hell, no,” Takiyah snapped.

  “Yes.” Duke tried to grab her hand, but she smacked him away.

  “Ma, why are you so mean to Duke? He saved us, and he’s paying for my dinner tonight.”

  She glared at her son. “I thought you weren’t hungry.”

  He smiled. “I am if I can eat with Duke.”

  She groaned. “When did you start knowing him so well you can throw his name around?”

  “Since he became our hero.”

  She stood and gestured to her son. “Come on, Keen. We’ll find a different table and let these two have their date.”

  Duke reached for her hand and held her in place. “Stay.”

  Adele frowned in confusion. “What’s going on, Takiyah? We don’t play in each other’s sand box. If you had told me—”

  “Stop right there.” Takiyah jerked her hand from Duke’s. She started to explain, but Duke turned to Keen. The man was completely uncaring that he’d just given the impression that he was seeing them both. If he thought she was playing his game, he had another thought coming.

  “So, buddy, what happened to your face? Girlfriend trouble?” Duke bumped Keen’s arm. “I know how angry they can get.”

  Takiyah fumed. “Excuse me?”

  He didn’t even look her way, and Keen beamed at his hero. “It…uh… I don’t wanna say,” Keen stuttered. “You’ll think I’m lame.”r />
  “Nah, sometimes you get battle scars as a man.”

  Keen grinned. “Yeah, I know, but can you teach me how to fight?”

  “No,” Takiyah answered for him. “You’re not getting into any more fights, Keen. That’s final. Don’t even say a word, Duke. I don’t want to hear it.”

  She walked around the table to get her son on his feet, but Creed appeared out of nowhere. He took in the group, his reproving gaze lingering a second on Duke and then moving on to her.

  “Is there a reason why I received a complaint from one of your tables, Takiyah? Something about them not seeing you for a while?”

  She swore under her breath. “Sorry, Creed. I’m on it.” She eyed Keen and then Duke. “Don’t talk to him. I mean it.”

  Duke spread his hands. “Dinner only. I promise.”

  She sighed and stomped off. All she could do was hope Duke would keep his word. She hated violence and didn’t want Keen fighting under any circumstances. Hopefully, Duke would respect that. Otherwise, she’d tell him about himself. As she went back to work, she couldn’t help looking over at Adele and Duke having dinner together with her son. The conversation couldn’t be very intimate with Keen trying his best to dominate Duke’s attention.

  Wait, what do I care? He brought her here to prove to me he could get her.

  The fact that it was what Duke had done told her what kind of man he was. He’d chase and kiss one woman and flaunt another in her face—worse her best friend. She despised him and wanted nothing else to do with him. At least, she told herself that over and over. Too bad, she couldn’t stop thinking about how it felt for him to kiss her and how her body had come to life with his one touch.

  “Whatever,” she whispered as she cleared a table. “He’s toxic, and I’m not fooling with him.”

  “Who are you talking about?” Karey had walked over to her without her noticing.

  Takiyah straightened. “Nobody.” She hurried off to find something to do to get her mind off Duke.

  The restaurant was in full swing that night. Customers came and went, and at any given time, there was a line waiting in the lobby, people who refused to go elsewhere. They were happy just being in the atmosphere, and it might be because drama was on the menu.