Fool That I Am Read online

  By now, they had arrived at the foot of the stage where a smaller portion of dance flooring was visible. Wrinkling her brow in confusion, she looked up to Daniel. “This isn’t a very large dance floor. What was the purpose of this?”

  “I’m glad you noticed that, Billie. Watch this,” he told her as he gave a signal to someone she couldn’t see.

  With the sound like a ginormous garage door opening, the stage began to retreat behind the curtains revealing more of the dance floor. When the motor finally stopped several minutes later, there was a dance floor as big as a basketball court. Billie stepped out into the expanse and gave it a tryout by doing a quick twirl. Facing Daniel once more, she couldn’t hide the girlish glee that caused her face to light up.

  “Oh, bravo, Daniel! No wonder you are so successful! I have to say that I am thoroughly impressed and enchanted with your club. It is classy without being snobby, elegant without being garish, and vintage without being outdated. Well done,” she complimented him sincerely.

  Affecting a deep bow, he replied, “You are too kind, madam. Now, if you will follow me, I will finish our tour by taking you behind the scenes to view the dressing rooms. You may even find evidence of previous occupants,” he teased her, once again holding his elbow toward her.

  Almost skipping in her excitement, Billie didn’t hesitate to join him and slipped her hand snugly through the crook of his arm. As they strolled along, she absently wondered what cologne he was wearing, because it smelled like a divine mix of autumn wind, pine, and a hint of brandy. It was the kind of scent that made her want to bury her nose in the dip behind his ear and breathe deep until she couldn’t help but kiss the skin that bore it. Almost as if he could read her mind, the muscle in his arm that rested under her hand jumped and flexed causing an automatic reaction of her hand squeezing his arm. Billie could feel a different kind of heat welling up inside her and hoped that he wouldn’t notice. It would do no good for her to set her sights on another man that she couldn’t have.

  Finally, they reached the heavy red velvet curtain to the right of the recessed stage and Daniel courteously held it aside for her to step behind it and into the hallway beyond. They walked arm-in-arm as he explained how the mechanism for the stage worked and how he had come up with the concept, but had hired a fresh, young engineer straight out of college to help bring it into reality.

  “I believe in helping young entrepreneurs and college graduates get started in their careers,” he explained to her as they came to a stop in front of a dressing room. “It’s one thing to have ambition and the determination to succeed, but you need a hand up the ladder sometimes. There were several people who did that for me and now I can return the favor. Most of the staff I hire are recent graduates of their field or are in the process of chasing their dreams. For example, our waitress Holly is currently studying in business school with a specialty in event planning. She has remarkable talent with creative design and conception and has been cutting her teeth by assisting our Creative Director while earning money for school by waiting tables.”

  Billie was impressed with his philosophy and execution. “That’s very generous of you, Daniel. Everyone needs a break now and then.”

  Opening the door to the dressing room, he ushered her inside. “I agree, Billie. There’s nothing wrong with accepting a little help now and then. Even the hardest workers need someone to give them a hand now and then,” he said, giving her a sidelong look loaded with meaning.

  Billie pretended not to notice, which was easy since she was too busy goggling at the huge dressing room that put all her imaginings to shame. The room was painted a soft, feathery white with flecks of gold sparkling here and there as they caught the light shining from around the six foot lighted mirror. The adjoining countertop was polished marble with gold veins and was covered in all the tools a makeup artist would need: tackle boxes full of makeup, sprays, perfumes, brushes, hair curlers and straighteners, bobby pins, tape, and even an airbrush kit. Sitting in front of the counter was a director’s chair just waiting for someone to sit in it in preparation for a show. Toward the back wall was an intimate grouping of Victorian furniture with a couch, two chairs, and a coffee table. And all around the room, posted in different places on the walls, were gold-framed photos of celebrities with Daniel along with a small memento of their performance.

  Floating on a cloud, Billie moved from frame to frame while commenting about the impressive collection of talent that had been in this room. There was the picture of Justin along with a porkpie hat hanging on a hook next to it, there was the photo of Melody Gardot and a pair of tinted glasses, and there was Corinne Bailey Rae’s photograph accompanied by her guitar pick. There were at least a half a dozen more artists displayed around the room and she spent several minutes studying each and every one of them until Daniel finally caught her attention and pulled her back down to earth.

  “Well, what do you think?” he asked her needlessly.

  “Oh, Daniel! It’s just…amazing! I really don’t know what else to say. It’s so much more than I thought it would be and I am just so impressed!” she gushed, gently running her fingers through the fringe of a shawl worn by Cyndi Lauper.

  Before he could formulate a reply, the door to the dressing room crashed open and a tall, shapely black woman wearing a tight-fitting mini dress came barreling through the door. She was as tall as Daniel when she reached his side and her hair was long, curly, and highlighted with blonde streaks. Her nails were long, without being ridiculous, and painted crimson that perfectly matched her lipstick. The rest of her makeup was flawless and dramatic. She was beautiful in a Broadway musical kind of way and her voice was husky and lyrical as she began to urgently discuss something with Daniel.

  “I don’t know what to do, Daniel! We’ve only got four hours until show time and no one to fill the spot. Johnny says he’s come down sick with the flu, but I just bet that no-good hustler is either nursing a killer hangover or he’s hiding out from his bookie or both. I called Lana, too, but her group already has a booking tonight. Should we cancel the live show and just have ballroom dancing tonight?” she asked him anxiously.

  Billie met Daniel’s eyes across the room and saw the calculating gleam in his eyes. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach that she imagined a mouse felt when it realized it was caught in the glue trap. A slow, sinful smile spread across his handsome face as he replied, “I don’t think that will be necessary, Diana. I just so happen to know a very talented singer who may be able to help us out tonight. What do you say, Billie?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Me?” she squeaked, completely panicked. “You’ve got to be joking!”

  The Amazonian Diana finally seemed to notice her for the first time. Looking Billie over thoroughly up and down, she turned back to Daniel and demanded, “Who is this?”

  Walking across the room, he took Billie by the elbow and guided her back over toward Diana. “This is Billie Jean Hardesty. I invited her to the club to try and convince her to be my lounge singer even though she is determined to turn me down.”

  The manners her mother had drilled into her head kicked in and Billie automatically put her hand out to shake Diana’s. Instead of shaking her hand, however, Diana turned Billie’s hand over to inspect her short, unpolished nails. “She needs some work done, but I could probably have her ready in time. There’s some good raw material to work with here. And I think I have a few dresses that might fit her with some minor alterations. I’ll call in my team and we’ll get to work.”

  Snatching her hand back, Billie exclaimed, “Excuse me? Did you just refer to me as ‘raw material’? And who are you anyway?”

  Daniel stepped into the breach seamlessly. “Billie, please allow me to introduce you to Diana Lancaster. She’s a recent graduate of business school here in Louisville with a specialty in theater. She’s in charge of planning, coordinating, scheduling, and directing all of our live entertainment and events. She has a keen eye for style and is one of the mai
n reasons our new club has been so successful. And I think your raw material is just lovely,” he added with a teasing grin.

  Diana raised her plucked and penciled eyebrow and cocked her hip. “Don’t be offended, honey. We are all nothing more than blank slates just waiting to be perfected. Even I do not roll out of bed looking this fabulous. It takes a lot of time and effort to look this good, even with my high cheekbones and bangin’ body. Especially since I start out each day as Darren and not Diana.”

  Her pronouncement had the intended effect on Billie by distracting her from her panic. Even studying her closer, Billie still couldn’t tell that Diana was a transgendered person. “I’m sure you’re very talented, but I’m not getting on that stage to sing tonight.”

  Daniel crossed his arms and studied her closely. “Why not? You already told me that you don’t have your children this weekend, so there’s no babysitter to worry about.”

  “It’s not just that, Daniel! I can’t get up on that stage and just order up some karaoke tunes. I don’t have a set list or any idea where the music would come from and there hasn’t been any rehearsal time. You can’t just throw me up there on a stage where Joss Stone sang three months ago and expect me to sing a show!” she insisted, her voice rising with her hysteria.

  Completely unruffled and unmoved, Daniel replied calmly, “I have a house band that was set to play with our crooner, Johnny Bello, tonight. They know all the classics. I’ll bring you their song list and you can choose the songs you know well enough to sing comfortably. I think we can stretch it out a bit with some instrumental sets, so you’ll only need to choose about 15-20 songs-“

  “Oh! ONLY 15-20 songs, he says!” Billie repeated hysterically to an amused Diana. “Is that all? Hell, why not just make it 30?!”

  “Because it’s only a two-hour show. I’ll call in Marcus and his band and you can rehearse for a few hours before show time. That should still leave enough time for Diana and her crew to get you stage-ready.”

  “You’ll be cutting it awful close, Daniel,” Diana said with pursed lips. “This one needs the full work-over.”

  “Then I suggest you get on the phone and start making some calls. Bring in whoever you need to get this done and I’ll pay them overtime. Call Marcus and tell him to get his band here ASAP,” he directed, snapping into business mode.

  Billie’s ears started to buzz and she was feeling a little dizzy on her feet. Diana glanced her way as she replied, “Leave it to me, Boss Man. And you better get your talent into a seat. She’s about to pass out.” With that final comment, she sashayed out the door.

  Taking her advice, Daniel put his arm around Billie’s waist and pulled her in close to his body as he walked her across the room to sit on the couch. He gently took her hand in his and covered it with his other one to warm up her suddenly chilled skin. “Look at me, Billie,” he demanded softly. When her pale green eyes met his brown ones, he said, “There’s nothing to be afraid of. You are one of those rare people who have a natural talent on the stage; I saw it every time you were up there last night. Everything will be just fine, I promise you.”

  Taking deep, steady breaths, she replied, “I’m glad you’re so sure, because I’m not. There’s a world of difference between singing karaoke in a bar full of drunks and singing live music in front of a crowd of rich and powerful people. What if I make a fool of myself? What if I forget the words?”

  “Billie, you’re overthinking this. These people have no idea who you are and are here for a good time, great music, and drinks. So what if you forget the words? So what if you make a mistake? Do you think no one else has ever done that before? You will be fabulous, Billie. And if, at the end of the night, you feel like it isn’t for you, we will part as friends and you will never have any regrets. You will leave $1,000 richer and have a great story to tell your kids someday. What’s there to lose?” he asked, rubbing his thumb along the back of her hand.

  The feeling of him sitting so close to her almost distracted her from what he was saying until the last part penetrated her foggy brain. “Wait a minute. Did you just say $1,000?” she repeated incredulously.

  He nodded his head with a smile. “Yes, that’s what we would have paid Johnny. He gets $500 an hour. Since this is a two-hour set, that makes $1,000. And since you will be taking over his set, that will make it your $1,000.”

  Billie did some lightning fast calculations. If she was really careful, that would be enough to pay for Christmas gifts, groceries, getting her car tuned up, plus still have enough left over to pay on the hospital bills. She needed that money and here was a way to earn it honestly. Steeling her resolve and spine, she lifted her eyes to his and said, “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  *****************************************************************

  Forty-five miles away, Sam Garrett was running his hands through his hair in frustration. “You are out of your mind! What do you possibly need $1,000 for?” he demanded of the woman crying noisily on the sofa next to him.

  Dabbing her eyes with a tissue, Renata Venetti somehow managed to cry without smearing her makeup or even producing tears from her exotically slanted eyes. “Sam, why are you being so cruel to me? We’re going to have a baby together. Why can’t we just go back to the way we were? We can be a happy little family,” she pouted, snaking her hand up his muscled thigh.

  Arresting her progress, he firmly set her hand back on her own lap before answering. “Because I’ve already told you, Renata, I don’t love you, I don’t believe that you love me, and I really don’t believe that’s my baby. Unless someone went through my condoms and poked holes through them with a needle, the odds of that being my baby are less than the odds of me winning the lottery.”

  Magically, her tears dried up as she turned a hateful glare his way. “What more do you want from me, Sam? You’re the only one I’ve been with for months! I took your stupid pregnancy test to prove I wasn’t lying about being pregnant and you know damn well that I’ve never had an opportunity to poke holes in your condoms. They have a 12 percent failure rate, for God’s sake. These things happen!”

  “That actually drops to 2-3 percent if it’s perfect condom use. That means used correctly every single time, which I do. My dad made damn sure I knew how they worked and how to use them before I turned 14 years old so this kind of thing would never happen. I’m sorry that I’m being so suspicious about all this, but I find it hard to believe that this could happen to me. This isn’t the way I had wanted to do this,” he confessed, rubbing the bridge of his nose tiredly.

  Renata, who had been studying her reflection in a compact, snapped the case closed angrily. “Of course it isn’t how you imagined it would be! I’m not your precious Billie Jean with her adorable little kids and her insufferable pride that you find so endearing. Get over yourself, Sam. Better yet, get over her.”

  Sam’s eyes narrowed as his temper flared up. “What did you just say?” he said, warning dripping off the words.

  Renata shot up from the couch to face him down squarely, even though she only reached a few inches over five feet. Half Italian and half Korean, she inherited her temper from her father and height from her mother. “You heard me. I know all about your little crush on your best friend’s ex-wife. God, it was so obvious from the way you looked at her like she was Grade-A prime rib and you were a poor, homeless beggar. It’s amazing to me that Chad never picked up on your little infatuation, because it was painfully obvious to me from the beginning. I knew I never had a real shot with you from the first time I met her. You never looked at me the way you looked at her. But once I found out that I was pregnant, I thought things might be different and maybe you would start to care about me, too. I guess I was wrong,” she spat bitterly.

  Sam felt a little flare of panic at the realization that he hadn’t been as careful to hide his feelings as he thought he had. The fact that Renata had picked up on it was even worse. He had to put out that fire before she ran to Chad with her tale. “You’re just imaging th
ings, Renata. Billie and I have been friends since high school and there’s never been anything more between us than that. As for me and you, we just aren’t compatible.”

  Walking slowly over to where he was sitting, she pushed his shoulder roughly until he was leaning against the back of his couch. “There was one area we were compatible in,” she purred, changing her tactics as she straddled his lap so that her bottom was flush with his crotch. Running her hand up into his thick, silky black hair, she gripped a handful and pulled his head to the side, exposing his neck. Leaning down, she nibbled and kissed her way up his jugular to his ear where she sucked his earlobe into her mouth and gently bit down.

  Sam cursed his body for responding to her manipulation, but he had to admit that she was right about that, at least. The only reason their “relationship” had even lasted as long as it had was because of the sex. Even now, his hands slid along her thighs of their own accord until he was gripping her tight, firm behind in the palms of his hands. With a moan of victory, Renata ground herself against the hardness of his arousal as she moved in to steal a long, passionate kiss.

  And that’s where she lost him. Even as his mouth kissed hers back, his mind was busily comparing her kiss to the nirvana that was Billie’s lips. Billie Jean’s kiss had rocked him to his soul and turned him inside out. After experiencing that, Renata’s kiss just left him feeling cold and doused his desire more effectively than a freezing shower. Breaking away from her, he moved his hands to her tiny waist and gently removed her from his lap and set her back on the couch. Her expression was comically disbelieving, but Sam was in no mood to laugh.

  Standing to his full 6 foot, 3 inches of height, he walked resolutely to the kitchen table and retrieved his checkbook. He scribbled furiously for a moment and ripped the check out and walked back into the living room to face the furious, scorned woman.