DANIEL'S GIRL: ROMANCING AN OLDER MAN Read online

  Daniel ran her bath water while making phone calls. And even after she had bathe, dried off, and put on her negligee, he was still making phone calls. He was lying on top of her bed, still fully clothed, his eyes closed by exhaustion as he talked on the phone. Nikki sat on the edge of the bed when he finally hung up.

  “Well?” she asked. “Are they going to drop the charges?”

  Daniel shook his head. “No.”

  “No? But I didn’t do anything!”

  “I told you I know that, Nikki.”

  “Then you need to call somebody.”

  “I called somebody.”

  “Then call somebody else.”

  “I called everybody, Nikki. I called the police chief, the commissioner, the mayor. Everybody. I called everybody.”

  “But why can’t they do anything?”

  “Because it’s drugs. Because heroin was found at your home.”

  Nikki stared at Daniel, as if the reality was just beginning to sink in. “What are you saying? I could go to prison? You’re saying I could go to prison?”

  “I’m saying we are going to have to let the process play itself out. We’re going to have to get you an attorney.”

  “But you’re an attorney.”

  “I’ll oversee your defense, but for the record we’ll need somebody on board.”

  “But for what?”

  “For the trial, Nikki, you know what for. For the preliminary hearing where we’ll try to get these charges tossed.”

  Nikki once again stared at Daniel, and it was a steely, hard, frightful stare. “How long could I get?” she asked him.

  “It depends on a lot of factors, honey.”

  “How long? Give me the maximum.”

  “Hopefully at the preliminary hearing. . .”

  “Daniel. Please. Give me the maximum.”

  Daniel paused. “If the charges end up being possession with intent, that is, if a jury decides that you not only had a stash of heroin for your own purposes, but you had it with the intent to sell it, then. . . Then we’re talking about ten to twenty years, honey.”

  If Nikki was a balloon, she would have deflated. Life itself seemed to seep out of her. Daniel reached out to touch her, to comfort her, but she moved away and stood up. She then walked toward her bedroom door.

  “Thank-you for everything, Daniel” she said. “But I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Nikki, don’t do this.”

  “Good night, Daniel.”

  Daniel looked up at the ceiling. It was tough enough. Yet Nikki was ready to shut him out once again and make it tougher.

  He got out of her bed and walked to her. She stood there defiantly, her leg shaking, her arms folded, as if Daniel’s inability to correct this monumental wrong made everything that was happening to her his fault. And even when he moved to kiss her on her lips, to kiss the woman he hadn’t kissed in days, she turned her face away. He couldn’t be her hero, so he was her enemy now. It was his fault. His burden. Another nail in his coffin.

  Melanie was startled when she opened the door of her apartment and saw Luke standing there. He had a newspaper in his hand and a look of chilling horror on his face.

  “I can’t talk right now, Luke,” she said as she tried to move forward, but he pushed her back into her apartment and slammed the door.

  “Are you out of your fucking mind, Melanie?!”

  “Now you hold on there.”

  He threw the newspaper toward her. She caught it. “Did you see the headline? Daniel Crane’s girlfriend arrested on drug trafficking charges. Drug trafficking charges? And guess what drug it was?”

  Melanie, reading the headline herself, smiled. “Heroin of course.”

  “Yes. And I wonder where that came from?”

  “Sit down, Luke.”

  “What could you possibly be thinking? Drug trafficking, Melanie? How could you do that to Nikki?”

  “I will tell you everything as soon as you sit down. Now sit down and calm down.”

  Luke looked at Melanie, at the way she seemed to revel in his outrage, but he had to know what in the world she could have been thinking. He sat down.

  “Okay,” Melanie said, sitting her briefcase on the table, and sitting down too. “Daniel and Nikki have been apart for weeks now. Yet Nikki will have nothing to do with you, and Daniel . . . dismissed me.”

  Luke was floored. “What?”

  “He let me go. He fired me. But don’t worry, it makes it harder, but it’s all still doable.”

  “What’s still doable? You don’t even work for him anymore!”

  “Just hear me out. So they still have their issues, but they still won’t give anybody else a chance. So I asked myself why. And that’s when it came to me.”

  “What came to you?”

  “We miscalculated, Luke. It wasn’t Nikki. It was Daniel. It wasn’t Nikki.”

  Luke hesitated, as if trying to figure out what Melanie had just said. Then he shook his head. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, lady. What wasn’t Nikki?”

  “We thought Nikki was the one so in love with Daniel that we had to change the image of Daniel in Nikki’s eyes. We had to knock that halo off of his head, remember? Well we did that. Those nude photos did it. The phone call. My mere association with him. They’ve been separated for weeks now. It worked.”

  Then she shook her head. “But it didn’t work too because Nikki wasn’t the problem. Daniel was. He was the one who couldn’t get over Nikki. He was the one who had this puritanical image of Nikki that couldn’t be shaken. Yeah, we did part of our job. He ain’t shit in her eyes. But she’s still diamonds in his. Until now.”

  But Luke wasn’t following her. “This is crazy,” he said. “You ruined Nikki’s life, you put her in danger of many years in prison, so you could fuck Daniel Crane?”

  “Not fuck him, no. Fuck over him? Yes. Oh, yes.”

  “But she could go to prison, Mel!”

  “Oh, come on! Even if she’s convicted she won’t do any time. She’ll get probation perhaps, but no jail time. She’s never been in trouble a day in her life. But it’ll be perfect for us, don’t you understand that? Daniel Crane is ambitious if he’s anything. He will not sacrifice his career or his good name for anybody. I suspect he’ll hang in there with her initially. He’ll have no choice. She’ll be depending on him. But then his ambition, and the fact that he views himself as this great moral man, will take over. He won’t be associated with somebody involved in drugs, I assure you. Not for long he won’t.”

  “But what difference does his reputation make now? He dumped you. He fired you. You can’t get to him anymore.”

  “I had to rethink my plan, that’s correct. I needed him to make love to me, I needed his DNA.”

  “His DNA? Why?” Then Luke realized why. “So you could cry rape and have the evidence?”

  “Yes!” Melanie said without shame. “Yes!”

  “But why? What did Crane ever do to you?”

  “That’s my business,” she said. “Just know that I recalibrated. And now it’s still a good plan. You saw those headlines this morning. It didn’t say Nikki Graham arrested. It said Daniel Crane’s girlfriend arrested! Daniel Crane was the headline!”

  “So?”

  “So, Luke, Daniel Crane also happens to be up for the top job at Dreeson, remember? How much you want to bet that not only will he lose that top spot, but he just might lose his job altogether.”

  “Damn,” Luke said. What a witch, he thought. “That sounds great, Melanie,” he said. “It sounds great for you and your revenge factor. But excuse me if I don’t see how this is such a perfect plan for me.”

  “That’s because you’re not thinking outside the box, Luke.”

  “Don’t give me that bullcrap! What box am I supposed to be thinking outside of?”

  “She’s dirty now. Don’t you get it, Luke? You didn’t stand a chance with her because she didn’t feel you were on her level. Oh yeah, she talked the street
talk and tried to walk it too, but why would she be with a man like Daniel? A man with background and breeding if nothing else? Because that’s how she sees herself. She shuns high society, but she courts it as well. And you, my friend, didn’t make the grade. She didn’t see you as being on her level. Now she’s on your level. She’s a little dirty now. She’s been arrested. She’s been to jail. And even if she gets off scot-free, what man of background and breeding is going to want her? Let’s, as she would say, get real. You, Luke, represents the best of the rest for her. By my action alone your chances have increased a hundred-fold, my friend. So before you start accusing me of ruining everything, you’d better live and learn. I know what I’m doing. I always know what I’m doing.”

  Luke leaned back. He was in bed with the devil. He knew it. But he also knew that devil was speaking his language. Nikki never viewed him as her equal, he could tell that from the first day they talked. He was a little too down to earth for her. She didn’t mind people with rough childhoods, but his might have been too rough. He was too rough. Nikki was too clean.

  Now she suddenly wasn’t clean anymore. But had a little of life’s slush on her too. He knew Melanie was right. And he also knew he had to have Nikki. He tried to get her legitimately, he tried to woo her with his charm and personality. But it didn’t work. But Melanie, in one bold stroke, changed the entire dynamic. Now Luke did stand a chance. And he decided, right then and there, to take that chance. He had to have Nikki. That’s all he knew. And nobody else was offering up any other way to get her.

  Daniel spent his morning at home, calling lawyers and private investigators, and talking with the chief of police about the details of just what kind of case they had. By the time he was showered and dressed and pulling into the driveway of Nikki’s townhouse, it was late afternoon. And Nikki was still in bed.

  She didn’t even move. She just laid there, staring up at Daniel, seeming to listen passively as he told her that he just hired one of the best criminal defense attorneys in the country for her, and that he was flying in today, and that a battery of private investigators were also on the case. Nikki listened, but she didn’t appear at all fazed. Daniel tried to smile, to help lift her spirits, but she just laid there, staring at him, as if unable to be moved.

  Daniel didn’t go into work at all that day. He thought he would, he needed to, but he couldn’t. Nikki was like a zombie going through the motions of life. He told her she needed to get out of that bed, she got out of bed. But then she just stood there. She showered because he said she should, she ate because he cooked her a meal, she sat out on the patio with him because he asked her to.

  Daniel was devastated. He smoked a real, non-electronic cigarette, and sipped wine and stared at Nikki as they sat together. She sat on the patio like some sick old lady in a nursing home. Given up and left to die. In one night, one terrible night, something had happened to Nikki that Daniel never thought possible. She lost her passion. She had lost her will to fight, a will that he had admired so deeply. He crossed his legs and doused his cigarette. “Nikki, don’t do this,” he finally said to her. She looked at him.

  “You’ve got to fight back, honey. You can’t go soft on me now. If you don’t fight back, this thing can do you in. You hear me, Nikki? Nikki? Now come on, honey. You aren’t behaving like the woman I love.”

  Nikki stared at Daniel, and all she could think about were the nude photos she found at his home, and that phone call from her, and the trip to New York he took with Melanie. And she was still upset with him. She didn’t want to hear a word he had to say. Was Jean behaving like the woman he loved when she posed naked for him? Was Melanie? Were any of his women?

  She didn’t trust anybody anymore.

  She got up from the patio, and went back to bed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  As soon as Daniel arrived back at work the next day and walked into his suite of offices, he could feel the stares. Everybody looked away as he looked toward them, and by the time he made it into his office, both Phillip and Whitney gave him a minute, and then came rushing in.

  “How bad is it?” Daniel asked them as he stood behind his desk. Whitney looked at Phillip.

  “We’re bleeding,” Phillip said. “There’s no way around that.”

  “Who would think Nikki, I mean, Miss Graham, would do something like that? I can’t see her doing drugs, let alone getting caught up in any drug trafficking.”

  Phillip looked at Daniel. “I know it’s impossible and all that, but are any of those allegations true?” he asked him without reservation.

  Daniel didn’t hesitate. “No.”

  “No to which allegation? Doing drugs or selling drugs?”

  Daniel sighed and placed his hands on his hips. The idea of Nikki being accused of such things. “Both,” he said.

  “Okay. Good. That’s good. But as I said, we’re bleeding, those accusations, even if untrue, certainly doesn’t help your chances with the board. The very reason they liked you was because of your lack of controversy and drama. But there’s still hope.”

  “What hope?” Whitney asked. She felt emboldened now that this involved Nikki. She considered Nikki a friend. “How can you claim there’s still hope? Mr. Crane is already being crucified in public, and I mean totally decimated if you listen to the local news, and you’re talking about hope? Where’s the hope, Phil? I say he should kiss that CEO job goodbye.”

  “We aren’t kissing anything goodbye,” Phillip said. “I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself, Whitney.”

  “Don’t talk to my secretary that way,” Daniel admonished him, which relaxed Whitney even more.

  “All I’m saying is that this can be rectified. You can go before the board, tell them that you’ve cut all ties with Nikki, and promise them that there will be no more drama about her situation.”

  “No way,” Daniel said. Even Whitney couldn’t believe what Phillip was suggesting.

  “Okay, I was just testing the waters. But we still have a shot. If the bad press eventually blows over.”

  “And?” Daniel asked.

  “And if the board is bold, and if the Street doesn’t get antsy for an announcement in the meantime, then the chairman, who loves you by the way, may hold over a decision on CEO.”

  Daniel nodded his head, although every instinct within him believed that the job that was once considered his to lose, was already lost.

  Val’s arrival that same day helped Nikki tremendously. Daniel had arranged it, flying him in from Michigan, and Val lifted her spirit, not with assurances that everything was going to be all right, but with guarantees that they were. But she had to trust Daniel, he ultimately said, even though Nikki knew trusting Daniel these days was not as simple as it used to be.

  It was late evening. They were in the master bedroom of Nikki’s townhouse. Nikki was on the bed working a crossword puzzle and occasionally watching the news on TV, while Val was in the adjacent bathroom putting on his facial cream for the night. And Nikki understood what he was saying.

  “I get what you’re saying,” she said loud enough for him to hear. “But I don’t know if I’ll ever have that same level of trust I used to have.” Then she frowned. “For anybody,” she added.

  “I don’t know why not,” Val responded from the bathroom. “Yeah, some lady’s been trying to claim that she’s got it going on with him and all that, but you really don’t have any proof of that.”

  “What about those photographs, Val?”

  “Did you see Daniel’s face or body in even one of those pictures?”

  Nikki admitted that she did not.

  “Then you don’t have any proof,” Val repeated. “Because trust me, if a female really wanted to make you jealous, she’d have his naked ass plastered on every picture she would have sent. That is, if she had pictures of his naked ass to send. Which she didn’t. And that’s why she didn’t send them.”

  Nikki pushed her reading glasses up on her face. “But that’s what I can’t get past.
She claimed she was just sending him some of the photos they took in Florida. That’s what her postcard said. So why wouldn’t she send pictures of him? She’d keep those pictures for herself and send him pictures of her naked body. Which is what she sent. If she wanted to make me jealous, she would have put the pictures under my door, not his. How was she to know that I would be at Daniel’s that evening?”

  “You said you told your boss that you were going to Daniel’s. And that boss has the hots for you. At least that’s what you said. Maybe he had a hand in all of this.”

  “Yeah, it’s crossed my mind a few times. But Val, it was like two o’ clock when I told Luke how I was going to cook dinner for Daniel at Daniel’s place. He would have only had a few hours to find some photos of some naked woman, to get a postcard of Florida even though I never told him Daniel had ever gone on a business trip to Florida, and to write up that postcard, find out where Daniel lived, slide the photos under his door, no. I can’t see it.”

  Val had to agree. “Me neither, to tell you the truth.”

  “But that’s the least of my problems right now, anyway,” Nikki said and leaned her head back against the headboard.

  “You’ve got to trust Daniel, Nikki.”

  “I know. But it’s . . .”

  “What about those lawyers he hired? I mean, the man hired a team of lawyers for your ass. That doesn’t make you feel better?”

  “It does. And I appreciate it, I really do. And they all assured me that they would do everything in their power to prove my innocence, but I still feel uneasy.”

  “Why if they’re the best of the best and they’re promising that you’ll beat this rap?”

  “It’s because of what it’ll take to beat it,” Nikki said. “They’re promising that at the end of the process I’ll be vindicated. But I don’t want to go through the process at all. Because juries can hand down some messed-up verdicts, Val. I’ve reported on enough trials to know that for a fact. And the idea of having my fate in the hands of strangers like that, makes me feel as if life as I knew it, will never be the same again.”