Just then, Adam emerged from the work area of the loft with a welcoming smile on his face. "Hello, Angel! Benita told me she'd loaded you down with stuff-thanks for bringing it by. Come on in and get warm, my brother has apparently forgotten his manners entirely," he said with a sidelong look at his sibling.
Angelique took the hand Adam offered and entered the big loft In her other hand was a big, colorful shopping bag that she handed to him. "Here you go. And this is for you, too," she said as she stood on tiptoe to give Adam a big kiss on the cheek. "Bennie said to make sure to give you a kiss from her and the babies."
Adam smiled wickedly and returned the kiss with enjoyment. While Donnie might be considered the most handsome of the Cochran men, it was usually conceded that Adam was the sexiest. He was broad-shouldered, well muscled and wore his wavy hair long in a thick braid down his back. With his piercing eyes and thick, glossy mustache, he was pretty irresistible. And charming as well when he chose to be, as he did now. "You really are an angel, Angelique. Thanks for taking the time to bring this over. Come sit down and let me fix you some tea or some hot chocolate or something," he coaxed, pulling her farther into the big open space that led into a restaurant-quality kitchen.
"Oh, I can't stay," she demurred, "I have to go by your dad's house, and the twins ... umm, did you say hot chocolate?" A thick, rich cup of hot cocoa was a weakness of hers and the longing on her face made it plain that she wanted some.
Adam sensed her desire and gleefully divested her of her jacket. Tossing it at Donnie, he ordered him to hang it up. "Now you come with me, cutie, and I'm going to make you the best cup of chocolat you ever consumed in your life." The two of them went off to the kitchen, leaving Donnie standing in the entrance area with Angelique's jacket in his hand and a vacant look on his face. Like an automaton, he drew the thick wool garment to his nose and inhaled deeply. The rich essence of her fragrance cut through him like a knife. His entire body reacted quickly and passionately to this stimulus, much to his dismay. For some unknown reason, he felt a stirring in parts of his body that should have known better and he didn't like it one bit. After taking one more forbidden whiff of the coat he hung it neatly in the closet and then scowled at the slight tremor that surged through him. Wasn't anything going to cooperate with him? Glaring at the zipper in the front of his pants, he whispered, "Cut that out. We don't like her, remember?"
Praying that his body wouldn't continue to betray him, he went into the kitchen to see what witchery Angelique was up to now. Sure enough, she sat on a stool at the long work counter with Jordan and Pippen lolling at her feet and Adam making a huge show of concocting some kind of hot-chocolate confection from scratch. None of this should have bothered Donnie in the least, but for some reason it was eating him up. That little woman had gotten under his skin from the first moment they'd met, and things showed no signs of improving. The most annoying part of the whole situation was that she seemed to be completely unaware of him. He could have been one of the pots Adam had hanging from the ceiling, for all the attention she paid him. Something was definitely wrong with this scenario, and he was going to fix it and quick. He wasn't much for New Year's resolutions, but he was making one this year. Angelique was a thorn and he was getting her out of his side and soon.
***
Donnie would have been stunned to know that he was causing Angelique as much discomfort as he was suffering. Despite her appearance of nonchalance, she was more than aware of Donnie, and this awareness made her feel unsettled and uneasy more often than she liked. She tried not to think about him at all, but since her brother Clay was married to his sister Bennie, it wasn't as if she could ignore his existence altogether. Besides the marriage and babies that bound the families together, the Cochrans and the Deverauxes were now in business together.
With the merger of the companies, the two clans were inextricably tied to each other for all time. It was inevitable that she and Donnie would meet regularly. And try as she might to act with total indifference, it was difficult. Adonis Bennett Cochran was not a man who could be overlooked For one thing, he was tall, more than six-six, yet the height alone wasn't what did it. All of Angelique's brothers were extremely blessed in the height department, too. He was also physically blessed, like her handsome brothers; even a sightless person would have recognized the fact that he had exceptional looks.
Angelique pulled into her home's shared driveway. She'd been listening to one of her many audio books as she drove, but had been daydreaming more than listening. Ever since encountering Donnie at his brother's loft, she'd been thinking about him. She tried to tell herself he just reminded her of her brothers: tall, handsome and charming. But even more than that, he was very smart and savvy when it came to business. He was recognized as a genius in broadcasting and had taken his family's string of small urban radio stations and parlayed them into a network that now spanned the country. And he'd added television stations, as well. Brilliant, bold and innovative, those were the words usually used to describe him, and that was why he reminded her of her brothers. But the things causing her mind to go into overdrive were the characteristics that didn't excite a brotherly reaction in the least.
As she got out of the car and took a deep lungful of the cold, crisp evening air, she had to smile when she thought about Donnie's legendary charm, although charming was a relative term, since Donnie was a perfect gentleman to everyone but her. He was extremely kind and perfectly mannered to all he encountered, but he rubbed her the wrong way and had since the first day they met They fought and argued and generally treated each other with the gentility reserved for known terrorists. It was bad enough when she lived in Atlanta and only saw him a couple times a year, now that she was on his turf they seemed to trip over each other. She reached the back door and used her key to open it finding the kitchen warm and bright with appetizing smells all around her. She closed her eyes and sniffed as she took off her coat Paris, bless her heart, was making dinner, and whatever it was would be divine. She walked through the house to hang up her coat in the closet calling Paris as she did so.
"Hey, girl, I'm home! What are you cooking? It smells wonderful."
Paris ran lightly down the stairs and dashed into the kitchen to give the pot a stir. "Thanks for the compliment, cuz, but I can't take credit for this, it's your recipe. I made that white-bean chicken chili everyone loves so much, and some jalapeno com-bread muffins and fruit salad. Very filling, full of fiber, and low-fat," she said.
Paris was, like all the Deverauxes, tall and good-looking, but she was very conscious of everything she ate. She'd battled a weight problem all her life and had managed, in the past few years, to lose weight through careful eating and lots of exercise. Her friend Aidan Sinclair, who lived in Atlanta and also worked for TDG, as the Deveraux Group was commonly known, liked to take credit for her transformation as he'd forced her to diet and work out with him. Regardless of who was responsible, there was no denying that Paris was a changed person. She was five-ten and fair-skinned with long, wavy black hair she no longer kept in a ponytail twenty-four-seven, but wore in a becomingly layered style. Her figure was still bountiful, but she was a firm size sixteen instead of a fluffy size twenty, and she now wore trim, fitted clothes instead of the baggy things she once used to camouflage her figure faults. Tonight she was wearing a comfortable-looking outfit of cotton cashmere in a pretty coral color. The knit pants fit properly and the scoop-necked top showed off her collarbone as well as the dramatic line of her shoulders.
Paris turned off the burner under the chili and said they could eat in five minutes if Angelique would set the table. "Where've you been all afternoon? I thought about calling you on your cell phone, but I figured you were busy with A. J. or something," she said.
Angelique sighed as she dried her hands on a paper towel. Turning to the cupboard, she got down the colorful Fiestaware that had been a housewarming gift from Vera and Marcus. "I was delivering those packages for Bennie. I went to see Renee and Andrew, and Andre and Alan, and Mr. C and Miss Martha," she recited. "Mr. C" was how she referred to Big Bennie Cochran, the patriarch of the family and father to Benita and her brothers. Miss Martha was his wife, the woman he'd married so many years after his first wife, the mother of his children, had passed away.