Just as she had gotten out of the last of her snow-damp clothing, she heard the bedroom door open and close. She looked up and saw that Troy had walked in with his hands behind his back.

He had a devilish grin on his face and she knew that meant payback.

“Now, Troy. You wouldn’t do anything to an unarmed woman, would you?” She took a step back, trying to make her way to the bathroom so that she could lock herself in while whatever snowball he was carrying melted.

He laughed and shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Jasmine. Now, are you going to take your punishment like a woman?”

She fell back onto the bed in a splayed position, hamming it up for all she was worth.

“That’s a good girl.” He walked over to the bed and she saw that he hadn’t had snow behind his back. He had an ice bucket. He placed it on the nightstand and started to undress.

His body never ceased to amaze her. He epitomized masculinity. Every ripple and ridge of his frame made her want to run her fingers over his skin. His caramel-colored complexion made her want to lick his…everything.

But more than anything, she wanted to know what he planned to do with that ice.

GWYNETH BOLTON

was born and raised in Paterson, New Jersey. She currently lives in central New York with her husband, Cedric. When she was twelve years old, she became an avid reader of romance by sneaking books from her mother’s stash of Harlequin and Silhouette novels. In the ’90s she was introduced to African-American and multicultural romance novels and her life hasn’t been the same since. She has a B.A. and an M.A. in English/Creative Writing and a Ph.D. in English/Composition and Rhetoric. She teaches college-level classes in writing and women’s studies. She has won several awards for her romance novels, including ten Emma Awards and a Romance in Color Reviewers’ Choice Award for new author of the year.

When Gwyneth is not teaching or working on her own romance novels, she is curled up with a cup of herbal tea, a warm quilt and a good book. She can be reached via email at gwynethbolton@prodigy.net. And readers can visit her website at www.gwynethbolton.com.

At First Kiss
Gwyneth Bolton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To the readers, who make real to me every day the old African proverb that states simply, I am because you are.

Dear Reader,

Sometimes people meet the love of their life and know right away that they have just met the person who is the other part of their soul. Sometimes people meet and become good friends before they become lovers.

And then there are other times…

Troy Singleton and Jazz Stewart didn’t fall in love at first sight. They didn’t even become good friends right away. Frenemy would be a better description for these two. They tolerate one another because their best friends are married, but that is as far as it goes. And then there’s the fact he’s a player and she’s a serial dater. They are too much alike to ever be attracted to one another. And they can’t be around one another without getting on each other’s nerves. So they don’t ever have to worry about hooking up or anything like that….

Or maybe, they are so much alike that they are really perfect for one another and it will take an act of God or something just as strong to get them to realize it.

I hope you enjoy Troy and Jazz’s journey toward love as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Much love and peace,

Gwyneth

Acknowledgments

I want to acknowledge my family, because without their support I wouldn’t know what love is or even be able to write about it. Special thanks to my husband, Cedric Bolton, my mom, Donna Pough, my sisters Jennifer, Cassandra, Michelle and Tashina, my nieces Ashlee and Zaria and my nephew, Michael.

Many women have shown me what true sisterhood and friendship is through the years. To my friends who have been there for me through the years and encouraged all of my early attempts at writing and listened to my dreams, thank you. I’d like to especially thank Cheryl Johnson, Elaine Richardson, Jennifer Thorington Springer, Latisha Folkes-Nwoye, Lily Marella Payne, Angelique Justin and Yolanda Hood. Smooches and triple-hold hugs to you all! I’d also like to thank my sista-authors, whose stories inspire and motivate me and whose friendship I count on. And I’d especially like to thank A. C. Arthur, Victoria Wells, Iris Bolling, Deatri King-Bey, Shelia Goss and Ann Christopher. Keep on writing those amazing stories and please keep being the wonderful women you are! Finally, I’d like to thank my sands, because they have been showing me true Delta love and sisterhood since we crossed in the spring of 1990. Thank you Kimmie, Shakira, Antoinette, Edith, Monica, Audrey, Sherita and Karen. I love you! Oo-oop!

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Epilogue

Chapter 1

It doesn't matter if you win or lose, it's how you play the game…

Ten years earlier

So the Kappa Alpha Psi pretty boy is late. Go figure…I should have expected that from a Nupe!

Jasmine “Jazz” Stewart alternated between walking up and down the inside of the airport, checking and rechecking each luggage pickup location, and braving the cold Detroit weather outside. It had been over an hour since she had landed, and her ride was nowhere to be found. She was going to be late for her best friend’s wedding rehearsal, all because some cane-swinging Kappa pretty boy—whom she had never met, but she had seen pictures of and had to admit he was too handsome for words—had no concept of time.

Her best friend, roommate and sorority sister was marrying the no-show’s best friend and fraternity brother. She and Alicia were both members of Delta Sigma Theta and had pledged the Pi Iota city-wide chapter when they were sophomores in college. They were now seniors at Mount Holyoke College. From what she’d heard, Alicia’s fiancé, Darren, her cousin Kendrick and the tardy Troy had all pledged Kappa at Howard several years ago, Xi chapter.

Jazz knew that her friend Alicia probably had some hopes of her and Troy hitting it off and Jazz finally becoming serious about one guy instead of dating them and dropping them, as she was prone to do. But if Troy was always this late, he wouldn’t stand a chance with her. She liked her conquests to be prompt.

She glanced at the Coach watch she’d gotten a good bargain on back home at Filene’s Basement in Boston. An hour and twenty-five minutes late! She had never met Mr. Troy Singleton, but from what she’d heard, he thought he was some kind of God’s gift to women. He was probably used to making women wait for him. After making the mad dash to catch her flight from Boston, suffering through the two-hour turbulence-filled flight and trekking through the unreasonably long Detroit airport to get to the luggage claim spot in a timely manner so that she wouldn’t keep her ride waiting, she knew for sure she wouldn’t be one of the many women to fall for his charms.

She walked outside again just as a humongous gas-guzzling bright red SUV pulled up. When she saw the tall, muscular frame stepping out and walking leisurely toward the entrance to the airport, she just watched him go. The jeans and thick leather jacket he wore gave him a rugged and almost dangerous appearance. If it weren’t for the air of suaveness that seemed to radiate off of him like whatever the male equivalent to a siren’s call would be, he would read bad-boy-all-the-way.

She decided she hated him on sight, every six-feet-plus muscle-bound caramel-hued bit of him.

She took her luggage and rolled it over to the SUV and patiently waited for him to come back outside when he saw she wasn’t in the airport waiting like a dutiful twit with nothing better to do. The brittle Detroit air almost made her want to go inside and find him, but she braved it.

Oh, the things one would endure to prove a point…

Twenty minutes later he came out talking on his cell phone. She leaned against his car with her arms crossed in front of her. He stared at her for a moment and walked over. His expression was a mixture of perplexed and inquisitive with a slight bit of interest.

“Jasmine?” His mouth tilted slightly in a soft, sexy half smile that would probably knock the average girl off her feet.

Jazz wasn’t anybody’s average…

“It’s Jazz. Can you open the trunk and let me put my suitcase in? We’re running late. Or should I say, you’re incredibly late and we’re going to miss the rehearsal.”

He reared his head back as if offended before narrowing his eyes. “How did you know this was my car?”

The sexy little smile was gone and she kind of missed it.

Oh. Well.

“I watched you get out of it. Can you open the trunk? And can we get in? It’s cold out here.” She realized that she really was starting to freeze her very ample behind off.

The cream dress slacks she wore with a cute little sweater and lightweight leather jacket, both of which were more for style than warmth, were no match for Detroit’s weather. It might have been close to spring in the rest of the world, but Detroit hadn’t gotten the memo yet.

“Wait a minute, you saw me get out and go inside to look for you and it didn’t occur to you to try and stop me? I wasted damn near twenty minutes in there looking for you.” He just stood in front of her not opening the trunk with expectation written all over his face.

He was starting to work her nerves, and the Bajan always came out in her whenever someone worked her nerves. Even though she’d left the island when she was a toddler, she was her mother’s child. And Carlyne Stewart had never lost her Barbadian dialect.

She narrowed her eyes and gave her teeth a slow, lyrical suck. “C’dear…wha ’bout muh time, nuh? I wait and walk and wait and walk back and forth roun’ dis godforsaken airport for I ain’ no how long for yuh ta reach. We nowhere near even, yuh, but I ain’ got time to waste belaboring the topic…” She gave him a disgusted look. “Trunk? Door?”

He pressed the automatic lock, walked over to the driver’s side, got in and started up the car. She lifted her suitcase as she cursed him out in her mind and then got in the SUV.

“Woulda killed yuh to be a gentleman after havin’ muh here waiting all this time, huh?” It irritated her to no end that this fool had triggered her anger so quickly and had her channeling her mother’s tongue. She took a deep breath and counted to ten.

He turned up his music to some loud hip-hop and started driving, effectively ignoring her.

That was all right with Jazz. He might have been the finest guy she had ever laid eyes on, but he was also an arrogant-late-no-manners-having jerk.

Jasmine. Man what an evil—!

Troy shook his head as he made haste driving them to the small chapel where Alicia and Darren were having their wedding rehearsal. The sooner he got Ms. Jasmine Stewart out of his ride the better.

And what is with the Miss Cleo routine?

She hadn’t sounded like she was from the islands at first, but then all of a sudden she went full-blown come-back-to-Jamaica on him. He didn’t have the time or the patience for this crap. Not after just finding out that his parents were going to end their almost thirty-year marriage because they had supposedly “grown apart.”

He chanced a glance at Jasmine. She was as pretty as her picture, even though her hair was different. Instead of the wild and free natural style from the picture, it looked like her auburn hair had been straightened somehow and it was in one of those fancy pinned-up styles with rings of curls placed strategically. She must’ve gotten it done like that for the wedding.

Yeah, she was gorgeous. Too bad she was such a ball buster.

And to think, he had even planned to let her be the woman he kicked it with this weekend. Everyone knew that weddings were the perfect venues for hit-it-and-quit-it hookups. He’d seen Jasmine’s picture when Alicia asked him to pick up her up from the airport and he hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind. He had all kinds of lines ready to woo her.

Yeah, he’d been a little late picking her up… So what? He’d gotten there. And after getting the news he’d just received, news that totally messed with his mind in ways he wasn’t ready to address, she was lucky he even showed up at all.

And she played him by watching him go in the airport looking for her like a fool. Well, her loss, there would be plenty of women at the wedding looking for Mr. Right. He might not be Mr. Right, but he was for damn sure Mr. Right Now, and he wasn’t going to let Jasmine ruin his plans.

Jasmine.

He never remembered women’s names. But he couldn’t seem to forget hers, or anything about her, from her pretty cinnamon face to her fierce auburn natural. And her body…

Voluptuous came to mind… Her body was definitely a throwback to the Marilyn Monroe days, when real women had curves.

He turned, looked at her and frowned.

“Keep your eyes on the road, Stud. Get us there in one piece, it’s bad enough we’re going to be late.”

“Stud?” He couldn’t help the smile that came over his face. Maybe this weekend wasn’t a total loss after all…

“Yeah, if you won’t call me Jazz, as I prefer, I’ll just call you Stud, you know because you think you’re such hot stuff, but you’re really not all that. It’s like a play on words… Instead of ‘dud,’ I’ll call you ‘stud.’”

He gritted his teeth. If she wasn’t so fine and if he had a little less respect for women he would call her a long list of names. But instead he called her the one thing he knew she would hate.

“Cute, Jasmine. You made that up all by yourself?” He chuckled in a sarcastic manner and he could feel her bristling beside him.

The rehearsal dinner had been interesting, to say the least. Alicia must have been really trying to do the matchmaking thing because she even sat Jazz by Troy at dinner and they were paired together as bridesmaid and groomsman. If it weren’t for the buffer that Troy’s sister and brother-in-law provided, things wouldn’t have gone well.

“So, Troy picked you up from the airport? How did that go?” Sonya asked. “I’m not supposed to be saying anything… But Alicia was kind of hoping that the two of you would hit it off.”

“Nice way not to say anything, babe,” Kendrick said with a shake of his head.

Jazz let out an exaggerated laugh. “Alicia can just forget about that…” She looked at Troy and shook her head. “It’ll never happen. Never.”

Troy offered a sarcastic chuckle. “Yeah, I like my women a little less high-maintenance and a lot less crazy.”

Crazy? High-maintenance?

She could feel the heat rising in her neck and covering her cheeks. She did not need a repeat of her episode with Troy earlier. It was a nice upscale restaurant, and if she started cussing him out in her Bajan dialect, it probably wouldn’t look good. So she smiled at him instead, a smile that probably appeared just shy of crazed.

He offered that lazy half smile, half smirk of his that she quickly came to realize worked her last good nerve and made her want to smack him. She wasn’t used to these kinds of things. Guys usually didn’t faze her at all. She could take them or leave them, and nine times out of ten she was leaving them. And none had never ever gotten under her skin so intensely and so quickly.

“Excuse me.” She stood up and walked away from the table. She needed to go to the restroom to compose herself before she did or said something she would regret later.

After some breathing exercises and telling herself repeatedly that he was not all that, Jazz exited the restroom a newly composed woman. Until she saw Troy standing there…

“Look, before you blow up and start acting all psycho again, I just thought I’d check on you and apologize. I have no idea what I’m apologizing for, but whatever has your panties in a bunch that you perceive I am at fault for, I’m sorry.”

Is my eye twitching? My eye is twitching. This— She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and willed him to be gone when she opened them.

She opened her eyes. The left one twitched. No such luck.

“Go away, Stud. No need to apologize. Clearly you can’t help being just what you are, a jerk.”

“I’m not going away. We need to find a way to call a truce or something. Like it or not, our best friends are about to get married and that means we are going to be seeing a lot of each other through the years. Unless of course you and Alicia grow apart after college… One can only hope…” He let his words trail off and gave her a cocky grin. “I’m kidding. I’m kidding. Lighten up, will you?”

“Alicia and I will always be close. And as for you and me running into each other in the future…Just do your best to stay out of my way and I’ll do my best to stay out of yours.” She moved to walk around the arrogant man and he caught her arm.

She turned around and gave the offending hand a hard glare. He still wouldn’t let go. He stepped closer until there was no semblance of personal space whatsoever.

She inhaled.

Mmm. Drakkar Noir. Nice.

“What’s your problem, Jasmine? Why won’t you just—” He cut himself off, and before she knew it his lips were on hers and he had engulfed her mouth, mind and all of her senses in his all-consuming grasp.

His arms locked behind her and he held her so still and so close that the only thing she could move was her mouth. And apparently her mouth wanted to move. Her tongue snaked its way into his mouth and swirled around like it had found a new playground or something.

Her heart felt like it was going to beat its way out of her chest and her toes tingled. What the hell kind of kiss made your toes tingle? she wondered, as she pressed closer to him, enjoying the warmth of his body heat.

We are on fire.

She sucked his tongue into her mouth and decided to forget about her out-of-control heartbeat. He tasted too damn good.

Fire and Desire like Rick James and Teena Marie. I’m talking square biz. I’m talking lo—

She pulled her tongue, her body and her mind back at the same time and she used the hands that were trailing his massive and muscular chest to push him away. The disconnection between them was so gut-wrenching and so swift she almost fell.

It’s you! You? Oh. Hell. No. Not today. Not ever!

Panting and trying to keep her heart rate from spiraling out of control, she glared at him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand with as much disgust as someone who had literally been kissed senseless could muster. “Don’t ever do that again! I do not like you. And you need to just stay away from me.” She straightened her shoulders and half walked, half ran away.

Troy Singleton had taken her through a range of emotions in the space of a few hours. More emotions than any guy had ever taken her through before, and that placed him in a category all by his lonesome…

And that was just where he needed to stay, all by himself and the hell away from her. She couldn’t afford to let him get too close, ever. He could never catch her slipping or she would fall…fast.

Troy stood in the middle of the hallway and watched as Jasmine did her breakneck dash to get away from him. The expression that a feather could knock him down came to mind. Even though he could hear a small whisper in the far nether regions of his mind whispering, it’s her, her, he didn’t want to go after her, that was for damn sure. In fact, as soon as his knees were no longer weak and his toes uncurled and stopped tingling, he was probably going to run in the opposite direction and get the hell out of that restaurant.

If he was going to live up to his boast that he would remain a bachelor until he died and then they’d have to pry his player card out of his cold, dead hands, he needed to get as far away from Jasmine Stewart as possible.

He could never allow himself to get too close to her.

Ever.

He just reminded himself how mean and evil and crazy she was. That would work, and his player status would be safe…

Chapter 2

“All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players…”

—Shakespeare

Ten years later

“W ha de France yuh telling muh? Yuh mus be mad, nuh?” Stunned and increasingly livid didn’t even begin to cover the feeling of dread creeping through Jazz’s body. She knew she was just on the edge of losing it completely because her Bajan was coming out. Even though she had been on her mother’s island home of Barbados for a couple of days now, it wasn’t just being around her Barbadian kin that had made her code switch and flip on her dialect. It was the stress of losing the one person she loved more than anything in the world that had her about to snap on the puny lawyer.

The past few days had been one shock after another, starting with her mother’s death.

Jazz hadn’t even known that the cancer had come back. She’d been traveling a lot for work, a lot of traveling for a local television personality, anyway. And travel to and from Boston in the winter meant a lot of time spent in various airports because of delayed and canceled flights.

Airport chairs didn’t invite longtime sitting, let alone comfortable sleeping. Add to that losing the only person who had faithfully had your back and a lawyer spouting nonsense about terms of inheritance in the will tied to outrageous sums of money and marriage of all things, and it was easy to see why Jazz’s patience had finally run its course.

The stiff but kind of cute young lawyer seemed to sense that Jazz was on the brink of some kind of breaking point, because he moved back in his seat a little.

“Your mother has left you $500,000 with the condition that you marry in at least six months and remain married for at least two years.” He nervously fidgeted with his gray tie, which perfectly matched his gray suit and did nothing to compensate for the blandness of his starched white shirt. “If you fail to do so, the money will go to your father, Clifton Williamson.”

Jazz never knew her mother even had a will, let alone $500,000 to leave her. And all her life Carlyne Stewart had told her daughter never to trust no-good sorry men and to make sure she could take care of herself and never have to depend on a man.

Yet her mother had actually made it a condition of her inheritance that Jazz had to marry someone? It made no sense. None of it made sense.

Just like it didn’t make sense that she was going to have to bury her mother in a couple of days. That nonsensical element was the real tipping point threatening Jazz’s sanity.

Her mother was gone.

Why should anything else make sense in the world when Mom’s gone?

Jazz inhaled and exhaled. She braced her back against the wooden chair for some kind of support. She closed her eyes and held them closed as she mentally counted to twenty.

When she opened them, the lawyer was still there. The will was still on the table. Her mother was still gone. And the possibility that her deadbeat—never paid one dime of child support that she knew of—father, whom she wouldn’t even be able to pick out of a police lineup, would be getting a whole lot of her mother’s money was taunting her brain and giving her an acute migraine.

No way would Clifton Williamson see one thin dime of her mother’s hard-earned money.

No way would she get married in six months, either.

She glared at the lawyer again.

The lawyer moved even further back. “As I said, you have six months in which to get married. You’re mother’s will is very specific about what she wants for you. And she left you this letter to read at your leisure. She said it would explain her reasons for wanting this for you.”

Reasons? Reasons? She didn’t need to read the letter to get her mother’s reasons. It was obvious that her mother had lost her mind in her last days. Why else would the woman who’d told her on a daily basis that she needed to be able to take care of herself and do for herself because men aren’t worth a damn now be demanding that she get married?

Insanity was the only reasonable answer.

She reached over to take the letter off the desk and the lawyer moved back. If she weren’t so irritated it would have been funny. She was tempted to really lose it and throw a serious fit that would give him a real excuse to take all the precautions he was taking. But she didn’t have it in her.

She had funeral arrangements to finalize, and her mourning wouldn’t let her expend any more energy on the scared little lawyer. The only other thing she could think about was how she would make sure Clifton Williamson never spent one dime of her mother’s money and how she was apparently going to have to find a husband in six months…

The island breeze and the sound of Lalah Hathaway’s beautiful voice riffing and scatting like Ella Fitzgerald reincarnated made Troy feel like his impromptu trip to the Barbados Jazz festival was more than worth the wrath he was going to incur from his father/boss when he got back to Detroit. Besides the great footage the two-man camera crew was getting for his top-rated show, Detroit Live, he was also proving a point to his meddlesome father.

And the women…oh, the women.

Barbados in January—with its white-sand beaches, azure-blue waters, lush green foliage and breathtaking tropical flowers—all the beautiful women—both the local fare and the many who traveled from other countries to enjoy the festival—had made his trip all the more worthwhile. The bevy of beauties, the music and the atmosphere made him feel like he was in player’s paradise.

“So are you really going to keep in contact with me when we get back home? Detroit is a long way from New Jersey. You’re probably just on the prowl for an island fling like my girlfriends said.” A high-pitched, nasal voice piped into his chill space sounding like a deep and ugly scratch on a vintage album.

Troy pulled his attention away from Lalah’s melodious voice and the fine women all around him to focus on the petite cutie sitting next to him. He’d met her the night before when they were listening to Roy Ayers perform. She had been with a group of other women and stood out as the hottest one in that bunch.

But she was starting to become just a tad too clingy for Troy’s tastes. And he didn’t have the energy to expend making her feel secure when he’d just met her. Plus there were so many women in attendance, women more adept at the game and who knew how players play.

“Sure… We can definitely connect when we get back to the States. I travel a lot getting footage for the job. Anything that has something to do with the entertainment industry is of interest to my viewers. So, I’ll definitely look you up if I’m near…” Troy struggled to remember both her name and where she was from. He hoped that his pauses hadn’t clued her in.

He gave her a smile, one of his most suave displays, and added a slight wink.

She pouted, and he had to admit the little lip poking out looked sexy. He remembered what it had felt like to kiss her last night when he’d walked her back to the hotel room she shared with her girlfriends. It might not be too much energy to put in a little effort now that he remembered she was a pretty good kisser. She might have been clingy, but she was also a sexy little thing. It might be worth his while to play a little longer and see if she did other things as well as she kissed.

“Candace from New Jersey,” she deadpanned as she glared at him. “My girls were so-oo right about you. You can’t even remember my name after you kissed and groped me for hours last night. And I’m standing right next to you! You certainly won’t be able to remember me when you get back to Detroit. You’re just a player looking for some island fun!”

Troy expelled an irritated breath. She was not worth all this drama when there were so many women around. “Listen…”

“Candace!” she snapped.

Candace, that’s it!

Why couldn’t he remember her name? Probably because he was bad with names anyway and made it his business to use endearments whenever possible like “baby,” “sweetheart” or “darling.” That way he never slipped and called someone the wrong name and he didn’t have to bother trying to remember them.

“Listen, Candace, I seem to remember you kissing and groping me just as much, if not more, than I did you. And I didn’t hear any complaints last night.” He gave her another smile, because honestly he was a lover not a fighter and all her drama was starting to become a real drain.

When she continued to give him the evil death stare, he shrugged.

It was time to cut his losses.

“You know what, why don’t we just go our separate ways. I’ve got to connect with my crew anyway to shoot some footage of some other island hot spots for the show. And clearly you and I have very different agendas for how we want to proceed with things. So, it was nice meeting you…”

Damn, I just said her name…

“Candace!” she yelled in that horrible high-pitched voice of hers, and all the heads around them turned. She rolled her eyes, let out a huff of breath and stormed off, leaving him to face the irritated people sitting around them who had been trying to enjoy Lalah Hathaway.

Troy threw up his hands in apology. Even though he hadn’t been the one to cause a scene, he shouldn’t have gotten involved with the clingy woman in the first place. If he had been at the top of his game he would have pegged her for the drama-queen type as soon as he’d met her.

He could have chalked it up to his father’s threats to disinherit him if he didn’t settle down, leave the show and come into the boardroom. But a small voice in the back of his head had doubts.

Maybe I really am getting too old for this shit after all…

The walking dead.

That’s what Jazz felt like as she walked to her airport gate dragging her carry-on bag behind her. The past few days on the beautiful island of her birth had gone by in a blur. From burying her mother, to connecting with family she hadn’t seen in years, to processing the dreadful news she had gotten from her mother’s lawyer, Jazz hadn’t seen a good night’s rest in at least a week.

The only thing she wanted to do was get back to Boston, sleep in her own bed and mourn her mother in peace. Unfortunately, when she got back to Boston, she would have to finish getting things squared away for her move and her new job in Detroit.

She was finally on her way to the big time—cohosting her own show and not just doing entertainment and girl-about-town slots on someone else’s show—and her mother wasn’t going to be there to enjoy it with her.

“Jasmine, is that you?”

That voice…

Good grief, not now!

Why did she have to run into the self-proclaimed playa of the decade in the middle of the Grantley Adams International Airport when she was looking and feeling like crap? And what the hell was Mr. Lover Lover doing in Barbados in the middle of January, anyway?

Troy Singleton, the jet-setting playboy, probably didn’t even need a reason to be on a tropical island in the middle of the winter. He was probably just taking a spur-of-the-moment trip.

And why was he still calling her Jasmine when everyone called her Jazz? The only person that got away with calling her by her full name was her mother.

I can’t stand Troy Singleton!

He walked over to her and she gave him a quick once-over. He would be looking all good when she looked like a hot mess. The man was tall, built like a power forward basketball player and the color of rich, deep caramel. He was, in a word or two, hella fine. “It is you.” He quickly embraced her and she gave him the half-pat-butt-poked-out-and-away church hug.

They both let go just as quickly as they could. They couldn’t get away from each other soon enough.

She had no idea what his deal was, but she knew her own reason for the quick hug all too well. Un til she’d met Troy, she had never met a man she wouldn’t let wine and dine her. She couldn’t afford to let Troy Singleton buy her a hot dog on the street, let alone anything else at all.

She lived by the motto “Men are like buses. Miss one? Next fifteen minutes another one will be passing by.” She was a serial dater and proud of it. They would never catch her slipping, and her player card was certified platinum.

“You look like death warmed over, Jasmine. What the hell happened to you?” He looked her up and down with a twisted-up expression on his face.

She glared at him and ran her hand across her head. The cute twist out she’d had when she first arrived in Barbados was long gone, and her bright auburn natural hair was now pulled into a rather funky ponytail.

And it was too darn hot for makeup, even if she had dark circles the size of tea bags under her eyes.

While her sweatsuit might not have been Juicy Couture and was instead Hanes mix and match, it was comfortable for the long plane ride.

And who the hell was Troy Singleton to be telling her what she looked like, anyway?

She narrowed her very tired eyes. “Well, hello to you too, Stud.”

He frowned at her little nickname for him.

If he refused to call her Jazz like the rest of the known and free world then she made it her business to call him anything but his name. Her favorite was variations of Stud, from Studly to Studster to Studalicious and then some.

He sighed, and she could tell the exact moment when he chose to ignore her.

“Were you at the Jazz Festival? It was amazing, wasn’t it? Are you covering it for those little spots you do in Boston? Oh, wait, Alicia said you’re moving to Detroit soon. Are you going to be working for my competition?” She smirked. If you only knew, Studdy Boy…

“I didn’t even realize the Jazz Festival was going on, I was too busy. My mom passed away and she wanted to be buried here, at home in Barbados. So I had to do that—”

He hugged her and it startled her so she stopped speaking.

“I’m so sorry to hear about your mom, Jasmine. Alicia didn’t tell me that you were here burying your mother. I would have come to the funeral to pay my respects. I was here all week shooting footage for Detroit Live.”

She cleared her throat and tried to pull away, but he held her close. “Alicia didn’t know that my mom passed away. I didn’t want to upset her. She’s in the last stages of pregnancy with my godchild, after all.”

“Our godchild,” he corrected. “And she is going to be so mad at you! Alicia’s going to be heated! You know she has to know everything. That’s why she eavesdrops all the damn time. And when she finds out that your mom passed away and you didn’t tell her…” He shook with mock fear.

“It’s not like she could do anything. She can’t fly this late in the pregnancy, and it would have only upset her and given her something else to worry about. I figured I’d tell her when I move there in a couple of weeks.” She pulled away from him.

“You know that won’t be enough to appease Alicia. She could have sent Darren, her mother, her father, my sister and Kendrick, heck, she could have even sent me to be here with you and give you moral support.”

He made a show of looking at her chest, and she crossed her arm in front of her breasts.

“I’m just looking for the S on your chest, because you must think you’re Superwoman or something, Jasmine. Everyone has to lean on someone sometime.”

Jazz knew he was right. But growing up the only child of a hardworking immigrant mother, she had learned early on how to fend for and count on herself. Even though Alicia Taylor-Whitman had been her best friend since college, and through her Jazz’s extended family had grown immensely and she really did have people she could count on now, people that apparently included the bane of her existence, Troy Singleton, she still had a do-for-self attitude.

Great! Now her best friend was going to be pissed at her, too, just when she was finally moving to Detroit and they’d be living in the same city again for the first time since they had graduated from Mount Holyoke.

Alicia could hold a grudge like nobody’s business, too. The woman had stayed separated from her husband the entire nine months of her first pregnancy because he had lied to her about their fathers arranging their marriage.

And Troy might have been boasting about how he would have been there for her, but when she moved to Detroit and took her new job, he would be singing another tune. Even her favorite playboy frenemy probably wouldn’t give her the time of day once she moved to Detroit and he found out where she was going to be working.

She wouldn’t have anyone…

Before she knew it a tear started working its way down her cheek, and it was soon followed by another and then another.

She tried to stop them.

She was Carlyne Stewart’s strong daughter for God’s sake and she did not cry in public. She hadn’t cried in public during the entire week of funeral planning, the funeral or the horrid meeting with her mother’s lawyer. No way was she going to break down in the middle of the Barbados airport in front of Troy Singleton of all people.

Her lip quivered.

Oh, damn. Damn it all to hell!

Troy shook his head and frowned at her before taking her ticket out of her hands and walking away.

She thought about calling after him and asking him where the hell he thought he was going with her ticket. But the tears where falling full speed now and she felt the beginnings of hiccups and snot and all kinds of things that probably wouldn’t have been at all dignified. And she wanted to look at least halfway dignified when she got up the gumption to cuss Troy out. So she ran off to the restroom instead to have a nice good cry in the privacy of a stall.

Troy shook his head as he walked over to the ticket counter after telling his cameramen that he wouldn’t be flying back to Detroit with them. Somebody had to look after Jasmine. The woman was clearly in no shape to look after herself. Case in point, he had never seen her looking like anything less than a million bucks and today she looked as hopeless as a penny with a hole in it.

She was still fine as all get out with her Coke-bottle figure that made a man have all kinds of thoughts and her flawless toasted-cinnamon skin.

It was just clear she hadn’t slept in days and her normally funky fresh natural hairstyle of springy-corky auburn twists all over her head was now just funky.

He had to change his ticket and see her back to Boston. If he went back to Detroit and their mutual friend Alicia Taylor-Whitman found out that he wasn’t there for Jasmine in her time of need, he would never hear the end of it. And since Alicia was married to his best friend Darren Whitman, and Alicia’s cousin Kendrick was married to Troy’s sister, Sonya, the entire family would be giving him the blues.

He paid for his ticket and paid to have her ticket upgraded to first class. No way was he flying coach, and he didn’t understand how she could. He wasn’t private-jet status like the Whitmans, but he couldn’t remember ever flying coach in his life.

Once he’d handled the transaction he went looking for Jasmine. She wasn’t where he’d left her and she wasn’t sitting near the gate, so he assumed she must be in the restroom.

He stood outside of the ladies’ room and waited for her to come out. About fifteen minutes later she did.

Damn! Just when he thought she couldn’t possibly look any worse, she surprised him. Her eyes were bloodshot red. The tip of her nose was red as well, and her cheeks were flushed.

He handed her the new first-class ticket. “I’m going to fly back to Boston with you to make sure you get home safely—”

“You don’t have to do that, Studster. I’m an adult. I think I can make it home on my own.”

He cringed. Nothing irritated him more than her calling him any of her variations on Stud. He didn’t know why it bothered him. He had certainly been called worse. And it wasn’t like she could possibly pass judgment on him. She was as big a player as he was. And it’s not like it should have mattered what Alicia’s little friend thought of him anyway…

But it did.

Ever since he’d been assigned to pick her up from the airport for Alicia and Darren’s wedding ten years ago, it had mattered to him what Jasmine Stewart thought of him. He had been rather late picking her up back then and they had been on the wrong foot ever since.

“That Superwoman routine is going to land your ass in the mental hospital one day, Jasmine. Let me help you, because you know Alicia is going to have a fit when she finds out. You might as well do the right thing now and then at least she won’t be pissed at both of us.” He grinned because he knew that would get her.

She rolled her eyes. “Alicia Taylor-Whitman is not the boss of me and neither are you, Studly.” She glanced at her ticket. “First class? I can’t afford first class!”

“Consider it my treat then, because I’m not flying coach.”

“C’dear, black blue bloods does kill muh de way yuh does put on airs and ting.” She switched back to her regular speech. “Your ass know you can fly coach.” She laughed and for the first time since he’d run into her she was actually looking like her pretty self.

He shook his head.

He reminded himself that Jasmine was like family. At least she was kind of like a distant cousin that you didn’t really like but tolerated during the holidays… And it was not cool to think of her in terms like pretty.

Although, since Troy’s best friend Kendrick had married Troy’s sister and Troy’s other best friend Darren had married Kendrick’s cousin, apparently Troy was the only one who knew it wasn’t wise to hook up with women who were so close that you would never be able to get rid of them. There was no such thing as a smooth break when the ties were that connected. And Troy always had to have an easy exit strategy, especially when it came to the fairer sex.

So Jasmine was not pretty even if she was just about the most gorgeous woman he had ever set eyes on.

“Come on, they’re boarding first class, girl. Let’s see if you still have jokes when you’re enjoying comfy seats, better food and free drinks.”

“Oh, you know I keep jokes, Studmeister.”

“I know you do, Jasmine.”

“Jazz.”

He had no idea why she wanted to shorten such a beautiful name. And he wasn’t even going to think about the fact that he never had any trouble remembering her name from the first time he’d seen her picture and been told it was his duty to pick her up from the airport. But he did like being the only one to call her “Jasmine,” especially because it drove her nuts.

“Jasmine, let’s go,” he said as he started walking off.

“Studaroni, I’m right behind you,” she said, laughing.

He chuckled. It was so easy to be around Jasmine even though she worked his nerves most times. He was glad he could help her during her time of need.

First class rocks!

Jasmine got over her mild irritation with Troy as soon as her butt touched the plush seat and the flight attendant brought her the nice hot towel to wipe her hands before giving her a glass of wine and a package of fancy macadamia nuts to snack on before takeoff.

She polished off the glass of wine and thought about how she was going to have to cut back a little in order to be able to pay Troy back for his ticket and her ticket upgrade. She knew that when he found out where she was going to be working when she moved to Detroit, he was going to regret taking the time to help her. The least she could do was give him his money back for this, because he was going to be pissed.

She yawned. All of a sudden her tiredness came pressing down on her. It felt like a steel weight pushing her into an abyss.

“So you never did say where you’re going to be working in Detroit.”

“I can’t say. I signed a confidentiality clause and I can’t say anything until after they make the big announcement.” That at least was the truth. She couldn’t tell him anything even if she wanted to, not without running the risk of being sued. Never mind the fact that he would probably hightail it off the plane if he did know where she was going to be working.

“It must be big-time if they made you sign a confidentiality clause.”

“I’m not saying anything.”

“Fine.”

She yawned again and her eyes gave in to the pressure. They closed, and her head nodded to the side and landed on his shoulder. She quickly jerked. She moved her head as soon as it touched his shoulder and she realized what had happened.

He chuckled. “You can lay your head on my shoulder, Jasmine. I won’t bite you. You won’t be able to put your seat back until after we reach cruising altitude and you need all the rest you can get, starting now. Those bags under your eyes look like you could have packed your clothes in them.”

She shot him an evil look and he laughed even harder before she begrudgingly smiled herself. She could have caught an attitude because of his rude way of making the offer. Or she could have even argued with him even though he was right; she did need the rest. But she wasn’t stupid. She rested her head on his shoulder and let the sleep take over.

Troy stared at the sleeping beauty for a long while as her head crept from his shoulder to his chest and way too close to his heart. He resisted the urge to throw his arm around her and pull her close for all of about fifteen minutes. And he told himself that he was only doing this because Jasmine was like a third little sister, that she was just like his sister Sonya and their mutual friend Alicia. Even though he hadn’t grown up with Jasmine the way he had with Sonya and Alicia, and he barely noticed that Sonya and Alicia were women, the way he couldn’t help but notice that Jasmine was all woman, it was no big deal to comfort her at this moment.

He might be a player, but he wasn’t a total jerk. He knew how to be a good friend, and that was all this was.

He snuggled her closer and brushed his lips across her forehead just as the very sexy flight attendant walked by to see that everyone was buckled up for takeoff. The knowing expression on her perfectly made-up face should have set off warning bells in his head. He should have been easing away from Jasmine now that she was asleep and trying to get his flirt on with the flight attendant. All of those things should have happened. And maybe one day he would be in the frame of mind to try and figure out why they didn’t. The only thing he knew at that moment was that Jasmine needed him and he was going to be there for her.

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