Free Wicked Intentions by Linda Verji Page A

the past but she kept driving. At the gate, the guard stepped away from his post and walked toward her. Even though time had caught up with him and his hair was completely grey, Jermaine’s limp was as familiar to her as the school was. She felt a brief tinge of relief that her bet that he was still around had paid off.
    “Li’l girl is that you?” he asked as he propped his arm on the roof of the car and bent to look through the driver’s window.
    “Hi, Jermaine,”
    “What you doing here?”
    “You know.” She shrugged. She didn’t need to explain more.
    Jermaine was silent for a moment as he observed her. Finally he asked, “Your mama wit you?”
    She shook her head. Jermaine had gone to school with Eve and Eve had used his mega-sized crush on her shamelessly. Shakira felt bad for latching on to it too but with less than four hundred dollars in her purse now, she was out of options.
    “Okay.”Jermaine nodded as he straightened up. “Don’t forget to put up your reflector though. You never know who’s gonna pass by.”
    “Thanks Jermaine.”
    As soon as he opened the gates, Shakira drove in and parked at the far end of the parking lot. Eve had bought Jeanine for just nights like these and the car conveniently came with tinted windows to bar prying eyes and a blanket in the back seat. After putting up the sun reflector on the windshield, Shakira moved to the back seat.
    Changing in the back seat of a car was like riding a bicycle. Once you’ve done it, you never forget how. Within moments the cocktail dress was gone replaced by a warmer sweat suit, socks and a jacket. She popped the front passenger seat backwards then clambered onto it with the blanket.
    Sleep didn’t come easy for Shakira.
    Her thoughts wouldn’t let her rest.
    She had worked so hard to get out of this life; kept her GPA high, chosen a course that wasn’t necessarily her dream career but one she knew could keep her fed, saved like an ant and bought a house so she’d never have to sleep on the subway or in a car again.
    For what?
    What was the point of working so hard when the invisible hand of God was just up there waiting to flush her dreams down the toilet? She should’ve thrown in the towel a long time ago. She should've had her fun instead of wasting her time with school. She should've gotten pregnant by some no-good thug instead of choosing to commit to Charlie who looked good on the outside but when push came to shove was just another rotten egg.
    Maybe her life would be different now.
    And if it wasn’t at least she’d know that it was all because of her decisions and not because of people like Eve and Charlie.
    Shakira buried her head underneath the thin blanket as her tears slid down her cheeks and wet the car seat.
    Look where I am now.

 
    CHAPTER 8
     
    “I don’t know what this lady is up to,” Randall Montgomery, private investigator, pronounced, “but if I were you I wouldn’t come near her with a stick.”
    Nathan didn’t respond to the statement. He was too busy studying the pictures the PI had just handed him. Even the faint sounds of thumping as workmen worked on the studio below his office weren’t enough to distract him. He shuffled through the pictures shoving each underneath the rest as he scanned them.Right at the top of the pile were images of his target’s previous day’s activities including her lunch with him. Next were images of her at the café and the warehouse.
    His pulse jumped at the image of her coming out of her storage unit dressed in a cocktail dress. Pictures didn’t do Shakira Dalton justice but she still looked delicious as hell. The hot-pink fabric started just above her breasts, hinting at the tempting bounty underneath, hugged each contour of her body wickedly before stopping mid-thigh. Resisting the urge to trace her form with his finger, he moved on to the next picture –one of her stepping into her mother’s Honda Fit.
    Nathan hadn’t expected this intense attraction to