“Whew, that was something, boy.” Niesha sank into a chair and flipped her hair back over one shoulder, giving Kiah a sultry glance as he sat next to her. “You know how to move, man.”
Kiah just laughed, glancing at Mina, who quirked her eyebrows at him, trying not to show him her teeth, the way she wanted to.
“Niesha, this is my friend Mina. Mina, this is Niesha.”
“Hi,” Niesha said with a grin, but Mina thought her eyes were watchful. “You’re Kiah’s friend from Canada, right?”
“Yes,” Mina said, smiling in return, although it was the last thing she felt like doing.
“I don’t know how you stand the cold up there. I like things hot.”
The look she gave Kiah made it obvious she considered him one of those hot things she liked.
“It’s not so bad when you get used to it,” Kiah said, sending Mina a mischievous grin. “Although Mina always complained all through winter, and she was born there.”
Mina made a blah-blah-blah motion with her hand back at him, which made him laugh, then Niesha leaned toward him, pressing her ample bosom against his arm.
“While I remember, I’m putting together a team for the bank’s fund-raising 5K run. Join me?”
And after that Niesha dominated the conversation, leaving Mina mostly to her own thoughts, since they were talking about places and people she didn’t know. And when Kiah tried to draw her into the conversation, she resisted, albeit with a smile, unaccountably annoyed with him, although he’d really done nothing wrong.
Kiah glanced at his watch and decided to call it a night. He’d had more than enough of Niesha, who was loud, brassy and handsy, too. She’d dragged him onto the dance floor while he was on his way to the bar, and, as hard as he tried to keep a decent distance between them, she’d been all over him like polyester on a humid day.
Normally he didn’t think twice about dancing that way. But since Niesha had made it clear on several occasions that she was willing to have an intimate relationship with him, and Kiah wasn’t interested, it didn’t feel right to encourage her.
Worse, once back at the table, she’d totally taken over, hardly giving anyone else a chance to get a word in edgewise. He’d been unable to resist making the comparison between her and Mina, who didn’t need to slather on makeup or wear a barely-there outfit to be beautiful. And although she’d consumed a number of rum punches, Mina hadn’t gotten loud or boisterous, nor demanded the attention of everyone at the table be focused on her.
Even though he thought Mina was still too slender, he preferred her more subtle curves—her delicacy—to Niesha’s buxom figure.
But he was going to have to have some sharp words with Henkel, who was hanging all over Mina as if he was about to smother her. Not that Mina seemed to particularly mind, since she just laughed and had a joking reply to most of his advances.
Kiah didn’t know why seeing the other man whispering in Mina’s ear made him so annoyed, but it definitely had to stop.
As soon as he said they were leaving, both Niesha and Henkel objected, but Kiah didn’t bother arguing with them. Instead he put his arm around Mina’s shoulders and, with a last round of goodbyes, led her out of the club.
“You can stay, if you want,” she said, once they were outside. “No need to leave on my account.”
Kiah paused. “Did you want to stay?”
“No, but I can grab a cab home, if you wanted to go back in. Niesha seemed very disappointed that you were leaving so soon.”
Kiah started walking again, tugging Mina along with him, his arm still over her shoulders. She was walking steadily, but he’d seen how many rum punches she’d drunk, and wasn’t taking any chances. The unpaved, gravel-covered parking lot was uneven. “I can’t help that. Besides, I’m really not interested in her.”
“She’s very beautiful.”
Kiah snorted. “Not my type.”
They’d gotten to the car but before he could open her door, Mina turned her back to it, blocking the handle. “Kiah, when was the last time you had a relationship?”
She knew the answer, he was sure, but he replied anyway. “Not since Valerie and I broke up. Why?”
She didn’t reply to his question, just tilted her head to one side, her shadowed gaze searching his. In the faint light from the street, which cast her cheekbones and tender lips into sharp relief and made her eyes look wide and alluring, her face was mysterious.
“You never told me what happened between you. You’d sounded happy with her.”
Kiah rubbed at his cheek. This was the last thing he wanted to talk about, especially on the heels of their earlier conversation about Karlene and Roy.
“We had a parting of the ways, Mina.”
She huffed out a little breath, her lips curving, although she didn’t really look amused.
“What caused it, this parting of the ways?”
“We...disagreed on the advisability of my taking custody of Charm. Valerie was very up-front about not wanting to raise another person’s child.”
“Wow.” Mina sounded genuinely shocked. “So what did she think should happen to Charm, then, if you didn’t take custody?”
“I don’t think she much cared.”
Mina scowled. “That’s the worst thing I’ve heard in...in forever. I hope you told her where to get off.”
He couldn’t help the bitter, rueful bark of pseudo laughter he gave. “I’m afraid I did, and I’m not proud of it. I hadn’t lost my temper like that in years.”
Mina shook her head, her lips firming for an instant. “You’d just gone through the tragedy of Karlene’s death, and were under the stress of your mother and her nonsense. No one could blame you for losing it. Charm’s future was at stake.”
He blamed himself, though, for the loss of control, for expecting Valerie to be more supportive than she was. “I should have expected her reaction. She’d already told
