Drop Dead, Gorgeous Part 2

"If we play this right, Frank, you could end up with more money than you can make in a lifetime," she argued.

"Or I could end up floating facedown in the Red River," he snapped, standing up to leave.

"Frank, just listen-" She grabbed him by the arm, but he jerked away.

"If you can't get over what he did to you, then you might want to learn to live with it. People do it every day. But I'm not the solution to your problem, lady." He dropped a ten dollar bill on the table to pay for the coffee. Frank was going home.

Texas was a different kind of place. It ran by different kinds of laws that flowed just underneath the surface of the real ones. If a man like Jordan Gatewood ever got wind of Frank, or thought that Frank was a threat to that empire of his, he'd sc.r.a.pe Frank off the bottom of his shoe, and she was crazy if she thought that Frank was dumb enough to sign on to some s.h.i.+t like that!

I'm a World of Power "You put your hands on her?"

Edgar Beckman was a relic. He was pus.h.i.+ng eighty and had watched Jordan and his sister June grow up. He was the keeper of all the Gatewood secrets.

"I put my hands on her," Jordan solemnly admitted, staring out the window of his Dallas office.

In the two years since that night had happened, so much had changed in Jordan's life. It had been as if that night he'd spent with Lonnie in that house was the exclamation point at the end of an era. Jordan was forced to put away the fantasy he'd had about riding off into the sunset with the woman of his dreams. The tapestry of lies that he had come to believe were true had started unraveling in front of the whole world. The woman he'd loved had set him up while the one he hated had risen from the ashes like a phoenix. Desi Green had moved on, whoring herself and that book of hers to anyone who'd listen to her lies. But despite the press and the pressure, Jordan and his family survived.

Police had come sniffing around his mother's home like dogs, wanting to get a statement from an old woman who could hardly remember what year it was. Jordan had had Olivia placed under a doctor's care and tucked her away safely in a nursing home where the law couldn't touch her. If what Desi wrote in that book of hers was true, and his mother had been the one to pull the trigger that night, killing her husband, Julian, then it was a truth that would go to the grave with her. Jordan had even gone so far as to reconcile his marriage to Claire and had recommitted himself to making it work this time.

Edgar had been a fixture in Jordan's world since before Jordan was even born. He'd been Jordan's father, Julian's, best friend and personal attorney. The two men had grown up together, but when Edgar went off to college, he had left a black man, and came back white. Julian had been light enough to pa.s.s too, but he'd never even entertained the notion.

Edgar had been the one to help Julian get the permits and licenses he needed to start up Gatewood Industries. Edgar had convinced investors that putting their money behind that black man's oil business was an investment that absolutely could not and would not fail, and if it did, he'd personally pay them back their money, with interest. Edgar had auth.o.r.ed Julian's will. He knew everything there was to know about Ida Green and her child. He'd had that house bought for Ida and paid for it, in her name, using Julian's money.

"And she wants money," Edgar muttered, bringing Jordan's thoughts back to the immediate matter at hand.

Jordan turned to face the old man. If all that Lonnie Adebayo wanted was money, this would be an easy problem to solve. "She wants my head on a platter."

The old man huffed, "And how does she plan on getting it?"

"Lonnie's resourceful, Edgar," he reluctantly admitted. "She was the engine behind the Desi Green freight train. Lonnie was the one who exposed the sheriff, the judge."

Seeing her again had brought all those things and more flooding back to his memory. Jordan had given Desi too much credit when it came to exposing the corruption behind her trial. The woman just wasn't that brilliant. But Lonnie- That night he saw the two of them together, it all made so much sense.

"If there's a needle in a haystack, Lonnie can find it."

Edgar looked worried. "You've got a lot of needles, son."

Lonnie shouldn't have come back here. A knot tightened in his stomach as he thought about where all of this was leading.

"I haven't been able to find her, Edgar. She's in the city, but I can't pin her down."

Edgar nodded thoughtfully. "Well, if she's in the city, then we'll find her."

Find her and then ... what? She had made it clear that she would go to any lengths to make him pay for what he'd done to her. Lonnie was smart, she was cunning, and she was determined. But as resourceful as she was, she had nothing on Edgar Beckman. The old man was loyal to a fault, and he was as loyal to Jordan as he had been to Jordan's father, Julian.

"Let me know when you do," he said to Edgar, half smiling, "before you do anything."

"Of course," Edgar a.s.sured him, standing to leave. The two men embraced.

"Uncle Edgar!" Jordan's sister, June, came bursting into his office without bothering to knock. "I heard you were here." She cast a sly glance at Jordan, and went over to Edgar and embraced him.

The old man laughed. "My little June-bug," he said as he hugged her back. "I heard you were back. How are those children and that husband of yours doing?"

June grimaced. "The kids are adjusting, and I left the husband behind in Georgia."

"For good?" he asked.

She nodded. "For d.a.m.n good. I decided it was time to come home, and help my big brother run this place." June smiled at him, looped her arm in Jordan's and gushed, "Not that he needs it, but I appreciate him giving me a job."

June hadn't asked for a job. She'd come into Gatewood Industries and demanded an office.

"What's he got you doing?" Edgar gave Jordan a bewildered look.

"She's working with the acquisition team on the Anton buyout."

Edgar looked at her.

June shrugged. "Just call me the number cruncher," she said laughingly, glancing at Jordan.

June had a master's in finance, and even Jordan had to admit that he was impressed, but what he wasn't impressed with was the impeccable knack that June had for stepping on toes. Namely, his.

"Thank you for coming, Edgar," Jordan said, placing his hand on the old man's shoulder and ushering him toward the door.

Edgar looked at June. "Bring the children by when you get some time, June. I'd love to see them."

"Of course." She kissed his cheek. "I'll give you a call. Maybe we can get together next weekend."

"Excuse me, June?" June's a.s.sistant was standing just outside Jordan's door. "That call you were expecting is on the line."

"Oh," June said excitedly. "I need to take this. I'll call you, Edgar," she said, hurrying away. "Jordan, don't forget that we have a conference call in an hour with Michael."

Michael was the corporate attorney.

Jordan and Edgar watched as June rushed off, whispering with her a.s.sistant.

"It's good to see her," Edgar said warmly. "It's good to have her home."

Jordan didn't respond.

Edgar's driver held the door open for him as he laboriously climbed into the back of his car. That sonofab.i.t.c.h was just like his father, thinking with his d.i.c.k instead of his head. Edgar was getting too d.a.m.n old for this. He'd been putting out Gatewood fires for longer than he could remember. The boy wasn't Julian's by blood, but he'd certainly inherited his penchant for letting p.u.s.s.y get him into trouble.

"I know you love her, Julian, but you've got a wife. You've got children, and you've got a corporation to run. What the h.e.l.l are people going to think when they find out that you left Olivia for that woman?"

"What difference does it make, as long as I'm happy? Ida makes me happy."

"But Olivia made you who you are in society," Edgar argued. "Gatewood Industries has just gone public, Julian. You do this now, and stocks are going to plummet."

"My personal life's got nothing to do with my business!"

"It's got everything to do with it! You are Gatewood Industries. Look at how long it's taken these people to finally give you the respect you're due, Julian."

He was a black man, stepping on white folks' toes, and they begrudged him for it. But times were starting to change, and they were beginning to see that Julian Gatewood was a brilliant oil man who could make them money. That's what they wanted. They wanted his black a.s.s to make them rich, and if he shook things up, and made them any more nervous than they already were, by replacing his beautiful, light-skinned, unthreatening woman with that black, nappy-headed Ida Green, all those supportive white folks would run away screaming, taking their money with them.

"I'm not telling you to let Ida go, Julian," he said sincerely. "But don't rock the boat man. Not now."

Edgar was an old man who had been running interference for that family since before Jordan was born. He'd kept the secret that Jordan wasn't Julian's biological son, and doctored that birth certificate listing Julian as the father just in case-just in case.

Someone had found out the truth, though, and had somehow gotten their hands on a copy of the real thing.

Jordan had come to his house late one afternoon and shoved both doc.u.ments at him. "Is this your handiwork, Edgar? Did Julian put you up to this?"

Edgar lied. "For all intents and purposes, Jordan, you are his son. He wanted to protect the truth because you were meant to sit at the head of his company. Your father asked me to do this to protect your inheritance."

Julian had no idea that Edgar had changed that doc.u.ment. But Olivia knew.

Edgar was a stockholder in Gatewood Industries. He had made millions off of that company, and Jordan had been the driving force behind those millions. That boy had taken GII to heights Julian could've never imagined. Edgar had a vested interest in this boy's success. He did what he had to do. He would always do what he had to do as long as there was a breath in his body.

"h.e.l.lo," Edgar said over the phone. "I need you to find someone for me. Lonnie Adebayo. I have no idea where to look," he said irritably. "That's your job. Start at the beginning, and work your way to Dallas. Let me know when you find her." He hung up.

Jordan wanted to be informed when Edgar found Lonnie. Jordan had created this mess and called Edgar to fix it, and fix it he would. This Adebayo woman was a pimple on an a.s.s. Edgar would get rid of her and then he'd tell Jordan to get control of that wayward d.i.c.k of his once and for all before it cost him more than an inconvenience.

THE CHIC CRITIQUE.

Featuring, Fas.h.i.+on News from Around the World

The Spring Issue TRUE "KONVICTIONS"

Desdimona Juliette Green was only eighteen when she was convicted of murdering oil mogul Julian Gatewood. She would spend the next twenty-five years of her life serving time in a women's federal prison for that crime in Texas.

"I was a baby when I went in, and a different kind of fortysomething-year-old woman when I came out. My mother had pa.s.sed away, and I had no one. I had to try to start over, but how? And from what?"

At the debut of her new shoe and accessory fas.h.i.+on line last month, Desdimona "Desi" Green stood a world apart from that hopeless woman we've read about in her memoir, Beautiful, Dirty, Rich: The Desi Green Story. After her release from prison, no one was more surprised than Desi to learn that she'd inherited more than twenty million dollars from her deceased mother's estate, money reportedly left to the woman by the same man Desi went to prison for killing: Julian Gatewood.

Desi could've rested on her laurels, taken the money and run with it, but instead, she decided to share her story with the world, and use the money she inherited to start her own fas.h.i.+on line, Konvictions.

"Konvictions has nothing to do with me being convicted of a crime. It's about determination to overcome what seemed impossible to overcome. It's about being true to yourself and being real with who you are and what you know, and not being afraid to show the world your Konvictions," Desi stated in a recent interview with the editor at Shoes.h.i.+ne, Inc.

Recently Miss Green debuted Konvictions to an audience of two hundred of the industry's fas.h.i.+on elite at a private event at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills.

"I was nervous," she admits, "because I knew that all of these people came here expecting to see the dog-and-pony show that was Desi Green. I mean, come on. Ex-murderer coming out with a high-end fas.h.i.+on shoe line? They expected to see combat boots, heavy metal, and spikes [she laughs], but I'm not a heavy metal kind of girl."

The elegance of the show took many by surprise, and the exhibition of women's shoes, boots, belts, scarves, sungla.s.ses, and jewelry was surprisingly impressive.

"I've had tremendous help from some of the most talented young designers in the world, all of them, like me, up-and-coming, and hungry. We want people to see these shoes and say, 'I gotta have those!' We want women to walk up to other women asking, 'Girl! Where did you get those shoes!' We want to stand out, and the women who love this line will be those kinds of women. They don't want to blend in. They want people to take notice of them when they walk into a room, and they want to impress, but without screaming 'Look at me! Look at me!' It's more like, 'I know you're looking at me, and I know you're digging what you see.'"

Members of the audience had a great deal to say about the new Konvictions shoe and accessory line.

Kim Reid, editor in chief of Fas.h.i.+on Moguls magazine, said, "Oh, it was fabulous! Unexpected and fres.h.!.+ I admit that I didn't know what to think when I first heard about this, but I am a believer, and I'm looking forward to seeing what else she has coming at Fas.h.i.+on Week in New York next spring."

Carleen Brice, president and CEO of the Fancy Pants Uptown retailer chain, had this to say. "The whole line is so organic and so naturally exciting that it's impossible not to be intrigued. The fas.h.i.+on-forward woman will love this line, and we're looking forward to carrying it in our stores."

Desi Green has become the poster child for reinvention. She has overcome years of struggle and hards.h.i.+p in the first part of her life, and has started over from scratch, living her dreams in the years going forward.

"Not every woman getting out of prison is going to inherit the kind of money I did, so yeah, I can admit that that helped me tremendously to put my past behind me, to be able to move on and realize a few dreams. I do feel obligated to give back, though, so I've started a foundation, the True Konvictions Women's Foundation, to help women who have been down on their luck, but who want to make positive changes in their lives. The foundation offers scholars.h.i.+ps, job-hunting a.s.sistance, housing a.s.sistance for women who've served time in prison. Your life isn't over just because it may have stalled. You have the power to turn it around and to take control of your future. It's not impossible. I'm living proof of that."

Diamond Life Lonnie sat alone in the dark corner of a coffee shop in downtown Dallas and closed the magazine when she finished reading the article. Little Desi Green is all grown up now, she thought, feeling surprisingly smug. It was hard for Lonnie not to take credit for the woman Desi had become now. When she first met Desi, the woman had just gotten out of prison and was a mouse of a broad who was scared of her own shadow, despite the fact that she'd inherited millions from the Gatewood estate.

"I should feel different," Desi said to Lonnie in a Blink, Texas, hole-in-the-wall dump after she'd finally won the right to her inheritance from Jordan, who'd made it his personal vendetta to see to it that Desi never saw a dime of her inheritance. But surprisingly, the judge ruled in Desi's favor. She hadn't inherited the money from the Gatewoods. She'd inherited it from her mother's estate, and if they'd had issue with the money, they should've taken it up with Desi's mother, Ida, before she pa.s.sed away. The only thing was, no one knew that Julian Gatewood, Ida's lover, had left her any money.

Lonnie swallowed half of her bottle of beer before finally agreeing with Desi. "You're f.u.c.kin' loaded, Desi. So, yeah. You should feel pretty different."

"So, how come I don't?"

That was the twenty-million-dollar question, and Lonnie just remembered looking at the woman like she was a freak. Looking at the photograph of her now in that article and having seen clips of past interviews of Desi Green, Desi had changed. She was no longer that mousy, shy, reluctant little martyr she'd once been. Desi had become a G.o.dd.a.m.ned brand now. She'd taken her reluctant fame and embraced it. Desi was riding that wave of her past and building an empire on the foundation of it. Lonnie hardly recognized the woman.

"Can I get you anything else?" the waiter came over and asked.

"No, thank you," Lonnie responded.

She'd called Desi once since ... A few months after Phillip had taken her to Colorado.

"Where are you, Lonnie! What happened? Are you alright?"

"I'm right as rain, Desi," Lonnie lied.

"What happened? What did he do to you? I saw Jordan right after you disappeared, and I know he did something, Lonnie. Where are you? Tell me where you are and I'll come get you."

The thought of sharing s.p.a.ce and breathing the same air as Desi nauseated Lonnie. It wasn't her fault, but ... maybe it was-kind of. Lonnie had b.u.t.ted into Desi's business, riding in on a white horse, thinking that she was doing that woman a favor by helping her to get the money that rightfully belonged to her. Lonnie had championed Desi from the beginning, exposing the conspiracy behind the machine that put that woman in prison for twenty-five years. She'd shoved the s.h.i.+t down Desi's throat until she had no choice but to swallow it and regurgitate it on every page inside that book of hers. Lonnie had loved Desi like a sister, and put her own a.s.s on the line for the woman.

"I had to get away, Desi," Lonnie finally told her.

"But ... Lonnie." Desi's voice cracked. "C'mon, girl. Just tell me what he did to you? Tell me what happened."

Why? So that Desi could fix it? The notion was laughable. Desi hadn't been able to fix her own d.a.m.n self. How the h.e.l.l was she supposed to fix Lonnie? If Lonnie was a fool, then Desi was a bigger fool, and if Lonnie was weak, then Desi's a.s.s was absolutely helpless.

"I'll be in touch," she said before abruptly hanging up.

The woman featured in that article was a star now, a real live celebrity, and she wore her new status like a brand-new dress. As Lonnie drove back to her Dallas loft thinking about her friend, she happened to glance in the rearview mirror. She'd seen that car before, in the parking lot of the cafe she'd just left, and earlier, at the gas station.