Page 46 of Tempt Me

I had no right to be jealous, I reminded myself bitterly. Jamila didn’t care about me, at least, not like that. I’d kissed her without bothering to get her permission, which she surely would’ve denied me. She had every right to flirt with whomever she wanted, wherever she wanted.

Nita asked another question I didn’t hear, and I let my gaze trail over the journalist. She was curvy in a way neither Jamila nor I was. Maybe Jamila liked women with more flesh on their bones. Like me, she had long, thick hair, but hers was chocolate brown, not blond. Her skin had an olive tone to it, not pale like mine. Her dark eyes were sharp, showing an intelligence that clearly intrigued Jamila.

Plus, she was confident in a way I only pretended to be. I knew from my research she’d been a journalist for more than ten years, writing for increasingly impressive publications. And now she had a feature article forBuzz Bizzwith a custom photo shoot. She was so sure of what she wanted out of life. Her career was rising, and I couldn’t pick a field, much less succeed at one.

Nita was everything I wasn’t. No wonder Jamila liked her.

Jamila shifted to cross her legs, which alerted me something was wrong. Normally, she took up as much space as possible, but now she seemed to hunker down. Shaking off my introspection, I tuned back into the conversation.

“Everyone knows that Jamila Jallow was a star at Stanford and had a million-dollar app less than a year after graduation. But few know you grew up modestly in Texas.”

“I don’t usually talk about it.” She cut her gaze to me.

I took it as a signal for help. “You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to.”

“Your work with your coding camps got a lot of buzz recently on social media,” Nita pressed her. “What’s behind your interest in offering free camps to underprivileged girls?”

Jamila flashed her a dangerous smile. “I want to give back to the community in Austin and offer kids the opportunities I wish I’d had.”

“Opportunities you wish you’d had? Did you not have coding classes in your school?”

Jamila barked out a laugh. “No. My high school didn’t even offer AP classes. I got a summer job to afford the tuition at a local community college so I could take the advanced math and science my school didn’t offer.”

“Would you consider your family economically disadvantaged?”

“I wouldn’t.” Jamila crossed her arms. “We had enough to eat and a supportive family and community. We had everything we needed.”

“Let’s focus on the present, on what Jamila does to give back,” I said before Nita could ask a follow-up question. “Jamila, can you talk more about the camps? How long have you run them?”

Jamila’s shoulders relaxed as she launched into the history of the camps. But like Nita, I wondered about Jamila’s life before Stanford. She’d burst into my life fully formed as a driven college student. She and her brothers were successful now, and she claimed they’d had enough growing up. She’d mentioned her fraught relationship with her grandmother, but she hadn’t said a word about her parents. WhatwasJamila’s story?

Clearly, she didn’t want to tell it, and Nita stopped pushing for it. After another half hour, they were done, the phone number exchange was made, and Nita sashayed off, leaving the techs to pack up. The photographer called Jamila over. He snapped a few test shots, adjusted the lighting, and tested again. When he was satisfied, he sent Jamila off to change.

She emerged from the changing room in a buttery yellow Alexander McQueen suit. The jacket was long and lean. I nearly swallowed my tongue when I realized she wore it shirtless. The single button was right at the base of her ribs, giving me—I mean, the photographer and the flipping world—a long V-shaped view of her satiny skin.

“What do you think, Nat?” She lifted her arms and twirled, Wonder Woman–style, to show me how the jacket flared in the back just above her shapely rear end in her slim-fit pants.

“Whoa.” I gripped the arm of the chair I’d pulled over to watch. “You look…you look fantastic,” I said, loud enough to hear over the throbbing beat of the dance-club music the photographer had turned on.

“Think so? I couldn’t tell from your expression.” She smirked at me over her shoulder.

Darn her, she knew exactly how much I liked that suit.

The makeup artist touched her up, then the photographer beckoned. He directed Jamila to sprawl across the white chaise. After snapping a dozen photos, he asked her to perch on the chair with her elbows on her wide-spread knees and gaze directly into the camera with the same smirk she’d given me. Her expression dared anyone to underestimate her.

I certainly didn’t. Jamila was powerful, confident. She wouldn’t hesitate to act if she felt her company was threatened. And that’s why she’d hired the investigator. She wasn’t paranoid. She knew something was up, and she’d never let a leak endanger her company.

“Nat.”

When I looked up, Jamila towered over me. She’d snuck up on me like a ninja.

“Hey.” I blinked a dozen times to organize my thoughts. “What’s up?”

“I’m putting on a dress next. Can you help me with the zipper?”

“Oh, uh…” Alone with Jamila, I’d be tempted to do something ridiculous again, something I shouldn’t. Like kiss her. I glanced around for someone else to help. But my traitorous knees lifted me to standing. I supposed I’d do anything she asked me. “Of course.”

I followed her into the dressing room. She grabbed the sheath dress from the garment rack and headed behind the screen in the corner. After a minute of awkward hovering on the other side, I flipped through the other outfits on the rack to distract myself.

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