Heated. Niobia Bryant

Armand,” she said, not even sounding like she meant it.

      “Une belle femme ne doit pas être seule,” he said, his French accent very heavy as he told her she was too beautiful to be alone.

      Armand had lived around the world and spoke seven languages, but when he was really trying to put his mack down he always reverted to French—a language he knew Bianca spoke fluently.

      Bianca sighed. “I thank you for the compliment on my beauty, but I also thank you for respecting my desire to be alone,” she countered with ease. She knew it would take more bluntness to send the amorous admirer truly on his way.

      It’s not like he wasn’t appealing to the eye—the man was tall and gorgeous like a young Sidney Poitier—and Bianca even found his conversation quite amusing—when he wasn’t trying to seduce her out of her La Perla panties… and there was a certain allure to a tall man with skin like dark chocolate with a French accent. The man was just insufferable because he was aware of his attributes and he couldn’t fathom that there was a woman in existence who didn’t want him.

      Bianca certainly didn’t.

      She usually ran into Armand at the many charity and social events they attended in Atlanta. They both served on several of the same boards, advisory councils, and minority organizations. On every occasion—whether with a date or not—Armand let Bianca know that he had a personal cure for her “supposed” loneliness blues.

      Was Bianca lonely?

      She fixed her hazel eyes on the rogue and saw his eyes shift to her left. Bianca turned to see what drew his attention and her eyes fell on a curvaceous woman in a strapless dress that defied gravity. She turned her gaze back to him and he smiled at her in a charming—and apologetic—fashion.

      Not that lonely.

      She firmly believed his penis had more miles on it than two hundred laps around the Indianapolis Speedway. Even though he loved to tell Bianca that he was quite skilled in making a woman come at least ten times in one session of lovemaking, Bianca was more than willing to pass.

      “No one should be alone on such a beautiful night as tonight, mon doux,” he said in a husky voice, stepping closer to her.

      Bianca stepped back. “I’m sure you’ll find… something to get into,” she told him wryly.

      “Bianca—”

      Her cell phone rang from inside her purse. “Excuse me, Armand,” she told him, pulling it out to answer. “Dr. King speaking.”

      “This is Travis out at the Clover Ranch.”

      “Yes, hello Travis.”

      “We got a mare about to foal. We’ve been monitoring her and she was doing good with the rolling to position the foal, but for the last five minute she’s actin’ awful funny for normal foaling, you know?”

      Bianca nodded. “Has her water broke?”

      “No, ma’am.”

      “I’m about twenty good minutes from the ranch, but I’m on my way.”

      “Thank God,” Travis sighed.

      Bianca bit back a smile before she ended the call.

      Armand came to stand beside her, lightly touching her bare elbow. “Everything okay, Bianca?”

      “I have to go. Please make my apologies to everyone.”

      “But—”

      “Goodbye, Armand.”

      Bianca flew out of the ballroom, not even waiting for the elevator as she took to the grand staircase. She was quite a site with her shoulder-length pressed hair flying behind her and the slinky skirt of her mocha sequined Roberto Cavali dress in her hands as she hitched it up around her knees to run straight down the center of the staircase.

      Very Scarlet O’Hara–like.

      She wasn’t aware or caring of the dramatic sight she made, though. She just wanted to get to the ranch and it was a good fifteen miles just outside of Atlanta in Sandy Springs.

      Thank God I keep a change of clothes in my trunk.

      She was soon accepting the keys to her silver convertible Volvo C70. She lowered the automatic roof as she sped away from the hotel.

      “Home sweet home.”

      The sun was just beginning to rise when Bianca dragged herself into the foyer of her elegant three thousand square foot home in an affluent gated community in a suburb of Atlanta. She flung her dress over the banister and carried her award into her study. She came to a stop before her massive cherry desk and took in the full wall of shelves behind it. Every accomplishment of her adult life was chronicled. There were more awards and accolades than she could count. She didn’t even know if she could make room for her latest achievement.

      Reflective, she walked to the far end of the study and slowly began to review all of the statues in various shapes, sizes, and materials. Some meant more to her than others, and those she touched briefly with a hint of a smile.

      For anyone on the outside looking in at her life it was seemingly ideal.

      She started her own veterinary practice at twenty-seven from her savings. Just three short years later her workload nearly doubled and she brought on two additional vets. She was now thirty-two, and her equine clinic was one of the top such facilities in the Southeast.

      Not bad for a little black girl from Holtsville, South Carolina.

      Bianca came to a stop before the 8 X 11 photograph in the center of the wall of awards and certifications. It was a picture of a tall and distinguished man standing beside a little girl and woman atop a horse. They were all smiling and obviously happy.

      My eighth birthday, Bianca thought.

      Her parents had just surprised her with her very first pony, Star. Even though she had had plenty access to ponies living on a successful horse ranch Star had been special because it was hers alone.

      The photo was one of the few that she treasured.

      A reminder of better times.

      The little girl in that picture didn’t have a clue that her mother would die seven years later and her stable world would never be the same again.

      Bianca set her award on the shelf with the photo as her eyes fell on the handsome man. Her father. Her Daddy. Once her hero.

      She hadn’t seen him or the ranch in fifteen years.

      When her mother died Bianca thought her world would end. Her one saving grace had been her close relationship with her father. She knew they would help each other through the loss.

      But that hadn’t happened.

      Her father shut down completely. He isolated himself in his bedroom for days at a time, only to emerge reeking of alcohol. The ranch felt his neglect, right along with Bianca. That hurt.

      It was far too much weight for a fifteen year old to bear. Between going to school—and maintaining her grades—and trying to take over running the farm, she would sometimes wake up and find her father sprawled out by the door drunk as a skunk.

      She barely had time to grieve her mother’s passing because she began cleaning up her father’s messes. She became really good at it. She became just as good at hiding her anger and disappointment.

      Until the day her father brought home Trishon Haddock—a woman twenty years his junior—and proclaimed that at forty he was getting married.

      That’s when Bianca—soft, agreeable, and passive—welcomed that part of her personality that let her hit the roof. It hadn’t been little Bianca struggling to make sense of her world. She was seventeen-year-old Bianca, senior in high school, and running a horse ranch—and she was pissed.

      Even though she told her father that he was