"I didn't call you here to play games or to get physical," Marla said matter-of-factly. "I need to know how to get Gunner to fall out of love with you and in love with me," she continued, the husk in her voice cracking, her eyes glistening.
Bria narrowed her eyes. Was she seeing what she was seeing? Her boiling blood began a slow descent toward coolness again. "Tell me," Bria said evenly, still shocked by the boldness of the young woman. "How would you handle this if things were reversed?"
"I probably wouldn't have agreed to meet with you. Who knows, you could be some crazy person out to hurt me."
"That thought never crossed my mind," Bria admitted.
"It's the first thought that would have crossed mine," Marla said. "But then, that's just me. I've always been a little paranoid."
"Not exactly Gunner's type," Bria said, almost to herself.
"See, that's the kind of insight I'm talking about," Marla pounced. "You know him so much better than I do. If I knew him better, the maybe ..." She let the sentiment trail off but it grated on Bria's already taut nerves.
"You slept with my husband. You got pregnant. You broke up my marriage. What gives you the right to expect anything from me?" Bria said.
She could feel the heat of anger starting to rise again. She tamped it down before it could overtake her. She was here, she reasoned, she might as well try to make some sense out of the demise of her marriage. And losing her composure would solve nothing. She could always let the flames of anger fly later – after she got what she needed.
Marla interlaced her fingers on the table. She bit her bottom lip, which made her look all of eighteen or nineteen-years-old. She was little more than a child, Bria surmised, which made her anger shift somewhat from Marla to Gunner.
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-six," Marla answered.
More than a decade younger than Gunner, and almost a decade younger than her. Figures, Bria reasoned. Do they ever go older when they cheat, she thought. And for some insane reason, Prince Charles, Camilla and Princess Diana came to mind. At least he went older and less attractive. It must've been love. Could Bria have forgiven Gunner for that, or would that have made her even angrier?
Bria forced herself to focus. Her emotions were in such a fiery jumble that her usually precise, analytical mind could barely process a rational thought.
"I know it's asking a lot," Marla said. "But I literally didn't know where else to turn," she continued, her eyes watering. "If it wasn't for my daughter, I wouldn't be doing this. But she deserves a family; an intact family. I didn't have that and I want more than anything to give it to her."
Damn! Bria thought. That was a sucker-punch to the gut. Why did she have to bring the kid into it? As she rested one hand on the growing child in her womb, she recalled all the nasty things she'd said to Gunner about his child when he'd first told her about his affair. She was ashamed of it now. The only excuse she had was it spoke to the depths of her hurt that she had spouted such horrible things about an innocent baby.
Maybe it was looking into a mother's eyes. As an expectant mother, she couldn't bring herself to look at Marla in that moment knowing that she'd railed against her child like that. She couldn't imagine how she'd react if someone talked about her child that way – a child that wasn't even born yet.
"What's her name?" Bria asked. She'd intentionally not asked Gunner. Coming from him, the pain would have been too great because it should have been their child's name passing his lips.
"Grace. We call her Gracie. She came out of the womb looking like an old soul. A cute old soul, but an old soul. So Grace just seemed to fit," Marla explained, dabbing at the corner of one eye with a handkerchief. "Do you want to see a picture?"
"No," Bria responded hastily. She didn't want to see any features on a miniature human that looked like Gunner. His great-grandmother, who'd lived to be one hundred and three, was the old soul in his family. So she already knew where little Gracie got her ‘old soul' looks from, and most likely what she looked like.
"I understand," Marla said.
"Do you?" Bria asked. Her throat burned with unshed tears at the irony of the situation. Here she was, pregnant with another man's child, talking to the woman who bore her ex-husband's child. "Do you really know what you took from me?" she said, her voice breaking as her anger simmered just below the surface again.
"I've never been married," Marla said slowly, her luminous gaze full of regret. "So no, I can't know what I took from you. And as much as I hate what I did, I love Gunner. I want to build a life with him. So on that level, I guess I can understand. ... And I am sorry Bria. I really am."
Bria laughed out loud. The sound surprised her as much as it did Marla. Maybe she was losing her mind. Why not laugh? Lord knows she'd shed enough tears. Laughter was about the only emotion she hadn't expressed throughout this whole ordeal.
"I'm sorry," Bria said, putting her hand to her lips to suppress another round of laughter. "This is all just too damn crazy for me." It can't be real, she thought. This is some shit right outta the Twilight Zone.
Marla looked at her as if she was on some kind of medication ... medication she'd forgotten to take.
This sobered Bria. She looked at the other woman; trying to see past her as the hussy her ex-husband cheated with. Her gaze locked on the sadness trapped in Marla's large, luminous eyes. Bria knew that look. It was the look she'd worn for much of the last year – since the day Gunner had told her about his affair. And although she was still angry, another emotion surfaced. She felt sorry for Marla because in spite of everything, Bria had never doubted that Gunner loved her. She knew she could have him back with the snap of a finger if she wanted.
"He doesn't love me," Marla said, voicing her emotion as a tear escaped her perfect, doe-shaped eyes. "He's still in love with you."
"We've known each other for over half our lives. Of course he's still in love with me," Bria said, the confirmation sounding cruel, which she immediately regretted.
"Do you want him back?" Marla asked, her voice at whisper level, as if she was afraid of the answer.
"Is that what you're really here to find out?" Bria asked.
"I haven't allowed myself to admit it, but I guess it is. Do you regret divorcing him? Do you want him back?" the young woman asked again.
Chapter 25
PRESENT DAY
"Wow. You all did not waste any time getting down to the nitty gritty of things, did you?" Maya said.
"I guess we didn't. This new crop of women – man, they are bold. I felt like I was trapped in a bad episode of the Real Housewives of Atlanta," Bria said humorlessly.
"Sounds like you got some clarity about why she wants to be with Gunner. Homewreckers tend to want to hang on to the men they steal from other women, but that's nothing new."
"That's a bit harsh Maya," Bria said, remembering the wounded look in Marla's eyes. "She can't help that she fell in love with my husband. I left feeling kind of sorry for her."
"Well that's a luxury you have. Women who sleep with other women's husbands get no sympathy from me. The minute she found out he was married, she should have skedaddled. You've gone all soft and you're a better woman than me. And speaking of soft, you still didn't tell me why you meant by you understand her in so many ways now."
"I understand better why she wants to hang on to him. She wants a present father for her child. A real family. Every mother wants that."
"Well she should have gotten her own man instead of bedding someone else's," Maya said.
"Shoulda woulda coulda. Life is not so black and white," she said, recalling Carrington's words. One hand instinctively cradled her stomach. "I wouldn't want to be a single mother. Even in this modern age, it's not easy."
"Well it's not something you'll have to worry about. You're not dumb enough to get knocked up by someone you're not in a committed relationship with. That's for stupid side pieces like Gunner's baby mama. You had a good husband, and I have no doubt you'll pick another go
od one when you get ready to have children."
Bria stayed quiet, too embarrassed to tell her best friend that that's exactly what she'd done – gotten knocked up by a man who couldn't even be bothered to call her and let her know he wasn't interested.
Maya studied Bria's silence. She smelled the confusion whizzing through her friend's mind.
"I know you're a little disgusted with casual dating right now Bria but this isn't reality TV. It's your real life. So the question is, knowing that Gunner is still in love with you, has this made you want to try to work things out with him? As the little hussy of a homewrecker asked, do you regret divorcing him? Do you want him back?"
Chapter 26
CARRINGTON STOPPED in front of the Lincoln Memorial which was normally the ending point of his evening run whenever he was in DC. In spite of his efforts, he couldn't outrun the feeling of Bria's legs wrapped around him or the feeling of her breathing next to him as she slept.
It had been almost three weeks since he'd inhaled the scent of her, and it was starting to haunt his every waking hour. Like a junkie in need of a fix, his body actually craved the scent and taste of her. He started a slow trot again. His thoughts circled to the expression on her face as she told him about how her ex-husband's infidelity had impacted her.
Her ran to the beats of her painful memory; unable to outpace the haunting look on her face as she relived her pain.
"ONE SUNDAY, MY DAD took me to the park right down the street from our house," Bria said, sighing against him as her mind went back to the future, so to speak, harnessing memories from her childhood. "I must've been five or six years old. Even though the park was only about three blocks away from our house, it was the first time I ever remember him taking me. I went with my mom all the time. She believed that kids should have as much outside time as possible. So it was a regular thing with her. Anyway, for whatever reason, it was just me and my dad that day. About the only piece of playground equipment that wasn't destroyed was the swing. Lucky for me, the swing was my favorite. Now that I think about it, maybe it was my favorite because it was the only thing that worked. Funny how some things are so obvious when you look back, huh?"
Carrington nodded his head at her rhetorical question.
"When we got close to the park, my dad said, ‘Come on baby girl. I know how much you like to swing. We're gonna go high; higher than you've ever been before.' He was smiling, like he was as excited to be at the park with me as I was with him. But as glad as I was to spend some one-on-one time with him, the closer we got to that swing, the more nervous I got." Bria put a trembling hand to her chest, as if to stem the painful memory from flowing out of her too fast.
"What made you so nervous?" Carrington asked as she stayed stuck in the recesses of her mind.
"He was holding my hand so tight," Bria continued, not hearing his question. "I tried to pull away from him, but I couldn't. He said, ‘Come on baby girl, climb on.'"
I shook my head no.
"Why?" he said. "I know how much you like to swing. Your mama tells me all the time how you bug her to push you higher. Today you can go as high as you want."
"It wasn't one of those baby swings where you put the kid in a little bucket-like contraption. It was one of those big-kid swings. There was nothing holding you in. Mama never pushed me high because she didn't want me to fall out. Something in me knew that; that she would never put me in danger – and that's probably why I bugged her to do it because I knew she wouldn't. But I didn't trust my dad like that. Even at that young age, I just didn't. Looking back, I know he would never have intentionally put me in danger. But in my little mind at the time, he wasn't trustworthy. He'd planted the seed of distrust too deep: not showing up for school plays; not helping me with my homework; never there to read a bedtime story. And, he made mama cry way more than a little girl should see her mother shed tears. It was betrayal after betrayal after betrayal," Bria said, drumming a tight fist on her thighs.
Carrington took her trembling hands in his.
Bria looked up at him, snapped from the reverie of her past. "That's why when Gunner betrayed me, in spite of all the years we'd had together, the seed of distrust took root so hard and deep. You never expect the one person in the world who's supposed to love and protect you to do something like that. Friend. Father. Husband. If you can't trust them, who can you trust?" she finished, her eyes swimming in unshed tears.
CARRINGTON'S COOL-DOWN trot had turned into a full-fledged run as he remembered Bria telling him her story, and how much it had pained her. He stopped, taking gulps of air into his overtaxed lungs.
Her ex-husband was a proverbial fool. What man in his right mind would have a woman like her in the palm of his hand and fuck it up, especially when he knew what she'd gone through as a child? She was made for marriage, commitment, a family.
And therein lies the danger, a voice in his head said. He couldn't give her any of those things. But he also couldn't wait to get back to New York every Thursday to spend the weekend with her. His dick got hard just thinking about Thursdays, which is why he hadn't bothered to call her the last couple of weeks. Hearing her voice would only make it worse. Besides, he didn't want her to get attached to him; not like that.
And you don't want to get attached to her, the insistent voice within said. He could no longer fool himself that she was a casual fling for him, but he couldn't give her what she wanted. Could he?
Even considering the possibility made him shake his head. His gut told him she was still half-way in love with her ex. And he'd been there and done that before. No, it was best to cut things off now.
Carrington threw his keys down on the glass-topped table in his foyer. Ten minutes later found him re-arranging his manhood after an almost-cold shower, which had done nothing to cool his desire for Bria. In spite of everything, he missed her.
As he packed to go back to New York, Bria's face swam before him: the way she flipped her hair to one side, exposing the length of neck that begged for his lips – and the beginning of another mind-blowing fuck he couldn't excavate from his mind when he was away from her.
Lost in thoughts of Bria, he absently palmed the smooth calfskin of his sleek, black designer holdall. It had been a Christmas gift from his daughter; his grown daughter. The only child he ever wanted to have, he reminded himself.
"This is getting out of control," he muttered.
Letting Bria go was the right thing. That he was certain of. But taking the coward's way out was the wrong way to go about it.
He hadn't called her for two weeks. He hadn't been back to New York either because he knew he wouldn't be able to stop himself from seeing her if he was in the same city. Better that she thought him an asshole. He knew her pride would never let her call him. And for that, he was grateful. But he had to go back to New York for a board meeting at SLAW. He'd be there for a week. A week in the same city when she was just a phone call away. Even if she refused to see him, he could always see her at SLAW.
"Dammit!" he cursed, rubbing his eyes. He opened them, not stopping to question the idea that came to him. He went to his desk and pulled out a small leather book. He flipped through it slowly, reacquainting himself with each name he eyed.
Cynthia: The bartender at a lower East Side dive bar he liked to frequent on Tuesday nights when he was in town. It had the best live blues he'd ever heard in the city. He'd become enchanted with the sexy young woman when he'd asked for a Umeshu Tonic, a popular Japanese cocktail. He'd ordered it as a joke. And, cool as a sophisticated cucumber, she'd produced it with a Texas-wide smile. They'd had a couple of weeks of fun a few years ago – before she got back with the boyfriend she was taking a break from when he met her.
Then there was Naomi: an account executive at one of the online staffing firms he sourced talent through. He'd sent her an enormous bouquet of lilies as a thank you for finding the perfect candidate for a particularly difficult, white-glove law firm in DC. They'd subsequently met and hit it off personally. That was fo
ur months of delightfulness two years ago, before the inevitable happened. She'd wanted more than he was ready, willing or able to give. He'd hated when their fling ended because she was one of the few who understood his business. He'd missed her intellect. A body was easy to replace. A sharp mind – one who understood business, his business – not so much.
His eyes landed on Susan's contact info: he'd trained himself to forget about her because she was one of the few women he'd ever met who thought about sex more like a man, in his opinion. She enjoyed it, made no apologies for it, and wanted to have it as often as possible. He had to smile when he thought of her short blonde hair and light-green, almost-grey eyes. Everything about her screamed trophy wife. Only she wanted no part of the institution. The only thing that interested her about men was what was between their legs. And he realized after the two months they spent together that she had used him. "It's not personal Carry," she said, using the nickname she'd gifted him. "You understand, right?"
He could only smile now as he remembered the perfect bow of her passion-pink lips. She'd played him like a violin, and the reason he recognized it – only a little too late – is that he'd done the same thing many times as a young man.
Ah Susan, she could have been dangerous. He moved on.
To Marla: Good ole Vegas; it never failed to disappoint. She looked like a model as she sauntered to the bar, the floor of the casino like a catwalk showcasing her long, graceful strides. He immediately knew he had to meet the dark-skinned beauty. She'd surprised him when she told him she was a marketing executive – for a builder in New York. They'd spent a nice evening together. He'd promised to call her when they got back to New York, but he'd gotten busy. The call had never been made. He'd given her his number and she'd never called him either. He'd considered it a wash. They'd always have Vegas.
Intrigued the more he thought about the leggy beauty, he picked up his cell and dialed.
Love after Betrayal: An Interracial, Billionaire Romance Page 13
