“Bad things happen to good people all the time. What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, baby girl. You are stronger than what that monster did to you. And you need to stop letting that run your life. You need to tell Terrill everything. And if he is half the man we think he is, he is not going to hold it against you. Don’t be a coward. Grab for your chance at happiness.”
Maritza rocked in her mother’s arms and thought about what she was saying. She didn’t know if she could really bare it all to Terrill. But she knew she owed him the truth. He had been hurt enough because of her.
After all of the Hightowers had gone to bed and the Morales men left Terrill’s house, he sat with a glass of brandy in his study just thinking about the day’s events.
How he could have played things differently…
If he should still try and get Maritza to take a chance on them and not marry Speed-Lo…
Everyone said they could tell Maritza loved him, even her own father and brothers. When the women came back, they all said that there was more to Maritza’s story than he knew and that he shouldn’t give up. But could he be the only one fighting for them?
No. He couldn’t.
If Maritza wanted them to have a relationship, she would have to make the next move.
He chuckled and shook his head. There wasn’t a chance in hell of that happening.
No sooner had he thought that then there was a tap on the door to his study. He looked up to see Maritza walking in.
He rubbed his eyes to clear them and cursed when he aggravated the black eye.
“Sorry, I called Penny and she let me in. I had to see you and didn’t want to wait until tomorrow or some other day. I needed to see you now so that I can try to explain what happened. Why I’ve been the way I am.”
She walked over to him. She was really there. He couldn’t believe it.
She softly trailed his black eye with her fingertips and he would have sworn all the pain went away with her touch.
“I’m so sorry they hurt you. I’m so sorry I hurt you. I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I hope that I can one day earn it.” She took a deep breath. “Can I stay and talk with you for a little while? I just want to try and explain. I’ll leave as soon as I’m done.
He nodded.
He was too shook-up to talk and didn’t trust how his voice might sound.
She came.
Maritza took a seat in Terrill’s study and twiddled her fingers as she tried to think of the best place to start.
“I never thought that you weren’t good enough for me, Terrill. I don’t know where you got that from…but it was always the opposite. I always thought that I wasn’t good enough for you. You are a good man, a hard working man, a self-made man, a man that any girl would be proud to bring home to her parents. Hell, my parents and brothers already like you more than any guy I ever dated and they didn’t even know we were dating.”
“How could you think you weren’t good enough for me, Maritza? How could you not know how special you are? How special you are to me?”
A tear trailed down her face and she willed it to stop. She could not break down crying before she told this man the truth. Before she apologized properly and let him know everything that went in to her not allowing herself to love him the way he deserved to be loved.
“What you said about Lace Monroe, you can’t turn a hooker into a housewife? Well, I have heard that or some version of it before in reference to myself. I lived a much wilder life during my video model days than Penny did. She had you looking out for her and I was going through a really late-onset rebellious stage. I have a pretty wild past—”
“We all have a past, babe. I have one. There are things in my past that I am not proud of either. I would never hold anything in your past against you. And you and Lace have nothing in common. Whatever you did is in the past. That woman came on to me in very inappropriate ways just a few weeks ago and I had to tell her that it would be a conflict of interest for me to date her because she is a client of New Images by Keys and Morales and I’m a silent partner. Then she tried to drag your name in the dirt and started saying if I could date you then I could give her a chance. Trust and believe me when I say I have never had any interest in that woman.”
Maritza just shook her head. “It’s not about her, really. The fact is there isn’t that much difference between me and Lace, at least not as far as I can tell. She is way more scandalous, yes. But we both have less-than-stellar pasts and made some unwise choices. She just decided to cash in on her past and make a name for herself as Lil’ Freak. While I decided to cash out and change my life earlier. The fact is, if she is a hooker based on her past, then I am, too. And the last thing you need is a woman that you can’t even bring to company functions because you’re worried about who else she might have been with in the past.
“I didn’t want that for you, Terrill. I never did. You’ve worked too hard to get where you are to have your poor choice in women mess that up. From the first time I met you I knew you were too good for me. And I pushed you away even though I was so attracted to you. And then you kissed me and I thought maybe I could steal a bit of joy, take some good memories from an affair with you. But we see how that ended.”
Terrill got up and pulled her into his arms. And even though she knew she didn’t deserve to seek any comfort there, she couldn’t help it. She let him hold her.
“That’s because we were not meant just to have an affair, babe. You and me are meant to last forever. I love you. I love you, Maritza. And you are more than good enough for me. You are the best thing that ever happened to me.”
She had to keep going. He had to know everything.
“I was raped. I was drugged and gang-raped by Herbert Jackson and some of his flunkies. That is the only thing that stopped me from becoming Lace Monroe. If that hadn’t happened to me, I would have probably still been taking chances with my body, with my life. Thank God there were no lasting repercussions. But it took that to wake me up, Terrill. Could you really see yourself being with a woman who allowed herself to get in that situation?”
Terrill held her even tighter and tears started falling down his face. He rocked her back and forth and soon she was crying, too.
“I’m so sorry that happened to you, babe. But I know you are a smart woman and you know what those disgusting, sorry excuses for men did to you has nothing to do with you and the person you were or the person you are. It wasn’t your fault, babe. But I will tell you this much—Herbert Jackson will be destroyed if it is the last thing I do.”
“No. Promise me you won’t do anything to jeopardize all that you have worked for in order to avenge me. I couldn’t take it if my bad choices hurt you even more than they already have.”
“Maritza, as far as I’m concerned, the only bad choice you made was not trusting in our love and trusting me enough to tell me earlier what was holding you back and stopping our relationship. And I forgive you for that, babe. I forgive you.”
He kissed her then and kept kissing her until he was sure she believed him. Before she knew it her clothes were coming off and she was straddling him on the chair. She took him inside of her and rode him until she couldn’t any more. Then he stood and carried her over to the sofa and continued. They rocked each other, whispering words of love and forgiveness until they both reached completion.
They snuggled on the sofa when they were done and he pulled a blanket over them.
“I hope you realize this means you are not marrying Speed-Lo.”
She laughed and it felt like the first real laugh she had in years.
“Yes, I realize that I am not marrying Andrew now. I can’t marry him when I love you, Terrill.”
“And I hope you know that means you have to marry me as soon as possible. We have wasted three years already. I’m not wasting any more time.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?” Terrill kissed her on the neck.
“Yes, I will marry you, Terrill. As soon
as possible.”
“And I—”
“All right, Mr. Bossy. You have gotten all you’re going to get tonight.” She kissed him and smiled when she felt his erection growing. “Well, maybe not all….”
Epilogue
Maritza took a deep breath as she gazed down the aisle at her brothers and the Hightower brothers all dressed in their black tuxedos and looking seven kinds of fine. Penny and the rest of the Hightower wives were already down there with three of her former assistants—the ones who’d left for personal reasons, not because they hated her.
She made a mental note to definitely get some more women friends. It was really a damn shame that she had to bother women who used to work for her to be bridesmaids in her wedding.
She took a deep breath.
She was getting married. Finally going public, as public as it could possibly get.
No one was going to break this up.
“He’s a good man, niña bonita. You picked the right one. He loves you and he’s the only guy you’ve ever brought around us that I feel okay with trusting to take care of my baby girl.” Her father squeezed her hand and smiled at her.
“You’re right, Papi. He’s the one. No one else would have loved me through all my issues, huh?” She squeezed his hand back as they started walking together toward her destiny.
She kept her eyes on the prize. She kept her eyes on Terrill. Her man was down that aisle, looking at her with his steady calm gaze.
She had picked the right one.
She walked straight ahead. Nothing was going to stand in her way.
Terrill couldn’t take his eyes off of Maritza as she glided toward him. He could officially say that he had never seen anyone more beautiful.
“I’ve got you now, babe. And I am never letting you go.” Terrill whispered the words to her and hoped that no one else heard him.
The minister cleared his throat. “I don’t know about that, young man. It seems I have some business to take care of first before you can truly say that. So let’s get started, shall we?”
The folks in the church started laughing and so did Maritza.
“I’m going to have fun reminding you that you said that when I start getting on your nerves,” she teased.
If he didn’t think the minister would have had a problem with it, he would have kissed his bride then and there.
But he figured he had waited this long to have the woman of his dreams, so he could wait a few minutes longer. The important thing was that she was his now and everyone knew it.
They were finally ready for love.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-1577-1
READY FOR LOVE
Copyright © 2011 by Gwendolyn D. Pough
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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