“Do you mind if I open the windows, Myles?”
“Of course not.” The windows hadn’t been opened since he’d left a month ago.
Zabrina opened the windows overlooking the front of the two-story building. Now that she saw for herself the size of the apartment she realized why he’d wanted a lot more space. A futon doubled as a sofa in what passed for the living room.
They’d driven back to the real estate office with the agent, where Myles signed countless documents, then wrote a check for the down payment. Mrs. Eck told him that because he’d been preapproved he could expect to close on the property the third week in August. That would give him time to settle in before classes began.
The heat from Myles’s body seeped into hers when he came to stand behind her. “What are you thinking about, Brina?”
“I’m thinking about going back to work.”
“Why?”
“I miss nursing. I’ve managed to take some continuing education courses to stay current, but it’s not the same.”
Myles wrapped his arms around her waist. He pressed his face to her damp hair. “What about Adam?”
“What about him, Myles?”
“Who’s going to watch him when you’re working?”
Zabrina closed her eyes. “I’m going to go online and see if there are any school-nurse positions available. That way our hours will be the same.”
Myles nuzzled the side of her neck. “We could hire a housekeeper who could also double as sitter.”
“Let me check the employment possibilities first.”
“Whatever you decide, Brina, I’ll back you up.”
How different her marriage to Myles would be from the one she’d had with Thomas Cooper. The time she’d broached the subject of going back to the hospital Thomas had reacted like a mad man. He claimed the wife of an important politician shouldn’t be seen emptying bedpans, saying it was bad for his image. The following day her father had come to Cooper Hall to talk to her. When he’d told her that she shouldn’t do or say anything to upset Thomas, she’d asked Isaac to leave. The look on her father’s face was one she would remember all her days. Whenever Thomas couldn’t get her to agree to something, he enlisted her father’s assistance. And she knew if Isaac hadn’t done his son-in-law’s bidding, he would be reminded of the threat of going to jail.
Staring up at Myles over her shoulder, she blew him a kiss. “Thank you, darling.”
“You’re welcome. What do you think of my humble abode?” he whispered in her ear.
“It’s very, very humble.”
“Damn, baby, you didn’t have to say it like that.”
She giggled. “What did you expect me to say? That it’s Buckingham Palace?”
“It’s my palace—at least temporarily.”
“True.”
“Have you seen the royal bedchamber?”
Resting the back of her head on his shoulder, Zabrina closed her eyes. “I thought I caught a glimpse of it.”
“Would you like to take a tour?”
Turning in his embrace, she stared up at Myles, stunned at what she saw in his dark eyes. Her whole body trembled from a need so great she felt as if she were coming out of her skin.
“I want you to make love to me.”
The last word wasn’t off her tongue when Myles swept Zabrina up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom. What happened next was a blur. Within minutes of him placing her on the bed, her clothes lay on the floor with his.
The blood had rushed to his penis so quickly he felt light-headed. Lowering himself he smothered her mouth with his, pushing into her body with one sure thrust of his hips. Her smell, her moist heat and the way her flesh fitted around his sent him over the edge. The rush of completion came so quickly that he pulled out and slid down the length of her body.
Bracing both hands on her inner thighs, he spread Zabrina’s legs apart and feasted like a starving man. His rapacious tongue was unrelenting and uncompromising. He heard her screaming for him to stop, but he continued his sensual assault. It was when she arched off the mattress that he knew he’d brought her maximum pleasure.
Zabrina moaned softly when Myles moved over her languid body, gasping sharply when he entered her with a force that rekindled her waning passion all over again. At the moment his breathing quickened, she managed to slip out from under his bucking body. The sudden motion surprised Myles and he sat up, giving her the advantage she needed to take him into her mouth.
It was the first time she’d gone down on Myles and now she knew why he liked it. The position was one of power and control. Grasping his penis, she held it tightly as her tongue went up one side and then down the other as if she were licking a frothy confection.
A sense of strength came to her when he howled, flailed his arms and begged her to stop. Zabrina had no intention of stopping—not until he yielded to the pleasure he sought to withhold from her.
“Baby, baby, please baby, no,” he chanted. It began as a litany that resounded in her head, and still she wouldn’t relent.
Myles knew he had to extricate Zabrina’s mouth before he ejaculated. He went completely still and when her head came up he moved quickly. Flipping her onto her back, he went to his knees, raised her legs in the air and entered her again. The turbulence of their passion knew no bounds when they shuddered simultaneously in a shared ecstasy that left both trembling.
Zabrina found herself crying and babbling incoherently as Myles lay down next to her. He held her as if she were a child until she quieted and drifted off to sleep.
* * *
Zabrina woke to find herself in bed—alone. Pinpoints of fading light came through the blinds at the single window. She sat up, swung her legs over the side of the mattress, then she felt the sticky residue on her thighs. She and Myles had made love without protection! A low moan slipped from her when she realized she was ovulating. How, she bemoaned, could she have been so careless? The door to the bedroom opened and the outline of Myles’s body filled the doorway.
He touched the dimmer switch on the wall and the small space was filled with light from the table lamp. Zabrina stared at him as if he were a stranger.
“Where are my clothes?”
“I put them in the wash.”
“In the wash?”
Myles walked into the room. He’d changed out of his slacks and into a pair of faded jeans. “I have a portable washer/dryer in a closet off the kitchen.” He made his way to a chest of drawers and took out a T-shirt. He handed it to her. “You can put that on if you want. Personally I wouldn’t mind if you run around in the buff.”
She took the T-shirt, but didn’t put it on. “I need to take a shower. I smell like sex.”
“Wrong, Brina. You smell like a woman who has been made love to.”
“Very funny, Myles.”
“Before you take a shower I’d like to give you something.”
Zabrina watched as he searched in the bottom of a narrow closet. He went to his knees, cursing under his breath. “What are you cursing about?”
“I’m looking for something” came his muffled reply. “Got it!”
Zabrina felt her knees give way slightly before she maintained her balance when she saw what Myles cradled on the palm of his hand. It was the ring she’d returned to him via a bonded messenger.
He beckoned her closer. “Come here, baby.”
Zabrina held her breath, unable to move. It was a do-over. For the second time Myles Eaton would slip an engagement ring on her finger. She extended her left hand, unable to control its shaking. The ring was one she and Myles had designed together: an exceptional two-carat fancy yellow diamond in a square-cut modern shape set off by a carat of trapezoids and another carat of round diamonds in a platinum setting. The jeweler had said he was giving them a discou
nt on the price of the ring when he charged them for the loose stones and not the setting. The final price tag was staggering, but Myles said she was more than worth it.
He went to his knees in front of her. “Brina Mixon, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
She thought about telling him that legally she was Zabrina Cooper, but she didn’t want to spoil the very special moment. Their gazes met, fused as they shared a smile. “Yes, Myles Adam Eaton, I will marry you.”
He slipped the ring on her left hand. Her finger was smaller than it’d been years before. Myles stood up.
Zabrina held up her hand to the light. “Even though it’s a little big, it is still spectacular.”
Reaching for her hand, Myles dropped a kiss on her knuckle. “This is where it belongs, and no matter what passes between us I don’t ever want you to take it off again.” Turning her hand over, he pressed a kiss on her palm. “I’m going to have to fatten you up some,” he teased.
“If you continue to make love to me without protection you won’t have to worry about fattening me up. In nine months I’ll look as if I’ve swallowed a watermelon.”
“I’m sorry, Brina. I don’t know what happened.”
Looping her arms under his shoulders, Zabrina pressed her bare breasts to his chest. “I’ll know in another week or two whether you’re going to give your mother that grandchild she wants.”
“My mother has been harping about having more grandchildren for years now. I think it started when Donna and Grant said they were stopping after the twins were born.”
“She’s blessed, Myles. Layla and Sabrina are incredible granddaughters.”
Zabrina found the girls shy around strangers, but once they had warmed to her it was as if she’d known them all their lives. When she’d told them that she had a son they offered to babysit, until she revealed that Adam was a ten-year-old.
The girls had been bright and engaging when Zabrina had joined them when they took Nigel and Cecil for a walk. They’d showed her their new school before they retraced their steps and joined the rest of the family for dinner on the patio. Zabrina marveled at how well-adjusted her son’s cousins were, because it hadn’t been a year since they’d lost both parents in a drunk-driving accident.
Belinda had revealed that the girls had been in counseling to work through their issues of death and loss. She would’ve continued with the sessions if the twins hadn’t decided they didn’t want to keep talking about their mother and father.
Zabrina knew there would come a time when Adam would want to stop seeing his counselor. He hadn’t gone in four weeks and she was anxious to see if missing his sessions had impacted his emotional growth.
Tilting her chin, she smiled at Myles. “I think I’m going to take a shower now.”
He lifted his eyebrows questioningly. “Do you want company?”
“No, Myles. The shower stall is too small for two people.”
“No, it’s not.”
Her smile slipped away. The three words spoke volumes. While she’d been pining away for Myles Eaton she realized he hadn’t been pining for her. How many women had he slept with since their breakup? And how many had he made love to on the same bed where he might possibly have gotten her pregnant for the second time?
“I have to take a shower.” She tried walking around him, but he blocked her way. “Please let me go, Myles.”
“Look at me, Brina. I said, look at me,” he repeated when she stared at the floor. Her head came up. “Yes, I’ve slept with other women, and I’m not going to apologize for it. But I want you to know that I never cheated on you when we were together.”
“And I’ve never cheated on you, Myles. Not ever!”
A frown appeared between his eyes when he realized what she’d said. “What are you talking about?”
“Adam. He’s your son, not Thomas Cooper’s. I was pregnant when I married Thomas.”
Zabrina clenched her jaw to muffle the sobs building in the back of her throat when she saw the tortured look in Myles’s eyes. She’d planned to tell him that he was Adam’s father, but she hadn’t wanted it to come out like it did. She’d known however she told him it would be shocking and painful, however, the way Myles was glaring at her had chills pebbling her flesh.
“You’re lying!” Myles said, after he recovered his voice. He wanted to believe Zabrina was lying, lashing out to wound him because she was jealous he’d admitted to sleeping with other women.
“No, Myles, I’m not lying.”
“You couldn’t have been pregnant because you were on the Pill.”
“Yes, I was on the Pill. I was taking the lowest dose, and I was one of a small percentage of women who get pregnant while taking the pill.”
Zabrina’s explanation grated on Myles’s nerves. His hands snaked around her upper arms, holding her captive. “Why didn’t you tell me, Zabrina? Why did you allow another man to claim my son, give him his name instead of mine?”
“It’s too complicated to explain.”
Myles shook his head as if to clear it. He couldn’t believe what Zabrina had just told him. She had to be lying, just like she’d lied when she’d told him that she was in love with another man. Who was she? Had he fallen in love with a pathological liar?
He dropped his hands as if he feared contamination and she lost her balance, falling backward. Reacting quickly, Myles caught Zabrina before she fell. She was shaking uncontrollably. Sweeping her up into his arms, he placed her on the bed, his body following hers down.
Myles wanted answers, but more importantly he wanted the truth, and if he had to hold Zabrina prisoner in the small furnished apartment to get it he would do just that.
Chapter 15
“I was blackmailed into marrying Thomas Cooper.”
The words burned the back of Zabrina’s throat as they spilled off her tongue like bile. She’d sworn that she would never tell anyone how she’d come to marry Thomas, but she was tired, tired of lying and even more tired of hiding.
It was no longer about her or her father. Isaac Mixon was gone, impervious to the threats of a man obsessed with power. Thomas was gone and could no longer hurt her or her son.
She told Myles everything—leaving nothing out. She confessed to sharing a bed with Thomas on their wedding night without consummating their marriage. It was as if the floodgates were opened when she talked about the political photo-ops, how, after she gave birth, she withdrew from her social engagements and whenever she tried to exert her independence Thomas used Isaac as his enforcer to keep her in her place.
“He used fear and intimidation to control my father, and he knew I’d do anything to keep Daddy from going to jail.”
Myles felt tightness in his chest before realizing he’d been holding his breath. He hadn’t wanted to believe Zabrina, but there was no way she could make up a story so incredible and bizarre.
“Why didn’t you tell me, Brina?”
“I couldn’t,” she whispered. “Thomas would’ve had someone kill my father.” She told him about the man holding a gun to Isaac’s head.
“No, he wouldn’t. Your father was his trump and get-out-of-jail card and if he had Isaac murdered then it would’ve derailed his carefully orchestrated political career. Thomas couldn’t marry his cousin’s wife, so you became the pawn for a fortysomething bachelor who needed a wife to enhance his image, and Isaac delivered you like a trussed-up holiday bird. Adam was an added bonus he hadn’t counted on.”
“Adam carries his name, but Thomas hardly ever gave our son a passing glance.”
Myles smiled for the first time since being told he’d fathered a child. Zabrina had said our son. He wanted to tell her Thomas ignoring the child wasn’t a bad thing, because he planned to share things with Adam they should’ve shared years ago. It would also make it easier for him t
o step into the role of father because Adam wouldn’t have to deal with guilt when he replaced one father figure with another.
“I’m sorry you had to sacrifice your happiness for your father’s misdeeds and I’m sorry Adam had to spend the first ten years of his life with a monster who didn’t have the decency to pretend to be a father.”
Zabrina grasped the front of Myles’s T-shirt. “You can’t tell Adam about his grandfather. It would crush him if he found out that Isaac stole money.”
“Don’t worry, baby. I won’t say anything.
“If you hadn’t waited ten years to tell me this I know I could’ve gotten your father off,” he said after a comfortable silence.
“What are you talking about?”
“I would’ve taken on your father’s case and because it was his first offense I would’ve asked the DA to give him probation. Then again, there could’ve been the possibility that the charges might have been thrown out.”
Closing her eyes, Zabrina pressed her face to the side of Myles’s neck. “I hadn’t thought of that. How could I have been so stupid and gullible?”
“There wasn’t much you could do with a gun pointed at your father’s head.”
“Yeah, but—”
“But nothing,” he interrupted. “You couldn’t risk trying to negotiate with a megalomaniac. There was still the possibility Cooper would’ve had someone hurt your father.”
“But I should’ve trusted you, Myles, because you’d promised to protect me.”
“Yes, I did promise. But you did what you did because you believed at that time it was best for your father and unborn child.”
A beat passed. “Are you ready to meet your son? He’s coming home Sunday.”
“If I’m not ready, then I’ll have to get ready.”
“I’d like for us to wait a while before we tell Adam you’re his biological father.”
Forever an Eaton: Bittersweet LoveSweet Deception Page 34
