“What about you, Brina? What do you want for yourself?” Myles asked.

Zabrina said the first thing that came to mind. “Sex.”

Myles lowered his head, unable to believe what he’d just heard. “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”

“Do I look like I’m kidding?”

Surprised by her admission, Myles stared at her in disbelief.

“Why are you looking at me like that? Would it be less shocking if the roles were reversed, and you were the one saying that you wanted to have sex with me?”

“Is that what you want from me?” he asked, recovering his composure.

“Sure, but only if you’re up for it,” she countered with a smile. “It would just be for the summer.”

ROCHELLE ALERS

has been hailed by readers and booksellers alike as one of today’s most popular African-American authors of women’s fiction. With nearly two million copies of her novels in print, Ms. Alers is a regular on the Waldenbooks, Borders and Essence bestseller lists, and has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Gold Pen Award, the Emma Award, the Vivian Stephens Award for Excellence in Romance Writing, the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award and the Zora Neale Hurston Literary Award. A native New Yorker, Ms. Alers currently lives on Long Island. Visit her Web site at: www.rochellealers.com.

Sweet Deception
Rochelle Alers

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

—Matthew 5:5

Dear Reader,

How many times have you wished for a second chance with someone you loved then lost?

Zabrina Cooper’s wish is granted when she reunites with Myles Eaton at his sister’s wedding. But will the secrets she has coveted for more than a decade bring them closer—or destroy a future that promises forever?

In the second installment of the Eaton family miniseries, I continue the theme of second-chance love. However, unlike Belinda and Griffin Rice, Myles only has the summer to uncover why—just two weeks before the wedding!—Zabrina ended their engagement to marry an influential Philadelphia politician. As you read Sweet Deception, please keep in mind what Zabrina has had to sacrifice in order to protect her family.

Look for Chandra Eaton’s Sweet Dreams early 2010 when the former peace corps teacher misplaces journals filled with her erotic dreams.

Visit my Web site at www.rochellealers.com.

Rochelle

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 1

The buzz of the intercom echoed throughout the spacious co-op. “I’ll get it,” Myles Eaton announced loudly from the bedroom. Pressing the button on the intercom, he spoke into the speaker. “Yes?”

“Mr. Eaton, there’s a take-out delivery in the lobby for you.”

“Please send it up.”

Zabrina Mixon stepped inside the apartment from the terrace, closing the sliding-glass door behind her. She liked seeing her fiancé dressed casually in T-shirts, shorts and sandals rather than a business suit. Suits always made him appear staid, standoffish. Her gaze lingered on his muscular calves before moving up to his broad chest and finally his ruggedly handsome face. His face was symmetrical with a dark brown complexion, deep-set eyes and a lean, angular jaw that became more pronounced whenever he smiled. His gorgeous smile drew attention to his perfectly aligned white teeth.

She couldn’t remember when she hadn’t been in love with Myles Eaton. He’d taught her to ride a bike, and whenever she fell he’d brushed off the dirt from her scraped knees and elbows, then helped her to get back on. Her infatuation began in childhood when Myles became her prince.

“I’ve finished setting the table,” said Zabrina.

Myles smiled at his fiancée. He hadn’t believed his luck when he’d finally opened his eyes to his sister’s best friend. He’d thought of her as a younger sister until her eighteenth birthday. It was the first time that he had kissed her. A few years before that she had kissed him before he left Philadelphia to attend Penn State. Her excuse was that she hadn’t wanted him to miss her.

Zabrina kissing Myles had left him feeling unsettled, because at eighteen he was an adult—a sexually active adult, and he had not wanted to take advantage of a teenage girl. However, several years later, they both had changed. Zabrina left home to attend Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in Tennessee while he was headed to Pittsburgh to enroll in Duquesne University School of Law.

By the time she was in college, there was nothing prepubescent about Zabrina Mixon. She was no longer tall and gangly, her body had filled out with womanly curves and her voice had deepened to a low, sexy tone that never failed to send shivers up and down his body. The sound of her voice was only matched by the luminous hazel eyes that pulled him in and refused to let him go.

Zabrina had a way of seducing him without saying a word. All she had to do was look at him and he forgot any woman he’d ever known. They reconnected whenever they returned home during semester breaks, but it wasn’t until she’d graduated from college that he’d proposed marriage and she’d accepted. They’d talked about having a June wedding, but the establishment where they wanted to have the reception was booked solid until October. They’d reserved the last Saturday in October, because neither wanted a winter wedding given the unpredictable weather.

Myles winked at Zabrina. “Go back outside and relax, baby. The food is on its way up and I’ll bring everything out to the terrace.”

She returned the wink, then retraced her steps. Settling into an oversize pillow on the terrace of Myles’s fourteenth-floor co-op, Zabrina waited for him to join her.

After her twelve-hour shift at a busy Philadelphia municipal hospital, she’d checked her cell phone for messages earlier that day. There were two: one from her father to let her know he was having dinner with an up-and-coming local politician who wanted Isaac Mixon to run his campaign for reelection to the state assembly, and the second from Myles.

After listening to Myles’s message asking her to meet him for dinner at his apartment, she’d gone home to shower and change her clothes, then walked the short distance from the condominium where she lived with her father to Myles’s high-rise. The doorman at the luxury building had greeted her by name. Within days of Myles slipping the diamond engagement ring onto her finger, he’d given her a key to his co-op and had officially notified the building management to grant her complete access.

The sun slipped lower, taking with it the intense summer heat as a cool breeze swept over her face and body. Lighted votives that she’d positioned around the terrace flickered like fireflies with the encroaching darkness. Philadelphia had experienced the most brutal heat wave it’d had in years. A steady two-day rain had finally broken the ninety-plus-degree heat and the streets in the City of Brotherly Love once again teemed with residents and tourists taking advantage of the more comfortable summer temperatures.

Turning her gaze away from the panoramic view of the twin glass spires of Liberty Place soaring above the Philadelphia skyline, Zabrina saw Myles holding a shopping bag from which emanated the most mouthwatering aroma.

“Something smells wonderful.”

Myles leaned over and kissed the hair she’d brushed off her face and secured in a single braid. “That must be my linguine with garlic and olive oil.”

“Phew,” Zabrina said, pinching her nostrils. “Remind me not to kiss you.”

“What if I brush my teeth and use mouthwash?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I’ll think about it,” she teased.

Myles sat opposite Zabrina, reached into the bag and took out a small container of Caesar salad, then two larger containers with his entrée and Zabrina’s Caesar salad with grilled chicken. “Wait, darling, we’re missing something.”

Zabrina examined the place settings. “What’s missing?”

“Wine and music.”

“What are we celebrating, Myles?”

He stood and leaned over the table. “My love for you, darling.”

Zabrina rose to brush her mouth over his, her eyes filling with tears. She never tired of hearing him say that he loved her. “And I love you, too, Myles Adam Eaton.”

Myles returned with a bottle of wine, glasses and a small portable radio that he’d tuned to an all-music station. He filled the wineglasses with a light rosé, raising his goblet in a toast. “Here’s to the sexiest and most beautiful woman in the world. I’m counting down the days until I can make you my wife.”

Zabrina paused, trying to keep her fragile emotions under control. She touched her glass to his. “Here’s to the man who makes me feel alive, look forward to tomorrow and to all my tomorrows as his wife.”

A wave of sadness came over her like a rushing wave. She didn’t know why, but she felt like crying. In exactly three months she would exchange vows with the man she loved beyond words. How many women, she wondered, were fortunate enough to marry the first man they’d fallen in love with? Not too many, so she’d counted herself blessed.

“Here, here,” Myles intoned before taking a sip of wine.

“I hope your client is toasting you for keeping his butt out of prison.”

A scowl settled across his features. He’d made it a practice not to discuss his work with Zabrina, but the name of his high-profile client was on the tongue of most Philadelphians after the aide to the mayor had been charged with a sex crime.

“Jack Tolliver was innocent and apparently the prosecutor agreed with me when he threw out the charges for lack of evidence.”

“But didn’t he admit to sleeping with the woman?”

Myles rolled his eyes upward. “Yes, baby.”

“So, who’s to say it was consensual?”

“He said he didn’t rape her.”

Zabrina gave him a quizzical look. “And you believed him?”

“Yes.”

“Just because he said he didn’t do it?” She gestured with her fork. “Darling, Jack Tolliver is a lying, cheating politician who wouldn’t recognize the truth if it jumped up and bit him on the ass.”

Myles angled his head. “Are you angry with Jack because he cheated on his wife with another woman, or are you angry because he’s a politician?”

“It’s because he’s a politician, Myles. I know he’s human, but when he stands up in front of millions of voters asking for their trust, the least he could do is not betray their trust—and his wife’s—by creeping with a married woman.”

“You’re too young to be so jaded when it comes to politicians, baby. Perhaps you should stay away from your father’s friends.”

He’d gotten the judge to dismiss the case because the plaintiff’s rape kit had turned up evidence that she’d slept with his client and with another man. If Myles was going to toast anything it was that DNA forensics had helped to exonerate or convict suspects in some of the most violent crimes.

“My father’s friends are just that—his friends. The only interaction I have with them is when I stand in as his hostess. Other than that, I loathe their fake smiles, weak handshakes, lecherous stares and the rare occasion when they brush against me pretending that it was an accident.”

Myles went completely still, his frown deepening. “Is someone bothering you?”

She waved a hand. “No, darling. Most of them are around the same age as my father, so I ignore them.”

Zabrina stared at her fiancé across the small space. Lately, she and Myles saw less and less of each other. Her eight-hour shift rotated every three months, and then there was overtime. Myles had passed the bar and clerked for a judge before becoming a trial lawyer for a Philadelphia firm handling high-profile cases. His ultimate goal was to make partner within ten years.

Swallowing a mouthful of pasta, Myles met Zabrina’s eyes. They appeared catlike in the candlelight. “Can you take a couple of days off?”

“Why?”

“I’d like for us to go away together so we can spend some quality time together.”

Reaching over the table, Myles grasped her hands. “I saw more of you before we were engaged than I do now.”

Zabrina sobered. He’d read her mind. “That’s because you’ve become a workaholic.”

“I want to make partner, Brina.”

She wanted to tell Myles there were no guarantees that he would make partner even if he worked ninety hours a week, while winning every case for the firm. But she held her tongue because she didn’t want him to think she wasn’t supportive.

“Where do you want to go?” she asked.

His grip tightened on her fingers. “I’ll leave that up to you.”

It took only seconds for her to make a decision. “I want to go to Buenos Aires.”

“Buenos Aires, Argentina?” She nodded. “What’s in Buenos Aires?”

“Tango lessons,” Zabrina replied. “I want our first dance as husband and wife to be a tango, and what better place to learn the dance of love and passion than in Argentina?”

Rising, Myles walked around the circular table and gently pulled Zabrina to her feet. He dipped his head and pressed his mouth to the column of her scented neck. “I happen to believe we dance very well together.”

She giggled like a child. “Are you talking about the horizontal mambo?”

“Yes, I am.”

Moving into his embrace, Zabrina wrapped her arms around Myles’s waist. He felt so good, smelled so incredibly delicious. His cologne was specially blended to complement his body’s natural pheromones. She closed her eyes and smiled. “I seem to have forgotten the steps.”

Pulling her closer, Myles reveled in the soft crush of firm breasts against his chest. “How long has it been, baby?” he whispered.

Zabrina thought back to the last time they’d made love. “It’s been at least three weeks.”

“I promise to make love to…”

She placed her fingertips over his mouth, stopping his words. “Don’t promise. Just do it.”

Bending slightly, Myles swept his fiancée up into his arms and carried her off the terrace to the bedroom. He hadn’t wanted to believe he hadn’t made love to Zabrina in weeks. When, he thought, had his work taken precedence over the woman he loved and planned to marry? She’d become the most important thing in his life, yet he’d let something else replace her.

Their candlelit terrace dinner was forgotten when he placed Zabrina on the bed, his body following hers. It took less than a minute for Myles to remove her sandals, sundress and panties. The light from the bedside-table lamp, dimmed to its lowest setting, spilled over her nude body, making it appear like a statue of gold.

He undressed and then moved over her. “I can’t believe I’ve neglected you for so long. I want you to remind me when I get so caught up straightening out other people’s lives that I forget what I have right in front of me.”

Zabrina buried her face between Myles’s neck and shoulder at the same time her arms went around his waist. “How often do you want me to remind you?”

“Every night,” he said in her ear.

She opened her eyes and smiled. “If that’s the case, then I’ll be certain to do it.”

Myles breathed a kiss under her ear, along the column of her neck and to her throat. His rapacious tongue charted a path down her body as he suckled one breast, then the other. Zabrina’s breathing came faster and faster. His tongue swept over her like a wild cat savoring its kill. He tasted her belly. Effortlessly he turned her over to taste her back, nipping the skin covering her hips. Pressing a kiss to the small of her back, he moved lower to the area between her legs. Myles anchored his hands under her thighs and pulled her up into a kneeling position.

Zabrina was on fire! It was as if Myles had struck a match and set her ablaze. The increasing heat between her legs escalated as her hips undulated in a natural rhythm that communicated a long-denied need.

Myles felt and inhaled the rising desire from the slender body pushing back against his belly. He hardened quickly, so quickly he feared spilling his passion on the sheets. Guiding his erection, he eased it between Zabrina’s thighs. The two of them sighed as flesh closed around flesh, making them one.

Grasping her waist with both hands, he held her captive as she pushed back to meet his strong thrusts. He closed his eyes and bit down on his lip to keep the groans building in his throat from escaping, but the rising passion was too much and he moaned as if in pain. But it was the most pleasurable pain he’d ever experienced.

He didn’t know what it was about Zabrina Mixon, but once she had offered him her virginal body, every woman in his past had ceased to exist. And what he couldn’t understand was how had he gone nearly a month without making love with her. Had his quest to make partner taken precedence over the woman he loved? Zabrina didn’t want him to make promises, but he promised himself that tonight would signal change. He would put his fiancée first and his career second.

Heat began in Zabrina’s core and spread outward like spokes on a wheel. Reaching for the top of the headboard, she held on to the carved mahogany as if it were a lifeline. And at that moment it was. Unfamiliar sensations raced through her body, cutting a swath of pleasure that lifted her beyond ecstasy. She was caught up in a maelstrom of passion that bordered on hysteria. Her throat was burning from the screams that emanated from somewhere she hadn’t known existed, then, without warning, the orgasms came, one after the other, overlapping until she felt herself succumbing to the deepest desire she’d ever experienced.

Myles held Zabrina’s waist in a punishing grip as he rested his head on her back. He clenched his teeth so tightly his jaw ached, and try as he could he couldn’t hold back the passion threatening to erupt at any moment. Sucking in a lungful of breath, he surrendered to the raging fire in his loins, his body shaking like a stalwart tree in a storm.

In a moment of madness they’d surrendered all they were and would ever be to each other.

Chapter 2

The reason you’ve been feeling so tired is that you’re pregnant.

The doctor’s diagnosis played over and over in Zabrina Mixon’s head until she felt as if it were a mantra. Warm tears spilled down her face, blurring her vision, but she could still see the indicator wand that came with the home pregnancy test. She was pregnant. She, a registered nurse, who hadn’t believed her ob-gyn, had stopped at a local drugstore and bought a kit to conduct her own test.

Her gynecologist had changed her contraceptive three times, the third being a lower-dose pill. The other two had adverse side effects: headaches, nausea and tender breasts. Apparently the lowest dose was too low, because she was now among the one percent of women who’d gotten pregnant on the pill. She and Myles Eaton had talked about starting a family, but at twenty-three Zabrina had wanted to wait at least two years. Two years would give her time to adjust to married life.

She’d been counting the days before she would exchange vows with the man she’d fallen in love with after they’d only dated a month. He’d waited a year to propose marriage and she’d accepted. It was now two weeks before her wedding and she would walk down the aisle with a new life growing inside her. It wasn’t how she’d planned to start married life.

Discarding the pregnancy kit in the wastebasket, Zabrina washed her hands. She walked out of the bathroom, stopping when she heard voices coming from the living room. She recognized her father’s voice and another that was vaguely familiar. A third voice, this one deeper than the others stopped her mid-stride. This voice she knew. It belonged to Thomas Cooper, her father’s protégé. Alarmed, she made her way into the living room.

“What’s going on here?”

Isaac Mixon turned when he heard his daughter’s voice. “When did you get home?”

Zabrina’s gaze shifted from her father to the other two men. It was obvious they’d thought they were alone. “I got here about twenty minutes ago.” She glared at City Council President Thomas Cooper, who, it was widely rumored, had aspirations to become Philadelphia’s next mayor. “Were you threatening my father?”

Thomas Cooper flashed a smile, the one he’d perfected for the media and his constituents. “Zabrina, please come and sit down.”

Zabrina’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re inviting me to sit down in my own home?”

The practiced smile vanished quickly. “Mixon, I think you’d better convince your daughter to listen to what we have to tell her, or she’ll read about your arrest in tomorrow’s Philly Inquirer.”

Isaac crossed the room and cradled his daughter to his chest. “Please, Brina, let me handle this.”

Light brown eyes flecked with hints of green studied the face of the man who’d protected her since her mother had died the year Zabrina had celebrated her seventh birthday. Isaac Mixon had become father and mother, refusing to remarry because he claimed he didn’t want to subject her to a dreadful stepmother. She knew he dated women, but he’d never brought one home.

She nodded. “Okay, Daddy.” Isaac pulled out a straight-back chair for Zabrina to sit in, and she watched as her father walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows to peer out at the Philadelphia skyline.

It was the third man in the room who spoke first. “Miss Mixon, your father has been misappropriating monies from Councilman Cooper’s campaign contributions.”

A heavy silence filled the room as four pairs of eyes exchanged glances, and Zabrina wondered how many more shocks she would have to endure in one day. First there was the news that she was carrying a child, and now the threat that her father was facing arrest for stealing money from the man whose political career he’d shepherded from political analyst to city council member and now city council president.

She didn’t believe it, she couldn’t possibly believe it. Her father didn’t have financial problems. In fact, she knew for certain that he was solvent. It was she who reconciled his bank statements because Isaac Mixon didn’t want to have anything to do with money. He was an ideas person, not a numbers guy. In fact, he was a political genius when it came to political campaign strategies.

“I don’t believe you,” she told the well-dressed man with a sallow pockmarked complexion. It was almost impossible to discern the color of his eyes behind a pair of thick lenses perched on a short nose that gave him a porcine appearance.

“Perhaps Councilman Cooper and I should leave you alone with your father for a few moments so he can bare his soul. Perhaps then you’ll believe me.”

Thomas nodded to Zabrina. “Mr. Davidson and I will be in your father’s study. Please, don’t get up. I know where it is.”

Zabrina felt her throat closing as a wave of rage held her captive, not permitting her to draw a normal breath. It was the second time the arrogant politician had usurped her in her home. Once she’d reached sixteen she’d thought of the three-bedroom condo as hers. It was then that she’d assumed the responsibility of mistress of the house when standing in as hostess for Isaac Mixon’s many political confabs and soirées.

She drew in a breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them and stared at her father he seemed to have aged within a matter of seconds. “What’s going on, Daddy?”

Isaac Mixon knew whatever he’d been instructed to tell his daughter was going to destroy her. But either he had to lie or go to jail for a crime he did not commit. And disclosing what he knew meant his chances of survival were slim to none. Thomas Cooper had too many connections in and out of prison.

He walked across the living room and sank down on a love seat. “I’m sorry, baby girl, I—”

“You’re sorry, Daddy!” Zabrina hadn’t realized she was screaming, and at her father no less. “You’re sorry for what?”

“I did divert some of Tom’s campaign funds.”

“Divert or steal, Daddy?”

Isaac saw fire in his daughter’s eyes, the same fire that had burned so brightly in her mother’s eyes before a debilitating disease had stolen her spirit and will to live. Zabrina had inherited Jacinta’s palomino-gold coloring, inky-black hair and hazel eyes that always reminded him of semi-precious jewels. He hadn’t celebrated his tenth wedding anniversary when he lost his wife, but fate hadn’t taken everything from him because Jacinta lived on in the image of their daughter.

“I took the money,” he lied smoothly.

“But why did you do it? You have money.”

Isaac lowered his salt-and-pepper head, focusing his attention on the thick pile of the carpet under his feet. He knew if he met his daughter’s eyes he wouldn’t be able to continue to lie to her. “I…I’ve been gambling—”

“But you never gamble!”

“But I do now!” he spat out in a nasty tone. “I bet on everything: cards, ponies and even illegal numbers.”

Zabrina’s eyelids fluttered as she tried processing what her father was telling her. “Why didn’t you use your own money?”

He glared at her. “I didn’t want you to know about my nasty little addiction.”

“How much did you take?”

“Eighty-three,” Isaac admitted.

“Eighty-three…eighty-three hundred,” Zabrina repeated over and over. “I have more than that in my savings account. I’ll go to the bank tomorrow and get a bank check payable to Thomas Cooper—”

“Stop, Brina! It’s not eighty-three hundred but eighty-three thousand—money Tom gave me to pay off loan sharks who’d threatened to kill me.” Tears filled Isaac Mixon’s eyes as his face crumpled like an accordion. “I took twenty thousand from the campaign fund and borrowed the rest from a loan shark. “Right now I owe Thomas Cooper more than one hundred thousand dollars.”

“What about the money in your 401K?” she asked.

“I’ll have to pay it back,” Isaac said.

“How about selling the condo?”

Isaac shook his head. “That would take too long.”

Zabrina’s eyes narrowed. “How much time has Thomas given you to repay him without pressing charges?”

“He wants my answer now.”

“Answer to what, Daddy?”

Isaac’s head came up and he met his daughter’s eyes for the first time, seeing pain and unshed tears. “Thomas has threatened to have me arrested unless I can get you to agree to…” His words trailed off.

Zabrina leaned forward. “Get me to do what?”

“He wants you to marry him.”

Her father’s words hit her like a punch to the face, and for a brief moment she believed he was joking, blurting out anything that came to mind to belie his fear. Her hands tightened on the arms of the chair.

“Thomas Cooper wants to marry me when he knows I’m going to marry another man in two weeks?” Isaac nodded. “I can’t, Daddy!” She was screaming again.

Isaac pushed to his feet. The droop of his shoulders indicated defeat. His so-called protégé was blackmailing him because of what he’d witnessed when he’d walked into Thomas’s private office: Councilman Cooper had accepted a cash payment from a local Philadelphia businessman whom law officials suspected had ties to organized crime.

It was a week later that a strange man was ushered into Isaac’s office with a message from the businessman: forget what you saw or your daughter will find herself placing flowers on her father’s grave.

Later that evening he’d met with Thomas who had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. The confirmed bachelor talked incessantly about enhancing his image before declaring his candidacy for the mayoralty race, and then had shocked Isaac when he told him that he wanted to marry his daughter. Nothing Isaac could say could dissuade Cooper even when he told Thomas that Zabrina was engaged to marry Myles Eaton. Thomas Cooper dismissed the pronouncement with a wave of his hand, claiming marrying Zabrina Mixon would serve as added insurance that her father would never turn on his son-in-law.

Zabrina didn’t, couldn’t move. “I don’t believe this. This is the twenty-first century, yet you’re offering me up as if I were chattel you’d put up in a card game. I could possibly consider marrying Thomas if I wasn’t engaged or pregnant. But, I’m sorry, Daddy. I can’t.”

Isaac turned slowly and stared down at his daughter’s bowed head. “You’re what?”

Her head came up. “I just found out this morning that I’m pregnant with Myles Eaton’s baby.”

“Does he know?” Isaac’s voice was barely a whisper.

“Not yet. I plan to tell him later tonight.”

“But you won’t tell him, Zabrina. The child will carry my name,” said Thomas confidently.

Zabrina hadn’t realized Thomas and the other man he’d called Davidson had reentered the living room. “Go to hell!”

The elected official’s expression did not change. “Mr. Davidson, perhaps you can convince Miss Mixon of the seriousness of her father’s dilemma.”

The bespectacled man reached under his suit jacket, pulled out a small caliber handgun with a silencer, aiming it at Isaac’s head. “You have exactly five seconds, Miss Mixon, to give Councilman Cooper an answer.”

Zabrina’s heart was beating so hard she was certain it could be seen through her blouse. “Okay!” she screamed. “Okay,” she repeated, this time her acquiescence softer. There was no mistaking defeat in the single word.

Thomas smiled for the first time. “Not only are you beautiful, but you’re very, very smart. We’ll marry next week in a private ceremony. And, you don’t have to worry about me exercising my conjugal rights. Our marriage will be in name only.”

A rage she’d never known burned through Zabrina. “Does that leave me free to take a lover or lovers?”

The councilman’s smile faded. “In two years you’ll be the wife of Philadelphia’s next mayor, so I doubt that with the responsibility of raising a child and taking care of your social obligations, you’ll find time to open your legs to another man.”

She felt the overwhelming sick feeling that came with defeat, but she wasn’t going to let the blackmailing SOB know that. “One of these days I’m going to kill you.”

A slight arch in his eyebrows was the only indication that Thomas had registered her threat. “Take a number, Miss Mixon.” He motioned to his gofer to put the gun away. “I suggest you call your fiancé and tell him you found a better prospect.”

The footsteps of the two men were muffled in the carpet as they turned and walked to the door. The solid slam of the door shocked Zabrina into an awareness of just what had taken place within a matter of minutes. She’d agreed to marry a man she’d come to detest when the baby of another man she’d pledged to marry in two weeks was growing beneath her heart.

She registered another sound, and it took her several seconds to realize her father was crying. Even when they’d buried her mother she hadn’t seen Isaac cry. She stood up and walked over to her father. Going to her knees, Zabrina pressed her face to his chest. It wasn’t easy to comfort him when she was sobbing inconsolably.

It was later, much later when Zabrina retreated to her bedroom to call Myles Eaton to tell him that she couldn’t marry him because she was in love with another man. There was only the sound of breathing coming through the earpiece until a distinctive click told her Myles had hung up.

She didn’t cry only because she had no more tears. Her mind was a maelstrom of thoughts that ranged from premeditated murder to the need to survive to bring her unborn child to term. She may have lost Myles Eaton, but unknowingly he’d given her a precious gift—a gift she would love to her dying breath.

Chapter 3

Ten years later…

“I can’t believe you’re marrying your sister’s brother-in-law.”

“Believe it, because in another week I’ll become Mrs. Griffin Rice.”

A hint of a smile lifted the corners of Belinda Eaton’s mouth as she stared at Zabrina Cooper. As she’d promised when she’d run into Zabrina at a fundraiser, she’d called to set up a dinner date with the woman who at one time had been engaged to her brother.

Her twin nieces, Layla and Sabrina, whom she and Griffin legally adopted after their parents died in a horrific head-on automobile accident, were spending the weekend with their paternal grandparents, giving Belinda the time she needed to meet with her childhood friend and finish packing her personal belongings before she moved into Griffin’s house. They had gone from being godparents to parents, after Belinda’s sister, who was married to Griffin’s brother, died tragically in an auto accident, leaving the twins orphans.

The skin around Zabrina’s large light brown eyes crinkled when she smiled, something she hadn’t done often, or in a very long time. The only person who could get her to smile or laugh spontaneously was her son. Adam was not only the love of her life, he was her life. Her mother had died when she was young, and she’d buried her father four months before she’d become a widow. Aside from an aunt and a few distant cousins there was only Adam.

She sobered, staring at the woman who, if she’d married Myles Eaton, would have become her sister-in-law. To say the high-school history teacher was stunning was an understatement. The soft glow from the candle on the table flattered Belinda’s flawless sable complexion. A little makeup accentuated the exotic slant of her dark eyes, high cheekbones, short straight nose and generously curved full mouth. A profusion of dark curly hair framed her attractive face.

Zabrina’s gaze moved from Belinda’s face to her hand, which flaunted a magnificent emerald-cut diamond ring surrounded with baguettes. She remembered the engagement ring Myles had slipped on her finger, a ring she had returned to him via a bonded messenger hours after she’d called him to let him know she couldn’t marry him because she was in love with another man.

“I knew there was something going on between you and Griffin when you two were maid of honor and best man at Donna and Grant’s wedding.” Belinda’s older sister had married Griffin’s older brother.

Belinda took a sip from her water goblet. “That’s where you’re wrong, Brina. Griffin and I barely tolerated each other. What I hadn’t realized at the time was that I was in love with him. But instead of letting him know that, I acted like a junior-high schoolgirl who punches out the boy so everyone believes that she despises rather than likes him.”

Zabrina stared at her bare hands resting on the tablecloth. “It was the same with me and Myles. He used to tease me mercilessly until I kissed him. I don’t know who was more shocked—me or him.”

“You kissed my brother first?”

Zabrina’s face became flushed as she cast her eyes downward. “He was leaving for college, and I didn’t want him to forget me.”

“And apparently he didn’t,” Belinda said softly.

Zabrina looked up and her eyes met Belinda’s. “I was thirteen when I kissed Myles for the first time, and I had to wait another five years before he kissed me back. Myles claimed he didn’t want to take advantage of a minor, so he felt at eighteen I was old enough either to let him kiss me or punch his lights out.” Her eyes brimmed with tears. “The happiest day in my life was when your brother asked me to marry him and one of the darkest was when I called to tell him I was in love with another man.”

Reaching across the table, Belinda placed her hand over Zabrina’s ice-cold fingers. “What happened, Brina? I know you loved my brother, so why did you lie to him?”

The seconds ticked off as the two women stared at each other. They’d met in the first grade and become fast friends. Then tragedy had separated them for a year when Zabrina’s mother was diagnosed with brain cancer.

Isaac Mixon moved his wife and daughter to Mexico for an experimental treatment not approved by oncologists in the United States. Zabrina had just celebrated her seventh birthday when Jacinta passed away. Her body was cremated and her ashes scattered in the ocean.

Zabrina returned to the States with her father, not to live in the stately white Colonial with black trim but in a three-bedroom condominium in an exclusive Philadelphia neighborhood. She and Belinda no longer attended the same school, yet they’d managed to get together every weekend. Belinda would either stay over at Zabrina’s, or she would sleep over at Belinda’s. Though Belinda had two other sisters, Zabrina Mixon had become her best friend and unofficial sister. But a lifetime of friendship had ended with a single telephone call to Myles Eaton.

Belinda stared at the beautiful woman with the gold-brown skin, gleaming black chin-length hair and brilliant hazel eyes. She remembered photographs of Jacinta Mixon, and Zabrina was her mother’s twin.

“I had to, Belinda,” Zabrina said in a soft voice. “I wasn’t given a choice.”

“Who didn’t give you a choice, Brina?”

Zabrina averted her gaze, staring out the restaurant window at the patrons dining alfresco in the warm June temperatures. “It had to do with my father.” Her gaze swung back to Belinda and she closed her eyes for several seconds. “I’ve already said too much.”

“Are you saying you were forced to marry Thomas Cooper?”

“The only other thing I’m going to say is I didn’t want to marry Thomas. Please, Belinda, don’t ask me any more questions, because I can’t answer them.”

She’d promised her father she would never tell anyone what he’d done although she was tempted to do just that after burying Isaac Mixon. However, she’d changed her mind when she thought of how it would’ve affected Adam. Her son idolized his grandfather.

“You can’t or you won’t?”

“I can’t.”

Their waiter approached the table, bringing the difficult conversation to an end. The two women ordered, then settled back to discuss Belinda’s upcoming wedding.

Belinda touched a napkin to the corners of her mouth. “I know you sent back your response card saying you’re coming, but I want to warn you that Myles will also be there. He came in from Pittsburgh last night and plans to spend the summer here in Philly.”

Zabrina nodded. She’d had more than ten years to prepare to meet Myles Eaton again. Marrying Thomas Cooper would’ve been akin to a death sentence if not for her son. Raising Adam had kept her sane, rational and out of prison.

“It’s been a long time, but I’ve known eventually we would have to come face-to-face with each other one of these days.” She couldn’t predict what Myles’s reaction would be to seeing her again, but she was certain he would find her a very different woman from the one who’d pledged to love him forever.

The two women talked about old friends, jokes they’d played on former classmates and the boys they’d had crushes on but who hadn’t given them a single glance. They talked about everything except the loss of their loved ones—Belinda’s sister and brother-in-law and Zabrina’s parents.

Both declined dessert and coffee. “Who’s your maid of honor?” Zabrina asked.

Belinda wanted to tell Zabrina she would’ve been her matron of honor if she had married Myles. “Chandra. She’s scheduled to fly in Monday, because she has to be fitted for her dress.” Belinda’s sister had joined the Peace Corps and was currently teaching in Belize. “My cousin Denise will be my other attendant. Myles will stand in as Griffin’s best man and Keith Ennis will be a groomsman.”

With wide eyes, Zabrina whispered, “Baseball player Keith Ennis?”

Belinda smiled. “Yes. He’s one of Griffin’s clients.” Her fiancé was the lawyer for half a dozen superstar athletes.

“It looks as if you’re going to have quite the celebrity wedding.”

“All I want is for it to be over, so that my life can return to normal.”

“Are you going on a honeymoon?” Zabrina asked.

“Yes. We’re going to spend two weeks at a private villa on St. Kitts. I plan to sleep late, take in the sun and eat and drink until I can’t move.”

Zabrina smiled again, then her smile vanished when she spied the man she hadn’t expected to see until Belinda’s wedding. Myles Adam Eaton had walked into the restaurant with a beautiful, petite dark-skinned woman with her hand draped possessively over the sleeve of his suit jacket. Myles immediately glanced in her direction. Their eyes met, recognition dawned and then the moment passed when he dipped his head to listen to something the woman was saying. To say time had been kind to Myles was an understatement. Quickly averting her gaze so Belinda wouldn’t see what had gotten her attention, she signaled for the waiter.

“I’ll take the check please.”

Zabrina silently applauded herself for becoming quite the accomplished actress. It’d taken a decade of smiling when she hadn’t wanted to smile, uttering the appropriate phrases and responses when attending political events, even though she’d wanted to spew expletives. She didn’t know if the woman on Myles’s arm was his wife, fiancée or date for the evening, but it didn’t matter. Zabrina didn’t ever expect to become Mrs. Myles Eaton. Having his son was her consolation for having to give him up.

“I told you I was treating tonight,” Belinda said between clenched teeth.

Zabrina took the leather binder from the waiter. “You can treat the next time.”

She didn’t tell Belinda that with all of Thomas Cooper’s so-called political and legal savvy he’d neglected to draw up a will, and she’d inherited a multimillion-dollar home, which she’d promptly sold, and investments of which she’d had no previous knowledge. She’d sold the shares before Wall Street bottomed out and deposited the proceeds into an account for her son’s education. Becoming a wealthy woman was a huge price to pay for having to give up the man she loved while denying her son his birthright.

Zabrina settled the bill, pushed back her chair and walked out of the restaurant, Belinda following, without glancing over to where Myles sat with his dinner date. She waited with Belinda for the parking attendants to retrieve their cars from valet parking. Her car arrived first.

She hugged her childhood friend. “I’ll see you next week.”

“Next week,” Belinda repeated.

Zabrina got into her late-model Lincoln sedan and maneuvered out of the restaurant parking lot. She hadn’t realized her hands were shaking until she stopped for a red light. She closed her eyes, inhaling a lungful of cool air flowing from the automobile’s air conditioner. When she opened her eyes the light had changed and she was back in control.

Myles Eaton pretended to be interested in the menu on the table in front of him to avoid staring at the table where Zabrina Mixon and his sister had been. A wry smile touched his mouth. He’d forgotten. She was no longer a Mixon. She was now Zabrina Cooper.

As an attorney and professor of constitutional law, he’d memorized countless Supreme Court decisions, yet he had not, could not, did not want to remember the dozen words that had turned his world upside down.

His fiancée, the woman to whom he’d pledged his life and his future had waited until two weeks before they were to be married to call and tell him she couldn’t marry him because she was in love with another man. And when he’d discovered the “other man” was none other than Thomas Cooper, his rage had escalated until he realized he had to leave Philadelphia or spend the rest of his life obsessing about the woman who’d broken his heart.

Thomas Cooper used every opportunity to parade and flaunt his much younger wife. Myles could still recall the photographs of a very pregnant Zabrina with the councilman’s hand splayed over her swollen belly at a fundraiser. Then there was the official family photograph with the haunted look in Zabrina’s eyes when she’d stared directly into the camera lens. There were rumors that she’d been afflicted with chronic postpartum depression, while others hinted that marital problems had beset the Coopers and they were seeing a marriage counselor.

All of the rumors ended for Myles when he requested and was granted a transfer to work out of the law firm’s New York office. Adjusting to the faster pace of New York had been the balm he needed to start over. The cramped studio apartment was a far cry from his spacious condo. But that hadn’t been important, because most nights when he came home after putting in a fourteen-hour day he’d shower and fall into bed, then get up and do it all over again.

He’d given New York City eight years of his life before he decided he didn’t want to practice law, but teach it. He contacted a former professor who told him of an opening at his law-school alma mater. He applied for the position, went through the interview process and when he received the letter of appointment to teach constitutional law at Duquesne’s law school in Pittsburgh, he finally found peace.

“What are you having, Myles?”

His head jerked up and he smiled at the woman who’d become his law-school mentor. Judge Stacey Greer-Monroe had graduated from high school at fifteen, college at eighteen and law school two months after her twenty-first birthday. Myles thought Stacey was one of the most brilliant legal minds he’d ever encountered, including his professors.

“I think I’m going to order the crab cakes.”

“What’s the matter, Professor Eaton? You can’t get good crab cakes in Steel City?” Stacey joked.

His smile grew wider. “I get the best Maryland-style crab cakes west of the Alleghenies at a little restaurant owned by a woman who moved from Baltimore. Sadie G’s has become my favorite eating place.”

Stacey lowered her gaze rather than stare openly at the man she’d tried unsuccessfully to get to think of her as more than a friend. But their every encounter ended with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. After he was jilted by his fiancée Myles continued to regard Stacey as friend and peer. Their relationship remained the same after he’d moved to New York and then Pittsburgh when they communicated with each other online.

Stacey’s hopes of becoming Mrs. Myles Eaton ended when her biological clock began winding down and she married a neurosurgeon she’d dated off and on for years. She was now the mother of a two-year-old daughter.

“So, you’re really serious about putting down roots in Pittsburgh?”

Myles’s dark eyebrows framed his eyes in a lean mahogany-brown angular face that once seen wasn’t easily forgotten. “I’ve been house-hunting,” he admitted. The one-year lease on his rental would expire at the end of August. “And I’ve seen a few places I happen to like.”

Stacey angled her head. “I thought you’d prefer a condo or co-op.”

“I’d thought so, too. But after living in apartments the past nine years I’m looking to spread out. I don’t like entertaining only a few feet from where I have to sleep.”

“You could buy a duplex.”

Myles studied Stacey’s face, one of the youngest jurists elected to Philadelphia’s Supreme Court. Stacey Greer-Monroe had always reminded him of a fragile doll. But under the soft, delicate exterior was a tough but fair judge. Her grandfather was a judge, as was her father. And Stacey had continued the tradition when she was elected to the bench.

“I miss waking up to the smell of freshly cut grass and firing up the grill during the warm weather.”

Stacey smiled. “It sounds as if you’re ready to settle down and become a family man.”

Myles wanted to tell her he’d been ready to settle down ten years before. Then he’d looked forward to marrying Zabrina and raising a family, but that changed when she’d married Thomas Cooper and gave him the son that should’ve been theirs.

“Excuse me, Judge Monroe, but are you ready to order a cocktail?”

Frowning slightly, Stacey shifted her attention from Myles to their waiter. Talk about bad timing. She was just about to ask him whether he was seeing a woman, and, if he was, was it serious? “Yes.” She smiled at Myles. “Do you mind if I order a bottle of champagne to celebrate your return to Philly?”

“Not at all, Judge.”

He’d come back to Philadelphia to spend the summer and reconnect with his family. He’d checked into a hotel downtown for the week. After the wedding he would move into Belinda’s house for the summer. His sister hadn’t decided whether she wanted to sell or rent her house. It was to be the first time in a decade that he’d spend more than a few days with his parents, siblings and nieces.

Waiting until the man walked away, Stacey said to Myles, “I told you never to call me that!”

“Aren’t you a judge, Stacey?”

“Yes, but only in the courtroom.”

“I’ve never known you to be self-deprecating. When we met for the first time all you talked about was becoming a judge.”

“I was all of twenty-six and I wanted to impress my very bright protégé. You had to know that I liked you.”

“And I told you I was in love with someone else,” Myles countered.

A beat passed. “Are you still in love with her, Myles?”

His eyebrows flickered before settling back into place. “Yes,” he admitted truthfully. “A part of me will always love her.”

Stacey curbed the urge to reach across the table to grasp Myles’s hand. “I’m glad I married when I did, because I’d still be waiting for you to notice me.”

He angled his head and stared directly at his dining partner. “I noticed you, Stacey, only because you were trying too hard. The flirtatious looks, the indiscriminate touching and the occasional kiss on the lips instead of the cheek were obvious.”

Stacey’s lashes fluttered as she tried to bring her emotions under control. She’d always thought she’d been subtle in her attempts to seduce Myles Eaton, but evidently she had been anything but. “You knew?”

He nodded. “I knew, and I promise I won’t tell your husband.”

“You must have thought me a real idiot.”

Reaching across the table, Myles covered her hand with his. “No, Stacey. We weren’t that different. We both wanted someone we couldn’t have.”

He’d wanted Zabrina at eighteen, and at thirty-eight he still wanted her.

Chapter 4

It was a picture-perfect day in late June when two ushers opened the French doors and Dr. Dwight Eaton escorted his daughter over a pink runner monogrammed in green with the couple’s initials. Light and dark pink rose petals littering the runner had been placed there by the bride’s nieces wearing pink-and-green dresses and headbands with green button mums and pink nerines, the colors representing Belinda’s sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha.

The one hundred and twenty guests, welcomed with champagne and caviar into a Bucks County château built on a rise that overlooked the Delaware River, stood as the intro to the Wedding March filled the room where the ceremony was to take place. The restored castle and all of the estate’s thirty-two rooms were filled with out-of-town guests and those who didn’t want to make the hour-long drive back to Philadelphia after a night of frivolity.

Zabrina felt her heart lurch when she saw Belinda. Her childhood friend and sorority sister was ravishing in an ivory Chantilly lace empire gown with a floral appliqué-and-satin bodice. Embroidered petals flowed around the sweeping hem and train of the ethereal garment. She’d forgone a veil in lieu of tiny white rosebuds pinned into the elegant chignon on the nape of her long, graceful neck.

At that moment Zabrina was reliving her past—she should have walked down the aisle on her father’s arm as Myles waited to make her his wife. Blinking back tears, she stared at his distinctive profile as he stood on Griffin Rice’s right.

She noticed changes she hadn’t been able to discern the week before. His face was thinner, there were flecks of gray in his close-cropped hair and there was a stubborn set to his lean jaw that made him appear as if he’d been carved from a piece of smooth, dark mahogany. Her gaze dropped to his left hand. She smiled. He wasn’t wearing a ring.

Zabrina had searched her memory for days until she matched the face of the woman clinging to Myles’s arm with a name. The woman was Judge Stacey Greer-Monroe.

She smiled when the rich, deep voice of the black-robed judge punctuated the silence. Griffin Rice, devastatingly handsome in formal attire, stared directly into the eyes of his bride as he repeated his vows. There was a twitter of laughter when the judge pronounced them husband and wife and Griffin pumped his fist in the air. It was over. Belinda was now Mrs. Belinda Rice.

The wedding party proceeded along the carpet to the reception. Zabrina didn’t notice Belinda, Griffin, Keith Ennis, Chandra or Denise Eaton. Her gaze was fixed on Myles as he came closer and closer, and then their eyes met and fused. His eyes grew wider as a wry smile parted his firm lips.

The smile, Myles and his powerful presence were there. Then they vanished as he moved past her. Emerging from her trance, she followed the crowd as the hotel staff ushered everyone down a wide tunnel that led outside where an enormous tent had been erected. Belinda and Griffin stood in a receiving line, greeting family members and friends who’d come to witness and celebrate their special day.

Belinda’s eyebrows shot up when she saw her friend. Zabrina had cut her hair in a style that drew one’s attention to her luminous eyes. Raven-black waves were brushed off her face. The style would’ve been too severe for some with less delicate features. She was stunning in a silk chiffon off-the-shoulder black dress that hugged her upper body, nipping her slender waist with a wide silk sash before flaring around her knees. Stilettos added several inches to her impressive five-foot-seven-inch height.

“You look incredible,” Belinda gushed.

“Thank you. And you’re an amazing bride, Lindy.”

Zabrina stole a glance at Griffin Rice as he leaned down to whisper something in the ear of an elderly woman who giggled like a teenage girl. She’d thought him breathtakingly handsome when she was a teenager, and her opinion hadn’t changed. His deep-set dark eyes and cleft chin had most women lusting after him. But Griffin had always seemed totally oblivious to their attention. It was apparent he’d been waiting for his brother’s sister-in-law.

Griffin turned his attention to Zabrina. She looked nothing like the young woman he remembered. “Thank you for coming.” Leaning forward, he pressed a light kiss to her cheek.

“Thank you for inviting me.” Zabrina knew she couldn’t hold up the receiving line. “I’ll be in touch with you guys after you come back from your honeymoon.” When she’d married Thomas Cooper he’d made certain to isolate her from everyone in her past.

“Your name, miss?” asked a hotel staffer as she stood in front of a table stacked with butler boxes.

“Zabrina Cooper.”

He handed her a box. “Your table number and menu are in the box, Ms. Cooper.”

In lieu of a guest card, each guest was given a personalized butler box with a leaf-colored letterpressed menu and table number. The pink-and-green color scheme was repeated in the pastel-toned chiffon on the ceiling of the tent, table linens and carpet. The lights from strategically placed chandeliers provided a soft glow as the afternoon sun cast shadows over the elegantly dressed guests as they found their way to their respective tables.

Waiters were positioned at each table to pull out chairs and assist everyone as they sat on pink-cushioned bamboo-gilded chairs. And because Zabrina had returned her response card for one, she was seated at a table with other single guests. She offered a smile to the two men flanking her. The one on her right extended his hand.

“Bailey Mercer.”

She stared at the young man with flaming red hair and blue-green eyes, then took his hand. It was soft and moist. As discreetly as she could without offending him, she withdrew her hand. “It’s nice meeting you, Bailey. I’m Zabrina.”

He draped an arm over the back of her chair. “Are you a guest of the bride or the groom?”

“The bride,” she said.

“Are you a teacher?”

“No. I’m a nurse.” Zabrina realized he just wanted to make polite conversation. “Are you a guest of the bride or groom?” she asked.

“Griffin and I were college roommates.”

“Are you also an attorney?”

Bailey leaned closer. “I’m a forensic criminologist.”

Suddenly her curiosity was piqued. “Who do you work for?”

“I’m stationed in Quantico.”

“You work for the Bureau?” she asked. The FBI was the only law-enforcement agency that she knew of in Quantico, Virginia.

Bailey nodded. “I’m going to the bar to get something to drink. Would you like me to bring you something?”

Zabrina smiled. He’d segued from one topic to another without pausing to take a breath. “Yes, please.”

“What would you like?”

“I’ll have a cosmopolitan.”

Music from speakers mounted overhead filled the tent as guests filed in and sat at their assigned tables. Bailey returned with Zabrina’s cocktail and a glass filled with an amber liquid. Smiling, they touched glasses.

Myles returned from posing for photographs with the wedding party to find Zabrina smiling and talking to a man with strawberry-blond hair. Sitting at the bridal table afforded him an unobscured view of everything and everyone in the large tent.

There was something in the way she angled her head while staring up at the man through her lashes that reminded him of how she’d look at him just before he’d make love to her. It was a come-hither look that he hadn’t been able to resist.

What Myles hadn’t been able to understand was how he and Zabrina were able to communicate without words. It could be a single glance, a slight lifting of an eyebrow, a shrug of a shoulder or a smile. It was as if they were able to communicate telepathically, reading each other’s thoughts. Right now he knew she would be shocked if she saw the lust in his eyes. The spell was broken when a waiter took his dinner and beverage request.

“I almost didn’t recognize Zabrina,” said Griffin Rice.

Myles gave his brother-in-law a sidelong glance. “She has changed.” And he wanted to tell Griffin the change was for the better. When he’d caught a glimpse of Zabrina the week before he’d thought her lovely, but tonight she was breathtakingly stunning.

Griffin’s gaze met and fused with Myles’s. “She’d dropped out of sight for years. Rumors were circulating that she and Cooper had divorced. But when reporters asked him about his wife he claimed she preferred keeping a low profile.”

Myles’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Who’s the guy with her?”

“Bailey Mercer. We were college roomies.”

The smile that softened Myles’s mouth crept up to his eyes. It was apparent Zabrina had come to the wedding unescorted. He’d planned to ask her to dance with him and nothing more, since he hadn’t wanted to act inappropriately if she had come with a date. Now that he knew she was alone things had changed. Myles had waited ten years for an explanation for Zabrina’s deception and he intended to get an answer before the night ended.

The waiter brought drinks for those at the bridal party table, followed by other waitstaff carrying trays laden with platters of curried scallop canapés, walnut and endive salad and mushroom rolls. Dozens of lighted votives in green glasses flickered like stars when the chandeliers were dimmed, creating a soft, soothingly romantic atmosphere.

Myles ate without actually tasting the food on his plate. He was too engrossed in the woman sitting close enough for him to see her expressions, but not close enough to hear her smoky voice. He wondered if Griffin’s former college roommate was as enthralled with her as he’d been. What he did do was drink more than he normally would at a social function. It didn’t matter, because he wasn’t driving back to Philadelphia. He’d reserved a suite at the hotel.

And, he refused to fantasize that his sister’s wedding was his and Zabrina’s. He and Zabrina had planned their wedding, honeymoon and life together, but all the plans had come to naught two weeks before the ceremony when his fiancée called to tell him she was in love with another man and she couldn’t marry him.

Myles still remembered her passion whenever they shared a bed, and wondered whether she’d screamed Thomas Cooper’s name in the throes of passion. Zabrina had always had an intense distaste for politicians. Yet she’d married one. And what about her claim that she’d wanted to wait two years before starting a family? She’d wasted no time in giving Cooper a child.

The music playing throughout the dinner ended when a live band took over, playing softly as toasts to the bride and groom were made.

Dwight Eaton wiped away tears as he smiled at his daughter. There was no doubt he was thinking of his eldest daughter whom he’d buried eight months earlier. Myles toasted the newlyweds, providing a lighter moment when he reminded everyone that Griffin Rice was so intent on joining the family that he’d become his brother-in-law for the second time.

A hush descended over the assembly as they watched Griffin ease Belinda to her feet, escort her to the dance floor and dance with her to the Berlin classic “Take My Breath Away.” It was their first dance as husband and wife.

Myles finally got to twirl his sister around the dance floor after she’d shared a dance with their father. “Does Griffin know he is a lucky man?” he asked, executing a fancy dance step.

Belinda lifted the skirt of her gown to avoid stepping on the hem. She gave Myles a demure smile. “I’d like to believe that I’m lucky that Griffin didn’t marry some other woman, leaving me pining for him for the rest of my life.”

Myles recalled the conversation he’d had with Stacey. She’d waited for him to come around and think of her as more than a friend, and when it hadn’t happened she’d opted to marry someone else. He was certain his sister would’ve done the same.

“You’re too much of a realist to spend your life dreaming of the impossible.”

Belinda smiled at Myles. “What about you and Brina?”

A slight frown furrowed his forehead. “What about us?”

“You still have feelings for her, don’t you?”

“Of course I have feelings for her, Lindy. After all, I did promise to marry the woman.”

“What about now, Myles?”

“What about it?” he said, answering her question with one of his own.

Belinda gasped softly when Myles swung her around and around. Her brother had always been a very good dancer, and it appeared that he hadn’t lost his skill. She wasn’t certain whether his dancing prowess came from years of martial arts training or from a natural grace and style that turned heads whenever he entered a room. Although he’d earned a black belt in tae kwon do, he intensely disliked competition.

Belinda leaned closer, pressing her mouth to his ear. “You haven’t taken your eyes off her all night.”

Myles’s expression did not change. “Is that why you invited her, Lindy? Did you decide to become a matchmaker after I’d agreed to be Griffin’s best man? Don’t you think she hurt our family enough when she waited until two weeks before we were to be married to tell me that she was in love with someone else? Then, a week later she marries Thomas Cooper.”

“I didn’t invite her to spite you, Myles. It was only a couple of months ago that I ran into Brina for the first time in almost ten years. When she confessed that she hated Thomas Cooper as much as she loved you, I knew something wasn’t quite right.”

A sardonic smile spread across his face. “So, she lied twice. Once when she told me that she was in love with another man, and again when she tells you that she hated her husband.”

Belinda shook her head. “It’s all too confusing. When I asked her why she’d married Thomas, she said she couldn’t tell me. She mentioned something about swearing that she’d never tell anyone.”

“Swore to whom?”

“That I don’t know, Myles.”

The song ended and Myles led Belinda back to her seat beside her husband. He’d heard enough. He needed answers. He wanted answers and he intended to get them.

His gaze searched the crowded dance floor for Zabrina, but she was nowhere in sight. She was missing and so was Griffin’s college roommate. There was no doubt they were together. Wending his way across the tent, Myles stepped out into the warm night air.

Chairs and love seats were set up on the verdant lawn for those wishing to get away from the frivolity to sit, talk quietly and/or relax. Dozens of lanterns were suspended from stanchions surrounding the magnificent estate. He saw Zabrina with her red-haired dining partner sitting together on a love seat. She’d rested her head on his shoulder while he massaged her back.

Taking long strides, Myles approached the couple. “Is she all right?”

Bailey Mercer glanced up to find the groom’s best man looming over him like an avenging angel. “Zabrina said she needed some air.”

Myles hunkered down and placed the back of his hand against her moist cheek. “Brina, darling, are you all right?” The endearment had slipped out as if ten years had morphed into a nanosecond.

Zabrina heard the familiar voice from her past, and she tried smiling but the pounding in her temples intensified. “I don’t know.”

“What did she eat or drink?” Myles asked Bailey.

“She didn’t eat much, but she did have three cocktails.”

Effortlessly, Myles lifted Zabrina off the love seat, while coming to a standing position. “She can’t drink.”

Bailey stood up. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“She usually can’t have more than one drink or she’ll wind up with a headache.”

“I’ll take care of her,” Bailey offered.

Myles glared at the man. “Walk away.”

A flush suffused Bailey’s face, the color increasing to match his hairline. He moved closer. “I said I’ll take care of her.”

Myles angled his head. “Don’t get in my face,” he warned through clenched teeth. “Look, man,” he said, his tone softer, calmer. “Just walk away while you can.” That said, he turned on his heels and carried Zabrina past the tent and into the hotel. He slipped in through a side entrance and took a staircase to the third floor. When he set Zabrina on her feet to search for his room’s cardkey, she dropped her evening purse, spilling its contents.

“Muh—my things,” Zabrina slurred.

“Don’t worry about them, Brina. I’ll pick them up after I get you inside.”

Zabrina swallowed back a rush of bile. She felt sick, sicker than she had in a very long time. Her first experience with drinking alcohol had become a lasting one. But it was apparent she’d forgotten. She hadn’t known what possessed her to have a third cosmopolitan. What she should’ve done was stop after the first one. But she’d wanted to forget that the past ten years hadn’t existed. She wanted to blot them out by drinking until she passed out. She hadn’t passed out, but she did have an excruciating headache.

Myles had always teased her, calling her a very cheap date. Her colleagues couldn’t understand why she opted to drink club soda with a twist during their employee gatherings. Some had asked whether she was a recovering alcoholic, but she reassured them that she did drink, just always sparingly.

She closed her eyes as her dulled senses took over. Being cradled against Myles’s broad chest brought back a rush of memories that made Zabrina want to weep. He’d always been there for her, had promised to love, protect and take care of her. He no longer loved her, yet he was still looking after her.

Myles walked through the entry, the living/dining area and into the bedroom. He placed Zabrina on the king-size bed, removed her shoes and covered her with a lightweight blanket. “I’ll be right back.”

He returned to the hall to gather up the jeweled compact, the tube of lipstick and a set of car keys that had fallen out of her bag. He pocketed the keys. Zabrina was in no shape to get behind the wheel of a car, even if just to drive it out of the parking lot. A cold chill swept over him when he thought of her trying to drive back to Philly under the circumstances. Either she would kill herself or someone else.

Closing the door, he slipped the security lock into place and returned to the bedroom. Zabrina hadn’t moved. She lay on her back, eyes closed and her chest rising and falling in a slow, even rhythm. He smiled. She’d fallen asleep.

Myles reached up and undid his silk tie. Undressing, he placed his clothes on the padded bench at the foot of the bed. Clad in only a pair of boxer briefs, he retreated to the bathroom to shower and brush his teeth.

Zabrina was still asleep when Myles reentered the bedroom. She lay on her right side, her head resting on her hands and her legs pulled up into a fetal position. A smile tilted the corners of his mouth when he stared down at her. She was so incredibly beautiful and so very cunning. When he’d asked Zabrina to marry him he never would’ve thought she would deceive him, especially not with another man.

Reaching over, he turned off the bedside lamp. The light from the sconce outside the bathroom provided enough illumination to make out the slight figure on the bed. Sitting on the mattress, Myles studied the woman whom he’d never forgotten. He’d once admitted to Belinda that he had two passions—Zabrina Mixon and the law. Despite her deception, his feelings hadn’t changed. Nothing had changed. Zabrina was still his passion.

Slowly, methodically, he undressed her. She stirred briefly before settling back to sleep. Waiting for her breathing to resume a measured cadence, he anchored a hand under her hips, easing her dress down her bare legs. Myles didn’t know why, but he felt like a voyeur when he stared at Zabrina’s half-naked body. She hadn’t worn a bra under the dress. He recalled her preference for sleeping nude, but decided not to remove her bikini panties.

She moaned softly when he eased her between the sheets. He waited a full minute, then shrugged off his robe and slipped into bed beside her. It was as if nothing had changed. Pressing his chest to her back, he rested an arm over her waist, pulling her closer. The angry words Myles had rehearsed so many times he could recite them backward he’d erased from memory. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled the lingering floral fragrance of her shampoo.

“Myles?”

He froze when Zabrina whispered his name. “Yes, baby?”

“I…I…I’m sorry,” she slurred.

There came a beat. “So am I,” Myles whispered. “So am I, Brina,” he repeated.

Myles wasn’t certain what she was apologizing for, but he knew why he was sorry. He was sorry they hadn’t gone through with their plan to marry, sorry that her son wasn’t his and sorry it had taken almost a decade for him to get the opportunity to confront her about her deception.

Chapter 5

Zabrina knew something was different when she opened her eyes. She wasn’t in her bed, and she wasn’t alone. She sat up quickly, chiding herself for the sudden action. Her head felt as if it was in a vise, and her mouth was dry as sandpaper. She closed her eyes and sank back to the pillow.

“Are you all right?” asked a deep voice in the dimly lit space.

She didn’t know if she was dreaming or hallucinating, because she couldn’t believe she was in bed with Myles Eaton. “Is that you, Myles?”

The seconds ticked. “Yes, it is. Who were you expecting? Bailey Mercer?”

Turning over and pressing her face to the pillow, Zabrina muffled a moan. “That’s not funny.”

“What’s not funny, Brina, is you drinking until you nearly passed out.”

“I didn’t pass out.”

“No, but you were asleep before I got you into bed. You’re lucky it was me and not your redheaded admirer. There was the possibility that he could’ve taken advantage of you.”

Zabrina ignored the reference to the man who’d become her dinner partner. She sat up again, pulling the sheet up to her chin. “Where am I?”

“You’re in my hotel room.” Rolling over, Myles turned on the lamp on his side of the bed. The glowing numbers on the clock-radio read 1:22 a.m. “What time do you have to pick up your son?”

“Adam’s in Virginia with my aunt’s grandchildren.”

Myles froze for a beat. He glanced over his shoulder to see the haunted golden eyes staring back at him. “You named Cooper’s son Adam?”

A pregnant silence filled the space as Zabrina tried to form her thoughts. If she hadn’t been under the influence she would’ve been able to spar verbally with Myles, but not now. She knew how persuasive he could be once he set his mind to something. That was what had made him an incredible trial attorney. He’d ask the same question ten different ways in an attempt to agitate and confuse a witness, and if she wasn’t careful he would trip her up and uncover the truth about her son’s paternity.

What frightened her most was Myles finding out that she’d had his child and passed it off as Thomas Cooper’s. Although Adam’s birth certificate listed Thomas Cooper as his father, Myles still had the law on his side if or when he decided to sue her for custody.

“I named my son Adam.”

Myles ran a hand over his face. Zabrina had admitted to him that Adam was her favorite boy’s name even before he’d told her it was his middle name. “Wasn’t he also Cooper’s son?”

“He was never Thomas’s son. He was always too busy pressing the flesh and seeing to the needs of his constituents to play daddy even though Adam practically worshipped the ground Thomas walked on.” She emitted a soft sigh. “I suppose not every man who’s a father is father material.”

“What about you, Brina?”

“What about me?”

“How are you coping with the loss of your husband?”

Zabrina’s fingers tightened on the sheet clutched to her chest at the same time she affected a wry smile. “You see how I’m coping, Myles. I’ve become the merry widow. I know I can’t handle more than one drink, but that didn’t stop me from having three. That’s how I’m coping,” she spat out.

“Do you drink in front of your son?”

“You think I’ve become an alcoholic, don’t you?”

Myles shook his head. “I didn’t say that, Zabrina.”

“But isn’t that what you’re implying, Myles?”

“No, it’s not.” Gathering the sheet, Zabrina tried getting out of bed, but Myles thwarted her attempt to escape him when his hand went around her upper arm. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m going home!”

One second she was sitting half on and half off the bed and within the next she found herself sprawled on her back, Myles straddling her. “I don’t think so. Your son just lost his father. Do you want him to lose his mother, too?” He’d bared his teeth like a snarling canine. “If you try to walk out of here in the condition that you’re in, then I’ll call the police and have you locked up.”

He hadn’t wanted to remind Zabrina that less than a year ago the Eatons and Rices had buried their daughter and son after they’d died in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. The loss of his sister and brother-in-law was devastating to both families. Whenever he returned to Philadelphia, Myles always expected to see Donna’s inviting smile and infectious laughter.

Zabrina’s eyes filled with tears and overflowed, tears she hadn’t been able to shed after the police had arrived at her home to tell her that her husband had drowned in a boating accident off the Chesapeake. The media was respectful of her grief when told by the Coopers’ housekeeper that the reclusive widow of Pennsylvania’s junior senator was too distraught to conduct an interview. She’d gone into hiding again, resurfacing six months later at a fundraising event for mayoral candidate Patrick Garson.

She’d given Thomas Cooper nearly ten years of her life and six months was long enough for her to pretend to be the grieving widow. She didn’t cry for Thomas because she didn’t want to be a hypocrite. She hadn’t lied to Belinda at the fundraiser when she’d told her that she hated Thomas as much as she loved her brother.

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