9:16 p.m.
Bria exited the restaurant, tears stinging her eyes in anger. First Carrington, and now Gunner. These days, the men in her life were a constant disappointment, abandoning her without a second thought – just like her father, she thought for no reason at all.
She fought back her tears as she exited the restaurant, grateful for the darkness. She would not cry over them. They didn't deserve her tears.
"Bria! Bria!" she heard a voice behind her.
She didn't have to turn to know who it was. She kept walking.
"Bria wait," Gunner said, arriving at her side.
"I did wait, for almost an hour," she said, not stopping.
"I'm sorry I'm late. My phone—"
"Don't give me some sorry-ass excuse Gunner. We're not married anymore, remember? You don't have to lie to me. Save them for your baby mama. By the way, tell her never to call me again, and you do the same!"she yelled twisting away from him.
"I wasn't going to lie. You know I could never remember to keep my phone charged," Gunner said. "And what do you mean tell Marla never to call you again?"
"Just what I said. Your mistress called me. Tell her not to do it again."
"What? Why?" Gunner said, falling into step beside her.
"You tell me," Bria said, stopping suddenly and turning to face him.
"How was I supposed to know? And Please Bria, can we get past the mistress bit. There's no need for that, especially as we're not married anymore."
We're not married anymore. Those four simple words stung.
"Don't get in a huff with me Gunner Michaels. That's my territory. I'm the one who got pissed on!"
"Can we please not do this in the middle of the sidewalk? God this is not how I wanted this to go," he said in frustration. "Please Bria, can we go back to the restaurant and talk? It's obvious you have some things you need to get off your chest."
Bria looked around. Her anger had taken over, making her forget she was in public. She was glad for the darkness. Maybe this meeting wasn't such a good idea after all.
Gunner could see her struggling. She was stuck between fight and flight. "Wanna go to the pier?"
Bria immediately shook her head yes. They'd spent many an hour at piers along the Hudson in Manhattan hashing out their differences. Being transplants from California, the water – even the cold, murky waters of the Hudson – was kind of an equalizer. Talking just always seemed easier there.
"Come on," Gunner said. "I parked at a garage a couple of blocks away."
"SO WHAT IS THIS ABOUT Marla calling you?"
"I shouldn't have said anything," Bria said, more calm now. She realized she'd used Marla to strike out at Gunner. She meant to sow division between them; there was no other reason on earth for her to tell him that Marla had called her. She hated herself for feeling this way; for giving into such small feelings.
"I honestly don't know why she would call you," Gunner said. "What did she want?"
"It's not important. Like I said, I shouldn't have said anything. I was angry when you were late. I lashed out."
"Alright, I know you well enough to know I'm not going to get it out of you if you don't want to tell me."
Gunner stared at her, his left hand gripping the steering wheel of his truck.
"What?" Bria asked. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"It's been a long time."
"A year," Bria said, shaking her head.
"You look good; better than good. You've obviously been taking care of yourself. I'm glad to see that."
"Thanks. You don't look any worse for wear either; just a little tired around the eyes."
"Apparently kids will do that to you. ... I'm sorry Bria," he said, noting how she turned away from him.
"What's done is done. Don't apologize for being a father to your child. It's the right thing to do," Bria said, looking out the window as she instinctively touched her middle.
"Why did you agree to meet with me Bria?"
"You called. You asked."
"It's more than that," Gunner stated.
"You know me too well."
"I do," he said, and stayed silent, knowing she'd answer in her own time. He waited, drumming the fingers of his left hand slowly on the steering wheel of his truck.
BRIA BIT HER BOTTOM lip hard. "I swore to myself that I would never, ever ask you about your ... the relati ... your af—," she began after a long silence.
"What I did to you," Gunner supplied as Bria struggled to say the word ‘affair.'
"Yes," Bria swallowed. "But I need to know," she said, turning to face him.
Gunner sighed.
Bria recognized that sigh. It was Gunner's way of avoiding and deflecting. This was a part of him that she'd always disliked. He had a habit of running away from problems instead of trying to fix them. Was that when her feelings for him had started to change? The thought unsettled her.
"You owe it to me to tell me the truth," Bria said, before he could settle into full defensive mode.
"I know. I will," he said. "What do you want to know?"
"Why?" One simple word, but Bria recognized it for what it was. It held the answer to her peace of mind. "Why did you do it Gunner? I've accepted that I wasn't there for you like I probably should have been. But how could you let the affair go on for so long? Then get her pregnant? Then continue to keep it from me? I thought we were better than that. I thought we could weather anything."
Gunner's gaze never left her, even when a tear escaped her stricken eyes. For the first time, he could actually see and feel the depths of her pain. In that moment, he would have given anything to go back in time. Anything.
"I thought we could too," Gunner said. "But I was weak and scared and angry. Not the best combination in any human."
"I understand you being weak. I've seen Marla; she is some kind of gorgeous. But what were you afraid of? What were you angry about? Why couldn't you for once just not deflect, man up and tell me that our marriage was falling apart and I was partly to blame?" Bria asked.
"I've never been good with confrontation. You know this. I was disappointed at myself for letting things get so out of hand. I was mad at you for not being there for me. And then there's the fact that I was scared that I was gonna lose you."
"So you just let things rock on the way they were? ... That's so unfair," Bria said.
"You just admitted that you weren't present in our marriage the way you should have been. And it wasn't my imagination."
"But you don't get to trade on that," Bria snapped. "Your cheating is not my fault!"
"I know. I didn't mean to imply that."
His calm demeanor only fueled Bria's anger. "Did it ever occur to you what you were doing to me; to us? Why couldn't you man up and stay faithful?," Bria said, her voice cracking. "When you touched her, kissed her, took calls from her, why didn't you just stop Gunner? Why couldn't you just say to yourself, ‘What the hell am I doing?'"
"I tried to so many times."
"You're lying," Bria accused.
"I did. But it seemed like every time I screwed up the nerve to tell you, you were working late, or there was a big case, or you were too tired, or there was a business trip. There was always something."
"So it's my fault that you cheated on me, and my fault that you couldn't find the right time to tell me, and my fault that you couldn't break it off?"
"No, that's not what I'm saying," Gunner said, squeezing and unsqueezing one hand into a fist in frustration. "It's coming out all wrong. What I'm trying to say is, maybe I looked for those times to try and tell you because it would give me an out. All I know is every time, it didn't work out. And it got harder and harder, so finally, I just quit trying."
"And kept cheating," Bria said.
"No. That is one thing I didn't do. I broke it off with Marla early on."
"You never told me that," Bria said, feeling as if she'd been dunked into the frigid waters of the Hudson.
"You never gave me a ch
ance. You kicked me out as soon as I told you everything, served me with divorce papers the week after, and refused to speak to me until after our divorce was final. I wanted to save our marriage Bria. I never wanted to lose you. But you didn't give me a chance."
"You could have found a way," Bria said, ignoring the pain in his eyes.
"How? You didn't show up for our divorce hearing; directing everything through your attorney. You were away more than you seemed to be at home. That building you work in is like a fortress. Obviously, I was persona non grata there, and the same at our apartment. Your apartment," he amended. "You changed the locks and by the looks of the doorman there, I was afraid that you'd call the cops and accuse me of harassment if I kept coming by. I couldn't risk that. I have a contract with the city. Any kind of record – especially as a black man – would have jeopardized that. You know this better than I do. Look, you made it pretty clear that you were done with me. And by then, I was some kind of angry myself – at you and at me. I knew I fucked up, and in a weird kind of way, you cutting me out of your life like that helped me deal. It felt good to suffer."
Even though his admission should have made her feel good, it didn't. Even after everything he'd done, she didn't like to see him in pain. "So tell me, when did this breakup happen?"
"I only had a ... a thing with Marla for a couple of months."
"You mean you were only sleeping with her for a couple of months. Own it fully Gunner."
"Yes. I had a sexual relationship with Marla for a couple of months, barely. Then I broke it off. I thought that was the end of it. You and I were still having major problems, and I was trying to figure out if it would do more harm than good by telling you."
Bria pursed her lips and rolled her eyes.
Gunner squeezed the steering wheel with his left hand. "I was going to tell you one day Bria, I swear. But this was during that big case you were working on. Remember, the one you said could make your career a decade ahead of time."
"Yeah, I remember," Bria said. "The city housing led-poisoning case, or as I like to think of it, ‘the case that almost killed me.'"
"I've never been more proud of you," Gunner said, remembering how they celebrated after winning the case. Her firm had successfully sued one of New York City's biggest landlords, forcing him to upgrade the plumbing in thousands of apartments across the city, and create a lead-poisoning fund that dispensed monies to charities that helped to reduce – and hopefully one day end, lead poisoning in low-income housing in the city. "You always wanted to make a difference. And you did."
"Thanks," Bria said. The case had taken its toll on her – emotionally and physically. Seeing the total disregard the greedy landlord had for the poor who put money in his pockets every month had made Bria's blood boil. She'd worked her fingers to the bone to dot every I and cross every T to tie his ass in a judicial knot so tight his twenty-fifth century descendants would still feel it.
The part that had sickened her the most was that he knew that his buildings were causing innocent children to get sick. He'd been fined hundreds of time, and had patently refused to even pretend to do anything about it.
SLAW had won a landmark judgment worth tens of millions of dollars, which did little to assuage her rage. She remembered thinking that she wished she specialized in criminal law so she could nail his ass to a jailhouse wall. But environmental law was fast becoming a passion.
Although she specialized in corporate law, the lead attorney on the case had recruited her to be on his team of mostly environmental lawyers. He'd heard about how she was a pit bull when it came to research and attention to detail. The win in that case had brought her to the attention of CJ Thurston, the lead environmental attorney at SLAW, who'd just assigned her to another big environmental case, where she'd play a larger role.
Working on the lead poisoning case had opened her eyes to just how much good she could do in the world with her law degree. She'd never be able to forget the stories of the parents describing the effects of the lead poisoning on their children. Innocents; their little brains damaged before they even got a chance to form. The next Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Thurgood Marshall could have been among them.
It brought home all too starkly just how vulnerable poverty makes you, especially as a child. Even with the most protective and loving parents, poverty had too many ways to keep you in its grips for anyone to protect you totally. Or so it seemed. Bria knew this all too well. Her parents had tried their best, but they had their own issues – many of them, like domestic violence and alcoholism, brought on by poverty. It was a vicious cycle.
And that's why meeting Gunner had been a lifesaver on more than one level. He had understood her desire to escape the clutches of poverty, because he had lived the same life, and had the same desire. And that had laid the foundation for their relationship – a determination to build a better life than the ones they'd been given as kids. A partnership was formed; one she never thought would be broken. Is that what had drawn her to Gunner in the first place? Security? Had she confused that with love? The only reason the thought even occurred to her is that what she felt for Carrington was so much more all-consuming. What she'd felt for Gunner was tame compared to what she felt for Carrington.
The thought saddened her because that was not what she wanted to feel. She wanted Gunner to be ‘the one.' But the truth was, he wasn't.
As she looked over at him, a whole new set of realizations bombarded her; ones she'd been too angry to even consider before.
If she had wanted a family with Gunner — really wanted it as much as she'd always believed she did — would she have waited until the virtual last minute to start trying?
Thirty-five – the starting age when a pregnancy is considered high risk and fertility drops significantly. Was it really just irony that that's when she was "ready" to start trying to have a baby, or was it the universe stepping in to let her know that she wasn't meant to have a baby with this man?
Had she held onto Gunner because he was easy and safe — and the anti-thesis of her philandering, abusive father?
Had she substituted security for love?
Bria knew she would have probably stayed with Gunner forever had he not done the one thing she could not forgive – infidelity. It had shattered what they had. And once it was shattered, there was no crawling back into that safe shell where what they had shared existed — especially after meeting Carrington.
Carrington.
She didn't know the universe could plant seeds of love in the soul deep and neatly. The truth was, what she felt for him terrified her. He shook the foundation of her being on so many levels, forcing her to want more — leaving the safety net of what had passed for love behind? Even though they would probably never have a future together, Bria knew that she could never settle again.
All of these new found feelings unsettled her. Why did ‘adulting' have to be so hard" she thought.
"It felt good to make a difference," Bria said, picking up the thread of their conversation before her thoughts took such a surprising turn. All of a sudden, she no longer felt angry; just sad. "I always wanted to be a lawyer to make money, but making a difference is more exciting," she smiled as she looked out the window and wiped a tear from her eye.
"I knew how important that case was to you Bria. And not just to you, but for thousands of poor residents in this city. That's part of the reason I just couldn't bring myself to tell you during that time. Then, like I said, it just got harder and harder."
Bria hated to admit it, but she was glad he hadn't. That case had put her on the map – into the office next to the corner office she hoped to inhabit one day.
"So after the case was over, why didn't you tell me then?" Even though she was no longer angry, she still wanted to understand how and why their marriage fell apart.
"Because three weeks after I broke it off with her, Marla told me she was pregnant. She told me I was the father."
"You didn't use a condom Gunner?" she asked, tiredly.
>
"I did."
"You obviously didn't?" Bria said. "Or have you forgotten how babies are made?"
"I swore, we used protection every time ... because I'd never do that to you," Gunner said, begging her with his eyes to believe that he'd never risk her health.
"Then how did she wind up pregnant Gunner?"
"I asked her the same thing."
"And?" Bria said.
"She said condoms aren't foolproof."
"She's right, obviously."
"I didn't believe her at first. I thought she was lying, or trying to trap me."
"Why does every man think a woman is trying to trap him?" Bria snapped, as she held her stomach. The assumption irked her, even though it put her in the ridiculous situation of defending the woman who'd slept with her husband and broken up her marriage.
Would Carrington feel the same way when she told him about her pregnancy? Maybe she shouldn't tell him at all?
"Marla didn't take it well when I ended things between us. So naturally I thought ... ok, here we go. She's going to play this game."
"So that's why you stayed, because she was pregnant?"
"Yes, and I swear to you Bria, I didn't touch her during that whole time. I hadn't touched her since the week before I broke things off with her."
"How were you so sure the baby was yours if you distrusted her so much?"
Bria realized she was looking for anything that would have saved their marriage; anything that would have kept her in the security of the little bubble they'd built, instead of hoisting her into the uncertain seas inhabited by heart-stealing men like Carrington Shelby.
"I got a paternity test," Gunner said.
"So you went through the whole pregnancy not knowing for sure if the baby was yours, yet not saying a word to me either?"
"I knew Gracie was mine before she was born."
At her confused look, he explained. "You don't have to wait until a baby is born. You can do a paternity test before then. I found out when Marla was about four months along that I was the father."
"Oh," Bria said, dumbfounded. How could she not know that? All her research had been in a different area of pregnancy – how to get pregnant, not how to find out who your baby daddy is. When they were married, she would already know who her child's father was. She'd never had a reason to research DNA testing. "Learn something new every day," she said, falling silent.
Love after Betrayal: An Interracial, Billionaire Romance Page 16