Strategic Seduction

by Cheris Hodges

  Richmond had never seen a more beautiful sight than his future wife. Her smile lit up the room and made his heart skip more than just a beat. His mouth watered with the anticipation of kissing her lips, which were shimmering with a hint of lip gloss. Damn, I love this woman, he thought as she joined him at the altar. He was happy that Solomon had agreed to walk Alicia down the aisle. This was the first time that either man had been at the other’s wedding.

  Solomon beamed as he looked from Alicia to Richmond. Seeing his brother this happy almost brought him to tears. This was the kind of love that Richmond deserved after the nightmare marriage he’d had with Vivian and everything else that he’d been through since Elliot’s death.

  Alicia handed her bouquet of white roses to Jade, who had tears shining in her eyes. Jade had never seen Alicia looking more beautiful than she did at that moment, even with her huge baby bump. Her skin was glowing and her eyes gleamed with happiness. She never thought that she would be so happy for Richmond. He wasn’t the nicest person when Kandace and Solomon were first married, but the evolution of Richmond Crawford had been wonderful to watch. And since he’d been taking great care of her friend, Jade was rooting for this marriage.

  Serena wouldn’t have squeezed her pregnant body into a bridesmaid’s dress for anyone other than Alicia. She couldn’t tell if her tears were from joy or her hormones. But looking at her best friend standing there getting ready to marry the man who loved her, made her smile and cry at the same time. She reached out and touched Alicia’s shoulder. I’m so happy for you, she mouthed as her friend looked back at her.

  Alicia looked into Richmond’s eyes as the minister asked, “Who gives this woman away?”

  “We do,” the entire clan said, eliciting giggles from the crowd and the bride and groom.

  Solomon cleared his throat. “Well, Alicia, you are a loved woman and God loves the institution of marriage. He loves for his children to become one and join together as husband and wife,” he said in a booming voice. “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder. Marriage is not to be entered into lightly. And with all of these witnesses, these friends and family, Alicia and Richmond are vowing to love, cherish, honor, and pledge their lives to each other until death does them part.

  “The couple has written their own vows to express their love and devotion to one another. Richmond, will you recite your vows to Alicia?”

  Richmond nodded and took Alicia’s hands in his, then gently kissed them. “Alicia, you blew into my life and turned it upside down and I couldn’t be happier about it. I thought that you were something special the moment I laid eyes on you, and when I got to know you, I knew that to be true. You made my life better, you expanded my heart, you made love more than an abstract feeling, but the focus of my life. Because of you, I’m a better man, a man who plans to love you forever and a month. God brought us together for a reason, and we’re standing here fulfilling a destiny that neither of us could’ve ever dreamed of. I love you more than words could ever say, and the rest of my life will be devoted to showing you how much I love and need you,” Richmond said. His eyes glistened as he spoke.

  Alicia was unable to hold her tears back, even though she’d promised herself and her sisters that she wasn’t going to cry because brides who cried on their wedding day were just so cliché. But there she stood, looking into the eyes of the man she would spend the rest of her life with, and hearing him describe their love, the only thing she could do was cry.

  Alicia was afraid that an alarm clock was about to go off and this perfect day was going to be just a dream. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. It wasn’t that she’d forgotten her vows, she was simply making sure that clock didn’t start buzzing.

  “Alicia,” the minister said in an effort to urge her to speak. “Your vows.”

  She nodded, as Richmond wiped away her tears with his thumb. “Never have I known a man more gentle and loving than you. When we met, I was a mess, but you took the time to get to know me and show me what it feels like to be loved, and made me unafraid to say I love you. I didn’t want to fall for you and I tried to fight it, but thank goodness I lost that battle. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and I’m going to enjoy spending my life with you and building our family. The thought of you makes me smile, and because of you, I know what it feels like to cry tears of joy instead of pain.”

  Richmond kissed her hands again.

  “The rings, please,” the minister said.

  Alicia turned to Jade to retrieve Richmond’s white-gold wedding band with three small diamonds embedded in it. Her hand trembled as she took the ring. This was it, the symbol of their union. She was going to be Mrs. Richmond Crawford. Never in her wildest dreams did she think when they met outside of the library at her college reunion that she’d end up standing in this spot, about to become the happiest woman in the world. Not only had he showed her how to love, Richmond had taught her that when you give your love to the right person, it doesn’t hurt. His love made her feel as if the world was her oyster and together they could accomplish anything. Alicia barely heard the words that the minister said as she slipped the ring onto Richmond’s finger.

  “With this ring, I thee wed,” she said breathlessly. Her eyes were like two damp diamonds glittering in the sun as she looked into Richmond’s eyes. Once again, Richmond wiped her tears away. Alicia kissed his hand as he moved it away from her face.

  “Please join hands,” the minister said to the couple. “With the power vested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Richmond, you may kiss your bride.”

  Richmond took Alicia into his arms and kissed her as if they were the only two people in the room, causing her to swoon in his arms.

  The audience hooted and cheered, bringing the couple out of their embrace.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. and Mrs. Richmond Crawford,” the minister said as Alicia and Richmond joined hands.

  Kandace reached for the decorative broom at her feet and placed it in front of the couple. Then the bridal party gathered around the couple as they joined hands and leapt across the broom. The leap, to Alicia, symbolized a clean sweep of the past heartache, men who didn’t love her as deeply as she thought that she’d loved them. The leap was a jump into her new life, new joy, and more happiness than her heart and hand could ever hold.

  ALSO AVAILABLE

  I Heard a Rumor

  Chante Britt is nobody’s fool—and she’s definitely not standing by her cheating ex-fiancé and current mayoral candidate, Robert Montgomery. Too bad he chose to tell the media otherwise. To escape an onslaught of prying reporters, Chante flees to her grandmother’s South Carolina beach house. But when she meets Zach Harrington, she may be out of the frying pan and into the fire. The man is arrogant, way too for ward—and way too sexy . . .

  Enjoy the following excerpt from

  I Heard a Rumor . . .

  Chapter 1

  Chante Britt filled her favorite pink and green mug with Ethiopian blend coffee, which had been a gift from her best friend and sorority sister, Liza Palmer-Franklin. That girl knows coffee, she thought as she inhaled the fragrant aroma. She almost didn’t want to pour the creamer into the coffee. She took a sip and realized that it was perfect black. Reaching for the remote to the small TV set mounted over the stove, she sighed as she turned it on. This was her morning routine, and it was getting on her last damned nerve.

  Chante was bored, mad, and tired of the purgatory her life had become since her suspension from the law firm she’d worked for, Myrick, Lawson and Walker.

  She had been considered a distraction, according to managing partner Taiwon Myrick, because of her relationship with former senatorial candidate Robert Montgomery, who lost his bid for a senate seat after she and Liza exposed the fact that he was a liar and paid for sex with prostitutes. When Chante and Robert had been dating, she’d lobbied for her firm to support his candidacy, which they did. Taiwon liked Robert’s pro-business stance on several issues and
threw a lot of money his way, even after Chante had expressed her doubts. But as always, Taiwon chose not to listen to Chante. Over the last two years at Myrick, Lawson and Walker, Chante had been working herself ragged to become a partner. But she’d been constantly looked over—despite the fact that she’d delivered over a million dollars in billable hours, boasted a ninety percent winning ratio, and brought in more than a third of the firm’s new clients.

  Taiwon was from the old-school law community and just didn’t believe a woman could be a partner with the firm his family had started. Though she couldn’t point to any provable sexual discrimination, she knew it was her gender that had been holding her back at the firm.

  So when Jackson Franklin won the senate seat after it was revealed that Robert had been involved with a hooker during the campaign, Taiwon had been happy to blame her for the firm being mixed up in the controversy.

  Bastard, she thought as she lifted her head and saw Robert’s image on the screen. Chante started to turn the set off. But curiosity got the best of her, so she unmuted the set to hear what he had to say.

  “Wonder if he’s still out there buying sex,” she muttered, then took another sip of her coffee.

  “I’m standing here today because of grace and forgiveness,” Robert said into the camera. “I made mistakes in my quest to become senator, and I hurt a lot of people. But those people, including the love of my life, have forgiven me. And their forgiveness has given me the courage to throw my hat into the ring to be Charlotte’s next mayor.”

  Chante spit her coffee across the kitchen. Was this man daft? Who was going to support him to be mayor, let alone the city’s dogcatcher? And who was the love of his life? Poor woman. She didn’t know what kind of mess she was going to be in as the pretend love of Robert Montgomery’s life. The only person Robert loved was Robert.

  She reached into her robe pocket and pulled out her smartphone to text Liza.

  “Last night, as I talked to my future wife, Chante Britt . . .”

  “What the . . . !” Chante exclaimed. Forget texting Liza; she was going to have to call her friend and hope that she wasn’t interrupting anything going on between the newlyweds.

  “This is Liza,” her friend said when she answered the phone.

  “Robert has lost what’s left of his blasted mind,” Chante exclaimed. “This fool just . . .”

  “Calm down,” Liza said. “I’m sure no one is taking him seriously.”

  Chante’s phone beeped. “Hold on, I have another call coming in,” she said. Clicking the TALK button, she answered the unknown number.

  “Chante Britt.”

  “Ms. Britt, this is Coleen Jackson. I’m a reporter with News Fourteen. I wanted to ask you a few questions about Robert Montgomery.”

  Click.

  “People were paying attention, Liza,” Chante said. “That was a reporter.”

  “Oh my goodness. While you had me on hold, they showed a clip of his announcement on the news here. He really called you the love of his life. Have you two been seeing each other?”

  “Hell no! I haven’t spoken to that man since two days after the election, and that was last year.”

  “I can’t believe him. What does he think is going to come of this, and why would he think that you would agree to being . . . ?”

  Chante’s phone beeped again. She looked at the incoming caller’s number and saw it was another unknown one. “I’m guessing that’s another reporter,” Chante said. “What am I going to do?”

  “Issue a statement. I’ll write one for you to e-mail to all the media outlets in Charlotte. This will blow over. Let’s just take control of the narrative and wait for the next news cycle. Everyone will move on to the next thing and you can get on with your life.”

  “Thank you, Liza. I’m going to go for my run now.”

  “Has your suspension been lifted yet?”

  “No. And I’m guessing this latest stunt from this asshole is going to give them another reason to keep the suspension going.”

  “I still think you should start your own firm,” Liza said. “You don’t need them.”

  Chante sighed. Part of her agreed with her friend, but there was something about the security of becoming a partner at an established law firm. Maybe she wanted that partnership so that she could prove her mother wrong.

  Allison Louise Cooper-Britt had grown up as the ultimate Southern belle. She attended South Carolina State College for one reason—to obtain her MRS. That happened when she’d met and married Eli Britt. He’d been the crucial catch: wealthy family, right complexion, and a member of all the right organizations.

  When Chante had graduated from college and decided that law school was more important than a husband and a family, her mother wished her failure. Thankfully, her smarts and a few of her father’s connections had given her the blueprint for success.

  She and her grandmother, Elsie Mae, had a much better relationship than she had with Allison. Probably because they were so much alike. Elsie Mae Cooper had carved out her niche in Charleston, South Carolina, by selling her handwoven baskets to tourists. In 1972, she began adding unique pieces of South Carolina culture to the baskets and opened a gift shop on Folly Beach. Elsie’s Gifts and Goodies became one of the beach’s most popular tourist attractions.

  When Elsie Mae retired from running the shop, she sold it to a historical group while keeping a forty-nine percent stake in the company. The residual income allowed her to travel the world at will. Of course, Allison thought her widowed mother should spend her time in a rocking chair on the front porch. That was not Elsie Mae’s style at all, and her world traveling and adventure seeking became a bone of contention between mother and daughter.

  Chante wished she had her grandmother’s fearless nature. She knew for a fact that Elsie Mae would’ve started her own firm without giving it a second thought. Her grandmother wouldn’t have taken all the grief she’d subjected herself to for that partnership. Part of her knew she’d be fine if she struck out on her own. She had a huge client base, and she was a proven winner who’d made millions for her clients. But she was afraid. Afraid that if she failed, her mother would lord it over her, just as she’d always done with the fact that she isn’t married.

  As if that was the only thing she was supposed to do with her life. Rolling her eyes at the ringing phone, Chante hit the IGNORE button on another unknown call, then shut the phone off.

  When she received Liza’s e-mail with her statement and a list of contacts to send it to, Chante was ready to pound the pavement and Robert’s face. Lacing up her sneakers and popping her earbuds in, she opened the front door and was blinded by flashbulbs.

  “What the . . . ?”

  “Ms. Britt, have you forgiven Robert?”

  “When is the wedding?”

  “Will Senator and Mrs. Franklin be there? Have all of you kissed and made up after such an ugly election cycle?”

  “Get off my doorstep!” Chante exclaimed. When the members of the media took a step back, she thought they had heeded her demand. That was until she saw Robert walking her way. Narrowing her eyes at him, all she could think was that the media had just saved his life.

  “Chante, darling, I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he said with a huge smile on his face. She watched in abject horror as he walked up the steps and stood in her face.

  “You son of a . . .”

  Robert wrapped his arms around her and attempted to kiss her. Chante kneed him in the family jewels before storming into her house and slamming the door. All she could hope was that the cameras had caught every minute of it. One thing was for certain: she wasn’t going to stick around to be harassed by the media or Robert freaking Montgomery!

  * * *

  Zach Harrington downed a mojito as if it was a glass of water while he sat on the white shores of Folly Beach. It felt good to be an anonymous man in the crowd. In South Carolina, he was just a man on the beach. Back in New York, he was the ex-husband of the “Harlem Madame.�
�� Just thinking about the moniker the media had given his ex-wife made him cringe. And the circus! Cameras followed him around the city and camped out at his office building and his temporary home.

  He couldn’t even meet with the Crawfords about a tract of land they wanted to purchase in Manhattan for new office space. He was sure that Solomon and Richmond Crawford wouldn’t want to be photographed outside his office after what their family had gone through in the media lately. Solomon and Richmond had discovered that their father, Elliot, had a son—Adrian Bryant—before his death. Adrian had taken the story to the media around the same time that Richmond had been arrested in Los Angeles for solicitation of sex.

  Then there had been Richmond’s messy divorce. The businessman in Zach knew that any partnership they’d enter into right now would be a disaster. And he hadn’t told the Crawfords that he and Adrian had been friends long before the scandal broke.

  Just thinking about the media circus and the money it was costing him made him crave something stronger than a sweet rum highball. When he’d filed for divorce from his wife, Natalie, he thought she’d been having an affair. He had no clue that she was running an escort service from their home on Long Island. It had taken three months for him to clear his name and prove to the district attorney that he didn’t have anything to do with Natalie’s illegal empire.

  She’d been clearing about a million dollars a year. At least she was sleazy enough to hide the money in an account that had nothing to do with his business or their personal accounts. Shaking his head, Zach brought himself back to what was in front of him: a beautiful shoreline, women in barely there bikinis, and the blazing Southern sun.

  Digging his toes into the warm sand, Zach tugged at his Brooklyn Nets ball cap and grinned. For the next seven days or more, he was going to be anyone he wanted to be, without worrying about the glare of the New York media. Just as he was about to close his eyes, his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Grabbing it, he smiled when he saw it was his assistant, Kia Clarke.