She folded her arms across her chest. “Really?” Tamara questioned. “Do you think I wanted to tell you something like this in this way? Micah, I’ve been trying to contact you for weeks, but you wouldn’t return any of my calls or my e-mails. When I found out about the baby last week, I didn’t bother because I knew that you wouldn’t talk to me. And I definitely wasn’t going to leave the news with your secretary. Seeing you here was my only chance.”
Sunni strolled over to where they were standing. Wrapping an arm around Micah, she met Tamara’s gaze straight on and said, “Here you are, honey. I’ve been looking all over for you. Hello, Tamara.”
“It’s nice to see you again, Sunni. You look beautiful as always.”
“I was about to say the same thing about you,” Sunni responded with a smile. “I love your dress.”
“Sunni, can you give us a moment, please?” Micah asked. “I really need to finish my conversation with Tamara.”
The way that Sunni cut her eyes at him showed she was not happy about being sent away. After a long break in conversation, she responded, “I’ll be at our table.”
“I have to get out of here,” Tamara stated. She pressed a hand to her stomach.
“Are you okay?” Micah asked out of concern.
“I’m fine,” she managed. “I’m just a little nauseated.”
“Why don’t you sit down for a few minutes?” Micah suggested.
Tamara shook her head no. “I just want to go home. It was a bad idea for me to come in the first place. I knew that I wasn’t feeling well, but I wanted to see you.” She met his gaze. “To tell you about the baby. I’ve done that now, so I’m leaving now.”
“Tamara…”
She shook her head. “I can’t do this now, Micah. I really don’t feel well. We can talk later…if you want to talk.” She walked away from him, her heels tapping a steady rhythm across the floor.
“I assume you two have finished talking business,” Sunni stated when he joined her at the table. “Is she okay?”
“Why do you ask?” Micah wanted to know.
“Tamara looked really upset about something.” Sunni gave him a mischievous grin and asked, “What did you just do? Did you just break her heart?”
Micah didn’t respond.
“Honey…” Sunni prompted as she surveyed his face. “Oh my…I don’t know why I didn’t see this before. It’s her. She’s the one.”
He frowned in confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“I need you to be really honest with me right now, Micah. You’re in love with Tamara, aren’t you?”
“Sunni, we need to talk.”
A flash of hurt crossed her face. “Micah, why did you bring me here? Especially when you knew that the woman you loved would be here, too. Were you trying to make Tamara jealous?”
“Sunni, it wasn’t like that,” Micah uttered. “Tamara and I…Let’s just say that we were never meant to be, but now there is a situation.” He paused a moment before continuing, “She’s pregnant with my child.”
Her thick, heavy lashes that shadowed her cheeks flew up. “What did you just say?”
“Tamara’s carrying my child.” He and Sunni were friends, and at times, she was his confidante. Micah knew that he could trust her with this secret.
“That would mean that you recently slept with her…” Sunni’s voice died as the truth of her statement sunk in. Her eyes grew wet with unshed tears. “You slept with her during the tour, didn’t you?”
He did not bother to answer her question. Micah didn’t think he needed to confirm or deny when he and Tamara made love.
“Please don’t tell me that you believe her?” She wanted to know. “How can you be so sure that the baby is yours? How do you know there really is a baby?”
“Because I know Tamara,” he responded. “She’s not the type of woman who would lie about something like this.”
“People change,” Sunni uttered. “She knows that you’re a powerful and very wealthy man. You don’t know what she’s been doing in Atlanta.”
Micah stated, “Tamara comes from an extremely well-to-do family. Believe me, she doesn’t need my money.”
Tears glistened in Sunni’s eyes. “I can’t believe this,” she whispered. “I knew that she was after you. I knew it.”
“This is not Tamara’s fault. Sunni, I’m sorry. I just wanted to be honest with you.”
“You have always made it clear that you didn’t love me.” Sunni gently wiped her eyes. “But I hoped that one day you would get a clue. I love you more than my own life, and I allowed myself to believe that you would eventually fall in love with me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she uttered with a shake of her head. “You never lied to me—I love you for that, Micah. We have been friends for a long time, and I hate to see that end, but I don’t think I can do this anymore. I want marriage and a family.”
Micah nodded in understanding.
“Before I leave, I want to offer you some advice, friend. You need to find Tamara and straighten out this stuff. You love her, and I have a feeling that she loves you, too. Work it out before your baby is born.”
“Sunni, where are you going?”
“I’m going back to the house and pack. I’ll stay at a hotel tonight and catch the first flight back to Los Angeles tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to leave the house. It’s fine for you to stay.”
She shook her head no. “It’s best that I leave. If you’re going to try and work things out with Tamara, you definitely don’t need me in your house. I know if it were me, I wouldn’t want her anywhere near you.”
Micah embraced her. “Sunni, you deserve a man who will love you completely.”
“I know that,” she responded with a smile. “That’s why I’m walking away instead of giving you a much-deserved beat down.”
“That’s right. You are a black belt in tae kwon do.”
“Micah, I really wish you the best. I hope that Tamara will wake up and realize just how lucky she is, but if she doesn’t call me.”
“I don’t know what’s going to happen between me and Tamara. I’ll just have to take it one day at a time.”
“Micah, she loves you. I’d bet money on that. Go talk to her.” She put a hand to her temple. “I need a glass—no, a bottle of very expensive champagne. Better yet, I think I need some whiskey straight.”
“I will,” Micah said with a chuckle. “Don’t overdo it with the alcohol.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“I need to make a few more rounds here, but as soon as I can get away, I’m going to talk to Tamara.”
“You know I’m only a phone call away if you need me,” Sunni stated. “I won’t hold my breath though.”
“I care a great deal about you,” Micah confessed.
“In a best friend kind of way,” she responded. “Which I hate but I’ll deal with it. Tell reporter girl that she won after all.”
“Sunni…”
She held up her hand to ward off his comment. “It’s my last zinger, okay? Now move on, so I can scout for your potential replacement before I take off.”
Micah released a short sigh of relief. It had gone better than he thought it would. He made a mental note to have Bette send Sunni some flowers on Monday.
Kevin signaled for him to join them at a nearby table. Straightening his jacket, Micah headed in their direction. He was ready to leave because he wanted to catch up with Tamara.
“Where’s Sunni going?” he asked Micah.
“She’s leaving shortly. She’s going back to Los Angeles.”
Kevin gave him a puzzled look.
“I’ll explain later,” Micah uttered.
An hour later, he walked out of CORK and got into his Land Rover SUV. Micah silently debated whether to call Tamara to let her know that he was coming over but decided the element of surprise was the best way to proceed in this situation. This way she could not tell him not to come.<
br />
There was an innocent child involved. He would not leave until he and Tamara laid everything on the table.
“Micah, what are you doing here?” Tamara asked when she opened her front door to find him standing outside.
She glanced around to see if Sunni was lurking somewhere outside. “Where is your date?”
“She’s not with me,” he said in response. “I know it’s getting late but I had to come here to see you. Tamara, we need to finish our discussion. I would rather not do it out here, but I will if I have to.” Micah’s tone brooked no argument.
She stepped aside to let him enter into her apartment.
They sat down in the living room.
Tamara spoke first. “Micah, I don’t know why you’re so angry with me, but I don’t really care anymore. I have a baby to think about, and if you’re not ready to open up to me then just leave. I can raise my child on my own. I’m not gonna let you stress me out.”
“Tamara, I didn’t come to stress you out,” Micah stated. “But I’m not going to let you keep me out of my child’s life. I will go to court if I have to—I’m serious about this.”
“Do what you feel you must,” Tamara retorted. “I don’t care about your threats. I’ve had enough threats to last me a lifetime.”
Puzzled by her comment, Micah asked, “What are you talking about? Tamara, when are you going to tell me why you have this wall erected all around you? I’ve been thinking all along that you were nothing but a taker. You get what you need from me and then kick me to the curb, but now…I’m not so sure.”
He held his hands up in resignation. “The truth is that I don’t even know you anymore. There are so many conflicting things about you.”
She gasped in surprise. “That’s what you really think of me?” Tamara wanted to know. “Why would you think something like that?”
“You needed a tutor, and I was there for you. When you needed a friend, I was there. But then when I ask you out, you told me in no uncertain terms that I was beneath you. When we were in Los Angeles, you wanted to snag an exclusive interview with me. We made love and I thought that we had shared something really special until that next morning. The first thing you can think to say to me is to ask if we can do the interview now. How do you think that made me feel?”
“Micah, it was nothing like that,” Tamara responded. “You totally misunderstood everything. I’ve never tried to use you. We were friends and I valued our friendship. There was a lot going on with me.”
“You keep saying that,” Micah retorted. “So what was it, Tamara? What was going on with you? You keep talking about this great friendship that we shared, yet you’ve been keeping all these secrets. Why is it I never knew that you wanted to be a writer? I feel like we were involved in two very different relationships.”
Her hands twisted in her lap. “It’s true that there are some things that you don’t know about me. Micah, I need you to believe that the only reason I never told you is because I didn’t want you to think badly of me. Something bad happened to me before we met.”
Micah surveyed her face. It was something in Tamara’s eyes that prompted him to say, “Please tell me what happened to you. Help me understand.”
“On the outside we looked like the perfect family. Micah, my stepfather…he was an awful man to me,” Tamara stated. “Lucas was nice enough when he and my mother were dating, but after they married he wanted to send me away to boarding school. My mother refused. Anyway, whenever she wasn’t around, he would say hurtful things. He verbally abused me, and when I would try to stand up for myself he started hitting me and threatening me if I said anything to my mother.”
“Babe, I’m so sorry,” Micah murmured. “I had no idea.”
“This went on for a couple years. He would always tell me that if my own father didn’t love me, how could I ever expect anyone to love me? I believed him.”
“Tamara…”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Please let me finish. I need to get this out.”
Micah got up and crossed the room to sit beside her. He took her hand in his.
“Go on, sweetheart.”
“One day, he just started being nice to me out of the blue. I think I was sixteen or seventeen at the time. He started buying me little gifts, and he acted like a dad. He even apologized for the way that he had treated me in the past—blamed it on his drinking too much and stress from company business. Sometimes he would come to my room at night and we would talk for hours.”
Tears streamed down Tamara’s face. “All I ever wanted him to do is love me like he loved Callie. I just wanted him to be my dad, too.” She put her hands to her face and sobbed.
Micah handed her a tissue.
When she had stopped crying, he asked, “Baby, what happened? Tell me.”
Tamara focused on the intricate designs of the wrought-iron fireplace screen as she talked. She was too ashamed to look directly at Micah. She didn’t want to see the look of disgust on his face when he heard what happened between her and Lucas.
“I thought we were on the way to being a real family, but then one night he came to my room and started to touch me. He made me touch him in return.”
The muscles around his mouth tightened, and Micah’s hand curled into a fist. His heart ached for the woman he loved and the pain she was forced to endure. How could a man do something like this to a child he was supposed to protect?
Tamara wiped her face. “I wanted his love, but I never wanted him to love me in that way. That’s not what I wanted from Lucas.”
“Did he…” Micah couldn’t even say the words.
“It only happened once,” Tamara stated without emotion. “He was planning on doing it again, but when he came to my room a few nights later, my mother burst into the room just as he was removing his pants. He started blaming me, saying that I seduced him and that I’d been coming on to him for weeks.”
He had never been a violent man, but he was ready to put her ex-stepfather into the grave. “Did your mother believe him?” Micah questioned. “Is that why you went to live with your grandmother?”
“To her credit, Mama didn’t believe him for a minute, but it didn’t stop her from using what happened to blackmail him into giving her half of his millions. She took me to a doctor and had everything documented. She knew that Lucas was deathly afraid of going to prison. We moved in with my grandmother and Mama filed for divorce. She signed a prenuptial agreement when they married but she used what happened to me to get it invalidated. She got the house, two of the cars and a hefty settlement. She and Callie moved back into the house but I couldn’t—That place held so many bad memories for me. I just couldn’t go back.”
Tamara glanced over at him. “Micah, I never meant to hurt you. I was going through hell back then. I didn’t trust anyone, especially a man. That’s why I reacted the way that I did when I heard those people talking about us. As for the article, I won’t lie—I realty wanted the exclusive on you, but that’s not why I made love to you. I’ve been manipulated all of my life and I hated it, so I would never try to manipulate another person, including you.”
Micah felt lower than something he scraped off the bottom of his shoe. His guilt intensified when he thought of how he had treated Tamara, the woman he claimed to love. He was no better than Lucas was.
“I’m so sorry for assuming the worst, Tamara. I feel like such an idiot. I had no idea that you were dealing with something this heavy. I wish you’d felt safe enough to confide in me back then.”
“There really wasn’t any way that you could’ve known,” she responded. “I was determined to keep my secret by any means necessary. It was just too shameful to tell you something like this.”
“Does Callie know? I can’t imagine she’d even let him near her after what he did to you.”
Tamara shook her head no. “He gave Mama everything she wanted on the condition that she and I never mention what happened to my sister. He loves his daughter and doesn’t want her to think
badly of him. Callie adores Lucas, and they have a close relationship.”
“How do you feel about what your mother did?” he asked. “I know things were pretty intense between you two in college.”
“Back then, we didn’t really get along at all,” Tamara admitted. “I blamed her for using what happened as a threat in the divorce. She didn’t want to go back to being poor so she used blackmail to keep her social standing in the community and her lifestyle. I don’t care about all of that—he should have paid for what he did to me.”
“Tamara, she didn’t blackmail him,” Micah interjected. “I think you mother was making sure that she received what was rightly hers. I think she deserved it all. I do agree with you that your stepfather should have gone to jail. But what would you have said to Callie?”
“That’s why I never pressed charges,” Tamara told him. “Part of their agreement was that Lucas had to undergo therapy, and he wasn’t allowed to see Callie without supervision until she was sixteen. He was furious about that. Mama even insisted that Callie study karate in the event she needed to protect herself.”
“Didn’t you study, as well?” Micah asked.
She nodded. “It was too late for me. My virginity, my dignity and my security had already been taken away.”
He wrapped his arms around her, wanting to offer her some comfort.
“As for the writing, I didn’t have a lot of confidence in my ability so I never talked about it. I felt that if I didn’t mention it no one would ask to read my work. Working at the Atlanta Daily helped me develop my skills. Now you know all of my secrets, Micah. You can leave if you want to. I won’t fight you on visitation. I don’t need your money, though.”
“I fully intend on supporting my child, and I want you to understand something, Tamara. I’m not going anywhere. I intend to be a very active parent in my child’s life. Now, if you’re done talking, it’s my turn to speak,” Micah stated. “I have something I need to say to you.”
It was time for him to come clean with her about everything. When Micah was done, there would be no more secrets between them. Everything would be out in the open—the way it should have been all those years ago.
Teach Me Tonight Page 13