Davia could feel her anger dissipating. Why did he have to be so agreeable? Gradually her irritation was replaced by a deep-rooted sadness. She laid her head back on the sofa and sighed heavily. “Oh, God, I’m so tired.”
“Then rest, sweetheart. Let it go and rest.” His voice was as soothing as his advice was wise.
“You make it all sound so simple, but some things are easier said than done. Your mother is just one of the obstacles in our way.”
“No, Davia.” Justin tugged at her hand, drawing her closer to him. “She’s not in my way at all. If I have to go around her, over her, or through her to keep you, I will. I love you, and that’s the bottom line.”
Davia closed her eyes against the intensity of his gaze. So this was love. Love was absolute.
She shook her head. “But there are still things that you don’t know about me, that you couldn’t possibly understand.”
Justin settled her against the beat of his heart. “You keep telling me that, but it seems to me that it’s up to you to help me understand.”
Davia sighed in resignation. He was right. It was time to open yet another door to her past.
“Today wasn’t the first time that I was told by someone’s mother that I wasn’t good enough for her son. I never thought that I would ever hear it again.” She proceeded to tell him about her daughter’s father and his family’s rejection of her.
Justin was appalled by the insensitivity she described, and he was touched by the plight in which she has found herself. “So, Mark’s family was the reason you moved to Atlanta and changed your name?” He was confused. Her story warranted further explanation, especially since she had informed him that the family was deceased.
Davia shook her head, and he waited for an explanation. There was none. As always, he didn’t force the issue.
“I’m sorry about what happened to you. God knows you’ve been through a lot.” He tilted her chin upward as his eyes swept her face. She looked exhausted. “Listen, sweetheart, you need a break. We both do, and I know where we can go to get it. I have a beach house on the Monterey Peninsula in California. I’d like to take you there.”
“No, Justin, I…”
“Please, just listen. We’ve both been working hard these past few weeks. We need to be alone, together, without the distraction of our families or our work. We need this. Go with me, if only for a few days…”
“No, Justin.” Davia got up from the sofa, moving away from his gentle persuasiveness.
“There are things we need to discuss…”
“Yes, but not now.” She retreated further into the room. Turning her back to him she wrapped her arms around her body protectively. She knew that he was right. There was so much more to be said, but she couldn’t, not now.
“Davia?”
The question in his voice begged for resolution, but it was a plea she ignored. She didn’t want to think about anything right now. The day had been draining and she needed rest. She wanted to erase Katherine from her mind. She wanted to make everything and everyone disappear, but then there was…
Money! Her mind raced to remember if his name had been mentioned during Katherine’s tirade. It hadn’t been. Katherine must not know about him. Few people did. She had to think. She had to plan her next move, but she was so tired. Right now, getting home to Gabby was what she needed. She turned to Justin.
“I’m going home.”
Her words were a demand that held an unspoken or else. Justin noticed that her eyes had taken on a hard glaze. He knew that any opportunity for communication would not be occurring today.
He watched silently as she prepared to leave. He didn’t have to worry about her being too upset to drive. From the determined look on her face she would have no problem getting home.
“Thanks for everything,” Davia said as she headed for the door, but her progress was momentarily halted by his final words.
“You can’t run forever, Davia. You have to stop running sometime.”
She didn’t reply as she left the house. What was there to say about truth?
* * *
Charles poured another shot of vodka into his glass, swirled it around thoughtfully and took a sip. Katherine had been ranting since he arrived, and that had been over an hour ago. She sounded like a parrot repeating the same old song. He was tired of hearing about it. It seemed the crown prince had really messed up this time with the “little slut,” and Katherine couldn’t stop talking about it.
Retracing his steps across the room, he sat down in a wingback chair, crossed his legs nonchalantly, and stared absently into the glass of liquor. As usual he tuned her out while managing to look interested and involved. He kept his ear attuned to bits and pieces of what she was saying so that he could nod, smile, or grunt at the appropriate times. She was really upset today. It looked as though she was going to wear a hole in the very expensive carpeting as she paced from one end of the room to the other, venting. It wasn’t until something she said that sounded vaguely familiar caught his attention that he began to tune in.
“Sorry, Katherine, but what was that last thing you said?”
Katherine’s look skewered Charles. What in the world was she doing with this social-climbing gigolo? Her taste wasn’t any better than her son’s. “I said that the little tramp can’t even get her name straight! Davia. Nay Nay. Shenay. Who knows what?”
Oblivious to the rest of Katherine’s babble, Charles stilled with his drink suspended in midair, halfway to his lips. Nay Nay? Did Katherine say Nay Nay? No way. It couldn’t be.
He finished the rest of his drink in one gulp, glad that Katherine was too preoccupied to notice the slight tremor in his hand. Placing the glass on the table next to his chair, he let Katherine’s ramblings become background as his mind traveled back in time.
Nay Nay was about eleven or twelve when he first saw her. She was a surprise package that he’d stumbled onto by accident. Her ripe young body was just developing, but held promises of the treasures to come. Those incandescent eyes behind long, coal black eyelashes were meant to turn a man on. She was an innocent. What could be better?
He found out later that she was one of the young lookouts who worked for Bobo, one of the more enterprising drug dealers on the block—a man who eventually worked for him. As the years passed and his power and influence increased, he watched her surreptitiously as she grew and developed until the time was right.
Eventually, that crackhead mother, sister, or whatever she was to the girl needed some quick cash. It was then that he made his move. Nay Nay was about fourteen by then and fine as hell. Every hard ankle on the block was waiting for a piece of that action, but he had claimed her. She was his. That was until she made the biggest mistake of her life, then disappeared. He had been ready to offer her the opportunity of her useless little life, but she ran away and in the process left behind a permanent reminder of her miserable existence. He had his boys looking for her for a while, but they hadn’t been successful. Yeah, Nay Nay. Shanay…What was her last name?
“Johnson! Maxwell! Smith or Jones, for all I know! Who knows her last name?” Katherine ranted. “Only she knows for sure. All I’ll ever recall is that my son stood here, in this house, siding with some ghetto tramp from some Chicago slum…”
Charles inhaled. Chicago?
“The little tramp had a baby at fifteen. Can you believe it?”
Nay Nay had a baby.
“But what else could be expected from someone like her?”
“Who’s the father?” He hadn’t meant to ask that. It just slipped, but he was curious, especially if it was the Nay Nay he knew.
Katherine looked at him as if she had forgotten he was in the room. “How would I know who the father is? I doubt if she even knows. She certainly didn’t name one on the birth certificate.”
The birth certificate? Katherine had been thorough.
Katherine dropped into the chair next to Charles, her energy expended. In despair she dropped her head in her
hands, massaging her temples.
“How in God’s name could this happen? Justin has always been so levelheaded. How could he do this? The woman is a grandmother!”
Charles head snapped around to look at her. “A grandmother? What is she? Twenty-seven? Twenty-eight?”
“She’s thirty-four.”
Thirty-four? Nay Nay would be about that age.
Katherine slumped in the chair and closed her eyes. “My son, my beautiful, intelligent son is sleeping with a thirty-four-year-old grandmother. She has completely brainwashed him. But she doesn’t know me. I’ll never give him up, not to her, not without a fight.”
Charles leaned his head back against his chair, but his eyes remained open. He was seeing everything clearly—very clearly. As unbelievable as it seemed, his past might have caught up with him, and in the form of a girl he hadn’t thought about in years. Piecing together the bits of information he had gotten from Katherine, it looked as if this was the reality. He wished that he had been listening to her ranting these past few months; he would have more pieces to this puzzle. He would be listening from now on, that was for certain, because if this woman was who he thought she might be, everything he had planned for his future might be in jeopardy. He wasn’t about to let that happen.
CHAPTER 17
Shutting off the ignition, Justin turned to look at Davia asleep in the passenger seat. She had attempted to cover the darkened rings under her eyes with makeup, but signs of fatigue were still there. It had been barely a week ago that she’d stood in his house and said that she was tired. He knew that she was referring to being weary of the many secrets she harbored, but he also aware that she was physically exhausted, and that eventually it would catch up with her. He had been right.
The day she collapsed, Justin had called her house for the umpteenth time in an attempt to reach her. Since her fight with Katherine, Davia had been avoiding his calls both in her office and at home. He was hurt by her attempt to shut him out of her life, but he persisted. He wasn’t going to let her face her pain alone. Reba had answered his last call to her house. She was hysterical. She had come home from a night class and found Davia unconscious on the floor. The paramedics were at the house as they spoke.
Terror was the only word that he could think of to describe what he felt as he drove like a maniac through the streets of Atlanta trying to get to Davia. Reba said that he looked like a madman when he burst through the hospital doors. Later, she recalled with amusement that she thought the hospital personnel would throw Justin out bodily because he was so demanding, but he didn’t care. Dr. Zackary Miles had been a member of the hospital staff for years, and Katherine was a member of the board of directors. Justin had used all of the clout that his name could muster to get the best care for Davia.
Tests revealed that she was suffering from exhaustion. Reba informed him that she hadn’t eaten or slept properly for days. She had been totally focused on Gabby and work.
Armed with this information, the trip to the Monterey Peninsula was a decision that was taken out of Davia’s hands. He made the arrangements overnight. When she was released from the hospital, Reba and CeCe forced her into Justin’s car and he drove straight to the airport, ignoring Davia’s protest.
She gave him the cold shoulder during the trip west, but Justin had talked and laughed the entire time. He was delighted to have her to himself. When the plane landed, a rental car was waiting at the airport. She had fallen asleep as they drove to his beach house.
Smiling at her reclining figure, he raised the passenger seat that he had lowered earlier to make her comfortable and caressed her hair. It felt like a lifetime since they had been together. He was looking forward to the next few days.
Shaking her shoulder gently, he called her name. She didn’t respond. He shook her again, calling her name a little louder, eliciting a small moan of awakening consciousness. Her lips parted and a second moan escaped, sending jolts of awareness to his groin. Reining in his hormones, Justin got out of the car and walked to the passenger side. Opening the door he unbuckled her seat belt, swept her up into his arms and headed up the walk to the front door of his home.
Upstairs, he carefully placed her on a rattan lounger near the bed. She turned onto her side and curled into a fetal position. After covering her with a brightly colored afghan, he stood in the moonlight drifting through the patio doors and watched her sleep. She looked peaceful, free of the stress of a high-powered job and the strain of raising a child alone. She was so strong, so capable. The more he got to know her, the more his admiration grew. But really getting to know her was a challenge. Davia’s life was filled with secrets that she kept securely locked away. He and CeCe had talked about this when they were at the hospital awaiting the word regarding Davia’s health.
Reba had left a message for CeCe about Davia’s collapse and she had made her own dramatic entrance at the hospital, accompanied by Clark. It took Justin, Reba and Clark to calm her down. After the doctor explained the results of Davia’s test to them, Justin and CeCe had a chance to be alone in the waiting room. He had comforted the weeping woman, who kept apologizing for being so emotional.
“It’s just that Davia is the closest thing to a sister that I have,” she explained. “Now her health might be in danger. It’s so unfair. I’ve known this woman for over ten years and she’s gone through enough. She carries pain she won’t talk about even to me. When her daughter’s father…”
CeCe caught herself, afraid of betraying her friend’s confidence. But Justin wasn’t to be denied. He told her that he knew about Mark and proceeded to tell her the story Davia told him.
CeCe looked shocked. “She did tell you, didn’t she?”
He nodded.
“I’ve got to admit that I’m amazed. She told me that she really cared about you, that she even loved you, but I never imagined—” She looked at him in a new light. “Davia doesn’t trust easily. Life hasn’t given her many reasons to trust. So she’s given to both of us something that is very precious to her.”
“Yes, I know.”
“She needs help, Justin. She needs to get rid of all that pain. She needs to talk to a professional. I’ll do all that I can to encourage her to do so, and I hope that I can count on you.” He had assured her that she could.
Justin sighed. Davia was a proud woman and a very private one. It wouldn’t be easy to convince her to seek help.
The sound of her mumbling incoherently as she awakened interrupted his thoughts. Slowly, she opened her sleep-laden eyes. Justin peered down at her.
“Hey, sweetheart, are you awake?” Her wooden nod wasn’t fully convincing. He kept trying. “We’re at the beach house. Can you get up and get in the bed by yourself?”
She nodded, stood, and, on wobbly legs, stumbled toward the bed. Justin steadied her.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
She nodded in the affirmative, weaving sleepily from side to side. Wordlessly, he turned the covers down, and then swept her up into his arms and placed her in the bed. Taking her shoes off, he placed them on the floor. When he looked up to begin the all-too-tempting chore of undressing her, he looked straight into her dark brown eyes. Silently, he answered the call of what he saw in their depth.
Undressing hurriedly, he joined her in bed and they made love repeatedly through the night and into the early-morning hours. It was if their hunger for each other could not be satisfied. She made love to him with the intensity of a woman exorcising demons. He made love to her with all of the tenderness that she deserved. As they lay spent in each other’s arms, Justin held her close and made a solemn vow. No one would ever hurt Davia again. He would kill the next man who tried.
* * *
They were to spend seven days at Justin’s Peninsula home. Seven days! In her whole life she had never spent that long doing absolutely nothing but enjoying herself. While she tried to tell herself that it was a waste of valuable time, secretly Davia was delighted. It would take some getting used to, bu
t Justin and his beach house would make it easy.
His home was a contemporary structure of stone and glass and within walking distance of the Pacific Ocean. L-shaped, it contained seven spacious rooms, three of which were bedrooms, each with its own bath. The master suite had a magnificent view of the ocean.
“A friend of mine turned me on to this house,” Justin explained as he gave her a tour. “You might have heard of him, Brandon Plaine?”
Davia’s eyes widened. “The owner of Plaine Deal Media?”
Justin nodded. Davia was impressed. She had read about the media mogul. Years ago he had taken one bankrupt radio station and turned it into the masthead for an African-American-owned conglomerate that now boasted of newspapers, radio and television stations across the country. Like her, Brandon Plaine was an entrepreneur, a self-made person. She admired him.
“My company provides his with a lot of advertising revenue,” she informed him.
“Then I’ll call and let him know that we’re here. You two should meet.”
“I’d like that.” Davia was thrilled by the possibility.
“Anyway, I was looking for something simple but elegant as a vacation getaway. I mentioned it to Brandon, and he knew of a friend of his who wanted to sell this house and build a new one. He and his wife have three kids and wanted a bigger place. He hooked me up with his friend, and I mentioned to the guy that my friend was an architect. Clark ended up designing their new house, and I bought their old one. Everybody walked away happy. It’s a great place.”
Davia had to agree.
On the second day of their stay, between walks on the beach and making love, they rested, enjoying the simple pleasure of being together without interruptions. Justin called Brandon, and he invited them to dine with his family on day three.
“I think you’re going to like Brandon’s wife, Sash,” Justin informed her as they drove down the highway toward the Plaine house. “She’s an attorney. She practices family law.”
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