Their Now and Forever (Book III) (The Allen Trilogy 3)

by Chevelle Allen

  They met in the lobby as planned and walked to a deli not far from the office for lunch. Taking a table near the door, they sat to enjoy their salads. He watched her nibble at her food knowing her mind was racing trying to broach the subject of what happened between them. It wasn’t bashfulness she was displaying, but rather a coy-like posture suggesting she was having a conversation in her own head. Janine was strategic and thoughtful, but she was also creative with the capacity to imagine all manner of scenarios in her head. It was a sign of her keen emotional intelligence that served her well professionally. But it could be maddening on far more personal matters.

  “You’re going to bust if you don’t say something soon,” he said smirking at her.

  “I still can’t believe we did that.”

  “You knew it was going to happen sooner or later.”

  “Well…”

  “You wanted it to happen. Didn’t you?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because I know you. I also know you thought you’d be the one to initiate, but you backed out…at least twice.”

  She chuckled. “Since you know so much, when did I back out?”

  He set his fork down and leaned towards her. “The first time was when you found me laying on my office couch reading. It was all over your face.”

  She thought back to the incident two weeks prior. It was late and she’d been reviewing and editing several filings prepared by the paralegals. Since he was the principal attorney for the cases, she thought it best to leave them in his office. Walking down the hall she noticed right away he wasn’t seated at his desk. However, his door was open and the office was illuminated by the floor lamp. When she entered, she saw him lying on the leather couch. Deep in thought with tie off, collar unbuttoned and one leg perched on the armrest of the sofa while the other rested on the floor, he was beautiful to her.

  Gazing at him, her task seemed secondary to the feelings she had for him. Underneath his strikingly handsome exterior was a man of considerable intellect and compassion. He was also erotic beyond measure, sharing with her a world so intense and intimate no other man would ever come close to being all he was to her. As he lay there reading, his posture reminded her of many hours they spent studying together in law school. Even then, too often she’d lose herself just watching him doing the simplest things with her desires growing the longer she watched him.

  “And the second time?” she asked.

  “Monday after the deposition. You were very poised, but your little leg tick started and halfway through you stopped taking notes.”

  “How do you know that?”

  He smiled, “Like I said, I know you. Plus when I got home after those incidents you pounced and rode my dick like there was no tomorrow.” He let out a hearty laugh as he watched her flush with embarrassment.

  “As wonderful as it was, I’m not sure it’s a good idea for us to do that again.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s not exactly professional, Michael.”

  “Maybe not, but everyone in the office knows we’re fucking. When and where is immaterial.”

  “Well it was a first for me.”

  “That I believe.”

  “You’re teasing me!”

  “Too much fun not to. But you do need to know if the mood strikes, it’s going down. Deal with it!” he teased further.

  “You’re funny.”

  Noticing she was finishing up her salad he asked, “Do you want anything else to eat?”

  “No, thank you. I’m good. What about you?”

  “I’m good too.” Shifting gears he said, ”Our calendar seems free this weekend. Do you want to go to Charlotte to see your mom?”

  “Yes!”

  “Do you want to drive or just catch a flight?”

  “It’s a long drive. Why don’t we just fly down and rent a car. That’ll give us more time with my family.”

  “Sounds like a plan. I can have Ricardo make the travel arrangements or can you take care of it?”

  “Why don’t we look over flight options this evening when we get home?”

  “Okay. I’ve got two meetings out of the office this afternoon but I should be home around six. Do you want to go out to dinner, cook or order in?”

  “Let’s order in. What do you have a taste for?”

  “Doesn’t matter. Whatever you want is fine. You know what I like.”

  “Yes I do.” Her words dripped with innuendo.

  “Careful, Baby. You haven’t experienced sex in public with me.”

  “Your memory is slipping. Have you forgotten about the alley outside that night club in Belize?”

  He remembered the incident well but he hadn’t thought about it in years. It was their last year of the JD/MBA program. Traveling to Belize with their closest friends, they wanted to celebrate before final exams. At the time, he also hoped to ease the months of strain in their relationship. As he recalled that night, he smiled remembering how beautiful she was as they danced in the cramped club, holding each other close. The physical heat and energy of the place unleashed their passions. They ended up in the alley fucking against the building until they were interrupted by a police officer.

  “I remember,” he said.

  “We’d better get back. I want to wrap up what I was working on. Then I can head home and knock out a few things for the Foundation.”

  “How are things going with your house?”

  “I need to fly back and meet with the realtor again. I’m going to ship some things here and put them in storage. Any suggestions?”

  “Ask Ricardo. He can help you out with that but there are plenty of places to choose from.”

  “I think the hardest part is figuring out which things I want to bring to the condo.”

  “We really need to talk about finding a new place, Janine.”

  “I know. But it’s only been a month. Why don’t we deal with that after we pick a date for the wedding?”

  “That’s reasonable.”

  “Speaking of which, have you told your family yet?”

  “I thought we agreed to wait until we had more details about the ceremony.”

  “Do they even know we’re together?” Her eyes reflected concern.

  His parents had been an issue between them in the past, but he was confident those issues were resolved. Nonetheless, he hadn’t told them and it wasn’t something he wanted to do over the phone.

  “No. But trust me. It’s going to be okay.”

  CHAPTER 5

  After meeting with a few clients, Michael left work earlier than usual to visit his parents in The Plains, Virginia. As long as traffic wasn’t any more insane than usual, it would take a little over an hour to get there from the city. He told Janine he’d be getting home later given some business he needed to take care of. She didn’t press and he didn’t offer any additional details. As it was, he knew she was a little perturbed he hadn’t told his family about their relationship. But fortunately, she didn’t turn it into an issue and seemed to do as he asked. She had to trust him to know when the timing was right.

  Pulling off the main road and onto the private drive, he made his way towards the large brick house. It was one of the few times he visited when there wasn’t the buzz of landscape crews tending to the gardens and grounds of the thirty acres of property. Growing up, his father made sure he and his brother Rick worked long hours with the crews learning how to cut grass properly and use yard tools. His sister Mya worked with the pool crew and the cleaning service that came in weekly. It was his father’s way of ensuring his children respected manual labor but also understood just how privileged they were. The lessons stayed with him, but admittedly there was a time when he resented it.

  He was about fourteen at the time. Mya was off to college in Colorado and Rick was starting medical school in California. Michael felt utterly alone. Being mid summer, the heat and humidity of the Virginia sun beat down on him. He was supposed to be pulling weeds and laying mulch i
n his mother’s new Hydrangea bushes. Sweaty, exhausted and covered in dirt, he threw down his tools and stormed into the house. With doors slamming in his wake, he stomped up the stairway as his mother shouted after him.

  “Michael David Josey! You do not slam doors in this house! Is that clear?”

  “Whatever!” he shouted back as only an impetuous teen could.

  She immediately made her way up to his room. “What did you say to me?” For the moment she was relatively calm, despite the fact he was completely out of line.

  “Nothing,” he snapped.

  “Are you finished working with Roberto?” she asked standing in his doorway.

  “I’m done! You’re paying them, let them do it.”

  “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that to me. So unless there is something physically wrong with you, you get your butt back down those stairs and finish the job.”

  “For what? I get it! I know how hard it is to work with your hands. I get that you’re supposed to be nice to the people who work for you. But they work for us!”

  Before he could get another word of defiance out, his mother rushed towards him and slapped him across the mouth. She had never done that before. Her face was rigid from pure rage, but then it shifted to deep disappointment. He’d only seen that expression a few times, but the look-more than the slap-was enough to let him know he had crossed a very serious line.

  “You’re behaving like a ungrateful brat!” She turned and left him. She didn’t speak to him for the rest of the evening even though he begrudgingly resumed work with the crew.

  When his father came home later that night, he woke Michael from a deep sleep.

  “Get up, boy!” he shouted, pulling the covers off of him.

  Generally his father was thoughtful and measured, but this was a side of him Michael rarely saw. When discipline was involved, his father generally tried to talk things through. He believed his children were intelligent enough to choose good behavior rather than being coerced into it out of fear of physical punishment. Michael remembered well his grandparents chastising his parents because they didn’t “whoop those children enough.” The truth was, his parents rarely spanked them at all. Michael learned years later his father had been brutalized physically and emotionally by his own father believing it would toughen him up and make a man out of him.

  “What’s going on Dad?” He struggled to sit up still drowsy from deep sleep.

  “I want to know what the hell is wrong with you?”

  “What? I don’t…”

  “If you ever talk to you mother like that again, or treat Roberto or anyone else like you did today…I will beat you like the man you think you are. Is that clear, boy?”

  “Dad, I didn’t…”

  “Is. That. Clear!” His father was seething with anger and talking through his teeth.

  “Yes sir. I’m sorry, Dad.”

  “I’m not the one who deserves an apology! You will make this up to your mother and Roberto. I don’t give a shit how you do it, but you will. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.” For the first time in his life he was afraid of his father.

  From that day forward, the lessons his father instilled resonated on a far deeper and meaningful way. He soon understood the difference between the way his mother responded to the incident and the way his father had. For her it was poor form, lacking grace, humility and manners reflecting poorly on her parental skills. He had simply embarrassed her. For his father it was more magnanimous: regardless of who you are, everyone deserves dignity and respect—period. Equally important, hard work is never beneath anyone.

  Michael walked to the front entry staring at the large Hydrangea bushes that were at least eight feet tall now. He rang the doorbell and placed his key in the lock. Going inside, he stood in the foyer calling out, “Mom? Dad?”

  His father came around the corner with a cigar firmly in his teeth. “Hey, Michael! Your mother and I are on the patio.”

  At seventy-three, Dr. Josey was a well-built man with strong features and a warm smile. He’d enjoyed a lucrative surgical practice with privileges at several hospitals. At the height of his career, he was an exceptional neurosurgeon. He also lectured and patented several devices and procedures that made him very wealthy—adding to the sizeable inheritance passed down from his own father. But he worked an exhaustive schedule traveling extensively. There were weeks at a time when Michael rarely saw him. But for the past few years, he was enjoying retirement and traveling for pleasure to see family or exotic locations around the world with Michael’s mother.

  His mother was seated on a chaise, sipping a glass of wine. She set her book down when he entered the patio with his father.

  “Michael!” She was in a cheerful mood likely made even more so by the lovely weather and luscious wine she was enjoying. She started to get up, but he stopped her.

  “Please don’t get up.” He leaned over kissing her on the cheek before taking the seat adjacent to hers.

  “Would you like a glass of wine?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  “It’s a lovely Burgundy we picked up. I think you’ll like it.”

  “Sounds good.”

  After refilling his father’s glass, she poured Michael’s and handed it to him. “So, what’s happening in your life that requires a visit in the middle of the day? Are you all right?”

  His mother never was the type to beat around the bush. His father on the other hand, was patient enough to let things unfold in their own course.

  “A lot has been happening in my personal life that I want to talk to you about.”

  “What’s going on? What are you saying, Honey?”

  “I’m getting married.”

  “What?” his mother shrieked.

  “That’s a hell of a surprise. Congratulations!. So when do we get to meet her?”

  Michael could tell his father was genuinely happy for him, but he also kept a careful eye on his mother’s response—just as his father was doing.

  “I’m not sure what to say. I wish we had the opportunity to meet her before this kind of news,” she said.

  “You have met her.”

  “It can’t possibly be Christine Morgan, “ she said with just a glimmer of hope in her voice.

  “Mom.”

  “Then who is she? You said we met her before, that’s the only woman I can remember you…”

  “The young woman he brought home for Christmas…when you were in law school, right?”

  “Michael?” his mother sat up and peered into his eyes with the same level of intensity he was capable of displaying.

  “Janine and I reconnected during the reunion trip to Belize. She’s living with me.”

  “Three months later and you decide to move her in with you?” It was more of a statement than a question, but his mother had a habit of mixing the two.

  “Try fifteen years.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I never stopped loving her.”

  “I see. And she makes you happy?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So when is the big day?”

  “We’re trying to work that out. She has a lot to take care of during this transition from Indianapolis. But sooner rather than later, that’s for sure.”

  “Wait a minute. What’s her last name?” his father asked.

  “Powell.” Michael said. “Janine Powell.”

  “Of the Remington Foundation?”

  “That’s right.”

  “The girl who had no idea what she was going to do after law school ended up doing all right for herself.”

  Michael bristled a bit at the comment. The memory was still vivid of the crude remark his father made about Janine when they first met. Thinking she had little to offer, they both dismissed her as an unsuitable match for him. His father even said, “have your fun with her but move on.” For the first time in his life, he was prepared to come to physical blows with his father. It was in stark contrast to v
alues he drummed into him. He’d come to expect a certain level of snobbery from his mother, but never his father.

  “Is it all right if I call to invite her for lunch? If she’s going to be my daughter-in-law, I think I should get to know her,” she said.

  “It may not be easy. Janine overheard that fight we had years ago about her. I didn’t know it at the time, but she heard every word. I’m pretty sure if contributed to our breakup.”

  Michael knew they remembered the incident because it was only the second time he ever brought a woman to meet them. They looked at each other with shamed expressions.

  “We’ll make this right for you,” his mother said. “I promise.”

  He took a deep breath and said, “I need you to do that. Family is very important to her. To me.”

  His mother perked up. “Are you two thinking about starting a family?”

  “Eventually.”

  “Oh, Sweetheart!” she gushed.

  “So where is she working?” his father asked.

  “With me for the time being. Why?”

  “You don’t just stop being president of a world-wide foundation. She’s still young. She’s got quite a career in front of her if she chooses.”

  “She’ll figure that out when she’s ready. Does it matter?”

  Sensing Michael’s mood, he simply said, “In the end, the only thing that matters is she’s doing what she wants. Apparently she wants you, Son. Your mother and I will do everything in our power to make her feel welcomed in this family. You can count on it.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  They continued to sip wine and he shared a few details about the work he and Janine were doing since she joined him. He told them about their plans to go to Charlotte so he could meet her family. They laughed and together made the calls to Mya and Rick filling them in on the good news. Their time together was pleasant and better than he expected. Having spent two hours with them, he was ready to head home to Janine.

  When he got there, she was lounging on the couch watching TV.