The Blackstone Promise

by Rochelle Alers

  It was two-thirty when they sat down at the table in the dining area off the kitchen to enjoy a lunch of freshly baked French bread, a country salad with goat cheese and diced crispy lardoons in a vinaigrette dressing, and the lobster, mussels, crabs and clams in a sauce flavored with wine, butter, garlic and parsley.

  Veronica had turned off the overhead recessed lights and the chandelier, lit several votives, turned on a radio on a countertop and enjoyed the exquisitely prepared meal and the man responsible for its creation. The soft sounds of a muted trumpet punctuated the comfortable silence.

  She’d suggested Bram buy the North Carolina property so they could come and spend time there and relax from their Atlanta social obligations, but doubted whether she and her late husband had come to the house more than four times since they’d purchased it. What she was sharing with Kumi was what she’d wanted to experience with Bram.

  It had taken less than a week for Veronica to realize that she was attracted to Kumi. What she would not permit herself to do was fantasize about sleeping with him, even though she wanted to see him—every day.

  Her eyes widened as she stared at her dining partner staring back at her. The flickering light from the votives threw flattering shadows over his dark brown face, accentuating the curve of his strong jaw and chin. Her gaze moved to his mouth, remembering how hers had burned in the aftermath of his brief possession.

  Resting an elbow on the table, she cradled her chin in the heel of her left hand. “What made you decide to become a chef?”

  His lids came down as he flashed a sensual smile. “I sort of fell into it?”

  “How?”

  Kumi’s expression changed, becoming almost somber. “It’s a long story. Are you certain you want to hear it?”

  “Of course.” She wanted to tell Kumi that she wanted to know everything about him, hoping she would be able to identify what it was about him that drew her to him.

  “I enlisted in the marines and—”

  “At what age did you enlist?” she asked, interrupting him.

  “Eighteen. This really ticked my parents off because I was scheduled to enter Morehouse that September. My father and I did not get along well, so I saw the marines as an escape.”

  “Didn’t you see leaving North Carolina for Georgia as an escape?”

  He shook his head. “No. I still would’ve been under my father’s thumb. And there was no doubt that he would’ve constantly reminded me that it was his money that kept a roof over my head, clothes on my back and food in my belly. What I did was shift that responsibility from Lawrence Walker to the United States Marine Corps.

  “I served four years, then instead of coming back here I went to Europe. I’d planned to spend about three months touring and visiting most European capitals, but something happened to me my first day in Paris.”

  Leaning forward, Veronica gave him an expectant look. “What happened?” Her voice was a velvety whisper.

  His expression brightened as he flashed a warm smile. “I fell in love.”

  She recoiled as if he’d slapped her. Her breath quickened, her cheeks becoming warm. He had a woman—perhaps a wife. While she wasn’t quite lusting after him, what Veronica was beginning to feel for Kumi Walker was quickly approaching that.

  “Did you marry her?” she asked, recovering her composure.

  “Every Parisian is married to the City of Lights.”

  She was almost embarrassed at how happy his statement made her. He was talking about Paris, not a woman.

  “Once I recovered I realized I needed a job, and because the money I’d saved wasn’t going to last more than another month I secured a position working in a restaurant’s kitchen. I washed dishes and bused tables before moving up to waiter. One of the chefs befriended me, suggesting I should try cooking. He eventually became my mentor. I attended classes during the day and worked at the restaurant at night.” What he didn’t tell Veronica was that he’d created several dishes that had won numerous awards.

  “How about you, Veronica?” Kumi asked, “What did you feel when you visited Paris for the first time?”

  “It took me a week to stop walking around with my mouth gaping. I found it hard to believe everything looked so old yet so incredibly beautiful. The photographs in my art textbooks did not prepare me for the magnificence of Notre Dame or the Jardin des Tuileries. It was if I’d stepped back in time, while at the same time I had every modern convenience at my fingertips.”

  Kumi took a sip of a dry white wine. “What made you decide to study art?”

  The animation left her face. “For as long I could remember I wanted to be an artist. As a child I always had a pad and pencil, drawing everything I saw. My parents were pleased with my artistic talent, but freaked when I told them I wanted to become an artist. They believed a career in law, medicine or education was a more respectable profession, but in the end they supported me.

  “My work was good enough for me to be accepted into Parsons School of Art and Design in New York. I’d earned an A in studio drawing and a B in landscape and still-life drawing my freshman year. I knew I’d never be a Picasso, Henry Tanner or Romare Bearden, but I was quite secure with my talent. Everything changed when…”

  Her words dropped off; she couldn’t continue. It was halfway through her sophomore year that everything changed—she and her life had changed with a single act attributed to poor judgment.

  Kumi saw fear—wild and naked—fill Veronica’s eyes. “What happened, Ronnie?” She closed her eyes, shaking her head. Glistening silver curls bounced around her cheeks and over her forehead with the motion.

  “I can’t,” she gasped.

  Wiping his mouth with a linen napkin, he pushed back his chair and rounded the table. She gasped a second time. She was sitting, and then without warning she was swept up in Kumi’s arms as he cradled her effortlessly to his chest.

  “It’s all right,” he crooned over and over in her ear, walking out of the kitchen and making his way to the patio. “I am not going to hurt you.”

  Panic rendered Veronica motionless and speechless. She wanted to believe Kumi, but the fear she’d repressed for two decades would not permit her to trust him completely.

  Kumi carried Veronica into the comforting space. The overcast day and steadily falling rain cast dusky shadows over all of the furnishings. He sat on a rattan sofa covered in dark-green-and-orange kente-cloth cushions, still cradling her to his chest. The pressure of her hips against his groin failed to arouse him. He wanted to comfort Veronica, not seduce her. He held her, his chest rising and falling in unison with hers. Closing his eyes, he smiled. She’d begun to relax.

  Veronica lay in Kumi’s arms, absorbing his warmth and strength. She counted the strong steady beats of his heart under her cheek. Inhaling deeply, she breathed in the scent of his aftershave. The sandalwood was the perfect complement for his body’s natural scent. Kumi Walker was perfect from his beautiful masculine face, to his perfectly proportioned physique.

  Her left arm moved up and curved around his neck the way she’d done to her father when she was a young child. It was a gesture that indicated trust.

  Her eyelids fluttered wildly before closing. Could she trust Kumi—trust him enough to tell him of her fear? Tell him that she’d almost been raped and that it had been her own fault?

  Swallowing, she drew in a deep breath and said, “I stopped drawing because something happened to me.”

  Kumi held his breath before he let it out in an audible sigh. Cradling her chin in his hand, he stared down into her wounded gaze. “What happened, Ronnie?”

  “I was… Someone tried to rape me.”

  He blinked once, completely freezing his features. The shock of what she’d disclosed caused the words to wedge in his throat. What was she talking about? His sharp mind
recalled her saying that she’d switched her major from drawing to art history. And she hadn’t been married when she spent the two summers in Paris living with Garland Bayless. Did someone attempt to rape her before she left for Paris, or had it happened years later?

  Lowering his head, he pressed his lips to hers, caressing her mouth more than kissing it. “Tell me about it, sweetheart,” he crooned softly.

  Chapter Six

  Veronica opened her mouth and the words came pouring out, words she had never uttered to another human being.

  “My college roommate introduced me to this guy, and he eventually became my first serious boyfriend. I was eighteen and he was twenty-two. He was born and raised in New York, so he took me everywhere, showing me places that I never would’ve visited on my own.

  “We talked about what we wanted for our futures—places and things we wanted to see and do together. One weekend he canceled a date, claiming he didn’t feel well. Being young, impulsive and very much in love I decided to cook dinner. I wanted to surprise him.

  “I was the surprised one, because when he opened the door there was another woman in his apartment with him. He’d tried to explain that she was just a friend, but I didn’t want to hear it. He’d thrown on a robe, but his friend came out of the bedroom butt naked. Within seconds he wore the robe and the dinner.

  “I left, tears streaming down my face. I’d trusted him. I’d slept with him because I truly loved him. Not wanting to go back to my apartment and explain everything to my roommate, I decided to go to a bar frequented by students who attended New York University.

  “Three drinks later I found myself in a stranger’s dorm room with his hands around my throat and my skirt up around my waist.” She ignored Kumi’s gasp of horror. “I thought he was going to strangle me until he had to release my throat to tear off my panties while he fumbled to pull his pants down. That gave me the advantage I needed. I kneed him in the groan, punched him in an eye and then made my escape. I took a taxi back to my apartment, snuck in quietly so I wouldn’t wake my roommate and spent the night in the bathroom.

  “The next day my neck was swollen and so bruised that I couldn’t talk above a whisper. A colorful scarf concealed the bruises and I told everyone I had laryngitis. Jeff called, but I wouldn’t talk to him. He waited for me after class, but I ignored him. After a while he took the hint and left me alone.

  “After the attack I discovered I couldn’t draw. Something in my head just shut down. That’s when I decided to go to Paris—to get away, and to study with Garland. I was desperate to see if I could recapture my muse.”

  Tilting her chin, she stared up at the man holding her so protectively in his strong embrace. “I’d just turned twenty and I was old enough to know better. It was all my fault. I should’ve never gone anywhere with a stranger, especially if my reasoning was impaired by alcohol.”

  “Don’t beat up on yourself.”

  “Who do I blame? Certainly not the student who tried to rape me.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Veronica. No man has a right to force a woman to have sex with him if she doesn’t want it. I don’t care how intoxicated she is.”

  Her chin quivered as she fought back tears. “He ruined me, Kumi. He ruined me for any man.”

  Kumi stared at her, baffled. What was she talking about? She hadn’t been raped. “How did he ruin you? You’re perfect. You’re so incredibly beautiful that you take my breath away whenever I look at you.”

  Her mind refused to register the significance of his words. She wasn’t talking about her looks. It was the inside that mattered. What she didn’t feel.

  “I don’t feel anything when a man touches me. Something inside of me died that night.”

  Kumi struggled with his inner thoughts. “But…” His words trailed off. A pregnant silence ensued, engulfing them. “You married.”

  She forced a smile when she saw blatant confusion cross his features. “Yes. I did marry. It was a marriage in name only. And before you ask, yes, I did love my husband. If I hadn’t I wouldn’t have married him.”

  Kumi’s expression darkened with an unreadable emotion. How ironic. It had taken him years to find a woman he wanted in and out of bed, and he doubted whether she would ever offer him the intimacy he sought from her.

  He knew he had to make a decision—quickly. Would he continue to see Veronica Johnson after today, or would he walk away from her, leaving her to confront her fears—alone?

  His eyes moved slowly over her face as lovingly as a caress, seeing what she could not see. She was beautiful and sexy. Sexier than any woman he’d ever met.

  Something greater than Jerome Kumi Walker had forced him to ride along that deserted road almost two weeks ago, something that made him stop and help Veronica Johnson. And that something had put the words in his mouth when he’d asked her to cook for him when he knew he could cook for himself. And he also believed and treasured the verse from Ecclesiastes: a time for making love and a time for not making love.

  He was falling in love with Veronica, and if he did love her then he would have to accept whatever she was able to offer him. At thirty-two he wasn’t ready to become a monk, but there were ways a man could relieve himself without benefit of a woman.

  Burying his face in her luminous curls, he breathed a kiss on her scalp. “You may believe he ruined you for all of the other men in your life, but actually you were saving yourself for me.”

  The heavy lashes that shadowed her eyes flew up. “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that I like you, Veronica Johnson. I want to see you and not just for Sunday dinner.”

  “No, Kumi. That’s not a good idea.”

  “That’s your opinion. I happen to think it’s a wonderful idea.”

  “I don’t know what you want from me, but whatever it is I can’t give it to you.”

  His hand moved over her breast, measuring its shape and firmness. “Do I want your body? Yes. I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t. But I’d never ask or take from you what you’re not willing to give me.”

  Veronica’s body pulsed with new life with his touch, her breast swelling under the fabric of her bra. The sensation was so exquisitely pleasurable she gasped.

  “But I’m older than you, Kumi,” she whispered.

  He smiled, shaking his head. “I thought we settled that last week.”

  “It’s not going to work.”

  “Why not?”

  “I know nothing about you.”

  “I’m not married, if that’s bothering you. I’m neither an absent or deadbeat dad because I don’t have any children.”

  “That’s not what’s bothering me.”

  “Then what is it?” When she didn’t answer him, he decided to press his assault. “You’re the first woman I’ve met that I can talk to without censoring my thoughts or my words.”

  Veronica fought the dynamic vitality he exuded and failed miserably. Kumi exhibited a calm and self-confidence men twice his age hadn’t acquired. And she’d felt comfortable enough with him that she’d revealed a secret she’d hidden away from everyone—including her sister and her parents.

  “Why is that, Kumi?”

  Tilting his head, he regarded her for a long moment, his near-black eyes peering into her soul. “I believe it’s because I’m falling in love with you.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t know me.”

  “I know what I see and what I like,” he said, showing no signs of relenting in his pursuit of her. “Your first lover may have screwed up when you caught him with another woman, but he also screwed up a second time when he didn’t get you to forgive him for his indiscretion. You’re not going to worry about me screwing up, Veronica Johnson, because there’s not going to be another woman.”

  And
there’s nothing you can do or say to make me stay away from you, he added silently.

  Placing her fingertips over his mouth, Veronica leaned in closer and her mouth replaced her fingers. She kissed him, tentatively at first, then became bolder as she parted her lips, capturing his breath and drinking in his nearness.

  Shifting her on his lap, Kumi cradled her face between his large hands. He returned her kiss, resisting the urge to push his tongue into her mouth. What they shared was too new, too frightening to rush.

  He wanted to press her down to the cushions, remove her dress and undergarments. The urge to feast on her lush beauty, to run his tongue over her body until she begged him to take her was so strong it frightened him. If ever he claimed her body, he knew he was capable of taking her with all of the gentleness and love she deserved. But he would wait—for another time and when she was ready for him.

  Pulling back, he brushed a kiss over her forehead and eyelids, before returning to her moist parted lips.

  The kiss ended with both of them breathing heavily. Resting her head on his solid shoulder, Veronica closed her eyes, smiling. She’d believed she was unable to give herself completely to any man. Kumi had proven her wrong. She knew she wasn’t ready to take off her clothes and lie with him, because she couldn’t forget the ordeal that had happened twenty-two years earlier.

  Her unexpected response to the man holding her to his heart was as shocking as the depth of his feelings for her. He was falling in love with her and what he didn’t know was that she also was falling in love with him.

  The fingers of Kumi’s right hand toyed with the buttons of her dress, and one by one he undid the buttons until he bared an expanse of flesh to her waist. She froze as he caressed the silken flesh over her ribs, her breathing quickening.

  He eased her onto her back, his hand working its magic, and leaned over her. For a moment he studied her intently, searching for a sign of the fear. A slight smile tilted the corners of his strong mouth.

  “Are you all right?”