Forever an Eaton: Bittersweet LoveSweet Deception

by Rochelle Alers

  She’d given Thomas Cooper nearly ten years of her life and six months was long enough for her to pretend to be the grieving widow. She didn’t cry for Thomas because she didn’t want to be a hypocrite. She hadn’t lied to Belinda at the fundraiser when she’d told her that she hated Thomas as much as she loved her brother.

  Cradling her face between his palms, Myles lowered his head and brushed his mouth over Zabrina’s in an attempt to comfort her. “It’s okay, baby. Let it out.”

  Zabrina had lost her father and husband, her son had lost his father and he knew her drinking too much was a feeble attempt to mask the pain. She wasn’t weeping, but sobbing. Deep, gut-wrenching sobs that knifed through Myles like a rapier. Gathering her closer, he held her until the sobs faded into a soft hiccupping. He counted off the minutes until he heard the soft snores. Zabrina had fallen asleep.

  As much as he loathed releasing her, Myles knew he couldn’t spend the night straddling her body. Reluctantly, he lay beside Zabrina, holding her protectively as he joined her in sleep.

  * * *

  When Zabrina woke again she found herself in bed alone. The scent from Myles’s cologne lingered but the heat from his body was missing. Sitting up and pulling the sheet to her breasts, she glanced around the room. Sunlight came through the lacy panels at a trio of tall windows.

  The suite in the restored château hotel preserved a sense of family and intimacy. Furnished in French country decor with a four-poster bed, massive ornate armoire, triple dresser and mirror, and chairs with carved arms and petit-point cushions, it was a scene from Dangerous Liaisons.

  Reaching for the black silk robe at the foot of the bed, she slipped into it and moved off the bed. Zabrina still didn’t want to believe that she’d shared a bed with Myles Eaton. What she found laughable was that he was the only man she’d ever slept with. As promised, her marriage to Thomas had been in name only. They’d had adjoining bedroom suites, but Thomas had never exercised his conjugal rights, and that had become the best feature of their peculiar marriage.

  At first she’d believed Thomas hadn’t wanted to touch her because she was carrying another man’s baby, but even after she’d given birth to her son, Thomas hadn’t approached her. Zabrina didn’t know what to make of her husband’s sexual proclivity. She’d thought he preferred same-sex liaisons until she inadvertently discovered he’d been sleeping with his cousin’s wife, and that her two sons weren’t her husband’s, but Thomas’s. Zabrina didn’t care who he slept with as long as he didn’t try to consummate their sham of a marriage.

  She walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. A low table held a supply of feminine grooming products along with a comb, toothbrush, toothpaste and mouthwash. She brushed her teeth and then stepped into the shower. Standing under the spray of a hot shower Zabrina swore never to overindulge again.

  The smell of coffee met her when she emerged from the bathroom, her hair covered with a towel and her body swathed in black silk. She’d turned back the cuffs on the robe and looped the belt twice around her waist. However, there was little she could do with the lapels that kept slipping to reveal the tops of her breasts.

  Myles walked into the bedroom at the same time she reached for her dress. “Breakfast is here. Come and eat.”

  Zabrina felt her pulse kick into a higher gear when she stared at the man who she couldn’t remember ever not loving. Instead of the tuxedo from the night before, he wore a pair of faded jeans, running shoes and a golf shirt that revealed solid pectorals and biceps.

  “I’d like to put on some clothes.”

  Myles extended his hand. “You have clothes on, Brina. Come and eat before the food gets cold.”

  It was apparent he wasn’t giving her much of a choice. And it wasn’t that she wasn’t hungry. The night before she’d elected to drink rather than eat, and Zabrina was certain that the lack of food had contributed to her feeling hungover. She approached Myles, placing her hand on his outstretched palm. He’d showered, but hadn’t shaved and the stubble on his dark face enhanced his blatant masculinity.

  Cradling the small hand in the crook of his elbow, Myles felt the fragility of the slender fingers. Although she’d had a child, her body was much slimmer than he’d remembered.

  He pulled out her chair at the table in the dining area and then sat beside her. “How do you feel this morning?”

  Zabrina gave him a sidelong glance. “A lot better than I did last night.”

  Myles gave her a warm smile. “Good.” He gestured to her covered plate. “Eat, Brina.”

  She removed the cover and was tempted to salute him for telling her to eat. Myles had ordered a spinach omelet, bacon and a slice of buttered wheat toast for her. “You remembered my favorites.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

  Myles filled a glass with orange juice from a carafe, placing it in front of her plate. “I took a chance when I ordered it. People’s tastes sometimes change.”

  Zabrina wanted to tell him she hadn’t changed that much. Aside from having his son, her feelings for him hadn’t changed. “Have you changed, Myles?”

  Myles poured orange juice for himself. “Yes, I have. What has changed most are my priorities. Remember when all I talked about was making partner?”

  She smiled. “Yes.”

  “After five years of working in New York, I finally made partner. After the announcement was made everyone at the firm got together at a restaurant to celebrate. But then when I woke up the next morning it was if nothing had changed. My name was added to the firm’s plaque and letterhead and I moved into a large corner office. But I realized all of it was nothing more than vanity.”

  “That’s the same with titles and awards,” Zabrina said in a quiet voice as she speared a small portion of omelet. “When all is said and done it’s only vanity. It won’t make you healthy, keep you out of jail or avoid death.”

  “My, my, my,” Myles drawled. “You’re really cynical, aren’t you?”

  “Cynical or truthful, Myles?” she said.

  “You’ve done well for yourself, Brina,” he countered. “Your husband may have lost his bid to become mayor of Philadelphia, but he made out even better when the governor appointed him to fill a vacant U.S. senate seat.”

  She swallowed a portion of the spinach and feta cheese omelet. “That was Thomas’s ambition, not mine.”

  Myles took a sip of orange juice. “Please answer one question for me, Brina?”

  “What is it?”

  “If you disliked politics so much, then why did you marry a politician?”

  Zabrina sighed audibly as she recalled her carefully rehearsed script as to why she’d broken their engagement to marry Thomas Cooper. “I was in awe of Thomas Cooper, and I suppose him being twenty years my senior made him even more intriguing. He asked Daddy if he could marry me just weeks before you proposed.”

  “Were you sleeping with him?”

  “No, Myles. I’ve never been one to sleep with more than one man.”

  How virtuous of you, Myles mused. “What did your father tell him?”

  “He told Thomas he couldn’t tell me who to marry.”

  Myles glared at her. “You accepted my proposal, while you were thinking of marrying another man.”

  Zabrina felt the heat of his gaze as she stared at her plate. She couldn’t look at Myles or she would be forced to blurt out the truth. “When I spoke to my father he told me to follow my conscience.”

  “And what did your conscience tell you?”

  “It told me to marry Thomas.”

  “It told you to marry Thomas,” Myles mimicked. He sobered quickly. “Thomas Cooper took the woman who was to become my wife and claimed the son that should’ve been ours because you followed your conscience. If I’d followed my conscience, then I would hate you for your deception. But I don’t hate you,
Zabrina, because then I wouldn’t have been able to move on with my life.”

  “Have you moved on, Myles?”

  “Yes. I’m seriously considering buying a house.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “You’re buying a house in Philly?”

  “No, Brina. I’m looking for one in Pittsburgh.”

  He’d moved on with his life, while Zabrina didn’t know what she wanted to do with hers. And it hadn’t dawned on her until now that Myles could possibly have a woman in Pittsburgh waiting for him to return at the end of the summer.

  There had been a time when Myles was considered one of Philadelphia’s most eligible bachelors, and she’d been too enamored of him to notice that other women flirted shamelessly with him. And why shouldn’t she when, as a teenager, she’d done exactly that—flirted shamelessly with him.

  They ate their breakfast in silence, each lost in their personal thoughts. Zabrina wished it’d been different, that she could’ve been matron of honor and Myles best man for Belinda and Griffin’s wedding, that her son was Adam Eaton not Cooper, that every night she would go to sleep and every morning wake up beside Myles. She wanted to give Adam the brother or sister he always talked about.

  But it was not to be, because she’d played the sacrificial lamb for her father in order to keep him from going to prison. She didn’t regret what she’d done and would do it again if faced with the same predicament.

  Thomas Cooper’s promise that their marriage was in name only and the fact that she’d had Myles Eaton’s son made her sacrifice more than worthwhile. Her father was gone, Thomas was gone and Myles was no longer in her life. Unwittingly, he’d given her a gift she would cherish forever.

  * * *

  Myles followed closely behind Zabrina’s car during the drive to Philadelphia. Although she’d said she was no longer feeling the effects of the alcohol she’d consumed the night before, he wanted to make certain she arrived home without a mishap.

  He was surprised when she maneuvered into an enclave of recently constructed one-family homes less than a quarter of a mile from where Belinda had purchased her house. With him living in Belinda’s house for the summer, he and Zabrina were within walking distance of each other.

  She’d moved out of the mansion where generations of Coopers had lived for a more modest lifestyle with her son. An emotion came over him that he immediately recognized as a newfound respect for Zabrina. When she’d ended their engagement he’d conjured up dozens of reasons why she didn’t want to marry him: he had been too demanding, he had convinced her to sleep with him when she hadn’t been ready, he had put pressure on her to become a mother when she’d wanted to wait at least two years.

  He’d blamed himself, until the news surfaced that Zabrina Mixon had married Thomas Cooper in a private ceremony. Then it had all made sense. Thomas had come from a long line of African-American politicians in Philadelphia dating back to the 1890s. Cooper was handsome, eloquent, wealthy and twenty years her senior. He was also a close friend of Isaac Mixon, and Zabrina marrying Cooper would cement the relationship between the consummate politician and the masterful political strategist.

  Shifting into Park, Myles sat staring out the windshield as Zabrina got out of her car and came over to his driver’s-side window. He smiled. Even with her bare face and her hair brushed off her forehead and behind her ears, she was still ravishing.

  Reaching into the open window, Zabrina rested a hand on Myles’s wrist. “Thank you, Myles.”

  His gaze lowered, lingering on her full, sultry mouth. “For what?”

  “For taking care of me last night.”

  “Think nothing of it. That’s what friends are supposed to do. Take care of each other.”

  Her eyebrows lifted slightly. “Are we friends, Myles?”

  “Yes,” Myles said after a long pause. “If we weren’t friends, then I would’ve had sex with you. And, because it didn’t happen, that makes us friends.”

  Zabrina closed her eyes for several seconds. Myles had changed. In the past, whenever she’d mentioned them having sex he’d corrected her to say it wasn’t sex but making love, then had gone on to explain the differences.

  “How else can I thank you aside from saying thank you?”

  Myles reached for his cell phone resting in a console between the seats of the Range Rover. “Give me your numbers and I’ll call you.”

  “Call me for what?” she asked as a thread of suspicion crept into her voice.

  “Perhaps we can get together to take in a movie or go out to dinner before I go back to Pittsburgh.”

  Zabrina forced a smile. She didn’t want to start up with Myles again only to have him leave at the end of the summer. Ten years before, she’d left him, and now he would be the one to leave her.

  “Okay.” She gave him the phone number to her house and her cell. Then, on impulse, she leaned into the window and pressed a kiss to his jaw. “Thank you again.”

  Myles nodded, mildly surprised at Zabrina’s display of affection. He sat motionless, watching as she walked to the entrance of her home, opened the door and closed it behind her. He still could see the image of her long, shapely legs in the stilettos.

  His gaze shifted to the tiny phone in his hand. Common sense told him to delete Zabrina’s numbers, but he’d never been rational when it came to her. From the moment he’d kissed her for the first time, to when they’d shared a bed for the first time, nothing between them had ever been sensible.

  He ran his free hand over his face as if to wipe away the frustration and pain of the past ten years. Myles couldn’t fathom why despite her deceit he still wanted her. Just when he was certain he was over Zabrina, she was back in his life, reminding him of the searing passion they’d shared.

  And despite her heart-wrenching deception, he still wanted her.

  Chapter 6

  Myles clocked the distance it took for him to drive from Zabrina’s house to his sister’s. It took exactly three minutes door to door.

  He parked his sport-utility vehicle in the driveway rather than in the two-car garage. It was Sunday and he would’ve usually shared dinner with his parents, but after last night’s wedding reception he knew the elder Eatons wanted to either sleep in late or relax.

  He still had to settle into the house where he planned to spend his summer. Belinda had given him a quick walk-through of the two-story white house framed with dark blue molding and matching shutters. He’d teased his sister, saying that if she’d known she would be moving to Paoli less than six months after renovating the second floor to accommodate the needs of two teenage girls she could’ve saved a great deal of money.

  He got out of the SUV, retrieved his overnight and garment bags from the rear seat and made his way up the porch. Myles unlocked the front door and deactivated the security system. Leaving the garment bag on a chair in the entryway, he walked to the rear of the house to the laundry room to empty the contents of the overnight bag into the hamper. Belinda had given him a crash course on operating the digital washer and dryer, which meant he didn’t have to send out his laundry.

  Not having a house with a porch and not waking up to trees and a green lawn weren’t the only reasons why he’d grown tired of living in an apartment. Myles had also grown tired of shopping every week because he lacked storage in his apartment. He preferred going to a supermarket warehouse several times a year to buy in bulk. His teaching schedule had increased from two to three constitutional law classes, and his free time was now at a premium—he didn’t want to get into his car and go shopping on a weekly basis. He liked big-city living, but as he grew older he realized he preferred a slower pace.

  He’d grown up with his parents and three sisters in a six-bedroom, four-bath farmhouse in a Philadelphia suburb. His mother was a stay-at-home mom, negotiating the many squabbles between her four rambunctious children, while t
heir physician father treated his many patients in the office connected to the main house. He knew Dwight Eaton was disappointed that none of his children had elected to pursue a career in medicine, but he had supported them in whatever career paths they’d chosen.

  Myles hadn’t realized he wanted to become a lawyer until he joined his high school’s debate team. His verbal skills and quick thinking made him a standout whenever they competed with other high schools. Once he entered college he was able to hone his skills in mock court trials.

  Walking out of the laundry room, he checked the pantry, then the refrigerator. When he’d called to tell Belinda that he planned to spend the summer in Philadelphia she’d offered him her house. The furniture in his nieces’ bedrooms had been moved to Griffin’s house in Paoli, but Belinda hadn’t taken any of the other furniture. His sister had restocked the refrigerator and pantry before his arrival, making moving in smooth and stress-free.

  When Belinda had informed him that she was going to marry Griffin Rice, Myles hadn’t wanted to believe that two of his sisters had fallen in love with brothers. But, when he rethought the relationships in his family, he realized his sister Donna had named one of her daughters for his girlfriend. When Donna and Grant’s fraternal twin girls were born, Donna had named one Sabrina, using the traditional S instead of Z.

  He’d just turned on the under-the-counter television when the doorbell rang. Myles walked out of the kitchen to the front door. When he opened it he found his youngest sister Chandra and his twin nieces grinning at him.

  “Surprise!” they chorused.

  Chandra held up a large white shopping bag. “I brought breakfast.”

  Myles opened the door wider, smiling. “Come in. I hate to ruin your surprise, but I already ate breakfast.”

  Sabrina went on tiptoe to kiss her uncle. “Gram and Gramps put a Do Not Disturb sign on their doorknob, so Aunt Chandra decided on a take-out breakfast.”

  Sabrina was the mirror image of Belinda at her age. Myles had always thought her a little too mature and serious for her age. Layla, on the other hand, was more laid-back, funky. Both wore braces to correct an overbite, but it was Layla who opted for colorful bands rather than the clear ones worn by her twin. The girls would celebrate their thirteenth birthday in the fall, and every time he saw them they appeared to have grown several inches.