Forever an Eaton: Bittersweet LoveSweet Deception

by Rochelle Alers

  Leaning forward, Myles rested an arm on the table. “You are still in love with me, or you never stopped loving me?”

  A sense of strength came to Zabrina as she met his penetrating stare. She’d confessed to Belinda that she loved her brother, and what she hadn’t been able to tell him verbally she was able to do with her body. For more than ten long suffering years she’d yearned for Myles, cried herself to sleep, and if it hadn’t been for Adam she wasn’t certain that she’d have had the will to survive.

  “I never stopped loving you, Myles. Is that what you want to hear?”

  “No,” he replied softly, “it’s not so much what I want to hear but what I need to know.”

  “Why?”

  “I just need to know if we’re on the same page.”

  “You don’t hate me for what I did to you?” There was no mistaking the astonishment in her voice.

  “I didn’t hate you, but I did hate how you did it, Brina. If you’d come to me and told me you were interested in someone else I would’ve given you an out without the embarrassment you caused my family. What was so crazy was that I couldn’t even give them an explanation as to why.”

  “You...you didn’t tell them I was in love with someone else?”

  All of the warmth in Myles’s eyes disappeared, replaced with a cold loathing. “No. I didn’t tell them because I didn’t believe you. But, then when word leaked out that you’d married Thomas Cooper they had the answer.”

  “I’m sorry, Myles. I’m so sorry for what I did to you and what your family had to go through because of my deception.” Unshed tears shimmered in her eyes.

  Myles shook his head. He was confused. Zabrina admitted that she still loved him, yet she’d told Belinda that she hated Thomas Cooper. Which was it? Had she been in love with him and Cooper? Or had she loved Cooper more than she loved him? And he wondered what had happened between her and her husband to force them to occupy separate bedrooms.

  “Were you ever in love with Cooper?” he asked. Myles chided himself for asking, but he had to know.

  A sad smile trembled over Zabrina’s lips. “No, Myles. I was never in love with Thomas Cooper.”

  He had his answer, but ironically it didn’t make him feel any better. “Thank you for your honesty. I suppose you want to know...” Myles’s words trailed off when his cell phone rang. Reaching into the breast pocket of his jacket, he stared at the display, then at Zabrina. The call was from a former law-school friend who’d set up an office in North Philly where most of his clients were indigent. Some were illegal immigrants seeking citizenship.

  “Answer it, Myles,” she urged softly.

  “Thanks.” He punched a button. “What’s up, Willie?” Myles caught and held Zabrina’s gaze as he listened to the drawling voice coming through the earpiece. “Look up Miller v. Albright, 1998. The facts are similar to your case. If the couple isn’t married, and when the citizen parent is the mother, then the kid is a citizen if the mother meets minimum residency requirements. If the mom is a citizen, and in order for a foreign-born child to be a citizen, then she must have established residence here for a minimum period of time.”

  “What about the father, Eaton?”

  “If the father is a citizen he must prove paternity by clear and convincing evidence, and show evidence of actual relationship with the kid during the period of the child’s minority.”

  “Thanks, man, you just answered my question.”

  Myles smiled. “I’m glad I could help out.”

  “How much are you going to charge me, Eaton?”

  “Now you know I offer friends the professional courtesy rate,” he teased. “Send me seven thousand and we’ll be even.”

  “Sheee-it,” Willie drawled. “Even if you were for real, man, I wouldn’t be able to pay you. It takes me about six months to pull down seven thousand in fees from clients who walk in off the street.”

  “How are you keeping the doors open?”

  “I have a few private clients on the side.”

  “How private, Willie?”

  “Now, Eaton, you should know I can’t reveal names. Attorney-client privilege.”

  Slumping against the back of his chair, Myles stared out the window of the restaurant overlooking Baltimore Harbor. “Don’t call me, Willie, when they come for you.”

  “What are you trying to say, Eaton?”

  “You know what I’m trying to say, Willie. Because if your so-called private clients go down you’re going with them. I’m glad I was able to help you, but I’m going to end this call because you interrupted my dinner.” He tapped a button, ringing off. Exhaling, Myles returned the phone to his jacket. “I’m sorry you had to hear that,” he apologized to Zabrina.

  “That’s okay,” Zabrina replied.

  He wanted to tell her that it wasn’t okay. The call had interrupted what he’d wanted to say to Zabrina, something he knew would change them and his tenuous relationship with her.

  “How do you remember all of those cases?” she asked, breaking into his thoughts.

  Myles lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I suppose it’s like a song you’ve heard over and over. You find yourself singing along without actually thinking of the words.”

  Propping an elbow on the table, Zabrina rested her chin on the heel of her hand. “Don’t be so modest, darling.”

  Assuming a similar position, he smiled at the incredibly lovely woman sharing the table with him. “You use that term rather loosely.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “What term?”

  “Darling.”

  “Does the word make you uncomfortable?”

  Myles shook his head, his expression unreadable. His dark eyes caressed her face before his lids shuttered them from her gaze. “No, Brina. There aren’t too many things that make me feel uncomfortable. I just need to know if you’re calling me darling out of habit or if you actually think of me as your darling.”

  A frown appeared between Zabrina’s eyes. “Why are you cross-examining me, Myles?”

  “Just answer the question, Zabrina.”

  “Why?”

  The corner of his mouth twisted in frustration. If Zabrina had a negative personality trait it was stubbornness. He’d lost track of how many times he’d walked away from her in exasperation rather than blurt out something that would’ve ended their relationship. If he pushed, then she pulled and vice versa. It was only in bed where they came together on equal footing.

  “I need to know where we’re going with our relationship.”

  “What relationship, Myles? I thought we agreed to sleep together for the summer, and when it ended we would go our separate ways.”

  “I didn’t agree to anything.”

  “Yes, you did,” she retorted.

  “No, I didn’t,” Myles argued softly. “When I asked you what happens at the end of the summer, you were the one who said ‘we go our separate ways to live our separate lives.’ And when I asked why you’d selected me to be your sex toy, your claim was ‘we have a history.’ Now, that doesn’t sound as if I agreed to anything.”

  “Do you remember everything I say?”

  “If it’s worth remembering, then the answer is yes. I’m going to ask you again. Where do you see our relationship going? Do you want to stop at the end of the summer?”

  Zabrina’s mind was a tumult of confusion. What did he expect her to say? Yes, I want it to continue beyond the summer because I’m still in love with you. But had he thought about the three-hundred-mile separation? She lived in Philadelphia while he wanted to put down roots in Pittsburgh. Then she thought about Adam. How would he react to seeing his mother with another man when he was still dealing with the loss of his father and grandfather? The family therapist said Adam was progressing well, and it was she who suggested he spen
d time away from his mother because Zabrina had begun to mollycoddle a boy who was naturally independent.

  The therapy sessions were good for her, too, because Zabrina realized she had several unresolved issues going back to her loss of her own mother. She somehow blamed herself for Isaac not remarrying and her childhood fixation with Myles Eaton would’ve been very unhealthy if he’d opted to take advantage of her infatuation.

  “No, Myles, I don’t want it to stop at the end of the summer. But what—”

  Myles held up a hand, stopping her words. “Let it be, Brina,” he warned in a quiet tone. “We’ll let everything unfold naturally.”

  “Request permission to ask one more question, Professor Eaton.”

  Shaking his head, Myles couldn’t help smiling. “What is it, Nurse Mixon?”

  It was Zabrina’s turn to smile, remembering when she’d passed her nursing boards and Myles had teased her, calling her Nurse Mixon. The smile faded as she formed the question she knew would answer whether she could ever hope for or consider a future with the man who’d unknowingly given her a piece of himself she would love forever.

  “Do you love me, Myles?”

  The seconds ticked off as swollen silence wrapped around them like a shroud, shutting out anything and everything around them. The waiting sent Zabrina’s pulse spinning, her mind a maelstrom of anticipation and dread. Myles’s withering gaze pinned her to her seat like a specimen under glass that would remain preserved in its natural state for posterity. Even if she lived to be a hundred she would never forget the look in his eyes.

  “Yes, I love you, Zabrina.” The admission came from somewhere so alien to Myles he couldn’t begin to fathom where. “I’ve loved you for so long that I can’t remember when I didn’t love you. Even when you became another man’s wife I loved you. When you opened your legs for him I still loved you. When you gave him the son that should’ve been ours I continued to love you. And, despite your sweet deception, I don’t want you ever to question my feelings for you.” He paused. “Have I made myself clear?”

  Blinking back tears of joy, Zabrina nodded. “Yes.”

  The stone that had weighed down her heart the day Thomas Cooper had walked into her home to blackmail her into marrying a man who held her father’s fate in his hands was rolled away with Myles’s declaration of love.

  She was freed from the threats when Thomas had fallen overboard and drowned in the Chesapeake. But her feelings then paled in comparison to those now that she was being given a second chance at love.

  Myles hadn’t mentioned marriage, and at thirty-three that wasn’t as important to Zabrina as it had been when she was younger. Her mantra of “enjoy what you have because when it ends you make certain you have no regrets” came to mind.

  Pushing back his chair, Myles stood up, signaled the waiter and dropped several large bills on the table. “The food and service were excellent.”

  The waiter inclined his head. “Thank you, sir. Please come again.”

  Zabrina looked at Myles as if he’d taken leave of his senses. They’d just sat down to eat and he was leaving. Waiting until they were in the restaurant’s parking lot, she rounded on him.

  “What was that all about back there? You drive all the way from Philadelphia to Baltimore to eat and then we leave before we finish our dinner.”

  Myles assisted Zabrina up into the sport-utility vehicle. “We can eat at home.”

  She caught his meaning immediately. “Oh, really.”

  He flashed a Cheshire-cat grin. “Yes, really. We can cook together.”

  “Before we go to bed, or in bed?”

  Myles leaned closer. “Both.” He shut the door with a solid slam, rounded the vehicle and slid behind the wheel.

  Although he’d never been much of a gambler, this time he had gambled and won. He knew he couldn’t continue to sleep with Zabrina and not know where their relationship was going. If she’d been any other woman Myles would’ve been more than willing to have a summer fling, then move on from there. But they’d shared too much, and there was too much history between them for him to relegate her to the faceless, nameless women with whom he’d shared forgetful minutes of passion.

  Myles completed the hundred-mile drive between Baltimore and Philadelphia in record time, maneuvering into Zabrina’s driveway. She wanted him to stop at her house first. He’d just cut off the engine when Rachel came racing across the lawn, arms waving excitedly.

  Zabrina removed her seat belt. “Do you want to wait here, or come in with me?” she asked Myles.

  He lowered the driver’s-side window, opened the door and came around to assist her down. “I’ll wait on the porch for you.” Cradling her face between his hands, he kissed her forehead. “Don’t rush. I know how you ladies love to chat.”

  Zabrina pursed her lips in a provocative way that stirred the flesh between his legs. He chided himself for telling her not to rush. If Rachel hadn’t come over, Myles would’ve gone inside with Zabrina and made love to her without the benefit of protection. If she were to become pregnant he would become her husband, not a baby daddy.

  Too many women were raising children in households without fathers. His nieces, who had lost both parents in a horrific automobile accident, had been legally adopted by their aunt and uncle. They were luckier than some children who would’ve become a statistic in the foster-care system.

  Zabrina’s neighbor was a war widow, leaving her to grieve the loss of her husband and the father of her young children. Zabrina had lost her father and husband within months of each other, leaving her son to grieve the loss of his father and grandfather. There had been too many losses, too much grief, especially for young children.

  “Hi, Myles,” Rachel called out as she mounted the porch.

  “Hi, Rachel,” he mimicked. “Bye, Rachel,” he teased as she opened the door and went inside.

  Chuckling to himself, he sat on the rocker and waited for Zabrina.

  * * *

  Rachel followed Zabrina into her bathroom, watching as she opened a drawer under the vanity. “I have a date,” she said in a breathless whisper.

  Zabrina turned and stared at her neighbor. Rachel’s face was flushed with high color, her eyes large and sparkling like amethysts. “Who is he?”

  Rachel pressed her palms together in a prayerful gesture. “Hugh Ormond.”

  “The owner of Whispers?”

  “The one and only.”

  Zabrina screamed while jumping up and down like a hysterical teenager. She hugged Rachel, both of them doing the happy dance. “Yes, yes, yes!” she chanted. “I’m so happy for you. When did all of this happen?”

  Rachel flashed a toothy grin. “He called me yesterday.”

  “How did he get your number?”

  “Remember when he gave me his business card with his cell number?” Zabrina nodded. “Well, I called to make a reservation for my parents. I want to treat them to a night out for looking after Shane and Maggie, but the call went directly to voice mail. I left a message, asking him to return the call. When he finally called me back we ended up talking for an hour. He said he wanted to talk more, but he had to prepare for a private party. That’s when he asked if I’d be willing to go out with him, and, of course, I said yes, but only after I played a little hard to get. I can’t have him think I’m desperate, which I am.”

  Zabrina felt her neighbor’s excitement. “When are you going out?”

  “Tomorrow night. Please don’t say anything to Myles that I’m seeing his friend.”

  “Why would I say anything to him?”

  “I just don’t want to jinx myself, Zabrina. This is not the first time a man has asked to go out with me, but it is the first time I’ve accepted. There was something about the others that gave me the willies.” Rachel paused to take a breath. “Hugh is different because I
feel so comfortable talking to him—about anything. I know my reluctance to date is because of my kids. I don’t want Shane or Maggie to think I’m trying to replace their father with another man.”

  Zabrina offered Rachel a comforting smile. “You’re a young woman and you’re entitled to adult male companionship. And by that I don’t necessarily mean sex.”

  Rachel blushed again. “But I want and need the sex, Zabrina. My husband and I used to screw like rabbits.”

  “Whoa, Rachel, that’s entirely too much information.”

  The blonde rolled her eyes. “When you’ve been without a man for as long as I have you’re ready to post a sign on your back reading Man Wanted.” She wrinkled her nose. “The only thing I’ve never been able to get into is online dating. Now that’s some scary mess.”

  “I hear you,” Zabrina agreed, not telling Rachel that it’d been longer for her, before she starting sleeping with Myles again, since she’d been made love to.

  Other than trolling clubs, she wouldn’t know where to begin looking for a man. Fortunately, the only man she’d always loved had come back into her life when she least expected it.

  She and Myles had put their past behind them in an attempt to move forward. However, one hurdle remained: their son. Zabrina knew Myles would eventually meet Adam when he returned from Virginia, but her uneasiness came from whether Adam would be willing to share his mother with a stranger.

  “How are things going between you and Myles?”

  Rachel’s unexpected query pulled Zabrina from her reverie. She wanted to pretend she didn’t know what her friend was talking about but knew it was futile. After all, she hadn’t slept under her own roof in a couple of nights and her car hadn’t been moved in days.

  Resting a hip against the vanity she gave Rachel a long, penetrating stare. “Things are good.”

  Nervously, Rachel moistened her lips. “I know who you are,” she said cryptically. “I know you’re Senator Cooper’s widow and that you were once engaged to Myles Eaton.”