For several moments she didn’t move, simply basking in the rightness of waking up in his arms, something she’d fantasized about long before she probably should have.
Sunlight filtered through the draperies across the enormous bedroom suite, which featured rich, masculine furnishings and a terrace that provided a panoramic view of the sprawling estate.
As Warrick stirred behind her, Raina carefully lifted her head from the pillow and glanced over her shoulder at him. His eyes remained closed, his thick black lashes resting on his cheeks. Unable to help herself, she let her gaze roam over him, taking in the dark stubble that shadowed his jaw, the sensual curve of his mouth, the broad expanse of his shoulders. He was beautifully, brutally male. And last night, at least, he’d belonged only to her.
As if he’d sensed her appraisal, those dark, piercing eyes suddenly opened and fastened on her face.
They stared at each other for an endless moment.
“Good morning.” Warrick’s sleep-roughened voice spiked her pulse.
“Good morning.” As Raina turned to face him, he kept his arm around her waist, as if to keep her from escaping. Which was the absolute last thing she wanted to do.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Mmm-hmm. The best I’ve slept in a long time, although it couldn’t have been more than a few hours.”
His mouth curved. “You can take a nap later, after the party.”
The only thing Raina wanted to do after the party was make love to him again. In every room in the house, if possible.
“Are you hungry?”
“What?” Had he read her mind?
“I was thinking we could eat breakfast out on the terrace.”
“Sure. That would be nice.”
His eyes probed hers. “Are you having second thoughts about last night?”
Raina hesitated, then shook her head. “I wanted to be with you.”
“And I wanted to be with you,” he said with quiet intensity. “More than you can imagine.”
Her knees trembled beneath the covers. Lowering her gaze, she admitted, “I don’t know where to go from here. There’s so much—”
Warrick leaned forward, his lips tenderly brushing hers. It wasn’t a kiss meant to stir passion, but her belly quivered just the same.
“We’ll take it one day at a time,” he murmured.
She nodded slowly. “All right.”
Suddenly there was a firm knock at the door. “I’m sorry to disturb you, sir,” Mr. Gibbons said, his voice raised to be heard across the vast expanse of the room, “but I wanted you to know that you have company downstairs.”
“Company?” Warrick frowned. “What time is it?”
“Noon, sir.”
Warrick and Raina stared at each other and mouthed, Noon?
“The party doesn’t start until four,” Warrick called back to Mr. Gibbons. “Who’s showing up so early?”
Even before the butler responded, Raina felt a premonition of doom, which was understandable after the fiasco at the restaurant yesterday. Please, she prayed, don’t let it be another one of Warrick’s spurned lovers!
It was even worse.
“It’s your family, sir,” Mr. Gibbons elaborated. “Your uncle, mother, sister and niece. They flew out here to surprise you.”
The look on Warrick’s face told Raina that he was surprised all right. Surprised—and braced for impending disaster.
“How could you bring that woman into this house?” Bertrice Mayne demanded furiously an hour later.
She had cornered Warrick in his study, where he’d been chatting with his older sister and bouncing his three-year-old niece on his knee. Seeing the deadly look on her mother’s face, Yasmin Mayne had grabbed her daughter’s hand and beat a hasty retreat just as Randall entered the room.
Ignoring his mother’s question, Warrick rose from his desk and wandered over to the window, drawn by the sight of Raina. He watched as she walked across the sprawling lawn with his housekeeper, who had arrived early that morning to oversee preparations for the party. Evamay Watts had taken an instant liking to Raina, and as Warrick watched the two women consulting with the vendors that were setting up the party equipment, he wondered what it would be like to have Raina there on a permanent basis, as the mistress of his home.
A scenario that would have been unthinkable a week ago now seemed rather…intriguing.
When Raina tossed her head and laughed, Warrick’s mind was filled with another image of her, head flung back, lips parted on a breathless cry as he thrust into her. As his body stirred, he remembered that he’d made love to her without protection, something he’d never done in his life. Over the years he’d had multiple sex partners, but he’d never, ever forgotten to use a condom. It was reckless and irresponsible, and a man in his position couldn’t afford to take such stupid risks. But when it came to Raina, all bets were off. She made him lose control, like an animal heeding only its primal instincts to mate. After days of fantasizing about her, he’d been too ravenous to concern himself with using protection. And maybe a part of him had feared Raina would come to her senses if he stopped what they were doing to go hunt down a condom. He’d wanted her so bad he’d refused to give her a chance to reconsider sleeping with him.
Behind him, his mother’s shrill voice interrupted his reverie. “Answer my question, Warrick!”
Before Warrick could respond, his uncle interjected impatiently, “Damn it, Birdie. Leave the boy alone. It’s his house—he can invite whomever he wants.”
“Not her! Not that girl!”
Even after all these years, Birdie Mayne refused to utter Raina’s name, as if it were a vile blasphemy.
“That’s not your decision to make,” Randall growled.
“The hell it isn’t!” Birdie raged. “He’s my son—”
“And he’s a grown man!”
As their bickering continued, Warrick glanced down at the floor and saw one of the buttons that had popped free of his shirt in Raina’s frantic haste to undress him last night. Inwardly he smiled.
Everywhere he looked there were reminders of her. The shelf with the snow globe. The desk where they’d made love for the first time. Nothing would ever be the same again. He would never be the same again.
Randall was saying apologetically, “Believe me, War, if I’d known you were taking Raina home this weekend, we wouldn’t have come. The last thing I want to do is intrude—”
“Intrude?” Birdie echoed incredulously. “She’s the one who doesn’t belong here. She’s not his family—we are!”
Heaving a harsh sigh, Warrick turned from the window and faced his mother with all the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner facing a firing squad.
Birdie sat in one of the visitor chairs across the room. Her long, slender legs were crossed, and one sandaled foot tapped angrily in the air. Her skin was the color of melted caramel and just as smooth. Her hair, as always, was impeccably groomed and cut in short, stylish layers that accentuated her fine-boned face. At fifty-five years old, she didn’t look a day over forty. She’d had Warrick when she was nineteen, and had often seemed more like an older sister to him than a mother. She was stubborn and temperamental, and had a predilection for dramatic outbursts. She also had a sharp tongue that could cut a man off at the knees—as she’d demonstrated on numerous occasions.
Warrick considered himself fortunate that he’d rarely, if ever, been on the receiving end of his mother’s notorious temper. She’d doted shamelessly on him, to the point where his siblings had often accused him of being her favorite.
Warrick loved his mother dearly, but that morning she was severely testing his patience. Right or wrong, he’d been enjoying Raina’s company, and while he’d always welcomed visits from his family, this time was the exception. He’d wanted Raina all to himself for as long as possible, and he resented having to explain himself to his mother, resented the way she’d turned up her nose at Raina as if she were something Warrick had dragged in off the street. Rain
a had every right to be there, yet he knew she would go out of her way to avoid his family for the rest of the weekend.
“We were supposed to be visiting Yolanda this week,” Birdie was ranting at him. “You promised we could go together as a family when Yasmin and I got back from our cruise yesterday. But I guess you forgot all about that when you decided to run off to be with that despicable child!”
Warrick closed his eyes briefly against a pang of guilt. He hadn’t forgotten about visiting his sister, but admittedly it hadn’t been high on his list of priorities that week. Everything, it seemed, had taken a backseat to Raina. Including his sanity.
“Now we’ll have to wait until next week to see Yolanda,” his mother complained bitterly.
“I’m sorry,” Warrick murmured.
“You should be! How could you do this to your sister? You know how much she always looks forward to seeing you. If you still lived in Houston, she never would have told us not to visit her so often. You’ve always been able to cheer her up. How could you choose that little liar over your own flesh and blood?”
“Ma—”
“Where’s your loyalty to your family?”
Something snapped inside Warrick. “Don’t you ever question my loyalty to this family!” he roared. “Everything I’ve ever done has been for you and my brothers and sisters. Everything! No one loves this family more than I do.”
Birdie gasped, her eyes widening in shock.
Warrick had never uttered a disrespectful word to her, let alone raised his voice. But, damn it, she’d pushed him too far.
He glowered at her for a moment, then turned back to the window, fighting to rein in his temper.
“Everyone just needs to calm down,” Randall said wearily. “We came here to spend time together as a family, not tear one another apart.”
“I’m not the one who’s tearing the family apart,” Birdie snapped.
Warrick shot her a warning glare.
“Well, it’s true!” she said defiantly. “When Yolanda finds out that you’ve been carrying on with that woman—”
“Her name is Raina,” Warrick snarled, whirling from the window. “Whatever feelings you may have about her, at least have the courtesy to call her by her name. Let’s not forget that there was a time you welcomed her into our home and treated her like one of your own daughters.”
“And look how she repaid me,” Birdie hissed. “By stabbing Yolanda in the back!”
“Maybe she regrets that!” Warrick fired back, surprised to hear the words leave his mouth.
Until that moment, he’d never considered the possibility that Raina might regret testifying in court against his sister. Raina had been a scared teenage girl, overwhelmed by the legal ramifications of what her best friend may have done. Maybe she’d spent the past twelve years blaming herself, punishing herself for not defending Yolanda. Maybe if Raina had to do it over again, she wouldn’t have caved to pressure and testified against Yolanda. Instead of asserting that Yolanda hadn’t been at the party, maybe Raina would have allowed for the possibility that she and Yolanda had simply missed each other.
Or maybe your sister lied to you.
As if she’d intercepted the traitorous thought, Birdie shook her head at Warrick, her lips curled in disgust. “I never thought I’d live to see the day that my own son would sell out his family for a piece of ass.”
“That’s enough!” Infuriated, Randall rounded on Birdie, his dark eyes blazing. “Damn it, woman, you just never know what to say out of your mouth, do you?”
“Of course, you would defend Raina!” Birdie exploded, leaping from her chair. “She’s always had you wrapped around her little finger. And now, apparently, she’s done the same thing to Warrick. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
A stunned silence swept over the room.
Warrick stared at his mother, the blood draining from his head. “What are you talking about?”
“Yes, Birdie,” Randall said, his voice as rigid as his body, “what are you talking about?”
She looked at each of them in turn, her eyes glinting with vicious satisfaction. “You heard what I said.”
Warrick shook his head slowly. “I don’t think I did.”
“You’re just like him,” she spat, pointing at Randall. “Just like your father!”
Warrick felt like he’d been leveled in the gut with a steel crane. The air whooshed out of his lungs, and he staggered back a step.
When his gaze swung to his uncle—his father?—he realized that Randall wasn’t putting on an act; he was genuinely as flabbergasted as Warrick was.
In unison they turned and stared at Birdie with identical expressions of outraged disbelief.
Birdie stared back at them belligerently.
“Why now?” Randall demanded, taking a menacing step toward her. “Why did you wait so long to tell us? Why?”
“You mean you’ve never told Warrick about the time you slept with your brother’s wife?” Birdie said mockingly. “You never told him how I came to see you that night, upset because your no-good brother was messing around on me and hanging out with drug dealers instead of getting a job? You mean you never told Warrick how, after you fed Yasmin and rocked her to sleep for me, you started consoling me, and one thing led to another—”
“Damn you!” Randall thundered, his face contorted with fury. “You know damned well I never told Warrick or anyone else about that night. We both agreed on that. And it only happened once.”
Birdie smirked. “Once was all it took.” She nodded toward Warrick. “There’s your proof.”
Randall gaped at her, looking like he didn’t know whether to choke her or burst into hysterical tears. He stared at Warrick for a prolonged moment, then sank weakly into a chair and passed a trembling hand over his face. He looked so devastated that Warrick almost felt sorry for him.
He whirled on his mother, rage twisting his insides. “How could you have kept something like this from me? From both of us?”
She divided an incredulous look between him and Randall. “I can’t believe the thought never crossed either of your minds. Look at the two of you. You’re the spitting image of each other!”
Warrick and Randall glanced warily at each other, silently acknowledging the obvious.
“And as for the man you thought was your father,” Birdie snarled at Warrick, “he wasn’t worth a damn. When he wasn’t strung out on crack, he was out looking for his next piece of ass. God only knows how many of his bastards are running around Houston. My only consolation is that you’re the only child I didn’t have with him!”
Warrick shook his head at her, staggered by her complete lack of remorse. “All this time,” he whispered disbelievingly. “You lied to me. You lied to all of us!”
“What difference does it make?” Birdie cried. “I didn’t keep you and Randall apart! The two of you couldn’t be any closer. God knows you’ve had a better relationship with Randall than you ever had with that sorry excuse for a man I was married to. You two have always had each other.”
“Not always,” Randall said tersely, rising to his feet. “Let’s not forget that I didn’t enter Warrick’s life until he was fourteen. Fourteen, Birdie! That’s an awfully long time to keep a man away from his own son.”
Birdie met his gaze unflinchingly. “It’s not my fault you and your brother stopped speaking to each other. It was your choice to stay out of our lives for so long. Your choice, not mine.”
“That’s not the point!” Warrick interjected, enraged. “My God, Ma, can’t you even acknowledge that you were dead wrong for keeping such a secret from us? Can’t you?”
Her chin lifted in stubborn defiance. “I did what I thought was best, and I make no apologies for that.”
Warrick’s face hardened. “I’ll never forgive you for this.”
Birdie’s eyes widened, filling with tears. “You don’t mean that, baby. You know how much I love you—”
But Warrick was already striding fu
riously from the room.
“Warrick, wait!” his mother pleaded desperately. “Warrick—”
“Let him go, Birdie,” Randall barked. “Goddamn you, woman! What have you done?”
On his way out of the study Warrick nearly collided with Raina, who’d been hovering near the doorway. Her stricken expression told him she’d heard enough of the conversation to be horrified on his behalf.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” she hastened to assure him. “One of the vendors wanted me to ask you—”
“Not now, Raina,” Warrick growled.
Without a backward glance he stalked off.
Randall found Warrick sitting alone in the darkened home theater, staring broodingly at the blank movie screen.
“Mind if I turn on the lights?” Randall asked quietly.
Warrick said nothing.
Taking his silence as acquiescence, Randall adjusted the recessed lighting, then walked into the room and selected a seat on the first row, right in front of Warrick.
Neither spoke for several moments.
“I didn’t know,” Randall said in a low voice.
Warrick remained silent.
“Did you hear me? I said I didn’t know.”
“I heard you,” Warrick said curtly.
“If I’d had the slightest inkling that the baby Birdie was carrying was mine—”
“Did you love her?”
Randall seemed startled by the question. After what seemed an eternity, he let out a deep, shuddering breath and nodded resignedly. “I did. Once upon a time. Before I knew what she was really like.” He paused. “No offense.”
“None taken.”
Randall said nothing.
As the awkward silence stretched between them, Warrick frowned. He didn’t know how to deal with this new tension between them. He hoped it wasn’t a sign of things to come.
Staring down at his folded hands in his lap, Randall began quietly, “Your mother and I grew up together in the Third Ward. Birdie was beautiful, the girl every fella wanted. But she always went for the dangerous types, like my brother Tariq. She thought I was boring because I wanted to go to college and become a police officer. She used to tease me all the time about how broke I was going to be, working as a lowly cop.” He let out a mirthless chuckle. “Your mother has always liked the finer things in life.”
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