A Vow of Seduction

by Nana Malone

  But nothing made her heart race, nothing made her excited or happy or any of the emotions that she had felt when she was with him. And for the first time she was having a hard time writing. Normally the words poured out of her. Normally she would spend hours pounding at her keyboard, only looking up when hunger got to be too much for her. But now it seemed her fingers and brain were disconnected. They wouldn’t work the way they used to. It made her realize that maybe she wasn’t as happy as she thought she was before. That she had been existing, but she wasn’t living.

  She had to switch things up. Sitting in her apartment thinking about him would do her no good. So she got dressed, not in her yoga pants that seemed to be her uniform lately, but in clothes that made her feel pretty, and she decided to walk that day. She went around her neighborhood and shopped in stores she had never been to, ate in a café that she had passed a million times and never knew it was there. There was a whole world around her that she had been ignoring, and she explored it thinking it would take her mind off him, but it didn’t really. She saw couples together walking hand in hand, sharing smiles, just being happy in each other’s presence. She wondered if she had taken the chance, done as he had asked and gone to Washington, if they would have been the same way.

  They could have been, but then she thought about the last time she saw him and how his job had pulled him away so many times in those few days. His job would always pull him away. He was important to his firm, but she wanted to be important to him. She wanted to come first. It was selfish, she knew, but he had thrown her away before. She refused to be thrown away again. Plus he hadn’t even called. She had expected him to, the next day, the next week. She jumped every time her phone rang, expecting it to be him, but it never was, and it just proved to her that she had been right all along. That their fling had been just that.

  But even though things hadn’t worked out with Marc she didn’t regret one moment of her time with him, because he taught her that she didn’t have to settle in life. That she could be with someone who made her feel, whom she could love. And she did love Marc. She had never stopped. He taught her that it was okay to risk falling in love with somebody, because the alternate was never loving at all. And not loving was dull. Not loving made the world seem gray.

  She wanted a man in her life, and family, and children, she decided when she walked past the park on the way back to her building that afternoon. She was thirty years old. It was time she really let herself love again.

  She pulled out her cell phone and dialed Asa’s number as she rode the elevator back to her apartment. She loved him, too, but could never think of him as anything more than a brother. Being back home taught her that she needed to make an effort to keep the people she loved most in life close to her. Asa lived a cab ride away. There was no reason they shouldn’t see each other.

  “Hey! I hope you’re calling me with good news.”

  “Good news?” She shook her head. “I would like to have dinner with you this week. Is that good news?”

  “Oh.” He sounded disappointed. “You’re sure there’s nothing else you wanted to tell me?”

  “No. Is there something I should be telling you?”

  “Where are you?”

  “In the elevator going up to my apartment.”

  “You haven’t been home yet?”

  “I’ve been out all day. Why?”

  “No reason,” he said quickly. “Just call me back later. Okay?”

  “Asa...”

  He disconnected, leaving her confused. The elevator doors opened and she stepped out, still staring at her phone. She wondered if she should call Virginia, but she didn’t want to bother her newlywed friend, especially since she hadn’t been back from her honeymoon for more than a day.

  “Hey, you shouldn’t stare at your phone while you’re walking,” she heard a man say. “It can lead to an accident.”

  She looked ahead of her to see Marc sitting on the floor in front of her apartment. The air rushed out of her lungs as she took him in. He was dressed for the cold, late-fall day in a navy blue coat and smart-looking hat. He smiled up at her, beautiful as ever, but what she couldn’t help but notice were the two large black suitcases that sat on either side of him.

  “Willa, are you going to say something?” The smile dropped from his face and he looked up at her with concern touching his eyes.

  Her throat started to burn and she blinked as tears started to form. “What are you doing here?” she asked as a hot tear slipped down her cheek.

  He scrambled to his feet and wrapped her in a tight embrace. “I love you, Willa. That’s what.” He tipped her head back so he could wipe away her tears with his thumbs. “I know I shouldn’t have ambushed you. I should have called and told you that I quit my job and gave up my apartment. I should have discussed with you the fact that I can’t sleep at night because I think about you so much. I should have warned you that I was coming after you. I should have told you that you’re it for me, that you make me laugh, and you make me think and you make me crazy and that I need for you to be my wife one day. But I thought if I showed up here with no place to live that you would get the picture.”

  “Marc!” She couldn’t process her feelings. She couldn’t think coherent thoughts. He was here. He was here and he was holding her and her heart was beating so fast she felt was going to pass out. “You quit your job?”

  “I’m going back to school. I enrolled in the next term for Teachers College at Columbia. I’m going to get my master’s in education. I’m going to do some consulting work here for the mayor’s office, but nothing like before. My job was my life, and that shouldn’t ever be how it is. I didn’t want to lose you by staying in a job that made me unhappy. So I’m here. I’m here to love you.”

  “I—I don’t know what to say.” It was true. She was shocked and overwhelmed and overjoyed. He was here in front of her.

  “I can get an apartment here. We can just date for a while, go slow if you want, but I’m in this for the long haul and I don’t want to go slow. I want you.” His eyes roamed her face. He looked so unsure, so adorable, that it made her heart melt. “I know you don’t know what to say, but say something, please.”

  She pinched his arm. Hard.

  “Ouch! What the hell?”

  “What took you so long?” She grabbed his face, kissing him deeply. “I missed you.”

  “Starting over is hard. I had to settle some things before I left that life behind.” He kissed down her jawline. “I want to marry you, Wil. Tell me you want this.” He slowly stroked his hands down her back. “Tell me you’re okay with me being here.”

  “I love you.” She looked up at him. “I never really stopped, but I love the man you’ve become more than the boy you used to be. I don’t want to take things slow. I want you to be my family.”

  “Good.” He sighed. “Because I got this ring burning a hole in my pocket and I’m itching to give it to someone. If you weren’t going to take it I was prepared to give it to your mail lady.”

  “Of course I’ll take it.” She kissed him again. “I’ll take you, too.”

  Epilogue

  Willa eased herself from her chair and rubbed her aching back. It was only 3:00 p.m., but she was done writing for the day. Marc was due home from school any moment now and she always liked to be there to greet him. He had graduated with his teaching degree and had taken a job teaching history at an all-boys academy for at-risk students, never looking back to his old career.

  Teaching was hard. He went in early most mornings and up until a few months ago, he stayed past five to plan his lessons and grade papers and tutor kids who needed his help, but Willa could see that her husband was happy.

  Fulfilled.

  He smiled when he talked about his students. He told her stories about boys who people thought were headed for a life of crime
were now heading for Ivy League schools. His happiness was infectious.

  And for the first time in her adult life Willa was happy, too. It made Willa not want to write such dark novels anymore. She had been afraid her life was going to change if she made a go of it with Marc. Afraid he would judge her eating Chinese food for breakfast. Afraid she could no longer go stay in sweats and write for fifteen hours a day if she wanted to. But he ate Chinese food with her and brought her steaming mugs of tea when she went on her writing binges.

  But she made sure she made time for him. Not because she had to. Not because she was now his wife, but because she wanted to. For the first time in a very long time she wanted to have a real life and not experience it through her characters. And life was truly sweet.

  She made her way to the couch just as she heard Marc’s keys in the door. Her heart beat a little faster. Eighteen months in and she still felt a rush whenever she saw him.

  “Hey, sexy.” He dropped his bag by the door and walked over to her, a smile on his face and a paper bag in his hand.

  “How’s my favorite teacher today?”

  “I’m great. I brought you a cupcake. Chocolate peanut butter.”

  She grinned up at him. “How did you know?”

  He went down on his knees before her and kissed her very large belly. “How did I know? I caught you dipping leftover Halloween candy into a tub of peanut butter.”

  “Doctor says I should be eating green things and things that grow in nature and don’t have cartoon characters on the packaging, but this kid wants candy bars and cereal with enough sugar to choke a horse.”

  “How is my little man today?” He kissed her baby bump a half dozen times. “Is he ready to make his grand entrance yet?”

  He was so excited about their son. Sometimes Willa thought she was going to have to fight to get to hold him. “We still have over two weeks to my due date. But he was very well behaved today and let me get in all my writing. I finished my book.”

  Marc looked up at her, pride in his eyes, as he rubbed her belly in slow, loving circles. “That means he’s getting ready to come. And because he’s a gentleman like his father he’s allowing you to finish your book before he comes.”

  “Because he knows that I will have to focus all my time on him.”

  “It would be a little inconvenient if an idea for a scene struck you while you were in the middle of labor.”

  “Only a little.” She laughed. “Help me off of this couch, Marc?”

  “Why? Is there something you need? I can get it for you.”

  He would get it for her. He was a good husband. A good man. He would be a good father soon. “Just help me up.” He pulled her up and she stumbled into him, her belly seeming to have its own gravitational pull. She wrapped her arms around him and drew him close. “This is what I wanted.” She rested her head against his strong chest. “I’m not going to have much time with you alone soon.”

  “We’ll make time.” He kissed her forehead. “You’re sure about this? About the baby? About this life we have?”

  “It’s a little late for regrets, don’t you think?”

  He looked down at her, his expression serious, but with love in his eyes. “I know this isn’t the life you had planned for yourself.”

  “No, but it’s a better life than I could have imagined. My only regret is that we didn’t get to live it sooner.”

  “I love you, Willa,” he said just before he kissed her.

  She would have told him that she loved him, too, if her mind hadn’t gone blank due to his expert kisses.

  “Come on.” He took her by the hand and led her toward the bedroom. “I know a good way we can spend some good alone time together.”

  “And maybe bring the baby sooner?” He didn’t care that she had gained fifty pounds, or that her feet grew, or that she now waddled when she walked. He always seemed to want her.

  “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to bring another piece of you into this world.”

  He loved her. Just like he promised he would, and she knew that unlike the characters in her books, she would live happily ever after.

  * * * * *

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  We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Kimani Romance.

  You dream in vibrant hues! Harlequin Kimani Romance stories feature sophisticated, soulful and sensual African-American and multicultural heroes and heroines who develop fulfilling relationships as they lead lives full of drama, glamour and passion.

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  ISBN-13: 9781488003684

  A Vow of Seduction

  Copyright © 2016 by Harlequin Books S.A.

  The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:

  Hot Night in the Hamptons

  Copyright © 2016 by Nana Malone

  Seduced Before Sunrise

  Copyright © 2016 by Jamie Pope

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