“Huh?” he said out loud. What in the world did that mean?
“What’s wrong?” Gretchen inquired.
Seeing her inquisitive stare but not wanting to reveal the cause of his consternation, he gulped the hot liquid. “Nothing.” Jeb must have been playing a trick. It would be so like him. “Nothing at all.”
Cold, hard metal from the bistro chair she occupied dug into the exposed skin of her back. Despite the twinge of discomfort, she wondered how was she to interpret the look crossing his features. Had he figured out their past connection?
Gretchen dismissed it immediately. If Kwasi had, then there would have been a definite reaction. Mainly the closing of those long fingers around her throat.
How small was the world then? Seven billion people and she happened to meet the boy of her nightmares in Java Cupid.
Sitting across from her though, he was more like the man of her dreams. A mouthwatering piece of vanilla candy. The curtain of light had landed on his pale, powerful frame. He used some sort of product on his afro. Beaded droplets of whatever it was shone on his hair, turning it into a patch of thick, glistening gold.
In a way, with his coloring and blond hair, Kwasi could be a cupid. Not a pudgy winged boy-child flitting about with a bow and arrow. Draped in a white toga with its gold belted cord, he’d be a hot Afro-centric love god with firm pectorals, muscular thighs, and big feet.
Shaking her head to rid herself of the image imprinted on her nerve cells, she asked, “Well, it’s your turn now. What is it you do?”
If she asked the right questions, she’d be able to determine if he was indeed the Kwasi.
“Private security.”
She rested her head on her uplifted fist. “Do you guard celebrities?”
He chuckled. “No, nothing like that. We’re a small firm and I like it that way. We provide security for small functions and venues.”
“We?”
“My twin brother, Kojo.”
Twin brother Kojo?
All the blood drained from her body. If she needed a piece of hard evidence to prove the man before was the Kwasi, having such a sibling would do it.
Still, there are several billion people on the world, she reasoned. It’s completely possible there are other sets of albino twins with those names.
No, not really, a voice in her head argued back.
Before she succumbed to the burgeoning panic in the center of her chest, she had to find out one more thing. “Are you guys identical or fraternal?”
“Kojo’s me with a mohawk.” Kwasi grinned again with a sideways tilt of his pink mouth. “I’m the good-looking one though.”
Gretchen’s hands had turned into ice. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears.
Kwasi and Kojo? How after all these years and two different countries apart, would they meet together like this?
An uncontrollable tremor racked her hands. In an effort to calm her nerves, she reached for her tea when a message appeared in upraised letters. When she read it, her heart plummeted to her feet.
“Love forgives everything, even death.”
Was this the mysterious Java Cupid? Or was it Jeb playing some sort of practical joke?
No, it couldn’t be Jeb. This statement hit too close to home. Anyone who had written this would know the deepest, darkest secret of her heart.
The memory overlaid the environment of the café like a holographic screen. Four small children, two boys pale as cloud and two girls, Gretchen and her twin sister dark as shadows, played in a field of tall grass with massive trees, hot air, and the drone of insects.
In the background, their parents laughed and joked in the doorway of a thatched roof home.
All of it so innocent. She never knew how soon it would be a nightmare.
“Earth to Gretchen?”
She jerked. “I’m sorry. You were saying?”
“Is everything okay? You kinda spaced out for a moment.” His brow creased in concern.
No, everything wasn’t okay. She had to get away from here and never let Kwasi near her again.
“I just remembered I have an appointment with a potential buy for the museum.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. She did have to meet with the contact. It was just sometime next week, not today.
She gathered her purse. “It was good meeting you.” She fell back on her polite mask. “And fun playing the guessing game. Thanks for the tea.”
There. She’d tidied up everything nice and tight.
“Why are you suddenly running away?”
Gretchen froze. “Huh?”
He leaned forward. “Why are you running away? I thought we were having a good time. At least, I was.”
She tried to look away from his penetrating gaze but she found herself once more locked by his hypnotic pull. “I’m not. I have an appointment.”
“What time?”
Her mind went blank. “Um—”
“You don’t have to leave,” Kwasi responded before she could attempt to think of a suitable reply. “I will.” He swallowed the contents of the cup. As he did, his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, drawing attention to his masculinity.
Setting the cup back on the table, he sent her a brooding look. A droplet of tea hung on his mouth. It tantalized her to wanton thoughts and desires even as the apprehension grew.
So much had changed since they were children. After all, she’d never thought she’d see Kwasi and Kojo again. The childhood friends of her youth had transformed into men with unsurpassed ability to turn the heads of many a female. He certainly turned hers in a 360-degree angle.
“You know, if you didn’t really want my company, you could have said so.” He rose. “You have a good day.”
Gretchen fought a hard battle. On one hand, by offending him, he’d never guess her identity. The secret of their past would remain safe.
Another part of her refused to let him leave thinking the worst of her. Or maybe she should? She groaned. Why couldn’t she make up her mind?
“Kwasi, wait.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. Bells of alarm rang in her head.
“No, Gretchen. We don’t know each other. But you at least could have been up front about it. I’ll be seeing you.” He let out a harsh, humorless laugh. “No, actually. I won’t be. Goodbye. It was my mistake to think you would be different.”
Her brow furrowed as she nervously bit down on her lip. “Different? What do you mean?”
An arrogant lift of his eyebrow gave him a sexy, devilish look.
“Now you’re curious? Well, don’t be.”
He left the table and headed toward the door. A tall man bumped into him and besides a quick apology, Kwasi moved on. Strangely enough, Kwasi held onto the empty cup in his hand instead of throwing it away in the nearby wastebasket.
Gretchen watched him go, torn between a new, hitherto fore unknown desire of feminine pursuit, and the self-preservation of anonymity.
Should she let him go? It would be better for both of them if she did. On the tail end of that thought came another. A theme of her life she’d kept with her through every major decision she’d had to make. Life was too short for ‘what if’s’.
She got up slowly and looked down at the message on the tea cup. “Love forgives everything, even death.” Would she ever discover if such a sentiment was true if she let Kwasi walk out of the Java Cupid café, possibly her life?
Before she could talk herself out of this foolishness, she rushed across the expanse of the café.
“Hi, Gretchen!”
She whirled around. Though tension and desperation clutched at her, she greeted the other person in a forced cheery voice. “Hi, Charlie!”
The man with the kind eyes and low-ridge forehead showing the sign of his special needs ambled towards her. “You pretty!”
“Thank you, Charlie. You’re so sweet for saying that. How’s your girlfriend?”
“Fine. I’ll see her tonight and take over some flowers. Purple ones.”
&n
bsp; She would have continued the conversation but she couldn’t spare another minute. “I gotta go, Charlie, but we’ll talk later.”
“Hurry before he goes.”
She spared a quick stare at Charlie. His bright smile held only good will. She dashed out of the café and into the parking lot. Shielding her eyes from the sunlight, she darted her gaze around until it landed on Kwasi near a silver Cadillac Deville.
“Kwasi, wait!”
He inclined his head toward her voice but didn’t look at her. “Yes?”
She gulped. “You’ve known me for a long time.”
His head shook back and forth in confusion. “Come again?”
Plunging into the abyss of no return, she screeched out, “It’s me. Afia. Your wife.”
CHAPTER THREE
The keys fell from his sudden, nerveless fingers. All activity muted as if sucked into a vortex. His heart beat pounded like a piston threatening to punch through the confines of his chest.
Afia.
Kwasi flinched. It hurt to say her name, much less think of her.
His body hardened like stone, fighting his brain in a battle to stay put and not give her a second glance. Yet, with a supreme force of will, he made his body obey the dictates of his mind.
“Afia?” A visceral pain sliced across his stomach.
She nodded slowly, the white of her eyes once again giving her that doll-like appearance.
“It’s me, Kwasi.” Gretchen—no, Afia repeated, taking a tentative step in his direction.
A cascading avalanche of memories almost toppled him over. He should have known the moment she stepped into Java Cupid it was her. No one had ever been able to draw his attention as she had. Even as a young boy in the village of their childhood in Tanzania, he’d been enraptured by her. How often had the sight of her pure, black skin mesmerized him, so different from his own dirty paleness?
“Why didn’t you say anything earlier?” Was that his voice so nonchalant and even? How could it be so misleading when a curious heat from the bottom of his feet began to rise up his legs?
Gretchen - calling her Afia hurt too much - took another cautious step. The long slim column of her throat convulsed nervously. “I didn’t know it was you until Jeb said your name. And then…I hoped I was wrong.”
A breath he hadn’t been aware he held until it eased out drained him of strength. He leaned on the car for support. He felt very much like an old man.
“I thought I’d never have to see you again.” He’d whispered the words, but she heard them just the same.
“I know. I didn’t expect to see you, either.”
“The moment you found out, you should have left, you know.” His voice had dropped an octave as the heat traveled further up his body, centering in his gut.
“I tried to,” she answered back. “Why do you think I was trying to get away?”
So, he was the cause of her sudden desire to leave. “It wasn’t fast enough.”
Silence enveloped them even as people glided in and out of the café. More warmth flowed up his chest and on to his cheeks. His eyes raked over her, seeing her again for the first time as Afia—now Gretchen—from his youth.
Her skin shone even brighter in the sunlight. Hadn’t it always? That unpolluted silky darkness she retained since childhood gleamed healthily like a shimmer of diamond.
A long ago, patted-down memory resurfaced. The specter forms of four children dashed in front of him as if they were real. A pair of boys with yellow hair and powder skin raced ahead of a pair of girls with cropped hair and bright smiles.
His eyes followed them down an imaginary path that once resembled the trail from their village to the large forest. It was a nice memory, he had to admit. Many of them were. Gretchen and her sister had played with Kojo and himself without fear. Many days they dallied on the edge of the forest, sometimes daring each other to go further into its opaque depths to see who was the bravest.
“Kwasi?”
Her voice made the visions of their youth dissipate like a mist. As the scar along his back pulsed anew, his fury encapsulated his brain and the happy memories burned away like the edges of charred paper.
“I could kill you.” He ground out between his gritted teeth
Her slender hands clasped together but she held firm in the face of his wrath. “I know.”
“I don’t think you do,” he growled.
The weakness left him as swift as it had come. Rage powered his legs and he stalked toward her, ripping off his T-shirt and flinging it to the ground. “I don’t really think you do.”
Each step drawing him closer to her brought out splashes of the nightmare like splatters of paint. Kojo and he falling on the hard forest floor. The growl of the tiger behind them. Hunters jeering. Searing pain along his back. That bone-chilling fear as he dragged his brother, refusing to let go of his hand.
Kwasi pivoted around to show her his back. “Do you see what they did to me?”
He heard her gasp as he perceived her gaze travelling along the scars of his back. Like a physical touch, he could tell when her eyes lingered on the puckered flesh where the tiger had come so close to killing him.
He snarled as he turned back around. “You really don’t know how very much I want to kill you.”
Her face lost color, taking on a grayish pallor. Despite that, her mouth had firmed into a line of determination.
“I do know, Kwasi.” A fine trembling took over her. Whether it was from sorrow or rage, he couldn’t tell. “I was tied to one of the trees.” She swallowed hard. “They did it in order to prevent me from going after you. I saw the hunters run after you with the tiger.”
Her voice broke. “I heard you scream. It was the last thing I’d ever heard from you.”
Those dark eyes of hers glistened like marbles. “So, I really do know what you went through. I was powerless to stop it.”
He hissed. “But you were so powerful enough to start it.”
Resentment boiled in his gut. He had gone through hell to escape the village of his birth. With all his might, he’d submerged those recollections in the dank waters of his past.
He’d had help doing that. Thanks to his adoptive parent, he’d escaped to the U. S., and was given a semblance of normality. Even here, his albinism drew unwanted attention from bullies as opposed to hunters.
Disgust at his initial attraction swelled inside. How could he have found her so breathtaking when she strolled into Java Cupid? Had that only happened less than an hour ago? It seemed as if a lifetime had passed since then. A lifetime of pain and unrequited vengeance.
Kwasi snatched his T-shirt off the ground and twisted it around his fist. “You—”
Wait a minute, a voice screamed in his head. What about the mark?
A lightning bolt shuddered down his back. How could he have forgotten about that?
“Do you still have it?” he gritted out between clenched teeth.
Her head dropped like a wayward child caught in the act. “Let’s not—.”
“Gretchen,” he interjected with a bite. “Look at me.”
Where the forceful command came from, he didn’t know. It was alien to his make-up, much like it was for him to hurry anywhere. Perhaps it was a remnant of male expectation of obedience still ingrained from his childhood, although he’d spent the latter part of his formative years in the U. S.
Her head lifted and she met his gaze straight on.
“Do you still have it?” he asked again.
He almost hoped she didn’t. A quick prayer lifted to the heavens as the silence lingered for an interminable amount of time.
Her mouth opened and closed like a fish. “I—I can’t—”
“Turn around,” he ordered. Where the audacity came from he didn’t know.
She stilled, her head cocked to the side as a flare of defiance ignited in her eyes. Boy, despite everything pulsing through him, he did like her sass.
But he wouldn’t be deterred. He had to know.
His eyes locked onto the small imperfection on the back of her neck. A spot of light skin shaped like an uneasy crescent moon with indistinct edges.
Kwasi gulped. “There it is.”
Such a tiny thing and yet that mark had sent both of their lives down a rabbit’s hole of hurt.
Kwasi couldn’t abide to look at it any longer. Without another glance in her direction, he stomped back to his car, started the engine, and sped out of the Java Cupid parking lot like a bat out of hell.
The streets blurred out of focus. Familiarity drove the vehicle more than a predetermined destination. A niggling sense of alarm told him he had somewhere to be but for the life of him, he just couldn’t remember.
At the stoplight, his car phone rang. Jamming his Bluetooth into his ear, he answered it.
“Kwasi O’Brien.”
“What’s wrong?” His own voice, slightly deeper drilled into his ear.
Kwasi sighed. “Kojo, I don’t know if I should tell you.”
“Well, I wouldn’t have called if I didn’t know.”
That much was true. Their twin bond was more acute than Spiderman’s spider sense. They could read each other with a look and know the other’s thoughts.
“You’re not going to like what I’m about to tell you.”
“Try me.”
Kwasi wavered, his fingers clenching the steering wheel with a death-like grip. It was unlike him to be so undecisive but Gretchen’s reappearance had thrown the world off kilter.
“I ran into your sister-in-law today.”
Kojo’s deafening silence on the phone spoke louder than anything else. Finally, he spoke. “How the—?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t recognize her at first. But later—”
His voice trailed off. How much of this did he want to reveal to his brother? Surely, he didn’t want to admit his attraction for the girl who had him almost killed as a boy. That would be insane.
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