Sinful Paradise (Kimani Hotties)

by Christopher, Ann

  She fidgeted, wondering how her makeup was holding up and why she hadn’t worn the blue dress rather than this flashier red one. Not that her appearance was the real issue.

  “But what if they don’t like me? Then is it just adios, Gloria? Have a nice life?”

  He gaped. “Why wouldn’t they like you?”

  She tossed her hair and smiled with fake confidence, dredging up some bravado from somewhere. “You’re right. They’ll quickly see that I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to you.”

  That made him frown for some reason.

  “What? It’s a joke, Cooper!”

  “I know.”

  “So why the look?”

  “Forget it.” He studied her for a minute, and then his expression cleared. “If your parents were alive, I’d want to meet them. You know that, right?”

  “If my parents were alive, the last thing I’d do is introduce you to them.”

  “Why?”

  “My father was a lying cheat, and my mother was a doormat,” she said flatly. “And if you met them, you’d probably think less of me. Any other questions?”

  “Yeah. Why are you always so sure I’m going to think less of you?”

  Because most people eventually did think less of her, not that she was going to tell him that.

  Once again, though, he seemed to know.

  That was the thing about Cooper. He always just knew.

  “You know what I see when I look at you?” he quietly asked her.

  “The woman who can beat you in any field of athletic competition?” They’d been training to qualify for the next Boston together.

  He grinned. “A fine athlete. Your marathon training times are quite good. I’ll give you that.”

  She nodded regally. “I’ll take that.”

  “I see an incredible woman. A strong, interesting, smart, beautiful and sexy woman.”

  “Why, thank you. And please stop there before you get to the but.”

  “Not a chance.” He paused, then locked eyes with her. “And I see a woman who’s so scared and vulnerable that she’s determined to drive me away because she thinks I’ll decide I don’t want her.”

  That hit her like a roundhouse kick to the solar plexus.

  She looked away, her smile fading as she focused on the dessert case so she wouldn’t have to meet his gaze. There was no comeback for that, so she didn’t try to manufacture one.

  “Here’s the thing you need to think about, Glo,” he continued. “What if there’s nothing I can find out about you that’ll drive me away? What then?”

  She turned back to him, their gazes connecting. Inside her, meanwhile, a tiny bloom of hope was beginning to blossom, and she didn’t know if she wanted to water it or stomp it to smithereens before the inevitable droughts and locust plagues hit.

  “What is it about you, Cooper?” she asked. Something in his intent expression softened, warming his sapphire eyes until she felt as if she could drown in them without regret. “Why do I always feel like I can believe you?”

  “Because you can.”

  Her inner voice told her to leave it at that and keep her big mouth shut before she gave him the keys to the kingdom. Her heart told her to risk it.

  Though her heart had a dismal track record, she decided to trust it, just this once.

  “You know I’m already halfway in love with you, don’t you?”

  He planted his elbows on the table and leaned in, getting as close to her as he possibly could. “What can we do about that other 50 percent?”

  She caught herself starting to smile and shook her head instead. “You won’t be happy until you get it, will you?”

  “No,” he said, unsmiling. “With you? I want it all.”

  “So,” she said, mirroring his posture and leaning closer. “We have this Judah Cross auction we’re attending at the end of the week.”

  Interest flickered in his eyes. “Yeah?”

  “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Do tell.”

  “Maybe you could come over for a drink or something after.”

  His gaze dropped to her mouth. “Or something?”

  “Yeah,” she said, standing halfway and tipping up her chin so he could kiss her. “A lot of or something.”

  “You got it,” he said with a smile as he kissed her.

  “A-hem,” said a woman’s voice at the side of the table. “This can’t be our son, can it, honey? Our son doesn’t believe in PDAs.”

  “Looks like our son,” rumbled a man’s voice.

  Oh, God.

  Flaming with embarrassment, Gloria eased back and covered her mouth with her hand, as if that could erase Mrs. Davies’s first impression of her as the woman who couldn’t keep her lips to herself.

  “Sorry,” she said quickly, sliding her chair back and standing. “Hi. I’m Gloria. Adams. Gloria Adams. It’s really nice to meet you both.”

  Whatever she’d expected, it wasn’t these two. Mr. and Mrs. Davies—Ernest and Marlene—were both tall, lanky and youthful, as though they were Cooper’s older siblings rather than his parents. Mr. Davies wore a bright blue T-shirt under a high-end hoodie with black jeans that were starched and pressed. His baseball cap, which he quickly whisked off his bald head, was from Jay Z’s latest concert tour. He was a perfect older copy of Marcus, which meant he was brown-skinned, hard-jawed and goateed, with brown eyes that sparkled with mischief.

  Mrs. Davies, who was eyeing Gloria with keen interest, was as tall as her husband, in the six-one-ish range, and had her auburn hair in a wispy pixie cut that curled around her forehead, nape and ears. Also brown-skinned, she wore a black pencil skirt with a leopard-print blouse that draped around a trim waist.

  “You’re Dr. Adams, aren’t you?” she asked in a crisp voice, shaking Gloria’s hand in her firm grip. “Plastic surgeon?”

  “Plastic surgeon, yep. That’s me. Call me Gloria, though.”

  Mrs. Davies released her hand and hugged Cooper, who’d stood and shaken his father’s hand already. “She’s beautiful,” she told him in a stage whisper. “Looks athletic.”

  “She is athletic,” Cooper told her. “She runs a 5K in thirty-one minutes.”

  “Thirty-one, eh?” Mr. Davies had now engulfed Gloria’s hand in his own, which was the rough equivalent of putting her fingers in a vise grip and tightening it down several notches. He gave her a squinty-eyed look that told her exactly where Cooper had learned his competitive streak. “Is that on a flat course? Because I can do a flat course in twenty-eight, twenty-nine, no problem.”

  “That was San Francisco last year,” Gloria told him.

  He nodded, a new gleam of respect in his eyes. “You might need to keep this one, Cooper,” he said over his shoulder as he finally turned Gloria’s hand loose. She lowered her hand to her side and discreetly flexed her fingers, trying not to wince. “She sounds like a contender.”

  “Oh, she’s a contender,” Cooper said, giving Gloria a quick smile of encouragement. “She makes me work for every point I get.”

  Gloria, who was feeling a bit more relaxed, frowned at him. “You haven’t gotten any points on me, Eagle Scout.”

  “See?” Cooper asked his parents as, laughing, they all took their seats.

  “Have you run a full yet?” Mr. Davies scooted his chair closer to Gloria’s as though he wanted to keep her full attention. “I qualified for Boston last year, but then I twisted my knee.”

  “I’ve run a couple,” Gloria said. “I ran the Flying Pig in Cincinnati five years ago.”

  “Flying Pig.” Another solemn nod from Mr. Davies. “That’s hilly country there. What was your time?”

  “Don’t answer that, Gloria,” Mrs. Davies said, rolling her eyes and leaning across her husband to cut him
off. “If you encourage him, he’ll start talking about his mini-Ironman training, and no one wants that. Trust me.”

  “I’m trying to get to know Cooper’s girlfriend, woman,” Mr. Davies said, looking affronted. “And I don’t appreciate being cut off.”

  Gloria, meanwhile, caught Cooper’s amused eyes across the table and raised her brow.

  Yeah, he mouthed. You’re my girlfriend.

  She grinned, ducking her head and flushing.

  “Oh, I don’t care what you appreciate,” Mrs. Davies said, flapping a hand at her husband. “That’s enough about you. I have a question for you, Gloria.”

  Gloria snapped to attention. “What is it?”

  Mrs. Davies tipped her head up and smoothed her chin with her French-manicured hands. “Do I need my throat done? My skin’s gone all to hell. I look like a turkey on his way to Thanksgiving dinner. Look at this wattle.”

  “You do not have a wattle,” Gloria told her, laughing. “You can trust me on that. I know wattles.”

  “Really?” Mrs. Davies beamed happily at her. “What about my eyes? Is there anything I can do about these bags underneath? How much would an eye lift set me back?”

  Mr. Davies interjected before Gloria could answer. “You’re not getting an eye lift, Marlene,” he snapped. “Stop hogging Gloria. She doesn’t want to talk shop with you. She’s on her lunch break.” He paused for a breath. “Gloria, you ever thought about an Ironman? How’s your swimming?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.” Mrs. Davies heaved a long-suffering sigh. “We’ll talk later, Gloria. Without the menfolk.”

  “Can’t wait,” Gloria said. “But right now I want to know what kind of little boy Cooper was. Tell me everything. I want to know about his grades, what kinds of buddies he ran with, sports, braces, girlfriends...anything you can remember.”

  “Unfortunately,” Cooper interjected smoothly, flashing her a squinty-eyed look, “the folks will be unable to stay for lunch. Something has suddenly come up. Isn’t that right, folks?”

  “Don’t even try it,” Gloria told him. “Start with his old girlfriends, Mrs. Davies. In case he tries to cut us off again.”

  Mrs. Davies rested her elbows on the table, warming to the topic right away. “Well, there was this one girl in high school—”

  “The stalker?” Mr. Davies asked, frowning thoughtfully.

  “No, the manipulator,” said Mrs. Davies. “The one with the red hair and braces.”

  Mr. Davies’s expression cleared and he repressed a tiny shudder. “Oh, that girl was crazy.”

  “I thought Cooper preferred blondes,” Gloria said.

  “Right now, Cooper would prefer a prostate exam,” Cooper said sourly. “Can’t a guy eat his lunch before—”

  “Gloria Adams?” said a woman as she approached their table. “Your office said you might be here. I told them I was your cousin.”

  Gloria frowned and looked more closely at the woman. A bell of recognition rang somewhere in her head, but it was muted. “Yes? Have we met?”

  “Not yet,” the woman said. “But I thought it was time I laid eyes on the woman who’s been having an affair with my husband.”

  Chapter 10

  Gloria went rigid with suffocating shock, as though she’d been dipped in wet concrete that was beginning to harden around her. The chattering of the café crowd fell away, leaving her excruciatingly aware of the horrified faces of Cooper and his parents, none of whom seemed any more able to speak than she was.

  She gaped at the woman.

  No, not the woman. Aaron’s wife, whose framed vacation picture—smiling on the slopes of some mountain, with a woolly hat pulled low over her forehead and her skis standing next to her—Gloria had once seen in his office, and who had a name: Amy.

  He’d talked about Amy over the years, of course, an ongoing litany about how horrible their relationship was, how they’d become roommates who shared the bills but little else and how he could never, ever want another woman, especially his wife, as much as he wanted Gloria.

  That last bit was a lie, Gloria realized now. It had to be a lie.

  Because the Amy standing in front of her right now, staring at her with unblinking brown eyes, wasn’t the Wicked Witch of the West that Gloria had imagined her to be, and she wasn’t a grandmotherly frump who wore polyester elastic pants and let her roots go gray, and she certainly wasn’t a hysterical mess who created turmoil and drama wherever she went.

  No.

  This Amy was a slightly older, slightly taller but otherwise more beautiful version of Gloria herself. And she realized that Aaron had a type, and she and Amy were both it. The woman that Aaron was probably sleeping with now—because a man like Aaron always had a woman on the field, a woman warming up in the bull pen and a woman on the bench—would also be the same type.

  They had the same small-breasted, long-legged build, same wavy black hair, same brown skin, same oval face and same almond-tipped brown eyes. Gloria had to fight hard to kill the burble of hysterical laughter that was surging its way up her throat. If someone decided to make a movie of Amy’s life and put out a casting call, Gloria would get the part, no problem. No audition needed.

  And just to add insult to injury, Amy was wearing a gray wrap dress that Gloria had tried on the other week at Nordstrom, then put back when she realized it made her shoulders look too boxy.

  Amy’s shoulders looked great in that gray dress.

  Gloria opened her mouth and tried to activate her voice.

  Her voice wasn’t ready.

  Which was crazy, because she’d thought about this moment. Mentally rehearsed this moment. Dreaded this moment. For two years she’d hurt this woman, a woman who’d never done anything to her, and the whole time Gloria had told herself it was okay because a love like she and Aaron shared could never be denied. And then, when she realized there wasn’t much in Aaron that she could love, she’d told herself that at least his wife, the poor soul who was actually saddled, through marriage and their children, to the lying bastard, never knew about the affair.

  Gloria had clung to the ridiculous fiction that as long as this moment never came, she hadn’t truly hurt Amy.

  And now, staring into Amy’s brown eyes, so much like hers it was like looking into a fogged mirror, Gloria watched her rationalization go up in smoke.

  Still, she tried to do the thing she’d always said she’d do—dodge and deflect. To protect this innocent woman from the painful truth.

  “I beg your pardon,” Gloria said coolly. Her vocal cords had dried up, producing only a brittle croak. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  A humorless smile crinkled the outer edges of Amy’s eyes. “Oh, I think you do.”

  Cooper—wonderful, loyal, strong Cooper, whose only fault, as far as Gloria could see, was that he’d developed feelings for Gloria when she wasn’t remotely good enough for him—slid his chair back and stood, gently putting a hand on Amy’s arm. His gaze was turbulent and worried as he glanced at Gloria, but none of that showed when he turned to Amy.

  “You’d better go,” he softly told her, trying to steer her away from the table. Gloria held her breath, praying it would work but knowing it wouldn’t. “You’ve got the wrong person. Come on. I’ll get you a cab.”

  Amy shrugged him off. All her energy was focused on Gloria. “We’d just gotten back together. Did you know that? We agreed that we needed some time apart, and then, before he could even move out, he came back and told me he’d made a mistake. He said he wants the marriage. And I want the marriage. We’ve been together for twenty-eight years. Since college. Did you think about that when you were climbing into bed with him?”

  Gloria opened her mouth to issue another rote denial, but it felt like concrete was hardening around her throat, making it impossible to breathe, much less speak.<
br />
  “No. You probably didn’t,” Amy continued. “But I thought you should know that things have been great in the last couple of months. Until this morning. When I was on the way to the dry cleaner’s. And I found this in his suit pants.”

  Gloria knew what it was going to be and was already shaking her head by the time Amy reached into her bag and pulled out Aaron’s secret cell phone. She should’ve been prepared, but seeing it in Amy’s hand was still like being staked through the heart.

  “It’s my husband’s secret cell phone,” Amy told her. “And guess what’s on it.”

  Desperation galvanized Gloria into standing up and trying one final offensive, even though she knew it was useless. “I’m sorry you’re having a tough time, but I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

  “About a thousand text messages to you.” Smiling crookedly, Amy held the phone up, as though there was any possibility that Gloria wanted to examine the texts. “And his call records went crazy a couple of months ago. Looks like he was desperate to get hold of you, huh? This is you, right?” She thumbed a button and checked the display. “Gloria Adams? That’s your email signature, isn’t it?”

  Shame now had Gloria in a choke hold. It took every ounce of her dwindling strength to hold Amy’s gaze and try to look bewildered and innocent while all around them curious heads were turning in their direction.

  Another chair scrape. Mr. Davies was on his feet now, dividing his concerned gaze between Amy and Gloria. “Ma’am,” he tried, “let’s get you to a cab. You’re upset.”

  “I’m not upset,” Amy told him.

  Gloria, who was riveted by Amy’s calm and dry-eyed recitation of facts, believed her. Amy wasn’t upset. She just wanted the chance to say her piece. And Gloria was no longer certain she should keep trying to stop her.

  If she hadn’t done right by Amy in the past, didn’t she at least owe her the truth now?

  “I just want Gloria to know what she’s done,” Amy added. “Are you her parents?” She looked at Cooper. “Her boyfriend? Then you should know what she’s done, too, right?”