Читать книгу Single Mama's Got More Drama - Kayla Perrin, Kayla Perrin - Страница 11

Lewis and I made plans to meet at The Clevelander, a spot that had a lot of history for us. Sexual history. I could have protested when I called Lewis back and he suggested the spot, but I didn’t. I knew that Lewis was hoping I’d cave to the emotional history the place represented for us. And for that reason, I knew I needed to go there as a test of my own feelings for him as well as a test of my own resolve to keep our relationship platonic.

As I waited for Lewis at a table on the patio, I gazed at the palm trees that lined the South Beach strip. The scent of the ocean filled the air, and I could hear the sounds of calypso, reggae and hip-hop coming from the surrounding clubs. At night, the strip lit up in an array of neon colors, highlighting the beauty of the art deco buildings. On South Beach you had the beach, the swanky clubs, architectural history and natural beauty. As far as I was concerned, South Beach was one of the most beautiful places in the world, and very likely the hippest.

I loved living here. It offered fun for the kids, excitement for the adults. Being on South Beach was like living in paradise. As I took in everything I loved about the place, I was more convinced than ever that I wouldn’t lose my home.

At least not to a greedy, conniving, self-serving bitch.

“Hey, gorgeous.”

At the sound of Lewis’s voice, I looked over my shoulder. He looked sexy as hell in a tailored, pin-striped navy suit. Honestly, Lewis Carter looked like a top-paid model, or even a movie star. I had no doubt that his smile had gotten many a woman hot and bothered—me included.

Yes, Lewis’s great looks had attracted me to him, but it was his ability to make me laugh that had made me fall in love with him.

As I stood to meet Lewis, I sensed eyes on us. A quick glance around and I saw that women in The Clevelander and those strolling the street were checking Lewis out. He had the kind of sex appeal that drew women’s attention like white on rice.

Not seeming to notice the women, Lewis slipped an arm around my waist, drew me close and kissed me full on the mouth. It was the kind of kiss that at one time would have had me smoldering, but I didn’t feel much more than a tingle now.

I was kind of hoping I would. Anything to show the feelings I’d had for Lewis once could return.

I broke the kiss and smiled up at Lewis. “As usual, all eyes are on you.”

“But I only have eyes for you, baby.”

Lewis gestured for me to sit, so I did, and he helped me ease my chair back under the table. Then he took a seat opposite me.

His eyes zoomed in on my left hand, then narrowed. I knew what he was thinking before he spoke the question.

“Where’s your ring?”

“Oh.” I drew my purse onto my lap, reached into it and opened the engagement ring box. Beneath the cover of the table, I slipped the engagement ring onto my finger. “I noticed someone following me when I left my office building,” I lied. “I slipped it off my finger…in case the guy wanted to cut my finger off to get the ring.”

Lewis’s eyes widened. “You were followed?”

“I think so,” I hedged. “I’m not sure. But, I wanted to be safe. Just in case.” I placed my left hand flat on the table, showcasing the amazing engagement ring. “It’s a big rock.”

Lewis took my hand into his. “And no less than you deserve.”

Smiling somewhat uncomfortably, I pulled my hand back and linked my fingers together, then rested my chin on my joined hands. “I want to thank you for offering to go with me to the meeting with Tassie and her lawyer next week.”

“Of course I’m going with you. You’re my girl.”

“I think your being there is going to help a lot. But I have a couple other ideas I want to run by you.”

“Shoot.”

“First of all, I was thinking that it’d be really stupid for me to go to that meeting without a lawyer. I looked through the phone book for some, but I don’t know who’s good. I need someone who’s tough. Someone who will push back when Tassie pushes. For the most part, she’s been running the show with her demands, treating me as though I have to deal with her terms. That crap’s got to stop.”

“That’s a great idea.”

The waitress arrived, a pretty Latina whose eyes lit up when they landed on Lewis. Normally, Lewis might give a woman like her a sexy smile. But he looked her way only to order a half-carafe of white zinfandel for the table.

When the waitress was gone, I asked Lewis, “Do you know someone? Someone tough? In your business dealings, you must have a lawyer. If your lawyer isn’t appropriate, hopefully they’ll know someone who can help me out. I don’t know what kind of attorney would be good in this situation—divorce, civil?—but I do know that I need a bull.”

“I know a couple lawyers who’ll be perfect for the job. Sharp, tough. Bruce Barnes. Neil Gorman. Neil’s a shark.”

“Perfect,” I said, relieved. “You think you can put me in touch with him tomorrow? I need to get on this fast. I don’t even know how I’ll pay someone, but—”

“Don’t worry about that,” Lewis said. “You’re my fiancée. I’ll take care of you.”

Nodding, I didn’t meet Lewis’s eyes. I was aware that with each step I was taking toward resolving my situation with Tassie, I was owing more and more to Lewis. Not that he would ever expect me to repay him—at least not monetarily. And yet I felt I owed him, so much so that I couldn’t confess that I wasn’t altogether sure about this marriage thing. I would far prefer to continue being friends with him and see how things went, but I just didn’t know how to tell Lewis that.

“Vanessa?”

The sound of Lewis’s voice jolted me from my thoughts. “Sorry. I was just thinking.”

“It’s gonna be all right,” he said. “Trust me.”

“I hope so.” I gestured to the South Beach strip. “I can’t lose my home, Lewis. Not to Tassie Johnson.”

“You’re not going to.”

“What I don’t get about her is that she’s a mother. As a mother—one who’s living in a multimillion-dollar mansion—how can she be so cold and callous as to take away my home? She doesn’t have to like me, but where’s her concern for my daughter?”

“You know this is about Eli,” Lewis said. “This is Tassie’s way of hurting you for hurting her.”

“That’s the thing. I didn’t hurt her. She and Eli were married in name only by the time we got involved.”

“She still wants to make you pay.”

“Tell me about it,” I agreed. Which was exactly the reason I would do whatever it took to get the bitch off my back.

When I saw the waitress coming, I lifted the menu and perused it. “How do you feel about an order of calamari?” I asked. “Maybe that and some bruschetta?”

“Add an order of beef fajitas to that and I’ll be good to go.”

The waitress placed the wine and two glasses on the table. “Are you ready to order?”

The question was directed toward Lewis, as though I weren’t even at the table. I rolled my eyes. Some women.

“We’ll have an order of calamari and bruschetta to start, and after that, we’ll share a large order of beef fajitas.”

“All right.” The waitress collected the menus. I saw her gaze linger on Lewis even as he faced me once more.

I shook my head as she walked away. “Someone’s got eyes just for you,” I pointed out.

“Who?” Lewis asked.

I flashed him a mock-scowl. “Don’t pretend you didn’t notice how the waitress was drooling.”

Lewis dismissed the comment with a nonchalant shrug. Then he poured us both wine.

He raised his glass in toast. “To life without Tassie,” he said.

I clinked my glass against his. “Now I’ll drink to that.”

We both sipped our wine. As Lewis lowered his glass, he said, “You mentioned you had ideas about how to fight Tassie. What else were you thinking?”

“Right. Well, when Tassie’s lawyer told me she no longer wants me to buy out her share of the condo—that she wants to move in instead—I got pissed. It’s like you said, the bitch is just trying to mess with me. She refuses to accept that fact that I didn’t destroy her marriage. Hell, I knew nothing about her. She can say what she wants to the press, but she knows the truth.” For a moment, reliving the hell she had put me through, I seethed. Then I pulled myself out of my anger and continued. “I immediately called that reporter, the one from the Miami Herald I told you about?”

“Right.”

“I saw Tassie at Eli’s funeral. She seemed very cozy with a man by her side. I know she’s got some skeletons in her closet. I was hoping the reporter could help me dig them up.”

“And?”

I frowned. “And I haven’t heard from her yet. I called her again today and got her voice mail. I’m starting to think there’s nothing Cynthia can tell me. Well, at least nothing that she could find. I think it’s time I hire my own investigator.”

“Now you’re talking,” Lewis said. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”

“If I could get pictures of Tassie with someone else, establish some sort of proof that she was definitely involved with another man while Eli was in Miami, maybe I can use that evidence to get her to back down. She’s made a name for herself as the ‘victim’ in the media. I don’t think she’d want anyone to know that she was really crying in some other man’s arms.” I paused, remembering the hot stud beside Tassie at the funeral. I was certain he was her lover.

“And the way she didn’t let Eli see his kids,” I went on. “The way she threatened to cry child abuse if he didn’t do what she demanded…A person should be put up on charges for that kind of behavior, not rewarded with more material possessions.”

“Or get the shit beaten out of them,” Lewis offered. Then smiled.

“Wouldn’t that be nice,” I commented. If the law allowed it, maybe I’d ask for five minutes alone in a room with Tassie—and one of Eli’s favorite bats that he’d used when he played for the Braves. “I’ve thought about suing her for pain and suffering, but I don’t know. Although this is America. Anyone with seventy-five bucks can fill out the forms to sue someone at the courthouse. Of course, you need the money to keep the suit going—something she has and I don’t.”

“You don’t need to get into an ugly lawsuit situation. It’s too time-consuming. What you need is for Tassie to back down. Immediately. I know an investigator. He can dig up some dirt.”

“You do?”

“Baby, I’m a well-connected man.”

That I believed. I didn’t know the extent of Lewis’s contacts, but I did know that with him being a real estate investor and developer, he knew a lot of people. Six degrees of separation and all that, he would certainly know someone who knew someone who could provide the help I needed.

“Now,” Lewis said, his eyes brightening while his voice deepened, “let’s talk about us.”

I glanced away, suddenly uncomfortable. With Lewis, it would always come back to “us,” I realized. We’d had some serious sexual chemistry that sizzled like eggs in a hot skillet.

“How late can you stay out?” Lewis asked me, the deep timbre of his voice making it clear exactly what was on his mind.

But still I asked, “Why?”

He reached for my hand. Ran his tongue along his bottom lip. “I was thinking…maybe we could go to my place for a few hours. Or, I can go up to yours.”

I started to ease my hand out from under Lewis’s, but he tightened his fingers, keeping my hand in place. “Lewis…”

“Would it be so wrong?” he asked me.

“I didn’t say it was wrong—”

“Good, because I want to make love to you, baby.”

I swallowed. “I know. But you remember what I said, don’t you?”

“Yes, I remember. But come on, what’s the point in waiting?” Lewis leveled one of his charming smiles on me. “It’s not like we haven’t been intimate many, many times before.”

My face flushed, and I admit I felt something. How could I not? The times Lewis and I had been together had been electric.

“I was hoping I could change your mind,” Lewis said, running the pad of his thumb over my inner wrist.

I pulled my hand away while returning Lewis’s smile. “Oh, no you don’t. You’re not going to charm the pants off of me.”

“No?”

“No.”

Lewis reached for my hand again. Lifted it. Pressed his lips to the inside of my wrist. “Well, I’m going to have fun trying.”

I felt another tingle then. Lust. I reached for my glass of water and took a sip.

“You want it, too,” he said with his trademark confidence that had always turned me on. “You know you do.”

I stared at him, checking out his handsome face. Could I fall into bed with Lewis? Sure. Could I fall into bed with Lewis as a way to try and forget about Chaz? Absolutely. It was the kind of thing I would have done in the past.

Lewis was guaranteed to perform in the bedroom, and he knew exactly how to please me.

But I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—sleep with him while Chaz was still in my heart. Not until I’d made the definite decision to put Chaz behind me and move on.

“What I want,” I began slowly and smiling sweetly, “is to wait until we’re married.”

“Are you sure about that?” Lewis challenged.

“Yes, I’m sure. It’ll be easy for us to fall into bed together, but—”

“And fun,” Lewis supplied. “A lot of fun.”

I flashed a mock-scowl his way. “But,” I continued, picking up my point where I’d left off, “if we wait until we’re married, then I’ll know for sure that your heart is in the right place.”

“You still don’t believe me?”

“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” I quickly went on. “But come on, Lewis. You know me and you when it comes to sex.”

Lewis wriggled his eyebrows. “How could I forget?”

“My whole point about waiting until we’re married—instead of falling into bed together—is that we’ll both know that we’re getting married for the right reasons.” I took a moment to let my words settle over Lewis. “Our sexual chemistry was never the problem. But a marriage has to be based on more than that.”

Lewis nodded slowly, his lips pulling downward in a small frown. I knew he didn’t like my position, but like the last time when we’d discussed this, he seemed to accept my terms without a fuss.

Two women in barely there bikinis strolled by the table. I watched Lewis, waiting to see his gaze follow the women as they passed.

Instead, he raised my hand to his mouth and kissed it. “You’re worth the wait.”

My lips spread in a genuine grin. Ever since proposing to me, Lewis continued to surprise me. I expected him to get frustrated with me over my no-sex requirement, but he continued to be patient. I expected the player I’d known to react to the beautiful women who flirted with him, or at least check out the eye candy. But he wasn’t doing that, at least not in front of me.

Instead, Lewis gave me more and more reason to believe that he really did want to marry me for all the right reasons. And more so, that he really was in love with me.

Heck, he’d remembered my favorite wine, white zinfandel, something he hadn’t done before.

Maybe this marriage thing to Lewis was going to work out just fine. Maybe, like I’d tried to convince myself, marriages built on a mutual friendship and respect were the ones that went the distance. It wasn’t necessary for my heart to be overflowing with love for Lewis in order for us to have a good life together.

As long as he would be faithful to me, treat me with respect, be a good father to my daughter, that was all I could want.

Then why was it, I thought as I raised my wineglass to my lips once more, that I couldn’t help wishing that it was Chaz sitting across from me?