“When you gonna tell Tarique?”
“I don't know. Maybe I won't. What's the point?”
His mother and Shay were talking in those hushed afterward voices that let him know the men had fallen asleep. The blue reflection of the TV cast shadows but the sound was muted in the dark room. Their voices, over the snores of a man, were heard pretty clear.
“The boy should know that Lance is his daddy.”
Tarique's eyes widened. He pressed closer to the wall and inched forward a bit.
Lance Smith, the sugar daddy with the Escalade and the cash, was his real father?
“Yeah, I'll tell him.”
“When?” Shay pressed.
“Get off my case, will you? We'll tell him. Lance wants it to be a moment we share together.”
Tarique heard the sarcasm in Gayla's voice.
“Shit, the sharing time happened a long time ago.”
“Tell me about it,” Gayla said. “But check it out. Look what he gave me.”
Tarique strained forward in an effort to peep around the corner. He must have made some noise.
“Hey, baby. That you?” Gayla called out.
“Uh, yeah, Mama.”
“Get yourself something to eat. There some hoagies in there.”
She'd never been concerned about what he ate when she had her pipe so maybe she was just high, not all cracked up. Tarique stepped into the room, trying to look like he'd just gotten in.
Gayla sat on the sofa, one arm thrown back, a cigarette burning from her hand. Shay was in the chair and a man was sprawled on the floor, still snoring. The coffee table, littered with forty-ounce bottles and overflowing ashtrays, also held the remnants of a meal the small party had eaten. The other voices he'd heard must have been from the television.
“You come in through that back window again?”
She definitely wasn't on crack. At least not right now.
“Yeah. The door was locked.”
Gayla glanced toward the front door. “You shoulda knocked. I don't like it when you do that. Somebody gonna see you and come in the same way one of these days.”
Tarique grunted. He nodded toward Shay. “What she say true?”
The two women exchanged a glance.
“What'd you hear?”
“Lance Smith my real daddy.”
Gayla leaned forward, snagged a forty-ounce bottle and took a chug. “Yeah.”
“How come you never told me before?”
She shrugged. “He wasn't around.”
“And now that he's around. What's gonna happen now?”
Her girlfriend looked at Gayla. “Yeah, what's gonna happen now.”
“I don't know. He wants to get to know you.”
“Well, I don't wanna know him.” He ran back to his room and slammed the door.
Shay laughed. “Well, I don't think that was the kind of moment your husband had in mind.”
Gayla just shook her head. “Both of 'em will get over it.” She reached for her purse and pulled out three crisp one hundred-dollar bills. “Page Peanut Head and tell him we wanna party tonight.”
Shay reached for the phone and dialed the number that would get Gayla's favorite supplier. He even made house calls. “I'm starving. You said there some subs up in here?”
Gayla got up, padded to the kitchen and came back with a big bag of chips, three subs and two more bottles of malt liquor. She poked the man with her foot. “Hey, Charlie. Wake up.”
The man grunted and rolled over.
In his room, Tarique got some money and slipped out the window. He secured the opening, then unlocked his bike and took off.
26
T
he pajama party at Guilty Pleasures was in full swing. Guests, also known as well-maintained customers, feted with champagne and light hors d'oeuvres, mingled among the merchandise. In a cost-control move, Viv had nixed the notion of a three-piece combo. Instead romantic jazz on CD piped in via the sound system set a lingering tone in Guilty Pleasures. She'd even gone so far as to alter the lighting, offering an even more muted and sit-back-for-a-while atmosphere achieved with a few strategically placed lightbulbs. All of the store employees worked this evening. And it promised to be a lucrative one.
A fashion show and the giveaways would be the night's entertainment.
The staff all wore matching silk tap pants sets in variegated shades of lavender and blue. Viv had surprised them with the gifts, all four-piece sets of camisole, tap pants, pajama pants and duster, and got a surprise herself when no one objected to wearing them to the sales party. Of course, the double commission she offered for each set sold during the event helped in that regard.
She'd negotiated a really good deal with the supplier and could afford to be generous. She'd even gotten a set for Vicki, though her thoughts toward her sister didn't at the moment run a very charitable course. Viv's emotions ran hot and cold today, equal parts sisterly understanding, blind fury and abject pity.
She didn't like the mood swings any more than she liked what she strongly suspected lay at the root of them.
Being pregnant.
Even the words sounded awful. Like something undesirable, similar to the flu or West Nile virus or Legionnaire's disease.
“If you stand there scowling like you hate them being here, nobody's going to buy anything tonight.”
Viv glanced at Dakota who'd approached at her side, but she also planted a half smile at her mouth, much the same way she'd done all those years as a model: her mind engaged elsewhere while her body and face presented the images the camera adored.
Dakota had dressed up her pj set with dangling earrings, an arm cuff and Grecian-style sandals. Saying she hadn't shaved her legs that morning, she'd opted for the pajama pants.
“I've just been thinking,” Viv said.
“About how much money you're going to make tonight?”
A full smile blossomed at that. “No. But that had crossed my mind.”
“What then?”
Viv's tone, like her thoughts, was reflective. “How God has a really sick sense of humor.”
She snagged a glass of champagne that Dakota just as quickly removed from her hand and set on the pedestal counter.
“Hey.” Viv reached for the glass.
Dakota scowled. “Alcohol isn't good for you-know-what,” she scolded with a glance at Viv's still-flat tummy.
In response, Viv drained the glass and handed it to Dakota. “Ah, Mrs. Anderson, there you are,” Viv greeted a customer. She didn't spare Dakota another glance. “I'm so glad you could make it tonight. I have something special to show you.”
Ginger had a few things she wanted to pick up for her honeymoon and had been impatiently waiting for the next sale at her favorite store. After being tipped off by her regular salesclerk that a big event was coming up, she'd held off on the large purchases. Ginger wasn't such a penny-pincher that she needed to wear pajamas to the party to get the extra ten percent off, but she did pay attention to her spendingâparticularly when the charge cards were in her name, rather than her soon-to-be husband's.
“Viv, I'd like you to meet one of my best customers,” Cassandra said. “She doesn't come in very often, but when she does . . .”
The three women laughed as Viv extended a hand to the shopper. “You look so familiar. I'm sure our paths have crossed here at some time. Have you found something pretty tonight?”
“Oh, yes,” Ginger said, waving her left hand. “I'm getting married and need a few things.” Even in the subdued lighting her diamond sparkled and both Viv and Cassandra took the cue. They gushed over the ring and just as soon as it was politely possible, Viv excused herself.
She snagged another glass of champagne and from the vantage point behind the register, she surveyed the floor. That's why she spotted Lance the moment he walked in the door. But she'd have known even if she hadn't actually seen him. Her body responded to his presence. Her breathing grew shallow and heat pooled in her midsection. Viv hated the response, but there was little to be done for it.
Lance was like a drug in her system. Even now, she wanted him. Even now, knowing that all he wanted was to plead with her not to abort his child, Vivienne found herself yearning for his touch.
Her desire must have communicated itself to him from across the room, because Lance's gaze connected with hers almost instantly. Even from this distance, she saw his nostrils flare.
He wanted her just as much.
She didn't moveâcouldn't moveâas he approached. Customers turned to watch the tall, handsome man stalk across the floor.
“I'll take two of those,” someone said.
Women laughed, and the moment of intensity passed. Vivienne put the glass aside, but licked suddenly dry lips.
Ginger appeared out of nowhere just as he approached the counter. “Lance! How wonderful to see you.”
Vivienne's eyebrows rose at the husky timbre of Ginger's voice. She studied the two and knew immediately that Lance and this woman had been intimate. If not lately, recently enough for the woman to have missed the touch of his hand, the heat of his body, the smell and taste of his skin.
Viv's breath caught, even as her gaze snapped back to Lance's. He'd missed none of her perusal. The small, knowing smile at his mouth told her so.
On one level Viv knew that she had no claim to himâif you didn't count a fetus growing in her womb. But on another level, the one where petty jealousy and territorial instincts and basic hunger resided, Viv knew she still wanted him, still craved his touch, the whispered lies he murmured, the guilty pleasure of his weight pressing into her.
“Good evening, Mr. Smith.”
She congratulated herself on the brisk efficiency she'd managed to convey in that greeting.
“Hello, Viv. Ginger.”
If he felt awkward at having two of his lovers before him, it didn't show.
With a sick amusement bordering on hysteria, Viv wondered how many other women in the store right now secretly carried Lance's baby. His presence sparked no small lack in speculation among her customers. The room buzzed with an energy that hadn't been there a few moments ago.
Or was it just Viv who felt that energy? Her own desire merely reflected at her?
“You didn't return my calls, Lance.”
His gaze never left Viv's. “I've been busy.”
Ginger pressed a palm to his chest, the gesture clearly one of a cat marking its territory. “If you don't hurry,” she purred, “I'll belong to another.”
She made sure Lance saw the gaudy ring. He barely gave it a glance though.
“Vivienne, I'd like to talk to you.”
“I'm busy,” Viv said.
“Lance.”
This time he did look at Ginger. “Good luck in your marriage.” He removed her hand from his chest as if she bore contagions with her touch.
Vivienne saw the genuine hurt in the woman's eyes and knew that Lance had managed to break yet another heart. Her own she'd carefully shieldedâor thought she had.
But it wasn't her heart that wanted him right now. Her body yearned for his.
“There's something that can't wait,” he said, his gaze flickering over her stomach.
Viv raised an eyebrow.
“I'll call you,” Ginger said.
Lance merely grunted.
In the fleeting moments when he'd first walked into the store and spotted Viv across the room, Lance saw all that might have beenâand all that still could beâbetween them. The lyrical sweetness of the years together, growing and sharing. Years forever lost with Gayla, a woman he now realized he'd never loved, not the way he loved Vivienne.
In truth, he couldn't say why he'd come tonight. He'd known she was having this event. He'd known she'd be too busy to deal with the myriad land mines of their relationship. But he couldn't stay away. All day long his thoughts, though jumbled with the twin problems of his son and his wife, had been with Vivienneâthe woman with whom he'd inexplicably, improbably fallen in love.
Pregnant or not, Lance knew that he loved her.
Angry with him or not, Lance knew that Viv loved him, too.
No woman could give herself to a man the way she'd given herself to him without there being some depth of emotion. Lance knew lust. He knew attraction and desire and the overwhelming urge to sink himself into the depths of a tight woman. But none of those things had a damn thing to do with what he felt for Viv.
He wanted to hold her and cherish her and keep her safe for eternity. If she never again let him into her body, he'd be fine with itânot happy, but fine just the same. As long as they could be together. As long as he could awake each morning to her smile, and go to bed every night with her hand and her body next to his.
Lance's breath caught at the savage intensity of his desire to have Vivienne at his side through all of forever.
Lance Heart Smith had actually fallen in honest-to-God love with someone.
The difficulty with Gayla and with Tarique would solve itself. The threat of his financial legacy being held hostage by his grandmother didn't matter. He'd find a way to support Vivienne, to nurture their child.
If only she'd let him.
“I . . .”
The words
I love you
almost tumbled out right then and there. She'd laugh in his face and call him a fool if he spoke them aloud.
“Vivienne, please.”
Something in his voice and his expression must have gotten through to her.
She nodded imperceptibly and turned toward her office.
“Lance?”
“Nice seeing you, Ginger.”
He followed Vivienne, leaving Ginger staring at his back.
When Viv closed the office door behind them, Lance turned to her. And then she was in his arms.
She told herself it was only for a moment. She told herself that this was little more than an experiment, a means to an end. That she had no emotional stake in this.
But Lance cheated.
He drew her into his embrace. And instead of kissing her, instead of ramming his tongue down her throat, or thrusting his arousal at the juncture of her thighs. Instead of doing any of the things she'd expected him to do, Lance merely stood there. Holding her in a light embrace, one that was simple and nonthreatening and perfect in its silent understanding.
Viv didn't want to be understood. Right now all she wanted to do was rage at someone or something.
Instead, she cried.
And Lance simply held her.
He didn't know how long they stood like that. The cares of the world seemed a heavy burden, capable of being endured only by two seekers. In this case, they weren't necessarily seeking on the same path. But Lance knew that with the right motivation and the right wordsânot actionsâhe could break through the many levels and layers of self-preservation that Viv had constructed to keep him at bay.
On the surface, her life seemed perfect, charmed even. An accomplished, beautiful model had turned her back on the runway to launch what would be a successful boutique catering to a woman's whims and passions and secret longings for luxurious comfort. She catered to and capitalized on those things. But what of her own secret passions and private longings?
From the almost imperceptible stiffening in her he knew the moment when she'd regained her composure. Two heartbeats later, she stepped out of his embrace. He didn't expect her to apologize for the emotional breakdown, so when she didn't, he didn't at all feel slighted. He did, however, wonder how they would get beyond this impasse.
“I'm rather busy tonight,” she said. “We have an event going on.”
“I won't stay long,” Lance said even as he took a seat in one of the elegant Queen Anne chairs before her desk. He hadn't been able to plead his case with Gayla. He had no intention of letting the opportunity to do so with Viv slip by. “I know it's your body,” he told her. “And that you, ultimately, have the right to do what you will with it. I'm just here to ask you not to get rid of my child. I know we have a somewhat difficult relationship, but I think we can make it work.”
Vivienne shook her head as she prowled her office, touching a lamp here, the edge of a shelf there. “Lance, we made a baby. We don't have a relationship.”
He stood, reached into his pocket and pulled out a small light blue box. “Let's make one,” he said, offering it to her.
Vivienne stared at his hand and the jeweler's box. “What is that?”
“Open it.”
She shook her head. “I don't want to. You don't have to do this, Lance. It's not 1950.”
When she refused to take the box, he put it on her desk, right in the middle. He jammed his hands in his pockets and faced her. “I'm not perfect, Viv. I've never claimed to be. I have issues. You have some. We all do. But I want us to be together.”
“Why?” The question was soft, almost speculative.
“Because I love you. And Lord knows I've been running from love for a long, long time. I want to promise you fidelity. . .”
She laughed. “Fidelity. Coming from you, Lance, that's pretty lame.”
He shrugged. “I'm a different man than the one I was a few months ago.”