Twice the Temptation Page 6

  Denise knew she couldn’t remain angry with the perky, kind-hearted nurse. The redhead who’d worked at the Walter Reed Medical Center met and married a psychiatrist decided their marriage would lose its newness if they saw each other 24/7. She applied to the center with impeccable recommendations and after a background check she was hired as the medical director.

  “Have fun, Randi.”

  Miranda winked at Denise. “I intend to. Enjoy your weekend.”

  “I intend to,” Denise repeated.

  As soon as she finished up at the center, she planned to go home and pack for the weekend. Then she would do what she hadn’t done in weeks: pick up dinner from her favorite takeout, eat in front of the television, and then take a long relaxing bubble bath before going to bed.

  She was looking forward to Belinda’s baby shower. Her cousin was listed with several baby registries, and Denise had chosen a number of items and had them shipped to her parents’ address. Boaz and Paulette would bring everything to Paoli in their SUV.

  Her gaze shifted to the bouquet of flowers on the edge of her desk. Rhett had sent her the flowers as a thank-you gift for sharing dinner with him at the hotel. When she’d called his cell to thank him it went directly to voice mail. That was three days ago.

  Her telephone rang and Denise stared at the phone. The display indicated it was a private call. The center was closed; all of the children had been picked up so she couldn’t understand who was calling at that hour. After half a dozen rings, the voice mail feature was activated. Less than a minute later her private line rang, and she answered it.

  “New Visions Childcare. Denise Eaton speaking.”

  “Hey.”

  Denise smiled. “Hey yourself, Rhett. Was it you that just called the main number?”

  “Guilty as charged. What are you still doing there?”

  “I wanted to finish the grant before I go home.”

  “Put it away, Denise.”

  “What?”

  “I said put it away and come outside.”

  “Where are you, Rhett?”

  “I’m in the parking lot across the street, leaning against the bumper of your car. By the way, when did you start driving a hoopty?”

  Heat and embarrassment stung her cheeks. “For your information I intend to buy a new car.”

  “When?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “I can’t believe you were going to drive…this to Philly and back.”

  “Careful, Rhett. You’re talking about Valentina.”

  “Who’s Valentina?”

  “My hoopty, Garrett Mason Fennell. I picked her up on Valentine’s Day, so I named her Valentina.”

  “Tell me something, Denise Amaris Eaton?”

  “What is it, Garrett?”

  “Why do women name their cars? It’s not as if they are pets.”

  “You wouldn’t understand, Rhett. It’s a woman thing. Rhett, are you still there?” Denise asked when there came a prolonged pause.

  “I’m here. I know it’s very short notice, but I’d like to take you out to dinner.”

  Denise groaned inwardly. “I’d planned to pick up takeout, then go home and have a relaxing bubble bath.”

  “You can still do that. I’ll drop you off home where you can pack—that is if you haven’t—then come back to the hotel and order in. After that you can relax in the Jacuzzi until you turn into a raisin.”

  “What happens after I turn into a raisin?” Her heart was pounding so hard it hurt her chest.

  “I’ll tuck you into bed, give you a night-night kiss and wait until you fall asleep. Only then will I turn off the light.”

  Denise remembered how much Rhett liked watching her until she fell asleep. Only then would he turn off the lamp on his side of the bed. She’d promised to be his girlfriend for the summer, but what she didn’t want was for them to pretend all was well and they could pick up where they’d left off what now seemed so long ago.

  “Not tonight, Rhett. Maybe some other time.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

  The phone line went dead and Denise knew he’d hung up. The pain in her chest wasn’t because of the runaway beating of her heart. It was heartache, heartache for a man she couldn’t trust and for a man she still loved.

  It took a quarter of an hour to complete the information needed on the last page of the grant. Denise saved what she’d typed, printed out the pages, then stored everything in a file cabinet and locked it. When she finally walked out of the center after activating the security system, she glanced across the street to see if she could see Rhett. Her car was there, but he was gone.

  In less than ten hours she would see Rhett again, and at that time the charade would begin.

  Denise walked out of her apartment building carrying a leather tote and a large quilted overnight bag. She wasn’t certain whether the gathering she and Rhett were invited to was casual or formal, so she packed outfits for both. Fortunately, the weather had cooperated. Meteorologists predicted sun and warm temperatures for the entire three-day weekend. It was six in the morning and the mercury was already seventy-four degrees.

  Less than a minute later a silver Mercedes Benz maneuvered up along the curb and Rhett stepped out. He was casually dressed in a pair of navy linen slacks, a white short-sleeved shirt and black woven slip-ons.

  She smiled when he closed the distance between them and reached for her bag. “Good morning.”

  Rhett angled his head and brushed a kiss over her mouth. “Good morning, beautiful.”

  She blushed, grateful that her darker coloring hid the heat suffusing her face. It was the same greeting he’d whispered to her whenever they’d slept together. Not only did he look good, but he also smelled good. The cologne was the perfect complement for his personality. It was masculine, yet subtle.

  “I’ll keep the tote,” she said when he reached for that, too.

  “What’s in there?”

  “My wallet with my driver’s license and a few feminine incidentals.”

  “Are you going to need your tampons and sanitary napkins before we get to Philly?”

  “No, he didn’t ask me that,” she said under her breath.

  “Yes, I did,” Rhett countered, taking the tote from her loose grip, shifting both bags to one hand, while the other cupped her elbow. “I was the only guy at Johns Hopkins who bought his girlfriend’s tampons and pads. The wise-ass in checkout once asked me if I’d had a sex change.”

  Smiling, Denise gave him a sidelong glance. “You never told me that.”

  Rhett helped her into the passenger seat, stored the bags in the trunk, then came around and slid behind the wheel. “That’s because I was too embarrassed to repeat it.”

  Denise buckled her seat belt. “Well, I bought our condoms.”

  Shifting into gear, he pulled away from the curb. “Lots of girls buy condoms, because they don’t trust guys not to put holes in them with pins or needles.”

  “That’s not why I bought the condoms, Rhett. Neither of us wanted nor needed a baby at that time in our lives.”

  “What about now? Are you ready to start a family?”

  Staring out the windshield, Denise pondered his query. It was one she’d asked herself every time she celebrated a birthday. She would celebrate her twenty-eighth birthday at the end of September and each year brought her closer to when she would be deemed high-risk.

  She loved children and eventually wanted to become a mother but didn’t want to be a baby mama. More than half the women who’d enrolled their children in New Visions were single mothers, most struggling to make ends meet. Even those who had earned a college degree and were making fairly good salaries had to monitor their budgets closely because it was becoming more and more difficult to support a family of two, three or even four on one salary.

  “No,” Denise said after a swollen silence. “I still have a few years to think about it.”

  “Don’t think too long, sweetheart.
”

  She turned to look at Rhett, silently admiring his distinctive profile. He held his head at a slight angle that she’d always found very endearing. “Why would you say that?”

  “I remember you saying you didn’t want to be faced with the countdown of a ticking biological clock.”

  “I still have a few years before the clock starts ticking. What about you, Rhett? Are you ready to become a daddy?”

  “Yeah, I believe I am. Business is good despite the soft real estate market. If I had any doubts before about fatherhood they were dashed once I saw the little darlings at your center.”

  “They are precious,” Denise said proudly. “I’d like you to join us when we host our welcome summer party. We’ve made it a tradition to throw a party for each season where we celebrate all the holidays that fall within that season. The kids love the summer celebration because we grill outdoors and they get to splash around in the wading pools.”

  Rhett followed the signs leading to the interstate. “It looks as if we made our dreams come true.”

  Denise smiled. “We talked about what we wanted enough, so all that was left was putting it into action. You wanted to run your own business and I wanted a career in education.”

  “How long did you remain in the classroom?” He was asking a question to which he knew the answer.

  “Four years.”

  “Four years as a classroom teacher, two years as the director of one of the most progressive child care facilities in the Capitol district and you plan to set up an after-school homework/tutoring program for middle- and high-school students. That’s quite an accomplishment, and all before you celebrate your thirtieth birthday. Speaking of the big three-oh, I submitted your name to the editor for the Beltway Business Review thirty under thirty rising star. Don’t be surprised if you get a call to submit some paperwork for the thirty under thirty awards.”

  Denise’s jaw dropped. “No, you didn’t.”

  “Yes, I did, Denise. Don’t be so modest. You deserve the recognition.”

  “I do what I do because I love it, not because I need validation from a group of businesspeople.”

  “It’s not about validation, baby. It’s about you setting an example for those who will come behind you, and because you did it some young girl will believe that she can do it, too. You’re blessed, because you have a family of educators as your role model.

  “I had no male figures in my life when growing up. I didn’t know my father, my grandfather was dead and my aunts were either widowed or single. If my mother hadn’t scrimped and saved to send me to a boarding school where I was mentored by their only male black teacher I don’t know where I’d be now.

  “Although teachers were forbidden to interact with students if it didn’t pertain to education, Mr. Evans used the ruse that he was tutoring me whenever we met in the school library. He was a parole officer—a clergyman, psychologist and teacher rolled into one brilliant man who’d spent most of his life in foster care after his father murdered his mother. He taught me to use what God had given all of us—my brain. I was told I was smart, but I hadn’t realized how smart until I competed with the other boys whose parents were graduates of elite finishing schools and Ivy League colleges.

  “What really saved me in going to an all-boy boarding school is that I wasn’t distracted by girls. It was hard as hell to study for a chemistry exam when my hormones were short-circuiting. It took a while for me to catch on that some of the upperclassmen, instead of going home on the weekends, would hang around campus, then pile into taxis and go to a little town where women charged the students for sex. Most of the boys had money to burn, so they literally screwed their brains out. My mother sent me money for what she called my emergency fund.”

  “And for you, sex was an emergency,” Denise said, smiling.

  “It’d become a welcome respite from living with two hundred boys 24/7.”

  Denise found it odd that Rhett had never talked much about his boarding school experience before. The only thing he’d told her was that his mother had sent him to a private school in northern Virginia to ensure he wouldn’t be tempted to join a gang that was recruiting boys with the promise of drugs, guns and girls.

  “Had your mother known you were sexually active?”

  Rhett waited for a passing car, then accelerated into fast-moving traffic heading north. “She found out after she discovered a condom I’d left in the pocket of my uniform slacks. She’d put it on my bed with a note that we had to talk when she got back from work. I was surprised when she didn’t go into a rant, because at sixteen she felt I was too young to engage in sexual relations with a woman, but commended me that I’d taken the precaution to practice safe sex. What bothered her was the possibility of my becoming a teenage father. I’d promised her I wouldn’t father a child until I married. I knew what she’d had to go through as a single mother and I didn’t want the same for my child or children.”

  Denise didn’t want to tell Rhett that he sounded like a public announcement sound bite only because she knew how careful he’d been not to get her pregnant. They’d gone from using condoms to her eventually taking an oral contraceptive. Too often young coeds, away from home for the first time, found themselves pregnant in their freshman year. A few had abortions while some dropped out to have their babies.

  Their conversation segued from sex and parenthood to innocuous topics ranging from television shows, movies and celebrity gossip. They’d lapsed into the smooth and uncomplicated camaraderie they’d shared before infidelity and distrust shattered their world and future.

  Closing her eyes and settling back on the leather seat, Denise smiled. The sound of soft jazz coming from the vehicle’s powerful sound system was incredible. Luxury seating, a navigation system and a surround sound audio system caressed her senses. “How long have you had this car?”

  “I picked it up in January. Why?”

  “It still has that new-car smell.”

  “It’s my first new car,” Rhett admitted.

  Denise opened her eyes, giving him an incredulous look. She didn’t know his net worth, but it was reported that he’d become a millionaire before he’d turned twenty-six. “What did you drive?”

  “Used cars. The first two definitely were hoopty status. I lost a tailpipe on the parkway and I thought the car was going to explode because the pipe left a trail of sparks that made it look as if the car was about to take off. Another needed a catalytic converter and it made so much noise that it set off car alarms whenever I drove past. I managed to upgrade every year, but they were still used. Last year, I decided it was time to step up and treat myself to something new.”

  “You stepped up nicely.”

  “Thank you. Let me know when you’re going to replace Valentina and I’ll go with you. Some salesmen tend to take advantage of women whenever they go to purchase a car.”

  “I’m going to wait until the fall when the new models come out before I make a decision.”

  “I’ll still go with you,” Rhett insisted. The sign indicating the number of miles to Philadelphia came into view. “I’m going to stop so we can eat.”

  Denise glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was after seven. It’d taken an hour to go forty miles. Holiday traffic was heavy and slow-moving.

  “Okay.”

  She wanted to tell Rhett that she didn’t want to linger too long because she and Chandra would have a small window of time in which to decorate the house before Griffin and Belinda returned to Paoli.

  Rhett maneuvered into an empty space in the parking lot of a restaurant off the interstate offering family-style dining. Leaning to his right, he pressed a kiss to Denise’s temple. “Don’t worry, baby, we’ll get there in plenty of time.”

  She nodded. He’d read her mind.

  Chapter 6

  When Denise directed Rhett down the tree-lined street in Paoli to the house where Griffin and Belinda lived with their twin nieces, she’d tried to ignore the flutters in her belly. It w
as as if she’d come full circle. Instead of bringing Garrett Fennell with her to meet her parents, he was accompanying her to a gathering where most Eatons were expected to attend.

  She didn’t want to send the wrong message, but with Rhett in tow everyone would assume they’d reconciled and now were a couple. And she was certain it would be easier for Rhett because he’d lapsed into calling her sweetheart and baby as if they’d had an ongoing relationship.

  “There’s Chandra’s car.” She pointed to the dark blue sports car parked at the end of the block.

  “Where do you want me to park?” Rhett asked.

  “Pull up behind her Audi. If we park in the driveway, then Belinda’s going to know something’s up.”

  He followed her instructions, parking and cutting off the engine. She waited for him to get out and come around to assist her. With the exception of the men in her family, Rhett was the only man who’d exhibited impeccable manners. He opened and closed car doors, held doors open for her, seated her in restaurants and stood up whenever a woman entered the room. He claimed it was something that had been drilled into him at the boarding school.

  Rhett retrieved Denise’s leather tote, carrying it while he escorted her across the street to the three-story Colonial set on a half-acre lot. Although he’d visited Philadelphia, he’d never ventured into the suburbs. Large nineteenth-century homes set on expansive lawns and massive century-old trees projected a postcard perfect picture where people could live and raise a family in exclusive comfort.

  “This is very nice,” he said softly.

  “I love this place,” Denise confirmed. “There was a time when anyone living in Paoli was identified as the crème de la crème of Philadelphia society.”

  “It still looks that way to me. After all, Griffin Rice is as much a celebrity as the clients he represents.”

  There had been a time when the high-profile sports attorney had been a favorite of the paparazzi when they snapped pictures of him with his famous clients, glamorous models, beautiful actresses and recording stars. But his electrifying lifestyle changed when his brother and sister-in-law were killed in a horrific car accident and as a legal guardian along with Belinda Eaton had become the parents of their twin nieces.