An Illicit Pursuit (29 page)

She nods, with the same apologetic
expression. She’ll have what, a fourth child? While I have none!
Jealousy rushes through me. Some people are just lucky, and others,
like me, can only hope to find the right guy, convince him to
marry, then struggle to get pregnant.

“Congratulations,” I say, barely restraining
myself from rolling my eyes. It’s not her fault that I’m childless,
I try think to myself.

A knock distracts me from my conflicting
thoughts, and I turn to see Zach and his mother at the doorway. She
looks like time jumped twenty years ahead for her. Her dark,
wrinkled skin is wrapping her jaw and high cheek bones, her eyes
bulging out, her lips pale like that of a corpse. Her body is no
less depressing. All skin and bones.

“Hello, Pat,” she says, and I glance at
Adriana and Miranda pointedly. They get my unspoken request and
leave us alone.

Zach doesn’t budge from his spot at the
doorway and watches his mother move toward me and take a seat on
the chair beside the bed.

“Zach told me about the accident… and the
baby.” Her voice trails off, and her head drops to her chest. “I
never wished things would end this way.” Without looking at my
face, she reaches for the bed, close to me, and pauses a moment
before covering my hand with hers. “That night… I saw you two
behind the tree in the backyard. I… I couldn’t believe my eyes. I
thought you were ruining my boy for good. I didn’t know I would
ruin him, my own child, with my lie. I ruined you, as well. I don’t
even have the courage to ask for forgiveness. Neither from you, nor
from Zach.” Her other hand goes up to her face as she lets out a
loud sob. “I lost my grandchild.”

Are the fucking drugs still diluting my
blood? Because I can’t feel mad at this woman, who practically
destroyed my only chance for real happiness. My gaze meets Zach’s.
His pained look reminds me of the day of his father’s funeral. He
must have cried for his lost child; it’s crystal clear from his
blood-shed eyes.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t come to you first,”
I say to him.

His gaze fixed on mine, he walks toward me,
beside his mother, and sits on the edge of the bed. “It’ll take
time to ease my pain. A lot of time. I guess you understand me. But
I don’t want to spend another minute without you.”

Two years later

I slowly descend onto the bed, careful not to
awake Zach. I’m so tired, I feel like I’ve been beaten up, despite
having been on my feet for one hour tops during the entire day. And
my enormous belly isn’t helping. Six torturous days past my due
date, and still no sign of labor in sight.

My belly dropped three weeks ago, and I’ve
been having the Braxton-Hicks contractions every day for the past
six days. We’ve been trying everything in the book to naturally
induce the labor; spicy food, papaya, nipple simulation—my
husband’s favorite on the list, right after sex. Despite all the
spicy food and frequent orgasms—Yes, orgasms! I’m having orgasms
again; violent, overpowering, explosive orgasms—still no water has
broken, or no dilation has started.

“We probably aren’t doing it enough,” Zach
would joke, when I’d get particularly grumpy about the whole
delayed-labor thing, but I’m glad he still finds me sexy enough to
get me under him at least three times a day.

I slip a large pillow between my knees and
roll toward Zach, and a sudden pain jolts in the small of my back.
I must have moved a muscle wrong while turning. Inhaling a deep
breath, I sneak an arm around Zach’s hip and close my eyes,
mentally going through the birth plan Zach and I—and of course both
of our parents—came up with. Actually, the only request I had on
that list is having natural birth. Apparently, I’m a sucker for
pain. I originally wanted a home birth, but Zach and his mother
didn’t want to take any risk. This baby is a big deal for them, and
I’m glad it’s so.

Zach’s mother prepared a huge suitcase to
take to the hospital, filled with cute baby clothes, hats, and
blankets for the baby. Everything in blue and pink because we
decided to wait to find out its gender. Zach wants a girl, his
mother a boy. I’m happy for any gender as long as the baby is
healthy.

Another pain hits the same spot on my back,
making me scream. Zach jolts up in the bed and switches on the
lights, his eyes barely open under the bright light.

“You okay?” He places his hand on my forehead
as if checking my temperature.

“No, I’m not.” I scream again with another
pain at my back. My belly is in the front! Why the hell am I having
pain at my back? “My back hurts.”

“Your back?” He frowns. “Want me to rub it a
little?”

“Oh, would you?”

He gets down, walks around the bed, and
settles behind me. His hands are soft on my skin but I need strong
pressure on the spot.

“No, it’s not helping. Press a little
stronger. Here, like this!” I guide his hand to the spot and push
it hard to show how strongly he should be pressuring.

Another pain followed by another scream, and
Zach’s mother storms into our bedroom.

“Has it started?” she asks.

“No, mother. She’s just having back
pain.”

I shriek with yet another pain, this time
much louder, and the two stare at me, their lips curl up to their
eyes.

“My grandchild is coming,” Zach’s mother
says, tapping her hand gently on my belly. “It’s time.”

Yes, it’s time. It’s finally my time be a
mother, survive through sleepless nights, tantrums, and sicknesses.
It’s time for me to get showered with the sweet kisses of my child,
get excited for tiny teeth, first steps, arrange play dates, see
him go to school, bring his/her first date to our home, graduate,
and get married.

It’s time for me to be finally and completely
happy.

***

They can claim all they want

That we are wrong for each other.

My heart knows; you're mine.

Adam Garnett has been known for his utterly
good looks, brilliance at closing multimillion-dollar business
deals, and failed attempts at seducing his boss, Taylor Doheny: The
beautiful widow of Adam’s best friend.

Three years after her husband’s death,
Taylor Doheny is still determined to keep her heart locked away
from men, particularly the ultimate flirt and notorious womanizer
named Adam Garnett.

She had better take care; his ravishing
words, sweet promises, and provocative gestures are threatening to
break through her defenses and irrevocably get under her skin.

When Adam risks his life to rescue her
during a vicious assault, Taylor can’t find it in her to ignore his
broiling desire and obsessive lust for her.

Will she be able to leave the past behind
and open up her heart to Adam, despite the real danger of having
her already fragile emotions crushed?

Five years ago, I was asked to assist a
summer course in Business at UCLA. Just a week before the classes
began, my boss at the company where I worked assigned me to an
important project that would leave me no time to attend the
classes. So, I asked Jack, who was also an MBA graduate. Being my
best friend and his own boss, he readily agreed to help me out. Six
weeks later, he showed up with the most beautiful girl in his arms,
as a perk of being such a good friend.

He called me to arrange a double date to
introduce his new girlfriend. I would stop at nothing to meet the
girl who won his heart. And from the excitement in his voice, I
could sense she was a special one.

We reserved a table at the favorite Mexican
restaurant of my then girlfriend, Pat, away from all photographers
and TV cameras. Since Pat’s new album had become yet another big
success, she became the big news.

Pat put on a pink shirt and navy jeans. “No
need to intimidate the poor girl at the first meeting,” she joked.
Only, she had no idea who would intimidate whom.

Pat and I had arrived at the restaurant a few
minutes before Jack and his new girl did and ordered piña coladas
while waiting.

Then she entered the room, tall, slender, and
graceful, stealing the spotlight from every other woman and man in
a one-mile radius. Even Jack’s appearance by her side couldn’t snap
me out of my trance.

Holy hell, was such a beauty possible?
Smooth, chalky skin, blue eyes, and cherry-red, plump lips. Her
thick hair hung down to her waist in brown-blond strands. The red
summer dress she was wearing had the first buttons undone, just
enough to reveal the tops of her boobs, making every muscle in my
body tense. My pulse leaped, and my eyes stung as if I was looking
directly at the blistering sun.

There had been only a handful times in my
life that made me believe in God’s existence, and this was one of
those. God must have created her to show his subjects a glimpse of
heaven, a proof that nothing was a coincidence but rather a part of
his plan. A carefully arranged master plan that allowed Jack to get
her, leaving me open-mouthed and jealous of my best friend for the
first time during our nineteen-year friendship.

“She gets the same reaction every time,” Jack
said, ending the hypnosis session both Pat and I found ourselves
in. “This is Taylor.”

“Jackpot, she is a beauty.” Pat held out her
hand. “Honey, you should go into the entertainment business. With
your beauty, I would bet everything I have you’d hit it big.”

“Oh, wow, Pat Carter. I’m a big fan.” Taylor
grabbed Pat’s hand with both hands and flashed the most beautiful
smile that could melt the entire Arctic irreversibly, and I felt
all my insides liquefy in a flash.

“She’s got good taste, too,” Pat said. “Don’t
screw it up, Jack.”

Then Taylor moved her attention to me, boring
the most intense and seductive eyes into mine, right into the
depths of my soul. “Hello, you must be Adam.” Blinking her long,
lush eyelashes, she stretched out a hand toward me.

My hand rose without my control and grasped
hers. Just the brief second our eyes met and hands touched, I felt
exposed, vulnerable, raw, and self-conscious all at once. My body
jolted with her feathery touch, as though I received a blow in the
chest. I found myself plotting the most outrages plans to get this
unearthly beauty in spite of Jack, Pat, and the five-carat diamond
ring I’d bought for her. Taylor had to be mine or else my existence
would only mean endless suffering.

“He’s normally not like that.” Pat laughed
and tapped on my shoulder, saving me from my embarrassing
speechlessness.

“Pleasure to meet you,” I could finally say.
She gently pulled back her hand and sat beside Jack and across from
me.

I ran my eyes around the restaurant just to
make sure nothing was wrong with my perception and they landed on
Pat, who was gazing at me with a newly found curiosity.

“Baby, are you all right? You’ve turned all
pale. Look at your lips.”

I smiled and then forced myself to plant a
kiss on her lips. Much to my surprise, they didn’t have the sweet,
smooth taste that always welcomed and comforted me. I could kiss
the elderly lady at the next table and would feel the same. Just a
matter of minutes was enough to turn Pat into a stranger in my
heart. Taylor could turn everything upside down. “Nothing is wrong
with me.”

Nothing was wrong with me. I’d just happened
to find the one and only woman my heart was yearning for since the
day I started laying eyes on women. What could be wrong with
me?

Taylor excused herself to go to the restroom.
I couldn’t help but watch her as she walked away, swaying
gracefully like a tulip in the spring breeze. As if her beauty
wasn’t enough, she had an ass so firm and round that only a Black
woman could have rivaled it. For the rest of the evening, I took
every opportunity to admire her beauty. It was one of the most
tormenting, yet most pleasurable hours of my life. Everything about
her was nothing less than superlative.

The words that came out of her mouth were
sweeter than honey, her smile like the first rays of the dawn, and
every time she flipped her hair over her shoulders, I imagined
wrapping those strands of hair around my fist and pounding my cock
into her until she screamed my name. I could have done that every
day, and more than once a day, if I hadn’t taken up the new project
and had been the one to give that summer course, as had been my
original plan.

I missed the chance to be at the right place
at the right time to get to know Taylor and make her mine, because
of my work. Since then, I promised myself that work would never be
the top priority on my list.

Fortunately, life gave me another chance to
be at the right place at the right time, just before a
mother-fucker gangster could take Taylor’s last breath. Even though
it meant for me to be shot. I’d rather get shot a dozen times than
let Taylor die. I love her to death, and I pray to God every day
that one day she’ll believe my feelings for her and grow to love me
for who I am.