Second Thoughts (16 page)

“You know, you never could take losing. Isn’t that
why you did it?” He didn’t give me a chance to breathe into the phone before he started his accusations. I didn’t know why this man thought he had permission to call me whenever he felt the need. It seemed every time my phone rang, he was on the other end. He was on a fast track to becoming the bane of my existence, and that wasn’t a good thing. I was now hearing from Omar more often than I was talking to either Chance or Patrick. Omar already knew too much and I had busied myself trying to figure out how he came to know half of what he did.

“What are you talking about?”

I had just walked into the house and barely taken off my heels. I had a shower and dinner on my mind, but this phone call was once again causing me to alter my evening plans. Since Omar had been released, I haven’t been able to come home and enjoy a quiet evening, just like I had been able to over the last ten years. Now the noises in my mind were keeping me from enjoying the silence that I loved to come home to. The thought of Patrick finding out about Lexi was keeping me awake at night. The fear of losing him gave me nightmares.

“So we’re still using amnesia as a defense?”

“You can’t forget something that never happened,” I quickly corrected. 

“That’s just it, Colleen. Just because you’ve managed to convince yourself nothing happened doesn’t mean everyone else has.”

I decided not to pay any attention to his statement and began making my way up the stairs.

“Do you know who your friends are?”

His question stopped me in my ascent. I turned where I stood and sat on the step.

“I supposed you’re going to tell me.”

“Do you still see our bodies in the dark? And please, don’t tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. I guess you figured if you couldn’t have him, you had to have the closest thing to him. You’ve spent your whole life hiding your secrets or getting even. Didn’t you ever think one day your secrets would catch up to you, or did you think you buried them deep enough?”

“You mean like yours have caught up with you?” I shot back.

“Nate wasn’t my secret, Colleen,” he said with a smirk. “Isn’t that who you’re talking about? Is that the secret?”

“Well, not anymore,” I laughed victoriously.

I got up and continued my walk upstairs. Once in the bedroom, I held the phone to my ear with my right shoulder and began unbuttoning my pants.  

“Isn’t he the reason you came to Florida?”

I was deflated. My victory was short-lived.

“Is that what he told you?”

“What he told me was the truth. When was the last time you told the truth, Colleen? Does any conversation you have with yourself include the truth? I wasn’t a stranger when you met me. What kind of woman purposely positions herself to fall for the man who was sharing his bed with her fiancé?”

Omar was right. He wasn’t a stranger when I met him. Before then, I only knew him by name. I’d stood outside my bedroom listening to the man I was going to marry in less than thirty-six hours tell Omar he loved him, and this marriage he was about to participate in was just a cover to appease his family, stop the questions, and eventually give him the family he needed if he were going to embark on the political career his mother and father had been prepping him for. Nate was the younger of two children. His older sister didn’t make his parents, the revered Pastor Luke Winters and the now former Se
nator Elise Sheree Winters, proud. Yes, the only man who ever loved me─at least that’s what I thought─ was the son of a preacher man.

I’d met Nate as his family was going through turbulent times. His father was fighting to dispel accusations of infidelity
by a young new woman member of the church whose sole purpose for fellowshipping at Holy Redeemer First Church in Christ was to settle a score that had been festering for over fifteen years. His mother’s career was quickly coming to an end amid scandal and pending money laundering charges. My marriage to Nate Winters was supposed to be a pleasant distraction to this tent of black clouds, but apparently his love for Omar was worth more to him than politics, his father’s church scandal, and even me. Nate had
a heart and it didn’t belong to me─it never did.

I wanted to tell Omar that my once-soft heart had become a heart of cold stone, wrapped in unforgiving darkness, thanks to Nate Winters. The day Nate introduced me to unsolicited pain changed me from the wom
an I was and into the woman I am. I never professed to ever have a PTA mom’s image, but I wasn’t born a bitch, either. I had used my Halle resemblance to my advantage in more ways than one, and then I met him. This was never going to happen to me again. After Nate, I developed a to-hell-with-love, love-don’t-live-here-anymore attitude, thrust my chest forward, and determined to screw over any man who even looked like he was going to screw me over first. If they screwed me over first, I would do everything to get even; getting even started with Nate Winters.

When I first met Nate Winters, he sat on a park bench under the oak tree right outside my dorm. His curly onyx hair fell victim to a late autumn breeze. He had skin the color of copper. He had eyes that
drew you in; had you rapt the moment they locked onto yours. It was hard not to notice him. He introduced himself as Nathaniel Jason Winters─middle name and all, as if he were some important figure gracing me with his presence. When he stood, I had to stra
in my neck to look into the face of this tall handsome beauty. I don’t remember if I said “please to meet you,” but I do remember asking myself what he was doing sitting outside an all girls’ dorm.

I’d experienced many firsts with Nate. He had taken me to ecstasy more times than I could remember, my eyes rolling to the back of my head the first time he made me climax. I’d never felt that feeling before. But two days before my wedding, my life changed. I became a woman driven by revenge, and yes, that drive
did push me into the arms of Omar Duval. How else was I going to make Nate pay for the embarrassment he caused my family and me? How else was I going to punish him for the damage he had done to my heart? I didn’t plan on falling in love with Omar─that was
one of the consequences of my revenge. I wanted to find the man that had Nate’s heart, make him fall in love with me, then out them both to the world. I just wanted to make the man fall in love with me and then let everyone know what was going on between their sheets. 

I acted as if I were planning the collapse of the world’s greatest empire, even if he were just a partner at one of D.C.’s most prominent law firms. My plans would have me crossing paths with Nate again. Nate and everyone connected to him would be caught in the crossfire. I associated myself with Sonja Pettit, the disgruntled former lover of the good pastor, and then sat back and watched Pastor Luke Winters’ quick fall from grace. There was more to Reverend Luke Winters than meets the eye, and I made sure the good senator knew about all the eyes that got a taste of what the Reverend had to offer. Oh, the Senator was on my hit list, too, but she was already digging herself deeper into a ditch she couldn’t climb out of, not even with a fireman’s ladder.

“Here’s the truth, Omar,” I finally answered. I’d stood in the doorway of my small office on the side of my bedroom, smiled, and then gently slid my tongue along the top row of my teeth.  I glided over an abstract pattern hand-tufted rug and stood in front of my L-shaped harvest cherry executive desk.

“In the end I got you, your money, and ten years away from Nathaniel,” I quickly reminded him.

“And what happened to Patrick didn’t matter to you, did it, even though your behavior was reminiscent to someone who actually cared.”

“Unfortunately, there are always innocent bystanders and unplanned casualties of war, Omar.”

“You bitch.”

“Now is not the time for your terms of endearment, Omar, but thank you.”

I sat back in my black leather executive chair with a victory-is-mine smile on my face and focused on what had been a bouquet of white calla lilies that sat in a corner on top of the lateral file chest. Chance had them delivered a few weeks ago, just because he knew they were my favorite. 

“I hope you remember this feeling when Patrick and Chance turn their backs on you. Something tells me all you’re going to have left are memories, traces of happiness you used to know.”

“Like I told you before, Patrick is a grown-ass man who hasn’t dealt with the fact that the man he thinks is his father raped him. He might just have the nerve to do to you what he wasn’t able to when your sorry-ass…”

“Wasn’t that easy?” he interrupted.

“What?” I sat up in my chair.

“Those words ‘the man he thinks is his father’ just rolled off your tongue. Let’s hope those same words come as easy when you have to explain to Patrick how you manage to let him go on thinking he was raped by his father. Just think how much you could have helped him if you had just told him the truth. You allowed him to think his own father hated him that much.”

“You don’t…”

“But then you would have to tell him what happened to Kiel and Lexi,” he quickly added. 

“I get to decide when I tell my son anything.”

“He’s not your son, Colleen. He’s the remains of a plan that didn’t work out exactly how you planned. You don’t get to decide when you tell Patrick anything.”

“Remember, I know about your underhand business deals and your tax evasion. You still have more to lose.” I stood with my hand on my hip and stared at my reflection in the mirror on the wall behind my desk. “Don’t start a fight you can’t finish.”

“Heed your own warning.”

He sat on the phone in silence. I could hear every breath he took. This conversation wasn’t a part of my plans for the evening. I had given him enough of time.

“How’s your mother? Has Georgia forgiven you for taking her beloved Lexi from her? Oh, that’s right. She doesn’t know, either. Or does she?”

I waited for him to continue but the phone was silent. I removed the phone from my ear and checked the screen. Once again, he had gotten the last word. What did my mother know? Georgia hasn’t said five words to me in years. She just stopped talking to me without reason or explanation. This wasn’t anything new so I never gave it a second thought. Now Omar had me wondering. I had to figure out a way to find out exactly what my mother knew.

Chapter
18

Patrick…

Where Did You Go?

“Did you get any of my messages last night, or any
of the on
es I left earlier today?” I
barely
got
my left foot in the car and closed the door before my cell phone buzzed. I had changed my ringer setting to silent mode before entering Dr. Kendrick’s office
,
and ignored every vibration that occurred during my session with her. I adjusted the seatbelt as it c
losed around me before I responded.

“Actually, I was going to call you before my next meeting,” I lied, something I was able to do much more easily with women.

I had practiced
with the women that came before Devaan―and some of the men, too―and with pract
ice I had become perfect. “Who’s he to you?” was the question many of my lies always followed, mostly because who he was to me was nobody’s business. I hadn’t been upfront with Devaan, but I hadn’t actually lied to her, either. It was something I tried not to do.  She hadn’t yet asked any questions that required me to maneuver around with a quick white lie, and I figured I wasn’t going
to
give answers to any questions she didn’t ask.

“And when was that, Telly?” she asked as if she knew I was making up this scheduled meeting.

“And where are you meeting this…” she paused, “client?”

“I’m meeting Keith Benson at the Chops, and I’m already late,” I said, telling my next lie without hesitation.

Chops was a top ranked steakhouse in Atlanta’s Buckhead area, but the only place I planned on going was back to my hotel room. Now that I had mentioned the restaurant to Devaan, the idea of making reservations was dancing in my head.

In the few
years I’d been with Devaan, I
learned quickly she was a good woman. I kept my
lies to myself and forced my love to grow for her. There were many nights she reminded me that the love I made to her was nothing ordinary. Those were the nights when I wasn’t thinking about Dexter or Jacoby―or maybe I made love to her as if she were them.
  I hated that she was sexing me like she was, but still it wasn’t enough to keep my mind from the me
n who once occupied my time. I
found myself secretly comparing her sex to theirs. While she went on an exploration to find my pleasure spots,
I
concluded Dexter or Jacoby woul
d have had me nearing climax
already. Places they would have gone without me giving them directions, I dared not tell her to go for fear she might think I was gay or something. After all, weren’t those the places only gay men got pleasure from? I didn’t want those thoughts floating around in her
mind. I didn’t know if she
read that book t
hat told women what to do if they wanted to know if their men were
gay.