Sins of the Mother (11 page)

Then she glanced at Cabot and had to take another sip of wine.

“That’s one of the things I love about you,” he said. “You’re successful.” As he sliced away another piece of duck, she noticed the shine of his fingertips, his manicure far better than hers. He chewed for a moment, then chuckled as if he suddenly had a thought. “You’re the kind of woman who would make a wonderful wife.”

Another sip.

Then he frowned and looked down at her plate. “You’re not hungry?”

She nodded, but held up her glass. “Yes, but the wine is so good.”

“Ah, yes.” He lifted his own glass and clicked it against hers. “There’s nothing like the French!” Then, lowering his glass and his voice, he whispered, “So, Ms. Ward, would you be a wonderful wife?”

She leaned away, trying to get back her personal space. “I wasn’t good at it the first time,” she said, shaking her head.

“You just had the wrong husband. See, if you had been with me . . .” He stopped, as if she was supposed to know what he had been going to say.

Alexis couldn’t remember how many times she’d gone out with Cabot. It was more than five, fewer than ten. But every single time he brought up marriage. At least the man was consistent—he never stopped talking about himself, and he made it clear that he wanted a wife.

But what woman would be able to stand him? Even at the altar, he probably wouldn’t stop talking long enough for his wife to say “I do.”

“I want to walk in the destiny God has for me,” he’d told her about fifteen minutes after they’d first met. Standing at the edge of the bar in Commotions, surrounded by the beautiful people, he’d added, “I’m supposed to be married.”

He’d gone on to say that his first marriage, straight out of college, had ended before their first wedding anniversary.

“She wasn’t ready for me,” he had told Alexis, even though she hadn’t asked. It wasn’t like she was trying to get into this man’s business—she certainly didn’t want him in hers.

But he had kept on anyway, “The end of my marriage was not my fault. I was moving up; she wasn’t.” He had gazed straight into her eyes when he’d said, “I need a woman who’s winning her own game.”

On that first date, Alexis had just stared back at him, saying nothing—just like she was doing now.

Not that Cabot wasn’t a great catch—from the entertainment agency he’d built to his home in Bel Air, from his debonair aura to the fact that he attended Sunday services at West Angeles, one of the largest churches in the city.

Women should have been falling at his feet.

As if reading her mind, Cabot said, “I know that I’m the perfect man, and the woman I choose has to be bringing it, too.”

Alexis had that thought again: no matter who he was or how much money he made, who could stand him?

He paused, as if she was supposed to say something—maybe he expected her to agree. But when all she did was sip more wine, he put his fork down and took her hand. “I brought you here because I want us to really get to know each other. So,” he gently squeezed her hand, “I wanna know what
you’ve
been doing since the last time I saw you.”

His gray eyes were suddenly filled with a sincerity that she hadn’t seen before. Now she put down her glass. “Well, I have been kind of busy . . .”

She paused to see if he was going to start talking. But he only smiled, like he was eager to hear.

For the first time, she smiled back. “I worked quite a bit on the Obama campaign.”

“Really?”

His eyes were wide and clear. Focused, as if he cared. So she rested her arms on the table, tilted her head. “Yeah, I’d never really gotten involved in a campaign before. I mean, I gave a little bit of money to Jesse when he ran the second time in eighty-eight, but this was the first time that I really got in there and worked to make a difference.” She told him about the thousands of phone calls she’d made, the hundreds of doors she’d knocked on, the scheduling she’d done to keep the local office organized.

He listened. He nodded. He laughed.

“So, you’re an Obama gal?”

“Is there anything else?”

He chuckled. “I guess not. Why didn’t I know this?” Before she could respond, he said, “Because I’m an Obama guy! I was on his National Finance Committee.” He stuffed his mouth with more of his duck before he added, “I knew I wouldn’t have time to work in one of those little neighborhood offices like you did.” He waved his hand as if those volunteers—like Alexis—didn’t count. Then his head rose a bit more when he said, “I joined his team as a bundler.”

Alexis blinked and wondered what had happened to the man who had been there a moment ago. As Cabot shut her and took over the conversation, she put down her fork and picked up her glass once again. She tried not to roll her eyes when he spoke of the two star-studded fund-raisers he’d held at his home.

“Now that I think about it, I wish that I’d invited you. You would have made a great date. Much better than—” He
stopped himself, cleared his throat. “Well, anyway, I wish you’d been there with me. I could’ve introduced you to Magic and Cookie, and then Denzel and Pauletta were there. Samuel and LaTanya . . .”

Alexis wanted to lean over and bang her head on the table as he named just about every celebrity who lived in Los Angeles.

But when he said, “And you know, this way I was able to give more than the twenty-three-hundred-dollar limit,” her eyes got wide.

“What?”

“You know . . . those stupid rules limiting how much you can contribute to a campaign. Well, just by pulling a couple of names from a phone book,” he lowered his voice even more, “I was able to get around that.” Pride was all up in his grin. “I learned how to do that after I attended a Republican fund-raiser years ago. Now those cats, they know how to make the money work.”

Alexis couldn’t believe it. Cabot Adams had just confessed to committing a crime, and if there’d been a policeman nearby, she would’ve had him arrested. Not for his confession, but for impersonating a man on a date.

“And then,” he continued his soliloquy, “Page Six . . .” He paused. “You’re familiar with them, right?” Even though she nodded, he went on to say, “They’re the gossip page in the
New York Post.
Well anyway, my last fund-raiser was even mentioned in their column.” He flicked invisible lint from the sleeve of his jacket. “I couldn’t believe it.”

That makes two of us,
Alexis thought. She couldn’t believe it either—couldn’t believe that she was still here.

It took more than thirty minutes for him to finish his Obama stories—and for the waiter to clear the table.

Then the young man was back, saying, “Can I tempt you with dessert? A chocolate soufflé, perhaps?”

“No,” she said.

“Yes,” Cabot said, and looked at her. “Come on, this is a special night. Shouldn’t we share something?”

Yeah, conversation!
That’s what she wanted to say. But then she remembered her pastor’s sermon from last Sunday.

“Only a fool says everything on their mind,”
was what Pastor Ford had said.
“I bring that to you straight from Proverbs.”

So instead of telling Cabot off like she wanted to do, Alexis leaned back and pressed her hand against the purple silk of her dress. Rubbing her stomach, she said, “I’m watching my weight,” hoping that would convince him to end the evening.

But all he did was put his arm around her shoulders and say, “Can I watch it with you?”

When he laughed, she did the same, hoping that would fast-forward them to the part where they said good night. But after his laugh, he said, “Well then, you’ll just have a spoonful.”

He nodded to the waiter, but Alexis stopped him. “Actually,” she began, looking at her watch, “it’s getting late, and I have to work tomorrow.”

He glanced at his watch, as if his expensive timepiece was more accurate than hers. “It’s only eight. You can’t be tired already.”

“I am,” she said lightly, and shook her head like she couldn’t believe it.

It still took more than twenty minutes for him to pay the bill, brag a bit to the waiter about his latest client, then promise the maître d’ that he would get him tickets the next time Beyonce came to Los Angeles.

She wanted to faint with gratitude when she saw her car right in front when they stepped outside. She dove inside before Cabot could say a word.

Fastening her seat belt, she wished that she could ignore his tap on the window, but she hit the button and lowered the glass.

“I had a great time,” he said.

“Thanks for dinner,” she said. Because she had been raised right, she added a smile as she curled her fingers into a wave.

“Wait!” he shouted as she put the car into drive. “Give me a call in the morning; let’s hook up this weekend.”

Alexis wasn’t even going to tell that lie. But she didn’t want to tell the truth either—that when she got home, she was going to lose his number.

So she rolled up her window. She couldn’t say anything through the thick glass. Pressing her foot to the accelerator, she gained speed when she hit Santa Monica Boulevard.

“You deserved that,” she scolded herself. Using one man to forget another was obviously not the way. But she would find something else to do, because there were two things she knew for sure. One, she was never going to call Cabot Adams again. And two, she was going to get Brian out of her heart. That was a promise—no matter what she had to do.

I
AM A MAN
! A man on a mission! A man with a plan!

That was Brian’s mantra as he took the turn on the second level of the underground garage. His tires screamed as he swerved, but then he slowed down and eyed the assigned parking spaces.

“There she is,” he whispered when he got a glimpse of Alexis’s BMW. Not that he’d had any apprehensions; he’d already checked in with her assistant and had sworn Kennedy to secrecy.

Pulling into a space three spots away from hers, Brian took a final peek in the rearview mirror. He didn’t need to do a thing. He looked good!

He pressed the elevator button and glanced at his watch at the same time. Knowing Alexis, she had been at work for hours, even though it was not yet noon. But he was going to get her to have lunch with him; of that, he was sure. Because he was a man on a mission. A man with a plan.

Glancing at the
EXIT
sign that led to the stairwell, Brian was
just about ready to run up the twelve flights when the elevator doors finally parted. He stepped into the chamber with a quickness, then paced the small space as he ascended.

It was amazing that he was here—less than a minute away from seeing Alexis, from spending some real time with her. Just two days ago he’d been prepared to give up, throw in the bouquet. But then with that last bunch of flowers, Alexis had done what he’d expected her to do months ago—she had come to him.

That was the plan—for her to open the door, and he would walk right through it.

He took a cleansing breath as he stepped off the elevator and pushed through the double glass doors stenciled with gold letters:
WARD AND ASSOCIATES
.

Kennedy’s grin greeted him the moment he stepped inside. “It’s good to—”

Brian smiled back but put his forefinger against his lips. Kennedy giggled, and pointed toward Alexis’s office.

Even though there was a ruckus of activity behind Kennedy’s desk as account executives chatted on calls, prepared for meetings, or mulled over sales projections, Brian took soft steps toward Alexis’s door. He raised his hand to knock, but then he eyed her through the small space where the door was ajar.

What he’d expected was for Alexis to be in front of her computer, feverishly tapping on the keys. Or sitting with her head down, studying some report. But she wasn’t anywhere near her desk.

Instead, she stood at the window, staring out as if her focus was far beyond her office. He could see only her profile, but it was enough to know that she was smiling. She was so deep in thought that he could almost feel what was going through her mind.

What he saw made his stomach turn over. Who was she thinking about? Who had her head, her heart, so much that she had stopped to fantasize about him in the middle of her day?

He felt like an intruder, stealing in on her private moment. He needed to back away.

But he couldn’t; it wasn’t part of his DNA.

He cleared his throat; she turned around and pressed her hand against her chest, startled. “Brian!”

“Hey,” he said softly.

“I didn’t hear you come in.” She moved away from the window, the lines in her forehead deep. “What . . . are you doing here?”

He held up his hands. “Nothing’s wrong.”

The worry lines in her forehead faded fast. But still, she said, “So . . . ,” leaving the rest of her question unspoken.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

The corners of her lips twitched, as if she was trying to hold back a smile. “No.” With a motion toward the chair across from her desk, she invited him to sit down.

It was then that he breathed, and forgot all about whoever was in her mind. His swagger returned as he strutted across her expansive office, which was decorated like a grand living room with a desk in the middle. The glint in her eyes let him know that this part of his plan—to wear the black blazer, black shirt, and jeans—had worked.

He didn’t sit until she squirmed a bit in her chair; then he took his seat.

Before he spoke, Alexis raised one finger as she buzzed her assistant. “Could you bring me a cup of coffee?”

Brian grinned. Sat back, unbuttoned his jacket, crossed his legs. He said, “I wanted to come by—”

“Please don’t tell me that you brought more flowers?” she joked, as Kennedy placed a mug on her desk.

Chuckling with her, he said, “No, sorry. This time, all you get is me.” Then he paused, giving her a chance to say words he dreamed about. Something like, That’s fine ’cause all I want is you. But all Alexis did was bring the coffee mug to her lips. He continued, “I have some news.”

Another sip. “Good, I hope.”

He nodded. “I wanted you to be the first to know, ’cause you stood by me.”

She held on to her mug.