The Wrong Man (17 page)

Anger simmered inside him. “You’re lying to me. I want you to tell me the truth, and I want you to tell me now.”

She ducked under his arm, and her body brushed his as she slid out the door. “You don’t want the truth.”

Something he’d suspected, but never wanted to acknowledge, reared its ugly head. “You don’t want me there.”

She ignored his comment, unfolding and refolding the clothes in the bag.

“What are we doing, Talia?” He never yelled, but the more she ignored his questions, the louder his voice became. “Just having a good time? Is that all this is to you, and when you’re done slumming it with me you’ll go find another man who fits into your perfect little world?”

She swung around. “Stop it! You know I’m not like that. You know I’m not a snob.”

“No?” He wanted to shake her, to force her to admit the truth. “Then why haven’t I met your friends? We’ve been sleeping together for months now.”

“You know I don’t have a lot of friends.”

He moved closer. “What about your grandmother? You didn’t even want to introduce us a few minutes ago.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You don’t understand!” She covered her face.

“Make me understand.” He refused to let up.

Her face transformed into a pain-filled mask. “I don’t want to hurt you. Can we please not do this right now? Please, Tomas.”

Her voice shook, but he had no pity for her. He felt as if someone had deposited a ton of lead in his stomach. “It’s okay to sleep with me, but you don’t want me at your fancy party. Is that it? You think I don’t know how to clean up? Are you ashamed of us? Worried I’ll embarrass you?”

“No,” she insisted, with a vehement shake of her head. “I don’t even want to go to this stupid party. You don’t understand what I have to deal with. You don’t know what’s it’s like to be me.”

“You’re right, I don’t. Because I’m not the one running around trying to be someone else and please another person instead of making myself happy. I learned long ago to be me. Being someone else is too much work.”

He marched to the door.

“Where are you going?” she asked. “Don’t go.”

He paused, and when he turned to look at her, the stricken expression on her face made his gut clench. But he held firm. “Then let me go to your political party.”

“It’s not that simple.” Her eyes begged him to understand. “My grandmother won’t allow it. Give me a chance. Let me figure this out.”

She was falling apart in front of his eyes, but instead of sympathizing, seeing her in such distress angered him. What the hell was wrong with her? Surely she understood the ridiculousness of her behavior, and how offensive she was being to him.

“What is there to figure out? You want me to wait around for you to make up your mind about whether or not I’m good enough?” He snorted. “Now I understand what your ex-husband meant when he yelled the warning to me at the housewarming party. But no need to worry. I’ll leave so you can figure out what you want.”

“I want you.”

“No, you want this.” He grabbed his crotch. “I told you before, I am more than my penis. I thought…”

With a frustrated shake of his head, he strode out of the room before he said something he regretted. Divulging his feelings would be a huge, embarrassing mistake when she’d made it clear she had no intention of acknowledging their relationship and he didn’t fit into her world.

Talia chased him down the stairs. “Tomas, wait, please. Don’t go. Let me figure this out.” Hearing the quiver in her voice tore at him, but he gritted his teeth and resisted the urge to turn around and comfort her.

“
Tomas
!” His name tore from her throat, a desperate wail that sent goose bumps tearing across his shoulder blades.

He stopped a few feet from the front door. Turning slowly, he steeled his psyche, but he still wasn’t prepared for the sight of her pretty brown eyes swimming in a pool of tears.

“Don’t go,” she said. “I’ll do anything.”

“No, you won’t.” Her grandmother had an unbreakable hold on her. “Go to your party, Talia.” He walked to the door.

“You want to be this way, fine. If you leave, we are done. Do you understand me?” she screamed.

He paused with his hand on the doorknob and threw back his head, laughing. “An ultimatum? Did you really think that would work?”

A flicker of fear, and then her head tilted at an imperious angle, her small chin jutting out and nose in the air. “I’m not kidding.”

“Ultimatums don’t work on me,” he explained. “And besides, what am I losing? Obviously, we don’t have anything, right?”

He paused to let the words sink in, to let her think about what she was doing. If their relationship meant anything, now would be the time to speak up, but her silence was like a kick in the abdomen. She’d given him her answer. Everything they’d shared since the summer meant nothing.

What an idiot he’d become. At first, when she’d started spending the weekend at his place, every time she left his house to come back to the city, he told himself it was the last time, but the last time never came. He never grew tired of her.

Then he told himself the only reason they were together was because of the great sex, but the argument lost traction a long time ago, especially since he couldn’t stomach the thought of another man touching her and had insisted they should be in a monogamous relationship. In fact, he’d stopped seeing other women long before he’d made his demand at Manny’s.

Talia had made him think monogamy with the right person wasn’t so bad and could actually work, and so he’d done a very foolish thing—something he’d avoided for all of his thirty-three years.

He’d fallen in love with her.

“Call me when you figure out what you want,” he said.

He slammed the front door on the way out.

Chapter Twenty-one

Maybeth’s small soirée turned out to be a semi-formal affair that included a handful of celebrities in addition to the politicians and her influential friends. Talia spent the evening avoiding her grandmother and smiling deferentially to the fifty or so guests, feigning interest in their conversations when she’d really rather be anywhere else but there.

The train of her stretched lace, sequined dress skimmed the carpet with each step. She’d chosen this outfit because not only did the design flatter her figure, the black color matched her morbid mood. Tomas hadn’t contacted her, and she’d put off calling him. She’d seen the hurt in his eyes and her guilty conscience kept her from reaching out. She needed to give him enough time to calm down and not lance her with that accusatory look that gave her nightmares. Once he’d had a chance to cool off, she reasoned, he’d forgive her and realize she didn’t mean what she’d said when she told him their relationship was over. She’d overreacted, panicked when she thought he’d been forcing her to choose between him or her grandmother.

And she still had to tell him about the baby.

So tonight she would dodge the aspiring politician and the grandson of the Civil Rights leader, whose names she couldn’t even recall five minutes after she met them. And in another day or two, she’d give Tomas a call.

Maybeth spared no expense when she entertained, and tonight proved no different. Waiters moved inconspicuously around the room with canapés and wine, and Livingstone Manor practically sparkled. Talia hadn’t been there to witness the transformation, but she knew her grandmother had gone over every corner and ledge with a white glove to ensure each room where guests would congregate had been buffed and polished to a high sheen. Even the antique Italian chandelier in the entryway appeared more brilliant than during her last visit.

Standing in the midst of the glitz and glamour, Talia examined her life. For as long as she could remember, every action she’d taken and decision she’d made had been for the sole purpose of pleasing her grandmother. Even tonight she’d shown up when she didn’t want to, agreeing to entertain two men, sharp contrasts to the person she really wanted to be with.

She didn’t belong there anymore, and she wasn’t even sure she ever had. There was nothing wrong with this life except she didn’t fit, and she worried about her child growing up under the same suffocating constraints she’d lived with all her life.

Maybeth had been right all along. She was more Jackson than Livingstone, and now all she longed for was the smell of fresh cut grass and the sound of the wind in the trees. And more than anything, her heart and body ached for the rough-hewn man who’d introduced her to this other way to live.

Talia spotted Maybeth near the hearth talking to a senator and walked over to her.

“Excuse me,” she said. “May I interrupt for a moment?”

Her grandmother’s lips tightened in displeasure, but rather than scold her, she nodded. The senator excused himself and made his way over to a small group of three a few feet away.

Feeling fearful but knowing she couldn’t be the person her grandmother wanted her to be any longer, Talia clenched her fists to steady her rocky nerves. “I’m leaving, Grandmother.”

An arched brow rose. “The party isn’t over yet, and you certainly haven’t spent enough time getting to know—”

“I’m not interested in either of those men.”

Maybeth had always been the one to slice through her conversations. She’d never cut off her grandmother before. Not ever. Underneath the shock that she’d done such a thing, a sense of empowerment emerged. Her heart beat faster, but she recognized the rapid rate had nothing to do with fear.

Maybeth’s face tightened into a forced smile. “You haven’t given either of them a chance, dear,” she said. She tilted the champagne flute to her lips and took a sip.

“And I won’t be. The truth is, I…” This was it. She was strong. Capable. Maybeth looked bored with the conversation, but Talia pushed on. “The truth is, I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to meet anyone or be set up. I have someone, and…and he makes me happy.”

“Is this about the Cuban? All right, you can have your little fling.” Maybeth turned away, as if the conversation was over. She always ended the conversations, but not tonight.

“I don’t need your permission,” Talia said, loud enough that guests nearby abandoned their own conversations and paid closer attention.

The incredulous expression on Maybeth’s face would have been comical under other circumstances.

“Talia Nicole,” her grandmother said in a low, tight voice, “I do believe you have lost your damn mind.” Her face still held a pleasant expression, but her eyes remained cool and hard. She didn’t like scenes.

“I haven’t lost my mind, but I’ve finally woken up. I want to be happy, and he makes me happy.”

“My dear, he is not the right kind of man. Have your little fling and move on. Do you have any idea how the wrong man could destroy everything you’ve worked for? I will not let that happen to you.”

All of a sudden Talia saw the vulnerable woman behind the haughty disdain. She’d heard rumors a long time ago, shared in confidence by family members who’d sworn her to secrecy, that her grandmother had been in love once, and had her heart broken. Maybeth never talked about her ex-husband, a man she married at a young age long before expanding her law practices into Alabama and Florida.

Someone getting the best of her grandmother was unimaginable. It must have been hard to love and lose and then decide those emotions weren’t worth the potential heartache. As a defense, Maybeth must have closed herself off and concentrated on building her business.

“You blame yourself, don’t you?” Talia whispered.

The room had fallen silent. The hum of whispering voices completely gone.

“What are you talking—”

“You blame yourself for my mother’s death.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Maybeth’s shrill laugh filled the room. “Your mother—”

“You blame yourself, and you transferred your guilt onto me. You used your overbearing personality and guilt to keep me in line all these years, desperate not to lose me, too.” Her voice grew thick with the grief of never knowing the woman who’d given her life and not being allowed to live the life she wanted to. “Because you needed me to be what my mother could have become if she hadn’t made the choices she did. Was she unhappy with you, too? You can’t force someone to be who you want them to be. My mother made her own decisions, and it had nothing to do with you. Her death was not my fault, and it wasn’t yours, either.”

“That’s enough.”

Maybeth slammed her glass atop the fireplace mantle. Her thin fingers sank into the tender flesh of Talia’s upper arm, and she pulled her through the room, past the guests who’d turned into spectators. Outside in the hallway, she swung around.

“I have always protected you,” she whispered fiercely. “I want you to live up to your full potential.”

Driven and successful, she embodied everything Talia had aspired to be and everything she feared. She had always strived for the same level of success but realized now that though Maybeth had money and power, she lived in this big house with only servants to keep her company. That was the part Talia feared. Not finding anyone to love her the way she craved to be loved.

“How could I live up to my full potential with you constantly tearing me down?” Talia demanded. “What’s the point of success if you’re never satisfied? I run, and you say run faster. I jump and you say jump higher.”

“To inspire you,” Maybeth insisted. “You could be anything you want. Apply yourself and you’ll have success. If you give up now—”

“You make me feel like I’m never good enough! And you never allowed me to live, Grandmother. You never allowed me to make mistakes, and every time I did, you cut me down.”

“To make you try harder and make you stronger. It’s called tough love, Talia. You meet a little bit of conflict and you collapse? Where is your strength? Where is your gumption? You have no idea what it’s like to struggle—
real
struggle.
I
know what it’s like to work five times as hard and be five times as good to receive even a fraction of the respect of my counterparts, and all because of my skin and my gender.” Maybeth’s voice quivered. She took a deep breath and collected herself. “And when I do succeed, I am told the only reason I’ve attained my goals is as a result of special treatment
because
of my race and my gender.” She laughed bitterly. “My dear, you must learn to sacrifice and move forward and work hard and never, ever settle. I will not let you settle, Talia.”