to what, Daddy?”
Isaac’s head came up and he met his daughter’s eyes for the first time, seeing pain and unshed tears. “Thomas has threatened to have me arrested unless I can get you to agree to…” His words trailed off.
Zabrina leaned forward. “Get me to do what?”
“He wants you to marry him.”
Her father’s words hit her like a punch to the face, and for a brief moment she believed he was joking, blurting out anything that came to mind to belie his fear. Her hands tightened on the arms of the chair.
“Thomas Cooper wants to marry me when he knows I’m going to marry another man in two weeks?” Isaac nodded. “I can’t, Daddy!” She was screaming again.
Isaac pushed to his feet. The droop of his shoulders indicated defeat. His so-called protégé was blackmailing him because of what he’d witnessed when he’d walked into Thomas’s private office: Councilman Cooper had accepted a cash payment from a local Philadelphia businessman whom law officials suspected had ties to organized crime.
It was a week later that a strange man was ushered into Isaac’s office with a message from the businessman: forget what you saw or your daughter will find herself placing flowers on her father’s grave.
Later that evening he’d met with Thomas who had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. The confirmed bachelor talked incessantly about enhancing his image before declaring his candidacy for the mayoralty race, and then had shocked Isaac when he told him that he wanted to marry his daughter. Nothing Isaac could say could dissuade Cooper even when he told Thomas that Zabrina was engaged to marry Myles Eaton. Thomas Cooper dismissed the pronouncement with a wave of his hand, claiming marrying Zabrina Mixon would serve as added insurance that her father would never turn on his son-in-law.
Zabrina didn’t, couldn’t move. “I don’t believe this. This is the twenty-first century, yet you’re offering me up as if I were chattel you’d put up in a card game. I could possibly consider marrying Thomas if I wasn’t engaged or pregnant. But, I’m sorry, Daddy. I can’t.”
Isaac turned slowly and stared down at his daughter’s bowed head. “You’re what?”
Her head came up. “I just found out this morning that I’m pregnant with Myles Eaton’s baby.”
“Does he know?” Isaac’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Not yet. I plan to tell him later tonight.”
“But you won’t tell him, Zabrina. The child will carry my name,” said Thomas confidently.
Zabrina hadn’t realized Thomas and the other man he’d called Davidson had reentered the living room. “Go to hell!”
The elected official’s expression did not change. “Mr. Davidson, perhaps you can convince Miss Mixon of the seriousness of her father’s dilemma.”
The bespectacled man reached under his suit jacket, pulled out a small caliber handgun with a silencer, aiming it at Isaac’s head. “You have exactly five seconds, Miss Mixon, to give Councilman Cooper an answer.”
Zabrina’s heart was beating so hard she was certain it could be seen through her blouse. “Okay!” she screamed. “Okay,” she repeated, this time her acquiescence softer. There was no mistaking defeat in the single word.
Thomas smiled for the first time. “Not only are you beautiful, but you’re very, very smart. We’ll marry next week in a private ceremony. And, you don’t have to worry about me exercising my conjugal rights. Our marriage will be in name only.”
A rage she’d never known burned through Zabrina. “Does that leave me free to take a lover or lovers?”
The councilman’s smile faded. “In two years you’ll be the wife of Philadelphia’s next mayor, so I doubt that with the responsibility of raising a child and taking care of your social obligations, you’ll find time to open your legs to another man.”
She felt the overwhelming sick feeling that came with defeat, but she wasn’t going to let the blackmailing SOB know that. “One of these days I’m going to kill you.”
A slight arch in his eyebrows was the only indication that Thomas had registered her threat. “Take a number, Miss Mixon.” He motioned to his gofer to put the gun away. “I suggest you call your fiancé and tell him you found a better prospect.”
The footsteps of the two men were muffled in the carpet as they turned and walked to the door. The solid slam of the door shocked Zabrina into an awareness of just what had taken place within a matter of minutes. She’d agreed to marry a man she’d come to detest when the baby of another man she’d pledged to marry in two weeks was growing beneath her heart.
She registered another sound, and it took her several seconds to realize her father was crying. Even when they’d buried her mother she hadn’t seen Isaac cry. She stood up and walked over to her father. Going to her knees, Zabrina pressed her face to his chest. It wasn’t easy to comfort him when she was sobbing inconsolably.
It was later, much later when Zabrina retreated to her bedroom to call Myles Eaton to tell him that she couldn’t marry him because she was in love with another man. There was only the sound of breathing coming through the earpiece until a distinctive click told her Myles had hung up.
She didn’t cry only because she had no more tears. Her mind was a maelstrom of thoughts that ranged from premeditated murder to the need to survive to bring her unborn child to term. She may have lost Myles Eaton, but unknowingly he’d given her a precious gift—a gift she would love to her dying breath.
Chapter 3
Ten years later…
“I can’t believe you’re marrying your sister’s brother-in-law.”
“Believe it, because in another week I’ll become Mrs. Griffin Rice.”
A hint of a smile lifted the corners of Belinda Eaton’s mouth as she stared at Zabrina Cooper. As she’d promised when she’d run into Zabrina at a fundraiser, she’d called to set up a dinner date with the woman who at one time had been engaged to her brother.
Her twin nieces, Layla and Sabrina, whom she and Griffin legally adopted after their parents died in a horrific head-on automobile accident, were spending the weekend with their paternal grandparents, giving Belinda the time she needed to meet with her childhood friend and finish packing her personal belongings before she moved into Griffin’s house. They had gone from being godparents to parents, after Belinda’s sister, who was married to Griffin’s brother, died tragically in an auto accident, leaving the twins orphans.
The skin around Zabrina’s large light brown eyes crinkled when she smiled, something she hadn’t done often, or in a very long time. The only person who could get her to smile or laugh spontaneously was her son. Adam was not only the love of her life, he was her life. Her mother had died when she was young, and she’d buried her father four months before she’d become a widow. Aside from an aunt and a few distant cousins there was only Adam.
She sobered, staring at the woman who, if she’d married Myles Eaton, would have become her sister-in-law. To say the high-school history teacher was stunning was an understatement.
