Beyond Temptation

Lena couldn’t help but be happy for her best friend, and inwardly she could admit she was a little envious although such happiness could not have happened to a more deserving person than Kylie. But still, that didn’t stop Lena’s heart from aching from what she didn’t have. Here she was, at thirty-one still the bridesmaid but never the bride, still the godmother but never the mother. And what was so sad was knowing she would never be a bride or a mother.

She inhaled deeply, refusing to give the state of her future any more thought that day.

“What’s this I hear about you selling your home, Morgan?”

Morgan lifted a brow. He highly suspected that Bas had heard the news from Donovan, not that it was a secret.

“Yes, you heard right,” he said, accepting the glass of wine his brother was offering him.

“How come?”

Morgan gave a sigh of relief. At least Donovan hadn’t told Bas everything. “What do you mean how come?”

“Just what I ask,” Bas said, dropping into the lounge chair across from where Morgan sat. “How come? You love that house. As you’ve told us so many times, it’s perfect for you.”

Jocelyn was in the kitchen and Morgan could only hope she wasn’t privy to their conversation. “Things change.”

“Bullshit. Tell that to someone else. Things might change but you don’t. You’ve had this obsession with things being ideal in your life for as long as I can remember. So what’s really going on with you, Morgan? What’s the real reason you’re selling your house? Discovered you’re sitting on a gold mine or something?”

“Wished it was that simple,” Morgan managed to say finally, studying his glass of wine for a moment before lifting his gaze to Bas’s curious one. “Colin Powell once said, and I quote, ‘There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.’”

Bas rolled his eyes. “Will you give it to me straight, Morgan?”

Morgan smiled as he momentarily traced his finger around the rim of his glass. Bas was a troubleshooter; he looked for problems where there weren’t any. Morgan glanced back up and met his brother’s gaze. “Okay, Bas, you want me to give it to you straight? Then here goes. Lena Spears.”

Morgan watched his brother’s expression. For a moment he looked genuinely bewildered. Then slowly, Morgan saw the exact moment he figured things out. For a while there Morgan had gotten worried since Bas wasn’t normally a slow man.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Bas said sharply, narrowing his eyes at him.

“Trust me, I do. I want her, Bas.”

“Tell me something I don’t know, Morgan. That’s been evident now for over a year. It’s also been evident to everyone but you, it seems, that she doesn’t want to be wanted…at least not by you.”

“Then it’s up to me to convince her otherwise.”

“And you’ll go so far as to sell your house to do it?”

“Whatever it takes. Wish me luck.”

Bas shook his head, smiling. “You need more than luck, brother. You need prayer. I get the distinct impression that Lena likes her life just the way it is.”

“I got that impression too, and I wanted to know why such a beautiful woman would not want a man in it.”

“Did you ask Kylie?”

“Yes.”

“And what did she say?”

“At first she was tight-lipped, like she didn’t want to betray Lena’s confidences or something. Then she mumbled something about the men in Lena’s past not being able to get past the fact that she and her mother are a package deal.”

Bas frowned. “If that’s true, then those weren’t men, they were assholes who must have been hatched. Who in their right mind would even think about making a person choose between a lover and a parent?”

“How about someone like Dr. Derek Peterson?”

Bas’s frown deepened. “He’s a good example that what I said is true since everyone knows he’s an asshole.”

Morgan chuckled. Derek, who’d always taken ego trips even while in high school, was not a favorite of the Steele Brothers since that night a few years ago when he’d tried pulling his aggressive macho ways on Vanessa. Ignoring their advice she had gone out with him. The date had ended rather quickly when she had to resort to kneeing him in the groin when he proved he didn’t know the meaning of the word no. He never forgave Vanessa for using that technique on him, and to this day was still pissed at the Steele brothers for having taught her how to use it.

“Well, he must not have been the only one for Lena to have developed a complex about it to the point where she thinks the majority of men think that way. I intend to prove otherwise, and certain things can’t be rushed. Using her as my Realtor will buy me some time.”

He took a sip of his wine, determined to make Bas understand as he’d done Donovan a few days ago. “I’m serious when I said I want her, Bas. But more importantly,” he said, meeting his brother’s gaze, “I intend to have her.”

“So, Mom, how was the trip to the zoo?”

“It was nice. Mr. Bannister got sick again and Ms. Lilly wanted Mr. Arnold to share his wheelchair but he wouldn’t.”

Lena nodded. She knew Ms. Lilly was an older woman in her early eighties who had begun showing signs of Alzheimer’s last year. On several occasions she had assumed Odessa Spears was her daughter and would try to make her follow her commands. “What about Ms. Emily? How did she do today?” she asked, and glanced over and watched her mother smile.

“Why, Emily did just fine with this being her first trip and all. But she had company. Her granddaughter and great-granddaughter went with us as chaperones. Did I ever tell you that she had six grands and two great-grands?”

Lena’s stomach tightened since she knew where this conversation was headed. “Yes, Mama, you told me.”

“And Emily agrees with me that it’s a shame that I don’t even have a grand. She said she can’t believe a young woman as pretty as you can’t find herself a man.”

Lena sighed deeply. There was no way she could tell her mother that men were out there a dime a dozen and she didn’t have to “find” one. The problem was hooking up with one who didn’t have stipulations that weren’t acceptable to her. Lena knew her mother’s heart would be crushed if she ever discovered the real reason men didn’t come calling and those who did usually stopped real quick, as if in a hurry once they discovered her role in her mother’s life.

“Mom, like I told you, my job keeps me busy.”

“No job should keep a woman too busy for a man. You’re thirty-one. I was married to your father before my twenty-first birthday and we were so happy together. That man was my life. You came along twenty years later and then the both of you became my life. A woman couldn’t have been happier. A husband and a child have a way of fulfilling a woman’s life.”

“I’m sure that’s true, Mom, but—”

“And take a look at Kylie. I love Tiffany dearly with her being your godchild and all, but a new baby is nice and it didn’t take Kylie long after her marriage to do her duty.”

Lena shook her head. Her duty. She didn’t want to think about what her mother figured her duty was.

“But I don’t want to talk about Kylie. You’re my daughter and I want to talk about you.”

Lena sighed. Her mother hadn’t been this talkative in a long time. A part of her was happy about it, but she would be even happier if they discussed another subject. “Mom, we’ve talked before. They don’t make men like they used to,” she said, coming to a stop at a traffic light.

She glanced over at her mom and met her gaze when Odessa asked, “Is that what’s bothering you? Are you figuring there isn’t a man out there like your daddy was? Probably not, but it’s the woman who usually makes the marriage and not the man. You just have to let him think that he does. Why, I can recall when your father…”

Lena pulled off when the traffic light changed to green as her mother relived pleasant memories. She was grateful for the change in subjects, because if they had stayed on their same conversation path, there was no way she wouldn’t eventually have lost it. Having lunch with Kylie and seeing how pregnant she looked made her unconsciously rub her stomach wishing more than anything a baby could be there.

She cleared her throat in an attempt to keep her tear ducts from working. For some reason she’d been in a melancholy mood lately, but she knew it would eventually pass and she would snap out of it.

Considering everything, she really didn’t have much of a choice.

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