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“The fact remains that Jonathan wants you. So I suggest that you not lead him on if or when you need legal advice. And, the offer still holds. If you need a lawyer, then I’m always available to you.”
She shook her head. “Why would I need you when my brother is a lawyer?” Her older brother, Myles, had recently resigned as partner at a leading Philadelphia law firm to teach at Duquesne, a private university law school in Pittsburgh.
Griffin inserted the keyless fob in the ignition slot and pushed a button, starting up the SUV. “Just make certain you use him.”
As Griffin maneuvered out of the parking lot, Belinda wondered if he was as brusque with the women he dated or slept with. Other than his looks and his money, she didn’t know why any of them would put up with his attitude.
They’d agreed that the girls would stay with her during the week and with Griffin on the weekends. But she doubted, with his busy social life, that there would be many weekends that the twins would stay with Griffin. That suited Belinda just fine, because what they needed more than anything was stability.
Sabrina and Layla Rice had lost both parents and since then had been living with their grandparents for the past four months. Now they would be moving again when they came to live with her. The fallout after the funeral and burial was difficult when grandparents and relatives began arguing about who would raise the twins. As an investment banker, Grant Rice and his family had been financially sound. And the prospect of the girls’ inheritance drew relatives Griffin hadn’t known or seen in decades like hungry sharks to the smell of blood.
The speculation as to the extent of Grant’s wealth ended when Griffin announced that he and Belinda were the legal guardians, and that Belinda was the beneficiary of Grant and Donna’s multimillion-dollar insurance policy. He had inherited vacant parcels of land that developers were interested in. The only thing he and Belinda had agreed upon was that all the proceeds and profits would be put aside for their nieces’ education and financial future.
Belinda had used the few months that the girls were living with their grandparents to decorate her house to accommodate the growing twins. She wanted the transition to be smooth and stress-free for everyone involved. She’d had more than ten years of teaching young adults, but this was to be the first time Belinda would become a parent in every sense of the word.
The drive from downtown Philadelphia to a nearby suburb was accomplished in complete silence. When Griffin turned off into the subdivision and parked in the driveway where her parents had purchased the town house after selling the large house where they’d raised their four children, Belinda was out of the car before Griffin could shut off the engine. She didn’t see his scowl, but registered the slam of the driver’s-side door when he closed it.
Ringing the bell, she waited for her mother to come to the door. It’s not going to work, she thought over and over as the heat from Griffin’s body seeped into hers when he moved behind her. How was she going to pretend to play house with the girls’ surrogate father when she could barely tolerate being in the same room with him?
The door opened and Roberta Eaton stood on the other side, her eyes red and swollen. Belinda knew her mother hadn’t wanted her granddaughters to leave, but the law was the law and she’d abide by her late daughter’s request and the court’s decision to have Sabrina and Layla live with Belinda.
“Hi, Mama.” Stepping into the entryway, she leaned over and kissed her cheek. “How are the girls?”
Roberta pressed a wrinkled tissue to her nose. “They’re much better than I am. But then, you know how adaptable young folks are. I’ve spent most of the day crying, while they came home going on about an upcoming class trip.” Roberta glanced over her daughter’s shoulder to find Griffin Rice’s broad shoulders filling out the doorway. “Please come in, Griffin.”
Griffin moved inside the house with expansive windows and ceilings rising upward to twelve feet. The elder Eatons had downsized, selling their sprawling six-bedroom farmhouse for a two-bedroom town house condo in a newly constructed retirement village. Unlike his parents, who divorced when he was in high school, Dr. Dwight and Roberta Eaton had recently celebrated their forty-second wedding anniversary.
He hadn’t remembered a day when his parents did not argue, which had shaped his views about marriage. His mother said her marriage was a daily struggle, one in which she was always the loser. His father remarried twice and after his last divorce he dated a woman for several years, but ended the relationship when she wanted a more permanent commitment.
When his brother had contacted him with the news that he was getting married, Griffin had at first thought he was joking, because they’d made a vow never to marry. But within three months of meeting Donna Eaton, Grant had tied the knot. At first he had thought his brother wanted a hasty wedding because Donna was pregnant. But his suspicions had been unfounded when the twins were born a year later. When he’d asked Grant about breaking his promise to never marry, his brother had said promises were meant to be broken when you meet the “right” woman.
Griffin dated a lot of women, had had several long-term relationships, yet at thirty-seven he still hadn’t found the “right woman.”
“Aunt Lindy, Uncle Griff!” Sabrina, older than her sister by two minutes, came bounding down the staircase. “Sorry, Gram,” she mumbled when she saw her grandmother’s frown.
Her grandmother had lectured her and Layla about acting like young ladies—and that meant walking and not running down the stairs and talking quietly rather than screaming at the top of their lungs.
Belinda held out her arms, and she wasn’t disappointed when Sabrina came into her embrace. Easing back, she stared at her niece, always amazed that Sabrina was a younger version of herself. She used to kid Donna by saying that her fraternal twin daughters’ genes had been a compromise. Sabrina resembled the Eatons, while Layla was undeniably a Rice.
“How’s my favorite girl?”
Sabrina rolled her eyes at the same time she sucked her teeth. “How can I be your favorite when you tell Layla that she’s also your favorite?”
Belinda kissed her forehead. “Can’t I have two favorite girls?”
Sabrina angled her head, and her expression made her look much older. Not only was she older than Layla, but she was more mature than her twin. She preferred wearing her relaxed shoulder-length hair either loose, or up in a ponytail. It was Layla who’d opted not to cut her hair and fashioned it in a single braid with colorful bands on the end to match her funky, bohemian wardrobe. Both girls had braces to correct an overbite.
“Of course you can,” Sabrina said. Pulling away, she went over to Griffin. Standing on tiptoe, she kissed his cheek. “I like your suit.”
The charcoal-gray, single-breasted, styled suit in a lightweight wool blend was Griffin’s favorite. He tugged her ponytail. “Thank you.”
Sabrina gave her uncle a beguiling smile. “You promised that Layla and I could meet Keith Ennis. The Phillies will be in town for four days. Please, please, please, Uncle Griff, can you arrange for us to meet him?”
It was Griffin’s turn to roll his eyes. Keith Ennis had become Major League Baseball’s latest heartthrob. Groupies greeted him in every city and his official fan club boasted more than a million members online.
He’d considered himself blessed when the batting phenom had approached him to represent him in negotiating his contract when he’d been called up from the minors. The Philadelphia Phillies signed him to a three-year, multimillion-dollar deal that made the rookie one of the highest-paid players in the majors, and in his first year he was named Rookie of the Year, earned a Gold Glove and had hit more than forty home runs with one hundred and ten runs batted in.
“I’m having a gathering at my house next Saturday following an afternoon game. You and your sister can come by early to meet him, but then you have to leave.”
“How long can we stay, Uncle Griff?” asked Layla, who’d come down the staircase in time to overhear her uncle.
Belinda shot Griffin an I don’t believe you look. Had he lost his mind, telling twelve-year-olds that they could come to an adult gathering where there was certain to be not only alcohol, but half-naked hoochies?
“Your uncle and I will have to talk about this before we agree whether an adult party is appropriate for twelve-year-olds.” She’d deliberately stressed the word adult.
Layla pouted as dots of color mottled her clear complexion. “But Uncle Griff said we could go.”
“Your uncle doesn’t have the final say on where you can go, or what you can do.”
“Who does have the final say?” Sabrina asked.
Belinda felt as if she were being set up. Unknowingly, Griffin had made her the bad guy—yet again. “We both will have the final say. Now, please say goodbye to your grandmother. I’d like to get you settled in because tomorrow is a school day.”
Most of the girls’ clothes and personal belongings had been moved to her house earlier that week. Belinda had hung their clothes in closets but left boxes of stuffed animals and souvenirs for her nieces to unpack and put away.
“We’ll see you for Sunday dinner, Gram,” Layla promised as she hugged and kissed Roberta.
Roberta gave the girls bear hugs accompanied by grunting sound effects. “I want you to listen to your aunt and uncle, or you’ll hear it from me.”
“We will, Gram,” the two chorused.
Belinda lingered behind as Layla and Sabrina followed Griffin outside. “Why didn’t you say something when Griffin mentioned letting the girls hang out at a party with grown folks?”
Roberta crossed her arms under her full bosom and angled her soft, stylishly coiffed salt-and-pepper head. She wanted to tell her middle daughter that becoming a mother was challenging enough, but assuming the responsibility of raising teenage girls, who were still grieving the loss of their parents, and had just started their menses and were subject to mood swings as erratic as the weather, would make her question her sanity.
“I wouldn’t permit anyone to interfere with me raising my children, so I’m not going to get into it with you and Griffin about how you want to deal with Layla and Sabrina. Not only are you their aunt but you are also their mother. What you’re going to have to do is establish the rules with Griffin before you tell the girls what’s expected of them.”
Frustration swept over Belinda. Her mother wasn’t going to take her side. “I can’t understand what made him tell—”
“There’s not much to understand, Belinda,” Roberta retorted, interrupting her. “He’s a man, not a father. What he’s going to have to do is begin thinking like a father.”
“That’s not going to be as easy as it sounds. Layla and Sabrina will spend more time with me than with Griffin. Although he’s agreed to take them on the weekends that doesn’t mean he’ll have them every weekend.”
“Griffin Rice is no different than your father. As a family doctor with a private practice he was always on call. If it wasn’t a sprained wrist or ankle, then it was the hospital asking him to cover in the E.R. Dwight missed so many Sunday dinners that I stopped setting a place for him at the dinner table.”
“Daddy was working, and there is a big difference between working and socializing.”
“You can’t worry about Griffin, Lindy. Either he will step up to the plate or he won’t. At this point in their lives, Sabrina and Layla need a mother not a father. Once the boys start hanging around them, I’m certain he’ll change. Your father did.”
Belinda wanted to tell her mother that Griffin Rice was nothing like Dwight Eaton. With Griffin it was like sending the fox to guard the henhouse. And, if Griffin didn’t take an active role in protecting his nieces now, then she would be forced to be mother and father.
“Let’s hope you’re right.” She hugged and kissed her mother. “We’ll see you Sunday.”
Roberta nodded. “Take care of my girls.”
“You know I will, Mama.”
Belinda walked out of the house to find Griffin waiting for her. He’d removed his suit jacket, his custom-made shirt and tailored slacks displaying his physique to its best advantage. Sabrina and Layla were seated in the back of the car, bouncing to music blaring from the SUV’s speakers. Belinda fixed her gaze on a spot over Griffin’s shoulder rather than meet his intense gaze.
There was something about the way he was staring at her that made Belinda slightly uncomfortable. Perhaps it was his earlier reference to her face and body that added to her uneasiness. The first time she was introduced to Griffin Rice she was stunned by his gorgeous face and perfect body, but after interacting with him she’d thought him arrogant and egotistical when he boasted that he’d graduated number one in his law school class.
Subsequent encounters did little to change her opinion of him. Every time the Eatons and Rices got together Griffin flaunted a different woman. After a while, she stopped speaking to him. Even when they came together as godmother and godfather to celebrate their godchildren’s birthdays, she never exchanged more than a few words with him.
“We have to talk about the girls, Griffin.”
His thick eyebrows arched. “What do you want to talk about?”
“We need to establish some rules concerning parenting.”
“I’ll go along with whatever you want.”
“What I don’t want is for you to promise the girls that they can attend an adult party,” added Belinda.
“I didn’t tell them they could attend the party. I said—”
“I heard what you said, Griffin Rice,” Belinda interrupted angrily. “The girls will not go to your house to meet anyone.”
Griffin’s eyes darkened as he struggled to control his temper. He didn’t know what it was about Belinda Eaton, but she was the only woman who managed to annoy him. He’d stopped speaking to her because she had such a sharp tongue. And rather than argue, he ignored her. But it was impossible to ignore her now because he would have to put up with her for the next eleven years. Once Sabrina and Layla celebrated their twenty-third birthdays he and Belinda could go their separate ways. Having his nieces stay at his house on weekends would put a crimp in his social life, but he was totally committed to his role as their guardian.
Griffin knew what meeting Keith Ennis and getting his autograph meant to the girls. His dilemma was finding a way to get around Belinda’s demands. “Are you willing to compromise?”
“Compromise how?”
“You act as my hostess for the party. Let me finish,” he warned when she started to open her mouth in protest. “You and the girls can spend the weekend with me. You can be my hostess, and I’ll ask Keith to come early so that Sabrina and Layla can meet him. As soon as the others arrive they can go to their rooms while you and I—”
“Will meet and greet your guests,” Belinda said facetiously, finishing his statement.
Grinning and displaying a mouth filled with straight, white teeth, Griffin winked at Belinda. “Now, doesn’t that solve everything? The girls get to meet their idol, I get to interact with my friends and clients and you will be there to monitor Sabrina and Layla.”
I don’t think the girls need as much monitoring as you do, Belinda mused. “I hope when the girls stay over that you won’t expose them to situations they don’t need to see at their age.”
It took a full minute for Griffin to discern what Belinda was implying. “Do you really believe I’m so depraved that I would sleep with a woman when my nieces are in the same house?”
“I don’t know what to believe, Griffin.” Belinda’s voice was pregnant with sarcasm. “What you’re going to have to do is prove to me that you’re capable of looking after two pre-teen girls.”
“I don’t have to prove anything to you, Belinda. The fact that my brother thought me worthy enough to care for and protect his daughters is enough. And, regardless of what you may think—legally I have as much right to see my nieces as you do. I agreed to let them stay with you during the week because their school is in the same district where you live. It would be detrimental to their stability to pull them out midterm to go to a school close to where I live.”
He took a step, bringing him within inches of his sister-in-law, his gaze lingering on the delicate features that made for an arresting face. What he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge the first time he was introduced to Belinda Eaton was that she was stunningly beautiful. She had it all: looks and brains. Also, what he refused to think about was her lithe, curvy body. The one time he saw her in a bikini he’d found himself transfixed by what had been concealed by her conservative attire. It took weeks before the image of her long, shapely legs and the soft excess of flesh rising above her bikini top faded completely. That had been the first and only time that Griffin Rice was consciously aware that he wanted to make love to Belinda Eaton.
“Okay, Griffin. I’ll compromise just this one time. But only because I don’t want to disappoint Layla and Sabrina.”
Griffin smiled, the expression softening his face and making him even more attractive. “Why, thank you, Belinda.”
Belinda also smiled. “You’re quite welcome, Griffin.”
Chapter 2
“Aren’t you coming in with us, Uncle Griff?” Sabrina asked as Griffin stood on the porch of Belinda’s two-story white house framed with dark blue molding and matching shutters.
Cupping the back of her head, Griffin pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I can’t. I have a prior engagement.”
Sabrina blinked once. “You’re engaged?”
Throwing back his head, Griffin laughed. “No. I should’ve said that I have a dinner appointment.”
“Why didn’t you say that instead of saying you were engaged,” Sabrina countered, not seeing the humor in her uncle’s statement.
Griffin sobered quickly when he realized she wasn’t amused. Everyone remarked how Sabrina had an old spirit, that she was wise beyond her years, while Layla the free spirit saw goodness in everything and everyone.
“It looks as if I’m going to have to be very careful about what I say to you.”
Sabrina winked at him. “That’s all right, Uncle Griff. I’ll let you know when I don’t understand something.”
Belinda listened to the exchange between Griffin and his niece. It was apparent he’d met his match. “If you’re not coming in, then I’ll say good night.”
Watching him drive away, she was grateful that Griffin had elected not to come inside because she wanted time alone with her nieces, to see firsthand their reaction to the rooms she’d organized and decorated in what she felt was each girl’s personal style.
Belinda glanced at her watch. “Girls, please go upstairs, do your homework and then get ready for bed. I’m going to have to get you up earlier than usual because I’m going to drive you to school. I also have to fill out another transportation application changing your bus route.” The sisters headed for the staircase, racing each other to the second floor.
Their bus route had changed when they’d gone to live with their grandparents, and it would change again now that they lived with her. It’d taken Belinda two months for the contractor to make the necessary renovations to her house when she realized the twins would have to live with her. She hadn’t known that when she’d moved out of her Philadelphia co-op and into the three-bedroom house. She’d originally bought the house because she’d been looking to live in a less noisy neighborhood with a slower pace. Now she would end up sharing the house with her nieces.
The house’s former owners, a childless couple who taught in the same high school as Belinda, had covered the clapboard with vinyl siding, updated the plumbing and electricity and had landscaped the entire property as they awaited the adoption of a child from Eastern Europe. The adoption fell through and the wife opted for artificial insemination. After several failed tries, she found herself pregnant with not one, but four babies. They began looking for a larger house at the same time Belinda put her co-op on the market. She made the couple an offer, and three months later she closed on what had become her little dream house.
Ear-piercing screams floated down from the second story. Glancing up, she saw Layla hanging over the banister. “Are you okay?” she asked with a smile, knowing the reason for the screaming.
Layla gestured wildly. “Aunt Lindy, I love, love, love it!” she shrieked incoherently before running back to her bedroom.
Minutes later Belinda stood in the room, her arms encircling her nieces’ waists. The contractor had removed the door leading into the master bedroom and installed doors to adjoining bedrooms that led directly into the space she’d set up as a combined office, study and entertainment area. The furnishings included two desks with chairs that faced each other and built-in bookcases along three of the four walls.
The remaining wall held a large flat-screen television. A low table held electronics for a home-theater system. Empty racks for CDs and DVDs were nestled in a corner, along with a worktable with a streamlined desktop and laptop computers and printer. Although the television was equipped with cable, Belinda had programmed parental controls on both the television and Internet. French doors had replaced a trio of windows that led to a balcony overlooking the back of the property.
“I know which bedroom is mine,” Sabrina crooned.
“Mine is the one with the bright colors,” Layla said, her voice rising in excitement.
Sabrina pressed closer to her aunt. “This is the first time we’re not going to have to share a bedroom.”
Belinda gave her a warm smile. She recognized them as individuals and sought to relate to them as such. “I have a few house rules that I expect to be followed. You must keep your bedrooms and bathroom clean. I don’t want to find dirty clothes on the floor or under the beds. The first time I find food or drink upstairs there will be consequences.”
