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“Okay,” Desiree returned. “And Decker?”
“Yes?” he asked. His voice was so deep and sexy that Desiree could have sworn her toes were curling.
“Thanks for being so understanding about my not phoning sooner.”
“You’re welcome,” was all he said, and they ended the call.
Desiree sat in her car for a moment, smiling. That hadn’t turned out the way she had anticipated. She had believed she was making the call to prove to herself that she wasn’t a coward and could go forward with her life. But once she heard Decker’s voice, something inside her melted. She began to genuinely look forward to going out with him and getting to know him better than the “surface Decker” she had known for the past two years. She couldn’t wait until Friday night.
* * *
Decker stood for a moment in his chef’s kitchen, looking dumbly at the cordless phone in his hand before putting it back in its cradle. He couldn’t believe Desiree had suddenly had a change of heart and decided to give them a chance. Now he was dying to know why. What had made her do it?
Maybe she’d confided in her sister. He picked up the phone again and dialed Colton’s cell. Colton didn’t answer. When it went to voice mail, Decker hung up. He wanted to speak directly to his cousin. He dialed Colton and Lauren’s home number.
Lauren answered, and she sounded a bit breathless. “Decker, what’s up?”
“Lauren, have you spoken with Desiree lately?”
“We briefly chatted earlier today,” Lauren said. And then she said something softly to someone who was evidently with her at the moment. Decker couldn’t make out what she’d said.
The next voice he heard was Colton’s. “Look, Decker, unless this is a life-or-death situation, we’ll call you back later. We’re busy, if you know what I mean.”
“Sorry,” Decker said, chuckling. “I just wanted to let you know your plan worked. Desiree just phoned me. We’re going out Friday night.”
“What!” Decker heard Lauren shout. Then she apparently took the phone from her husband. “When did this happen?” She sounded delighted, which made Decker grin even wider.
“A few minutes ago,” Decker said. “Did she mention anything to you about why she changed her mind about me?”
“No,” Lauren said, her tone puzzled. “I’m as surprised as you are, but I’m happy to hear it.” She paused. “She has gone through something traumatic recently, though, so maybe that had something to do with her sudden turnaround. But that, I’m afraid, is something she’ll have to tell you about herself.”
Decker was instantly concerned for Desiree. Something traumatic, Lauren had said. Now his curiosity was doubly engaged. But he didn’t press Lauren. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll let you get back to what you were doing. Thanks, Lauren.”
“Congrats,” Lauren said. “Treat her like the queen she is!”
“You know I will,” he said with a smile.
After he’d hung up, he sat on a stool at the island in the kitchen, his brow furrowed by a frown. His heart ached with the knowledge that Desiree was in emotional pain right now, and he could do nothing to lessen it.
He got up and went to the fridge to get ingredients for a quick beef strip stir-fry. Cooking always calmed him and helped him think. Ironically, it was his father and not his mother who’d given him his appreciation of cooking. Thaddeus Riley, whom everyone called Tad, told his son that knowing how to cook upped a man’s chances of landing the right woman. He swore that was how he’d won June’s heart.
As he chopped fresh vegetables at the counter, he thought about the first time he’d seen Desiree. The occasion had been a sad one. It was at his uncle Frank’s funeral. The service had ended, and those attending were spilling out of the church, preparing to go to the cemetery for the interment. He’d spotted a tall, shapely woman in a dark skirt suit standing in the middle of the crowd looking around as if she’d misplaced someone. He’d been instantly drawn to her, and before he knew it he was standing in front of her, offering to help her find whomever she had lost.
Desiree Gaines had creamy golden-brown skin, and when she looked up at him, she blushed noticeably. Her eyes were the color of honey, big, wide-spaced and thickly lashed. He remembered that when his gaze had fallen on her mouth, his heart skipped a beat. Those full lips looked so inviting, he had sighed inwardly when she parted them and said, “I’m all right, thank you. I see my sister just a little ahead of me over there.” She had pointed at a woman who favored her but was a couple of inches taller.
Decker knew he was running out of time at that point and had started talking fast. “Look, I know this is going to sound strange at a funeral, but you are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen, and having just found you, I don’t want to lose you again.” He reached into his jacket pocket, retrieved one of his cards and pressed it into her palm. He had felt her reluctance to let him do that. She withdrew her hand from his at the first opportunity. But Decker was determined not to let that be the last time they met.
He held up his hands to show that he meant her no harm, and said, while backing away, “I’ve got to go. They’re waiting on me so we can go on to the cemetery, but call me, please. You won’t regret it.”
Desiree had merely smiled at him with a somewhat doubtful expression on her beautiful face. He had never expected to see her again. But less than two hours later, she had shown up at his aunt Veronica’s house with her sister, Lauren. Decker only learned later that Lauren and Colton were an item by then. He just thanked his lucky stars that he’d gotten another chance to speak with Desiree.
He laughed now. Not that it got me anywhere, he thought. She still made me wait two years.
* * *
“How do you feel about gaining five more pounds?” Desiree asked Madison Samuelson, age fifteen, who was seeing her for treatment for the psychological effects of anorexia nervosa.
It was Tuesday afternoon, and they were in her office, decorated to put her clients at ease. The furnishings were modern pieces done in expensive brown leather. The pillows, rugs and draperies were in earth tones, and the hardwood floor was light pine. The windows were double-paned to prevent outside noises from intruding.
Desiree sat in a chair with her legs crossed opposite Madison, who sat on the couch with her legs tucked underneath her. She had medium brown skin and big light brown eyes. Her shoulder-length hair was in braids, and she invariably wore a scarf over it, which made Desiree wonder why she covered her head. Was she hiding something? Sometimes girls who had issues such as Madison’s inflicted pain on themselves by pulling their hair out at the roots, cutting themselves, anything that made them forget their mental pain for a moment.
“I feel good!” Madison cried, eyes looking anywhere but directly at Desiree. Desiree recognized this as avoidance. Madison wasn’t here willingly. Her parents had insisted she come to these sessions, and she probably didn’t think they were doing any good. When Desiree had first seen Madison, who was five-five, she had weighed only eighty pounds. Today she weighed a hundred and five pounds, and her skin, hair, teeth, everything about her physical body looked much healthier. But Desiree was still concerned that so far what they’d been able to accomplish was only a Band-Aid on the surface of what was a much deeper cut to Madison’s psyche.
They still hadn’t gotten to the root of the problem. Why Madison had started starving herself. Madison would only say some girls at school had told her she looked fat, and she’d wanted to fit in, so she had started eating less. Soon eating less had turned into eating practically nothing in a twenty-four-hour period. She’d been rushed to the hospital with heart failure before her parents realized how far gone she was.
Desiree suspected Madison harbored resentment for her parents because they hadn’t noticed her going downhill sooner. However, Madison had never said a word against her parents. Her comments, in fact, were always positive, as if giving upbeat responses would get her out of therapy that much quicker.
Until now, Desiree hadn’t wanted to put any pressure on Madison, believing that the girl would respond to simply having someone to listen to her grievances. However, Madison was pretending she didn’t have anything to complain about.
Therefore Desiree would have to take a different approach to the girl’s treatment: anger. Some people had to get angry before they could move on to the next level.
“Madison,” Desiree said, looking at the girl’s face, which was impassive. “How do you suppose your parents missed the fact that you were practically skin and bones before they noticed you needed help?”
Madison swung her legs off the couch and sat up, staring at Desiree with her mouth agape and eyes wide. She gasped and closed her mouth. She looked at Desiree with one eyebrow raised higher than the other, as if to say, “Oh, no, you didn’t go there!”
Desiree fought to keep her facial expression neutral because she was delighted that she’d gotten a rise out of the girl. There was actually some spunk left in her!
Madison looked her straight in the eye and said, “Because they were too busy working, chasing the mighty dollar, to see that I was dying.”
“And what were you doing?” Desiree asked. “Wearing baggy clothes to hide your body? Pretending to eat at the dinner table, but really throwing food away? Are you saying you had nothing to do with their complacency, their blindness, where your condition was concerned, Madison?”
“Oh, yeah, sure, I was sneaky about things, but they should have still noticed! I needed them, and they weren’t there. The only thing they were interested in was that my grades were good and I was on schedule for the perfect life they had planned for me. A 4.0 grade point average, my mother’s alma mater, Howard University, becoming a lawyer like both of them, those were the things they cared about. Not the fact that I was being bullied at school, told I was fat and ugly and that no boy would want to be seen with me.”
“Did you try to talk to them about what was going on at school?”
“Yeah,” Madison said with a grimace. “They just said it was a part of growing up and to suck it up. It would give me character.”
“So you turned your rage inward and started punishing yourself,” Desiree said. “You started starving yourself because you felt like no one cared about you?”
Madison’s eyes brightened. She let out a huge sigh and returned to her more relaxed position on the couch with her feet tucked under her. Looking at Desiree with a smile on her face, she said, “After six months, you finally figured me out. I was beginning to lose hope. Not that I didn’t get a big kick out of knowing my parents have to pay a huge fee to you so that I can come here and sulk once a week. But really, Doctor D, I figured you were as full of crap as my parents. But you really know your stuff.”
Desiree smiled at her. “Why do I feel as though you’re just telling me what I want to hear?” She leaned forward, keeping her gaze on Madison’s. “That may be part of it. But I don’t think you’re being entirely truthful with me. Why don’t you take off that scarf you have on? And then we can get down to the real reason you wanted to die, Madison.”
“No,” Madison said adamantly. Her eyes narrowed. Her jaw clenched, and her bottom lip protruded. Desiree thought she looked as if she would rather fight her than take that scarf off.
“Have you replaced one bad habit with another?” Desiree asked. “You have everyone watching you like a hawk, making sure you’re eating right and keeping it down. But maybe when you’re alone in your room, you do something else to punish yourself.”
Madison got to her feet and yelled down into Desiree’s face, “I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. And you can’t make me, you nosy bitch!”
Desiree sat in her chair and calmly looked up at Madison. “That’s right, I’m a nosy bitch. For six months you’ve sat on that couch lying to me, and I’m tired of it. If you don’t think you’re worth saving, why should I? If you don’t want to fight for your life, why should I?” Now she stood, her eyes never leaving Madison’s face. “You want to know a secret, Madison? We are born into this world alone, and we die alone. In between life and death, those of us who survive learn one valuable lesson—we’ve got to love ourselves. We can’t count on others to love us, because human beings are selfish. They live in their own worlds. You’ve got to love yourself, Madison. You’ve got to care about yourself if no one else does. And you’ve got to fight to stay alive! Now, you can leave here today, resenting your parents, parents who love you, no matter how much you think they don’t, and thinking of me as that nosy bitch who has wasted your valuable time, or you can choose to live, take care of yourself, be strong and accept the fact that no one can do it for you. I’m not going to waste any more of your parents’ money on sessions with you, Madison. If you want to be rid of me, you are rid of me. Don’t come back here.” She pointed to the door. “Now get out. The big bad world is waiting for you. Either it will eat you up, or you’ll learn to fight back and choose life, your choice!”
Madison was looking at her as though she’d lost her mind. She angrily snatched her shoulder bag off the couch and began walking toward the door. “I’m going to tell my parents how you talked to me, and they’re going to sue your ass.”
“That’s fine. Your mother’s just outside that door in the waiting room,” Desiree said, undaunted. “Goodbye, Madison.”
For a moment, Madison stood frozen, staring at her; then her mouth began trembling, and she started crying. She looked at Desiree helplessly, tears soaking her cheeks. “I’m scared,” she said pitifully. In a defeated gesture, she dropped her shoulder bag back onto the couch and reached up to remove the scarf. Desiree gasped when she saw the many bald spots on the girl’s scalp. She had to force herself to stand there, when her gut reaction was to immediately comfort Madison. Meanwhile the brave teen struggled to find her next words. “He said no one would ever believe me if I told,” Madison finally said.
“He?” Desiree gently coaxed.
“Mr. Sawyer, my math teacher. I’m his classroom aide. His class is the last of the day, and I stay late and help him collect papers to grade, clean the classroom, that kind of thing. It started with warm hugs, and then one day he just grabbed me. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t do that. I knew girls who did, but I didn’t do that. Now I’m one of them. I’m one of those girls who let boys do things to them. I let him, and I keep letting him.”
Desiree was across the room and pulling Madison into her arms in a flash. She had known there was more to Madison’s suffering, but she had not imagined anything this horrible.
“Everything’s going to start getting better from this moment,” she promised Madison as she rocked the girl in her arms. “He’s never going to touch you again. He’s never going to touch any child again.”
Madison wept, and Desiree got madder. “Baby girl, men like Sawyer not only molest young girls’ bodies, but they manipulate them and prey on their minds. But you can get the power that he took from you back by making sure that he’s punished for what he did to you. You’re not the victim here. You’re the strong one.”
She walked over to her desk with Madison still in her arms and pressed the intercom on her phone. When her assistant, Mellie, answered, she said, “Mellie, tell Mrs. Samuelson to get in here now.”
Chapter 4 (#ulink_93b5e872-044e-51e9-8a67-ab75115cccd8)
Decker was having a good week. With the aid of a crack private investigation team that worked for his firm, he’d successfully represented a construction company owner accused of killing his business rival. The investigators had uncovered evidence the police had overlooked, proving that Decker’s client had been set up by the wife of his rival who sought not only to get rid of her husband and collect the insurance money, but to let someone else take the blame for her crime.
It was with much satisfaction, on Friday afternoon, that Decker heard the judge proclaim, “Case dismissed!”
Decker turned to his client and shook his hand. The poor man appeared almost faint with relief. He enthusiastically pumped Decker’s hand. “I can’t thank you enough!” he cried, with tears of happiness in his eyes.
“My pleasure,” Decker assured him. “Now go hug your wife.”
His wife was waiting just behind them. Decker picked up his briefcase and he and his paralegal, Mike Lofton, left the courtroom. On the way down the courthouse steps, his cell phone rang. It was his administrative assistant, Kym Johnson. “Sir, I’ve got mayoral candidate Todd Pratt on the other line. He’s been arrested on corruption charges. He wants you to represent him.”
“Not another corrupt politician,” Decker complained. Last year he’d represented a former state senator accused of accepting bribes. Turned out the senator had lied through his teeth when he said he was innocent, and all it took was a good attorney to convince the jury of it. Well, Decker had fought valiantly while evidence of the senator’s guilt had piled up. The senator had gone to prison. After that Decker vowed to stay clear of politicians. “Tell him he’ll have to get himself another lawyer,” Decker told Kym.
“Whatever you say, sir,” said Kym.
Decker put his phone away and turned to Mike, an eager young man who was working as a paralegal while he studied for his law degree. “You know what, Mike,” Decker said, looking up at the clear blue, late March sky, “why don’t you take the rest of the day off? I think I’ll head home.”
Mike beamed. “Why, thank you, sir.”
“Go have fun,” Decker said. He was feeling magnanimous. An innocent man was free to go home with his loving wife. It was a beautiful spring day. Best of all, he was going to be seeing Desiree in a matter of hours.
He and Mike said their goodbyes and parted, going in opposite directions. Decker walked swiftly to the parking garage across the street. He couldn’t wait to see Desiree.
They’d spoken over the phone a couple of times this past week but had not seen each other. When they were on the phone he’d ask her how she was doing, wanting her to open up to him and tell him what sort of traumatic experience she’d recently gone through. But he could tell from her tone that she’d wanted to keep things light between them. He’d then asked her about work, which she said she couldn’t talk about much because of doctor/patient confidentiality. She would make vague references to her clients like how she felt close to a breakthrough with one patient, or she felt she wasn’t getting anywhere with another one, but never any mention of a specific mental illness.
As a lawyer, he understood the need to keep privileged information under wraps. He simply wanted her to share her life with him.
He tossed negative thoughts aside as he climbed into the SUV, drove out of the parking garage and headed home. He had a great night planned for them. He was taking her to his favorite Italian restaurant in downtown Raleigh. They served Tuscan-inspired Italian cuisine. The atmosphere was relaxed, just the sort of place he and Desiree could sit and talk, laugh a little, get to know each other better. Then they’d go to a little jazz club he knew where they could have a drink and dance the night away. It was Friday; they could stay out late. He would like nothing better than to see the sun rise with Desiree tomorrow morning. But he would take his cues from her. Whatever the lady wanted would be his pleasure to give her.
* * *
Desiree’s doorbell rang at six that evening. She had been home only about thirty minutes and was preparing to take a long soak in the tub. She walked through her Mediterranean-style home, attired in a bathrobe, and looked through the peephole.
Her sisters stood on the portico, waving enthusiastically. She swung the door open, one hand on her hip. “What are you two doing here?”
Shaking her head in mock consternation as she strode inside, Lauren said to Meghan, “She hasn’t had a date since God created the world, and she’s asking what we’re doing here.”
“We’re here to help you prepare for your date,” Meghan said, holding up a bottle of champagne. “And to get you slightly drunk, so you’ll relax and have a good time with Decker tonight.”
Lauren closed and locked the door, and she and Meghan followed Desiree upstairs to her master bedroom, where she immediately began pulling clothes from Desiree’s closet and placing them on the bed while Meghan popped the cork on the champagne. Meghan ran to the sink in the adjacent bathroom and let the residual foam spill from the bottle’s mouth into the sink. Then she drank some of the delicious bubbly directly from the bottle.
“What, are you uncivilized?” Desiree cried. “Go downstairs and get some glasses, baby sister!”
Meghan laughed. “No, tonight you’re going to drink from the bottle, choose something sexy to wear, something that’ll make Decker’s eyes pop out of his head, and you’re going to stay out late and scandalize nosy Mrs. Brown next door when you drag yourself home just before sunrise.” She shoved the bottle at Desiree. “Here, drink!”
Desiree took the champagne and drank a little. It was cold and dry, just the way she liked it. But the last thing she wanted to do was get a little intoxicated before going out with Decker.
Drinking made her lose her inhibitions. She needed her inhibitions with Decker because they were the only things that would help her maintain a sense of decorum around him tonight. All week she’d found herself daydreaming about him. She hadn’t seen him in a while, not since the last family get-together at Colton and Lauren’s house about three months ago. And she had no photographs with him in them. So she had to rely on memory to recall how devastatingly handsome he was. Because of this, each time she found herself face-to-face with him, she was stunned by how bad her memory was. He was always much more appealing in the flesh than in her imagination. The man was endowed with a powerful presence. She couldn’t deny that. So staying sober seemed like a good idea right now. She dutifully handed the bottle back to Meghan and announced, “I’m going to take a bath.”
“You do that,” said Meghan, turning toward the walk-in closet where Lauren was riffling through Desiree’s clothes.
Desiree got into the tub of warm, fragrant water, relaxed with her head against an inflated pillow and closed her eyes. She hoped her sisters would give her a few minutes of alone time, but that hope was instantly dashed when Lauren called from the closet, “Didn’t Decker say tonight was casual? Do you own any jeans at all?”
Desiree sighed. “Not the jeans talk again. You know I don’t wear jeans. I’m not a jeans girl. I wear slacks sometimes, but I don’t like jeans.”
“Are you human?” Meghan joked. “Who doesn’t like jeans?”
“Have you ever tried to kick someone while wearing tight jeans?” Desiree asked. “You can’t do it.”
Lauren laughed. “So you don’t wear jeans just in case you’re attacked and you have to defend yourself? That’s ridiculous. In that case, you don’t wear long, tight skirts, either.”
“I don’t,” Desiree confirmed.
“You still wear your Louboutin shoes,” Lauren said realistically. “Those aren’t exactly made for fighting.”
“You can kick those off,” Desiree said languidly. “Now, would you please let me pretend I’m alone at an exclusive spa with no one around except the towel boy waiting with a warm towel for me when I get out of the tub?”
“Who does the towel boy look like in your fantasy?” Meghan asked, laughing. “In mine he looks like Idris Elba.”
Before Desiree could reply, Lauren said, “Why not Leo?”
Meghan took a swig of champagne. “Honestly, that man is driving me to drink. I know he wants me. He looks at me like he could devour me. Yet he’s got it in that thick head of his that he’s too old for me, so he says we should just be friends. That’s why I’m replacing him in my fantasies with Idris.”
“You never know what’s going to happen,” Desiree said to Meghan. “I never dreamed I’d be going out with Decker, either, but here I am, preparing myself to be sniffed, possibly touched and generally, hopefully, adored by him.”
“Oh, you don’t have to hope too hard,” Lauren informed her with a laugh. “That boy already adores you. I’m just hoping the fire that ignites between you two tonight doesn’t burn down Raleigh.”
Desiree laughed at that. “I’ve admittedly gone through a very long drought, but there will be no fire tonight. There may be some smoldering embers ignited, but no fire.”
