Kitabı oku: «Her Lover's Legacy»
Meet the Braddocks
Malcolm Braddock:
Activist. Leader. Passion-provoking son of Texas’s legendary, late Congressman Braddock. Malcolm never wanted any part of Daddy Braddock’s political plans for him. But little does the brooding bachelor know that a take-no-prisoners beauty has her own plans to make the number one son her number one mission!
Shondra Braddock:
Gorgeous. Brilliant. Wild and unstoppable. Shondra’s spent her life dealing with a family of men who want to tame her. But when she embarks on a high-stakes, highly improper international affair with her sexy, white boss, she discovers the forbidden pleasure of being with the one man who prefers her untamed….
Tyson Braddock:
Hot-tempered. Hot-bodied. And hot as hell. Workaholic Tyson put his marriage on hold for years. But he and his estranged wife are in for a seven-pound, eight-ounce surprise! Ty believes he can handle fatherhood, but can he handle the passionate new side of his suddenly not-so-predictable, but oh-so-seductive wife?
The Secret Son:
Not all of Senator Braddock’s secrets died with him. Some are still very much alive, and packing a hard, six-foot-one, muscular frame to die for. But when this exotic secret son finds out his real identity, and ends up playing protector to a fiery virgin in the process, all bets…and clothes…are off!
ADRIANNE BYRD
has always preferred to live within the realm of her imagination, where all the men are gorgeous and the women are worth whatever trouble they manage to get into.
Her Lover’s Legacy
Adrianne Byrd
MILLS & BOON
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Dear Reader,
Welcome to Houston. I’d like to introduce you to the Braddocks, an affluent African-American family who are entrenched in secrets, sex and political intrigue. In this four-book continuity, prepare to be swept away by their powerful love stories, and discover the secret that cost this wonderful family their patriarch. I was honored to be asked to contribute to this series, and I hope you enjoy reading Malcolm and Gloria’s journey to self-discovery and love.
Then run out and buy book #2, Sex and the Single Braddock by Robyn Amos; book #3, Second Chance, Baby by A.C. Arthur; and book #4, The Object of his Protection by Brenda Jackson.
Enjoy,
Adrianne Byrd
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Chapter 1
It was the second-worst day of Malcolm Braddock’s life. The first was three days ago when he received the news about his father’s fatal car crash. Ever since then, he’d been walking around numb and talking in a daze.
Now, Malcolm tightened his grip around his mother’s shoulders and watched the ever-graceful Evelyn Braddock draw her chin higher and somehow keep her shimmering tears from streaking down her ageless face. A forty-year marriage over without a single warning.
His baby sister, Shondra, was another story. Though to a stranger’s eye she looked calm, cool and collected, anyone who knew Shawnie wouldn’t have missed the dull listlessness of her brown eyes or the dark circles that now seemed to ring them permanently, the puffy red nose rubbed raw from endless wiping. She was falling apart.
Malcolm ground his molars together, anger and helplessness finally penetrating his numb armor. Thank God for his brother, Tyson, an unexpected and welcome Rock of Gibraltar who anchored the family and kept it together.
As the eldest son, that should have been Malcolm’s job.
A fine mist of rain descended from Texas’s slate-gray sky while fat thunderclouds gathered menacingly above the large group of mourners surrounding Congressman Harmon Braddock’s grave site. Reverend Vereen made his appeals to the heavens about mercy and forgiveness, but Malcolm had tuned all that out when the black-and-chrome casket began its descent into the freshly turned earth.
Acidic tears burned Malcolm’s eyes while his breath stalled in his lungs. No! Wait! I’m not ready yet. But time, like it had for the past three days, refused to stop and wait for him to catch up.
His father was dead.
“In sure and in certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life through our Lord,” the Reverend intoned, “we commit Brother Harmon Braddock to the ground. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust…”
Malcolm closed his eyes and blocked out the rest of the Burial Rite.
When it was all over, mourners cloistered around the family, once again offering their condolences. Many, if not most, Malcolm recognized as his father’s political allies, supporters and even adversaries. Their slick hands and painted-on smiles turned his stomach, but he knew it was all a part of the game—even for Houston local media outlets filming a comfortable distance away.
“Your father was a great man.” Senator Ray Cayman’s strong, wiry hand pressed into Malcolm’s. “I know the last two years—”
“Yes. Thank you, Senator,” Malcolm said in a near growl, and freed his hand from the steel grip. He knew the direction the conversation was headed and he didn’t want to go there. Not now. Probably never.
If Cayman was offended, it didn’t show in his weathered mahogany features. Actually, Malcolm couldn’t remember a time when the distinguished septuagenarian showed his true emotions, but he knew his cool brown eyes missed nothing.
With a slight nod, Cayman stepped aside and in his place a tall African-American man with unusual Asian-shaped eyes shook his hand. “Sorry for your loss,” he said with a curt nod, and then moved on.
The line of endless faces continued, and Malcolm returned to feeling more like a marble statue than a man still among the living.
Just then, Bruce Hanlon stepped up to Malcolm. “You know your father was like a brother to me,” Bruce stressed. The comment almost wrestled a smile from Malcolm. Nobody would have mistaken the affluent blue-eyed judge and the rich ebony-hued Harmon Braddock as brothers, but the two had always been as thick as thieves as far back as Malcolm could remember.
“He loved you,” Hanlon added, refusing to relinquish their handshake until Malcolm met his sharp gaze. “You know that, don’t you?”
Did he? Malcolm pressed his lips together and gave the judge a firm nod. It was the best he could do.
A familiar melodious voice floated on the air. “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
He caught sight of his father’s assistant, Gloria Kingsley, talking to his brother, Ty, and his wife, Felicia. Malcolm’s chest tightened as he watched Gloria’s beautiful golden eyes turn toward Shawnie, her arms wrapping around his sister in shared comfort.
He hadn’t meant to stare while the women held each other, but when Gloria’s gaze caught his, he turned away.
Thunder rolled and a flash of lightning streaked the evening sky. It was a welcome excuse to usher his mother to their waiting limousine before the light drizzle turned into a torrential downpour and before he had to face Gloria on his own.
Hours later, the day finally came to an exhausting end with Malcolm peeling out of his suit before he finished entering his quaint inner-city apartment. He had tossed the jacket over the back of the sofa, removed his shoes near the breakfast bar and unbuttoned his shirt by the time he retrieved a Sam Adams from the refrigerator. The pull from his beer was a balm to his tattered nerves. The second chug emptied the bottle, and he had to grab another before returning to the spacious living room.
He collapsed on the Italian leather sofa and stared up at the strange flower patterns in the ceiling, trying his damnedest to clear his mind and hang on to the protective numbness that surrounded his heart.
It wasn’t working.
Images of that heated fight he and his father had two years ago flashed before his eyes. There was so much he regretted, so many words he didn’t mean.
That’s a lie, his conscience corrected. He had meant them at the time.
“You used to be a man of integrity—a man of his word. Now you’re like every other slick politician in Washington. You’re one of them—a sellout!”
Malcolm closed his eyes, trying unsuccessfully to block out the image of his father’s angry face, slack and drained of color as he’d shouted those words and stormed out of his father’s office. In his escape, he’d nearly bowled over a shocked Gloria.
True, in his thirty-two years he and his father had butt heads in the past, but not like that. Never like that.
When Malcolm was growing up, Harmon Braddock was his hero. He was the top prosecutor in the district attorney’s office, putting away bad guys and throwing away the key. It was the closest thing to an Eliot Ness that he and his friends knew. Of course, Malcolm would embellish the stories a bit whenever a member of some crime cartel was sent to jail, but it was always in good childhood fun.
When his father accepted the position as head legal council for Senator Ray Cayman, Malcolm’s interest marched in line with his father’s and he entered Morehouse for a double major in political science and history.
Years later, there were no words to describe how happy and proud he felt when his father not only decided to run, but won his seat in the House of Representatives.
Sometime during the end of his stint at Morehouse College, Malcolm began championing some of his mother’s philanthropic causes: Feed the Hungry, UNICEF and the Coalition for the Homeless—the list went on and on. When it was time for Malcolm to ship out to Harvard Law, he’d really connected with his mother’s work and had serious doubts whether politics was the right course for his life.
He brought the question up to his father, and it was perhaps the first time his father showed a flicker of disappointment in him. Feeling as if he’d somehow betrayed his father, Malcolm still entered and aced law school. But the hypocrisy of the political landscape sickened him even more.
Once he’d passed the bar, he shunned all the lofty positions offered to one whose father was a star congressman. Instead, he joined the Peace Corps and hopped the first plane smoking out of the United States.
For four years, Malcolm toiled happily in Ghana, strengthening and teaching behavior changes to reduce water-and sanitation-related diseases.
Unfortunately, his extended absence had cost him his first serious relationship with Theresa Frost, his college girlfriend who’d once promised to wait for him. Instead, when he returned, she had moved to New York and married some rich studio executive.
He was crushed.
His father thought once he’d returned to Houston that he’d worked out all his philanthropic demons and would now utilize his law degree and accept a position with the D.A.’s office, which would eventually lead to a life in politics. Instead, Malcolm founded the Arc Foundation—which in four years he had transformed into one of the world’s largest grassroots organizations of and for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
The tug-of-war between what Malcolm wanted and what his father wanted for him had just begun.
And now it’s over. You’re free.
Malcolm sat up, ashamed of the renegade thought. However, the guilt refused to go away. Instead, it clung to him like a living thing, choking him.
Hitting the shower, he scrubbed his skin as the steaming water pelted down. The pain distracted him.
Somewhat refreshed, Malcolm returned to the living room and scanned the sparsely decorated apartment with its few family pictures. Ah, here it is. A broken wood-framed five-by-eight picture of his father with the glass splintered like a spider’s web. It had been shoved in the bottom of a box inside the DVD cabinet.
It was his father’s official press kit photo, one with him dressed in an immaculate dark suit, perched behind a handsome mahogany desk with an American flag on his lapel and full-size flag propped in the corner.
Congressman Harmon Braddock, a man for the people.
Yeah, the rich people.
Malcolm lowered the picture back into the box and shifted his attention to a few DVDs labeled Dad’s Campaign. He had no intentions of doing it, had no idea whether he was ready for it, but he opened the DVD case and slipped the first disk into the player and clicked on the TV.
Images of the first Braddock’s Victory Campaign Party splashed onto the screen. Malcolm and the entire family stood proudly behind his father, waving through falling streamers, balloons and confetti to a jubilant crowd holding flags, signs and bumper stickers in the air.
The corners of Malcolm’s mouth curved, the memories of that wonderful night warming his body. When the camera zoomed in on his father’s face, he pressed Pause on the remote control and then studied the face that was so similar to his own: open, honest and intelligent were adjectives everyone used to describe Harmon Braddock.
At least in the beginning.
Malcolm rolled his eyes at the voice inside his head that was determined to play devil’s advocate and unfroze the frame. But seconds later, he paused the picture again. This time the image filling his forty-eight-inch screen was of Gloria Kingsley.
He was surprised to see her—an unexpected beaming face in the crowd. He hadn’t known that she was there that night. Gloria hadn’t started working for his father until toward the end of his second term in D.C.
She couldn’t have been more than—what?—twenty-one. Of course, he had no idea how old the golden-eyed beauty was; it was certainly not something a man asked a woman, either. If he had to guess, he’d say she was twenty-nine. One thing was clear, Gloria Kingsley was pretty when she was younger, but she was nothing less than a knockout now.
A pain-in-the-ass knockout, but a knockout all the same.
The first time he’d met the woman was during a rare political fund-raiser his father talked him into attending. Gloria entered the ballroom in an unforgettable black, backless evening gown that had every man with a pulse tripping over his tongue.
Malcolm raced to her side, swiping an extra flute of champagne in his haste. When he offered her the champagne, she shot him down by telling him she didn’t drink, that his tie was crooked, and then inquired when was the last time his suit had seen the inside of a cleaners. From then on out, Malcolm didn’t like her.
Of course, she absolutely mooned over his father and could regurgitate ad nauseam every speech, point of view and interview the man had ever made.
Malcolm made it a point to stay away from her.
Still, he thought she was a gorgeous woman.
The doorbell rang, and Malcolm groaned his irritation and considered not answering the door, but by the time his uninvited guest rang the bell a fourth time, he hopped up and stormed toward it. When he snatched it open, his vast vocabulary failed to suggest a single word for his unexpected, albeit beautiful, guest: Gloria.
Chapter 2
Momentarily thrown off guard by the sight of the smooth, muscular, toffee-colored skin peeking from the open V of Malcolm’s burgundy robe, Gloria unconsciously licked her lips and fluttered a hand to her throat. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”
Malcolm’s groomed brows crashed together above his probing brown eyes a second before his rumbling baritone snapped impatiently, “What are you doing here?”
Stung by the rebuff, Gloria squared her shoulders and wielded a sharp look of her own. “Well, I certainly didn’t come here to stand out in the hallway.”
They stared at each other, locked in a stalemate.
Gloria had feared this would happen, especially judging how Malcolm went out of his way to avoid her at the funeral, but she had also resolved to camp outside his door if that’s what it took to get him to see reason.
Finally, Malcolm stepped back and allowed her to enter through a narrowed space. Refusing to be intimidated, she crossed the threshold. Her breasts brushed against what felt to her like molten steel; volts of electricity surged through her body. She jumped.
“Must be static from the carpet,” Malcolm explained, confirming he’d felt the charge as well.
She moved on, glanced around and was impressed by the simple decor and surprising cleanliness of a confirmed-bachelor’s pad. When she entered the living room, she froze and stared at her own image on the television screen.
Malcolm scrambled from behind her, grabbed the remote from the couch and punched the power button. Once the screen went black, the room roared with a strained and uncomfortable silence. “I, uh, was looking at some old campaign stuff and, uh, well, paused it when you knocked.”
“I see,” she said.
He tossed the remote back on the couch and faced her. “Okay. So you’re not standing in the hallway,” he said, reclaiming his previous impatience. “What is it that you want?”
Why Gloria’s gaze tumbled from his penetrating coffee-brown eyes to his deliciously plump lips at the question was beyond her. As to why her stomach looped into knots whenever she was around him? She didn’t even want to go there.
“First,” she began, and then cleared her throat from what felt like a sack of marbles clogging her windpipe. “I wanted to extend my condolences for your terrible loss, Malcolm.”
When he gave her a small, almost imperceptible nod, she trudged on. “I know the past two years—”
“Stop.” Despite the soft tone, the order held the authority of a military commander. “I appreciate your coming here and all, but, uh, if you came looking for an Oprah moment, I’m afraid I’m going to have to disappoint you.”
Slowly, Gloria tilted her head side to side and cracked the bones in her neck while she prayed for patience. What was it about Malcolm that got under her skin? From the first time they met, the sarcastic know-it-all rubbed her the wrong way.
Why had she thought tonight would be any different?
“Anything else?” he prompted.
His abhorrent rudeness forced Gloria to silently count to ten. However, Malcolm took her silence as confirmation that she was through. He grasped her by the elbow to direct her back to the front door.
The touch of his hand shot off a few more sparks, but Gloria planted her feet and jerked her arm free. “I’m not finished yet!”
Malcolm sighed, rolled his eyes and shoved his hands into his pockets, widening the V of his robe and displaying a larger swath of honey-brown skin.
Gloria licked her lips again.
“Well?” he said, staring. “I’m sure you understand I’ve had a very long day.”
“I need you,” she said. When his brows crashed together again, she realized what she’d said hadn’t come out right. “I meant, I need you to come to Harmon’s—I mean, your father’s—office and help pack up his things.”
He was laughing before she finished the sentence.
“Malcolm—”
“Sorry,” he said, still chuckling and shaking his head. “You’ve come to the wrong one. This is a job for Shawnie or Ty or maybe even Mom.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scolded. “You’re the oldest—the head of the family. This is your job.”
He went from laughing to scowling in less than two seconds. “I don’t need you to tell me what my job is, Ms. Kingsley.”
“Oh, really?” Gloria arched her brows and crossed her arms. “You think it was your job to hole up in this apartment for the past three days and watch old videos instead of being at your mother’s and helping the rest of your family through this difficult time?”
He said nothing, but Gloria saw a vein appear and twitch along his jawline.
Still, she continued. “The way I see things, the least you could do is help me with Harmon’s office.”
“The problem with the way you see things, Ms. Kingsley, is that nobody cares—especially me.”
His words were a verbal slap, but she reeled back as if it was physical. Her chin came up, but when her tears came unbidden, she barely held them in check. “If it makes you feel better to lash out at me, then please by all means, do so. You’re hurting, and I understand it devastates the male ego to show any type of vulnerability—especially around a woman. But when you’re finished attacking me for your personal issues, I still need for you to help pack your father’s belongings.”
They stood in a stalemate.
“It shouldn’t take too long,” she added, gentler this time. “Plus, there’s a lot of legal stuff that you would have a better handle on than I would. And it might be one last thing you can do for him.”
Malcolm drew a deep breath. The protruding vein disappeared, and for one brief moment, Gloria thought she saw his eyes soften. Had she hit the nail on the head?
“Two hours—tops,” she lied.
After a long silence, Malcolm nodded and surprised her. “Sorry. What I said was…I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted.” Gloria relaxed enough to smile. “Truce?”
A corner of his mouth twitched. “Truce.” He opened his arms and she automatically stepped into his embrace. Arms like steel bands wrapped and pressed her against an equally hard body. His skin smelled fresh, like soap.
Gloria closed her eyes and drew strength and comfort from a man she’d often found herself at odds with—and she took it. Greedily.
She must have lost track of time because she jumped when Malcolm cleared his throat. She had to extract herself from his warm embrace, so they endured yet another awkward moment.
“So, um, Monday?” she asked.
“Monday it is,” he confirmed with a studying gaze.
She cleared her throat and straightened her posture. It was time to make her exit. She’d got what she came for: the first step of many in her master plan.
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