Kitabı oku: «Sweet Deception»
“What about you, Brina? What do you want for yourself?” Myles asked.
Zabrina said the first thing that came to mind. “Sex.”
Myles lowered his head, unable to believe what he’d just heard. “You’re kidding, aren’t you?”
“Do I look like I’m kidding?”
Surprised by her admission, Myles stared at her in disbelief.
“Why are you looking at me like that? Would it be less shocking if the roles were reversed, and you were the one saying that you wanted to have sex with me?”
“Is that what you want from me?” he asked, recovering his composure.
“Sure, but only if you’re up for it,” she countered with a smile. “It would just be for the summer.”
MILLS & BOON
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ROCHELLE ALERS
has been hailed by readers and booksellers alike as one of today’s most popular African-American authors of women’s fiction. With nearly two million copies of her novels in print, Ms. Alers is a regular on the Waldenbooks, Borders and Essence bestseller lists, and has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Gold Pen Award, the Emma Award, the Vivian Stephens Award for Excellence in Romance Writing, the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award and the Zora Neale Hurston Literary Award. A native New Yorker, Ms. Alers currently lives on Long Island. Visit her Web site at: www.rochellealers.com.
Sweet Deception
Rochelle Alers
Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
—Matthew 5:5
Dear Reader,
How many times have you wished for a second chance with someone you loved then lost?
Zabrina Cooper’s wish is granted when she reunites with Myles Eaton at his sister’s wedding. But will the secrets she has coveted for more than a decade bring them closer—or destroy a future that promises forever?
In the second installment of the Eaton family miniseries, I continue the theme of second-chance love. However, unlike Belinda and Griffin Rice, Myles only has the summer to uncover why—just two weeks before the wedding!—Zabrina ended their engagement to marry an influential Philadelphia politician. As you read Sweet Deception, please keep in mind what Zabrina has had to sacrifice in order to protect her family.
Look for Chandra Eaton’s Sweet Dreams early 2010 when the former peace corps teacher misplaces journals filled with her erotic dreams.
Visit my Web site at www.rochellealers.com.
Rochelle
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 1
The buzz of the intercom echoed throughout the spacious co-op. “I’ll get it,” Myles Eaton announced loudly from the bedroom. Pressing the button on the intercom, he spoke into the speaker. “Yes?”
“Mr. Eaton, there’s a take-out delivery in the lobby for you.”
“Please send it up.”
Zabrina Mixon stepped inside the apartment from the terrace, closing the sliding-glass door behind her. She liked seeing her fiancé dressed casually in T-shirts, shorts and sandals rather than a business suit. Suits always made him appear staid, standoffish. Her gaze lingered on his muscular calves before moving up to his broad chest and finally his ruggedly handsome face. His face was symmetrical with a dark brown complexion, deep-set eyes and a lean, angular jaw that became more pronounced whenever he smiled. His gorgeous smile drew attention to his perfectly aligned white teeth.
She couldn’t remember when she hadn’t been in love with Myles Eaton. He’d taught her to ride a bike, and whenever she fell he’d brushed off the dirt from her scraped knees and elbows, then helped her to get back on. Her infatuation began in childhood when Myles became her prince.
“I’ve finished setting the table,” said Zabrina.
Myles smiled at his fiancée. He hadn’t believed his luck when he’d finally opened his eyes to his sister’s best friend. He’d thought of her as a younger sister until her eighteenth birthday. It was the first time that he had kissed her. A few years before that she had kissed him before he left Philadelphia to attend Penn State. Her excuse was that she hadn’t wanted him to miss her.
Zabrina kissing Myles had left him feeling unsettled, because at eighteen he was an adult—a sexually active adult, and he had not wanted to take advantage of a teenage girl. However, several years later, they both had changed. Zabrina left home to attend Vanderbilt University School of Nursing in Tennessee while he was headed to Pittsburgh to enroll in Duquesne University School of Law.
By the time she was in college, there was nothing prepubescent about Zabrina Mixon. She was no longer tall and gangly, her body had filled out with womanly curves and her voice had deepened to a low, sexy tone that never failed to send shivers up and down his body. The sound of her voice was only matched by the luminous hazel eyes that pulled him in and refused to let him go.
Zabrina had a way of seducing him without saying a word. All she had to do was look at him and he forgot any woman he’d ever known. They reconnected whenever they returned home during semester breaks, but it wasn’t until she’d graduated from college that he’d proposed marriage and she’d accepted. They’d talked about having a June wedding, but the establishment where they wanted to have the reception was booked solid until October. They’d reserved the last Saturday in October, because neither wanted a winter wedding given the unpredictable weather.
Myles winked at Zabrina. “Go back outside and relax, baby. The food is on its way up and I’ll bring everything out to the terrace.”
She returned the wink, then retraced her steps. Settling into an oversize pillow on the terrace of Myles’s fourteenth-floor co-op, Zabrina waited for him to join her.
After her twelve-hour shift at a busy Philadelphia municipal hospital, she’d checked her cell phone for messages earlier that day. There were two: one from her father to let her know he was having dinner with an up-and-coming local politician who wanted Isaac Mixon to run his campaign for reelection to the state assembly, and the second from Myles.
After listening to Myles’s message asking her to meet him for dinner at his apartment, she’d gone home to shower and change her clothes, then walked the short distance from the condominium where she lived with her father to Myles’s high-rise. The doorman at the luxury building had greeted her by name. Within days of Myles slipping the diamond engagement ring onto her finger, he’d given her a key to his co-op and had officially notified the building management to grant her complete access.
The sun slipped lower, taking with it the intense summer heat as a cool breeze swept over her face and body. Lighted votives that she’d positioned around the terrace flickered like fireflies with the encroaching darkness. Philadelphia had experienced the most brutal heat wave it’d had in years. A steady two-day rain had finally broken the ninety-plus-degree heat and the streets in the City of Brotherly Love once again teemed with residents and tourists taking advantage of the more comfortable summer temperatures.
Turning her gaze away from the panoramic view of the twin glass spires of Liberty Place soaring above the Philadelphia skyline, Zabrina saw Myles holding a shopping bag from which emanated the most mouthwatering aroma.
“Something smells wonderful.”
Myles leaned over and kissed the hair she’d brushed off her face and secured in a single braid. “That must be my linguine with garlic and olive oil.”
“Phew,” Zabrina said, pinching her nostrils. “Remind me not to kiss you.”
“What if I brush my teeth and use mouthwash?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’ll think about it,” she teased.
Myles sat opposite Zabrina, reached into the bag and took out a small container of Caesar salad, then two larger containers with his entrée and Zabrina’s Caesar salad with grilled chicken. “Wait, darling, we’re missing something.”
Zabrina examined the place settings. “What’s missing?”
“Wine and music.”
“What are we celebrating, Myles?”
He stood and leaned over the table. “My love for you, darling.”
Zabrina rose to brush her mouth over his, her eyes filling with tears. She never tired of hearing him say that he loved her. “And I love you, too, Myles Adam Eaton.”
Myles returned with a bottle of wine, glasses and a small portable radio that he’d tuned to an all-music station. He filled the wineglasses with a light rosé, raising his goblet in a toast. “Here’s to the sexiest and most beautiful woman in the world. I’m counting down the days until I can make you my wife.”
Zabrina paused, trying to keep her fragile emotions under control. She touched her glass to his. “Here’s to the man who makes me feel alive, look forward to tomorrow and to all my tomorrows as his wife.”
A wave of sadness came over her like a rushing wave. She didn’t know why, but she felt like crying. In exactly three months she would exchange vows with the man she loved beyond words. How many women, she wondered, were fortunate enough to marry the first man they’d fallen in love with? Not too many, so she’d counted herself blessed.
“Here, here,” Myles intoned before taking a sip of wine.
“I hope your client is toasting you for keeping his butt out of prison.”
A scowl settled across his features. He’d made it a practice not to discuss his work with Zabrina, but the name of his high-profile client was on the tongue of most Philadelphians after the aide to the mayor had been charged with a sex crime.
“Jack Tolliver was innocent and apparently the prosecutor agreed with me when he threw out the charges for lack of evidence.”
“But didn’t he admit to sleeping with the woman?”
Myles rolled his eyes upward. “Yes, baby.”
“So, who’s to say it was consensual?”
“He said he didn’t rape her.”
Zabrina gave him a quizzical look. “And you believed him?”
“Yes.”
“Just because he said he didn’t do it?” She gestured with her fork. “Darling, Jack Tolliver is a lying, cheating politician who wouldn’t recognize the truth if it jumped up and bit him on the ass.”
Myles angled his head. “Are you angry with Jack because he cheated on his wife with another woman, or are you angry because he’s a politician?”
“It’s because he’s a politician, Myles. I know he’s human, but when he stands up in front of millions of voters asking for their trust, the least he could do is not betray their trust—and his wife’s—by creeping with a married woman.”
“You’re too young to be so jaded when it comes to politicians, baby. Perhaps you should stay away from your father’s friends.”
He’d gotten the judge to dismiss the case because the plaintiff’s rape kit had turned up evidence that she’d slept with his client and with another man. If Myles was going to toast anything it was that DNA forensics had helped to exonerate or convict suspects in some of the most violent crimes.
“My father’s friends are just that—his friends. The only interaction I have with them is when I stand in as his hostess. Other than that, I loathe their fake smiles, weak handshakes, lecherous stares and the rare occasion when they brush against me pretending that it was an accident.”
Myles went completely still, his frown deepening. “Is someone bothering you?”
She waved a hand. “No, darling. Most of them are around the same age as my father, so I ignore them.”
Zabrina stared at her fiancé across the small space. Lately, she and Myles saw less and less of each other. Her eight-hour shift rotated every three months, and then there was overtime. Myles had passed the bar and clerked for a judge before becoming a trial lawyer for a Philadelphia firm handling high-profile cases. His ultimate goal was to make partner within ten years.
Swallowing a mouthful of pasta, Myles met Zabrina’s eyes. They appeared catlike in the candlelight. “Can you take a couple of days off?”
“Why?”
“I’d like for us to go away together so we can spend some quality time together.”
Reaching over the table, Myles grasped her hands. “I saw more of you before we were engaged than I do now.”
Zabrina sobered. He’d read her mind. “That’s because you’ve become a workaholic.”
“I want to make partner, Brina.”
She wanted to tell Myles there were no guarantees that he would make partner even if he worked ninety hours a week, while winning every case for the firm. But she held her tongue because she didn’t want him to think she wasn’t supportive.
“Where do you want to go?” she asked.
His grip tightened on her fingers. “I’ll leave that up to you.”
It took only seconds for her to make a decision. “I want to go to Buenos Aires.”
“Buenos Aires, Argentina?” She nodded. “What’s in Buenos Aires?”
“Tango lessons,” Zabrina replied. “I want our first dance as husband and wife to be a tango, and what better place to learn the dance of love and passion than in Argentina?”
Rising, Myles walked around the circular table and gently pulled Zabrina to her feet. He dipped his head and pressed his mouth to the column of her scented neck. “I happen to believe we dance very well together.”
She giggled like a child. “Are you talking about the horizontal mambo?”
“Yes, I am.”
Moving into his embrace, Zabrina wrapped her arms around Myles’s waist. He felt so good, smelled so incredibly delicious. His cologne was specially blended to complement his body’s natural pheromones. She closed her eyes and smiled. “I seem to have forgotten the steps.”
Pulling her closer, Myles reveled in the soft crush of firm breasts against his chest. “How long has it been, baby?” he whispered.
Zabrina thought back to the last time they’d made love. “It’s been at least three weeks.”
“I promise to make love to…”
She placed her fingertips over his mouth, stopping his words. “Don’t promise. Just do it.”
Bending slightly, Myles swept his fiancée up into his arms and carried her off the terrace to the bedroom. He hadn’t wanted to believe he hadn’t made love to Zabrina in weeks. When, he thought, had his work taken precedence over the woman he loved and planned to marry? She’d become the most important thing in his life, yet he’d let something else replace her.
Their candlelit terrace dinner was forgotten when he placed Zabrina on the bed, his body following hers. It took less than a minute for Myles to remove her sandals, sundress and panties. The light from the bedside-table lamp, dimmed to its lowest setting, spilled over her nude body, making it appear like a statue of gold.
He undressed and then moved over her. “I can’t believe I’ve neglected you for so long. I want you to remind me when I get so caught up straightening out other people’s lives that I forget what I have right in front of me.”
Zabrina buried her face between Myles’s neck and shoulder at the same time her arms went around his waist. “How often do you want me to remind you?”
“Every night,” he said in her ear.
She opened her eyes and smiled. “If that’s the case, then I’ll be certain to do it.”
Myles breathed a kiss under her ear, along the column of her neck and to her throat. His rapacious tongue charted a path down her body as he suckled one breast, then the other. Zabrina’s breathing came faster and faster. His tongue swept over her like a wild cat savoring its kill. He tasted her belly. Effortlessly he turned her over to taste her back, nipping the skin covering her hips. Pressing a kiss to the small of her back, he moved lower to the area between her legs. Myles anchored his hands under her thighs and pulled her up into a kneeling position.
Zabrina was on fire! It was as if Myles had struck a match and set her ablaze. The increasing heat between her legs escalated as her hips undulated in a natural rhythm that communicated a long-denied need.
Myles felt and inhaled the rising desire from the slender body pushing back against his belly. He hardened quickly, so quickly he feared spilling his passion on the sheets. Guiding his erection, he eased it between Zabrina’s thighs. The two of them sighed as flesh closed around flesh, making them one.
Grasping her waist with both hands, he held her captive as she pushed back to meet his strong thrusts. He closed his eyes and bit down on his lip to keep the groans building in his throat from escaping, but the rising passion was too much and he moaned as if in pain. But it was the most pleasurable pain he’d ever experienced.
He didn’t know what it was about Zabrina Mixon, but once she had offered him her virginal body, every woman in his past had ceased to exist. And what he couldn’t understand was how had he gone nearly a month without making love with her. Had his quest to make partner taken precedence over the woman he loved? Zabrina didn’t want him to make promises, but he promised himself that tonight would signal change. He would put his fiancée first and his career second.
Heat began in Zabrina’s core and spread outward like spokes on a wheel. Reaching for the top of the headboard, she held on to the carved mahogany as if it were a lifeline. And at that moment it was. Unfamiliar sensations raced through her body, cutting a swath of pleasure that lifted her beyond ecstasy. She was caught up in a maelstrom of passion that bordered on hysteria. Her throat was burning from the screams that emanated from somewhere she hadn’t known existed, then, without warning, the orgasms came, one after the other, overlapping until she felt herself succumbing to the deepest desire she’d ever experienced.
Myles held Zabrina’s waist in a punishing grip as he rested his head on her back. He clenched his teeth so tightly his jaw ached, and try as he could he couldn’t hold back the passion threatening to erupt at any moment. Sucking in a lungful of breath, he surrendered to the raging fire in his loins, his body shaking like a stalwart tree in a storm.
In a moment of madness they’d surrendered all they were and would ever be to each other.
Chapter 2
The reason you’ve been feeling so tired is that you’re pregnant.
The doctor’s diagnosis played over and over in Zabrina Mixon’s head until she felt as if it were a mantra. Warm tears spilled down her face, blurring her vision, but she could still see the indicator wand that came with the home pregnancy test. She was pregnant. She, a registered nurse, who hadn’t believed her ob-gyn, had stopped at a local drugstore and bought a kit to conduct her own test.
Her gynecologist had changed her contraceptive three times, the third being a lower-dose pill. The other two had adverse side effects: headaches, nausea and tender breasts. Apparently the lowest dose was too low, because she was now among the one percent of women who’d gotten pregnant on the pill. She and Myles Eaton had talked about starting a family, but at twenty-three Zabrina had wanted to wait at least two years. Two years would give her time to adjust to married life.
She’d been counting the days before she would exchange vows with the man she’d fallen in love with after they’d only dated a month. He’d waited a year to propose marriage and she’d accepted. It was now two weeks before her wedding and she would walk down the aisle with a new life growing inside her. It wasn’t how she’d planned to start married life.
Discarding the pregnancy kit in the wastebasket, Zabrina washed her hands. She walked out of the bathroom, stopping when she heard voices coming from the living room. She recognized her father’s voice and another that was vaguely familiar. A third voice, this one deeper than the others stopped her mid-stride. This voice she knew. It belonged to Thomas Cooper, her father’s protégé. Alarmed, she made her way into the living room.
“What’s going on here?”
Isaac Mixon turned when he heard his daughter’s voice. “When did you get home?”
Zabrina’s gaze shifted from her father to the other two men. It was obvious they’d thought they were alone. “I got here about twenty minutes ago.” She glared at City Council President Thomas Cooper, who, it was widely rumored, had aspirations to become Philadelphia’s next mayor. “Were you threatening my father?”
Thomas Cooper flashed a smile, the one he’d perfected for the media and his constituents. “Zabrina, please come and sit down.”
Zabrina’s eyebrows lifted. “You’re inviting me to sit down in my own home?”
The practiced smile vanished quickly. “Mixon, I think you’d better convince your daughter to listen to what we have to tell her, or she’ll read about your arrest in tomorrow’s Philly Inquirer.”
Isaac crossed the room and cradled his daughter to his chest. “Please, Brina, let me handle this.”
Light brown eyes flecked with hints of green studied the face of the man who’d protected her since her mother had died the year Zabrina had celebrated her seventh birthday. Isaac Mixon had become father and mother, refusing to remarry because he claimed he didn’t want to subject her to a dreadful stepmother. She knew he dated women, but he’d never brought one home.
She nodded. “Okay, Daddy.” Isaac pulled out a straight-back chair for Zabrina to sit in, and she watched as her father walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows to peer out at the Philadelphia skyline.
It was the third man in the room who spoke first. “Miss Mixon, your father has been misappropriating monies from Councilman Cooper’s campaign contributions.”
A heavy silence filled the room as four pairs of eyes exchanged glances, and Zabrina wondered how many more shocks she would have to endure in one day. First there was the news that she was carrying a child, and now the threat that her father was facing arrest for stealing money from the man whose political career he’d shepherded from political analyst to city council member and now city council president.
She didn’t believe it, she couldn’t possibly believe it. Her father didn’t have financial problems. In fact, she knew for certain that he was solvent. It was she who reconciled his bank statements because Isaac Mixon didn’t want to have anything to do with money. He was an ideas person, not a numbers guy. In fact, he was a political genius when it came to political campaign strategies.
“I don’t believe you,” she told the well-dressed man with a sallow pockmarked complexion. It was almost impossible to discern the color of his eyes behind a pair of thick lenses perched on a short nose that gave him a porcine appearance.
“Perhaps Councilman Cooper and I should leave you alone with your father for a few moments so he can bare his soul. Perhaps then you’ll believe me.”
Thomas nodded to Zabrina. “Mr. Davidson and I will be in your father’s study. Please, don’t get up. I know where it is.”
Zabrina felt her throat closing as a wave of rage held her captive, not permitting her to draw a normal breath. It was the second time the arrogant politician had usurped her in her home. Once she’d reached sixteen she’d thought of the three-bedroom condo as hers. It was then that she’d assumed the responsibility of mistress of the house when standing in as hostess for Isaac Mixon’s many political confabs and soirées.
She drew in a breath and closed her eyes. When she opened them and stared at her father he seemed to have aged within a matter of seconds. “What’s going on, Daddy?”
Isaac Mixon knew whatever he’d been instructed to tell his daughter was going to destroy her. But either he had to lie or go to jail for a crime he did not commit. And disclosing what he knew meant his chances of survival were slim to none. Thomas Cooper had too many connections in and out of prison.
He walked across the living room and sank down on a love seat. “I’m sorry, baby girl, I—”
“You’re sorry, Daddy!” Zabrina hadn’t realized she was screaming, and at her father no less. “You’re sorry for what?”
“I did divert some of Tom’s campaign funds.”
“Divert or steal, Daddy?”
Isaac saw fire in his daughter’s eyes, the same fire that had burned so brightly in her mother’s eyes before a debilitating disease had stolen her spirit and will to live. Zabrina had inherited Jacinta’s palomino-gold coloring, inky-black hair and hazel eyes that always reminded him of semi-precious jewels. He hadn’t celebrated his tenth wedding anniversary when he lost his wife, but fate hadn’t taken everything from him because Jacinta lived on in the image of their daughter.
“I took the money,” he lied smoothly.
“But why did you do it? You have money.”
Isaac lowered his salt-and-pepper head, focusing his attention on the thick pile of the carpet under his feet. He knew if he met his daughter’s eyes he wouldn’t be able to continue to lie to her. “I…I’ve been gambling—”
“But you never gamble!”
“But I do now!” he spat out in a nasty tone. “I bet on everything: cards, ponies and even illegal numbers.”
Zabrina’s eyelids fluttered as she tried processing what her father was telling her. “Why didn’t you use your own money?”
He glared at her. “I didn’t want you to know about my nasty little addiction.”
“How much did you take?”
“Eighty-three,” Isaac admitted.
“Eighty-three…eighty-three hundred,” Zabrina repeated over and over. “I have more than that in my savings account. I’ll go to the bank tomorrow and get a bank check payable to Thomas Cooper—”
“Stop, Brina! It’s not eighty-three hundred but eighty-three thousand—money Tom gave me to pay off loan sharks who’d threatened to kill me.” Tears filled Isaac Mixon’s eyes as his face crumpled like an accordion. “I took twenty thousand from the campaign fund and borrowed the rest from a loan shark. “Right now I owe Thomas Cooper more than one hundred thousand dollars.”
“What about the money in your 401K?” she asked.
“I’ll have to pay it back,” Isaac said.
“How about selling the condo?”
Isaac shook his head. “That would take too long.”
Zabrina’s eyes narrowed. “How much time has Thomas given you to repay him without pressing charges?”
“He wants my answer now.”
“Answer 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.
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