T
hat’s it,” Michael Thomas told his staff of fifteen as he folded his portfolio closed.
He watched as they left the conference room, giving himself props for having had the
insight to bring each of them on board. The team he’d assembled was hungry, as hungry
as he was, and their productivity showed it.
He got up, tucked his portfolio under his arm and made his way back to his corner
office with its view of the Atlanta cityscape. Every time he walked into this office
and looked out those windows, he felt good about what he’d accomplished. The Thomas
Management Group was not yet where he wanted it to be, but he was way ahead of his
own ambitious schedule. He’d been hustling music groups since he was a teenager. The
hustling had continued through four years of college, where he honed the skills he
already had and picked up some valuable new ones to round out his repertoire. He landed
his first major record deal two months
before his college graduation, and they’d continued to fall since then. In no time
at all he’d have everything he wanted, everything he deserved. And he’d done it all
without a rich daddy to back him up.
He glanced at the profile of the MEEG building clearly visible from his office. That
building represented all that he wanted and would someday have. Right now he had to
look at Abraham Martin’s midtown empire from the windows of his much less costly offices
on Atlanta’s historic Auburn Avenue. But one of these days he’d own the MEEG building
or one even better.
“Knock, knock,” a feminine voice called from behind him.
He turned and saw Rebecca Martin standing in his doorway. He still hadn’t gotten used
to her with short hair. Six years ago, when he first met her, a wannabe singer with
more heart than talent, she’d had long neat “home girl” braids that fell midway down
her back. Not that the short, above-the-ear cut she sported now didn’t work for her.
It did. In fact, the new ’do was perfect for her new persona as public relations executive
and wife to the son of one of the city’s major players. But it made her look a lot
softer than he knew she was. He waved her in.
“Close the door behind you,” he said, walking toward the couch in the corner of the
room so they’d have more intimate seating. He couldn’t help but smile when she sat
in the club chair instead. He sat on the couch alone. “It’s been a long time, Becca,”
he said. “You’re looking good. It seems money agrees with you.”
She met his eyes for the first time. “This is not a social call, Michael,” she said.
“My wedding anniversary is in a few weeks. Don’t send us another gift.”
He grinned at her. “Why should I stop now? I’ve been sending them since you got married
three years ago.”
She smirked. “And I’ve returned every one of them.”
He loved it when she had to fight to keep her fiery personality in check. He knew
without a doubt that she wanted to curse him up one side and down the other. He also
knew that she wouldn’t do it, not here, not now. No, he’d have to get her alone, away
from everybody they knew, before she would cut loose. He wondered if he could coax
her into a “for old times’ sake” tryst for later this week.
“Don’t send another one,” she repeated, her voice crisp and demanding.
He leaned toward her, put his hand on her knee. “Afraid your hubby won’t approve?”
She pushed his hand away and stood, folding her arms across her stomach. “Are you
trying to hurt me, Michael, or is it Isaac you want to hurt?”
“You’ve got me all wrong,” Michael said, spreading his arms in supplication. “I don’t
want to hurt my older brother. The gifts are my way of showing my appreciation for
you. I want my big brother to know what a prize he has in you so he’ll value you the
way I did.”
She turned hot eyes on him. “I love him, Michael. I really love Isaac, and he loves
me.”
Michael met her eyes with his own. “You loved me once.”
She looked away. “That was a long time ago. A very long time ago.”
“Time is relative,” he said with a shrug. “What will good ol’ Isaac think when he
learns of our history? Something tells me he won’t be too happy.”
She turned back to him. “Why do you hate him so, Michael? He hasn’t done anything
to you. He’s not responsible for his father’s mistakes.”
“I don’t hate him,” Michael declared. “He’s nothing to me, other than my half brother,
of course. You’re the one I care about.”
She shook her head. “I’ve changed, Michael. I’m no longer that woman who would do
anything to please you. I’m in love for the first time in my life. Isaac’s a good
man, like you in some ways.”
“Is that why you fell in love with him, because he’s a lot like me? I’m sure he’d
love to know that.”
Her eyes blazed. “You know that’s not what I mean.” She dropped her hands from her
stomach. “Look, this argument is getting us nowhere. I want the anniversary gifts
to stop. Your message with them is loud and clear now that I know Isaac’s your half
brother. Do you get some perverse satisfaction out of knowing you had me before he
did?”
He grinned at her. “I wouldn’t call it perverse. It’s just nice to know that I beat
big brother to the table for once.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know why I came here. I should have known you wouldn’t
be reasonable.”
Michael weighed his options. Sending the gifts had given him some pleasure, and he
already had one picked out for this year. He’d send it and then stop. What would be
the point now that Rebecca and Isaac both knew he was Abraham’s outside son? Yes,
this last gift would drive home his message to Isaac. “So are you planning to tell
Isaac about our history?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“Maybe I could tell him for you,” he threatened.
“I’m not the only one with secrets, Michael,” she threw back at him. “I could give
your mother and Deborah an earful. I don’t think they’d be too happy to know about
the gifts. And I don’t think your pregnant wife would be too pleased to know that
our relationship continued even after you said your vows, which were a joke, by the
way.”
He had to grin. Rebecca had been more than his match. She was a pragmatist, like he
was. When she’d accepted that she would never become a singing sensation, she dedicated
herself to the study of business and became a heck of a PR person. He won
dered again how he’d let her get away. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll keep your secrets, for
now, and you’ll keep mine. For now.”
With a slight nod of acknowledgment, she headed out the door.
He watched her feminine stroll through the glass walls of his office. “I can’t believe
I let that go,” he murmured to himself.
L
eah felt his presence before she saw him ease into a seat in the back of her classroom
as her students were leaving. She kept her attention on the student who’d come up
to ask a question.
“Make sense?” she asked the student.
He nodded. “Thanks, Miss Thomas.”
“No problem,” she said. “See you next week.”
“See ya.” The young man picked up his already full backpack from the floor and stuffed
his literature book and tablet in it. Then he hoisted the backpack over his shoulder
and made his way toward the door. A tall, darkly handsome Abraham Martin passed him
on his way to her. Though she and Abraham hadn’t been in the same room in almost thirty
years, she’d seen his face numerous times over the years in the news and on the covers
of business and celebrity magazines.
Essence
had recently done an article on
the Martins and the Martin Estate that she had devoured from cover to cover. He, Saralyn,
and Isaac were a beautiful family.
“What brings you by?” she asked when he reached her, thinking of nothing else to say.
She forced the memories from the past to remain there. She was a community college
teacher with a master’s degree, not some starry-eyed teenager too blinded by love
to see the truth even after it had slapped her in the face a couple of times.
“I want to talk to you,” he said, studying her as she looked at him.
God help her, but she wondered how he thought she’d fared over the years. She considered
herself a good-looking woman who kept in shape, but she knew she was not in the same
league with the women who surrounded Abraham everyday. “About?” she asked, as she
mentally fought off the feelings of inferiority that seemed to engulf her.
“Our children,” he said as simply.
Her knees buckled. She braced herself on the table next to her and slid into one of
the student chairs.
Our children
, he’d said. Oh, what power those words had; what memories they brought back. She
couldn’t hold back the flood that assaulted her full-force. Instead of thirty years
ago, it was yesterday. And she was a young girl in the throes of what she thought
was a perfect love.
He sat in the chair next to her. “How are you?” he asked.
She wasn’t sure if he meant in general or now because he was here. She answered the
former. “Life is good,” she said. “How about you?”
“In some ways, things could be better. In others, they’ve never been better.”
She smiled a bit. “At least, you have the good to balance the bad.”
“That’s one way of looking at it. You always were the optimist.”
She sobered at that. “I think naive is a better description.”
He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Leah,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
The words didn’t penetrate, so she couldn’t accept his apology. “Because you finally
reaped what you sowed?”
He shook his head. “For what I did to you and our children, for the position I put
you all in.”
She shrugged. “You kept up your end of the bargain,” she said. “You didn’t let us
go homeless or hungry.”
“It wasn’t enough. I could have done more, should have done more. They needed more
than money. They needed me. I realize that now.”
She cast an accusing glare at him.
“I know,” he said. “You tried to tell me, but I wouldn’t listen. I was torn between
you and Saralyn. You were telling me one thing and she was telling me something else.
I didn’t know what to do to keep all the plates spinning. I made the best decision
I could.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “I don’t accept that, Abraham. You made the
easiest decision for yourself. You didn’t think about Michael or Deborah or me. You
showed us what we meant to you.”
Leah felt his betrayal anew. She’d been a fool for this man twice. He’d been her first
love, and she was devastated to learn he’d cheated on her with Saralyn and intended
to marry her because she was pregnant with his child. Still reeling from his news,
she’d learned that she, too, was pregnant. Instead of telling him, she’d gone away
to stay with relatives until she had the baby. By the time she returned to Atlanta
with his son, he was married and had a son with Saralyn, four months older than her
own Michael.
“You didn’t play fair with me either, Leah. You should have told me you were pregnant.”
“What difference would it have made? Would you have ended your engagement to Saralyn
and married me instead?”
When he didn’t answer, she said, “At least be honest about it.
Saralyn was a catch. I shared your ambitions, wanted for you everything you wanted
for yourself, but with me, we’d have to start at the bottom. Saralyn gave you a leg
up with that small newspaper her parents owned. It wasn’t much but it was a foundation
from which you could build. And you did. Mightily. Congratulations.”
The harshness of her words surprised her, and it must have surprised him as well because
they sat silently for a few long minutes before he spoke. “I did love you, Leah,”
he said.
She shut her eyes against his words, words that had led to a second pregnancy for
them and a second child, this time a daughter.
“I know,” she said. “I’ve heard it all before. You loved me
and
Saralyn. Well, good for you.”
He sighed. “I can’t change the past, Leah, but I want to change how we go forward
from here. I want to get to know Deborah and Michael.”
Leah took a deep breath. “It’s what I’ve always wanted, Abraham, but it may be too
late. I just don’t know.”
“Deborah’s been meeting me for lunch for the past few months. She’s told you?”
Leah nodded.
He smiled. “She reminds me so much of my mother. I only wish—” He stopped, closed
his eyes.
“I wish both of them had known Miss Iris,” Leah said. “I was tempted a few times to
tell her about them, but I never did. A part of me always thought she knew or suspected,
but chose to ignore us. I couldn’t risk finding out she didn’t want to know them.
Your rejection had been hard enough. I couldn’t go through another.”
“It’s not your fault,” he said, tugging at his salt and pepper mustache. “It’s mine.
It’s all mine, and I’ll go to my grave with the regret from it. I did so many things
wrong, told so many lies, not just to you and Saralyn, but also to myself. I wanted
what I wanted and everybody else be damned.”
“Good traits for business,” she said, feeling compassion for him despite herself.
It was probably because she saw her son’s face in his. “Not so good for relationships.”
“Don’t I know it.”
She felt the past hurts recede. “How are things with your wife and son?”
“Better with Saralyn than with Isaac. I’m such a disappointment to him. I don’t know
if he’s ever going to forgive me.”
“It’s hard with boys. Girls are easier.”
“Do you think Michael will ever soften toward me, give me a chance?”
“To be honest, I don’t see it right now. I didn’t realize the degree of his anger,
and I should have. It’s been there a long time. I don’t know if he can get beyond
it. Right now he doesn’t want to. His anger is what fuels him.” She smiled. “He’s
like you in that way. He’s ambitious and willing to do whatever it takes to achieve
his goals. Unfortunately, his personal life suffers because of it.”
“His wife’s pregnant. We’re going to be grandparents.” When she lifted a brow, he
added, “Deborah mentioned it to me. Don’t worry. I make it a point not to ask her
about Michael. I don’t want to put her in the middle of my problems with him. Because
they’re so close, he comes up sometimes in her conversations. She shares bits and
pieces about him and you, about the past and what’s happening now. And I try to share
myself, my early days with her. It’s not a one-way street.”
“I didn’t say it was. I know you’re sincere in wanting to get to know Deborah.”
“Does she know it?” he asked, an uncertainty in his voice that tugged at her heart.
“Some days, but she’s not ready to trust you fully yet. She doesn’t want to be hurt.”
“I won’t hurt her,” he said.
“I hope not. She’s a strong woman, Abraham, but a part of her
is still that little girl looking for Daddy’s love. Be careful with her heart.”
He nodded. “I want her to come work with me. Did she tell you?”
“She told me you bought her a company!”
He chuckled. “It was a small production company, but it’s perfect for her.” He told
her about Running Brook. “I hope she takes me up on it.”
“That’s between you and her,” Leah said. “I’m not going to get in the middle of it.
I’ve given her my opinion, but the decision is hers.”
He stiffened. “What was your opinion?”
“I told her to give you a chance.”
His shoulders relaxed. “Thanks for that.”
“I didn’t do it for you. I did it for her. I’m trusting you with her heart, and I
hope you’re up to the challenge. In the past, trusting you hasn’t worked out too well
for me. I’m praying that you’re different now, that you’ll be different with your
children than you were with me.”
“I won’t hurt them, Leah. I promise you that. In fact, that’s why I wanted to talk
to you. I’ve shaken things up at MEEG so that there’s a more equitable representation
among my three children. I think Deborah will be all right with my plans, and I feel
I can trust her with a seat on the MEEG board of directors.”
“You can,” Leah said, surprised and pleased at his generosity. It’s about time, she
thought.
“I’m not so sure about Michael,” he continued. “I want to give him a seat on the board,
too, but I can’t under the current circumstances. I didn’t want my relationship with
him to be all about money or business, but that seems to be where we are. I wanted
to get to know him, learn about his interests, and together identify the right fit
for him at MEEG, much like I’ve done with Deborah. But Michael’s rejected every overture
I’ve made to talk to him, to get to know him. He’s rejected lunch and dinner invitations
as
well as invitations to meet and talk. He’s made it perfectly clear what he thinks
of me. I’m not sure he wouldn’t use the position to make problems for me.”
Leah sighed. “I wish I could disagree with you, but I can’t. Michael’s very angry
these days. I thought he was getting past it when he got married, but it all came
back when you decided to publicly acknowledge him and Deborah as your children. I
don’t know what to do.”
“It’s not your fault,” he said, reaching out and touching her cheek.
She pulled back and his hand fell away. “It’s not
all
my fault,” she corrected. “I was twenty, a grown woman, when we were together. We
made decisions, you and I, decisions that have brought our children and us to this
point. I’m their mother so I accept the bulk of the responsibility. I should have
made better decisions, should have put them before myself.”
They were silent again.
Abraham broke the silence. “What I want to do is give you Michael’s seat until such
time that he is ready to assume it himself.”
“You can’t—”
He lifted his palm to her. “Hear me out. This will be a temporary arrangement. The
seat will be transferred to Michael when you, Deborah, and I feel he’s ready for it.”
Leah absorbed his plan. “Me and Deborah?”
He nodded. “I want to do right by Michael. I want the decision of his readiness to
be made by the three of us.”
“Why?”
“Because I trust you and Deborah.”
Leah acknowledged his compliment with a slight nod. “What about Saralyn? What does
she think about these additions to the board?”
He sighed again. “I haven’t told her yet, but I will. She’s not going to like it,
but there’s nothing I can do about that. She’s hurt,
as she should be, so I can’t trust her to look out for Michael’s interests. I hope
I can trust you. Can I?”
Leah thought about it. “Would Michael know about your plans for the board seat?” she
asked.
He nodded. “And he’s probably going to exert pressure on you and Deborah to hand it
over to him sooner rather than later. If you and Deborah both decide he’s ready, then
it’s done. If one of you resists, nothing can happen. I’m hoping that the three of
us together can stand up to Michael, wait for the right time, if and when it comes.”
“That’s a lot of faith you’re putting in me and Deborah.”
“It’s about time, don’t you think?”