Jenna stood in front of the small church as the limousines carrying the Fuller and Denison families pulled up. She hadn't told anyone she would be here today, not even Leigh who was already seated inside.
She watched the family members get out of the vehicles and when she saw Randolph her heart ached. He was standing tall, behind both sets of grandparents, taking his place as the lone surviving grandchild in the family procession. Standing by his side where Jenna knew she rightly belonged was Angela, and directly behind Randolph and Angela were Angela's parents.
Jenna studied Randolph. Only someone as close to him as she was could feel his pain. He was about to do one of the hardest things he'd ever have to do and that was to say good-bye to the brother he loved and adored. And knowing how great his pain would be was the reason she had come. A part of her could not let him endure it alone.
Holding her head high, Jenna stepped from behind a group of mourners who had blocked her from view. As if he somehow sensed her presence, Randolph turned and looked her way. This was the first time they had seen each other since the day she had found him in bed with Angela. When their eyes met she saw his pain but then as he continued looking at her, what else she saw took her breath away. She saw his love for her so eloquently stated in his gaze that she stood rooted to the spot. And then, at that very moment, in her heart she knew. No matter what Angela may have thought she had shared with Randolph, she had not shared thisâthat special connection they had that transcended
mere physical contact. For a brief moment Angela may have shared his body, but she didn't share his heart, mind and soul.
Jenna moved toward him and he immediately left Angela's side and met her on the church steps. They exchanged no words. None were needed. His eyes were filled with pain, misery, regret and sorrow. He opened his arms to her and she went into them, and he held her and she held him. Tight. Full of love for each other. A willingness to forgive any transgression. Filled with sorrow and pain for the occasion that had brought them to church today.
He finally released her and gazed down into her eyes. “I wasn't sure you would come,” he whispered hoarsely. “I've lost Ross and I didn't know how I would handle losing you, too. I love you so much. I'm sorry, Jenna. I am so sorry for hurting you and forâ”
She reached up and placed her fingers against his lips, sealing off his words. “And I love you, too, and here and now, that's all that matters. Come let's go inside, together, and say good-bye to Ross.”
Randolph nodded. Taking her hand in his, he walked back over to where his family stood. Angela, in shock over Jenna's appearance, had the decency to step back and join her parents while Jenna took her place at Randolph's side. Jenna glanced up into Julia Fuller's tear stained face, and to her surprise she read deep appreciation and a heartfelt thank-you in the older woman's features. It was evident Julia Fuller was glad that she was there for Randolph.
All through the service as one person after another got up to speak, Randolph held Jenna's hand firmly in his. And when he got up, his voice trembled as he spoke of the brother he would forever remember, admire and love.
During the services Randolph stayed by Jenna's side, as if he didn't want to let her out of his sight. Everyone left the graveyard to return to the church for the repass. Jenna knew most of those present and to those she didn't know, Randolph introduced her as his fiance, the woman he intended to marry.
Angela played the part of the grieving fiancée which made Jenna think that she hadn't yet been told that Ross was a married man with a wife in Vietnam.
After the repass Randolph hailed a cab at the front of the church and pulled Jenna inside the vehicle with him.
“Where are we going?” she asked when he pulled her into his lap.
“Somewhere where we can be alone.”
He took her to the hotel and there in the darkened room, he made love to her. His hands cherished her as they touched her everywhere, creating a raw need within her.
He took her mouth with his and she sank into their kiss, moaning his name softly, repeatedly, and with an urgency that almost brought tears to Randolph's eyes. He loved her so much and had come so close to losing her. “I love you,” he whispered when he finally released her mouth.
“And I love you, Randolph.”
By the time his body straddled hers, both of them were sexually wired, aching with a need that was filled to the limit with yearning desire. He slipped inside of her, and held there for a moment as her body clutched him and her hands stroked his back.
He closed his eyes, not wanting to move, needing the unity, the link, the connection while they could make it last. But all too soon she moved her body, desperately impatient for hers to be stroked by him.
He leaned forward and captured her mouth again, letting his tongue sweep inside, exploring and tasting while his hands pulled her hips closer. The thundering beat of his heart began to match the rhythm he'd set. But he wanted more. He needed more. And she gave it to him. Everything he wanted. Everything he desired.
When she called out his name again as a climax tore through her body, something inside him exploded, pleasure erupted and his mind shut down. The only thing he could think about was filling her to the rim with his release, making the both of them feel complete, fulfilled and satisfied.
Even when he thought his body was completely drained, he heard her whisper the word, “More,” and felt his body get hard again as her legs wrapped tightly around him, to hold him inside of her.
“More,” she repeated.
And more is what he gave her.
Hours later, when dawn broke through the hotel's blinds, they were still in each other arms after having shared a night of insurmountable passion. They knew that somewhere Ross was smiling, glad that they had worked out their problems and were back together.
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Randolph and Jenna's happiness lasted a little over a month. That was long enough for Angela to make the announcement to everyone that she was pregnant with Randolph's baby.
A distraught Randolph broke the news to Jenna when they met to spend Thanksgiving with his grandparents at Glendale Shores. He told her that Angela's parents, who were still upset about Ross's marriage to another woman while engaged to their daughter, were determined that Angela would not be humiliated again by a Fuller, and were insisting that Randolph do the right thing and marry their daughter.
Randolph assured Jenna not to worry about anything and to continue making plans for their June wedding because she was the woman he intended to marry. But Jenna, after much prayer and soulsearching, knew what she had to do. Especially when she remembered something he had once said to her.
“I'll never have a child of mine born out of wedlock. Ross and I made that promise to our father during our talk about the birds and the bees, and it's a promise we intend to keep. Fuller men live up to their responsibilities no matter what they are and no matter the sacrifices that have to be made.”
With Angela expecting his child, Jenna knew there was no way she could marry Randolph. Without telling him of the decision she'd made, she put in for a transfer with Smith and Riley to work at one their overseas offices. The approval for the transfer came less than a month later, at the beginning of the new year. She had sworn her family and close friends to secrecy as to where she was going.
She had also told Gramma Mattie. Over the years Jenna had grown close to the older woman and made a special visit to Glendale Shores to tell Gramma Mattie of her decision.
Mattie Denison understood the painful sacrifice Jenna was making. As the two women walked along the shores with intermittent
bouts of hugging and crying, Gramma Mattie told Jenna that no matter what, she would always be the granddaughter of her heart ⦠just as she knew Jenna would be the woman her grandson would forever love.
Jenna waited until the day before she was to leave for Paris before sending Randolph her letter along with her engagement ring.
January 13, 1968
Randolph,
Please accept your ring back. I'm releasing you from our engagement so that you can be free to do the right thing. I refuse to take you away from your child.
If you love me you will let me go just like I'm letting you go. Please don't try to find me. I've instructed my family and close friends not to share my whereabouts with you. It's better this way. Sometimes we have to think of others before we can think of ourselves, and that's what I'm doing. I pray you will do the same.
I am also including a check for five hundred and fifty dollars to repay the money you had loaned me, plus adequate interest. This wipes the slate clean between us so we can get on with our lives. Separately.
Wishing you all the best,
Jenna
November 1980
Twelve years and eight months later
Perhaps it was the expression on his secretary's face, one that indicated she was truly irked to the bone, that told Randolph something was amiss. After an entire week spent in the courtroom against one of the most cold-hearted and apathetic prosecutors he knew, the last thing Randolph needed was some sort of office crisis. Usually the unflappable and forever cool and calm Clara Bradley could handle just about anything that came her way. In fact that was the main reason he'd hired the older woman six years ago. He didn't know of any problem she couldn't deal with competently and efficiently.
Except for one.
“Where is she?” he asked when his mind figured out the obvious.
Mrs. Bradley didn't bother to look up from her typing. “Your wife is waiting for you in your office, sir.”
Randolph frowned. “She's my
ex-wife,
Mrs. Bradley.”
“Not according to her, sir. She's corrected me on that twice today. She says once a wife, always a wife.”
Randolph frowned, deciding not to cite clear reasonable evidence of the opposite with his employee. “Please hold my calls for a while.”
“Yes, sir.”
Randolph opened the door to his office then closed it behind him. He clenched his jaw when he glanced across the room and saw his ex-wife sitting on the loveseat, flipping through a magazine like she had every right to be there waiting for him. “What are you doing here, Angela?”
She looked up and smiled. “I wanted to congratulate you on winning the Blither case. It's all over the news. Everyone has been talking about what an outstanding job you did.”
“Thanks, but you could have called. What's the real reason you're here?”
Angela stood and crossed the room to him. “I'm here about Trey.
He hasn't been himself lately and today he finally told me why. He's upset about that airline stewardess you're dating.”
Randolph threw his briefcase on his desk and turned to face Angela, crossing his arms over his chest. Anger was apparent in his features. Ross Donovan Fuller III, named after his brother and whom they called Trey, was his twelve-year-old son. The spitting image of his father, Trey already reached his shoulders and had a muscular build as a result of all the sports he participated in.
“Trey wouldn't get upset about anyone I date if you'd stop filling his head with foolish notions that the two of us will get back together. It's not going to happen.” Their marriage had lasted ten years, for his son's sake and no other reason. But Randolph had soon realized that ten years had been ten years too many with Angela, even for his son's sake.
Angela glared at him. “I wonder if you would have been so quick to divorce me two years ago had you known your old girlfriend was somewhere happily married with a family of her own. Don't you think I know that's why you did it?”
Randolph frowned. “Evidently you've forgotten about the issue of your unfaithfulness. That's the reason I did it. No one screws another man under the roof that I'm paying for.”
Angela flinched. He had been asking for a divorce and she had refused to give him one. Then one day she screwed up when he returned unexpectedly from a business trip and had walked in on her having sex with another man. To be free of her, he had threatened that unless she gave him the divorce he wanted, he would expose her illicit affair with Tommy Gardner, their neighbor's twenty-year-old son. It hadn't helped matters that she'd been thirty-two at the time.
“And what was I supposed to do, Randolph? You weren't taking care of my needs. You made it clear when you married me that you were only doing it because I was carrying your child.”
“But that didn't give you the right to act the part of a whore in my house. What if it had been Trey who'd come home early from school that day instead of me?”
For a long moment she didn't say anything. Damn him for having the will to resist her! While married to him for ten solid years, she had
tried to seduce him and he'd resisted her at every turn, except for the times he'd awakened during the nights in their separate bedrooms to find her in his bed with her mouth on him. But no matter how good her blowjobs had made him feel, other than letting her finish what she'd started, not once had he ever reciprocated and made love to her. “Tommy Gardner took advantage of me during a weak moment. Is it so hard to forgive me for that
one
time? I was completely faithful to you until then.”
“Don't insult my intelligence. I know about your ongoing affair with Harry Connors eight of the ten years we were married. But at least, as far as I know, Harry had the decency take you to hotels rather than screw you under my roof.”
She lifted her chin and glared at him, wondering how he'd known about her and Harry. They had tried being careful. Harry was a bank executive she had met long after her marriage to Randolph. When she saw that Randolph had had every intention of keeping his word and not make their marriage legitimate, she had turned to Harry for sexual relief. “Harry loves me.”
Randolph smiled but it was a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. “Then you should marry him, or hasn't he asked you?”
Angela's gazed hardened. “That would pose a problem since I still consider myself married to you. There were those ten words the preacher spoke that day that sounded like ⦠what God has joined together, let no man put asunder.'”
Randolph drew in a shuddering breath to keep his anger in check. “There's also a line about not committing adultery. You should have thought of that before you began opening your legs to every Tom, Dick ⦠and Harry.”
She glowered furiously at him. “I didn't come here to be insulted. I thought I'd let you know about Trey. You may as well get used to the idea that your son won't accept another woman in your life.”
“No thanks to you. I'll deal with Trey in my own way. He's going to have to realize that he can't have everything he wants and that we'll never be a family again.”
He sat down behind his desk as he continued to stare at her.
“Besides, in a few years he'll be so absorbed in a woman of his own, he'll care less about what I'm doing and who I'm doing it with. What will you do then, Angela, when you won't have him to use as leverage with me? Take my advice and get a life.”
Randolph watched her face as her anger rose to the boiling point just moments before she snatched open the door and walked out.
A few minutes after she had left, he leaned back in his chair. His chest expanded and he drew in a deep breath. No man should have to put up with an ex-wife like Angela and if it weren't for his son, he wouldn't either. He loved Trey very much, and Trey loved his mother and thought she could do no wrong.
If only he knew.
But his son didn't know and like it or not, Randolph had always shielded Trey from the sordid truth about Angela. But he refused to allow Angela to use his love for Trey as a way to keep him on a leash.
Randolph stood and moved to one of the windows in his office that faced downtown Richmond. He would never forget the time he'd run into Kathy Taylor, the woman who'd been Angela's best friend, confidante and her roommate in law school. Like him, Kathy had been one of many attorneys attending a four-day conference in Houston. She had joined him for dinner that first night and it didn't take long, after she'd consumed a couple of drinks, to spill her guts.
He could remember that night like it was yesterday â¦
“So, how are things going with you and Angela?” Kathy asked, taking another sip of brandy. Evidently she liked the stuff, Randolph thought, since she was drinking it quite heavily.
“As Angela's best friend I'd think you would know,” he responded dryly, taking a sip of his own drink. He wondered why he had asked her to join him for dinner. There were too many things about her that reminded him of Angela.
She smiled as she took another sip of brandy. “Angela and I haven't kept up over the years. She found out I was bumping and grinding a former lover of hers and didn't like it too much, although the man hadn't slept with her in yearsâat least not since we had graduated from college.”
Randolph lifted a brow, thinking Kathy was mistaken. There couldn't have been former lovers for Angela since she had been a virgin when he'd touched her. Unless Kathy was referring to someone Angela had screwed around with after her marriage to him. Not knowing which was the case, the attorney in him decided to dig deeper, especially since Kathy was flapping her jaws with all kinds of information. “I thought Angela was a virgin.”
Kathy began laughing so hard, for a moment Randolph thought she would choke on her drink. After a few hearty laughs she was able to recomposed herself. “Virgin! I can't believe you of all people fell for that. Angela was screwing anything in pants while attending Bronson.” Kathy giggled. “Hell, she even got it on a few times with the security guard. But her main squeeze was Dean Hightower himself. He showed her all the tricks of the trade and in return he made sure she got good grades. He even arranged her abortion when she got pregnant by him in her senior year of college.”
Randolph stared across the table at Kathy. He was shocked as hell. Could she be telling the truth? If she was telling the truth then how had Angela convinced everyone, including his grandmother, that she was a prim and proper innocent? Convincing Ross would have been fairly easy since the two had never slept together, and he remembered nothing of that day they had slept together other than waking up in bed with her and Jenna standing over them.
He watched Kathy, who had stopped drinking long enough to wrap spaghetti around her fork and chew, return his scrutiny smiling. “It's hard to digest, isn't it? What I've just told you about Angela. She started freaking out when she was pregnant with Trey thinking you would find out about the abortion. Her doctor did and he asked her about it and she confessed all. But her doctor assured her that her medical history was confidential.” Kathy smiled, taking another sip of wine. “She's been a good actress all these years. In fact, one of the nation's wealthiest men, Robert Morgan, is the one who taught her all about blowjobs when he paid a visit to Bronson while she was there.”
Randolph pushed his plate aside, no longer having an appetite. He met Kathy's gaze across the table. He decided to play another hunch. “What about that time she slept with me? Was she being an actress then?”
Kathy chuckled and replied, “Depends on how you look at it. You've
always been an obsession with Angela. She was with Ross but wanted you. In fact she would sleep with all those guys pretending they were you. The more you ignored her the more obsessed she became. She had been waiting for some way to rid herself of Ross and his death gave her a perfect opportunity. She didn't waste any time trading one brother in for another one, including taking some speed off me to drug you with. Your mind was all screwed up over losing Ross, your girlfriend was out of town and Angela's body was hot. She knew what she was doing and did it. Her plan worked just the way she wanted it except she hadn't counted on your girlfriend forgiving you after being caught in bed with her.” Kathy laughed out loud. “Now that really pissed her off. But she wasn't about to give up. Right after Ross's funeral she slept with a number of guys, intent on getting pregnant from one of them and claiming the child was yours.”
Kathy shook her head, grinning. “Did you know that she wasn't even sure the baby was really yours until Trey came out looking just like you? There was no doubt he was yours. She was so happy she couldn't stand it that you had indeed been the one to get her pregnant. Now that was good timing on her part.”
Randolph sat there, not believing what he was hearing. But after listening to Kathy, things were beginning to fall into place, like Angela's insistence that he not go with her to her doctor appointments when she was pregnant with Trey.
Later that night when he'd retired to his hotel room, he had laid in bed and replayed in his mind everything Kathy had told him, especially the part of how he had ended up in bed with Angela that day. She had drugged him.
He'd been furious, madder than hell and the next morning he had checked out of the hotel with the intention of confronting Angela with everything that he had learned. His unexpected return home had been the cause of another revelation for him, when he had walked into his house and found her making love with their neighbor's son who'd been home from college.
Although she had asked his forgiveness about being caught in the actâwhich he refused to doâRandolph had never shared with her his meeting with Kathy and the fact that he knew how far she had gone to
seduce him during the time of Ross's death, and about her sordid past and her abortion. Even now she didn't know he knew everything.