He was tall and towered above her meager five feet four inches. She craned her neck to look up at him and was blinded by his smile. God, he was so fine it should have been a sin. He’d said something that snapped her out of her reverie and she remembered smiling and muttering a thank-you. She’d walked away so fast she would swear she was a blur in the wind.
The next morning he was waiting at the door of her dorm. And for the next two weeks he met her at each class and walked her home from her late-night studying at the library. Their meetings had been really casual. He talked of his family and everyday things while she, although still in awe, managed to talk about the same. A month later he asked her out on a real date. By this time Felicia had come to the conclusion that Tyson Braddock was not the all-American star athlete and untouchable sex symbol the girls on campus thought he was. Underneath the handsome and polished exterior, he was just a man who loved pizza and basketball, economics, vintage cars and R & B music. And he was kind, focused, and he truly seemed to care about her.
Ty and Felicia found they had a lot in common, and before either of them knew it they were an item, dating seriously and sending rumors flying around the campus. It wasn’t the instant-fall-desperately-in-love like Nicky and Terry in one of Felicia’s favorite movies An Affair to Remember. It was more like the intense, heated drop into submission like Darius and Nina in Love Jones, another one of her all-time favorite chick flicks.
Marriage was obviously on their horizon and the fairy-tale ceremony their shining moment in the spotlight. She loved that man like nothing and no one in her life. And in the five years of their marriage, she’d given him everything she had physically and mentally. She’d also sacrificed the one thing she’d wanted most because he said he wasn’t ready.
Until his excuses became the norm and she realized what he wasn’t saying, but wholeheartedly meant, was that he didn’t want children.
The hardest decision Felicia ever had to make was to walk away from her marriage, from the commitment she’d made before God and her parents. But she’d done so to save herself.
Ty came from a very influential family. He was rich even before he made his first million. His father, Harmon, was a congressman. His mother, Evelyn, was a philanthropist who worked specifically with hospitals and women’s-rights organizations. His older brother, Malcolm, was the bleeding heart and had left the family, so to speak, a few years before to become a community activist. Malcolm was definitely the Braddock with a conscience and now he may follow in Harmon’s political footsteps. While Shawnie was her father’s daughter, with her brilliant mind and touch of rebellion, Tyson was the lone ranger of the family. The only one who did not hold a law degree, he was still the epitome of ambition. For that very reason, her marriage had never stood a chance.
In the beginning, their marriage was strong, but soon Tyson’s career and his quest for success proved more important than she’d ever been. Felicia had finally grown tired of the competition.
Giving up was not usually in her nature, especially when it came to relationships. Her parents were very traditional and prided themselves on their long and enduring relationship. They would be heartbroken to learn that she hadn’t had what it took to make hers work.
Still, she’d been strong the morning she packed her bags and left the penthouse she and Ty had picked out and furnished together. She hadn’t even left him a note that first time.
He was so smart, with his MBA degree and intuition, he should have been able to figure it out. Especially since the day before they’d argued about starting a family.
Her heart had ached until she’d thought about ripping it free to finally gain some peace. But later she’d received the news of Harmon’s death. Felicia had grieved as if he were her own father. And despite the animosity she had toward Ty, she wouldn’t have wished that tragedy on anyone. So it was with that in mind that she’d returned to the Braddock estate on the outskirts of Houston.
Being with the family again had been difficult, especially since she hadn’t seen or spoken to any of them in more than six months. The moment she arrived, Ty made a point of telling her that he hadn’t mentioned her hiatus to his family. Felicia had been stung by the way he’d called her departure a hiatus, like she’d gone on some type of vacation or something. But that hadn’t been the time to get into it.
Besides, just seeing Ty again had her body and her emotions going haywire. A case in point was the passionate night they’d spent together after leaving the cemetery. Looking back now, Felicia had to claim that as one of the best nights of her life.
But then the next morning, it looked to Felicia as if it was business as usual for Ty, like he hadn’t just buried his father. Like they hadn’t made sweet, tender love to one another. When she’d tried to talk to him, he’d brushed her off. He was officially unreachable, emotionally closed off just as he’d been the last few years.
Now, walking around the store, Felicia sighed over all the different designs and the racks of clothes in a pastel rainbow of colors.
She heard the tiny bell that signaled a new customer entering the store, but didn’t pay it much attention. But as she surveyed the outfits, her peripheral vision caught the suit and that confident swagger. Expensive and elegant, that’s what it was, and when she raised her gaze a little higher, her heart pounded.
“Ty!” she gasped. As if she had been caught stealing, she thrust her arms with the clothes in hand behind her back.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, his medium brown eyes raking over her with barely masked hunger.
“I, um, I’m shopping.” Lord, she prayed he wouldn’t ask what or who she was shopping for.
“I’ve been calling you.”
Felicia licked her lips nervously. “I know.”
“Why haven’t you returned my calls?”
“Ty, this is not the place to discuss this. I’ll call you later.”
His thick eyebrows drew close as he frowned. “I’m not inclined to believe that, since you’ve been ducking me for about three months now.”
Felicia shifted uncomfortably beneath his gaze. Would she ever stop feeling like a love-struck college girl in his presence? She was grown and he’d hurt her, repeatedly, by ignoring her and denying what she wanted most in the world. By all normal standards, she should be able to walk away from him without a second thought. Yet, even now, she couldn’t.
He took a step closer and touched a hand to her shoulder. “What’s going on with you, Felicia? Why won’t you just talk to me?”
She closed her eyes. His touch felt so good, but it was distracting her from the matter at hand. Taking a deep breath, she looked up at him. “I can’t,” she said, with all the strain and indecision she’d been feeling since leaving him the first time.
He rubbed her shoulder, an act she remembered all too well. “Yes, you can. We’ve always been able to talk. We’re best friends. Remember you told me that the night of our graduation. There’s nothing we can’t say to each other.”
That was then and this was now, Felicia thought dismally. Still, she was surprised he’d even remembered something like that. “Things have changed.”
“Yeah, they have,” he said, then, as if just noticing his surroundings, looked around the store and back at her. “What are you doing in a baby store?”
Even as the question left his lips, his hands moved around her back. He pulled her wrists around so that the clothes she was holding—two baby sleepers—were now hanging between them.
“What are these? A present for someone you know?”
His gaze lifted from the sleepers and met hers. For all she wanted to pick up and run out of that store, she knew the moment she’d been dreading had finally come.
“They’re for a baby.” She took a steadying breath.