Johnson Family 1: Unforgettable (13 page)

“You’ll have to figure it out.”

“Yeah.” He gave a mirthless laugh. He eyed her with animosity, as if he was angry that he still wanted her so much.

She forced herself to say the words that would bring her peace of mind. “You should go.”

“Ivy—”

“Please.” She hadn’t meant to beg, but what was happening between them was more than she could handle.

He didn’t move, and for a moment she thought he would persist, but then with one last look at her, Lucas left the kitchen and she followed. He strode through the condo and closed the front door behind him without so much as a good-bye. He gave her what she wanted, but it didn’t make her happy at all. Because having him leave wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted him.

All of a sudden, the door swung open and Lucas charged back in. She heard words that sounded something like “One last time,” before he grabbed her into a long, devouring kiss that robbed the breath from her lungs. Tilting his head to the side, he plundered her mouth and pushed her against the wall. He trapped her hands on either side of her head and took his fill. For the second time that night, nothing else existed but him. He surrounded her, his scent, his muscular body. Long fingers bit into her wrists and the firm pressure of his mouth stripped her of resistance.

Caught in the grip of an unholy lust, she humped his thigh between her legs. He kissed her harder and she strained closer, returning his ardor despite herself. When he finally tore his mouth away, his harsh breath warmed her cheek as he kissed her jaw. He attacked her throat with open-mouthed kisses and went lower. His lips grazed the ripe buds of her nipples beneath her shirt, and the faint touch provoked a helpless whimper she couldn’t stop even if she’d tried. He gave one long, provocative tug on her nipple between his teeth before he lifted his head to look into her eyes.

His lids were at half-mast, but she saw the tempest brewing in the depths of his dilated pupils. His warm breath fanned her lips, which burned from the bruising power of his kiss.

“I’ll do what you ask, Ivy, but I want to make love to you. I’ve been wanting to since I saw you at the anniversary party, and that’s not going to change.” His lips grazed hers. “You and I both know how good it is between us. I haven’t forgotten, and I’m sure you haven’t, either. I’ll respect your request, but know that I don’t like it one bit.” He ground his hips against hers so she could feel his hard-on. She inhaled sharply and closed her eyes. “I’ll do my best to be good, but I’m no saint. I hope you understand how hard it’s going to be to keep my goddamn hands off of you.”

He planted one last kiss on her mouth and stroked the interior with his tongue. Then suddenly he was gone. As the door swung closed behind him, he called out, “Lock the door behind me.”

It wasn’t a casual, meaningless comment. His words predicted danger to come if she didn’t adhere to his instructions. Ivy moved on legs that barely allowed her to stand, much less walk.

“Lock the door!” he hollered out in the hall.

With a surge of vigor, she scrambled for the latch and twisted the dead bolt into place.

****

The next few days were hard, but Lucas continued to visit because his desire to bond with Katie was greater than his need to avoid Ivy and the attraction between them. They maneuvered around each other easily enough, but the ever-present tension created an invisible boundary. One that, in his opinion, felt tenuously thin. Being around her and having to pretend not to notice her every move was a near impossible feat to accomplish. They circled each other, careful not to touch or say the wrong thing. It had him on edge.

On the plus side, he and his daughter grew closer. So close, he didn’t experience a lick of shame when he questioned Katie the day they went to the park. They’d been there all morning, with him chasing Katie around, listening to her high-pitched squeals of laughter and regretting that in a couple of days he’d be on a plane back to Georgia and didn’t know when he’d be able to come out to see her again.

He was pushing her on the swing and Ivy had settled onto a bench nearby when a man with dark—almost black—skin walked up to Ivy. She stood up immediately and gave him a big hug, and he lifted her off her feet in the middle of the embrace. They settled into conversation, but what caught Lucas’s eye was that the man didn’t quite release her. They knew each other well, or at least he guessed they did by the familiar way the man touched her. The arm around her waist fell away, but the other lingered on her arm. Since she didn’t move away, his touch clearly didn’t bother her.

“Who’s that man with your mom?” Lucas asked.

Katie craned her neck in their direction. “That’s Mr. Gil. He’s Mommy’s friend. He’s nice. He gave her flowers on her birthday.”

So who was this Gil character? One of her friends with benefits?

Lucas sized him up; hard to do from that distance. He had longish dark hair and wore a gold loop earring. He was casually but sharply dressed in a sports jacket over dark jeans. From this vantage point, Lucas couldn’t quite tell his ethnicity, but he could tell the guy was good-looking.

He continued to watch the exchange.

“Higher,” Katie whined.

Lucas shifted his attention back to his daughter. He’d been so caught up in watching Ivy and her friend he’d all but stopped pushing Katie. He returned to the task at hand, keeping watch from the corner of his eye until the man left.

Minutes after he did Katie grew tired of the swing, and they made their way over to the bench.

“Who wants ice cream?” Ivy asked.

“Ice cream, yay!” Katie said, clapping her hands rapidly in a show of excitement.

Ivy smiled at Lucas, but the expression died on her face when their eyes met. “Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. Just wondering who that man was.”

“Who, Gil?” She laughed easily. “He’s a friend.”

“You can’t be too careful. You know, since you have a daughter.”

She seemed startled by his suggestion that Gil would do anything to harm Katie. “You don’t have to worry about Gil. He’s a good person. Come on, munchkin. Let’s go get some ice cream.”

Katie skipped along beside her mother and Lucas followed more slowly. How close was Ivy with this Gil character, and were there others like him in her life, lurking in the wings? How many of them had Katie met, and did she enjoy their company?

The thought of a stream of men coming in and out of their lives soured his stomach.

Next week, he would be back in Georgia, but Gil would still be here. He didn’t like the thought of some man hanging around. It made him uneasy. He and his daughter were getting closer. In fact, the last couple of times he’d arrived at the condo, she’d given him a big hug, clearly happy to see him.

Yet there was a noticeable thing missing from their relationship. Something he needed. Reassurance, against what he wasn’t sure.

Katie hadn’t called him daddy yet. She hadn’t called him anything.

Chapter Fifteen

Ivy’s mother wanted to meet Lucas, and whatever Constance Johnson wanted, she received. Despite Ivy’s reservations, she could no longer put off introducing him to her family. No doubt he would undergo severe scrutiny, not so much from her mother, but from her brothers, Cyrus and Trenton.

Her mother had invited them to Sunday dinner, a formal affair that had to be taken very seriously. As children, they didn’t always eat dinner at the table as a family, but Sunday meals were the exception. After services at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, the seven of them gathered in the formal dining room. Sometimes they invited guests, but most of the time it was an opportunity to bond as a family, and no discussions about beer-making or the restaurant business were allowed.

During these meals, Ivy and her brothers learned their family history. Constance Newton had been a Texas socialite when introduced to Cyrus Senior on his visit to Houston with his father. Under the guise of needing financial backing from Constance’s father to open a new restaurant in the area, the two young people had been introduced. However, it soon became obvious their parents had arranged the meeting to get them together, and fortunately, they’d hit it off.

The marriage of Constance Newton and Cyrus Johnson merged two wealthy families whose lineage could be traced back hundreds of years. The Newtons’ ancestors were among the first free blacks that settled on the continent, ending their servitude as indentured servants before the economics of slavery proved too lucrative an enterprise to resist. As such, they built their wealth through the acquisition of land. Ultimately they thrived by offering banking and insurance services to blacks who couldn’t get them elsewhere, and Constance’s family eventually moved to Texas where she was born.

The Johnsons could trace their roots to the U.S. Virgin Islands. Before the United States bought the islands, the Danish had owned them, and in 1848 the Danes freed all the slaves in the territory, a full fifteen years before the Emancipation Proclamation in the United States. Cyrus Johnsons’ ancestors had been an enterprising lot and started several businesses in the islands, but they earned their wealth in the food industry. Moving to the United States, they opened restaurants in the north, affording blacks the opportunity to dine in establishments similar to the ones they would normally be turned away from. It grew into a multi-million dollar business that touched almost every state in the country.

Years later, Cyrus Senior expanded his family’s business into a conglomerate. He included beer making and converted the restaurants into The Brew Pub, to capitalize on the popularity of the beer.

Today, Ivy’s mother lived in a gorgeous six bedroom estate on Lake Washington, a large freshwater lake a short drive from Seattle. Her mother had downsized to the property a few years after Cyrus Senior passed away. In addition to the main house, the expansive grounds featured a playground for Katie, a boat house, two docks, and a guest house where the family housekeeper, Adelina, lived. The stately home contained an indoor swimming pool, a library, a wine cellar, and her mother had commissioned a state-of-the-art movie lounge where she watched her favorite old movies on a theater-size screen.

Lucas had insisted on driving rather than having Lloyd drive, so he and Ivy sat in the front and Katie rode in the back. Her daughter prattled on about her grandmother, the playground, and feeding the ducks. Lost in her own thoughts, Ivy kept her eyes glued to the passing scenery.

Ever since Lucas had questioned her about Gil, she had been a little more cautious around him. She didn’t know if jealousy or true concern for Katie’s safety prompted his comment about Gil, but she’d decided to refrain from mentioning him in future to keep the peace.

Even if he was jealous, marriage was not on his list of things to do. He’d told her so as recently as the day he’d arrived unexpectedly to her office. But that’s what she was holding out for. She’d seen the affectionate, loving relationship her parents shared and wanted the same. She wanted it all, right down to the mundane tasks of washing dishes together or—out of the corner of her eye she hazarded a glance at Lucas in the driver’s seat—sitting around doing crossword puzzles until their daughter fell asleep.

She repressed a sigh. Lucas didn’t want any of that. Just like he’d told her he didn’t want children. He was only with them now because she’d taken that choice away from him, and it would be good to remember that and not get any fanciful ideas.

The minute they entered the formal foyer, her mother came out to greet them. She was an attractive woman with a standing weekly appointment at the salon to keep her shoulder length coif styled and free of gray hairs. She often gave her age as fifty, even though she’d surpassed that milestone years ago.

She reminded Ivy of a ballerina, gliding around on the tips of her feet in pointy-toed stilettoes that might have been more appropriate for a younger woman, but that she was completely at ease in. If you could tell how a woman would age by looking at her mother, Ivy was fortunate to come from this particular gene pool.

“Grandma!” Katie ran to her grandmother and flung her arms around her waist.

Constance cupped her granddaughter’s face. “Hello, Katherine. How are you?” Ivy’s mother never used nicknames.

“Fine. I’m starving.”

“You’re always hungry, aren’t you?” Constance teased. She lifted curious eyes to Lucas. “Welcome to my home.”

“Thank you.”

“May I call you Lucas?”

“Absolutely.” He started forward.

“And you may call me Constance.” She met him halfway, but when he extended his hand to her, the perfectly arched brow above her left eye winged upward. “I give hugs to family, Lucas, and since you’re Katherine’s father, I consider you family.”

Ivy appreciated the welcome her mother extended. She watched her mother envelope Lucas in one of her firm embraces. When she was done, she turned to Ivy.

“Hello, Mother.”

“Good to see you, dear.” Ivy and her mother hugged and exchanged air kisses.

“This way.” Constance placed her hand in the crook of Lucas’s arm—her way of helping him feel at ease and letting the rest of the household know she welcomed him and they should be on their best behavior.

They entered the spacious sitting room. A grand piano that no one played sat in a corner between two large windows. Trenton and Cyrus were already in there, standing by the fireplace with drinks in their hands and talking. When they walked in, her brothers looked up and fixed Lucas with the type of stare usually reserved for animals at a zoo. She wondered if he felt that way, like a curiosity put on display for spectators.