Seduced by Moonlight (14 page)

She looked him directly in the eye then.

Charlie got the message. Unless he ceased his campaign to win her back, she would make sure Danielle found out his secret.

“I don't like resorting to blackmail but you give me no choice,” she said quietly.

Charlie smiled at her. “You don't want to hurt Danielle any more than I do. But I get you. I've stated my case. I won't harass you.”

“Thank you,” said Cherisse. “Good night.”

“Good night.” Charlie backed out of the room, smiling roguishly. His eyes slid over her one more time. “You're still a stone-cold fox, babe.”

Cherisse laughed and shut the door in his face.

S
aturday morning dawned and Cherisse, although she sometimes fantasized about staying in bed, got up as soon as the sun filtered through her bedroom curtains.

When she got downstairs, dressed in jeans, an old purple long-sleeve cotton shirt that was baby-bottom soft due to repeated washings, and a pair of athletic shoes, she found the kitchen empty of her other housemates except for Charlie, who had put on the coffee and was leaning against the counter sipping a cup.

“Good morning,” he said, smiling. His dark brown eyes possessively raked over her.

“Morning,” Cherisse said, sure it wasn't going to be a good morning with him looking at her as though he wanted to rip her clothes off and have his way with her on the kitchen table.

She went and poured herself a mug of coffee. Taking a sip, she smiled approvingly. He'd learned how to make coffee. When they were together he had not known how to turn on the coffeemaker. She peered up at him. “Didn't I make myself clear last night? I don't want you coming on to me.”

Charlie took another sip of his coffee before saying, “I heard you. And I slept on it. I've decided that this is a free country and may the best man win.”

Cherisse looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. Putting her mug on the counter she regarded him with steely eyes. “I am not a prize to be won. I'm the one who chooses who I want to pursue me, Charlie Washington, and you're not even in the running! You'd just as well get that through your thick skull!”

Charlie was looking deeply into her eyes and his voice was soft and intimate when he said, “Do you remember how good it was between us? When we made love something powerful happened, something magical. Did you have that with Neil Kennedy?”

Caught off guard, Cherisse found herself searching for a worthy response. Intimacy with Neil had not been the same as with Charlie. Not as intense. She had loved Neil in a different way than she had loved Charlie. Charlie was the first man she ever loved. It had been an all-consuming love that had been fed by their passion, a passion that had been extinguished by the end of their marriage.

With Neil she had gone into the relationship as a divorced woman, someone who was not looking for bells and whistles, who wanted something steady and reliable. Who was afraid of getting hurt therefore did not invest the passion into the relationship she, in retrospect, wished she had. Neil deserved that much.

But what could she say to Charlie? That smug expression on his face told her that he thought sex with him had been the highlight of her life. Passion-wise, maybe it had been. However as far as security, peace of mind and the sheer joy at having a man in her life on whom she could depend were concerned Neil had him beat by a mile!

So she gave him her stock answer. “A lady never kisses and tells.”

“What a cop-out!” Charlie cried, disappointed. “You're afraid to be honest with me because you know I can compete with Harry Payne. When a woman gets to be your age she is coming into the prime of her life. She needs sexual healing, and I'm the man for that, not Payne. I'm younger than he is, and I already have a map of your body.”

“Keep dreaming,” Cherisse told him and walked over to the refrigerator to start taking food out in order to begin making breakfast.

“Keep dreaming about what?” Danielle asked as she strode into the kitchen still in pale blue pajamas and wiping the sleep from her eyes.

Her parents, both a little startled by her sudden appearance, each said good morning with excessive enthusiasm.

Danielle stared at them. “Did I interrupt something? You weren't arguing, were you?”

“No,” Cherisse denied. “Your father claimed that he has gotten so good at chess since we were divorced, that he can now beat me. I told him to keep dreaming.”

“Okay, shall we test your theory after breakfast?” Charlie asked hopefully.

“Sorry, I'm going shopping after breakfast,” Cherisse said with a smile. “I've got a date tonight.” Her back to Danielle, she gave Charlie a triumphant smirk.

Charlie smiled at her. As far as he was concerned this war was just getting started.

As for Danielle, her curiosity had been piqued. She had felt the tension between her parents and would make it her business to find out what was really going on.

“Dad, we're still on for househunting today?”

“Yeah, right after breakfast,” Charlie said, refilling his coffee cup. “Maybe I can find something in this neighborhood.”

Cherisse gave him a sharp look but didn't open her mouth. She went about getting a bowl from the cabinet above the sink and then cracking eggs into it.
Let him talk,
she thought,
I'm going to have the last word because nothing he says is going to convince me that Harry Payne is bad for me.

Charlie remained only a few feet away from her, still casually leaning against the counter, one long jeans-clad leg crossed over the other at the ankle.

“That would be so cool!” Danielle exclaimed.

Charlie waited for a reaction from Cherisse. It never came.

Danielle, who was used to helping with the cooking, went to the refrigerator to get the link sausages from the meat tray. She put several links in a skillet, put the lid on it then turned the burner on medium heat.

Seeing that her mom didn't share her enthusiasm about the prospect of her dad living in the same neighborhood, Danielle decided to inject some life into the conversation and said, “Echo told me he loves me!”

Mother and father dropped what they were doing to stare at her. Images of their own teenaged love affair flashed through their minds.

Charlie, with a rush of fear, found it hard to control instant outrage. Who was this boy to say he was in love with his daughter? She was just a baby.

Cherisse was concerned but since she knew how levelheaded Danielle was and that she had waited over a year to get some kind of emotional response out of Echo, she decided not to overreact. She hugged her.

“I'm so happy for you, sweetie!”

Charlie pulled them apart. “Happy?” He grabbed Danielle by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “Baby, you're only seventeen. You have years ahead of you. You have plenty of time to fall in love. After college, during college, take your pick, but don't get involved with a high school jock whose future is iffy at best!”

Cherisse suddenly had an epiphany. Charlie was talking about himself. He was that high school jock whose future had been iffy at best. Did he think he'd ruined her life by marrying her?

“Echo's not some high school jock, Daddy,” Danielle said, defending her young prince. “He doesn't even play a sport. He skis and he's good at it but that's not what defines him. He has a brilliant mind. He's already won a four-year scholarship to Yale. He's going to be a scientist, a physicist. And I believe him because his life hasn't been easy. He's had to struggle. He knows what he wants and has a plan to get it.”

“That's all good, sweetheart,” said Charlie, holding tightly to her. “I'm happy for him. But love is not just a four-letter word. It's a serious subject, one that can't be taken lightly. I want to meet him.”

Defiant, Danielle said, “No problem. He can come to dinner tonight. I'll call him and invite him after breakfast.”

“Do that,” said Charlie, reserving his congratulations until after he had met this paragon of virtue. He sighed wearily and looked at Cherisse. “Is this the sort of thing you've had to put up with for the past seventeen years?”

“Welcome to full-time fatherhood,” said Cherisse with a smile.

Charlie let go of Danielle, who took one look at the mirth on her mother's face and burst out laughing. Charlie, relieved that his first father crisis had passed, started laughing, too, and that's how Jo found them when she entered the kitchen a couple minutes later.

“Let me in on the joke,” she said. “I could use a good belly laugh this morning.”

 

Harry didn't tell Cherisse where he was taking her on their date. He simply told her to dress as though she were going to a fine restaurant for dinner. Tonight as he got out of the Range Rover and strode up the walk to the Patterson front porch, the December air was bracing and the night sky was sprinkled with stars. He saw this as a good omen.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd shown any apprehension when he'd gone to pick up a date. But then he had never gone to pick up anyone who had her mother, her daughter and her ex-husband living with her. Harry was a big boy. None of those factors would have ever kept him away from her, but he didn't look forward to a confrontation with the ex. He knew Charlie Washington only from meeting him on the field during a game, and that one unfortunate incident that he wasn't even certain Washington recalled. He hoped not. He, for one, did not want to rehash an ugly episode from the past.

They had both been young and foolish back then.

He rang the bell.

In the house, Cherisse was upstairs stepping into a pair of three-inch-heeled black suede open-toed sling-backs. Standing in front of a full-length mirror, she looked at herself with a critical eye. She was wearing a sleeveless dark red, V-neck dress with a bodice constructed of a series of layered folds. The waist was cinched by a cloth-covered belt and the skirt fell gracefully around her shapely legs, the hem ending three inches above her knees.

She smiled at her reflection. Her hair was behaving itself tonight. She'd parted it in the middle and it fell down her back in shimmery midnight waves. The only jewelry she wore was a pair of one-carat diamond stud earrings.

When she heard the bell, she shouted, “Danielle, would you get that? Tell Harry I'll be right down!”

However, Danielle was not in the house at the moment. She was in the detached garage with her grandmother looking for the boxes with the Christmas ornaments in them.

The only person in the house aside from Cherisse was Charlie, who was watching a game on the wide-screen TV in the family room.

He heard Cherisse and got up to answer the door.

When he got to the door, he took a deep breath and opened it.

He couldn't tell by Harry Payne's face whether or not being let into the house of his date by her ex-husband startled him or not. Payne simply smiled and said, “Hello, Charlie, it's been a long time. How are you?” And then he was shaking his hand while simultaneously stepping into the house.

Charlie stepped backward. Both men were tall and broad-shouldered. Charlie was dressed in jeans and a dark blue long-sleeve cotton shirt, a white T-shirt underneath and white athletic shoes. Harry wore a tailored suit in dark gray, a black long-sleeve silk shirt with silver cufflinks at the wrists, a black silk tie and black wingtips.

Charlie felt a little out of his element, but nonetheless pressed forward with his agenda. “Harry,” he said in greeting. He shut the door and turned to face him. “Cheri is upstairs. She'll be down in a few minutes. I was watching a game when you rang the bell. You want to come back to the family room and wait for her there?”

Harry was about to say no, he'd wait for Cherisse right there in the foyer, but thought,
What the heck, it's obvious Charlie wants to say something to me in private. Let's get this over with.
So he gave an imperceptible nod and followed Charlie to the family room.

“Nice house,” he commented on the way.

“Yeah,” said Charlie. “It's been in Cheri's family for years.”

It
was
a nice house. Harry recognized good workmanship when he saw it. The walls, hardwood floors and moldings had all been done by artisans who took pride in their work and the family had taken excellent care of it. It was furnished with well-made pieces, not ostentatious, but in good taste.

When they got to the family room, a large room with a comfortable lived-in look about it, Charlie sat down and gestured for Harry to join him on the big leather couch. Harry sat on his end and waited for the show to begin. Not the show on the television set. Charlie promptly turned that off.

“Look, Harry,” Charlie said, putting the remote on the coffee table in front of him, “you seem like a nice guy. And I don't want to say anything to insult you so I would appreciate it if you would take this in the spirit it's said, that of just wanting to inform you of the situation here.”

Harry was confused and looked it. He was sure Charlie was trying to be clear, but he wasn't succeeding. “Just spit it out, Charlie,” he said. “What do you want me to know?”

“That I want you to stop seeing Cheri,” Charlie rushed on, frowning. He stood up. Harry stood up, too.

“I want her back, okay?” Charlie said belligerently. “I screwed up. We should never have been divorced. I suppose she told you that I had a gambling problem….”

“No, she didn't,” Harry said.

“Well, we're all adults here,” Charlie said. “I'm going to be honest with you. She begged me to quit but I was hooked. I've since quit and now I'm trying to put my life back together. Just so you'll know, I'm not staying here because I can't afford to go someplace else, I'm staying because of Danielle. She wants me here and I couldn't say no to her.”