Sweet Deception

“You’re sorry, Daddy!” Zabrina hadn’t realized she was screaming, and at her father no less. “You’re sorry for what?”

“I did divert some of Tom’s campaign funds.”

“Divert or steal, Daddy?”

Isaac saw fire in his daughter’s eyes, the same fire that had burned so brightly in her mother’s eyes before a debilitating disease had stolen her spirit and will to live. Zabrina had inherited Jacinta’s palomino-gold coloring, inky-black hair and hazel eyes that always reminded him of semi-precious jewels. He hadn’t celebrated his tenth wedding anniversary when he lost his wife, but fate hadn’t taken everything from him because Jacinta lived on in the image of their daughter.

“I took the money,” he lied smoothly.

“But why did you do it? You have money.”

Isaac lowered his salt-and-pepper head, focusing his attention on the thick pile of the carpet under his feet. He knew if he met his daughter’s eyes he wouldn’t be able to continue to lie to her. “I…I’ve been gambling—”

“But you never gamble!”

“But I do now!” he spat out in a nasty tone. “I bet on everything: cards, ponies and even illegal numbers.”

Zabrina’s eyelids fluttered as she tried processing what her father was telling her. “Why didn’t you use your own money?”

He glared at her. “I didn’t want you to know about my nasty little addiction.”

“How much did you take?”

“Eighty-three,” Isaac admitted.

“Eighty-three…eighty-three hundred,” Zabrina repeated over and over. “I have more than that in my savings account. I’ll go to the bank tomorrow and get a bank check payable to Thomas Cooper—”

“Stop, Brina! It’s not eighty-three hundred but eighty-three thousand—money Tom gave me to pay off loan sharks who’d threatened to kill me.” Tears filled Isaac Mixon’s eyes as his face crumpled like an accordion. “I took twenty thousand from the campaign fund and borrowed the rest from a loan shark. “Right now I owe Thomas Cooper more than one hundred thousand dollars.”

“What about the money in your 401K?” she asked.

“I’ll have to pay it back,” Isaac said.

“How about selling the condo?”

Isaac shook his head. “That would take too long.”

Zabrina’s eyes narrowed. “How much time has Thomas given you to repay him without pressing charges?”

“He wants my answer now.”

“Answer to what, Daddy?”

Isaac’s head came up and he met his daughter’s eyes for the first time, seeing pain and unshed tears. “Thomas has threatened to have me arrested unless I can get you to agree to…” His words trailed off.

Zabrina leaned forward. “Get me to do what?”

“He wants you to marry him.”

Her father’s words hit her like a punch to the face, and for a brief moment she believed he was joking, blurting out anything that came to mind to belie his fear. Her hands tightened on the arms of the chair.

“Thomas Cooper wants to marry me when he knows I’m going to marry another man in two weeks?” Isaac nodded. “I can’t, Daddy!” She was screaming again.

Isaac pushed to his feet. The droop of his shoulders indicated defeat. His so-called protégé was blackmailing him because of what he’d witnessed when he’d walked into Thomas’s private office: Councilman Cooper had accepted a cash payment from a local Philadelphia businessman whom law officials suspected had ties to organized crime.

It was a week later that a strange man was ushered into Isaac’s office with a message from the businessman: forget what you saw or your daughter will find herself placing flowers on her father’s grave.

Later that evening he’d met with Thomas who had made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. The confirmed bachelor talked incessantly about enhancing his image before declaring his candidacy for the mayoralty race, and then had shocked Isaac when he told him that he wanted to marry his daughter. Nothing Isaac could say could dissuade Cooper even when he told Thomas that Zabrina was engaged to marry Myles Eaton. Thomas Cooper dismissed the pronouncement with a wave of his hand, claiming marrying Zabrina Mixon would serve as added insurance that her father would never turn on his son-in-law.

Zabrina didn’t, couldn’t move. “I don’t believe this. This is the twenty-first century, yet you’re offering me up as if I were chattel you’d put up in a card game. I could possibly consider marrying Thomas if I wasn’t engaged or pregnant. But, I’m sorry, Daddy. I can’t.”

Isaac turned slowly and stared down at his daughter’s bowed head. “You’re what?”

Her head came up. “I just found out this morning that I’m pregnant with Myles Eaton’s baby.”

“Does he know?” Isaac’s voice was barely a whisper.

“Not yet. I plan to tell him later tonight.”

“But you won’t tell him, Zabrina. The child will carry my name,” said Thomas confidently.

Zabrina hadn’t realized Thomas and the other man he’d called Davidson had reentered the living room. “Go to hell!”

The elected official’s expression did not change. “Mr. Davidson, perhaps you can convince Miss Mixon of the seriousness of her father’s dilemma.”

The bespectacled man reached under his suit jacket, pulled out a small caliber handgun with a silencer, aiming it at Isaac’s head. “You have exactly five seconds, Miss Mixon, to give Councilman Cooper an answer.”

Zabrina’s heart was beating so hard she was certain it could be seen through her blouse. “Okay!” she screamed. “Okay,” she repeated, this time her acquiescence softer. There was no mistaking defeat in the single word.

Thomas smiled for the first time. “Not only are you beautiful, but you’re very, very smart. We’ll marry next week in a private ceremony. And, you don’t have to worry about me exercising my conjugal rights. Our marriage will be in name only.”

A rage she’d never known burned through Zabrina. “Does that leave me free to take a lover or lovers?”

The councilman’s smile faded. “In two years you’ll be the wife of Philadelphia’s next mayor, so I doubt that with the responsibility of raising a child and taking care of your social obligations, you’ll find time to open your legs to another man.”

She felt the overwhelming sick feeling that came with defeat, but she wasn’t going to let the blackmailing SOB know that. “One of these days I’m going to kill you.”

A slight arch in his eyebrows was the only indication that Thomas had registered her threat. “Take a number, Miss Mixon.” He motioned to his gofer to put the gun away. “I suggest you call your fiancé and tell him you found a better prospect.”

The footsteps of the two men were muffled in the carpet as they turned and walked to the door. The solid slam of the door shocked Zabrina into an awareness of just what had taken place within a matter of minutes. She’d agreed to marry a man she’d come to detest when the baby of another man she’d pledged to marry in two weeks was growing beneath her heart.

She registered another sound, and it took her several seconds to realize her father was crying. Even when they’d buried her mother she hadn’t seen Isaac cry. She stood up and walked over to her father. Going to her knees, Zabrina pressed her face to his chest. It wasn’t easy to comfort him when she was sobbing inconsolably.

It was later, much later when Zabrina retreated to her bedroom to call Myles Eaton to tell him that she couldn’t marry him because she was in love with another man. There was only the sound of breathing coming through the earpiece until a distinctive click told her Myles had hung up.

She didn’t cry only because she had no more tears. Her mind was a maelstrom of thoughts that ranged from premeditated murder to the need to survive to bring her unborn child to term. She may have lost Myles Eaton, but unknowingly he’d given her a precious gift—a gift she would love to her dying breath.

Chapter 3