A Love to Remember Read online

  They’d covered half of the Oregon wilderness and some of Washington. They’d slept in the same tent, splashed naked in the small mountain springs and tracked a den of migrating elk. It had been about this time of the year that he’d left her for a lucrative position as a college professor and a San Francisco socialite.

  Sasha opened her eyes at the stab of pain in her stomach. The day after the break-up, she’d packed her bags and jumped on a plane to Cuba to visit her parents for two week. That’s all she’d thought she’d need to get over the man she’d thought would be her life partner. Just a few days on the beach with her parents and she’d be back to her old self.

  At least that what she’d told herself, until she’d returned to Oregon and walked past the campsite they’d stayed at weeks before. For months afterwards, she’d munched on antacids like they were peanuts and blamed it on a combination of stomach upset and food allergies. A quick trip to a village doctor in Vietnam had confirmed the fact that she had indeed been healing from a broken heart.

  It wasn’t that he’d found someone else. It really wasn’t about Byron at all. She’d had this hope that she’d found her other half. Found the ideal relationship that her parents held. Someone who’d shared her love of animals, who understood her passion for natural research. She looked out over the wispy clouds towards downtown Atlanta and past the tall building to the skyline.

  The sound of footsteps drew Sasha out of her thoughts. A glass and the signature green of the sparkling water sat on the side table next to her chair.

  “Good Lord,” she muttered. “I am such a selfish wretch. Here I am at the reading of Uncle Camden’s will and all I can think about is my disastrous personal life.”

  “I suck,” Sasha declared borrowing the phrase from one of the numerous in-flight movies she’d been forced to watch. She leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes only to open them at the sound of someone entering the room.

  “Yeah, that works. Pick out something nice with orchids. Yeah, have the note read, To my favorite ski bunny, have a wonderful birthday. Can’t wait to see you on the slopes. Yes…yes…add the Belgian chocolate and something impressive. You know the kind—engraved and from Tiffany’s. Good… Good…I’ll call you later—got to take another call.”

  There was a brief silence and then the masculine voice continued. “Hey, little bit, sorry I missed your performance last night. You got the flowers, right? I’m sure that you’ve got a small greenhouse in that loft of yours. The New York dance scene will never be the same since you hit the stage. Of course, I’ll be in the front row when the company comes to Atlanta. Good. I’ll talk to you later okay? And congratulations.”

  In the silence, Sasha opened her eyes and thought about alerting the stranger to her presence. What a dog, she thought, and then revised her observation. Calling the man a dog was not only clichéd, but also a mistake in classification. The canine species had genetic predisposition for loyalty to their pack leader. Moreover, wolves were discerning in their choice of a mate. She stared down at the front page of the newspaper as if all the normal bad news had somehow become new and interesting on reading the paper. More uncomfortable than the time she’d overheard her parents making out in the laundry room, Sasha crossed her legs and loudly unfolded the newspaper in her lap.

  She didn’t look up or sideways and thus had an eagle eye of shiny black leather shoes on the plush Persian rug. Mr. Cell Phone settled in the seat next to hers.

  “Sorry about that. I didn’t see you over here,” he said.

  From across the room, Mr. Cell Phone’s voice had only served to grate her nerves. Now less than five inches from her side, goose bumps prickled her flesh. The masculine tenor of his voice touched the primitive part of her psyche that she couldn’t control.

  Several seconds passed before Mr. Cell Phone crossed his ankle over his knee and Sasha heard the rustle of the leather as he sank back into the seat. “Looks like it’s just us this afternoon, huh?”

  She didn’t respond but lifted her head and planned to give him a blistery cold stare. Instead, she blinked owlishly at what she observed had to be the cutest combination of smiling brown eyes and twin dimples that she’d seen in her life. Her heart just about flatlined when he smiled and she caught a glimpse of his less than perfect but nicely white teeth. Her thoughts stuttered to a stop and Sasha hurriedly returned her attention to the newspaper in the hopes that he would leave her alone.

  She stared down at the black and white letters and for the first time in her life cursed her gift of having a good memory. There was something irresistibly sexy about the stranger with the light boyish eyes. The man was handsome. Not the kind of cosmetically engineered, constant visits to the dermatologist, but the homegrown kind of good looking that came from a severe lack of ugliness in the recessive gene pool. His black curly hair was nicely cut and the clean-shaven look fit with his full lips.

  “Mind if I grab the sports section? I haven’t had time to catch up on the Falcons.”

  She almost retorted that was because he seemed to be busy juggling women, but she bit her tongue, pulled out the section and handed it over all without glancing in his direction.

  “Thank you.”

  “Here’s a glass of ice for your water, Ms. Clayton.” Without asking, the secretary opened the bottle and poured the sparkling water into the glass.

  “Thank you.”

  “Anything I can get for you, Trey?”

  “I’m good.”

  Sasha bit the inside of her lip as Mr. Cell Phone got a name. But a sting of irritation prickled on her skin. The last thing she wanted floating around in her subconscious was the man’s face, much less now that she could put a name to the person sitting at her side. Automatically, her hand reached out and she took a sip of the ice cold sparkling water. Tears sprang anew in her eyes and she began sniffing while she dug into her purse to pull out another tissue.

  “Hey, it’s going to be okay.” He had the voice of an erotic dream. A hand touched her back and Sasha sprang up like a scalded cat.

  “I’m not crying. It was the water.”

  “Sorry, again. Just wanted to help.”

  “I don’t need your help,” Sasha snapped out and instantly wanted to pull the words back. Normally, she wasn’t rude. Then again she’d never had to deal with the set of circumstances she’d found herself in at that moment. Besides, she didn’t know the man. And she didn’t want to know him.

  He stood up but made no move to come closer. Sasha’s gaze slid from his black wool trousers over the tieless cobalt blue button-down shirt, past broad shoulders and a clean-shaven jaw to lock on to his full lips.

  She swallowed hard.

  “Look, Mrs. Clayton, what’s the problem? I apologized.”

  Sasha used the irritation brought by his use of her last name to down the rising hormonal tide south of her waistband. “My name isn’t Mrs. Clayton. That’s my mother. I’m Sasha and just because we’re in the same room doesn’t mean I’m going to tell my life story to a stranger.”

  He stared at her like she had two heads and she glared back at him for having the nerve to look like the harmless boy next door when he was actually the wolf in the pasture.

  “Okay let me try it this way. Sasha, what’s the problem?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then can we clear up some of the hostility in the room? I’m not wearing my bulletproof vest today.”

  Sasha took his comment literally and asked, “Are you a police officer?”

  “No, I’m a vet.”

  “A vet,” she repeated doubtfully.

  “As in veterinarian.” He smiled in a way that crinkled his eyes and made her want to step forward. There was something magnetic. Something that reminded her of the pull of salmon swimming upstream. She witnessed the migration only once in her life but the sight of the hundreds of fish throwing themselves against the oncoming tides would forever remain in her memory as one of nature’s truly inexplicable events. And all
that wonder she felt looking into the man’s eyes.

  Trey continued. “I’m harmless and I love animals, so please, sit. I promise not to touch you. Not even if you were choking.”

  She relaxed slightly. “You don’t have to go that far.”

  “Sure?” He chuckled. “Because we’re in the office of one of the top law firms in the country and anyone of them can sue me for every dollar in the bank and the clothes on my back.”

  Sasha sat down and kept her hand on the hem of her skirt. The last thing she wanted to do was flash the man. She reached down and picked up the fallen newspaper.

  “Can we start over, minus the rude phone conversation and the attempt to offer sympathy? I’m Trey Blackfox.”

  “Sasha Clayton.”

  He stared at her in a peculiar fashion for a moment, then seemed to shake it off. “Nice to meet you.”

  She smiled then looked back down at the paper. One inhaled breath brought the scent of cologne and, as if she’d stepping into a hot spring, every part of her body felt flush. It had to be his face. Something about the symmetrical features, masculine voice and pheromones that had her toying with the watch on her wrist instead of reading the words on the page.

  She caught sight of him leaning in her direction. “Anything good in the news today?”

  “Not unless robbery, apartment fires, another corporate bankruptcy and political scandals are counted as positive news items. Anything good in the sports world?”

  “Nah, nothing happens until March Madness.”

  Sasha’s brow slanted in a confused frown. “What’s that?” Courtesy of growing up with globe-trotting parents and her continued work outside of the borders of the country of her birth and far away from cable television, it always took her months to get catch up on the latest phrases and trends.

  “College basketball championships.”

  “Ahh.” She nodded with understanding.

  “Not into basketball?”

  “I played center in college, and I’ve been to a few NBA games.”

  He gave her a quick onceover. “You’ve got the height. Something tells me you’ve got the skills.”

  “Don’t put stock in that ‘something’ of yours. I sat on the bench eighty percent of the time. I liked the game. The game and the players just didn’t like me. Did you play?”

  “All the time. Caleb wouldn’t let a weekend go by without pulling all of us into a game.

  “All of us?”

  “I have two brothers, a younger sister and a village of cousins.”

  “Sounds like a fun way to grow up.”

  “What about you?”

  “Me?” Sasha replied while trying to discreetly scratch a spot on her stocking-covered leg.

  “Any siblings?”

  “No.” She shook her head and, fearing ripping a hole in the only pair of stocking she owned, she flattened her hand and rubbed.

  “Panty hose itching, huh?”

  “Like the ten minutes after a mosquito bite.”

  “Yeah, it’s a pain to wear stockings, especially on a hot summer day.”

  She looked at him suspiciously and her doubts about his masculinity crept to the forefront of her thoughts. “And how would you know?”

  Trey leaned a little farther into her personal space. “You can’t just open up the book of my life and jump to the middle.”

  “Autobiography of a Serial Dater wouldn’t be on my reading list anyway,” she quipped.

  He chuckled and the sound seemed to magically dissipate the knot that had formed in her stomach the minute she’d gotten in the chauffeured car that afternoon.

  “No, this would be The Trials and Tribulations of Being the Youngest Son.”

  “You don’t look traumatized.”

  “It’s the years of therapy.”

  Sasha took a sip of water and returned her attention to Trey’s nice brown lips. Her eyebrow rose slightly as her lips curved into a smile. “Which kind? Shock or psychoanalysis?”

  His legs spread out and their knees touched for a moment. Sasha almost spilled her drink as the brief contact sent a shiver throughout her body. It had been a long time since a man’s touch had triggered such an instantaneous reaction. “It’s more like mileage therapy.”

  “How does that work?”

  “You put a minimum of a hundred miles between you and your closest relative. Only go back home on occasional weekends and move often so that your family can’t find you when they want to drop in unannounced.”

  Sasha leaned back in her chair and covered her mouth with her hands. It took a second but the sounds that came out of her throat at first mimicked a croaking frog, but little by little, she opened her mouth and laughed. And the infectiousness of her laughter seemed to spread as Trey joined in the humor and it spread back and fourth until tears sprang into her eyes. She wiped them away and then looked over at him with new, friendlier eyes. “I needed that.”

  “Me, too. And I always get uncomfortable when I’m in the room with either a beautiful woman or a pet python.”

  “Even if a snake made it into the building, given the average fifty degree temperatures, it would have gone dormant the second it slithered into the ductwork. So I’m going to assume you were referring to me.”

  He lowered his gaze from her face and seemed to focus on her chest. Sasha fought the urge to fidget in her chair like a teenager on her first day at school.

  “Before I clarify that statement, how did you know about a snake’s body temperature?”

  “The same way that I know that wolves in the wild and captivity practice a form monogamous pair bonds between the alpha male and alpha female, yet their domestic canine cousins have moved to the opposite end of the spectrum because of human interference and the lack of a pack family structure.”

  He gave her an incredulous look and just as he opened his mouth the executive assistant entered into the room. “Thank you for waiting, Ms. Clayton. Mr. Hawthorn will see you now.”

  Sasha stood and began to leave.

  “Wait.” Trey stood and blocked her path. His eyes ran up and down her body, letting Sasha know in no uncertain terms that Trey was interested in her in a physical way. “I’d like to finish this conversation.”

  “I think this place bills by the second.” She smiled. “I need to go.”

  “What about dinner tonight?”

  “Are you asking me out on a date?” she calmly questioned, although the palms of her hands had grown damp with the heady rush of excitement brought about by the unfeigned attraction from such a handsome man.

  “Dinner at a nice restaurant and if we don’t want the evening to end, coffee at my place.” The way his eyelids lowered and those luscious lips curved upwards in a sexy suggestive grin kindled thoughts of sheets and pillows on the left side of her brain while the right side doused the effect by giving Sasha an instant playback of the conversation Trey was having when he’d entered the room earlier.

  She stepped around him, then turned her head slightly to give him a sideways glace. She mustered a convincing indifferent tone. “Don’t take it personally, but I don’t date commitment-phobic bachelors.” Then she walked away, moving from the waiting room as fast as low pumps would allow.

  Five minutes later Trey was happy that he was sitting down, gleeful that he’d worn loose pants and downright grateful Sasha Clayton hadn’t turned around as she’d left the room. He couldn’t have turned his eyes away from the woman. Not even a myopic mole could have missed the hard outline of his groin. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and when that didn’t help, he put the newspaper over his lap.

  Ten minutes. He had ten minutes to get the combination of Sasha’s challenging stare and luscious rear end out of his head. Wide brown catlike eyes, rich hazelnut skin on an oval face. Not a perfect face like some of the models he’d dated in the past, but that mix of features and figure that men looked at and dreamed they woke up next to in the morning. Her dark hair looked as thought it was thick like his little sister
Regan’s. He wondered about the length. If the constrained tresses would curl at her shoulders or flow over her back. Trey ran a hand roughly across his close-shaven head.

  He tried to think about Giselle, the painter and yoga instructor he’d let go three months ago. Her flexibility in bed had added an unexpected spice to their affair. Long slender face, crème caramel complexion and nice curves made a man drop to his knees in prayer, and she would show up at his door with just a phone call. And he could have easily flipped open his cell phone and called her up. However, the problem was he just realized that one glance from Sasha Clayton left him burning hotter than ten nights with any woman of his acquaintance.

  Trey sat back in the chair and rubbed his brow as a full grin drew his lips upward. She was opinionated, touchy, feisty, cute and funny. And she’d turned him down. Trey Blackfox, son of one of Georgia’s wealthiest African-American families, head of his own veterinary practice and millionaire bachelor got blown off.

  “Trey?”

  He looked up to see Gretchen’s wary expression. “Sorry.”

  “Mr. Payton will see you now.”

  He stood but his mind remained fixated on the image of Sasha Clayton’s perfectly sized backside. It took him twenty paces to get his libido in check and his mind on business. When he exited the waiting area, at least he had his common sense back.

  Chapter 3

  Sasha’s pen hit the table at the same time her bottom lip dropped. “Excuse me, Mr.…” Sasha blinked owlishly at the attorney. She sat at the head of a long conference table. A half dozen lawyers faced her. The first shock of the meeting was discovering that Uncle Camden had been cremated and his ashes spread over the Atlantic Ocean.

  “Greenberg.” The lanky gentleman with deep-set blue eyes and wispy silver hair responded.

  “Could you repeat what you just said?”

  “Save for a sum of a three million dollars bequeathed to various charitable trusts, two million to his trusted friend and butler, funds set aside for the progeny of his animals, the balance of Camden Ridgestone’s thirty-five-million-dollar estate is yours with a few stipulations, of course.”