CHAPTER ELEVEN
After dinner, he sat stiff back in his archtop chair.
She sat on his sofa. They were inches away from each other in his living room, but they were a million miles apart.
It had been a long time coming. The writing had been on the wall for Edmund within the first few months.
But they lasted because they knew the rules and stuck to them.
Now she, like all those other women before her, wanted more.
She wanted their five-year relationship to finally move forward.
She wanted exclusivity. She wanted to be his one and only.
“I know it wasn’t meant to be a commitment,” she said softly, “but that’s what it’s beginning to feel like to me. Five years has to account for something.”
Edmund didn’t respond to her. What was he going to say? She knew the rules? He was a heart surgeon. He knew hearts never worked that robotically.
“The thing is,” she continued, “I’m not getting any younger, Edmund.” She looked at him.
He finally looked at her. She was a gorgeous woman who was showing every bit of her forty-five years.
Hell, she was three years older than Edmund.
Of course she was aging. But five years ago she only had a few lines on her face.
Now she had several, even with Botox. But to him she was still one of the best looking ladies around.
Teri knew her beauty and she knew her worth.
But age was creeping up on her and scaring her straight into action.
Something had to be done. Something had to change.
And although Edmund understood where she was coming from, just like he understood where Shannon was coming from and all those other ladies he’d had before too.
But what they all had to understand was that wherever they wanted to go in terms of commitment and marriage, he wasn’t going with them. Period.
“I don’t want to be alone as I get older,” Teri continued. “I can’t keep playing house with you.”
It was no secret to her or anyone else that Edmund Keating did not play house or any other games with people. Not ever. But he held his peace.
“I don’t want a companion,” she said, “and I’m too damn old for a boyfriend. I want a husband,” she said with great emotion in her voice. And then she looked at him again as if she needed to see his reaction. To see if it validated hers.
His home was so quiet that her voice seemed to reverberate when she said that last word. It even shocked the walls. But it didn’t shock Edmund. He’d had this conversation, in various reiterations, with every single relationship he’d ever had.
But his answer never wavered.
“I will never get married. And when I say never that is not up for interpretation. I am not going to be anybody’s husband, including yours.
I am not going to be committed to you or anyone else.
I never was committed. And I never will be committed.
I told you that on day one. For me nothing, and I mean nothing, has changed. ”
She looked as if it was brand new to her when he knew it wasn’t. “You don’t have any feelings whatsoever for me, Edmund?”
“I enjoy your company or this would have been over long ago.”
“And that’s it?”
He stared at her. If anybody stood a chance, it would have been her. But nobody stood a chance. “That’s it,” he said honestly to her.
She looked at him as if she still couldn’t believe how cold this man could be. Five long years and all she had to show for it was that he enjoyed how she did him in bed? Because that was what he meant when he said he enjoyed her company. It felt like a slap in the face.
She grabbed her purse and her phone and stood up. He stood up too. “You are a deplorable human being,” she said.
“Because I stuck to the bargain I’m deplorable? Because I wouldn’t change for you when I told you, from day one, that I wouldn’t, I’m deplorable?”
“Yes!” she yelled out. “I hate your guts!”
“Just a moment ago you wanted the man you hate to be your husband? Love can turn to hate that fast?”
“Who said I ever loved your ass? I loved the lifestyle you could give me. I loved your wallet and your dick. I never loved you and never will. And I’m so glad I never did!” And on that note she began leaving.
Edmund’s heart dropped. Because he knew it all along. It was the same with all the others. Their true colors came out bright and vivid when it was clear they weren’t getting from him anything but what they had with him. And that was why they never got more.
But as soon as she went to his front door and flung it open, she stopped in her tracks. “Who are you?” she asked.
Puzzled that somebody would be at his home uninvited, Edmund made his way to the front door too. And that was when he saw a woman standing on his front porch. And as soon as he saw her, a rush of warmth, of something emotional, came over him. What on earth?
But Maude hadn’t even seen him. She was looking at the beautiful black woman that was standing there. “Are you Mrs. Keating?” she asked her.
The woman stood aghast. “Mrs. Keating? Not in this lifetime nor twenty to come,” she said bitterly and pushed past Maude as she hurried away from that front porch.
Before she began walking down the steps, she looked back at the younger woman and then at Edmund.
“You sure have a type, don’t you?” she said to him.
Then she looked at Maude. “Run, young lady, run. Don’t walk.
Run!” Then she looked at Edmund again, hurried to her jet-black Lexus LS 500, hopped in, and sped away.
But Edmund wasn’t thinking about Teri’s ass.
Especially after she revealed her true reason for being with him.
He was staring at this stranger at his door.
And it wasn’t even the stranger part that caught him off guard.
It was the immediate reaction his entire being had to her as soon as he laid eyes on her.
It was as if his heart soared as soon as he saw her, but only for a split second, and then it returned back to earth.
But that split second confused him. He’d only had a reaction like that once before.
But he couldn’t place when, where, or why.
And she wasn’t even looking at him! She was watching his former companion sail off of his porch and hurry to her car as if she was hurrying away from danger.
But that was how Edmund felt too. He felt as if danger was on his front porch.
And when she finally turned to him he didn’t think it, he knew it.
Because his heart once again, and once again only for a split second, soared.
And a sense of heavy emotions washed over him.
“May I help you?” he felt compelled to ask her.
Maude was too much of a bundle of nerves to have any kind of soaring heart when she saw the man she assumed was Natasha’s brother.
And the way that woman fled his home and vowed to never be anything remotely resembling a Mrs. Keating was alarming too.
What had she gotten herself into, was her first question. “Are you Edmund?” was her second.
Edmund had to settle down his own nerves. He could not believe the reaction he had to her. “I’m Dr. Keating,” he responded to her question. “Who are you?”
“My name is Maudetta Drayton.”
Before Edmund knew it, he was frowning. “Ma who?”
Maude was used to that. “It’s Mau-ded-ta.
Maudetta Drayton. But everybody calls me Maude.
Only Maude with an e. But it’s pronounced the same as Maud without an e.
But only my nickname has an e at the end of it.
It’s also my pen name. I use it in my bylines.
The e makes it look better on paper than without the e. ”
It was definitely TMI for Edmund. “Got it.”
“It’s like that lady in that really old TV show. Then there’s Maude? Only the then there isn’t the name of the show. The show was called Maude, but when they would sing the theme song they would sing Then There’s Maude. Like she’s so different.”
“Got it,” Edmund said again. What was with this girl? It was just a name. Damn.
“But I wasn’t named after Maude from the TV,” Maude went on. “I was named after my grandma.”
“I said okay!” Edmund said it with irritation in his voice that was not unlike the tone he used on subordinate doctors at the hospital who got out of line.
And Maude was equally offended as they were. “You didn’t have to yell. I was simply making my point.”
“You’ve already made your point. Ten times over.
You’re a young lady with an old lady’s name similar to that old lady on that old TV program.
But only you weren’t named after the old lady on television, you were named after your old-ass grandmother.
Why your mother would name you after your old-ass grandmother is a mystery to me in this day and age of Shaniqua and Keisha and Benisha.
But she named you Maude. And here you are. ”
Maude stood there stunned by his lack of any kind of filter, or even fake diplomacy.
And he was a doctor no less who was supposed to master good bedside manners.
She thought she was the only person who lived without all those expected filters, a condition that got her in so much trouble down through the years.
Including with her aunt many moons ago. But seeing herself in that big man at the door was more than enough to shut her up.
But not before getting in a last word. “Actually she named me Maudetta,” she said.
Edmund inwardly smiled. She was quick. He liked that about her. And he was still wondering why he had that strange, initial reaction to him. As if he somehow knew this girl. But he didn’t go there. He remained silent too.
But their silence left dead air and awkwardness in the space between them as she just stood there, and so did he.
Edmund, for his part, didn’t know what to make of her as she stood there.
She came across as such an odd sort of person to him.
Even her face was unique. Not bad unique, but different.
That silky smooth, deep-toned brown skin.
Those huge eyes with naturally long lashes that looked so innocent, but yet her eye color was a smoky, sensual hue, and was as deep brown as her skin.
It was as if there was a kind of understated vibe about her that made her in some ways a gorgeous seductress of the first order, and in other ways that simple, all-American girl next door.
But that contradiction somehow worked on her. It made sense on her.
When her eyes glanced away from his eyes, as if she was still getting over his uncompromisingly harshness, he took the opportunity to look down the length of her slender frame.
She had the kind of curves he required, although not nearly as exaggerated as he preferred, but she was definitely bed material. She definitely had what it took.
But contrary to what Teri had said, she really wasn’t his type at all.
Although his undeniable preference were indeed African-American women, that was where any similarity between her and his ladies began and ended.
Because all of his ladies weren’t just beautiful black women, but they also held a level of sophistication and elegance unmatched by most. And although this girl standing in front of him was a tad younger than his type, in his view she was completely void of any serious sophistication or elegance.
From his vantage point she was a fashion disaster with her thick ponytail and her jeans and tennis shoes and her sleeveless blouse that should have been tucked inside of her trousers but was half-in with the other half just hanging out there.
She was a mess. And one thing that was never going to be his type in any variation was a project.
Which she most certainly would be to be with him.
But he was still baffled by her. Because if she was as horrid as he was convincing himself that she was, then why did that intense feeling come over him when he first laid eyes on her?
Where did that come from? What was that about?
And why was she standing on his front porch at his front door at this time of night in the first place?
“I still don’t understand why you’re here,” he finally said to her when she refused to light the fire of his temper with any more one-sided conversations.
She looked at him once more. But as soon as she did, that sensation of warmth and a kind of jubilance rolled over him again. Which took him by surprise again!
“Natasha asked me to come,” she said.
When she said that name, any warmth he might have felt for her quickly dissipated, and he almost slammed the door in her face.
But as a reporter, she was used to doors slamming in her face. She quickly spoke up before he got the chance. “She’s been arrested. She’s in serious trouble, sir.”
When she said arrested, that slowed his door closing. When she said serious trouble that stopped it altogether. Which gave Maude some hope. The last thing she wanted was to have traveled all that distance only for him to shut down any chance of helping the way Natasha’s so-called friends did.
So she kept talking. “That’s why I came all this way from Dillon. Nineteen hours by bus. Because you’re her last hope. You’re all she has.”
The last “project” he wanted to get entangled with was that sister of his and her constant drama, but their dysfunction wasn’t this lady’s fault. And she had come so far.
He opened his door further, and finally allowed Maude to come on in.