Temptation - Brenda Jackson [32]
He turned back the covers before placing her in the center of the bed. He joined her there and hoped Sunnie slept through the night as Sheila predicted she would. They had made a pit stop by the nursery to check on the baby and found her sleeping in spite of all the winds howling outside.
“Thanks for coming and checking on us,” Sheila said, cuddling closer to him. He wrapped her into his arms, liking the feel of having her there. Her back was resting against his chest and her naked bottom nestled close to his groin.
“You don’t have to thank me.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I don’t?”
“No.”
She smiled and closed her eyes, shifting her body to settle even more into his. He stayed awake and, lifting up on his elbows, he stared down at her. She was just as beautiful with her eyes closed as she was with them open. He then recalled what Brad had said about Sheila getting attached to Sunnie and could definitely see how that could happen.
He couldn’t help wondering how she was going to handle it when Sunnie was taken away. And she would be taken away. Although Sunnie didn’t belong to Brad, she did belong to someone. And if no one claimed her, she would eventually become a part of the system.
That was the one thing that had kept him out of trouble as a kid growing up, the fear of that very thing happening to him. Although he now knew his aunt would never have done such a thing, he hadn’t known it then and had lived in constant fear that one day, if he did something wrong, his aunt would desert him in the same way his mother had.
But Clarisse Daniels had proven to be a better woman than her younger sister could ever be. A divorcée, which made her a single mother, she had raised both him and Alicia on a teacher’s salary. At least child support had kicked in from Alicia’s father every month. But neither his mother nor his father had ever contributed a penny to his upbringing. In fact, he’d found out later that his aunt had on several occasions actually given in to his mother’s demand for money just to keep her from taking him away.
His father. He hadn’t been completely honest with Sheila that day when he’d said he hadn’t known his father. Mr. Travers was his father. He might not have known the man while growing up as Ezekiel “Zeke” Daniels, but he certainly knew his identity now. Matthew Travers. One of the richest men in Texas.
It seemed his mother had gotten knocked up by the man who hadn’t believed her claim. In a way, considering what Zeke had heard, his father could have been one of two men. His mother hadn’t known for certain which one had sired her son. She had gone after the wealthiest. Travers’s attorney had talked her out of such foolishness and pretty much told her what would happen if she made her claim public. Evidently she took his threat seriously and he had grown up as Ezekiel Daniels, the son of Kristi Daniels. Father unknown. His birth certificate stated as much.
It was only while in college attending UT that there was a guy on campus who could have been his identical twin by the name of Colin Travers. When the two finally met, their resemblance was so uncanny it was unreal. Even Brad had approached the guy one day thinking it was him.
Zeke was willing to let the issue of their looks drop, but Colin wasn’t. He went back to Houston, questioned his father and put together the pieces of what had happened between Matthew Travers and Kristi Daniels many years before, and a year or so before Travers had married Colin’s mother.
When Zeke had been summoned to the Travers mansion, it was Brad who’d convinced him to go. It was there that he’d come face-to-face with the man who’d fathered him. The man, who after seeing him, was filled with remorse for not having believed Kristi Daniels’s claim. The man who from that moment on intended to right a wrong, and make up to Zeke for all the years he hadn’t been there for him. All the years he’d been denied. Abandoned.
He’d also found out that day that in addition to Colin, he had five other younger brothers