“This is crazy.”
“I’m sorry, but I really thought you should know about this.”
“JT loved his first wife and would never have hurt her like that.”
Donna looked at Alicia calmly and then said, “Well, he had I don’t know how many affairs on her, and I know she wasn’t happy about it. As a matter of fact, she was so fed up that for the last four or five weeks of her life, she didn’t even attend church services and she told a few of the women she was close to that she was planning to divorce him.”
Alicia was overwhelmed. Her father had basically told her the same thing, that JT had regularly messed around on his first wife, but Alicia refused to believe any of this. She didn’t believe her father, and she didn’t believe the woman standing in front of her. Especially since JT had denied sleeping around any more than the one time he had admitted to and because he talked a lot about how much he’d loved his first wife. Plus, what could he possibly have had to gain from her death? Insurance money maybe, but as far as Alicia could see, JT didn’t have millions of dollars stashed away in some bank account. He earned quite a bit of money through his ministry, but he certainly didn’t have the kind of millions that people committed murder over.
“Look, I have to get going,” Donna said. “But again, I thought it was only right that you know. And please, please take care of yourself.”
Alicia smiled, acting as though she hadn’t been shaken one bit, and the woman went on her way.
But Alicia
Chapter 10
Hi, baby,” JT said after walking into the bedroom and pecking Alicia on the lips.
“Hey.”
It had been four hours since that Donna woman had made those disturbing accusations about JT, and still, Alicia couldn’t stop thinking about them. She’d tried focusing on something else but no matter how much time had passed, she just hadn’t been able to. She had even tried to do a little more shopping; however, for the first time since she could remember, she’d found no interest or excitement in it. She hadn’t been able to enjoy herself because, whether she wanted to admit her true feelings or not, she was very troubled by all of this.
“So, what did you buy at the mall?” JT asked, removing his navy blue suit jacket and dropping it onto the bed. Then he loosened his classic red tie and unbuttoned his French-cuffed sleeves.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?” he said, laughing. “Alicia Black Valentine went shopping and came back with nothing?”
Alicia never acknowledged his comment and instead leaned against the dresser and crossed her arms. “There’s something I need to ask you.”
JT went into his closet. “Okay, go ahead.”
“I’ve tried to figure out the best way to ask you this, but I’ve decided that there’s no other way except to just do it. When your wife died in that accident, was there an investigation?”
“Yes. All accidents are investigated, but why do you ask?”
“Were you a potential suspect?”
“Suspect for what?”
“Murder.”
JT quickly stepped back out of his closet with only his underwear on. “Excuse me? Who told you that?”
“A woman came up to me while I was in Nordstrom.”
“What woman?”
“She said her name was Donna and that she used to be a member of NLCC a few years ago. Then she said that Michelle’s parents and siblings and some of her friends thought you had something to do with her death.”
“I can’t believe this,” he said, exhaling loudly and taking a seat on the edge of the bed. “What did she look like?”
“She had a medium-brown complexion, was a little taller than I am, and had very long hair.”
JT sighed again. “Baby, come here and sit down next to me.”
Alicia did what he asked.
“Sweetheart, yes. There was an investigation, but in the end I was cleared.”
“But why would anyone think you were involved in something so horrible in the first place?”
“Envy, of course. Some people just don’t want to see others do well, mainly because they’re miserable themselves. And so they thrive on starting vicious rumors such as this one.”
“This Donna woman also claims that you messed around on Michelle repeatedly and that Michelle was planning to divorce you.”
“Lies, lies, lies. Baby, Michelle and I were the happiest couple I knew. We loved each other, we were committed to each other, and we’d planned on spending the rest of our lives together.”
“Well, why didn’t she come to church for the last few weeks she was alive? Because this Donna person mentioned that to me as well.”
“She stopped coming because she was tired of hearing all those lies and rumors about me and other women. She was so humiliated, and she just couldn’t face people at the church anymore.”
Alicia stared at him with uncertainty.
“I mean, baby, look. This sort of thing happens all the time with men who hold the kind of leadership positions that I do, and it especially happens with pastors like me who have thousands of members in their congregation. People love trying to destroy any man who’s been called by God to teach His Word and one who is being completely faithful to his wife and his ministry.”
“I just don’t understand why anyone would say these kinds of things.”
“Because, baby, people are very cruel, and unfortunately as first lady of our church, you’re going to have to deal with these kinds of rumors all the time. I’m sorry that this woman approached you out of the blue the way she did, but sadly I doubt it will be the last time. Sweetheart, there are so many women out there who would do or say anything if they thought they had even the slightest chance at breaking up our marriage, just so they can have a chance at becoming my wife.”
Alicia wanted to believe him, but she couldn’t stop thinking about her father and all the women he’d slept with over the years. All the lies he’d told her mother whenever she had confronted him about them. All the plotting and scheming he’d done with not just one wife or two, but with three. Alicia thought about how long her father had gotten away with so much wrongdoing. Mostly, though, she thought about herself and how she’d plotted and schemed, too, and told effortless lies to Phillip the whole time she’d been having an affair with Levi. She thought about the fact that she’d always been able to keep a straight face, the same as JT was doing right now.
But maybe she was reading too much into this and JT really was being honest with her. Maybe he wasn’t like her father at all. Maybe he wasn’t anything like the way she’d once been either. She just didn’t know what to think, and she was very confused.
“Alicia. Baby,” he said, grabbing both her hands. “You have to believe me. I’m your husband, and you have to trust me. You have to trust that I love you with all my heart and that I would never hurt you.”
“I love you, too, JT, but I could never tolerate you messing around with other women. I could never do that, not under any circumstances.”
“And you won’t have to because I’ll always be faithful to you. Always,” he said, leaning her body backward and onto the bed. “You’re the only woman I want and the only woman I need, and I promise you that won’t ever change.”
Alicia gazed into his eyes, praying he was telling the truth, and JT kissed her. He kissed her the way he had the night of their first date, gently yet insatiably, and she couldn’t help loving him with everything in her. She loved him hard, and her feelings were so intense, she had no control over them. She was powerless, and that was the one thing that frightened her the most.
Chapter 11
JT scrolled through the list of contacts in his BlackBerry, searching for his father-in-law’s phone number, and hated having to call him. His plan had been to at least wait until he’d been married to Alicia for three or four months before asking Curtis for any help, but now with this whole mysterious Donna woman entering the picture, something told him he needed to act without delay. He’d done everything he could, trying to convince Alicia that this woman was lying through her teeth and was only trying to cause problems in their marriage, but he could tell Alicia was still feeling uneasy. This woman, whoever she was, had caused Alicia to question his past as well as who he was currently, and he had to do whatever necessary to keep her happy. This, of course, included making a lot more money than he was, because Alicia loved living the high life. She wanted to be rich, and while she’d insisted she would never tolerate any extramarital affairs, he had a feeling that if he gave her more than she could ever dream of-more than what her father had given her-she would think long and hard before ever leaving him. JT wasn’t planning for Alicia to find out about Diana, Carmen, or any of the other women he’d been with since meeting her, but he knew it was better to be safe than sorry. It was better to start preparing for what could eventually happen, because he didn’t want to lose his wife.
He also didn’t want to lose his five thousand followers, which could easily come to pass since his congregation loved having Alicia as their first lady. They loved the idea that she was the daughter of a world-renowned minister, a man they all cherished, and without her, it might be twenty years before JT saw the kind of success he longed for-he might never become the leading televangelist in the United States and build the largest church in history. If Alicia left him, there was a chance his loyal congregants would leave, too, because he wasn’t sure they could deal with yet one more scandal. Two years ago, he and the other ministers and officers at NLCC had been able to stifle all that murder investigation gossip and keep it out of the media, but there had still been a few nosy members who’d found out about it, had spread the word, and had decided they wanted nothing else to do with JT. Thankfully, the majority hadn’t believed any of what they’d heard, not about his being a potential
