JT lay in bed, his body turned slightly to the side, with Veda’s head resting against his chest. They’d made the most gratifying love to each other, and now she was sleeping peacefully. She slept, and all he could think was how he wished he didn’t have to leave this hotel near O’Hare Airport until sometime tomorrow morning. He knew this clearly wasn’t possible, but after being with Veda on two separate occasions, he also knew there was no way this would be the last time he saw her. He wasn’t sure if it really was because she looked so much like Michelle, but regardless, his attraction to her was fierce. He’d been attracted to Alicia right away, too, but for some reason his attraction to Veda seemed even more immediate. He’d known from the moment they’d finished making love two nights ago at The Ritz that he couldn’t simply forget about her, and it was the reason he’d stopped her from flying home yesterday afternoon. They’d hung up just as she was preparing to walk onto her plane, but then he’d called her right back, asking her not to leave. At first, she’d paused and then told him she really needed to get home, but JT had convinced her to remain in Chicago for at least another couple of days. He’d known he had to go spend time with Carmen shortly after he’d ended his call with Veda and would have to attend the luncheon with Alicia this afternoon, but he’d promised Veda that if she could just be patient, he’d find a way to spend all evening with her now. Needless to say, she’d told him she was fine with it, and JT had been in bed with her for three hours.

Still, he couldn’t understand why his desires for Veda were so deep and why they had so instantly come about-especially since he really did love Alicia. He didn’t know why any of this kept happening to him, why he couldn’t just be happy with one woman. He’d been thinking he could, or at the very least, that he could get rid of Carmen and keep only one mistress, namely Diana. But now he knew otherwise. Now he knew he simply couldn’t help who he was, and if Veda agreed, he was planning to see a lot more of her. There was the problem of her living miles away in Minneapolis, but he strongly believed in the old cliché his aunt used to love saying, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Which was why all he had to do was map out a more extensive and more detailed plan for his life and ministry.

Next week, he would give Janet the final okay to send out the introduction packages to the churches she’d compiled a listing of, he would bypass setting up a marketing committee the way he’d originally discussed and settled on with Minister Payne and Minister Weaver, and he would hire an ad agency himself so the agency could schedule the media campaign as soon as possible. After that, he would have Diana transfer the hundred thousand dollars he needed into one of his personal bank accounts and convince her to transfer the same amount at least another two or three times. Then, on the personal side of things, he would see Carmen once per week and would do the same with Diana, but once the campaign began, maybe about a month from now, and the speaking offers started coming in, he would slowly but surely cut off all communication with Carmen and would limit his meetings with Diana to maybe once every two weeks. Diana would certainly be upset but wouldn’t make much of a commotion because she would never want her rich husband to find out what she’d been doing. She wouldn’t want him finding out that she’d been having an affair with a much younger man who just so happened to be their trusted pastor. She would never want him finding out that she’d given her young lover loads of their money.

Carmen would be a different story, however, and she had already made it clear she would never walk away so easily. But when the time was right, JT would see to it that she was no longer a threat to him or the life he wanted to have. After that, he would welcome all the new church members he was positive his citywide media campaign would bring in, he would travel to as many speaking engagements as possible, and he would make a motion to double the annual salary he was receiving from the church. He would exercise his right to do whatever he wanted, since he’d been the one to found NLCC in the first place. There would surely be a few officers and associate ministers who might have a problem with it, specifically Minister Weaver, but they would each soon get over it-either that or they’d be booted out of the ministry altogether and onto the street. Then, when he was making a million dollars a year from his church income alone, he would purchase a nice, comfortable home in a suburb far away from where he and Alicia lived. He’d purchase something only he knew about and would begin flying Veda in for weekly visits. At the same time, he’d be able to give Alicia the extravagant life he’d been promising her all along, and this meant he’d finally have the best of three worlds: a beautiful wife and first lady of his church, an out-of-town mistress who made him feel better sexually than any woman had ever made him feel, and a local mistress who gave him sex, too, plus all the financial support he could ever want. He’d have everything and that got him excited.

Veda gently turned her body, looked up at him, and they smiled at each other.

“So, I see you finally woke up, huh?”

“How long was I asleep?” she asked.

“I don’t know, maybe about an hour.”

“All this morning, I worked on some reports I had been putting off, and they were very intense. But I guess I was more tired than I realized.”

“Well, you didn’t seem all that tired earlier,” he said, slightly laughing.

“Yeah, I guess not.”

“You were full of energy, and I loved it,” he said, stroking her hair.

“I loved it, too.”

“And you know what else?”

“No. What?”

“My feelings for you are a lot stronger than I realized. I knew I liked you a lot, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to stop thinking about you.”

“I feel the same way, and the strange thing for me is that this has never happened before. I mean, not only was the other night the first time I’d ever slept with any man only an hour after meeting him, but it was also the first time I had ever messed around on my husband.”

“Sometimes situations like this can’t be helped.”

“Yeah, but this is so out of character for me and dangerous, too, because for all I know you could be some serial killer.”

“Okay, I admit that you definitely have a point,” he said, laughing. “But I promise you, I’m far from being anything like that.”

“Well, that’s good to know.”

“So, tell me,” he said, caressing her back, “exactly how bad is your marriage? I mean, did the two of you basically just grow apart over the years or did something else happen?”

“I don’t know that we were ever what you would call desperately in love with each other, and now I realize the only reason we got married was because I got pregnant during my sophomore year in college.”

“So, you went to the same school?”

“Yes, and even though my parents took care of our son until we graduated, my husband still wanted us to do the right thing. Actually, I wanted us to do the right thing, too, so that our child would be able to grow up with both his parents. But now it’s time we go our separate ways.”

“That’s understandable. So, you were about twenty when you had him?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you certainly look a lot younger than thirty-eight.”

“Thanks. And since we’re on the subject, how old are you?”

“Thirty-three.”

“Just a baby, huh?”

“Not in the least.”

“Does age matter to you?”

“Nope. Does it matter to you?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Then that’s that,” JT said, kissing her on her forehead. “Because all I want is to make you happy.”

“You say that now, but once I’m gone you’ll quickly forget about me.”