One Special Moment. Brenda Jackson

a table near a window with a scenic view of Sunset Boulevard. After Colby accepted the menu from the waiter, she looked out the window and was amazed at the number of Mercedeses and Jaguars that went by.

      “Coffee, Ms. Wingate?” Edward Stewart asked.

      Colby turned to him. “Yes.”

      After the waiter poured their coffee and left to give them time to look over the menu, Edward Stewart shook his head, chuckling. “After you left my office yesterday, it took me a good twenty minutes to calm Sterling down.”

      “He was that mad, huh?” she asked, smiling, getting a little satisfaction in knowing she'd been the cause of Sterling Hamilton's anger.

      “No, he wasn't mad. He just couldn't contain himself for laughing so hard,” Edward replied, chuckling as he informed her.

      “Laughing?” Colby looked up sharply from pouring cream into her coffee. It had not been her intention to be funny yesterday. “And just what did he find so amusing?”

      “The fact that you walked out on him,” Edward answered. “No woman has ever done that before.”

      Colby rolled her eyes. “Then it's about time someone did. He has a lot of nerve in what he wants me to do.”

      “He's determined to go through with it.”

      Colby shook her head. “I know, and that's the sad part.”

      The look Edward Stewart gave Colby hinted that he agreed with her. And for some reason she got the feeling he was trying hard not to expose his own thoughts on the matter. “Sterling has his reasons for taking the approach he's taking,” he finally said.

      Colby snorted. “I can believe that. The man is a cold, calculating, arrogant, egotistical, conceited person who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Any decent man wouldn't use what's happening to my brother's company as a bargaining tool to force me into doing something I'm totally against.”

      Edward Stewart slowly expelled his breath, frowning thoughtfully. “I know Sterling didn't make a good impression on you, but believe it or not, he's none of the things you just described him to be. In all actuality, Sterling is the most decent man I know.”

      “Then you must not know too many people.”

      Edward Stewart chuckled. “On the contrary, I know a great number of people and like I said, Sterling's the most decent person I know. He's a warmhearted individual and a loving man who would make a wonderful father. His own father, Chandler Hamilton, was that kind of man.” He smiled. “The media was in awe over the relationship between Tiger Woods and his father, but even their close relationship can't hold a light to the one Sterling and Chandler had.”

      “Had?”

      “Yes. Chandler passed away unexpectedly last year. He died in his sleep from a heart attack.”

      “Did you know him personally?”

      “Oh, yes. My friendship with him went all the way back to when the two of us were kids growing up in a small lumberjack town in the mountains of North Carolina.”

      Colby hesitated a moment before asking, “Did you know Sterling's mother as well?”

      Edward Stewart set down his coffee cup. A long, weary sigh escaped him. “Yes.”

      Colby decided to press for answers to questions that bothered her. She was sure Mr. Stewart wouldn't hesitate to let her know when she was inquiring about something that wasn't her business. “I understand she wasn't around while he was growing up.”

      Edward Stewart lifted a brow. “Sterling told you that?”

      “No, but it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. I get this feeling that as far as he's concerned, the whole idea of motherhood sucks.”

      Again Colby got the distinct impression Edward Stewart was desperately struggling not to say something. At that moment, the waiter came to take their order. After he left, she decided to pick up where they'd left off. There were things she needed to know about Sterling's childhood; things she needed to understand.

      “Mr. Stewart?”

      “Yes?”

      “I know as Sterling's attorney you're very loyal to him, and I can appreciate that. But I want you to try and understand my predicament. I have some important decisions to make. They are decisions that will not only affect my life and Sterling's, but decisions that could very well affect the life of a child.”

      She breathed in slowly in an attempt to steady her voice, which had gotten rather shaky. “Sterling expects me to give him my decision today. Even now, I'm still totally against what he wants me to do. But I'm also torn by the thought that my brother might lose his company without Sterling's help. But when you think about it, me being the one chosen for what Sterling wants to do doesn't make any sense.”

      After taking a sip of coffee, she continued. “Sterling claims he did a thorough investigation on me. In that case, I would have been the last person he would have chosen. I love kids. I was named Teacher of the Year in my hometown last year, and I'm on various committees that benefit children. Someone who loves kids as much as I do wouldn't easily give one up. He should have sought out a woman who doesn't like kids or who's indifferent to them.”

      She took another quick sip of her coffee. “If a builder wanted to tear down an old building, he wouldn't employ the services of a person who's a member of the historical preservation society to do it, would he?”

      Edward Stewart looked long and hard at Colby before finally answering. “No, he wouldn't.”

      He sat back in his chair. To his way of thinking, she was absolutely right. He had wondered about that very same thing himself. He'd seen the intense look on Sterling's face while he had first viewed the videotape on Colby that had been part of the investigator's completed report. The one scene that had captured Sterling's attention more so than any of the others had been the one showing Colby's interactions with her class on the playground. The smile that had been on her face indicated she was enjoying the children's little games as much as they were. From playing hopscotch with the little girls to kick-ball with the little boys, it was apparent she was having a great time.

      Inwardly, Edward believed Sterling wasn't just seeking a woman to bear his child, he was subconsciously looking for a woman who was the epitome of a perfect mother. Something his own mother was not.

      He heaved a sigh. Sometimes attorneys had gut feelings about things. And he felt this was one of those times. Colby Wingate had summed it up perfectly. Her being chosen didn't make sense. It was a very irrational act on Sterling's part. And he'd never known Sterling to act irrationally. Which meant he'd been so taken with Ms. Wingate that he'd thrown sensibility right out the window.

      Edward Stewart's gaze suddenly grew luminous with admiration as he watched Colby begin eating. He had a strong feeling she could very well be the one person to erase the terrible pain and hurt Sterling had suffered over the years because of his mother. It had been so easy for Angeline to just walk away and leave her husband and six-week-old baby in search of a life that was better than the one Chandler could afford to give her. Not only had she not looked back, but she had wanted them completely erased from her past forever. But what she hadn't counted on was five-year-old Sterling recognizing her from a photo Chandler had kept sitting on the dresser in his bedroom. She'd been on television with her new husband, Alan Chenault, a highly respected, wealthy businessman from Florida. The couple, to the television viewers, had been extremely happy because they'd just had a baby boy. “My very first child,” Angeline had smilingly told the reporter.

      It was apparent her husband did not know about her first husband and the child she'd left behind, and she was determined to keep it that way. But the icing wasn't put on the cake until the following year when Sterling had come face-to-face with her for the very first time. He had gone to Charlotte, North Carolina, with a youth group, not knowing that his mother, her husband and their one-year-old child were there. He had recognized her immediately in the lobby of a hotel, and with the innocence