“Scott sets this fresh retelling of Pierre
Choderlos de Laclos' novel against an alluring backdrop of city nightclubs,
country retreats, tightknit church communities, and the Brooklyn Dodgers... A
dazzlingly dark and engaging tale full of heartbreak, treachery, and surprise.” —Kirkus
In UNFORGIVABLE LOVE, Jazz
may be king, but heiress Mae Malveaux rules society with an angel’s smile and a
heart of stone. She made up her mind long ago that nobody would decide her
fate. Marriage, money, freedom… Mae wants complete control. To have the
pleasure she craves, control is paramount, especially control of the men Mae
attracts like moths to a flame.
Valiant Jackson
is accustomed to getting what he wants—and he’s wanted Miss Malveaux for years.
The door finally opens for him when Mae is slighted by her former lover Frank
Washington, and she strikes a bargain: seduce her virginal young cousin,
Cecily, who is now engaged to Frank, a man who values Cecily’s innocence above
all else. If Val is successful, his reward will be Mae.
Unbeknownst to
Mae, Val seeks another, even more valuable prize. Elizabeth Townsend is
fiercely loyal to her church and her civil rights attorney husband. She is
certain that there is something redeemable in Mr. Jackson. Little does she know
her most unforgivable mistake will be Val’s greatest triumph. But Mae and Val
are unprepared for what can happen between a woman and man when the thrill of
the chase spirals wildly out of control.
Scott deftly
tackles themes of love, faith, lost innocence, betrayal, and redemption in this
stunningly original novel. UNFORGIVABLE
LOVE introduces readers to both the café society and upper crust Harlem and
takes readers from the grand townhomes on Lenox Avenue to the lush woods of
Anselm, North Carolina, in a whirlwind of passion.
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Excerpt
Harlem, May 1947
Mae loved herself with a ferocity that came of feeding too
hard and too long on her own exquisite beauty. She could smile in the rear view mirror
of her car and see the alabaster beam reflected back from her picture in advertisements
for Malveaux’s Magic Hair Pomade plastered on every billboard and in the windows
of every drugstore starting from West 53rd Street, going all the way up Manhattan
and through Harlem for the next hundred blocks.
Even now she gazed happily into her vanity as her maid, Justice,
applied the French pomade and arranged the dark folds of her hair into thick Victory
curls perfectly framing her face. She never used the concoction her mother had created
and made famous. Tired of having it smeared on her head since childhood, Mae had
thrown away her own grease-filled powder- blue tin in the days after her mother’s
death.
She held out her wrists and Justice dabbed on fragrant dots
from the crystal bottle of Caron Fleurs de Rocaille perfume. Mae’s cold-creamed
skin glowed bright and her eyes danced with the sparkle of a girl, making her seem
younger than her thirty-three years. She knew this feature made her irresistible.
Mysteriously, each man thought he had discovered this light for himself and believed
only he could see it in her. They never noticed her well-hidden contempt for their
arrogance.
Mae was vigilant about her expressions. She learned long ago
the faces she wore would always be more essential than any dress she put on, no
matter if it were a Christian Dior or a Pierre Balmain. Her beauty was a formidable
instrument because people liked to stare at her as they would a motion picture actress
and, in the same vein, she could tell them any story she chose to project and they
would believe it. So she practiced the lift of her cheeks, the turnings of her mouth,
the shapes of her lips, and the conjured emotions that she flitted across her eyes.
Her masterstroke came when she could wipe her face smooth and present a look of
calm so numinous it bewitched her admirers into claiming her a goddess.
In rare instances, though, she suffered a rebellion to her
visage of serenity. It was an errant twitch seated in the muscles of her lower-left
eyelid. She always felt it right be- fore it surfaced. It was as though the weight
of all the folly the eye had beheld was suddenly too much for it. She saw how, though
small and fast, it unmasked her disdain. Not everyone would notice, but someone
less foolhardy—someone like Val Jackson—would never miss such a telling detail.
Regina, her white Polish maid, brought in Mae’s long, satin
Dior that had arrived from Paris the previous day. Mae stood, stepped into the gown,
and enjoyed the feel of the gold fabric flowing down her body in a shimmering cascade.
She placed one hand on Justice’s shoulder and lifted her right foot with the grace
of a ballerina. Regina took hold of Mae’s ankle, guided her into leather slingback
pumps, then pulled the strap through the buckle.
Too tight. Too tight.
“Ouch!” Mae lit out with her right hand, landing a blow upon
the woman’s ear and side of her face. Regina’s arm rose in defense.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Mae looked away while she finished. The stacked heel added
nearly two inches to her height so she had to sit again. This allowed Justice to
fasten the necklace of marquise-cut diamonds while Regina clasped the diamond-and-platinum
bracelet around Mae’s thin wrist.
Mae occupied the largest brownstone on Sugar Hill. Designed
by the noted architect Branford Waite, it featured a double- width façade and a
broad stoop from the front door to the street. Perfect white shades on the windows
muted the sun’s glare during the day but let in plenty of light. The flower boxes
on the ledges contained enough nicotiana, tuberose, and alyssum so their combined
sweet fragrance would greet Mae each time she walked out the door.
That night she came gliding out of the building like a new
moon rising. All down the block she knew quick hands snapped shutters closed then
reopened them a crack so their owners could spy on her floating down the steps to
where her man, Lawrence, held open the door to her forest-green Packard. She knew
this because she knew exactly how her world was situated—how every single person
thought, including and especially what they thought of her. She choreographed each
step, each motion, and she moved through Harlem exactly as she pleased because of
it. What good was money otherwise? She laughed at the predictability of society
and how no one but her seemed to understand how to wield this delicious power. And
since her mother died, and then her own husband, Mae reveled in the added sweet
freedom of answering to no one.
She settled into the caramel cushions of the car’s backseat.
Lawrence steered in the direction of the Swan, her chosen nightclub. Mae knew in
particular how it would be there. Lately the bandleader would make sure they didn’t
play Duke Ellington’s gorgeous new piece, “Lady of the Lavender Mist,” her favorite,
unless she was in the room and ready to dance. Her usual party would be seated and
waiting at her table. The air already hummed with the expectancy of an unseasonably
warm Saturday night. The scene was set. It only needed her to make it come alive.
About the Author
Photo Credit: Rob Berkley
Sophfronia
Scott hails from Lorain, Ohio. She was a writer and editor at Time and People magazines before publishing her first novel All I Need to Get By. Her short stories
and essays have appeared in O, The Oprah
Magazine, NewYorkTimes.com, Killens
Review of Arts & Letters, Ruminate
magazine, Saranac Review, Numéro Cinq, Barnstorm Literary Journal, and Sleet
magazine. She lives in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, with her husband and son.
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