by L. B. Dunbar
“Our divorce agreement meant I gave up everything but got sole custody of Vega. No visitation. No communication. But I don’t share the divorce until the day the season ends. I’m still his wife in the eyes of the public.”
My forehead furrows. Is this it? Is this why she holds back?
“What does the public,” I hiss the word, “have to do with anything? And where do people think you are?”
“Pretending I’m his wife a little longer protects Richard. No one cares about divorces after the season, but during it, it’s a media shitshow. And according to the team, I’m visiting my family.” She shrugs, her voice defeated.
“So the trade to Atlanta must mean…”
“He wants to be closer to his family.”
Does he think he can win her back? With the scene in the lobby, I’d say not a chance, but I can’t process this yet.
“What is he doing here?” she asks, sounding exhausted.
“As your attorney, that’s what I intend to find out.”
Her head lifts, her eyes weary. There’s no look of longing in them like she gives me when we’re physically together. She wants me, or at least her body does, but emotionally, she’s as distant as ever.
+ + +
“What we’re asking for is Mrs. Swank to continue acting as Richard’s wife until the end of the season. In return, she’ll be paid one million dollars for her time.”
I stare at the woman before me in her pencil skirt and tightly buttoned suit jacket. It’s the day after we’ve met in the hospital lobby, and Ruthie Avery has honored my request to make an appointment with me.
Last night, Vega spent the night at my home with Lucy. However, Janessa did not magically appear in my bedroom as I hoped. With her family gathered to support her father, I understand, I do, but I missed her in my bed.
“I’ll need to discuss this with my client,” I state, swallowing back the bitterness of the word in my throat. She isn’t my client; she’s my… What? What is she to me? Regardless, I want to tell this woman to fuck her suggestion, Richard Swank, and herself even though I imagine she’s only doing her job.
“However, I understand a legal and binding agreement exists in which Ms. Cruz”—I correct her name—“does not need to see her ex-husband, denying all assets with him in return for sole custody and no visitation from Mr. Swank.”
“Vega is a must. He needs to show he’s a good father,” Ruthie states.
“But he’s not, and we both know it.” I stare at her over my desk. Her expression says she agrees. She knows he’s a worthless son of a bitch who mistreated his wife and ignored his daughter, but now he needs them, if only for a short term. Atlanta is demanding he appear as a family man to right the reputation of a playboy in Houston.
“What is the timeframe again?” I hate that I’ve asked, but I’m trying to think like an attorney and not someone falling for the woman in question.
“The season could go as long as October if they make it to the World Series.”
I glare at her. That’s more than three months. No deal, I want to scream. None of this is even up for consideration.
“She doesn’t need to have sex with him. She doesn’t even need to live with him. We can continue to play it that she’s staying with family. He came here to be near her and her family. Her father’s heart condition is a bonus.”
“You don’t really think that, do you?” I peer at the woman before me. She can’t possibly be that coldhearted, and I see as she swallows back her own words that she isn’t. She’s been trained to be this calculating, but this isn’t who she is. At least, I hope not. How ruthless can Ruthie be? “What is the intention? They’re seen in public?”
“She attends a few games. He goes to activities for Vega.”
“And how does this end?”
“Irreconcilable differences as the divorce decree already states.”
“Because you can’t put adultery and emotional abuse as a reason,” I huff, thinking of my own divorce. “It can’t be this simple. He just walks away.”
“He does. Only one condition during the time period. She isn’t allowed to date anyone. No secret arrangements. No public displays. Devoted wife until the end.” Ruthie narrows her eyes at me as if she knows something, and she isn’t wrong.
“You’re kidding me, right?” I snap. Leaning forward, I realize I’m no longer containing my irritation with this entire discussion or my status as an attorney and not someone emotionally attached to Janessa. I can’t believe we’re even going back and forth on this as if negotiating a real possibility. Janessa will never go for this. Never.
+ + +
“You aren’t seriously considering this?” I scoff. I had Janessa on the phone ten minutes after Ruthie left my office, and silence fills the line instead of the adamant when hell freezes over I was expecting.
“There’s just so much going on,” she mutters, and I hear the resolve in her voice. However, I’m too upset that there is even a remote possibility she’ll continue to play pretend for him.
“No fucking way,” I blow ahead. “You aren’t doing it.”
“Oh, really? Speaking as my attorney, are you advising against it?” Her voice drips with sarcasm.
No, speaking as a man who worships you.
“Janessa,” I hiss, lowering my voice as a hand slips into my hair and tugs at the short ends. This can’t be happening. She’s refused to let me help her in any manner, but she’ll think about this—this farce of an arrangement—for a million dollars. “Is it about the money?”
She’s quiet for a moment, and I think about what she told me. She said it was never about the money, but things change. People—and circumstances—change our minds. I go completely off the rail, making a suggestion I hadn’t given two seconds to consider.
“Move in with me. I can set you up in the guest room if you wish. We can play it that we’re engaged. I can help you get out of this.”
“Charlie,” she groans. “I’d only be trading one playact for another.”
“How far of a stretch would it be? We’re together.”
Her silence weighs between us again.
Aren’t we?
She came to my room. She told me she needed me.
“I see,” I say softly, scrubbing a hand down my face.
“Charlie.” Her voice softens. “How would it look if I moved in with you? I’m newly divorced, which hasn’t been announced, by a man in the public eye, and then I’m engaged? It screams scandal as though I’m the one who stepped out on him and not the other way around. Then there’s you. I’m new to town, my parents work for you, and I suddenly get a job, but I’m also in your bed. How does that look for you?”
Logically, she’s right, but emotionally, my heart hurts. It’s what she isn’t addressing that causes the ache. Would it be so wrong to act like we are together? No, not act—just be with one another.
“You’re very conscious of how things look. After being treated like arm candy, I thought you’d realize image wasn’t everything. I see I’m wrong.”
Her breath hitches through the phone.
“Charlie, the bottom line is, I refuse to do anything that risks my losing Vega. It’s already written, sealed, and stamped that my daughter is mine, but Richard is more powerful than I am. If he can find an angle to twist things in his favor, he will, and I won’t give him any cause to turn the decree around and say I didn’t follow it. Nothing, Charlie. Not even you will give me a reason to lose her.”
I hear what she’s saying, and deep down, I understand it, but my irritation grows to anger that she thinks I’d risk her losing her child.
“I’ll await your decision, but Mr. Swank’s assistant suggests you decide by Monday.”
Somehow, I don’t think she needs the forty-eight hours. She’s already decided, and it isn’t a vote in my favor.
19
Charming Charlie
[Janessa]
When I return to my father’s room, I still hold my phone in my hand. I take a seat n
ear the foot of the bed as Mami sits beside Papi. Zander is next to me, and we stare at our father in silence. In so many ways, I don’t know my parents. I didn’t live with them in my developing years. Then they found jobs in Texas, and we were together through middle school and high school when I was too busy to hang out with family. When I went off to college, I didn’t look back on the place I grew up. My abuela died; her husband long gone. My parents found work in Georgia, and I didn’t visit. I was building a career, and then I met Richard. Charming. Sexy. Richard.
And I got pregnant.
My father was disappointed, but I dismissed his judgment. He had no right. He hadn’t raised me.
Then I had a child, and I understood so much better all that they sacrificed and did to give Zander and myself a better life, and we had better. Homes. Cars. Education. Only, I’d given it all up, first because I loved Richard and then because I hated him.
And now, he needs me, or so he says. I’m certain there’s another way around this mess, but I can’t think straight right now. Richard. My father. Charlie.
Charlie sounded so hurt, and so hard, when I tried to explain how we couldn’t be together—not publicly. It isn’t that I don’t want to be with Charlie. I don’t want to consider being without him, but I can’t. Not yet. I signed an NDA on the status of my marriage until the end of the baseball season, and I intend to follow the decree, unlike Richard, who wants to bend the rules to his advantage.
I glance up at the floral arrangement sent to Papi’s room. It’s ostentatious and unnecessary. The card was even worse.
Thinking of you and your father. With love, Richard.
Love? Ha. Richard doesn’t know what love is. He claimed he grew up without it, thus desperate to have it and give it. Even when I thought I was a good teacher, giving him my love and the beauty of a child, he didn’t learn. He talked the talk but didn’t toe the line to be any different than his parents.
Once again, I consider my own parents and their distance from their children for totally different reasons and in a different manner. It wasn’t alcohol. It wasn’t adultery. They were decent, hardworking people who wanted more for their children.
A million dollars.
How hard would it be to pretend Richard and I are still married? I pretended most of our marriage. Still, divorce was my freedom, and I don’t want to go back to the prison of Richard.
But a million bucks?
I could give Vega so much.
I have a job, but it will take us years to regain what we’d given up. A house. A car. Her education. I sold it all to save our souls.
Sitting straighter in my seat, I take a deep breath as I glance down at my phone. I should call Charlie back. I should try to explain myself better and help him understand.
“You doing okay?” Zander asks. I still want to smack him. My brother is a punk, even at forty. He hasn’t grown up in any manner. He has a good job and a nice home in Arizona, but he still behaves the same way he did as a teenager with excess women, booze, and drugs.
“I’ve been better,” I mutter.
“I doubt it,” he says under his breath. We might be in our forties, but I could hold my own trying to kick his ass. I was the sports girl while he was the computer geek. Opposites raised in the same household, he acts out now to make up for those nerd years. Nerds rule the world, a teacher once said, and she had Zander in mind when she mentioned it.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I hiss, keeping my eyes forward, hoping Mami isn’t listening. She’s hardly looked at me since she caught me coming out of Charlie’s bedroom yesterday morning.
Was it only twenty-four hours ago he had me in so many ways?
“You’re so much better off without him,” Zander says, and I turn to face him.
“Then why would you tell him where I was?”
Zander shrugs, not dismissing me, but just not able to answer. See, here’s the other thing about my brother. While he might be all computer geek smart, he has no common sense. I really think when he isn’t looking at a screen, his brain just shuts off, and typically, his dick takes over.
“I don’t like him being here anymore than you do,” Zander says.
“Do you even know why he’s here?”
Zander rolls his head on the back of the chair and peers at me. “Realized he was a fool and should have never let you go?”
“Ha. He wants to pay me a million dollars to pretend to still be married to him.”
“Holy shit,” Zander says, sitting forward, and Mami hisses at him, cursing him in return in Spanish. He twists in his seat and stares at me. “A million dollars?”
His voice drifts, the excitement not surprising, and I see the dollar signs inside those green eyes.
“You’re not considering doing it, are you?”
This does surprise me, and I stare back at him.
“It’s a lot of money. For Vega.”
Zander falls back in his seat. He loves my girl, and in many ways, I wish he lived closer because she’s going to need a father figure. Not that Zander’s a role model with his womanizing ways, but he is good to his niece.
My thoughts flip to Charlie. He’s so good with his own daughter, and he’s been so accommodating with Vega by letting her stay at his house. She texts me with updates of the things she’s been doing with Elaina Harrington and then with Charlie.
Swimming. A bonfire in their backyard. S’mores.
It sounds great.
“Even for Vega, that’s blood money, Nessa. You can’t take it. You’ve already sacrificed enough of yourself.”
Again, his support surprises me.
“You like it here, right?” he asks, his forehead furrowing in question.
“I do.” I don’t even have to think about it. It’s only been a month, and I’m in love with Blue Ridge. The town. The people. My job. Charlie.
I blink at the thought. I can’t love Charlie. It’s too much, too soon.
My heart races a little faster.
Do I? Can I?
Don’t hop from one fire into another, I remind myself. I’m here to straighten out me. Renew. Refresh. Start over. Only, I sigh at the thought. I’m forty-three, and I’m so far behind.
+ + +
There’s been no change in Papi’s status, so Mami suggests I check on Vega and Charlie. She takes her job seriously, and she wants to make certain Charlie and Lucy are surviving without her.
“Janessa?” Sheepishly, I look down at my feet when Charlie opens his front door. It seems strange to enter this way, but then again, it’s how I exited the other morning.
“Mami wanted me to check on you and Lucy. She thought you might not be eating well without her.”
Charlie slowly grins at the statement as he steps back, allowing me into his home.
“You know, I do know my way around the kitchen.”
My brow arches in question before I follow him to said kitchen and find a large pizza box on the island.
“Know your way around the kitchen, huh?”
“Yep, it’s called delivery, and dinner is served.”
I can’t help the smile gracing my own lips. It’s so good to see him after this afternoon’s phone call.
“I bet you’d really like to know how Vega is?” He tips his head and calls out for the girls. Feet thunder from the second floor, and then I see Vega.
“Baby,” I hiss as she leaps for me. She’s too big for me to pick up, but the feel of her arms around my neck settles me. There’s nothing like the hug of a child. I turn and kiss her cheek. “I’ve missed you.”
It’s only been a few days, but the whirlwind of my father and then Richard’s return makes me wish we could just curl into those two twin beds in the coach house.
Vega separates from me. “How is Papi?” She calls my father by the same name as I do.
“He’s doing better, I think. The doctor said he can come home tomorrow.” I don’t know what this means for Charlie. My father shouldn’t be tending his yard and gardens u
ntil he gets the medical all clear, and even then, it might be time for my father to slow down.
“Speaking of home, we should probably get going,” I say to Vega. It’s late, and Charlie needs to work tomorrow.
“Did you eat?” he interjects at the same time that Lucy whines, “I thought you were spending the night again.”
Lucy has really taken to Vega and vice versa. At first, I worried that Lucy’s friendship was a reminder of all Vega left behind, and she’d resent her. In some ways, I think Vega likes to hang out at Charlie’s for the same reason—it’s a reminder of what we left behind. The pool. The large house. But the two girls have really formed a bond, and although Vega was angry that Lucy spilled her secret, she quickly forgave her. It’s more fun sleeping in twin beds across from your best friend than your mother.
“I don’t want to impose again,” I state because Vega’s already been at Charlie’s mother’s house and now here.
“It’s not an imposition,” Charlie says. “Pint enjoys the company. I’m boring.” It’s so sweet that he has a nickname for her, and I’ve been meaning to ask about it. Also, there isn’t one boring thing about Charlie Harrington, but recalling his evil ex-wife, I imagine he’s been told he was boring in the past.
Vega looks at me with pleading eyes, and Lucy adds to it with a pouty lip and fluttering eyelids.
“Does that work on you?” I tease, glancing up at Charlie. He can’t fall for the charms of his daughter so easily, or he’ll have his hands full when she’s a teen. Then again, Lucy seems mature beyond her years. This becomes another connection I hadn’t recognized between Vega and Lucy. They are both used to parents in the public eye.
“Most days.” Charlie shrugs. “Does it work if I join in?” He pouts with his full lips and flutters his lids, exaggerating the motions of his daughter.
“Very charming, Charlie.”
His lips curl again as his lids lower only a little bit. “I try to be.”
Oh, he is.
He pushes the pizza box in my direction, and I sigh. “Fine.” It’s hardly a whisper of a word, but the girls break into cheers. Vega hugs me, and then the two of them run off again, feet thundering up the stairs.
