After the Climb

by Kristen Ashley

  And boy, had I missed that too.

  In the now, though, we showered, it got serious, there was touching, kissing, groping, but in the end, Duncan left me to finish up.

  And by the time I got out of the shower, toweled off, lotioned up, put product in my hair and my panties, bra and robe on, he’d come back in with my mug and a plate that had a toasted bagel with whipped cream cheese.

  “Threw out the old coffee, that’s fresh. That do for food?” he asked, sliding everything on the counter by the basin where I was, which was not the one he used.

  It was no croissant from The Queen.

  But it was still perfect.

  “More than do. Thanks.”

  He bent in to kiss my neck then said, “Take your time. Kids are still out. I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

  Then he was gone.

  I took my time in his awesome bathroom. Light makeup. Blew out my hair.

  And I had on my jeans, was pulling on my sweater, when I heard Sasha screech, “Mother!”

  Sasha did not call me mother.

  And the tone of that screech set my blood to a chill.

  I yanked down my sweater and went running.

  At the gallery, I saw her at the bottom of the stairs looking like she was about ready to race up them.

  Gage was hanging close.

  Duncan was already there.

  But she only had eyes for me.

  “You have to get down here and see this,” she declared.

  And then she stomped off down the hall opposite the one where Duncan’s office was.

  “It’s bad, Dad,” Gage said. “C’mon.”

  And then he was off down the hall.

  I looked to Duncan and started down the stairs quickly, asking, “What’s down that hall again?”

  “Game room. Dining room. Pool room.”

  “TV?”

  He nodded even though I’d seen the room and it had a huge TV.

  So I started running.

  Duncan followed me (not running, but his legs were longer than mine) and we hit the room me first, him right after.

  Sasha immediately started talking. “Sully’s cueing it up on YouTube. But my phone blew up while we were riding. And so did the guys’. We watched it out there and came racing back. Because it’s all over everything.”

  I looked to the television and could not swallow my gasp.

  Samantha was on it, kitty corner sofas, her on one side, Elsa Cohen, celebrity interviewer (or more to the point, gossip monger) on the other.

  “I think that’s the part, Sul. She was adjusting her skirt,” Gage told him.

  Sully went back and we listened to Sam saying some things, then it started.

  “And yes, this megalomaniacal behavior affected Duncan Holloway and Imogen Swan.”

  “Ohmigod,” I breathed.

  “I know,” Sasha hissed irately.

  Samantha: “In fact, right now, they’d probably be celebrating their thirtieth anniversary if Corey hadn’t been pathologically in love with Gen.”

  Elsa: “Pathologically in love?”

  Samantha: “Yes, because they were inseparable. Always were. The three of them, but mostly Gen and Dun. Star-crossed lovers with Corey in that mix. He broke them up. He told Duncan that he’d slept with Genny and that was it. Duncan trusted him like a brother. Gen didn’t stand a chance.”

  “This fucking bitch is whacked,” Sully bit off.

  Elsa: “Corey Szabo convinced Duncan Holloway that Imogen Swan had slept with him?”

  Samantha: “You don’t understand. I knew Gen and he told me the same thing so I would divorce him, and I believed him too and that is not the woman she was or is. As evidenced by the fact that she divorced Tom after he cheated on her.”

  “Oh my God!” I shouted.

  “Motherfucker,” Duncan clipped.

  “I know, Mom,” Sasha snapped.

  “I need my phone,” I said urgently.

  “Where is it?” Gage asked.

  “On the nightstand, darling,” I answered.

  Gage took off running.

  Samantha: “…and I cannot tell you how happy I am to see that they’re back together. Obviously, his parting gift to them was the same as it was to me. To share he’d lied. As if that changes decades of tragedy. As if that erases the man he was and the things he’s done. But it doesn’t change a thing. And I am here right now to tell the world the kind of man he really was. That man does not get to start up a charity a month before his death when he did nothing good or kind with his billions for years and think he can rest on that legacy. So I’m making it my mission to share precisely what his legacy was. And it was nothing good. And all I can say, if Gen sees this,” she looked into the camera and it instantly tightened on her, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I believed Corey’s lies and lost you as a friend. I’m sorry you lost Duncan. And thank you for taking care of my son when that snake in the grass had him. If it wasn’t for you, who knows what Hale would have turned out to be.”

  “Me and Tom, you bitch,” I gritted at the TV.

  The screen paused and Sully said quietly, “That was it about you guys.”

  I started to look at Duncan but turned my attention to my daughter instead when she said, “Hale? Yes, it’s me! I’m with Mom and Duncan. What the fuck is wrong with your mother?” Pause then. “Right. Fine.” She took the phone from her ear and jabbed it. “You’re on speaker.”

  “Genny?” Hale’s voice called.

  Gage rushed into the room and handed me my phone while I replied, “I’m here, honey.”

  “I had no idea,” he said. “I’ve called her ten times. She’s blocked me.”

  “Why would she do this?” I asked.

  “No clue. No fucking clue. Christ, I’m so sorry.”

  “It wasn’t you, Hale,” I told him.

  My phone in my hand rang.

  I looked at it.

  It was Mindi, my publicist.

  I put it on silent and returned to Hale. “Don’t take this on.”

  “Fortunately, I’m a billionaire now, thanks to Dad remembering he had a son and leaving me everything. Including his jet. I’m on my way to the airstrip now to go to her directly and find out what she’s playing at.”

  “She called Mary,” I shared. “I…well, I got caught up in things and I didn’t call back. Maybe she intended to warn me.”

  “Yeah, and maybe she actually shoulda warned you before she fucking sat on the couch across from that parasitic flea and shot her mouth off.”

  I could not agree more.

  Hale’s relationship with his bitter mother was not a lot healthier than the one he had with his absentee father.

  And I’d had nearly thirty years of not only doing my best to give him what he didn’t have between the two of them, but also running interference for them both with their son.

  So it was ingrained in me to do what I did next.

  “How about you change your flight plan and come here, to Arizona?” I suggested.

  My phone vibrated in my hand.

  This time, it was Tom.

  Damn.

  “No, Gen, sorry, I want answers for this,” Hale decreed. “I don’t give a fuck she washes Dad’s laundry in public, but you and Tom?”

  “I hear you, but I have to go. Tom’s calling.”

  “Tell him I’m sorry and I’ll call after we take off.”

  “Okay, honey, ’bye,” I said in a rush, glanced at Duncan, he jerked up his chin, face hard as stone, and I walked out of the room and took Tom’s call. “Hey, Tommy,” I greeted softly.

  “So, I guess Corey wasn’t quite done fucking you over, leaving that bitter cow in his wake,” he ground out.

  “Tom, I’m so sorry.”

  “I fucked another woman not my wife, Genny. It really wasn’t anyone’s business but yours. But there are penalties to pay, and the lives we wanted that we worked to have, this is the price.”

  “Tom, that doesn’t have to be true. Sam had no
business doing what she did.”

  “She made passes at me.”

  Standing in the hall, I lifted my hand up to the wall and leaned into it.

  “Numerous ones,” he bit out.

  “Samantha did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tom,” I whispered.

  “So I guess she’s pretty pissed I turned her down but fucked someone else,” he deduced.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because she didn’t matter, and honest to God, a lot of women did that, Gen, and you knew it. It never mattered. But with her, we needed to see to Hale and his life was already messed up enough. I couldn’t avoid her and still be a part of his growing up, because she avoided you. So I just pretended it didn’t happen. She stopped, and swear to Christ, I thought she forgot she’d done it.”

  I took the phone from my ear and squeezed it so hard, if it was made of anything else, it would have shattered in my hand.

  Fucking Corey.

  And fucking Samantha.

  In one way or another, they both were constantly fucking me.

  And worse.

  Disappointing Hale.

  I put the phone back to my ear. “We know what that was, and it was not about her. It was not about the woman you turned to. It was about us.”

  “You know, I was a world-class athlete. Won millions in purses. Earned more millions in endorsements. Have goddamn black-and-white photos that freaking Henry Gagnon took of my face with my wrist held up, wearing fifty-thousand-dollar watches, hawking that shit. Got my medical degree. And the greatest thing I ever did was win you.”

  I closed my eyes and my shoulder hit the wall.

  I opened them and started, “Tom—”

  “If you’re happy, I’ll eventually be happy. And I hate to ask this, I’ll miss you and I know you still count on me, but I need a break. It won’t be forever, honey. But I need to get used to a you with another man before I have you in my life when you’re with another man.”

  “We need to be seen together,” I said urgently.

  “There’s no spinning this,” he replied.

  I pushed from the wall. “Yes, there is. We’ll lie.”

  Silence I could feel was stunned, even through the phone lines, then, “Lie?”

  “I’m putting a statement out within an hour that Samantha Wheeler just lied her ass off to Elsa Cohen.”

  “Genny—”

  “Fuck Elsa and fuck Sam.”

  “You forget, there’s another person in this scenario,” he said hesitantly.

  “She comes forward, we’ll say she lied too. And I’m goddamn Imogen Swan and you’re fucking Tom Pierce, they’ll believe us, and we’ll eviscerate them all if we have to. No one does this to my goddamned family.”

  “Ge—” he started.

  I cut him off. “How did she know?”

  “Hale knows. I can only assume he told her.”

  “Hale would never do that to you.”

  “I have to admit, that’s a part that was seriously gutting me, if he did that.”

  “You need to phone him. He’s on his way to find out what’s up his mother’s ass. He’s worried about you. You need to phone him and find out if he said anything. Because if he didn’t, something fishy is going on and we need to get to the bottom of it.”

  “It wouldn’t be her,” he said quietly. “She’s not the kind of person to do that.”

  He was talking about the woman he fucked.

  “I’m sorry, Tom, but you need to get on the line with her too and find out. Or better, get our lawyer on her.”

  “She really isn’t like that, Gen. I would not stick my dick in that.”

  “Tom, I’m about to press go on the first outright lie I’ve released to my adoring fans. And yours. We need everybody with this program.”

  “I’m not at one with you lying, Imogen. Everything you are is against that.”

  “Well, you’ve got five full minutes to become one with it, Tom, because if you’re down with it or not, it’s happening.”

  He was silent.

  Not for five minutes but for at least half of one.

  And then he said, “I’ll get in touch with her and Hale. Don’t let Mindi say anything until I do. I need an hour.”

  “You got it. But I’m starting her on it. She’ll need that time anyway.”

  “I love you, and I will go to my grave regretting what I did to us.”

  Again, I closed my eyes tight.

  Then I said, “I love you too, and I’ll go to mine regretting you have that regret.”

  “Speak soon, honey.”

  “Of course, Tommy. Take care. And Tom?”

  “Right here.”

  “You’re my go-to guy, and even if I have another one, you’ll always be that. Always. Even if you decide you need to take yourself away from me, that’s the way I’ll think of you.”

  His voice was guttural when he replied, “I love you, Gen.”

  “And I love you.”

  We rung off and I barely had my phone from my ear when I heard my daughter ask, “You’re lying?”

  I looked her in the eyes.

  “Absolutely.”

  She stared into my eyes.

  And then she said, “I love you so fucking much.”

  I smiled at her and ordered, “Call your sister and find out if she’s okay and brief her. Then call your brother.”

  “Matt will—”

  “Matthew will stick by his family.”

  She nodded, ducked her head to her phone and walked quickly down the hall toward the great room.

  Duncan had clearly quarantined his sons away from our drama.

  I walked back into the game room and announced, “I’m very sorry.”

  “I’m very sorry too. That bitch is a bitch. Laying you and Dad and your ex out like that. What the fuck?” Sully clipped.

  I blinked because Sullivan had, thus far, seemed even keeled. Like his dad.

  “Sasha is a mess and that is not on. I cannot freaking imagine knowing the world knows that shit about my dad when it’s none of their fucking business. She’s a c-word and I wish I could say it, but I don’t even live with Dad, and he’d ground me until I was twenty-five if I did,” Gage added.

  Okay, I would love Duncan’s boys just because they were his boys.

  But now I just loved Duncan’s boys because they were good guys.

  I gave them both a weak smile and looked to Duncan. “I’m so sorry, darling.”

  “You got dick to be sorry for,” he bit out.

  “I’m lying,” I told him.

  “What?” he clipped.

  “About Tom. I’m releasing a statement that he didn’t do that.”

  “Good. It’s nobody’s fuckin’ business. You need my office?”

  I stared at him.

  My Duncan.

  Protective, almost to a fault.

  Of me.

  And mine.

  And on this thought, it started happening.

  Then he was there, his hands cupping my jaw, his face in mine. “Gen, fall apart in an hour. We got you. But now you need to keep your shit tight.”

  I nodded, fighting back the tears.

  “I gotta call Sheila, baby. I’ll need your statement so she can devise language around it if she gets questions.”

  I nodded again.

  “Go to my office. I’ll check in, in a bit. You finish your breakfast?”

  I nodded yet again.

  “You need more coffee?”

  Totally gin.

  I didn’t say that.

  I said, “Yes, please.”

  “Sul, get Genny a cup, cream and one sugar, take it to the office,” he ordered.

  “Got you, Dad,” Sully replied, leaving.

  “Gage, stick with Sash. Not close, but close enough she knows you’re there if she needs you.”

  “On my way, Pops,” Gage said and took off.

  “Thank you for understanding,” I whispered, my voice trembli
ng.

  “You’re right, sometimes this Imogen Swan shit is a pain in the ass.”

  That made me smile, though it was trembling too.

  He pulled me up as he came down, and he kissed me quickly.

  When he pushed me back, he didn’t let go.

  But he did say, “We’ll get through this. All of us. Now go take care of our families.”

  That made me get it together.

  And I nodded one last time.

  He gave my jaw a squeeze.

  And I left the room to get on taking care of our families.

  *****

  “Then she was all, ‘well, you’ve got five minutes to become one with it, Tom, because it’s happening.’” Sasha relayed for the third time.

  This time to Harvey and Beth, who were both over to provide moral support.

  And yes, Beth brought her air fryer, because, from Harvey: “She’s gonna take that goddamn thing on vacation with us.” Which brought: “Yes, Harv, because we’re camping in our RV and I have a kitchen, as such, and I also have a need to cook good food in a short time so I can enjoy my vacation.”

  This was after Heddy showed.

  I was currently on gimlet three, which Gage was feeding me, and at that moment I sure was glad I had the foresight to stock the ingredients for my gimlets when I went to the store the day before to get the stuff for my red sauce and meatballs.

  Much earlier, Sienna Sinclair had left a message on my cell saying, “We’ll be sorry to see you go, but we’re sorrier about today’s interview and will understand if that’s your decision. I say this because we’ve had both phone and in person requests from journalists. We’ve shared that our policy is that we do not release information about any of our guests, but at no time have we had an Imogen Swan registered with us. And rest assured, all my staff are very aware that this is our policy. Please take care of yourself and thank you for staying at The Queen. It was a pleasure for us to have you.”

  And what she said wasn’t entirely a lie, since I was registered there under Virginie Forbes.

  Talk about a dame.

  A classy one.

  This meant Sasha and the boys had taken a brief trip to The Queen to pack me (and Cookie) up and move us to Duncan’s.

  And now was now, early afternoon, and Sasha, the boys, Heddy and Beth were in fits of glee watching the fallout of Mindi’s strongly worded counter that Samantha Wheeler told grave falsehoods about Tom Pierce.