“I love chocolate cake!” Drew said. “With strawberries! And strawberry ice cream. We don’t get dessert a lot though.”
“Well, it’s different when it’s your birthday, isn’t it?” Cade replied with a smile. He was still typing on his phone. “You love space, is that right?”
“Yeah. Space is so cool. Astronauts and aliens and stuff.”
“Would you want a space-themed birthday party, then?”
“Yeah! With lots of balloons! Balloons are fun, and then you get to pop them.”
I laughed. It was such a kid thing, to love balloons for their existence and for the opportunity to pop them and cause destruction when you did.
Cade probably had some business thing he had to take care of—maybe he was even finding a way to get rid of the reporters. But through it all, he was paying full attention to Drew, and that was what mattered. He seemed to truly like Drew, and Drew had definitely taken an instant shine to him.
Maybe I could believe in a happy ending for this, after all.
29
Cade
I already loved my son as much as I loved his mother. Drew was bursting with energy and imagination, and when I looked at him, I could easily see his mother, with his dark, curly hair, bright smile and an eager face full of freckles. But he had my eyes, which caused a deep ache in my heart.
I hated that I hadn’t been around for his birth, his first steps, his first words, his first birthday. After Laura’s tearful confession the night before, I understood why she hadn’t told me about him. What she’d said was true, I had no idea what my parents would have done if they’d found out that Laura had become pregnant with my child. I knew that they would not have been really understanding about it. After all, I had also been cruel to her when I’d broken up with her. I’d done it on purpose because I’d known that if I’d told her the truth and that I loved her, she would have fought for our relationship and my parents would have destroyed her. I’d had to be mean to her so that she would leave and never look back.
But this lie had resulted in Laura thinking that she had no chance with me when she had become pregnant. Therefore, it was my own fault that I’d lost out on my son’s first years—all because I had been a coward who couldn’t stand up to his parents.
I was going to fix that now, though. Starting with giving Drew the best damn birthday that I could possibly manage.
With the reporters nosing around the house, there was no way that we could go outside. Or have people over. The damn reporters were circling us like vultures. No matter though, I was going to figure out some solution because I felt like a total jerk for ruining Drew’s birthday. He was just a kid and didn’t understand what was going on. It was my anger and behavior last night that had led to our relationship being discovered and splashed all over the news.
To make up for my mistakes, I asked Drew questions about what he liked and quickly put in an order for whatever I could find that would match what he wanted. The cake was being delivered first, and the doorbell sounded soon to indicate that.
“I’ll get the door,” Caitlyn said, ready to viciously guard her best friend and Drew in case it was reporters, only to return beaming with the cake in hand. “Hey, birthday boy, look at this!”
It was a big chocolate cake that had his name spelled out in strawberries, with strawberry ice cream filling, and chocolate icing. The cake decorator had replicated the moon landing on the cake, with a tiny plastic astronaut planting a flag. Drew was completely delighted seeing it, and Laura looked across the table at me, warmth and surprise in her face. I winked at her.
Yeah, being wealthy could come in handy sometimes. I was happy to pay for the rush order and to make sure that it was up to Drew’s specifications and likes.
While we waited for the other stuff to arrive, Laura got out a board game, which was a good way to pass the time. As we played, the next thing to arrive was a bouquet of balloons, each one in the shape of a planet, with separate balloons for the sun and moon.
Drew was ecstatic—there was no getting him to pay attention to the game after that. Next came a menagerie of stuffed animals in their own little “zoo” enclosures, a couple of Star Wars LEGO sets, and a large table where he could put his space command station so that it would no longer have to be kept on the floor.
“Normally, we can’t spoil him this much,” Laura murmured to me as Drew tore into his gifts with gusto. “You know that, right?”
“I know that,” I told her. “I don’t want to replace you in any way. I know I’m not just a friend, I’m a parent, and I want to be that. I just figured…it’s my fault that his birthday was ruined, and this won’t just keep him happy, it’ll keep him distracted from the reporters outside. Sometimes you have to go a little overboard with one thing so that people don’t notice another thing. Or when you’re trying to make up for a bad thing.”
“You learned that from politics?” Laura teased me.
I chuckled. “Maybe.”
The final thing to arrive was a puppet master who played the “zookeeper” of all her stuffed animal puppets. She was exceptionally good at animal noises, and Drew shrieked with delight when she made the lion roar or had her giraffe give him a kiss.
“Too bad you couldn’t get a real astronaut,” Laura whispered, enjoying the show.
“Trust me, I was tempted,” I replied. “But I figured that I didn’t want to go too overboard. I don’t want to be the guy who shows up one day and spoils him. I want to be in his life for the rest of my life.”
Laura looked at me like she might burst into tears, smiling. “Thank you.”
After the puppet master (who I tipped handsomely and requested that she go out the back and not talk to any of the reporters) left, we settled down to finish our board game. After that, I helped Drew move his space command to the new table and help build his new Star Wars sets.
By the evening, I’d hoped that the reporters would trickle away, bored with the fact that they couldn’t get anything to entertain them. After all, some deliveries of food and toys wasn’t really the front-page news that they’d been hoping for. But they remained outside, relentless.
“I’m going to punch every single one of them,” Caitlyn muttered, peering at the crowd of them through the window.
Laura didn’t seem angry, but more…concerned. I understood why—Caitlyn could get angry because she wasn’t the mother, but Laura was scared for her child.
As we approached dinnertime and still had no respite from the reporters, I ordered pizza for us. Then I took Laura to Drew’s bedroom to talk to her alone. “They’re not going to leave.”
Laura sat down heavily on the small bed. It was a lovely bedroom, done up in soft blues, clearly decorated on a budget. I wondered what I could do for her if I got her a place and enough money to do it up the way she wanted, with all-new furniture.
“Thank you for making his birthday special,” she said. “I really don’t have words for how much it means to him. How happy he has been today.”
“It’s the least I could do after I ruined it in the first place,” I replied. “The most important thing right now is to get these reporters away from you and Drew.”
I sat down next to her and pulled her into me, kissing her softly. Laura responded, clutching at my shirt like it was a lifeline.
When I pulled back, I said gently, “I have to go.”
Laura stared at me. “What—what about Drew? And me? You said that you would be here for him—you just met him and now you’re—”
“Hey, hey…” I stroked her hair. “That’s not why. I love the kid already. And I love you. But they’re not going to leave. This is part of why I left you all those years ago. I knew that you’d be subjected to a life like this. I didn’t want that for you. I can’t…I can’t watch you be torn apart by the media, mocked and followed, Laura. I can’t. I won’t do that to you.”
“But you can’t leave!” Laura sounded desperate.
I hated that I was doing this to he
r, but I saw no other way. Just like the last time, I was going to have to protect her by abandoning her. It felt like I was ripping my heart out of my chest.
“These reporters want me and my life, not you. If I leave and act like it’s no big deal, then they’ll leave too. I might be able to come back and see you—just not right now. What’s most important is getting your life back on track, and letting Drew be able to go to school or the park or the damn zoo without a bunch of assholes following him around.”
Laura shook her head, her eyes wet. “We can get through this together, as a family. We can figure this out.”
“That’s not how this works, sweetheart,” I gently removed her hands from my shirt and kissed her knuckles. “I know how this goes and trust me, it’s not going to give us a happy ending.”
Laura gave me a look of betrayal. “So, you’re just going to give up,” she said, her voice dull.
She got up and walked towards the bathroom, quietly closing the door. I heard the snick of the lock click into place and I swallowed the lump that had suddenly formed in my throat. I wanted to go to the door and knock on it, beg her to come out so that I could kiss her one last time, talk to her so that she understood that this was the only way to take care of her and Drew. But I already knew that it would be pointless. She wasn’t going to change her mind and I needed to act fast and get these reporters off her back.
Caitlyn and Drew were playing when I went into the living room. “Hey, buddy, it was so great to spend time with you.” I crouched down in front of him. “Mind if I get a hug?”
“Yeah!” Drew happily hugged me.
My heart felt like it was breaking in two as I carefully hugged him back. It was the first time I’d hugged my son. It was also going to be the last time. I had to work hard to restrain myself and hold back, instead of holding him as tightly as I possibly could. He didn’t know that I was his father. He didn’t know why I would feel such a strong and instant attachment to him.
I pulled away, forced a smile on my face, and then stood up. “Please look after them,” I told Caitlyn quietly.
Caitlyn nodded. She looked a bit wary and confused, but not distrusting of me as she had initially.
Taking a deep breath, I walked out the front door, and out of Laura and Drew’s lives.
30
Laura
The thing about crying yourself to sleep that people don’t talk about: it always gives you a cry hangover the next morning.
I woke up with a dull pounding behind my eyes, the vague feeling that someone had stuffed my head with cotton, and feeling miserable overall. I’d managed to pull myself together last night to get Drew to bed. Then Caitlyn had told me to rest as well while she cleaned up.
Normally, I would have insisted that I was fine, but I just hadn’t had it in me last night to pretend. I’d cried myself to sleep, full of despair, heartache, and frustration.
How could Cade have abandoned us? There was no way he had to leave us. We could weather this together, somehow, I just knew it. What I didn’t know was how to convince him of that. He was sure that the spotlight of a political life wasn’t going to be good for me, which meant that he probably intended to follow in his father’s footsteps even though it wasn’t what he wanted for himself—even after everything that had happened.
Damn him. Damn him for leaving and damn him for saying that he loved me, that his abandonment the first time was to protect me from his parents. Damn him for saying that he loved me now. Damn him for saying that he wouldn’t abandon me again—only to turn around and do the exact thing when things got tough.
I pulled myself out of bed and dragged myself into the shower. I hadn’t felt this crappy in ages. I felt like an idiot. It was cold comfort to know that at least Cade’s intentions were pure. But those good intentions didn’t change how much this hurt my heart.
Taking a shower didn’t help improve my mood either. Sure, I felt cleaner and didn’t look like I’d just climbed out of a sewer pipe, but it didn’t help ease my heartbreak. Cade was gone—walked out of our lives like there was no way to fix this mess. I cried again, under the cover of the running water, but made sure to wash my face and put on makeup so that Drew wouldn’t see any trace of my breakdown.
Drew. Thank God we hadn’t told him that Cade was his father. Hopefully, the reporters would go away, and then Drew would never have to know. Cade could just be that fun friend of Mama’s who’d helped make his ninth birthday special.
At least Drew got to have the best day of his life. But his best day had become my worst.
When I entered his room, Drew was already awake. He grinned at me. “You’re awake! Caitlyn said to let you sleep.”
“Caitlyn’s a very good friend and a very smart person,” I told him. I walked into the kitchen to make some coffee. My hand felt like it weighed a hundred pounds as I lifted it up and pressed the button to start the coffee brewing.
“Mama, come look at my zoo!”
I turned to look at all the new toys that Cade had gotten him, and my throat tightened. I had to swallow a few times. “It’s lovely.”
Drew gave me an odd look, like he could tell that I was behaving funny but couldn’t fully understand why.
“Why don’t we go and play out back for a bit?” Caitlyn suggested. “Go put on your shoes! We can release some of your animals into the wild.”
Drew whooped and ran to put his shoes on. Caitlyn walked over to me and put her hand on my shoulder. “Hey, at least he’s gone quickly, y’know? Nothing worse than when a guy lingers like a bad cold.”
I tried to smile at her joke but couldn’t quite manage it. Caitlyn nodded as if to indicate that my reaction was exactly what she’d expected.
“The reporters are still there, although there’s fewer today. Most of them left last night, although I think a few stayed in their vans and just camped out here. Then some of them returned this morning around six. They’re watching us like the birds in that Hitchcock movie. But they can’t get around to the back unless they want to go through several neighbors’ yards, so we’re fine.”
She paused to look at me, “Cade told them last night as he walked out that there was nothing to see here. Hopefully now that he’s gone, they’ll believe him. We just have to be patient.”
I nodded. There was so much to think about—Drew got out of school this week, thank God, otherwise I’d be panicked for Monday morning and how to get him to school and keep an eye on him, keep him away from reporters. But we couldn’t stay cooped up in the house forever.
Caitlyn patted my shoulder and then left to get Drew from outside. My coffee finished brewing, so I poured myself a cup and sipped it in the kitchen. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to move forward, or how to pick up the shattered pieces of my heart.
My phone rang.
Was it Cade? My heart leapt into my throat and I fumbled for the phone, hitting the ‘answer’ button. “Hello?”
“Is this Laura?”
It wasn’t Cade. It was his mother, Melinda.
My throat clamped up in panic and I had to clear it. “This is Laura, yes.”
“Ah,” Melinda sounded like she was a queen talking to a mud-covered peasant. “You now, I had my suspicions about you from the first, when Della suddenly broke off the engagement after talking to you. I thought that you’d sabotaged the engagement to have Cade for yourself. My son is a charming man and Della has a lot of insecurities. I wouldn’t have put it past you.”
“Thank you,” I replied in sarcasm. “You have officially insulted me in the worst way possible. I appreciate you being honest about thinking that I was a weasel who would break up a happy couple in order to steal the man for herself. You know, if a relationship is happy and strong, it takes more than just one conversation to convince someone to call it off. I hope you’ll apologize to Della when we’re finished with our conversation, since you’ve apparently got this opinion that she’s a spineless dolt who is stupid and weak willed to be manipulated into brea
king off her engagement even if she really cared about the man.”
I could practically hear Melinda’s jaw dropping. “I’ve never been talked to like this in my life.”
“A pity. Maybe if you had been a nicer person to spend time with Cade then he wouldn’t be living in fear of you nor despise you,” I snapped.
My heart was broken, the man I loved had left me, and there were reporters circling like sharks to try and take advantage of my son, a helpless child who didn’t understand what was going on. I had nothing left to lose and nowhere else to direct my anger and pain.
“Cade never liked you, or your husband. He hid me from you to protect me. I always knew that he didn’t like you, but he never told me why, never went into the details, and now I know. It’s because you’re only concerned with appearances and your prestige. You don’t care about being kind nor doing what really matters. You only want status and applause.
“I didn’t manipulate Della in any way. I never wanted Cade back in my life. He broke my heart ten years ago, and the last thing I wanted was to ever see him again. I told him that I didn’t want a relationship and that I wanted nothing to do with him anymore. If you have a problem with this relationship, then you can go talk to the man you raised to be a coward and who can’t even stand up to his own parents.”
Tears began to stream down my face again, undoubtedly ruining my makeup, and I took a sip of coffee to steady myself. It was too hot, and I only ended up burning my tongue. “Della’s a wonderful woman and she deserves better people than you as her in-laws. She deserves to be married to someone she loves. All I did was tell her to do what made her truly happy and that if she was having panic attacks about this wedding, she probably shouldn’t go through with it.”
The emotions were just flowing out of freely, undeterred. “Did it ever occur to you to trust her at her word? You used her. You’re convinced that she doesn’t have a will of her own! I wanted this wedding to go as planned, I needed this job, but now here we are. Because you raised your son to disrespect people the way you disrespect them, he hired a private investigator to find out everything about my life, to invade my privacy, and now my son can’t even go outside without reporters trying to use him like a piece of meat!”
The One and Only: A Single Mom Second Chance Romance (Heart of Hope) Page 19
