And Then There Was You (Serenity House Book 2)

by Molly O'Keefe

  Better this way. Better this way. Better this way.

  Ian threw the meager amount of crap he’d brought with him to Serenity back into his duffel bag. While Andille, slow as molasses, carefully folded and packed.

  “Say it,” Ian yelled. “Just say it.”

  “What?” Andille asked, his voice so slow and careful.

  “Say I’m an idiot. Say I’m a bastard.”

  “You’re a bastard.”

  “I had no choice!” Ian yelled.

  Andille turned, an old man, weathered and beaten and sad. “There’s always a choice, Ian. That’s what you’ve never seen. I’m sorry for what happened to you as a kid. I’m sorry that all your freedom and decisions were ripped away from you. But what you’re doing now doesn’t make up for that.”

  Ian jabbed his finger in Andille’s chest. “I am doing—” he wanted to fight, tear down the wall, punch Andille in the face, but the guy wasn’t cooperating “—the only thing I can.”

  Andille shook his head and turned around, zipping his bag. “I’m sorry you feel that way.” He hoisted his bag onto his shoulder and headed for the door. “Let’s go say goodbye.”

  Ian yanked the zipper pulls so hard they broke off in his hand.

  Jennifer stared at the journals through tears that would not fall. There would be no more crying. Not for Ian. Not for herself.

  She grabbed the story off her printer, folded it and placed it in the last journal. A little going-away present for Ian. So he’d see what he was losing when he chose the easy way out.

  Upstairs, the floors creaked and she knew she only had a few minutes before Andille and Ian left. Two days ago she’d thought, stupidly, that when he left she’d be sad. Sorry. She had no idea how devastated she’d be.

  Because that’s what she was—torn to the ground, burned to ash.

  She picked up the journals and headed to the kitchen, where it seemed like there was a funeral taking place. Deb’s eyes were stone dry, but she and Jennifer couldn’t look at each other very long or they’d both break down. And Jennifer knew neither of them wanted to watch these men leave through tears.

  But it certainly wasn’t stopping Shonny, who clung to his mother and wailed, letting it out for all of them.

  Spencer sat at the table, looking baffled. “Why are they leaving, Mom?” he asked.

  Because I told them to.

  “Because they have to get back to their lives, honey,” she said, cupping his head. He ducked out of the way, his emotions making him a little belligerent.

  Wonderful.

  Andille came through the door and stopped at the sight of Deb with Shonny. For a second he looked like he was going to just fall to his knees in grief, then the moment was gone and he was carved out of stone.

  Shonny reached for him, crying his name, and Deb, as if ripping the skin from her body, let him go into Andille’s arms.

  Andille turned slightly, whispering something private in the boy’s ear.

  Jennifer grabbed a paper towel and handed it to Deb.

  Ian barreled through the door a million miles an hour, no doubt ready to leave. Ready to open the door to all those “journalists” and ruin the rest of his life, with no regard to the rest of hers.

  God, he’d taken such care of her the other night. Held her as if she were made of gold dust, looked at her as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. And now he was trashing her dream, her future, as if it meant nothing to him.

  And clearly it didn’t.

  Her anger had the lucky benefit of burning away her tears and she was grateful, at least, for that.

  “You’re leaving?” Spence asked Ian as he slid from the kitchen chair to stand in front of him.

  Ian’s throat bobbed as if swallowing something painful. “I am.”

  “Are you coming back?”

  Ian’s eyes skipped to hers and she raised her eyebrows. Was he insane? Like she’d welcome him back with open arms? Please. She was dumb, she wasn’t stupid.

  “No,” Ian said, standing awkwardly in front of Spence, before crouching. “I won’t.”

  “I thought we were going to be friends,” Spence said. “You were going to show me how to pass a soccer ball off my head.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t. I—”

  “That sucks!”

  Jennifer didn’t even bother to check his language. Nope, Spence got it right on the nose. Spence stomped over to stand next to her. She patted his shoulder before approaching Ian, who, she had to admit, was looking as if someone were pulling him apart. Which, she supposed was true, but he was doing it to himself and he was just too blind to see it.

  “Here,” she said, handing him the journals. “You should have these.”

  He didn’t reach for them. “I don’t want them.”

  “Of course you don’t,” she said, pulling the broken zip on his duffel and stuffing them inside. “Which is why you should read them. If you’re ever going to make sense of your parents’ marriage, you need to read these journals.”

  “I don’t want to make sense of it,” he told her.

  “If you ever want to make sense of your own life,” she snapped, so tired of running her head into the brick wall that was Ian’s past. If you ever want a normal relationship, if you ever want to come back to me, she wanted to say, but it was a moot point. He would not be coming back around.

  “Jennifer.” He sighed. “I never meant it to go this way.”

  Tears scorched the inside of her skull and she curled her hands into fists, distracting herself with the pain of her nails biting into her palms.

  “I hope you read those journals and are able to put the past behind you,” she said. “Because, if you don’t, you won’t be able to get on with your life. With or without me.”

  And that was as close as she was going to get to telling how she really felt under this betrayal.

  “Goodbye, Ian,” she breathed, her chest crushed by grief and anger and regret—for him. All for him.

  “Let’s go, Dille,” Ian said, stepping toward the common room where Daisy growled at the door, ready to see him out, no longer friends.

  But Andille didn’t move. He looked at Shonny then, slowly at Deb. A smile, so radiant, so filled with love and joy, spread over his face and he reached out a hand for Deb’s cast. “I’m not going,” he said to her and her head bowed, as if the strength it had taken to not show her sadness simply did her in.

  Andille towed her in, curled her to his side and pressed a kiss to her dreadlocks. The tears Jennifer had refused to shed ran down her cheeks.

  “I’m not going,” he said to Ian, a thousand things unspoken between them. A dozen years of friendship boiled down to this moment. All debts repaid. “I’m making my choice.”

  “Right now?” Ian asked.

  “This very minute.”

  Ian’s smile was bittersweet and his eyes touched Jennifer’s face briefly. “It’s a good choice, man,” he said. “A really good choice.”

  They shook hands, a long hard squeeze. “Take care, Dille,” Ian whispered.

  “I’ll be in touch,” Andille said, looking like a young man. A young man in love. “Just because I’m not going to be your babysitter anymore doesn’t mean you’re rid of me.”

  “Good,” Ian said, the same sad smile on his face. “I don’t ever want to be rid of you.”

  He opened the door and the photographers were no longer on the front stoop, instead standing on the road, off Serenity property.

  “Ian, what are you doing here?” one of them yelled and Jennifer held her breath. Closed her eyes.

  Here it comes, she thought, bracing herself for the worst. But Ian didn’t say anything. The wind blew. A car honked.

  But Ian was silent. And finally she opened her eyes, the suspense killing her.

  Ian was watching her and she couldn’t read his expression. Couldn’t make heads or tails of what he was thinking.

  He lifted his hand, opened it, closed it.

  And left, without a wor
d to the press.

  “Deb,” Andille whispered into her ear. They sat together on the couch where they’d collapsed after Ian left. Jennifer and Spence were in the kitchen, talking in low tones. Somewhere in the mix of emotions pounding through Deb’s body she felt bad for Jennifer, that the disappointment Deb had seen coming had actually arrived. Jennifer didn’t deserve this.

  But Deb wondered, her body curved along Andille’s like they’d been sitting together on couches all their lives, did she deserve what she was getting?

  Shonny ran laps around the couch, shouting, “He’s going to stay.”

  Andille was so solid beside her, an odd reality where before there had been nothing. Empty space for so long, that she’d gotten used to it, grown attached to it. He was staying. And she didn’t know what that meant.

  “Deb, please,” he whispered, “don’t freak out.”

  “I’m not freaking out,” she said. She didn’t, as a rule, freak out. She handled things. Dealt with stuff. Snakes excluded.

  “You are.” He laughed, pulling a dreadlock from in front of her eye. “I’m not moving in,” he said. “I’m not expecting—”

  “What if I’m expecting,” she said, surprising both of them.

  He leaned back, smiling at her like he already knew all those things about her that she was just figuring out. “What,” he said, his fingers a butterfly caress up her arm, around her elbow, “are you expecting?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, “but you’re staying.” She reached for him, suddenly dying for the feel of his skin under her hand. He was staying. He was here. Right here. “For me.”

  “For you,” he agreed, nodding solemnly like taking an oath. “And Shonny.”

  She pressed her hands to his beautiful face, pulling him forward, kissing him in front of her son, God and everybody. “Then I’m expecting a lot,” she said, laughing against his lips.

  She didn’t know if she deserved this, but she was taking it. She was grabbing Andille with both hands and she was not going to let go.

  19

  Jennifer sat on the floor, her back against the wall of the office. It was where she’d made love to Ian last night and it was only fitting that she make this call from here. Ground zero.

  “Waldo here,” Kerry said, in the office even on a Saturday. And Jennifer winced, swearing silently. The chicken in her had been hoping for voice mail.

  “Hi, Kerry,” she said.

  “Jennifer.” Jennifer could hear something hit Waldo’s office door with extreme force and the resulting slam made her jerk the phone from her ear. This was not going to be pretty. “Do you want to tell me why there are pictures of you with a half-naked Ian Greer all over the Internet?”

  “It’s not how it looks,” she said, bracing her head in her hand. She hadn’t counted on the photos, one more layer to this crap cake she was eating.

  “You and I both know that it doesn’t matter. How it looks is all that anyone cares about.”

  There was nothing Jennifer could say so she was silent, taking her lumps like an adult.

  “I read your story,” Waldo said and Jennifer’s heart leaped. “It’s good. It’s brilliant. But there’s nothing we can do right now, not with these pictures all over the place.”

  Jennifer sighed and looked at the ceiling. “We might not be able to do anything,” she said. “Ian may leak the story to the tabloids.”

  “Is he an idiot?” Waldo asked in her customary frankness.

  “He’s consumed,” Jennifer said, not sure why she defended him. “Revenge against his father is all that matters.”

  “Well, we won’t scrap it,” Waldo said. “Let’s see how this plays out.”

  “Waldo,” she said, emotion nearly choking her, “there won’t be any interview. I won’t be seeing him again.”

  Waldo was quiet for a long time. “Well,” she finally said. “This sucks.”

  “I know,” Jennifer said, pinching the bridge of her nose as if that would make her feel better. “I’m so—”

  “What’s done is done,” she said. “You want some editing work? I’m swamped here, and I could use your touch.”

  Jennifer didn’t even think about it. She didn’t think about money, or time constraints. The past or Doug or the sword were no longer factors.

  “Yes,” she said. Sitting at ground zero, imagining the wall still held the heat from their ill-fated passion, she decided to get on with her life.

  Ian locked himself in his apartment. After a week most of the photographers went away, the sidewalk in front of his house practically a ghost town. He never did talk to them. Every morning he woke up and planned what he was going to say, how he was going to tell them all about his father’s abuse. But every day he looked out the window at the seething sea of parasites waiting for one word from him to broadcast around the world. He looked at them and felt Jennifer’s ghost haunting him.

  And he didn’t do it.

  He heard her voice confidently telling him she knew who he was. The real him. And as the days passed, he began to wonder if maybe she was right. Since he’d been a prisoner in his house he didn’t know who he was anymore. Revenge was right outside his door and he couldn’t do it. And that wasn’t him. Not the him he’d created these last dozen years. Not the him he recognized.

  At night, he felt her kiss, her hands, her weight against his chest, and it got so bad he stopped sleeping.

  He was convinced, in the pit of his stomach, he had made the biggest mistake of his life walking away from Serenity. Away from Jennifer.

  Today, his eighth day of exile, he pushed aside the drapes of his window and there was only one photographer out there. A flash went off and Ian gave the guy the finger before letting the drapes drop back into place.

  If he wanted revenge, it looked like this might be his last chance.

  I should go down there, he thought halfheartedly, knowing he wouldn’t. Jennifer’s ghost made sure of that, sitting on his shoulder, convincing him he was better than that.

  He turned and stared down the long hallway toward his guest room, where he’d stashed the journals. They pulsed in his empty house. A constant whisper. A lure. A beckoning finger.

  “This is ridiculous,” he muttered, because he was crazy. A week alone in a house with nothing but regrets, ghosts and pulsing books will do that to a guy.

  He was going to end it, finish it. He’d read the journals and call The Enquirer. Today. He’d banish all the ghosts and go sleep with an actress. Because he could. Because that’s who he was. That was the life he deserved.

  He stomped through the house, stopping in front of the guest room, staring at the ebonized door like he was engaged in combat.

  The doorknob was hot in his hand as if whatever energy made those journals so hard to resist was filling the whole room like smoke from a fire.

  I’m not strong enough, he thought, suddenly, his momentum deflated. I’m not strong enough to change. His anger and his resentment, his need for revenge, all felt comfortable. Believing he didn’t deserve Jennifer kept him safe from wanting her too much.

  “Right.” He nearly laughed. “If this is not wanting her too much, I’d hate to see what love looks like.”

  He pressed his head against the door, hard enough to hurt.

  I would have let you in. He heard Jennifer’s words. I would have let you all the way in.

  The courage it must have taken her to say that astonished him now, maybe because he lacked the courage to even walk out the door of his house.

  Sick of himself, he twisted the knob and stepped inside the cool room. The journals were stacked on the foot of the bed, a dark splotch, like blood on the white duvet.

  He sat, picked up one of the journals.

  December 2, 1972—Ian’s fourth birthday. Jackson stayed for pictures and left. We covered Annabelle’s split lip with lip liner. No one asked any questions, except for Ian and I.

  “Oh, God,” Ian groaned, collapsing backward on the bed, pulling the journals close
.

  It was dusk by the time he put down the last journal and picked up the folded papers that had been tucked in the last one. Jennifer’s story. Jennifer’s brilliant work that took his family’s shame and mess and crafted a story about forgiveness and hope. His mother was a victim, sure, but on her terms. As stupid as that sounded.

  His hands flopped to his side. If these were the events that made him, the events that he allowed to shape every single thing he did day in and day out…then she did know him better than he knew himself. If she was able to look at those journals and the things that he’d told her and still see a bright side, why couldn’t he?

  I don’t want to be like this anymore, he thought. I don’t want to lose the rest of my life the way I’ve lost everything up to this point.

  He picked up the phone beside the bed and dialed the house in New Hampshire while the impulse was irresistible.

  “Jackson Greer’s office,” some anonymous assistant said.

  “This is Ian,” he said, his voice a rasp from disuse. “I’d like to talk to my father.”

  “Right away.”

  Ian smirked. Right away. They must all be on tabloid watch, everyone waiting for the shoe to drop.

  “Ian?” His father’s voice still sent chills down his spine, and he imagined it always would. But the bloodlust was gone. Mom had made peace somehow. With everything that he’d done to her, she’d managed to still find beauty. To still hope and dream. Her decision to send Ian away had been harder than staying with Dad all these years. The price, Suzette had said, for all of her concessions was to lose the trust of her only child.

  “Dad.” Now that he was at this moment he didn’t actually have a plan, and his instincts, long ignored and abused, kicked in. “I haven’t talked to the tabloids,” he said.

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “And I won’t.” Ian sighed and let go of revenge. Let go of hate. Let go of his father. He welcomed Jennifer’s words right into his heart and let change take place. “But I want control of Mom’s foundation. I don’t want you as a spokesperson for her anymore.”