by Dara Girard
The Main Attraction
Dara Girard
Contents
The Main Attraction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Also Available
About the Author
Copyright Information
The Main Attraction
Dara Girard
* * *
Published by ILORI PRESS BOOKS LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Author.
* * *
About the book
Taking the spotlight…
Event planner, Corinne Baylor, used to believe in happily-ever-after.
But after a painful divorce, a son who wants to live with his father, and a stalled career, she thinks love and happiness only happens in fairytales.
An invitation to join the Black Stockings Society and a chance to work with Brett Lattimore, an enigmatic business owner, comes just in time.
However, Corinne must gain her courage to let her inner vixen roar.
Or lose the love of a lifetime…
The sixth book in the popular Return of the Black Stockings Society series.
Chapter One
“I want to live with Dad.”
Corinne Baylor absently looked up from her laptop screen and smiled at her seven year old son, Jason. He had a serious expression on his chocolate brown face so he must have said something important but she hadn’t heard it over her typing. She was busy working on an event that had to be tied up quickly and another that was coming down the pipeline, but she had nothing to complain about. As an event planner having clients was a gift. She remembered her earlier days when she was scrambling for them. But they now kept her busy, which was why her son was eating a Pop Tart and a Red delicious apple instead of a carefully planned meal. Was he still hungry?
She glanced at the green granite kitchen counter where a stack of dishes she’d forgotten to put into the dishwasher last night sat neglected. She then shifted her gaze to the list of shopping items she needed to pick up, posted on the steel refrigerator next to Jason’s picture of a purple and green monster. If he was still hungry, there was another box of tarts she’d been saving for emergencies.
Her absent smile turned apologetic before she quickly pulled a pen from her hair. It was a loosely arranged gathering of naturally tight, twisted black curls, held in place by a series of bands and pins, that the kids at school used to make fun of. Her natural hair always grew thick, long and unruly, far removed from the girls who got their hair pressed, chemically relaxed or had naturally straight hair. Because her mother had been traumatized by a hair debacle in her youth—only referred to in whispers as ‘the lye disaster’—she didn’t allow Corinne or her sisters to get their hair processed.
Fortunately, her mother had taught her and her two older sisters that their hair was lovely and that there was beauty in being different and to always search for advantages. One advantage that Corinne had found—or rather learned when some mean kids used to poke at her hair with straws and pencils at school—was that she could stick pens in her hair and quickly retrieve them when an idea struck her.
Moments like now. Corinne wrote down something to remind one of the vendors about a possible conflict then said, “What was that, hon?”
“I want to live with Dad.”
She stuck the pen back in her hair, satisfied she’d made a note before she’d forgotten it. Okay, now Jason had said something.
Dad. He’d said ‘Dad.’ So at least he wasn’t hungry. That was good. She’d have to think of more breakfast items for when he returned from spending a week visiting his father, but that wasn’t a problem now. What was the problem again?
Right, his father. He’d mentioned his father. What had he said again? She wouldn’t force him to repeat it. She didn’t want to appear as if she wasn’t listening. That would be a complete parent fail and she’d done enough of those. What had he said? He wanted to do something. She wracked her brain. He’d said I want to…
I want to…
I want to live with Dad. Yes, that was it! He wanted to live…
She swallowed as acid filled her stomach. She hadn’t eaten anything so there was nothing to make her feel nauseous. But she did.
Her heart froze as her son’s words slowly, painfully, settled in her mind, calcifying in her veins, making her skin burn.
She wanted to pretend that she hadn’t heard him. But she had—loud and clear. She heard him this time even though she didn’t want to.
How could six words break your heart?
How could words not spoken—I want to be somewhere else, with someone else, I’m not happy here—hurt even more?
She could have taken anything else that Saturday morning. Mom, I want to join the circus, I want to jump out of a plane, I want to grow up to be a mountain (something he’d declared when he was three) but not this.
Not this quiet decision.
This painful choice.
Tears stung her eyes as she looked at the half-eaten Pop Tart and untouched apple on his plate. In the past she would have made him a proper breakfast. The apple would at least have been sliced, perhaps she would have added some scrambled eggs with shredded carrots formed into a smile. When he was four she used to make him giggle with the tree man. A pretzel stick and grape figure she used to make for him.
She was nothing like the cook her mother had been. Every breakfast had been a miniature feast, but before the divorce Corinne used to put in more effort. Unfortunately, she’d been too busy lately. Too tired most times to think of anything, let alone anything that couldn’t be either toasted or microwaved. But she’d been too proud to keep asking her mother for help with cooking, although she’d offered and said it was no trouble.
Her son deserved better.
Her son wanted better.
He wanted his father instead.
She wouldn’t ask him why. She could guess why and she was too afraid to hear the answer. She was a coward and knew it.
She cleared her throat and pushed some of her papers aside. She would give him her full attention. That’s what he needed. That’s what he deserved. They would talk this over and she’d promise him she’d do better. “Well, first we’d have to ask your father and—”
“I asked him,” her son cut in, “and he said it was okay as long as you said it was.”
Betrayal punched her like a fist.
He knew? Her ex-husband knew? He knew first?
That jerk! Why couldn’t he have warned her that this bomb would explode in her life? That her son would choose him and his swimming pool, and gorgeous new wife over her tiny mother-in-law house and lackluster life.
Guilt that had only been a mere whisper in her life since the divorc
e now came out blazing, showing her all her flaws. All that she’d ruined. Her son shouldn’t be eating Pop Tarts in a dirty kitchen wearing a wrinkled long-sleeved grey shirt she’d just pulled out of the dryer. She hadn’t given him the life he deserved. The life she’d dreamed of for both of them. What had she done wrong? Where had she messed up?
She’d once had it all. The good job, the lovely house, and successful husband but then...but then the successful husband got restless and the fights started to happen. First small ones (how to stack the dishwasher, whether peanut butter should be refrigerated or not) then big ones (Jason’s bedtime, how much Harrison spent on his third new laptop). Then ones too big to ignore (Harrison’s restlessness, her unhappiness). Then there was the divorce when Jason was five. Five and full of questions as to why Mommy and Daddy weren’t together anymore.
There would be no thirty-five year wedding anniversary like her parents. No steady household full of laughter and love like the one she’d grown up in. She hadn’t managed to give Jason that and this was the price. She’d lost him. She’d had two years to get her life together after the divorce and she’d failed.
“School’s almost finished,” her son continued as if reciting a practiced speech; she could almost hear her ex-husband’s coaching, “so I can move in after that and then you don’t have to worry about what you’ll do with me over the summer. I know that you’re worried about summer camp and—”
“It’s only March so there are plenty of months left.”
“But I’m doing well in school.”
“And I can manage summer camp.” It had been a stretch but she’d managed to reserve a spot in a prestigious program with a limited enrollment. She’d been proud of that. Fortunately, because they lived in a town with an award-winning public school system and Harrison felt comfortable with his son growing up in the same system he had (there had been only a brief discussion about private school), Corinne didn’t have to worry about school fees, but she always had to be financially creative during the summer. Her parents had volunteered to help out, but after agreeing to accept their help for two summers in a row, she was determined not to use them again as default babysitters when they had busy schedules of their own.
“Dad said he’d take care of it.”
Corinne gripped her hand in her lap. Of course he could. Money was never a problem for him. How typical to throw that in her face.
“And they’re traveling to Italy in July. You always said you wanted me to travel.”
They’d been planning it even longer than she’d thought. Her ex and Jason had thought everything through, but that came as no surprise. His father was a lawyer and savvy with arguments. He always knew how to lead a conversation, how to counterattack, she felt double teamed. She couldn’t fight the logic and that was what both of them counted on.
Jason hesitated. “Are you mad?”
“No,” she said in a quiet voice, although part of her was. She was mad at her ex for training their son so well, but she wasn’t mad at Jason. Not at her little boy with his serious brown eyes. She couldn't be mad at him for this. She was mad at herself. Always at herself. She was to blame.
Jason licked his lower lip and looked at her expectant. “So...can I?”
“I have to think about a few things first.”
Jason nodded, disappointed, and her heart ached. What was there to think about? He wanted this. He’d be better off with his father. Harrison didn’t love her anymore, if ever, but he certainly loved his son.
The doorbell rang.
Usually the soft chime reminded her of the twinkling sound of happy wrens but this morning the sound felt as calming as the squawk of vultures feasting on a carcass. Her ex was at the door ready to pick Jason up for the week.
Jason jumped up.
She pointed to the Pop Tart. “Finish your breakfast. Slowly,” she added when he started to chomp down the rest of his food like a wild boar.
She walked to the front door and opened it. Her temper peaked at the sight of the handsome man on her doorstep: Harrison Garrett, a man who could quickly offer charming grins and empty promises. He was a shade lighter than her own cocoa brown skin with an adorable dimple in his left cheek that still made her heart skip a beat. He took off his sunglasses, hooking them on the front of his shirt, although he didn’t need them since the sun barely sneaked through the thick, sooty clouds overhead. She hoped for a downpour.
“Is he ready?”
Corinne folded her arms across her worn green sweatshirt and rested a faded jean-clad hip on the door frame. “You could have warned me.”
He lifted a brow.
Corinne took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She wouldn’t shout at him. That lifted brow of feigned innocence usually started a fight between them. She opened her eyes and said in a calm voice, “You’re not stupid, so don’t act like it.”
He sighed. “I didn’t know how you’d take it. What did you say?”
“She said she’d think about it,” Jason said, putting on his shoes in the foyer.
Harrison gave her a long look. A look that said What’s there to think about?
She shrugged, a wordless way of saying A lot.
Harrison stepped inside and grabbed Jason’s backpack. Jason raced towards them pulling his suitcase. He gave her a quick hug, said, “I love you, Mom,” before he dashed out the door as if he were afraid she’d hug him back and keep him there.
She felt him running away from her, keeping his distance. He was a good kid. Not one to lie. Sincere. He said he loved her.
She wanted to believe him.
But his father had said he’d loved her once—many years ago.
Corinne watched Harrison put Jason’s things in the trunk of his shiny gold colored Lexus. She knew the sports car was new; he’d never shown up in it before. She was surprised he hadn’t bought something more family friendly since he now had a seven month old, but that was none of her business. She and Harrison were strangers now. She’d once shared so much of herself—vulnerable parts—with this man. This man who now kept secrets from her. Who had fallen in love with another woman and gone on with his life while she felt stuck.
Nothing had changed for him. His looks, his confidence. But the divorce had left her feeling lost and empty. Her status gone. Her income slashed. The woman she’d once been had disappeared. Years ago she’d believed she was lovable and that no one who loved her would ever leave her. She knew that wasn’t true.
That love could stop.
Would she lose her son’s love as she had his father’s? Would this loss happen slowly and then she’d be gone forever? Would she just become a shadowy figure in his life? A name but not a person? Just like she was a footnote in the life of Harrison Garrett? An ex-wife. The mother of his son. Nothing more.
In time she’d only be Jason’s mom. Someone he loved at a distance but didn’t care to live with.
Through a stream of tears, that slowly made its way down her cheeks, Corinne watched the Lexus speed away down the drive.
Chapter Two
Jason's request repeated in her mind that afternoon as she stood on the metro’s underground platform, ready to take a train downtown into the heart of DC. She was glad she’d made plans to have lunch with a friend so she had an excuse to get out of the house. She desperately needed to get out today. Even though it had been a chore to change out of her sweatshirt and jeans into a lime green blouse and dark wool trousers, which made her look somewhat more presentable.
Getting out was necessary. Not only because staying home reminded her of her son’s words but because only a few feet away from her sad little life stood happily-ever-after: A lovely colonial house tucked away in a classy Maryland suburb (a suburb where you could toss a coin and hit a bank) bracketed by well tended bushes and a lush emerald green lawn. A place where a loving couple had raised their three children in comfort and love. A place of whispered I love yous and tender notes with drawn red hearts. Of nights by the fireplace and hugs in the kitchen.
Her parent’s marriage hadn’t been perfect. There had been sharp words, tense silences, twice a slammed door, but it didn’t need to be perfect because there was always forgiveness and reconciliation.
Their colonial was a place where they hosted family and friends. After the divorce, Corinne had moved into the mother-in-law house, which was down a small path not far from the main house, where her Jamaican-born grandmother had died. It was a small wooden cottage painted various shades of aqua blue and had two bedrooms, one and a half baths, a sunny living room space and kitchen with a breakfast nook. Her dad, who had been an architect, had designed the small house and had it built on their large plot of land. His mother had enjoyed living there for several years.
They’d found her sitting on the couch, among the rustic wood finishes and pastel shades of the living room, with her head drooped forward and a smile on her face, a finished mystery novel on her lap. She’d had two happily-ever-afters. Two men who had loved and adored her before each of them had passed away. Corinne couldn’t even manage to keep one.
Although her grandmother had died there, Corinne didn’t mind moving in because there had never been any sadness. Thoughts of her grandmother only brought joy. Her grandmother had lived with such vitality. They’d thought she’d live forever. She laughed easily, made friends quickly and loved hard.
