by Davis, L. D.
“You love her?” she asked weakly and looked at me with an expression that hoped I would say no.
I had to make sure she understood that no matter what happened with that baby growing inside of her that there would never be anything between us again. She just completely obliterated any chance of us ever being friends again. Up until I saw her pregnant belly, I still cared about her. But now I didn’t care at all. I lost any and all positive feelings for Claire. She had no qualms doing to me what Emmy did to me, knowing how hurt I had been then. She was willing to hurt me all over again for her own gain. Unforgivable.
“I never stopped loving her,” I said in a loud, clear voice as I glared at her. “I will always love Emmy.”
She looked down for a moment and silently wiped away more tears. After a moment she took a very deep, shaky breath, reached into her purse and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She looked at me with belligerence as she passed me the paper.
“I need your DNA,” she said.
“You seriously just served me for paternity testing?” I growled. “I guess this means that you fucked around with other people while we were together.”
“Oh give me a break,” she snapped, rolling her eyes. “We weren’t ‘together.’ You made it very clear that we weren’t. Don’t look at me like that and speak to me like that. You and I were not in a committed relationship, so I saw other people.”
“I don’t really give a shit that you saw other people,” I grinded out as I leaned towards her. “I really don’t. What I care about is that you were obviously fucking other people without protection, putting me at risk, and anyone else I have been with.”
Her eyes widened. “You dumped me because you didn’t have time but slept with other people?” she asked incredulously.
“That isn’t any of your business.”
She took another deep breath. “Look. I saw other people but I only slept with one of those people, and he’s clean – I’m clean. Therefore, you are clean.”
“I’ll wait to find that out for myself from my own physician,” I said stiffly. I tossed the legal demand for paternity testing on the desk. “I’ll be there as requested.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Now get out of my office,” I said with a quiet, simmering anger.
She looked at me uneasily before getting to her feet. She opened her mouth to speak, but the expression on my face shut her down. Without another word she walked out of my office.
It wasn’t until I found out that Claire was pregnant that I realized my true, deep feelings for Emmy. I didn’t really know what I wanted from her until then. If the baby was mine, how would Emmy react? Would she take Lucas and move out? Would it send her back into her shell? Or worse yet, would she take it as a reason to move on herself and start seeing someone else? I didn’t want any of that, but I especially didn’t want to see her with another guy. I didn’t want to see her with anyone but me, but I couldn’t even begin to push forward until I knew whose baby Claire was carrying.
I finally finished changing my clothes and joined Em and Lucas at the dining room table. She was buzzing about, preparing my plate to serve me my dinner as she always did. She rambled on about her day with Lucas and their outing with Lorraine and her kids. This was becoming more commonplace and I didn’t want to lose it. Claire could make me lose this. So I hung on to every word she said. Watched her mouth as she spoke and smiled and watched her interact with Lucas. This was only a small fraction of what I could have with her later. Until I got the paternity results back, I was going to hold on to every damn second I could get.
Chapter Thirteen
Emmy was having another nightmare.
I was sitting up in the living room, staring at some infomercial on the muted television. I couldn’t sleep because I was so damn worried about the paternity testing. I would take care of any child that is my own, but I didn’t want to resent my own child if I lost Emmy because of it. I was contemplating how I could still be a father to Claire’s kid and keep Emmy and Lucas with me when I heard outright sobbing from the bedroom. I jumped up and rushed into the bedroom.
“Em?” I said softly as I approached the bed.
When she didn’t respond but continued sobbing, I knew she was still asleep. I sat down on the edge of the bed and gently shook her. She lashed out suddenly, landing a punch right on my jaw. It stung, but that’s not why I stopped touching her. Clearly, she thought it was part of her attack. Hesitantly, I reached out and smoothed her hair out of her face. She flinched but she didn’t freak out again. I laid down beside her and continued to run my hand over her hair.
“Em, I’ll never let him hurt you again,” I whispered though I knew she probably couldn’t hear me, or if she did, she probably wouldn’t remember.
“You’re going to be okay,” I said. “I will always take care of you and Lucas. I won’t let anyone hurt you again. You’re safe with me, Em. Always.”
The sobbing had faded, though she still shuddered every few seconds, and a few tears still managed to push through the corners of her eyes. I continued to smooth her hair and murmur my vows until her breathing evened out and the nightmare passed. I stayed there with her for a long time. I knew I couldn’t be there when she woke up; so after a long time, I lightly pressed a lingering kiss on her forehead before forcing myself back into the living room.
*~~~*
“Sterling Corporation, Mayson Grayne speaking,” Mayson answered in a bored tone.
“You should leave that evil place and come work for a real man,” I said huskily into the phone.
“If you keep talking to me like that, I may comply,” Mayson laughed. “What’s up?”
“I just wanted to say hello and see how you were doing,” I said innocently.
“Uh huh. Really, what’s up?”
“Can’t a guy call and check up on his friend?”
“Of course he can,” she said. “But that’s not why you’re calling me, friend.”
“Okay, okay,” I conceded. “I actually have something serious to discuss with you.”
“Spit it out, Kessler,” she said with a soft sigh.
“Okay,” I said with my own sigh. “I’m just going to get to the point. Did Kyle hit Emmy?”
I heard a sharp intake of breath on the line. “You think so, too?”
“So, you think he did?” I pressed.
“Well…” she hesitated. “After you moved away, Kyle took her to Miami for a long weekend. She came back with a cast on her arm. Apparently she broke her wrist.”
“What? Really?”
“Yes. She said she was very drunk and she fell down.”
“But you didn’t believe her?” I asked, trying to ignore the pressure building in my ribcage.
“Absolutely not,” she stated clearly. “How much has Emmy told you about my past?”
“Not a whole lot. She doesn’t really bring up other people’s demons. I know you had some rough years when you were younger.”
“Rough is an understatement. In a nutshell, I was on drugs, I was bulimic, and I had an affinity for abusive loser boyfriends – one big bad one in particular. The whole I-fell-down-because-I-was-drunk bit had been used by me many times in the past. She should have known better than to use that excuse on me.”
“So, you’re convinced Kyle did it,” I concluded.
“I am, especially since from that point on she just seemed to get more and more depressed. Still, I may have allowed myself to be fooled, but the very day that cast came off, Kyle gave her a bracelet. She claimed it was just a gift for her recovery, but I’d bet my ass it was an ‘I’m-sorry-I’m-an-asshole-and-broke-your-arm’ gift. And I would catch her staring at the bracelet, not with admiration, but with…I don’t know…bitterness…sadness.”
I was suddenly nauseous. “The bracelet…is it…does it have leaves on it and diamonds?”
I heard a gasp. “She wears it? Oh my god! That’s so…so…I don’t know…fucked up!”
Fucked u
p indeed. I had not seen her wear it in a while, but now I was wondering if all of the times she did if it just made her somehow feel closer to Kyle. Why would she want to feel closer to Kyle if his violent act is what got her the bracelet in the first place?
I ran a hand through my hair as I considered this. “Do you think he hurt her more than that?”
“She had an occasional small bruise here and there,” Mayson sighed. “Not enough for me to believe he was pushing her around, but it’s possible. Emmy is the last person I would think would let some dick repeatedly hit her, but I think that’s why she took off New Year’s Day.”
“Is that when she left Jersey?”
“Yep. Packed up and left all of a sudden. I didn’t know she was gone until Sam called me to tell me Emmy had been in an accident. She said Em was banged up really good. It all seemed very mysterious to me, but I had no proof either way. Kyle had also disappeared off of the face of the earth. I later found out he was in rehab, had been there since New Year’s Day. That was one big coincidence.
“It was like someone hit a light switch, Luke. New Year’s Eve she was, well, depressed, but still kicking, and then suddenly she was a completely different person. She crawled under a rock and died. Honestly, if she wasn’t pregnant with Lucas, I’m not sure if she would have lived through whatever she was going through.”
I called Sam next. She had the other half of the story. She would be able to give me more details about Emmy’s condition when she arrived in Louisiana. I didn’t bother with the polite greetings. I loved Sam, but sometimes I still harbored some bad feelings towards her for holding out about Lucas, and I didn’t always like the way she made Emmy feel about herself.
“Sam what happened when Emmy showed up on New Year’s last year?” I asked as soon as she answered the phone.
“Why do you want to know about that?” she asked.
I gritted my teeth and pounded a fist on my desk. “Sam, you infiltrated into my family at a time when I wanted no reminders of Emmy. You withheld your knowledge about my son while you were sharing family dinners with my family and sitting with my sister through chemo. I want to know about Emmy on that day and you are going to tell me.”
“Get your panties out of a twist, Luke,” she huffed. “I’m just curious. Emmy called sometime after midnight and said she was taking an early flight down. She got here a day late, though. She was in a car accident before she got here. She looked terrible. That’s no big secret. Why don’t you ask her about it yourself?”
“Sam, she’s having nightmares,” I said roughly. “No less than twice a week she has nightmares.”
“About the car accident?” she asked incredulously.
“I don’t think there was a car accident,” I said carefully. If she really did not suspect that Emmy had been abused, I didn’t really want to be the one to break it to her.
“Why would she lie about a car accident, Luke? She sure as hell looked like she was in a car accident. She was all bruised and banged up.”
“Whose car was she in? If there was an accident that banged and bruised her up, there had to be a pretty decent wreck.”
“She wasn’t very specific. I was just glad she and Lucas were okay.”
“You are the nosiest person I know,” I said impatiently. “You sure were lacking in questions that day.”
“Don’t you judge me, Luke Kessler,” she snapped, her southern drawl more pronounced. “Emmy was already depressed. I didn’t want to push her. You didn’t see how she was back then. I’m still shocked and amazed she didn’t take her own life.”
I inhaled sharply at the idea.
“So, you never second guessed her story on the car accident,” I said.
“What the hell for?”
“Did you question her about her broken wrist?” I fired at her.
“What broken wrist? What the hell are you talking about? Emmy never broke her wrist.”
Samantha was so clueless, and I should have known as much. If Mayson or Sam had any hard facts, Kyle probably wouldn’t still be breathing. I knew in my gut that he had hurt Emmy and Emmy had protected him by lying to her family and friends.
Even though I would never physically harm Emmy or any woman, I felt responsible for the trauma she endured. I practically pushed her into the situation and wished terrible things on her. I was just as much responsible as Kyle was. If I found that Lucas had been harmed, too, I would never ever even attempt to find forgiveness for that.
“Emmy broke her wrist,” I sighed. “Late September, early October.”
“She never said nothing,” Sam said in a high voice. “Why wouldn’t she have told me that?”
“I don’t know,” I said, running a hand over my face. “How was Emmy’s behavior after the accident?”
She seemed reluctant to let go of the broken wrist part of the conversation, but she sighed heavily and moved on.
“Like I said, she was depressed. She stayed in her room. She stayed in bed. She didn’t talk to nobody or do anything but lay there and sleep or stare at the damn walls. It was like she up and died – at least until she took off like a bat out of hell for France.”
I trembled with anger. Why hadn’t anyone helped her? Why did they let her suffer alone? Why didn’t anyone ask questions? I wasn’t there and it seemed clear as day that she was abused, yet everyone overlooked it?
“No one helped her,” I said in a tight voice. “Why didn’t anyone help her?”
“We couldn’t help her if she didn’t want to be helped,” Samantha argued.
“Bullshit!” I yelled. “You are the most overbearing woman I know, Sam. While it was still fresh, you should have made her tell you and you should have helped her. Now she’s had all of this time to build up defense after defense. She’ll never admit it now because she’s spent so much time in denial.”
“Admit what!” Sam yelled. “What the fuck are you eluding to, Luke Kessler? And how the hell did my daughter break her wrist? You seem to know so much. Why don’t you answer some damn questions now.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and took a few deep breaths. It wasn’t my place to tell her. Emmy needed to tell her. Hell. Emmy needed to tell me.
“I thought mothers had spidey senses,” I said sourly.
“Emmy never broke her wrist,” Sam said indignantly. “She would have told me. I don’t know where you’re hearing these things.”
“Your spidey senses suck, Sam,” I said bitterly. “Emmy broke her wrist right after I left Philly. She broke it while she was in Miami with Kyle. She told Mayson she fell down after drinking too much. Mayson suspects that is why Kyle gave her that bracelet she wears.”
There was a moment of silence. When Sam spoke again I could hear a trace of doubt in her voice. “Emmy drinks like a damn fish, Luke. It’s very possible she fell down, and Kyle Sterling gave her that bracelet because she worked her ass off for that dick.”
I ran my hand over my face again. Samantha Grayne was anything but a dense person. The fact that she had repeatedly overlooked signs of Emmy’s abuse but could smell whether or not the woman was on a dry spell was troublesome. She was in Em’s face about everything else but this one thing that ultimately changed Emmy’s life. I was disappointed and hurt for her. How many other traumatic experiences had she had throughout life and didn’t have her mother to depend on?
“You go ahead and continue to keep your head in the sand,” I said dryly. “Don’t tell her we spoke about this.”
“You think I’m a bad mother,” she said softly.
“I think…” I chose my next words carefully. I was angry and hurting for Emmy, but I knew that Sam loved her daughter, and I know what it’s like to close your eyes to what’s in front of you and imagine that things are different than what they really are. I did it when I knew Emmy loved Kyle and I did it again after Em moved in. “Sam, I think that we all made mistakes, but…I’m not going to continue to pretend that Emmy is fine. I’m not going to continue to be blind and deaf to the fact
that she’s in pain. Something happened, Sam. I don’t know what, but it wasn’t any damn car accident.”
“What do you think happened, Luke?” she asked defiantly. “My daughter was in a car accident. She would have told me otherwise. We don’t always see eye to eye -”
“Try never,” I interrupted dryly.
“-but,” she stressed, letting me know she wasn’t going to acknowledge that. “Emmy would have told me if something else happened to her. My mind won’t even go there because it’s just incomprehensible.”
And that pretty much summed it up. Sam had her head in the sand. Fine. I didn’t want her to handle it anyway. I needed to handle it.
But I had no idea how the hell I was going to handle it.
After hanging up with Sam, I checked my schedule for the day. My afternoon was virtually open – open enough for me to skip out of work for the rest of the day after lunch. I picked up the phone and called Emmy.
“Hey, want to do lunch today and then take Lucas to the park?” I asked her after she answered.
After the conversations I just had with Mayson and Samantha, and worrying about the upcoming paternity testing, I needed to see her, to be close to her.
“You’re going to cut out of work early?” she asked. “Play hooky like a bad boy?”
Hell. She almost sounded flirtatious. She almost sounded like old Emmy. It was enough to give me a semi.
“It’s not hooky if I own the business,” I answered.
“Hooky is hooky. Yes, we’ll meet you for lunch and for a play date. Lucas could use a day at the park.”
“We all could use a day at the park,” I muttered.
“You okay?” she asked, though she sounded distracted. I could hear Lucas babbling in the background.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I said quickly. “Text me where you want to meet for lunch. We’ll meet a little early so Lucas won’t get too cranky.”
“Eleven thirty good for you, hooky?” she teased.
“It’s not hooky!”
After rearranging some of my appointments and pushing some off on other associates, I escaped the office a few minutes before eleven-thirty. The moment I spotted Emmy and Lucas in the restaurant I started feeling better. Lucas was happy and smiling and Emmy looked gorgeous in her long, pink strapless summer dress. Anyone looking at us that didn’t know us could have guessed that we were a happy family enjoying an afternoon together. I doubted that anyone looked at Emmy and guessed that she had some deep dark secrets and was emotionally damaged and sexually stalled. I doubted that they looked at me and guessed that I felt such deep shame and regret and was absolutely terrified of losing Emmy and Lucas. I doubted that they looked at Lucas and felt sorry for him because his parents were fucked up.
