Love Me

by Cheryl Holt

“Then get in the car, Monroe. I won’t argue about it.”

  He’d love to get in, to let her take charge for a bit and shower him with sympathy, but he couldn’t do it. From how she was grinning, as if it was a big joke, she probably had a bottle of champagne chilling in a bucket.

  On the ride home, they’d pop the cork and drink themselves silly, but the road led to only one location: Ken’s rundown house on their rundown street.

  Once they arrived, then what?

  For the moment, she was fascinated by the notion of Ken and what he represented. A caring father. A family where the members would be glad to have her. A spot where she could finally be welcome.

  But how long would she remain fascinated? How long would she stay?

  It had to be intriguing for her to see how the other half lived, to be part of it for awhile and pretend she was someone other than who she was. She was like an actress, playing a role in a movie.

  Jeremy would grow attached to her. So would Ken. Where would they be when she left? And Matt had no doubt she would. Sooner rather than later.

  With Emily’s death, Ken and Jeremy had already suffered too many losses, and Matt was determined that they not be crushed again. But they weren’t the only ones for whom he was concerned.

  He was sickened to admit that he was most afraid for himself. He was afraid of her coming to their home, because he couldn’t imagine how he’d survive her leaving.

  Initially, he’d told himself that he’d seduced her to lure her to Ken, but he was only fooling himself. He’d proceeded because he was desperate to keep her for his own.

  His powerful yearning was fueling his own insane fantasies: that she might fall in love with him, that he might love her in return, that they could live happily ever after. Yet he knew that love and romance were a fallacy. There was no such thing.

  He’d always been on the outside looking in, and bitter experience had taught him that there was no reason to bond with others. People let you down. People left. People changed.

  It was easier to be alone.

  His sole abiding connection to another human being was with Ken, and it had only occurred because Ken had pushed and pushed and pushed. Michael was dead, but Ken was still there, Jeremy dangled between them to make Matt see how it could be.

  Like a toddler taking his first steps, he was learning his way.

  He wasn’t so deluded that he thought he could convince Brittney to stay with them. What did he have to offer a woman like her? Absolutely nothing.

  His enormous pride wouldn’t allow him to be her charity case. He was a broken shell of a man who could barely work or support his small family. The chip on his shoulder was the size of Jupiter, and she likely assumed she could bat it away by tossing money at him.

  She’d buy him clothes and cars and all the things that—to her—symbolized a great and comfortable life. She’d spend her fortune spoiling him, as if he was the flavor of the month.

  Until she got tired of it. Until she moved on to other, more amusing endeavors.

  He didn’t want her money. He didn’t want her help. He didn’t want to be beholden, where every little penny came from her. A man couldn’t win in such an unequal equation.

  He had to protect himself from her best intentions. He had to protect Ken and Jeremy.

  As a kid growing up in the worst of circumstances, he’d often been extremely cruel, but he’d believed himself to have matured, to have set aside his more malicious tendencies. But evidently, some behaviors couldn’t be tamped down. They fit like a glove.

  “Brittney…” He sighed and stared up at the sky, as if trying to find the right words. “I need to tell you something.”

  “What is it?”

  “You have to listen to me.”

  “I’m listening, I’m listening.”

  “This nonsense has gone on long enough.”

  “What nonsense?”

  He gazed into her beautiful eyes, studying her, committing her face to memory so he’d never forget.

  “Ken was lying to you.”

  “About what?”

  “About…well, everything.”

  “That’s not true.” She looked terribly hurt. “Why would you say that?”

  “It is true. I’m sorry.”

  She meticulously scrutinized him, then charged, “You’re such a liar.”

  “No, I’m not. We had this idea. We were broke, and we decided to run a scam on you.”

  “A scam?” she scoffed.

  “He actually had worked for your dad years ago, and when your engagement announcement was in the paper, he’d been drinking and he got to talking…”

  “Really?”

  “He remembered enough about your parents that he thought he could suck up to you, that he could tell you what you needed to hear.”

  “Why would I want to hear that he’d had an affair with my mother? Why would I want to hear that David Merriweather wasn’t my father?” She gestured to the car again. “Stop being stupid. Get in, and let’s go home.”

  He kept on as if she hadn’t spoken. “His original plan was to blackmail you, but I persuaded him that he could wind up in legal trouble. So he agreed to hit you up for cash instead. He figured if he played on your sympathies, you could be coerced into forking over quite a lot.”

  “Why are you acting like this?”

  “Be honest, Brittney. Haven’t you considered helping him? You saw how we live. What will you buy him? Some new furniture? Maybe have the house painted? Put on a new roof? Food. What else?”

  He knew her so well. She scowled with dismay, an indication that he’d mentioned many items she’d already imagined purchasing.

  “I have no idea why you’re behaving this way,” she scolded, but she wasn’t nearly as confident as she had been.

  “After today, with the cops and all, I have to call a halt. You don’t know Ken. You don’t know what he’s like. The guy you met doesn’t exist.”

  “Doesn’t exist?” she sneered. “Okay, Matt, I give up. What’s he like?”

  “He was on the take. He didn’t retire; he was fired.”

  “He was not!” she loyally insisted.

  “He’s a con artist, so he certainly has the skills to swindle a lonely, forlorn princess who’s too gullible for her own good.”

  His use of the word princess rattled her, and her demeanor altered. She was questioning herself, her assumptions, which was where he’d deliberately led her.

  “I can’t let this continue,” he said. “If your brothers find out, there’ll be hell to pay, but Jeremy and I will be the ones who have to pay it. I won’t go there with you. I want this to be over.”

  She appeared smaller, as if he was striking her with his comments, as if he was killing her a bit with every blow.

  “I’m getting a DNA test,” she declared, “to learn for sure.”

  “It would be a waste of time and money.”

  “What about that picture of Emily? I look just like her.”

  “That wasn’t Emily. We tricked you.”

  “Jeremy said it was her.”

  “Jeremy would do anything for Ken.”

  The remark was so callous and cold that he worried she might collapse.

  As he’d feared, she had this whole dream built up in her mind where she would be Ken’s savior, where she would rescue them. But they didn’t need saving, and Matt refused to let himself love her.

  “I believed you guys,” she murmured. “I believed it all.”

  “I know, and I apologize for that.” He nodded to her car. “Now why don’t you hop into your limo”—he jeered so she’d see how pretentious he found her to be—“and drive back to your mansion where you belong?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have to head home and clean up Ken’s mess.”

  “But…but…”

  “There’s a bus stop on the corner, and I have cash in my wallet. I can find my own ride.”

  He spun and strolled away, and though his ent
ire being was screaming for him to turn around, to confess his lies and beg her forgiveness, he never looked back.

  * * * *

  “Andrew!”

  Brittney’s cab had just pulled up in front of the building where his Manhattan office was located. As she was stepping out, he’d exited onto the sidewalk and hurried off in the other direction. He was bundled up, as if in disguise, wearing a coat, sunglasses, and fedora. With the brim tugged down to conceal his face, she almost didn’t recognize him.

  “Andrew!” she called again, but he didn’t hear her.

  She wasn’t in the mood to chase him down the busy street, but she was eager to end the mistake she’d made. The distasteful matter couldn’t be accomplished swiftly enough to suit her.

  He wasn’t aware that she’d traveled to New York. Over the past few days, he’d phoned several times, but whenever she saw his number pop up on the screen, she’d ignored it.

  Everyone kept phoning—everyone except Matt, but he was the last person on earth to whom she’d speak. They all felt urgently compelled to talk to her, when she had no desire to talk to any of them.

  Ken. Dustin. Lucas. Amy. Her mother. Even Lucas’s wife, Faith, whom she’d as yet had no chance to befriend. She hadn’t returned any calls. Their sudden interest in her welfare was so aggravating that she was about to throw the stupid phone into the garbage.

  She couldn’t decide what she believed anymore. Throughout her life, she’d been so pathetically lonely that she’d regularly surrounded herself with people who had bad motives, people who only pursued an acquaintance because of her name, because of her money.

  Hadn’t her father had to bail her out twice? Those were the guys she knew about. How many others had there been? How many unpleasant situations had he handled without her being apprised?

  She thought she’d matured, that she’d become wiser and more astute in her choices, but apparently not.

  Ken claimed he was her father. Jacquelyn and Matt insisted he wasn’t. In fact, after her quarrel with Matt at the jail, she’d trudged to the mansion and had been handed an envelope delivered by an attorney at Merriweather Industries. It was a parting gift from Jacquelyn, one final stab at Brittney before Jacquelyn had flown to Santa Fe.

  The package had contained old legal paperwork, filed in court on behalf of her mother. She’d once sought a restraining order to keep Ken away from her. He’d been accused of stalking Jacquelyn.

  Brittney had no idea which version was accurate or real. She probably should have stayed in Colorado, should have proceeded with a DNA test. Yet if it came back negative, if Ken wasn’t her father, what was she to think?

  She couldn’t bear to be slapped in the face with such blatant evidence of her naïveté, of her idiocy. It had seemed easier to chuck it all and run away.

  Ken had tempted her, offering her precisely what she’d always dreamed of having. She’d been desperate to love Matt, to love Ken and Jeremy, to build a life with them. Her yearning had been so potent that she was practically ill with regret.

  She felt disconnected and adrift, and she had to regroup, had to push herself in a better direction, but toward whom? For what reason?

  In her current state, the answers were beyond her.

  The first item on her agenda was to break off her engagement, so she started after Andrew. She didn’t want to wait for him to return.

  On the flight out, she’d envisioned a quiet meeting in his plush office, a swift and blunt recitation of her position, then an even faster departure out to the elevator. But a rapid encounter on the street might be more advantageous.

  They could pop into a bar or deli, could grab a drink or a coffee and hash it out. When she was finished, she could get up and leave. She wouldn’t have to flee down the halls of his company, wouldn’t have to have his secretaries staring, wondering who she was and why she’d barged in.

  She could just…go.

  To where? was the impossible question.

  She wound through the crowds, trying to keep him in view, trying to catch up. Jostled along, she seemed to be invisible, lighter than air, as if she was a balloon in the sky and blowing wherever the wind carried her.

  She rounded the corner, and he was up ahead, having shed his disguise. He was next to a limo, the driver standing with the door opened for him. She was about to call to him again, when a woman climbed out of the back seat. She was tall and beautiful, foreign and exotic, with flawless olive skin and lush dark hair.

  “Where have you been?” she asked him as she held out her arms in welcome. “I didn’t think you’d ever arrive.”

  He stepped into her embrace and captured her lips in a torrid kiss. Hands, tongues, bodies were fully utilized, but New Yorkers had seen it all, so no one paid any attention to them. Except Brittney. She was the only one with an iron in this fire, and it was a sign of her deteriorated condition that her sole emotion was a mild curiosity over why she—Brittney—had never guessed that Andrew had another woman in his life.

  Would she ever learn?

  She was such an awful judge of character, and she should have been hurt and outraged, should have felt betrayed and deceived, but recently, she’d suffered so many ups and downs that she was frozen inside. The energy necessary for fury or sorrow had vanished.

  “I’m so glad you waited,” Andrew said as he pulled away. “If we’d missed our chance at goodbye, I’d have been devastated.”

  “It’s not goodbye!” the woman dramatically gushed. “It will never be goodbye.”

  “My dearest…my darling…”

  He kissed her again, even more passionately, and at hearing the word darling come out of his mouth, Brittney wrinkled her nose with disgust. He’d often used the endearment when speaking to her, and she’d always hated it.

  It made him sound too old for her, too set in his ways and from an era that she was too young to appreciate.

  As the second embrace concluded, she approached and said, “Hi, Andrew.”

  He glanced over, and when he saw her, he jumped away from the woman as if she was on fire.

  “Brittney!” He appeared anxious and trapped. “What are you doing here? I didn’t realize you were in New York. I was just on my way to the airport to fly to Colorado. I’ve been worried sick about you.”

  “I can tell.” Brittney peered at the woman and asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Gianella.” Her voice was sultry and accented.

  “This isn’t what it looks like,” Andrew insisted.

  “Really?” Brittney replied. “It looks like you’re kissing Gianella and that you’re thoroughly enjoying it.”

  “She’s…an acquaintance.” At the tepid description, Gianella frowned, and he flashed a warning glare. “Gianella, this is Brittney Merriweather, my fiancée.”

  “Hello, Brittney,” Gianella breathily said. “Andrew has told me so much about you.”

  “I’ll bet he has.”

  Andrew wasn’t about to let the conversation continue.

  “Gianella,” he snapped, “why don’t you get in the car?”

  She might have argued, but he shoved her into the seat and slammed the door. Then he turned to Brittney, all smiles, any trace of guilt expertly wiped from his cool expression.

  She wanted to fault him, wanted to accuse him and call him a liar and a cheat, but in her dealings with Matt Monroe, she’d proved herself to be just as unfaithful. No one could throw a stone in this glass house.

  “She seems nice,” Brittney facetiously said.

  “Could we…ah…” he stammered, “could we go somewhere and talk?”

  “We don’t need a special place to talk. I can say what I came to say here on the sidewalk.”

  “I can see you’re upset, and I don’t blame you.”

  “I’m not upset.”

  She was too dispirited to be upset. Too much had transpired. Too many dreams had been dashed, and she was so far past Andrew and his mistress that he could have been a stranger. Whatever he’d done, or mi
ght do, it didn’t matter in the slightest.

  “I’ve known Gianella for years.” Apparently, he felt compelled to explain. “But with the wedding so close, I’ve ended it with her, and we’ve been in the process of—“

  “I’m breaking our engagement.”

  “What? No, no, no, no, no…” He waved his hands, palms out, as if he could swish away her comment. “She doesn’t mean anything to me. Let’s not make any hasty decisions.”

  “It’s not hasty. I’ve been thinking about it for awhile.”

  “I realize I’ve been busy and distracted, but I’ve had a lot on my mind. I’ll make it up to you; I swear.”

  “There’s nothing to fix between us.”

  “I was about to suggest we fly to Vegas, that we elope.” He linked their fingers and squeezed tight. “Wouldn’t that be fun? Vegas? A funky wedding chapel and an Elvis-impersonator for a minister? You won’t have to fuss with your mother anymore. Let’s do it, huh? In a couple of hours, we can be married!”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  She drew her hands from his and eased away.

  “I love you!” he proclaimed, but the declaration rang hollow.

  “Yes, but the problem is that I don’t love you.”

  “What are you saying?” he barked, his temper flaring. “Of course you love me.”

  “I don’t, and I’ve had plenty of time to consider. I’ve tried to remember why I accepted your proposal, but I couldn’t come up with a single reason.”

  “We can work this out.” A sly, cajoling quality crept into his voice. “We can figure out what’s wrong and move beyond it.” He offered a wan smile. “I just really, really need to marry you.”

  “It’s not happening.”

  “Listen to me, Brittney!”

  His sharp tone alarmed her. She lurched away, putting space between them.

  “Have a nice life,” she told him.

  “You can’t back out! It’s all arranged.”

  “Well, I’ve un-arranged it.”

  Gianella rolled down the window and said, “Andrew, we should be going or you’ll miss your flight.”

  “Not now, Gianella!” he seethed.

  Just then, several men in dark blue suits slid from the hoard of passersby. They surrounded him. One of them blocked the door to the car, while another flashed a badge in his face.