by L. B. Dunbar
“Don’t do it,” Guinevere muttered between closed lips in my direction, as she continued to watch the revelation unveiling before us.
If Ireland was pregnant, and she had only been with one man, that meant…
“The baby’s not his,” Ireland said to Mark, as she softly addressed her mother.
“What?” her mother spoke, uncertainty in her voice.
Mark finally released Ireland’s hands as she turned to face her mother. She briefly gazed over her mother’s shoulder at me.
“The baby is not Mark’s.”
I stood slowly using the wooden seat before me as a base for the sudden weakness in my legs. Mine? It had to be mine.
My heart raced with joy. And fear.
“He’ll never marry you,” Mark bit toward Ireland’s ears. The church was so silent that whatever was spoken, no matter how low, was echoed down the aisle.
“He’s here with another woman, as proof that he has no interest in you.”
Ireland turned to stare at Mark. It was obvious she was taking in the hard lines of his face and the cold glare of his steel gray eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, as she brushed past him. Her mother reached for her arm, but Ireland’s will moved her forward. I was certain she felt the pull toward me that I felt toward her. My date still had her hand on my elbow as she sat forward in puzzlement over what was happening before us all. Guinevere had turned completely in her seat and had her hand over mine that gripped the bench between us. It was a calming touch to keep me grounded until Ireland came to me. It held me in place from running to her like I wanted to do. As my eyes held hers, she approached me slowly; looking at me with so many questions in her sapphire blue eyes I didn’t know which to answer first. I wasn’t concerned because she had stood up to Mark and her parents. She was coming to me.
My heart was racing as I realized this was a defining moment for all of us. Then her eyes flicked to the hand on my elbow, which I suddenly felt like a thousand pound weight. Her eyes softened to a pain I had seen cross her lovely eyes, a few times. A pain I hoped to never see again in her face. I got what I desired as Ireland walked right past me without stopping, without speaking, and without turning back for me.
Chapter 36
[Ireland]
Confrontation sets forth the truth.
I didn’t know where to go once I hit the warm air of the June night in New York City. I wandered aimlessly down the busy evening street, dodging pedestrians without paying attention to my direction as I walked. Horns blared, whether at me as I haphazardly crossed the streets, or in their typical driving angst, I could not tell. The sounds surrounding me faded in and out as I stumbled and held my arms tight around my stomach, to protect myself and my baby.
He brought a date, I thought. He had a new flavor. And she looked so similar to me.
The relief I should have felt as the result of no longer being engaged to Mark Cornwall should have weighed nothing, but the loss of that burden was nonexistent compared to the sharp feeling in my heart of pure ache. A physical heart attack might have been less painful, and there was no plant remedy that could soothe this hurt.
I continued to wander well into the late night, unaware of the potential danger that surrounded me. The vibe of my pain kept away any attempts at attack. I was certain a would-be mugger might prefer to hug me as the waves of heartache radiated off my body. I eventually found myself outside my parents’ building. I willed my arm to pull open the glass door. As I was greeted by the night doorman, who apologized for not being at his station, I waved him off without a word and dialed a number in my phone.
I rode the elevator to my parents’ private floor, bracing myself for the next attack in gaining my independence. As the doors opened, I found my parents and Mark within the living room, waiting for me.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Mark snapped at me.
“There’s no need for that tone,” Hurmon rebutted.
“Darling, are you all right?” My mother approached me.
I didn’t feel the warmth of my mother’s embrace as she slipped an arm around me and a hand over my stomach. Isa was guiding me to the couch, but I refused to sit. I stood with my own hands on my lower stomach.
“Sit, darling. You must be exhausted,” Isa continued with concern.
Mark ran a hand over his face, like Tristan.
Tristan?
“Are you okay?” Mark tried to be pleasant, the fight going out of him. Rather, it was consuming him, and it was taking all his strength to contain in front of my parents.
“I’m fine,” I croaked.
“Where have you been?” my father asked.
“Walking.”
“At this time of night? Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been?” Mark stepped toward me and I instinctively stepped back. I sensed my father’s eyes shift between Mark and me.
“We need to talk, alone,” Mark emphasized. “We can work this out.”
I looked at him. Fine lines edged his eyes that blazed like hot steel. His face was pinched and his jaw clenched inside his closed mouth. His hair was messed like he’d run his hands through the dark locks several times, like Tristan.
Tristan.
He reached for me, and I pulled back so violently I almost toppled a vase on the table behind me. I quickly righted the wobbling object as my father glanced at me, then back at Mark.
“I think it’s time you go, Mark,” his voice was firm. I’d only ever heard that authority on one other occasion.
“Hurmon, think carefully before you ask me to leave. I’m still standing here. Still willing to work this out.”
Hurmon Ireland looked at me again, for a long time. I held my sapphire eyes on his liquid blue ones. He’d probably had a drink or two this evening to calm the wrath of my mother and Mark, but I’d never seen the look he gave me now.
“I release you of any obligation you might feel toward us, Mark.”
“Obligation? Obligation! You owe me, I do not owe you,” Mark emphasized the words slowly through his clenched teeth.
Hurmon’s eyes shifted as he watched me. Sadness filled them as his Irish skin turned a soft pink.
“I rescind my offer,” Hurmon said softly.
“Rescind? I’ve…I’ve already taken him under my wing. She’d been promised to me.”
I questioned my father with my own: Who was ‘him’?
Hurmon shook his head once before he broke my stare.
“I will find another way,” my father glared at Mark.
“You will regret that,” Mark breathed. Turning on his heels, he left the room, seething with anger. His flashy dress shoes tapped against the marble flooring in the entry hall. I heard him hit the elevator button with a firm point of his finger. Then he punched the wall as the elevator doors opened. When the doors slid closed, Mark Cornwall disappeared from my mind.
“I’m so sorry,” my father began with a sob in his voice. He walked to a chair in our spacious living room and plopped himself down hard, onto the soft cushions. He looked like an errant child as he placed his hands between his thighs. His suit coat hung open, but askew. His tie had been undone, at some other time, before I returned home.
“This is all my fault,” his voice was so sad, but I could do nothing more than stand still. Continuing to hold my stomach, my palms protecting my unborn child from any further damage from the night, I stared at my father.
“Hurmon,” Isa’s voice spoke softly in warning.
“I didn’t mean for it to get so out of control,” he said to his hands, clasped between his legs. “How did it get so out of control?”
He looked up at me with tears in his blue eyes.
“Marshall was going to take care of everything.”
His voice was full of question as Isa warned her husband slightly stronger.
“I’m sorry,” he looked at Isa. “I’ve told you a thousand times, I’m sorry.”
Isa looked away from her husband and walked to another chair o
pposite the couch. I skimmed back and forth between my mother and father. They were so opposite. Isa was still beautiful. Sleek and shiny in her silk dress, dark soft curls, and dark brown eyes. My father looked old, twice his age suddenly. His Irish freckles prominent on his worried face.
“I had an affair, Isolde,” he whispered.
“Hurmon, she doesn’t need to know this,” Isa said with full warning in her tone.
“I had an affair that resulted in a son.”
I sucked in a breath as one hand released my stomach and covered my mouth. As if this brief admission were not enough, the floodgates of Hurmon and Marshall’s history opened wide.
“Marshall found out about my…relationship, and threatened to tell your mother. He was furious that I could do such a thing to her, and you, when you were newly born. You were only a year old. Marshall was across the country in New York, while we were in California trying to separate ourselves from him. It was all a chance encounter on a visit back to New York.”
He cleared his throat to skip details I did not want to hear.
“He assisted me with ending this indiscretion, which I later learned resulted in a son. I couldn’t recognize the boy without hurting your mother, or his, further. Marshall helped support the matter until your mother found out.”
Hurmon looked nervously at his wife, and again skipped details I assumed were none of my concern.
“I owed Marshall for his assistance. He asked Mark for help in being a silent sponsor to the boy’s education and activities through the years. Suddenly I owed Mark Cornwall, who promised the young boy an internship in his company and the potential for professional mentorship when he graduated from college. Marshall argued that my son could take the place his own nephew denied. Mark agreed as long…as long as…”
Hurmon paused and swallowed hard.
“…he could have my first born, quite literally.”
My father gave up the fight to hold his sadness, as he sobbed again, and covered his face in shame. He’d sold out one child to support another.
I would have liked to comfort my father, but I was too numb. A true ache had developed in my stomach. I watched my mother as my father cried his silent tears. Liquid filled her eyes as well, but she held her tears at bay as she stared off at nothing beyond the window across from her seat. I walked out of the room without a word. After packing a small bag, I entered the elevator and exited the building. I should have been surprised that my parents didn’t try to stop me, but the amount of information disclosed that evening was more than each of them could handle. For my parents, their marriage, their business, and their lives were changed in a moment as I refused my marriage, rejected their business, and took a new direction in my life.
When I reached the home of Guinevere DeGrance, she was waiting on the front stoop, despite the late hour. She stood from the cool cement steps to stand patiently with her arms crossed as I exited the cab. Still holding my lower stomach, I looked up at Guinevere.
“Everything all right?” Guinie asked, as she slowly descended the stairs, releasing her clutched arms. Her chestnut hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and she wore a pair of skinny jeans with a plain t-shirt. She looked like a young college co-ed ready to hang out with friends, instead of taking on another problem in her already shattered life.
“I don’t think so,” I stated calmly, as a shot of pain rippled through my lower abdomen again. I gripped the top of the open car door that stood slightly between Guinie and I, like a shield.
“What is it?” Guinie stepped forward quickly, her hands reaching out for the taxi door.
“I think something’s wrong with the baby,” I choked, as my own sob began the waterfall of tears I’d been holding back from the moment I left the church.
Chapter 37
[Tristan]
The music of love performed the proof.
It had been a week with no response to a single phone call or text. I was almost beside myself. I even went so far as to approach my uncle with my concern, in hopes that Mark might have heard directly from Ireland or knew something through her family. Mark Cornwall was not happy to see me. After the five minutes of explanation he allowed me, he threw me out of his office, claiming he would no longer call me family. I understood, well and good, I was an orphan now. I had no parents, no uncle.
Her parents refused me admittance to their apartment, but her father did offer that he knew Ireland was still in Manhattan. He claimed not to know any other details. It was a gentle concession from a man who seemed broken at the loss of his daughter and a potential business connection. I didn’t have their support, either.
What I did have was the band. They were all the family I would need. The “practice concert,” as we jokingly called our debut, was scheduled for that evening. I was warming up with the guys. The Round Table wasn’t full yet, but by the ten o’clock start time, it would be standing room only. We’d heard the word through the groupie grapevine that people were excited to know the band wasn’t giving up without Arturo. I only hoped, we could pull it off without him.
Since the morning we had all witnessed Arturo standing in the middle of the pit floor of The Round Table, we hadn’t heard another word from him. We silently agreed to not mention Arturo’s visit to Kaye, our manager, who didn’t appear to be aware of Arturo’s presence. Nor did we desire to tell Guinevere. I was torn between wanting her to know the truth and not wanting to hurt her feelings any deeper.
I pulled the guitar strap over my shoulder for a sound check when I caught the sight of blonde hair coming through the entryway.
White-blonde hair.
My breath caught, for a moment, at how hopeful I was that it would be a specific blonde. Then my heart crashed at the disappointment. Izzy White smiled happily in my direction and I tipped my chin awkwardly in return. She was a nice girl, peppy and enthusiastic. She had tried to distract me after Ireland walked out of her own wedding rehearsal, but I had too much on my mind to be interested in Izzy. I told her flat out, that night, that I respected her too much to use her when my heart belonged with another girl. Izzy said she understood; yet she continued to contact me daily to check on me, and ask if I had heard from Ireland.
I repeatedly had the same answer. Ireland seemed to have vanished just like Arturo. Kaye Sirs, who had all kinds of connections, didn’t have any information either. All the same, I had asked Kaye to give me a sign that night if he saw Ireland appear at the concert. She knew tonight was the night, and it was important to me. I shamelessly hoped she would show here. I couldn’t expect her to, but I silently hoped she would.
I’d also approached Guinevere, who never explained why she was at the church other than to say Ireland had invited her. Guinevere had admitted they were family friends from a long time ago, and the two girls had not seen each other in years. She disclosed no other information, but she tried to reassure me that Ireland would come around in her own time. It sounded surprisingly like what I said to Guinevere to soothe her worries over Arturo.
“She’s had a lot to process and deal with, Tristan. She made a bold move standing up to her parents, breaking it off with Mark, and admitting she was pregnant with another man’s baby.”
Guinevere’s eyes softened when she mentioned the baby. At that point, she knew all about the house in the Cayman Islands. She even guessed correctly at how I felt. I loved Ireland, and I was desperate to find her.
I took a long drink of my ice water. I hadn’t drunk myself silly at the loss of Ireland. I actually preferred to keep a clear head, this time around, as I frantically searched for her. Waited for her. So I stood on the stage meeting the dark eyes of another woman, who seemed to plead with me to come to her instead. Izzy.
She approached the stage edge in her tight top that revealed too much and her skinny jeans that hugged her curves. She was a good-looking woman in her own right, just not right for me. I sighed knowing I didn’t have the energy to fight off her advances, at the moment. I bent to address her and her arms sli
pped around my neck, kissing me loudly on the cheek.
“That’s for good luck.” She smiled again. Her whole face lit up as she looked at me.
I did give into the need for a drink after that. I took a long pull, straight from the bottle the guys shared off stage, as the crowd gathered and a current upstart band played to get the people warmed up. The place was packed well before ten, and the energy was electric with the excitement of seeing The Nights live. People came and went with well wishes and words of encouragement. I tried not to pace as the adrenaline grew within me.
I wanted Ireland to be here. I wanted Arturo to be here. I needed them both.
When The Nights minus Arturo were introduced, we took the stage. Although I felt prepared for everything from boos to excitement, I wasn’t prepared for the hysteria. The crowd was wild. Dressed in jeans ripped at the knees and a skin tight green t-shirt, I felt like a rock god as the crowd cheered. Lansing was attempting an introduction, but the crowd continued to roar. Lansing, Perkins, and I exchanged looks. We laughed as the energy seeped into our skin.
Lansing tried again to explain that the band planned to finish our third album. The crowd didn’t seem to care. He gave a signal and we broke into song instead. The crowd began to settle into the rhythm of one of our most famous songs, currently sung by Lansing. Cell phones went up in the air as salute to Arturo’s memory, when Lansing called out his name during the song. We were overwhelmed with the support.
Lansing shifted direction with a rising tone of energy, asking the crowd if they wanted to hear one of our new songs. With a deafening roar, the response was another signal. Perk counted out on his drumsticks, and the beat began. I felt alive. For the first time in a long time, I was reconnected to something real. The adrenaline that had been rising exploded within me as I played and played. It was exhilarating, rejuvenating. My world was coming back together. There was only one small piece to put back in place, and it was leaving a large hole.
