Caught on Camera

by Kim Law

  “None that I know of.” Her jaw twitched again.

  “And the money? Did you have a problem with that, or was it something else you could easily overlook?”

  She suddenly lost her composure. The lines of her face sagged, and he was almost certain he caught a slight sigh. “It’s not that I didn’t have a problem with it, but sometimes…” She closed her eyes. “Sometimes things like that have to be done for the good of everyone.”

  For the good of everyone? Or for her? He was trying to decide if he wanted to ask that question when she opened her eyes and looked at him.

  “I take it Lexi has been to see you? Can I ask why?” Emma said.

  “She wants money.”

  She arched an eyebrow. “The extra million wasn’t enough? You’d think the little tramp could spend it more wisely.”

  “She wasn’t exactly mature enough to be handed that kind of money, and now her son, Daniel, needs special attention.”

  His mother stood and began pacing around the room. He watched her, intrigued by how the lack of control in the situation was getting to her. Rarely did he see his mother struggle in this fashion, but right now, he would venture to guess she had no idea what to do next.

  “I got him in the right school and got tutors lined up for him,” he said.

  She stopped. “You paid her off, then?”

  “No.” He edged back to his desk and picked up his cell, unable to keep worry for Vega far from his mind. He’d hoped she would at least text to let him know she was okay. “I won’t be blackmailed, and especially not for something my father did. But I also won’t sit by and watch a kid go through what I experienced, and not at least try to help him out.”

  “What do you mean? What you experienced?’

  He choked out a laugh. To this day she acted like he hadn’t had anything wrong with him. “Dyslexia, Mom. Tests show he has as severe a case as I did.”

  “Oh, no.” Her arms crossed and she grabbed hold of both of her elbows. She finally looked concerned for something other than how to spin a story. “Poor kid.”

  “Poor kid?” he sneered. Not that he disagreed, but…“Where was this sympathy when I needed it?”

  The question lingered in the air, pinning them both in place; JP wishing he could take it back, his mother looking like she wanted the same. But it was a question that had needed to be voiced for years. Where the hell had she been when he’d needed her?

  No reason to stop the slitting open of old wounds now. He lowered himself into his chair and worked to soften his voice. “It’s a question I want answered. Where were you after I was diagnosed, Mom? When I needed you there for me?”

  “I made sure you got the help you needed.”

  “Really? Gran did all she could, and I’m thankful for her, but honestly, you don’t think there might have been programs or teachers who would have known more what to do? Or that you being around as a mother might have made a kid feel like he hadn’t done something wrong?”

  Her shoulders stiffened and the dark-green sheath she wore shifted to look like it was hanging off her bony shoulders. She was literally aging before his eyes. “Your grandmother knew what to do. She had already been through it once.” Her gaze met his. “With your father.”

  His jaw fell open. “Dad was dyslexic?”

  She nodded. “It’s hereditary.”

  “No shit.” That explained both him and Daniel. But it still didn’t explain her. “So you got Gran to come take care of me, and that gave you license to disappear from my life?”

  “I did not disappear on you, Jackson. I saw you every day I was at home, and I made sure Beverly and your grandmother kept me updated on your progress. I couldn’t help it that your father’s career took off at the same time.” Her eyes pleaded, but he wasn’t sure if it was for forgiveness or merely understanding. “It’s what we’d worked so hard on. I couldn’t quit on him then.”

  The silence between them finished her thought. But quitting on her son had been acceptable. He laughed internally and scrubbed a hand over his jaw. Maybe that soul-touching love she and his father had always claimed had been true after all.

  “I apologize for my obtuseness, Mother, but I still don’t get it. I understand government and politics have always been important to you, and yes, I see that you wouldn’t want to step aside just when Dad finally got a chance in Washington, but how was it that you could so easily push me aside? I simply do not get that.”

  Her pacing commenced again. This time with shorter and harder steps. He watched her cross the room three times before she stopped and thrust an accusing finger at him.

  “I had already let your dad down so much in our marriage. To discover that I had…” She stopped and pulled in a deep breath before continuing. “That I had once again borne a son who might not grow up to be the man your father so wanted—”

  Once again? What had been wrong with his older brother? He would return to that question in a moment. Right now he needed another answered.

  “A son that couldn’t be the man my father wanted, Mother, or one that couldn’t be the man you wanted?”

  Her teeth slammed together. “Both of us, okay? Both. We both wanted to maintain the Davenport name, and we were doing everything we could to make that happen. So when we discovered your…” She flapped her hand around in the air. “Issues.”

  “Dyslexia,” he ground out. “Say it. I am dyslexic.”

  Her eyes shot fire. “Your dyslexia.” Her hands tightened into fists, and she looked away. “When we discovered your dyslexia, we thought the best plan was to get you the same help he’d had, and to focus that much harder on his career.”

  Something wasn’t exactly adding up. She was explaining how they’d made all these decisions, and her anger made it clear she didn’t appreciate having to discuss them, but he also sensed something else in her. He wanted to believe it was shame, or maybe sorrow for pushing her youngest child aside, but he wasn’t that hopeful kid anymore. He rose from his seat. “Mom?”

  Thirty seconds passed before she turned to him. “What?”

  “What did you mean, you once again bore a son who might not grow up to be the man my father wanted? Did Bennett have dyslexia too?” There was a pretty big gap between his brother and himself, but he had a hard time believing Cat wouldn’t have known, or that she wouldn’t have shared the fact with him as they’d gone through his own troubles.

  All the blood once again seeped from his mother’s face, and she sank to the spot on the couch where Lexi had sat when she’d first come to his office. “Your brother wasn’t your father’s biological son.”

  Shock chilled his every nerve. “What?”

  She nodded, then something happened he had never before seen. His mother began to cry. Silent tears rolled down her face. “Your father went away the month before we were to get married.” Her lips pressed closed, then released, and she let out a long, shaky breath. “He’d been out of the army for years, but he’d been asked to help promote some new equipment they were putting into use. His family agreed it would be a good opportunity since he was just starting to dip his toe into politics.

  “While he was gone, this older man I knew apparently saw it as his opportunity to make a move. Our families had been friends for years, had money as we did, traveled in the same circles. So my mother thought it sweet he would offer to keep me company while waiting on your father’s return. But what she didn’t know was that he had been after me for some time.” She flicked her gaze up to him then just as quickly back down. “Or that I was just as attracted to him.”

  She wet her lips and kept going. “So I attended a couple dinners, a dance or two, and all the while ignored his advances. I was an engaged woman, after all. But one night, we’d both had too much wine, and I let him talk me into a kiss.” She closed her eyes, and more tears dripped out. “And I liked it. I convinced myself that being with him was okay. Just once, before I became a married woman. Only…”

  She shook her head, and JP cro
ssed the room to shove a wad of tissues in her hand.

  “Thanks,” she murmured, but still didn’t look his way. “At the last minute I changed my mind. I didn’t want to be that woman.”

  Her words drifted out into the room, but no others came. He settled down on the couch beside her, unable to watch her pouring out her emotions any longer without comforting her, and put his arm around her shoulders. He then stiffened as he understood what she was getting at. He continued his actions, forcing his palm to settle gently over her shoulder. “Are you saying you told him to stop?”

  She nodded. Silently.

  “And I take it he didn’t?”

  Negative shake of her head.

  His stomach spasmed in on itself as if he’d been punched low in the gut. How many more shocks would he have to endure today for the people he loved? He put pressure on her shoulder, and she melted to his side.

  “I’m sorry, Jackson.” She sniffled. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you, and I’m sorry for…” Her shoulders lifted in a jerky fashion, then sank. “I’m sorry for everything.”

  He had no idea what to say.

  “I didn’t find out I was pregnant until after your father and I were married. He did love me. So very much. And I loved him. But the pregnancy just about killed him. I never told him I was raped,” she whispered.

  Every part of him ached for her. “Why not?”

  “Because it was partially my fault. I’d flirted back. I’d said yes.”

  “But then you said no.”

  “Yes, but things weren’t the same then. No one would have believed me after they’d seen us dancing and laughing together that night. And if I’d admitted it and your father had gone after him, it would have ruined all of us. I wouldn’t let that happen.”

  “So you pretended you had an affair while he was gone?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what about Bennett’s real father? He was okay with Dad raising him as his own?” He looked down at her, feeling guilty for the question he was about to ask, but understanding with his mom, it needed to be asked. “Or did you even tell him?”

  She stalled by wiping her eyes with the wadded-up tissues. “He quit coming around the day after we…you know. But I did call him and tell him. Your father insisted on it. We didn’t want him showing up someday to fight for custody if we were going to pretend your brother had been a honeymoon baby. Only, when I called, he laughed about the pregnancy. Offered the name of someone who could do an abortion and keep it quiet. I told him that wasn’t an option, and he laughed again. Said good luck with that.” She shook her head against his chest and he hugged her tighter. “In the end, it was the outcome we’d hoped for, but it hurt to be treated so cruelly.”

  “Yes.” He had to clear the lump from his throat before going on. “I can imagine.” He couldn’t think what else to say, but so many things were becoming clear. Why his dad never treated his brother the same as him and Cat. Why he got his father’s name instead of his older brother. Why his brother so rarely came home. He sucked in a breath. “Does Bennett know he has a different father?”

  She shook her head. “No. We never told him. But I wronged him too, Jackson. I’m the reason he never comes home. I couldn’t make myself dote on him the way I wanted to because I was afraid it would hurt your father.”

  JP could not believe the secrets held so closely all these years. He felt like a fucking Boy Scout compared to the rest of them.

  “I always felt so bad about what I’d done to your father, and then we had you and I was determined to make sure I gave him the best son in the world. Only…”

  He finished for her. “Only I wasn’t good enough either.”

  Her tears had stopped, and she pulled away from him now to sit up on her own, her back ramrod straight. He could see her pulling her public persona back in place, and he finally got something he had missed all these years. His mother wasn’t simply choosing public life over her children—that’s just who she was. She thrived on that side of her life.

  She got her face on and corrected him. “It wasn’t that you weren’t good enough, but we wanted so much for you when you grew up. We had to make sure you didn’t get damaged in the public view early on, and we had to continue building the Davenport name so that when you reached the right age, our reputation would be there waiting for you.”

  He started laughing then, and couldn’t stop. His chortling did nothing to soothe his mother, who fumed and sniffed at his improperness. That only made him laugh harder. Finally, he got himself under control.

  “Are you about finished, Jackson?”

  He nodded, a smile growing on his face. “I’m just about finished.”

  “And what is it you find so funny?” She sniffed.

  “You.” He chuckled again. “You were so worried about maintaining ‘the Davenport reputation,’ ” he said, finger-quoting as he did, “that you never saw anything for what it really was. You and Dad painted this lifelong love.”

  “We did love each other.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Yet you had a child that wasn’t his, and years later, he did the same to you.”

  “And I never blamed him for that. He’d lived with the pain of my desertion all those years, I couldn’t walk away when he did the same.”

  “He got an underage girl pregnant, Mother. Not just an affair, but a child. And then he paid her off.”

  The quick movement of her head and lack of eye contact stirred something else in him. There was more here he had yet to figure out.

  “I was disappointed in her age, yes, but…” She stalled, and sadness once again filled her features. “He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer two weeks after he found out about the pregnancy. I couldn’t bring it up to him then. I just had to deal with it.”

  “What do you mean bring it up? I’d assumed from what you said, you had both dealt with it when she first told him.”

  She shook her head. “I overhead them having a conversation one night. He didn’t know I was in the campaign office. He thought they were the only ones there.”

  “So she told him, and what? Dad paid her off without sharing with you where all that money was going? He paid a million and a quarter. You don’t ignore anything about our family. How did you not know that?”

  The quick look away this time answered the missing piece of the puzzle. He shook his head, disgust souring his mood even more than he’d thought possible. “You gave her the second check, didn’t you? The one million dollars.”

  Heat flushed her cheeks. “I had to.”

  He began to laugh again. “Right. To protect the family name.”

  Her jaw locked, and he could tell there was something even more that she didn’t want to admit.

  “Don’t stop now, Mom. Might as well get every last bit of the dirt out. Tell me now before someone else digs it out for you.”

  She looked at him then, and a growing lack of comfort began swirling like an eddy in his stomach. He had no idea what was coming, but he wanted distance from it. He stood and moved to the window, to stare at the skyline he loved so much.

  “The night she told him,” she began, her voice flat, “he laughed at her. He told her to get an abortion, and wrote her a check. Said it would cover her medical expenses, with a tidy sum left over to buy her something special for her troubles.”

  JP didn’t speak. His father had been a complete ass.

  “I couldn’t believe it. He’d seen how much it had hurt when that very same thing had happened to me, and I had at least been older than this poor girl. I knew the pain she was going through. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to help.”

  He pressed his fist to the window. “So you…what? Gave her enough money to make sure she felt better about the situation?”

  She remained quiet for a full minute, then whispered, “I deserved that, but no. I went to her, asked if an abortion was what she really wanted. She didn’t, and I believed her. I could see this girl was in way over her head, and had no
one to turn to, so I made my offer clear. I didn’t want to ever hear from her again, she could never reveal the father, but I would help her enough she’d never have to struggle as a single mother. I wrote her a check from the money on my family’s side. Your father never knew anything about it, and I never told him I knew what he’d done.”

  And their lifelong love had continued.

  He finally faced her, leaning his shoulders against the window and letting the heat from the sun calm his nerves. Between all the secrets in his own family and worrying about Vega and what he could do to help her, he needed a fifth of whiskey, but he would take the warm sun.

  “So what now, Mom? She’s back in our lives, and I won’t turn my back on her son. You know it’s all likely to come out eventually.”

  “Is she threatening to expose everything?”

  “No,” he said, anger lacing his tone. “She’s not threatening anything. She just needs help. Which I’m giving her. But there are nosy reporters out there, looking for anything they can find.” He paused to make sure she was listening. “And the boy looks exactly like me. Vega saw it within minutes of seeing us together.”

  She gasped. “Is Vega planning to expose him?”

  “No.” His control was slipping. “Believe it or not, she loves me too. She’s not going to do anything to hurt me, but she’s not the only one out there looking at us either.”

  His mother nodded, and he could see her mind whirling to find the correct course of action. This was his mother in her prime. Give her a problem that needed to be “handled,” and she thrived.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he began. “You figure out whatever you want to do concerning Lexi and Daniel. I won’t be a part of it.”

  “That’s insane. It’ll have to involve you. You’re going to be the forefront of this family come tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I hear.” Though he knew he wasn’t. He didn’t want this life of lies and cover-ups. He wanted Vega, and he wanted to make a difference. “But I’m actually not.”

  Her eyes grew round. “You’re thinking of turning it down? But it’s what you’ve—”