by Abby Green
Lani grumbled something else. Rule didn’t make out the words over the rushing of his own blood in his ears as Sydney’s footsteps came closer.
She stood above them. “What kind of fantastical machine is this?”
For a moment, Rule stared at her pretty open-toed shoes, her trim ankles. Then, forcing his mouth to form a smile, he lifted his head to meet her eyes. “You’ll have to ask your son.”
Trev glanced up. “Hi, Mama. I make a machine, a machine with a ‘peller.”
“I see that and I …” Her glance had shifted. Rule followed her gaze. The paper beside him had opened halfway, revealing the outrageous headline and half of the pictures. “What in the …?”
He grabbed the paper and swiftly rolled it up again. “We need a few moments in private, I think.”
Both of her eyebrows lifted. And then she nodded. “Well, I guess we do.”
Trev sat looking from Rule to Sydney and back again, puzzled by whatever was going on between the grownups. “Mama? Roo?”
Rule laid a hand against his son’s cheek. “Trevor,” he said, with all the calm and gentleness he could muster. “Mama and I have to talk now.”
Trev blinked. “Talk?” He frowned. And then he announced, “Okay. I build machine!”
Lani put her laptop aside. “C’mon, Trev.” She jumped up from the sofa and came to stand over them. “How ‘bout a snack?” She reached down and lifted him into her arms.
Trevor perked up. “I want graham crackers and milk. In the big kitchen.” He loved going down to the palace kitchens where the chefs and prep staff doted on him.
“Graham crackers and milk in the big kitchen it shall be.”
“Thank you.” Rule forced a smile for Lani as he rose from the floor.
With a quick nod, Lani carried Trevor to the door. He heard it close behind her.
He and Sydney were alone in the apartment.
She said, “Well?”
He handed her the tabloid.
She opened it and let out a throaty sound of disbelief. “Please. They have got to be kidding.”
“Sydney, I—”
She put up a hand. “Give me a minute. Let me read this garbage.”
So they stood there, on either side of Trevor’s pile of bright plastic wheels and cogs, as she read the damned thing through. She was a quick study. It didn’t take her long.
Finally, in disgust, she tossed the paper to the floor again. “That is the most outrageous bunch of crap I’ve ever read. Do you believe it? The nerve of those people. We’re suing, right?”
“I believe that is the plan.”
“You believe? It’s a pack of lies. Not a single shred of truth in the whole disgusting thing.”
“Well, and that’s the problem, actually. There is some truth in it. More than a shred.”
“What are you talking about?” She regarded him sideways. “Rule, what’s wrong?”
He gulped—like a guilty child caught stealing chocolates. “There’s something I really must tell you.”
“What?” She was starting to look frightened. “Rule. What?”
“You should … sit down, I think.” He tried to take her arm.
She eased free of his grip. “Okay. You’re scaring me. Whatever it is, you need to just go ahead and say it.”
“I will, of course. It’s important and I should have told you long ago, right at the first.”
“Rule.” Now she was the one reaching for him. She took hold of both of his arms and she looked him squarely in the eye. “Tell me. Whatever it is, tell me right now.”
Was there any way to do this gently? He couldn’t think of one. So he went ahead and just said it outright. “I was a donor for Secure Choice Cryobank. It was my profile you chose. Trevor is my son.”
Chapter Thirteen
She still clutched his arms, her fingers digging in. Her face had gone chalk-white. “No,” she whispered.
“Sydney, I—”
She let go of him, jumped away as though she couldn’t bear to touch him. “No.” She put her hands to her mouth, shook her head slowly. “No, no, no. You never said. Ever. I asked you, I asked you directly …” She whispered the words. But to him, that whisper was as loud as a shout. As a scream.
“I know. I lied. Sydney, if we could just—”
“No.” She shook her head some more. “No.” And then she whirled on her heel and she marched over to the sofa where Lani had been sitting. Carefully, she picked up the laptop and set it on the low table in front of her. Then she sat down. “Here.” She pointed at one of the wing chairs across from her. “Sit.”
What else could he do? He went over there. He sat.
There was a silence.
They regarded each other across the low table, across a short distance that seemed to him endless. And absolutely uncrossable. He only had to look at her—the pale, locked-away face, the lightless eyes—to know the worst had happened.
He had lost her.
She asked in a carefully controlled voice, “So you did take my information from Secure Choice, after all?”
“I did, yes.”
“Um. When?”
“Almost three years ago.”
“When I was pregnant? You’ve known since then?”
“Yes. I knew from the first.”
With another gasp, she put the back of her hand to her mouth. And then she seemed to catch herself. She let her hand drop to her lap. “All that time. You did nothing. And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, you were there. Lying to me, pretending it was all just a happy little accident, that you had happened to see me going into Macy’s. That you were so very intrigued by my determination. But it wasn’t an accident. Not an accident at all.”
His throat clutched. He gulped to clear it. “No. It was no accident. I was following you that day.” She pressed her fist to her stomach. The baby. He started to rise. “Sydney. Are you—?”
She stuck out her hand at him, palm flat. “No. Stay there. Don’t you dare get up. Don’t you come near me.”
“But you—”
“I am not ill. I am … there are no words, Rule. You know that, don’t you? No words. None.”
He sank back to the chair, said the only thing he could say. “I know.”
“Why now? I don’t get it. After all the times you might have said it, might have come clean about it, why now?” And then she blinked. He watched comprehension dawn in her eyes. “That stupid article. The pictures. You and Trevor, so much alike. It even mentions that I ‘claim’ to have used a sperm donor. You’re afraid someone might do more digging, and reach the truth. You couldn’t afford to keep me in the dark any longer.”
What could he give her but shamefaced confirmation?
“Yes. That’s right.”
“Oh, Rule. I thought it was bad, when you had to rush back here to Montedoro to explain yourself to Lili the morning after our wedding. I was … disappointed in you then. But I told myself that you had never lied to me. That you were a truly honest man, that you didn’t have a lying bone in your body …” Though her eyes were dry, a sob escaped her. She covered her mouth again for a moment, hard, with her palm that time, as though she could stuff that sob back inside. When she had control of herself, she lowered her hand and said, “What a fool I was. How could I have been such a fool? All the signs were there. I saw them, knew them. And still you convinced me not to believe the evidence of my own eyes.”
“I wanted to tell you,” he heard himself say, and then cursed the words for their weakness.
Her sweet, wide mouth curved in a sneer. “Then why didn’t you tell me?”
He said it right out. “At the first? Because I knew I wouldn’t have a chance with you if I did.”
“You couldn’t know that.”
“Of course I knew. After your wonderful grandmother who taught you that honesty was everything. After those bastards, Ryan and Peter …”
She waved her hand that time, dismissing his excuses.
“If not at the
beginning, why not that night I asked you directly if you’d ever been a donor?”
“We’ve been so happy. I didn’t want to lose that, our happiness. I didn’t want to lose you.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?” Her voice was furious and hopeful, both at the same time.
He longed to reassure her. To give her more lies. But he couldn’t. Some … line had been crossed. All that was left to him now was the brutal truth. “I don’t think so. I kept telling myself I would, but there was always an excuse, to wait a little longer, to put it off. I kept choosing the excuses over telling you what you had a right to know.”
“So, then.” The hope was gone. Only her cool fury remained. “You were never going to tell me.”
He refused to look away. “No. I wasn’t willing to risk losing you.”
“And how’s that worked out for you, Rule?” Her sarcasm cut a ragged hole in his heart.
He answered without inflection. “As of now, I would have to say not very well.”
She sat very still. She … watched him. For the longest, most terrible stretch of time. And then she said, “I don’t get it. It makes no sense to me, that you would become a donor. Why did you? It’s … not like you. Not like you at all.”
“Does it matter now?”
“It matters to me. I am trying very hard to understand.”
“Sydney, I—”
“Tell me.” It was a command.
He obeyed. “My reasons were … They seemed real to me, seemed valid, at the time.” How could he make her see when he still didn’t completely understand it himself? He gave it his best shot. “I wanted … something. I wanted my life to be more than the sum of its parts. I wanted what my parents have together. What Max and Sophia had. It seemed I went through the motions of living but it wasn’t a rich life. Not a full life. I enjoyed my work, but when I came home I wanted someone to come home to.” He shook his head. “It makes no sense, does it?”
She was implacable. “Go on.”
He tried again. “There were women. They were … strangers to me. I enjoyed having sex with them, but I didn’t want them beyond the brief moments of pleasure they gave me in bed. I looked into their eyes and I didn’t feel I would ever truly know them. Or they, me. I was alone. I had business, in Dallas. I spent over a year there.”
“When?”
“Starting a little more than four years ago. I would go down to San Antonio on occasion, to visit with my family there. But it was empty, my life. I had only casual friends at that time. Looking back, I can’t remember a single connection I made that mattered to me other than in terms of my business. Except for one man. He turned up at a party I went to. We’d been at Princeton together. We … touched base. Talked about old times. He’d been a donor. He’d come from an American public school, was at Princeton on full scholarship. He became a donor partly for the money—which, he told me, laughing, wasn’t really much at all. But also because he said it did his heart good. It felt right, he said. To help a couple who had everything but the child they wanted most. That struck a chord with me. It seemed that being a donor would be … something good, that I could do, something I could give—but you’re right. It wasn’t like me. I’m a Bravo-Calabretti all the way to the core. I just refused to see that until it was too late and my profile was available to clients. Until two women had chosen me as their donor.”
Those lightless eyes widened. “Two women?”
“The other didn’t become pregnant. By the time she ordered again, I’d had my profile taken down.”
“Just two of us? But … I can’t believe more women wouldn’t have chosen you.”
Under other circumstances, he might have laughed. “My profile was only available for a short period of time. I withdrew my samples when I realized what an idiot I’d been to become a donor in the first place. Secure Choice was not the least happy with me. Our agreement was for ten pregnancies resulting in births or nine months of availability. I made arrangements to reimburse them for the money they would have made if I’d fulfilled my commitment with them. In the end, I simply couldn’t … let it go. And that’s the basic job of a donor. To donate and let it go.”
She continued for him. “But that was never going to work for you, was it? You realized that you had to know—if there were children, if they were all right …” She understood him so well.
He said softly, “Yes. And that was my plan, after I found out that you had become pregnant. That was all I ever intended to do, make certain that you and the child were provided for. I swear it to you. As long as you and Trevor were all right, I was never going to contact you or interfere in your life in any way. I had assured myself that you were a fine mother and an excellent provider. I knew Trevor was healthy. I knew you would do all in your considerable power to make certain he had a good start in life.”
“Yes. I could give him everything—except a father.”
It was her first misreading of his motives. He corrected her. “I didn’t think of it that way. I swear that I didn’t.”
She crossed her long, slim legs, folded her hands tightly in her lap and accused, “Oh, please. You are all about being a father. We both know that.”
Her words hit him like blows.
They were much too true.
And they proved all over again what a hopeless idiot he’d been to become a donor in the first place, how little he’d understood his own mind and heart.
“All right,” he said. “I’m guilty. Guilty in a hundred ways. It is important to me. That my child have a father.”
“So you set out to see that he did.”
He felt, somehow, like a bug on a pin under the cool regard of those watchful eyes of hers. And in the back of his mind a cruel voice would not stop whispering, You have lost her. She will leave you. She will leave you now. Somehow, no matter what happened, he had to make her see the most basic motivation for his actions concerning her. “No. I swear to you, Sydney. It wasn’t … that way. It was you.”
“Oh, please.”
He repeated, insisted, “You. It was you. Yes, Trevor mattered. He mattered more than I can say. But you were the starting point. I pursued you, not my son. I lied, yes, by omission. I never told you why I happened to be in that parking lot outside of Macy’s that first day we met. That it was because of you that I was there, in the first place. Because you fascinated me. So bright and capable. So successful. And apparently, so determined to have a family, with or without a man at your side. I told myself I only wanted to see you in the flesh, just one time. That once I’d done that, I could let you go, let Trevor go. Return here to Montedoro, make my proposal to Lili …”
“You were lying to yourself.”
“Yes. The sight of you that first time, getting out of your car in the parking garage … the sight of you only made me realize I had to get closer, to see you face-to-face, to look in your eyes. To hear your voice, your laugh. I followed you into the store. And as soon as you granted me that adorable, disbelieving sideways glance while you pretended to read a price tag on a frying pan, I knew that there had to be more. Every word you spoke, every moment in your presence, it only got worse. Stronger. I swear to you, I didn’t set out to seduce and marry you.”
She made another of those low, scoffing sounds.
And he was the one putting up a hand. “Yes,” he confessed, “it’s what I did in the end. But it started with you. It was always about you. And by that first evening we spent together, when we had dinner at the Mansion, I knew I wanted you for my wife.”
Her eyes were emerald-bright now. With tears.
The tears gave him new hope.
Hope she dashed by turning away and stealing a slow breath. When she faced him again, the tear-sheen was gone.
She said in the cold, logical voice of an accuser, “You had so many options. Better options than the ones you chose.”
He didn’t deny it. “I know. In hindsight, that’s all so painfully clear.”
“You could have asked
to see me as soon as you managed to find out you’d been my donor. I would have seen you. I was as fascinated by the idea of you—of the man I had chosen as my donor—as you claim you were by me.”
“As I am by you,” he corrected. “And I had no reason to believe you would have been happy to see me. It seemed to me that the last thing a single mother really wants is a visit from a stranger who might try to lay a claim on her child.”
“I had given permission for you to contact me. That should have been enough for you to have taken a chance.”
“Yes. I see that, now that I know you. But I didn’t know you then. I didn’t know how you would react. And it seemed wrong for me to … interfere in your life.”
“If you had sought me out at the beginning, you would have had more than two years until the marriage law went into effect. We would have had the time to get through all this garbage. You would have had time for the truth.”
“Sydney, I know that. I see that now. But it’s not what I did. Yes, I should have been braver. I should have been … truer. I should have taken a chance, arranged to meet with you early on. But I hesitated. I hesitated much too long. I see that. And by the time I acted, I was down to the wire.”
“Wire or not,” she said, refusing to give him an inch, as he’d known that she would, “you owed it to me to tell me the truth before you asked me to marry you. You owed that to me then, at the very least.”
“I know that. We’ve already been through that. But by then there was all you had told me about how you valued honesty.”
“So you should have been honest.”
“And what about Ryan and Peter? What about your distrust of men? You would have assumed right away that I was only after Trevor.”
She looked at him unwavering. “Telling me the truth was the right thing to do.”
“Yes. And then I would have lost you. You were not about to give a third man the benefit of the doubt. It was too big a risk. We were getting along so beautifully. I couldn’t stand to lose you when I’d only just found you. Are you going to deny that I would have lost you?”
“No. You’re right. At that time, I … didn’t know you well enough. I would have broken it off for a while, slowed things down between us. I would have needed more time to learn to trust you.”
