“We were,” Chelsea said. “But somebody’d had enough. We’d decided to leave a few days early and spend the rest of our honeymoon at the house in San Mateo. As soon as we left the resort, Adam powered up his phone and saw the message from Mike. We talked to Sully and got here as soon as we could.”
“I need to get out of here. Now.”
Chelsea sobered. “Okay. Where are your things?”
“In the bedroom.”
No one tried to stop her as she left the great room and took the hallway down to the west wing. In the bedroom she’d been assigned, but had never slept in, she slipped on comfortable flats and pulled out her overnight bag. When she passed the dresser, Barbara’s sapphire and diamond studs winked at her from her earlobes in her reflection in the mirror. She carefully took them off and left them in the small crystal bowl in the wardrobe.
It had been so simple in the beginning: go to San Francisco, tell Mike he was the father, give the baby up for adoption, continue with her life. How had she ended up here?
Because you deviated from the plan. You started to believe you were entitled to more.
And you were wrong.
Since there was no such thing as a clean getaway, Mike intercepted her before she could leave the room. “Where are you going?”
She added her toiletries to the bag. “I’m leaving with Chelsea and Adam.”
He leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb and stared into her eyes. “I never thought I’d see the day when the adventurous India Shaw would let fear get the best of her.”
She’d worked hard for that adventure. The first sixteen years of her life, decisions had been made on her behalf by people who didn’t give a damn about her, only the paycheck her presence generated. She’d escaped that system as soon as she’d been able, and for the past twelve years, she’d taken care of herself and made her own decisions. And now, because of one little mistake, she’d lost her freedom to an unwanted pregnancy and the baby’s father was trying to steal her autonomy.
She’d be damned if she let that happen. Once she gave birth to Nugget, her independence would be all she had left.
She flipped her braids over one shoulder. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Then why are you running away from me?” He arched a challenging brow. “Again?”
“Did it ever occur to you that I’m just not that into you?”
Real mature, Indi.
“I’d consider it if you didn’t scream my name every time I made you come. There’s also the little matter of you carrying my child.”
Heat unfurled low in her belly even as she rolled her eyes at his words. He was playing the asshole card to the hilt. That should make it easier for her to leave.
“Knocking me up is a function of biology, not chemistry.”
They didn’t have to like each other to make a baby. He’d just needed a Tab A to go into her Slot B.
“But the chemistry made it memorable, didn’t it?”
So challenging him in that way had been a mistake. She backtracked.
“This may surprise you but I managed to survive twenty-eight years before I met you.”
He pushed away from the wall and breached the room. “And you’re happy living that way? Wandering from place to place? Making no connections, establishing no roots?”
“Actually, I am.”
“How’s that going to work now that you’re pregnant?”
“I won’t be pregnant forever.”
“So you’ll just go back to being alone.”
“Maybe I like being alone.”
“But you don’t have to be.”
“I know. That’s the beauty of being me. I don’t have to do anything.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Except give him away, right? Because that’s what you’ve repeated. You can’t possibly raise him by yourself. Or with me.”
“You don’t know when to quit—”
He shoved his hands into his pockets. “I never have.”
“You just keep pushing and pushing.” She stuffed her belongings into her bag with way more force than was required. “You’ve got some serious control issues.”
“Oh, we’re flipping the script?”
Yup. “Look at your relationship with Skylar. You controlled that, didn’t you? It probably began on your terms. It definitely ended on your terms and you’re still getting what you wanted. Is she?”
The muscle in his jaw ticked. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Adam and Chelsea? You had to get involved in that situation. Adam told you he didn’t want help. Chelsea said she wanted to tell him the truth, but you dismissed both of their concerns because you thought you knew better.”
“It worked out in the end, didn’t it?”
“And you’re going to take credit for that?”
“I did talk to Adam—”
“So no one can be trusted to make their own decisions without your input?”
“Trust?” He laughed and she flinched from the bitter blowback. “That’s rich coming from you.”
He couldn’t turn this around on her. “What does that mean?”
He pointed at his chest, then at her. “If I have control issues, then you have trust ones. You hold everyone at a distance, like you’re waiting for them to disappoint you.”
“I didn’t have to wait long, did I? From the moment I told you I didn’t want to raise the baby, you substituted your judgment for mine. Making me take pictures, consider names, go shopping. All so you could fit our situation into some picture in your mind. Did you ever stop to think how hard it would be for me to do those things? Did it ever occur to you that I might have a good reason for not wanting to raise him?”
“How would I know? I asked you several times and you never answered me. That’s what I meant about keeping people at a distance. You’d rather I believed you were some ditz who wanted to travel than tell me the real reason.”
“Fine. You want to know why I can’t raise him? Because I’m terrified. Terrified that I don’t know how. Terrified that I’ll make a mistake.” She lowered her voice. “Terrified that he’ll hate me.”
“Why would he hate you? You’re his mother. He’ll love you.”
“My mother didn’t love me. I went through countless foster homes and none of them chose to adopt me. Can all of those people be wrong?”
“You don’t know your mother didn’t love you. Maybe she had a good reason for leaving you. Maybe she thought it was the best decision for you.”
“Dropping me off at a hospital?”
“Yes! Think of all the other places she could’ve left you. She took you someplace she knew they could take care of you.”
She shook her head, unable to reexamine a belief she’d clutched tightly for so long.
“What about Chelsea? She loves you.”
Indi shrugged. “Maybe she’s the exception that proves the rule.”
He closed the distance between them, cradled her face between his big, warm hands. “What about me?” He brushed his thumb along her lower lip. “I love you.”
She wanted to believe him . . .
“Do you? Or do you want to do the right thing? Maybe you see Nugget and me as a package deal.” She moved away from him and his hands fell to his sides. “We aren’t.”
“I know my own mind.”
It’s funny, she’d been trying to convince him of the same about her for the past two weeks.
“Are you sure? Because what if I rely on that? And after the baby’s born you decide that he was all you wanted after all? I can’t take that chance.”
She wanted to, but what if he was wrong? She wouldn’t survive it if Mike or Nugget realized something was wrong with her. She couldn’t bear to watch their love slowly curdle to disgust.
“It’s cal
led faith, Indi.”
She shook her head. “After twenty-eight years, I’m fresh out of that.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
MIKE’S PAIN WAS a raw, throbbing wound that had suffered several direct punches and been jabbed with the red-hot tip of a fire poker.
Overdramatic, but who cares? The feeling was accurate. He discarded his tuxedo jacket across the chair in the corner of his room and plopped down on the bed. He’d gone from blissfully planning the rest of his life with India and Nugget to possibly losing them forever.
No! Fuck this!
He scrubbed a hand down his face and pushed himself to his feet. Being in here, where he’d awakened to find her in his arms yesterday morning, screwed with his mind and ravaged his heart. But he wouldn’t act like some college freshman sitting in his dorm nursing a broken heart while listening to Dave Matthews.
He needed a drink to numb the pain. Maybe several.
The house was still, dark. After the spectacle of Adam and Chelsea’s arrival and Indi leaving, no one felt like sitting around and rehashing the night’s events. It hadn’t taken long for his parents and Morgan to retreat to their rooms. He was grateful for the solitude.
Unlike in his childhood when he could maneuver from one wing to the other with his eyes closed, his mother’s renovations, and recent furniture placements, meant he needed to take his time. It would be icing on the cake for him to stub his toe or bang his knee. He navigated through the various seating arrangements and made his way to the kitchen.
It was a popular notion.
His father sat on a bar stool, one foot resting on a lower rung, the other planted on the floor. Only the pendant lights above the island were lit, the soft glow somberly framing Robert’s hunched posture and glinting off the quarter-filled cut glass tumbler nestled in his right hand. A bottle of Balvenie fifty-year-old Scotch whiskey—the centerpiece of his father’s collection—sat on the counter near his left elbow.
Mike couldn’t recall ever seeing his father rumpled and unkempt. Part of that may have been Robert’s many years in the public eye, but Mike had always felt a certain formality was probably imprinted on his father’s DNA. But with rebellious strands of his hair falling across his forehead, his tie undone, and his cufflinks missing, he possessed the despondent air of a man who’d blown the deal of a lifetime.
Concern for the picture he presented conflicted with the anger simmering beneath the surface.
It wasn’t his father’s fault. He may not like what Robert had said or the way he’d treated Indi, but it was Mike’s own actions, or lack thereof, that had caused the disintegration of his happiness this evening.
Still, he wasn’t in the mood to endure another lecture, and despite their strained interaction, the man deserved a respect that Mike couldn’t currently muster. He reversed several steps, intending to backtrack.
“I remember the first time I held you in my arms,” Robert said, alerted to his presence though he hadn’t raised his head. His voice held no trace of a slur.
Realizing retreat wasn’t a viable option, Mike leaned a hip against the counter, crossed his arms, and said, “That was a long time ago.”
“Having a child changes your life. You experience a wave of love so strong, it knocks you on your ass, and this baby you love is helpless. If we didn’t feed you, you’d starve. If we didn’t change your diapers, you’d develop a rash. We had to burp you, because your system hadn’t matured enough to do it on your own. And we did it, happily, because we loved and adored you. But what about the people in the world who didn’t? One day I wouldn’t be there.”
Mike slid onto the neighboring stool, drawn to his father’s vulnerability.
“The day of the accident . . .” Robert cleared his throat and shook his head. “We got the call that you’d been involved in an accident by the cliffs . . . It was like a sucker punch to the gut. As we raced over there, I promised God that if you were all right, I’d do everything I could to protect you. So when I wasn’t there, you could take care of yourself. And I meant it.”
Robert finished off the Scotch in his glass and turned exposed eyes on Mike.
“I wanted you to have the best life possible, to never have to deal with sadness, pain, or heartache. I know, it sounds ridiculous and not very practical, but . . .” Robert shrugged. “The irony is in my effort to keep you safe, I pushed you further away.”
With that additional piece of information came clarity, a shift in perspective. Suddenly, Robert’s actions made sense. His father’s lectures on responsibility, his extreme disappointment when Mike declined to participate in the family business and left Barton Point, his interest in and wanting to be a part of Computronix, his push for Skylar Thompson as Mike’s wife. A father’s misguided attempt to ensure his son’s happiness.
Controlling, sure, but well intentioned and from a place of love.
Robert laughed, the sound bittersweet. “You’ll know this feeling soon enough.”
He fucking hoped so.
“Then you believe Indi that I’m the father?” Mike kept his voice low. It wasn’t a challenge; he truly wanted to know his father’s opinion.
Robert shook his head. “It doesn’t matter whether the baby is biologically yours or not. You’ve claimed him. That stupefying combo of love, fear, and panic? I felt the same way when I held Morgan all those years ago in that orphanage in South Korea. And I’m making the same mistake with her that I made with you.”
“That’s different.”
“No, it’s not. When she told me she wanted to study abroad—in Seoul of all places—I flashed back to the orphanage. I wanted to keep her from there even more now than I did back then. It didn’t even occur to me that my actions had been causing her pain.” Robert exhaled forcefully. “I’ve been wrong about so many things.”
While Mike was grateful for this new understanding of his father—and Robert’s own expanding self-awareness—he didn’t want the other man to believe their entire childhood had been unacceptable.
He clapped a hand on Robert’s shoulder. “Yeah, but you’ve been right about so many others. We’ve had a great life. You couldn’t keep us from the hurt and pain of growing up, but that’s normal. You did keep us from the hurts and pains you could control: we had a place to live, food to eat, and parents who cared for and loved us.”
Unlike Indi. She’d had to make her own way without the emotional cushion loving parents could provide. And in spite of that—or maybe because of it—she’d turned into a beautiful, courageous, resourceful woman.
As if reading his mind, his father said, “She’s a special lady and she has a big heart.”
Mike was aware of her compassionate nature. Had seen it in the way she related to people and how they were drawn to her. But how would his father know that?
“Because she’d barely met your sister, yet she cared for her enough to stand up to me,” Robert said, when Mike posed the question. “After a disastrous introduction that involved her throwing up in our bushes.” A smile quirked the corners of his mouth. “That’s a story we’ll be telling the grandkids for years to come.”
Mike’s heart achieved a lightness he hadn’t thought possible an hour ago at the promise and acceptance implicit in that statement.
“You’re not the only one who confused control with protection and love.”
That’s what he’d been doing with Indi from the moment she’d come back into his life. He’d been so afraid of losing her, of waking up to find her gone—again!—that he’d done the same thing his father had; he’d pushed and pushed until he’d pushed her away.
But he wasn’t done. He loved her and Nugget and he knew she loved him. And like he told her last night, it wasn’t in his nature to give up.
Robert stood and rounded the counter to grab another glass from the cabinet. He poured a finger of Scotch into both
and lifted his glass, his eyes fixed on Mike’s. “In case it’s not clear, I’m proud of the man you’ve become. Congratulations on the new addition to our family. I’m happy for you.”
Mike touched his glass to his father’s, the clink signaling the dawn of their new relationship. And just in time.
His smile contorted into a grimace. “While I look forward to no more lectures, I have a feeling I’ll be calling on you for advice. Often.”
Robert finished his drink and sat his glass on the counter. “I can’t wait. But despite all the books and all the advice, it’ll come down to doing what you think is right. And you’ll be great at that.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
I NEVER THOUGHT I’d see the day when the adventurous India Shaw would let fear get the best of her.
Even the crisp beautiful morning on the wraparound patio of Adam and Chelsea’s apartment in San Francisco couldn’t mute Mike’s refrain.
And she wanted to. She needed to. She’d spent the past thirty-six hours in a vicious cycle of crying and sleeping, with some occasional vomiting thrown in.
Damn hormones.
She’d awakened a little while ago and instead of rolling over into the fetal position to commence le pity party, part deux, she’d forced herself to shower and get dressed in yoga pants and a T-shirt. She’d grabbed a throw from the sectional in the living room and headed out to enjoy the air and the magnificent view.
The glass door opened and Chelsea stepped out carrying a tray. “Are you feeling better?”
“If you don’t count the sand in my eyes, the rocks in my throat, and the slight nausea in my belly, I’m peachy keen.”
“I can help with the nausea.”
Chelsea sat the tray on the side table and handed her a cup. “It’s peppermint tea. And be careful, it’s hot. There are saltines if you want to put something in your stomach.” Chelsea sat down on the end of the lounger, pulling Indi’s feet into her lap. “How about I paint your toenails?”
Along Came Love Page 26
