by K, S
Darrell took a chest expanding breath and the muscle in his jaw jumped several times before he nodded to Rob. "Wassup."
His tone was frigid to the point of being rude, but when he looked at Giselle his eyes turned liquid gray. A soft smile touched the corner of his mouth. "Hello, Giselle. It's nice to meet you - formally," he added as the smile widened. "You're a very beautiful young woman. Just like your mother."
Jerra released a pent up sigh through her nose when she saw Darrell making an effort to put Giselle at ease. Giselle practically blushed as she stared at Darrell. Now that he wasn’t glaring at her as if she'd committed a crime, she relaxed and returned his smile with one of her own. Like most females, she was powerless to resist Darrell Monroe when he turned on the charm.
Jerra lightly touched his arm. "Will you sit down and join us?" She tensed when the warmth he'd just shown Giselle faded from his eyes as his attention became fixated on her again, but Jerra sent up a silent prayer of gratitude when he pulled out a chair. She saw him look over his shoulder and nod at someone. That's when Jerra noticed Carl, intently watching them as if making sure he didn’t have to intervene. When Darrell gave the signal that everything was cool, Carl visibly relaxed and nodded back. Jerra settled DJ in the high chair then took the seat next to Darrell.
Again, silence fell around the table. Finally Darrell spoke and directed his comment towards Jerra. "So. This is your daughter."
Jerra pressed her lips together and nodded. "Yes. I, um...I just found her. Rob and his wife adopted Giselle when she was a baby, but Rob's raised her by himself."
Darrell's gaze never faltered from Jerra's face. He leaned back and casually crossed his ankle over the opposite knee. If one didn’t know him, the pose could be conceived as relaxed and calm, but Jerra wasn’t fooled for a second.
She lowered her voice and moved closer to him. "What you saw when you walked up...it's not what it looked like." Darrell cocked an eyebrow and waited. "I was upset and he was trying to comfort me. That's all. Can...can we please talk about it when we get home?"
Darrell studied Jerra for a tense few minutes before he slowly bobbed his head up and down. He saw in her eyes that she was telling the truth. But they were going to talk about it the second they were alone.
Turning his head, he pinned Rob with a guarded look. "Jerra said you and your wife adopted Giselle but you raised her?"
"Yes. My wife and I divorced when Giselle was very young. I guess you could say I was both mother and father to my daughter."
The look on Darrell's face was one of reluctant admiration for the man to have taken on such a huge responsibility by himself. "Where do you live?"
"Lake Tahoe."
Jerra saw the surprise that sprung into Darrell's eyes when he realized they lived in such close proximity. "That's a beautiful part of the country."
"Yes it is," Rob responded. "Have you ever been to the area?"
"Yeah, it's been a long time, though. Years. Not since me and my buddy moved to Vegas. We visited a few times. Enjoyed some great snowboarding."
Giselle's eyes lit up. "You know how to snowboard?"
"Yup. Sure do. Why? Do you enjoy it too?"
"I tried it a few times, but I just couldn’t get the hang of it," Giselle answered, scrunching her nose up.
"Maybe Jerra and I can plan a trip there this winter. She's never been before and we've actually talked about going to one of the resorts there. Maybe I can give you some pointers." When Darrell saw Rob whip his head around to stare at Jerra, he added, "If it's okay with your father."
"I would love that! Daddy? Is that okay, Daddy?"
"Of course, honey. I think that's a great idea."
Jerra quietly listened as Darrell and Giselle discussed the sport. She was so grateful that they seemed to be getting along. Everything would be perfect right now if it wasn’t for the confrontation she knew she and Darrell would be having later on.
"How long are you two going to be in Vegas?" Darrell asked Rob.
"Just through the weekend. We're flying out Sunday afternoon."
"After we get some shopping in," Giselle chimed in with a wide grin. Rob quickly tried to hide the grimace that crossed his face, but he wasn't successful. "Dad! You promised!"
"Yeah. I did, didn’t I?" Rob looked as if he’d rather have a root canal than go shopping with his teenage daughter. He knew that once Giselle started, she could live in the mall for hours and hours. Then his face brightened as he turned to Jerra. "But, uh, maybe Jerra would like to take you."
Jerra's eyes met Giselle's. "I would love it if that's okay with you, Giselle."
"Are sure you wouldn’t mind?"
"Not in the least," Jerra smiled. "What about tomorrow? We could make a day of it. Shopping, a visit to the spa where we can get facials, mani's and pedi's."
"Yes!" Giselle shouted. "Thank you, Jerra. That's gonna be so much fun!" After cheerleading, shopping was her favorite pastime.
"Then I guess we have a date."
After Jerra made plans to pick Giselle up in the morning at the hotel they were staying at, Rob and Giselle said their goodbyes. Darrell didn’t miss the fact that Rob subtly tried to catch Jerra's eye, but when he saw Darrell staring at him, he quickly looked away. The minute they left, the atmosphere at the table turned decidedly chilly. It was blatantly apparent to Jerra that while Darrell had put his temper on a low simmer in front Rob and Giselle, the fire had been turned up and Jerra was now in the hot seat. He didn’t say a word, but then again, didn’t have to. The accusation in his eyes said it all.
Jerra held a hand up. "I can explain."
"Yeah. Funny how you keep sayin' that." Darrell glanced at their son who was about to nod himself out of the high chair. He reached over and extracted him out of it and stood up. DJ's head immediately found a comfortable spot on Darrell's shoulder and was out for the count. "Let's go."
Jerra sighed and chewed at the corner of her lip. She picked up her purse and preceded him out the restaurant. It was all she could do to stop from reaching back and rubbing the back of her neck. She could all but feel the sharp stab of Darrell's glare.
They stood in silence as they waited for the valet to bring her car around. Although it was the same valet who'd gone gaga over Jerra when she first drove up, one look at Darrell's stoned faced expression was enough for him to keep his eyes averted when he opened the passenger door for her to get in.
After Darrell placed DJ in his car seat and snapped him in, Jerra glanced out of the corner of her eye at him as he got behind the wheel of the car. When he pulled off without a word, she sighed and looked out of the window. Of course she realized what a horrible mistake she'd made in keeping this from him, but there was nothing she could do about it now. Hopefully, he would listen to her explanation and allow them to move past this, but the angry set of his jaw said it all.
The fuse to the powder keg had been lit and it was only a matter of time before it exploded.
Jerra unlocked the door once they got home and held it open for Darrell as he carried a still sleeping DJ inside. He ignored the beseeching look she gave him and stared straight ahead as he brushed past her and climbed the stairs to take their son up to his room. Jerra's eyes followed him then slowly closed and locked the door before making her way to the family room. Once there, she plopped down on the love seat and dropped her head despairingly in her hands.
While she waited for Darrell, she went back over the last couple of hours. Giselle was everything she hoped for and more. Things could’ve turned out a lot differently today, but her daughter had such a sweet spirit and didn’t seem to have a mean bone in her body. Jerra had been prepared for indifference, resentment, and even hatred. She wouldn’t have blamed her for feeling any of those emotions, but thank God she seemed as eager to get to know Jerra as Jerra was to get to know her. She couldn’t wait to go shopping with her tomorrow and have some one on one time.
Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted when Darrell strolled into the room. He
went straight to the mini bar set up on the back wall and poured a glass of the expensive, French cognac he'd developed a taste for. Jerra's eyes stayed on his face as he picked the glass up and came and sat down in the chair opposite her, trying to gage his mood. She was a little unnerved by the way he slowly sipped the cognac while watching her with an enigmatic expression.
Jerra licked her lips, which were suddenly bone dry. "I don't know where to start."
"Really? Let me help you out and give you a few suggestions. How about why you never told me you had a child who you'd given it up for adoption. Or maybe start at why you lied to me and told me you were goin’ to be with Keisha all day when in reality you were meeting your daughter and her father. Oh. Wait. There's another starting point: Rob."
Darrell scooted up to the edge of the chair and leaned his elbows on his knees, wrapping his hands around the glass. The intensity of the stare he directed towards Jerra was intimidating and nerve wracking but Jerra was determined not to look away as he continued in a slightly elevated tone.
"Maybe you wanna explain to me just what the hell you were doing in the back of a restaurant sittin' up under this dude, lettin' him hug and touch all over you. Yeah. Maybe that would be a great place for you to start, Jerra!"
Chapter 29
By now, Jerra was ready to jump out of her own skin, but outwardly, she was cool and collected. She'd been one of the best, if not the best defense attorney at her firm in Atlanta and had been on the verge of making partner when she met and married Darrell. When she turned in her resignation, the firm tried everything they could to entice her to stay. They'd been desperate not to lose her. The salary hike and luxurious perks they offered far exceeded that of what they'd originally intended to give her once she made partner. As much as she hated to walk away from a career she loved, she loved Darrell more. The decision had been easy.
Seeing the air of calmness surrounding her, Darrell picked up on the imaginary armor she erected like an impenetrable wall. He immediately recognized it as her defense mechanism and it drove him as crazy now as it always did because when she retreated inside that shell, she shut him out. He tightened his lips and glanced down, rapidly shaking his head from side to side. Now was not the time for that shit.
"Jerra, what the –" Darrell paused and cleared his throat gruffly, forcing himself to calm down before raising his eyes to meet hers. "Jerra, what's goin' on."
Jerra squeezed her interlocked fingers which rested on her lap. To think the words came to her so effortlessly when she was in a courtroom, at this moment, she was at a loss as to how to articulate what she was feeling and why she'd made the decision to keep such an important part of her past from him.
Finally, she started from the beginning and told Darrell how she discovered she was pregnant months after she made it to Atlanta. He listened quietly as she explained the events that led up to today.
"So after Rob met with me and was comfortable, he broke the news to Giselle. He told me upfront it would be her decision whether or not she wanted to meet with me, and when she told him she did..." Jerra's wiped her eyes with trembling fingers. "I've never been so scared in all my life, but I'm so thankful things turned out the way they did with her."
She sniffed and looked up at Darrell, waiting for him to say something. Anything. Surely he couldn’t be upset with her after hearing the entire story. Surely he'd understand why she'd made the decision she did. When he stared at her in silence, she grasped onto the first thought that crossed her mind.
"I know what you experienced with your mother has given you a different outlook on some things." When Darrell's body stiffened, Jerra hurried to make her point. "But I don't want you to feel like her abandoning you at the orphanage and me giving my baby up for adoption are the same. It’s not."
Darrell squinted as he watched her with a closed expression. Jerra's heart dropped. This was just what she'd been afraid of. He hated her now.
"Darrell? Please. Say something. Say that you understand."
"Let me get this straight. You lied to me about something this important because you thought I would put you in the same category as Tina?"
Jerra frowned. "I didn’t lie to you."
Darrell laughed chillingly and made a slicing motion under his throat with his hand. "Waiiittt a minute. Before you make this even worse, don’t try and justify this by saying you didn’t lie to me. No matter what kind of polished spin you try to put on the outcome, an omission of facts is still a lie, counselor."
"I was fifteen years old. You, better than anyone, know what I went through with Earl."
Darrell shook his head. "Don't do that."
"Don't do what?!"
"Don’t try and turn this around to manipulate the situation so that it'll fit all nice and neat into the box you tryin' to shove it into, that's what. You didn’t tell me you'd gotten pregnant as a result of being raped. I can understand that. You didn’t tell me you'd given the baby up for adoption afterwards. On some level, I can understand that, too. But this is where shit starts to fall apart and get a li'l cloudy for me. You compound those secrets even more when you hire a private investigator to find her and still don't come to me. You not fifteen years old now, Jerra. You deliberately kept me in the dark."
"You know what? I'm laying my heart and soul on the line to you now. You have no idea what I've gone through! None!"
"And I suppose what I saw in the restaurant was Rob showing you just how much he did understand??"
"As a matter of fact, yes! But that's all it was."
Darrell's tilted his head to the side, disbelief mixed with hurt written over every inch of his handsome face. "Damn. Guess that tells me exactly where I stand in this entire thing, huh."
"Darrell, you know I didn’t mean it that way." Jerra had been determined to keep control of the conversation but that control was quickly slipping through her fingers like grains of sand.
"I think you did, but since you wanna pretend like you can't figure out why I'm upset, let me spell it out for you. I don’t take a back seat to no muthafucka. You got that?"
Jerra sat up and wildly shook her head. "That's not what I was doing. It's just that –"
"It's exactly what you were doin'. I was sittin’ across the table from some other man while you filled me in on somethin’ he already knew everything about. Then, you tryin' to sit there and tell me that after all we've been through together, you think I would blame you for something that came about from what that sick son of a bitch did to you when you were a child? Don't try to spoon feed me a heap of bullshit, Jerra, 'cause I ain't swallowin' it."
Twin lines of tears ran down each of her cheeks. "Please. I need you to be there for me right now. Can't you see that?"
Darrell's eyebrows shot up. "You need me now? After you've talked over shit with Valentine when you should’ve come to me about in the first got damn place? If you think I'm okay with that, I'm beginning to realize you don’t know me as well as I thought you did."
"What?"
"I've trusted you with every ugly detail of my life - and I mean everything. I've opened up to you in ways I've never done with anyone else, from the crap with Tina to the shit I went through when Roni was killed. I shared all of that with you but the fact that you feel as if you can't come to me about something so serious means we have a grave problem."
Darrell finished off the rest of his 'nac then leaned over to place the glass on the table beside him, but before he set it down on the coaster, he paused. "Wait a minute." He slowly turned and fixed Jerra with a look full of suspicion as a thought suddenly occurred to him. "You said you met with Valentine before today. When?"
For the first time since they began talking, Jerra's eyes fell away from his. "It was a couple of months ago." Her answer was deliberately vague, hoping he'd leave it at that.
She should've known better.
The silence crept into the room and covered it like a thick, dense fog setting the stage for the real drama that was about to follow.
>
"Here? In Vegas?"
Jerra slowly shook her head.
"Look at me." After Jerra did so, Darrel read the answer in the guilt displayed on her face, but asked the question anyway. "Where?"
"Darrell..." Jerra's voice was barely a whisper.
"Where did you see him?"
Jerra swallowed as she realized how this was going to look, but the only thing she'd been focused on was making contact with her daughter. "Lake Tahoe. I flew there a couple of times and met with him. Afterwards, I took a flight straight back."
The fog hovering in the room suddenly turned into a gritty, dusty cloud because the more the facts of the story came out, the dirtier the entire mess started to get. In fact, it was so grimey Darrell began to wonder if the woman sitting in front of him was actually the same woman he married.
Couldn’t be.
"Darrell, I don't know how else to explain it other than to say I felt this was just something I had to do alone."
Darrell ignored Jerra's feeble attempts at reasoning. "That's why Valentine looked at you the way he did when I mentioned you'd never been to Tahoe before. He knew you'd been there because you'd been there to see him. Ain't this some shit."
Darrell swiped his hand over his face as he felt the last bit of self-control he'd been holding onto disappear. He stood up and dug in the pocket of his jeans for his keys. He had to get the fuck out of there.
"Where are you going? Darrell!"
Darrell paused in the doorway with his back to Jerra for several long seconds. When he finally answered her, his voice sounded tightly wound as if he were at his breaking point. "Jerra, I just told you I don't think you ever really knew me. If you wanna prove me wrong, you gonna let me walk out of this house right now because if I stay, things will be said, and once they're said they can’t be taken back." Darrell squeezed his keys until they dug into his palm. "We'll talk, but right now I need some time." He turned until he was able to see her out of the corner of his eye. "And I suggest you gimme that time."
