The Client: A Second Chance Romance

by Hazel Parker

  “Nice, Mr. Goode.” Arabella admires Corbin’s physique as he stands holding the blanket and the two picnic baskets on each arm.

  “Are you talking about my packing skills or my socks?” He sticks his leg out and lifts up the cuff in a peek-a-boo manner.

  Arabella bursts out laughing. She tilts her head back and grabs her stomach.

  “I love the sound of your laugh.” His husky voice knocks the wind out of her.

  Again, her breathing becomes shallow. She parts her lips. Then licks them. Trying to tamp down her desire, she looks at the two sleeping children. Her amorous thoughts are chased away by loving thoughts of sitting on Corbin’s large sofa, holding Tucker in her lap, snuggling into Corbin’s side, and holding Chloe’s hand as she lays in her daddy’s lap.

  This vision of a happy future—a happy life—creates an ache in Arabella’s gut that almost makes her double over in pain. How is it possible for emotions to cause the body so much pain?

  “You okay?” Corbin tilts his head to the right.

  “Uh huh.” She doesn’t trust herself to speak.

  She remains silent on the entire drive back to her red-bricked townhouse. The three-year-olds sleep in their car seats. The nannies speak softly in Spanish in the backseat about where they went to school, what they studied, and what they plan to do in the future.

  Back at her luxury townhome, Arabella lets Tucker continue to nap in his race car bed. Ana sits with him in his room, reading a book in a rocking chair beside his bed. Luz stays in the SUV with Chloe. Corbin kisses his son’s forehead goodbye. Then he follows Arabella down the hardwood staircase.

  He stops at the front door on the welcome mat, turns around, and stares into her eyes. Gazing into her blue eyes, he takes in her hand gripping the banister, her winter boots standing on two different steps as if she’s about to go down—or go back up—the stairs. She looks poised to move, but he’s unsure if she’ll move towards him—or away.

  Corbin looks around the living room. He yearns to finish the puzzles, color the jungles with him and stack building blocks with his son. Corbin can’t help but feel left out. And angry. He missed out on his son’s first words. He missed on his son’s first steps. He missed out on his son’s first tooth. How many other firsts would he have missed out on if he hadn’t reached out to Arabella, hoping for—hoping for what? For love?

  How could he have ever thought that he could rekindle a relationship with a woman who hid her pregnancy and his son from him for three years? How does he know that she won’t leave him again? How can he be sure?

  Slowly his green eyes settle on Arabella’s blue. With wonder and resentment, Corbin asks:

  “How could you?”

  “Corbin—” Her hands flutters to her mouth. Afraid to speak. Afraid she’ll say the wrong thing.

  “How could you keep me from my son?” His voice cracks. His eyes tear up, then fill with venom. An anger that Arabella has never seen before on his gorgeous face contorts his good looks into something ugly. Alarming.

  “Are you mad?” Her voice is hoarse from the tension of not crying.

  “Mad?” He leans his head back and speaks to the ceiling, “She asks me if I’m mad.” He spreads his arms wide in an uninviting gesture. “You hid my son from me!” His voice reaches a tone unfamiliar to Arabella. Anger. Bitterness. Resentment.

  “Keep your voice down.” She looks back up the stairs. “Tucker is sleeping.”

  “My son,” he pauses to glare into her eyes, “is sleeping. I know. Because I just put him to bed.”

  “We—”

  “We? We?” He leans back in a partial backward bend so that his head touches the closed door behind him and says to the ceiling. “She said we!”

  “I see you’re upset,” Arabella begins. “I was thinking that maybe we—”

  “We? Again, this word, this word I am unfamiliar with. Where was this we when you got pregnant? Where was this we when you decided to have our baby on your own?” He shakes his head. His arms are still spread wide as if in supplication to the heavens.

  “Corbin, I made a mistake.” She steps back up another step. “I was thinking that we could talk about...joint custody.”

  “We could talk about joint custody?” His voice reaches a high pitch. “Joint custody? Gee, thanks. Thanks for letting me see my son.”

  “I’m sorry I never told you.” She takes a tentative step down and inhales deeply to gather the courage to ask him what she’s been wondering all afternoon. “Can we start over?”

  “Arabella, you broke my heart!” The force of his anger and bitterness punch her in her gut.

  His animosity disturbs her warm home and diminishes the welcoming crackle of the fireplace and the residual aroma of baking cookies.

  She fights the urge to turn around and run up the stairs. She wants to take them two at a time. She wants to put miles between herself and this unfamiliar, bitter Corbin. She wants the happy, loving, fatherly Corbin back. She wants him out of her home.

  Gripping the bannister, Arabella pivots and runs up the stairs.

  “Arabella!” Corbin calls.

  She races along the hardwood floors, past her son’s bedroom, past the au pair’s closed bedroom door that shares a bathroom with Tucker’s bedroom, past the framed photos of her parents and her son on a playground and on a horse and on a tricycle.

  She runs down the hall to the master bedroom. Shutting the door behind her, she kicks off her leather boots, jumps on her bed and pulls the extra soft beige cashmere blanket around her shoulders and over her head. Covering her mouth with both of her hands, she stifles her body-shaking sobs.

  Downstairs, Corbin runs his hands through his wavy hair. Abandoning the pose of a performer beckoning to his audience, he looks around the room once more before turning to leave. He opens the door, steps through it, closes it, and it locks behind him. He crunches along the newly fallen snow on the cement steps and walkway. In the short distance it takes for him to get to the Tesla, hop in, and start the engine, he’s already shooting a message to his private investigator: Goddard, get me background info on Arabella Wilder and her son Tucker Wilder.

  Corbin’s private investigator, Goddard, aka go-to-guy for all things shady, responds immediately: Yes, sir.

  Impatiently, Corbin steers the electric SUV that he hoped would impress Arabella and he pulls off into traffic in downtown Princeton. The afternoon sun shines through the barren branches, dappling the street with sun and shade alternatively. Bright puffs of white clouds threaten to snow. He feels like Arabella’s changing moods are as unpredictable as the shifting clouds in the night sky. She is impossible to read.

  *****

  The next morning Corbin’s phone rings. Incoming call from Goddard. Corbin accepts the call. Goddard’s face appears on the screen with a cigarette hanging from his mouth.

  “When are you going to give up those cancer sticks up?” Corbin puts his smartphone in a dock on his desk while he goes through images and articles about Arabella Wilder online. Several blogs mention her matchmaking business and cable show. None mention her son.

  “What’s the point in living if I have to give up all the good?” Goddard stations his phone on his work desk.

  “Cigarettes are good?”

  “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

  “Alright, what did you find on Arabella Wilder and Tucker Wilder?”

  “Arabella Wilder, owner of the Billionaire Matchmaking dating service and star of the cable television series, Billionaire Matchmaking, is single, never married, and has no children.”

  “No children?” Corbin tears his eyes away from the many photos of the blue-eyed blond Arabella standing in various form-fitting dresses with her assistants in promo photos for her show online.

  “Officially. However, there is a Tucker Wilder. Born on November seventeenth in twenty-fourteen in a hospital in Greenwich, Connecticut. Arabella is listed as his birth mother.” Goddard clears his throat.

  “The fath
er?”

  “Listed as unknown.”

  “Send me the birth certificate.”

  “Sending it now.” Goddard looks away from the screen, types something, and Corbin’s phone pings with the received files. “Apparently Arabella got an MBA online from an Ivy League university while living in Connecticut and waiting to give birth.”

  “What else do you know about the kid?”

  “Dark brown hair. Hazel-green eyes. Olive colored skin.” Goddard looks directly into camera phone at Corbin. “Something you want to tell me?”

  “The year that Arabella and I...were apart…she gave birth to our son.”

  Goddard whistles.

  “And you know this how?”

  “She just told me.”

  “What do you want to do about it?”

  “Can I sue for custody?”

  “You could...this is America. Did she say that she’d fight you on custody?”

  “No. She said that we could have joint custody.” Corbin bites back the bitterness of the memory of Arabella asking him for a second chance.

  He was ready to start all over when he saw her in the bar, saw her holding his son, saw her playing with his daughter. But, after the full gravity of the revelation that she broke up with him to conceal her pregnancy and his son hit him, he couldn’t forgive her. That level of deception—or drama—is not anything he wants to be a part of. He swore off drama when he stopped dating international models and Hollywood actresses.

  “I can get your lawyer to draw up some papers for shared custody.” He puffs on his cigarette.

  “Make it so.” Corbin clicks the red button on the screen to end the call. The screen goes black, and he’s left looking at his reflection in the glass: his long wavy brown hair peeking out from underneath his baseball cap, his hazel-green eyes, and his day’s-old beard. He rolls his eyes at his reflection.

  Then he takes off his baseball cap and runs his hands through his hair. Exasperated. He wants Arabella to pay for keeping his flesh-and-blood from him for so long. He wants her to feel the pain and sadness and humiliation that he felt the day she dumped him. He wants her to regret ever keeping secrets from him. And he knows exactly how to make her suffer.

  Corbin unlocks his phone, taps on the text message icon, and types Arabella Wilder. Then he speaks his text message into the microphone: Miss Wilder, I’m ready to move forward with the matchmaking. Is twenty-four hours enough time to put together the first date?

  He grins. He can imagine the shock and hurt she’s feeling as she reads his message. She’s so proud. He thinks that she just may go through with the date, even if it comes at the expense of her pride and feelings.

  He stares at the screen waiting for a response.

  The recipient of his text message, Arabella, sits on the floor with Tucker trying to put together an intricate puzzle of the dark blue ocean filled with multicolored fish. An episode of Thomas the Train plays on the TV mounted on the wall opposite the couch. The scent of bacon and eggs and waffles waft out of the kitchen where Ana cooks brunch. The crackling fire keeps the living room so warm that Arabella gets up to open the windows a little.

  When she returns to the floor, she sees her screen light up. She picks up the phone to find a message from Corbin. She thinks that he may be asking for forgiveness. She will forgive him. She thinks that it’s time for her to ask for forgiveness. She never really apologized for all the mistakes she made. Ready to do the right thing—the mature thing—Arabella taps on the screen to view the text message.

  Her jaw drops.

  Her blood boils.

  She looks up and around the room as if waiting for Corbin to appear from the hallway. She shakes her head. She cannot believe that he wants to move forward with the first mixer. In twenty-four hours. She’s so offended that she dashes off a message to her friends in the group chat.

  Arabella: Girls!

  Audrey: What?

  Nora: What happened?

  Sasha: How was the date?

  Arabella: There was no date.

  Sasha: No date?!

  Nora: I’m confused. Did he stand you up?

  Arabella: No

  Nora: Did you hang out?

  Arabella: Yes

  Nora: Was there food involved? Transportation? Laugher?

  Arabella: Yes. Yes. Yes.

  Audrey: Sounds like a date to me!

  Sasha: So… details!

  Arabella: He wants me to put together a mixer for him

  Nora: Wait. I’m confused. You had a date, and then he asked you to set him up with someone else? Why?

  Arabella: He was upset...about everything…

  Sasha: Understandably

  Nora: Lemme guess. You two had a great afternoon. You made some overtures for a fresh start. And he blew up. Sound about right?

  Arabella: Omg. Yes! How’d you know?

  Nora: I see it all the time.

  Audrey: Where?

  Nora: In my divorce cases.

  Sasha: Nice, Nora

  Nora: I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad news

  Audrey: Then don’t be

  Nora: But there are other furies than women scorned.

  Sasha: A scorned lover seeks revenge. News alert.

  Arabella: What should I do?

  Nora: Give him what he wants. He’s paying for it, right?

  Arabella: Yes

  Sasha: I agree. He wants his mixer, let’s give it to him

  Arabella: Let’s?

  Sasha: I’m coming. You need help, girl

  Arabella: Thanks Sash!

  Audrey: I’m coming too.

  Arabella: Thanks, Audrey!

  Nora: As much as I hate to miss this Shakespearean tragicomedy, I have to prepare for court.

  Audrey: I’ll text you updates.

  Nora: Please do!

  Arabella: Ladies, he wants the mixer set up in twenty-four hours. Can you meet me at my place by noon?

  Sasha: Done

  Audrey: You got it

  Arabella: Thanks lovelies!

  Arabella clicks out of the group chat. She leans over and ruffles Tucker’s hair.

  “Ready for brunch?”

  “Yes!” Tucker drops the puzzle pieces in his hand and races to the half bathroom to wash his hands.

  A few hours later, Sasha and Audrey show up together at Arabella’s door. She flings it open, spreads her arms, and group hugs her girls.

  “I love you girls!” She holds them tightly.

  “Can we come in? It’s freezing out here.” Audrey ushers Arabella into the warm living room.

  “It’s not that cold.” Arabella closes the door behind her friends.

  “Audrey’s freezing because she’s been living in Hawaii.” Sasha shifts her long blond hair over her shoulder and pulls off her winter coat.

  “Hawaii!” Arabella sounds excited.

  “Let’s get down to business,” Audrey changes the subject as she yanks off her snow-laden boots. “I love being your assistant. I want to look through your database. Read the profiles. See who’s the best fit for Corbin.”

  “No. Not the best fit. The worse fit. Right?” Sasha pulls off her winter boots.

  “No, Sash. I have to do the right thing. Give Corbin the matches he deserves. It’s the least I can do.”

  “But, he’s just doing this out of spite.” Sasha hangs her coat in the closet by the door and then steps over several toys to get to the sofa.

  “Maybe...but he’s still a paying client.” Arabella walks down the hallway. “Follow me, girls. This way to my office.”

  Once ensconced in the all-beige office with glass tables and ergonometric black office chairs, the three friends sit and face an enormous flat screen TV mounted on the wall to the right of the door. Large computer monitors cover the glass tables behind the friends. The shades are pulled shut.

  Arabella presses play on the remote control in her hand. A gorgeous Corbin wearing a tuxedo and sitting on a brown leather bar stool in front of a gold cloth ba
ckdrop begins speaking on the screen.

  “Hi, I’m Corbin T. Goode. I’m here because I’m looking for love. I feel optimistic. I know Arabella Wilder’s track record. And I know that she can find me the one.” He grins shyly at the camera.

  Arabella presses pause.

  “He knows your track record?” Sasha swivels in her chair. “Sounds like a message.”

  “A message that she’s an amazing matchmaker.” Audrey stares pointedly at Sasha.

  Arabella looks at her friends, then back at the screen and presses play.

  “I moved to Princeton when Dana got pregnant. Before Dana, I lived in New York City. But, once she told me about our baby, I was ready to move to the suburbs and start our family.”

  Arabella exhales. This is supposed to be a routine client in-take. This is supposed to be business as usual: watch the client video, find out what the client wants, search the database for matches suitable for the client, and let nature take its course.

  But, each time Corbin says pregnancy and family and I was ready is like a punch in her gut. Regret fills her: if only she had told him that she was pregnant; if only she hadn’t listened to her parents’ advice to hide the pregnancy; if only she had stayed in New York City. What would’ve happened? She knows that she can’t repeat the past. But, she can’t help but think about it.

  “I’ve stayed in Princeton for the past four years to raise my daughter, Chloe.” Corbin smiles when he mentions Chloe.

  “Oh.” Arabella can’t help but feel guilty about keeping Corbin’s son from him for so long. She can imagine him smiling proudly as he talks about Tucker.

  Sasha and Audrey each reach over and squeeze Arabella’s arms. She smiles thankfully at them. What would she do without her girls? They never judge her. They always support her. Even when they may have disagreed with her for hiding her son from his father, they didn’t openly criticize her. They asked her questions—said they’d love her no matter what. Seeing her two best friends sitting with her now when they could be anywhere in the world warms her heart.

  “Ever since Dana passed, I haven’t had a girlfriend. The only girl in my life is Chloe.”