Legacy of Lies

by Tara Leigh

  I held her stare, wondering what role she’d played in keeping Jolie and me apart ten years ago. The lawyers had made it clear that my relationship wouldn’t reflect well on my father’s case. And she’d had access to my phone. Means. Motive. Opportunity. “You came to tell me that your husband is ill, and now you have. Did you expect me to break down in tears and rush to his bedside?”

  “No. But a little compassion would be nice.”

  I launched myself to my feet, a shot of adrenaline charging through my legs. “Compassion?” My tone was strident. “For a man that doesn’t have a shred of it himself? I don’t think so.”

  “That man is your father,” she shot back.

  “All the more reason to despise him, and everything he’s done. His name is synonymous with greed and deceit—which means my name is synonymous with greed and deceit!” Still reeling from this afternoon’s bombshell, this conversation couldn’t have come at a worse time. My emotions were on overdrive, thrumming just beneath the surface of my skin.

  “You don’t mean that, Tripp. He’s your blood.”

  My arteries felt like they were on fire. “Don’t remind me.”

  Her eyes followed me as I paced the length of the living room, back and forth.

  At my mother’s quiet, “Please, come sit,” I came to an abrupt stop, slamming my palms on the frame of the nearest chair.

  “To listen to you defend a man whose crimes are indefensible? I’d rather stand. And—”

  “But look at you now,” she interrupted. “Look at what you’ve achieved all on your own. Can’t you find it in your heart to forgive him?”

  For a moment, I recalled the man who had stood at the edge of the dance floor at the Waldorf Astoria. The man whose whispered apology came before the world knew what he’d done. The man whose ashen face and quiet, contrite tone appeared genuinely remorseful. Had I ever seen that man again . . . maybe I would feel differently now.

  “No. No, I can’t.” I shook my head. “And, for the life of me, I don’t understand how you can.”

  “To err is human, to forgive is divine.”

  My eyes nearly bugged out of their sockets as I gaped at my mother. “Did you really come all this way to spout archaic quotes at me?”

  Looking unrepentant, she pursed her lips, the corners turning down. “I came to tell you your father might not live out the month. And I’d rather hoped you would care.”

  “Well, you’ve done your part. Now you can return to his bedside with a clear conscience.”

  “You won’t come back with me?”

  I recoiled. “No. But when he dies, I’ll pay for an unmarked grave at some out of the way cemetery so the thousands of people he fucked won’t take their revenge by shitting all over his plot.”

  She gasped. “No one would dare do such a thing to your father.”

  “Oh no? I’m not convinced that there won’t be a ticker tape parade strutting down Wall Street the day his heart stops.”

  Placing both hands on the couch cushion, my mother pushed herself up and stood across from me, color rising on her cheeks. “He was a good man who made some bad choices.”

  A good man who had cost me the past nine years with the woman I love. A good man whose actions had cost me my daughter’s childhood.

  I cocked my head to the side, my blood pressure rising. “He’s been called a lot of things, but a good man? I don’t think so. If you want to call him a good husband, that’s your choice, although I’m sure the dozens of mistresses he stole from would beg to differ. And as for the kind of father he was—”

  My mother raised her hand to silence me. “Until you are a father yourself, I hardly think you’re qualified to comment on someone else’s parenting.”

  I pressed my lips into a thin line as I stared at my mother, debating whether or not she deserved to know she had a grandchild. “Fair enough.”

  Her shoulders slumped as she released a heavy sigh, a posture I’d never seen on her before. “Do you mind if I spend the night in a spare room, or would you prefer that I go to a hotel?”

  If my mother hadn’t looked ready to drop on her feet, I would have brought her to a hotel myself. “You can stay here.”

  She gave a relieved, wobbly smile. “Thank you, Tripp. I’ll get out of your way now, and I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

  It was the uncertainty in her expression that did me in. My mother had always been so strong, so confident. The woman standing in front of me bore a striking resemblance to the mother that had raised me, but there was a hollowness to her, like she’d maintained the shell, but what was inside was slowly eroding. I reached out for her wrist as she walked past me on the way toward the hallway, and her thin, papery skin was cool to the touch. “It’s been an odd day, to say the least. Do you want to rest for a bit and I’ll order dinner?”

  She hesitated for a moment, searching my face for signs that I wanted her to stay. “You don’t have to.”

  “I want to,” I said, surprised to realize I meant it.

  “Okay, then. Yes, that sounds nice.”

  I released her wrist and she moved away. She’d just about turned the corner when my mouth opened. “I already am, by the way.”

  One palm flat against the wall, she pivoted slowly. “You already are . . . what?”

  “A father. I’m a father.” The word felt foreign on my lips, but in the best way. Like freshly scooped gelato melting on my tongue while walking through the streets of Rome, or a buttery croissant bought from a Paris bakery. Foreign, but deliciously so.

  My mother, on the other hand, looked as if she’d swallowed a fly. “Since when?”

  “The summer of 2008.”

  “You’re telling me that I have a grandchild—a nine-year-old grandchild? How could you have kept this a secret from me?”

  I saw my own sadness mirrored in her face. “I didn’t. But if you’re looking for someone to blame, I would suggest that so-called good man of yours.”

  Her eyes swept the apartment, giving no sign that she’d heard me. “I don’t see any pictures, any signs of a child. Where—”

  I gestured toward the couch. “Maybe you should come back in here.”

  She walked back into the room, sitting down heavily. Waiting for answers to questions I didn’t quite understand yet. “I just found out about Romy today.”

  “Romy? A girl?”

  “Yes. Her mother is—”

  Her eyes widened as she put the pieces together. “Jolie Chapman,” she breathed, like she was talking about a ghost.

  “Yes. She didn’t find out she was pregnant until after . . .” My voice trailed off as memories of that bitter time assailed my senses.

  “After she left New York,” my mother finished.

  I flinched at yet another half-truth. “After her father committed suicide rather than go down for a crime he didn’t commit. A crime masterminded by my father.” Until today, I hadn’t realized just how much he stole from me.

  This time she didn’t argue. She just sat quietly, looking down at the hands she was folding and unfolding in her lap. “How did you find out? About Romy, I mean.”

  Rather than go into detail, I said only, “Jolie and I have reconnected.”

  She glanced up. “Why is she telling you now—why not years ago? Is the girl sick?”

  “No. Romy’s perfect.” Pride in my daughter and disgust that I’d just learned of her existence waged a brutal battle in my chest. “Jolie never had the chance to tell me she was pregnant. I suspect you know something about that, am I right?”

  36

  Tripp

  As much as I wanted to hear exactly what my mother had to say, I waited until I’d ordered food and sat her down at the kitchen table. Retrieving a can of ginger ale from my refrigerator, I poured the soft drink into a glass, and watched as she took a shaky sip. “Thank you,” she said, hesitating for a moment before opening her mouth to speak again. “It wasn’t your father’s idea. The text, I mean.”

  I dr
opped heavily into my chair. “Because you don’t want to believe it, or—”

  “Do you remember the day we spent with your father’s lawyers?”

  I nodded. “Of course.” It was the last time I saw my father in person. After we learned that James Chapman had committed suicide, the DA decided to play hardball. My father agreed to plead guilty to prevent charges being filed against my mother, who held a meaningless title at the company. He was sentenced without a trial. I refused to be in the courtroom that day, or in the same room with him ever again.

  “Do you remember giving me your phone?”

  “Yes. You said the lawyers wanted to check it out before I had to turn it over to the Feds.” My jaw clenched when I recalled that text that had been waiting for me when she gave it back.

  “Right. And they did. But I wanted access to your phone for a different reason.”

  My brows pulled together, creating a visor above my eyes and making everything appear darker. “Go on.”

  “When you stormed out of the conference room, I caught up with you. You said that you’d fallen in love with Jolie Chapman. It wasn’t the words you used, it was the look on your face. My little boy had become a man, almost overnight. You have your father’s stubborn streak in you—”

  A pang of nausea twisted my gut. “I am nothing like my father.”

  She sighed. “I know that’s what you want to believe, and I’m not going to argue the point. That’s not what’s important.”

  “What is important?”

  She took another sip of her soda, running her fingers along the rim of the glass as she stared at a point over my shoulder. “The press was having a field day with all the pictures of you and Jolie from the Ball and the Bachelor Brunch the month before. We were never going to be able to make a clean break from the Chapmans with you two on every newsstand, every gossip site, even the morning news and late night comedy shows.”

  Dread thickened my tongue, coating it with a harsh residue. “What did you do?”

  “We hadn’t decided what—”

  “Who is ‘we’?”

  “Me, your father, the lawyers. Before we could come up with a solution, your father got a call.”

  “From who?”

  “Nina Chapman.”

  “Nina, why would she . . .” My eyes narrowed as my imagination took over.

  “No. It wasn’t like that.” She shook her head. “Nina had asked me to lunch a week or so prior. She seemed to expect that since you two were dating, we had to be friends. I mean, really. Our husbands were partners well before she came into the picture. And quite frankly, I wasn’t sure how much longer she would last. She called my phone, and I didn’t pick up.”

  “So then she called dad.”

  My mother sniffed. “Yes. From her husband’s phone.”

  “What did Nina say?” The question emerged as a low growl. I had a pretty good idea, but I needed to hear every toxic detail.

  “She wanted our help keeping you and Jolie apart.”

  “And you agreed?”

  “Tripp, you have to understand. The only thing the public enjoys more than watching the mighty fall is a real life fairy tale romance. You and Jolie, you were attracting too much attention. It wasn’t good for any of us.”

  “So . . .” Barely restrained fury clutched at my throat.

  “She had a plan, and we agreed to it. It was for the best.” Her hands fluttered nervously around her face. “It was supposed to be for the best.”

  The ‘best’ for whom? Not for me. Not for Jolie. Not for Romy.

  37

  Jolie

  “Jolie, wake up—your friend is here.” Romy popped her head into my room and, just as quickly, shut the door behind her.

  Still groggy, I rolled to my side and squinted at the clock on my nightstand. 8:07. I didn’t know anyone who was up at this hour on a weekend. Suddenly terrified that Romy was about to open the door on an ax-murderer, I shot out of bed and raced down the hall. “Romy, don’t—”

  But I was too late, she was already pulling at the knob.

  It was no ax murderer.

  Tripp was holding two coffees in one hand, and a square bakery box wrapped with twine in the other. Cool gray eyes appraised me, heating up as they swept from my messy bed-head to the faded tee-shirt just barely covering the tops of my thighs, down my bare legs and painted toes.

  Instantly, I was transported back to the first few moments of that ridiculous Bachelor’s Brunch. Standing in the lobby, surrounded by pink flowers and gold branches and the sons and daughters of privilege. Women dripping in diamonds and pearls. Men in bespoke suits and handmade shoes, clutching crystal glasses filled to the brim with amber liquor.

  The sudden slice of sunshine that retreated as quickly as it had appeared, revealing the most beautiful boy I’d ever seen.

  Then as now, sexual tension clutched at my shoulder blades, desire unspooling inside my stomach, heat throbbing between my thighs.

  Then as now, a certainty hardened within my bones.

  That boy, this man, he was mine.

  And I was meant to be his.

  I swatted a few layers off of my face, trying not to show the effect Tripp’s presence had on me. “How did you—”

  “The doorman called.”

  “Really? I didn’t hear anything.”

  Romy piped up. “I answered it.”

  “I can’t stay long,” Tripp interjected. “I just wanted to tell you I got tickets for Frozen on Broadway tonight.”

  “Really?” Romy was bouncing up and down. “That’s the one I was hoping for.”

  He grinned, holding out the bakery box toward her. “Good. Why don’t you bring these to the kitchen and help yourself?”

  Romy took it with an enormous grin. “Thank you.”

  Tripp’s smile died as soon as Romy left the room, his gaze searing a path across my skin. He stepped closer, extending a paper cup toward me. The aroma of dark, roasted coffee mingled with a scent entirely Tripp’s own, making me dizzy. “We need to talk, Jolie.”

  I glanced toward the kitchen. “Now?”

  “My mother was at my apartment last night.”

  “I thought you two weren’t—”

  “We aren’t. But I’m glad we did.”

  A trickle of unease ghosted over the skin at the back of my neck, sending the hairs on end. “About . . .” I inclined my head toward Romy.

  He hesitated, shoving his free hand in his pocket and rocking back on his heels. “About us, actually. About what really happened that day.”

  Peeling back the plastic lid, I choked down a sip of coffee. “We don’t have to rehash ancient history, Tripp. I think it’s best if we just—”

  “No.”

  I wrapped my other hand around the cup that was shaking in my unsteady grip. “No?”

  Inclining his head, Tripp’s breath lightly fanned my hair and sent a surge of heat racing along every pulse point. “I’m done playing by your rules. That girl in there is our daughter and if I say we’re going to take out the trash that’s still rotting between us after all these years, then that’s what we’ll fucking do.”

  Not even coffee could save my throat from drying out and closing up after a declaration like that. I couldn’t even squeak.

  Tripp’s leather soles strode purposely into the kitchen, where he sat down beside Romy and nabbed a bear claw from the box, two words ringing in my ears, just slightly louder than the rest.

  Our daughter.

  After a few moments, I gathered myself together and joined them, standing on the other side of the peninsula that served as both a divider between the kitchen and the rest of the apartment, and a convenient breakfast table. Their easy banter was a joy to listen to, and saved me from having to make conversation.

  Tripp had taken his phone out of his back pocket before he sat down, and after a few minutes I picked it up. “How about a picture?” It was the least I could do.

  Tripp’s face brightened, an open-mouthed gri
n stretching from ear to ear. “That’d be great.” He curled his arm around Romy’s shoulder, their cheeks just inches apart.

  My entire world, captured on a three by five screen.

  “Got it.” I went to put his phone back down, but Romy stopped me. “Now the three of us.”

  My hand immediately went to my hair. “But I haven’t—”

  Tripp cut me off. “You’re beautiful. Just get over here.”

  It wasn’t what he said—I’ve been called beautiful thousands of times, nearly as often as too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, too blonde—it was how he said it. The husky timbre of his voice, the silver glint to his eyes that had none of the cold menace of steel. Tripp had every right to hate me. And although he might not be ready to admit it yet, he didn’t. Whether he could learn to love me again . . . now that was a question.

  Tripp held his phone in one hand, turning the view so that we could see ourselves as he took our picture. We looked like a family.

  We were a family.

  There was so much love in my heart it was on the verge of bursting. My eyes met Tripp’s, and the pain roiling within their depths had me choking on my own breath. I stepped back, but not before our faces were replaced with an incoming call. The name flashing across the screen had my pulse spiking for a different reason.

  Lance.

  Yet another lie littering the ground at our feet. True, Tripp admitted it already, on his own. But the reminder sent a wave of doubt crashing into me. There were so many lies between Tripp and me.

  How could I ever trust him?

  How could he ever trust me?

  Wasn’t that what strong relationships were built on—trust?

  Believing all you need is love was for idiots and the very young. Reality had smacked that idealism right out of me, and I wasn’t the same starry-eyed teenager who had believed Tripp and I were owed a future together.

  Not all love stories ended with a happily ever after. Some ended in tragedy.

  And some just ended.