by Noelle Adams
“Oh, Molly, please. That was stupid on my part. You know I think you’re great, but our getting together would have been a huge mistake. I’d just wanted…”
“You just wanted what?”
“I just wanted what I saw in you and Lyons. I wanted to be…to be close to someone.”
Molly was silent for a long time. Then, “I know I’m up in the wilds of Canada, but I heard some rumors about your dating someone seriously. Were they just stories?”
Baron opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out the colored drawing of the pink and red elephants Jane and Charlotte had made for him two weeks ago. “I was,” he said at last.
“And it was serious?”
“Yeah.”
“What happened?”
“It just didn’t work out.”
She must have heard something in his voice, although he thought he sounded fairly composed. “So that’s what’s wrong with you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Did she break your poor heart?”
“No.”
“So why didn’t it work out?”
He didn’t want to answer. He wasn’t going to answer. But, for some reason, he answered anyway. “A man’s life is…is only so big. There’s only room for so much. It was too much.”
“Baron, that’s absolutely ridiculous.”
“It is not ridiculous. I barely have enough time in the day to do my father’s job. Much less deal with Steven contesting the will and all the complications that’s causing. She has two kids. They need someone who can really be there for them. I can’t be. I can’t do everything. I can’t have everything.”
She hesitated a long time before she replied, “I’m not going to pretend to know all that’s going on there, but I’ll just say that Luke’s company is just as big as yours is. He does the same job you’re doing now. He works a lot. A lot. No one would deny that. But he has room in his life for me. For our baby who’s coming. I think there would be room in your life too, if you wanted to make the room.”
Baron did want it. Desperately. “It just wasn’t going to work out.”
He could almost hear her hold back an argument. “Okay. I’m sure there’s a lot I don’t know. But something has to give, Baron. Something is wrong with you. You don’t sound like yourself at all.”
“And what exactly sounds like me?” He was exhausted rather than resentful, although the words made him feel very defensive—since he hadn’t felt like himself since he’d walked out on Leila.
“I don’t know. You know I didn’t think all those dangerous stunts were good for you—and I definitely didn’t approve of all the women you were with. But you were always…I don’t know… You were always larger than life. Full of energy and charisma and just plain old sex appeal. You were funny, and you were fun. When was the last time you had fun?”
Baron knew the answer to that.
The last time he’d had fun was going to an animated movie about elephants with Leila, Jane, and Charlotte.
He wasn’t likely to ever have that kind of fun again.
***
The following morning, he went in to the office early, after just a few hours of sleep.
He’d told MaryAnn and the rest of the staff, in no uncertain terms, that they were not to come in today. They’d worked through the last four weekends, but burning them out wasn’t in anyone’s best interests.
Plus, Baron didn’t want to talk to anyone.
It was unusually quiet in the executive suite as Baron sat behind the desk that had been his father’s and made his way through emails, voice mail messages, stacks of documents to sign, and miscellaneous correspondence.
It would be hours before he could clear off his desk, assuming nothing else came in during the day today.
It would be months before the legal battle with Steven could be sorted out.
It would be days, weeks, months, years before he recovered from losing Leila and the girls.
Baron forced the thought out of his mind.
Not so long ago, he’d desperately wanted his brother back in his life, he’d wanted some sort of connection with the only family he had left. Now, he just wanted out of this endless game completely. He just wanted the duel to end.
He wanted to walk unwounded away from the battle.
And he wanted Leila back.
He leaned back in his desk chair and stared out of the wide expanse of windows looking out on Boston. He could go over to Leila’s house right now and tell her he was sorry, he was wrong, he never wanted to let her go.
Maybe she would forgive him. Maybe she would want him back.
She hadn’t seemed very upset that night two weeks ago. Not nearly as upset as he was. Maybe she didn’t want him as much as he wanted her.
“You don’t appear to be getting much done today.” The smooth, familiar voice sounded from the doorway of his office, and it startled Baron so much he felt the blood drain from his face. “It’s a shame to waste your Saturday in the office if you aren’t actually going to do any work.”
Baron stood up. “No matter how much I appreciate your sage advice,” he replied, in the cool voice he always used with Steven, “I have to wonder what you’re doing here at all.” He walked over so his back was to the window and he was facing the door, taking the position of power in the room.
Steven gave a half-shrug, and Baron suddenly recognized the motion as his own characteristic gesture. He'd never realized before that it might be a family trait. “Why shouldn’t I pay you a visit?”
“Can we dispense with the niceties?” Baron didn’t want the verbal duel. He didn’t want to talk to him at all. “Is there something you want?”
“There’s always something we want.” Steven stepped closer.
“But we don’t always get it.”
He was still angry, still defensive, but the fury wasn’t hot, violent, ready to snap. It was just endlessly tired.
He’d given up everything for this. For this.
“I paid a visit to your, ah, girlfriend a couple of weeks ago. Did she happen to mention it?” The way Steven said ‘girlfriend’ made it sound like he were tiptoeing around something unpleasant.
But this was nothing Baron hadn’t expected. His brother would have been wondering why Baron hadn't yet reacted if Leila had told him about the confrontation in her office. “She did.”
Steven arched his eyebrows. “Did she? Is it serious between you? Are you really interested in becoming a stepfather?”
Baron didn’t answer. No answer would do what he needed it to do. He just stared at his brother in stoic silence.
Perhaps because he wasn’t getting the reactions he’d expected, Steven changed tactics. He strolled over to stare out the window, standing only a foot away. “I’m a little concerned that she failed to tell you about our little…moment.”
Baron’s expression didn’t alter—not in the slightest degree. He stared at his brother’s face, and suddenly everything became clear to him.
He understood. Everything.
Steven was probably genuinely attracted to Leila. She was beautiful, vibrant, intelligent, warm, generous. Shining. Of course, Steven might be attracted to that—for all the reasons that Baron was himself.
But that wasn’t why Steven had made a move on her.
He also hadn’t done it just to hurt Baron.
While hurting his brother would never keep Steven from doing what he wanted to do, Baron suddenly realized that it wasn’t his primary motivation.
At times in the past, it had felt that way. At times, it felt that way now. But it wasn’t reality.
Steven hadn’t come on to Leila to hurt Baron. He’d done it to turn Leila into a weapon. A weapon that could be used—not to destroy Baron but to sustain their battle, their duel, their game.
Baron’s lips parted slightly as he processed this revelation, and the question that came to his lips wasn’t anything like the one he’d expected. “Why are we still doing this?” The wor
ds were spoken before Baron realized he was speaking them.
Then Steven shook his head, looking unusually tired in that moment. “You tell me.”
“Because there’s nothing left for us to do.”
It all made sense to Baron now. And he processed the truth—that deepest truth—with a lump lodged hard in his throat.
There was no victory for him in this game. There was no way the duel would come to an end.
They were standing in his office. His inheritance. The world his father had left for him to hold together. For years he’d been able to take what he wanted—money, women, thrills, the role his father had left him, a little church on campus he loved.
But he couldn’t have everything.
There was no walking unwounded away from this battle, so there was only one thing left for him to do.
He just walked away.
Fifteen
“But it’s Sunday, Mommy. Why are you leaving so early?” Charlotte was rumpled and a little groggy, since she’d just woken up.
“I’ve got these last papers and exams to grade, and I need to get them done because grades are due for the end of the semester. I want to get them done early, so I can spend the rest of the day having fun with you and Jane. Is that all right?”
“Yeah. It’s okay,” Jane replied for both of them. She looked a little more awake than her sister. “What will we do later?”
“We can go to the zoo, if you want. Or maybe the science museum.”
Leila wished she hadn’t mentioned the museum, since it reminded her so strongly of Baron. She’d gotten herself together after the first couple of days, but her chest still ached painfully at the thought of him.
Evidently it reminded the girls too. Charlotte slumped into her bed. “Mr. Baron came with us to the museum.”
“I know he did.”
“Why doesn’t he want to be with us anymore?” Jane asked in a thready voice.
“We’ve talked about this. Remember? Since I’m not dating him anymore, he can’t spend time with you like he used to. But it was me that he broke up with. It wasn’t about not liking you.”
“But why did he break up with you, Mommy?” Charlotte twisted in her blanket and looked on the verge of being very upset. “You made him happy.”
Leila had thought Baron was happy with her too. “Sometimes things just don’t work out. He thought it was best not to see me anymore.”
“But he was wrong.” Charlotte was moving into dramatic mode. “He was wrong!”
“Can’t you tell him he was wrong, Mommy?” Jane added.
Leila took a shuddering breath. It felt wrong to her too. “That’s not the way it works, sweetie. If someone decides to break up with someone else, then that’s their choice, even if you don’t agree with it.”
“But how will he know he’s wrong if you don’t tell him, Mommy?”
Leila didn’t have an answer to that.
***
She stared down at the student essay on the desk in front of her, holding a pen and trying to force herself to concentrate. It was the first paper in the last stack she needed to grade for the semester, but she hadn’t yet made it through the opening paragraph.
It was hard enough to grade papers under normal circumstances. It was even harder to grade on a Sunday, even after she’d come into the office solely for that purpose. At the moment, she was finding grading impossible.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Baron.
She glanced at her email—but she’d cleared out her inbox earlier and nothing new had arrived in the last half-hour. Then she glanced at the clock. Still only 10:48 on a Sunday morning.
She turned back to the essay and noticed a run-on sentence . She added the comma. Circled it. Tried to focus on the next sentence.
Had to read it several times before she could even process what it said.
She’d always known this was possible. From the very beginning, she’d seen the end.
Baron was who he was. His life was what it was. And she and her girls could never really be part of it.
She needed to accept it and move on.
When her phone broke the silence of her office, she snatched it up, her heart leaping the way it had at every phone call for the last two weeks, although her mind kept saying that it wouldn’t be Baron.
It wasn’t Baron. It was her brother.
“Hey,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. “What’s up?”
“Is everything all right?”
“What do you mean?”
“You sound strange.”
“I do not sound strange. All I said was ‘what’s up’?”
“Well, it sounded strange. Is something wrong?”
“No. Not really.”
“That didn’t sound convincing.”
She sighed. “If you must know, I’m still a little down about breaking up with Baron.”
“Oh. I’m sorry. You never told me the whole story. Why did you break up?”
She shrugged to her empty office. “You know Baron. It wasn’t likely he’d want to settle down with me.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Dave sounded more annoyed than anything else.
“Nothing. It just means I’m not really his type. We had fun, but he has this whole big life and all kinds of things going on. He wasn’t going to give it up just for me.”
“He told you that’s why he ended it?”
“No. He just said it was bad timing.”
“This doesn’t sound right, Leila. Didn’t you ask for more information?”
“Of course not. Did you think I was going to beg for him to stay with me, when he clearly wanted out?”
Dave was silent for a long minute. Then he muttered, “Damn, you make me crazy sometimes.”
She gasped. “What? What is your problem? I’m the one who got dumped here, and you’re blaming me?”
“I’m not blaming you. Well, maybe I am blaming you some. It’s just that you still think of yourself as that girl with a crush who is never going to get the guy she wants. Why the hell shouldn’t Baron be in love with you?”
Her heart was beating wildly with confusion and a strange sort of excitement, but her mind hadn’t caught up with it. “He’s not in love with me! He dumped me.”
“And you think there were good reasons for him to do it? You think it’s what he really wanted?”
She swallowed hard, suddenly picturing Baron’s face as they’d had that horrible conversation. She’d been trying so hard not to break down in a heap of heartbreak that she hadn’t fully registered it. But he’d looked lost, wounded. “But why—”
“Who the hell knows why? But I don’t think… He called me up last month. Did he tell you?”
“No. He called you? Why?”
“Just to talk. I think he wanted to reconnect. I thought it was a good sign. He sounded like his old self again. The point is that you were good for him, so whatever is pulling him away from you is not good for him. And it has nothing to do with you not being good enough for him.”
He was right. Dave was exactly right. She’d been acting on bone-deep insecurities, instead of like the reasonable grown-up she was supposed to be. She knew Baron. And she knew he’d been really happy with her and the girls.
And she was suddenly sure he wasn’t happy now.
“What should I do?” she asked, rather raspily. She wasn’t in the habit of asking her brother for romantic advice. They usually just talked about their kids. But she was paralyzed with hope and fear and the coursing excitement that pounded through her veins with her blood.
“I don’t know. Maybe you should talk to him.” There was an edge of sarcasm in Dave’s voice, but perhaps it was deserved.
Maybe Jane was right. Maybe Leila should tell Baron he was just wrong.
“Okay. Okay.”
She hung up soon afterwards and just stared at her phone for a long time.
She should talk to Baron. Get him to explain what he was thinking, how he’d convinced himsel
f that this was for the best.
It wasn’t for the best. She knew it wasn’t.
A knock on her office door startled her so much she jumped. When she called, “Come in,” she stood up at the sight of a courier in the doorway, holding a package and saying he’d tried her at home first and they’d told him to come here.
Too surprised to figure out what it meant, she signed for the large envelope and thanked the courier.
Then she opened the envelope and pulled out a document.
She scanned through it, unable to process the words until she’d read them several times.
It was the purchase contract for West Church. And the deed.
It had been signed over to her name.
Baron had given her the church.
She almost choked when the knowledge finally broke through her blurred stupor.
She flipped the pages blindly, realizing there was a handwritten page underneath the documents.
You said that when people believe in something—really believe in it—we create beauty, discover the unknown, make the world better. No one ever believed in me until I knew you. I want you to have this because I know now that your belief has made me better. Everything I know of beauty and discovery and meaning is centered in you. B
Tears streamed down her cheeks as she read the note four times, trying to register what it said, what it meant.
Once she understood, she ran for her bag and keys, propelled into action. She couldn’t wait for the slow elevator, so she ran down the stairs. Then she ran for the parking lot, trying to remember how to get to Baron’s apartment from campus.
When she reached the parking lot on campus, she saw a familiar car, one that made her heart jump into her throat.
She turned on her heel and jogged in the opposite direction, down the path, through the trees, to the church.
He was standing with his back to her, facing the church, wearing jeans and a black t-shirt and looking somehow lonely.
He turned as she approached, and she started to run flat out as she saw his face. Her bag banged her thigh, and her keys jangled in her sweaty hand, and her throat was raw from running, and her cheeks must be embarrassingly red.
But none of that mattered. Nothing mattered but Baron.
