Yes. Yes, it is, Mother.
“Hi, Mom,” I replied instead.
“‘Hi, Mom’”, she muttered under her breath before launching into why she was calling. “I’ve been trying to reach you because Elliot called and said you’ve been spending time with his eldest son, Logan. Is that true?”
I could feel the signs of a headache coming on as I answered, “He came to my office once to introduce himself and then he invited me to lunch yesterday to talk some more.” I kept it short and sweet because it was none of her business and not anything I wanted to discuss with her.
“Does this mean you’re going to finally help Elliot?”
“No. It doesn’t. And I made that perfectly clear to Logan. He reached out to me because he wants to get to know me independently of my non-relationship with Elliot,” I informed her.
“Isabella DeLucci! How can you even entertain spending time with Logan without helping your father? Are you just trying to rub salt in Elliot’s wound?” she accused.
I stood as anger licked at my heels. “What wound? You are as delusional today as you were the day you started sleeping with a married man, thinking he was going to leave his wife for you. Elliot Stanhope isn’t wounded by any of his choices, and even if he was, he deserves it!”
“Isabella, how can you be so cold? I didn’t raise you to be so unforgiving,” she declared.
I couldn’t help the sad laugh that escaped from my bruised heart. “You didn’t raise me at all,” I snapped back. “You may have provided for me financially, but you let me to raise myself emotionally and, thank God, for that. Had I had any respect for you, I might have grown up believing it was okay to fuck married men. I might have grown up to believe it was okay to connive and manipulate my way to destroying other people’s families. I might have gotten pregnant to trap a man and then become a shitty mother. I might have wasted all my good years on a man who only wanted easy pussy!”
Her screech could be heard around the world. “How dare you?!”
“I dare because you are still putting that jerk ahead of what’s best for me. I dare because you never run out of nerve. Whatever happens with Logan and me is none of your business,” I shouted back. My only saving grace was that my office walls weren’t paper thin.
“Because Julian Moretti is such perfection,” she sneered. “You think he’s a guarantee? Karma is a cold bitch, Isabella. The second you say ‘I do’, he’s going to be out looking for the next best thing because he already has you sewn up.”
“Karma?” I asked. “Tell me, Mother, what exactly I’ve done to deserve such negative karma? I’m not you. I’ve never hurt a soul.” But even as the words spilled out of my mouth, I knew there was one person I’ve hurt and that brought all the weight of the world crashing down on me.
Julian Moretti was perfection.
A broken, hurt, sad, scarred picture of perfection, but still perfection.
Because he was perfect for me. And I’ve done nothing but cause his doubt and worry.
“Julian is a million times the man Elliot Stanhope ever was or could hope to be,” I seethed at her. “You’re just jealous that the man I love actually loves me back. Something you’ve never had in your life.” And then I spoke the words I knew deep in my heart to be true. “Julian loves me no matter how scarred I am and he would love me even if I didn’t love him back.” It was all hitting me like the most painful epiphany because these are the things I should have said to Julian last night. This is the stuff I should have realized yesterday when he was at his most vulnerable. “Julian’s love is the stuff of legends, Mother, and I’m going to be grateful for every ounce of it because it cannot be found anywhere else with anybody else.” I took a cleansing breath before adding, “So you can take your venom and poison yourself with it, because I’m no longer going to allow you to taint my world.”
She gasped like a true victim. “Are you daring to suggest you’re going to cut me out of your life? I’m your goddamn mother, Isabella!”
“No, you’re not. You’re Elliot Stanhope’s useless mistress. That’s all you’ve ever been and that’s all you’ll ever be.” I wanted to hang up on her, but for all my emotional bravado, this woman still gave birth to me when she didn’t have to. “If you ever decide you want to be more than one of Elliot’s cast off memories, we can talk. But, until then, I’m done with letting you pollute my life and my relationship with Julian.
“So, just like that, you’re choosing a man over your own mother,” she huffed, clearly offended.
“No. I’m choosing my happiness over your misery,” I countered right before I hung up on her.
I stood up and started pacing my office in frustration. My heels made no sound on the carpet as I walked back and forth so there was no noise to drown out my thoughts. I couldn’t believe I was so blinded by my mother’s misery that I couldn’t see I was perfectly safe with Julian.
I was so hell bent on making sure I didn’t end up in a relationship like my mother’s and father’s that I didn’t recognize a real one when I was in it. I was so determined to be independent and not need a man that I lost sight of what men are meant to be for women.
Men are supposed to provide for you. They are supposed to protect you. They are supposed to worry about you. They are supposed to satisfy you. They are supposed to cherish you.
And while I am perfectly capable of doing almost everything a man can do, in a real partnership, I shouldn’t have to. Julian opening car doors for me doesn’t mean he thinks I can’t open one myself. Julian pulling out my chair at meals doesn’t mean he thinks I’m too stupid to seat myself. Every gesture, every effort and every move he’s made, since the night we met, was to show me I was no longer alone in life, plain and simple.
God, I’m such a jerk!
I dived for my cellphone sitting on my desk and I fired off a text, praying I hadn’t ruined us beyond all repair.
I’m so sorry. Please, please forgive me, Julian.
I debated texting him about the flowers, but I didn’t want him thinking I only texted him because I was afraid. I wanted him to know that I was texting him because I was wrong and nothing more.
I just hoped I wasn’t too late.
Julian~
I sat at Teresa’s kitchen table and I felt like I never wanted to leave here.
Her home was similar to mine in structure and layout…well, except for the basement, of course…but, somehow, I felt more at home in her house than I did my own. Or maybe I just felt at home whenever I was near Teresa.
For years, Nick, Chase, Kane and I had tried to convince her to move into a bigger, more lavish home, but she would never go for it. She said compared to the cramped two bedroom apartment where she raised Chase and Kane, the house she lived in now was lavish.
I had called Nick last night when I walked out of the house letting him know I was taking a sick day and would be spending it with Teresa. He had known immediately that something wasn’t right, but he didn’t push and I knew he’d pass the information on to Chase. Like I said, they didn’t judge and they blindly supported me whenever I was in a bad place. Plus, I needed to let them know I was with Teresa because I always turned my phone off when I was with her. For everything she’s ever done and still does for me, she deserves to have my full attention when we’re together. I never took Teresa for granted. Every second I spent with her was a gift from God. I felt the same about Isabella.
Teresa’s house boasted of three bedrooms. She occupied the master suite while the other two were spare bedrooms completely furnished in the event and Chase, Kane, Nick or I needed a place to regroup. I came directly here after leaving the house last night, and for the first time ever, I still felt ill at ease even after spending the night in the safest place I knew.
My alarm this morning was the aroma of bacon and my mouth had started watering, reminding me that I had missed dinner last night. I had risen and took a shower. After I was done with my morning ritual of showering, brushing my teeth and combing my ha
ir, I had found a pair of my jeans and a t-shirt in the bedroom I always used and got dressed.
I had made my way to the kitchen and found Teresa going to town in her night coat and slippers. She fed me and let me eat in complete silence and now we were sitting across from each other at the kitchen table. She was sipping on her coffee while I was polishing off my orange juice.
She finally got tired of waiting for me to spill all my secrets. “How long can I expect you for?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “Not sure, Mom.”
Teresa let out a heavy sigh and her face took on all the stress of the world. I felt bad. I knew she worried about me in a way she didn’t everyone else. Nick, Chase and Kane weren’t destructive, only I was. And I knew that weighed heavily on her. “Firstly, are you okay?”
This time, I’m the one who let out a heavy sigh. “Not really,” I admitted.
Like a trainer approaching a wounded zoo animal, she slowly reached out to take my hand in hers. “Do you want to tell me what brought you here last night?”
I clasped her delicate hands in mine and spilled the entire story. I didn’t leave anything out. I told her all the horrible things I said to Isabella and the hurtful things she said to me. I didn’t sugar coat any of it. I didn’t need to. Teresa Alexander’s accepted me unconditionally, and maybe, because she was able to, I was hoping Isabella could too.
She waited until I finished up with waking up this morning and then she just simply stated, “Being in love is such a frightening experience.”
I couldn’t stop my muffled laugh. “That’s it? That’s all you have for me?”
She smiled and let out a faint snicker. She tightened her hands with mine as she studied me. I don’t know if she found what she was looking for in my face, but she spoke like she had. “I think you and Isabella were living in a perfect little bubble where nothing or no one could touch you for these past few months, and now that your easy happiness is being threatened by a pseudo-stalker and her father’s side of the family, you both are struggling to get back to when it was just Julian and Isabella.”
“I’m not delusional, Mom. I knew every day wasn’t going to be rainbows and wine. Hell, I know that lesson better than most,” I reminded her.
“I’m not suggesting that your lives were going to be perfect. But the fights you guys envisioned having were probably over dirty socks not in the hamper or forgetting to text if you’re going to be late for dinner,” she explained. “You guys are fighting over other people, people who are threatening the quiet balance that you and Isabella have. I think you may be feeling as if these other people are taking priority with Isabella, and I don’t think that’s the case, son.”
My body leaned in closer. “Then how do you explain her keeping lunch a secret from me?”
“You said you guys had just had a fight a few days before, right? Maybe she just didn’t want to fight with you so soon after your first real fight, Julian,” she offered. “Son, even if she knows you would never hurt her, you don’t see yourself through other people’s eyes. You’re a very formidable sight on a good day. No one wants to see you in a fury. No one. Besides, there’s a difference between keeping a secret and not telling someone something.”
I leaned back in my chair and tried to absorb what she was telling me. “And the difference between the two is what exactly?” I asked.
“As much to the dismay of you boys, you are very aware that Jonathan still calls me from time to time, right?” I had to clench my teeth. I hated that her ex-husband still called to speak with her. We had been trying to get her to hang up on the bastard for years, but she insisted that she was a peace with her past and she wasn’t going to kick a person when they were down and she was in such a good place. “Well, I don’t tell you boys every time he calls, so does that mean I’m keeping it a secret from you or does that just mean I didn’t mention something you know is ongoing and upsets you?”
“Mom…”
She clasped my hand tighter. “Julian, my beautiful boy, how do you know she hadn’t planned on telling you that night or when she got back to the office?”
“She flat out said she knew I’d be upset,” I reminded her.
“True. However, you were already feeling betrayed and felt like she had kept a secret from you the second you saw them together. You crashed their lunch never giving her a chance to tell you anything. And then it was all accusations after that,” she went on to point out.
“No. It wasn’t like that, Mom. And she should have told me immediately after she accepted his invite to lunch,” I kept insisting.
She let go of my hands and leaned back in her seat. She was regarding me with such a look of concentration on her face; it was starting to make me squirm. Mom rested her elbows on the table and clasped her hand together. “Correct me if I’m wrong here, but you’ve spent almost every day or night with Isabella since you’ve met her, correct?”
“Yes.” And for some stupid reason, I felt like I needed to add, “It’s been almost six months.”
“Hmmm,” she muttered. “So, as good as you, Nick, Chase and Kane are at reading people, none of you guys picked up on Isabella’s deceitful qualities in all these months of knowing her?”
I could feel my skin tighten and my body felt like a live wire. It took everything I had to not snap at my mother. “No,” I answered. “No, because Isabella doesn’t have a deceitful bone in her body, Mom. You’ve met her. You know,” I gritted out.
She smirked at me, and in that instant I knew I had been played. Her brows lifted. “No?”
I shook my head, but smiled at her. “No,” I reiterated.
Mom let on a full, compassionate smile before telling me, “She may not have handled the thing with Logan in the best way considering your disposition, but she didn’t betray you, Julian. And I don’t believe she would ever choose someone over you. That girl loves you, son.”
I thought back to when I was in her brother’s face and both times she addressed me before checking on him. Hell, now that I think about it, she didn’t even check on him. All of her focus was on me and keeping me out of jail. And while I’ll concede this point to my mom, there were still all the things that were said during our fight last night. “What about all the hurtful things we said to each other last night, Mom? We were really awful to one another.”
“Awe, son, you apologize and love her enough to make her forget you ever utter those hurtful accusations,” she advised, so simply.
“Just like that?”
She gave me one nod. “Yes, Julian, just like that.”
I let go of her hands and ran my own through my hair. “I just want to protect her from everything and everyone, Mom. Including me,” I told her.
“I’m going to suggest something, Julian, and I want you to hear me out before you outright refuse the idea, okay?”
I straightened in the chair. “I’m not leaving Isabella, Mom. Nothing you say can change that. That woman-”
She chuckled. “Oh, Julian, I wasn’t going to suggest that, so calm down, son.”
I let out a breath. I’ve never denied my mother, but leaving Isabella was not an option. “What were you suggesting, then?”
“No matter what the people who love you tell you, you continuously believe that there’s bad in you, and I completely understand why you feel that way, I really do. But it’s simply not true, son,” she said again. She’s always telling me this. “I…I think, perhaps, the man in you needs to go see Sandy, so that the boy in you is no longer lonely and afraid.”
I sat there stunned.
Out of all the things I expected to hear, that sure as fuck wasn’t one of them. I was so stunned, I started stuttering, “H…ho…how…w…why would y…you…what?”
“Julian, hear me out, okay?” I nodded and she went on, “I’ve no doubt that Sandy is very aware of yours, Nicholas’, Chase’s and Kane’s success. I’m sure the entire neighborhood knows what you boys have accomplished, especially with all your charity work.”
/> “Mom...” I didn’t want to hear her reasoning, because I was afraid she was going to make sense.
“Julian,” she stated firmly shutting me the fuck up. “I think if you go…show her in person what you’ve become and what you’ve accomplished in spite of what she did to you, it’ll help you move on a bit. The last imagine she has of you is a damaged 18 year old boy running away with his friends to chase a better life. Showing her the good, strong, loving and compassionate man you are now will show her and you that you won. And you did win, My Sweet Julian. Let yourself enjoy your success.”
“And what do I do if I end up murdering her, because the sight of her is more likely to conjure up all my hate and rage than give me peace, Mom,” I asked.
“Then you murder her and we’ll all be right over to help you get rid of her body, Julian,” she countered, and I knew she meant it with everything in her soul.
And then I voiced my real fear, “And what if I do go see her and I still feel broken when I leave?”
Her eyes started to spill over. “Then nothing, son. You’ll still have a successful business and a family who loves you. You’ll still have Isabella. And we will still try to convince you to see yourself the way we do.”
I couldn’t take her tears anymore. I stood up and walked around the table, taking her into my arms. “I love you, Mom.”
She started weeping. “I know you do, son. I love you, too. So, so much, My Sweet Julian.”
I pulled back so I could look down into her face. “Whether I take your advice or not, you’re my mother,” I stressed to her. “You’re the only mother I’ve ever had and the only mother I’ll ever want. You’re my mom.”
She pressed her face to my stomach and wrapped her arms around me tighter as she quietly cried into my shirt. Her voice was muffled against my body, but I heard her all the same, “And you’re my son, Julian. My son. You are one of mine, Chase, Kane, Nicholas and you are mine and no one can change that.”
We spent the rest of the day in her garden pretending like I didn’t have the weight of the world on my shoulders.
Claiming Isabella Page 23
