Part 19 (1/2)

”To what?”

”To me having to tell you all this. Patty made me promise to never tell you. Until recently I kept that promise easily because you never really asked. Now you're asking me to go against her wishes after all these years?”

Nothing mattered more now than getting to the bottom of who Daniel really was. What made him tick, who mattered most. I had to figure out how to reason with such a ruthless and uncompromising man. I pushed on, unwilling to let guilt mix into what I was feeling right now.

”You're not going against her wishes. I already know who he is. I did that all by myself. Now all I need is for you to help me fill in the blanks.”

”That d.a.m.n picture.” She mumbled a curse under her breath. She rarely cursed. She sighed again. ”They were in love. Any stranger could see that. I told you once that everyone loved Patty. That's true. She was pretty, of course, but warm and charismatic too. She had a beautiful energy that drew people to her, and Daniel saw that. Like a moth to a flame, he had to have her. He pursued her, pulled out all the stops. Romantic as h.e.l.l really, and it didn't take long before she was head over heels for him too. After a matter of months, they were inseparable.”

”So what went wrong?”

”The school year was coming to a close. Obviously she wanted to know where the relations.h.i.+p was going and if they had a future. Every time she asked him about it, he'd dodge the question. He'd put her off, saying they'd didn't need to worry about it right now. They'd talk about it when the time came. Of course the time came when she realized she was pregnant. She needed answers. Now or never, she had to know if they were going to be together.”

”Did he end it?”

”No, he sent her back to her family in Chicago after graduation. Told her he had to try to work it out with his family. A high-powered staunchly political family like his was bound to have strong opinions about the situation. It didn't matter that she came from a good family. He could play around all he wanted, but they expected him to marry someone strategic, someone who could bring value to the family and the Fitzgerald name.”

”Sounds like an old-fas.h.i.+oned notion.”

”Hardly. Not when money and power are at stake, trust me.”

”So what happened?”

”She came back home and waited. Weeks went by. Finally, he called her and told her that it wasn't going to work out between them. He'd be starting law school in the fall, and having a wife and a baby simply didn't play into those plans. His family wouldn't have any part of it.”

”He ended it, just like that?”

”He said he loved her, truly did. She said he seemed sorry, for what it's worth, but he was like a puppet in that family. So dependent on the wealth, slave to the expectations. He had a future all planned out for him that he had to live up to. She, and you, didn't fit into that plan.”

I knew the story well, but to imagine Daniel-intimidating, powerful Daniel-like that seemed strange. He'd been like half the people I'd gone to school with at Harvard, independent and c.o.c.ky as h.e.l.l until parents' weekend, and then how quickly they fell in line. They couldn't risk losing Mommy and Daddy's financial support.

”Wow.”

Who knew how he really felt, but Marie had completely discredited what he'd told me.

”Did he know she was going to keep me?”

”No. He told her she should end the pregnancy, but Patty never told him what she planned to do. They never spoke again, so he might have a.s.sumed that she did.”

I thought back to our brief time at his house on the Cape, when I'd asked him why my mother had never told me about him. After she went back to Chicago, I a.s.sumed she was going to take care of it. I didn't hear from her, and I didn't want to reach out and raise suspicions with her family.

Dirty f.u.c.king liar.

I sat in stunned silence, trying to wrap my head around why he would possibly want anything to do with me now after cutting us off so coldly before. His life was following the grand plan that had been laid out for him years ago. What was so different that I now fit into it?

Marie came over to sit next to me and took my hands in hers. ”This is why she never told you, baby. Do you hate me for telling you?”

”Of course not. I should know this. Really. It just doesn't make a lot of sense that he wants to know me now.” I shook my head.

”Erica, I don't know what's happened to change his mind about having you in his life, other than the circ.u.mstance of you finding him. But I truly hope he deserves you now, after what he did.”

I leaned in to hug Marie. She held me tight, stroking my hair like my mother used to. I sagged into her thin frame, wis.h.i.+ng I could cry. I held back, knowing that if I started up again, I'd probably never stop. My brief control on my emotions was slipping. I gave her a kiss good night and excused myself for the night, promising her that I was fine. I was just fine.

I made myself comfortable in Marie's guest bedroom. I'd taken the half empty wine gla.s.s with me and decided to empty it all at once. To h.e.l.l with Daniel. To h.e.l.l with this terrible f.u.c.king day.

I set the gla.s.s on the bed stand and unpacked my suitcase. I never minded staying with Marie, but these circ.u.mstances weren't exactly what they'd used to be. Summer breaks, holiday weekends. Now I was running away from my life with no ideas about where I'd land next.

I glanced at my phone, and against my better judgment, I picked it up and read a text from Blake.

Call me. Let me fix this. I love you.

I barely made it to work on time. I had loosely considered taking the day off, but I had a whole team of people at the office while I wasn't. I'd cried myself to sleep after seeing Blake's text. If texts could kill, his words would have sliced right through me. I turned my phone off after that, determined not to turn it back on until I could get a handle on myself. This crying s.h.i.+t had to stop.

I waved to the crew upon my arrival and disappeared into my office. Risa was immediately there giving me an update, which involved me prepping more contracts for her and coordinating the new account a.s.sets with the guys. For once I was grateful for her boundless energy and relentless work ethic. Even though I was exhausted, she threw me right into work, which is really where my focus should have been for the past couple weeks.

My mind had too often been someplace else. Thinking of Blake, worried about Mark, but today I dove into the day's work with a kind of fervor that made everything else blur into the background. If I couldn't make it go away, I'd settle for blurry.

James had mapped out a few campaign options for us over the weekend. The three of us spent most of the afternoon trying to agree on a direction. I wanted to give Risa's opinion more weight, but despite her gusto when it came to landing new accounts, she seemed to go a little soft around James. Whenever he spoke, she emphatically agreed. When he leaned in to point something out, so did she, taking every possible opportunity to touch him casually.

When I finally gave her another task that took her out of my office, James seemed to visibly relax. We talked through the rest of the notes and the conversation was easier. But I caught him giving me questioning looks.

”You okay?”

I tried to avoid his eyes. They bore into me with an intensity I was growing used to. ”I'm fine.” I plastered on a fake smile.

”You seem tired.”

”I am,” I admitted, feeling the exhaustion a little more acutely.

”How were things with you and Landon after the other night?”

I closed my eyes for a moment, pus.h.i.+ng down the surge of emotion that came with the mention of his name.

”I think we're all set with these graphics, James. Just take care of the few little tweaks we discussed and we should be ready to roll these out.”

Anything else was none of his d.a.m.n business. I didn't want to talk about Friday's weird showdown between him and Heath, or my relations.h.i.+p ending with Blake, or the way he touched me the other night as if we'd known each other far longer and better than we did. I was going to stuff all that right down with the rest of the feelings I didn't feel like facing right now.

”That's not really an answer.”

I sighed and leaned back in my chair. ”We broke up this weekend, if you must know.”

”Does that affect the business with him being an investor?”

”No, he's a silent investor and he can't call the loan, not that he would anyway. Regardless, I'd like to pay him back as soon as we're able to so we can be independent again.”