She sniffed. "I didn't think so at first, but now…"
"What? I don't get this." He felt more than a little insulted. "You actually see loving me as a problem?"
"Let me explain." Reluctantly but firmly, she pulled back.
He let her go. "That sounds like a good idea."
She folded her hands in her lap and looked down at them. "Well, it's just that, this marriage of ours, it was for a purpose. And I realized this morning…" Her head came up and she met his eyes. "That purpose is served. You are the man you need to be, for yourself, and for Mandy's sake."
"So?"
"So, you don't need me anymore."
Damn. He did not like this. He did not like it at all. "What, exactly, are you telling me?"
"Well, Jonas. It's just that I think it's time I set you free."
He regarded her for a moment. She looked so earnest, so distressed. He said with great care, "Let me make this very clear. I have no desire to be set free."
Her lower lip was trembling. "You…" She swallowed, convulsively. "You don't?"
"No. I don't. I … damn it, Emma." It wasn't easy, saying what he knew he must say next. It was something he had said to only one other woman in his life. That woman had been Blythe, and he had been a very young child at the time. "I love you, too."
"Oh, Jonas…" Another tear fell. She swiped it away with the heel of her hand.
He dared to smile. "So you see? We have no problem at all." He leaned closer.
She sighed. He almost let himself believe everything would be all right.
But then just before he could capture her lips, she turned her head away. "I'm sorry." She drew herself up. "But I have to disagree with you."
"No, you don't." The words slipped out before he could stop them. They were something the new, improved Jonas should have had the grace not to say.
But then again, it probably didn't matter what he said. She wasn't listening anyway.
She insisted, miserably, "We do have a problem."
He raked both hands back through his hair. "Fine. All right. And that problem is?"
"Oh, Jonas…" She seemed unable to find the right words.
He waited some more, telling himself to be patient, to give her time to frame her thoughts. There was a box of tissues on the side table. She yanked one out and blew her nose. Then she wadded the tissue in her fist and said, "I think you think you love me. We're good together … in bed. And you're … grateful to me. For the way I helped you, for everything that's happened, from at last bein' able to remember your dream, to findin' your brother and Marsh. Sometimes, a person can confuse gratitude with love."
Irritation had begun to crackle through him. He tried to quell it. But no matter how changed he was in some ways, he remained the same man essentially. And that man hardly appreciated being told that he didn't know the difference between gratitude and love.
She began twisting her wedding ring around and around on her finger. "And in a way, I've been kind of like your therapist, now, haven't I? And it is just … well, it's a natural part of healin', for the patient to think he's in love with his doctor."
Jonas reminded himself that he was not going to begin shouting at her. "Emma, this is ridiculous. Doctors – at least doctors with even a scintilla of integrity – don't sleep with their patients. And they sure as hell don't marry them."
"Yes, that's right. And maybe I shouldn't have—"
"The point being, you are not my doctor, damn it. And we both know it."
"Yes, but I have helped you. And you are grateful."
"And it follows, for those reasons, that I don't know love when I'm in it? Is that really what you're trying to tell me?"
"Jonas. I just think you at least need a little time. I think if I really love you – which I do – I won't take advantage of—"
"That's enough." He stood. "This conversation is going nowhere at an alarming speed."
She looked at him reproachfully. "I am sorry you feel that way. I think what I'm doing is a wise thing. I think it's the right thing."
"You love me so you're leaving me? What the hell is wise and right about that?"
"You are twisting what I've said."
"Damn it, Emma. Listen. I don't want you to go."
She shook her head. With a grim sort of fury, he recognized the look in her eye. She was certain she was right.
And there was no budging Emma Lynn Hewitt Bravo when she was certain she was right.
She said, "I am setting you free, Jonas. I am giving you Mandy to raise. You have my word that I'll never contest your right to custody."
He shrugged. He believed her. She was messing up royally, walking out on him like this. But she didn't tell lies. She invariably stood by her word. He would have what he'd wanted in the first place – the right to guide his little sister to adulthood.
Too bad that now he wanted so much more.
She said, "I imagine there will be papers you'll want me to sign. You know, something that says I promise I'll never sue you for custody."
He just looked at her.
She stammered on. "You could… I mean, well, as soon as Mr. McAllister has those papers ready, he can just give me a call and—"
"Enough."
She gulped – and she kept her mouth shut.
He asked, "How long am I supposed to stay away from you?"
She looked stricken. "I don't … how can we know that, right now? I just want you to have time, to be certain that this marriage, which was forced on you, is really what you want."
He decided against reiterating for the – what? Fourth or fifth time? – that he already knew what he wanted and her walking out on him was not it. "When are you leaving?"
"Right away."
"You're already packed?"
"Yes. I've taken everything out to my SUV, I was just waitin', for you to come home. So we could talk."
"I see." And he did. He saw that he'd never had a chance. She'd been ready to go before he walked in the room – and he should have known, should have taken a look around, noticed that, like that time before, when she'd packed up Mandy and run off to her own house, all the little things that made this room Emma's were gone.
"Jonas, I hope you'll let me visit Mandy. I don't want to just disappear from her life."
He had to get out of there. If he stayed, he might start throwing things. And if not that, he might actually beg her to stay. He'd never forgive himself for the former – and he'd never forgive her if he ended up descending to the latter.
"Come any time. I'll tell Palmer you are always welcome."
"Thank you."
He turned and left her, shutting the door quietly behind him.
* * *
Chapter 22
«^»
Palmer brought him her wedding ring the next day. She had left it with his cuff links, in the china dish on the coffee table.
Within two days, the tabloids had the story. Some smart reporter must have put two and two together and discovered that Emma had moved back to her own North Hollywood duplex.
"Trouble in Paradise," "Billionaire Dumps Dog Groomer" and "Splitsville for the Blonde and the Billionaire" were just a few of the headlines. Jonas read a couple of the stories. They were all fabrications, the only real fact involved being that Emma had been spotted apparently living at her own house. After he'd assured himself that no one was talking who shouldn't be, Jonas went back to his usual method of dealing with the press: he ignored it.
The Santa Anas came up, hot winds racing down from the northeast, roaring through the canyons, bringing on the season of fire. Blazes raged in Riverside County and near San Diego. A firefighter in Calimesa suffered a heart attack while hosing down a flaming roof. People prayed for rain. For the winds to die down.
Jonas worked and he worked hard. He ate right and made good use of the private gym at Angel's Crest. He took care of himself. Frustration and anger with Emma preyed on him. He was determined that they wouldn't bring him down.
&
nbsp; He spent time with Mandy, and he signed her up to go three days a week to a certain excellent day care/ preschool he'd learned about. It was important, he realized now, for her to get out and mix with other children. Security didn't seem quite so big an issue, now that he understood what had happened all those years ago, now that his brother's kidnapper had a face.
He decided to cut back on his security force, to relax his precautions a little. Somehow, that seemed the right thing to do. Yes, there was always danger. Random acts of cruelty and violence did occur. But he didn't want Mandy growing up thinking she had to live her life in fear.
On Saturday and again on Monday of the first week after Emma left him, he came home to find that red SUV of hers parked in the wide court in front of the house. He went straight to his private rooms when he saw she was visiting. He didn't want to run into her, didn't want to see her face or hear her voice.
He did understand that she believed she was doing him some kind of favor by leaving him. Intellectually, he understood, anyway. But in his heart and his gut something more basic was going on. It was not pretty, what he felt for her lately.
He knew that at some point, he'd be driven to go after her.
He hoped that by the time that happened, he'd have forgiven her, at least partially, for treating him like some sort of emotional idiot, for refusing to believe that he might actually know what he wanted and that what he wanted was to spend the rest of his life with her.
On Tuesday, the fifth day after Emma walked out on him, he called Ledger DelVecchio and asked him to dinner. They drank too much and they discussed, in depth, the supposed emotional superiority of women.
"They think they know it all when it comes to matters of the heart," Ledger intoned at some point well along in the evening. "But most of the time, they're just like the rest of us. Stumbling around blindfolded, in the dark without a clue…"
Jonas put Ledger in a car and sent him home at a little after two. Ledger rolled down his window to impart one last word of advice. "Give it another week or two," he said. "Then go get her."
"Drag her home by the hair, you mean?"
Ledger laughed. "No. The caveman approach is definitely passé."
"Then?"
"Tell her that she was right. That you really did need that time apart from her. Women love that more than anything, to be told that they're right."
"But she's not right. Not about this, anyway."
Ledger raised both hands, palms up. "Hey, what do you want from me, man? I can't help you if you insist on approaching this rationally."
Jonas grunted. "Thanks for trying."
"Well and what the hell is a friend for?" Ledger pushed the button and his window slid up again. Jonas stepped back and the car rolled off down the drive.
Jonas woke Wednesday morning with something of a hangover. He reminded himself that he was going to have to give up trying to match Ledger drink for drink. He had a full day of meetings and important appointments. And now he would be handicapped by a headache and a queasy stomach caused by his own overindulgence.
He managed. He got through the day. It wasn't pleasant or particularly easy. But he did it.
He was able to cancel his dinner meeting, which meant he was ready to go home at a little after six. He had the evening all planned. A long, hot shower, a couple of aspirin, a little time with Mandy and a nice, leisurely meal. A little CNN in bed, and he'd call it a night. By tomorrow, he'd be feeling fine again.
He got a call on his cell phone as he was riding home.
It was Dekker Smith.
* * *
Chapter 23
«^»
"I'd like to meet with you," Dekker said. "Is that possible?"
Jonas gripped the phone a little tighter than he needed to. "Of course. When?"
"Now?"
"You're here. In Los Angeles?"
"As a matter of fact, I'm outside the gates to your house."
* * *
Jonas had dinner with his brother, in the small dining room. After the meal, they retired to Jonas's study, where Dekker pulled a wallet-sized book from the inside pocket of his leather bomber jacket.
"Before she died, my mother gave this to me." He set the book on Jonas's desk. It was pink.
Jonas read the words embossed in gold letters on the front. "Every Day Diary."
A sad smile curved Dekker's mouth. "Yeah. Like something a teenaged girl would buy, isn't it? To write down all her secrets in." The smile vanished. "I … lost my wife, a few years ago. My mother died not long after. It was a rough period for me. You could say I wasn't exactly on the ball. When she was so sick, right at the end, my mother gave me this book. She said she wanted me to read it – but not until after she was gone. She said something about how wrong she'd been. And how much of a coward. But she wanted me to remember that I was the best and most important thing that had ever happened to her."
Jonas said, "You never did read this, right?"
Dekker shrugged. "I put it away in a box, with the rest of her treasures – with the locks of my baby hair and my old report cards, her favorite red scarf and the amethyst earrings she used to wear when she got dressed up. I, well, I wasn't up to dealing with it right then. The truth is, I had made a mess of my marriage, and the circumstances under which my wife died were… Let's just say things weren't going real well for me. And then my mother died. It was all too much. I just wanted to put it all out of my mind."
"But then, last week, I showed up at your door…"
"That's right. And my knee-jerk reaction was to deny what you told me."
"But you couldn't stop thinking about it."
"Right again." Dekker reached out, brushed his hand across the gold lettering on the front of the little pink book. "Yesterday, I dug this out of that box. And I read it." He looked up. "I took the first flight I could get out here, because I think that you should to read it, too."
"Right now?"
Dekker nodded. "It shouldn't take you all that long. She didn't fill the whole thing up, just wrote down what she wanted me to know. It's really only one long letter. Once you've read it, we can talk – I mean, if you think there's anything that needs saying. It's all pretty much explained, between the covers of this little book."
Dekker left him.
Jonas sat at his desk and began to read.
My dearest Dekker,
What you need to know first is that I could not have children. Because of an infection when I was eighteen, both ovaries had to be removed. Until then, I hadn't even really thought about having kids. It was just something I knew would happen for me someday, like it does for most of the women in the world.
Dekker, I grew up in Oxnard, in southern California. A nice, ordinary house on an ordinary street. My parents were divorced when I was ten, but my mother remarried and I liked my stepfather well enough. I had two sisters. They are probably still alive, my sisters. But I wouldn't know.
From the time I learned I would have no babies, a baby was all that I wanted. I felt that I had been cheated, that what mattered most in life had been stolen away from me. I began to do the kinds of things I never would have done before that. Drugs. Sneaking out at night to be with the wrong kinds of boys. Wild things. Things that were bound to get me in trouble.
My mother got fed up with me. She ended up kicking me out of the house. I lived on the streets for a while. It was rough.
And then, when I was twenty, I met Blake Bravo. Well, he didn't go by that name when I first met him. He went by a lot of names, he changed his names like he changed where he lived. All the time. He scared me, just looking in those crazy eyes of his would set me to trembling. I thought he might hurt me. He did hurt me. And deep down, that was fine with me. Getting hurt was what I wanted then. I wanted to destroy myself. And I was doing just that.
I had been with him for a few months when Blake told me his plan. He wanted revenge on his family. They were very rich, the Bravos, and they had cut him out of their lives and stolen his inheritan
ce. He was going to get even and I was going to help him to do it. He had grown up in the mansion where they lived, so he knew how to get in there without being caught. He was going to kidnap a baby – his brother's baby. And I was going to take care of the baby while we waited for the huge ransom to be paid. It was all supposed to go like clockwork. And it did.
Except that his brother's older child, your brother, came in on us while we were taking you. I thought Blake was going to kill that poor little boy. And God forgive me, I did not stop him. I had you in my arms. And I was already thinking that I was never going to let you go. Blake hit the child with the barrel of his gun and dropped his limp body on the floor. And we ran. No one stopped us. We got out and we went to our hiding place.
Blake got the ransom. In diamonds. He had never planned to return you to your family. That was part of his revenge, that his brother would never see his child again. I don't know what he planned to do with you, at first. Maybe it's better that we'll never know. I told him I was going to keep you. And I meant it. He didn't argue with me. He seemed to know you were the one thing I wouldn't back down about. So I kept you.
We went on the move. I didn't care, where we went, how many different names we lived under. What we did. As long as I had you in my arms, the baby I'd thought I would never have.
A year after we took you, I told Blake that I had to settle down. I wanted to make a life for you. We were in Oklahoma City by then, and he had something going with a woman who lived in Norman. He stayed with her more and more and left us alone a lot. I was glad. It was over between him and me. By then, all I wanted was to be a mother to you. And he … well, I think he was looking for a way to get rid of us, too.
We struck a deal, Blake and me. He sold off a few of those precious diamonds of his. He bought me a house and a new identity. And he got you a birth certificate. I think it must have been the birth certificate of a baby who died. But then again, how did he manage to get my real first name in the place for the mother? I don't know. To this day I don't know how he did any of that. But he was a very clever man when he wanted to be. And so you became Dekker Smith, the child of Lorraine and Dekker Smith, Sr.
THE BRAVO BILLIONAIRE Page 22