by Carol Rose
“So,” Kelsey said in scathing disbelief, after waiting for a response he couldn’t find, “you married me because we ‘might be good together’? Don’t give me that crap! Have you ever made any major decision on such a flimsy basis? Do you marry every woman who might possibly suit you?”
“No,” he admitted slowly, seeing the fear behind her anger and hating it. Hating that he couldn’t erase a lifetime of disappointment and desertion. He’d tried and failed.
He loved her, but telling her now wouldn’t do either one of them any good. He’d be opening his already-bruised heart for another blow…and she wouldn’t believe him anyway.
She had his number on the maneuvering. He’d worked the situation trying to get what he wanted and now he was caught in a web of his own weaving.
“I was wrong to marry you the way I did,” he heard himself say. “You’re too afraid to fall in love. You dated like a woman who’s determined never to get caught. Never seeing any man more than a few months. Never letting anyone too close. I don’t know what made me think this could ever work.”
He saw stark emotion flash in her eyes but couldn’t read it. She stood there in a defiant, defensive stance, a wounded woman against the men of the world.
“Maybe it’s because your own father abandoned you, I don’t know, but you’ve obviously never learned to love or trust a man,” Jared said in a rough voice.
He raised a hand to still the retort he could see was coming. “I know you’ve got your reasons. Your father never loved you enough to show up, none of your step-fathers ever hung around. Every man you or your mother has ever loved has left. But that doesn’t mean that all men can’t be trusted!”
“Leave my mother out of this,” she said fiercely, dashing an angry hand across her eyes.
“I’ll admit I didn’t tell you everything in the beginning,” he said, suddenly feeling incredibly weary. “I did encourage Amy to shake things up with you and Doug.”
“You son-of-a-bitch,” she spat. “Didn’t it matter that when you were telling her to leave Doug, you were sending her thousands of miles away from me? Sending my only sister away?”
“She was being hurt,” Jared said, meeting her gaze steadily. “You’ve been clinging to him, taking comfort and affection without even being aware of what he needed in return. I don’t think you ever meant to hurt either one of them, but he was perfect for your needs. Caring, affectionate, consistent—you got all that with no risk of being hurt. It’s been the same with us. You married me on the condition that there was no feeling. No love.”
“Neither one of us wanted love!” she said vehemently.
“I know you don’t believe people can love each other for a lifetime. You can’t trust that kind of emotion to last,” he said, his words hard with the anger and loss in his gut, “but have you ever considered that you might be so afraid of being hurt that you’ve never given love a chance? That maybe you’re wrong about love not lasting?”
“What do you mean?”
“Not every man is like your father,” he said. “Some men can be trusted to love a woman forever.”
He saw the startled expression in her face as he turned toward the elevator.
Pausing, he said. “I can’t fight this battle for you, but I’d suggest you find your father. Maybe seeing him will help you move on. Help you be able to give some man a chance.”
Kelsey watched him leave, tears burning in her throat. Her head pounding, she stood in the empty lobby and saw the closing of the elevator door in slow motion.
Clapping a hand over her mouth, she tried to muffle the sobs storming from her. Bitterly she cried, unable to stop, the tears streaming down her face, her sobs echoing in the cold stone lobby.
He was gone. Everything was gone.
She leaned against the wall, throwing her arm up to hide her ravaged face. It seemed like hours before the crying subsided, but no one else came through the lobby and she finally felt the wrenching sobs ease. Outside the double doors, dusk had shifted to darkness.
Standing there, leaning against the cold marble wall, her throat felt raw and her head pounded, feeling stuffed and cottony.
How did people survive this? Even walking out of here seemed impossible. Just moving through the doors so Anthony could get her a cab would take more energy than she had left.
Kelsey leaned limply against the wall, staring into space, Jared’s words starting to spin in her head. She heard again his accusation, “You’ve obviously never learned to love or trust a man.”
He saw her as…unable to love? As wounded and unable to trust even the trustworthy?
Since the time when she was small, she’d asked her mother about her and Amy’s real father. Why didn’t they see him? Why didn’t they take a taxi to his house like some of her friends did to their fathers on the weekend?
Kelsey couldn’t even remember what her mother had said. It had just always seemed accepted. She had a father, but he wasn’t in her life, didn’t apparently want to be. Over the years as one stepfather had merged into another, she’d begun to see the trend and to…depersonalize her own father’s absence.
It was a man thing—conceiving children and moving on. Certainly the moving on part was indelibly printed on her brain, although she did acknowledge that her mother had left several of her husbands rather than the other way around.
Was Jared right? Did she have to come to terms with her own father or spend the rest of her life in the lost place of the last few weeks?
Straightening, she ignored her pounding head and made her way to the door, wiping at her eyes. Everything was a mess. Jared had lied to her about her sister.
He’d never said that he loved her, just that he didn’t think she was capable of loving anyone. That she couldn’t trust anyone. So where did that leave him?
There was no denying that she loved him, no matter that he thought her incapable of it, no matter that he’d never claimed to love her. No matter how much he’d lied to her. Manipulated her. She couldn’t trust him, but she loved him.
Still, much as it hurt to admit it, he was right about several things. Her behavior with Doug, for instance. She’d been blind for too many years. Could Jared be right about the rest of it? About love being able to last and her just not giving it a chance?
Compelled, she walked through the brass-framed doors, determined to find the nearest Manhattan area phone book.
As a teenager, she’d had dreams about confronting her father. In them, she was always beautiful and witty, smiling at a faceless man and running away from him, laughing.
The same dream over and over. The same father she’d thought she’d forgotten as thoroughly as he seemed to have forgotten her.
Maybe it was time to stop kidding herself about that.
***
“I don’t care what she said to you,” Amy told him calmly. “She loves you and you two have to work it out.”
Jared smiled at his sister-in-law. It was a tired version as facial expressions go, but the it was the best he could offer. “Maybe you should go tell her that.”
Amy had come by his office after having had lunch with her fiancé to reassure him about Kelsey. Jared appreciated the effort, but he couldn’t get too excited about the romantic predictions of a woman whose own wedding was only days ahead. She was bound to have a rosy outlook on things.
“I will tell her,” Amy insisted. “I refuse to accept that you guys aren’t going to be as happy as Doug and I.”
“I’m glad you’re happy together,” Jared said, giving her a hug. “You deserve it. Both of you, but you particularly because you put up with him for so long.”
“He was worth the wait,” she said softly.
“Doug’s a good man.” Jared couldn’t help contrasting Amy’s love-drenched eyes with her sister’s furious gaze the day before. Bitterness welled up in him. One small, shapely woman had taken his comfortable life and sent it to hell.
“You’re coming to the wedding, aren’t you?” Amy asked, ge
tting ready to leave. “I won’t take no for an answer.”
“Has anyone mentioned how bossy you’re getting now that your love life is in order,” he asked mildly.
“Yes,” Amy retorted. “Kelsey pointed that out just the other day. Goes to show how perfectly suited the two of you are.”
“I just hope you’re giving her as much grief as you’re giving me,” Jared said. “Maybe you’ll have more luck with her than I have.”
Amy’s face softened. “Kelsey’s just confused.”
“Kelsey hates my guts,” he corrected grimly. “And I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Kelsey smoothed the navy blue material of her dress with a nervous hand. Now that she was here, riding the elevator up to her father’s office, she couldn’t remember the point of this meeting.
It had something to do with Jared, with the welter of emotion still between them. For some reason, she had to see her father, had to examine the accusations Jared had thrown at her. Had she really been determined not to love any man? And had her father’s desertion anything to do with her behavior today?
She’d gained a quick appointment with John Layton by using her married name. Given Jared’s net worth most financial advisors would clear some time to speak with her, she knew. Some part of her cringed back from giving him the chance to brush her off and if she’d given her own name, he might have easily refused to see her.
The ploy had worked with her father. She almost wished it hadn’t. All these years she’d dreamed and fantasized about meeting him, but the reality was different. Her legs felt jittery beneath her, her palms damp with anxiety.
She’d tried on three different outfits before going to work that day. Nothing seemed right. Settling for a slim, fitted dress of navy linen, she’d decided she looked conservative and reasonable.
Of course, she felt anything but. What did one say to the father who’d abandoned she and her sister twenty-five years before? Hi, Dad, I’m here to punch you in the nose.
She was determined not to cry, not to snivel or beg for his attention. But anxiety sat pooled in her midsection like a fifty pound weight.
Try as she would, she couldn’t get rid of the thought that he might brush her off. Might even deny she was his child. All these years, he’d never tried to see them, never sent any acknowledgement of their existence.
Maybe he just didn’t care about the infant daughters he’d left behind so long ago.
Stomach in knots, a fine layer of perspiration making her shiver, she forced her rubbery legs to get off on the correct floor.
A rich, traditionally-decorated lobby faced her, all dark wood and oriental rugs. The well-dressed receptionist sitting behind a large, circular desk was efficiently tapping on a computer keyboard.
“May I help you?” the woman asked, glancing up.
“I have an appointment with John Layton.” Kelsey’s throat felt dry and tight. “I’m Mrs. Jared Barrett.”
The receptionist glanced down at her appointment book and smiled. “Oh, yes, Mrs. Barrett. He’ll see you now. Right this way.”
The woman stepped out from behind her desk and went to open a door marked Private.
Now! He’d see her immediately? She’d counted on a few more minutes. What was she going to say? What was she doing here?
Damn Jared Barrett. This was all his fault. If he hadn’t inveigled his way into her life, she’d still be oblivious, still cocooned in her indifference about the man who’d contributed to her DNA.
Kelsey saw the elegant receptionist tap on the door and swing it open wide for her to pass through.
Her heart revved, beating in double-time. She stepped through the doorway, her senses beset by a rush of impressions.
The man coming around a large desk was different than she’d remembered from the investment seminar. Bigger. A little thick around the middle, he had broad shoulders encased in a well-cut suit coat.
She dimly heard the receptionist murmur her name. “Mrs. Jared Barrett.”
He came toward her, offering his hand, a professional, business-like smile on his face. “Mrs. Barrett, how nice to meet you.”
Kelsey took his hand, her brain absorbing a hundred impressions instantly. Up close, she could see that his eyes were blue—like hers, his short dark hair shot with gray. How many times had she wondered what he’d look like? The two photographs she’d seen of him had given only the barest impression of his features.
His smile altered, his eyes narrowing. “Weren’t you at one of our investment seminars not long ago. You came in late, sat in the back and left early?”
“Yes, and the name is Kelsey Layton Barrett,” she heard herself say, her voice clear.
Immediately, John Layton’s handshake faltered, his shrewd eyes sharpening. “Kelsey…Layton Barrett?”
“Yes,” she said, dropping his hand as she tried to keep the anger out of her voice. She hadn’t come here for a scene, certainly didn’t have any intention of letting him see how much his abandonment had hurt her.
Her father looked at her for a long moment. “Why don’t we sit down?”
Two leather chairs sat at a comfortable right-angle, a small table between them. John Layton gestured toward the grouping.
Smoothing her skirt, Kelsey sat down, feeling marginally better. He seemed to know who she was and he hadn’t yet thrown her out. Of course, he knew she was married to a millionaire so he probably wasn’t worried about her hitting him up for money. He might even think he had a chance of investing all Jared’s millions.
The cynical thought strengthened her some and she resisted the urge to break the awkward silence now stretching between them.
He felt it, too, she knew. Although outwardly calm, his firm mouth was tight and he gripped the arm of his chair with a tense hand. He seemed thrown off stride, like he didn’t know what to do and he didn’t appear to be a man who often lost control of a situation.
Despite all her good intentions, Kelsey couldn’t help being glad she’d disturbed him. He’d had so little trouble from her and Amy previously.
“How’s your sister?” John Layton asked abruptly, his voice rough.
Kelsey hesitated, remembering her sister’s comment about getting in touch with their father. Still, it was Amy’s business to invite the man to her wedding. “Fine.”
“And your…mother?”
Startled, Kelsey said, “She’s fine, too.”
He nodded, a quick inclination of his head. “I’m glad.”
“I suppose you’ve been worrying about her,’ Kelsey said coolly, knowing her disbelief was evident.
Her father stared at her a moment. He got up then and went to a small bar on the other side of the room, pouring himself a drink. “Would you like something?”
“No, thank you,” she said, unwilling to accept anything from him now. A white-hot anger sizzled through her, sparked at his mention of her mother. He’d inquired after Chloe as if he cared, which had to be a lie.
“I have worried about your mother. Chloe’s the kind of woman a man tends to worry about. And I’ve worried about you girls,” John said, before coming back over to resume his seat. “You probably don’t believe that.”
“With so much evidence to the contrary,” Kelsey drawled, “the conclusion does seem a stretch.”
He sat his drink untouched on the table. “A long time ago I got into the habit of worrying about your mother. I loved her very much at one time. Habits are hard to change, even after twenty years.”
Kelsey just looked at him. He seemed so strong, so much in command. So much like Jared.
The thought chilled her.
“Look,” her father said. “I don’t know what brought you here, but I’m glad you came. For a long time now, I’ve been thinking of finding you.”
“Really? Why?” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice, but she hoped he couldn’t see the real question. Why did you leave us?
“I need to explain,” John sai
d, shifting in his chair, an edge of agitation in his voice. “All these years…I’ve neglected you and your sister. You don’t have to sit there looking so accusing. I know what I’ve done.”
Kelsey stared at him, not sure what to say.
He got up and went to the expansive glass wall behind his desk, his expression brooding. “There really isn’t any explanation. I started off paying child support for you both, but seeing you….”
John Layton stopped, wheeling around to face her. “You have to understand, your mother and I had a very bad marriage and a worse divorce. It was a long time before I could even think of the woman without wanting to break something.”
He stopped, his hands clenched at his side, his face red.
He’d paid child support for them both? Why wouldn’t he have paid for them both?
The big man standing in front of the window suddenly sighed, the anger and frustration draining out of his expression. “Your mother had the power to make me nuts. I couldn’t see her after the divorce. Some ugly things happened…worse things were said. It took me a long time to end the marriage. I couldn’t go back into it.”
“So not seeing her meant not seeing Amy and me?” Kelsey heard herself ask.
“Unfortunately, yes, it meant not seeing you.” His lips firmed into a straight line. “I didn’t start out with that intention. I had planned to fulfill my responsibilities.”
The tick of a clock filled his pause. They’d been ‘responsibilities’ to him. Kelsey sat in the chair, aware of the strangeness of the moment. How unreal it all seemed.
“Your mother,” he said with obvious difficulty, “was very angry with me toward the end. I’d…disappointed her, I suppose.”
Not hard to do, Kelsey acknowledged to herself. Chloe tended to be easily disappointed.
“At the end,” John Layton said, “she…wanted to hurt me and she…said some things I later came to doubt.”
“What things?” Kelsey asked, frowning at him.
He looked down at the drink in his hand. “Your sister.”
“Yes.” The breathless tightness in her chest made the word difficult.