Something to Believe In

by Kimberly Van Meter

  Virginia looked pale whereas Vernon’s face was florid. Lilah felt obligated to offer something cool to drink. “We have fresh lemonade,” she said, in an attempt at hospitality.

  Virginia appeared reluctant to accept anything from Lilah but was just miserable enough to overlook that fact and nodded brusquely. “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “I’ll be right back. Try not to kill each other.”

  Lilah knew the minute she left the room, they’d start talking about her specifically but she had faith in Justin. He’d stand up for her.

  And their babies.

  * * *

  THE MINUTE LILAH WAS OUT of earshot, Vernon turned to Justin, his expression thunderous but resigned to the distasteful business at hand. “We have a fund we can tap to make this embarrassment go away,” he said in a low tone. “Admittedly, two babies will be more expensive but we’ll do what we must to protect your future.”

  Justin glared at his father. “The only embarrassment I feel right now is that I’m related to you. My children are not an embarrassment and neither is Lilah. How could you even suggest such a thing? Those babies are your grandchildren. Think about it, Dad. You would honestly rather make them go away to save some idea in your head for my career, rather than embrace your own flesh and blood?”

  His father’s mouth tightened even as his bottom lip trembled, whether it was from rage or something else, Justin didn’t know, and frankly didn’t care. He looked to his mother. She watched them with a stricken expression that was equal parts horror and bewilderment and he knew he wasn’t going to get the support he’d hoped for from that corner. He made a sound of disgust and said, “I’d rather stand with her than beside you if you can honestly stand here and call your grandchildren embarrassments.”

  Vernon swallowed and had the grace to look ashamed but he countered with an emphatic display. “She will ruin you! Is that what you want? How will this look for your campaign? You knocked up some random girl while on vacation and now you’ve sullied any chance you might’ve had of landing a decent wife. No one is going to be willing to take on this kind of baggage. It’s too messy, too humiliating. People will judge you and they will pass their judgment in the form of their vote. You might as well have just given the seat to Campbell Duncan and have done with it!”

  “How could you, Justin?” Virginia asked in a trembling voice as if Justin had betrayed her. “This is...unfathomable that you would be so careless with your family name. We don’t know a thing about this girl. I never imagined that you might be so...oh, just so careless.”

  “I love her,” Justin said simply, his heart weighing heavily in his chest for his parents’ lack of support. He’d hoped for a miracle; he should’ve known he wouldn’t be so lucky. “If she says yes, I’m going to marry her. End of story. If it ends my political career...so be it.”

  Vernon threw his hands up. “It’s always this way for you, isn’t it? So easy to screw over anyone who ever built a bridge for you in your life. Well, that’s not going to happen. I forbid you to marry this girl. I forbid it!”

  Justin forced a laugh. “You forbid it? You don’t have that option.”

  “I will cut you off so fast, your head will spin,” Vernon ground out, nearly spitting the words. “Try supporting your island tramp on the fumes of your love and see how many diapers it buys.”

  “Vernon!” his mother exclaimed, horrified by her husband’s coarse words but his father didn’t back down, in fact, he refused to even admit he’d overstepped but that was his father in a nutshell. He always rode the course, no matter how far off the track he’d traveled.

  “Don’t you dare call her that again,” Justin warned. “You can cut me off, I don’t care about your money. But believe me when I say, I will also cut you off. You will never see me or your grandkids again. You don’t deserve them anyway, you pompous, arrogant, control freak.”

  Vernon buttoned up his mouth in an angry press of his lips and then gestured to his wife angrily that they were leaving. “Your son has made his choice,” he said. “Enjoy your new life in poverty.”

  Virginia seemed reluctant to leave things as they were, something had changed in her eyes when Justin had counter threatened but she wouldn’t go against her husband. Not openly. Justin watched them go.

  To his shock, tears began to fall.

  When Lilah returned with the lemonade, she found him sobbing into his hands, unable to stop.

  * * *

  VERNON CALES WAS SO ANGRY he couldn’t see straight and it didn’t help that the roads in St. John were engineered by a drunken crazy person with all the twists and turns and left-handed driving.

  “Vernon, slow down,” his wife exclaimed when the tires on their rented Jeep Cherokee squealed in protest around the turn. “I don’t want to lose my son and die all in the same day!”

  Vernon spared his wife a short look but eased up on the gas pedal. He would’ve paid for a driver but there hadn’t been time to find one and he’d been anxious to find out if the rumors had been true. Damn it all to hell! That boy was going to ruin his life!

  “Why? Why now? He was just starting to become a son a father could be proud of,” he lamented loudly. “No more whoring and late-night parties for the paparazzi to catch at all hours of the night doing who knows what! And now, this!”

  “He says he loves her,” Virginia said, grabbing on to the armrest as another sharp turn made them lean. “Maybe we were too hasty in our judgment.”

  “You’ve always been too soft on the boy,” Vernon groused with open irritation. “Turned him into a worthless boy who wants to play at being a man.”

  “Stop it,” Virginia warned, a note of steel weaving its way through her voice. “You’re going too far.”

  Vernon was surprised at her tone with him. She never raised her voice or spoke brusquely. He wasn’t sure he liked it. “What do you propose we do? Embrace this girl with open arms?” he suggested, sneering. “She’s a nobody, a gold digger who just found a way to get her hooks into our pocketbooks.”

  “You don’t know that,” Virginia responded with uncertainty. “She didn’t call and tell him when she discovered she was pregnant. In fact, she waited and my guess is that she wasn’t going to tell him at all. It was just luck that put him back on this island to discover that fact.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t sure who the babies belonged to and wanted to wait and see who the babies favored,” he shot back with ill humor. “Who knows? Fact remains, I want a paternity.”

  “Husband dear, you’re being a royal ass about this. Of course, it was a shock but I’ve never seen Justin so solid in his conviction. He never wavered. Not one ounce. He truly loves this woman. It doesn’t matter what the paternity will reveal. Those are his babies because he loves her.”

  “It matters to me,” Vernon retorted, but he couldn’t ignore the logic in his wife’s statement. She was right. Justin hadn’t quailed, not even in the face of being disowned. He’d live in poverty with his woman if that’s what it came down to. And what would that look like in the press? Former New York Senator Cales’s Son Living in Poverty. The headlines would destroy his reputation as a family man. He’d always tried to protect his reputation by quietly dousing fires his son had sparked. From the frat parties to the multitude of women...Vernon had always managed to make those stories go away—usually with money.

  But there was no making it go away if Justin didn’t want his help.

  Or his money.

  An odd
pang that felt suspiciously like heartbreak followed as he realized that money had been the only thing between them for years aside from animosity. Whatever had happened to that sweet boy who’d smiled up at him with joy and adoration as he’d taught him how to bait a hook and catch a fish?

  That boy was long gone.

  And the man he’d become looked at him with anger and disappointment.

  His lip began to tremble but he stiffened as he said, “He’s made his bed. Let’s see how long he’d like to sleep in it.”

  If his own gut hadn’t been telling him that he was making a grave error, the mutinous expression on his wife’s face would’ve shouted it.

  Mistake or no...he was going to stick to his decision.

  The boy had to learn his lessons the hard way.

  CHPATER THIRTY-THREE

  “IT WAS AWFUL,” LILAH SAID quietly into the phone as she related to Lindy what had transpired earlier that day. Justin had left to go get her a hamburger after she’d professed a craving but she suspected he’d needed a little time to regroup after that disastrous meeting with his parents. “I think he was brokenhearted over what his father said to him. Justin told me their relationship had been strained for a while, but I think deep down, he hoped his father would see the changes he’d made and trust him to make a choice that was right for his life. Instead, he cut him down. Oh, Lindy...my heart broke for him and I didn’t know what to say.”

  Lindy sighed. “There was probably nothing you could say. This is between them. They have to hash it out and you have to let them.”

  “I overheard some of the conversation,” Lilah admitted, feeling guilty for eavesdropping but she hadn’t been able to stop. “He’s giving up his career for me and his parents have cut him off completely. I feel terrible about it. It’s as if I’ve ripped his family apart. I feel sick inside.”

  “They actually said those things?” Lindy asked, incredulous.

  “And worse,” recalled Lilah, grimacing. “I think his dad thinks I deliberately trapped him into something. Like I’m a gold digger or something. I’ve never been so humiliated in my life.”

  “What a bunch of jerks,” Lindy muttered. “Sounds like Justin is better off without them.”

  “Yeah, but that’s his family. And I know it hurt him deeply even if he won’t admit it. I don’t know if I can go through with this...”

  “What do you mean?” Lindy asked, alarmed.

  “I just mean, I don’t think I can let Justin throw everything away for me. It sounded romantic and noble when he declared that he would but now the aftermath is just painful and upsetting. Without his parents’ support he can’t continue to campaign and his political career will die before it’s even begun.”

  “What about his campaign supporters aside from his parents?”

  “They’re all connected through his father. Basically, he’s gaining a lot of support because of the track record of his father. It’s easy to back a horse you know comes from winning stock, that’s how Justin put it.” Lilah heard Lindy shudder and she didn’t blame her. It all sounded like a foreign language to her, too. “Nothing is as simple as I love him, he loves me. I was naive to think it could be.”

  “You can’t walk away. You’ll devastate him.”

  “Without me, his parents will support him. I can’t ask that he pay that big of a price for me. I know he will resent me eventually and I just can’t bear that burden. I know myself. I can’t handle it.”

  “Who’s to say that you’d ever have to?” Lindy disagreed. “You’re making a lot of assumptions about a future that hasn’t even arrived yet. Plus you’re all hopped up on hormones and your brain is on baby overload. Just give it some time. Maybe things will change.”

  “You didn’t see their faces,” Lilah said sadly. “There’s no turning that around. At least not with his father. And I can’t go my entire life knowing they hate me. And I shouldn’t have to. I don’t deserve that, right?”

  “No, of course not,” Lindy murmured on a sigh. “This sucks.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.”

  “So what are you going to do?” she asked.

  Lilah drew a sharp breath and closed her eyes as she answered with a heavy heart. “I’m going to send Justin home.”

  “And how do you hope to accomplish that?”

  “By pushing him away. For good.”

  * * *

  JUSTIN HADN’T SEEN IT COMING. Truthfully, he’d still been reeling from his parents’ actions that he hadn’t realized how much damage had truly been done.

  “What are you talking about?” he demanded, staring at Lilah, not quite sure he’d heard her correctly. “What do you mean you don’t want to be together?”

  She quietly smoothed the light fabric covering her stomach and answered in a cool tone, “After the scene with your parents I’ve come to realize we were being naive, and there’s no room for that now that we’re going to be parents. Your parents hate me and will always resent me for getting pregnant. I won’t live under that kind of scrutiny and judgment. It’s not healthy and it’ll ruin all the good work I’ve done with my therapist to regain my mental health. I’m sorry, Justin. I’m not willing to sacrifice my mental wellness for you. I just can’t. I have the babies to think of first.”

  “Lilah, I will walk away from them forever. They won’t judge you—they won’t say two words to you. They don’t matter. Just you and I matter.”

  She graced him with a short look. “How will you support your children? The job market is fierce. Without your father’s support, your political career will fall. You know this. I think we both know I’m right. It hurts right now to admit it, but someday, we’ll both agree this was best.”

  “Bullshit.”

  She stared. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re running scared and this is the easy way. I’m willing to fight but you’re backing out the minute it gets tough,” he accused, throwing his hands up as frustration and despair ate at his ability to remain calm. He could not lose Lilah over this. He could not! “My parents will come around. I know it.”

  “I don’t want them to bother,” she said with a shrug. “First impressions can be a lingering poison if the impressions aren’t favorable. They’re never going to forgive me for getting pregnant. There will always be a suspicion that I got pregnant on purpose and I don’t want to waste my life trying to prove to them that I’m worthy of their love. I have a family who loves me. I don’t need their approval.” She drew a deep breath and continued even though he’d opened his mouth to protest. “But you do. It’s plain to me now that you’re desperate for your father’s approval. All that stuff you said you did before we met...it was a child’s attempt at getting his father’s attention. If you’re ever going to repair your relationship with your father—and I strongly suggest that you try—I cannot be your roadblock to that success. They will love the babies when they get here, but I will always be a reminder of what they deem a failure. It’s just not worth it, Justin. Not for me.”

  Justin fought against the rising panic that was nearly level with the suffocating realization that she was right.

  “Lilah...I love you,” he said, his voice breaking. How could she be so heartless? “We can work this out if we do it together.”

  She seemed to falter but held to her course. “I’m not going to change my mind. I will send you updates about the babies. I will never keep you from them. I swear. But we should probably talk with a mediator about future custody arrangements. I d
on’t want to fight about the kids. It’ll only be worse for them.”

  “Stop it, Lilah,” he ordered, tears filling his eyes. This had to be a nightmare. This couldn’t be real. She wasn’t leaving him. “You don’t mean any of this. You’re freaked out and overreacting. This is fixable. Please.”

  She blinked rapidly and her lip trembled but she didn’t cave. The sadness in her eyes told the story. She might love him but not enough to battle his parents and his career.

  “Goodbye, Justin.”

  It was barely a whisper but the words stabbed him in the heart.

  Lilah...please...

  And then she was gone.

  * * *

  THE URGE TO WAIL AND SCREAM at the injustice of it all was trapped in a bubble of pain and sorrow just under her breastbone but she managed to keep it down until she reached her room at Larimar.

  Then, behind the safety of her own walls, she sobbed until it felt her eyes might bleed.

  It was for the best, she told herself. It was for the best and someday he would realize this painful moment was a blessing in disguise. He would go on to do great things for many people and she had full faith in his ability to change lives for the better. She knew this because she’d changed and grown by knowing him during the short time they’d shared. And now she carried two small bits of Justin that she could love and cherish her entire life. It would have to be enough.

  But still the knowledge gave her no solace. Her heart was a broken, pulpy mess of shattered dreams and naive illusions.