He was pushing her on the swing and Ivy had settled onto a bench nearby when a man with dark—almost black—skin walked up to Ivy. She stood up immediately and gave him a big hug, and he lifted her off her feet in the middle of the embrace. They settled into conversation, but what caught Lucas’s eye was that the man didn’t quite release her. They knew each other well, or at least he guessed they did by the familiar way the man touched her. The arm around her waist fell away, but the other lingered on her arm. Since she didn’t move away, his touch clearly didn’t bother her.
“Who’s that man with your mom?” Lucas asked.
Katie craned her neck in their direction. “That’s Mr. Gil. He’s Mommy’s friend. He’s nice. He gave her flowers on her birthday.”
So who was this Gil character? One of her friends with benefits?
Lucas sized him up; hard to do from that distance. He had longish dark hair and wore a gold loop earring. He was casually but sharply dressed in a sports jacket over dark jeans. From this vantage point, Lucas couldn’t quite tell his ethnicity, but he could tell the guy was good-looking.
He continued to watch the exchange.
“Higher,” Katie whined.
Lucas shifted his attention back to his daughter. He’d been so caught up in watching Ivy and her friend he’d all but stopped pushing Katie. He returned to the task at hand, keeping watch from the corner of his eye until the man left.
Minutes after he did Katie grew tired of the swing, and they made their way over to the bench.
“Who wants ice cream?” Ivy asked.
“Ice cream, yay!” Katie said, clapping her hands rapidly in a show of excitement.
Ivy smiled at Lucas, but the expression died on her face when their eyes met. “Is something wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong. Just wondering who that man was.”
“Who, Gil?” She laughed easily. “He’s a friend.”
“You can’t be too careful. You know, since you have a daughter.”
She seemed startled by his suggestion that Gil would do anything to harm Katie. “You don’t have to worry about Gil. He’s a good person. Come on, munchkin. Let’s go get some ice cream.”
Katie skipped along beside her mother and Lucas followed more slowly. How close was Ivy with this Gil character, and were there others like him in her life, lurking in the wings? How many of them had Katie met, and did she enjoy their company?
The thought of a stream of men coming in and out of their lives soured his stomach.
Next week, he would be back in Georgia, but Gil would still be here. He didn’t like the thought of some man hanging around. It made him uneasy. He and his daughter were getting closer. In fact, the last couple of times he’d arrived at the condo, she’d given him a big hug, clearly happy to see him.
Yet there was a noticeable thing missing from their relationship. Something he needed. Reassurance, against what he wasn’t sure.
Katie hadn’t called him daddy yet. She hadn’t called him anything.
Chapter Fifteen
Ivy’s mother wanted to meet Lucas, and whatever Constance Johnson wanted, she received. Despite Ivy’s reservations, she could no longer put off introducing him to her family. No doubt he would undergo severe scrutiny, not so much from her mother, but from her brothers, Cyrus and Trenton.
Her mother had invited them to Sunday dinner, a formal affair that had to be taken very seriously. As children, they didn’t always eat dinner at the table as a family, but Sunday meals were the exception. After services at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, the seven of them gathered in the formal dining room. Sometimes they invited guests, but most of the time it was an opportunity to bond as a family, and no discussions about beer-making or the restaurant business were allowed.
During these meals, Ivy and her brothers learned their family history. Constance Newton had been a Texas socialite when introduced to Cyrus Senior on his visit to Houston with his father. Under the guise of needing financial backing from Constance’s father to open a new restaurant in the area, the two young people had been introduced. However, it soon became obvious their parents had arranged the meeting to get them together, and fortunately, they’d hit it off.
The marriage of Constance Newton and Cyrus Johnson merged two wealthy families whose lineage could be traced back hundreds of years. The Newtons’ ancestors were among the first free blacks that settled on the continent, ending their servitude as indentured servants before the economics of slavery proved too lucrative an enterprise to resist. As such, they built their wealth through the acquisition of land. Ultimately they thrived by offering banking and insurance services to blacks who couldn’t get them elsewhere, and Constance’s family eventually moved to Texas where she was born.
The Johnsons could trace their roots to the U.S. Virgin Islands. Before the United States bought the islands, the Danish had owned them, and in 1848 the Danes freed all the slaves in the territory, a full fifteen years before the Emancipation Proclamation in the United States. Cyrus Johnsons’ ancestors had been an enterprising lot and started several businesses in the islands, but they earned their wealth in the food industry. Moving to the United States, they opened restaurants in the north, affording blacks the opportunity to dine in establishments similar to the ones they would normally be turned away from. It grew into a multi-million dollar business that touched almost every state in the country.
Years later, Cyrus Senior expanded his family’s business into a conglomerate. He included beer making and converted the restaurants into The Brew Pub, to capitalize on the popularity of the beer.
Today, Ivy’s mother lived in a gorgeous six bedroom estate on Lake Washington, a large freshwater lake a short drive from Seattle. Her mother had downsized to the property a few years after Cyrus Senior passed away. In addition to the main house, the expansive grounds featured a playground for Katie, a boat house, two docks, and a guest house where the family housekeeper, Adelina, lived. The stately home contained an indoor swimming pool, a library, a wine cellar, and her mother had commissioned a state-of-the-art movie lounge where she watched her favorite old movies on a theater-size screen.
Lucas had insisted on driving rather than having Lloyd drive, so he and Ivy sat in the front and Katie rode in the back. Her daughter prattled on about her grandmother, the playground, and feeding the ducks. Lost in her own thoughts, Ivy kept her eyes glued to the passing scenery.
Ever since Lucas had questioned her about Gil, she had been a little more cautious around him. She didn’t know if jealousy or true concern for Katie’s safety prompted his comment about Gil, but she’d decided to refrain from mentioning him in future to keep the peace.
Even if he was jealous, marriage was not on his list of things to do. He’d told her so as recently as the day he’d arrived unexpectedly to her office. But that’s what she was holding out for. She’d seen the affectionate, loving relationship her parents shared and wanted the same. She wanted it all, right down to the mundane tasks of washing dishes together or—out of the corner of her eye she hazarded a glance at Lucas in the driver’s seat—sitting around doing crossword puzzles until their daughter fell asleep.
She repressed a sigh. Lucas didn’t want any of that. Just like he’d told her he didn’t want children. He was only with them now because she’d taken that choice away from him, and it would be good to remember that and not get any fanciful ideas.
The minute they entered the formal foyer, her mother came out to greet them. She was an attractive woman with a standing weekly appointment at the salon to keep her shoulder length coif styled and free of gray hairs. She often gave her age as fifty, even though she’d surpassed that milestone years ago.
She reminded Ivy of a ballerina, gliding around on the tips of her feet in pointy-toed stilettoes that might have been more appropriate for a younger woman, but that she was completely at ease in. If you could tell how a woman would age by looking at her mother, Ivy was fortunate to come from this particular gene pool.
; “Grandma!” Katie ran to her grandmother and flung her arms around her waist.
Constance cupped her granddaughter’s face. “Hello, Katherine. How are you?” Ivy’s mother never used nicknames.
“Fine. I’m starving.”
“You’re always hungry, aren’t you?” Constance teased. She lifted curious eyes to Lucas. “Welcome to my home.”
“Thank you.”
“May I call you Lucas?”
“Absolutely.” He started forward.
“And you may call me Constance.” She met him halfway, but when he extended his hand to her, the perfectly arched brow above her left eye winged upward. “I give hugs to family, Lucas, and since you’re Katherine’s father, I consider you family.”
Ivy appreciated the welcome her mother extended. She watched her mother envelope Lucas in one of her firm embraces. When she was done, she turned to Ivy.
“Hello, Mother.”
“Good to see you, dear.” Ivy and her mother hugged and exchanged air kisses.
“This way.” Constance placed her hand in the crook of Lucas’s arm—her way of helping him feel at ease and letting the rest of the household know she welcomed him and they should be on their best behavior.
They entered the spacious sitting room. A grand piano that no one played sat in a corner between two large windows. Trenton and Cyrus were already in there, standing by the fireplace with drinks in their hands and talking. When they walked in, her brothers looked up and fixed Lucas with the type of stare usually reserved for animals at a zoo. She wondered if he felt that way, like a curiosity put on display for spectators.
Cyrus and Trenton approached and shook his hand. Cyrus’s face maintained the usual rigid lines, as if his jaw would hurt if he dared crack a smile. Trenton at least fixed his face into a more friendly expression, although his eyes remain guarded.
After the introductions, Adelina, their housekeeper, appeared in the doorway. She and Constance had grown up in the same household together in Texas and Adelina was more of a friend than an employee. When Constance had moved to Seattle as a new wife, she’d asked Adelina to come with her and help her run her new household.
“Dinner is almost ready,” Adelina said, her voice accented with a hint of her Mexican roots.
“Since we have a little time, I’m going to borrow Ivy for a few minutes,” Cyrus announced. Before Ivy could agree or disagree, he drew her from the room with a firm hand clasped below her elbow. She felt the weight of their mother’s disapproving frown as they exited the room.
“Mother’s going to kill you,” Ivy said. “What’s so important you couldn’t wait until after dinner?”
They entered the library, a place filled with books their father had collected over the years. Many first editions, some worth well into the thousands of dollars, lined the shelves or lay encased in protective glass.
Without a word, Cyrus handed her a file.
“What’s this?” Ivy asked.
“I looked into Lucas Baylor.”
Although she wasn’t surprised her brother had done a background check, it still annoyed her. “I asked you not to meddle.”
“Did you really think I’d welcome him into the family without checking him out first?”
“We can’t unwelcome him. He’s Katie’s father,” she reminded him.
“We should at least know what and who we’re dealing with.”
“You need a life, Cyrus.”
“Let’s not make this about me. Open it.”
Ivy perused the file, and he continued talking. “Did you know he was part of the foster system for years? He got into all sorts of trouble—fighting, stealing, and he almost flunked out of school. He was a real juvenile delinquent.”
Ivy looked up from the second page, which contained information about Lucas’s height, weight, even down to his shoe size. Cyrus’s guy was very thorough.
“Yes, I know all about his past. He was abandoned at Grady Hospital in Atlanta. They estimated he was a year old at the time, but they don’t know for sure. He doesn’t know who he is. He doesn’t know who his parents are or why they left him. He doesn’t know his real name. He doesn’t know his birthday—doesn’t even celebrate it because obviously he doesn’t know when it is. Yes, he had some bad behavior, but he straightened out in high school.”
Cyrus actually appeared speechless, which was a first.
“Did you know all of this when you became involved with him?”
“Some of it I learned afterward, but for the most part, yes.” She didn’t know what that had to do with anything.
“Why do you do this, Ivy?” He sounded annoyed with her.
“Do what?” She slammed the file closed.
“Get involved with men who are no good for you?”
“That’s not what you mean. Don’t you mean not good enough for you?”
“This isn’t about me.”
“You’re sure? Because you seem very interested in my personal life right now.” He always had been, particularly after “the incident.”
“To protect you.”
“Thanks, but I don’t need protecting.” She appreciated his concern, but Cyrus’s overbearing, big brother routine drove her crazy.
“All I’m saying is, be careful,” he said. “When people find out the truth, that you lied and let another man raise Katie as his own, they may not look too favorably on you.”
She knew that and had thought about it for days. “They’re going to eventually find out. We can’t keep this a secret forever, and frankly, I don’t think it’ll be as catastrophic as you think. I had Katie eight years ago, and Winston’s been dead for two. People don’t care as much as you think they do.”
“I disagree. As much as possible we’ve cultivated a private and scandal-free life, but there’s bound to be a media firestorm when it gets out that Winston wasn’t Katie’s father. That while you were supposedly engaged to him, you became pregnant with another man’s child.”
Aside from Jim Koch of Samuel Adams, the average consumer didn’t know who owned the company that made their favorite beer. Being black billionaires and running such a large, privately-owned brewing company, the Johnsons tended to make the news whether they wanted to or not. They were a novelty, which made people curious about their lives.
“It’s ancient history,” Ivy pushed back, wanting to believe this entire issue was a nonissue and ignore Cyrus’s prediction of doom.
“Listen to me,” Cyrus said, “I’m not saying all of this to scare you, but after what happened last time, we can’t be too careful.”
Why did he have to bring that up? “I was seventeen, Cyrus. I made a mistake.”
Her involvement with Eric Atkerson had been the biggest mistake she’d ever made and caused more drama than she cared to remember. He’d been a sophomore attending the University of Washington on a basketball scholarship, and she’d lied about her age, telling him she was eighteen when she was only seventeen. Getting involved with him had been an act of rebellion. She and her friends had wanted to be bad, cool—whatever young girls wanted at that age, and Eric had a dangerous edge and a roughness about him she wasn’t accustomed to from the boys at her prep school. He offered the right amount of excitement to make her young heart race and keep her coming back for more.
She allowed him to video tape them having sex. He’d promised it was for their eyes only and no one else would see it, and she’d believed him. It had been a disastrous mistake. Eric tried to shop the film, but because of her age, no one would touch it. The family lawyers easily suppressed its distribution, but it still made the rounds.
To know a video had circulated online and remained dormant in computer caches and hidden in the archives of cell phones still managed to make Ivy feel queasy. Most of her friends had distanced themselves after the story came out, but Winston had been one of the few who’d remained loyal during the entire ordeal.
Cyrus and her brothers had closed rank immediately. Trenton had been too young to participa
te in the retaliation, but Gavin, Cyrus, and Xavier wasted no time finding Eric and they let Gavin—the wild one, who wanted to handle this himself for his twin—whoop his ass. They forced him to apologize to Ivy, but the damage had been done.
The media had had a field day, linking the evils of beer with what they called her “wild child antics.” There had even been speculation that she’d been drunk when she shot the video, and those rumors had taken on a life of their own. She’d been likened to a drug pusher, encouraging underage drinking among her friends, though nothing could be further from the truth.
Except for the beat down, Eric came out of the entire ordeal practically unscathed, but her reputation had been in a shambles. She’d been called a whore, that word being the least derogatory of some of the name-calling. The International Debutante Ball in New York rescinded her invitation. Her aunt had managed to wrangle the invite, using all of her connections and calling in favors to ensure Ivy had the proper coming out. All had been for naught and the disappointment expressed by her aunt and her parents had been just as crushing as knowing she’d been used as a pawn in a cruel game.
To this day Ivy didn’t think either of her parents knew the truth about her brothers’ involvement in the retribution. Eric’s parents had filed a civil lawsuit against the Johnsons, which had been tossed out of court for lack of evidence. Cyrus had been ruthlessly thorough. He’d hired ironclad alibis for him and his brothers before he planned the attack.
“Do you still have feelings for Lucas?” Cyrus asked.
“Cy—”
He swore and placed both hands on her shoulders. “Tell me the truth.”
She sighed. She didn’t want to discuss her feelings for Lucas. “I don’t know what I feel. Mostly guilt that I’ve kept him and Katie apart for so long. Seeing them together and their closeness makes it worse. It’s clear I made the wrong decision nine years ago.”
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