by Sarra Cannon
He swallows. “So you’ve known this whole time?”
I nod, my eyes never leaving his face.
How did this all become such a mess? Such an impossible, fucked-up mess?
“This isn’t how I wanted you to find out,” I say. “I wanted to tell you when the time was right. When I could say for sure that you loved me for me and not just for our baby.”
“You have ten minutes to make a decision, Penny. After that, you’re father files kidnapping charges,” Bernard says. “I’m sure you don’t want the father of your baby to spend several years in prison because of your choices.”
My head snaps toward Bernard. I grind my teeth and stand. “He can’t do that,” I say. “It isn’t true. I came on my own. All I have to do is tell them that and charges will be dropped.”
Bernard chuckles. “You should know better than to think your father can’t make something like this happen,” he says. “If your father wants Mason to go down for this, he’ll do whatever it takes and you know it.”
I want to gouge his eyes out with my bare hands. I rush toward him, wanting to hit him. To make him pay for coming here and ruining what this could have been.
But Bernard grabs my wrists and holds me away from him.
“You’re not in your right mind,” he says. “I can testify to that if I have to. Besides, you’re a thief and a liar. You’re unstable.”
“You son of a bitch,” I say, twisting my arms until he releases me. My wrists sting.
“Seven minutes,” he says. “You have a choice to make. You can either come quietly and avoid sending your baby’s father to prison on kidnapping charges for the rest of his life. Or you can stay here and wait for the police to arrive and force you both into custody. Either way, you’re going to be home by nightfall. The question is whether you’re going to let Mason walk out of here of his own free will or with handcuffs around his wrists.”
It’s an impossible choice. Either way, we both lose everything.
And I know Bernard is right. My father loves me, but he’ll do whatever he has to in order to get what he wants. My whole life I’ve watched him bring people down with a single phone to a friend. So many people owe him favors at this point, he can make anything happen. He can make anyone disappear.
And I’ll never forgive myself if I let Mason go to prison because of me.
I turn and Mason’s gaze meets mine.
He shakes his head. “Don’t do it, Penny,” he says. “We’ll fight it. If you walk away now, you know they’ll let never let us be together.”
“They’ll never let us be together anyway,” I say. “Can’t you see that? If I go with him, at least you’re free.”
“No I’m not,” he says. “They’ll still press charges for my father’s mistakes. I’ll be on the run from this my whole life. Besides, without you, I might as well be in jail anyway. And knowing we’re going to have a baby together? That changes everything. If you walk away now, then this trip hasn’t taught you anything. You left so they couldn’t control you. So that you could make your own choices and follow your heart. If you give them control over you—over us—they’ll own you for the rest of your life.”
“Three minutes,” Bernard says. He pulls his phone from his pocket and my heart squeezes so hard in my chest I think it might explode.
Tears trickle down my face and my head throbs. “I’m sorry,” I say to Mason. “I can’t let you go to jail for this.”
I turn to Bernard and nod.
Mason slams his fist into the wall as Bernard dials my father’s number and tells him I’m on my way home.
“I don’t know what else to do,” I say to Mason. “I don’t want to lose you.”
He turns to me, anger hardening his face. His eyes are cold and hollow.
“You just did.”
Chapter Fifty-Six
My father’s jet is waiting for us at the airport in Houston. The flight home takes about five hours, and I stare out the window for most of the trip.
I have never felt so betrayed in my entire life.
By my father. By Mason.
By myself.
It doesn’t seem real that he’s gone. I was so happy out on the road with Mason. I was a better person just for being with him. He was right all along. I had always thought that if you stripped away the money and the jewelry and the expensive clothes and the fancy car, I would be nothing more than a hollow shell.
But on this trip, I realized that those other things are the shell. The money and the name doesn’t make me who I am. It never has.
It took getting away from all of that to finally understand it.
I was really beginning to love that version of me.
And to finally hear Mason tell me he loves me was the single happiest moment of my life.
When he made love to me, I felt transformed. I was ready for a life with him, even if we spent it in a tent on the beach without ever having more. All I wanted was him and this baby. We could have been a family.
But as real as it all seemed—as close as I thought we had gotten—there were still these lies that stood between us. Even if I could learn to forgive him for keeping the truth from me about his father, he might never be able to forgive me for walking away. But what choice did I have? My father is too strong. Too powerful. Without money and resources, we wouldn’t have been able to fight him. We wouldn’t have stood a chance.
And without complete honesty and trust, we didn’t really have love. We may have had something that felt like love or looked like love, but without trust, it was all an illusion.
Mason called himself a fraud. And that’s what he was. The whole time he was riding around town in his Porsche and spending money left and right, he knew that money was stolen from my family. And he still had the nerve to be a part of our lives. He still had the nerve to sleep with me and lead me on and to call himself Preston’s best friend.
He knew he didn’t deserve our friendship, but he took it anyway.
Mason betrayed us.
Still, no matter how much I damn him for his mistakes and his choices, inside I know I’ve made just as many bad choices. I’ve messed up just as many times. What right do I have to judge him?
How am I going to live without him?
I lay down on the white leather sofa in the main cabin of the plane and wrap a lush brown blanket around my body.
I don’t even want to think about what my parents will say. I don’t know if I will ever be able to forgive them for pushing me like this. For demanding I leave the one man I’ve ever loved—the father of my baby—to come home and be with them. I always knew my father was a shrewd man, willing to step on whoever he had to in order to get what he wanted. But I never dreamed that included me.
My heart is broken.
No, even the word broken does not come close to describing how I feel.
Devastated.
Ruined.
Obliterated.
There is no word strong enough.
I miss Mason so much already. I miss the feel of his arms around me. I miss his laughter and the way he’d tease me by lifting that one eyebrow, looking at me like I’d gone crazy. I miss everything about him.
By the time the plane touches down, I’m hit with the realization that I’ve made a terrible mistake. I’ve made the wrong choice.
And the thought of never being with him again destroys me.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
My parents meet me as I come off the jet.
Mom’s eyes are ringed with red and she throws her arms around me and pulls me tight. “My sweet baby girl,” she says. “I was so worried about you. I was so scared you were never going to come home to us.”
I don’t say anything. I hug her back, but I’m only going through the motions.
Dad stands to the side. He has no words for me, and I have nothing to say to him.
But Preston is the one who holds onto me. The moment his arms close around me, I burst into tears. He holds me and lets me sob into his sh
irt.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers to me. “I tried to talk to them and convince them to stop, but they wouldn’t listen.”
Preston takes my small bag and puts one arm around me as we all walk to the car and head home to Fairhope.
In the car, no one says a word. The tension is palpable.
It’s still almost a fifteen minute drive from the small airport here to our house, and on the way, I can only hope my parents will have the decency to give me my space. I did what they asked. I played along even though it meant surrendering my own hope for the future. I hope they will at least give me time to deal with it in my own way.
I pull my legs up into the seat and lean my head against the window, watching the miles pass us by. I don’t think about the future or about the things that happened on the trip. I clear my mind, concentrating on the trees along the side of the road. We’re going so fast, they start to blur together. That’s when I realize I’m crying again. Even if my mind has closed off, refusing to think of the things that will hurt me, my heart still knows.
My heart won’t let me forget what I’ve done.
Preston puts a hand on my arm and when I look over, he motions for me to scoot closer. He opens his strong arms to me and I crawl inside, just like I’ve done a thousand times. Preston is my rock, and I’m so glad he’s here with me.
He holds me as we cross the county line. He holds me as we pass the Solo gas station where Mason and I stopped before we left town. He holds me all the way until Dad pulls the car through the gate and our house appears.
Preston opens the door, but before he lets go of me, he squeezes my shoulder and whispers in my ear. “No matter what, I’m here for you, sis,” he says. “Everything is going to be okay. I promise.”
I hug him back, then get out of the car. I stare up at the house where I grew up. It looks exactly the same as it always has, but it feels different. I guess because I’m different. For the first time, I’m seeing this all through the eyes of someone who didn’t grow up in a place like this. I’m seeing it through the eyes of people like Delores and Walt and Buddy. People who take nothing for granted and who fight for everything they have and everything they love.
Before, this was always just my house. I didn’t see anything special about it. It was just the house where we live.
But now, I see the ridiculousness of it. I can see why people think we act so high and mighty. After all, I just flew in on a private jet, drove home in a special edition Lexus, and came through a gated entrance to a house with over fifteen thousand square feet.
And none of those things could ever be enough to make me happy. None of it could ever replace what I had with Mason, sitting by the fire or holding each other inside a tent, our warm bodies pressed together in the darkness.
“Come inside, sweetheart,” my mom says. “We’ll get you something to eat.”
I nod, but don’t follow her inside right away. I stand there for another minute, staring up at the house, thinking about just how much I’ve changed since I left. How fast I would trade all of this for one more moment with him.
How I might never get the chance to make that choice again.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
I walk down the hall toward the stairs, but my mother’s heels sound on the marble entryway and I pause.
“Penelope? Honey? Your father and I have a few things we need to talk through with you,” she says.
I take a deep breath and push back the tears and frustration. I force them down so deep I can no longer feel them. I force myself to be numb. Heavy. I prepare myself to just take whatever they’re going to dish out to me. I just need to survive it, then when I’m alone, I can feel whatever it is I’m feeling.
For now, I’m nothing.
The only thing that holds me to this life is the baby growing inside of me. As long as I have that, I can hold on to some hope that I can find Mason and that he will forgive me for what I’ve done. Hope that we can forgive each other and start again.
I turn and nod, then follow her into the living room. I’m still wearing my dirty cutoffs and boots. Ironically, it’s very similar to the outfit I was wearing when I walked out of this house almost a month ago. I feel so out of place here with all the ornate decorations. I feel like this simply isn’t where I belong anymore.
Out there, it didn’t matter what I was wearing. I felt beautiful and sexy, because Mason made me feel that way.
But here, in this room with its pristine white couch and vases of fresh flowers, I feel wrong. I feel lesser.
My father stands behind the couch, his hand on the back. Mom sits down just under him and pats his hand for encouragement.
I sit in a straight-backed chair across from them.
Preston walks in with a tray full of ice waters. He sets them on the coffee table, then grabs one for himself and steps to the side.
I put my head down, playing with the fringe at the edge of my shorts. I wait. I already know what’s coming. I already know what they’re going to say and that no matter how they try to justify what they’ve done, I won’t hear them. I won’t listen.
I feel sick to my stomach and the room is hot. I swallow and take a deep breath. I want one of those ice waters, but when I start to reach for one, a sharp pain in my side stops me. I cry out and move my hands to the spot, doubling over.
Preston grabs a water, then rushes over to me. “You okay?” he asks.
For a second, it hurts to breath. I wait for the pain to pass, then sit back in the chair. I take the water and lift it to my lips. The cold water is amazing in this heat. “Thanks,” I say. But inside, I’m terrified. The doctor told me to watch for cramping, but the first time it happened, I thought maybe I had simply stood up too fast. My hands tremble and I clutch the glass tighter. “I’m fine. Just stressed out and tired.”
Preston’s eyes are clouded with worry. “Can’t we do this some other time?” he asks, turning to them. “Penny’s been through so much. She’s in no condition to listen to this right now.”
“Sit down, son,” Dad says.
Preston doesn’t move from my side.
“Penny.” My dad says my name and I look up at him. I clutch the glass in my hand so hard, I’m surprised it doesn’t break. He waits until I’m looking at him before he continues. “I cannot even begin to tell you how worried we’ve been. We had no idea if you were even alive. Do you understand how difficult these last few weeks have been for us?”
I’m not sure he really wants an answer, so I stay quiet. My role here is to listen. To take whatever punishment they choose to give. But what they don’t realize is they can’t hurt me anymore. They’ve already taken everything they can take from me.
“When the maid came to us with that note of yours, we didn’t know what to think,” he says. “We thought maybe you were just acting out after we took away your privileges and your spending money. We thought maybe you were just trying to make a point, so as hard as it was, we decided to let you go. We thought you’d be gone for a few days. Maybe a week at most. We knew you were with Mason, and at the time, that made us feel some comfort.”
He pauses. He makes it sound like I was only able to go because he allowed it. He let me go. In his mind, even after all this time, he still thinks he owns me. He still thinks he’s in control of my destiny.
“After a week had passed without even a single phone call from you, we started to get worried,” he says. He moves from behind the couch and takes one of the ice waters. He takes a sip, then sets it back on the tray and begins to pace the space between the couch and the window. “We made a simple call to the cell phone company, but I suppose you know what we found out when they searched for your cell signal.”
I look down again. I pull my legs under me in the chair, wanting to curl into a little ball.
“How could you do something so reckless? So stupid?” His voice is angry. Cold. “What if something horrible had happened to you while you were on the road? What if we had never found you?”
“But I suppose that was the whole point, wasn’t it? To make us worry? To punish us for what you thought was unfair?”
“This wasn’t about you,” I say, looking up. Making sure he sees my eyes.
Preston puts his hand on my shoulder. I know he’s trying to tell me to be calm and to just be quiet and let Dad say what he needs to say. But I can’t let this go on. I can’t take it any longer.
“If you want to know why I left why don’t you just ask me? Why do you have to assume that what you think is right? Why do you think you’re the only ones with all the answers? I’m here now. Just ask me why I left.”
“We know why,” my mother says. Her voice is angry and her hands are shaking as she stands. “You left to be with that boy. Someone you’ve had a silly schoolgirl crush on since you were twelve years old and who never loved you back. Mason Trent will never love you, Penelope. What did you think? That if you got knocked up, he would suddenly have some kind of epiphany and realize you were meant to be together? He was using you. Why can’t you see that? He was—”
“Stop it,” I shout. I stand up, my hands by my ears. “I won’t let you talk about him like that. If you think that’s the kind of person Mason is, then you don’t know him at all. And if you think I was trying to trap him into something, then you apparently don’t know me at all either. I’m not going to sit here and let you talk to me this way after what you’ve just done.”
I stand up and head toward the door, but my mother reaches for me, grabbing my arm and turning me toward her.
“Everything we did was for your own good,” she says.
“See? That’s exactly what I’m talking about.” I look straight into her eyes. I want her to see that she doesn’t control me. “You don’t want to give me the freedom to figure anything out on my own. You want to fix it for me. It’s been that way my whole life. I mess up and you guys swoop in and take care of the consequences. How am I ever supposed to learn about life if you never give me the freedom to live it? Yes, I have made some mistakes, but they are my mistakes. My choices. I should have every right to make those choices for myself without you forcing me to do what you want.”