The Princess and the Pauper

by Nancy Bush

  “So what are you afraid of?” she asked herself angrily, sweeping up the receiver. She punched out the number. Three rings, and Rob was on the line.

  “Hello,” he said hoarsely.

  “Rob.” Her heart was in her throat. “It’s April.”

  There was a terrible moment when she heard him draw a choking breath. She ached inside.

  “Just wanted you to know that it had nothing to do with you,” he said. The words tumbled out as if they’d been pent up for eons. “It was stupid. I was angry. They were pushing me out after over twenty-five years with them. I just couldn’t go out with a whimper.”

  “It’s okay. It’s okay,” she heard herself say. Meaningless words. It wasn’t okay, and they both knew it.

  “I just wanted you to know. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry, too.”

  There was a seemingly endless silence, then Rob sighed and hung up without saying goodbye. April gently slipped the receiver back into its cradle and thought that nothing could make her feel any worse than she did at the moment.

  Bettina stared into her older brother’s furious amber eyes and wondered how he could be so maddeningly blind. She was shocked, true, but then she could understand why April would keep such a vital secret. Women did that sort of thing to protect themselves. God knew, she’d had enough experience with the vulnerability of her sex to be an expert. Hadn’t Stefan Tamblin nearly ruined her life?

  “So you have a daughter,” she murmured, her heart wrenching a bit.

  “I have a nine-year-old daughter,” Jesse corrected her swiftly. “I’ve lost nine years already!”

  “Did she tell you Eden was yours?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He laughed harshly. “You don’t have to be a math whiz to figure out she couldn’t be anyone’s but mine. Unless, of course, April had others that same summer.”

  “Stop it, Jesse,” Bettina ordered flatly.

  “She looks like me.” A spasm crossed his face. “I thought she looked familiar, but I didn’t figure it out at first.”

  “Well, it’s plain to me that you need to talk to April. Get something straight. But don’t back her into a corner. She’s a Hollis. She’s got money.”

  “Do you think I give a damn?”

  “Jesse, be smart.” Bettina pointed a finger at his arrogantly jutting nose. “You won’t win against them. You know it.”

  “I’m not going to let her get away with this. I won’t.” He was coldly adamant. “Not any longer.”

  “Have you talked to her?”

  “She’s left messages on my cell.”

  “But you haven’t called her back?”

  His answer was to stalk across her studio loft to the door. Bettina trailed after him, swearing as she stumbled over a stool in her haste to stop him from making an even bigger mistake. “Why are you so enraged?” she demanded, calling down the apartment stairway to him. His boots clopped down the steps. She could see him a floor below, turning the landing. “Did something else happen?”

  Jesse refused to answer. Bettina, whose icy control had saved her through disaster after disaster, didn’t understand the betrayal that burned through his system like a brush fire. They’d made love. He and April had made love. She hadn’t told him even though they’d made love.

  And the hell of it was that he wanted to make love to her again.

  April chewed on her lower lip, drumming her fingers restlessly on her desk. How could she find Jesse? He wouldn’t answer his cell and she didn’t know where he lived. She’d already called Jordan at Touché and learned that he knew nothing more about his brother’s whereabouts. Jordan, in fact, had taken pains to let April know how unwise he felt her pursuit of Jesse was.

  “Leave it, April,” he said in an unusually cool voice. “It’s over.”

  She’d hung up feeling more than a little depressed. Her relationship with Jordan had taken a turn for the worse – what had she expected, anyway? – and she hadn’t realized how important a friend he’d been until it had ended. She was still furious with her father. What right did he have to pass judgment? He didn’t even know Jordan or Jesse.

  Impatient, April shoved back her chair. She could search the store files or hunt down Bettina’s phone number and address on the Internet, she supposed, but there was an easier, quicker way to get in touch with Jesse: the police department.

  Twenty minutes later she was walking through the front entrance of the Criminal Justice Building. Her steps echoed hollowly on the smooth floor; she was a bit awed by the place, she had to admit.

  “I would like to see Detective Sergeant Jesse Cawthorne,” she said to the plain-looking woman at the massive reception desk.

  “And you are?”

  She hesitated. “April Hollis.”

  The woman placed a call, spoke softly into the receiver, then said to April, “Take the elevator to the twelfth floor. Sergeant Cawthorne isn’t in right now, but Lieutenant Rothchild would like to speak to you.”

  April’s heart sank. Lieutenant Rothchild. The man her father had spoken to about Jesse.

  She stepped into the elevator and watched the floor numbers flicker on and off, one by one. Several weren’t even listed, she realized. You simply sped from the lower floors straight to the top. It took her a minute to realize that the jail was smack-dab in the center of the building. Strange, she thought with a little shudder.

  She was dumped onto a floor of wild activity, where desks were crowded behind partitions, and men and women wore shoulder holsters as if it were the latest fashion trend. She stood blinking, mesmerized, for several moments, before a young man took pity on her and directed her toward Lieutenant Rothchild’s office.

  “Miss Hollis,” the lieutenant greeted her with a practiced smile, shaking her hand. “I spoke to your father earlier this week. I must say I’m sorry for the misunderstanding with our department.” His palm was smooth, as polished as the rest of him. For reasons she didn’t analyze, April took an instant and complete dislike to him.

  “Well, I guess everything turned out for the best,” she murmured.

  “I assure you, Sergeant Cawthorne has been reprimanded for his, uh—” Rothchild rubbed his nose, searching for the right phrase “– over eagerness to finish what he began. The matter is being dealt with.”

  April’s temper began to simmer. “I didn’t come here to make certain Sergeant Cawthorne was disciplined, she said evenly. “Actually, I think he should be commended. I found him honest, thorough and intuitive.”

  Surprise flashed in Rothchild’s eyes. “Well, that’s certainly welcome news.”

  Really? April thought sarcastically. She couldn’t imagine Rothchild approving of anything Jesse did. “Is Sergeant Cawthorne on a case now?”

  “He’s working on several.” Glancing at his watch, Rothchild pursed his lips. “I’m sorry, Miss Hollis, but I have a meeting in a few minutes. Was there something else…?”

  “No.” She got to her feet, shook hands once more, and found her way to the outer hallway. Pompous ass, she thought dismissively.

  The elevator doors opened and April stepped aside to let the passengers pass. A man and a woman walked out, deep in conversation. She moved forward, brushing the skirt of the other occupant before she saw who was.

  “Jesse.” Her pulse leaped.

  “April,” Jesse said in a flat voice that sent chills down her spine.

  He regarded her dispassionately, and she had to swallow once more before finding her voice again. “I was here looking for you,” she said, flustered.

  “Why?”

  “I thought we should talk.” She shot him a look of challenge. How dare he be so cold? This wasn’t easy for her, either.

  “It’s a little late, don’t you think?” he remarked cuttingly.

  “Yes, it probably is.” April was impatient. “Don’t be so hard. Please. You must have a thousand questions, and I don’t blame you. If I could—”

  “Shut up, April.” His cool tone belied the leashed fury
flaring in his eyes.

  She stiffened in shock and affront. How could she have miscalculated his reaction so completely? She’d expected him to be so eager to know his daughter that he would set aside his terrible pride. That had been a mistake. “Don’t you want to know about Eden?”

  The virulent look he sent her tore a hole in April’s heart. “She’s my daughter. You never were married, and this husband of yours is mythical? You’ve lied and fabricated for years. Do I want to know about her? Yes. But you’re the last person I would come to for information!”

  His face was as dark as his shirt. She could see the tension in the cords of his neck. She wondered if he’d blocked out their afternoon of lovemaking. “I’m… sorry,” she said, feeling the words were inadequate.

  He moved a step closer until she could feel his heat. “You used to me, and now I’ve used you. That’s all there is to it. Don’t wrap this up in some nice neat word like ‘love.’ I don’t feel anything for you but contempt.”

  April’s eyes widened. She couldn’t speak.

  “You’ve had Eden for nine years,” he snarled in a low voice. “But it’s over now. Consider yourself forewarned, Princess.”

  April pressed the Down button with a shaking hand as Jesse stalked away from her. She didn’t remember how she got back to the office. She was immersed in a numbing fog of terror.

  When she saw the special delivery letter on her desk, she knew instantly it was Jesse’s doing. She tore it open. The firm of lawyers named at the top of the page was one of Portland’s finest.

  The demands were for parental visitation rights. April realized with a sense of inevitability that this was just the beginning. Jesse was going to exact revenge, and unless she wanted a messy court battle with Eden the middle, she was going to have to pay.

  Chapter Twelve

  Touché was located in a rustic corner of Portland steeped in history. The building was nearly a hundred years old; the upper-story windows were grimy and needing paint. But the store itself was both trendy and upscale. The mannequin in the windows sported a lazy, perpetual wink, as if she were secretly amused by her faded blue jeans with holes and the glittering necklaces of semiprecious stones that wound in layers around her sculpted neck.

  April pushed open the door and was greeted by the first few bars of “God save the Queen” from what sounded like a kazoo. A girl with short, spiky, gelled auburn hair smiled at her. “What can I do for you?”

  “I came to see Jordan Taylor. Is he here?”

  She lifted perfectly plucked brows. “Sure. Jordan!” she yelled, turning toward the door behind her. The front door opened once more, with another rendition from the kazoo, and the salesgirl said, “He’ll be here in a minute. Excuse me.”

  April glanced at the newcomers: a woman in an expensive sweater suit and two high school girls. The girls looked yearningly at the rows of quality clothes, whose styles made the older woman blanch slightly.

  “Mom,” one cried, enraptured. “This belt is only a hundred dollars!”

  I have led a sheltered life, April thought fatalistically.

  “April!” Jordan exclaimed in surprise.

  The smile nearly froze on her face. He wore a worn, leather flight jacket and black jeans. His resemblance to Jesse at that moment took her breath away. “I came to check out the competition,” she greeted him, her voice strained.

  He smiled, but there was a reserve about him that wounded her to the core. “It’s quite a place, huh?”

  “Successful?” April asked.

  “You wouldn’t believe.” He hesitated a moment, then gestured for her to follow him into the back. “It’s no department store, of course, but its sales are phenomenal considering its size. We restock twice a day. I spend most of my time opening boxes.”

  “Who’s your buyer?” April asked as Jordan pulled out a chair for her from beneath a postage-stamp-sized table wedged against a back wall.

  “Her name is Teresa. She’s rarely here. She’s got the knack. As soon as I realized that, I practically gave her carte blanche. Want a Coke?” He was opening the door to a tiny refrigerator.

  “Have you got Diet?” For an answer he handed her an ice-cold can. “Thanks. Are you happy here?”

  “Yeah.” He answered too quickly and April brows lifted. “It’s not my forte,” he amended. “I’m more of the general manager type. But I feel we’re riding a wave that’s getting bigger. Can you keep a secret?”

  The irony of that question made April choke. She coughed lightly. “Yes.”

  “I’ve made an offer for Touché. I think it’s going to be accepted.”

  “That’s wonderful,” April said in all sincerity.

  Jordan grabbed a rickety chair and swung it around, straddling it backward. He laid his arms across the back and eyed her directly. “What’s going on with you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Her smile twisted painfully. “I wanted to apologize for my father.”

  “There’s no need.”

  “You do know why he… let you go?”

  “Fired me,” he corrected with the patient smile. “I guess it was because of Jesse.”

  April’s head jerked in a nod. “He’s rather hysterical when it comes to Jesse.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Have you talked to Jesse recently? I mean, about me?”

  “If you think I know something more than you do, you’re wrong. My brother is not exactly a babbler, if you know what I mean.”

  “He didn’t tell you about Eden?”

  “I haven’t seen Jesse since the day your father fired me,” Jordan said pointedly. “We’ve talked on the phone maybe three times and he’ll only answer my texts with one word. What happened to Eden?”

  April was beginning to think she’d embarked on a fool’s journey. But once started, she couldn’t stop. She opened her mouth to tell him the truth twice before she managed to say, “I never was married, Jordan. Eden met her father for the first time the other day.”

  Jordan stared at April. She could practically see the pieces fall into place inside his head. His nostrils flared. “Jesse?” he asked incredulously.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “Oh, God.” Jordan was on his feet, the color drained from his face. He ran his hand through his hair in a gesture painfully reminiscent of Jesse. “How did he react? What happened?”

  By the time April had finished explaining, the Diet Coke had turned lukewarm and flat. Martha, Touché’s irrepressible salesgirl, had sung out that she was locking up and going home over half an hour earlier. The hands on the pink neon clock behind Jordan’s head were climbing to nine o’clock.

  Jordan’s cool reserve had broken down word by word, like ice floes chipped off a glacier. April story had tumbled out hesitantly at first, then faster and faster until the last words rushed out with miserable intensity. “He hasn’t learned a damn thing, if he thinks he can bully me.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “If he tries, he’ll lose. I’ll make sure of it.”

  Jordan’s mouth twisted. “Spoken like a true Windsor Estates girl.”

  “Don’t patronize me.” Furious, she pointed a finger at him. “You’re the one seeing Tasha Bennington.”

  “Past tense, April. Tasha and I split.”

  “You did?”

  Jordan stretched his shoulders. “Yep. Tasha’s interest in me went into serious decline after I lost my job at Hollis’s. I hear she’s hooked up with a successful stockbroker.”

  “Oh, Jordan.” April could hear the regret in her words.

  “It was the best thing that could have happened. Being with Tasha made me realize how faulty my memories were. I had built her up in my mind. And she let me down.”

  “I know this is going to sound trite, but you’ve always been too good for her.”

  Jordan snorted. “I know this is going to sound trite, that Tasha and I are from two different backgrounds. It doesn’t matter how much either of us possesses: we’re not the same. We never will be. And that’s th
e crux of it.” He eyed her speculatively. “It isn’t any different for you.”

  April smoothed her skirt with swift, tense strokes. She hadn’t come to see Jordan for a lecture. “If you mean Jesse and me—”

  “Of course I mean Jesse and you. Get real, April. Jesse is on this planet to cause turmoil. You’re the establishment. Those philosophies are never going to mix.”

  “Did I say I wanted to be with Jesse?” April demanded.

  “I think so,” he answered, maddeningly.

  “All I want to do is keep my daughter!”

  “Yours and Jesse’s daughter. And what you just said is a lie, April Hollis. You want Jesse, too.”

  April was so infuriated that she leapt to her feet. “What the hell do you know about it?”

  Calmly Jordan said, “You’re mad at the wrong guy.”

  April snapped her jaw shut on a gasp. She sank back, deflated, and covered her face with her hands. “I don’t know what I want to do.”

  “There’s only one thing you can do,” he remarked sympathetically. “Let Jesse have visitation rights and be done with it. If you give, he’ll give. He won’t beat you down.”

  She shook her head.

  “April, what you shared with him was a long time ago. It’s meaningless today. If you’re hanging onto that, let it go.”

  He didn’t understand. Jordan didn’t know about the day she and Jesse had made love with such fervency that the memory still had power to squeeze the breath from her lungs. She wanted to tell him, to prove to him that he was wrong. But was he? What had been a monumental moment to her could have been an afternoon’s pleasure to Jesse. It might’ve been an ending rather than a beginning – the period at the end of a sentence, the moral at the end of the story.

  “I’ll try,” April said unsteadily, and wondered how long it took to stop loving someone.

  Ten days later April returned from work late, apologized madly to Jennifer and paid her extra, then mounted the stairs to the second floor in search of her daughter. She felt weary beyond description. Since the discovery of Roger’s crimes, the employees at Hollis’s seemed to be in a state of extended shock. Some even believed Roger had been wronged. There had been a mass exodus of disgruntled and angry salespeople and one or two managers.