Her stomach knotted. She still had to deal with Bill.
And her father. She had to face him, too.
She opened the door to her old bedroom and looked around like she was seeing it for the first time. Perhaps, she was. Perhaps, for the first time in her life, she saw everything as it really was and not as she’d always thought it to be.
****
“I’m sorry your mother involved you in our problems,” Alexander Kingsley said wearily.
Alex reached her father at his office for the address of the apartment he took after the break-up with her mother. They were in his apartment now, Alex on the leather sofa in his living room and her father pacing in front of the large picture window.
“Did you really think your problems didn’t concern me at all, Daddy?” Alex asked. “Did you think you could keep them hidden forever?” Frustrated, she rubbed her hand over the soft leather arm of the sofa. “Although, I must say the two of you did a magnificent job all these years.” Try as she might, she couldn’t hide the bitterness in her voice.
“We saw no reason to expose you to our problems as long as our relationship didn’t affect you adversely.”
Were they so blind they didn’t notice how their actions affected her? “Do you really think I wasn’t affected at all?”
“If you’re talking about your drinking, Alex, I don’t think it’s fair to cast blame on either your mother or me.”
Alex’s fingers curled into her palms as she fought to hold back her anger. “Daddy, I’ve learned not to blame my faults on anyone but myself. But I’m not a child any longer. I’m able to see where parental action can bring a great deal of influence to bear on a child. You and Mother both drink too much. You always have. While I can’t blame my inability to control my own intake of alcohol on you, I can blame you for setting a bad example.”
She inhaled deeply to calm herself. Never had she spoken to either of her parents the way she had since yesterday. She could hardly believe she stood up for herself the way she had. Or that she finally reached the point where she believed she had a right to do so.
“I know your mother drinks too much. I probably do, too. Maybe once we get our differences resolved, we’ll both handle our lives a little better. We should certainly have less stress.” He crossed the room toward Alex and stopped at the leather chair opposite the sofa where she sat. He gripped the chair’s back and after a few seconds of silence, he spoke. “But you didn’t come here to talk about your mother’s and my drinking habits, did you? I assume you want to know why I moved out after all this time.”
Yes, she did want to know. Not that the reason would change anything. But, yes, she still wanted to try to understand. And above all, she wanted to believe her parents had at least loved each other, once. “What happened, Daddy? When did you stop loving each other?”
Alexander scrubbed his forehead with his hands. “Your mother was a very beautiful young woman, Alex.”
Alex nodded. All the pictures around the house of her mother and father when they were first married was a testament to how beautiful her mother had been.
“When I first met her, I was overwhelmed by her beauty. She had just been crowned beauty queen in the small town where she lived. A friend of mine from college was visiting family there, and he’d brought me along.”
She’d already heard this story many times but didn’t interrupt, sensing her father had a reason for the retelling.
“In a very short time after we met, I knew I wanted to marry her. My family wasn’t happy at all. They were wealthy and socially connected. Your mother’s family wasn’t…how shall I put this…exactly first caliber stock.”
That detail was another well-known family fact. Her father’s family was old-line Texans and extremely well to do. Actually, they were more than well to do. That’s why she had those millions left to her by her paternal grandfather waiting to be claimed when she reached her fortieth birthday.
Her father ran a finger inside the collar of his starched white shirt.
She was unnerved watching this man who had always represented the epitome of the man in charge, appear so obviously distressed.
“You asked when we stopped loving each other,” her father continued. “I’ve wondered often over the years if we ever really did love each other in all the ways that really matter.” He glanced at Alex.
She supposed he expected a surprised reaction, but by now she didn’t think very much could surprise her.
Her father picked up his story. “I knew with her beauty alone she could turn heads in any room. She looked good on my arm. She knew how to dress and how to talk. In short, I knew she would be good for my career.”
Alex leaned forward, but her father raised his hand. “I’m not saying I didn’t care for her, even love her, in a way. I’m just being honest. In that regard, I have to tell you also, your mother saw in me the way to a life she could never have otherwise. She wanted everything being married to me would give her like social standing, family pride, and money.”
Alex pulled in a quick breath. “She told you that?”
“Not in so many words. Oh, I think she loved me. Or at least, she thought she did. For a while, what we gave each other was enough. Until….”
“Until?” she prompted, when he seemed like he might not go on.
He passed his hand through his hair. “This subject is awkward to discuss with you.” He swallowed and cast her a pleading look.
Alex held his gaze and refused to let him off the hook.
“We had always enjoyed a very satisfactory intimacy.”
She could sense her father’s discomfort and it made her stomach clench. Some things she just didn’t want to know, but they were all part of the story that had to be told.
“Things were okay until”—he lifted his head a little higher—“until after you were born.”
What had changed with her birth? She took a deep breath and waited.
“Your mother gained a lot of weight when she became pregnant,” her father continued “and she had a difficult time losing it after you were born. I thought she looked fine, but you know your mother and her figure.” His voice trailed off.
Yes, she certainly did know how her mother felt about the way she looked.
“She went to such extremes with exercise and dieting, she made herself sick. Then she stopped taking birth control pills, saying they made her gain weight. She got it into her head that other methods, well, she didn’t trust anything to keep her from getting pregnant again and going through the same hassle with her weight.”
Alex gripped the arm of the chair and waited for what she was certain was coming next.
“After a while, I stopped trying to get close to her. I’m not proud of my behavior, but damn it, Alex, I was a young man. I needed affection in my life.”
She swallowed and nodded. Despite not wanting to hear a confession from her own father, she couldn’t hold against him what he’d finally been forced to do.
“Then Polly came to work for me. We were powerfully attracted to each other from the first.”
She felt the blood surge up her neck and flush her cheeks. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t erase that long-ago picture of her father and his secretary from her mind.
“Soon, we were very much in love. But I had a wife and a child. I also had a business and a position in the community. We both agreed just to continue as we were.”
“What changed?”
Her father moved back a few steps but quickly returned to the back of the chair. “Ahhh, Alex, so much changed over the course of time. Your mother and I became even more distant. Then, one day, I looked in the mirror. I was no longer a young man, and Polly was no longer a young woman. I suddenly knew I couldn’t spend another day apart from her. I wanted to share whatever years I had left with the woman who really loved me and stood by me all these years.”
Alex felt confused. “I didn’t know….”
“Now, you do. It’s time, too, I tell yo
u a few other things I’m dreadfully sorry I didn’t before. One of those things is that I never told you when you and Bill had trouble, I was in your corner. I know now I looked the other way because seeing myself in him was too painful. But I never wanted to take him into the business as much as your mother did. With his family background, I know she wanted to seal what she thought would be a great future for you.”
Alex rested her head on the pillowed back of the couch and stared up at the ceiling, wishing her father’s affair had never happened and yet somehow glad the revelation was over at last. Leaning forward, she held out her hands. “Come sit for a moment, Daddy. I’d like to stay longer, but I need to meet Bill in an hour. I’m dreading that meeting even more than my meeting with Mother and hearing your side of the story.”
He sat at her side, took her hands in his, and kissed the back of each. Tears pooled in his eyes.
For the first time in her life, she watched her father cry, and she wept with him. When they were both quiet again, she put her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “I wish I didn’t have to go so soon, but I promise I’ll get back at least for a weekend before the summer is over. We’ll talk more then.”
Her father lifted himself off the sofa and helped her up. They walked to the door—her arm around his waist, and his draped across her shoulder. Being with him was almost like old times. Almost. But almost was as close as she’d get. Things would never again be the same.
She still had the meeting with Bill to get through before this weekend was finally over.
Her temples throbbed. A headache was not far off.
Chapter Nineteen
Beck paced while he waited for Alex’s knock. She called from the hotel lobby to get his room number and was on her way up. When he threw open the door to let her in, he practically lifted her off her feet. After crushing her in a bear hug and kissing her breathless with a long, deeply sensual kiss, he set her away and studied her appearance. “I can tell it’s been a rough visit.” Again, he took her in his arms.
She slumped against him.
He encircled her waist and drew her farther into the room, guided her to the soft, welcoming sofa, and eased her down. He sat next to her and took both her hands in his.
When he’d envisioned their reunion during his flight from Atlanta the picture wasn’t like this. By now, in his daydream, he’d already had them both undressed and engrossed in foreplay.
So much for dreams. The reality was she looked exhausted. Crushed. Defeated. Seeing her that way reminded him of the first time he’d gone to her apartment and found her weighed down by depression and pain. Her pain had bothered him then, and it bothered him a hell of a lot more now. He rested her head on his shoulder and whispered in her ear, “Want to talk about it?”
She let out a long, deep sigh. “Well, my parents are indeed separated. My father wants a divorce, and my mother swears she’ll never give him one. Not that she can really keep it from happening.”
He squeezed her shoulder but said nothing.
After a few seconds, she nodded. “I found out, though, that what I had always thought was a happy marriage was nothing but a farce all these years.”
He had no personal experience with happy marriages, because his hadn’t lasted long enough for him to find out that possibility, and his parents’ marriage had been anything but happy from the get-go. “Another woman?” He brushed his lips along the rim of her ear and ended with a soft kiss on her forehead.
She nodded. “For the past twenty plus years, my father’s been having a relationship with his secretary. Now, he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. Can’t say I blame him if he’s been in love with her all these years. Especially after hearing my mother wouldn’t sleep with him during the years she could still get pregnant.”
“Jesus.” How could a woman, or a man for that matter, treat a spouse that way and not expect retaliation of some kind?
The question he wanted to ask her flitted back and forth across his mind. When he called her late this morning at her mother’s, he learned she would see her father in the early afternoon and her ex later. That last meeting was the one he was most curious about.
She turned her face upward and nuzzled his neck.
Her breath fanned warm on his skin.
Sighing, she nuzzled deeper and spoke against the hollow of his throat. “I’m sorry if I’m a little down. I’ve looked forward to seeing you tonight, but I’m so drained.”
“Shush. I couldn’t wait to see you, too.” He rubbed his cheek along the top of her head and buried his face in her hair, overwhelmed by the scent he had come to know so well. “Your being here right now is enough. Just settle down. We have the whole night ahead.” He tugged her a little closer.
Her mouth moved against his throat. “I went with Bill to see our daughter.”
His throat tightened from the pain apparent in her voice. He could find no suitable words of comfort, so he just kept holding her.
“He insisted on driving me there himself.”
Her words were so soft he had to strain to hear them. A shudder rippled through her body, and he felt her pain.
“Seeing her was terrible. Oh, Beck”—she turned up her face and pressed her cheek against his chin—“she’s in such a pitiful condition, and I can do nothing.”
With a hand to his chin, she turned his face so her mouth covered his. Her kisses became harder and more urgent.
Obviously, she was still very upset, and he didn’t want to take advantage of her, but her kisses drove him wild. She wanted him. And God knew he wanted her so badly his muscles were in knots, and he hardened in spite of himself. “Babe,” he whispered, loosening her grip on his neck. “You know I want you real bad. But I know you’re upset. Maybe we should wait a while before things go too far.”
She twisted her hand in his, grasped his wrist, and pulled back. “I want you to make love to me, Beck. I want to forget everything but what’s happening between us. Now is all that matters.”
Part of him wanted to hold back, but a greater part wanted her too much to deny either of them what they both needed. She needed to release her pain and he needed to release the joy that always filled him whenever he was with her.
He started toward the bedroom.
She shook her head. “Right here.”
So he gave in and let her draw him down on top of her on the sofa. She was more determined than he had ever seen her. She wanted him now, right here. And damn, if she wanted him that badly, why should he deny her? Before he could think of another reason not to continue, she had worked herself out of her clothes. Afraid common sense would leave him at any moment, he had to get to his wallet before his pants landed across the room. Somehow, he dug the condom out of his hip pocket.
“No,” she cried out. “Not tonight. I won’t get pregnant.”
He didn’t want her to remember her folly later and maybe hold him responsible for not protecting her against some disease he didn’t have. The one thing he had always been consistent about was never having unprotected sex with any of the women he slept with, but she wasn’t thinking clearly enough even to consider that.
“I don’t want anything between us anymore.” She grabbed the wallet and threw it to the floor.
“Okay,” he whispered, working on his belt while he lifted his hips so her hands, already at his zipper, could do their job. “I’m clean.” He was determined to assure her she was safe despite her refusal of protection.
When his fly opened, she quickly wrapped her hand around him while he struggled to free his hips from the skin-tight jeans. He had just decided to hell with the pants and slid his hand over hers to hasten his entry, when her body became wracked by shudders that had nothing to do with ecstasy.
She cried, pulling in deep gulps of air, and letting out her breath in ragged, tremulous moans. “I’m sorry, so sorry.” Her body slumped deeper into the sofa, taking him along.
He let her cry for a few minutes, stroking her cheek and brushing
the hair off her forehead, intermittently pressing soft kisses over her eyelids. As he murmured words of comfort in her ear, his throat tightened at the thought of what she must have experienced. His concern for her negated any care his erection had long diminished.
After her tears ended, without a word he stood and hitched up his pants, not bothering to zip and buckle. He reached down, hurriedly shoved up her panties, scooped her in his arms, and carried her into the bedroom—all without a sound of protest.
At the side of the bed, he undressed her down to her underwear and tucked her under the covers. He rounded the bed to the other side, stripped himself to bare skin, and crawled into bed.
She rolled into his arms.
He held her until his arms grew numb.
“I wish now I had fought harder to keep her. Maybe if I had, she might recognize me, even just a little.”
Her voice was edgy but controlled. He sensed the tears were finished but not the pain.
“When I agreed to put her in Bill’s charge, I really thought giving him responsibility for her care was for her own good.”
She swallowed hard.
He thought she might be on the verge of tears again and he wished he could do something to ease her pain.
“I know giving him authority to direct her care was in her best interest. And mine as well.”
He didn’t know what she was talking about, but he had the good sense to know she had to get it out, so he kept quiet.
“Do you know I didn’t see my baby for a year after she was born? I felt giving responsibility for her to her father was the best thing.”
A year? She had been denied seeing her child for a year?
“My son died within hours, but my darling baby daughter dies slowly, a little every day. My drinking did that. Letting Bill take care of her was the right thing to do. But not seeing her very often has been very hard.” She lifted on her elbow and looked down. “I should have fought harder to visit her more often. Not to do so was cowardly.”
Unearthed Page 23