An Act of Persuasion

by Stephanie Doyle

MARK WATCHED Anna walk across the lobby of their office building, heading toward where he was sitting at the coffee shop, but not really seeing him. Her mind was occupied and he didn’t have to stretch to figure out who was filling up her thoughts.

  He wished Ben could see her like this. See her and know what it was like to have a woman who was walking alone in a crowded atrium and thinking of nothing but him. Once again Mark found himself jealous of Ben.

  “Anna!”

  At his shout she raised her head and searched the small café. She waved and came over, taking the open seat at the small table. Mark was meeting someone here shortly and he wanted to make sure he had an extra seat available.

  “Sit here and save my table,” he said. “I’ll get you some tea.”

  She didn’t protest having been spared waiting in line. He knew she could tire easily and after walking from the parking lot all the way through the lobby her ankles were probably already a little swollen.

  Mark took the tea from the man behind the counter and handed him five bucks so the next time he saw him he would have Mark’s order ready. Then he sat with Anna and watched her put three creamers into her tea. He hadn’t started the search for her biological parents yet, but he wondered if one of them might have been of English descent.

  “Oh, before I forget.” Anna reached into her purse and pulled out a folded slip of paper.

  Mark looked at the slip of paper with its embossed stamp and read the names he knew were fake.

  “I know,” she said. “Makes you realize how easy we make it for terrorists. Hey, here are some names and baby footprints. Instant American citizen.”

  “Stuff like this used to keep me up at night.”

  “It doesn’t anymore?”

  The question startled Mark because the first answer that came to mind was, no, it didn’t. On the heels of that thought he realized it wasn’t exactly true. He still read every piece of information he could find regarding the continuing mission in Afghanistan. He still cared what happened to the operatives and the soldiers he’d left behind.

  But his first thought getting up every day was no longer about how he was going to beat the enemy. Instead, he thought about the cases he was working on, growing his business and what was his number-one priority right now.

  Ben had been right. It had taken time, but he was definitely starting to make the transition from agent to civilian.

  “Sometimes,” he finally answered. It was accurate enough. “I need to wrap up some other things, but then I’ll get started on this. Should be interesting.”

  “Thanks.” She sighed.

  “So what’s up with you?”

  Her brows raised in a question.

  “You were walking through the lobby like a zombie. Clearly something is up.”

  She gave a wry expression. “I should have known better than to take up with another spy. You guys see everything. Ben wants to date me.”

  “I thought he wanted to marry you.”

  “He wants that, too, but he’s willing to start with dating. I—I told him how I felt about him.”

  “Good girl.” Mark always believed in honesty between two people. Whether it ended happily or badly, it should at least be real. Helen had understood that.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know how good it is. He said he didn’t know how he felt about me but that he wanted us to get to know each other as something other than employer and employee. Something beyond friendship.”

  “Seems reasonable.” And logical. A lot like Ben. By not pressing too hard, it appeared as if he was giving Anna options. She could easily say no to an offer of marriage. Harder to reject something as simple as a date.

  Anna held the cup in her hands and looked away from him. “What if…”

  “What?”

  “What if this is only about him getting the baby? I mean, seriously, how desperate would a man be if he knew his one and only shot at fatherhood could walk away from him at any time and take his child with her? Not that I would do that, but he would know he has no control in this. I’m sure it drives him crazy.”

  Mark shook his head. “He’s not that ruthless. I promise. If he said he wanted to give you a chance to date, that’s what he meant. Trust me. We weren’t pals, but we knew each other. Well.”

  She smiled then, and it made him feel good. “You really think so?”

  “I do. Now, I need to meet someone down here. Why don’t you go up and open the office.”

  “You got it, boss man.”

  Mark watched her leave and felt a twinge of guilt for lying. But it wasn’t like they had to be honest in their relationship, after all. Besides, he’d made her smile.

  The hard truth was Ben was exactly that ruthless. If he decided he wanted the baby full time, he would take the most logical path toward achieving those ends. He wasn’t a master manipulator without reason. Mark was sure Ben was confident he could make Anna believe whatever he wanted. The question was would Anna realize before it was too late that she was being played.

  Mark considered talking to Ben again. Maybe more of a man-to-man than a man-to-adversary discussion. Mark had known Anna only a few weeks, but he liked her and the thought of letting her get hurt…again…didn’t sit well with him. It was like watching a kitten trying to hold her own against a lion.

  If he told Ben that Anna deserved better, would he listen? Mark could imagine how that conversation would go over. But the truth was if Ben didn’t love her, he wouldn’t be able to make her happy. No matter how good a job he did at making himself believe it was love.

  No one knew that better than Mark. Certainly not after Helen. It wasn’t fair to try to hold on to one thing at the expense of another. Mark cared about Anna enough to not want to see that happen to her.

  Of course, there was his own life he should be concentrating on. But when had that ever stopped him? He was a meddler by nature.

  “Mark?”

  Mark jerked out of his thoughts, surprised he’d lost track of the people surrounding him. Maybe he was making that magical transition to civilian life faster than he realized. He stood and turned to the approaching man he’d been waiting for. Mark offered his hand but the man paused for a second then, as if reluctantly, he gave it a quick shake.

  “Hi, Dom. It’s been a long time.”

  “Thirteen years to be precise.” Dom pointed to the empty chair and Mark nodded as if to suggest he’d held it for him. Mark watched as the old man planted his hands heavily on the table and shuffled his legs slowly until he could sink onto to the chair.

  “How are you?” Mark asked, also sitting.

  “I’m old,” Dom said, stating the obvious. “It’s just arthritis if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t have Parkinson’s or anything else. I move slowly most days. Some days not at all. It’s not the worst thing an old man can deal with.”

  “No, I don’t imagine it is. And Marie? How is she?”

  “She’s old, too. She pretends…well, it’s why she wouldn’t come here today. She still wants to pretend. Pretend Helen didn’t die in that car wreck. Pretend her lungs aren’t making it impossible to breathe, especially on such humid days. Pretend she can keep up with Sophie.”

  At the mention of his daughter’s name, Mark’s heart pinched. Sophie. For more than thirteen years she’d been only a name at the bottom of a card or email, the unknown recipient of a gift. A fuzzy face over the internet more recently. Now, she was about to become startling real and he wasn’t sure if he could handle it.

  “Dom, you have to know how sorry I was to hear about Helen. I moved heaven and earth to get back for the funeral in time, but the damn transport plane I caught got rerouted to the Philippines and—”

  Dom held up his hand. An imperious command for Mark to stop talking. Mark figured he deserved it. After all, excuses were exactly that. He hadn’t been there to help grieve with his daughter’s grandparents. Worse, he hadn’t been there for his daughter.

  No, what was worse was that he was sitting in a ca
fé and wondering if the smartest thing he might ever do would be to start running and not look back. Yet his ass remained planted in the seat.

  This is the part where you leave the life you thought you wanted all behind and start doing the right thing.

  “I want to see her, Dom.”

  The old man nodded. “You want more than that, I think.”

  “Look, I know I have been the model of the absentee father, but it’s not like I abandoned her. I’ve stayed in communication at least once a month unless I had to go underground for some reason. And being back here isn’t all because of Helen. I started thinking that it was time for a change, time for me to be in the states and be a bigger part of her life. When I learned about Helen, I knew it wasn’t a choice anymore. I quit my job and came to where you are. I’ve started my own business. I’ve got plenty of money to support the two of us and the truth is I’m—”

  Mark didn’t want to upset the man with the rest of what he’d intended to say. But it was unnecessary.

  “You’re younger.” Dom sighed.

  “Before Helen’s death she was touring in every city around the country. There was also talk of another European trip. Helen could keep up with that. Can you and Marie?”

  Because Sophie wasn’t any average teenage girl. Sophie had the gift of music. As a child prodigy, she performed with many different orchestras showcasing her talent to audiences all over the country. Apparently his daughter was in high demand. She hadn’t played any concerts since her mother’s passing, but eventually that would change and she would be back on the road.

  Mark tried to imagine Dom in his condition keeping up with such a robust schedule. He couldn’t.

  The man closed his eyes and when he opened them Mark pretended not to see they were red. “She just lost her mother six months ago. We’re all she has left. She doesn’t even know you other than as the man who got her mother pregnant.”

  Mark tightened his jaw. He wasn’t about to tell Helen’s father how it really went down between them. It was Helen’s secret and he would honor it even in death. But he did remind his daughter’s grandfather of one very important fact. “I offered to marry her. I gave her my ring. She was the one who broke the engagement.”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “I’ve been patient. You said to give Sophie time to adjust before rushing into her life. I’ve sat on my hands for six months waiting. You can’t tell me that Sophie isn’t ready. She knows I’m in the area. Hell, she’s probably wondering why I haven’t come to see her.”

  “We believe she should meet with you, yes. Marie and I have discussed that. But to live with you full time…I don’t know if that will work.”

  He was holding something back. Mark could see it in his face. It was hurting Dom, which was why his eyes were still red. They were both biding time, hoping that something would change, but Mark didn’t know what that something was. He only knew he wanted his daughter in his life. Neither Dom nor Marie could continue to convince themselves they could raise her on their own for much longer. Time was their enemy.

  “Dom, her schedule is going to pick up again—”

  “I know what her damn schedule is! Don’t you think I know? Her agent is constantly pressuring us on this. We asked for this break to give her time to grieve, but now everyone has decided that six months is a perfectly satisfactory time for a fourteen-year-old girl to get over the death of her mother!”

  Mark leaned back in his chair letting Dom have his say.

  “We hoped maybe she would adjust to a more normal routine. School, friends. But she’s…she’s not like other kids her age. Certainly not like Helen at that age. All Helen used to think of was her hair and boys. All Sophie can think of is…more.”

  Then she’s like me at that age.

  “Dom, I think you agreed to meet me here because you know what I told you over the phone is right. You and Marie are her grandparents. I will make sure you remain a steady and important part of her life. But she’s my daughter, my responsibility and she should be with me now.”

  The man didn’t have to know how terrified Mark was about the idea of being a father. He was hoping it sort of came to him. Like some magic wand would be waved as soon as they were together and bam, he would be insta-father.

  “And like I told you, Marie and I are still considering it.”

  “That’s fair. We don’t have to make any major changes right now,” Mark agreed. “But I’m done waiting to see her. She should at least know I’m here. That I want her in my life. You can’t hide her from me forever.”

  “Is that what you think? That we’ve been hiding her from you?”

  “Every time I ask to see her or schedule time with all of you, you come up with one excuse after another. What was I supposed to think?”

  Dom shook his head. “Son, you’ve got it all wrong. It’s not us keeping you from her. It’s her. We didn’t know quite how to tell you, but I’ll just come right out with it. Sophie wants nothing to do with you.”

  That was when Mark felt his heart break for the first time in his life.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “WAS THIS A GOOD IDEA or a bad one?”

  Anna glanced at Ben who was smiling grimly. He had waited exactly two days before calling her to politely ask her out for a date Saturday afternoon. They’d had a nice, if slightly awkward, lunch at a small bistro they both enjoyed and then he’d suggested a tour of the Philadelphia Art Museum that was featuring the works of Van Gogh.

  Anna had walked the creaky boards of the museum enjoying the swirls of color and light. It was odd seeing so much beauty on the canvas even though she knew that at the time he’d painted them Van Gogh had been in so much mental pain.

  “Why would you ask that?”

  “I don’t want to bore you. I want us to have fun.”

  Anna couldn’t say how much fun she was having. But she felt peaceful with him. At rest deep inside in a way she hadn’t been in a long time. Probably since first discovering he was sick with cancer. She wondered if it felt that way for him, too, now that he was finally healing. Now that he no longer had to deal with the specter of death looming behind his shoulder. But she didn’t want to ask and put his illness in the middle of their date. This was supposed to be about seeing if they could have a new future together, not dwelling on what they almost lost. Still, she couldn’t help but look at the paintings and be reminded of her past in a way.

  “It reminds me of a class trip,” she mused, moving slowly from canvas to canvas. At a time when she’d been normal for a while. Just a girl in school who was tuning out all the things her art teacher had to say about the classics on the wall and instead thinking about whether Johnny Blanton was going to try to kiss her when he walked her home from school that day.

  Now here she was again, only this time she was wondering if Ben was going to kiss her when he dropped her off. She’d already told herself she shouldn’t let it happen. Kissing Ben was…powerful. Kissing Ben could make her forget all the reasons, very sound reasons, she had for not having sex with him.

  “Uh-oh. You’ve compared our date to a school trip. The museum was a bad idea, then.”

  She smiled. “No, it was actually a good memory.”

  “You told me you hated school.”

  He’d been doing that all day. Showing her how much he recalled of everything she had ever told him. He mentioned her favorite color, pointed out her favorite thing to eat on the menu. It was nothing exciting—just a grilled cheese sandwich. But that particular bistro prepared it with three types of cheeses, which made it simply to die for.

  Of course, she’d never doubted he was observant. The man had been trained to see and hear everything within his surroundings. However, being observant and being attentive were two different things. Like hearing what she said and understanding why she said it were two different things. In his defense, though, she’d never talked much about her past. Any details she’d shared with him had been superficial facts.

  “I didn
’t hate school,” she said slowly. It felt as if she was offering up some big secret even though this was only her personal history. It simply wasn’t something she’d ever talked about with anyone before. But if they were going to make this work, if they were going to have an actual relationship, then it was probably time she gave him something of herself and the life she’d experienced growing up.

  Funny, she could see now, as he quoted back all the things he thought he knew about her, how much she had kept from him. All she’d told him were the meaningless things, nothing really important or substantive about her life. She’d told herself she was in love with him, but could a person be in love with another person when there was so much of herself she hadn’t revealed?

  A year ago the idea that he would remember she liked grilled cheese sandwiches and the color purple would have thrilled her. A true sign they were connected.

  Now, it wasn’t enough.

  “I didn’t hate school,” she repeated. “I hated being in school. I hated the age I was that made it mandatory.”

  “Explain.”

  “When you are in foster care you’re not in control of anything. Where you live, what food you’re given, what clothes you wear a lot of times. I hated not being eighteen. I hated middle school and high school as institutions because, as long as I was attending them, I wasn’t eighteen. Those years, the only thing I could think of was getting out of the system. The foster system, the school system. All of it. I wanted it behind me.”

  She stopped and looked at him, wondering if she made any sense. His expression appeared stern. “Anna, you never talked about your time in the different homes you were in. I never pressed. But were you hurt? Were you—”

  “No.” She held her hand up. “Nothing like that. I didn’t have any really bad experiences in any of the homes I stayed in. Nothing truly awful. I know there are horror stories about kids in foster homes. But there are other stories, too. A lot of the people who take in kids like me are good, kind, loving people. They’re trying to help, not hurt. I’m sure there are some bad apples, but it’s like that everywhere with everything. So, no, I don’t mean to vilify the foster-care system. I’m only saying I was anxious to be out of it.”