Serenity (Inevitable Book 5)

by Janet Nissenson

  “I don’t know, baby,” he told her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I’d have to talk to my lawyer about it. But is that what you really want? You’ve never once given me the impression that you want to live with me.”

  Hayley shrugged. “I don’t really want to move to San Francisco, no. I mean, I like my school and all my friends and this house and all my things. But dealing with Mom on my own has been so hard. Couldn’t you come back, just for a little while? I mean, I know you and Mom aren’t getting back together, but couldn’t you stay here for a few weeks? At least until we figure all this stuff with the baby out.”

  Matthew was visibly taken aback at this request. “Honey, I really don’t think that would help this situation. Your mother and I are as good as divorced, you know, and I’m not sure how my living here is going to help anything.”

  “It would help me!” insisted Hayley. “Especially now when I’m so upset and trying to figure everything out. Please, Daddy?”

  He hesitated. “Hayley, you’ve only got a few more weeks left of school before summer starts. As soon as you’re through you can come and stay with me while we sort all of this out. And I guarantee your mother won’t stop you.”

  Hayley sniffled loudly. “But I can’t leave Casey here alone with her. She’s so mean at times, I wouldn’t feel right sticking him with her.”

  Matthew shrugged. “He can come, too.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Did you forget he’s signed up for summer baseball league? He has practice or a game almost every day of the week.”

  “Shit, I did forget.” He heaved a sigh of frustration. “Yeah, that won’t work. And I understand your concern about leaving him here with your mom. You’re a good sister to worry about Casey that way, honey. Look, I’ll - I’ll give it some thought, okay? Maybe I could stay for a few weeks until we figure out what we’re going to do. But don’t start thinking this means your mother and I are getting back together. If I agree to stay, it’s strictly temporary, okay?”

  “Okay,” agreed Hayley happily, giving her father an enthusiastic hug. “Thank you, Daddy, thank you so much! You have no idea how much this means to me, how happy you’ve just made me.”

  The kiss she pressed to his cheek made Matthew feel warm all over, and he hugged her back comfortingly.

  “Do you think you could stay tonight?” begged Hayley. “You can use Casey’s room. Or one of the guest rooms, of course. It would make me feel so much better. Please? That way we could talk about all of this some more, start figuring out what options we have.”

  “Tonight?” asked Matthew in disbelief. He’d been hoping to get back to San Francisco in time to spend the night with Sasha.

  “Could you? Please?” asked Hayley in a woeful little voice. Tears began to track down her flushed cheeks, and her chin wobbled as she visibly struggled not to weep.

  He sighed for probably the fortieth time that night, fully aware that his daughter was manipulating him. But given the trauma that she’d endured, the terrible secret that she’d been keeping to herself for weeks, and the burden that was weighing heavily on her mind, he reluctantly agreed.

  “Just let me go out to my car,” he told her. “I always keep an overnight bag in the trunk for emergencies. But,” he warned her, “this is just for tonight, okay? No guarantees about anything beyond this. I told you I would think about it and I will, but I’ve got a lot to consider before I make any decision.”

  “Okay. Thank you, Daddy. This means so much to me. You’re the best dad in the whole world, you know?” Hayley asked as she gave him a ferocious hug.

  But whatever warm feelings his daughter’s gratitude had stirred up weren’t nearly enough to ward off the much stronger concerns that overwhelmed him as he headed out to his car – in particular how in the hell he was going to break all of this to Sasha without breaking her heart in the process.

  “I take it all back, Hayley. That was an Oscar worthy performance you just gave. Natalie Portman couldn’t have done a better job.”

  Hayley gave her mother a pointed look. “Dad’s going to be back in a few minutes, Mom. You might want to hold off on the gloating for now.”

  Lindsey grinned, looking like a cat who’d just swallowed a canary. “Oh, but he fell for it all hook, line, and sinker! Just like Nikki predicted he would. I really owe her big time, you know, for dreaming all of this up. She’s even more devious and conniving than I am, and that’s saying a lot.”

  “Whatever,” replied Hayley, already tired of the charade she’d been coerced into acting out. “And Dad hasn’t said for sure that he’s going to move back in. Even if he does, he made it pretty clear that he had zero intention of getting back together with you. So I wouldn’t be celebrating just yet.”

  Lindsey shrugged. “He’ll give in to you, I know he will. Your father already feels guilty that he isn’t here enough for you and Casey. You just need to keep putting the pressure on. All you need to do is get him to move back in. Leave the rest up to me. I guarantee that he’ll be calling off the divorce and we’ll be one big happy family again in no time.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The condo was almost eerily quiet as she let herself in, and for a minute or two she wondered if Matthew was here or not. But then she heard the sound of a door shutting in another room, and set her bag down on the sofa as she waited for him to emerge.

  Sasha had thought for a time about not coming over when he had texted her earlier this morning, practically begging her to meet him here after her class. She was still more than a little upset, and definitely hurt, after he had abruptly cancelled their evening out, an evening that was supposed to have been the start of the next phase in their relationship. It was totally out of character for her to be in such an unforgiving mood, but her level of tolerance had been sorely tested these past few months.

  But she was here now, and struggling to keep an open mind and listen to what Matthew needed so badly to tell her. Sasha assumed he was going to apologize, and try to make up for the fiasco from last night in some way. And while most people she knew would have stayed mad for at least a week, it wasn’t in her placid nature to make someone grovel and beg. Besides, she admitted with a sigh of resignation, she was in love with the man, after all, and it was awfully hard to remain angry with him for very long.

  And when the man in question entered the living room a few minutes later, any remaining annoyance she might have felt towards him disappeared in a flat instant, replaced instead with concern. Matthew looked exhausted and more than a little disoriented as he gazed at her somberly. He had dark circles under his eyes, and hadn’t shaved, and his hair was sticking up into wild, unkempt spikes. He wore a wrinkled T-shirt and a pair of baggy sweat pants that looked like something he might have owned since college.

  But it was the look on his face that concerned Sasha the most - a look of both sorrow and regret - and her hands suddenly felt ice cold. She had become quite adept over the years at being in tune with other peoples’ emotions, at being able to sense their feelings, and she knew immediately that something bad was troubling Matthew.

  “Hi,” she greeted uncertainly, struggling to keep her voice steady.

  He didn’t reply, simply crossed over to where she stood and took her into his arms. He buried his face against the side of her neck, breathing in deeply of her scent, and squeezing her so tight that she had trouble taking a breath. She forgot that she was supposed to be mad at him, that he was the one who ought to be comforting and consoling her right now, and instead stroked his back comfortingly, her slender fingers massaging the tight muscles at his nape.

  Matthew gave a muffled groan. “God, that feels good. My whole body feels like one big knot right now. And that includes my brain. I keep hoping that I’ll wake up, and realize the last eighteen hours or so have just been a really bad dream.”

  “That bad, hmm? Why don’t we sit down and you can fill me in on what happened?” suggested Sasha, urging him in the direc
tion of the sectional sofa.

  “What happened.” Matthew shook his head despairingly. “The whole damned world went to hell overnight, that’s what happened. But I’ll get to that in a minute. God knows it’s the last thing I want to talk about. How are you, sweetheart? I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am for standing you up last night. Or how grateful I am that you agreed to come over today.”

  “It’s okay,” she replied. “I know that you would have been there if you’d been able to.”

  “Did you enjoy the ballet?”

  Sasha nodded. “It was wonderful, thanks. And Chandra, my co-worker, was over the moon that I invited her. Though, of course, it wasn’t the same without you there.”

  “I know.” Matthew expelled a long, frustrated breath, his head falling back wearily onto the sofa. “And if there was some way I could make it up to you, I’d be doing it right now. But I’ve got a feeling you aren’t going to be in a very forgiving mood after I tell you what happened with Hayley last night.”

  His words sent a chill up her spine, for he sounded so sad, so defeated, that she could only gaze at him in bewilderment. “What are you talking about?”

  Matthew took her hand in his, squeezing it tight as though he was hoping to borrow some of her strength. “Besides the shock of finding out that my teenaged daughter is pregnant, I learned last night that she was also date raped. It happened about six weeks ago, on one of those weekends she was supposed to spend with me but begged off to go to a party instead. A party where she was drugged and had who knows what done to her. And that she doesn’t remember a damned thing about, including the names or faces of the thugs who raped her and her friend.”

  Sasha’s whole body froze at this revelation, and all at once the terrible memories that she’d worked so hard at suppressing for the past dozen years came rushing back at her, as though it had all happened yesterday. Matthew seemed unaware of her plight, oblivious to the fact that she’d begun to quiver in reaction, or that the hand he continued to clasp so tightly had quickly turned ice cold.

  “She was too ashamed about what happened to tell Lindsey or me until yesterday,” continued Matthew. “And she would have probably continued to keep the information to herself if Lindsey hadn’t found a pregnancy test in her wastebasket.”

  Matthew told her additional details, about how upset Hayley was, and how Lindsey had been pushing her to have an abortion, or threatening to ship her off to some home for unwed mothers, but his words failed to register in Sasha’s numbed brain. The whole situation seemed eerily unreal to her, and she struggled to ward off the panic threatening to consume her as she realized that the monsters she’d kept hidden away for so long had broken free from their imaginary prison cells.

  “Hayley’s convinced herself that she wants to keep the baby,” Matthew was telling her. “Christ, she’s barely capable of making herself a piece of toast. How the hell she thinks she can take care of a baby is beyond me. She’s got it all figured out, though, it seems - insisting that we can just hire a nanny to watch the baby while she’s at school since we can easily afford it. And I understand her reluctance to have an abortion, especially considering all the trauma she’s already gone through, but I’m going to try to keep convincing her that adoption is a much more sensible solution.”

  She gave a brief nod, acknowledging what he had just told her, but didn’t feel capable of speaking at the moment.

  Matthew, too, seemed at a loss for words for long seconds, and she could tell that he was struggling mightily with whatever he was about to tell her.

  “You’re going to think I’m out of my mind - and believe me, I’m pretty sure I am - when I tell you this next part,” he began slowly. “And if it wasn’t for Hayley’s sake, for helping her get through all of this, then I wouldn’t have considered it for even a second. But - Christ, here goes. She begged me to move back in, at least for a little while, until we can figure all of this out. Apparently Lindsey has been horrible to her these past months, but Hayley has kept all of that to herself, and it isn’t fair to expect her to keep dealing with her mother’s hostility alone any longer. So, as dumb as it sounds, I’m going to do it. Strictly to help support Hayley, and only until she’s got her head on straight.”

  Sasha felt as though she’d been slapped across the face and kicked in the stomach at the same time, and that all the air had been sucked out of her lungs. She stared at Matthew in speechless shock, her hand going limp in his.

  “You’re moving back to Hillsborough?” she whispered hoarsely. “Does - does this mean the divorce has been called off?”

  “God, no!” declared Matthew fervently. “There is nothing on this earth that could ever compel me to reconcile with Lindsey. And I’ve made damned sure she and Hayley are both very well aware of that fact. I’ll be using one of the guest rooms, and having as little contact with my ex as possible. And considering how many hours I spend at the office, I won’t even be at the house very often.”

  “I see.” Sasha drew her hand away, wrapping her arms around her torso as the chill began to slowly permeate her entire body, and she had to force herself not to start shivering uncontrollably. “Wouldn’t it have been easier to have Hayley just move in here with you? I mean, if the purpose of your moving back to Hillsborough is to offer her support and protect her from Lindsey, I would think you could do both of those things just as easily from here.”

  Matthew gave a brief nod. “I agree. And believe me, I tried more than once to convince Hayley to just move in here with me. But she still has a few weeks of school left, and doesn’t want to be away from her friends. And neither of us want to leave Casey there alone with his mother.”

  Sasha began to inch a bit further away from Matthew every few seconds. “When is all of this happening?” she asked dully.

  “Today. This afternoon.” He shut his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose, a surefire signal that he had a headache. “I was starting to pack some stuff when you arrived. Sasha, I need you to understand that this has nothing to do with us, that there’s no reason you and I can’t still keep - ”

  She held up a hand. “Don’t say anything more. Please. Because if you think for even one second that I’m going to agree to keep seeing you - to keep sleeping with you - while you’re living in the same house with another woman, you’ve lost your mind. It was always bad enough that you were still legally married, Matthew. I never told you how much that bothered me, how I always felt uncomfortable about it. But at least you were legally separated, living apart, and had split up months before you walked inside my massage room that day. At least I could assure myself that I’d had nothing to do with breaking up your marriage, or that I was the reason you wanted a divorce so badly. But this - I’m sorry, but this is more than I can handle.”

  Matthew reached out a hand to cup her cheek, only to recoil in surprise when she turned away from him. “Sasha, I had no idea you felt that way,” he replied, visibly shaken by her revelation. “Why didn’t you tell me? I thought I’d made it very clear that I felt absolutely nothing for Lindsey any longer, and that our marriage was merely a technicality, something that her signature on a piece of paper would end in a second. And nothing has changed in that respect, not one damned thing. Living in the same house - on an entirely different floor, for that matter - and only on a temporary basis, hasn’t changed my feelings about getting Lindsey out of my life for good.”

  Sasha shrugged. “You say that now, Matthew. But who knows what could happen after you’ve been living there a few weeks or months? I’m sure Casey will be thrilled to have you back home, and who could blame him considering how close the two of you are. And if Hayley is serious about keeping her baby, it’s only natural that she’ll need your help and support, especially if the father isn’t in the picture. It will become more and more difficult for you to leave her after the baby is born, and when she expects you to become a surrogate father to her child. So you can fool yourself into thinking that this is only
temporary, Matthew, but I’m not seeing it that way.”

  He paled noticeably at her declaration. “Sasha, no. That’s not the way it’s going to play out. I promise you. I’m only going to stay there for a few weeks at most, until Hayley makes some decisions about the future, and I can make sure that everything’s okay between her and Lindsey. Then I’m planning on moving back here, and putting extra pressure on Lindsey to sign those divorce papers. Please, don’t give up on me. And don’t shut me out. I’m not sure I’ll be able to cope without your support.”

  “No.” She stood then, holding onto the back of the sofa for support, since her legs felt wobbly. “I won’t ask you to choose between us, Matthew. That wouldn’t be fair of me, and I don’t want to make things harder on you. But none of this has been fair to me, either.”

  He surged to his feet, taking hold of her shoulders before she could move away. “I know it hasn’t, sweetheart,” he replied in a husky voice. “You’ve been the kindest, most understanding, and supportive girlfriend a man could ever ask for. You’ve put up with all kinds of crap from me - not just with my kids, but with work as well. And you’ve never once complained, even though you’ve had every right to, and I’ve been sort of amazed that you’ve never said anything until now. But please - don’t give up on me now, Sasha. Don’t give up on us.”

  Sasha shook her head. “I can’t do this, Matthew. I can’t share that much of you. And even though you wouldn’t actually be with Lindsey, it would kill me to think of you living in the same house with her, no matter what the circumstances are. So, this - this is over between us. I understand your concern for Hayley, though I don’t necessarily agree with the way you’re handling the situation. And I won’t give you an ultimatum, or force you to choose. Especially since you’ve obviously already made your choice. Now, I think I should get the things I’ve left here and then leave, so you can go back to your family.”