“Look here, Mr. D’Alessandro,” the father cut in. “It’s unfortunate that you overheard things not intended for your ears, but you do yourself no favors by browbeating my daughter, particularly not since she is disposed to be generous in allowing you some access to her son.”
“My son, Mr. Younge.”
“You gave him up.”
“I did no such thing, nor am I about to now.”
“Be reasonable, man! Whether or not you knowingly rescinded your parental rights is immaterial after all this time. You don’t have a prayer of getting the adoption order overturned.”
“I’m not sure he knows what ‘rescind’ means,” the mother whispered ostentatiously.
“I know what it means,” Mike informed her. “Now let me ask you a question. Do you know what I mean when I tell you I’m tired of having to listen to you quacking on about something which is none of your bloody business?”
She looked so scandalized, anyone would have thought he’d just ripped open a raincoat and exposed himself. “Camille is our daughter,” she gasped, fanning herself with her outsize purse. “That makes her our business.”
“She’s a grown woman, even if she doesn’t always act like one. She’s got a mind of her own and it’s about time you let her use it.”
“She’s too distraught to think straight, and it’s all your fault. I knew you were trouble the minute I laid eyes on you, insinuating yourself into our lives and pretending you were someone of consequence when the truth is, you barely have two cents to rub together.”
“Be quiet, Mother,” Camille said, with a lot more command than he’d expected. “Michael’s right. This is none of your business.”
Her father jumped in again then, with another two bits worth of unasked-for advice. “Perhaps not, but you’d do well to look at the product before you rush to put money down on your purchase. You heard the way he spoke to your mother just now, and you’ve seen for yourself how he managed to bamboozle you with his lies. You’d still be believing every word he says if we hadn’t opened your eyes to the truth. Well, a leopard doesn’t change his spots, Camille. If you don’t think he’ll subject you to the same verbal abuse he flung at your mother, or continue to prevaricate whenever it suits his purpose, then you deserve all the trouble you’ll be buying.”
“Better listen to the old man,” Mike advised her mockingly. “He’s so sure he knows better than anyone else about everything from soup to nuts that if creating the world had been left to him, he’d probably have had it finished in half the time it took God to do the job.”
“I certainly know all about men like you,” her father snapped. “Ill-bred, uneducated, posing as an entrepreneur when all you’re really looking for is a free ride to easy street.”
“I don’t know where you got your information—”
“I had you investigated.”
“Then you didn’t get your money’s worth. I’m not interested in getting into a spitting match with you, but if the man you hired had done his job properly, you’d know that I’m a university honors graduate with a degree in structural engineering, and my entrepreneurial skills have just landed me a contract worth a cool six point five million dollars—not enough to match the Younge fortune, perhaps, but more than enough to buy the help I need to reclaim my son.”
That knocked some of the wind out of the old man’s sails. He hemmed and hawed, adjusted the knot in his tie, and exchanged a glance with his wife whose mental calculator was practically clicking aloud. “They’re accomplishments worthy of note, certainly—assuming, of course, that you’re speaking the truth for once.”
“You can verify it easily enough with a phone call to the University of British Columbia. As for my being ill-bred, my father might have been a working man and my mother a housewife, but I can promise you that if you’d ever been invited into their home, as I was invited into this one today, you’d have been treated with the utmost courtesy and respect—not because you’ve got money coming out of your keister and think that makes you better than everyone else, but because that’s the way they always treated guests. Not that I expect you to appreciate such a foreign concept.”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic, young man. If we’ve misjudged you, we’re sorry. It’s possible you’re more deserving than we originally thought.”
His tone suggested it was probable pigs would fly before he’d make such a gross error in judgment, and swallowing cyanide a hell of a lot more palatable than having to admit he might be wrong.
If he hadn’t been so ticked off, Mike might have laughed at the man’s discomfiture. “Let’s not go overboard with the compliments,” he said. “We both know you think I’m pond scum.”
“At last we agree on something. Sadly, the conferring of a university degree does not, of itself, endow a man with breeding.”
“Well, heaven forbid I should prove you wrong yet again, so here’s one more thing for you to chew on. I’m also a bulldog when it comes to protecting what’s mine.”
“That sounds like a threat, Mr. D’Alessandro.”
“Read it any way you like, but know this—from where I stand, leaving my boy to fall under your kind of influence and doing nothing to counteract it, marks me as a negligent father, and that’s not a label I care to have hanging around my neck.”
“What are you saying, Michael?” Camille asked, her voice brimming with alarm.
He daren’t look at her because he knew if he did, he’d cave in. She reminded him of a lovely, fragile butterfly batting its wings frantically against the net closing over it. His every instinct was to rescue her, to spare her injury, to let her fly free without let or hindrance. But doing that would mean more than breaking his promise to Kay; it would mean corrupting the principles which formed the lodestar of his existence. And if he did that, he’d never be able to live with himself.
“Your parents don’t want me breathing the same rarified air as you, Camille. And I don’t think you’ve got the moral fiber to go against their wishes. So I’m turning down your proposal. You might be desperate but I’m not, and I sure don’t need the in-laws from hell playing vigilante on your behalf. If I ever marry again, it’ll be to a woman able to stand on her own two feet and who sees me as something other than a monster who has to be appeased at any price.”
He was at the front door before she caught up with him. “I’ve never thought of you that way,” she cried, hanging on to his arm. “Please don’t punish me for my parents’ mistakes.”
“I might be a trusting schmuck who got taken to the cleaners once, but it isn’t going to happen a second time. You’re cut from the same cloth they are, Camille, and you want to know what clinched it for me? That you were a party to a private investigation all the time you were kissing up to me.”
“I wasn’t a party to it,” she whispered hollowly. “Not until the end, and only then because my curiosity got the better of me. When I went to the hospital, all I had to go on was a floor and room number, nothing else. I had no idea I’d find Rita, or that she was your ex-wife. I’d never have made the connection if it hadn’t been for the photos of Jeremy.”
He wiped his hand down his face, all the weeks of subterfuge combined with the misery of the last week leaving him suddenly weary. “You know what, it really doesn’t matter anymore. The cat’s out of the bag and nothing you or your parents can do is going to stuff it back in again. I have a son and there’s no way I’m letting you or anyone else cut me out of his life. I’ve already missed too much of it.”
“So you’re going to tear him away from everything dear and familiar, just to satisfy your need for revenge? My goodness, whatever happened to sweet reason and rational discussion, Michael?”
“It went the way of trust.”
She shifted from one foot to the other and made a concerted effort to hang on to her control, but she was close to breaking point and he knew he had to get away. He could be as merciless as the next guy when it came to fighting for what he believed in and defending his rights, but d
riving Camille over the edge—hell, that was more than he could handle.
“You’ll be hearing from me,” he said, yanking the door open, “but if, before then, you need to get in touch, I’m staying at the Portland. I expect to be kept informed of Jeremy’s progress. If he gets worse, let me know immediately.”
He made his tone intentionally brusque and it seemed to do the trick. She wrestled her emotions into line and glared at him from eyes brilliant with unshed tears. “You’re certainly showing your true colors now, aren’t you? Whatever happened to that nice man who—”
“Haven’t you heard, Camille? Nice guys finish last. And I don’t like losing so from now on, you’ll be playing by my rules.”
“And exactly what will that involve?”
“I’ll call later on tonight and let you know. I’ll tell you this much, though. Do yourself a favor and get rid of your folks before then because I’ve had about as much of their interference as I can stomach. This is between you and me, and if you persist in involving them, I can promise you you aren’t going to be happy with the outcome.”
He phoned at half past eight and foregoing any social discourse, leapt straight to the point. “I assume you’re alone?”
Not a trace of warmth or humanity colored his words. This was the voice of a man well used to emerging the winner in the dog-eat-dog world of business.
“I’m alone,” she said, grateful that he couldn’t see the pain she knew was written all over her face.
She wanted the other Michael back; the one she’d known before. Why couldn’t they have fallen in love at first sight and eloped to the Dominican Republic before her parents’ well-meant interference threw everything out of kilter? His being Jeremy’s father wouldn’t have mattered then. The three of them would’ve been one big happy family regardless.
“How is Jeremy?”
“Much better. Asleep.”
“Good. I’ll be flying home tomorrow, but I’ll leave a number where I can be reached any time, night or day. Keep me posted. I want to know how he’s doing.”
“You’re leaving so soon?” A gaping sense of loss swallowed any relief she might have felt at the news.
“Yes,” he said, “but before you start dancing on the ceiling to celebrate, don’t take that to mean I’m walking out on my son. Here is what is going to happen. First, I’m going to set up a trust fund for him.”
“Michael, that really isn’t necessary. I have money enough to support him.”
“I don’t care what you have. It’s what Kay has to give that matters here. Sooner or later, he’s going to ask about his birth mother—what she was like, why she gave him up. For his sake, I intend to paint as positive a picture as possible. For him to learn the uglier aspects of his adoption can only hurt him.”
“I agree,” she said. “And if that’s all you meant by your promise to take care of him, I can certainly live with it.”
“Oh, there’s more,” he informed her, with the same brutal candor. “I intend to phone every Sunday evening before he goes to bed. You will see to it that he’s available to take my calls uninterrupted by anyone else, most particularly your parents. He and I will talk for as long as it pleases us, and you will not listen in because you have my word that nothing I say will in any way disturb or confuse him. To all intents and purposes, I will remain for now the family friend he met for the first time this summer. For now, Camille.”
Although he’d said nothing which directly threatened her custodial rights, the implication that the worst was yet to come left her palms slippery with sweat. “And later?”
“That’s where you come in, my dear. You are going to tell him I’m his father. Exactly how you go about that is up to you, although I strongly suggest you exercise due caution, and control any inclination you might have to portray me as the villain of the piece. If that means putting a gag order on your parents, do that as well, because I won’t tolerate their negative input.”
“I see,” she said, the chill emanating from the telephone invading her bones. “Have you also circled the date when all this is to occur?”
“I’m prepared to be flexible on that. You have until the beginning of December to get him used to the idea that he has a father with whom he’ll be spending his birthday and Christmas.”
“You expect me to let you take him to Canada for Christmas?”
“Not this year. We’ll start out with small changes. I’ll come to California on both occasions. But I will see him every day that I’m there. I’ll watch him blow out his birthday candles. At Christmas, I’ll take him to see the sights, we’ll go shopping together to buy a tree, I’ll be the one to set it up and help him hang his stocking. And I’ll be there Christmas morning when it’s time to open gifts. I’ve missed playing Santa Claus for his first three years. I’m not about to be shut out of the fourth.”
“But what about us, Michael?” she said.
“We’ll be civil to one another,” he told her, misunderstanding, deliberately or otherwise, what she was really asking. “I’ll give you a bottle of perfume, you can buy me a pair of socks—we’ll go through all the proper festive motions. But there is no ‘us’. We’re not even friends, Camille. Not anymore. But because we both care about Jeremy, we’ll put on a convincing show.”
“I’m not sure that I can do that,” she said, her heart breaking.
“Then go spend Christmas and his birthday with your parents. But don’t even think about inviting them over to your place or I’ll take Jeremy somewhere else both days.”
“Is this all I have to look forward from now on—just one ultimatum after another, or else?”
“More or less. When he’s a bit older, we’ll arrange to share holiday visits. You’ll put him on a plane for the two-hour flight to Vancouver, and I’ll be there at the other end to meet him. Divorced couples do that all the time and it seems to work well enough.”
“We aren’t divorced.”
“No. And never will be because—”
“Because we’ll never be married. I already know that, Michael. You don’t have to keep rubbing it in. I just wish we could have found a way—”
“Wishing isn’t enough, Camille,” he said, just the slightest hint of regret shading his tone. “We’ve got too many things going against us and we both know cobbling together a marriage for Jeremy’s sake does him no favors at all if, in the end, it blows up in his face. And it would, because although you might be ready to—how did you so charmingly put it? Sell your soul to the devil if you had to?—I’m not interested in buying.”
“You’re never going to forgive me for that, are you?”
“I already have, sweet thing. It’s part of the past—just like you.”
“So why keep bringing it up?”
“Because it showed a side of you I could never live with, no matter what perks might come with such an arrangement. Marriage is an adult undertaking, Camille, and I realized this afternoon that, at heart, you’re still just a spoiled little girl playing with her doll and all her other fancy toys. If you ever decide to grow up, give me a call and we’ll see where things go. In the meantime, I’ll have my lawyers draw up a binding agreement for visitation rights.”
There was a click and the line went dead. Phone in hand, she stared at the luxury surrounding her: the thick Chinese rugs, the white lacquered baby grand piano, the original oil paintings on the silk-paneled walls, and the plump cushioned sofas upholstered in fabric imported from France. And for the first time in her life, she felt poor. Because he was right. She was a thirty-year-old juvenile posing as a woman, and she was pathetic. Pathetic!
But she was a fighter, too. And he’d left the door to the future open just a crack. It wasn’t much on which to pin her hopes, but it was enough. She’d show him she was worth a second chance!
“Are you telling me you’d proposed to the man and he was considering accepting, but you let him wriggle off the hook, and here you are, nearly a month later, and you’ve done nothing to try to lure him
back?” Fran didn’t bother to contain her disgust. “Honestly, Camille, you deserve all the grief you get! Why in heaven’s name didn’t you tell your parents to put a sock in it and show them the door, instead of wasting your breath attempting to justify something so far beyond their understanding that if you try for the next fifty years, you’ll never convince them you’re capable of making your own decisions?”
“I realize I didn’t handle things well.”
“Obviously you don’t, or you’d have done something about it by now.”
“I have. That is, I’ve come up with a plan.” Camille ran her finger over the rim of her teacup, debating how to broach the subject which had brought her to the Knowlton house at a time when she’d normally have been reading Jeremy a bedtime story.
“Sitting here confiding your misery to me doesn’t count,” Fran told her. “I’m not the one you have to convince to give you a second chance, Michael is.”
“I know, but I hardly expect him to believe in an overnight miracle. He’s been gone only a month, Fran.”
“Do you love the guy?”
“Oh…!” She scrunched her eyes shut and bit her lip against the sharp ache of missing him which stalked her night and day. “Yes, I love him!”
“So tell him so.”
“I can’t. Not yet.”
“Why not? I’d have thought, given that you’ve had it up to your ears with subterfuge and lies, that the truth might be an attractive option for a change.”
“I don’t want him to think I’m desperate.”
“Why would he, when you’ve gone along with everything he’s asked for regarding access to Jeremy?”
“Because I’m pregnant.”
There, the suspicion she’d harbored for over a week, and which a doctor in the city had confirmed that afternoon, was out! “It’s true,” she said, laughing despite herself at the stunned expression on her friend’s face. “I’m going to have a baby.”
“A baby?” Fran echoed. “How about his baby?”
“Of course his baby! I’m insulted you’d think otherwise.”
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