As she walked up the steps, she wondered how many times she could utter that sentence before she believed it.
CHAPTER TEN
It was close to ten before Jenny heard soft footsteps padding down the stairs. A moment later Dina appeared in the doorway of the kitchen.
“Sit down,” Jenny told her. “I’ll pour you a drink.”
“I shouldn’t—”
“You’re going to have at least one,” Jenny said, uncapping the bottle of scotch. “There’s no way I’m going to risk you telling the other ladies that I sit in my darkened house at night and drink alone.”
Dina flashed the ghost of a smile but nodded. “I think you’re the one with fodder for the gossip mill after taking us in tonight.”
When the other woman slipped into the chair across the table, Jenny pushed the glass of amber liquid toward her. “Gossip isn’t my thing. How are the kids?”
“Finally asleep. I can’t stay down here long. Sometimes Dylan has night terrors. I don’t want him to be scared if he wakes up in an unfamiliar bedroom.”
“Lucky for you, the walls are paper-thin. If he wakes before you get up there, we’ll hear him.”
“It’s a cute house.”
Jenny gave a soft laugh. “Don’t start blowing sunshine just because I let you stay. The house needs work.”
“Don’t we all,” Dina said. She wrapped her fingers around the tumbler and threw back the entire contents, then immediately began to choke and cough, her eyes watering.
“Holy hell, woman.” Jenny shoved a napkin toward her. “This isn’t spring break with watered-down tequila. That’s a two-hundred-dollar bottle of scotch. You’re supposed to actually take the time to taste it.”
“I wanted the burn,” Dina said through clenched teeth, her voice hoarse. “I need to feel something.” She set down the glass next to the liquor bottle. “Another.”
Jenny poured another two fingers of scotch. “Drink this one slower.”
Dina nodded. “Thank you for taking us in. I know you don’t owe me a thing.”
“Tell me how you ended up here.”
“I had to go someplace John wouldn’t think to look for me,” Dina said, sipping at the scotch.
“Mission accomplished.” Jenny’s heart squeezed at the hollowness in the other woman’s tone. “But why? I have a friend who runs a domestic violence agency. If your husband—”
“It’s nothing like that. He would never hurt me. But I know if I saw him, there’d be no way I could keep up my resolve. He’s too damn charming for his own good, and I still love him. I wish I didn’t, but . . .”
Jenny thought of herself as a wide-eyed teenage girl and how charming Trent Decker had been while pursuing her. She hoped she had become smarter than that.
“I thought the two of you were working it out.”
“He wants us to have a threesome with his nineteen-year-old girlfriend.” She grabbed her chest with her free hand. “I’ve nursed two kids with these things. Do you think I’m going to stand naked next to some . . . perky teenager and let my husband compare me to her?”
Jenny shook her head. “Are you saying you’d do it if you liked your boobs?”
“No.” Dina gulped down her scotch and choked again, this time a little less forcefully. “At least, I don’t think so. But John is really persuasive when he wants to be.”
“So you left because you don’t want a ménage à trois?”
Dina sniffed. “I left because my husband won’t give up his girlfriend. My young, nubile, recently fired nanny. Now I’m at home raising our children, and can I tell you something?” Before Jenny could answer, Dina said, “It’s hard with no help. I don’t know how women manage this stuff. I’ve had to give up tennis and now I do yoga from YouTube videos. Half the time someone is hanging off me when I’m trying to get into downward-facing dog position. Not exactly mindful and relaxing.”
Jenny shrugged. Dina was out of touch with reality, but no one deserved a cheating spouse. “Welcome to the real world. I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, but parenting doesn’t exactly lend itself to mindful and relaxing.”
“That’s why I need your help. You’re raising a son on your own and doing a great job of it.” Dina didn’t bother to refill her glass. She took the bottle of scotch Jenny had been given as a thank-you from a big client at the landscaping company and brought it to her lips, taking a deep swallow.
“Whoa, there, thirsty gal.” Jenny took the bottle and twisted the cap back in place. “Your newfound respect for me is lovely, if unwarranted.” She stood and placed the scotch on the counter, then filled a glass with water and returned to the table. “One thing I can tell you from personal experience is that single parenting doesn’t get any easier with a hangover.”
Dina’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “I don’t want to be a single mother.” Tears spilled down her cheeks.
“It’s not really the kind of thing little girls dream of when they imagine a perfect life.” Jenny handed over another napkin. “Don’t romanticize my life, Dina.” She held up a hand when the other woman would have argued. “I’m not saying you were wrong to leave. Your husband is taking advantage of the situation and of you, but you have to get strong if you’re going to do this.” She blew out a breath. “I had my mom’s help the whole time, and even with that, I’ve made plenty of mistakes. Cooper is a fantastic kid, but a lot of that is because of who he is, not what I’ve done.”
Dina hiccuped. “You don’t give yourself enough credit.”
“You give me too much.”
“I don’t want to be married to a man who doesn’t think I’m enough.” Dina met Jenny’s gaze. “This isn’t the first time he’s cheated. It happened when we were engaged, too.”
“Why did you marry him in the first place?”
“We’d sent the invitations and I had the dress and . . . he told me it was just the stress of the commitment.”
“Which might have been a huge red flag?”
“He promised it would never happen again. He told me we’d have the perfect life together. As far as all of my friends are concerned, we do. That’s another reason I can’t go to any of them now. Trust me, when it comes down to choosing sides, they’ll pick Team John every day of the week.”
“Then they aren’t truly your friends,” Jenny murmured. She inclined her head. “Do we need to talk about your hair?”
Dina grimaced. “I wanted to make a statement. John liked to use my hair to tickle—”
“Stop,” Jenny hissed, covering her ears with her hands for a moment. “There isn’t enough bleach in the world to scrub my eyeballs clean if you finish that sentence.”
“I shoved the hair I cut off into the gas tank of his Porsche”—Dina gingerly combed her fingers through the butchered ends—“after I found a thong in the glove compartment.”
“One classy dude,” Jenny muttered.
“I want to find a guy like Owen,” Dina told her. “Filthy rich, hot as hell, and head-over-heels in love with me.”
It was Jenny’s turn to choke.
Owen was rich and handsome but as for being in love . . .
Dina needed to hear the truth of Jenny’s arrangement with Owen immediately. But she couldn’t bring herself to say the words. “If you’re leaving your husband,” she said instead, “it can’t be because you’re looking to find a sugar daddy to take his place.”
“I’m not looking,” Dina answered, desperation clear in her tone. “But I wouldn’t mind if one found me.” Her voice quavered again and she covered her face with her hands, shoulders trembling as she cried softly. “How am I going to take care of my babies?”
Jenny hated the woman’s tears and her scumbag husband. An undercurrent of guilt ran below the anger Jenny felt on Dina’s behalf. She couldn’t help but feel partially responsible for Dina’s current predicament. Not the philandering spouse, but the fact that she’d had the nerve to leave him.
Would Dina have walked out the door if she had
n’t viewed Jenny as a role model?
The woman’s respect was a joke, based on a fictionalized image of Jenny’s life that had little to do with reality. Jenny had only made it through life thanks to help from other people—her mother, the Bishops as a whole, and Ty in particular. Now she was going to be several steps closer to realizing her dream of opening the nursery full-time thanks to Owen.
Of course, she was giving him something in return. Another reason she didn’t mention the truth to Dina. Jenny might not have turned away Dina and her kids, but that didn’t mean she trusted the woman to keep her secret. The less people who knew about her pretend engagement the better.
“You’ll find a way,” Jenny said, and she believed it was true. Despite her own unsavory history with Dina, there was no doubt the woman loved her children. “You can stay here as long as you need,” she added, then snapped shut her mouth.
There was guilt talking, and then there was plain old crazy.
“Thank you,” Dina whispered. At least she’d stopped crying. “I should go to bed. My head feels kind of spinny.”
“Bathroom’s first door on the left out of your bedroom,” Jenny said. “In case you have some night terrors of your own.” She stood as Dina did. “Do you need help up the stairs?”
“I can manage.” Dina gave her a quick hug. “You’re a good friend, Jenny. I’m sorry I didn’t realize it back in high school.”
Jenny forced a smile. It was still difficult to process this delicate, broken woman in front of her as the girl who’d been the biggest queen bee in their high school. “Good night, Dina. Things will seem better in the morning.”
Dina gave a sad smile. “They certainly can’t get worse.”
Jenny washed the glasses they’d used, then turned off the lights and locked up the house. She grabbed her phone from the counter on her way upstairs. A text from Owen had come in while she was talking with Dina.
Nice emoji. I’m assuming the poo is an abbreviation of pook. Sweet dreams, pookie.
She wanted to be annoyed at his flirtatious humor and the obnoxious term of endearment. A moratorium on flirting needed to be added to the list of rules. But her stomach did a little dance at the underlying affection in his message. She was heading to bed with thoughts of Owen at the forefront of her mind and heart.
Sweet dreams indeed.
Owen pressed his ID card to the keypad and the doors to the research and development lab within Dalton Enterprises whooshed open.
He walked down the muted gray hall lined with framed photos of the various technological innovations his company had brought to market. Even now, it sometimes still felt like a daydream that all of it belonged to him.
Although not exactly to him.
Since the initial public offering on the stock market almost four years ago, shares of Dalton Enterprises had increased in value by almost a third. Owen understood the need for public capital and exposure but still missed the fun and flexibility from the company’s early days.
It had changed something for him. He was no longer the leader of an innovative tech company. Instead, he’d reluctantly become a traditional CEO. He spent way too much time dealing with his board of directors, plus analysts and journalists, constantly being judged by the company’s share price performance, to the exclusion of almost everything else.
He’d lost some of his drive and the fire that had pushed him to become a success. He told himself it was because he couldn’t recreate the feeling of generating something every day that he’d had in the early years of the business.
There was more to it than that. The stock offering had made him rich beyond belief, and he’d gone back to West Virginia shortly after being added to the famous Forbes World’s Billionaires list. He’d gone with the intention of finally convincing his parents to allow him to buy them a new house and with the idea of taking a family vacation to . . .
He laughed softly, thinking of Cooper. Owen had wanted to take his parents to Hawaii.
But before his mother had a chance to respond, his father had made a comment about the house he’d worked hard to pay for being good enough and not wanting his son showing off his wealth to their hometown.
Owen had looked at his mother for support, but other than a sympathetic smile and the murmured words “he means well,” she hadn’t said a word to challenge his father.
She never did.
Instead of arguing, Owen had sat down for another awkward dinner where he alternately heard about Jack’s military accomplishments and Gabby’s success on the ski slopes. He’d left the next morning, tossing the magazine with his face on the cover into the recycling bin outside the airport.
It would have been simpler to ignore his father. God knew Owen had tried. He had world leaders clamoring for his attention, but at his parents’ home, he remained persona non grata. Then, shortly after the incident with Jack’s fire team coming under attack, he’d read an article about difficulties with security and interference in the connectivity of military mesh networks around the world. And a plan had been hatched.
He’d put his work with both his namesake company and foundation to the back burner in order to devote a huge portion of Dalton Enterprises’ financial and intellectual capital to a new venture. Owen’s goal was to create a completely hack-proof, one hundred percent reliable network, which he’d named Labyrinth Web, that could be utilized exclusively by the US military. It would be his contribution to the armed services—not quite the same as serving his country the way his father and brother had, but something they couldn’t ignore.
The board had been skeptical, as had his management team. No one could deny, however, that Dalton Enterprises had been built from Owen’s instincts and expertise with innovation. The board had approved his funding request and he’d assembled a top-notch R&D team. Two years later and they were no closer to bringing a viable product to market than when he’d first conceived of the technology.
He stepped into the main lab and waved to his chief scientist, Charles Kenkel.
“It’s Saturday morning.” The soft-spoken man, who looked like he used the same hairstylist as Albert Einstein, smiled at Owen. “Since when do you frequent the lab on weekends? Don’t you have a photo shoot for some magazine’s ‘Fifty Sexiest Technology Geeks’ to get to?”
Owen shook his head. “Never going to live down that People article, am I?” Charles had been at MIT with Owen, and he was the first employee Owen had hired. Several of Owen’s other early hires had moved up the ranks as the company grew and were heading his senior management team. Charles had chosen to remain in the comfort of his lab.
“I thought I’d check in and see if you were any closer to having a prototype ready to go live.”
Charles shrugged. “We’re closer, but as it looks now, Labyrinth Web isn’t any more secure than a regular mesh network. We still need a secure vehicle, and it’s likely soldiers in combat situations would outrun the technology more quickly than connection speed could keep up.”
“That isn’t going to justify the money and resources we’ve put into this project for the shareholders,” Owen said, trying to keep his voice level. That was only one of the reasons he needed the Labyrinth Web to succeed. Of course, he’d hoped to have a launch date for the product confirmed before his brother’s wedding so he could share the news with his dad. But the truth was, he could not keep stalling the board and shareholders.
“However,” Charles added, and Owen perked up a bit, “the technology is infinitely more stable than any other mesh network that’s come before it. It could be a game changer as far as remote or economically challenged communities gaining consistent access to the web. And it would be a huge benefit during a natural disaster–type situation, when other traditional networks are cut off.”
“That’s not what it’s designed to do,” Owen said through gritted teeth. It was not the first time he and Charles had engaged in this conversation.
The scientist held up his hands, palms out. “You’re the boss,” he
said, “but Dalton Enterprises is known for revolutionary products. Labyrinth Web could revolutionize the way certain sectors of the population communicate. It can’t be ignored.”
Watch me, Owen thought. To Charles, he said, “Keep working on the security angle. Text me when you have something.”
Charles sighed but nodded, and after a few more minutes of uncharacteristically awkward conversation, Owen left the lab.
He drove away from the building, his stomach churning. Dalton Enterprises had once been his outlet, the place he channeled all of his frustration and desires into building something that would prove his worth.
To anyone on the outside and even most of his employees, he’d been successful beyond belief. But he’d saddled his company with the burdensome baggage of his paternal relationship and it no longer was a sanctuary for him.
Everywhere he turned he had reminders of how he wasn’t capable of making a success in the one way that would count to his father.
Once again, instead of heading directly home, he drove northwest of downtown and turned in at the turquoise-and-yellow mailbox that stood on the edge of Jenny’s property.
There was no reason he needed to see her again so soon. They had an arrangement for the week of his brother’s wedding, nothing more. She’d made that clear. For two years he’d done his best to not think about her.
He’d dated a string of women who were cultured, educated, and wildly appropriate for the arm of a man like him. They spoke in modulated tones about charities and fund-raisers and giving back while spending thousands on designer purses, weekend spa getaways, and monthly trips to the dermatologist. But Jenny, who had so little, was risking everything to pursue her dream of sharing with people her love of gardening.
As he steered his 4Runner down the gravel driveway, he saw a half dozen cars parked near the fence line. In the bright morning light, the place looked different—cozy and charming with tables of plants and flowers lined up on either side of the barn doors. There were clusters of oversize clay pots and a display of wind chimes hanging from a clothesline that had been strung above the plants. Couples and a few young families milled around the open space of the driveway, wandering in and out of the barn to the different flower groupings.
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