Chapter Twenty-Three
Mia entered the house, surprised to see it so dark. Only the light from the kitchen spread a thin beam through rooms nearby. Maybe her mother didn’t have a reason for leaving or didn’t feel Mia deserved an explanation. It wouldn’t be the first time her mother had put herself before Mia.
There were just some people who weren’t meant to be parents. Mia’s mother was one of them. Ellen DeAngelis was brilliant, cool, and distant, not warm and nurturing. Mia, who had could hold her own academically, was really just a big bowl of goo on the inside. She craved closeness and affection. Being a cold, or stuffy never suited her. Once she let her guard down and started acting like herself, everyone was happier. Especially Ben.
Especially her.
A sound from the back of the house made her jump and she realized someone was still up. Probably Nana, since there were times she was positively nocturnal. Moving through the dark, Mia paused and breathed in. She smelled cigarettes? Groaning, there was only one person in the house who would be smoking.
Sure enough, when she walked into the kitchen, her mother stood by the back door blowing a stream of smoke out into the night. There was a glass and an almost finished bottle of wine on the table, along with a lighter.
Mia had no idea why Mom was upset, but there was no doubt this was going to get ugly.
Her mother quit smoking years before—when Mia was around fifteen—but every once in a while, something would upset her and she’d go back to it. Whatever caused her to leave the party must have been the trigger.
“Nana will be all over you if she smells cigarettes.”
Her mother tossed the butt into the flower pot outside the door. “Your grandmother will deal.”
Mia stepped closer, trying not to let the familiar intimidation take over, but she had to admit to herself she wished Adam had stayed.
“It’s too bad you left the party early, dessert was to die for.”
Sitting at the table and refilling her wine glass, Mia noticed all the signs… one of Mom’s outbursts was revving up. “You don’t need dessert.”
Mia shrugged. “Maybe not, but it was yummy.”
“You have no discipline, you never have.”
That hurt. But now, anger accompanied the hurt.
“You want to spit it out, Mom? Or are you going to give me the silent treatment for a few days and make me figure out on my own what’s pissed you off? That’s what you used to do, is it still your M.O.?”
“Don’t take that tone with me.”
“Oh, please. First, you call me ‘undisciplined’ and expect me to take you seriously. Second, you’ve smoked what looks like half a pack of cigarettes, and you’re on your way to a hangover-worthy drunk. And finally, you left my thirtieth birthday celebration. You left. YOU owe me an explanation.”
“I deserve your respect because I’m your mother, and I owe you nothing. Especially after the way you’ve treated me, and your sister’s memory.”
“Really? Aunt Regina doesn’t feel I’ve been disrespectful. In fact, she told me she’s proud of me. That Dad was proud of me.”
Mom was silenced by that, and Mia hated throwing her aunt under the bus, but she needed all the help she could get. “So, Mom, you want to try this again and tell me why you feel it’s necessary to make everything about you?”
“Why don’t you tell me why that bastard, Greg Rhodes, was at your birthday party?”
The words were like a blast of ice water, freezing her from the top down. The burst of questions that filled Mia’s head almost made her dizzy, but one stood out. Why was she asking about Greg? “Mom? You want to fill me in here?”
“You don’t even realize the truth about the type of people you’ve been cavorting with. That pig is the one who left your sister, and obviously your boyfriend knows him. Birds of a feather, I guess.”
The fluttering mess of emotions that had been swimming in Mia’s head moved to her stomach as realization took over everything. “Greg is the one–”
“Who abandoned your sister.”
Mia grabbed at the chair and sat down. “What?”
“Surprised? I’m not. Nothing good could come from you moving here. Now look what you’ve done.”
“He’s Ben’s father. The adoption isn’t final yet, and now I know who Ben’s father is.” Reality wasn’t just smacking Mia in the face, it was beating her over the head.
“And we could lose him,” her mother snapped. “You will say NOTHING.”
Mia rubbed her hand across her chest, wondering how this happened. Had Adam known Sara, or known anything about her relationship with Greg?
She had to see him.
Ignoring her mother’s tirade, Mia moved toward the door. Adam’s house. She’d go there and he’d help her sort this out. Figure out how to keep Greg Rhodes out of Ben’s life.
“Where are you going?” her mother screeched.
Still in a daze, Mia turned. “I’m going to Adam’s. I need time to think. To talk this through.”
Her mother bore down on her. “Are you crazy? You can’t tell him anything. He’ll take his friend’s side and then Ben will end up with his no-good father.”
“Stop it! He won’t do that.”
“God, Mia! Wake up! He’s using you. Do you think he loves you? That he could actually love you?”
Mia froze as the words hit her full on. The old fears, the old doubts, the crushing insecurity came roaring back. Her mother sat there full of venom and condemnation, and Mia couldn’t let herself believe it.
“He does love me. And I need to talk to him about this. I trust him, and that’s all that you need to know.”
“You really believe that, don’t you?” Her mother blew out a stream of smoke from her most recent cigarette. “Dearie, think what you want, but men like him always leave. I guess if Adam leaves you, we’ll have hit the trifecta. If he gets you pregnant, that would really take the prize.”
Mia had no idea what her mother was talking about. All she could really keep her mind on was Ben and his biological father. “What are you talking about?”
“Ultra-masculine, competitive. A little dangerous. Those kinds of men.”
“I’m not following, and I don’t want to play games. I’m tired.”
“One left me, one left Sara, and now one will leave you. You’re probably knocked up already.” She was babbling, but she had Mia’s full attention. “Fuck ’em and leave ’em. That’s what they do.”
“Mom!” Mia walked toward her mother, cautious but also angry. “What are you talking about?”
She shook her head, changing gears again. “Never mind. Go see your boyfriend. But his buddy is NOT getting my grandson. Ever.”
Mia started to leave, but she stopped and looked back at her mother. She was a bitter, nasty woman Mia barely knew, and the distance between them suddenly made sense. Things started to click into place, and like a lightning bolt, the truth was right there. Mia was her father’s daughter. Mia and Sara were different because of something else… something bigger. “Sara and I had different fathers, didn’t we?”
Her mother stared at her hands, suddenly looking very old for her fifty-eight years. She didn’t speak, and her silence gave Mia her answer.
“That’s who you’re talking about. The man who left you? You cheated on Daddy.”
Mia drew a deep breath and the wash of pain, the flood of mistrust, almost overwhelmed her ability to think. “Is that what happened, Mom?”
“Your father and I dated for years. And he went into the Navy even when I begged him not to. I knew he’d be away all the time. So, I found someone else, but he left me the minute he thought I might want something more than a fling. I was pregnant when I married your dad. He knew right away Sara wasn’t his. He was no one’s fool.”
“I can’t believe he stayed with you. Knowing you cheated, he still stayed.”
Her mother’s head snapped up and anger simmered in her eyes. “You’re lucky he stayed. If he hadn’t, you wouldn’t have been born. But your father was so damned…honorable.”
He was that. And so was Adam. She had to have faith in her own instincts, and not let her mother destroy the best thing in her life. “Well, rest easy, Mom. Adam is not your lover or Sara’s, he’s mine. When I get back, you and I are going to have a long talk about my sister, and then you’re going to leave. I’m done with you.”
“So now you’re issuing ultimatums?” Her mother was hard as ice, but she was terrified, too.
“I am. And if you’re as smart as you keep telling everyone you are, you’ll listen.”
Mia shook her head and left the room, stopping only to put on her coat and grab her purse. Still too stunned to think or get upset, Mia’s heart pounded with every step out of the house, and it positively ached when she thought about Greg Rhodes and Sara, and what this could all mean for Ben. Once she got into her car, Mia tried to take a deep breath to relax herself, then another. And another. It didn’t work.
There, in the dark and cold, as she thought about the step-by-step turns she would need to take to get to Adam’s house, the reality of the situation finally overwhelmed her. Tears burned her eyes at the same time dread filled her to the core.
She looked up at the beautiful old house and saw her grandmother standing at the door. The look on her face told Mia she’d already talked to Mom. Leaning over the steering wheel, Mia turned the key and drew in a long breath. This would be okay. It would be okay.
It had to be okay.
Adam didn’t like Greg much and he’d help her with this. There was no way she could say anything and risk losing Ben, but she had to understand more about what happened to her sister, and that’s what this visit was all about. What did Adam know about her sister and Greg? Did he care about her? Did Adam know Sara at any point? Did he know she was pregnant?
Was this all a waste of time?
The ride to Gull’s Point didn’t take very long, but the roads were so dark, Mia almost missed Adam’s driveway. When she pulled in, he was in his kitchen, sitting at the island. She could see him clearly in his plain white T-shirt, his dark hair mussed. He was reading something, and as she pulled her car forward, he noticed the headlights and stood.
Mia sat in her car, paralyzed by the knowledge that she could lose everything that mattered to her. Her family was a mess. She could lose Ben. After everything that she’d done to protect him, she could lose him.
*
The headlights shined in his window just after one in the morning, and Adam knew it had to be Mia. A glance outside confirmed it and he thought about the two reasons she would have come over—either something bad happened with her mother, or she wanted to spend the night with him.
He hoped it was the latter.
Stepping out the side door, Adam could see enough of a shadow to worry. Her hands still gripped the wheel, arms stiff. Not a good sign. He moved off the stoop and tapped on the driver’s side window.
When Mia’s head jerked toward him, he got his answer. She was crying. And from the red around her eyes, she’d been crying for a while.
Goddammit. He knew he shouldn’t have left her. As soon as the lock clicked, Adam pulled open the door and pulled her close.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “What happened?”
Mia’s fingers grazed her face and she looked at the wetness, then she looked at him and she broke. The tears came hard and fast. Her hands were freezing, her body shivering. Adam couldn’t get her into the house fast enough.
“Oh, God, Mia. I shouldn’t have left. I’m sorry.”
Her head shook back and forth and he had no idea what she was trying to tell him. The grief he heard in each hiccupping breath, in each sob, was more than he could take. Pulling her into his lap, he let her cry. For the life of him, he couldn’t imagine what could have happened to evoke this response. But whatever it was, he was sure Ellen DeAngelis was at the heart of it.
Mia sniffled and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. Her voice, when she finally spoke, was low and hoarse. “I might lose him.”
“Who?” Adam held her tighter than ever.
“Ben. I might lose him.”
“No, you won’t. Your mother won’t take him from you.”
Mia sniffed again and looked in his eyes. Tears tracked down her cheeks and her breath shuddered before she spoke. “Not my mother,” she croaked. “His father.”
Now it was Adam’s turn to be stunned.
“What?” He drew another deep breath and had to force down his own panic. Mia would crumble if she lost Ben—natural mother or not, he was everything to her.
“Tell me what happened.” He kept his voice deliberately calm so he didn’t slip into his own kind of panic.
“When I walked in the house, my mother was waiting for me in the kitchen. She was downing wine like fruit juice and smoking. That’s usually a clue she’s not happy.”
“Okay.” Adam was trying to picture the very staid Mrs. DeAngelis as a drunk with a cigarette. It wasn’t pretty.
“She blasted me about moving here, and about you, and how… how… you’d never love me.”
Mia’s head dropped, and Adam’s heart broke. The cruelty of the statement made his blood surge. He held her close and spoke softly. “You have to know by now that I do love you, don’t you?”
She nodded and held him tighter. “I know.”
A sliver of relief settled in his heart. If she knew that he loved her, they could go forward from there.
“Finish the story.”
“We argued about whether or not it was wise to bring Ben here, and after she told me what she thought of you, and that you were like the men who left her and Sara—”
“What? I’m not following.”
“She was drunk, so all kinds of crap came pouring out of her. In a nutshell, she cheated on my dad, got pregnant, and was left. The child of that pregnancy was Sara. Then Sara got pregnant and the guy left.”
“Wait, so Sara is…”
“…my half-sister, and my father was a damn saint.”
“Holy shit,” he whispered. There was so much to take in, Adam’s head hurt. Poor Mia must have been on the verge of collapse. “So how did Ben’s father come into this?”
“We know who he is, and I’m scared I’m going to lose him and—” her breath caught—“I can’t lose him, Adam. I can’t.”
Somehow, as he listened, the truth was right there. He didn’t need her to say anything; he just knew. “Greg.”
What were the odds?
“Greg,” she repeated. “He’s Ben’s father and now, and now…” She broke off mid-thought and started crying again. Anguished wails that tore at Adam’s heart. “Oh, Adam. I c-can’t let him go. I can’t. Oh, God.”
“Shhh. It’ll be okay. Greg is not going to want custody. A kid would totally cramp his lifestyle. Don’t worry,” he soothed. “I’ll be with you the whole way. He’s not father material and he knows it.”
There was quiet and then Adam felt the muscles of Mia’s back tighten. This was not good. It only took a second for her to push away and look him in the eyes.
“What do you mean?”
Looking at Mia’s face, he could see the anger, the fear… and that she never intended to tell Greg about Ben. “You have to tell him, Mia.”
She pushed her way off his lap and reeled back from Adam. “Why would I tell him?”
Adam stood and took a step in her direction. Mia was pacing back and forth, frantic, running her hands through her hair.
“He’s Ben’s father. He has a right to know.”
“HE HAS NO RIGHT TO ANYTHING!” she screamed. “Nothing. He wanted Sara to get an abortion. Based on everything I know, he threw money at her and walked out.”
Unfortunately, that sounded like Greg. The guy he knew in college morphed into a giant asshole while he was playing pro. “Mia, I’m not excusing his behavior. But he still should be told. Odds are he’s not going to want to be involved.”
“How do you know?” She advanced on him. “How?”
“I don’t, but—”
“All the hard work is done. The diapers and feedings and the sleepless nights. He could hire a nanny and never know Ben was around. I can’t play those odds, no matter what you think.”
“Mia—”
“NO! He was horrible to my sister. He tossed her off like nothing. He doesn’t deserve to be Ben’s father.”
“But he is Ben’s father.”
“How can you side with him?” she choked out, distraught at the thought she might lose Ben.
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.” Mia dissolved into tears and sank to the floor. She crumbled in the middle of his living room. Sobbing. “He’s going to take Ben if he knows. He’s going to take him.”
Adam lowered himself to the floor, knowing the extent of her anger when he reached for her and she curled away from him.
“Mia?” He could hear his own voice had gone low and rough. The possibility that he could lose her over this made his heart stop. He could not lose her. “Baby, please listen to me.”
When she looked up, tears swam in her eyes and Adam reached out again, hoping that if he could touch her, she’d settle down a little.
“If he knows, I’ll lose Ben, Adam. You can’t tell him!”
“I won’t tell him,” he whispered. “But I think you should.”
She shook her head violently. “No. He’ll take him.”
“I don’t think so.” He scooted closer and reached out. “Come here. Please.”
Mia stared at him, her eyes wild. But she did crawl toward him and settle into his lap. “Did you know Sara?”
Adam had been thinking about that since Mia dropped the bomb on him about Greg. Did he know Sara? He searched his memory and came up with nothing. “I don’t think so. How did she know him?”
Sniffling, Mia wiped her arm under her nose. “She was a dancer.”
“One of the cheerleaders?”
“Uh huh.” Another sniffle.
“Teams forbid cheerleaders from having contact with players.”
“She told me that.”
“Honey, did she tell you anything about Greg?”
“That he cared about her and he wanted to be with her. She said he was wonderful.”
Adam knew that was a lie, because Greg wasn’t nice and he never cared about anyone but himself. He didn’t even lie to girls about it. He was a prick; if they wanted to be with him, they dealt with it.
Adam didn’t like where this was going. “Greg wasn’t nice. To anyone. He took advantage of women all the time.”
“Sounds like the kind of guy who’d take Ben away.”
“Did she tell you it was Greg?”
“No. Just that he was a player, and that she couldn’t wait for me to meet him. She fell apart when he wouldn’t marry her. My mother knew, though.”
That much made sense. It sounded like Sara was living in her own bubble.
“I never knew who he was,” Mia continued, “but I heard stories. Heard my mother screaming that they would sue him.”
“Why didn’t they?”
“Sara wouldn’t do it.” He felt her draw in a deep breath. “Maybe she thought he’d come back to her.”
How did he tell her the truth? That her sister wasn’t in a real relationship, that Greg never had any interest in her beyond sex? He’d seen this too many times. Some guys were predators, dangling their money and status like a carrot in front of women who ate that shit up. Greg was one of them, he was a dick with women. But even with all that, they couldn’t have the knowledge of Ben’s parentage hanging over their heads.
Mia looked up. “What?”
“You need to tell him so the adoption is clear.”
“I can’t.”
“You have to. It’s the right thing to do.”
“He should have married her like he promised. That would have been the right thing.”
“I doubt he ever intended to marry her.”
Mia sniffled and wiped her eyes. “How do you know that? They could have fallen in love.”
“Greg doesn’t love anyone but himself.”
“She was beautiful.”
“And he knew she couldn’t say anything about sleeping with him or she’d lose her spot on the squad, so he took whatever he could get.”
“He doesn’t deserve to know.”
“Maybe not, but you still have to tell him.”
Mia pushed off his lap, furious. “I can’t believe you’re willing to take a risk like that. I could LOSE my son, Adam.”
“Mia…”
“No! I have to protect Ben!”
“We will both protect Ben. But the truth has to come out.”
She didn’t want to hear it.
“I’m leaving. I can’t talk to you about this.” She was so angry her hands were shaking; he couldn’t let her leave. Between the hysteria, the fact that she was exhausted, and that he didn’t want her to walk out of the house hating him, he had to find a way to stop her.
“Mia, don’t go. Listen to me.”
“Listen? Are you kidding?”
“You have to tell Greg so there’s no question about the adoption. He never had any interest in Sara. He used her, and he doesn’t want Ben.”
Watching her in pain was killing him. “How could you say that?” she shot out. “How could you?”
“YOU NEED TO KNOW THE TRUTH!” he yelled. “Sara was living in a fantasy. Greg was never serious about your sister. He was never serious about anyone.”
“But she told me…” Mia sniffled and wrapped her arms around her middle.
Cautiously, Adam took two steps toward her. He extended his hands, palms up, hoping she’d come to him. His own eyes were burning, because he was facing the possibility he could lose her and that couldn’t happen. It couldn’t.
“Mia, please. I love you. I love you with all my heart, and I would never want to hurt you. But the truth of this is that Greg had no interest in her, and he’ll have no interest in being a father to Ben. Telling him, getting him to sign away his rights, will assure nothing will stop the adoption. You can be Ben’s mother, legally, not just his guardian.” He took another step. “We can both be parents to Ben. Please.”
She stood before him and her head dropped. Never had he seen anyone so defeated. Her mother spit venom at her, told her their life was a sham, she was faced with the knowledge of knowing the identity of Ben’s father, and now she knew her sister had been living a lie. It was crushing her, of that he had no doubt.
“You believe I love you, don’t you?” Please answer me.
“I don’t know what to think. I’m so confused. My sister…”
“I don’t care about your sister! I care about you,” he shouted. God, he had to calm down. Moving cautiously, he continued. “I love you. I love you, and what happened to your sister was tragic, but don’t make another mistake because you think Greg Rhodes is a better man than he is.”
Mia put her hands up and started to walk away. “Just promise me you won’t say anything. That’s all I ask.”
“Don’t leave like this. Please.” His heart was skipping beats. Every time he thought about her walking out of his life, he had to force himself to breathe. “Mia, we’ll work this out. We’ll figure it out together.”
“I can’t, Adam. I can’t talk to you about this. You don’t understand.”
With that, she walked out the front door.
He went after her, but when she turned and looked back, her eyes told him he should stop. He shouldn’t try. All he wanted to do was grab her and make her see how much she meant to him. How much he needed her, that they would deal with this together. But right then, he could see she didn’t want him in her life. At all.
And he didn’t know if she ever would again.