Chapter Thirteen
It felt wrong, Andrea thought several hours later as she walked toward Pier 39 just before four o'clock. But she couldn't stop herself from moving forward. The carousel beckoned. The chance to meet Alex's mother or at least see her was impossible to resist. But she still had no idea what she would do when she got there. If Alex saw her, he'd be furious. He'd know she'd read his private message. But it wasn’t like she'd gone through his phone. The text had flashed right in front of her. How could she not have read it?
Well, maybe she could have, but what was done was done. And she was too good of a reporter not to follow a lead. Unfortunately, Alex was more than a story. He was a friend. He was someone she cared about.
This was exactly why she shouldn't have gotten personally involved with him. Her feelings were clouding her professional judgment. She'd always known exactly what to do—until now.
She walked down the pier toward the carousel, still debating her options.
An older woman with dark hair stood in front of the carousel, her gaze darting every which way as if she were looking for someone. Tall and slender, she was the feminine version of Alex. She appeared to be in her early fifties and was obviously well-off, judging by the large diamond ring on her third finger, the one she was tapping nervously against her designer bag.
The details didn't make sense. Alex had supposedly grown up in foster care. If his mother wasn't dead, where had she been? And if she had money, why would Alex have ended up in the system?
The questions continued to race through her mind with every step. Finally, Andrea took a deep breath and walked over to the woman. "Mrs. Donovan?"
The woman flinched. "I haven't been Mrs. Donovan in a long time. Who are you?"
"Andrea Blain. I saw your text to Alex this morning, and I wanted to meet you."
"Why? Are you his girlfriend?"
"No. I'm just a friend."
"Is he coming to meet me? Or did he send you in his place?"
"I'm not sure if he's coming," she said evasively. It was quite possible Alex could show up at any moment.
Disappointment and pain filled her eyes. "He probably won't come. He never has before. Why should this time be different?"
"You've asked him to meet you before?"
"Dozens of times. I keep hoping one day he'll show up." Alex's mother paused. "Why are you here?"
She decided to tell the truth. "I'm a reporter. I'm doing an article on Alex, and when I saw your text, I knew I had to talk to you, because Alex told me you were dead. Obviously, you're not."
The woman's expression turned wary. "You're a reporter?"
"Yes for World News Today. We're doing an in-depth story on Alex. He's our Man of the Year."
"Well, imagine that—Man of the Year." The woman sighed. "I always knew he was going to be somebody. He had that drive even when he was a little kid." She paused, cocking her head to the right. "Alex is still telling everyone I'm dead? I thought he would have dropped the story by now. But to Alex, I probably am dead."
"Why?" As soon as the word came out of her mouth, Andrea knew she couldn't do it. "Wait, don't answer that."
"Why not?" the woman asked in surprise.
"I can't let you tell me. Alex has to be the one. This doesn't feel right. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have come here. I hope Alex meets you, but I have to go."
"Wait. Will you give him this?" Alex's mother opened her bag and pulled out an envelope. "I wrote it just in case he wouldn't stay long enough to listen to what I had to say."
She hesitated. If she took the envelope, she'd have to tell Alex she'd met his mother, and he would be furious. On the other hand, she probably couldn’t and shouldn't keep this visit a secret.
"Please?" his mother begged. "It's so hard for me to get him to listen. Maybe he'll read this and he'll be able to understand."
She wondered exactly what Alex had to understand. "All right," she agreed. "I'll make sure he gets your letter."
"Thank you. It probably won't make a difference, but at least I will have tried."
* * *
Alex got home a little after four, having spent a couple of pointless hours at his office before picking up Tyler and meeting with the Monroes. That situation now seemed to be settled, at least for the moment. He tossed his keys onto the side table and walked into his den. He grabbed a beer from behind the bar and sat down on the couch, propping his feet up on the coffee table. His entire body ached from yesterday's fine, and his hand had been throbbing for the last hour. But the physical pains weren't the reason for his frustration and restlessness—that was all Andrea.
It was only a matter of time before she'd be back with more questions. He'd hoped he could persuade her that his past had nothing to do with his present. But since she'd caught him in a lie, her curiosity was even more engaged. She really was a bulldog.
The doorbell rang, as if on cue, and he got up to answer it, knowing that there could be no more stalling. The moment of truth had arrived.
He opened the door. "Andrea."
She gave him a tentative smile. "Hi."
He wished his heart didn't jump every time he laid eyes on her. It would be easier for him if he could see her like an enemy and not like a woman he wanted to sleep with. She'd changed her clothes since he'd last seen her, now wearing skinny jeans and a button-down sweater over a silky top. Her hair flowed around her shoulders and her eyes were bright. He didn't know if it was worry or anger that put the light in her eyes. She was definitely feeling conflicted about something.
"Can I come in?" she asked.
He stepped back. "Of course. I'm glad you came back." Despite the fact that she was here to rip his life apart, he was still inexplicably happy to see her, which told him just how far gone he was.
Andrea seemed to find his statement difficult to believe. "You're happy I'm here? You couldn't get rid of me fast enough this morning."
He tipped his head. "I've had time to think since then." And what he'd realized was that he was going to have to tell her something—enough to satisfy her curiosity so she would stop looking for more lies. He didn't care about most of his past, but there was one part he still needed to protect.
He led her down the hall to his den. It was where he spent most of his time and unlike the rest of his designer house, this room actually felt like home.
"Finally, a room that looks lived in," Andrea commented.
"You didn't see this room when you were snooping around last night?"
"I didn't get this far."
She sat down on the brown leather couch, and he took a chair opposite from her, knowing that he couldn't allow himself to get too physically close to her or he'd lose what little control he had left. She'd already breached most of his walls and the rest of them were starting to crack.
"How are you feeling?" she asked. "Does your hand hurt?"
"It's fine. I threw a bad punch. Mick is going to be all over me about that."
She gave him a faint smile. "I'm glad you weren't hurt worse."
"I'm happy you weren't hurt at all. I never thought I was putting you in a dangerous situation when we went to get Tyler."
"It all happened really fast."
"So what do you want to ask me now?"
She stared back at him, uncertainty in her blue eyes, and that surprised him.
"Really? I've left you speechless?" he asked.
"I need to tell you something, Alex."
He didn't like the tone in her voice. "What's that?"
"When I was in your kitchen this morning, and you were getting ready to take Tyler to school, you got a text on you phone. It was on the counter, and it flashed right in front of me. I couldn't help but read it.
He stiffened, knowing exactly what she'd read.
"It was from your mother," Andrea continued. "I'm sure you remember what it said."
"I can't believe you looked at my phone."
"It wasn't intentional."
"It was just an opportunity."
She gave a guilty shrug.
"You went to meet her, didn't you?" A wave of anger ran through him. "You saw your chance, and you took it. How can I be surprised? I let you into my house. I put you in a position to do just what you did."
She gave him an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, Alex."
He got to his feet, too restless and furious to sit. "Don't bother to pretend that you have a conscience."
"I do have a conscience, which is why I didn't ask her anything about you."
"I don't believe you."
"It's the truth," she said, a pleading note in her voice as she stood up. "I was going to talk to her, Alex. I admit that. I wanted to ask her why everyone thinks she's dead and what happened to your father, and a dozen other things. But when I saw her face, and her eyes, so much like your eyes, I couldn't do it."
"You just walked away? You didn't say one word to her."
"I did introduce myself but that was it. She started to talk to me, and I told her I was a reporter, and I needed to hear the story from you, not from her. She didn't tell me anything, I swear."
Even if he could believe that, it didn't negate the fact that she'd gone behind his back to talk to his mother.
"Why did you let the world think she was dead, Alex? What happened to your father? How did you end up in foster care? And who is the pink bedroom for? Please talk to me."
He paced around the room, debating his options. The truth was he had no options. All he could do was surrender to the inevitable. He sat back down, motioning Andrea to the couch. "You might as well sit. This will take a few minutes."
She perched on the edge of the couch.
He drew in a long, deep breath. "I haven't talked about any of this in probably a decade."
"Take your time."
"My mother, Rose, was born to older parents in a small town in Nebraska. She wanted to be a famous actress. When she was eighteen she moved to Hollywood, but it wasn't what she thought. Occasionally, she got to work as an extra on a TV show or in a movie," he continued, "but her main source of income came from her job as a cocktail waitress. She met my father in that bar. He was a dentist, not at all the kind of man she was used to hanging out with. He knocked her up about three months after they met. They were shocked by the unplanned pregnancy, but apparently in love, so they ran off to Vegas and got married." He paused. "She used to tell me it was the best three years of her life. But they broke up before my third birthday. My father had gone to a dental conference in Canada and had apparently fallen in love with another dentist he met there. My mother was heartbroken when he left us."
Alex cleared his throat, seeing the patient expression on Andrea's face as she waited for him to continue.
"My mother's dreams were shattered. She didn't have a husband, and her career was in the toilet. Oh, and there was that kid she had to take care of, too. To make herself feel better, she drank and got high. By the time I was six, I was taking care of her and trying to make sure she remembered to pick up food for us." He saw the gleam in Andrea's eyes. "Yeah, I guess my hoarding of food goes back to those early days."
"That's understandable."
"As my mother's problems worsened, she couldn't keep jobs. She drifted from man to man, letting anyone who would pay the bills move in for awhile."
"Oh, Alex," Andrea said softly. "I'm sorry."
"Don't interrupt." He held up a hand. "You wanted to know the story, and I'm only going to tell it once."
"Sorry. Go ahead."
"When I was ten, my mother met a musician. This guy was a cut above the others. He was talented, and he was in a successful band that was touring around the world. He wanted her to go with him, and she wanted to go, because she was in love. Unfortunately, she had me to worry about. She wanted to send me to Nebraska to live with my grandparents for a few months, but they were getting older, and my grandfather said they weren't up to taking me."
He could still remember when she'd shown him pictures of the farm in Nebraska. He'd wanted to go there. He'd thought it would be a lot better to live in a place with trees and land and horses to ride. But then his grandparents had said no, his mother had been furious, saying they never ever wanted to help her. He'd tried to make her feel better, but the only thing that could do that was a bottle of vodka.
Shaking his head, he forced his mind back to the story. "About a week later, she took me to a church and told me the priest was going to help her find a babysitter for me. She told me to wait there; she'd be back soon." His muscles tightened at the memory of that horrible day. The church had been big and dark and cold. He could still feel the hard pew under his ass and the terror of being alone, the certainty that he would never see his mother again.
"She didn't come back, did she?" Andrea asked, worry in her eyes.
"No, she never came back. The priest turned me over to Child Protective Services. They put me in foster care while they looked for my mother. They couldn't find her for months. She'd gotten on a plane and flown to Asia with her boyfriend's band. It was nine months before she was back in the states and by then she was in really bad shape. Her addictions had gotten worse. Her boyfriend was gone, and she was homeless. She came to see me, and she promised she'd go into rehab, and she did. I was hopeful she'd get better and she'd come back and get me. But she left rehab after two weeks and disappeared again. For the next several years I bounced around foster homes, and tried to survive while my mother periodically went in and out of rehab. At some point her parental rights were terminated, but it didn't matter to me. She was as good as dead to me."
"So when you spoke of her, you just killed her off," Andrea said.
"Her dying in a car accident was a much kinder version of the story," he said harshly.
"I agree. What about your father? Why didn't he come back and get you? And why couldn't my investigator find any trace of him?"
"He was killed in a car accident six months after he left us. He was living in Canada at the time, which is probably why your investigator couldn't trace him. If he'd never left us for that woman, maybe he'd be alive today. And that part of my car accident story was true."
"What about aunts, uncles, grandparents? Wasn't there anyone who could take you out of the system?"
"My grandparents came to see me once after my mother disappeared, but they said they couldn't take me in. I was better off in foster care. My grandmother gave me a St. Christopher medal and told me it would protect me. Some kid ripped it off my neck a few months later."
"This is a horrible story," Andrea murmured.
"You wanted to hear it," he reminded her. "As I got older, I got into trouble. I was angry at the world, and I hated the people I had to live with. When I was sixteen, I met Mick at the gym. He helped me redirect my anger, and he introduced me to a woman named Suzanne. She'd lost her daughter to a childhood cancer, and she had an empty room in her house. She also had a big heart. She took me in, and my life changed. It was the first time anyone had ever really cared about me. I called her my aunt, because it made life simpler. Unfortunately, she died less than two years later, and I was on my own again. The rest—you know." He blew out a breath, feeling a little relieved to have all his cards on the table—or almost all.
"I understand now why you didn't want to meet your mother," Andrea said slowly. "If I'd know what she'd done to you, I might have shoved her off the pier."
He appreciated the anger in Andrea's eyes and her desire to get him some justice. "I wouldn't have minded that."
"I have to say though, the woman I met earlier today looked very well-off though, not like an addict or a homeless person. She had a large diamond ring on her hand. Her circumstances obviously changed at some point."
"They did. Last year my mother showed up at my office one day and told me she'd changed her life. To say I was shocked to see her would be an understatement. It had been more than a decade since we'd been in the same room."
"I can't even imagine."
"My first thought was that she'd read about me and wanted money. I was going to kick her out, but she pleaded with me to listen to her. She said she'd met a man who had changed her life. She'd married him, and she'd been clean for eight years. She also had two little girls, my half-sisters, and she wanted them to meet me. She didn't want money; she wanted to reunite her family. She wanted me back in her life."
Andrea stared back at him. "What did you tell her?"
"I told her to get out. It was too late to make up for anything. When she told me she wasn't going to leave until I heard her whole story, I walked out on her."
"And you haven't seen her since then?"
"No. I haven't seen her, but she wrote to me, called my office, left dozens of messages, each one telling me more about her daughters. She'd tell me about the Halloween parade at their school or the Christmas pageant, giving me dates and times in case I wanted to come. I never thought I would go, but one day I found myself standing outside an elementary school watching a bunch of kids parade down a sidewalk. I saw two little dark-haired girls run to my mother and give her a hug. There was a lot of love between them," he said, the reminder bringing another wave of pain. "It was strange to see her being a mother to another child, to two other children. I don't think she ever came to my school."
"She obviously changed after she got clean. Did you talk to your sisters?"
"No, I got in my car and drove away. But the calls from my mother kept coming. A week ago she started texting me on my cell phone. I didn't know how she got the number. I was going to change it, but I hadn't gotten around to it yet"
"Maybe subconsciously you didn't want to cut the last tie between you," Andrea suggested.
"I don't know why I wouldn't. You heard the story. She was a horrible mother. She threw me away, Andrea. Why would I want her back in my life?"
Andrea gave him a compassionate smile. "Because she's your mother." She gave him a speculative look. "The pink bedroom is for your sisters, isn't it?"
He nodded. "It was an impulsive decision. They've never met me, never been in this house, and I doubt they ever will."
"Why can't they come over? Why can't you meet them? They're your sisters, and they're not responsible for what your mother did."
"No, they're not responsible. They're beautiful, innocent little girls who adore their mother and their father. Zoe and Claire are the reason my past can't be made public. If I tell the world what my mother did, they'll eventually hear the story. They'll have to grow up wondering if their mother might abandon them." He paused. "And even if they're too young to understand it now, they could be impacted by what happens when my mother's husband finds out what kind of woman he married."
"Are you sure he doesn't know?"
"No, but I seriously doubt she would tell him everything. At any rate, I don't want to take that risk. I don't want Zoe and Claire to grow up without a father or with a mother suddenly being sent into another downward spiral when her husband takes off. I can't destroy their childhood. I can't put them through what I lived through. Can you understand that?" he asked forcefully. "It's not my mother I want to protect. It's not my reputation—I don't give a damn about that. This is about my sisters. They're children. It's up to me to protect them. I want them to have the happy childhood I didn't have. When they're older, they can know everything, but not now. Not from me. And most importantly, not from you."
She sucked in a quick breath. "Do you know what you're asking, Alex?"
"Yes." He met her gaze head-on. "I'm asking you not to tell the world about my past, about my mother. I know it will make your story better, and you have a career to build, but I'm asking you not to go there."
"I need to think," she said slowly.
It was not the answer he wanted to hear. "Do you really need time to think about whether or not it's worth protecting two innocent children?"
"That's not fair, Alex. You've given me three seconds to digest this information."
He got to his feet. "You should go then, and think—think hard. Then do what you need to do."
She stood up and pulled an envelope out of her bag. "I really don't want to give this to you now, but your mother asked me to make sure you received it, and I promised her I would do that. So here it is."
He couldn't bring himself to take the letter.
Andrea put it on the table, then walked out of the room.
He followed her to the front door, waiting for her to stop, to tell him that she would keep his secrets, that she would protect his sisters, that she would protect him... But she left without a word.