Caitlin's Choice (12 page)

“So, naturally,
being open-minded, liberated parents, you decided to live together in the same house while each maintaining your own lives?”

“Naturally,” Caitlin agreed.

“Correct me if I’m wrong. Tyler’s father is the same man you once referred to as the stealth bomber, right?”

Caitlin felt the blood rise to her cheeks and she lowered her head. Comes in under the cover of darkness, drops its bomb and disappears, leaving a mass of destruction in its wake. Yep, she’d said that.

Marc knew her too well to be fooled by her feeble story. “What’s he got on you, Caitlin?”

She averted her gaze. Thinking about the past, remembering all she had lost, only rubbed salt into a wound that had never healed. She wanted to let go of the hurt and the anger, but she didn’t know how.

“Talk to me,” Marc said in a soft, encouraging voice. “I might be able to help you.”

“You can’t.” Her words came out in a whisper of regret.

“Let me be the judge.”

Marc had done a lot for her, more than an employee deserved from a boss. She owed him some kind of explanation. Taking a deep breath for courage, she met his questioning stare.  “Andrew was going to take me to court for custody. That was his idea of a compromise.”

Marc waved his hand in the air as if the idea were absurd. “The most risqué thing you’ve ever done was lingerie spread for Sears. What could you possibly be afraid of?”

“I guess that really depends on how far back he’s willing to dig.”

He came around to the front of the desk and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “You make it sound as if you were a teenage Ma Barker or something.”

She shrugged. “If you ask my father, he’d probably tell you I was worse.”

“What did you do?”

Caitlin blinked. “That’s the sad part. I didn’t do anything, except get mixed up with the wrong man at the wrong time. When I won that fashion contest, my father was adamantly opposed to the idea of my leaving. He had a husband all picked out for me. I figured the best way out of the situation was to make sure the guy didn’t want to marry me.”

“Hardly the crime of the century,” Marc said.

“There was a new guy in town. An investment broker who was hired by the local bank, fresh from Wall Street with marvelous plans for the town of Weldon. Quinton, my supposed fiancé, touted him all over town as the next Donald Trump. He filled the townsfolk’s heads with delusions of grandeur. With just a few thousand dollars invested, they would be millionaires overnight.”

Caitlin paused for a breath. “When he asked me on a date, I said yes. He was a conceited bore and downright crude for a supposedly educated man, but I kept seeing him because word got around fast. I figured if Quinton wasn’t interested in me any longer, my father would relent and let me study in New York.”

Marc tapped his finger against the tip of her nose.  “I still don’t see what crime you committed. Andrew Sinclair could hardly take you to court for dating a moron when you were eighteen.”

If only that man had been a moron. He was a cunning fox who had outsmarted the greedy hounds, and, like hounds, the people wanted blood.

“You have to understand the mountain mentality. To most people a couple thousand is a life’s savings. Here comes this apparently wealthy man promising the people they will be living the life they see on television if they trust him with their money, and trust him they did—all except my father. There’s a saying that you can’t cheat an honest man, and my father was honest to a fault.

“I was so caught up in my own dreams that I didn’t see what was going on around me. When I got nowhere trying to reason with my father, I just decided to pack my bag and leave. The same night, Mr. Wall Street skipped out with the life’s savings of half the town.”

A flash of understanding crossed his face. “Let me guess. They thought you were involved in the scam?”

“Involved? They figured I had planned it with the guy. They needed someone to blame, rather than admit a smooth-talking stranger had conned them out of their money without help, especially since my father was one of the few who didn’t lose money.”

“Were you ever charged with anything?”

“It doesn’t matter. My own father thought I was involved. Can you imagine what a good lawyer could do with something like that?”

“Probably nothing, Caitlin. It was ten years ago. There are mothers who commit murder and don’t lose custody of their children.”

“Not if their father is a millionaire who wants his son. When you come up against a man with money who will do anything to win, the truth never enters into it anymore. Tyler is the most important person in my life, and I would rather die than lose him. As long as I play by Andrew’s rules for a while, I don’t have to take the risk.”

Marc gazed at her sympathetically. He was as close to her as her own father had once been and had looked after her in much the same way. “How do you know he won’t try to take him later on?”

“He promised. And no matter what his other faults may be, I don’t think he’ll break his word. I only have to stay until Tyler is old enough to be on his own for a day at a time.”

“I’m not sure what kind of advice I could give you. I guess there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect one of my kids. I suppose it won’t kill you to live with him a few months.”

“No, it won’t kill me.” In fact, she was coming to enjoy his company more than she ought to. “Should we get to work? My son will want lunch soon.”

He looked as if he wanted to add something, then bowed his head in agreement. “All right. But before we do, Casey has one of her special requests. She wants you to make this.”

He handed her a picture. Marc’s 14-year-old daughter was a major clothes horse. Whenever a hot singer introduced a new look, she begged Caitlin to make her a replica. The Copycat Burglar would strike again.

EIGHT

“Andrew. Are you with me?” Erik’s voice broke the silence in the room.

Andrew glanced down at the reports on his desk and tried to concentrate. Business was the farthest thing from his mind.

“Sorry. I’m preoccupied.”

“Problems with Caitlin?”

His tone suggested where he thought the real problem lay.  Andrew knew Maggie and Erik considered him unreasonable, but he couldn’t back down. Tyler was awake for precious few hours. Commuting to Connecticut would cut into that time, and he doubted Caitlin would allow him to sleep at her apartment.

Then there was Caitlin herself. He refused to admit to jealousy, an emotion he’d always found useless, but he felt better knowing she was under his roof each night. As it was, he had no idea where she spent her days. How could he ask? He had told her she was free to come and go as she pleased.

“Yo, Drew Are you on this planet?”

He glanced at his smirking brother. “No. No problems with Caitlin. She’s adjusting better than Mother and Leslie.”

“What did you expect? You know how they treated Maggie when we were married.”

“I didn’t expect a miracle, but Mother hasn’t looked at my son once. He’s my son, for God’s sake. Why are they making me choose?”

“They’ll come around,” Erik said with little conviction.

“Leslie might, if she ever gets herself out of a bottle long enough. It’s frightening. She’s Garret all over again.”

Erik stiffened at the mention of their older brother. “That’s a bit extreme.”

Andrew sighed. No one talked about Garret. No one admitted he’d had a problem. Maybe that’s why Leslie had learned nothing from his death. He rubbed his temples and reached in his desk for his blood-pressure medication. He swallowed the tablets with a sip of water and got back to the reports on his desk. Making himself sick wouldn’t change a thing.

* * * *

As the elevator doors opened, Caitlin tried to quell the churning in her stomach. She should have let Andrew pick her up as he’d suggested. Her last visit to Sinclair Electronics was one that she—and half the office staff—remembered all too vividly.

This time, however, Andrew had clearly left very specific orders. She was greeted with a smile and an immediate call to Andrew to announce her arrival.

He met her at the front desk and lifted Tyler from her arms. “You’re early.”

“He’s adorable, sir,” the receptionist said. “A relative?”

“Yes. He’s my son.”

The woman’s jaw dropped, a response repeated by others as Andrew introduced his son to his staff. However, in his obviously proud moment, he seemed to have forgotten her name. Although unintentional on Andrew’s part, he was making Caitlin feel like a fool.

By the time they reached his office, Caitlin wanted to smack the silly grin from his face, but when she saw Erik, she suppressed the urge.

“You’re awfully quiet. What’s wrong?” Andrew asked her.

“Hello, Erik,” she said, ignoring his question.

Erik, obviously more astute than his older brother, placed a quick kiss on her cheek and headed for the door.  “I think I’d better leave before the explosion.”

“No. Finish what you were doing.” She settled in a seat in the corner of the room.

“We were finished,” Erik assured her and left.

Andrew sat in the chair across from her. “You want to tell me what I did this time?”

“All right, since you asked. It might have been nice if you had introduced me, too. My name is not Tyler’s Mother. You made it sound like I was a breeder who popped out a baby for you.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“Am I?” She lowered her head. “How would you feel if I introduced you to the people I work with as ‘Tyler’s father,’ as if you were some kind of afterthought?”

“I probably wouldn’t like it,” he conceded. “But how was I supposed to introduce you? As my former lover? You would’ve slugged me. I’m sorry,” he said, his voice growing softer, “I’m not sure what I am in your life, Caitlin, but you’re too damned frustrating to be an afterthought in mine.”

Caitlin felt a little of the anger subside. Maybe she had overreacted. What were they to one another? The question sent her stomach fluttering. She was developing strong feelings for Andrew, or rather rediscovering the feelings that had drawn her to him in the first place. Despite the threat to her emotional well-being, her heart had decided to ignore all the good advice of her logical mind.

She found a small comfort in the fact that she was frustrating him. At least it worked both ways.  “The problem is, you’re too used to getting your own way,” she said, trying to get the conversation back on her terms.

“If I always got my own way, we’d be in bed right now,” he shot back.

Her cheeks flushed hot. “I can’t believe you said that in front of your child.”

Andrew lifted Tyler above his head. “What do you think, sport? Does it shock you to know I find your mother incredibly sexy?”

“Stop it,” she muttered.

“Why? I’m having a man-to-man talk with my son. Don’t you think your mother’s beautiful?” He turned the baby toward Caitlin. Tyler gurgled happily. “See, he agrees.”

“I doubt he’s got the same thing in mind as you.”

Andrew’s gaze rested on the cleavage exposed by the deep cut of her silk blouse. “No? We both want to be in the same place right now.”

She held her head high and grinned. “Maybe. But Tyler has a better chance than you.”

“That sounds like a challenge. What would you say to an early dinner? Do you feel like oysters?”

Caitlin almost had to laugh. He was coming at her like a steamroller. When Andrew turned on the charm, he was infinitely dangerous.

“Try a little subtlety, Andrew. Like Spanish Fly.”

“Have you got any?”

“I give up.” She threw her hands in the air. In a war of words, she would not win. He flashed her a smile of triumph and she quickly amended her statement. “For the time being.”

“I never thought otherwise.”

* * * *

Rather than going to a restaurant, Caitlin suggested they pick up sandwiches and go to a park near the house. Andrew didn’t even know the place existed. In the eight years he had resided in New Jersey, the roads to and from the office were the only ones he’d traveled. How much of life had passed by him unnoticed?

Caitlin tossed her jacket in the car and pulled her blouse free from her skirt So much for the cool businesswoman. She looked more like an eccentric artist. After setting the food on a picnic table, she waded barefoot into the stream and dipped Tyler’s toes in the water. When he’d had enough, she put him in the stroller and joined Andrew at the table.

She handed Andrew a sandwich from the paper bag. He removed the wax paper and lifted the top slice of bread. “This one’s yours.”

“They’re both the same.”

“I asked for mayo and salt.”

“And I ignored you. If you want to commit suicide, be my guest, but don’t expect me to hand you the ammunition. You’re on medication for high blood pressure.”

He smiled. “Why are you so worried about my health?”