Escalation Clause (25 page)

“My love,” he whispered, pulling her close. “I have only begun to show you what you have been missing.”

As he opened the door to the waiting throngs of parents, she grabbed her phone to distract herself from his sexy proximity. The day, better yet the entire world, had opened to her, in a thoroughly amazing way. She frowned at the sight of three missed calls from Sara and two from Jack. As he guided her out, his hand planted firmly and unmistakably on her hip Rafe whispered in her ear. “I will pick you up in two hours. Be ready for me.” She nodded, and let the eyeballs of the gathered throngs bore into her, no longer caring.

“What is it?” she said when Sara finally answered, climbing into her car, her thighs still wobbly from the encounter in the conference room.

 “You can tell Jack for me I’m headed to Georgia to the resort but he…he…well, he can do whatever he wants I guess, if he can tear himself away from Shannon long enough.”

Mo stared at the phone gone dead in her hand. She immediately called Jack but it went to voice mail. “Christ,” she tried Lila before starting her car. “What the fuck happened?” she asked when the woman answered. She put a hand over her eyes as Sara’s friend filled her in, cursing her brother for his idiocy.

Chapter Seventeen

Sara grabbed coffees, and the printed itinerary. She ended the call with Allen, shoving aside the worry in her top-selling agent’s voice over the buyer they had dumped. She had no time for that drama, not today. There was a mission at hand. Shutting her car door with her hip, she tucked her phone into her jacket pocket and opened the Stewart Realty administration office door. Calling out a greeting to the staff gathered around the front desk she wandered back to Jack’s corner, recalling with a shiver all the naughty moments they’d shared around the place. His door was shut, so she leaned on Jason’s desk, which stood empty. Glancing at her watch, she noted it was well past six. She sipped coffee, fidgeted, worried about what she was planning in a near desperate attempt to salvage her marriage.

Since their hot hookup in the spec house, Jack had been gone for weeks at a time, and when he was home, he slept, played with the kids and had a bit of perfunctory sex with her, falling asleep muttering about how much he loved her. But she needed more, and was prepared to push him, hard, to force him into a situation where he had to confront where he was in regard to their relationship. She bit her lip, mentally reviewing the plan she’d made with Julie’s help, both of them nervous and hopeful that he wouldn’t completely freak and reject what she offered.

Jason rounded the corner, talking into his Bluetooth earpiece. He frowned at his boss’ still closed door when he saw her, then sat, rolled his eyes and spoke platitudes to some client or another. Sara grinned at him, but froze when she heard it. The distinct and unmistakable sound of female laughter coming from her husband’s office. She shook her head.
Don’t go there, Sara. Do not. You trust him. You have to. He said you could and you do.
She clenched her fists and took the three steps to the heavy wood door. Jason jumped up to stand between her and the object of her focus. She shoved him aside at Jack’s low chuckle and the accompanying feminine response.
Mother. Fucker.

Blind with fury she touched the door knob, let its cool metal calm her for a half second before she turned it and threw the door open to find her husband, the tall, suave, distinguished handsome general manager of Stewart Realty, multi-millionaire owner of Keystone Construction, and founder of the new “Black Jack” expansion national soccer league team. He stood with his suit-clad arms around one Shannon Anderson, the woman Jack had “found” at a BDSM club and had been with during the months just before Katie’s medical emergency that had finally forced Sara to admit she wanted him in her life. The woman had her curly brown head on his shoulder, and he was making soothing noises. But at the sound of the office door hitting the interior wall of the office, Shannon jumped back, staring at Sara with wide blue eyes. Jack turned slowly, his arms at his sides and looked at her.

“Asshole,” Sara said, clearly. She slammed the itinerary down on the desk. Never in her entire life had she felt more humiliated. Not after all the bullshit they’d been through, the crap they had thrown at each other over the years, not once did she feel this stupid, played, and used. “I’ll be here,” she claimed, touching the picture of the resort. She whirled on the sniveling slut still standing there, staring. But words escaped her.

“Sara,” Jack said. But she held up a hand.

“Goodbye,” and she walked out with a word to no one, straight to her car, and drove to the airport for her redemptive vacation. Alone.

The wind whipped her hair, the radio blared, and Sara’s eyes were dry as she blasted her way to Detroit Metro Airport. The phone jangled through the expensive sound system, startling her out of her driving trance. The image of her husband, the man she loved beyond life itself, whom she had resisted for years, risking her own happiness in order to protect herself and her daughter—holding that woman in his arms was seared into her psyche.
Why
? She pounded the steering wheel.
Why did she doubt him
?

They’d been here before. And had had many discussions about that Vegas-condoms-in-the-suitcase moment, agreeing that they both used it as an excuse to break from the too-soon engagement. Now, in the deepest part of her soul where she buried all the mistrust and anger over her father’s serial cheating, she found it. The nugget of trust she needed, that he had earned. She’d probably interrupted some kind of innocent moment. Shannon had a problem, went to him and he comforted her. Jack brought that out in people, women especially.

“God damn it!” she yelled into the empty car as she passed a semi on interstate ninety-four. She was such a knee-jerk reactionary. She clenched her jaw, satisfied with the events she had put in motion by calling Rob first, then Maureen. Jack needed a kick in his ass. Rob would start it, and she would finish it. If he decided to join her of course. There was always that chance—that he would not.

“Hi, Mom,” she said, her voice surprisingly calm even to her own ears.

“Hi honey, what are you doing?”

“I’m driving to the airport.” Sara looked over her shoulder and merged into the exit lane, keeping her tone neutral.

“Oh,” her mother said, letting the unspoken “why?” hover on the airwaves.

“I’m, um, taking some steps, you know, to salvage my marriage. What are you doing?”

“Good for you,” her mother said. “We’re moving back to Ann Arbor.”

Sara nearly swerved into the oncoming traffic. “What?” She said, righting herself and trying to process the bombshell.

“I can’t take it down here anymore. I need to be near my family…what’s left of it.”

“Mom,” Sara turned into the long term parking structure. “I don’t know if, oh, never mind.” She held back arguments as she drove around looking for an empty parking spot. What did it matter anyway? And having her around for the kids wouldn’t hurt. “But, Dad can’t be up in Jack’s face all the time.” She slid the car into a spot, closed her eyes and gripped the steering wheel hoping that Jack would even be around for her father to bother, because there was no doubt that about that second part. The next voice she heard was Matthew Thornton’s—the man who, in her opinion, was a pompous, cheating, asshole.

“Sara,” his tone was low. “I know this isn’t exactly good news to you, but I’m really worried about your mom. I suggested it out of desperation, and she jumped at it. I love her, I love you, and I loved Blake. I only want all of you to be happy. So….”

Sara stayed silent but a tear slipped down her cheek at his words. “Dad,” she whispered.

“No, hear me out. I fully realize what a shit I was for the majority of your growing up years. I didn’t earn your love. If anything I dishonored it until you were sixteen, when I got my act together. I’m lucky,” his voice faded and Sara sucked in a breath. A glaring, ugly memory speared her brain—from Blake’s memorial at her house. They’d forgone a formal funeral at Sara’s insistence. He would have hated that shit. Blake had not only saved Rob’s life with his organ donation, his corneas had given sight to a man with a young family. They’d had him cremated after that but no one had the emotional energy to do anything with the remains, to do what Rob wanted and take them to the lake house, so at the moment her parents had them down in Florida.

But the visual memory that smacked her between the eyes was of her parents. Dr. Beth Thornton, stoic, strong, beautiful almost always with a wry, knowing smile playing at her lips had stood at a table covered with photos and memorabilia from Blake’s life. She’d spoken of her son, or tried to. Dr. Matthew Thornton, never without some smart ass, deprecating comment about what everyone around him was doing wrong, and nearly intolerant of public displays of emotion had caught his wife before she hit the ground. Rob had gotten out of his wheelchair at the sight of them, huddled together and distraught. He’d put his arms around them both and they all stayed there a good long while. Sara had had to escape inside just to get away from the sight.

She sat in the car and caught her breath. She would not, could not, allow her father to be anything but her own memory of him. She’d dehumanized the man for years, been amused by his recent foray into pro-bono work at a women’s clinic with her mother down in Florida, but refused to see him other than “that asshole.”

“I’m lucky,” he continued, his voice strong again. “Your mother never gave up on me, and I won’t give up on her now. If being back home, near you and your kids and Gabe is what she wants, then, by God, that is what we are going to do.”

“Good,” she whispered. “I’m glad. I love you dad.” She hung up before it got any weirder. She clutched her hands in her lap, bit her lip. This was right. She was going to save her marriage because she trusted her husband and loved him enough to finally admit it. But he was in for a surprise first. He needed to understand that she was willing to work for it, after he opened up to her, under duress.

Chapter Eighteen

The sun was setting by the time Rob drove across town to his old friend’s sprawling retro ranch house in Ann Arbor Hills. The clouds made it picture perfect, mocking him in the way only beautiful things did. He didn’t know why but since Blake’s death he despised good weather. It pissed him the fuck off. He wanted it crappy, cloudy, windy, rainy, thundering if possible, all the time. It matched his near constant mood. He could practically hear Blake’s voice berating him, could see his snapping green eyes and feel his anger. His lover’s fury had had a visceral nature to it and he would meet you halfway on any fight.

But tonight, the sight of the movie-like sunset did something else for him—it made him smile. Maybe he would survive. It would be what Blake wanted, for certain, and he’d been mourning the man in a shit head way—ignoring Lila, pretending he didn’t care about her anymore. As if her beauty, her love brought out his contrarian, made him resist her. But today, he’d ended all that crap and would be working to make it up to her.