Fearless (29 page)

“Today, reliable sources indicate that a new, ground-breaking cure for cancer may be just around the corner.”

Intrigued, I turn toward the TV.

The newscaster, looking immensely professional and appropriately thoughtful, continues. “Yesterday, it was leaked to the press by a reliable source that Dr. Patrick Black, a renowned cancer researcher who retired several years ago, has discovered new evidence that indicates the seeds from the fruit of the South American Paw Paw tree may hold the key to curing many types of cancer without the harmful side effects of current chemotherapy drugs. Stay tuned for the news at five for more on this fascinating story.”

What? No one knows about this except me, Dr. Black, and Lainey, and I can't imagine either of them telling anyone this. Unless Lainey accidentally said something to someone….

I call her, silently begging her to pick up as her cell phone rings and rings. Finally, she answers.

“Lainey,” I say urgently. “Did you tell anyone what I told you the other night about Beckett giving his brother the seeds from the fruit?”

“Em, you are obsessed with these seeds! Why would I tell anyone? To be honest, I had no idea what you were talking about. I was just nodding because that's what friends do.”

“Are you absolutely sure? This is really important.”

“I'm positive.” Lainey's voice is tinged with concern. “Are you okay? What's going on?”

“I don't know, but I'm going to find out,” I say. “I'll fill you in later. I've got to go.”

I make up some lame excuse for why I can't stay and leave the salon, paying for a pedicure I didn't get in my haste to figure out what has happened. Once I'm in my car, I call Dr. Black. The phone goes straight to his voicemail. Of course. He probably has reporters hounding him already. I leave a message for him to call me back and hang up.

I make it home in time to watch the full story on the news. I watch, my heart sinking, as the story unfolds.

“According to Emmaline Hart, a writer who has been dating the younger Dr. Black and was hired to write Dr. Black's memoir, two of Dr. Black's sons, including local urologist Dr. Beckett Black, were actually adopted from the Amazon rainforest. Sources say that one of the brothers had cancer as a child and experienced the cure firsthand, although it is not clear at this point which brother.”

Oh my gosh. This isn't happening! It's bad enough that they know about the guanabana seeds and have released that news to the public, possibly screwing up Dr. Black's chance at getting his clinical trials. But the information Dr. Black had told me about Beckett and Griffin being adopted was completely off the record. It was certainly never in the book proposal. It was a secret that both Dr. Black and Beckett wanted kept.

Slowly, I realize how this is all going to look to Beckett. I begged him to tell me about his childhood and adoption, telling him how important it was to me, and then five days later I'm quoted as leaking it to the news. It looks like I completely used him. I've got to talk to Beckett and convince him that I had nothing to do with this. With a sinking heart, I realize how damning the evidence is. I probably wouldn't believe me. But he knows me. Surely he will know I wouldn't do this.

My phone rings and I jump to answer it, hoping it's Beckett. But of course it's not. His plane doesn't land for another two hours. It's Lainey.

“What the fuck?” she says as I answer the phone. “Are you watching the news?”

“I know,” I say, the desperation creeping into my voice. “I didn't give them any of that information. I have no idea how they got it. Beckett's going to hate me! It looks like I totally betrayed both him and his dad.”

“Beckett's not going to hate you,” she says, but I can hear the doubt in her voice.

“Crap,” I say, trying to fight off the hysteria that is tapping on my shoulder. “What am I going to do?”

“You're going to come over here and we'll figure it out together,” she says firmly. “But you have to get out of your house. If the reporters aren't outside your door trying to get a statement, they're going to be soon.”

“You're right,” I say. I hadn't thought of that. “I'll be there as soon as I can.”

I quickly throw a change of clothes, my makeup, and all of the notes and tapes from my interviews with Dr. Black into an overnight bag. I don't open my garage door until I'm inside the car, just in case Lainey's right. Luckily, no one seems to have found me yet, and I drive out of my neighborhood undetected. Since I'm renting my house and have only lived here a short time, it's possible they won't even be able to find me. Then I remember Nikki! I need to talk to her. I'm so glad that Tim took her to the airport earlier today. I want her as far away from the insanity that's about to unfold as possible.

As I pull onto the highway, it hits me. Nikki was with Tim when she came over to pick up her swimsuit. Could he have wandered into my bathroom and seen the post-it notes on my mirror? If he had, would he have maliciously done this? I remember the look of pure hatred on his face when he walked in on Beckett and me at the hospital and realize he absolutely would have. In his self-absorbed world, he's always thought that our marriage ended because of me, because I couldn't give him what he needed. He is probably incensed to think I am giving someone else what he thinks he deserved. He once got a salesman fired for not treating him respectfully enough. He would definitely be vindictive enough to do this to me and Beckett. But how? He doesn't have any connections with the press. Impulsively, I take the exit for his neighborhood. I want some answers and dammit, I'm going to get them.

Ten minutes later, I pull up in front of the house he shares with his new wife Rebecca. He answers the door, and I see the guilt flash across his face before he carefully transforms his expression into one of annoyance.

“What are you doing here?” he demands. “Nikki's in Colorado.”

“Good,” I snap. “You're the one I wanted to talk to anyway. Can I come in or do you want to do this in front of your neighbors?”

Not even trying to conceal his animosity, he steps aside and lets me in. As I walk into his house, I realize that nothing about his house looks familiar—not a sofa, or a lamp, or special coffee cup on the counter. You'd think after spending a decade with a person you'd at least recognize their living space, but there is nothing familiar or comfortable about his home. It's like walking into a stranger's house. I realize that's what he is now, a stranger. In some ways, it's what he's always been.

“What did you do?” I demand.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he says contemptuously.

“I think you do. It's all over the news that I disclosed confidential information about the memoir I'm writing about Dr. Black. But I haven't told the press anything, and nobody else but me and Dr. Black knew about the guanabana seeds or about Beckett's adoption. But you did, didn't you? When you brought Nikki over to get her stuff, you read my notes didn't you?”

“So what if I did,” he snarls. “It serves you right. You spend ten years married to me acting like some prude saint who's better than me, cuckolding me and depriving me of my rightful place as the head of our house. Then you hook up with some doctor and in less than a month you're playing kinky games with him and worshiping the ground he walks on. I'm surprised I never saw you for the slut you are.”

The force of his hatred is almost palpable and it takes all my willpower not to slap him across the face. I take a deep breath, strangely calmed by the sudden realization that he no longer has the power to hurt me. I feel absolutely nothing for him except pity. Well, pity and the extreme urge to punch him in the throat.

Instead I say evenly, “I never deprived you of anything. Whatever you failed to be in our marriage was because of your weakness, not because of my strength. A real man can take a woman's strength and let it set her free, not hold him down. I don't know what you think you know about my relationship with Beckett, but since you and I are divorced, it's really none of your business.”

“Oh, I think it is my business,” he says. “You are the mother of my daughter, after all.” The threat hangs there between us.

My heart stops and my blood thunders in my ears, even though I know he's bluffing. Rebecca has no desire to be a full time mother to Nikki, and Tim only manages to show up for the highlight reel of Nikki's life. He couldn't even handle being a full time parent before our divorce.

“I have nothing to hide, Tim,” I spit out. “All you have are empty threats.”

“Oh, they're not empty,” he says with a sneer. “Camille Penworth told me what your new boyfriend likes.”

“Camille Penworth!” I say, shocked. “How do you know Camille?”

“She paid me a little visit. Told me all about that boyfriend of yours and how he had ruined her life. Let's just say she made it worth my while to find some information that would hurt him the way he hurt her, and in the process I got a little justice for myself. Although I'm probably doing you a favor, saving you from that scum bag.”

My mind is working furiously as the pieces start falling into place. I knew Tim wouldn't have been able to pull this off on his own.

“Beckett Black is ten times the man that you could ever dream of being,” I say, my voice cold with fury. “And you should have asked Camille how things worked out for her the last time she tried to blackmail Beckett. You're pathetic. You will never stop needing a woman to fix things for you.”

I make it to my car before the tears start flowing. I cry all the way to Lainey's, where she answers the door and immediately wraps me in her arms, pulling me into Cam's study. Cam and the kids disappear and it's just Lainey and me and my tears. I sob out the whole story as Lainey listens sympathetically, her arms still wrapped around me protectively. When I'm finished, she sits back and rubs her thumb and forefinger over the bridge of her nose like she does when she can't make sense of something. It's not a good sign.

“You haven't talked to Beckett at all since the news broke?” she asks.

I shake my head. “He's been on a plane since four o'clock. He might be home now.”

“Try him again,” she urges.

She steps out of the room and I punch in the number I now know by heart. He answers on the second ring and the sound of his voice, so familiar with that edge of raspiness that I can only hear on the phone or when we're making love starts my tears flowing again. He's here. We're going to be okay.

“Beckett! The news,” I manage to get out.

“I've seen the news.” His tone is cold and clipped.

“I can explain,” I begin, but he cuts me off.

“Do you understand that the confidentiality agreement you signed states that you would protect and hold confidential any information pertaining to me or my father that we did not expressly give you permission to make public?”

“Yes, of course,” I say. “But…”

“Do you know that you were the only person whom my father or I told about the guanabana seeds and my brother's and my adoptions?”

He's clearly already talked to his dad. My stomach twists a little at the thought that they have already discussed this and my involvement in it, and yet neither one of them called me.

“Yes,” I say miserably.

“Clearly then, that confidential information, which is now being reported in the news, had to have come from you.”

“I….”

“Yes or no, Emma. Either the information came from you or it didn't.”

I realize that for a man with Beckett's exacting standards, the issue really is that black and white. He and his father entrusted me with confidential information, and I betrayed that confidence and let that information become public knowledge, even if it wasn't on purpose. I gave Tim permission to go into my house, knowing that information was plastered across my bathroom mirror. Whether it was intentional or not, this was my fault.

“Yes, it did,” I whisper.

“Then we have nothing more to say to each other,” he says with finality. “Christ Emma, when I think about you in my arms, asking about my childhood because you said it was important to you, I was foolish enough to actually think it was me that was important, not the information.” His voice turns harsh. “You're no different than Camille. I won't make that mistake again.”

“Beckett!” I plead. “Please. Don't do this.”

“Goodbye, Emma,” he says, his voice already distant, and the line goes dead.

I stare at my phone for several long minutes before the tears come again, bursting from a well deep within me that has no bottom. I am broken.

After a while there are no more tears, only a huge gaping hole in my soul, a hole that I feel certain will never close. I have lost the one man who could love me the way I need to be loved, who could set me free. The only man I have ever truly loved. Lainey holds space with me in my grief, sitting with me silently while I cry, and the strength of her love is the thin thread that I hold onto throughout the long, dark night.

At some point I must have fallen asleep, because I wake up to the light coming in through the slit of the blinds. I'm curled in a fetal position on the cream-colored chaise, a soft white blanket tucked around me. At first I don't remember where I am, and then the reality of it all comes rushing back over me, threatening to drown me again.

After several gulping breaths as I fight back the panic, I force myself to take a deep breath. It's time to figure out how to swim. I have flailed in the current of grief and loss all night long, and now it's time to either swim for shore or drown trying. I am not going to let Camille take Beckett from me without a fight.

Of course, that's easier said than done. I'm still hibernating in Cam's office, trying to figure out what I'm going to do next, when Lainey walks in and hands me a cup of steaming coffee.