Momentary Marriage (35 page)

Kelsey just looked at him. He seemed so strong, so much in command
. So much like Jared.

The thought chilled her.

“Look,” her father said. “I don’t know what brought you here, but I’m glad you came. For a long time now, I’ve been thinking of finding you.”

“Really? Why?” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her voice, but she hoped he couldn’t see the real question.
Why did you leave us?

“I need to explain,” John said, shifting in his chair, an edge of agitation in his voice. “All these years…I’ve neglected
you and your sister. You don’t have to sit there looking so accusing. I know what I’ve done.”

Kelsey stared at him, not sure what to say.

He got up and went to the expansive glass wall behind his desk, his expression brooding. “There really isn’t any explanation. I started off paying child support for you both, but seeing you….”

John Layton stopped, wheeling around to face her. “You have to understand, your mother and I had a very bad marriage and a worse divorce. It was a long time before I could even think of the woman without wanting to break something.”

He stopped, his hands clenched at his side, his face red.

He’d paid child support for them both? Why wouldn’t he have paid for them both?

The big man standing in front of the window suddenly sighed, the anger and frustration draining out of his expression. “Your mother had the power to make me nuts. I couldn’t see her after the divorce. Some ugly things happened…worse things were said. It took me a long time to end the marriage. I couldn’t go back into it.”

“So not seeing her meant not seeing Amy and me?” Kelsey heard herself ask.

“Unfortunately, yes, it meant not seeing you.” His lips firmed into a straight line. “I didn’t start out with that intention. I had planned to fulfill my responsibilities.”

The tick of a clock filled his pause. They’d been ‘responsibilities’ to him. Kelsey sat in the chair, aware of the strangeness of the moment. How unreal it all seemed.

“Your mother,” he said with obvious difficulty, “was very angry with me toward the end. I’d…disappointed her, I suppose.”

Not hard to do, Kelsey acknowledged to herself. Chloe tended to be easily disappointed.

“At the end,” John Layton said, “she…wanted to hurt me and she…said some things I later came to doubt.”

“What things?” Kelsey asked, frowning at him.

He looked down at the drink in his hand. “Your sister.”

“Yes.” The breathless tightness in her chest made the word difficult.

“In the middle of one of our fights, your mother told me Amy wasn’t my child.” He said it baldly, as if the words had festered inside him too long.

“She told you that?” Kelsey gasped. “It isn’t true! I don’t believe it. She’s my sister! Amy is your child.”

John Layton was silent for a long moment. “Probably.”

“You’re not sure,” Kelsey concluded, looking at him as shock reverberated through her.

“Almost completely sure now,” he said finally. “Twenty years is a long time to think over an argument. I’ve pretty much concluded that Chloe wanted to hurt me. That’s why she said Amy was another man’s child.”

“So all these years,” Kelsey paused, “you weren’t sure…?”

“No,” John Layton confirmed. “When she filed for divorce, your mother tried to claim that both you girls were fathered by different men, but I knew you were mine. There’s a strong family resemblance and, when you were conceived, things were still good between your mother and I.”

Kelsey sat in the chair, not knowing what to say.

“In the face of any proof otherwise,” John Layton said, “the judge ordered me to pay child support for you both, as well as spousal support for your mother. So that’s how it ended. We were divorced and I was supposed to send the money. Your mother and I never talked after that.”

Swallowing hard, Kelsey said, “It may not matter to you, but Amy and I are very similar now. Her hair is lighter and she has different color eyes, but….”

“I’m sure she’s mine,” John Layton said with an understanding smile. “It’s just a shock for a man to hear that sort of thing.”

“Yes,” Kelsey agreed slowly. “I guess men are at a disadvantage in the parenting situation. In some ways.”

Jared had been furious when he’d thought she planned to keep her possible pregnancy a secret. A man deposited his seed with a woman and the same situation that made it possible for him to abandon his child, also left verification of the child’s paternity to the woman. At least, until DNA testing had become an option.

Still, John Layton’s side of the story altered her own perspective some.

Here was this man, her father, not the devil she’d thought him, certainly not the god she’d hoped for as a teenager, but a man caught in a bad relationship with a fearful, distraught woman. Chloe had probably struck back at him in the most hurtful way she knew because she’d been hurting herself.

In addition, both Amy and she had been very young when their parents split. How many men got involved with their infant children thirty years ago? Not many, she was sure. The conclusion didn’t exonerate him, but it did add to her understanding of the situation. John Layton didn’t appear to be a cuddly man, certainly not the type to know what to do with young children.

She felt the tightness in her chest loosen some. She’d only come here to
see
him, to confront the elephant in the closet. She didn’t have to do anything to him, didn’t have to get anything from him.

In a way, his attempt at an explanation was a bonus. His evident distress and regret was surprisingly sweet revenge, but that didn’t mean she could restore him to a place in her heart. Not so quickly, anyway.

Over the years, she’d seen the reunion of long-lost parents and children on talk shows, the tears, the protestations of enduring love. It all seemed false. She didn’t know this man and he didn’t know her.

It had never occurred to her that they would magically unite and pick up where they should have started from. No matter what he may have thought about Amy’s paternity, he admitted he’d known she was his child and he’d still made no effort to be a part of her life.

Hearing his side of the battle didn’t exonerate him, but she found herself feeling depressed rather than angry. He’d been trapped in a bad relationship, making bad choices. She’d seen it so many times. In some ways, coming here only confirmed what she’d already known. People loved, love dissipated and then they moved on.

“After a while,” John Layton went on, “I lost track of you all. Your mother remarried and moved.”

He shrugged, acknowledgment on his face. “I didn’t try to find you.”

“So we’ve been on your conscience all these years,” Kelsey concluded, her words cool. Guilt and love weren’t the same thing.

“Yes,” he said, coming to sit across from her. “I’ve felt bad about not seeing you both. Curious about how you turned out.”

Kelsey met his gaze.

“I’ve often wondered about you. You look like my mother,” he said at last. “She passed away fifteen years ago.”

Kelsey suddenly felt like crying. Her mother’s parents were long dead. What would it have been like to have known a grandmother whom she looked like?

“You’re married,” John Layton said after a long moment. “I’ve met your husband. He’s very shrewd.”

“Yes.” For the life of her, Kelsey couldn’t think of anything else to say
. I love my husband and he thinks I’m as much trouble as you thought Chloe was. I love him and he’s no different than you.

“Do I have any grandchildren?” her father asked, his voice rough again.

“No,” she said, swallowing the lump in her throat.

“What do you do for work?” he asked, studying her.

She found herself absurdly pleased that he assumed she worked. After all, he didn’t know her marriage was a shell. She might well have been supported by her husband.

“I’m an art director at Peckham and Morrow. It’s an ad agency. Amy works there, too.”

“Ah,” he nodded and smiled. “Creative as well as beautiful. You remind me of Sarah.”

“Sarah?”

He gestured toward his desk, a cluster of photos arranged at the corner. “Your half-sister. She finished college last year, got a degree in architecture.”

Kelsey stared at the pictures on his desk, a sudden surge of rage making it difficult to speak. They were the photos of a family, two boys and a sister. An attractive older woman wearing a classic strand of pearls.

He’d left her, Amy and her mother and went to live with Donna Reed. Her sudden anger was followed by a wave of sadness. How often had she wanted just such a family?

“Do they know about us?” she asked, trying to keep the hollow note out of her voice.

John hesitated. “My wife does. I haven’t told the kids.”

Kelsey looked at the photos, wondering what these happy young people would say if they learned of their father’s secret past.

“Sarah will be very angry that I’ve never talked about you, never brought you over,” her father said musingly, as if he’d heard her thought. “She’ll probably give me hell for months.”

“You’re going to tell them?” Kelsey asked, frowning.

“Yes,” her father answered. “I think it’s overdue, don’t you?”

She met his gaze, unable to stop the little flutter in her heart.

“I can’t make up for the past,” John Layton said, his expression serious. “I can’t go back and be there for you when you were younger. But I’d like to…have a part in your life now. If you’ll let me.”

“I’ll think about it,” she heard herself say, getting up out of her chair. “Let me think about it.”

He walked her to the elevator and stood there while she waited for the car, his gaze searching her face. “Perhaps we could have dinner next week. Maybe Amy, too. Just us for now?”

“I’ll ask Amy. I’ll call you,” Kelsey said, as the elevator door opened.

“I’m glad you came,” her father said, offering her his hand. “Very glad. You had the courage to do what I should have done years ago.”

“Goodbye,” she said, a rush of tears prickling the back of her eyes as she took his hand. “I’ll think about…calling.”

“I’ll be waiting,” he said, stepping back as she got into the elevator.

The doors closed and she pushed the button for the lobby, her eyes glazing with tears. Giving into the urge to cry, she could only be grateful the car didn’t stop on any other floors.

She’d gone to see her father and he hadn’t rejected her. He even seemed inclined to make amends.

The past half hour didn’t wipe out twenty-plus years of neglect, but it still affected her profoundly. Maybe meeting him would make a difference in her, help her feel less discarded. Maybe she could close the door on all the hurts from the past.

Walking down the street minutes later, she thought about Jared and his saying that every man wasn’t like her father. Not every man walked away. Some men could be trusted to love a woman forever.

Even if that were true, she brooded, it didn’t mean she could trust him to be one of those rare exceptions.

*
**

Jared sat on the terrace over-looking Manhattan at twilight. No light shone from the apartment behind him. He’d simply walked in and dumped his briefcase before stepping outside.

It had been two weeks since he’d last seen Kelsey. Fourteen days since their heated exchange of words had ended with his walking away from her in the lobby, leaving her with a high-minded recommendation to straighten out her life.

He felt like he was losing his mind without her.

This was the first evening he’d made it home before midnight, burying himself in business so he didn’t have to face the emptiness. He couldn’t accept that it was over. Nothing was right.

Resisting the reality of their separation, he hadn’t been able to tell his parents about it.

An early-autumn breeze played chase around him, brushing his tousled hair, insinuating itself around his open shirt collar. The tie he’d ripped off lay on the chair next to him.

It didn’t matter how late he came in or how hard he worked himself, he couldn’t sleep.

He’d picked up the phone a hundred times, thought up a thousand ways to maneuver himself into her arms again. Sending her the roses hadn’t softened her the way he’d hoped, but at least five of his ideas would have worked. Still, he’d stopped himself.

The manila envelope in his hands felt heavy. It was all there. All the information he needed to put into action the best of his schemes. Names, dates, photos.

Everything on John Layton, Kelsey’s father. The private

investigator had out done himself, gathering all this information so quickly.

The plan had seemed simple. Find out about
Layton
and contact him. Make it plain that he’d been a world-class jerk and that he had to initiate a big-time reconciliation with his daughter. If he convinced her he was deeply sorry for avoiding her and her sister, maybe she’d rethink her view of things. If need be, Jared had been prepared to use his not-inconsiderable fortune to swing
Layton
around to his way of seeing things.