RequiredSurrender (13 page)

“I never turned on you.”

“To my way of thinking it didn’t matter whether your dad
lived or died. Eventually I’d be forced out of your lives, it was only a matter
of time. And since you’d been kind enough to confide the dirty little secret
you discovered about your mother to me, I had the means to keep you quiet about
how I’d planned to make you pay. Only you opened your mouth about it too soon,
before I had a chance to keep you silent.”

The accusation in his tone was ludicrous. He was acting as
if he was the victim and not the other way around. “What did you think I would
do after what was done to me?”

“I didn’t expect you to run and lock yourself in the
bathroom so you could call your mother in hysterics before I explained things.
I expected more from you.”

“More? What did you want? For me to thank you?”

“Always the thorn, eh, Boo Boo?”

“Don’t call me that.”

“I’ve missed you.”

He stepped closer and Jo stiffened. “That makes one of us.
Back off. And are you sure it’s me you missed? All you ever cared about was my
family’s money.”

“True and to think I could have had it if I’d only been
patient. Talk about fucking irony. Imagine my surprise when your dad recovers
and his last memory he has of me is his most loving. I got a thrill every time
I received one of his letters telling me how much he wanted you and me to get
married. I think somewhere during that pile-up his brains got scrambled around.
Instead of keeping me away from you he started pushing me into you.”

“Not anymore. It’s time for the truth.”

He smiled and Jo didn’t like it. “So you’re finally ready to
tell your poor dad that his wife was having an affair while he was drooling
through his dinner learning to function again?”

“Yes. Yes I am.” It felt great to say it. The words were
empowering and cleansing somehow. She went to step around him and leave, but he
grabbed her arm.

“Not so fast. I think you may want to stay for a minute and
hear some real truth.”

Jo tried her best not to swear, but her best wasn’t good
enough. “Fuck you! Let me go, asshole.”

He didn’t. His grip only tightened. “This is about your
mother.” She went completely still. “I think there’s something else you should
know about her. And when I tell you I think there’s a deal you’ll want to make
with me, in fact, I’m sure of it.”

“Deal? Don’t you mean blackmail? You’re awfully good at
that, but I think it’s time my mother faced her truth. A truth my dad will have
to live with because I’m tired of living with it. And you know?” She jerked her
arm out of his grasp and readjusted her her purse. “It did occur to me that the
only person I was truly protecting by keeping her secret was you. Once I tell
my dad about her affair there’s nothing stopping me from telling the world
about what you did to me, is there?”

“Wait,” he blocked the door, “I agree with you. It’s time
for the full truth to come out. At least the one I’m going to tell you.”

She recognized that look. It was triumph. “What do you
mean?”

“After you told me about the moans in the bedroom that day
when you got home early from school, I did a little spying. I know who your
mother had an affair with.”

Jo suspected she knew as well. She’d concluded it had been
one of their old neighbors. In her mind this explained why they’d moved right
after her dad had come home from the hospital. Her mother had probably been
riddled with guilt and wanted to put as much distance between her and her crime
as she could. “So what? Do you think knowing will matter? You’re grasping at
straws here. Move.” She went to push past him, but he wouldn’t budge.

“Who does your father respond to? Who is the doctor who’s
worked miracles with him?”

“Uncle Vic?” At his leer she swayed and stepped back. “No.”
She didn’t want to believe it, but even as she denied it she recalled a few
instances that her red flag had been waving when she’d been around them all
those years ago.
Please God, not Uncle Vic.

“It’s true. Your mother had an affair with your father’s
beloved brother and his biggest healthcare advocate. You go to your dad with
this news and you may as well sign his death warrant.”

She didn’t care. This was ending now. “Fuck you and fuck
this. I’m not going to live with it anymore. They’ll have to find some way to
deal with it.” Finally she moved past him. Her hand was on the door handle
ready to pull when he spoke.

“If you tell, your mother will hate you. Possibly your
father and Vic will too. Who can say in these things? If you want to risk it,
go ahead.”

She hated to take the bait, but she couldn’t help it. She
couldn’t. “Don’t be ridiculous. The truth may be hard to face, but I can’t help
that.”

“Haven’t you ever wondered why she stopped questioning you
about what we did that—”

“What you did that night,” she corrected. “I had no choice
in the matter.”

“Haven’t you wondered though?”

She wanted to scream yes. Yes! This desertion was almost as
bad as the rape, but she’d never let him know it. “What do you mean? After I
told her what you did she continued to believe it even after you made me lie to
her about it. She did believe it…at first until my dad’s recovery became her
focus. My dad needed all her attention. She let a lot of things slide back
then.”

Even as she said the words she didn’t know why she was
trying to defend the woman. Her mother should have continued to dig, fight and
attempt to get to the bottom of the situation she had doubts about. That was
her job as a parent. A parent doesn’t have the right to quit. Ever.

“Good, so you have wondered why, after two weeks of her
vehemently questioning your phone call to her that night and trying to figure
out what happened, she all of a sudden accepted it?”

She hated that he knew this. Taking a deep breath, she let
it out slowly, despising herself for her answer, “Yes.”

“I told her the same thing I just told you. With your dad
holding his own and on the road to recovery it would have been a shame for me
to tell him that the man responsible for saving his life, his own brother, was
fucking his wife.”

His words were so calm. So matter-of-factly delivered she
had to take a moment and let them penetrate. When they did, her ears started to
ring and she felt lightheaded. No way. She wasn’t going to faint. She wasn’t going
to let him pull the rug out from underneath her again without a fight. “I don’t
believe you.”

“It’s true. Oh I did continue to assure her that what
happened between us that night was consensual and the only reason you called
her was because we got into a fight, but I told her if she didn’t back off with
prodding you over it, I’d go to your dad about her and Vic. Funny that your
mother didn’t care then what happened to your ass. She was too busy covering
her own. So as to her hating you if you tell him now? I can see that happening.
After all, she’s spent years screwing you over to keep her secret safe.”

Don’t let him get in your head. He’s an abuser. He knows
how to manipulate emotions. Put those aside and concentrate.

“What do you want, Anjay? Haven’t you taken enough from me?”

“No.”

The hate that poured off him gave her the chills. When he
continued to stare at her without speaking she said, “What? What do you want?”

“I need money and you’re going to give it to me for my
continued silence.”

Money?
Relief flooded her. For a moment she been
scared he’d demand that they go through with her father’s dream of a marriage
between them. Not that she’d ever agree to it, but—

“You know how much your father loves me. If you can’t see
your way of giving me what I want I’ll have to start agreeing with him on his
marriage idea for us.”

“You’re a bastard.”

“Yes,” he sighed, “and apparently you surround yourself with
them.”

Before she could ask what he was talking about, he tugged at
his surgeon’s cap. “Compliments of Ted Basel.”

Jo frowned. “What about him?”

“He paid me a visit this week and ever since I’ve had to
volunteer for every emergency that comes through the ER doors.”

She shook her head. What one thing had to do with another
was beyond her.

“Somehow that bastard got hold of two of my more sizable
loans. The ones I had subsidized through the alumni program at Duke. He bought
them and he’s called them in. Now I’m being hounded by two of the most
aggressive collections agencies around. The only time they can’t bother me is
when I’m at the hospital.”

Despite the knot in her stomach, Jo squelched the urge to
smile. He so deserved this. “Gee, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“No you’re not. Did you know he was going to do this to me?”

She shook her head.

“He didn’t tell you? He didn’t gloat over it?”

“No.” She almost wished he had. She would have had more time
to enjoy Anjay’s squirming.

“He wants me to leave you alone. In fact, he warned me to
stay away from you.”

“And yet here you are.”

His eyes narrowed, but his voice was calm. Soft almost. “I
wouldn’t be too happy about him interfering if I were you. You see, now that he
has, I need capital to make my next escrow deposit for the medical practice I’m
buying into. If I default I lose what I’ve already put into it. Basel has tapped
me out and tied my hands. So you’re going to give me the money I need.”

“Like hell.” Even as she made the denial she knew she had no
choice. If she didn’t give him what he wanted he’d go to her father either to
prey on his dreams of a union between them or to dredge up the past. She
couldn’t let either of those things happen, but she also couldn’t let him know
he had her backed into the corner. She had to make him believe she had options.
“I wouldn’t give you a cent unless…”

He tugged his cap on and sighed. “What? You’re in no
position to bargain here. I can make your life hell without telling him what
your slut of a mother did.”

“Try it and I’ll tell everyone about what you did to me.”

He snorted. “Not that it would do you any good now. You have
no proof, remember? You’re an unreliable source. You’ve already lied to your
mother about it. Who’s going to believe you?”

She wanted to snap him in two. “How much?”

“Seventy-five thousand.”

She gasped. “I don’t have—”

“Save the poverty cry for someone else. Your dad has told me
about your little trust fund releases that you get from him annually. Gather
them up. One check. I don’t need to make my deposit for another few weeks so
you’ll have the time to request your withdrawal.”

“I want it in writing that you’ll leave my family alone if I
give the funds to you.”

“I’ll give you my word instead. That’s the best I can do.”

The money meant nothing to her in the face of getting the
closure her family needed to circumvent the inevitable heartache. She’d
eventually have to face some of that with her mother, but hopefully her father
would never have to learn the truth.

“And they’ll be no more pushing for a wedding?”

“It was never me doing the pushing in that respect. It was
always your dad. It still is. He’s going to be very disappointed when he learns
the wedding is off.”

“He’ll get over it.”

“I imagine.”

Jo studied him. This was such a quick reversal of things
that she listened to that little voice inside that was screaming, “This can’t
be right. This seems too easy”. She’d been fighting or stressing over him in
her life for so long, whether he was in the United States or not, that her gut
was screaming foul. Something’s wrong.

He must have picked up on her suspicion because he plucked
at his top. “Let’s just say I can’t hide at the hospital for the next few
years. And I don’t want to lose the hundred grand I’ve already sunk into
escrow. You do have convincing friends in high places.”

That made sense. She understood the concept of someone
leveraging power over a person. Ted had done it brilliantly. He’d hit Anjay
were he’d hurt him most, in the wallet. She’d have to think about that, but
right now she had to think of the future. A future without the stress of Anjay
in it. Even though the idea of him getting money after what he’d done to her
burned like acid in her gut, she’d ignore it and focus on what she’d be getting
out of the deal. Some peace and hopefully he’d do as he promised and stay away.
She had to believe that he would because the last thing she wanted was for her
father to find out the brother he loved and the wife he adored had stabbed him
in the back when he was too weak to fend off the knife. Or to discover that his
daughter had been attacked by a young man he trusted, when he was too sick to
do anything about it.

“Here.” Jo took out her checkbook, balancing it on her purse
with one hand she filled it out with the other.

“Seventy-five thousand,” he repeated.

“I know. I heard you. You can’t cash it until I make sure
all the funds are cleared and in this account.” She held it out to him. “This
ends it.”

“For both of us. Make sure I don’t get any more visits from
Basel.”

She nodded and turned to leave.

“One more thing. I don’t want you sharing our secret with
anyone else.”

Secret? She should have been choking over the gall he had to
even suggest this, but she wasn’t. If she had to describe how she was feeling
she’d say numb. Or better yet, empty. Where was her anger or fury? She hadn’t
forgiven him, not that he’d asked for that, but in her heart where it only
mattered to her for the purposes of healing she hadn’t gotten over what he’d
done, so why wasn’t she hissing and spitting at him now?

She left off examining this compelling need to be calm and
said, “You keep to that bargain and I’ll see to it that Mr. Basel doesn’t pay
you any more visits.”

His eyes narrowed and nostrils flared before he looked down
at the check. “Agreed. Once this is cashed,” he slapped it into the palm of his
hand. “Our bargain starts.”