Sweetened With a Kiss (25 page)

“I’m thirsty,” he said.

“Hungry too,” she whispered.

“Go.”

She kissed him quickly, licking his bottom lip the way she knew he was getting addicted to, then headed out the door so his friends could rag on him.

Jen was still about an inch off the ground when she stepped back out onto Barracks with a hand full of tea bags and a plastic bag of sugar. She missed the black Jaguar until it pulled up to the curb, stopping her short as the window slid down. “We need to talk,” Madlyn told her, pressing the door lock button. “Get in.”

“Said the spider to the fly? I don’t think so.”

Madlyn looked at Jen over the top of her ridiculously expensive sunglasses. “Seriously, get in. We need to talk.”

Jen leaned down, her arm resting against the open window. “We don’t have anything to talk about.”

Madlyn stared straight ahead for a minute, then she turned back to Jen, in what Jen was sure was a well-practiced intimidation tactic. “Grow up, Jen. Either get in the car, or the next person you’ll be dealing with is my grandfather, and, sweetheart, you don’t want to get on Winston Robicheaux’s bad side. He may be retired but he’s still a heartless bastard.”

Jen stepped back. She’d only met Judge Robicheaux once, and that was one time too many. She wasn’t the only one afraid of the old man. Angola and the state district attorney’s office were equally filled with men terrified of the “hanging” judge.

“Pay attention, princess, I’m trying to help you.”

Jen just shook her head and pushed away from the car. She almost felt sorry for the other woman. So much so that the princess comment didn’t even bother her. “Give it up, Madlyn.”

“Fine,” Madlyn snapped, grabbed something out of her purse, then got out of the car, leaving it running. “You want to do this the hard way, Jen? Fine by me.”

Madlyn rounded the front end and tried to hand her a photograph. Confused, Jen held her ground but she didn’t take the photo.

“It’s even worse than you think.”

“You’re pathetic,” Jen said, and meant it as she headed down the sidewalk. She was so over Madlyn Robicheaux, and it felt great.

“There are things you don’t know about the accident and your family.”

Jen wheeled around. “Look, whatever you think you’re going to accomplish, you’re too late. We got married three weeks ago in Vegas. You lose. Deal with it.”

Jen barely had time to savor the satisfaction of stopping Madlyn in her tracks. The Red Queen actually went a little pale.

“Vegas?” Madlyn said, recovering quickly. “Did he at least sign the pre-nup, Jen?”

“No,” Jen told her. “We don’t need a pre-nup, Madlyn. I don’t know what your problem is. You said yourself you didn’t want him. So just leave us alone.”

She started to walk off when she noticed the photograph Madlyn was holding. The photograph flapped in the breeze. Jen caught a glimpse and her heart stopped. It was like a freaky, weird dolly zoom, when the camera moves back while the lens zooms in. The photograph flickered between those scarlet nails and for a moment it was the center of the universe for Jen.

“What is that?” Jen whispered, moving towards the Red Queen without thinking, holding her empty hand out for the picture while the tea bags and sugar hit the sidewalk. “Let me see that.”

Madlyn let her take the photograph. Jen knew that face. She recognized that smirky half smile and wavy brown hair. Even the freckles were familiar, they were just in the wrong order. And the eyes were wrong. The boy in the picture had black eyes. Robert’s eyes had been hazel. It was a photograph of Robert, but it wasn’t Robert.

The buzzing she thought she’d never feel again started at the back of her skull. She smelled smoke. She knew nothing was burning and ignored it. But she could not ignore the photograph.

He was so familiar.

“I don’t understand,” she said to herself, feeling the edges of reality start to soften.

Not now.
This wasn’t happening. Everything had been going so good. But the smell of smoke was starting to choke her. She swallowed it back. “Who?” she forced the word out, reaching for anger, for anything that would keep her heart from beating any faster.

She finally looked to the one person she had never expected to turn to for help. She found the Red Queen watching her closely, and Jen knew how witnesses must feel in court when Madlyn took them apart piece by piece.

“My son,” Madlyn said carefully, black eyes peeling back Jen’s skin. “He looks like his father, doesn’t he?”

Jen nodded, turning her attention back to the photograph and staring at it. Flashes she couldn’t process fired away in her memories but nothing made any sense. She didn’t even try to shake off the hand that curled around her upper arm as Madlyn walked her the few steps back to the open car door.

“I told you that we needed to talk.”

“Yes, sure,” Jen agreed, grateful to sit down now that the Earth was starting to spin a little too fast for her. She looked at the picture, traced the freckles, and felt her heart start to fly up her throat.

Robert’s son.

Her nephew.

She had a nephew.

She had a family.

She was not alone in the world.

“What’s his name?” she asked, when she could speak.

“Robert Taylor Robicheaux,” Madlyn said. “We call him Robbie.”

Jen nodded. She looked back down at the nine year old grinning at the camera. Even the way his head was cocked was familiar.

“Robert knew?”

“Yes, of course, we were engaged. We just hadn’t told anyone yet.”

Jen closed her eyes. The pain was so sharp and so hot she couldn’t actually even feel it yet, but she knew when her nerve endings caught up with her brain, it would be excruciating.

She sucked in a ragged breath, and handed the photograph back to Madlyn.

If Robert had known Madlyn was pregnant, then so had Stefan.

For ten years he had let her believe she was alone in the world. Parts of her started shutting down because she just could not cope with that. She also couldn’t cope with what that knowledge was setting loose inside her. She knew what it was. Even though she had never felt anything like it before. Never thought she’d ever feel anything remotely like it.

White hot rage.

Rage from an unspeakable betrayal. It was going to destroy everything.

And Jen didn’t even care anymore.

“I’m so sorry, Jen,” Madlyn said, and Jen felt the sincerity in the other woman’s voice down to her bones. She looked at Madlyn and just knew all these years she’d been utterly and completely wrong about everything. “I never wanted to keep him from you, but I had no choice.”

Jen squeezed her eyes shut, the white mist closing in as Madlyn shoved all the missing pieces into place. And no matter how much it hurt, Jen wanted the truth. All of it. “Why?”

“The trust,” Madlyn said, shifting gears as she crossed over Canal and headed uptown. “Robert did not die at the same time your parents did, Jen. He lived seventeen hours.”

“I know,” she said, swallowing the bile rising from her stomach. She held down the button to open the window. She needed air.

“Robert inherited before he died. Legally, it can be argued that his half of the estate is not subject to the trust because he was twenty when he died. His half did not automatically revert to the trust, Jen. Robbie is his heir.”

The low buzzing was back, but she fought it off as Madlyn continued.

“You should have been with us, Jen. We’re your family, not the Sellers. But you were so ill and no one wanted a huge court battle with you in the hospital and undergoing surgery after surgery. They settled.”

“Settled?”

“The Sellers kept custody of you and paid the value of half of the trust to Robbie. That was put into a separate trust for Robbie. They also pay a monthly allowance for him and there is a college fund.”

“Paid it how?”

“Mac Sellers paid it and my grandfather agreed not to sue the trust. Mac paid it to protect the stock. The Sellers will do anything to protect STI. Stefan especially.”

“Even marry me,” Jen whispered.

“Yes,” Madlyn agreed. “The company is worth nearly five times what it was a decade ago. And if STI went public, the sky is the limit. But part of that belongs to my son, Jen. The settlement between Mac Sellers and my grandfather was their agreement. The Sellers couldn’t legally stop you from letting Robbie have his quarter of the company. But Stefan can now that he’s married to you. He didn’t sign the pre-nup so all your assets are up for grabs and he has the argument that he increased the value of those assets. He’ll demand the stock as part of a divorce settlement.”

Jen leaned her head against the cool glass of the windshield as Madlyn’s words shredded away what was left of her. Madlyn was right. Madlyn was always right. She closed her eyes.

“I’m not your enemy, Jen. I never have been. It suited Stefan for you to hate me. He spent years making sure you did. You think it was an accident you walked in on us at your graduation night? Really?”

The world ground to a slow, dying halt as Jen lost the ability to breathe and her brain simply shut down. She moved her head but she had no idea if she was agreeing or disagreeing.

“I loved your brother, Jen. We would have been sisters if Robert had lived. Let me help you.”

Jen nodded this time, but everything was a huge blank.

“Do you want to meet him? I promised him we’d go to the aquarium today. Why don’t you go with us? Would you like that?”

A tiny spark of hope burst deep inside of her. It was so small but it still managed to keep the devastation bearing down on her at bay just a little. “Yes,” she rasped out. “More than anything.”

“Wait here,” Madlyn told her as she slid out of the Jaguar and walked up to the front door of the modest brick ranch. The front door opened before Madlyn could reach for the door knob.

The world warped and twisted as the little boy launched himself out the front door, hugged his mother, and headed for the car. Everything about him was painfully familiar. He was a miniature of his father. The last decade disappeared for Jen and she almost forgot that was not Robert heading for the car.

He hopped into the backseat and did up his seat belt. “Are you my aunt?’ he asked, friendly and outgoing just like his father.

Jen nodded, unable to speak as she turned in the seat. It was so strange to look at such a familiar face that was still different. She could see traces of Madlyn in his eyes and his nose but the rest of him was pure Robert.

“I thought so. Uncle Stefan showed me your picture.”

Jen’s heart clenched. Until it shriveled and died, she hadn’t even known she was still clinging to one last shred of hope that this was somehow a misunderstanding. That maybe Stefan hadn’t known about Robbie.

Madlyn slid in behind the driver’s side. “Zoo or aquarium,” Madlyn asked, glancing at Robbie in the rear view mirror.

“Do you like sharks, Aunt Jen?”

Jen swallowed hard. The Aunt Jen razored through. “They’re kind of scary,” she said, the words scratching her throat. “I like penguins.”

“Sharks like penguins too,” Robbie laughed. “They make great snacks.”

“Aquarium it is,” Madlyn announced and reversed out of the driveway.

Jen had been to an aquarium before but had never paid as much attention as she did today. Robbie was brilliant. He stored facts about the fish like a little computer. Jen learned more about seahorses, stingrays, and sharks than she’d ever wanted to know. When they did finally make it to the shark tank, they sat back in the risers for a little while watching some of the fish sleep in a big pile while others swam patrol around the tank.

“He’s wonderful,” Jen said, her head still swimming in bittersweet pain. She could feel herself trying to drift away, but something about the grinning little boy held her back. She couldn’t quite go to pieces with Robbie to consider.

Her brother’s son. Her nephew. Her family.

A new strength was rebuilding the broken parts of her and she suddenly felt a strange sense of responsibility. All the pain she was feeling started to take second place to the needs of that beautiful nine year old boy. They’d tried to keep him from her. Jen understood why. Because she knew she’d walk through fire to make sure Robbie had what was his. She’d never wanted anything to do with STI or her trust fund. But Robbie might. He deserved his part of her father’s legacy and nothing that Mac or Stefan Sellers had agreed to or done would stop Jen from doing what was right by her nephew. By her family.

“Thank you for this,” Jen spoke the words she never thought she’d say to Madlyn Robicheaux. Maybe she had been wrong about Madlyn. Maybe she had misunderstood. Nothing really made much sense anymore except the boy watching sharks swim by. And nothing else mattered.

Madlyn took a deep breath. “Robbie is your family, which makes you our family. You need to let us help you.”

Jen nodded, but didn’t commit to anything.

“I’m starving,” Robbie finally announced.

“Me, too,” Madlyn said, as if she were surprised to be hungry. “How does a late lunch sound?”

“I’m in,” Jen smiled, and meant it. Anything to spend more time with her nephew.