The Scandal and Carter O'Neill (16 page)

“You don’t know that’s going to happen.”

“Oh, please, Zoe. You never could be realistic. You’re going to be a single mother. Now is not the time—”

“Then when?” Zoe cried, her cool bolting away from her. “Look at you, Mom—you’re sixty years old and you’ve never had a relationship.”

“I have you—”

Zoe took a deep breath and realized that Phillip and Ben had grabbed their coats and were headed to the door.

“No,” she cried, heartbroken to see her holiday falling to pieces. “Don’t leave.”

“I’ll call you later,” Phillip said. “You get this hashed out with your mom. Get it dealt with for good.”

Ben and Carter exchanged manly nods and then her friends were gone.

“Look at what you’ve done, Mom! You chased them away.”

“Well, I’m sorry about that. I am, but honestly, honey, I can’t watch you get hurt like this.”

“I’m not hurt!” she cried. “I’m happy. I’m so happy.”

“You’re going to have a baby,” her mother said, as if it were a death sentence, and Zoe wondered, not for the first time, how hard it had been for Penny to be a single mother at twenty.

Much harder than what Zoe was about to face, being thirty-seven and ready for a family. Eager for one.

“Ms. Madison,” Carter said, and Penny turned her furious eyes on him. “I know you don’t know me, and I understand that the way Zoe and I got together would concern any mother—”

“Don’t try and smooth talk me,” Penny said. “You’re slick, but I can see right through you. She’s broke, you know. Teaching dance classes without insurance. No savings.”

“I just got funding for the academy—”

“Right, a new dance school and a new baby. You can guess who will be looking after this child.”

“I want to help. I’m sure Phillip does, too,” Carter said.

“Sure,” Penny practically snarled. “Where are you going to be in five months, when she’s fat and has cracked nipples and can’t stop crying?”

“Please, God, just kill me now,” Zoe whispered, but Carter reached over and took her hand.

“I know she’s having a baby,” he said. “I’m excited for her. For me, and for whatever part I have in her life at that time. It doesn’t put me off, or scare me.”

“Well it should,” Penny snapped. “You should both be scared.”

“No!” Zoe cried. “I should be happy. I should be thrilled. I’m having a baby, not serving jail time or enduring hardship. I’m bringing joy into my life.”

“Well,” Penny said, pursing her lips. “It seems to me your constant search for joy is what got you into this mess.”

Oh. Oh wow. Had her mom just called her a joy-seeking slut? She glanced over at Carter, who was staring back at her.

“I’m inspired by your constant search for joy,” he whispered.

Sweet man. Whatever happened with him, she would not regret it. Not for a minute.

“Mom,” she breathed, “you’ve failed to realize that I am all grown-up. I’m a thirty-seven-year-old woman. And I’m sorry you had me before you were ready. I’m sorry that life was so hard on you, but this was a decision I made.”

“A decision after a mistake. An accident. I know all about it, sweetheart. I’ve been there.”

Something snapped in her head and anger flooded her, filling her hands and her feet, coursing through her veins and siphoning through her lungs. She realized that by keeping her baby’s conception a secret, she was damning her daughter to the same relationship with Penny she’d had to live with. The same strange prison of love and resentment.

And she wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it.

Her mother’s instinct roared to life, overshadowing the bond she had with her own mother, already stretched thin and worn down.

“Mom, there’s something you need to know.” The tone of her voice, dark and loud, made both Carter and Penny turn to face her. Part of her recognized that this was her last secret from Carter. After this, she was just an open book, while he was still a mystery to her in so many ways. But she wasn’t about to tell him to leave.

“This baby was a decision,” she said, and Penny opened her mouth to say something, but Zoe smacked her hand down on the counter. “Let me talk. All my life I’ve let you say these poisonous things, these hurtful things, and I’m done. You won’t do it anymore. Not to me and never, ever to this baby.”

“I never meant to hurt you,” Penny whispered, her eyes wide, and Zoe knew that her mother was telling the truth. She just didn’t know how to be any other way—her years of sacrifice for Zoe had worn her down to a blunt object with no finesse. No empathy.

But with a baby coming, things needed to change.

“That doesn’t make it okay anymore. You need to know.” She looked over at Carter, who was steadfast and serious, watching her every move. Her every breath. “Maybe both of you do. I was pregnant about a year and a half ago.” Penny exhaled hard and slumped against the counter. “I was dating a violin player in the orchestra and…it just happened. It wasn’t planned, but it wasn’t a mistake.” The word was a barb she threw right at her mother.

“I was thrilled. Delirious. Victor, not so much. When I…miscarried—” the lump in her throat, the sudden tears were a surprise but she rolled over them, undeterred “—Victor was relieved. I broke up with him, and as months passed, I realized that I wanted a family. A baby. My baby. And I knew that I could wait for another man to come along and make this happen for me, or I could do it myself.”

Oddly, she wasn’t looking at her mother. She watched Carter, told Carter. She watched her words, the words she’d never said out loud, sink in.

“What are you saying?” Penny asked.

Zoe ran her hands over her belly.

Sorry, baby, she thought, because she was breaking her promise. But she realized that her promise was just a different kind of jail than the one her mother put her in, but a jail nonetheless, with its own walls and locks. And, she thought, glancing at Carter, maybe she’d kept this secret out of embarrassment, and she didn’t want to be embarrassed about her child. About wanting a child.

She was proud, and it was time for this to end.

“The baby’s father is sample 1371D.”

THE SILENCE FILLED THE ROOM until the pressure in the air was so thick, so ominous, her head hurt. But Zoe pressed on.

“He’s tall, but not too tall. Brown hair, blue eyes. No history of cancer or heart disease. He’s a student at U of T—a double major in biomedicine and earth science.” She started to babble out of sheer nerves. “I wanted someone good at math and science, you know, who would balance me out.”

“Of course,” Carter said, sincere and earnest, not a hint of mockery in his voice or face. Nothing but…pride. Affection. “That makes sense, Zoe. Perfect sense.”

“Are you saying you went to a sperm bank?” Penny asked, her face creased in horror and confusion. “You…did this on purpose?”

“I wanted a family, Mom.”

“I’m your family.”

“You’re my… I don’t know, jail cell. And I’m yours. You love me, but you resent me. And I love you, I do. But I sure as hell am beginning to resent you.”

“Resent me?” Penny whispered, her eyes welling up with tears, and Zoe felt awful. Really awful. But there was nothing she could do. These walls needed to be broken down so that something new could be built.

“I don’t know what to say,” Penny whispered, folding up a tea towel into precise corners. “I think…maybe…” She sighed and looked around at the turkey and the potatoes growing cold on the counter. “I’m going to leave.”

It was on the tip of Zoe’s tongue to stop her, to tell her it was okay, to wipe all of this away, but Carter reached over and twined his fingers with hers, gathering them all up until their palms were pressed together. Tight. She felt his heart beating in the center of his hand, just as she felt the beat of the baby’s heart in her belly like the flutter of a small bird, the tide of an ocean…of life.

Family, she thought, knowing it was true no matter how unlikely.

This man, the baby, her. That was family.

“I’ll call you in a few days, Mom,” Zoe said, as good a compromise as she could come up with. She walked toward the door where her mother stood, gathering her things. “Do you want to take some food?” she asked quietly, but Penny shook her head.

When she looked up, her mother’s green eyes, so familiar, so much a part of her life and her memories, were wide and wet with tears. “I never meant to be this way,” Penny whispered. “The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you.”

“I know,” Zoe whispered.

“And I don’t want you to be hurt now,” she said, still managing to shoot a sharp look over Zoe’s shoulder at Carter, and Zoe fought a smile. Good old Penny Madison—she took a beating but kept on swinging.

“I’m a big girl,” Zoe said. “A woman with my own life. I can take care of myself and my baby.”

Penny cupped Zoe’s face, a tender touch. “You were always so dreamy,” Penny said. “So lost in your own little world and I…I guess I am just used to worrying. I’m sorry,” she said, wrapping Zoe’s once-favorite scarf around her neck as she walked out.

Zoe shut the door behind her and rested her head against it, wondering if Carter was going to leave, too. If maybe this was all just a little too much for him.

It was way too much for her and it was her life.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to leave,” she said, talking to the door.

His hand stroked her back, a warm touch through the cowboy shirt with the lassoing hearts she almost wore on their first fake date.

Funny, she’d known this guy less than a month, but his mark was like a thick bold tick on her time line. Her whole life was split into halves—before Carter and after Carter.

“Can I tell you something?” he asked, his voice in her ear, his breath a warm breeze on her neck that made her skin do a shimmy.

“Please,” she said, “the more embarrassing the better.”

“I’m proud of you,” he said, still rubbing her back, and she almost started to cry. All the emotions of the day welled up and nearly drowned her, but she pressed her head hard into the door, the pain barely keeping the tears at bay. “I’m proud to be in your life.”

She waited for the but. The “but I’m going to be mayor, and you’re way too nuts to have kicking around City Hall.”

It never came.

His hands kept making those wide warm circles on her back, drugging her, and suddenly she found a lot of courage, enough courage to do stupid things. But in for a penny, in for a pound, was pretty much how Zoe operated.

She turned, wiping away the tears that clung to her eyelashes. “What if I told you I was falling in love with you?” she asked. His eyes got wide and he stepped back, his shoulders slumping slightly as if she’d just punched him in the gut. “I’m not saying I’m there, but it’s not far off. You still want to be in my life?”

As he stood silent and stared at her, Zoe died, over and over again, and wondered if spontaneous combustion really happened.

“I’ve…ah…turned away from love a lot in my life, for a lot of stupid reasons,” he finally said, his fingers reaching for hers, and she couldn’t help reaching out for him. “I don’t want to do it anymore.

“But there’s something you need to know about me,” he said. “Something that might change your mind.”

“Are you donor 1371D?” she asked, making a joke because he was suddenly so serious, sucking all the air and light out of the world. “Because that would be weird,” she finished lamely.

His smile was cockeyed and distant. “You know about my family,” he said.

“The Notorious O’Neills,” she said. “Don’t tell me there’s more—a grandfather in the mafia or something.”

“No,” he said and then paused. “Although, maybe.”

“Carter—” she laughed.

“It’s me,” he said. “It’s about me. About what I’ve done.” His fingers became stiff in her hands, and she squeezed them, feeling suddenly like despite the fact that he was standing right in front of her, he wasn’t really present.

“It can’t be that bad,” she whispered.

“I lied in court,” he said. “For my mother. I gave her an alibi ten years ago so she wouldn’t go to jail.”

Zoe’s jaw dropped open. “You?” It was like hearing Smokey the Bear admit to being an arsonist.

“Me. She said if I didn’t do it, she would go back to Bonne Terre and ask my sister. Or my brother. And I knew…God, I knew my sister would do it. Savvy was so desperate to have her mother back, she would have done anything. So I lied, in court, but I made her promise that she’d never bother Savannah or Tyler again. Ever. Not that she honored the agreement, but at the time I thought I was protecting my family.”

“Of course,” she said, able to see every bit of convoluted logic. “You were doing what you thought was best.”

“I’ve been doing what I thought was best ever since. I thought that if she came back to me once, she’d come back again, so I stayed away.” He shook his head, looking so lost and alone it broke her heart. “I stayed away from my family and my home and I’ve been lying ever since. Everything I’ve done…” He shrugged. “It’s all been a lie.”

“No,” she sighed, cupping his face in her hands, holding on to him as hard as she could as if pushing the truth—the truth of him as she saw it—right into his skull. “No, it hasn’t. Wanting to do good, wanting to help this city, even staying away from your family to protect them—that’s you. That’s who you are.”

“Not a liar?” he asked, his laugh thick with scorn, and there was a terrible desperation in the sound. “A criminal? Just another Notorious O’Neill, despite every effort I’ve made to be something else?”

“Oh, no,” she sighed. “You’re a good man, no matter what your last name is.”

His smile was tender, like early-morning sunshine, and he ran his fingers through her hair, tugging a little at the ends. “And you are going to be a good mother.”

She laughed, feeling as if she’d stepped off a bridge. It wasn’t air beneath her, but it wasn’t the ground, either, and it was going to take some serious getting used to.

“So,” he said, looking around her kitchen at the dinner that was intended to feed four with leftovers for a week. The air was thick with the smell of garlic and turkey. Sweet potatoes and cranberries. His grin was wicked and knowing. “What are we going to do with all this food?”

“Eat,” she said, putting her arms around his waist, reaching up to kiss those beautiful lips. “But not just yet.”

JIM BLACKWELL LIFTED his finger and within moments another shot of Beam was at his elbow. Drinking in the day got you much better service. Much better. Maybe he should write a story about that—the benefits of daytime boozing.

“You mind putting on the mayor’s press conference?” Jim asked the brunette behind the bar who looked like she’d been tending bar for about twenty lifetimes.

She glanced back at the soap opera flickering on the TV above the bar and sighed as she reached up and turned the knob until Mayor-President Higgins’s face filled the screen. The old man was about to endorse Mayor Pro Tem Carter O’Neill for mayor, and Jim was sitting in a bar.

Off the story. Off the goddamned story. And who knew Noelle was so uncrackable, unbribeable. Maybe he should have been nicer to her before he’d needed a favor.

Ah. Hell.

The bourbon burned on the way down.

“Jim Blackwell.” The soft purr of a woman’s voice was a very welcome distraction from his own sad life.

“Hello there,” he said, swiveling on his chair and nearly falling off it when he saw who it was.

The blonde that had to be Carter O’Neill’s mother. The HR bitch out at The Rouge hadn’t confirmed it, but this was the same femme fatale who’d been in that alley with Carter.

He blamed it on the booze, but he could only gape as she sat next to him and ordered a Diet Coke.

“Stop staring,” she muttered, not once glancing over at him. “You look like an idiot.”

“How…how did you find me?”

“You’ve been drinking here every day for the last three days,” she said. “You’re hardly incognito.”

“What are you doing here?” he asked, unable to contain his delight at the story coming back to him like a lost child.

She stared down at the ice cubes melting in her glass for a long time, and he decided he needed to nudge her along.

“You’re Vanessa O’Neill, aren’t you?” he asked, and she nodded, finally taking a sip from the thin red straw.

“You’re here about your son?” he asked, leading her down the only path he wanted her to go.

She took a deep breath, like a reluctant diver on the high board, then spun to face him. “I have information,” she said. “On him.”

Oh. Oh, this was better even than he thought. She was going to sell him out.

“Okay, I’m listening.”

She shook her head. “It’s going to cost you.”

He licked his teeth, trying not to look too eager. Trying not to pump his fists in the air, do a victory lap around the bar. “How much?”

“Ten thousand,” she whispered, looking down at the bar, her fingers spread wide. Two of them were taped together and the dots connected in his head.

“That’s enough to get you out of the country,” he said.

She was silent, strung so tight she was about to snap, and while he didn’t enjoy her misery, he was real glad it had brought her to his door. Or bar, as it were.

“That’s a lot of money,” he said. It was going to wipe out his savings. But what was he saving it for, really?

“What I have to tell you will ruin his career,” she said, lifting burning eyes.

Oh, it was so sweet.

“Ten thousand,” he agreed, pushing away his glass of bourbon. “Now, what’s your story?”