Enticed (11 page)

Jonathan’s own eyes welled with tears as he listened.
“He was barely five at the time,” I continued as I used the corner of the napkin to wipe around my eyes. “He was unconscious when the paramedics got there. He stayed in a coma for a week before we made peace with the fact that there was no hope. So we took him off of life support.”

I had to stop speaking or I would
have lost it right there in the middle of that crowded restaurant patio. Jonathan eased out of his chair and walked to where I sat. He opened up his tiny arms and held me close. I couldn’t stop the sob even if I wanted to. “I’m sorry, Rachel,” he said as he stroked my hair. I held him tighter, this amazing little boy who had filled a hole in me I had long tried to deny.

This was the real reason that I had come to Los Angeles. It had dick to do with Drew’s looks or money. I had never cared about those things. If anything, I came in spite of Drew. The dream had thrown me temporarily, but I knew down deep that I couldn’t lose another child. And Jonathan Fullerton had stolen my carefully rebuilt heart when I wasn’t looking. It made every risk worth taking. I needed him as much as he needed me.

“Is everything all right over here?” asked our friendly waitress, who had come to fill our glasses. We broke apart and I nodded with a fake smile I had perfected over the years.

Jonathan returned to his seat and we dug back into our dinner, though neither one of us
felt much like eating. I gave up after two bites that tasted just like cardboard.

“What happened to Zach?” Jonathan finally asked after I signaled for the check.

“We divorced,” I clipped. “There are just some things that a marriage cannot withstand.”

He nodded. He had learned that lesson already. We were both quiet as we returned to the house. We tried to watch a TV program together, but I really itched to be alone so I could lick my wounds in private. By the time he headed to bed at nine o’clock, I was emotionally and physically exhausted.

I opened my stately walk-in closet and pulled out the bin of photo albums and Jason’s belongings, including a fluffy brown bear with a yellow bow tie. This was Monty, Jason’s best and truest friend from the time he turned two.

I wept as I sat cross-legged on the floor, rocking back and forth as I clutched what remained of my beautiful b
aby boy to my chest, staring at the photos of the most important five years of my life.

When the phone rang, I didn’t bother answering it. I couldn’t bear to speak to Drew in the state I was in. He would hear the devastation in my voice and ask questions I didn’t want to answer. I knew I couldn’t tell this story twice in one night.

I unplugged the phone and curled into bed. I didn’t even bother to get undressed.

I just held onto Monty and waited for the wave of devastation to pass once more.

Nancy Gilbert had found me in such a state more than three years before. She was the one who pulled me back over to the land of the living, with a new job and a new apartment. But she had never been able to give me a new heart to replace the one Jason took with him to the grave.

Only Jonathan had been able to do that.

And I knew I would risk anything – again – to protect him.

Surprisingly, Alex Fullerton did not come back to the house until the weekend, right around Elise’s court-appointed, supervised visit. Of course, I didn’t really stay at the house waiting for him to show up, either. Jonathan and I expanded our studies to museums and parks just so we could have somewhere to go. We explored the La Brea Tar Pits and attended a show at the Griffith Observatory, which was tucked high in a hill
a little north of Hollywood, in the massive oasis also known as Griffith Park.

If I could get us out of the house, I generally did. I took full advantage of the idea that the world was our classroom. Los Angeles provided many alternatives, and I was excited to see places in real life I h
ad only read about before.

The added benefit to that was that I didn’t have to tolerate Alex’s damnable smirk as he misread my intentions to cast me as the bad guy in their family drama. I was easy to hate since I was a virtual stranger. Intellectually I knew this. Emotionally it pissed me off to no end. I found his lazy assumption about my motives highly offensive, which may have been the point.

Alex should have known by now that I was nowhere near Drew’s “type,” if he even had a type anymore. He hadn’t been linked with anyone in the press for a very long time, which I assumed was part of his image overhaul in order to secure full custody. He needed to establish stability, which – contrasted to Elise shacking up with her boy toy – hadn’t been that difficult to do.

All he really needed was a constant feminine influence to fill in the blanks, and I supposed I fit that bill better than any booty call. This would explain why both Alex and Elise despised me so, and insisted upon casting me in that light.

I was just another pawn in their endless game.

It was frustrating, and offensive, but it wasn’t my baggage to carry. It was theirs. I had one job to do – take care of Jonathan – and I was going to do it, regardless of their shenanigans.

Jonathan’s mood plummeted the closer we got to his Saturday visitation with his mother. By Friday he was particularly cloying. He wanted to stay up late, and then found every reason under the sun to knock on my door throughout the night.

By eleven o’clock, I tucked him into bed myself. It wasn’t in my job description to be his nanny, but his need was much too pressing to ignore. I lay on top of his covers and we cuddled together, talking about anything and everything under the sun except what he really wanted to talk about. As I sat up to turn off his bedside light, he finally came out with it.

“Can you take me tomorrow, Rachel?”

“Don’t you think that will complicate things, Jonathan?”

“It’s already complicated,” he insisted, and I could hardly argue. “It’s just harder when Dad’s not home. She can’t ask me to stay with her, but she’ll cry and I’ll know that’s what she’s thinking. Then I’ll feel guilty for not wanting to go.”

I knelt by the bed. “You don’t have to feel guilty for what you feel, Jonathan. It’s okay to feel mad, or sad, or disappointed. So does she, really. That doesn’t have to be your fault.”

“Then why does it feel like it is?” he asked softly.

I brushed his hair from his face. “Because you’re an amazing little boy who is far more capable of empathy than most adults I know. Feeling empathy isn’t the proble
m, sweetie. It’s good that you want to help others. You just have to learn that delicate balance of not hurting yourself in the process.” I tried a different tactic. “You’ve been on a plane, right?” He nodded. “You know how they give you all those safety instructions prior to takeoff?” Again, he nodded. “And they always say you have to secure your own mask before they help everyone else” Another nod. “That’s kind of like life. You can’t take care of anyone else as long as you’re suffocating. Your mom and your dad are grownups. They get to make their own mistakes and deal with the fallout. It’s not your job to save them.”

He nodded but I could tell he was merely placating me. For all his insight, he was still just a nine-year-old boy. I sighed as I rested on my arms on the bed. “I’ll go,” I finally agreed. “But not as a substitute for your mom. I’m just there in case you need help getting your oxygen mask on. Okay?”

He nodded again, this time with a happy smile.

For once he wasn’t going into battle alone.

He was still pensive as we drove to the Santa Monica Pier. I took my own car, giving both Harrison and Cleo the day to themselves, though neither of them knew what to do with it. They were both dedicated to the needs of the Fullerton family, as fiercely as if they had been relatives themselves.

After
I parked, we met up with the social worker, Mrs. Ilka Johannson, a kindly middle-aged woman whose shape was squat and round. She took Jonathan’s hand in hers and they headed off toward the carousel, where Elise waited. They would ride, grab a bite of lunch and then chat as they sat on the pier overlooking the blue swell of the Pacific Ocean, which sparkled under the blazing sun like a field of diamonds.

I pocketed my phone, so they could buzz me when they finished, and then I headed along the concrete walkway toward the Santa Monica State Beach. Though I was 28 years old, the swings beckoned to me that beautiful summer afternoon. I loved to swing as a kid, in an old tire bound with rope to the tree just outside our
farmhouse. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined being a full grown adult, swinging on a massive swing set, mere steps away from the ocean. The more I thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed. I was giggling to myself as I kicked my legs in the sand to get even higher.

I felt like I was flying.

“Having fun?”

And just like that, my good mood ground to a halt just like my swinging did. I dragged my feet in the sand until I came to a complete stop, then I turned to Alex Fullerton, who stood nearby.
“I was,” I said pointedly.

He didn’t take the hint. Instead he walked to the swing next to me and sat down. “I guess I win the bet,” he said as he started to swing.

My teeth ground together as my jaw clenched. “What bet is that?” I finally asked as I resumed my swinging as well.

“I knew you’d take over the visitations. Elise said that you would never be so presumptuous. But she doesn’t know you like I do.”

I kicked harder as I swung higher. “Funny. Considering you don’t know me at all,” I said.

We passed each other as our swings crossed
, his going up as I was coming back down again. “I knew you’d be here,” he smirked.

“I’m here because Jonathan asked me to be,” I clarified. “These meetings upset him. But I assume you already know that since you know everything.”

It came out much snarkier than I had intended. He chuckled in response. “At least we agree on one thing,” he said as he swung even higher.

“Is there a point to your pestering me? Or are you just bored?”

“I don’t get bored,” he said as he passed me again. I slowed my own swing considerably at his surprising revelation, which so closely mirrored my own thoughts on boredom. I couldn’t help but wonder exactly how much Jonathan had told him about me. Had he unintentionally armed this man with things he could use against me? Before I could ask, Alex went on. “I saw you swinging. You looked like you were having fun. So I joined you. Simple as that.”

“Simple, huh?” I questioned.
“This has nothing whatsoever to do with your isolating me away from everyone so that you can convince me to let Elise have more access to Jonathan?”

This caused Alex to laugh harder. “Sounds like my brother already got into your head, Miss Dennehy. It’s not as nefarious as you make it sound. I just wanted to swing next to a pretty girl. No harm in that, is there?”

I made a face as I stopped the swing. He really had gone too far. “Good day, Mr. Fullerton,” I said as I rose from the swing and pointed myself back to the pier.

Unfortunately he jogged to catch up to me. “Was it something I said?” he tried to smirk in good humor.

I spun on him. “I know what you think of me, Mr. Fullerton. And that’s fine. Think whatever you want. Whatever helps you sleep at night, I don’t care. But don’t you dare try to butter me up like I’m some airheaded wallflower at the mercy of your insincere flattery.”

He held up both hands. “Cool your jets, sister. I wasn’t trying to butter you up. I was just paying you a compliment. It’s customary to say ‘thank you,’ not bite a guy’s head off.”

I had two words in mind for this cocky bastard, but they didn’t come anywhere close to ‘thank you.’ “Don’t patronize me. I’m not the kind of girl men compliment and you know it. That’s the whole purpose of my presence here, isn’t it? So I can be the antithesis of what Drew normally hangs on his arm?”

It was out of my mouth before I could stop it.
With a disgusted shake of my head I turned to walk away. He pulled me back. “If you know that, then why are you here?”

“I keep telling you, I’m here for Jonathan. Someone needs to be,” I added.

Alex dropped his arm to his side. “I know you think we’re on opposite sides here, but we’re not. We both want the same thing, what’s best for Jonathan. We should be working together, not fighting each other.”

“I’m not the one you have to fight,” I shot back. “I’m just the
teacher. Work your family crap out with Drew.”

He examined me closely. He saw the door slam shut on any further conversation, particularly because I was afraid of what I might say next. I had already danced really close to breaching my non-disclosure agreement, and I knew that Drew would have a fit if he had been privy to the conversation.

Of course, Drew still operated under the assumption that I was clueless as to why he hired me. I already knew how he felt about “fat” people from Jonathan, and I knew within seconds of our first physical meeting that he had been dismissive of me because of it. As the polar opposite of many of the other girls he had brought into the house, it proved to the court and to the world I hadn’t been brought in as some romantic interest to replace his ex-wife.

I had made peace with being a part of his newly whitewashed image because it ensured a strict boundary of propriety.

Yet Alex breached that fine line with a casually uttered remark I knew he couldn’t possibly mean. It was far too convenient to be true. It was just one more move on the chessboard, and I resented him like hell for making it.

Alex
made no further attempt to hold me back so I strode purposefully for the pier. I found a bench overlooking the water, so I sat there the remaining hour before Jonathan texted me that he was done.

I didn’t care to run into Alex again, so I cut our first trip to the shore short. In fact, I didn’t feel like doing much of anything that afternoon. Like my carefree time on the swings, Alex Fullerton had
effectively rained all over our parade.

So I stopped by the library and we got an armload of books, and then spent the rest of our day off reading by the pool.

Now that Jonathan knew how my son had died, he didn’t try to persuade me to get into the water. He understood the roots of my fairly new phobia and respected its limits. So he sat on the chaise lounge chair beside mine and read quietly as the sun trekked across the sky.

In fact, Jonathan was as quiet as I was. I could only assume his visitation with his mother had been upsetting, but he seemed reluctant to talk about it.
This was fine by me as I was still pissed off by what Alex had tried to pull. Every time I thought about it I was ready to crack skulls. By the time Drew called that evening, I was breathing fire.

“How did it go today?” Drew had asked so innocently.

“You need to find a way to keep your brother away from me,” I snarled. “If he’s not accusing me of trying to land you as a sugar daddy, he’s trying to charm me like I’m some brainless ditz who would fall for it. Frankly, I’m over it.”

Drew was silent for a long moment. “What do you mean
he tried to ‘charm’ you?”

“Just some lame compliment that was totally insincere. I guess he’s trying a new tactic. He figures he can win over the homely schoolmarm
and have another ally to take Jonathan away.”

“I take it that approach didn’t work,” Drew murmured. I could hear the gears churn all the way from London.

“Of course not,” I snapped. “Contrary to popular belief, I didn’t come here to snag a wealthy husband. I came here to do a job, which is made all the more difficult by this completely unnecessary bullshit surrounding your life.”

It was out of my mouth before I could stop it. Drew was quiet for a moment before he said,
“Did you tell Alex this?”

I grimaced. “Not in so many words.”

I could practically see him smile. “What my brother thinks or says is irrelevant. Alex has always seen what he wanted to see, which is usually just enough to make him feel morally superior. I wouldn’t take it to heart, good or bad.”

“I shouldn’t have to ‘take it’ at all.”

“Agreed,” he said. “But he will remain a consideration for the foreseeable future, for at least as long as he is committed to helping Elise get sole custody. It is because of this that I need someone there focused entirely on Jonathan.”

I sighed and dropped my head in one hand.
“I know.”