Ivory Tower (15 page)

She rubbed the worn arms of the rocker. It had been several
years since she’d sat here like this and it hit her with a barb of regret. Things
were so different now.

Her mother’s rigid back belied the nonchalance she showed as
she swept her hair up into a clip.

Jenna twisted the double ring set on her finger. Hating to
disturb the calm, but knowing they must have this out, Jenna prayed to her
father for a little help and dove in. “Mother?”

“You left me with a roomful of friends and no explanation.”

Jenna met her mother’s eyes in the mirror. “Those women are
not your friends.”

“They are whatever I say they are and that’s not the point.
You deserted me.”

Ouch.
“Yes, I did.”

“There is no excuse, no reason you can give that could
explain the shameful display of disrespect. None.” Her brush, now cradled in
both her hands, shook slightly. Jenna watched her mother set the brush down
very carefully and pick up a tube of lipstick, rolling it open.

Jenna raised her hand, the one with the new ring. “Josh and
I eloped.” The words rushed out as if, in saying them quickly, they would bounce
right off her mother’s mirror and shatter into peace and quiet upon the floor.
Instead, the lipstick landed in a rosy-red blob on her cheek.

Her mother didn’t utter a sound, just reached for a tissue and
wiped it off.

“We’re married, Mom. I hope you can be happy for us.”

Jenna’s spirit plummeted at her mother’s pursed lips. So
much for her being happy for her daughter.

“I see,” her mother finally said. “So you tossed all of our
plans...” she waved her hand in the air, “…in the trashcan. Your beautiful
wedding.”

“Be honest. Those were your plans. Your wedding. It was
never what Josh and I wanted and you know that.”

“I only know that, that man of yours—”

“Husband, mother. Josh is my husband now.”

Her mother winced. “Yes. So you say. He has somehow managed
to sway you against me. You don’t listen to me anymore, Jenna. You haven’t for
some time. It’s all his fault.”

“All Josh did was give me wings. He allowed me to blossom
into my own person. And for that I will be forever grateful.”

“That’s no reason to marry him.”

“It helps that I love him beyond anything else.”

“Apparently. I hold him completely responsible for this
mess. He put this elopement in your head.”

“He offered me nothing but love. This was my choice. He’d
have come back here. Done the whole blasted church fiasco if that’s what I’d
have wanted. Because he loves me.” Jenna squatted in front of her mother,
placing her hand on Patricia’s arm. She tightened briefly, steeling herself
against the quiver in her mother’s muscles.

“I love Josh. I’m Mrs. Josh Latham, and proud of it. I’m
sorry that this isn’t the way you want it to be, but I’m a big girl now. I can
take care of myself. I made the choice to not wait any longer, to get started
on our life together. Not Josh. Me. I hope you can understand how important
this is to me. And I hope you’ll give us your blessing.”

Her mother’s lower lip trembled. “I understand that you’ll
now be stuck in the same situation I married into.”

“What happened, Mom? What happened to make you so bitter?”

Her mother stiffened. “You think he loves you. Maybe he
does, in this moment. But you give it time. He’ll show his true colors. Men
always do.”

“What do you mean? Where is this coming from? Daddy loved
you beyond life.”

“Hogwash. Your father married me because he had to. Love
never entered the equation.”

“Maybe not for you, but for Dad, it did. What made you so
bitter?”

Patricia Wilton stood, her shoulders stiff, and moved to
the window. She stood there for long moments before speaking, her voice a
bitter wind. “You never knew your grandparents.”

“No. And you never spoke of them.”

“That’s because
he
didn’t approve of your father. And, when I turned up pregnant, his disapproval
turned into a violent rage.” Her voice broke. “The only reason your father
lived was because the police pulled my father off him in time.”

Jenna’s hand covered her mouth as she heard this family
history. She’d never known.

Her mother, now that the floodgate had been opened, couldn’t
seem to stop. “We had what amounted to a shotgun wedding. And that night, after
your father helped me pack my bag and move out, my father fatally shot both my
mother and himself.” She drew a deep, sobbing breath. “They called it a murder-suicide.
Strange how that sounds. Like it’s an explanation for behavior so abhorrent it
defies explanation.”

Shock ricocheted through Jenna like a bullet.
Suicide?
This wasn’t what she’d expected
to hear, and maybe it explained a little—

Whispering, her mother continued to speak, seemingly
unaware of Jenna’s presence. “How could he leave that horrible message? How
could he say that the shame, my shame, made him do it? That being pregnant
before marriage amounted to a death knell.”

Frozen, Jenna tried to assimilate what her mother said. It
was inconceivable. How could anyone think a baby, an act of love, to be
shameful? She couldn’t fathom it and quickly decided she wouldn’t try to.
 

Jenna threw her arms around her mother. Patricia initially
resisted, then wilted into Jenna’s embrace. “I wish you’d told me this secret
years ago,” Jenna said.

“I didn’t want you tainted by the ghosts in our closet.”

“But that is such a burden for you to carry.” Jenna nodded
to herself, trying to find something to say, when everything fell into place. “Dad
understood.”

“I doubt your father understood anything.”

“He understood that you were emotionally scarred and
precious enough to wait for you to get over your past.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Because he told me. He said your rose-colored glasses had
been ripped off. He told me to be patient with you. To help you understand.”

“I never knew,” her mother said. “Never knew. Maybe—”
Patricia sobbed. “Maybe he did understand, after all.”

They stood there, hugging each other, letting the tears heal
the pain of the past.

Finally, as they pulled away, her mother latched onto
Jenna’s ring finger. “Only a band?”

Jenna shrugged. “It’s all I want.”

With a deep sigh, Patricia nodded. “So be it.”

Jenna gave her mom another quick hug. “Thanks, Mom. I
really want you to be happy for us.”

“But no church wedding? No minister?”

“The guy who married us said he was a minister.”

Her mother’s glance said she didn’t buy it.

“I guess we’ll need to cancel some things tomorrow.”

“Hey,” Jenna said. “I’ve got an idea. How about we cancel
the wedding, but go ahead with the reception? Just as you planned it. All the
hoopla and everything.”

“You’d do that? Josh, too?”

“He’d do it for me. And we’d both do it for you, Mom. I
love you very much.”

“I love you, too, honey. More than I’ve been able to show
for a long time. Maybe,” her mother whispered. “Maybe I can change.”

“We’ll both change,” Jenna said, smiling.

Chapter Eighteen

Patricia Wilton may not have gotten the wedding of her
dreams, but she definitely got the reception. As Jenna and Josh posed for cake cutting
pictures in his tuxedo and her simple wedding dress...the one she’d been
married in...Jenna knew all was right with the world.

Her mother smiled like a peacock showing her colors. And Jenna
got her own happily ever after. She now had a vastly improved relationship with
her mother. Granted, she still hadn’t told her about her writing career, but it
felt better to ease into certain things, no matter that Maggie wanted to out
her. For now, her mother’s belief that Jenna did a lot of volunteer work would
be just fine.

And what a career her writing had become. She’d finally
looked at the financial statements. True,
Mags
had
added to her royalties with the investments. But Jenna was receiving significant
payments for her stories. It was enough that had Josh been destitute, they could
have lived comfortably. So she gave Maggie a significant raise in addition to
the new car she now drove, but only after they took her beater car to the
junkyard together.

Now that things were on an even keel with her mother, Jenna
could turn her attention to Josh, her smoking-hot husband. Until he decided
what he wanted to do next, he’d taken on the job of marketing and promotions
for her. He’d also taken it to heart, this promise to show her everything she’d
been missing by waiting for their wedding night. In bed at night, on the couch
in the morning, and even the more-than-occasional
nooner
.
She could get used to this.

Life was good, she thought, as she stuffed cake into Josh’s
surprised mouth.

Life was very good.

Epilogue

Drea’s
penthouse

An evening in September

Darkness no
longer enveloped the world
Drea
Fortier lived in. It
had muted, morphed to a dusk-like gray. She wasn’t certain what to do about
that. At her desk, reading the email, a rare smile touched her face. Jenna and Josh
had reached past their issues and found their happily ever after. Another
satisfied customer. It felt good to be able to show people that their dreams
were there for the taking. They only had to reach out and grasp them.

Jenna had
figured out that there were kinds of domination that were damaging and
unhealthy, but that rising above that kind of hatred could be life altering. She
knew Michael tried hard to convince her of the same thing. Each day now, he
came in and opened her drapes.
Drea
wandered over to
the edge of one window and looked out through the sheer panel that kept outside
eyes, in the buildings around them, from prying. This simple act had ripped the
cocoon of safety away from her and he did not understand that. She fingered the
gauzy material. He could never know how hard it was for her to show her face,
even
through
translucent material such as this. Never
know of the evil that hunted her.

If he did, she
felt certain he would protect her with everything he had, even his life.

Like an
old-reel movie running across her mind’s eye with spikes on, the flashback
blinded her.

It was early
days. She had not yet figured out that no one would rescue her. No one knew
where she was. She’d been kept in quarters akin to a jail cell, her door locked
each time she returned after being given time to shower. She’d seen glimpses of
other girls, some women, some nearer her own age. They never spoke, never
looked at her. In fact, no one had said a word to her since her arrival. Quiet
and sadness permeated the place.
Drea
wasn’t even
sure she could still speak after these many days of silence.

This day, when
the door opened, something was different. Two women motioned her to follow them
to the showers.

They bathed
her, perfumed her, and added the first makeup she’d ever worn. They settled a
diaphanous white shift over her head and handed her a goblet of liquid to
drink.

“It will help,”
one of the women whispered. The other one glared at the one who spoke, but said
nothing.

The liquid was
sour and burned, but
Drea
knew the consequence of
misbehaving. She’d felt the strap’s sting more than once.

She let them
lead her to a set of ornate double doors and felt like she was entering a dream
world.

“Don’t fight,”
the kinder of the two women said. “It will hurt more if you do.”

They opened the
doors and nudged her inside, then disappeared as they closed them behind her.

The bedroom was
large and ornate and completely decorated in virgin white and gold.

Drea
shook her head as she clawed her way back to the
present and forced the memory to the dark depths of her brain. She would not
think of the brutality of that day. There had been no gentle breaking of her
virginity, but an ugly, painful plunging. She shuddered as her own long-ago
screams echoed through her mind.

No one would
ever know what she had endured.
Drea
had paid high prices
in her young life. To involve Michael, as he wished, was too much. No matter
how trained he was, no matter how much he thought he could protect her, he
would be no match against the one who stole her life.

Drea
knew she was beyond repair, that her life was measured
in days. But she could still make a difference and do some good for others. She
needed time before he found her.

She should send
Michael away. She was afraid for him, and for herself. Another part of her, the
one that had gotten her through it all, was angry. She thrust the drape away.