Johnson Family 1: Unforgettable (6 page)

He spun around when he heard a soft noise behind him. Ivy stood in the doorway, her eyes wide with apprehension.

“Mommy, Mr., um, I don’t know his name, but he’s a writer, too—”

“Go to my office and wait for me in there, please,” Ivy said, her voice tight.

“Okay.” Katie picked up her pencil and notebook. She paused at the door. “Bye, mister.”

She slipped from the room and Ivy and Lucas stared at each other in silence. He was still processing his thoughts.

“I thought you’d gone.” Underneath the stiff tone, there was an odd note to her voice—a sort of breathlessness.

“I’m still here.” He watched her closely. “Getting to know Katherine.”

He didn’t hear her indrawn breath, but he saw the way her chest hitched. He stepped closer.

“Funny how you gave her the same name as my mother.”

“You think so? I’ve always loved the name Katherine.” She tried to appear calm but didn’t quite pull it off. Not when the pulse at her throat was beating out of control.

“And she loves to write, just like her father. Isn’t that something?”

She licked her lips. “Nothing special about it. Lots of kids take after their parents. Some children develop a love of sports. She happens to love writing.”

“What did your husband write?”

“A lot of things. A little bit of this and that.” She obviously couldn’t think of a lie fast enough.

“Interesting.” Lucas slowly rubbed his jaw. “You know what else is interesting? She told me she’s eight years old.”

Raw panic flashed in her eyes. Bolstered with confidence, Lucas continued. “She said her birthday’s in April,” he said through gritted teeth. Anger and disbelief billowed in his blood. “Isn’t that interesting?”

There was no mistaking the anxiety in Ivy’s face.

“I don’t know why her birthday would be interesting.” She glanced at the gold and diamond encrusted Cartier watch on her wrist. “You know what, I better go. As I mentioned, I have a lunch date.”

“Not so fast!” She half-turned when his voice whipped out to stop her.

Lucas slammed the door shut before she could escape and moved into her personal space, so close he saw the different colors in her pupils—a dark chestnut and a smattering of lighter brown specks.

“Counting backward nine months—”

“Whatever it is you’re thinking—”

“Look me in the eye and tell me I’m wrong, Ivy,” he snarled. “Tell me!”

She pressed back into the wall and a trembling overtook her shoulders. He moved closer, crowding her.

“Tell me the truth,” Lucas said, clenching his fingers into tightly balled fists. “Tell me the truth, goddammit!” His voice had risen louder and his words came out harsher than he’d intended, but he couldn’t suppress the emotion overtaking him.

Ivy shook her head slowly, but she didn’t respond. She didn’t have to, because he saw the answer in her eyes.

“Jesus,” Lucas muttered, taking two steps back. His legs became unsteady, and his heart thundered beneath his ribs. “Ivy…” He swallowed, at a loss for words and overwhelmed by the burning in his chest that made it hard to breathe. “She’s my daughter, isn’t she?”

She placed trembling fingers over her mouth. Her brows knitted together and her eyes filled with tears. She lowered her lids and drew some inner strength, because when she opened her eyes again, she appeared calmer.

“Yes.”

Chapter Seven

Blood pounded in his ears. “You lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie to you.”

“We had an agreement,” Lucas reminded her, his voice a harsh whisper. “When the condom broke, we agreed you’d take the morning after pill to prevent getting pregnant. You
told
me you had taken it.”

“I didn’t tell you I took it.”

“Are you calling me a liar?” he demanded. “I specifically remember asking you if you’d bought the pill and taken it.”

“And I said don’t worry, everything’s taken care of,” she said quietly.

He paused, scouring his memory to recall what exactly they’d said to each other. He’d been blunt and honest, just like in the beginning. He’d reminded her that soon he would be flying off to South Korea for a year to teach English. The last thing he had needed was to become a father. Fatherhood had never been an option for him, and he’d told her as much.

He’d specifically asked her if she’d taken the pill, and she’d said…now he couldn’t remember. As he reflected on the conversation, she hadn’t actually said yes, had she? He’d made the assumption based on her vague answer.

“So you lied by omission,” he bit out.

She took a deep breath. “I told you what you wanted to hear, but I decided to let nature take its course. I decided that if I got pregnant, I would live with the consequences.” She lifted her chin in a display of defiance.

“I can’t believe this.” Lucas paced away from her and clutched his head in his hands. Outside the window was a bright, sunny day. Inside the room, he suffocated under a cloud of disbelief. Was this really happening? “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t understand.”

He whirled around to face her again, and she actually looked confused.

“I’m her father,” he explained, as if it needed explaining.

“As far as she’s concerned, her father is dead. I don’t want or need anything from you. You’re free to go.”

“Free to—” He broke off with a grim laugh.

“You could leave, and no one would blame you.”

“You expect me to just walk away?”

“She’ll never know. I haven’t said a word to her about you.”

Lucas fell silent as the thought took root. “So you expect me to fly out of here tomorrow and pretend I don’t have a child—someone walking around in the world whose life I helped create? Half my personality, half my traits.”

“You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to,” Ivy said. The emotion from a few minutes ago had completely dissipated. The mask was back in place and she was once again her cool and collected self. “I don’t need anything from you.”

“I know you don’t need anything from me, princess, but this isn’t about you, is it?”

Use of the endearment took them both by surprise. She stiffened and he wished he could take back the word. He’d nicknamed her “princess” almost from the moment they met, only finding out later how close to the truth he’d been. From the beginning he could tell she came from money, but when she’d disclosed the extent of her family’s wealth, he’d been floored. Princess indeed, and he couldn’t help but wonder why this woman would be messing around with a lowly waiter.

“You should have told me,” Lucas said.

She swallowed. “You said you didn’t want children. You made that very clear. You were leaving for Asia and wanted to see the world. Those were your words.”

“I tell you I don’t want kids, and you use that as an excuse not to tell me I have a daughter?”

“I took you at your word.”

“So it’s my fault you didn’t tell me? Don’t blame your deception on me, because the bottom line is, we had an agreement. I told you I didn’t want kids, and I meant it. You had no right to ‘let nature take its course.’”

“It was
my
choice.”

“Yeah, your body, your choice,” Lucas said in a derisive tone. “Just leave me out of it. It’s only my sperm.”

“I never said that.”

“You don’t have to,” Lucas shot back. “You’re not the only one who has reproductive rights.”

“I’m trying to get you to understand why I never told you about her. First of all, I didn’t even know how to get in touch with you.”

“Give me a break. I don’t believe you for one second.” Lucas twisted away from her and ran his hand over the back of his head.

“How was I supposed to get in touch with you?”

He swung around. “Oh, I don’t know, your family’s worth billions. I’m sure you could have found a way. Hell, you could’ve called Mama Katherine. Admit it, Ivy. You didn’t tell me because you didn’t want me to know. Having me in your life didn’t fit into your plans.” He closed his mind to the memory of the magazine article he’d seen, celebrating her engagement to her high school sweetheart. According to the story, they’d been secretly engaged all along. The article had gutted him.

“And for some reason, your fiancé went along with this…this farce,” he continued, bitterness brimming in his gut. “He was either a good man, or a fool so in love with you it didn’t matter. Makes me wonder if you did tell him.” His gaze sharpened, examining her face closely.

“He knew before we got married,” she said.

The plot thickened. “
He knew
? And he just loved you so much he went along with it?” he asked savagely, deep down sympathizing with the sap because he had also been wrapped around her finger.

When she spoke again, her voice was softer. “The choice I made was mine.”

“The choice was yours to make, but it didn’t only affect you. And he had no problem raising another man’s child and giving her his name?”

Ivy crossed her arms over her chest. “My relationship with Winston is really none of your business. We had a very good relationship; our marriage worked for us.” She took a fortifying breath. “I didn’t think you’d want her.”

She twisted the ring on her right hand, a habit he’d noticed she engaged in whenever she was uncomfortable. The ring was an antique, made of gold and set with turquoise and white seed pearls. She wore the simple jewelry as proudly as she did her diamonds because it had been passed down to her from her grandmother.

“Who else knows that Winston wasn’t her father?”

She twisted the ring even faster. “Everyone. Both his family and mine.”

Lucas’s mouth fell open. This story got better and better. “Un-fucking-believable. Let me get this straight, all of you planned to keep this a secret? For how long?”

“I don’t know. I suppose…indefinitely.” He saw the guilt in her eyes, perhaps even a bit of shame at what she’d done. She should be ashamed. “What do you want to do?”

“I don’t want to be a father,” he grated.

He never had. He’d been cautious all along, always using condoms and had even played around with the idea of a vasectomy. Only the finality of the procedure had kept him from having the surgery. Because even though he knew without a doubt he didn’t want the trappings of fatherhood, part of him held out just in case he ever changed his mind.

“Then don’t be a father,” Ivy said evenly.

“We crossed that bridge eight years ago.”

“I said you could walk away and no one will blame you. She doesn’t know you, and far as she’s concerned, her father is dead. You can go back to Atlanta with a clear conscience.”

He stilled. “Is that what you want?”

“I want you to have what you want. Our lives don’t have to be disrupted and neither does yours.”

She was giving him a way out—freedom. Freedom from responsibility, freedom to continue his life in the way he had been living it without interruption. The travel, the women, his work—everything would remain the same. Yet he hesitated to seize the opportunity she offered.

“I could just walk out of here?”

“Free and clear.” Same cool voice, same impassive features. He couldn’t read her at all.

“I didn’t want this, Ivy.”

“You think I don’t know that?” A quivering smile crossed her lips. “I understand and I don’t blame you. You can make your choice the same way I did. What do you want to do?”

The same question again.

He thought about the little girl he’d just spent a few moments with. He didn’t know her and she didn’t know him. He could leave and she wouldn’t know the difference because she already thought another man was her father. He’d just be some random guy that she’d met and would soon forget.

Instead of the excitement he would have expected, the thought knocked the wind from him. He sank onto the edge of the desk and stared at his shoes. His lungs didn’t seem capable of providing enough oxygen. He gulped air into his nostrils, finding it hard to breathe all of a sudden.

“What do you want to do?” Ivy asked again.

His head snapped up. “Can’t wait to get rid of me?” he asked in a biting voice.

“Like I told you before, I have lunch plans.”

“Well I wouldn’t want to disrupt your goddamn lunch plans. You must be fucking starving.”

She flinched at his tone.

There was nothing more to say. “You want me to leave, Ivy, I’ll leave.” A huge knot settled in his stomach. Why didn’t he feel better about this decision?

“I never said I wanted you to leave, but you can.” She held her body rigid. “And I’d understand.”

Their gazes locked on each other.

Still he didn’t move. He could walk out and be a free man, or stay. This should be an easy decision, but it was turning out to be much harder than expected. He thought again about Katie. She had uncles, grandparents, and billions of dollars. Anything she wanted she could have, including a gold-plated cell phone when she turned nine years old. She didn’t need him. He had nothing to offer. He didn’t come from money, and he didn’t know who he was or where he came from.