Serena's Choice - Coastal Romance Series (22 page)

“
Let’s watch some more
movies,” he said turning on the television.

“
I thought you might want to do
something else,” she said, moving over to sit beside him on the
couch.

“
I think I got too much sun,”
he said. “I think you did, too. Let’s wind down with a movie.”

Time seemed to move in slow
motion. When would they get there? They should be there by now.
Finally, he heard a knock at the door. He got up to open it.

“
Hope it’s not your
girlfriend again,” Janet said.

He opened the door to Janet’s
parents and a man that he didn’t know. He let them in. Janet was
staring at them from the couch.

“
What are you doing here?”
Janet asked, alarmed.

“
We’re here to take you home,
Janet,” Mrs. Welker said. “It’s time to go home.”

“
I’m not going home,” she
said. “I’m going to live here with Steven from now on.”

“
I’m sorry, Janet,” Mr.
Welker said. “But that’s not going to happen. Steven wants a
divorce from you and you need to go ahead and give it to him. We’re
tired of fighting your battle for you.”

Janet turned to Steven. “Did
you call them?” she asked hysterically.

“
Yes,” he said.

“
You mean you tricked me? You
made me think you loved me and wanted me to stay here?”

“
I didn’t trick you, Janet,”
Steven said softly. Even though he knew that he really did trick her.
That was the only way around Janet.

“
Who’s that?” Janet asked,
pointing at the man that had not been introduced yet.

“
That’s Dr. Williams. He’s
here to help you if you need help,” Mr. Welker said.

“
I don’t need any help,”
she said. “I’m staying here.”

Mr. Welker sat on the couch with
Janet. He tried to take her hand but she snatched it away. “Honey,
you’ve got two choices here today. Leave with us without a fight or
fight us and we’ll have you committed. We’ve brought the papers
with us.”

Janet stood up and looked around
frantically. She looked at Steven, pleading.

“
Steven, how can you let them
do this to me?”

“
Janet, you’re doing
everything to yourself. I just want you to let me go.”

Janet lunged for the table beside
the couch and picked up several magazines. She ripped them up and
threw the shreds all over the floor. Dr. Williams stepped in then and
tried to calm her down. She would have none of it. She beat at him
with her fists.

Mr. Welker raised his voice.
“Janet, get out to the car right now or we’ll have to call the
police. You don’t have a choice.”

Janet fell to the floor and began
to wail. She beat her fists on the floor and then on herself. Dr.
Williams stepped in again. “Janet, I’ve got some medicine to help
calm you down, okay?” he said.

After a few minutes of sobbing,
she nodded her head. Janet was defeated, finally. Her parents would
no longer support her in her mental illness. They would no longer
help her fight the divorce.

Mrs. Welker went to the kitchen
and found a glass and filled it with water. Steven stood numbly in
the living room, not helping her, saying nothing. Dr. Williams gave a
couple of capsules to Janet. Janet’s father walked over and gently
lifted Janet from the floor.

“
Find her purse and anything
else she has here,” he said to Janet’s mother. She looked at
Steven and he came out of his trance and found Janet’s purse. He
went in the bedroom and found her overnight bag and brought it to
Mrs. Welker, who had a wounded look in her eyes. “I’m sorry,”
he said softly to her. “Really sorry.” She touched his arm but
didn’t say anything. The four of them walked out the door, Janet
huddled in her father’s arms. Steven watched them walk down the
stairs. Mr. Welker put Janet in the back seat, and then got in beside
her. Dr. Williams got in the driver’s seat. Mrs. Welker got into
Janet’s car and Steven watched until both cars had driven away.

He sat down on the couch and
wept.

Chapter
Fourteen—Jeff

Jeff walked into the dark
Rossetti’s for the second time that day. He went to the bar and
made himself a stiff drink, which he took upstairs. He was all alone
in the big house. He sat on the bed because there was nowhere else to
sit in the entire upstairs. If Rosie were there, she’d jump up on
the bed, too. He missed Rosie. He missed Nonna. And most of all, he
missed Serena.

He lay back on his pillow and
nursed his drink before placing it on the table. When his phone rang
a few minutes later, he was about to fall asleep. He hoped it was
Serena calling him, needing him, loving him, so he didn’t check who
it was.

“
Hey, Jeff,” Angela said.

Jeff was more than disappointed.
“Hey, Angela. Did you make it through the storm okay?”

“
Yeah. It was rainy but fine up
here.”

The phone went silent. Jeff
couldn’t think of anything to say.

“
I’m calling because I want
to let you know that I’m not coming back,” Angela said.

Jeff was relieved, though he felt
bad about that. He liked Angela all right, but he didn’t love her.
He would never love her.

“
Why not?” he asked.

“
Being out here on my friends’
farm has given me time to think. I realize it’s time for me to move
on. I know we don’t have any kind of future together, and that’s
okay. But I know you’re in love with Serena, and it’s time for me
to go.”

Jeff didn’t deny his feelings
for Serena.

“
Your silence affirms what I
already know,” she said. “Listen, I know this is terribly
unprofessional of me, but would you let Sandy and everyone know that
I won’t be back?”

“
Sure,” Jeff said. Before she
could hang up, Jeff said, “It’s been nice knowing you, Angela.”

“
You too, Jeff,” she said.
“Good luck.”

Jeff stared at the ceiling. He
was going to have to paint it too, he realized. But that could wait.

He started thinking about Serena
and the night he met her.

He and some coworkers had been
working every night and weekend for weeks on an important brief,
defending a corporation. When they finally filed it late one night,
everyone wanted to celebrate. They had gone to Bridgewater’s for a
feast. Jeff couldn’t even remember now what he ate that night, but
he had asked to see the chef. He was basically showing his ass to his
coworkers, trying to look sophisticated like he’d seen people do in
movies. And then Serena had walked out.

She was wearing her chef coat and
her wavy brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. But he could see
her figure underneath the coat. Her skin was a glowing honey beige
color and her facial features were finely chiseled. She must be
Italian, he remembered thinking. She had seemed surprised to be
called to a table for compliments, and Jeff showed his ass again by
heaping praise on her. When the dinner was over, he decided he needed
to see the chef again.

She came back out, looking just
as pretty as before, and he asked her out. He didn’t expect her to
say yes, but she did. They had gone to a club and had drinks. Serena
took off her chef jacket and let her hair down, which flowed in waves
across her shoulders. She was beautiful.

Jeff remembered that it was so
loud in the club it was hard to talk. But after they left, he tried
to get to know her. She wasn’t having any of it, but she didn’t
reject him. She entered into a sexual relationship with him, but she
kept her distance. Jeff came to realize that she didn’t want
anything personal. He continued to see Serena, but it was always
unplanned; she didn’t want to plan anything ahead of time. He would
just show up at the restaurant and then they would go out for a
while, and then go back to her apartment for sex.

He admitted to himself that he
was so caught up in firm politics, in trying to make partner in the
large, prestigious firm, that he allowed the relationship to be
impersonal. He didn’t need anything hanging him up. He let that go
on for several months.

But then Serena’s mother had
died and everything changed. When she texted him that her mother had
passed away, he felt an overwhelming sympathy for Serena. He knew
what that was like to lose someone you loved.

And even though Serena was
keeping up her defenses against him, he went to her mother’s
funeral. He wanted to show her that he was more than just a date,
more than just a casual sex partner. Whether she wanted it or not,
whether she put up a wall, Jeff knew that Serena was suffering. She
was vulnerable, and he began to see her in a new light.

Serena had definitely been
surprised to see him. And then he met her grandmother and Jeff
couldn’t be impersonal anymore. Elena reminded him so much of his
grandmother, with her petite body and endless spunk. He loved Elena
right away. And Elena seemed to love him too, like some lost son.

When he went into Elena’s
cottage he felt he was at home. He knew he needed to be there for
Elena—and Serena, whether she knew it or not.

When he came back to visit at
Elena’s insistence, he and Serena had been together, tenderly. By
that point, he had begun to think he needed to leave his job. It was
not satisfactory to him. He needed to do something better with his
life.

Serena was more open to him than
she ever had been. He still had fantasies about the nights they spent
under the trees, making love. His heart started to open wide for
Serena. He wanted her.

But Serena wasn’t ready. She
wasn’t giving him the signals he needed to see. He stayed away for
a long time. He tried to get over her. But Elena was there, texting
him, and he was texting her back. He didn’t know how he could ever
end that relationship, and he didn’t want to. He loved Elena. He
wished he could love Serena openly. He wished Serena would drop her
defenses. He wished that she would love him. Everything began to feel
so complicated.

He hated being a lawyer. The
partners were self-absorbed and could capture him in their offices
sometimes, talking, talking, talking. They loved to hear the sound of
their own voices. They loved to figure out ways to beat the little
guy, beat the legal system. It was a big game, and he wanted no part
of it.

Then Elena had asked him to come
to Rossetti’s Fourth of July party. It would take him five hours to
drive there and he would have to get back right after that. But the
thought of seeing Serena again was enough for him. He needed to see
her pretty face.

But it was a disaster. Serena was
with Steven, something he didn’t know about, and she clearly wished
that Jeff wasn’t there. He watched Steven touching Serena, and it
drove him crazy. He felt awkward and couldn’t wait to get out of
there.

When he got back to Atlanta, he
knew he had to leave the firm. He had no idea what he was going to do
with his life, but it wasn’t going to be law. Elena called him
after he’d given his notice, and he told her. Elena asked him what
other skills he had and he said jokingly that he was a bartender.

“
We need a bartender!” Elena
said. “Mark just gave his notice. He’s going back to school. We
need to replace him. You could do that.”

Jeff didn’t really think that
was a great idea, given the reception Serena had given him at the
Fourth party. But Elena kept insisting. Finally, he told her he would
only agree to it if Serena agreed to it. He hoped she would. Even if
she was seeing Steven, Jeff wanted to be around her. He wanted her
and maybe, somehow, he could get her.

But when he got there and started
working at the bar, he couldn’t see a way to get any headway with
Serena. Steven came in the bar almost every night, sitting his tall
and lanky body in the barstool beside Serena. He watched them dance
together, and they seemed to be in love. He didn’t know what to do
about that, so when Angela started flirting with him, he flirted
back. He started seeing her, like he had seen everyone in Atlanta,
including Serena. Casually. What could it hurt? Serena wasn’t
giving him the time of day.

It wasn’t long, though, before
he started to see that Serena was troubled. Steven would come in
almost every night, then he would be gone, out of town. That wasn’t
anything unusual in a relationship. But Serena had a sadness in her
eyes that killed him. Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t put
his finger on it. One night, after the bar closed, he stayed up until
the early hours of the morning researching Steven Calloway on the
Internet. He found cites from when he was a professor in Charleston.
And then he found the wedding announcement.

Jeff was used to doing research.
He pulled out everything he knew to find a divorce for Steven, but he
couldn’t. He checked the Charleston online courthouse; he checked
the newspaper listings for divorces. In the end, he couldn’t find
anything about a divorce, but that didn’t mean there hadn’t been
one. It could have happened anywhere. He felt sure that Steven had
told Serena about his marriage and divorce. It would only cause
trouble for him to tell Serena about it. So, he didn’t. He
regretted that now.