The Moment We Began (A Fairhope New Adult Romance) (29 page)

“You son of a bitch,” I say, twisting
my arms until he releases me. My wrists sting.

“Seven minutes,” he says. “You
have a choice to make. You can either come quietly and avoid sending
your baby’s father to prison on kidnapping charges for the rest
of his life. Or you can stay here and wait for the police to arrive
and force you both into custody. Either way, you’re going to be
home by nightfall. The question is whether you’re going to let
Mason walk out of here of his own free will or with handcuffs around
his wrists.”

It’s an impossible choice. Either way, we
both lose everything.

And I know Bernard is right. My father loves me,
but he’ll do whatever he has to in order to get what he wants.
My whole life I’ve watched him bring people down with a single
phone to a friend. So many people owe him favors at this point, he
can make anything happen. He can make anyone disappear.

And I’ll never forgive myself if I let Mason
go to prison because of me.

I turn and Mason’s gaze meets mine.

He shakes his head. “Don’t do it,
Penny,” he says. “We’ll fight it. If you walk away
now, you know they’ll let never let us be together.”

“They’ll never let us be together
anyway,” I say. “Can’t you see that? If I go with
him, at least you’re free.”

“No I’m not,” he says. “They’ll
still press charges for my father’s mistakes. I’ll be on
the run from this my whole life. Besides, without you, I might as
well be in jail anyway. And knowing we’re going to have a baby
together? That changes everything. If you walk away now, then this
trip hasn’t taught you anything. You left so they couldn’t
control you. So that you could make your own choices and follow your
heart. If you give them control over you—over us—they’ll
own you for the rest of your life.”

“Three minutes,” Bernard says. He
pulls his phone from his pocket and my heart squeezes so hard in my
chest I think it might explode.

Tears trickle down my face and my head throbs.
“I’m sorry,” I say to Mason. “I can’t
let you go to jail for this.”

I turn to Bernard and nod.

Mason slams his fist into the wall as Bernard
dials my father’s number and tells him I’m on my way
home.

“I don’t know what else to do,”
I say to Mason. “I don’t want to lose you.”

He turns to me, anger hardening his face. His eyes
are cold and hollow.

“You just did.”

My father’s jet is waiting for us at the
airport in Houston. The flight home takes about five hours, and I
stare out the window for most of the trip.

I have never felt so betrayed in my entire life.

By my father. By Mason.

By myself.

It doesn’t seem real that he’s gone. I
was so happy out on the road with Mason. I was a better person just
for being with him. He was right all along. I had always thought that
if you stripped away the money and the jewelry and the expensive
clothes and the fancy car, I would be nothing more than a hollow
shell.

But on this trip, I realized that those other
things are the shell. The money and the name doesn’t make me
who I am. It never has.

It took getting away from all of that to finally
understand it.

I was really beginning to love that version of me.

And to finally hear Mason tell me he loves me was
the single happiest moment of my life.

When he made love to me, I felt transformed. I was
ready for a life with him, even if we spent it in a tent on the beach
without ever having more. All I wanted was him and this baby. We
could have been a family.

But as real as it all seemed—as close as I
thought we had gotten—there were still these lies that stood
between us. Even if I could learn to forgive him for keeping the
truth from me about his father, he might never be able to forgive me
for walking away. But what choice did I have? My father is too
strong. Too powerful. Without money and resources, we wouldn’t
have been able to fight him. We wouldn’t have stood a chance.

And without complete honesty and trust, we didn’t
really have love. We may have had something that felt like love or
looked like love, but without trust, it was all an illusion.

Mason called himself a fraud. And that’s
what he was. The whole time he was riding around town in his Porsche
and spending money left and right, he knew that money was stolen from
my family. And he still had the nerve to be a part of our lives. He
still had the nerve to sleep with me and lead me on and to call
himself Preston’s best friend.

He knew he didn’t deserve our friendship,
but he took it anyway.

Mason betrayed us.

Still, no matter how much I damn him for his
mistakes and his choices, inside I know I’ve made just as many
bad choices. I’ve messed up just as many times. What right do I
have to judge him?

How am I going to live without him?

I lay down on the white leather sofa in the main
cabin of the plane and wrap a lush brown blanket around my body.

I don’t even want to think about what my
parents will say. I don’t know if I will ever be able to
forgive them for pushing me like this. For demanding I leave the one
man I’ve ever loved—the father of my baby—to come
home and be with them. I always knew my father was a shrewd man,
willing to step on whoever he had to in order to get what he wanted.
But I never dreamed that included me.

My heart is broken.

No, even the word broken does not come close to
describing how I feel.

Devastated.

Ruined.

Obliterated.

There is no word strong enough.

I miss Mason so much already. I miss the feel of
his arms around me. I miss his laughter and the way he’d tease
me by lifting that one eyebrow, looking at me like I’d gone
crazy. I miss everything about him.

By the time the plane touches down, I’m hit
with the realization that I’ve made a terrible mistake. I’ve
made the wrong choice.

And the thought of never being with him again
destroys me.

My parents meet me as I come off the jet.

Mom’s eyes are ringed with red and she
throws her arms around me and pulls me tight. “My sweet baby
girl,” she says. “I was so worried about you. I was so
scared you were never going to come home to us.”

I don’t say anything. I hug her back, but
I’m only going through the motions.

Dad stands to the side. He has no words for me,
and I have nothing to say to him.

But Preston is the one who holds onto me. The
moment his arms close around me, I burst into tears. He holds me and
lets me sob into his shirt.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers to
me. “I tried to talk to them and convince them to stop, but
they wouldn’t listen.”

Preston takes my small bag and puts one arm around
me as we all walk to the car and head home to Fairhope.

In the car, no one says a word. The tension is
palpable.

It’s still almost a fifteen minute drive
from the small airport here to our house, and on the way, I can only
hope my parents will have the decency to give me my space. I did what
they asked. I played along even though it meant surrendering my own
hope for the future. I hope they will at least give me time to deal
with it in my own way.

I pull my legs up into the seat and lean my head
against the window, watching the miles pass us by. I don’t
think about the future or about the things that happened on the trip.
I clear my mind, concentrating on the trees along the side of the
road. We’re going so fast, they start to blur together. That’s
when I realize I’m crying again. Even if my mind has closed
off, refusing to think of the things that will hurt me, my heart
still knows.

My heart won’t let me forget what I’ve
done.

Preston puts a hand on my arm and when I look
over, he motions for me to scoot closer. He opens his strong arms to
me and I crawl inside, just like I’ve done a thousand times.
Preston is my rock, and I’m so glad he’s here with me.

He holds me as we cross the county line. He holds
me as we pass the Solo gas station where Mason and I stopped before
we left town. He holds me all the way until Dad pulls the car through
the gate and our house appears.

Preston opens the door, but before he lets go of
me, he squeezes my shoulder and whispers in my ear. “No matter
what, I’m here for you, sis,” he says. “Everything
is going to be okay. I promise.”

I hug him back, then get out of the car. I stare
up at the house where I grew up. It looks exactly the same as it
always has, but it feels different. I guess because I’m
different. For the first time, I’m seeing this all through the
eyes of someone who didn’t grow up in a place like this. I’m
seeing it through the eyes of people like Delores and Walt and Buddy.
People who take nothing for granted and who fight for everything they
have and everything they love.

Before, this was always just my house. I didn’t
see anything special about it. It was just the house where we live.

But now, I see the ridiculousness of it. I can see
why people think we act so high and mighty. After all, I just flew in
on a private jet, drove home in a special edition Lexus, and came
through a gated entrance to a house with over fifteen thousand square
feet.

And none of those things could ever be enough to
make me happy. None of it could ever replace what I had with Mason,
sitting by the fire or holding each other inside a tent, our warm
bodies pressed together in the darkness.

“Come inside, sweetheart,” my mom
says. “We’ll get you something to eat.”

I nod, but don’t follow her inside right
away. I stand there for another minute, staring up at the house,
thinking about just how much I’ve changed since I left. How
fast I would trade all of this for one more moment with him.

How I might never get the chance to make that
choice again.

I walk down the hall toward the stairs, but my
mother’s heels sound on the marble entryway and I pause.

“Penelope? Honey? Your father and I have a
few things we need to talk through with you,” she says.

I take a deep breath and push back the tears and
frustration. I force them down so deep I can no longer feel them. I
force myself to be numb. Heavy. I prepare myself to just take
whatever they’re going to dish out to me. I just need to
survive it, then when I’m alone, I can feel whatever it is I’m
feeling.

For now, I’m nothing.

The only thing that holds me to this life is the
baby growing inside of me. As long as I have that, I can hold on to
some hope that I can find Mason and that he will forgive me for what
I’ve done. Hope that we can forgive each other and start again.

I turn and nod, then follow her into the living
room. I’m still wearing my dirty cutoffs and boots. Ironically,
it’s very similar to the outfit I was wearing when I walked out
of this house almost a month ago. I feel so out of place here with
all the ornate decorations. I feel like this simply isn’t where
I belong anymore.

Out there, it didn’t matter what I was
wearing. I felt beautiful and sexy, because Mason made me feel that
way.

But here, in this room with its pristine white
couch and vases of fresh flowers, I feel wrong. I feel lesser.

My father stands behind the couch, his hand on the
back. Mom sits down just under him and pats his hand for
encouragement.

I sit in a straight-backed chair across from them.

Preston walks in with a tray full of ice waters.
He sets them on the coffee table, then grabs one for himself and
steps to the side.

I put my head down, playing with the fringe at the
edge of my shorts. I wait. I already know what’s coming. I
already know what they’re going to say and that no matter how
they try to justify what they’ve done, I won’t hear them.
I won’t listen.

I feel sick to my stomach and the room is hot. I
swallow and take a deep breath. I want one of those ice waters, but
when I start to reach for one, a sharp pain in my side stops me. I
cry out and move my hands to the spot, doubling over.

Preston grabs a water, then rushes over to me.
“You okay?” he asks.

For a second, it hurts to breath. I wait for the
pain to pass, then sit back in the chair. I take the water and lift
it to my lips. The cold water is amazing in this heat. “Thanks,”
I say. But inside, I’m terrified. The doctor told me to watch
for cramping, but the first time it happened, I thought maybe I had
simply stood up too fast. My hands tremble and I clutch the glass
tighter. “I’m fine. Just stressed out and tired.”

Preston’s eyes are clouded with worry.
“Can’t we do this some other time?” he asks,
turning to them. “Penny’s been through so much. She’s
in no condition to listen to this right now.”

“Sit down, son,” Dad says.

Preston doesn’t move from my side.

“Penny.” My dad says my name and I
look up at him. I clutch the glass in my hand so hard, I’m
surprised it doesn’t break. He waits until I’m looking at
him before he continues. “I cannot even begin to tell you how
worried we’ve been. We had no idea if you were even alive. Do
you understand how difficult these last few weeks have been for us?”

I’m not sure he really wants an answer, so I
stay quiet. My role here is to listen. To take whatever punishment
they choose to give. But what they don’t realize is they can’t
hurt me anymore. They’ve already taken everything they can take
from me.

“When the maid came to us with that note of
yours, we didn’t know what to think,” he says. “We
thought maybe you were just acting out after we took away your
privileges and your spending money. We thought maybe you were just
trying to make a point, so as hard as it was, we decided to let you
go. We thought you’d be gone for a few days. Maybe a week at
most. We knew you were with Mason, and at the time, that made us feel
some comfort.”