Unforgettable Read online

  “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.

  He bolted from the desk. He had to get away before he suffocated. He swung the door open and without looking at Ivy again, walked out the door.

  Ivy watched him leave, and when she was certain he was gone for good, she collapsed onto one of the chairs. Not telling him had been the right decision years ago, but knowing didn’t make her feel any better. In fact, his departure hurt—a deep, unexpected pain that cut through to the marrow of her bones. He’d rejected Katie, just as she’d known he would. She’d hoped, for one moment, that he would prove her wrong. Not for her, but for their daughter.

  She inhaled a tremulous breath and shook off her despondency. After struggling to her feet, she walked briskly down the hallway.

  He wouldn’t know the wonderful human being Katie was or the intelligent, lovely young woman Ivy was certain she’d become. His loss.

  She entered her office and caught her daughter spinning around in a circle in her executive chair. Ivy had told her not to do that on countless occasions.

  Busted, Katie stopped and a guilty smile crossed her face. “Sorry, Mommy.”

  Ivy didn’t have the energy or desire to scold her. Looking at her sweet face saddened her and made her heart ache.

  Katie’s brow wrinkled. “Mommy, is something wrong?”

  Ivy shook her hea
d, biting her lip to keep it from trembling. “Time for our lunch date. Let’s go.” She held out her hand and Katie ran over.

  “Good. I’m hungry!” her daughter said with dramatic flair.

  Ivy grinned down at her. She’d brought so much joy into her life. Not only hers, the entire family. Katie had been their savior. Losing Lucas and then her beloved father soon after had plunged Ivy into depression. The only joy in her life had been the pending birth of her daughter. After Katie was born, there had been times when she didn’t want to get out of bed, but she did. Taking care of her daughter eased the pain and patched—if not repaired—her broken heart.

  Even her mother, who’d been confined to bed after losing her life partner, had slowly begun to live again when Ivy had brought her newborn grandchild to her room. Katie had, miraculously, saved her fractured family. Lucas had no idea what he was missing.

  “You’re always hungry,” Ivy teased. “Where does it all go?”

  “In my tummy!” Katie rubbed her stomach and made a chomping sound.

  They laughed as they started down the hall. As they passed the office where she and Lucas had talked, Katie peeked in. “Is the man gone?”

  Ivy’s fingers closed just a little bit tighter around her daughter’s hand. “Yes, he’s gone. We won’t be seeing him again.”

  Chapter Eight

  Seated at the boarding gate in Los Angeles International Airport, Lucas swallowed the last of his sandwich and crumpled the wrapper. After he’d left Seattle, he’d flown to LA for three days of radio spots, a newspaper interview, and a photo shoot for a regional magazine. The fatigue was starting to catch up with him. He felt it more often lately.

  “You’re not as young as you used to be,” he told himself.

  He licked a drop of mustard off his finger and caught the faint smile the woman in the chair across from him sent his way. He smiled in return, but looked away.

  Not today, sweetheart.

  He couldn’t even think about hooking up with anyone right now, and it was all Ivy’s fault.

  Because of her, he was a father. He had no idea how to be one, didn’t have one and didn’t want to be one. He’d taken great pains to avoid fatherhood, and part of him was still stunned by the realization that he’d been hit by the bullet he thought he’d dodged all of his life.

  How could she not tell him? And now he was supposed to drop everything and become the father he never wanted to be in the first place?

  His thoughts were all jumbled because actually, she’d said the exact opposite. She’d let him off the hook and taken the news quite well that he didn’t want to take on his parental responsibilities.

  He rested his elbows on his knees and scrubbed his hands over his face. He had a foster family, five brothers and sisters he’d grown up with in Mama Katherine’s house, but otherwise, he had no known blood relatives. Mama Katherine had told him he may not know who he was or where he came from, but that didn’t make him a nobody. But when he compared his life to Ivy’s, he came up short. She knew her heritage. She could trace her lineage.

  The only memory he had, faint though it was, was of a woman with a large Afro leaning over him and singing the lullaby “Rock-a-Bye-Baby.” He wondered if it was real or a false memory. It could be a dream, but he could almost swear his smile mirrored the one she wore as she sang to him.

  The social workers had told him there was no way he could remember any such occurrence because he’d been so young when they found him, but he held on to the memory nonetheless. It was a connection to his past, no matter how fragile.

  The image of her face was fuzzy and its clarity remained just out of focus. Yet he wanted to believe she was his mother. It gave him something to hold on to, no matter how small, no matter how unlikely. His throat tightened painfully, as if someone had closed their hand around his neck and he straightened in the chair, fighting the suffocating sensation. He hated the drowning feeling that sometimes came over him—as if he were tossed into the abyss and told to sink or swim.

  He’d felt this way all of his life, along with a restless emptiness, not unlike being out to sea in a small vessel without a paddle or motor to propel him along. Just…drifting, without purpose or direction.

  He thought again about Katie, his own flesh and blood. They shared similar traits. She liked to write just like him. Imagine that.

  With a wry smile, Lucas surveyed the bustling crowd at the airport.

  His foot bounced up and down as he thought.

  Maybe he could do it. Maybe he could do the father-thing. The more he thought about it, the less crazy the idea seemed.

  Katie didn’t have a father right now. Why couldn’t it be him? After all, he actually was her father.

  Ivy had obviously wanted to get rid of him. She’d made it ridiculously easy for him to walk away, but he’d show her he was not so easy to get rid of.

  His jaw hardened with resolve and he picked up his carry-on bag from the floor. He walked up to the ticket counter.

  “I need to change my flight,” he said to the airline agent. “I need your first flight to Seattle.”

  ****

  Lucas paced the atrium of Johnson Enterprises. He made the same loop over and over, from one wall to the next. The guards at the desk eyed him the entire time, as if they’d be ready to tackle him if he made a questionable move.

  In the nick of time he’d been able to make the next flight out of LA. He’d had to run through the airport with energy he probably hadn’t expelled since he was a teenager, but he’d made it to the gate on time. And now he was here, waiting for Ivy.

  Since five o’clock, employees had been pouring out of the elevators into the atrium. Each time he searched the faces for her, and each time he was disappointed, but prepared to wait as long as it took for her to come down.

  The doors purred open again and released another group of employees. Ivy was among them, and the minute he saw her his pulse rate accelerated. It was a reaction he couldn’t quash, much to his chagrin.

  As usual she looked amazing in a form-fitting suit. Her hair was pulled back into a loose, side-swept chignon that allowed wisps of hair to brush her right cheek like dark strands of spun silk. She waved at the guards and stopped to speak to them. While they had her attention he made his way toward her. By the time she turned around, he was almost beside her.

  Her eyes widened in surprise. “What are you doing here? I thought you’d left.”

  “I did, but we need to talk.”

  “What else is there to talk about?”

  “Katherine.”

  She eyed him with trepidation. “What about her?”

  “Can we go somewhere to talk privately?” Lucas asked in a lowered voice.

  He didn’t want to have this conversation at the guard desk. The older guy especially was giving him the evil eye. If Ivy gave any indication that Lucas upset her, these guys looked like they’d gladly beat him down with their batons.

  She didn’t answer right away, but she did step away from the desk. “I don’t understand what’s going on. I thought you were on your way back to Atlanta.”

  “I had a short trip to California and then I was headed back, but I changed my mind.”

  “And you want to talk?” She sounded skeptical.

  “Yes. Preferably now,” he said with insistence.

  Her eyes clouded with uncertainty. “My driver’s outside. We could go to the lounge at the Four Seasons and have a drink. It’s usually quiet there this time of the day.”

  “Afraid to be alone with me in private?” he asked.

  “Forgive me if I don’t think that’s a good idea. You look like you want to choke the life out of me, and I’m not ready to die yet.” A vinegar smile crossed her lips, yet she still managed to look appealing.

  She always did have a sarcastic sense of humor. If he weren’t so unhappy about their circumstances he would crack a smile.

  They walked toward the door, and he placed his hand at the small of her back. The moveme
nt was automatic, one he didn’t think about until the exact moment his hand touched the base of her spine.

  She jerked away from him. The abrupt motion sent her smack dab into a man walking nearby. Lucas stopped in his tracks and heard her murmur an apology to the man who smiled off the collision.

  When she looked at him again, her eyes held a wildness that betrayed the cool expression on her face. “Could you try not to touch me, please,” she said.

  The verbal slap stung. “My mistake,” he bit out. He waved his hand with a flourish. “Carry on, princess.”

  “Stop calling me that,” she snapped.

  “Why? You used to like it.” He was purposely goading her, trying to get a reaction. Maybe because his insides were an emotional jumble and her impassive face, proof she had way more control than he did, struck a nerve.

  “Princesses get whatever they want. I do not.” She spun on her heel and marched toward the exit with more speed in her steps.

  He stared after her. What the hell did that mean?

  The ride to the hotel didn’t take long, but the entire time Ivy stayed on the phone in an obvious effort to ignore him. Well, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  When they entered the hotel lounge the hostess practically tripped over herself to accommodate them. Everything was Ms. Johnson-this and Ms. Johnson-that. He was pretty sure if they hadn’t had a free table for them to sit at, the young woman would have gone down on all fours and let Ivy perch on her back. Fortunately, that wasn’t necessary. She wiped down a table in a quiet corner and they sat in soft-cushioned chairs across from each other.

  Ivy crossed her long legs and set her gold Hermès bag on the low table between them. It seemed his senses were more heightened because her perfume enveloped him with a new scent, and it made his blood pressure spike.

  “Can I get you a drink?” she asked.

  “I don’t want a damn drink,” he replied, angry at her and at himself for the trajectory of his thoughts. Considering her deception, he was disgusted with himself for noticing anything about her.

  She raised an eyebrow, surprised by his outburst. “I hope you don’t mind if I have one, then,” she said, lifting her hand to get the waiter’s attention. She was way too calm. He wanted to unravel her.