Chapter 24
24
Y vette left the house after Adeline rang her annoying bell for Olive, telling their chef it was time to take the Christmas tree down. No one felt like celebrating anymore. It was the only thing on which Yvette agreed with Adeline.
Once away from that vicious woman, Yvette knocked on the front door of the girls’ house. And heard Kacey scream, “Go away,” the words and the tone slicing off several more pieces of her heart.
Adeline had made it all worse, of course. Yvette hadn’t a clue how to stop her. Maybe there was no way to stop Adeline. Kacey had been too distraught to see reason. Her boyfriend was arrested for no discernible reason, and right after that, she caught her mother in bed with her uncle.
What could be worse?
She shriveled inside, dying right there on the path before the unopened door. Reaching out, she tried to handle. But they’d locked her out.
It was everything she’d ever feared. She never should have slept with Brock. She never should have kissed him, touched him. And she certainly shouldn’t have fallen in love with him.
Pulling her phone from her dress pocket—Brock had given it back to her when he’d retrieved his from the beach—she found it filled with missed calls from Kacey and Jodi.
Her finger hovered over the call button, Jodi’s number. Should she let them calm down first?
God, she had no idea what to do.
And she pushed the button, because what more could she lose? She’d already lost it all.
Jodi answered, no words, just her breath.
“Sweetheart,” Yvette whispered.
“Look, Mom, I’m taking care of Kacey. Can you just back off for a while? She’s not ready to talk about anything yet.”
“Are you?” Yvette’s voice trembled, making her sound weak.
Jodi took so long to answer that Yvette’s breath stopped in her chest.
“Mom, we just need the uncles to solve this problem with Darryl. When that’s all settled, we can talk. But not right now.” Yvette couldn’t tell if there was anger or just resignation in her daughter’s voice.
She wanted to ask if Jodi still loved her. But terrified of the answer, she couldn’t get the words out. “All right.” The only good thing she could hang onto was that Jodi said, “Bye, Mom,” before she hung up.
Yvette couldn’t go back to her room, couldn’t look at that bed, couldn’t remember the sound of Kacey’s shriek when she’d burst in on them.
Walking down between the two houses, she stepped onto the beach, heading away from the turquoise swing where she’d put the day’s events in motion with that sexy little sashay back to her cottage.
She never should have let him kiss her on that Chicago waterfront. She never should have let him into her hotel room. She never should have let him come to her night after night after night, making her feel all that pleasure, all that wonder. All that love.
Because she’d known this would eventually happen. And now she’d lost her daughters.
Finally, she sank onto the sand, out of sight of the houses and the cottages. As if she were hiding. Maybe she was. Legs tight together, she hooked her arms around her shins and laid her head on her knees. It was hot, even here in the shade. But she didn’t care. She couldn’t stand the air conditioning of her room.
Not with the bed and all the reminders still there in its rumpled sheets.
Her phone rang, and when she looked, she saw Brock’s icon. She wouldn’t have answered except that she needed to know was happening with Darryl. And what Brock was doing about it.
“Hello.” Her voice came out weak and strained.
His was as solid and controlled as ever. “How are you doing?”
Dying , she wanted to tell him.
“I’m on the beach, just taking a respite from all the drama.” She sounded so mild, so unaffected.
“We’ll fix this.” His words came out in a rush.
“I guess it depends on what Darryl’s done.”
“I was talking about us.”
It felt like raking her heart over a bed of coals when she said, “There is no us. We can’t do this anymore. We never should have started. Now it’s over.”
His voice broke on his words. “We’ll never be over. At least I won’t be over you.”
“But I have to be over you. This had to end. You know it. I know it.”
His voice was harsh against her ear, as if he were standing right next to her. “You love me. I love you. We’re not done. We will never be done.”
She closed her eyes against the bright sun reflecting off the ocean. “What we feel doesn’t matter. Only our children matter. And they need us now.”
“They need us united.”
“We’ll always be united in protecting them. But what we’ve been doing hasn’t protected them.” She slashed a hand through the air as if she were cutting the ties that connected them. “I won’t talk about it anymore. Tell me what’s happening with Darryl.”
As if he heard the resolve in her voice, he sighed. “The kid is an idiot.”
“But what did he do?” Neither of them had any doubt that Darryl had done something.
Brock sighed again. “He propositioned his masseuse. All he wanted, and I quote, was a happy ending.”
She exhaled as heavily as he had. “Well, I hope this helps Kacey see what he’s really like. But honestly, he got arrested just for a proposition?”
“He probably wouldn’t have been arrested if he’d stopped with just that. But he rolled over, and apparently there was some intimate physical contact involved which she didn’t appreciate.”
She flopped back, not caring about the sand in her hair. “You’re right. He’s an idiot.”
“It’s hard to get a concrete answer out of the kid. He just keeps saying he didn’t do anything. But she ended up running out screaming and the spa security arrived. They called the cops.” He actually laughed. “They hauled him away wrapped up in just a towel.”
Okay, she couldn’t help an answering laugh. “Oh my God,” she breathed out. “I hope he’ll have learned his lesson by the time you get him out of there.”
“It won’t be easy. They take a thing like this very seriously. It’s assault and attempted rape.”
She gasped. “What will they do to him?”
“He could go to prison for years. I’ve already got a lawyer coming over from Nassau. Because we need someone local. And our US lawyer is also flying in.”
“Can you fix this?” Or should they leave Darryl to his just rewards?
“I don’t know. Part of me doesn’t want to fix it,” he said, echoing her thoughts. “But since it’s Saturday, we can’t get into the courts today anyway. He won’t go in for arraignment, or whatever they call it down here, until Monday. That might not be a bad thing. It will give Trevor and me time to strategize with the lawyers tomorrow. But the New Year’s holiday is coming up, which could cause a further delay.”
“How am I going to tell Kacey?” Her stomach curdled when she thought about it.
“Trevor and I will be home soon. But we can’t keep it a secret from Kacey. That would make everything worse. She’s an adult.”
Yvette agreed. “I can’t shelter her.” But bringing this news would make everything worse.
Kacey already blamed her for not being able to contact Brock as soon as it happened. Not that it would have made any difference. Darryl had already committed the crime.
But Kacey would still hate her for everything that happened.
Brock couldn’t think about what Yvette had said. He wouldn’t believe it. They were not over. She was just reacting to a bad situation. She’d remember later that they were meant to be together. And nothing would stop them.
Except she’d torn his heart into so many pieces he could never sew them all back together.
He saw her sitting in a chair on the front porch of the main house when he and Trevor drove up. Ethan, Malcolm, Francine, and Iris were on their way in the Jeep, but Garth sat in the back seat of the Town Car. His son hadn’t had a lot to say. Except to call Darryl every name his grandmother would have boxed his ears for saying.
Now, before they got out of the car, Garth asked, “What will we tell Kacey?”
Trevor gave an immediate answer. “We’ll tell her the truth.”
Garth slumped in the seat. “That’ll break her heart.”
“Her heart will break anyway,” Brock said. “Because I know my niece. And she won’t stop questioning us until she knows the truth.” Her heartbreak was inevitable.
Maybe his was as well, even as he kept telling himself Yvette would change her mind. But the thing she’d feared most had happened. Her daughter hated her. Maybe later, Kacey would get over it. But for now, when she heard about Darryl, Kacey would take out all her anger on her mother. And probably him too. Though Yvette would take the brunt of it. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Yvette rose from the chair as they all climbed out of the car. When she was close enough, she asked, “Will he be all right in jail over the weekend?”
“We got him a single cell. And they gave him some clothes instead of just the towel. There’s food and water. They won’t starve him. He’ll be fine.”
“Although,” Trevor added, “putting the fear of God in that boy would be a good thing.”
In a beaten voice, Yvette said, “I knocked on the girls’ door earlier to see if I could talk to Kacey, but they won’t let me in.”
His heart broke for her. This pain was all hers. His sons didn’t care. Garth had even said they could leave Darryl in jail for all he cared. It was Yvette’s girls who would feel the most pain. And therefore, so would Yvette. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms. But at this moment, that was the worst idea. He had only one thing to offer. “I’ll talk to them.”
As Yvette crossed her arms and meandered closer, he caught her scent, a mix of him and her and their love.
“She’s already hurting.” Her chest rose with a deep breath. “Just make it gentle.”
When his vocal cords wouldn’t work, Trevor said for him, “We’ll tell her as easily as possible. But she needs to know the truth.”
She closed her eyes, swaying on her feet. Brock wanted to grab her, hold her steady. But looking once again at Trevor, she said, “I know you’re right.”
As he and Trevor turned, Garth put an arm around her shoulders. “It’ll all be okay, Aunt Yvette.”
He could have kissed his son for doing the thing he couldn’t. As Yvette laid her head on Garth’s solid shoulder, he felt her lap up the forgiveness buried in those words.
Brock knocked on the girls’ door. A thin, angry voice carried out. “I told you to go away, Mother.”
Brock wished he could take the impact, but Yvette heard. All he could do was call through the door. “It’s your Uncle Brock. I’ve been to the jail. We need to talk.”
The door opened instantly, with Jodi standing there, as if she’d been waiting for him.
The Jeep roared up then, spitting gravel, Ethan at the wheel. Moments later, Iris and Francine rushed the doorway, barreling past him, sparing quick hugs for Jodi, then dashing into the living room.
Kacey sat on the sofa, a box of tissues in front of her, several gripped in her fingers. Her pink-stained cheeks matched her nose and red-rimmed eyes. Tears still clotted her eyelashes, but she managed a weak voice. “What’s happening, Uncle Brock?”
Her animosity for him was nothing compared to what she’d dished out to Yvette. Wasn’t that the age-old way of things? The woman always bore the shame. Or maybe Kacey just wanted an answer before she attacked him.
A hand on Jodi’s shoulder, he said, “Why don’t you sit with Kacey?” His niece obeyed immediately, hugging close to her sister.
But when Yvette stepped over the threshold, the venom in Kacey’s voice shocked even him. “I don’t want her in here,” she spat through clenched teeth.
Brock stood his ground. “This is family business. And your mother is part of this family. She’ll be here the way everyone else is.”
Kacey burst into tears again, and Jodi pulled her sister’s head onto her shoulder. She might be the younger one, but she had the compassion of a woman years older.
Yvette said, “I’ll wait outside.” But Brock reached for her. “No. We all need to know the stakes.” He pleaded with his eyes. She couldn’t run away. If she did, the chances of Kacey and Jodi forgiving them would shrink to nothing. Yvette had to face the truth, just the way Kacey did.
Brock took a seat on the chair facing Kacey. Standing by the other end of the sofa, Yvette was as far from him as she could get. Garth perched on a sofa arm next to the girls. He squeezed Jodi’s shoulder, eliciting a gentle smile from her, not a happy one but a thankful one. Crossing his arms, Trevor remained standing by the coffee table. Brock could have left the tale to his brother, but this was his battle. He was the reason the two girls blamed their mother. He couldn’t back down any more than he could let Yvette back down.
“This will be hard,” he said in a tone he hoped would gentle the girl. “If I could spare you, I would. But I can’t. Darryl was arrested for solicitation and…” He didn’t quite know how to say the words. The stark reality of them would break her. But it had to be said.
And yet Garth finished for him. “He was arrested for attempting to rape his masseuse.”
Was it any wonder Kacey burst into another round of sobs? In a tear-filled voice, she asked, “What exactly did he do?”
Brock had known he’d find the story hard to tell. But her swollen face and her misery tore at his heart as viciously as Yvette’s words had. “He asked her to give him a happy ending. You know what that is?”
She nodded. Kids knew everything these days.
“When she protested, there was some unwanted touching involved.”
“She should have squeezed him hard enough to make him scream,” Jodi snapped.
The boy certainly would have learned his lesson if she had. At least for a little while.
Trevor took over then. “She called Security. Then the police came.”
“But what is Darryl saying?” Kacey wanted to know, probably needed to.
Brock answered honestly. “He said all he did was ask her. But he didn’t touch her. He just rolled over.” He had to lick his lips before he added, “It was quite clear what he wanted, and somehow there was a touch involved, but it was an accident.” An accident, yeah right. But as much as he and Trevor pushed, Darryl couldn’t—or wouldn’t—say exactly what that meant. Maybe the lawyers could get it out of him tomorrow.
She looked at him with wide eyes. “Do you believe him? That whatever happened was accidental?”
The truth? Or a lie to save her feelings? He considered which for a moment. But his niece deserved the truth. “I believe he did something, I’m not sure what, and it was completely unwanted on her part.”
She jumped up from the couch, dashed around the end, and ran for the sliding glass door to the beach. But there she stopped. Yvette made a move toward her, but then she looked at Jodi and something passed between them. And Jodi went to her sister.
Brock told them the current situation. “We’ve got two lawyers coming, one from Nassau and one from the US, since it’s an international matter.”
Though she muffled her voice against Jodi’s shoulder, he made out Kacey’s words threaded through her tears. “I wanted a couples’ massage. They brought you fruit and cheese and champagne and chocolate. And there would be two massage therapists. But Darryl said it cost too much money, and he told me I should get a facial instead. Because I couldn’t have both a facial and a massage.”
Brock wanted to smash the kid’s face. It hadn’t been a spur-of-the-moment thing. He’d planned it. He’d thought the spa was some sort of sex club where he could ask for sexual favors. Whatever “accidental” thing happened was on his head.
He turned at a noise behind him. And his mother’s voice rang out. “We should leave him exactly where he is. In jail. Perhaps the punishment here in the Bahamas is castration.”