Chapter 11 #2
“I forgive you,” he said flatly. Because that was what God expected. Maybe someday, with the Lord’s help, his heart would match his words. “But that doesn’t change anything.”
Lena’s eyes narrowed, her entire visage changing. “You moved on from me fast enough.”
“Moved on from you? You and I were never together.” As the words were coming out, he realized what she was implying.
“Your young new girlfriend has that same sweet look about her that you fell for in Marianne, and you know how that worked out. You’d think you’d learn.”
The comment hit like a splash of ice water. He took a step toward Lena, glaring down at her. “I don’t have a girlfriend. What are you talking about?”
“Oh.” She blinked, and her countenance changed again. She became a picture of innocence. Did she have an authentic side, or was she just one facade after another? “I assumed. I happened to be in your neighborhood last night and saw you two on the porch swing. Seemed cozy.”
So it had been Lena’s car crawling down Magnolia Street. She’d been watching. She’d seen him with Delaney.
“Stay away from my home.”
“It’s a public road, and I have—”
“And stay away from my family.” He moved past her toward his car door.
She didn’t budge. “Family? Is that what you’re calling her and your bastard kid?”
He froze, turned slowly, and moved into her space.
She must’ve seen the fury in his expression because she took a step back.
“Pay very close attention, Lena.” His heart was thumping like a war drum.
“You and I were never together. We aren’t together now, and we will never be together.
You faced no consequences after you broke up my marriage.
If you come after me again, if you so much as blink at Charlotte or her nanny, you will be sorry. ”
He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but he hadn’t expected her to smile the way she did, to reach out as if she were going to touch him.
He retreated just in time.
“Fate can only be put off for so long, darling. I’m willing to wait.”
He’d never feared a woman, but this one had already proved dangerous—maybe not to him physically, but in every other way. She was manipulative and determined and, obviously, walking a few blocks off Reality Road.
He didn’t want to think about what lengths she’d go to fulfill her bizarre notion that they should be together, that he could ever love her.
With Lena Monroe back in the picture, Noah needed to be very careful.
Halfway to the dance studio, Noah was still brooding about Lena when his phone rang through the speakers. His brother’s name came up on the screen.
“Thanks for calling me back.” Noah worked for a neutral tone, though he’d called his brother three days before.
“Yeah, sorry.” Jasper’s words came out weary, with a touch of defensiveness. “I didn’t have service.”
“Where are you?”
“Long story. How’s Charlotte?”
“She’s doing exceptionally well, actually. Her new nanny has helped pull her out of her shell. She’s been seeing a play therapist, working through some trauma, and—”
“What kind of trauma?”
“You’d know better than I would. I don’t know what she’s been through.”
“Doesn’t she tell the therapist?”
“She’s four, Jaz.”
“Right. Yeah.” He blew out a breath. “I’m glad she’s getting help. Thanks for doing that. And, you know…”
When his brother didn’t finish, Noah said, “I wanted to float something by you.” Anxiety pooled in his stomach.
He’d prayed about adopting Charlotte that morning, and it felt so…
right. He didn’t think that feeling was just his own desires telling him what he wanted to hear.
He thought the Lord had given him the go-ahead to mention it to his brother.
“I’ve got two minutes. What else did you need?”
Two whole minutes to talk to the man raising his daughter? His brother’s attitude solidified Noah’s resolve.
“Charlotte’s been calling me Daddy sometimes. I always correct her, but since I’m the one taking care of her…” He paused to give Jasper a chance to say something. To act sad or hurt or surprised or angry.
Jasper didn’t say anything.
Here goes. “I want to adopt her.”
The silence on the other end of the phone could have meant anything. Noah waited, praying his brother would see reason.
“She’s my daughter.” Jasper’s words were hard and angry.
“And yet, somehow, I’m her dad.”
“No.”
No?
Just…no?
Noah tamped down all his arguments. He wasn’t going to fight his brother, the only family he had left. He had Charlotte now, and he’d need to be content with that.
The answer should have brought a level of peace, but all he felt was hollow.
“I’m going to come home.” The hardness in Jasper’s voice had shifted. Now he sounded almost desperate. “I am, I swear. I want to be there for her. I just have to take care of—”
“What? What could possibly be more important—?”
“I can’t talk about it, but as soon as I finish—”
“Then something else will come up, and something else. She’s four years old, Jaz, and you haven’t spent more than, what? A week with her? I’m raising her. I love her.”
“I’m doing my best.”
Fury had his body trembling, his hands gripping the wheel so tightly they hurt. He eased up on the gas when he realized he was going twenty over the speed limit. The last thing he needed was to wreck on these winding roads.
He didn’t know what to say. There were no words to explain to his useless brother everything he was missing, everything he was messing up.
He was almost to the dance studio. And he was done with this conversation.
“You know what, Jaz? Your best sucks.” He pressed the button to end the call and pulled into the parking lot.
The dance studio was located in a converted Victorian home with a wraparound porch painted ballet-slipper pink. The lot was filled with minivans and SUVs—mom vehicles that made his black BMW stand out like a tuxedo at a barbecue.
His heart was still thumping after the confrontation. Confrontations, plural. One with his wastrel brother, and before that, with his…
Stalker.
It was the only word that made sense.
He parked and sat, watching parents and children emerge from cars with dance bags slung over shoulders and water bottles in hand. Through the large front windows, he could see small figures in leotards and tutus moving around inside.
His frustration eased slightly. Charlotte was in there, face bright with the joy that still surprised him every time he witnessed it.
When she’d first come to live with him, her smiles had been rare, tentative things.
He’d started coaxing her, proving she could trust him, and she’d become comfortable with him.
Certainly not her father, who’d done nothing for her but dump her with Noah.
Lord, help me forgive him. Help him figure it out. Charlotte needs a real father, and soon.
Because if it wasn’t going to be Noah, then her heart was going to break all over again when Jasper took her away.
She’d flourished in the last few months. Her new nanny deserved some of the credit for her transformation.
Delaney.
Even thinking her name sent an unwelcome jolt of attraction through his system. And then dark fear.
Lena had seen them together. They hadn’t done anything untoward, but the woman wasn’t exactly sane. She wouldn’t tell people about Noah and the nanny, would she?
One more supposed scandal and the Tidewater board would fully shift to their new option. He’d been stupid to join Delaney—Miss Wright!—outside. Stupid to let even a hint of anything pass between them where someone might have seen.
No. To let anything pass between them, full stop. Because nothing could happen with the nanny. She was his employee, nothing else.
As far as he knew, the only person on the board Lena knew was Lowell. If she told him what she’d seen, that would give him the ammunition to destroy the merger.
But Lowell believed Noah had had an affair with Lena. He hated her almost as much as he hated Noah. She wouldn’t dare approach him.
Probably.
With that less-than-confident thought, he made his way to the door.
Inside the studio, he was hit with the faint scent of sweat and the sound of music coming from far away. The reception area buzzed with activity—mothers clustered in conversation, younger siblings sprawled on the floor with coloring books, and the occasional father scrolling through his phone.
“Mr. Aylett!” A woman called out to him. It was Mrs. Moffett, the studio owner. She approached with a warm smile. “Charlotte will be so happy you made it.”
“Where should I—?”
“Right through here.” She gestured toward a set of double doors, where moms and kids sat on folding chairs that faced a window overlooking one of the two dance floors. “The girls just finished warming up.”
Noah stepped inside and peeked through the window. He spotted Charlotte immediately, standing in the front row of a group of four- and five-year-olds. She was by far the smallest child in the class. Also, the cutest, in his very jaded opinion.
He scanned the chairs and spotted Miss Wright in the front row, an empty seat beside her. She was watching Charlotte with such obvious affection that something shifted inside him. Had any woman ever looked at Charlotte like that? Probably not her negligent mother nor her neglectful grandmother.
No wonder the child was smitten with her nanny. They adored each other.
Maybe Miss Wright felt his gaze because she glanced toward the door, then looked again, her face splitting into a gorgeous smile.
She gestured to the empty chair beside her, and he made his way over, nodding politely to the other parents who glanced his way with varying degrees of curiosity.
“You made it. Charlotte kept asking me if you’d be here.
” Miss Wright’s voice was soft as he settled into the folding chair.
The scent of coconut and vanilla drifted from her, and he forced himself to focus on the girls through the window rather than the way the nanny’s hair fell in soft waves around her heart-shaped face.