Chapter 31
“What the hell?”
Grace didn’t miss the tone of surprised annoyance from Brad.
She ignored him, dropping onto her knees in front of her son.
“Jacob… Jacob.” She took him by the shoulders, looking earnestly and urgently into his face.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay. It’s just…
Daddy.” The word felt misshapen in her mouth, large and lumpy.
Jacob just kept screaming, tears streaming down his face as he shook his head back and forth, a shrill sound coming from his mouth like a siren or a whistle.
Instinctively, Grace glanced at Brad, who was looking surprised and unsettled, maybe a little irritated too.
He didn’t attempt to comfort his son. Grace couldn’t bear to look at Noah, not after that stupid fist bump, the bro banter.
They knew each other? She’d wondered that once, but now she found she simply couldn’t get her head around it.
“Jacob,” she said again, helplessly.
“What’s wrong with him?” Brad asked, a little peevishly. “Hey, Jakey!” He adopted a jovial tone that he always did with Jacob, and which Grace suspected was pretty fake. “I thought my little man would be glad to see me after all this time.”
Jacob just kept screaming.
“Obviously he isn’t,” Grace stated, trying to keep her voice level. Her nerves felt frayed, scraped raw. Jacob’s screaming was hurting her ears, her son was in distress, Noah knew Brad, and… she felt entirely out of control of this situation.
Then, suddenly, Jacob stopped. He sagged, his shoulders slumping, his face still streaked with tears.
And he spoke the first words Grace had heard in six months, in little more than a whimper.
“He said… he said he wouldn’t.”
The joy of hearing her son’s voice—finally, after all this time—was severely tempered by what he’d said.
“Who said he wouldn’t?” she asked gently, but of course she knew.
It had to be Brad. She glanced at her ex-husband, who was starting to look decidedly uneasy, and then at Noah, who was looking completely gobsmacked, like he’d been hit in the head with a two by four.
It didn’t make Grace feel any better. Noah, my man. Good to see you.
“Noah, you need to leave,” she said abruptly, and his dark gaze flew to hers.
“Grace—”
“Now.” She thought of the way Brad had greeted Noah, like an old friend, and she hated the thought of what that meant, but she told herself she couldn’t think about that now. She had to think about Jacob. She held his gaze with a steely one of her own, and finally Noah gave a brief, unhappy nod.
“All right,” he said quietly, and hesitating only a moment, looking like he wanted to say something more, he turned and walked quickly away.
Grace released a shaky breath. “Jacob, let’s go inside,” she said.
“Grace—” Brad began, sounding incredulous that she wasn’t dealing with him first. Because, Grace acknowledged, she’d always made him feel so important. Too important.
“You can come too,” she told him curtly. She needed to find out if Brad knew what Jacob had meant by what he’d said.
Once they were inside, Jacob ran straight up to his bedroom. Grace followed him and watched from the doorway as he threw himself on his bed, curling up into a tight ball, his arms wrapped tightly around his knees.
“Jacob.” She kept her voice soft as she perched on the edge of the bed.
“J. What’s going on? What did Daddy say he wouldn’t do?
That’s what you meant, isn’t it? When you said that?
” He didn’t answer, his face buried in his bony knees, and she reached over to slide her fingers through his silky hair, her heart aching with love and hurt.
“Jacob…” she whispered. “I love you so much, and I want to help you. I don’t want you to be scared or sad or worried or anything like that.
I don’t want you to be anything but safe and happy.
” She leaned down so her face was close to his, and he could look up and see her if he wanted to, but he didn’t.
“I won’t let anything happen to you, buddy, I promise,” she whispered. “I promise.”
In response, Jacob shook his head hard, his face still buried in his knees.
“Jacob…” Grace rested one hand on his shoulder, battling both frustration and fear.
She’d gotten used to Jacob’s silence over the last six months, had started adjusting to it as normal, but now that her son had actually spoken words, she ached to hear so many more.
To understand what he’d meant, what he felt, what he feared.
But Jacob remained a locked safe whose combination she didn’t know, no matter how many desperate guesses she made.
And meanwhile Brad was downstairs. Why had he come here? What did it mean? And how could she make him leave?
Gently Grace squeezed Jacob’s shoulder. “I’m going to talk to Daddy downstairs,” she told him.
“And then I’m coming back up here and we’re going to figure this out together, okay?
Because I love you so much and I want to hear your voice, Jacob.
” She heard the ache of sorrow and longing in her voice and wondered if her son heard it too. “I’ve missed it so much.”
She pressed a kiss to his forehead and then steeled herself to face her ex-husband.
Brad was standing in the middle of the living room, his hands on his hips, surveying the room—her home—like he owned the place. Already Grace felt irritated, even angry. He had absolutely no right to be here.
“Brad.” She kept her voice level with effort. “What are you doing here?”
He turned to face her, eyebrows raised, hands still on his hips. “What? I can’t visit my own family?”
“What?” Grace stared at him in incredulity. She had not expected that. Suddenly she felt the need for a drink, or a sugar rush, or something. She pressed her fingers to her temples for a moment and closed her eyes. “Seriously,” she said as she opened her eyes and dropped her hands. “Why?”
Brad gave her a boyish smile, the kind he hadn’t given her in years, his head slightly lowered so his hair slid into his face.
He’d gained a little weight, Grace noticed.
His face was puffy, his jawline starting to sag.
He had the bluff, reddened face of so many bankers and traders who partied as hard as they worked. “I missed you, Grace,” he said quietly.
She let out a huff of disbelieving laughter and shook her head. This really was so unexpected.
“And what the hell were you doing with Noah Lawrence?” Brad asked, his voice rising a little. “That guy is bad news, Grace.” Even though he’d acted like he was his friend. “If you think I hit the bars too much…”
“I don’t want to talk about Noah,” Grace replied sharply, and her ex-husband’s eyebrows rose, his mouth twisting.
“Oh, really—”
“Brad. Tell me what you want. And,” she added, and now her voice was rising, “what Jacob meant when he said you wouldn’t. Wouldn’t what?”
“What?” Brad’s gaze shifted, darting around the room. “How would I know what he meant? He’s a kid—”
“He meant something specific,” Grace cut him off. “I know he did.”
“Grace.” Brad started walking toward her, his arms outstretched, almost as if he would embrace her. “Look, we’ll figure out what Jacob meant. Together. But first let’s talk about us.”
“Us?” Grace repeated hollowly. “Brad, there is no us. There has been no us for more than six months. Our divorce is about to be finalized—”
“I haven’t signed the papers,” Brad cut her off as he kept walking toward her.
“I couldn’t.” He had a puppy dog look of appeal on his face that Grace remembered from when they’d been dating, that aw-shucks appeal that she’d fallen for even though Brad was not, and never had been, an aw-shucks kind of guy.
“Why not?” she asked woodenly as Brad placed his hands on the tops of her arms, as if he would draw her toward him.
“Grace.” He smiled, his face full of appeal despite the broken veins across his nose, the puffy jawline.
“Isn’t it obvious? Because I don’t want to get divorced, and I know you don’t, either.
We’re a family, Grace. We belong together.
” His hands tightened on her arms as he drew her toward him.
And Grace started to go, out of instinct or maybe out of shock, she didn’t even know, but it took her a shaming second to resist and dig her heels in.
“Brad. No.” She shook her head, hard enough to make her ears ring, as she stepped back. She was not about to fall in with her ex-husband’s reconciliation plan, if that was actually what he wanted. She didn’t trust him, she knew that much. “That’s not what’s happening here.”
“Why not?” he asked, his voice low and persuasive. “We were good together, Grace.”
She shook her head again, numbly this time. “We really weren’t.”
“Don’t you remember how much fun we had? The three of us. Taking Jacob to t-ball at the 92nd Street Y, and getting bagels after—”
“That happened once.” And yet it had been a sweet memory, one she’d treasured and had made her stay for as long as she had.
“And it can happen again. I want to cut down my hours.” He started drawing her toward him again, and this time she took a stumbling step toward him, more because she was reeling too much to resist than wanting to be close to him.
She really hadn’t expected this.
“I want to be there for you,” Brad continued, rubbing his hands up and down her arms. “And for Jacob. In a way I wasn’t before.
Being alone all this time… it’s made me realize how much I messed up.
I didn’t know how good I had it, Grace. How good we had it.
” He smiled at her coaxingly, while Grace stared at him numbly.
Did he believe what he was saying? Did she?
“And the other women?” she asked after a moment, curious as to how he’d answer.
“Grace.” He closed his eyes briefly, as if in pain. “There weren’t any other women.”
Her mouth dropped open and she snapped it shut. “Brad, there were,” she managed after a moment.