Big Daddy Sinatra: There Was a Ruthless Man(73)

“I didn’t expect to see you over here this morning,” she said.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he approached her.

“Deck review. They need to be replaced.”

“All of them?”

“All of them,” Jenay said. “At least that’s my preliminary assessment. The contractor comes tomorrow. We’ll see what he says.”

Charles nodded halfheartedly as he made it to her side. He placed his hands on either side of her arms and kissed her. The landscapers elbowed each other when they saw them kissing, but Charles didn’t care. For good measure, he pulled her into his arms. He remembered last night too. He remembered it vividly.

“You’re okay?” she asked. “Or did you miss me just that much?”

“I always love to feel you in my arms.”

Then they stopped embracing. But Jenay was not persuaded. “That would be a no,” she said. “You may love to feel me in your arms, and you may miss me something terrible, but that’s not why you’re here. That’s not why you came.”

Charles exhaled. He glanced around. The workers were within earshot. “Let’s walk,” he said.

Jenay, with her clipboard in hand, allowed him to place his arm around her waist and walk her, very close against him, toward the lake at the edge of the property. She waited for him to talk, but it wouldn’t be until they were sitting on the bench before a word was spoken.

She sat back, and sat her board on her lap. He leaned forward, clasped his hands, and kept his eyes on the rippling lake. Then he looked back at her. That look on his face troubled her.

“Before I met you,” he said, “I had lady friends. You’re aware of that.”

“You mean friends with benefits like Paige Springer?”

“Not only Paige,” he said, “but yes. Like that.”

“Okay,” she said.

There was another long pause. He turned his attention back to that lake.

Jenay was increasingly concerned. When he still wouldn’t say anything more, she jumped in. “Okay, now what is this about, Charlie? What’s going on? You’re beginning to worry me.”

Charles sat back, and turned toward her. “One of the ladies I slept with, Abigail Ridge, is pregnant, Jenay.”

There was a moment, after he said those words, when Jenay felt as if she had lost her hearing. She had to have misheard him. But she didn’t. Then she felt as if she had just been sucker-punched. “Pregnant?” she asked. She was requesting a clarification she didn’t need.

“She’s thirteen weeks or so. I saw the labs.”

Jenay frowned. “But we’ve been together for that long, Charles,” she said. “Haven’t we?”

“Not quite that long, no. We decided to give it a try the day I showed up at your house for your graduation. I was with her a week or so prior, yes, I was. But I haven’t been with Abby, or any other woman, since that graduation day. That was the day we agreed to give our relationship an all-out try. I’ve been with you, and only you, since.”

“But. . .,” Jenay started saying, and then shook her head.

Charles could see the anguish on her pretty face. He squeezed her hand. “But what, baby?”

“She’s pregnant? She’s going to have your child?” Jenay frowned. She still couldn’t resolve it in her head. She thought about all those years she tried to have a baby with Quince. She thought about all those years when she couldn’t. Now this woman, Charlie’s side bitch, was pregnant?

Charles hated to have to admit it himself. “Yes,” he said. “She’s going to have my child.”

“But how do you know for sure? I mean, how do you know she’s telling you the truth?”

“I saw the lab results,” Charles said. “And after she left my office, I phoned the doctor myself. He could not confirm or deny of course, but he knows me. Before he hung up, he commented on how Abby appears to be gaining a little weight, and how she will undoubtedly have to go shopping for bigger clothes soon.”

Jenay looked at him. “So he violated his patient’s confidence without violating it?”

“Right.”

“That’s still unethical, Charles.”

“That’s still Jericho, Jenay.”

Then a sadness came over Jenay. “Is she showing?”

“Oh, babe!”

“Charles?”

“No. I don’t know. I think she’s been able to conceal it.”

Then Jenay shook her head again. “A week before you came to my graduation, you had been with her?”

“A week-and-a half before, but yes.”

“But . . . I thought you were interested in me.”