Yet, despite that, Bruce had given Suzanne happiness, even if only for a short time. And it said a lot that his mother had never once run his father down. Never once apportioned blame. To her dying day, he knew she must have loved him and that kind of love was a gift, no matter how long you shared it.
An ache started deep in Josh's chest. He'd had the chance to know that kind of love. Callie had offered it to him, and he'd cast it back in her face like a handful of bad stock options.
Josh strode to the nearby taxi stand. He couldn't afford the time to retrieve his car from the parking lot nearby. Too many mistakes had been made already in the name of greed. He wasn't about to make another.
Thirteen
Callie ignored the demand of her doorbell. She wasn't in the mood for theological discussion or the latest multibuy bargain card. Not today-not ever.
Since she'd been summarily suspended from Palmer Enterprises, she'd lived in a kind of limbo-lacking even the energy to bother to dress each day. And underlying her miserable existence lay a sense of loss and pain and "what ifs," making sleep patchy at best during the darkest hours of the night.
The door chimed again, and still she ignored it.
"Come on, Callie. I know you're in there."
Josh? What did he want? Hadn't he made his position clear enough already? Whatever it was, she wasn't up for any more emotional abuse. She'd ignore him. Eventually, he'd go away.
This time when the doorbell rang it was continuous. Her eardrums vibrating with the noise, she pounded down her stairs and flung her front door open.
"What? Ready to go another round with me? Well, I'm all out of fight so get out of my face."
"Last time we talked you wanted to tell me your side of things. I wasn't ready to listen to you then. I am now."
"Oh, so everything is all on your timetable. I'm so sorry," she said, her voice dripping with a sarcasm that did little to mask the pain throbbing through her at the sight of him. "I don't have time in my busy schedule of unemployment."
"Callie, please."
Josh stepped across the threshold, forcing her to back up to avoid the breadth and strength of him. She should feel threatened by his mass, but instead all her traitorous body wanted to do was plaster itself against him. Feel his heat and hardness and envelop herself in it until she felt no pain, only sensation.
The snick of the front door closing made her take another step back.
"Tell me," he prompted.
There was a note of sincerity in his voice that gave her pause. He wasn't the kind of man to ask if he didn't mean it and he also wasn't the type to leave until he got the answers he sought. With a shrug of resignation, she led him through to her kitchen, where she grabbed her kettle from its stand and shoved it under the tap.
"Coffee?"
"If you're having some."
She grunted and dealt with the necessities of getting coffee ready. Instant, not percolated. She wasn't going to any bother for a man who'd chewed her up and spit her out twice in the past month. And she'd let him. She'd set herself up that second time by going to him. By hoping she could appeal to his better nature. The nature she knew dwelled inside the focussed businessman who dominated his market like some feudal lord.
Eventually, she pushed a mug across the kitchen table toward him, paying no regard to the brown liquid sloshing over the sides.
If she'd had any pride left it might have bothered her that her hair was a tangle of unbrushed chaos and that her sleep shorts and tank top had seen better days. Her attire was a far cry from the nightgown she'd worn the last time they'd made love. A tight knot wadded up deep inside her. She didn't want to think about that night, about what they'd shared. About how they'd given to one another, and taken-both overcome by an insatiable hunger.
She'd had plenty of time to think about that and she was done thinking. She knew she'd acted foolishly, impulsively. But she'd loved him with her heart, her mind and her body-and he'd taken that love and used it against her.
"Where do you want to begin?" he asked, taking a sip of the coffee and ignoring the drips from the base of the mug that splattered onto his Armani suit.
"Why now, Josh? You weren't interested before," she hedged. She wasn't in a hurry to rip the scab off the emotional wounds that had finally healed and been tucked away.
"Because I was wrong. You were right. I realise that now. I was driven by anger and frustration over something I knew next to nothing about. Something I didn't even have the maturity to understand. It did twist me up inside and make me bitter and both unwilling and unable to see anything from anyone's point of view but mine."
He put his mug down on the table and sighed.
"I did what you suggested. I read the letters again. Really read them this time. How I didn't see what my mother meant to him the first time around I'll never understand."
"You were too lost in your own grief. You can't be too hard on yourself."
"Whether that's true or not I should never have let it guide my entire life. It turned me into someone I don't even like anymore."
"I still love you." The words slipped from her mouth before she even realised she'd said them aloud.
"I don't deserve your love, Callie. You deserve better than me, more than what I can give you."
"Josh, if you could have given me your love in return that would have been enough. I know what it's like not to have love. My parents never wanted children. When I came along, it certainly wasn't the unexpected bonus their friends told them it was. They gave me the bare necessities of life, barely tolerated me when I was around. Sure, they made certain I was fed and dressed and sent to school. But they never wanted me.
"They loved each other and yet they hated each other, too. Their relationship was symbiotic and destructive at the same time. They both drank, excessively, and they did recreational drugs, too. My mother was the worst. She'd lash out when she was angry and she was angry a lot of the time. When she didn't get the response, or the respect, from me she believed she was due, she'd change from shouting and verbal abuse to physical violence. My father did nothing to stop her.
"The day I turned fourteen, she beat me worse than she'd ever done before. They had to call an ambulance, but neither of them came to the hospital with me. When the doctors saw my injuries they called the police, but by the time they arrived at our house my parents had left. No one knew where they had gone. I'm assuming they fled the country. We didn't have the border control then that we do now."
Callie fell silent, remembering the visit from the social worker telling her that she'd now be a ward of the state and remembering her silent vow not to be under anyone's control ever again.
"Anyway, as soon as I was well enough I checked myself out of hospital and hit the streets. It wasn't hard to disappear in the underground community, to learn when to duck and hide and when it was safe."
"Social services never looked for you?"
"They probably did, but it didn't take long before I became adept at my new lifestyle and it was easier than what had been before. I survived for two years before things got seriously dangerous for me. That was when Irene's people found me."
"More dangerous than living on the street? Callie, you were what by then? Sixteen?"
She looked at Josh across the table. For all the hardship in his upbringing he really had no idea how gruelling life could really be. At least he'd had his mother.
"My last winter on the street was more difficult than the previous two. Wetter, colder-just altogether more miserable. There was a guy I was soft on. He didn't live on the streets but he spent a lot of time there. That should have been a warning to me, but it wasn't. Anyway, he'd always been out of my league but this one night he actively sought me out and he offered to take me back to his place for the night. I knew exactly what that meant-and I hate to admit it now-but I was so cold, so tired and so darn hungry I would have done just about anything for warmth and clean sheets that night. So I went with him."
Her voice faded away on the memory, on the bitter cold and desolation. She became aware of heat encasing her hands. Of Josh's silent encouragement and support chasing away the fear and the bad memories.
"I found out later that he wasn't as young as he looked. But he used his youthful appearance to scout for young girls and had quite a business running with them once he got them totally dependent on him and the drugs he pushed. I was one of the lucky ones. The police raided the next morning and I was sent to one of Irene's facilities."