About a month after I found out about the baby, Cassie had come to me and said she made a mistake. She said that she loved me and she wanted me back. My suspicions were that she finally realized that she wasn’t going to get anything more out of me than the original pre-nup had designated. Getting back with her was something my lawyers had pushed for because they were actually worried if she got the right judge, she might. I don’t love her anymore, but I did let her come back. If I analyze them now, I know it was for a few reasons. The first one was that as a man who ran a multi-national company, I was forced to attend a lot of benefits and dinners and social gatherings. I’m ashamed to admit it, but since Cassie grew up in a similar world as I had she fit in at those things and she knew how she was expected to act. The other reason I took her back was my own behavior. When I was doing the partying and sleeping with different women every night, I knew that it was detrimental to my wellbeing. But that had been an easy way for me to deal with being alone and the stress of the divorce. Taking Cassie back would solve both of those problems. The third, and probably the most realistic reason that I allowed her to come back was because I wanted Victoria. I wanted her so badly that I’d lay awake at night thinking about her… I’d catch myself sitting in meetings thinking about her… I’d look for her everywhere I went. I almost didn’t believe it was her today, I thought I’d seen her so many times before. I’d let my attorneys convince me that she was a gold-digger and I’d convinced myself that she was no good for me. Being with Cassie would be another deterrent to me to keep me from pursuing her.
Seeing her today brought all of those feelings rushing back. I didn’t just want to be a part of my child’s life… I wanted his mother. What I was supposed to do about that, I wasn’t sure.
CHAPTER TWELVE
VICTORIA
When I got home from the beach, Jason still wasn’t there. I cleaned up the apartment some as I let my talk with Alex run through my mind and then went online to do another job search. I applied for a few positions in the city and even a few that were far out in the county. The trouble I was having was that before anyone was willing to let you into their multi-million dollar estate as a service person, they wanted to do an extensive background. If that were done in my case, they would easily find out about Alex and the baby and the court battle. That would make anyone hesitant to let me into their home and their lives and I wouldn’t blame them. I applied anyways. I wasn’t really qualified for anything else yet. I’d taken the semester off of school to see what happened with the baby. It was likely that I wouldn’t be able to go back for more than one. The baby would need me and I would have to work. I clicked off the internet and sighed. I wasn’t quite sure how I got myself into these messes.
I made myself a cup of decaffeinated tea and took it out on the balcony of the apartment. I sat there trying to sort out my feelings for Alex. There was no denying that I did have feelings for him. Someone from the outside looking in might be prone to tell me that I’m crazy… he never cared about me at all. He’s turning his back on both me and his child. But when I look into his eyes I see something real there. I see something that for whatever reason, he’s afraid to admit… he’s afraid to feel. But he was back with his wife, so what could ever come of it? Nothing. I could accept that, I suppose, but I didn’t want all of this animosity between us nevertheless. I was already tired of fighting. It wasn’t my nature.
I felt a raindrop fall against my skin, and then another and another. I sat there, unmoving, not wanting to go back into the apartment and wait for Jason to decide to come home and admit that this is my life. I finally moved my chair back so that the rain didn’t hit me directly and I sat there and watched it fall. The moon hung full in the hazy Los Angeles sky and underneath the cloud cover I could almost glimpse an eclipse of blazing stars trying to force their way out and be seen. That’s what I felt like most of the time. I knew that I had it in me to shine. I knew that I had it in me to succeed. But somehow I kept allowing the clouds to get in the way. I needed to start making some changes in my life and when I heard Jason come in the front door I told myself that right now was as good of a time to start as any.
I stood and went into the house. He looked at me curiously and said, “Why are you sitting in the rain?”
I shrugged. “Just thinking,” I said. “How was the barbeque?”
“It was fun,” he said sitting down on the couch. “What did you do today?” I sat down in the chair across from him.