Momentary Marriage(99)

“Do they know about us?” she asked, trying to keep the hollow note out of her voice.

John hesitated. “My wife does. I haven’t told the kids.”

Kelsey looked at the photos, wondering what these happy young people would say if they learned of their father’s secret past.

“Sarah will be very angry that I’ve never talked about you, never brought you over,” her father said musingly, as if he’d heard her thought. “She’ll probably give me hell for months.”

“You’re going to tell them?” Kelsey asked, frowning.

“Yes,” her father answered. “I think it’s overdue, don’t you?”

She met his gaze, unable to stop the little flutter in her heart.

“I can’t make up for the past,” John Layton said, his expression serious. “I can’t go back and be there for you when you were younger. But I’d like to…have a part in your life now. If you’ll let me.”

“I’ll think about it,” she heard herself say, getting up out of her chair. “Let me think about it.”

He walked her to the elevator and stood there while she waited for the car, his gaze searching her face. “Perhaps we could have dinner next week. Maybe Amy, too. Just us for now?”

“I’ll ask Amy. I’ll call you,” Kelsey said, as the elevator door opened.

“I’m glad you came,” her father said, offering her his hand. “Very glad. You had the courage to do what I should have done years ago.”

“Goodbye,” she said, a rush of tears prickling the back of her eyes as she took his hand. “I’ll think about…calling.”

“I’ll be waiting,” he said, stepping back as she got into the elevator.

The doors closed and she pushed the button for the lobby, her eyes glazing with tears. Giving into the urge to cry, she could only be grateful the car didn’t stop on any other floors.

She’d gone to see her father and he hadn’t rejected her. He even seemed inclined to make amends.

The past half hour didn’t wipe out twenty-plus years of neglect, but it still affected her profoundly. Maybe meeting him would make a difference in her, help her feel less discarded. Maybe she could close the door on all the hurts from the past.

Walking down the street minutes later, she thought about Jared and his saying that every man wasn’t like her father. Not every man walked away. Some men could be trusted to love a woman forever.

Even if that were true, she brooded, it didn’t mean she could trust him to be one of those rare exceptions.

***

Jared sat on the terrace over-looking Manhattan at twilight. No light shone from the apartment behind him. He’d simply walked in and dumped his briefcase before stepping outside.

It had been two weeks since he’d last seen Kelsey. Fourteen days since their heated exchange of words had ended with his walking away from her in the lobby, leaving her with a high-minded recommendation to straighten out her life.

He felt like he was losing his mind without her.

This was the first evening he’d made it home before midnight, burying himself in business so he didn’t have to face the emptiness. He couldn’t accept that it was over. Nothing was right.

Resisting the reality of their separation, he hadn’t been able to tell his parents about it.

An early-autumn breeze played chase around him, brushing his tousled hair, insinuating itself around his open shirt collar. The tie he’d ripped off lay on the chair next to him.

It didn’t matter how late he came in or how hard he worked himself, he couldn’t sleep.

He’d picked up the phone a hundred times, thought up a thousand ways to maneuver himself into her arms again. Sending her the roses hadn’t softened her the way he’d hoped, but at least five of his ideas would have worked. Still, he’d stopped himself.

The manila envelope in his hands felt heavy. It was all there. All the information he needed to put into action the best of his schemes. Names, dates, photos.

Everything on John Layton, Kelsey’s father. The private

investigator had out done himself, gathering all this information so quickly.

The plan had seemed simple. Find out about Layton and contact him. Make it plain that he’d been a world-class jerk and that he had to initiate a big-time reconciliation with his daughter. If he convinced her he was deeply sorry for avoiding her and her sister, maybe she’d rethink her view of things. If need be, Jared had been prepared to use his not-inconsiderable fortune to swing Layton around to his way of seeing things.

Anything to help Kelsey.

Only then he’d gotten the data. A complete run-down of Layton’s activities since he’d divorced Kelsey’s mother twenty years before. His work, current address, bank balance. There was even a list of the women he’d dated before remarrying.