Enchant Me by J. Kenner
15
Everyone is sympathetic following the interruption, but it still takes time to clear the crowd out. Even the press seems to want to hang about and say how sorry they are about the whole thing. To my surprise, nobody asks what was in the envelope that Ashton dropped.
The kids and I join Damien as he walks across the lawn so that he can address the members of the press. To them, I’m sure he looks as calm and in control as always, but I see the pain and confusion underneath. That need to do something. To find answers. That frustration that he can’t simple reach out, push a button, and have the world fall obediently into place.
“I understand that you’ll report this,” he says as the cameras record every word. “It’s news, and I get that. But I would ask you to solicit my comments before you publish.” A chuckle rises from the group, and to my surprise, Damien actually joins them. “I know,” he says. “That’s not my usual practice for articles dealing with my personal life. But today is not a usual day.”
One reporter, who I vaguely recognize from various events, steps forward. “Mr. Stark, do you want to make a comment addressing Ashton Stone’s paternity claim now?”
Damien shakes his head, but then he says, “Actually, yes. You can print that I was stunned. That this has come completely out of the blue. And that I intend to discover whether or not what Mr. Stone has said is true. If it’s true, I want to know why I never knew of his existence. If it’s fabricated, I want to know who took the time and trouble to put such a lie in his head. Because the one thing that I am sure of is that Ashton Stone believes he’s telling the truth. Whether his truth lines up with reality remains to be seen.”
He takes a moment to make eye contact with all of them. “Other than that, no comment. Thank you for your understanding.” He turns and takes my arm, his other hand going to brush the backs of our daughters.
As we head for the house, we pass Jackson and Sylvia along with Ryan and Jamie, all of whom are working to get everyone moving towards the exit. Damien and I accept words of sympathy and shock and small smiles of support as we head inside.
Right before we cross the threshold, I catch Dallas’s eye. He lifts his hand, miming a phone call. I interpret that as an offer for Damien to call if he needs to talk, and I nod a thank you before disappearing into the relative sanity of the house.
The kids come with me, but Damien lingers behind me to speak to Jackson. I glance back at him once, and he gives me a small smile, which loosens some of the knot that has tied itself around my heart. I know this is hell for him, but at least he’s handling it. Then again, what can’t my husband handle?
Inside, the kids race to Evelyn and Frank, who are already in the first floor living area. I head to my dad, and he folds me into his arms.
“How’s he doing?” Evelyn asks.
I pull back from Frank, but don’t break contact as I say, “I don’t know. Not good. Surviving. Angry. Confused.” I meet her eyes and just shrug.
“Yes, I suppose that is how he would be. How are you doing?”
I manage a small smile and a shake of my head. “The same, I guess. Just on a smaller scale.”
The truth is, I haven’t thought much about me. I feel removed from all of this, like a spectator. But, of course, I’m not. I’m in the thick of it with Damien, and he will need me. And if what Ashton Stone says is true, I have another son as well. Sofia’s son.
“You’ll be fine,” Evelyn says, reaching out to squeeze my hand. “And so will Damien. The hammer fell. That’s always the hardest part. Now we pick up the pieces.” She presses her fingers to her temples and shakes her head as she releases a deep sigh. “Still, would have been easier if any of us had a damn clue any of this was coming. But I suppose we should have from all those horrible texts.”
I blink, realizing that I’ve been in such shock that I hadn’t even put two and two together. Of course he’s behind those horrible texts. He’s resentful for never being acknowledged, and I’m not sure if I feel sorry for him, or desperately angry.
I’m about to move to the sofa to sit down, when Bree hurries in from the back. She kneels in front of the kids and gives them both big hugs. “Hey, you guys, let’s go to the playroom and let the grownups do their thing, okay?”
“You are a grownup,” Anne says.
“I know,” Bree says. “But let’s not tell anyone, okay?”
Anne giggles and Bree takes her hand and Bradley’s. She glances at Lara who says, “I’ll be right there. I promise.”
Bree meets my eyes, and I nod as Lara comes to my side and takes my hand. As Bree leads my other kids into the playroom, Lara drags me away from Evelyn and Frank. We stand by the stairs, and she whispers, “How can Daddy be that man’s daddy? He’s all grown up.”
I feel a knot start to form in my stomach. “Well, we don’t actually know that he is. But when we know, you’ll know, okay?”
Her brow furrows. “Doesn’t Daddy already know?”
The knot turns into a giant, thorny clump, and I have absolutely no idea how to answer that question, so instead I pull her close and give her a tight hug. “It’s complicated,” I say. “Can I explain why when things are less crazy?”
She pulls back and looks at me with those big dark eyes. “Okay, Mommy. I love you, Mommy.”
My heart swells a little, then almost bursts when she gives me the sweetest, softest kiss on the cheek. Then she takes off running to the playroom to find Bree and her siblings, and I think how nice it must be to simply run away from this.
It takes about an hour, but slowly the house empties out. Sylvia and Jackson come in to say goodbye, and I’m surprised that Damien isn’t with them, since Jackson was the last person I saw him talking to when I’d gone in search of him over forty minutes ago.
“We talked for about twenty minutes,” he says when I ask. “Damien’s upset, no doubt. But I thought he would come to you.”
“I haven’t seen him,” I say. “Any idea where he could be?”
Jackson shakes his head. “My next guess would be Ryan but that’s apparently not the case,” he says, nodding toward the glass doors where I can see Ryan and Jamie headed our way.
I grimace, then I start to pull out my phone, only to realize that I don’t have it because I was standing at an altar about to renew my vows. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to go get my phone and see if I can track him.”
“I can do that,” Jackson says.
He opens his phone and it takes only a moment before it finds his signal. “It looks like he’s driving.”
Since the kidnapping, everyone in the family can track everyone else, and in our world family includes our close friends. It’s not a perfect system, but it’s one defense against the craziness that lurks in the world.
I take Jackson’s phone and look at the small dot moving through the canyons. I wait for the tinge of frustration, but it doesn’t come, because I know he’s not running from me. He’s just running. Moving.
I’m certain I know why: Damien has finally done the math, and he realizes what I’ve already concluded—that Ashton Stone really is Damien’s son.
I give him time, but when he hasn’t returned home by nine, I look at the tracking app again, and I’m shocked to find him at the Richter Tennis Center. Or what is now called the West Hollywood Tennis Center, the name having been changed after Damien spoke publicly about what Richter had done to him.
I know he needs time to process, and I consider letting him stay there, periodically watching my phone until he decides to find his way home, but I can’t do it.
Instead, I get into Coop and head toward my husband. Even after I’ve arrived, it takes me a while to find him. I check all the courts, both inside and out, then finally walk the stairs and comb the five floors, peering into all the workout rooms, handball courts, spa areas, and miscellaneous amenities.
The place is mostly empty this late, and the few people I speak with haven’t seen him either, though the app assures me that he’s still on site.
I’m about at my wit’s end, when I realize where I should have gone all along. After all, Richter fell from a roof back in Germany. And wasn’t his death a major link in this chain that has been forged around us?
Sure enough, I find Damien sitting on the tar paper and gravel rooftop, his back leaning against some piece of mechanical equipment. I cross to him, and he looks up. For a moment, his face is entirely blank. Then his mouth curves in a sad smile, and he holds out a hand for me. I go to him, sitting on the roof as well, my hand resting on his leg as I sit facing him.
“I should have seen it the first time I looked at him,” Damien says, his voice so low I have to strain to hear him. “But maybe I didn’t want to see it. Maybe I just never let myself think it was even possible.”
“You were young. You were abused. Those kinds of questions shouldn’t have even been in your head.” Right then, I wish Richter was still alive; I want the pleasure of killing him myself.
Damien studies my face. “You’re certain, too.”
I nod. “The age matches. And he looks so much like you. But there’s a little bit of her there, too.”
He draws a breath, then nods. “Well, we’re both right. Charles has been busy. That envelope that Ashton left, it had the birth certificate and it had a vial of saliva. Plus Ryan grabbed his wine glass from beside his chair. Charles got a lab to rush the test. It’s positive. I’m Ashton Stone’s father, and he fucking hates me.”
“Damien, no.” I press my hand over his, my heart breaking for him.
He only scoffs and shakes his head, as if whether Ashton loves or hates him isn’t even the point. Honestly, I suppose it isn’t.
“I never even knew she was pregnant,” he says, his voice filled with grief. “I was fourteen when we —”
He shakes his head again, and I just lean forward and take his hands. “I know.”
“I would have been fifteen when Ashton was born. How did I not know any of this?”
“You told me the other day that Sofia managed to escape for a while when her grandmother was ill. Her aunt came and took her back to the States, right? Do you think that’s when…?”
His eyes widen. “Yes. Yes, of course.”
“Is Sofia identified as the mother on the birth certificate?”
“Yes. And I’m the father. I didn’t recognize the name of the witness, but Charles has been busy. One of the associate attorneys in his Chicago office went and spoke to her. Abigail. Turns out she’s Richter’s half-sister. She adopted Ashton, and the birth certificate was sealed, although she apparently kept a copy. But the sealed file explains why it’s never come to light in any of my previous scandals.”
He says the last with a rough edge to his voice, and I realize that he’s right. Someone would have dug up Ashton’s relation to Damien before now if those records weren’t sealed.
“Charles has done good work. Was the attorney able to talk to her?”
He nods. “Ashton grew up knowing exactly who I was. Apparently Abigail made a point of telling him that it was a dark family secret.”
“Abigail is the half-sister who raised him?”
Damien nods. “They also found a high school friend of his who still lived in the neighborhood. He said that Ashton had a famous father who didn’t want him, and that his mother was crazy.”
He looks at me. “They didn’t just keep him away from me. They went out of their way to make my son believe that I knew he existed but didn’t want him.”
“You’ll talk to him. You’ll tell him.” I draw a breath. “But, Damien, he scares me. He’s holding a grudge, and he’s going to expect you to try to pushback on this. To want revenge for what he did at the ceremony. His whole life he’s been raised to believe you’re the bad guy, and I don’t see that easily changing.”
“I have to try. He’s my blood, baby, and I’m not going to shirk this responsibility now that I know he exists.”
“I know. You’re not the kind of man who would. I know that even if he doesn’t. That’s part of why I love you. But I have to say this, even though you don’t want to hear it.”
I wait until his eyes are on mine, the amber one attentive, the dark one shadowed, as if it’s withholding judgment. “If he’s Sofia’s son, he’s unstable. The texts? The videos and threats? They came from him. Who else? For that matter, why now? What triggered all of this?”
I watch his brow furrow as he considers the question, but he doesn’t answer it.
“But I don’t think he’s the guy I saw at the wedding,” I continue, suddenly remembering. “Their faces are slightly different. But I might be wrong about that. Maybe if Ashton had a beard, they’d look exactly alike. Because, honestly, it makes sense it was him. That he’d snuck in to tape up that note.”
Damien nods slowly. “Okay. Good point. And I agree with you about the threats. But I don’t think he’s unstable. There was nothing wrong with Sofia’s mind. That girl was beyond brilliant. She was smart and funny and charming when she was clear. And she was always clear until it began. It was Richter who broke her. Who almost broke me.” He meets my eyes. “And he broke Ashton, too.”
“I know, and it makes my heart ache. But we have to protect our family. Our girls. Bradley.”
“We do,” he says, pulling me closer, so that I’m tight in the circle of his arms. “But you’re the one who said it earlier, remember? He’s family, too.”
I nod, my eyes damp with unshed tears as I wish for an easy answer. I’m all twisted up inside. This is like nothing we’ve ever faced before, and I don’t know how to handle the emotions. How to dial in a man who hates his father for all the wrong reasons.
But Damien’s right, he deserves the chance. How many chances did I give my mother? How many did we give Damien’s father, until finally their lies and obfuscations and tricks and treachery made us break it off?
Too many, but we haven’t given Ashton a chance at all. How could we have, when we just learned who he really is?
I look to Damien, ready to tell him that he’s right. That we need to figure out a way to convince Ashton that Damien is not the devil. But he speaks before I do. “How the hell could they keep this from me? Keep it a secret and then tell this kid that I never wanted to see him? Who does that?”
“He was evil, Damien. Richter was horrible. We’ve always known that’s the man he was.”
“But why didn’t Sofia tell me? After everything we went through together? How could she have kept this from me all these years?”
I examine my hands, certain he’s not going to like my theory, but he takes his finger and puts it under my chin, lifting it until I’m forced to look at him. “What is it?”
“I don’t think she knew.”
His eyes narrow. “I’ve seen you be pregnant twice. You were very aware.”
It’s the first slightly lighthearted thing he’s said, and I fight back a smile.
“Yes, but I knew what I was getting into. I wanted to be pregnant. And I wasn’t a thirteen-year-old girl. I think she blocked it out. Maybe she convinced herself she was sick. I’ve heard about it happening. Women in so much denial that they don’t realize they’re pregnant, then somehow block out the birth altogether.”
He says nothing, so I continue. “I may not believe that Sofia was the most stable person in the world, but I do know that she loved you. If she realized she had a child, she would have told you.”
He closes his eyes as if in pain. “Fucking Richter. I thought I was done with him. That night on the roof when I let him fall, I was so goddamn happy because I was finally going to be free of him. But I’ve never been free of him Nikki, I’ve never been free.”
“I know. I hate that for you.”
“He infected everything he touched. Me, Sofia, this boy who’s now a man.”
“Maybe he did, but you turned out okay. And Sofia really was getting her shit together. And from what I can tell, Ash is brilliant and focused and angry. But it’s not really you he’s angry with. He only thinks he is.”
His arms tighten around me, and he kisses my hair. “Oh, God, Nikki, baby, I have a son. A child who isn’t ours. A child I never knew existed, who I fathered when I was only a child myself. How the hell are we supposed to make this work?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “But I know I love you. And I know I believe in you. And I know that somehow it will all turn out fine.”
