Baby for the Billionaire(69)

Maybe, just maybe, there was a pathway out of the darkness.

Jack had to admit that his favorite times were in the evenings when the three of them curled up on the couch together and chose a DVD from the extensive selection stocked on the shelves surrounding the wide-screen TV. There in the darkness, he could relax his guard and simply enjoy this moment out of time.

“I think she’s nodded off,” Annalise whispered during one of their nightly sessions.

He’d sensed as much ten minutes ago when his niece’s breathing had slowed and deepened and her muscles had gone lax against his chest. “I’ll take her to bed in a minute.”

“You like having her fall asleep on you, don’t you?” The lights from the TV flickered, allowing him to catch the brief glitter of compassion reflected in her eyes. “Does it remind you of when you and Joanne were Isabella’s age?”

Jack released a harsh laugh, one that had Isabella stirring in his arms. He traced a reassuring hand along his niece’s back and forced himself to calmness. With a small, inarticulate murmur Isabella settled. “Not even close,” he stated quietly. “My father would have considered this sort of activity a complete waste of time.”

“Oh.” That single word spoke volumes. “And your mother? Would she have also considered it a waste of time?”

He hoped the darkness concealed his expression, but he could hear the pain creep into his voice. “She was different than my father. Before their divorce she tried not to show her emotions, since he’d use any sign of weakness against her. She changed later on.”

“How old were you when they broke up?”

“Eight. Nine, maybe. Joanne was two years older.”

“And how did your mother change, afterward?”

“She softened, became more openly affectionate. Of course, it’s hard to say if she was like that all the time. I can only base it on the time I saw her.”

“What do you mean?” Annalise straightened, and he could feel her attempting to penetrate the darkness in order to read his expression. “Didn’t your mother have custody of you?”

“No, only Joanne. My father took me.”

He caught Annalise’s soft gasp. “They split you up?”

“Yes.” A wintry coldness settled over him. With that one single decision, every scrap of love and kindness had been removed from his life. He still felt the loss to this day. “My mother never spoke to me about that time, but Joanne once explained that our father threatened to take both of us and prevent our mother from ever seeing us again if she didn’t agree to his terms.”

A strobe of brilliance flashed across the screen, allowing him to see that Annalise was visibly shaken. “Could he have done that?”

“Considering I didn’t see either my mother or my sister again until I turned thirteen, I’d say not only could he, but he did precisely that.”

“How …?” Her voice thickened, betraying her emotional reaction to his response. “Why …?” She shook her head, unable to formulate the questions she clearly wanted to ask.

Jack leaned his head back against the couch cushion and stared blindly at the old Star Trek movie that was Isabella’s current favorite. “How? With some of the most powerful lawyers money could buy. Why? Because he was—and is—a total bastard who used me to hit out at my mother.”

“But you did finally get to see her,” Annalise said on a note of urgency.

A smile of satisfaction tugged at his mouth. “That I did.”

“I assume he finally relented?” she asked tentatively.

“Not a chance in hell. The summer I turned thirteen, Dad took off overseas on an extended honeymoon with his latest trophy wife. I was supposed to go to camp. Instead, I hitchhiked to Colorado, where my mother was living with her second husband.”

“Dear God, Jack!” She reached for him, her hand clutching his arm. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? Anything could have happened to you.”

He regarded her with a hint of amusement. “That’s what my mother said. It was worth it, though. I stayed with them for most of that summer.” A summer filled with magic and hope. A summer unlike anything he’d experienced before or since. A summer that had ended in the death of dreams. “Until my father found out, that is. But those couple of months were quite eye-opening.”

“In what way?”

His brows tugged together reflecting a hint of the bewilderment he’d experienced during that time period. “They were all so happy. They laughed almost all the time. And when they fought …” He struggled for the right words to explain. “I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did.”