Another Woman's Son

She reached for the baby’s hand but jerked her own back just before she touched him. Ben forgot for a moment that she’d let him believe in his fake life for three extra months. He started to remind her again she wouldn’t wake Tony, but the harsh need on her face cut him short.

Tears floated in her eyes. Tony meant everything to her. Ben covered her hand and touching her felt right again.

“I know how you feel,” he said. But you can’t have him.

“I shouldn’t have come. I thought I’d gotten used to not seeing him, but I was wrong.” She splayed her free hand over her breasts. “He kills me, your boy.”

Could he trust her? Until he was sure, he couldn’t let her leave. He imagined himself in her place, watching her mother fall apart, her father walk around like a monolith without emotion. Isabel knew exactly what Amelia and George needed to get all better. And that was Tony.

He slid Isabel’s hand off the crib and pulled her to the door. Without pausing, he took her to his room. Isabel caught the doorjamb, reluctant to enter Faith’s domain of chintz and fussy swags.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Asking you to stay here.”

“What?” She clenched her hands in the narrow skirt of her dress. “Just because Faith and Will slept together, you and I should try it? I don’t need that kind of revenge.”

At first, he didn’t understand. “Are you nuts? I only brought you in here because I didn’t want the babysitter to overhear.” They’d been friends for most of their adult lives, and he was about to trick her into easing his paranoid fears. He couldn’t help it.

For Tony. He’d risk everything, destroy anyone.

“Stay with us,” he said. “Until you decide what you want to do next. The four of us were his family. As you said, he’s lost Will and Faith. George and Amelia didn’t get down here often enough for him to love them the way he does you.”

She didn’t even blink. It was as if she was saturated, had no more room to take in another shock. “You said you hated me.”

“I was angry.” Part of him did hate her. But would he have given up those three extra months for something as brutal as the truth? “Where else do you have to be?”

“In Middleburg. I have a job.”

“What about your house?”

She blushed. Was she lying again? “I asked for time off to get the house ready to sell.”

“Then stay here. You don’t want the memories over there.”

“No,” she said in a cutting voice he didn’t recognize. “I’d rather imagine Will and my sister here, in your bed.” She took one look at it and ran.

The bathroom door slammed. He slumped onto a chair, his hands hanging between his knees. That bed was going out of this house tomorrow if he had to pitch it through a window.

He could hear water running. Isabel had to come out sometime. Meaning, he’d have another chance to win her over.

Guilt almost held him back. Even blinded by love for Faith, he’d recognized Isabel’s softer heart. But distance might make her forget Tony wouldn’t care how he’d been conceived. Ben loved his son too much to trust Isabel’s good intentions.

The more she saw that he and Tony were the real father and son, the less willing she’d be to take him to court.

CHAPTER TWO

ISABEL LIFTED her head, saw herself in the mirror and jumped. Mascara-shadowed eyes, damp face, torment she couldn’t hide.

No marriage. No sister. No best friend. No home.

She squared her shoulders. She was also no victim. Her life had changed forever, but she didn’t have to hide in a bathroom, weeping over the past like a please-save-me heroine in a thirty-year-old paperback.

She yanked the door open. Ben, looking stunned, rose from one of Faith’s big chintz armchairs. Isabel tried to go back into the bedroom, but she almost thanked him for coming into the hall before she could.

“What do you say?” he asked.

“Why do you care if I stay? You said this was my fault, too.” He wanted something more from her than company for Tony. “What you’re saying and what you want are out of sync.”

“No marriage falls apart because of one person, and no relationship ends overnight.” Confusion and guilt drained the life from Ben’s face. “I worked too hard.” His research kept him in his lab for long hours.

“Who knew you were leaving your home undefended?” Or that her husband would fall for her sister? “I never had a clue. Did I close my eyes to the signs?”

“All the stages of being cheated on,” Ben said. “Bitterness and taking all the blame. But Tony doesn’t have to be part of this train wreck.”

“Why would you let me near him when you think I’m going to tell my parents we should take him away from you?”

His expression acknowledged the truth in her words, but the accusation quickly disappeared. Ben had learned to hide things, and his new talents made her uneasy. “The thought never crossed your mind?” he asked.

“I’m not like—” She stopped, lifting her hands to her unnaturally warm face.

“Like Faith?” he asked. “In what way? I’d like to know more about my wife.”

So would she, but they’d both lost any chance at knowing who she’d really been. “I want Tony to be safe and happy. Faith and Will just wanted each other, and to hell with the rest of us.”

Without touching her, he studied her face as if he were divining a mystery. “Stay with Tony until he gets used to being without his mom.”

“I can’t take her place.” She turned away.

“Why don’t you like people to see you cry?”

“Because I’m not weak.” She looked back as if he’d forced her to. “I loved my sister—and Will—but I’m sick of being their joke. I imagine them laughing….”

“And you still think you love them?” Surprise raised his voice.

They both glanced toward the stairs. The babysitter could bring down Ben’s shaky house of cards with one juicy conversation.

“You have to be more careful. Sixteen-year-old girls talk to their friends and their mothers. And her mother knows my mom from the parties you and Faith gave.”

Ben pulled her closer. “You’d mind if your parents tried to take my son?”

“Why won’t you trust me?”

“You had three months to tell me the truth.”

“I was wrong.”

He let her go, disillusioned. “At least you could have warned me they might take Tony and run. I almost lost my son.”