The Secret Son Read online

  “How long has it been since there’s been someone?” If he’d detected jealousy in her voice, he might’ve been able to joke with her, fob off the question—while secretly being flattered, of course.

  He couldn’t build any defenses against Erica’s compassion.

  “I told you, I don’t have the time or energy to invest in ‘someone.’ Nor can I do my job if I know someone’s waiting at home for me. How can I take the chance of putting them through the hell and the horror I went through when Melissa and Courtney were killed? I risk my life every single time I go to work. As a freelance negotiator there’s very little I do that’s safe. I don’t man a desk during downtimes or give training classes, do research or program management like I used to do with the agency.”

  “But you must have friends.”

  “Of course I do.” He had acquaintances all over the United States. Guys he could call if he ever needed a favor. Usually he just called them to go out for a beer if he was in town.

  Or to bum a place to crash for a few nights.

  Jack hated hotels.

  “And you must have sex.”

  It took Jack a second to recover from the jolt those words sent through his body.

  “I mean, you’re a gorgeous man, Jack. You exude virility, energy. Vitality. Sex appeal…”

  “I have sex,” Jack choked out, a bit desperate to shut her up. “Sometimes. Not often. And not with anyone exclusively.”

  “Oh. Good.”

  He finished off his whiskey, set the glass on the table, much harder than he’d intended. He winced at the sound.

  “You know the part of me that shut down after Melissa?”

  He felt foreign to himself, talking this way, but he couldn’t let tonight end without telling her.

  “Yeah.”

  “I discovered this week that it wasn’t permanent.”

  Her fingers froze on his wrist.

  “It’s okay,” he assured her quickly, wondering if perhaps the whiskey was affecting him, after all. “You aren’t supposed to do anything with that knowledge. I’m not asking for anything, I just wanted you to know. Wanted to thank you.”

  He couldn’t tell what she was thinking. She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

  And…damn, her lips were trembling.

  “Ah, Erica,” he said, trying to cajole her into calmness. Into repose and resignation. Instead, he was afraid he’d only let her hear his own despondency.

  She smiled, but it looked like an effort.

  He felt utterly useless. His muscles tensed with the effort it was taking him just to sit there.

  Her shoulders straightened. She looked at him, her eyes glistening.

  And all his strength dissolved.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THERE WAS NOTHING sexual about the way he pulled her into his arms. Jack wasn’t sure what was right and what was wrong anymore; he knew only that he couldn’t sit there with Erica hurting so badly and do nothing.

  Which was why she ended up cradled in his arms, her face pressed against his chest as she took a couple of ragged breaths.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “Don’t be,” he said softly, aching for both of them. “Please don’t ever be sorry we met.”

  Her eyes shone with tears that didn’t fall. “I’m not sorry we met,” she said, her voice weak. “I am sorry I’m not better equipped to handle this.”

  “How could you be?” He sat back, pulling her with him, allowing her to rest against him more than actually holding her. “I don’t think either of us was prepared for what’s happened.”

  “I never expected to fall for someone.”

  “Me, neither, which is why we couldn’t possibly have been prepared.”

  They were quiet for a while, the hum of the hotel’s air conditioner, her weight against him, lulling Jack into a tentative sense of peace. He started to follow Erica’s breathing pattern, soothed by the evenness, the steady ebb and flow. He wondered if she’d fallen asleep.

  Part of him hoped so.

  Another part, the possessive part that he’d thought gone from him forever, didn’t want to waste a single second of the time still left to them. There were so many thoughts—so many feelings—inside her and he wanted every one of them. To store them away, like tiny gifts, to pull out and savor in the years to come.

  “I’m not sorry about us.”

  She wasn’t asleep.

  “I’m not, either,” Jack said.

  As frustrated and horrible as he felt, he should wish he’d never met her. Shouldn’t he?

  “Can I ask you something?” he said a moment later.

  “Sure.” She was playing with the corner of his collar, rubbing it back and forth against the pad of her thumb.

  “Sex with Jefferson—he’s good to you, isn’t he?”

  It wasn’t any of his damn business. And yet it was. He loved her. He needed to know that she was treated right.

  He needed to know.

  “Jefferson is always good to me.”

  Jack had suspected as much. And was genuinely comforted to hear her say it.

  He was also far more jealous than he had any right to be.

  “I just wasn’t sure, with him being so much older…” Let it go, man.

  “Sex doesn’t really play a big part in our relationship.” The words were said quietly but not hesitantly. Jack sat unmoving, wanting to hear more, wanting her more. He shifted beneath her to hide—and perhaps ease—the tightness in his groin.

  “When we were first married we tried…Jefferson was a very conscientious lover, always making sure I was…satisfied before he…you know.”

  So the man wasn’t a selfish bastard, but then, after a week of hearing about him, Jack already knew that.

  “After a while, I don’t know, things just tapered off. We rarely make love anymore.”

  “Did you ever discuss it? Ask him about it?”

  “We talked.” Her knuckle grazed his throat.

  “And?”

  “One reason’s his age. The male sex drive dropping after fifty and all that. But Jefferson is very fit. He doesn’t look or act anywhere near the fifty-nine he actually is.”

  “So what was the other reason?”

  She turned her head, burying her face in his chest for a moment. Jack held his breath, willing his body not to torment him.

  Finally she said, “He knows my heart isn’t in it.”

  Jack didn’t know what to say to that. He was ashamed of his immediate reaction—the fact that he felt glad Jefferson wasn’t having sex very often with the woman he’d fallen so suddenly in love with. He was also saddened to think of Erica going through the rest of her life practically untouched.

  “I told you I was an only child,” she said, her body growing heavier against his as she relaxed. “What I didn’t say was that my parents were already in their forties when I was conceived. My dad was seventy when he died six years ago. Jefferson’s fifteen years younger than him, but somehow he’d seemed like a second father to me.”

  “What about your mother? Is she still alive?”

  Jack’s parents were both gone—killed in a car accident when he was in college.

  “She’s in Florida,” Erica said. “Living in an adult community next door to her younger sister. They golf and play bridge all day.”

  “What did she think of your marriage?”

  “She was mostly for it,” Erica said. “She wasn’t thrilled about the age difference, but she knew I’d never find a man better than Jeff….”

  Her voice trailed off again and Jack tried not to think as he held her. Until she shuddered.

  “Erica?’

  She raised her head and he could see the agony in her eyes.

  “This is just so hard,” she said, her lips twisted in pain. “I never expected it to be so hard.”

  “I know….”

  “What are we going to do?’

  “What can we do?”

  As she watched him silently, Jack’s
heart took hope. He waited to see what miracle she might come up with, some way they could be true to themselves and yet…

  “Nothing,” she said. “Keeping in touch would not only be incredibly stupid, it would make things even harder. I’ll survive in my real world, if you’re no more than just a memory. You have to be something I can put away when I go home. If you were still a part of my life, I’d constantly be wanting more.”

  He knew she was right, but…

  “Maybe you should at least have my address, just in case.”

  “No, Jack. I’m not strong enough to do that. I’d be tired one night, feeling lonely, and I’d end up using it.”

  “In my line of work, you don’t want to be too easily found, so I’m not listed.”

  “Good.”

  He nodded. This was the way it had to be.

  “Oh, God, why does life have to be so hard?” She sounded beaten.

  Her face was only inches from his, and Jack leaned forward slightly to kiss her eyelids closed. She should get some rest. She had a meeting in the morning. He could sit there and hold her the rest of the night.

  Hold her and not think.

  His lips trailed tenderly across one cheek and then the other and then had nowhere else to go.

  Except down to her mouth.

  There was no conscious decision. No decision at all. The hour was late, the alcohol convincing. The need to comfort, to connect, too overpowering.

  One minute he was kissing her face…and the next she was naked beneath him and his lips were on her breast, her nipple, his body sliding inside hers.

  It was wrong. He knew that. And he could see, by the look in her eyes, that she knew it, too.

  And yet, nothing had ever felt more right.

  They had two hours before she had to shower and leave. Jack made love to her, laughed with her, told her how beautiful she was, how smart, how much he admired her.

  And then, in the doorway of her hotel room, just before dawn, he told her goodbye.

  A COUPLE OF MONTHS later, in the bedroom she shared with Jefferson, Erica knew for certain that she’d never be able to forget Jack.

  Or forgive herself for that stolen week in New York.

  She and Jefferson had just returned from a pre-holiday party at the White House. He was still in his tux, although he’d loosened the tie at his neck. He was sitting on the love seat in the corner of the big bedroom suite in their Washington condo. He looked tired.

  “When are you going to tell me what’s the matter?” he asked as she came in from the bathroom.

  Now. She had to tell him now. But…

  “Why do you say that?” She wanted to take off the long, slim-fitting black gown and pull on her silk pajamas. But she didn’t.

  “I’ve known something was wrong ever since you came home from New York,” he said, running his hands through his thick, stylishly cut gray hair.

  “Why didn’t you mention it before?”

  “I’d hoped that eventually you’d come to me with whatever it was.”

  Were his shoulders as broad as Jack’s?

  Surprisingly enough, Erica thought, they probably were.

  But were they broad enough to handle what she was about to tell him? She’d been cold all evening, the November chill seeping through her bones. But now she was sweating.

  Wanting nothing more than to crawl into the big four-poster bed, cuddle up to her husband and go to sleep, Erica joined Jefferson on the other side of the room, where she dropped into an armchair adjacent to the love seat. She didn’t know where to begin. Or how.

  Jefferson waited. And Erica knew how much it was costing him to do this. Her husband always anticipated crises, always acted decisively, attempting to resolve problems if he couldn’t prevent them. Asking him to just sit and do nothing wasn’t fair.

  “I never realized it was possible to hate myself so much,” she said in a low voice.

  He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Knowing you as I do, I’m sure there’s no need to put yourself through that kind of grief, Erica, so why don’t we talk about whatever this is and get it behind us?”

  If he had any idea…

  Erica opened her mouth to speak but, looking up at him, couldn’t make the words come. How could she do this to him? She, who knew so well how devastating it was to be betrayed?

  After suffering the effects of Shane’s betrayal, she’d never have believed herself capable of doing anything so deplorable. So selfish. So hideously unfair.

  Her stomach roiled, and Erica was afraid she might be sick again.

  “I met a man in New York.”

  Jefferson’s head dropped.

  “His name’s Jack Shaw. He’s a hostage negotiator, used to be with the FBI.”

  Her husband’s shoulders straightened as he sat back and held his head up to meet her gaze.

  “You want a divorce. To go to him.”

  “I’m never going to see him again.”

  She had no way of seeing him, even if she wanted to, which she didn’t. Her life and Jack’s—they were farther apart than ever.

  Jefferson’s eyes narrowed. “He left you?” If Erica hadn’t been feeling so completely miserable, she’d have smiled at the delivery of that question. His tone said How dare he leave you? as though Jefferson himself was ready to go hunt the man down.

  She shook her head, instead.

  “We both knew when we left New York that we’d never see each other again.”

  “Why not?”

  She did smile then, though tremulously. “I’m a married woman, Jefferson.”

  “That’s more in name than in deed,” he said sadly. “And I was aware from the outset this might happen. Hell, Erica, I’m old enough to be your father. You think I haven’t been prepared for this from the beginning?”

  “No,” she said, a little shocked.

  “Well, I was.” His posture was relaxed; only the fact that he couldn’t seem to figure out what to do with his hands revealed his inner turmoil. “I’m not going to stand in your way. And I sure as hell don’t want you feeling beholden to me.”

  Erica felt as though her world was spinning increasingly out of control.

  She wanted to tell him she’d married him for better or worse. That she’d never—once—had any intention of forsaking those vows or asking to be released from them.

  But she had forsaken them.

  In the worst possible way.

  It all came pouring out then. How Jack had saved her from that jerk at Maggie’s. How they’d never planned to see each other again, but how they’d each shown up at Maggie’s the next night, just in case the other might happen to stop by. How they did the same thing every night that week. How they talked. And never touched. Never even went anywhere else.

  How she’d have come home in a second if she could have gotten the Journal reporter to talk to her.

  Jefferson nodded at that point.

  She told him about Jack’s wife and daughter. His job. How he, no less than Erica, wasn’t free to embark on a relationship.

  “We accepted from the beginning that one week was all we were ever going to have.”

  Reaching across the space between them, Jefferson pulled her from the chair and into his arms, his touch comforting, completely nonsexual. “We’ve nursed you through a broken heart before, my dear,” he said, sounding certain, if a little tired. “We can do so again.”

  She wished a broken heart was the only consequence of her time with Jack. “I don’t deserve you,” she whispered, fighting tears.

  “Don’t talk like that,” he said, his voice soothing. “You can’t be blamed for being attracted to a man your own age. It’s natural.”

  “You have to be disappointed in me.”

  “I am disappointed,” he admitted with a heavy sigh, and the knife inside Erica twisted further. “But not in you.”

  “How could you not be?”

  “Because I know you, Erica, and I know that you’d never purposely do this—to either
of us. How can I blame you for being human?”

  “You’re far too generous.”

  “Marrying you was the most reckless thing I’ve ever done,” he said, gazing into her eyes. “I’m almost three decades older than you. I know, and I’ve always known, that our marriage contravenes the natural order of things. As I said, I don’t fault you for what you did. What you felt…”

  “But you’re disappointed, anyway.”

  “I’m disappointed that I’m not twenty years younger, that when I finally fell head over heels in love with a woman, she wasn’t my own age and at the same place in life. I’m disappointed that I’m too old to do for you whatever this Jack guy did.”

  Erica started to feel sick again. She freed herself from her husband’s arms, whispering, “There’s more.”

  “You slept with him.”

  Though it took more strength than she thought she had, Erica forced herself to keep looking at him. “How did you know?”

  “I suspected as much the day you got back. Don’t forget, honey, I’ve taken you there myself. You get a certain look about you after you’ve made love. A softness, a satisfied peace. It’s a look I haven’t seen in a long time.”

  Only someone as attuned to her as Jefferson would notice such a thing.

  “I’m so sorry, Jeff,” she said hoarsely. “I can’t believe I’ve done this. That I’ve hurt you like this. I didn’t think I could do such a thing. And certainly never wanted to.”

  “I know,” he said, his eyes filled with the sadness he wouldn’t express in words.

  “I’d do anything to take it all back….”

  “I know that, too,” he said, and then held her hand, much like she’d held Jack’s that night he’d told her about losing his wife and daughter. “Of course, it would’ve been best if you’d walked away before there was anything to take back, but if I think that way, I’m going to get angry and that won’t do us any good.”

  “You should be angry.”

  He bowed his head, and she couldn’t see what he was thinking. “No,” he finally said, looking up at her. “Anger is unproductive and so is regret. Rather than wishing for the impossible, the wiser thing to do would be for us to put this behind us and move forward.”

  Did he want a divorce?