Gone Too Far (4 page)

In the past month, though, Evan had gotten in the practice of claiming to be sick whenever Michael had visitation time. He made all kinds of excuses, but his physician, Dr. Brown, found nothing wrong with him. Dr. Bryant, his psychiatrist, suggested Evan was acting out on his remaining anger by finding excuses not to spend time with his father.

Michael couldn't help but be hurt by this. He loved his boys. They were the only people he felt he could love completely and without precaution. Trying to help them was the main reason he decided to get his life back together. He accepted that it would take time for the boys to forgive him, but that didn't mean it wasn't very painful.

“He did have a bit of a fever,” Kimberly said. “That's why he's in bed. Dr. Brown didn't find anything the last time. Maybe Leigh can look at him.”

“No,” Michael said. “The less my family knows about the boys' psychiatric counseling the better.”

“Fine.” Kimberly stood up. “You know where the basement is. Please make it quick.”

She didn't look back as she walked out of the living room and toward the stairs. This bothered Michael and she knew it, but he had to learn. Like she told him, nothing here, except the boys, was his anymore.

 

“All right, all right, you little monster.” Avery placed a kicking and struggling Connor onto the floor as soon as they entered the Baldwin Hills home they recently moved to because they could no longer afford to live in View Park.

Her daughter began waddling into the living room, running as fast as lightning.

“Let's go to the kitchen, sweetie.” Avery smiled as Connor immediately headed to the left, toward the kitchen. Avery's mother, Nikki, told her she was training her like a little dog, but Avery was doing what she had to. It was hard to look after a rambunctious baby and a—

“Where in the hell have you been?”

Avery stopped in the dining room, just before crossing into the kitchen. She turned to see Anthony Harper, her husband, sitting in his wheelchair near the window, where he could look out at the front of the house. He looked his usual surly and suspicious self. Avery was sick and tired of going through this. For the last six months, any time she was more than ten minutes later than she said she would be, Anthony gave her the third degree.

“Nice to see you too,” she responded, but it only seemed to make him angrier.

“Can you answer my question?” Anthony asked shortly.

She didn't feel like it, but as Avery looked at her husband, sitting in the chair, twenty pounds lighter and with dark circles under his eyes, she knew she had to. She had to because it was all her fault. She had cheated, and that cheating had ruined so much of Anthony's life. It was fair that he was suspicious of her.

Avery lifted the bag of groceries in her right arm. “Where I said I would be. I picked Connor up from Mom's and ran by the store.”

“I called your Mom. She said you left more than an hour ago.”

Avery ignored him and headed into the kitchen, where Connor was sitting on her butt, talking gibberish to her fingers. She could hear Anthony's automatic wheelchair purring behind her.

“It takes more than an hour to buy one bag's worth of groceries?”

Avery responded while taking the groceries out of the bag. “With a one-year-old, an hour is good damn time.”

“You think this is funny?”

She turned to him. “Did I laugh? You asked where I was and I told you.”

“Then why didn't you answer your cell?”

“Anthony,” Avery said as more of a sigh than anything else. “I don't know. The battery must be dead. Just, please.”

“Please what?” Anthony asked, his voice holding an injured tone. “Or maybe you just turned it off.”

Avery slammed the can of soup on the counter. “Where do you think I was? What do you think I was doing? Why not stop wasting our time with these same questions and just tell me where you think I was.”

“I wasn't going to say you were with Carter.” Anthony's expression darkened as it always did when he said the name of the man he believed had ruined his life. “I know you aren't sleeping with him, but I know the only reason you're not is because he doesn't want you.”

Avery was taken aback by the sting of his words. “You're an evil asshole.”

“You made me that way,” he retorted. “Let's face it, Avery. If he wanted you, you'd be fucking him, wouldn't you?”

“Leave me alone, Anthony.” Avery went to place the soup in the cabinet, but something shiny caught her eye. She looked down at the sink and saw a silver-label bottle of whiskey.

She grabbed the bottle and noticed that it was almost empty. “I see you've been doing some shopping yourself.”

“That's none of your business,” Anthony said. He rolled toward her, holding his hand out. “Give it to me.”

Once Anthony had been through a couple of months of physical therapy, the doctor approved the addition of a disabled hoist and braking system in his car. It was an expensive transition, but it allowed Anthony the ability to drive. He took lessons, and within the last month, he was driving it regularly—that was, when he wasn't feeling phantom pain from his injuries. He was in pain often and had decided to use the new freedom the car provided him to go and buy liquor. That and driving by the art gallery where Avery worked to make sure she was there.

“Dammit!” Anthony yelled as, instead of giving him the bottle, Avery turned it over and let the rest go down the drain of the sink. “You are such a bitch!”

Avery was ready to come back at him, but Connor began to cry. As she hurried to her baby, Avery felt horrible. She had practically forgotten that Connor was there.

“It's okay, baby.” She picked Connor up and tried to soothe her. “We're making too much noise? It's okay. Sorry, sweetie. Don't cry.”

Avery thought of what had happened between Kimberly and Michael as their marriage fell apart and how angry it made her over what it was doing to the kids. She couldn't let that happen to Connor. It was bad enough that she no longer got along with Carter. If Connor had to witness the strife between her and Anthony, too, it was bound to harm her psychologically.

“I'm sorry,” Anthony finally said, although he was already turning and wheeling out of the kitchen when he said it.

Avery wanted to cry. He looked so pitiful, and she was too tired to try and do more for him. Fortunately, his upper body was intact, so he was able to take care of his most personal needs, but besides that, Avery was doing everything for him. Because of his mobility issues, and because they were financially strapped, they sold the View Park town house they lived in and moved into a much smaller ranch-style home in a less pricier suburb.

Avery had tried to help him by staying positive and holding on to hope that he could regain the use of his legs. The doctor said it wasn't an impossibility, because Anthony's injury was just below the point on his spine where damage was always permanent. But Anthony had fallen behind on his physical therapy, and ever since he had been able to drive himself, he told Avery he didn't want her coming with him to his doctor's appointments because it was humiliating.

As Connor's cries subsided to sniffles, Avery sat down in a chair at the kitchen table and lowered her head to pray. She prayed for the same things she prayed for every day. She prayed for herself to be a better wife and mother. She prayed for Anthony's recovery. She prayed for Carter's anger to subside. Most importantly, she prayed that she would never lose her baby.

 

When Michael walked into his father's office, he was a little taken aback by the reception. Usually Steven was at his oversized mahogany desk that Janet had won at a Sotheby's auction a year ago, looking down at his laptop or papers, talking to someone on the phone, waving him in without a look, or doing something else. Michael was used to it, but today it was different. He hadn't knocked, because Steven's administrative Fort Knox had ushered him in. When Michael entered, Steven wasn't sitting at his desk. He was sitting in one of the leather chairs on the opposite side. He was half turned around and met Michael with a smile on his face.

“Come in, son.” Steven gestured for Michael to sit in the other chair right next to his.

Son?
Steven always called him Michael when they were at Chase Beauty or doing business elsewhere. When he was mad, he would call him
boy,
but never
son.
What was going on?

“What's the matter?” Steven asked, noticing the look of apprehension on his son's face.

“Nothing.” Michael sat down. “I was told you summoned me.”

Steven sighed. “Is it that painful to be alone with me?”

Steven knew that his son still held animosity toward him. They had been so close that everyone referred to Michael as the favorite. He was a clone of his father in many ways and was the exact opposite in others, but while Carter seemed determined to make his name without Chase Beauty, Michael ate, slept, and breathed the company.

Their relationship had been a series of dysfunctional ups and downs. Steven was a harsh father, and he knew it. He loved his children and would give his life for them, but he wasn't an affectionate man, and he believed strongly that you had to be firm with boys to make them tough and prepared for manhood. Still, Steven had always been confident in Michael's succession to his empire.

That was, until Michael's wife, Kimberly, killed David and the truth about her past was revealed. To say it was a shock that his son had married an ex-runaway hooker and, with Carter's help, had gone to such lengths to hide her past from his parents would be an understatement. To find out who he had paid off, what records he had stolen, and especially that he had framed David and had him locked in a Mexican prison was completely unexpected.

None of that compared to the nightmare that the murder, which Kimberly claimed was an accident, had been for Steven and Janet. They had to call in all their favors and do things that even they, with all they had done to protect their family, had a hard time living with. It had worked, but Steven couldn't even talk to Michael. He was so angry that every time Michael tried to appeal to him, he shut him down. Janet had been more understanding toward Michael, but the fact that he had chosen to stay married to Kimberly made things worse. Her presence in the family put them under a constant threat of disaster.

But things changed last year when Carter and Michael were on the Chase jet returning from New York to L.A. It malfunctioned and crashed. The pilot was killed, but Michael and Carter survived with minor injuries that healed within months. The thought that he had almost lost his sons, neither of whom he was barely talking to, floored Steven to a point where he didn't know who he even was. It put him in a spot so vulnerable that he didn't know how to deal with it. What he did know was that he loved his sons more than anything and would never treat them the way he had in the past. Never again.

The problem with this was that Michael's life had fallen apart and was threatening to put him over the brink. He was embarrassing the family in public and, worse, was making decisions that could put Chase Beauty at risk. Most of all, he looked as if he was turning an emotional and psychological corner that Steven and Janet feared he couldn't return from. It was all stemming from the breakdown of his marriage to Kimberly, and it was damaging their grandchildren, so Janet and Steven made the choice to force Michael to give Kimberly a divorce and offered Kimberly $20 million to leave L.A. without the children and never come back.

While fear that Kimberly would accept this offer urged Michael to give her a divorce, but on his terms, he hated Steven and Janet for what they had done. He took a leave from Chase Beauty and refused to speak to either parent. He kept them out of the divorce and custody proceedings and didn't involve them in putting his life together. He had stopped drinking and was seeing a psychiatrist but was still keeping Janet and Steven at arm's length.

Steven suspected it was all to impress Kimberly, but he was happy nonetheless and tried to convince Michael to come back to Chase Beauty. Everyone in the family urged him to return, and eventually, with an exceedingly generous compensation package and increased authority, Michael came back.

It had been four months since he'd been back, and while he was working at the same top-notch level the Columbia MBA grad always had, Steven knew there was still deep-seated anger. Steven listened to his wife tell him he had to be patient and wait for Michael to come around, but patience had never been one of Steven's strong points. It just wasn't in his blood.

Michael looked down at his watch. “Dad, I'm very busy. Do you need to talk to me or not?”

“Yes, I do.” Steven stood up and walked around his desk to his chair. “But first I wanted to know if you would like to come home for dinner tonight.”

Michael shook his head. “I'm looking at a condo after work today.”

“It will be nice to get out of that hotel room after all this time.” Steven thought he might try again. “You know your mother and I would love to have you stay at the house until you find a place.”

Michael nodded an acknowledgment of the offer. “Dad, what is this about? Is it the Mexico contracts? Because legal has them right now and dealing with—”

“It's not about work,” Steven interrupted. “It's about Jerry Gregoire.”

Michael shook his head with a sarcastic smirk. “Since when did you start looking at my expense reports?”

“Since someone brought to my attention that you are using Chase Beauty funds to pay for a private investigator to follow your ex-wife.”

“I'll pay you back.”

“Michael,” Steven said impatiently. “That isn't the point. You have to stop following Kimberly around.”

Michael shot up from his chair. “Stay out of it.”