Sweetened With a Kiss (26 page)

When they stepped out into the bright sunshine on the river front, she stopped short, her smile dying a little. Stefan stood outside the entrance, his back to the Mississippi River, watching all three of them with the oddest look on his face. He wasn’t actually looking at her, he was looking at Madlyn, who was staring straight back at him. Then any final illusions that Jen had clung to that this might have been a giant misunderstanding died a very quick death when Robbie launched himself at Stefan.

“Uncle Stefan!” The cool nine year old veneer gave way to a delighted child.

Stefan didn’t miss a step as he caught Robbie at full run. He gave a huge grunt then swung the boy around once, before dropping him back to his feet. They play-boxed for a minute, circling each other until Robbie got in the kill shot and Stefan pretended to fall back. The rapport between them was staggering.

“Have you enjoyed seeing your aunt?”

Robbie nodded. “She’s pretty cool. She pet the stingray even though she didn’t really want to.”

“Is that a fact? A stingray? I can’t believe you got her to do that,” Stefan said, ruffling Robbie’s hair. “Have you eaten yet?”

Madlyn started to protest but the look Stefan gave her over Robbie’s shoulder would have made a small army flee. And while she held her ground, she immediately said it sounded great to her.

“We’re going to Masperos,” Robbie said. “Race you!”

And they were off, racing along the river until they could cut across to Decatur at the Brewery.

Jen watched as they disappeared around a building.

“Let’s get this over with,” Madlyn said.

Jen nodded, but as far as she was concerned everything was already over.

Robbie, thankfully, was oblivious to the tension between the adults at the table. He was catching Stefan up on what he was doing at school and then the conversation turned to the New Orleans 70.3. Robbie was a huge fan of the triathlons. Jen suspected it was because he worshiped Stefan. And Stefan’s obvious affection for the boy was heart-wrenching.

She sipped her lemonade, ordered a fried shrimp po boy and just enjoyed watching them together. There was such genuine affection between them that she would never understand why he had kept Robbie from her. The Stefan she’d thought she knew would never do that. The Stefan she thought she’d loved could not have done it, would not have even considered it an option. But here it was, right in front of her.

Their food came, and Jen picked at her shrimp but didn’t eat the French bread. Stefan and Robbie split what was left of her sandwich after demolishing roast beef po boys and red beans and rice. Stefan actually ate the French bread. Madlyn’s phone rang and she excused herself from the table, but not before sending Robbie to wash his hands.

Jen watched the sidewalk through the open doors, while Stefan sat across from her in complete silence. She kept expecting him to say something. Seconds stretched into minutes as they sat there like two strangers. Then his lemonade glass hit the table just a little too hard.

“You don’t have anything to say?”

Surprised he’d broken the silence first, Jen couldn’t even begin to believe what he’d just said to her. Who did he think he was? He had no right to look at her like that. In that minute, she really hated him. Despite all the pain she was still fighting back, hating him was infinitely worse. Hating Stefan meant she had no idea who she even was anymore.

“How did you know where I was?” she asked, amazed at how calm her words were. 

He leaned across the table. “There’s an app for that.”

“An app?” she echoed. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Seriously? I’m unbelievable? You want to explain to me why you leave for tea bags and end up at the aquarium with Madlyn and Robbie?”

“Not really, no.”

“We had no idea where you were. You just disappeared.”

“I trusted you,” she interrupted, pushing away from the table.

“Trusted?” he echoed. “As in past tense.”

She nodded, standing up. “I wanted the fairytale so bad that I let you convince me. But I always knew deep down that you didn’t really love me, Stefan. I just thought you at least cared. I can’t believe I was so stupid.”

He was on his feet and reaching for her before she finished.

“No,” she jumped backing away from him, not caring what the tourists and other diners around them thought. “Do not touch me. Just stay away from me, we’re done.”

“Done?”

“As in past tense,” she informed him, and was out on the sidewalk before she even recognized that she was walking away from him.

“Jen.” Fingers closed around her arm, but she jerked her arm back and tried to put some distance between them. She knew she couldn’t outrun him but she didn’t want him touching her.

“You had no right to keep him from me!”

He stopped short, and she kept walking. Then she decided she wasn’t finished so she wheeled back around, surprised to see him standing where she’d left him. She couldn’t believe he looked so confused.

“How could you? You knew how much I missed my family. How could you let me believe I was all alone in the world?”

She refused to let herself notice how every word she threw at him sucked a little more color out of his face. She ignored the way he iced over. She didn’t care.

“And for what?” she demanded. “For money? For stock in a company that I would have given you if you had just asked for it? There was no need for you to manipulate me all these years and take away the one thing that meant something to me. But you can forget it. You’ll never get it now. And if you still think you can get it as part of a divorce settlement, then you’d better think again. Because I will do anything I have to do to make sure you never touch a penny of it.”

“Divorce?” the word scraped out of him.

“Yes, divorce.”

“You are not leaving me.” The words launched at her like frozen steel spikes, but she couldn’t feel anything anymore, so it didn’t mattered what he said or did.

She stared at him, then took two steps forward, meeting him head on, not caring that the ice in his expression actually burned her skin. “Stefan,” she said softly, launching back steel of her own. “I’m already gone.”

Maybe a sledge hammer? No, a wrecking ball. Yeah, definitely a wrecking ball would have done less damage if it’d slammed into his gut the way her words did. For a moment, he wasn’t sure he was actually hearing them. His brain could just not fathom that his entire world had just exploded and fallen at his feet.

He watched her walk away, towards the black Jaguar that slid up to the curb. He couldn’t even feel his feet as he started forward. “Jen,” he rasped out, forcing air in his lungs so he could speak.

She didn’t even hesitate. She went around to the passenger side of the Jag, and sat right down into the spider’s web.

He had hardly even absorbed that this was actually happening before the triumphant look on Madlyn’s face twisted what was left of his gut in half. Everything Jen had been trying to tell him about Madlyn was absolutely true. He hadn’t listened to her. He hadn’t believed her. Now he was going to pay for that.

He started forward, and Madlyn met him half way.

“Children are present,” she reminded him.

“You unbelievable bitch,” he hissed at her. “What have you done?”

She actually smiled. A wide, open mouth smile that had his hands curling into fists. “What’s the matter, lover. Have I stolen your favorite toy?” she said. “Don’t worry, I’ll take excellent care of her. I might even let you have her back, eventually. If she wants to come back to you, but that’s not likely.”

His best friend had loved this woman. Stefan had dated her for two years. They had been friends for longer. She was his trusted attorney. She was family.

Now, he had no idea who the hell she was.

“What did you do?”

Madlyn’s smile widened. “I just thought it was time she met her nephew. The one you refused to let me tell her about all these years.”

“What?” he demanded, feeling the world lurch underneath him. Suddenly his grasp of English was called into question. Nothing anyone was saying to him today made any sense.

Madlyn laughed. “Funny thing, Jen’s sketchy memory. I had no idea what a gift it really was.”

“You bitch.”

“You said that already.”

“You know me, Madlyn,” he reminded her, his voice low and controlled. “Do you really want to take me on?”

She stood her ground, something brutal flickering in her eyes. “I took you on months ago, but you just realized we were playing. I am so far ahead of you, Stefan, you’ll never catch up.”

“You do not want to do this.”

Madlyn shrugged. “You spent so much time trying to protect her from herself, that you left your rear flank exposed.”

“Robert loved you.”

Every single shred of humanity evaporated from her expression, and Stefan found himself facing a cold predator that he’d never seen coming. “Don’t you dare. He was everything to me. I’ve spent the last ten years trying to protect his son and his sister. What have you done for the last decade? You sealed her up in a perfect little bubble, then made a load of money doing it.”

“You don’t give a shit about Jen.”

“Don’t think for one second that you know me, Stefan. I protected her every time I spread my legs for you. I had the judge convinced for years you and I were together. Every weekend you spent with me and Robbie kept him distracted. But you couldn’t keep your hands off her, could you? The Kingdom wasn’t enough, you had to have the princess too. Now she’s on his radar. And that is all your fault.”

“I’m not afraid of that old man.”

“Well, then you’re a fool.”

He felt rather than saw the hesitation in her. “Madlyn,” he said, trying to sound reasonable. “Tell me what’s really going on.”

She almost looked startled, but it faded so quickly he wasn’t sure he’d even seen it. She just shook her head in disgust. “Just run along, Stefan. Go and make more money. The more you make the more my grandfather wants. And he’s going to want a lot this time.”

“This isn’t over,” he told her, as she walked back to her car.

She stopped at the Jag and put one foot in before turning back to him. “Don’t worry. We’ll be in touch.”

He watched the Jag pull away from the curb. One system right after another shut down as he watched the car go around the curve, taking his wife away from him. He didn’t run. He walked back to the bakery, where the crew was knocking off for the day.

“You find her?” Rogan asked, looking up from the checkbook he had spread out on one of the cafe tables in the dining area.

“Yeah.”

“Where is she?”

“With Madlyn,” Stefan said, sinking down in the other chair.

“Madlyn?”

“Yeah.”

“What the hell?”

Stefan pushed his fingers through his hair, still too dazed by what had happened to make sense of anything. “And Robbie.”

“Robbie?” Rogan sat up. “She saw Robbie today. Is she okay?”

Stefan nodded. “Other than hating my guts for hiding her nephew from her for the last nine years, she’s just peachy.”

“What...”

“...yeah, I know,” Stefan said, suddenly very tired.

“She thinks you hid Robbie from her? Where did she get that...oh, fucking hell, I told you that you cannot trust that bitch.”

“Yeah, you did.” He took a deep breath, knowing that he needed to do something, but he couldn’t think. His chest had been ripped open and everything was leaking out of him so fast he didn’t even try to stop it.

“What’re we going to do?”

Stefan shrugged. “Tequila. Lots and lots of tequila.”

“Yeah, let’s go with no on that. You and tequila are not good friends. Remember.”

“Patron Silver and I are tight,” Stefan assured him and pushed to his feet. “Where’s the hippie? I need a new attorney.”