Holiday Terminal, page 5
PENELOPE
I poke my head into the terminal again to scope out Artemis' location. If he's still busy on a phone call, maybe I can get Mom and Max to come hang out with me in the office or even the hallway while I wait for some miracle rescue.
Anything to keep our distance from him and the possibility that he’ll discover my secret.
I don't know what I'll do if he uncovers the truth.
Run? Hide? Move? All of the above?
Luck has done me wrong again because Artemis isn't tied up on his phone. He's halfway across the terminal, walking straight toward Mom and Max.
My worst fear is coming to life before my eyes.
Just when I thought this day couldn't get any more hellish…
No. No. No. No.
One of the most powerful men from one of the most influential families in the country is about to discover my deception. He's about to unravel the truth that will destroy the life I've worked so hard to create for Max.
I need to stop him.
Now!
I dart out of the office and around chairs, on a course to intercept him. My legs barely support my weight. My heels wobble under my feet, not designed for a sprint. I cry out his name in sheer desperation, “Artemis!”
The world stands still as he freezes in place, only a few steps shy of reaching his target. He slowly turns to face me.
But it's too late.
I already know what he will see. My secret is about to be out. My carefully structured world about to be undone.
Mom glances up at the familiar name. “Artemis Warren?”
Her shocked, too quiet, quivering voice sounds panicked even to my ears. She focuses on him, then darts her gaze to me. I can see the gears churning. She’s trying to formulate a plan to diffuse the situation, to help me like she always has. Or, maybe she’s searching for a means of escape.
Too bad there isn’t one.
I’ll do anything to stop the next few moments from happening.
Anything, but it's pointless. I just shake my head in disbelief, tears stinging my eyes. All the years of hard work to give us, him a better, safer life...gone. Just like that.
Nowhere to go, Mom. There’s nowhere left to run.
Artemis glances between Mom and me. “Mrs. Barnes? Is that you?”
A smile spreads across his face looking at her until his eyes drift down to Max, where he’s nestled on her lap.
My world stops spinning.
Max stares up at Artemis with an eyebrow raised. He examines the man standing in front of them with calculating eyes. Ones he shares with his father. Eyes that have haunted my dreams, my reality, my nightmares for over half a decade. “Are you a friend of my mom?”
It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion. I can see it barreling down the track toward the car stuck at the crossing, but there's nothing I can do. There's no way to divert it. No way to stop the impending disaster.
Artemis’ eyes narrow on Max, and I can almost see the questions and calculations running through his head.
This is it. This is the moment I have dreaded since I walked away from him on that beach.
That summer. That shitty, wonderful, life-altering summer.
This moment will change everything. For all of us.
Forever.
Artemis straightens, and he clears his throat before he approaches Max and Mom. He squats down in front of them and pauses a moment, no doubt to muster up that ingrained Warren composure.
“Hello, Jolynn.” He doesn't even look at Mom.
She doesn't matter right now. Nothing or no one else does at this moment.
His eyes never leave Max. “I'm an old friend of your mom's, buddy, and I have something for you.”
He hands Max a small, immaculately wrapped box.
Max's eyes widened, and he grins. “For me?”
Artemis nods. “Merry Christmas….”
He trails off and glances at Mom, patiently waiting for her to fill in the name, but I know underneath that calm exterior, a storm rages. A storm that would make this Hundred-Year Storm pale in comparison.
She swallows thickly, and her gaze darts to me, seeking approval. There's no way around it at this point. There's no way to hide the truth. She knows it as much as I do. The truth is literally staring right at him.
I give her a small nod, and hot tears spill down my cheeks.
God, he is going to hate me.
With a forced smile, she clears the nerves from her throat and focuses on Artemis. “Max. His name is Maxwell.”
Artemis almost falls over but manages to reach out and grab the chair next to Max to steady himself. He pushes to his feet and turns to face me while Max tears into the wrapping paper.
A gleeful smile crosses Max’s lips. “Wow! Chocolate!”
My heart pounds against my ribs. This is it. My world is crumbling to ashes around me at this tiny, piece of shit airport. I can't drag my gaze from Art's. I can’t even be concerned about the amount of sugar that's probably in those damn things Max is shoveling into his mouth.
Not when Artemis is staring at me with accusation and hellfire in his eyes. “Penelope. I think you and I need to have a little chat.”
Chapter 6
ARTEMIS
I knew it the second he looked up at me. Even if Penelope and Jolynn hadn't been here, even if I would have run into the kid out on the street or in a mall somewhere, I would've known, without a shadow of a doubt, that he was mine.
My son. I have a son.
Every childhood picture flashes before my mind’s eye. It's like looking into a mirror at that age. The same blue eyes I see every day look up at me from underneath long, dark lashes and floppy, dark hair.
My hair.
There's no denying he's a Warren. There’s no more hiding the truth. And the name that she gave him…my middle name. She couldn't name him Artemis. No, that would've been too obvious. That would have raised too many questions. Especially from anyone who knew my family and me when we vacationed there that summer. Which was pretty much everyone.
It was a nod to me without being blatant.
I'd find that almost endearing, sweet, heart-warming even if it weren't for the fact that she's kept my son from me for all of these years.
Years…fucking years I've missed with my son.
His birth, first steps, first words, everything. I've missed everything.
Why would she do this? How could she do this?
It's like I never really knew her at all. The Penelope I fell in love with that summer would never make the decision to keep my son from me.
The revelation shatters my heart, and I didn’t even think that possible after what she did to it that day.
Shit.
That night on the beach.
She knew!
Penelope stares at me with wide, watery eyes. Tears stream down her beautiful face. A face I have loved from the moment I saw her all those years ago. Fear darkens the normally light-green irises, and her lip quivers.
She's scared. She should be.
She was pregnant and didn't tell me…
I have a son, and she kept him from me…
I clench my fists at my sides and step toward her.
Jolynn clears her throat. “I need to use the bathroom. Maxwell, come with me. We can explore a little bit.”
Good call, Jolynn.
This could get ugly. Very ugly.
I glance over my shoulder at them. Max has already torn into the box of chocolate originally intended for Grandmother, and his mouth is so full, he looks like a chipmunk stockpiling for winter.
He mumbles what I think is an agreement to his grandmother, and she reaches out and takes his hand. He sets the box on the chair and allows her to lead him toward the bathrooms on the other side of the terminal.
I barely manage to tear my eyes from him, afraid Jolynn may leave with him. As irrational as that fear may be, it's there all the same. They have kept him from me all this time.
Penelope wavers in her mile-high stilettos and grabs the back of a chair to steady herself.
I run a hand over my face. I’m afraid to hear the answer, but I need to ask the question. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
She shakes her head and bites back a sob. “Honestly? No.”
My heart breaks a little more.
How can she hate me this much?
Two steps bring me close enough to her to feel her body heat and for her to experience the anger rolling off me. “Why the hell not, Pen? He's my son. I had the right to know. I have the right to—”
“To what? Be involved in his life?” She crosses her arms over her chest and barks out a sardonic laugh. “If you had known about the baby, if your parents had known about the baby, one of two things would've happened. Either they would've somehow forced me into having an abortion, or they would have paid me off to stay quiet about carrying your baby. A Warren bastard.”
I open my mouth to argue with her, to tell her how wrong she is about how things would've been, but I can't. Because she's right. That’s exactly what they would've done. I don't even have a doubt about that.
“Besides,” she continues, “I tried to tell you. That night on the beach. I just found out. I was going to tell you before you left, try to give you another reason to stay. But you made it abundantly clear you were going to leave no matter what I said or how I felt. What I wanted, no…what I needed didn't even matter to you.”
Jesus. Is that what she really thinks happened?
I take the final step separating us and grab her upper arm. “Is that what you think? Really? That I needed some reason to make me stay? That I went there to say goodbye to you?”
“Isn't that exactly what happened?”
I grit my teeth. I’m this close to coming completely unhinged. “Yes, but only because you wouldn't listen to me. You wouldn’t let me talk to you, wouldn’t let me tell you what I wanted to say. To tell you what I wanted. Which was, that maybe my family didn't think you were good enough for me and didn't want me to be with you, but that I didn't give a single fuck what they thought. That I was ready to go home with them, pack up whatever they would let me take with me, and leave the Warren compound to come back to you.”
Her eyes widen, and she wavers again, my hand on her arm the only thing keeping her from falling. “No.” She shakes her head. “No, no, no. Don't you dare try to pull this shit on me now, Artemis.”
“What?”
She sets her shoulders and stares me down. “I'm not some jury you can charm, and I'm not some young, naïve girl standing on the beach anymore. I've had to step up. I've had to raise that boy alone, support him while trying to create a career for myself, a future for him, a life for us.”
I squeeze her arm, maybe a little too tightly. “You didn’t have to raise him alone. I would've been there in a heartbeat, for both of you. If you’d only let me.”
PENELOPE
I wish I could believe him. I wish I could truly trust that he would've given up everything the Warren name stands for in order to be with our son and me.
God, how I want it to be true.
But I can't. I don't.
Not then. Not now.
I drag my eyes away from his and look down his suit to his feet then back up. “That's bullshit, Artemis, and we both know it. Look at you. You’re the spitting image of your father. And what I imagine your grandfather looked like fifty years ago, too. The very definition of a Warren.”
His jaw tightens, and a muscle there tics. I’m rattling him, but I’m not done yet. Not by a longshot.
“You let me walk away on that beach, and you went home and became exactly what they wanted from you. You didn't stray one iota from the plan that they laid out for you when you were still in your mother's womb. A bastard child with some white-trash girl from North Carolina would have messed up everything. For you, for your family…Max and I would've been nothing more than your dirty little secret.”
I suck in a deep breath because now that I’ve opened the dam, there’s no stopping the flood of things I’ve wanted to say for half a decade. The hurt I've kept bottled up for years threatens to choke me, but the words keep coming.
“Don't pretend we would've been some happy family because we both know it's a lie. You never called, not once after that day. I wasn't even a blip on your radar after you last saw me. I was nothing more to you than a way to pass your summer. I wasn't good enough for you, for your family, and I never will be. We aren't good enough for the Warren legacy.”
He releases my arm, takes a step back, closes his eyes, and shoves his hand through his hair angrily. He turns away from me for a moment, and it gives me a second to try to regain a little composure after my verbal diarrhea.
I have imagined how this would go down a million times over the years. I pictured how Artemis would react to finding out he had a son. And in every single one of them, he went straight into Warren mode.
It's one of the main reasons I kept this from him all these years. He will never walk away from his own child, but there’s also no way he will go against his family and their plans for him. And even though Max may be an embarrassment, the Warrens will want to keep him under wraps. They will find a way to sink their claws into him and into me. He is a Warren heir, after all, bastard or not. I wouldn't put it past that family to try to buy me off. Offer me money for silence. Money for schooling. Money to ensure we never go public with who Max is.
As if I would ever do that in the first place…
They can make my life a living hell. Their money and their reach know no end. I want Max as far away from the hooks of the Warrens as he can get. My sweet, generous, selfless son is not going to become a greedy, corrupt, bloodsucker like the rest of them. Like the man standing before me. I will never allow that to happen.
Never.
Blood thrums in my ears and burns in my veins. The more I think about what the Warrens mean for Max, the more committed I am to keeping him safe from them.
His life will never be the same. Neither will mine.
My legs may feel like Jell-O, but I can’t let Artemis see my weakness.
Warrens prey on the weak the way lionesses pick off the smallest and slowest gazelle.
I regain my balance and straighten my spine. I'm in for the fight of my life.
Artemis opens his eyes and turns back to me. “I don't even know what to say right now, Pen. I'm so fucking angry that words seem to have escaped me.”
That's a first. One thing Artemis and all the Artemises before him are good at is putting on a flashy smile and saying the right words to get people to do their bidding.
That won't work on me, though. He's not going to use his name or his power or his connections to do the thing I've been dreading since the day I stared down at that positive test. He's not going to take Max away from me.
I won't let it happen.
“You're not taking him.” The words come out shakier than I had hoped. With less conviction. I can’t seem to muster up any false bravado. Maybe because I know if he tried, he would probably succeed. He has the ability to make that a reality.
He scowls at me and twists around to look toward the bathroom. Thankfully, Mom and Max haven't come out yet. He’s never seen me argue with anyone, and I don’t want him to witness this.
The man with the power to completely destroy me sighs and clenches his fists. “Are you fucking serious? I don't believe this. I can't even talk to you right now. I…”
He sighs and walks away across the terminal toward where his briefcase sits on an empty chair.
In all the time we spent together those three months, practically every waking hour, I never saw Artemis Warren, III, angry.
And now that I have, I'm even more terrified.
Chapter 7
ARTEMIS
People always say they see red when they're angry, but all I see is white.
White-hot rage mixing with the falling snow outside.
Everything around me is just…white.
And I don't know what direction is up or down anymore, or what is right or wrong.
How? How could she do this? How could she keep this a secret? How could she keep him from me?
Have things really changed so much? Has she that she can live every day looking at that boy, knowing she’s keeping him from his father? I don’t know shit about Penelope Barnes anymore. Maybe I never did.
That doesn’t help ease the sting of her treachery. I've been betrayed by a lot of people in my life. Mostly ones I share blood with but also business associates and even women. People always have an ulterior motive. They always have something they want, whether it’s the money, power, or fame the Warren name can give them.
But this…this is a completely new experience. Pen betrayed me in the worst way possible, yet her motives are what have me reeling.
I am seething, but I don’t know if I can truly hate her. She may be completely wrong about what happened on the beach that day, but what she just said explains so much I never understood about why things went down the way they did.
All she wanted that night was for me to tell her I loved her and that I wasn't going anywhere. She needed to know I was committed to her and that nothing my family said or did could tear us apart. Did I do that? Did I offer any fucking assurances? No. Nothing. Not one fucking thing. Instead, the first thing I said was that I was leaving the next day.
I'm an idiot.
As soon as those words were out of my mouth, she closed herself off completely. She was finished. She needed to protect herself. So much so that she couldn't even tell me she was pregnant. Because she was so terrified of the Warrens and me, of the weight our family, our very name carries, and what that would mean for a pregnant young woman. The press alone would have skewered her, not to mention those who share my blood and the circle they travel in.
Can I really blame her?
The disdain they all had for her the entire summer was so obvious. I couldn’t even bring her to the house for fear they would say or do something so insulting that she would never forgive me for it. They would have made sure she was as aware as I was of just how much they didn’t approve of her or her pedigree.
