Another Woman's Son. Anna Adams
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.”
Isabel had nothing to say. She couldn’t be grateful that her sister’s death had restored his child to Ben.
“Reading your mind is as easy as looking through a window,” he said. “Everything you think is right there to see. I’m not glad she’s dead, either.”
“I can’t believe it, even after today. My mom hasn’t even figured out what the bags in the car mean.”
“What?”
“She thinks Will must have been giving Tony and Faith a ride to their place in Pennsylvania.”
“He did that before when he had meetings in Pittsburgh,” Ben said, but anger turned him into a stranger with dead eyes and a slitted mouth. “They told us he was taking her to your parents those times, didn’t they? But they were together. Since cell phones, how would we have found out? I never called your parents’.”
“I did, once or twice.” She gave Faith and Will a grudging benefit of the doubt. “She must have gone home sometimes. She couldn’t risk having you or me say something about those trips to my parents.”
“Why do you make excuses for her?” His tone accused her of cheating, too.
“Faith was my sister.” Will, she could condemn with less conscience, if only she could stop thinking she’d pushed him at Faith. She hadn’t been able to tear down the wall she’d built after learning of his first affair, though she’d walked right through it into Will’s arms just to prove she could.
“You think it was your fault,” he said. “I know exactly what you mean. I’d like to forget either one of them ever existed, but I keep remembering the good times, too. Will was like my brother.” It was his turn to look away. “And Faith gave me my son.”
She hadn’t meant to open a discussion about auld lang syne. “I don’t want to talk about them.” She shook back her hair. “Look, my mother is Tony’s grandma. She’s the one who should help you take care of Tony.”
“They’ve been around for three days and he’s just starting to get used to them. He asks for his mom and you and Will. I don’t know if it’s because he only wants the three of you, or if he’s actually scared of strangers right now.”
“Strangers? I’ve never known you to be so dramatic, Ben. Tony’s spent a lot of time with my parents.”
“Apparently not as much as we thought.” Unfamiliar arrogance frosted his tone.
“I haven’t seen him for three months. He might not know me anymore.” She eased away from Ben, aware she was about to infuriate him. “And how can I look at him without searching for some sign of Will?”
He didn’t lose his temper. “Try to do what I do. Don’t let yourself look for Will in Tony. Signs of him might drive you crazy.” He rubbed his face. A five-o’clock shadow had begun to appear, right on time.
“I’m afraid.” She stared at the nursery door. “I need to start my own life.” She rubbed her hands together, cold and hot all at the same time. “What if I don’t love him anymore because of Will and Faith?”
“I’m furious with you, Isabel, and even I don’t think you’d blame an innocent child for Will’s adultery.”
And Faith’s. Her sister’s part in this filthy soap opera hurt almost more than Will’s. Men could fall out of love with their wives. But then the wife was supposed to be able to parade her grievances past her sister for sympathy.
Ben took both her shoulders and forced her to look at him. “You and I are all that’s left of the only family Tony’s ever known.”
“What do you mean you’re furious with me? You don’t act upset. Are you pretending?”
He let go too quickly. “I’m putting my son ahead of my feelings.”