Bad Boy (An Indecent Proposal) (17 page)

I had always believed in first love. Chase had been my first
love. What I didn’t believe was that first love ever lasted. Chase would move
on, I was sure of that. I was also sure that fairy tales only existed in movies
and books. That it was all in my mind—the emotions, albeit contradictory
ones, the wavering decision not to go after him while forcing myself to stay.

When I had told Chase I wanted a divorce, I had been sure I
was doing the right thing for us. That I’d be avoiding the awkward breakup that
always comes no matter how great a relationship is at the beginning.

Had I made the wrong decision?

It was early afternoon when Chase left. I could still feel
his kiss on my forehead; I could still hear the steps when he departed, and the
sound of the door when it closed after him.

Pretending to be asleep was much easier than I anticipated.
I wanted to avoid the awkward goodbye, the awful silence, and the embarrassing
moment of having to stop my tears from falling, but not quite being able to. I
thought saying goodbye before his actual departure and then seeing him leave
would be easy, and yet I realized nothing about Chase was ever easy.

I had wanted to remember him the way I had come to know him:
as Mystery Guy.

A guy with so many secrets he deserved his own mystery
novel.

A man who had made me laugh, who had given me a special time
to remember him by, who had made me trust him, open up to him. In spite of the
lies he had told me, he’d always be in my heart.

As soon as the door closed, I willed myself to sleep, if
only to stop the tears and the pain.

When I woke up again, evening was falling and the sun was
setting on the horizon. Ignoring the pain in my skull, I forced myself to my
feet when my gaze fell on the tiny note on Chase’s side of the bed.

It read:

I’ve left something
for you at reception.

Consider it my parting
gift.

Your husband

I pressed the note to my chest. Whatever Chase wanted me to
have, it could wait. I wasn’t yet ready for more tears. It was hard enough that
my room, the pillows, even my shirt, smelled of him. It was bad enough to know
that the bed I was lying on was the one where we had made love. And it wasn’t
just the room—it was everything about me, as if a part of him had
remained behind, attaching itself to me in the form of memories, thoughts,
feelings. I could almost see him standing to my left, sporting the most
beautiful smile on his face while telling me what to wear. Peering to my right,
I remembered the way he had kissed me on that spot before he pulled me into his
arms with a fervor that had left me breathless.

It felt as though an entire week had passed, instead of
hours. Already I missed our banter, his smile, everything about him. I peered
at the time on my cell phone. By now his plane had taken off, returning him to
a life that didn’t involve me.

Calling Jude was the right thing to do. Luckily, she sensed
my inner turmoil instantly and stopped asking questions.

“When are you coming home?” she asked.

“Probably tomorrow.”

“And Chase?” She hesitated, as though she didn’t know
whether he was a subject she could bring up. I could sense her discomfort in
her delayed question.

“Don’t worry about him.” For the first time in my life, I
didn’t try to hide the sadness in my voice. “He left. It’s better this way.”

The toxic tears from before began to build up in my eyes. It
took all my willpower not to give in and break down. As if sensing it, Jude
changed the subject, fake cheerfulness infused into her tone.

“Hey, I can’t wait to see you again,” she said. “I’ve heard
of this yoga center that we need to check out. It’s supposed to be super cheap
and great for you. I also bought the new Walking Dead season on DVD.”

“Great.” I smiled, missing her so much. “Did you have a
sneak peek?”

“What kind of friend do you take me for?” she asked. “You
know I’d never do something like that without you.”

I smiled, feeling grateful for the fact that when I returned
to L.A. someone would be there for me.

Jude was right. She was my family. The only family I ever had.
There was nothing I wouldn’t have given up for her.

“My flight’s tomorrow,” I said.

“You promise?”

I laughed through the curtain of tears blurring my vision.
“You can bet on it.”

I ended the call quickly and began to plan the last day of
my short vacation. The return flight ticket had to be booked so I called the
reception area to inquire about available tickets.

Packing my things kept me busy for an hour or two. It had
been a short vacation, but I felt different. Wiser. I had grown as a person. I
finished up, leaving my bikini on the bed, deciding to visit the beach one last
time, even though without Chase it wasn’t going to feel the same.

Once everything was packed, I headed downstairs.

“I hope you had a pleasant stay at Casa Estevan,” the
receptionist said. It was the same one who had greeted me upon my arrival. Her
hair was still bleached, and her eyebrows looked still horrible, but her
smile—it looked genuine and caring.

“Thank you. It was the best.”

“I’m so glad to hear.” She handed me the info leaflet.
“Here’s your flight information. I made sure to print everything out.”

“Thank you. I’ll be checking out tomorrow morning.” I
flicked through the leaflet, and then pulled out my credit card. “How much is
this going to be?”

“Your husband settled the bill this morning.” She smiled.
“He also said to charge his card with your return flight and pay for the driver
as long as you need him. And he left you this.” She kept her back turned on me
as she retrieved a small box from a drawer, and then pushed it toward me. “He
says it’s your birthday gift.”

My heart plunged. “Thank you.”

Once inside the safety of my hotel room, the heavy sadness
inside me became unbearable. I suppressed the urge to run my hands over the
pillow he had slept on, but I couldn’t quite fight the urge to hold on to that
tiny memory of him.

Slowly, I leaned over the pillow and inhaled his scent. I
knew I didn’t have to. The whole room still smelled of him. He seemed to be
everywhere. Inside my heart. On my skin. In my thoughts.

And yet it wasn’t enough.

I leaned back on the bed.

My throat made a choked sound as another wave of pain
rippled through me.

His parting gift—a white box with a turquoise
ribbon—lay in my lap. No note was attached to it.

I opened it.

As soon as I lifted the lid, a shaky breath escaped my lips.

The first thing that caught my attention was the
necklace—my mom’s necklace arranged on a black velvet pillow. My fingers
shook as I lifted it up in the air.
The
amethyst, crowned by a Sterling silver Celtic design, sparkled in the sun. I
realized Chase had kept true to his word. The loose stone had been fixed.

“Thank you,” I whispered, even though he was miles away and
couldn’t hear me.

I had almost stashed away the box when I realized it was far
too big and heavy. With a frown, I removed the lid and let out another shaky
breath as my eyes fell on the letters and the familiar handwriting.

For Laurie.

It was my mother’s handwriting, without a doubt.

My breath made a whizzing sound as tears started flowing
down my cheeks.

Oh, my God.

Chase got the letters. I had no idea how he did it, but it
was amazing. When Clint called, I had been afraid he’d never give them to me.
That he’d break his promise. I smiled as I realized all my fears had been
unwarranted. Chase had picked them up for me. Gratitude and happiness settled
within my heart, and for a moment I considered calling him to tell him just how
grateful I was.

But that thought was quickly lost when I realized the
magnitude of the situation.

My mom’s letters were mine. Finally.

A shaky breath escaped my lips as I stacked them together
and lifted them to my face, inhaling their scent. They felt so old, fragile,
but I could smell the lavender and
her
.
A tear rolled down my cheek as my feelings erupted, leaving me a sobbing mess
of joy and sadness.

At last, I scanned through them. There were only four of
them—each of them had a few inscribed words at the back.

They said:

For Laurie when she
has her first child.

For Laurie when she
feels sad.

For him.

I frowned at the third letter, surprised that my mother had
left a letter for Clint, but then of course she would. She had married him.
There had to be a lot she never got to say.

My eyes fell on the last letter. The fourth one was much
thicker than the other letters. It said:

Laurie, open me first
after your twenty-third birthday.

It was directed at me, and so much thicker and larger than
any other letter. A short shake, and I knew there was something inside.
Pictures? A postcard?

My heart sped up as I let my finger trail over the familiar
handwriting. I took my time opening it. When I finally did, I reread it a few
times, and then I cried myself to sleep, feeling that my world had gone the
darkest shade of black.

“Oh, my God,” I whispered, my voice choked, ready to die in
my chest.

It made so much sense.

Everything I thought I knew had been crushed by her words.

Eleanor’s Letter

This is for you, my
daughter—the only thing I’ve really truly loved, like every mother should
her child.

The day I’m writing
this letter, you’re nine years old. In a few weeks, you’ll turn ten. I want you
to get this letter when you’re twenty-three, maybe even older. By that time, at
least thirteen years will have passed, and you’ll be a beautiful, intelligent
woman.

You most certainly
have many questions. There’s a great deal of information in this letter. Do not
feel you have to understand everything at once. Some of what I will reveal will
be hard to believe. Maybe you’ll be angry. Please ignore everything that you’re
not ready to accept until you feel the right time has come. Understand, too,
that I’m a human being. I made mistakes. I didn’t always know what’s right and
what’s wrong.

My biggest fear is
that, some of the things in this letter will make you judge me. Again, please
know that I only want you to understand who I am, what happened to me, what I
had to do. The truth is, much of what I’ve done was a mistake. I had no friends
to help me see the truth. I had no one I could confide in. There was no one to
teach me faith. I didn’t know better.

One of the reasons I
sent you to boarding school was that I hoped you’d never be alone. I wanted you
to discover the blessing of friendship. I wanted you to learn the earthy,
practical things in life rather than be homeschooled, and at the constant mercy
of others. I couldn’t let you make the same mistakes I made, and most of all, I
couldn’t let you witness my gradual mental decline.

Clint has without a
doubt told you that I was insane. It’s a lie we concocted together…a means to
hide the fact that my illness takes away my memories and makes everyday tasks
impossible. My illness has started to transform me into someone I’m not. I’ve
become someone I no longer recognize. Sometimes I think of the loss of my
memory as a blessing, but then I remember that I’m also losing myself, that I
forget how to be a mother to you, that all the good things will be erased, too,
and I realize just how much of a loss I’m about to suffer.

In the beginning, we
were hopeful, thinking the medication I was prescribed would take care of my
little problem, but now we know my illness cannot be cured. The doctors have
told me that it’s only a matter of time until I lose my memory, the ability to
breathe, eat, and I’ll die. They tell me I have months left, but I don’t feel
like I have months. I feel like it can happen any time now, which is why I’ve
been up for thirty-six hours to draw up my Last Will and the letters.

So, please forgive me
if the words seem jumbled or hard to understand. It’s not my intention. I’m
just trying not to sleep and forget. If I fall asleep, I’ve no idea in what
state I’ll be when I wake up, and days, even weeks could pass before I remember
what I was about to do before my memory failed me.

I want to start from
the beginning, what I deem the most important events first.

My name is Eleanor
Hanson and I’m your mother. I was born Eleanor Stonefield to John Stonefield
and Annette Fiddling. Your father is Richard Walker. Moving on from him was
hard. Indeed, it took me a few years, but you were the one thing that kept me
sane. You were a gorgeous baby, my love, my joy. Everything was easier with
you. But living so close to your grandparents wasn’t. I’m not proud of who my
parents are. I’m not proud of what they’ve done to me.

My father was a hard
and strict man. My mother was very religious. You will know very little about them.
That’s because I made sure you wouldn’t get to know them.

I wouldn’t say that my
parents were evil, but they were cruel people. Every parent who harms a child
should not be called a parent but a monster.

 
I cannot explain the pain I went through
whenever they punished me as a child, each in their own way. Though I’m sure my
parents loved me, they both turned a blind eye, abandoned me when I needed them
the most. My mother knew what was happening to me. I confided in her early on.
Yet, she proclaimed that it was all in my head. My father had this tendency to
sweep everything under the rug to keep the family name untarnished.

The truth is, I didn’t
know that being sexually abused by your uncle is wrong, until I got much older
and had you. As a child, I assumed I had no choice and that I had to accept my
family for who they were. As I grew older, I knew I needed to escape. Marriage
was my only way to get away from them all.

That my uncle raped me
throughout my childhood and adolescence is not something I’m proud of. In fact,
I wished I didn’t have to tell you, but if it opens your eyes to the world I
lived in, then so be it. I hope it’ll help you understand some of the choices I
made in my life.

There’s something else
I need to tell you. Something that’s even harder to put on paper. Something I
still cannot live with, even after all those years.

My tears are falling
as I write this, and I have to be very careful not to stain the paper.

You have a half
brother. That’s when my parents could no longer deny the obvious. I was fifteen
years old when they sent me to a monastery to bear my uncle’s child. I was left
afraid and alone among strangers, so my parents’ rich friends wouldn’t find
out. Among strangers I learned to feel safe until the day I was forced to give
up my child.

I prayed. I pleaded
with them to allow me to keep my son, but nothing I said could make them see my
pain. Even to this moment, I still think of him. I miss him every day. The
three days I had him might not seem like a lot, but they were the best of my
life, until I had you.

In that short time I
dared not sleep out of fear that I would miss a single moment with him.

Giving him away was
the hardest thing I’ve ever done, much harder than the sexual abuse I had
endured. After nine months of carrying him, I loved him more than I loved
myself. I loved him and his innocence in spite of my hatred for the despiteful
man who was his father. You don’t know how hard it is to give away a part of
your heart until you experience it.

I cannot state how
many tears I have shed about my broken family, or how many times I thought of
killing myself.

As I’m writing this,
my boy should be sixteen. He’s seven years older than you. By the time you get
the letters, he’ll be almost thirty. The name I chose for him is
Kaiden—Kaiden Stonefield—though his new parents might have changed
his name.

I don’t know where
he’s living, but I can feel him in my heart. Like I can feel you in my heart.
Two children, both linked by my blood and womb.

I pray he’s with a
good family. If I could tell him that I would never have given him away out of
free will, I would. I would hate him to think his mother didn’t want him
because she didn’t love him when the opposite is the truth.

Having a real family
has always been my dream. Ever since I was a child, I wanted to be a mother.
When you were born, I was older, wiser. I knew you couldn’t replace Kaiden, but
you filled a big hole in my heart that your brother had left behind.

My God, Laurie. I was
so happy when I held you in my arms the first time. You had the tiniest hands
and feet. Born with the cord around your neck, the doctors were sure you would
never breathe. But as I was holding you in my arms, my tears staining your
little face, my fear that I would lose my next child paralyzing me, I
whispered, “Breathe, Laurie, breathe for me.”

And you did. You did
it for me. And when you opened your eyes and looked at me, I knew I would love
you forever. I knew I would never give you up, no matter what happened. That I
would protect you with my life because you were my little girl.

I was so afraid that
the same history would repeat itself and what happened to me would happen to you.
I could trust no one. It’s one of the reasons I married Clint. You needed a
father figure. And I needed to get away from my family.

Only a few people know
what happened to me: my parents, Clint, your father. The truth was, my life was
a complete lie to everyone else. I met your father when I was seventeen. He was
my first friend. He was also my first love. He was also the first lie I told
you. I hope you’ll find it in your heart to forgive me that I claimed we were
married before he died. None of that is true.

He isn’t who you think
he is. He’s not an honorable man nor is he someone with a good heart. They were
lies I told you to protect you from the truth. Lies I told myself to help me
move on. When he got me pregnant, our parents insisted that we marry. When the
day came, he ran off and left me behind. As a child, you wouldn’t have
understood, but now that you’re older, I hope you can feel the heartbreak he
caused me. Lies are not honorable, but sometimes when the truth is too painful
and we have no choice, we have to lie. I think I mostly lied to myself and I got
to a point where I began to believe my own lies.

As far as I know, your
father is still alive. I wish I could tell you that he loved you and wanted to
see you, but the truth is he’s always been a coward who feared my father.

I tried to contact him
on many occasions. I told him about you. I sent him photos. But he never
replied. In my heart, I wanted to believe he loved me for a long time, that
something or someone held him back, but the truth is, he wasn’t in love with
me. I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought I was a rich, spoiled, and strange
young woman. At some point, I even believed that my father paid him off to be
my friend. That’s the downside of being rich—you never know if anyone
ever likes you for who you are.

Choose your friends
carefully. Most of them will run when the going gets rough. Most of them would
rather take the money than stick around. I can’t blame your father, though. He
was younger than I was when I found out that I was pregnant with you. He wasn’t
ready to be a father. He wanted to be a physician, study, travel the world, and
that’s exactly what he achieved.

If you decide to
contact him, I have included everything about him below, though you should know
that he is now married with children.

I married Clint
because I wanted to be loved rather than hurt. Even though I’ve never been in
love with him, I’ve always respected him for who he is. Before we married, he
chased me for years and taught me that I could rely on him.

Now that you know my
story, you will see that my life’s been a lie for a long time. I’ve been
carrying too many secrets. The burden has become too heavy to bear.

If you’re angry with
me, please know, I still love you.

I’ve decided that
money should not define you. I don’t want you to be used. I don’t want people
to hurt you or rob you blind just because you were born who you are. Your
wealth won’t help you make many real friends and so I’ve decided to keep your
rightful money away from you until you become the open-minded, independent
individual with a fixed set of opinions I know you will be. Once that is
achieved, my duty as your mother has been accomplished.

My twenty-third birthday
was an important year for me. It was the year I conceived you. It was the year
I grew. It was the year I met Clint and we became friends. It was the year I
realized that I’m responsible for my own life, that no one can hold me down.
It’s also the year my parents asked me for forgiveness after my uncle died.

While Clint is not the
man I love, he is my safety net. He offered me a chance to get away from my
family. He treated me well. He wanted to be your father. I don’t know many men
who would have jumped in wholeheartedly at the idea of raising someone else’s
child. Because my mind is deteriorating I have asked him to take over my
business. I have asked him to take good care of you. And when I told him that
I’d mention him in my Will, I made him promise that he would give you the
estate once you were old enough.

Whether he will keep
his promise is a different matter. I would like to believe it, but honestly, my
life has taught me that I cannot trust anyone.

So I did something to
protect you. I made a Last Will to overrule the previous one. You will find it
in this letter.

I feel bad for Clint.
I feel bad for not trusting him, but it’s the only way to ensure I’ll be able
to take care of you after my death. Until the day you inherit everything, Clint
will be your legal guardian. If not him, then who else? I have no sisters or
brothers. My father is still alive, but I would rather give you to Clint than
to him. At least I know Clint will take good care of you.

In my first will I’ll
ask you to give up your inheritance, and for a very good reason. I want you to
go to college and experience life like any other young woman out there. I want
you to learn the value of friendship and happiness without the heavy burden
that wealth brings with it. You shall receive everything when you’re old enough
to make your own, wise decisions. While I know Clint loves me, I’m not naïve
enough to trust that he’ll hold on to me forever. Someday he will move on, like
your father did.