Paper Marriage Proposition

Twenty

Frederic prowled the city, simmering with pent-up need, anger and despair. He couldn’t bear to go home. It felt empty, the house, his room, his bed. Lisa was gone, and the relief he’d assumed he’d feel with her departure wasn’t coming.
    He couldn’t stop thinking about her, what she’d said about a ten-month-old baby. How she’d looked in his office, desperate as that first day, this time desperate for something Frederic could no longer give her.
    He drove along the highway, and before he knew where he headed, Frederic stopped by Mission Park cemetery. His son’s gravestone; he’d visited only once before years ago. Why now? Why was he back here at this place that held his most haunting memories?
    Because he’s my son.
    He gazed down at the lettering, engraved in the granite headstone. Nathaniel Arnault.
    He’s not your son, he’s Jungkook’s…
    To hear his own wife say it had been a blow, but once the words registered, he’d felt more than anger, more than despair. He’d felt betrayed and played and violated.
    They’d won at court—but the satisfaction of winning hadn’t accompanied the success. Frederic had lost. Because it was just the kind of cruel twist of fate that Frederic should love something of his enemy’s. It was just the kind of cruel twist of fate that even knowing Nathan was not his son, and belonged to the bastard, Frederic still loved him.
    Nathaniel was a Arnault.
    He stroked a hand over the curved top of the gravestone. He didn’t understand. He never would. One second his attention was elsewhere, and when he’d looked back his wife and kid were gone. The accident had revealed her treachery. Phone calls, emails, letters. Years betraying him behind his back. But never had he imagined it had dated to before. Before Frederic had met her, before he’d married her.
    To think how she’d snagged him, young and in his prime, pretending he was the father of her unborn child. For the length of their short marriage Frederic had been faithful, making an effort, for her, for Nathaniel. And all that time, she’d been seeing Jungkook.
    His son would’ve been thirsty for life.
    And Chrystine’s treachery robbed him of it.
    But now, even now, when he’d taken everything of Jungkook’s, his practice, his respect and his freedom, Frederic could not enjoy the victory. He could not go back to the way he was before. He loved that son, wanted him as his, and the path of revenge had opened up a whole new wanting for him.
    He wanted Lalisa—the son she and Jungkook had. That, too, he wanted. Because it was hers.
    Yes, a cruel twist of fate it was. To love the two things that had first belonged to the enemy.
    A bouquet of flowers appeared out of nowhere—white roses suddenly laid there, over the grave, tied by a sleek white ribbon. Frederic glanced past his shoulder to confirm his suspicions, and sighed.
    He wasn’t alone. Comfortably clad in a flowery dress and a pair of maroon cowboy boots, his mother nailed the Texan matron look down to a tee.
    “What are you doing here?”
    “I come here every week. Why wouldn’t I visit my grandson?” Her weathered hand stroked the name, and Frederic lowered his face, said softly, “He’s not mine, Mother.”
    She didn’t jerk at the news, only regarded him with that impenetrable coolness of hers. “You were always the one ready to make the tough decisions for the family. And I think you’re so used to making them, you can’t believe anything can be good and simple anymore.”
    “Nothing in my life has ever been good or simple.”
    “But it is. Lalisa fell in love with you. And you with her. Good. And simple.”
    Frederic didn’t respond, fought not to think of her, remember the ways her lips curled into all kinds of mischievous or shy or soft smiles.
    He tossed a twig into the air. “I’m not sure she loves me. I’m not even sure what was real and what wasn’t.”
    “I know what you were fighting for, Frederic. You’ve never been vindictive. You’ve always done the honorable thing. You weren’t fighting for revenge, you were fighting for a family. The family you deserve. A woman touched your heart, even when you didn’t want her to, and you were fighting for her. Are you going to quit now? When you’re so far ahead in the game?”
    He remembered her. Her dense lashes had glittered with tears. She’d annihilated his mind and senses. How could she have filtered through his defenses?
    Because he’d seen her uniqueness and he’d let her.
    And she’d let him in, as well.
    And he knew then that he would have no other family.
    But the one he’d already claimed before the world as his.