“I did it for you, Harrison. I did it to protect you.”
“Protect me from what? From knowing my child? From living the life I wanted?”
“To protect you from losing everything you’d always dreamed of doing.” She took my arm again, tugging me around so that I was staring down into her face even if I didn’t want to. “You were such a troubled boy. All the things you did when you were in high school. And then college. That trip to New York…do you know how infuriated your father was? He expected you to come home that summer, to spend the summer learning the business at his side. Instead, you run off to a city he considered overrun with temptation. And then to come home with a pregnant girl following you…? He would have disowned you.”
“Maybe that would have been for the best.”
“And what would you have done?” A sardonic smile twisted her lips. “As capable as you are, you were not in a position to finish school without your father’s financial help.”
“But that wasn’t your choice to make.”
“I’m your mother,” she said, steel suddenly in her voice. “It was always my choice, just like fighting for your son now was your choice.”
“It’s not the same.”
“It is the same. I was protecting you from making a mistake that would color the rest of your life.” She reached up to touch my face, but I reared back. Again that flash of hurt in her eyes. “I know you, Harrison. If you had known about this child all those years ago, you would have insisted on doing the right thing. But then what? Would you have lived in a studio apartment in New York City? Do you really think that would have been the right thing to do with a child?”
“You never gave me the chance to make that choice.”
“Because it would have been a mistake. You made a mistake, Harrison. But it didn’t have to ruin your entire life.”
I stepped back, nearly stumbling over my own feet. I couldn’t believe what I’d heard coming out of my own mother’s mouth. I had thought I knew her, that I knew her beliefs and her thoughts and her morals. But I’d been wrong.
“His name is Jonathon Tyler Monroe, Mother. JT. And JT is not a mistake. He was never a mistake.”
I stormed away, bursting back into the corridor outside the courtroom just as the current case ended and the corridor was flooded with lawyers and litigants and observers. Some guy with a phone stuck to his ear happened to look up as I brushed past him, his eyes widening as he took in my expression. He grabbed my arm, tugging me back to stand in front of him.
“Are Harrison Philips?”
I wanted to squash him like he was a bug. That was not the moment for a reporter to approach me.
Julia came to the rescue, snatching my arm and saying, very seductively, “Come on, Thomas. They’re waiting for us over here.”
The reporter looked disappointed, then dubious, but he let it go. Finn was standing against the wall by the same consultation room I’d seen Penelope’s attorney disappear into earlier.
“They want to talk to us,” he said.
“Who?”
“Penelope Monroe and her lawyer.”
“Who’s Penelope Monroe?” Julia asked.
“The child’s sister,” Finn told her.
I barely heard any of this exchange. I was staring through the glass panel in the door, watching Penelope whisper with her lawyer. He was sitting much too close to her, his hand on her shoulder, saying something in her ear that made her shake her head sharply in the negative. And then she saw me and her expression softened just slightly even as her eyes filled with tears.
What the hell was going on now?
Chapter 17
Penelope
He was angry.
It didn’t take a mind reader to see the emotion that had taken up residence in Harrison’s broad jaw and wide green eyes. He was angry, and maybe a little hurt. I wanted to know why.
I also wanted to know who the blond woman beside him was.
Was it bad that I was irrationally jealous of a woman who might be his sister?
Harrison burst into the room, the open door allowing all the noise from the corridor to come in, too. A man followed, saying his name and snatching at his suit jacket. The woman followed, too, and I found myself taking in her expensive dress that was a little tight for the occasion and the perfect makeup that was applied with steadier hand than I would ever have.
Was this the kind of woman Harrison preferred?
“What’s going on?” Harrison demanded. “Where’s JT?”
“Not here,” Jack said, jumping to his feet and moving more toward Harrison as though he was trying to block me with his body.
“Why not? Doesn’t he have to meet with the judge in a few minutes?”
I stood, touching Jack’s arm as I did. He looked down at me, his eyebrows furrowed. “It’s okay,” I said softly. Then I focused on Harrison.
“I don’t want to put JT through this.”