“Leave!” Jack demanded, shoving the guy’s shoulder.
“I will find out,” the man insisted. “And that will be big news. Your face will be all over the tabloids by morning.”
I sighed.
That would be just my luck.
And then my cellphone rang.
“Penny? It’s Nick.”
“What’s up?” I asked, hoping that nothing had gone wrong at the bakery. That was all I needed on top of everything else.
“It’s JT. We’re at the hospital.” He hesitated a beat. “It’s bad, Penny.”
I didn’t even stop to hear the rest. I jumped into the car and sped off, my only thought a prayer.
Please, God, please.
Chapter 18
Harrison
“What’s going on?”
Anger was burning in my chest, but it was anger directed at my mother, not Penelope. I didn’t want her to think I was angry with her. In fact, I just wanted this day to be over.
I was still reeling from the revelations my mother had made. Hell, I was still reeling from the fact that Libby had her here without talking to me. Like this day wasn’t stressful enough. Today the judge would speak to my son and decide if he should live with me or his sister, Penelope. And, as desperately as I wanted a relationship with the child that was taken from me without my knowledge, I didn’t want to hurt Penelope.
And now she was standing in front of me, her face puffy and blotchy from all the tears she’d been shedding.
Why did this have to be so hard on everyone? Why wouldn’t she take me up on my attempts to work this out outside of court?
She sank down into one of the chairs stationed around the small conference table where she sat, exhaustion visible in every line of her beautiful face.
“Jack drew up a paper that says we acknowledge that the adoption was never legal,” she said in a soft, emotionally drained voice. “By signing the paper, you agree to allow me visitation with JT a couple of times a year.”
I tilted my head slightly, trying to wrap my mind around what she’d just said. Did she really just do a three-sixty?
“Why?”
“Because you were right. We shouldn’t be putting JT through all of this.”
“So you’re just going to let me walk away with him?”
She groaned, nearly doubling over with the hurt that flashed through her eyes. It killed me to see it, killed me to know I was the cause of all that pain. It ripped through my own anger, my own fears and hurt. It tore everything away and left me feeling raw inside.
She was really sacrificing her own desires to do the right thing. I have never known anyone else who was so willing to do that.
No one.
“Why are you doing this?” I demanded again, needing to know she was doing this for the right reasons.
She looked up, tears making her beautiful eyes look like sparkling jewels.
“Because I finally did the one thing that we both should have done from the beginning: I asked JT what he wanted.”
“And this is it?”
“He wants to know you. He wants to know the life he might have had if his birth mother hadn’t given him up.”
And there it was. The life he would have had.
But what life would he have had? Was my mother right? Would Julia and I have ended up in some impossibly tiny apartment in New York, both college drop outs, both working dead end, minimum wage jobs? Or would I have been able to convince my father that taking care of my child was the right thing to do?
Deep down, I knew my mother was right. It would have been a disaster if I had known about JT all those years ago. My father would have disowned me, he would have stopped paying for my tuition at Stanford. And I, as much as I hate the characterization, would have been lost without my father’s money. I was a spoiled rich kid who didn’t have work experience, who didn’t know how to start over with nothing. I would have been lost.
But did that give my mother the right to forge my signature on the adoption papers and refuse to tell me about my child? Was that really an act of love? Or was it an act of betrayal?
Penelope stood, pushing the papers across the table at me.
“That’s for you and your lawyer. I’ve already signed it.”
She was gone before I could say anything.
“We need to go, Harrison,” Finn, my attorney said from somewhere behind me. “The judge won’t appreciate any unnecessary delays.”
I didn’t answer, my head still trying to wrap itself around everything that had happened this morning.
“Do you know where the kid is?” Finn pushed. “His sister and her lawyer just got on the elevator. Are they going to get him?”
I picked up the papers Penelope had left and brushed past Finn. I don’t know where I was planning to go, but I needed to talk to Penelope. I needed to know more.