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Jenna turns her attention back to me and we briefly size each other up one more time. Her gaze is filled with confusion and doubt, and it kills me. She gives me a polite smile, turns to her side and gestures for me to come inside. I walk past her into the hallway of her condo. I hear her shut the door behind me and I walk further in, taking in my surroundings. I’m slightly taken aback at the incredible views of Lake Michigan and how nice this condo is. As I admire my surroundings, I notice Robert staring at me.
“And you must be Jenna’s assistant, the infamous Robert?” I smile, extending out my hand in greeting.
Robert blushes and shakes my hand back. “That’s me! Can I get you anything to drink or eat, Mr. Harrington?” he asks shyly, not directly meeting my gaze. Jenna told me all about Robert and how he was her rock when she was going through her divorce. Seeing that he’s still here working for her, I have no doubt that means he’s been a big part of Avery’s life too.
“Please call me Cal and water would be great, thank you.” I take off my coat and before I can put it down, Robert grabs it from me and retreats to the kitchen. I watch Jenna follow him and more whispering ensues. I hear the word “enemy” come out of Jenna’s mouth and I have to bite back my annoyance. Jenna thinking I wanted nothing to do with her and Avery means her hatred for me runs deep. I frown at this, disappointed that she believed Valerie, then again what other choice did she have?
How the hell am I going to fix this?
I hear her footsteps coming toward me and she returns from the kitchen with my water. I nod my thanks before taking a big gulp.
“Why don’t we go into my office?” she asks and before I can say anything, turns on her heel and leads the way. I follow her to a room with French doors and once I’m inside, she shuts them behind me for privacy.
“This place is nice. How long have you lived here?” I ask, trying to make small talk to help relieve the tension that’s permeating the air.
“Ten years,” she responds while walking around me. I’m surprised by her answer because the condo looks brand new and modern. “My grandmother left it to me.” I nod my head in acknowledgement, silently watching her uneasiness with my presence. She rubs her palms against her legs and refuses to look me in the eye. Seeming unsure what to do with herself, she turns her back on me and looks out the window. “So, help me understand how this has all been a big misunderstanding?”
I let the words hang in the air because for once, I’m speechless and don’t know how to proceed. When she finally looks over her shoulder at me, I rake my hands through my hair and sigh, trying to figure out where to begin. I take another sip of water and start our journey back through memory lane.
“Do you remember the story of how Valerie and I first met?” She nods at my question, and I continue on. “I really didn’t think anything of it when she told me she should handle my phone calls and emails while I was on set. She made it sound like it was the professional thing to do and that all assistants did that. I never bothered to ask my fellow actors if this was normal, nor did I ever notice any missed calls or emails. Fast forward to when I met you. I told her we were emailing and that hopefully you would soon be calling as well. I told her that you were a priority in my life, and to please make sure I knew about any missed emails or phone calls that she might see before I did.” She looks over at me and this time, she stares into my eyes, and I can see the battle she is having with herself on deciding if she believes me. “She never in the past acted jealous over anyone, so I had no reason to be suspicious of her. I believed her when she told me you hadn’t emailed or called, especially with how reluctant you were with keeping in touch when we went our separate ways. One time I thought I caught her talking to you, but she denied it, saying she would have told me if you called. Then my phone conveniently broke and she got me a new phone with a new phone number. All of my contacts were in the old phone, so I again had no reason to be suspicious. She said my emails had been hacked into, which is very common for people in my industry. I asked her to send you my new email address and she told me she did.”
I pause for a moment, letting my words sink in so she understands that she was a priority to me and I did make it clear to Valerie that she was. “When time went on and I didn’t hear from you, I resigned myself to the fact that you thought it should only be a fling and had moved on. Again, I had zero reasons to think anything was amiss.” I walk toward her, stopping right next to her and looking down at her. I watch her swallow and she seems uncomfortable with my closeness. But I need to be close to her for what I’m about to tell her next.
“In order to prepare for one of my movies, I had to be in a certain kind of shape, so the studio hired a trainer for me. The trainer happened to be a female named Geri Roberts. Valerie was on vacation when I had my first meeting with Geri. She was gone for one week and had not met or known about Geri. The only detail she knew was that I was going to be working out with a different trainer other than my own. When Geri called wanting to talk with me, Valerie told her I would call her back, but never gave me the message because she had no idea of Geri’s relevance—just that it was a female that she had never heard about. This went on for almost two weeks. Geri finally complained to the studio about how I never returned her calls, when I had been waiting to hear from her. I thought Geri was the unprofessional one. When I found out that Geri had been calling me all along, I questioned Valerie, who in turn confessed that she was in love with me. I fired her and had a restraining order placed against her.” I pause a moment and then tell her, “That was two years ago.”
She closes her eyes and wraps her arms around her waist. I ball my fists in helplessness as I watch the emotional rollercoaster ride she’s currently on riding out while digesting this information. I know with every fiber of my being that Jenna is innocent. No one can fake the hurt, anger, and mistrust that is playing like a slow movie across her face.
I can’t handle watching her in such turmoil and despair. I move to stand in front of her and grab her arms. She inhales at my touch and opens her eyes to look at me. I stare intently into those brown orbs, needing her to see that I never knew of her emails or phone calls. “Jenna, you’ve got to believe me when I tell you that I had no idea that you were still trying to contact me.”
“So you were not the one who wrote that email saying you didn’t want to be in Avery’s life?” Skepticism laces her voice and a part of me hates that she still doesn’t believe me but if the roles were reversed, I would probably feel the same way she does.
“No, I stopped seeing emails from you before I left for Hong Kong.”
“What?” she gasps in shock. “There were more emails after that. She must have deleted them before you logged on to see them and obviously, your account wasn’t hacked at all. She probably changed the login information so you wouldn’t check for yourself.” She shakes her head in disbelief. “I have every single email correspondence in a file that I can give you if you want to read them.”
I let go of her arms and instead, run my hands through my hair, gripping it to try to hold on to my composure. I can’t handle seeing those emails right now. I’ll eventually need to see them, but right now my focus is trying to slowly regain Jenna’s trust back. “I don’t need to see them. I believe you, Jenna. Do you believe me though?” I let go of my hair and reach for her again but stop myself. “I know we don’t know each other that well, but you’ve got to believe me when I say I would never have abandoned you both if I had known the truth.”
She doesn’t answer right away and I can’t blame her. All this time she believed it was me who didn’t want to be part of their life and to now learn that was all untrue is a lot to take in. I know I need to give her time to think through everything, but I feel desperate for her to believe me.
“I don’t know what to believe, Cal,” she whispers, and I hate that fucking answer. I hate it because I should’ve never let this happen. I should’ve never put all my trust in Valerie. I should’ve fought harder to maintain my relationship with Jenna. I should’ve never listened to people when they said I need to let her go and not try to find her.
This is allmyfault.
I start to pace around her office, my fury at the situation starting to bubble up and boil over. “I can’t fucking believe this! I can’t believe I’ve had a child for the last four years and had no idea about it. That fucking, conniving bitch!” I spit out in disbelief. “She’s lucky I already have a restraining order against her.” A thought occurs to me, and I suddenly stop pacing to look at Jenna.If Jenna never told the press about Avery, then who did?“How did the press find out about Avery if you didn’t tell them?”
She looks down at her hands and starts fidgeting with her nails, uneasiness creeping into her voice. “Long story short, Layla told the wrong person at the wrong time.”
Layla is Jenna’s best friend who I met while in Las Vegas. From my small amount of interaction with Layla, they seemed to be as close as Sean and I are.
“Why would Layla tell someone?”
She sighs and looks back up at me. “Does it even matter at this point? It was an accident.”
An accident? What does that even mean?I ponder this information and the gravity of it. “So, if she hadn’t accidentally told the person that went to the press, I still wouldn’t know about Avery?” She gives me a look that confirms I wouldn’t be standing here today and my jaw clenches tightly. My guess is Layla must’ve been drunk when revealing that information because she would’ve never betrayed Jenna by willingly going to the press.
Avery’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts, and I turn to watch her and my mother coming out of her bedroom through the glass of the French doors. We watch in silence as she shows my mum her shopping cart of fake food and her little kitchen that is close to the real kitchen. The look on my mother’s face is pure joy while she sits and watches her new granddaughter.
Guilt and longing stream through me. I look back at Jenna with remorse. “I’m sorry, Jenna,” I tell her with regret. “I’m very sorry for all the lies that were told to you. I’m sorry for not being there for you when you were all alone dealing with this.” Without thinking, I grab her in my arms and crush her to me. I hold her tightly, hoping she can feel every emotion that is radiating from my body. Every regret, every sorrow. I inhale her intoxicating scent and my grip tightens on her because she feels like home. She fits perfectly in my arms, and it makes me realize what an uphill battle I have to climb to win hers and Avery’s trust.
