The Mischievous Mrs. Maxfield (76 page)

I sent Gilles a quick text instead before facing Layla squarely. “And once Riley’s home, where do we drop you off? I don’t think you should come back here, Layla.”

“Nonsense,” she said dismissively. “Of course, I’m coming back. This is my home.”

I glanced at Riley whose head hung low before meeting Layla’s eyes directly. “It’s no home if you’re not safe. It’s just a pretty prison.”

Layla straightened her shoulders and gave me a defiant look. “I’m a grown-up woman, Charlotte. I can take care of myself. I don’t need a child like you to tell me what to do.”

So the old Layla was still there.

In spite of myself, I actually smiled. “You’re right. No one can tell you what to do. You need to figure that out on your own.”

She said nothing more just as my phone sounded off with a reply from Gilles who turned out to be at a coffee shop only a few blocks away.

“Sit down for a little while,” I told them, gesturing to the front steps of the townhouse behind us as I texted Gilles its description so he could easily find us. “The car will be here in a few minutes.”

I watched as Layla led Riley back to sit on the front steps, inwardly amazed that I wasn’t the only one with secrets, and that from the grim looks of things, my secret seemed like nothing to the bomb that Layla had strapped to her body.

Gilles arrived promptly and asked no questions as he held the door open in the backseat for Layla and Riley.

I got into the front seat and kept my own mouth shut as we headed to Dorchester where Riley lived. 

While my house was in an older, cheaper area in West Roxbury, a half-hour commute or so from downtown in normal traffic, it was at least a cheerful neighborhood with charming white picket fences and small but pretty gardens. 

Where Layla directed us was in one of the rougher projects, the neighborhood full of tell-tale run-down apartments and the occasional commercial strips showcasing some slightly questionable businesses like adult video stores and leery cash advance places. The place was hurting for a good gentrification project but the difficulty with making unattractive neighborhoods attractive again was that there was slim picking for businesses who wanted to be the first to come in so that others may follow suit.

Why get your hands dirty tidying up the place when you can go somewhere nicer, right?

I couldn’t see Layla’s face behind me but it made me curious how a seemingly pampered princess like her found her way into this neighborhood. But then, with everything that I’d stumbled on about Layla in the last hour or so, nothing about her now was exactly as it seemed.

We pulled up in front of a four-story apartment building with peeling, dull beige paint and browned, dry weeds growing around the front steps.

I got out of the car and watched as Layla walked Riley to the door, leaning down to murmur something to the boy who nodded diligently. 

He glanced over his shoulder at me, his gaze intent as it locked with mine for a long moment, before he gave a small wave and pushed the door open.

I waited until Layla made her way back into the car before I slid into the backseat next to her.

We were both quiet for a long time as Gilles started our drive back. 

It was hard to know exactly where to start but it had to start.

I pushed the button for the privacy panel that sealed off the backseat from the front of the car.

“Riley is your son, isn’t he?” I finally said, bracing myself for the backlash I was surely going to get from that bold claim. “He’s got your blue eyes and same blond hair.”

“Was that all that gave it away?” was her surprisingly calm answer. 

I arched a brow at her. “I don’t imagine you’d just go running out of your house dressed like you are right now for anyone. I’m not exactly an expert on maternal instincts but I know it when I see it.”

Layla’s face, despite now swelling on one side from the ugly lump on her cheek, was inscrutable as she stared out of the car window. 

“I did what every knocked-up fifteen-year-old had to do without having to abort her baby,” she said in a distant voice, glancing at me with a half-smile that didn’t make it to her eyes. “I gave him up.”

Even though I guessed the truth, my mouth still rounded in surprise as I stared at her for a moment. “Why?”

The laugh that escaped her lips was dry and hollow. “Why? Funny you’d ask the same question that’s been branded into my brain in the last twelve years. But the answer is quite simple really.”

She directed flat, blank blue eyes at me. “I had no choice.”

“I think we’ve all borrowed that excuse one time or another,” I said with a shake of my head, remembering my own secrets. “It’s a climactic, pause-for-extra-drama one-liner that arrests the audience and pulls in their sympathy for you—until they’ve had a moment to realize that there is always a choice. We just have ones we prefer—say, making a little confession over having your fingernails pulled out with pliers.You know, that kind of thing.”

Layla’s blank expression didn’t improve so I kept going. “When one outcome is substantially more impacting than the other, it feels like the choice is obvious.”

When she still didn’t say anything, I shook my head and dared touch her knee briefly. “What I’m trying to say is that I understand, when you say you had no choice. It often feels like it even when we do have another choice. Sometimes, there’s really only one that we can live with.”

Layla finally blinked, shaking her head slowly, a fleeting smile ghosting over her lips. “And sometimes, what you can live with at fifteen, can be very different from what you can live with at twenty-seven.”

I reached into the built-in cooler in the backseat of the town car and took out a chilled bottle of water, handing it to Layla with a gesture to her face.

She winced slightly as the cold plastic bottle touched her swollen cheek and I worried for a moment that the reminder of the present would draw her away from the past.

But she continued.

“It was one of those silly summer flings with a cute boy I met while staying with my grandmother at her plantation home in North Carolina. My grandmother was the quintessential southern belle, born to wealth and privilege—one of those old-fashioned-minded ones who still believed in marriage alliances. She, herself, married into an equally affluent family and set the same path for my mother. When she found out I was sneaking out with a boy, she got very angry. I think it was more the fact that the boy, who was only a few years older than I was, didn’t come from a family of any significance. He was the son of one of the farmers but even though he was working on a scholarship for college, he was still less than nothing to my grandmother’s eyes. She banned me from leaving the house and I never saw my summer sweetheart ever again. As summer came to an end, I realized I was pregnant, and because my grandmother had the maids spying on me all the time, I couldn’t keep it a secret.”

Layla smoothed her skirt over her lap, her fingers catching the delicately embroidered hem and fidgeting with it. “She stopped me from going back to my parents. She summoned my mother and between the two of them, they decided that I was to stay at the plantation until I gave birth and that my baby was going to be given away. They assured me my distant cousin Danny was going to take care of my baby—he owned a real-estate firm and was happily settled down with a wife and a couple of kids.”

As Layla slowly divulged every detail of her secret past, the glacial mask that was a near-permanent fixture on her face started melting. 

Her light blue eyes were stark with a sorrow I imagined hurt her more than the large welt on her face. 

My heart twisted but I kept my mouth shut, afraid to break the fragile trust she'd given me in this rare moment of honesty.

“Two years later, after my life was back to normal, my mother died of a kidney complication,” Layla said with a mere shrug, her indifference obvious. “My grandmother followed a few years later. I was twenty-one, fresh out of college and finally free from the two women who forcibly shaped my life into the mold they chose for me. I tracked Danny down to Boston and without really knowing why I was doing it, I moved. I didn’t want to intervene but I just wanted to keep an eye on my son, even from a distance. I had some family here—Bessy and her parents took me in without questions and easily found me a place in the city’s elite social circles.”

Oh, Bessy. Not you too.

As much as the other girl antagonized me, I had a sinking feeling that just like her cousin, she was going to be, if not already, another woman Don LeClaire would use and abuse. 

As if she could read my mind, Layla met my stare with her own stony one as she continued. “That’s when I met Don. He was handsome, charming, rich, possessing of a last name that was solid and old enough to fit the husband criteria ingrained in me since I was a little girl. I married him. Things seemed to finally fall into place—I was living the perfect life I thought I’d forfeited when I got knocked up.”

She brushed off an imaginary lint from her skirt, her lips curved into a bitter smile. “But having gone through what I had, I should’ve known that happy endings were for fairy tales, and fairy tales were for fools.”

“Don found out I was looking in on Riley. When he demanded answers, I broke down with the truth, begging that he forgive me for not telling him my secret.” Layla’s face creased with disgust. “What I thought was his possessive, slightly controlling nature became my worst nightmare. He cut off all access I had from funds except for a spending allowance. He has an accountant go through every penny I spend to make sure that none of it was spent on my bastard child, as he often put it. I was young and naive when I married him. There was no pre-nup or anything that could actually protect me and my own money. The only alternative I have is to go to my father but he knows nothing about Riley or Don’s cruel side. To my father, Don was the son he never had and he’s very fond of him. Don threatened that if I disobeyed him or went to anyone for help, he would make sure my dirty secret was published to the world, that he would turn my own father against me, and that he would make Riley disappear.”

I hadn’t realized my fists were curled so tightly until a sob caught in Layla’s throat and I reached out to grab her some tissue.

It was a little ridiculous, Don’s nefarious threats, but when you’ve once had something so vital taken away from you and you barely managed to put up a fight, it was easy to believe that there was no way you were ever going to be able to fight back and actually win.

“For the next few years, I busied myself with social duties and friends—avoiding my husband at all cost and going through extreme measures to discreetly check on Riley,” she said as she dabbed at the few tears that spilled down her cheeks. “Then three years ago, my cousin Danny was divorced by his wife who left with their children and all his money. He lost his business, he lost his house, he lost his goddamned mind.”

Anger suffused Layla’s marred yet beautiful face as she crumpled the tissue with unnecessary force. “They ended up in a ramshackle apartment. I gave them what money I could sneak away but it never lasted. If Danny wasn’t off working a part-time job he could only hang on to for a few weeks, he was drinking himself to death, and he was taking my son with him.”

Whether people look for redemption or plain escape in a bottle, it’s no excuse to stick your head in and forget about the rest of the world. The first step to a better life is to want one more than you want the temporary relief of forgetting that you aren’t living it. Someone should've told my father that.

Layla thrust her chin up stubbornly. “I decided I had to intervene. I... I showed up one day, thankfully when Danny was sober enough, and I introduced myself to Riley—as his aunt. One of Danny’s cousins.”

I couldn’t help the grimace. “He knows he’s adopted. And if he’s as smart a kid as I suspect him to be after sitting with him earlier, he probably knows you’re not really his aunt.”

A big, fat tear rolled down Layla’s cheek and she impatiently brushed it away. “I can’t... I can’t tell him the truth. Not when I can’t do anything for him anyway. What good is knowing I’m his m-mother going to do when I can’t even care for him? I can’t take him in. I can’t support him. I can’t even get him out of that shit hole he lives in!”

There was little of Layla’s polish and poise left.

She gripped the water bottle so hard, her knuckles were white.

I eased the bottle away from her, as careful as a zoo keeper would be when trying to feed a lioness.

In fact, she reminded me of just how ruthless wild animals get when their young was threatened.

“Sometimes, the truth alone helps,” I said gently, remembering Riley’s face when he talked about stars. “Knowing that he hasn’t been completely abandoned might be enough for him for now.”

“Are you sure?” Layla scoffed, her eyes slitting in derision. “Has it occurred to you that maybe he’s going to loathe me for abandoning him in the first place?”

I exhaled loudly and looked right into Layla’s eyes. “Tell me something. Do you think Riley’s a good kid?”

She blinked. “Yes.”

“Do you think he has a good heart? A good head on his shoulders?”

“Of course,” Layla answered indignantly even though she looked confused. “He’s intelligent and resilient. He’s a great kid.”

I smiled and sat back. “Then maybe you should trust him with a chance to understand why you did what you did. You might be surprised.”

There was a brief flash of hope in Layla’s eyes but anxiety quickly chased it away as she chewed at her lip for a moment. “I don’t know if I can take that risk. I don’t want him to hate me more than I already hate myself. What if... What if he never forgives me?”

I shrugged. “You can’t expect forgiveness if you don’t admit your faults first. And if forgiveness was always guaranteed, everyone would be doing every kind of bad thing out there.”