Page 71 of Shy Girl
For the sake of surviving the moment, I turned my mind away from Jayson—he'd get his turn. Now, I had to deal with Anthony.
“Y-yes.” I cleared my throat.
“And?”
My thoughts whirled as I reviewed a way to respond to the $500,000 consideration attached to such an outrageous contract. The terms were exorbitant, paranoid, and a little . . . unstable.
Anthony, no doubt, wanted me to believe that he'd attack me and my Mom with all the power at his disposal should his secret ever go public.
Butwouldhe?
Right now, I was beholden to no such NDA. So, any power play against my mother was easily within my reach to shout from the rooftops. Yes, he'd pretend that he would attack in court . . . but could he afford to? A paternity test was all Alison needed to show proof of who her husbandreallywas. Although I’d resolved not to involve Alison or out Anthony, now I felt no such restraint. A letter, left discreetly somewhere. A tip that someone she loved received from an anonymous source. Or perhaps an article blasted all over the newspapers and internet.
No, he approached me like this becauseIhad the power.
Not him.
If he were to punish my mother, I'd fight back. That's why he wanted to do a separate agreement. Why he played so softly, but carried a stick that could, if I let it, wallop me to the ground.
My heart raced as I set the contract pages down and stared at them. Never in my life had I truly exercised courage. Never had I stood up to the bullies. Never had I told someone the way Ireallyfelt.
That time had come.
The papers gathered together under my fingers. I stacked them on top of each other and slid them back to him.
“I w-won't s-s-sign it.”
His expression fell into one of mild confusion, but he didn't seem altogetherthatsurprised. Instead, he lifted an eyebrow.
“Oh?”
My throat had turned dry, but I swallowed past it and forced myself to meet his gaze. The tightness in my chest tripled, but I breathed through it. My entire body felt oddly calm. Powerful.
Courageous.
“You h-had your ch-chance to exp-plain,” I said. “N-n-now I g-get mine.”
He hesitated only a second before he leaned back in the chair, then motioned for me to continue with a wave of his hands. I drew in a stabilizing breath, prepared to do the sing-song that let me get through something without the stammer. If there had ever been a conversation made for it, it was this.
“Ten years ago, I helped my Mom clean out her closet. She's a bit of a h-hoarder, but that's not important. A small folder tumbled out of a box while she was in the other room and I found it there.”
The breathy tones of the song, and the weird way I had to string my words together made the retelling feel a bit unnatural, but at least the words moved out of me now. They spilled between us like forgotten secrets, and I didn't want to stop them. His brow furrowed. I had his whole concentration.
I shook my head with a breathy, sardonic laugh. “The NDA hit me like a meteor in the chest. Mom rarely spoke about you. Said I was the result of a weekend fling and we'd never see you again. No names. No dates. No facts. Nothing. Then, the NDA dropped into my lap. Of course I searched for you afterward so I would know the man that agreed to act as if I didn't exist or matter.”
Here I stopped to draw in a breath. Emotions lodged in my throat, the ones I didn't want him to see. The ones he hadn'tearned. He didn't deserve to know that I'd been curious about or yearned for him and his acknowledgment of my existence. But I couldn't help it, because some barrier in my mind had broken, and all the words I'd never said flowed out of me like a river.
“I found you so easily. You were wealthy. Apparently happy. With a beautiful daughter and wife and house as large as anything I’d ever seen.” I scoffed. “Or s-so it seemed. I . . . I couldn't help but wonder if one day I could just see you up close.Speakwith you. I dreamed of outing you and forcing you to acknowledge that I exist. That I matter too. Then, Jayson told me about a wedding that he wanted me to attend with him. The wedding of a girl I'd never heard of until he said her name. Your n-name.”
My strength faltered, but Anthony didn't move. He sat there, frozen on the bench. The bar at our backs lay almost totally empty except for the distant shriek of someone outside, and the drone of the TV. He gave no indication that he understood what I was saying, just sat there like a statue.
Undaunted, I pressed on.
“When he said your name and that you'd be there, I couldn't help myself. I'd workedso hardto earn money to find you. To . . . to s-scrape together s-something! Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I d-deeply desired a connection to you.”
My voice elevated so fast that I clamped my lips shut to temper it again, then met his gaze and kept going. I leaned forward, hands on the table, and unleashed all the intensity that still made my bones tremble even now. As if revealing my truth brought it about with even greater strength.
“I saved every last dime I had because I wanted to fly to Texas, stay in a hotel, and concoct some way to meet you. But Jayson gave me a way to save the meager amount I've been able to hold onto while paying my way through college and w-working at a diner and a coffee shop. So I came. And I saw you. And if you hadn't approached me, I would have left this island without saying a word to a single soul. All I wanted was toseeyou.”
