“Well? Am I supposed to guess the identity of this potential donor?” he asked impatiently. “Is there an estranged aunt or some long lost cousins on your side of the family that you haven’t thought to mention until now?”
Beads of sweat had broken out on Neil’s brow and upper lip, and his hands were visibly shaking now. He shut his eyes and took a few deep breaths, apparently waging some internal battle with himself. He opened his eyes slowly, reluctantly, but kept his gaze downcast, too afraid of what he was about to say to look Jackson square in the face.
“No. Not an aunt or a cousin, or any other member of my family. Though I suppose,” he admitted in a voice barely above a whisper, “you would consider a biological child part of the family.”
Jackson was so shocked by what he was hearing that he nearly fell off his chair. “What child?” he growled. “What the fuck are you trying to say, Neil?”
Neil closed his eyes again, his voice unsteady as he whispered, “That I have a daughter. Not Hannah. My - my other daughter.”
Chapter Three
Jackson stared at his brother-in-law in horrified disbelief, unwilling to acknowledge the shocking confession the other man had just made. But judging by the look on Neil’s face - one of miserable resignation - he knew that the words were true. And that to admit them out loud must have been the very last thing Neil had wanted to do.
“You bastard,” hissed Jackson at last, pointing a finger across his desk threateningly. It was taking every ounce of self-control he possessed not to plunge his fist into Neil’s wan face instead. “No wonder you came to me about this instead of my father or brothers. Because any one of them would already be firing your ass, and calling a good divorce attorney on Laura’s behalf. In fact, I’ve got a good mind to call my dad right now and tell him you’ve been cheating on - ”
“No!” Neil shook his head adamantly. “No, Jack, you’ve got it all wrong, I swear it! I haven’t cheated on Laura, not now, not ever. This - well, this all happened before I met Laura. The girl - my other daughter - is older than Hannah. She’s, um, I’d guess at around twenty, maybe twenty-one, I’m not exactly sure.” He looked down at the hands he was still nervously clasping and unclasping. “I would never cheat on Laura,” he added in a small voice. “While all of us can agree that she isn’t the easiest person to deal with, I do love her, you know. And I haven’t cheated on her, Jack. You’ve got to believe me.”
Jackson scowled, wondering how much shittier this day could get. And silently cursed Neil for having chosen him as the person to be confessing this deep dark secret to.
“You don’t know how old your own daughter is?” he asked scathingly. “And why haven’t you said anything about this girl - woman - until now? Especially,” he added in a dark tone, “when you knew how desperate the doctors have been to find a potential bone marrow donor? Wait, never mind, I already know the answer to that question. You were hoping that some miracle would occur, that a donor would be found, or that some other cutting edge cure would happen, and you’d never have to fess up your past sins to anyone. That about sum it up, Neil?”
Neil shrugged, stubbornly refusing to meet Jackson’s fiery gaze. “More or less,” he admitted grudgingly. “And once again, all of that happened before I met Laura. At least, my short-lived and very, very ill-fated relationship with the girl’s mother ended a couple of months before I even met Laura for the first time. The - the baby was born while Laura and I were dating, but I wasn’t aware of her existence until she was almost a month old. It’s - well, sort of complicated.”
Jackson crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair, his gaze narrowing darkly. “I’ve got time on my hands. And I’ll warn you right now, Neil. You’d better tell me everything, got it? Now that you’ve dragged me into this fucking mess - thanks very much, by the way - don’t leave anything out. Got it?”
Neil, who continued to look more miserable and sickly with each passing minute, could only offer up a weak nod in response. “Got it.”
“Now. Why don’t you begin at the beginning?” suggested Jackson sardonically. “Where and when did you meet your baby mama? And how come this is the first time you’re playing true confessions about your other daughter?”
Neil glanced around the room anxiously, as though to reassure himself yet again that no one could overhear them. “Do you have anything to drink?” he asked meekly. “I, uh, this is going to take a little while to tell.”
Jackson rolled his eyes in disgust before retrieving a bottle of water from the mini-fridge beneath his credenza. “Here. If you were hoping for something stronger, tough. Unlike my dad and brothers, I don’t drink at the office.”
“The water will be fine, thanks.”
Neil unscrewed the cap and drank a third of the contents down before taking a deep breath.
“I met my daughter’s mother - Nikki - before I started working for Gilmore Construction,” began Neil slowly. “I was still working at my previous job - Hanley Homes - and spending quite a bit of time in their Las Vegas offices. That’s where I met Nikki.”
Jackson listened patiently as Neil continued to spin his tale, a tale that had begun more than twenty years ago.
“I was young and cocky and arrogant back then,” admitted Neil. “Hanley was only my second job out of college, and my first one as a sales rep. I was based here in Phoenix, but got to do some traveling. Besides Vegas my territory included Albuquerque, Denver, and Salt Lake City. I was on the road three weeks out of four, but I never minded. Hell, I was twenty-four years old, enjoyed the freedom, and liked living out of hotel rooms, hitting up the local watering holes.”
“And meeting a new babe every time you hit town, hmm?” guessed Jackson.
Neil shrugged, clearly uncomfortable with this line of discussion. “Not as much as you might think. But there were certainly women, and I was pretty far from being a monk back then. What’s that old saying - more hormones than brains? That was me at twenty-four, no doubt about it. I was immature, irresponsible, and frankly something of a jerk. And it didn’t help one bit to have a couple of older guys who were even bigger manwhores as my mentors. They, uh, might have shared some tips with me. You know, about picking up women and such.”
“What sort of tips?” asked Jackson somewhat disinterestedly, wondering where the hell all of this was leading to.
Neil took another gulp of his water, looking a little shamefaced. “They, uh, gave me the idea to get some phony business cards made up. Fake name, company, contact info. You could get a few hundred cards printed up for less than twenty bucks. So that when I met a woman, I’d just hand her one of the phony cards. That way - well, you get the idea.”
Jackson rolled his eyes. “That way if you had no intention of seeing her again she’d have no way of getting in touch with you, or even finding out who you really were. Classy, Neil. Real class act.”
“Hey,” he replied defensively. “I already admitted to being a jerk back then. I’m certainly not proud of the way I acted, Jack, and definitely not excusing my actions. The only excuse I have is being young and immature and cocky.”