Brent Sinatra: All of Me (22 page)

Jenay smiled.
 
She
loved his kisses.
 
“Who says I’m speeding
it up?”

Charles kissed her again.
 
“I say you are.”
 
When his eyes
looked into hers, a swell of emotion coursed through him and he pulled her
against him and fully into his arms.
 
“I
say so,” he said, and when he began kissing her this time, capturing her mouth
with his, she wrapped her arms around him too and felt his penis began to
stiffen.

And then Donald Sinatra, Charles’ youngest son, walked
in.
 
“For the love of living!” Charles
said angrily as he and Jenay moved apart.

“Interrupting something?” Donald said with a smile.

“What is it, Donnie?” Jenay asked.

“We’ve got a situation.”

“What situation?” Charles asked.

“Brent is on his way, with Denise and her son.”

Jenay was surprised.
 
“Denise?
 
Denise Donahue?”

“That’s right.
 
Only
her full name now is Denise Donahue-Stravinsky.”

“Who’s Denise?” Charles asked.

“My friend from Hospitality school all those years ago.
  
The one who came to town and fell for
Brent.”

“Oh, that Denise!” Charles remembered her.
 
Unflatteringly.
 
“What does she want?”

“That’s what I want to know,” Jenay said.
 
She and Denise became friends before she met
Charles and his sons, but that friendship ended when she left Jericho with
another man.
 
And she had many
questions.
 
“Why would Denise be coming
back here?” she asked Donald.
 
“And why
would Brent be bringing here after how she treated him?”

And then it dawned on her.
 
And on Charles too.
 
“Marcus?” he
asked.
 
“She’s his mother?”

“It could be,” Jenay said, thinking.
 
“It’s been about that long ago.”

“I’ll be damn.”

“And what about Makayla?” Charles asked.

“What about her?” Jenay asked.

“Brent better not ruin that excellent relationship for some
piece on the side like Denise.”

“I have no answers for any of your questions,” Donald
said.
 
“Brent just wanted me to give you
the head’s up.
 
I have done that.
 
Now shall we go and wait on their arrival in
the lobby, or stay back here and complain?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, boy,” Charles said, but he and
Jenay began heading out of the conference room.
 
Donald smiled.
 
By whatever means
necessary, he thought.

Brent’s truck drove under the portico at the Jericho Inn and
stopped at the front entrance.
 
Behind
his truck was a cab filled with Denise’s assistants.
 
They hurried out of the smelly cab before
Denise, who sat on the front seat with Marcus in the middle, could open the
door.
 
And when she opened the door,
Brent grabbed her by the arm.
 
She looked
at him.

He looked at Marcus.
 
“Wait outside for your Mom,” he said to him.

He unbuckled his seatbelt, crawled over his mother, and
waited on the sidewalk with the staffers.
 
Denise looked at Brent. “I know I thanked you before,” she said, “but I
want to thank you again for looking out for my son.”

“Is he my son, Denise?” Brent asked her flatly.
 
No games, no cute way of saying it.
 
He asked it to her straight, and he wanted a
straight answer.

But Denise, being Denise, smiled.
 
“What in the world would give you that idea?”
she asked, and then she got out of his truck.

Okay.
 
Enough of this
shit.
 
She wanted it rough.
 
He was going to give it to her rough.
 
He unbuckled his seatbelt, got out of his truck,
walked around to the passenger side where Denise was standing with her
staffers, and took her hand.
 
“Excuse
us,” he said, and hurried with her into the Inn.

The staffers, sensing excitement, took Marcus by the hand and
hurried inside too.

But Brent had already made it across the lobby with
Denise.
 
His parents, Charles and Jenay,
and his baby brother Donald, were all sitting in the lobby when they came
in.
 
They stood up.
 
“We’ll be back,” Brent said as he hurried
Denise around the check-in counter and into Jenay’s office.
 
He slammed the door behind them.

Once inside, he slammed Denise against the door.
  
“Stop playing games with me,” he said to
her.
 
“I know this is a tough time for
you, and I know the last thing on your mind is me and my concerns, but stop
acting as if this is some
got
damn
game!
 
Any fool can see that that boy is
mine, Denise.
 
He looks just like me.”

Brent said that with such feeling that even Denise was
affected by it.
 

“Is he my son?” he asked, refusing to move on.
 
“Tell me the truth.”

 
And all of Denise’s
swagger, and her smiles and cute phrases, were gone.
 
A serious look appeared on her face.
 
She looked into Brent’s eyes.
 
“Yes,” she admitted.
 
“Marcus is your son.”

Brent felt as if he could barely stand when she confirmed what
was obvious to him all along.
 
Marcus was
his.
  
And then he looked back at
her.
 
“How could you?
 
Why did you keep it from me for so long?”

“Because I was in love with Mark!
 
I wanted Mark.
 
When I found out I was pregnant, he said he
wanted me back.
 
What was I supposed to
do, Brent?
 
So I pretended he was the
father.”

“He died thinking Marcus was his child?”

She shook her head.
 
“He knew all along.
 
And he
dangled it in front of me throughout our entire marriage.
 
He used it against me to keep me.
 
He was a sick bastard.”

“You weren’t too well yourself if you stayed with a man that
sick.”

Denise knew it was true.
 
“That may be so,” she said.
 
“But
I stayed.”
 
She turned around and lifted
her shirt.
 
“And I have the scars to
prove it,” she added.

Brent’s heart squeezed when he saw the extent of her
injuries.
 
Bruises, old and new, littered
her back.
 
“He did this to you?” he
asked.

“And worse,” she said.

Then he had a horrible thought.
 
“And Marcus?” he asked her.

“He never laid a hand on him,” she said.
 
“I made certain of that.”

Brent appreciated that she protected their son.
 
“But Denise,” he said, “why would you stay?”

“I told you why,” she said, pulling down her shirt and
turning around.
 
“I loved him.”

But Brent wasn’t buying it.
 
If she would have said she stayed because he offered her position and
power, he would have believed it.

Then another thought, a much more sinister thought, occurred
to him.
 
“What happened to your husband?”
he asked.

There was hesitation.
 
“What do you mean?”

“Who killed him?”

She looked at Brent.
 
“You know who did it.”

Brent was stunned.
 
He
frowned.
 
“How could you,” he said.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know that boy didn’t kill that man.
 
How could you fix your mouth to even
insinuate---”

“Wait a minute now,” Denise said.
 
“Hold on right here and right now!
 
I didn’t insinuate anything.
 
Marcus said he killed him.
 
Marcus doesn’t lie.”

“Did Marcus drive them to Jericho?
 
And didn’t leave a car behind for us to
trace?
 
Did Marcus do that too?”

Denise felt tripped up, but she gave a different
explanation.
 
“I hadn’t thought about all
of that.”
 
She looked at him.
 
“I guess he didn’t do it after all,” she
said.

Brent stared at her.
 
What in the world was going on?
 
Was she trying to blame her own child for the husband’s death?
 
Did she kill him?
 
“Did you kill your husband, Denise?” he asked
her pointblank.

“No,” she shot back.
 
“Hell no!
 
I could never do
anything like that.”

“Maybe his abusiveness drove you to it.”

“I can never do a thing like that,” she said.
 
“Never!
 
I don’t care what he did to me.”

She showed more emotion in her own defense, Brent thought,
than in defense of her own child.
 

But then the office door opened and Charles and Jenay walked
in.
 
They both looked as if they had seen
a ghost.
 
“So you’re the one?” Charles
asked.

“Hello, Denise,” Jenay said.

“Is he,” Charles asked.
 
“Did she say if he was yours?”

Brent stared at his father.
 
“Yes,” he said.
 
“She admitted
it.”

Charles couldn’t believe it.
 
His heart was hammering.
 
Jenay could
feel his pain.
 
But he was looking at
Denise.
 
“How old is he?
 
How old is my grandson?”

Denise looked defiant.
 
She knew Charles never did like her.
 
“He’s ten, so what?” she asked.

“So what?” Charles said.
 
“So what?”
 
He walked over to her,
but not to confront her.
 
He, instead,
leaned back and slapped the shit out of her.

Brent and Jenay hurried to his side, with Brent pulling him
back.
 
“Charles!” Jenay cried.

But Charles jerked away from them and continued to look at
Denise as if he was looking at a piece of trash.
 
“Brent had a son,” he said.
 
“I had a grandson in this world.
 
A grandson.
 
And you didn’t bother to tell us?
 
You didn’t bother to let us know that our flesh and blood was out here
in this world, under somebody else protection, in somebody else life?
 
And you have the nerve to say
so what
?”

Brent knew how his father felt.
 
He felt the same way.
 
But this kind of anger would get them
nowhere.
 
Brent didn’t know the full
story.
 
His son wasn’t in the clear
yet.
 
Getting angry with Denise could
only serve to keep them away from Marcus.
 
And that wasn’t going to happen.
 

But Denise, being Denise, wasn’t about to let him get away
with that.
 
“I want him arrested,” she
said to Brent.

“Just hold on, Denise,” Brent responded.

“Hold on nothing!
 
I
want him locked up for assaulting me.
 
What kind of man are you anyway?
 
Only punks hit ladies!”

“Then he must not be a punk,” Jenay said, “because he
certainly did not hit a lady.”

“Just get me out of here,” Denise said to Brent, “or I swear
I’ll take my child and none of you people will ever see him again!”

That threat stopped Charles and Jenay cold.
 
They were just realizing what kept Brent
restraint all along.
 
They were just
understanding how much power Denise really had.
 
She had the power, at least for now, to block their access.

“Come on, Denise,” Jenay said.
 
“Let me show you and Marcus to your room.”

Denise looked at Charles again, but then she followed Jenay.

When the door closed, Brent slumped down in a chair.
 
Charles looked at him.
 
“We’re going to ask for an emergency hearing
to wrestle custody from her,” he said.