Chapter 23

            Scott glanced over at the couple gawking at him and the chopper over the privacy fence. He made his way over to Regina and a black man. Regina was wearing a tight white T-shirt and a pair of black shorts that hugged her hips and showed off her sleek thighs.

            “Well, well,” the black man said. “Speak of the devil. Do you think you made a big enough scene?”

            “Sidney, please,” Regina sighed.

            “Oh, this is the jerk you have the unfortunate luck of being married to,” Scott replied with haughtiness. He wanted to punch the guy in the face even before he knew who he was. Sidney just had that kind of face.

            “What have you’ve been saying about me, Regina?”

            “Nothing,” she answered quickly. “I just told him the truth . . . apparently, I was the only one.”

            Scott knew that was a dig at him. “Regina, I need to talk to you,” he said and then glared at Sidney. “Alone.”

            “I’m not leaving you alone with my wife,” Sidney said with indignance. “So, you may as well hop back in that thing,” he said as he pointed at the chopper, “and go back to wherever you came from.”

            “Or what?” Scott asked with a nasty smirk.

            Sidney took a step toward him.

            Regina quickly stepped in front of Scott. “Please,” she said with a high-pitch tone. “Let’s not be juveniles about this. Sidney, I’ll think about what you said and give you a call in a few days. I want to talk to Scott.”

            “We’re still married,” Sidney stated.

            So? That didn’t stop you from cheating on her, you no-good bastard.

            “I know that, but we are separated,” Regina said. “I have the right to hear everyone out. Scott has been trying to reach me for a while. It has become obvious he isn’t going to stop until he speaks to me.”

            “Regina—” Sidney began in a no-nonsense tone.

            “Sidney, you have put me through a lot during our marriage. I don’t think it is too much to ask to be left alone with Scott for a while. I’ll call you later to let you know my decision,” she stated.

            That a-girl. It was everything Scott could do not to tell the guy to just take a walk. However, it was best that he let Regina handle the nimrod.

            Sidney nodded and slowly walked to the side of the fence and opened the gate. He closed it on his way out.

            Regina turned around. Scott was about to speak when he noticed that she was looking around him. He turned around to see the same middle-aged couple staring at them with their mouths open.

            “Hi Kevin. Hi Pauline,” Regina said as she waved at them.

            They slowly raised their hands up and waved with their mouths still open.

            “Let’s go inside,” Regina said.

            Scott followed her through the patio doors.

Regina slid the door closed and pulled the blinds, blocking the nosey neighbors’ view. “What are you doing here? Your father is sick.”

“He’s the one who encouraged me to come. According to his regular physician, he’ll be fine as long as he watches his blood pressure,” Scott said. “They also upped his medication from one pill a day to two pills a day.”

“All right, you came all this way. What is so important that you had a pilot land a helicopter in my backyard?”

“I came to explain.”

“Explain? Oh, you mean you want to give me a BS reason why you lied to me about who you really are – and why you got your son and father to go along with it,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Yes,” he said. “Can we sit down?”

Regina shrugged and walked to the burgundy sofa and sat.

Scott took his suit jacket off. “I’ll start at the beginning.” He laid it over the back of an armchair. Slowly, he sat next to Regina. “Almost ten years ago, I met a professional model during a fashion show in Paris that I sponsored for a European designer. The model had long, dark hair and eyes a man could get lost in forever – I should know, because I couldn’t see anything but her. That model was Marlena, my ex-wife and Clay’s mother. We dated for five months before I proposed to her. She said yes, and a few weeks before we got married, she found out she was pregnant. Of course, I was elated. So, we got married, and seven months later, Clay was born. The first year and a half of our marriage went fine. She seemed content, or so I thought.” Scott blew out. He didn’t like rehashing all this, but it was the only way to get Regina to understand where he was coming from. “We spent most of our time in Los Angles. I owned and still own a residential building there. One day, I received a voicemail from an anonymous female who said I should go to the penthouse we kept for ourselves on the top floor. The woman said something was going on in there I needed to know. My curiosity got the best of me, so I left work early and went to the penthouse. Of course, I had a key, so I let myself in. I got the shock of my life when I opened that door. A buck-naked guy with long, dark brown hair had my wife bent over the sofa giving her the business from behind. My wife,” he stated stonily.

Regina’s eyes widened at the revelation.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so pissed in all my life. Before I could stop myself, I was all over the guy. I hit him a few times before Marlena hit me on the back of the head with a vase. I had given it to her as a birthday gift,” he spat out.

            She gasped. “She actually hit you? Were you hurt?”

            He snorted as he looked over at her. “Not too badly. I had a bump on the back of my head the next day. I was dazed after she hit me, but I could see the guy grabbing his clothes off the floor. He had grabbed Marlena’s hand, urging her to come with him. She refused, but gave him a reassuring pat as he rushed out the door. I’ll never forget what she had on – a short turquoise nightie. One of the reasons why I will never forget it is because she had worn the same gown for me three nights before.” Scott realized he had intertwined his hands in front of him and was gripping them together like a vice. He loosened the tension in his hands.

            “God,” Regina enunciated in a whisper.

            “I had just regained the power of speech when she said she was sorry I found out this way, but she had always loved John Luke and always will.”

            “Do you mean she was with the gu— John Luke before you married her?”

            “Yep. She started spilling her guts as I sat on the sofa with an aching head to accompany me. When I asked her to marry me, she saw it as an opportunity to become a real United States citizen. She had told John Luke she was seeing me by our second date. He didn’t mind since I was foolish enough to give her spending money and gifts while we were dating. During the divorce, I found out Marlena had spent half the money on John Luke and gave a couple of the gifts to John Luke’s mother. She had also bought her true love loads of clothes and given him cash after I married her. It also came out that she was planning to take Clay and divorce me in five years, get a hefty settlement, and marry John Luke. But I digress. I’m getting ahead of myself. I forgot the worst part.”

            “The worst part?” she said with horror. “What could she have done and said that was worse than what you just told me?”

            He turned to look at her. “That Clay wasn’t mine,” he answered.