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She laughed, her response surprising to me. “Everything is everyone’s business.”
I looked back at the article, which had a definite slant against Anja. The gist was that a twenty-five-year-old girl named Rosemary Jackson was searching for her birth parents and found her father, Jamal Wallace, through an ancestry database. They met with the blessing of her adoptive parents, and Jamal was heartbroken because he’d been told by the birth mom that she’d had a miscarriage. An investigation uncovered that the birth mom was Anja Benoit, now Stockton, a successful model.
“Jamal is right to be upset,” she said.
“I don’t think so,” I said. I could sympathize with both of them. I could feel empathy for the man who had been lied to while also understanding the reasons Anja had lied.
“I made decisionsforhim without discussing any of itwithhim. He’s a good man. He wanted to do the right thing, and I lied to him. It has weighed on my conscience for years. It wasn’t until Nelson that I learned to forgive myself.”
“I, um, overheard you and Nelson talking the other day. He was upset.”
“Yes. Like I said, he did everything to suppress the story, threatened to sue, offered to pay. He thought it would hurt me if this came out. There was even a woman who said she could bury the story—for a price. Nelson was going to pay her, but I put my foot down. It hurts, but not for the reason he thinks. I had been thinking for years about reaching out to the adoption agency to let them know if my daughter wanted to meet me, I would be willing. But I didn’t. I don’t regret my decision to give her up. I couldn’t have given her the life she deserved when I was seventeen. Her parents are good people. But I regret lying to Jamal. Fear—it is a powerful emotion. So I dragged my feet for years and thenthis.”
She took the magazine from me, stared at the photo of her and Jamal.
“Have you considered reaching out to her now?”
Anja didn’t say anything, and I thought maybe my question was too forward.
After a moment, Anja said quietly, “What if she hates me for what I did?”
“What if she doesn’t?” I said.
Anja leaned back and closed her eyes.
I thought back to Diana’s book and the large dollar amount with the numbers 1419 underlined. Nelson Stockton. Was Diana the woman who claimed to be able to suppress the story for a fee? This story had been in the works for at least a few weeks, Nelson and Anja weren’t on the island when Diana disappeared,and there would be no reason she’d get away with blackmailing him over Anja’s situation when multiple people knew the story. But what if she had some pull with the publisher? Or if she gave information to the press when he didn’t pay? Maybe Diana Harden and blackmail were old friends, long before she was murdered on St. Claire.
“Thanks for listening to me,” Anja said.
“Of course,” I said. “This was an awful way for the news to come out, but at least it’s out. Now you can weigh your options and make a decision on your next step. For what it’s worth, Nelson loves and supports you.”
She smiled. “He’s a good man. He knows Jamal, who was a rookie when Nelson was in his last year of playing. He said he would arrange a meeting between us. But Nelson hurts because I’m upset.”
“How’d you know that Nelson was the one?” I asked quickly, before I could change my mind.
“There were a lot of little things,” she said. “He’d been married for fifteen years and has twin sons, grown now. We met at a charity function many years after he lost his wife in an accident. I was speaking, to raise money for inner-city youth sports. He was also seated at the head table and convinced the organizer to change seats with him so he could be next to me. When he looked at me, I felt a little tingle.” She laughed lightly. “At that point, I’d been a successful model and spokeswoman for years. I had always planned to marry and have kids, but felt it wasn’t happening because of what I’d done to Jamal. Nelson’s wife had been gone for a decade at that point, and he told me she’d spoken to him that night. He’d planned to just send a check and stay home. Then he heard her telling him to go because he would meet someone who would change his life.” She smiled, and I couldn’t help but smile, too. “I love him. It’s as simple as that. He’s not fancy, he has his flaws for sure, and he cares a bit too much about sports, but when he looks at me, I know he loves me. I feel at peace when I’m with him.”
“He’s perfect for you.” I thought about how I tried to explainto my Grams and friends about what I wanted in a man. Not perfect, just perfect for me.
“He is,” she concurred. “Speaking of perfect, I am truly sorry that we interrupted your romantic moment with Jason last night.”
I barely stifled a groan.
She laughed, took my hand. “Darling, you are so cute. And he hasn’t been able to take his eyes off you.”
That surprised me. “What?”
“Every time you walk into his line of sight, his eyes follow you. He’s smitten.”
I had nothing to say to that.
“I think it’s lust,” I said, then backtracked. “I mean, we enjoy each other’s company, but he lives here, and I have a career in New York, and we’re just having fun.”
“Honey, have all the fun you want. Career is important, but we can’t forget that we’re also women who crave love.”
Love?Love?I wasn’t thinking love. I was thinking one-night stand and getting this lust for Jason out of my system, then going back to New York and accepting my promotion and getting on with my life.
“I scared you,” Anja said, squeezing my hand as she smiled warmly. “You never know when Cupid hits a bull’s-eye.”