Chapter 16
C. J.
C. J. squinted into the bright lights from the film crews gathered three feet below her—all clustered around the small raised stage on the Aston Ministries grounds. Despite her unease, she forced herself to keep her smile firmly in place.
Her father had wanted to hold the press conference at the courthouse soon after the paternity results were read aloud in court by the presiding judge. The results showed Reverend Pete Aston wasn’t the father of Rochelle Martin’s baby. Even Martin’s lawyer had held a press conference at the courthouse, announcing that she would be forced to drop her lawsuit, explaining that she wasn’t a villain but a greatly misunderstood young woman. But Reverend Aston’s new PR Svengali, whom he had hired for his congressional campaign, believed in giving a show. She had suggested that he hold his press conference at the church instead.
“It gives it more authority and presence,” she had said, her blue eyes alight with inspiration. “And having that big glass church in the background will look absolutely amazing on camera!”
So this is why C. J. was chattering her teeth in high winds and forty-degree weather, waiting for her father to step up to the podium and begin to speak among the clicking of camera shutters and those few reporters near the stage. She pursed her lips as she raised the collar of her wool coat to block the wind, all the while trying to smooth her wayward locks with her hands.
“I want to thank my lovely wife, Sarah, for standing by me and believing from the very beginning that I was a man of my word and a man of God,” Reverend Aston finally began. “I want to thank my son, Victor, and my daughter, Courtney, for all their love and support. I would also like to thank all the parishioners and those voters out there who believed me from the very beginning.”
C. J. watched out of the corner of her eye as Victor stood on the opposite side of her father while the older man gave his speech. Victor donned a full-on plastic smile for the occasion. He was hand-in-hand with his wife, Bethany, who gazed up at him adoringly—the poor, deluded woman. Bethany even leaned her head against Victor’s shoulder. They looked like the perfect couple.
If only everyone knew the truth, C. J. thought.
She then glanced at Shaun, who stood directly next to her, who was smiling politely at the cameras as her father continued to speak.
Though I guess I’m not much better.
Standing at her side, Shaun seemed very much like her boyfriend or even her husband. Her father’s “people” had put him on the podium next to her specifically for that reason, although they had pretended it had been for something else.
“Symmetry,” the young PR flack had explained with his bleached-white grin. “It just looks more balanced with him standing next to you.”
Uh-huh, I bet, C. J. had thought sarcastically.
She knew that was a crock of shit! They wanted everyone watching the press conference to think that C. J. was with Pastor Clancy, that he was her boyfriend. They wanted everyone to believe that Reverend Aston not only had the perfect son and daughter, but also children with perfect significant others. C. J. couldn’t work up the energy anymore to rebel against these lies. She was too exhausted to care. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in almost a week, not since Terrence had stormed out of her apartment.
That next morning, after she had apologized to Clancy a million times and cried her eyes out, she had resolved that she would erase all memories of Terrence Murdoch. She finally was ready to move on and let him go—or so she’d thought. It was more than a week later and she still hadn’t managed to do that.
C. J. now grimaced as the wind picked up ferocity, making her hair whip around her shoulders again. She crossed her arms over her chest as her father started to accept questions from the reporters who were all shouting simultaneously.
“Are you planning to file a defamation suit against Miss Martin now that the truth has come to light, Reverend?” one reporter asked.
“I wouldn’t be much of a Christian if I blindly sought revenge,” her father replied.
“Praise the Lord!” C. J.’s mother exclaimed while wrapping an arm around her husband.
“So the answer is no,” he continued. “I don’t plan to file any more lawsuits. I plan to stay as far away from court as possible. I will simply pray for Miss Martin, focus on spreading the good word, and concentrate on my campaign.”
The questions continued like this for the next fifteen minutes; all the while C. J. struggled to pay attention, to keep her grin in place.
At least Terrence had stopped calling her. He had gone from calling her constantly to not calling or texting her at all. And she had no interest in reaching out to him, either.
What she had seen that day in her apartment was not the man she had fallen in love with. It was not the man who had wooed her with moonlit picnics in Macon Park and conversations that could go on for hours without awkward pauses. Back then, Terrence had been sweet and tender, open and loving. He wasn’t the callous asshole who had charged into her apartment, acting like some chest-thumping, raging gorilla.
Where was the Terrence she had known and loved?
Gone, she realized reluctantly. He doesn’t exist anymore.
And because that version of him no longer existed, their breakup was for the best and probably inevitable. They weren’t compatible anymore, like two disparate jigsaw pieces that no longer fit together. Terrence would go back to his playboy ways and fly off to Europe or the Caribbean with some beautiful video vixen on his arm.
And I’ll come back here, she resolved as she gazed up at the towering glass edifice of Aston Ministries headquarters. The video vixens can have him!
So why was she still so unsettled? Why did her thoughts keep drifting back to him?
“C. J.,” Shaun said, gently touching her shoulder.
She turned to him, startled from her heavy thoughts. “Huh?”
“The press conference is over,” he said, gesturing to the front lawn, where the reporters were starting to disperse. “I wasn’t sure if you noticed. You seemed like you were out of it.”
“I guess I drifted off for a bit.” She glanced around herself again. “I hope no one else noticed.”
“I wouldn’t worry. I don’t think they did.”
She continued to smile blankly, barely listening to him. He frowned.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, I’m . . . I’m fine. I’m just a little . . . uh . . . cold. That’s all.” She shoved her hands into her coat pockets.
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
Her smile teetered as he took a step closer to her.
“I haven’t spoken to you since last week,” he whispered. “I wondered if you were . . . well, I wondered how you were doing after what . . . what happened. I wanted to call you to see if you were all right, but I figured you needed some time to yourself.”
C. J. gazed up at him as if seeing him for the first time. How was it possible that Shaun seemed to understand her better than her own man had?
“I did need some time alone. Thank you, Shaun. Thank you for sensing that. Thank you for . . . for everything.”
“It’s not a problem,” he said with a shrug. “I—”
“No, I mean it.” She reached out and grabbed his hand. He glanced down at it, at their intertwined fingers, and for a few seconds she considered letting his hand go, but she didn’t. She held on tight. “You’ve been incredibly sweet and kind and patient with me . . . probably more than I deserve. You’re a good man, Shaun.”
He chuckled. “So you keep telling me.”
“No, you are. You’re a good man.”
And you were probably the right man for me all along, she thought.
She stood on the balls of her feet, leaned forward, and lightly kissed his cheek, making his eyes widen, catching him by surprise. There was no passion or love behind the kiss, certainly not the love that she suspected he felt for her. C. J. admired Shaun, but she still didn’t love him. But the kiss was the only real thanks she could offer him, besides her words. At least, it was all she could offer him for now.
I could learn to love him if I tried harder, though, she told herself, ignoring the fact that she had told herself this same lie six years ago. I probably won’t love him like I loved Terry, but I could learn to feel something close to it.
She squeezed Shaun’s hand again, then let it go.
“I need to head back to my office. I’ve got a few phone calls to make,” she said. “Wanna meet up for lunch later, maybe?”
“Sure! How about one o’clock?”
“One o’clock it is.” C. J. then gave a genuine smile, the first she had all day. She headed to the stage stairs. C. J. began to walk back toward Aston Ministries, feeling a little lighter in her step, but she was halted by the sound of her brother’s booming voice.
“C. J.!” he called out to her. “C. J., wait up!”
She contemplated pretending she hadn’t heard him, but she slowly turned around instead. She found her brother striding toward her, still smiling, which immediately made her suspicious. She glared back at him.
“If looks could kill,” he muttered, laughing at her facial expression.
“What do you want, Victor?” she snapped.
“Oh, nothing! I just wanted to tell you that you did a good job at the press conference.”
She eyed him, now even more suspicious. “A good job?”
He nodded. “Don’t look so shocked, Court! I can give out compliments every once in a while. It’s good to see you finally falling into line. I’d doubted you’d ever be able to do it, but I have to say”—he paused to look her up and down—“I’m pleasantly surprised.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I mean that little show you put on up there . . . holding Shaun’s hand and giving him that little kiss on the cheek.” He gave her a slow clap. “It was so adorable, a perfect touch! Next time, though, do it at the end of the press conference, not after the whole thing is over. We’d like to get a moment like that on camera.”
“I wasn’t doing it for the damn cameras, Victor! I wasn’t putting on a performance.”
“Of course you weren’t . . . and I adore my wife, too,” he said sarcastically before glancing over his shoulder at Bethany, who stood more than twenty feet away with their mother and father. Bethany turned to him and blew him a kiss. Victor pretended to catch the kiss and winked at her. He then turned back around to face C. J. “We all have stories we like to tell. We just have to make them believable.”
“I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, but I’m not like you.”
He chuckled again and patted her on the shoulder. “Of course you aren’t! Not yet, anyway.”
At his words, her blood ran cold.
“But with time . . . you might be. You just might be, Courtney,” he said before heading back across the field toward his wife.