Pleasing Mindy

Pleasing Mindy - Chapter 2

"I know. But before you go, tell me you won't let him forget me. I know you're a man of your word. I need to hear you say it."

Galen looked around the visitor's room at HMP Bronzefield Women's Prison located on the outskirts of Ashford in Surrey. The murmur of adult voices and the enlivened chatter of children swirled around him. He couldn't wait to end this debilitating chapter of his life once and for all. He turned back to her. "No, I won't let him forget you."

It was a promise he wished he didn't have to make.

She gave him a bland smile and combed her fingers through her short crop of dark hair. "Thank you. I'm glad I named him after you."

"Not really. You gave him my middle name."

"Would you've been happier if I'd given him your first name too?"

"It's not as if you gave me a choice," he said in a mildly contentious tone.

"I don't want to argue about his name, Galen. I'm just saying that I'm at peace because I know you'll take good care of him. I've always known you had a good heart. You're kind and responsible and one of the most honorable men I've ever known."

The jury is still out on that one. Especially one juror in particular. A different kind of wretchedness settled into his heart. He cleared his throat and shifted his weight on the chair. "It will be difficult for me to explain why his mummy isn't around in a way that he can understand. He's still a baby."

"Just tell him that I went to heaven, that I'm with the angels."

Heaven? Angels? There's a gross misstatement of the facts if ever there was one.

With an opposing mixture of indifference and gratitude, Galen stared at the woman who'd given him an unexpected and beautiful gift—a one-and-a-half-year-old son—who was now the center of Galen's world. Geoffrey was the one and only reason that Galen could not say that he wished he'd never met Beatrix Noyes.

Their first encounter had happened about four years ago at a London pub where Trix worked as a cocktail waitress. Five years his senior, Trix wasn't what most men would call physically attractive, but she was sociable and highly intelligent. Immediately after he sat down at her bar, she'd engaged him and a few other patrons in conversation about domestic politics, world affairs, history, and a host of other engaging topics. Before he knew it, the bar had closed, and instead of having Trix take the tube, he'd driven her home. He'd stayed for breakfast the following morning.

A then recent graduate of Oxford University, Galen had just started an entry-level position at a marketing company in London while also helping his grandfather run Carmichael's Furniture—the family's mediocre-performing household furniture company.

He hadn't been looking for a romantic commitment, and neither had Trix. They'd both been content with a purely physical relationship—a friends with benefits deal. She worked at a small bank in London by day, and as a bartender by night. She was a fun-loving girl with no real plans in life. She went where the wind blew her—her very own words. Words, he knew, she would be regretting for the rest of her life.

"Galen, will you do that for me? Will you just tell our son that I'm dead? It's the least you can do."

Galen tried to mask his emotions with a deceptive calmness in his voice. "There's no need for Geoffrey to think that you're dead. I will bring him to see you from time to time. Despite your—" He waved his hand around as he tried to find the right words to describe her situation. "Your unfortunate circumstance, you are his mother. Nothing can ever change that."

"I gave up the right to motherhood when I killed Jacob Miner."

"Oh no, you gave it up long before that."