Thank you for the great feedback. I decided to go ahead and upload the second chapter this weekend. I think this one will explain a few things a little better. Hope you enjoy!

Becky

Chapter 2

"I don't care how late your show is," Brady barked into the phone. He was trying to keep his voice down so that Annabelle would not hear the argument. She was watching a movie with John, but her little ears perked up when he had called Chloe by name. "I told you I don't care. She's your daughter too and it's her birthday. The least you can do is give her a happy birthday call her on that day." He banged his head against the door frame, frustration tightening his already tense muscles. "Damn it, Chloe. Can't you see what you're doing to her? She adores you. God knows why! All I'm asking for is a little bit of help here. Don't make her go through life wondering why her mother abandoned her."

John sighed one of those uncomfortable moment sighs, smiling down at his granddaughter. "What do you say we go check the mail? Maybe you got a postcard." he asked with a quick glance over his shoulder. He knew that his son was going through hell, but putting his daughter in the middle of it did not help."

"What do you mean by that? Yes, I am working for Titan, but one thing has nothing to do with the other. You know good and well that I have had no contact with her for the past six years. I did that for you and our marriage. Fat lot of good it did me." He groaned loudly in annoyance at having this same fight with his ex-wife again. It seemed to play over and over. Half of their divorce proceedings centered around Chloe tearfully telling the judge how she had come back from countless surgeries to find Brady and Nicole in bed together. He smiled apologetically but gratefully at his father as the older man took Annabelle downstairs to distract her.

Brady ran his hand through his messy hair and sighed. It was ironic that Chloe would still feel threatened by Nicole when it was Chloe who had cheated on him. She had always angrily claimed that there were three in their marriage…Brady, Chloe, and Nicole. It seemed silly now. "It's not your business if I'm sleeping with her or not," he reminded her. "We're divorced now. Remember? That was your idea. I can sleep with whomever I damn well please. Don't give me this crap about her. She had nothing to do with our divorce."

Listening to his ex-wife rant, Brady sank down onto the floor and wondered where he had gone wrong. He knew the exact moment, the exact hour that it had all fallen apart. Chloe had come back to him on a Thursday, bursting her way into a room that he had shared with Nicole for months. The candles he had lit for their private celebration were burnt down to tiny nubs and the champagne had long since been drunk through toasts to the future. He had been holding Nicole in his arms, relishing the moments of languid tranquility after having made love again. Before the diva had burst through the door, he had known the perfection that could only be described as heaven.

The next few days had been a blur, his heart tearing in two as he listened to others tell him how lucky he was to have Chloe back. He didn't feel lucky, quite the opposite really. Instead, he felt numb to her sobbing apologies and excuses. He found himself turning more and more to Nicole, knowing that was where he belonged. But then there was that one moment. A phone call from a distraught Chloe had sent him running to her side, worried that she would do something stupid to end her own life. Fate took an ugly turn that night.

Five weeks later, a triumphant Chloe burst into the Titan conference room to announce that she was pregnant with Brady's child. Feeling that he had no other choice, Brady had done the honorable thing and married this opera singer, turning his back on Nicole. Chloe never appreciated what Brady did, constantly reminding him that he had not waited a day before jumping into bed with another woman. He tried to shrug those comments off, but they hurt. She would never understand how it was Nicole who had saved him from self-destruction. It was Nicole who had made life worth living.

Marriage with Chloe had been a charade, a farce of what a real marriage should have been. He was there to be a father, trying desperately to give his daughter what he had never had. His daughter deserved a mother and a father. His mother's death had cheated him of that.

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Nicole looked through the rack of dresses, casually moving them aside in her effort to find something else. Usually her Saturday morning shopping trips were more enjoyable than this, as she never could quite get that feeling of being poor out of her system. She had the money she had longed for now, more than enough to buy everything in Salem Place without ever putting a dent in her accounts. Surprisingly to her, the money had not brought the security or happiness she was seeking. It only served to distract her momentarily from the lonelier moments of her life.

"Is there anything I could help you with?" the young sales clerk asked distractedly from her stool behind the register. It was the line she was supposed to say, proper etiquette for the store. Nicole knew she didn't mean it. She was too busy staring dreamily out the window at the people passing by, hoping to catch a glimpse of someone she knew.

"Just browsing," Nicole answered as she moved to the next rack. Truly, she wasn't looking for anything in particular. Her matching walk in closets contained more gowns and outfits than she could wear in ten years. The price tags still hung from half of them. It was something to do. Everyone else enjoyed the weekends, counting down the days until they would once again be free from the constraints of work and other obligations. Nicole had no such desire. The only time she felt useful and needed was when she was behind her desk at work, making money for herself and others.

"Let me know," the girl drawled lazily. She snapped her gum to the beat of the piped in music, lazily leaning back against the wall.

Looking up from the rack, Nicole saw him passing by the window. He stopped just before he left her view to kneel down and tie his daughter's shoelace. With a quiet sigh, Nicole watched him in a way she had never seen before. There was something different about him since his return to Salem. It wasn't a sadness or melancholy that she was seeing. She had seen those on him before. Instead, it was a seriousness and maturity that he had been missing before. She supposed that being a father did that for him. It made him grow up and take stock of his life. Glancing away from him, she looked at the little girl, amazed at how much she looked like her father. It was a good thing that she did, as she served as enough of a reminder just being Chloe's child. At least Brady did not have to take care of a miniaturized version of the diva every day.

She had known that Brady would make an excellent father even back when he was in his mid-twenties. There was something about him that made people feel safe and comforted just by a few words out of his mouth. He had that effect on her, putting her at ease in even the toughest of times. It was different now. Just the sight of him made her stomach clench in knots and her mouth go dry with anticipation. It was the way that some people described girlish crushes, but to her it was an agonizing feeling that she dreaded.

"You might convince more people that you were over that part of your life if you didn't stare at him with your mouth wide open," her mother said from beside her. Faye was cradling a stack of clothing, her arms heavy with the garments. "You could go and say hello to him."

Nicole shook off the cloud around her, turning back to focus on her mother. "I was just surprised to see him out today," she explained unconvincingly. "Plus I've never seen his daughter this close before. I was curious."

Looking over her daughter's shoulder, the older woman smiled and nodded her head knowingly. "He does have a beautiful little girl," she answered. "It's a shame about her mother though. I can't imagine not wanting my child."

"I can't either," Nicole answered offhandedly as she grabbed for the garments her mother was holding. "I'm glad someone found something."

"I appreciate this Nicky," Faye said with a simple amount of emotion flowing out. "I've got to find something else and all my clothes scream waitress." Her hand flew out to stroke the soft material of the unadorned black suit. "These will make the difference."

"You know that if you want a job with Titan I could find something for you," Nicole answered. "We've always got openings for someone in the secretarial pool or even in sales." Her voice was tense as she spoke to her mother. It was hard for her still to try to be civil to the woman who had witnessed some of the most horrific moments in her daughter's life. Try as she might, forgiveness was not an easy thing for Nicole to manage. She was trying though.

"I couldn't ask you to do that," Faye responded. "What kind of secretary would I make? I can barely even type." The self disparaging was just the latest in a long line of comments she had made about herself recently. Since the diner she had worked at all these years was closing, she had tried to convince herself that she could find a better life out there. However, her lack of education and skills made the job search difficult.

"How many times have I told you to go back to school?" Nicole asked as she whipped out her charge card to pay for the items. Shooting the clerk an annoyed look, she silently willed her to hurry up. "You could take a few courses on computers, accounting, whatever you wanted. It would make you happier and more marketable in the work force. I'd pay for it. What's stopping you?"

"I'm way too old to think about going back to school," Faye answered. "Somebody will hire me as a receptionist or something. I can answer phones and direct people. If not, I'll go back to looking for waitress jobs. There's the Brady Pub for instance. I could work there."

Nicole let out a garbled and frustrated noise as she signed the receipt for the purchase. "I don't understand why you won't take my help. I'm running a multimillion dollar corporation here. I think I can afford to show a little nepotism and get you a job. Damn it, mother. You worked your ass off all your life to provide for your three kids and no good husband. You can't tell me that you wouldn't like to relax a little now with a cushy job and a great salary."

"I don't want special treatment," Faye countered. "If I go to work for you, I want to be treated like everyone else. I couldn't stand to have people talking behind my back about how my daughter is the only reason I'm there." She grabbed the bags carefully, making her way to the glass doors.

"Trust me mother," Nicole said with a laugh. "I'm a bitch to work for. Just ask your new co-workers."

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Brady took a quick glance around his cubicle, chuckling under his breath at his current predicament. He had once been in the office next to Nicole, his desk alone bigger than this tiny area he now occupied. At one point, he'd had a full view of the city of Salem spread out beneath him. Now, if he craned his head back far enough, he could see the building next door. It wasn't much, but it was a chance to start again. He had to be grateful for that. Never the one to complain, he kept a pleasant attitude about his work. He didn't even moan about the ancient computer at his desk that took a good ten minutes to open a simple application.

"First week on the job and you keep coming back," the man in the cubicle next to him said with a laugh. "We go through them down here. Most don't last a month before they're running back to wherever they came from. Ms. Walker makes us meet our quotas or we're out the door. She doesn't like excuses."

"She never has," Brady muttered quietly. "I'm Brady by the way."

"I know," the man said, extending his hand out. "Jim. I figured you wouldn't remember me. I came on board right after you did. I was the first person you hired with the help of your grandfather."

Brady felt embarrassed that he did not remember the smiling man. He had hired and fired quite a few people back in the day, never really paying attention to anything more than his own ambitions. Suddenly, the smiling face came back to him. "I do remember now," he said with a small laugh. "You're still here."

"That I am," the man admitted dryly. "I was surprised that you came back. After everything that went down with you and Ms. Walker, it took some balls to come back and ask for a job." He suddenly realized what he'd said. "I didn't mean…"

Brady laughed. "Don't worry about it. I realize that it is a bit of an awkward situation here. If I remember correctly, you were the one who walked in on…"

Jim blushed at the memory that Brady was sharing. "Yes, sir. That was me. I had just landed my first major account and had to share it with someone. The office was practically empty so I went running up the stairs. I was too pumped to even take the elevator. I was just going to leave the file on Ms. Walker's desk, thinking she'd see it first thing that morning. I guess I didn't hear you guys or I would have never walked in."

The memory was clear to Brady, a moment that at the time he would have died to have forgotten. Now it was a bittersweet memory of what he had lost in his life. He had never fully appreciated the spontaneous nature to his former relationship with Nicole. It was something that others strived for in their own lives. They shared something unique with each other. "If I recall, you couldn't have seen very much. You ran out quicker than anyone I've ever seen."

"I couldn't believe I walked in," the man lamented. "Hell, the rumors were already flying by that time. Actually, they had been for months. People loved talking about the owner's widow and grandson having some little affair. If I remember right, the rumors started about the same time you moved in with your grandfather and Ms. Walker." Jim rose from his seat and grabbed for the coffee pot, pouring himself another glass. "We always wondered…"

Brady knew that the rumors had been there, spurred on by the compromising positions that he and Nicole seemed to find themselves in. Matters were not helped when the article Victor's supposed accidental electrocution had detailed the fact that Brady and Nicole had been found handcuffed together. That had done little to squelch the rumors that had been circulating. "Don't believe everything you hear," Brady answered with a smile. "Now, I do have a question for you. I need to copy some of these contracts before I send them up to legal. Can you point me toward a copier?"

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John laughed as his granddaughter placed the yellowed veil on her head, standing there solemnly like a bride about to walk down the aisle. "Do I look pretty Grandpa?" she asked.

"Beautiful, Annie," he said sincerely. With a quick glance around, he noted that they had gone through almost every box in that attic, pouring over old photographs and other memories. His granddaughter was fascinated to hear stories of her father's childhood, giggling over the faded photographs. "You'll make a beautiful bride someday."

Tilting her head to one side, she studied herself in the mirror. "Momma's going to marry him isn't she?" the little girl timidly asked.

"Who?"

"Rafael," the child said carefully. "Daddy doesn't like him, but Momma does." She pulled the veil down off of her head, making the golden curls she sported tumble. "Momma's with him right now and that's why Daddy's mad."

"How do you know that?" John asked in alarm.

"Cause Momma doesn't call when she's with him," the child explained. "When we lived at our other house it happened a lot. Daddy would take care of me and he would say that Momma was on tour, but she wasn't. I know cause she calls when she's on tour. When she's with Rafael she can't be bothered. That's what she told Daddy when he yelled at her about it. She told Daddy that he was a fine one to talk cause of some picture he kept in his drawer. Do you know what picture?"

"Your mother is very busy with her career right now," John said patiently. "You know that she loves you very much and misses you. I'll bet she's going to be so happy to see you this Christmas that she'll spoil you rotten."

Annabelle reached into the trunk and pulled out another picture. The dusty frame was cracked and it had not seen the light in years. "Daddy," she whispered. "That's my dad." Holding up the photograph proudly, she ran over and dumped it in John's lap.

He smiled at the young picture of his son, seeing only glimpses of the man he would grow to be. "That's your father. Not long before…That's your father."

Annabelle smiled proudly, staring at the handsome face smiling back at her. "Who's that with him?" she asked. Her finger ran through the dust, uncovering old faces of the past that most had forgotten.

"Well," John said slowly. "That right there is your Aunt Belle and her husband Phillip just after their wedding. And that lady there is my friend Kate." He couldn't believe how happy they all looked in that photograph, each of them smiling brightly and happily. There was no trace of the sadness that would befall them.

"And who's she?" Annabelle asked pointing at the woman beside her father.

"That's Nicole," John answered. It had been years since he had seen that picture, but time had done little to erase the wounds it created. Yet, he had never noticed his son's expression in the picture. While everyone else had been standing straight and facing the camera with their ready smiles on their faces, Brady's eyes were fixed on Nicole. He had never seen such a look from his son before, a mixture of pride, love, and happiness in even his accidental glance.

Annabelle took the picture back, holding it up above her head and staring at it in wonder. "She's pretty."

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Walking down the narrow hallway, Brady realized again just what a sheltered life he had led before. This was probably only the third time in his life that he had even been on this floor. Before he'd had secretaries, assistants, and even junior executives at his service, begging to do such menial tasks for him. Now they all looked at him with a certain degree of disdain, pity, and morbid curiosity. He had heard the jokes and sarcastic comments about his career, calling him nothing more than a toy for Nicole to play with when she wasn't too busy running the company. It was hard to deny they didn't hurt, but he wasn't deterred.

Walking through the doors to the copy room, he smiled at the familiar face behind the desk. At least this was one woman who would not be judging him for coming back here. "Faye," he greeted her with a certain restraint.

She smiled back and stood from her seat, looking a bit out of place in the setting. The clothes she wore fit her perfectly, altered by Nicole's private tailor. But they looked out of place on her thin form. Her hair was swept back in what appeared to have been a simple twist, but hours of harried request had let many of the strands escape and frizz around her. "Brady," she said a little too excitedly. "It's so good to see you."

"I'd heard that you were working here now, but I hadn't had the time to look you up." He glanced around the small office area, breathing in the strong odor of toner and ink in the air. The cold linoleum floor and stark white walls were institutional, not warm and friendly at all. Didn't Nicole's mother rank more than this? "I was looking for a copier?"

"Just place them here in this box. I'll try to get to them this afternoon," she promised distractedly. "The copy guy will be back by noon. He's supposed to teach me then. That machine back there is a monster. I always just thought you placed the original face down and hit copy. Not with that thing."

Brady looked at the overflowing stack of work that was piling up on her desk, realizing how over her head she was. "I need to get these to legal before then," he said contemplatively. "What do you say about me and you going and looking at that machine? I bet between the two of us, we'll get it running in no time."

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Nicole stared down at the spreadsheet, her eyes scanning the numbers that added together to detail the profits of the advertising department. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw Brady Black's name on the report. It was customary that newly recruited sales staff were expected to only perform at half the level of the other staff. It was a learning curve, the only break that she would give them. After that, she expected them to perform at full strength, providing the company's publishing interests with enough capitol to keep going for years to come. She accepted no excuses, reasons, or sob stories for under performing.

From the looks of the chart, Brady had none to offer. He had surpassed even the most stellar members of sales force, including bringing in a client that she had been working on for the past six months. She was amazed. Then again, she thought wryly, this was Brady Black. He had been a spectacular salesman even in his early years with the company. There was no doubt that he would be again.

The intercom buzzed to bring her out of her thoughts. "Ms. Walker?"

"Yes, Marie," she muttered as she shoved the documents back in their folder. "Yes?"

"Alex Dombrondy just called in sick," she said hesitantly. "He said he's got the flu. You've got that strategy session with Isah Cosmetics in fifteen minutes. Do you want me to call them and reschedule? They're expecting a pitch today about where they should spend their advertising dollars."

Nicole groaned, cradling her forehead in her hands. "Damn it," she cursed silently. "Call downstairs and get me whoever is there now. I know it's early, but I need a warm body. I don't care who it is."