Chapter Twenty One
“Yes, she’s here with me,” Aralyn said into the phone. “Okay, we’ll be here.”
She hung up and looked at Tiffany. “That was Cam. He and Dean are on the way over.”
“What for?” Tiffany asked listlessly.
It was Saturday afternoon, and they were in the den of Tiffany’s house. There was no game this weekend, and they were both glad. Tiffany was worn out from being part of the rumor mill all week and in no shape to play.
“He says he has information for us. Maybe it’s about Tony,” Aralyn said.
Tiffany looked away. His phone had been cut off and he had disappeared. There hadn’t been an email, a text or anything from him. Dean had gone by the apartment and everything was gone. Tony had vanished.
“How could he just leave me like that? He said he loved me!” Tiffany wept.
Aralyn held her cousin as they sat on Tiffany’s bed. She was torn between wanting to comfort her cousin and hunt down Tony Roth for castration.
“I don’t know, Tiff,” Aralyn had replied. She hated seeing her cousin shattered this way but she wouldn’t defend of make excuses for the man. She hoped Grandpa Matt had taken care of him. She knew their grandfather could easily make someone disappear and if Honey had called her father to tell her what had happened…
The boys arrived within fifteen minutes of the call.
Cam kissed Aralyn hello and kept his arms around her.
“What’s up?” she asked.
“I think you’ll want to sit down,” he answered.
Tiffany hadn’t moved from her spot on the sofa, but Aralyn perched herself in Cam’s lap. Dean took one of the other chairs.
“We finally got some answers on Mr. Roth,” Cam said.
Tiffany tensed. “That sounds ominous, Cam.”
“It’s not good, but I want you to hear this from us.”
She waited.
“A records search on Tony Roth turned up a driver’s license that he got last year. Before that, there are no records, at all, of Tony Roth.”
“Are you saying he changed his name?” Aralyn asked.
Tiffany just stared at her friends.
Cam nodded as Dean took up the story, holding a printout in his hand.
“This surfaced on my photography board. It took some digging but I managed to confirm that Tony Roth used to be known as Jack Watson. He’s been trying to get his degrees reissued in his new name, presumably so he can teach again, but he’s only been able to substitute teach so far. I don’t know how he’d get those reissued, but he was trying. And his resume was mostly a lie. You’d think a school would be thorough in hiring its teacher but he slipped through a crack or around their vetting process.”
Tiffany just stared at her friends, not reaching for the paper Dean was holding out to her. He finally set it down ion the table.
“He did a good job of hiding his trail,” Dean continued, “but we did track down Jack Watson’s background. There wasn’t a trial because the student was eighteen, but he was fired for seducing a couple of his students two years ago.”
Aralyn gasped as Tiffany closed her eyes.
Dean’s eyes were sad as he looked at his old friend. “I’m sorry, Tiff. But he lied. About everything. There’s also a sealed record involving him when he was eighteen. Because it’s sealed, it indicates a minor was involved. I called a friend at the police station, and they searched his computer. It’s ugly, Tiffany.”
“Tell me,” she whispered.
Dean hesitated.
“Dean, please,” she said.
He finally answered. “Emails to you, and two other students, including Callie West. A video on his laptop of him and Callie. The emails were pretty explicit. And a lot of pornography. To barely legal age sites, possibly some underage.”
Tiffany shook her head violently. Dean glanced at Cam, who continued.
“Tiffany, none of the students are under eighteen so there won’t be charges pressed. But he really did lie to you.”
“How could he?” she whispered.
Dean moved to sit next to her, slipping one arm around her.
“Tiff, he’s a master con. There’s no way you could have known. My police contact told me the emails said all the right things to each girl. I’m pretty sure if we dig deeper, we’ll find a similar story from other girls. You didn’t stand a chance. He knew what he was doing.”
“But he loved me,” she whispered, her hazel eyes filled with tears.
Dean’s heart hurt for his longtime friend. “I don’t know, Tiffany. But he’s not the guy you thought he was. At all.”
A sob escaped Tiffany and Dean pulled her into his arms as she cried. When she finally stopped, Aralyn silently passed Dean the box of tissues, who handed them to Tiffany. Aralyn wiped her own eyes a couple of times, hurting for her cousin.
“How did the school board not know about all this?” Aralyn asked. “Don’t they run background checks on their substitutes?”
“He did amazingly well covering his tracks. The school board is pretty meticulous about hiring teachers, even subs, and he managed to slip past all of their checks,” Cam answered. “Fake resume, fake recommendations. Probably just friends.”
Tiffany drew her legs up and placed her forehead on them. The curtain of dark hair hid her face from her friends and cousin.
“In this day and age, how could he manage all that?” Aralyn demanded. “Background checks, schools, teaching credentials?”
“I don’t know,” Cam answered. “He must know someone awfully good with computers. And he studied drama in high school. Jack Watson almost got an acting scholarship to Julliard. He literally created a whole new life, and a whole new persona, as Tony Roth.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Tiffany asked, raising her tear streaked face. “Couldn’t you let me have good memories of him?”
“Because we weren’t the only ones looking into it,” Dean said quietly. “It’s going to hit the media pretty fast, and we wanted you to hear from us instead.”
“Callie West is talking to anyone and everyone, trying to get her fifteen minutes,” Cam added.
“Who else knows?” Aralyn asked.
Dean answered.
“The school board has launched its own investigation, to determine how they were conned into hiring the guy. Substitutes are always checked for sex offenses and other criminal offenses. He had neither. He did take the mandatory class about proper conduct, but anyone can get through that with the right answers. He could get bonded because he had a new social security number.”
Tiffany wiped her eyes. “Was he really sleeping with all of those other girls?” she whispered.
Dean looked away. Cam hesitated, then answered.
“Yes,” he said simply. “And we’re positive Callie had something to do with those photos, because the photos of her are so explicit, especially through the window shots. The rest of the girls are like your photos, just at the door, more subtle. Callie wanted people to know about her and let’s face it, if she can’t hurt Aralyn directly, you’re the best route to doing so. The other girls have no reason to lie. One has admitted it was just a flirtation and never went to sex, but there’s apparently a girl from another school where he subbed earlier in the year.”
Tiffany placed her head on her knees again and cried silently. Dean put his arm around her, rubbing her back gently. Worried looks were exchanged between him, Cam and Aralyn.
When the boys left a little while later, Tiffany followed Dean outside to give Cam and Aralyn some privacy.
“Dean,” she said awkwardly.
He turned, forcing himself to smile. “Yeah?”
“I’m sorry, again,” she said. “And I wanted to say thank you. I know sometimes I’m not always nice with you and you’ve been nothing but a good friend to me through this all. You even tried to warn me. I never should have accused you of taking those pictures, I know you’d never do something like that to hurt me.”
Dean felt the pain in his heart. She’d never feel about him the way he did about her, he knew it now for sure.
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t want Tim to think I didn’t keep an eye on you even after all these years,” he said lightly.
Tiffany stepped forward and hugged him, and Dean let himself hug her back, enjoying the moment. When she stepped away, she kissed his cheek.
“I mean it, Dean. I know that’s not what you want to hear, and sometimes I wish I could have deeper feelings for you but…You’re my friend. A very good friend whom I know I can rely on. Thank you.”
“Anytime,” he smiled. “I know we’ll never be together, Tiff, and while it really sucks, I’m okay with it. Besides, I have a feeling I’m going to be entangled with you Belden-Duke girls for a long time to come.”
Tiffany half smiled. “There are worse things for us, I suppose. But don’t you poach my underage cousins!”
He flashed her his easy grin. “I promise. And again, I’m sorry, Tiffany. I know it wasn’t easy to hear all of that.”
Impulsively, she kissed his lips, quickly and gently. “Thanks again.”
Cam and Aralyn appeared in the doorway and Dean just nodded.
***
Tiffany braced herself for media crawling on the campus over the next few days but there was none. She was guessing a call to her grandfather squashed a lot of the hubbub.
Callie West was in a foul mood, which pleased Tiffany and Aralyn. They knew Callie was eager to be in the news as ‘the’ girl. No other names were being released but Callie made sure her name was included. She spun it to make herself the tragic victim of the seductive teacher, but Aralyn and Tiffany knew there was no victim in that pairing.
Tiffany found herself more tolerant of Dean these days, and his teasing was more gentle. Part of her wished she had feelings for him, she had seen the real Dean that she remembered from childhood. But the feelings just weren’t there. It would be funny though, she thought, if Dean ended up with one of her cousins.
She tried to picture him with sassy Dana. No, Tim would come unglued over his baby sister. Social butterfly and artist Rayma? Possibly. Dean enjoyed art and photography. Sweet Mabon, who took after Aralyn in the not-knowing-what-she-wanted-to-do department? Tiffany had trouble seeing that too. Valerra was out of the question, she wasn’t even a teenager yet. Maybe Dean and Aralyn would get together sometime. That made her grimace.
The days crept by and she heard nothing from Tony. It was for the better, she finally decided. If she had run into him, she would want answers, she would want to yell, scream, maybe hit him. As it was, she was cried out. She found herself walking the neighborhood at night when she couldn’t sleep, thinking, remembering, and wishing she had never laid eyes on Tony Roth, or Jack Watson.
Her suspicions were confirmed when she was summoned to her grandfather’s estate that weekend. In his private study, the big, comforting room she had always loved as a child, she faced a stern Matthew Wheeler. His hair was mostly gray now, just a little rid bit of red was left. His face was lined with age and life, his green eyes sober. His Armani suit was wrinkle free, outlining a still healthy and in shape form.
Matthew Wheeler sat brooding as he waited for his granddaughter. The apple of his eye, and whom he suspected the reason for more than one successful business deal. Even the most staunchly opposed businessmen had seemed to melt when she wandered in, a pretty little cherub with big hazel eyes and rosebud lips. She often wandered off from her mother, and sought out her Grandpa, who always scooped her up and held her on his knee, even during business meetings that weren’t supposed to be interrupted.
Matthew loved all of his grandchildren, even those that didn’t carry his bloodline, but Tiffany was really his first. She had been a happy, vibrant baby, playing with Aralyn. Tiffany hadn’t had any of Honey or grace’s sickliness or delicateness as a baby.
Now she sat before him, looking very small and crushed. His temper had finally cooled, after the visit he had received the two weeks before. Tiffany would never know the length her friends would go to in order to protect her, he thought, but they had certainly earned his respect.
He had been sitting down to lunch in his New York City office when his secretary buzzed him. “Mr. Wheeler, there are two young men here to see you. They claim to be friends of your granddaughter, Tiffany. A Mr. Cam Kent and Dean Acklen.”
Matthew knew immediately there was trouble and the boys were escorted in. He had met them both, Dean many times.
“Thank you for seeing us, Mr. Wheeler,” Cam said as they shook hands with the multi-billionaire.
“These are odd circumstances, boys. What brings you to the city on a school day?”
“It’s about Tiffany,” Cam said.
Dean had gone to Tim’s mother, Daisy Mangan to ask for Matthew’s direct office number and location. Daisy didn’t ask questions, knowing this was something big.
“We’ll get to the point, Mr. Wheeler,” Dean said, meeting the businessman’s gaze. “All Hell is about to break loose at her school, and we think you’re the only one who can contain it.”
The story had come out. A myriad of emotions went through Matt as he listened with his best poker face to the evidence Cam and Dean presented.
Matthew had been stunned first, then enraged that his granddaughter had been suckered in by the con artist. And taken advantage of.
Finally, he stood and paced the room. “What do I need to do?”
The boys exchanged a glance. “We have an idea,” Dean said.
Tiffany took a seat across from Matthew at his desk. When she was younger, she often sat in this chair while he worked, if Aralyn wasn’t available. He would make his phone calls, barking at people sometimes, pouring on the sugar into his voice for other deals.
She felt like she was five years old again as she sat across from him.
“Hi, Grandpa,” she said quietly.
He didn’t smile, his eyes didn’t light up and his emotionless face made Tiffany feel very small. Folding his hands on top of his desk and leaning forward slightly, the emerald green eyes stared hard at his oldest granddaughter.
“I want to know what possessed my very intelligent granddaughter to do something so incredibly boneheaded as to get involved with her teacher,” he said sternly.
Tiffany shook her head. “I love him.”
Fire flared in the older man’s eyes. “You love him? You love this man who has so few scruples as to seduce his student who is barely eighteen? Did you know he has a history of this?”
“No,” she whispered, blinking back tears. “Not until Dean found out.”
“What were you thinking?” he asked again. He held up a thick file and she knew it would contain every bit of information on Tony publicly available, and some that wasn’t.
Tiffany couldn’t stop a tear. “I was thinking that for the first time ever, an attractive man had noticed me. Not Aralyn, not my name or money, but me. A man finally interested in me because he thought I was smart, and pretty and he liked being with me.” The tears were coming freely now.
Matthew shook his head. “Tiffany, you are a beautiful girl. You’re very smart. Boys must see this all the time, why on earth did you get involved with an older man? It’s not even the age part that bothers me, but he was your teacher! How did you get sucked into such a con?”
Tiffany wiped her eyes. “Grandpa, I’m not like Aralyn, or Rayma or Dana. I don’t have boys falling all over me. They annoy me. I thought Tony was interesting, and he liked me back. He was kind, and sensitive, and well educated. It was just bad luck he was my teacher.”
“Bad luck?” Matthew shouted, standing up. Tiffany cringed a little. Grandpa Matt never raised his voice with her. “Bad luck that a man in a teaching position, a supervisory position, who is entrusted to look out for our children, seduced one?”
“He didn’t seduce me!” she cried. “Everyone thinks I’m some innocent little girl in this and I’m not! I knew what I was doing, Grandpa, and I could have stopped him. I didn’t want to! I wanted to be with him!”
Matthew stared at his granddaughter.
“I’m eighteen, Grandpa, a legal adult. I can make my own decisions. And I did. Maybe they were bad ones, but I love him!” she yelled.
Matthew’s hands touched his desk as leaned forward, eyes flashing with anger.
“You might be an adult legally, Tiffany but you’ve never had a boyfriend. You’re too young to know what love is!” he said angrily.
Tiffany shook her head and was on her feet, drawing herself to her full height. “You’re wrong, Grandpa. Mom fell in love with Dad when she wasn’t much older than me. And Trixie and Bo, and Dan and Daisy. And they all turned out happily. Tony loved me! He said so! The happiest times I’ve had recently were with him. The only happy times I’ve had recently were with him! So don’t you tell me I don’t know what love is!”
Matthew was startled, his soft spoken granddaughter had never spoken like that to him.
Tiffany took a deep breath. She had to know. “Did you make him disappear?” she demanded.
“Yes,” he said firmly, without remorse. “You will never find him. And he will never contact you.”
“Why?” she whispered, fresh tears coming. Her knees felt weak and she slumped down back into the chair. “You had no right!”
“I had every right!” Matthew shouted. “You’re my granddaughter and I will protect you and my family however I see fit! He broke so many ethical rules here, Tiffany, I don’t know where to start! He had sex with a student! And you’re not the first! If I didn’t take action, there would have been another.”
“No, there wouldn’t have!” she shouted. “Why does no one understand that he loved me?”
“Tiffany, my sweet girl, he didn’t love you,” Matthew said calmly, trying to be gentle. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but he didn’t. His name isn’t Roth, it’s Watson. Jack Watson. He had his name changed so he wouldn’t be labeled a pervert. I’ve seen his records, my sweet girl. Had the school realized he had been involved with a student prior, he never would have been hired.”
Tiffany didn’t tell him she already knew this. She wiped her eyes and sank into the chair.
“If he loved you, he would have told you who he was. You don’t keep secrets like that from people you love. He was never honest with you,” Matthew tried to be gentle, tried to understand what his granddaughter was feeling.
Tears spilled from her hazel eyes and she slumped in her chair. “Grandpa,” she looked up at him, “please, I have to believe he loved me.”
Matt came around the desk and pulled the second chair so he could sit in it and face her. He took her slender hands in his, and held them tightly.
“Tiffany, you are very much loved by this family, why is it so important to have this man’s attention?”
“Because I love him,” Tiffany said sadly. “And I knew it was wrong but I justified it by insisting he loved me. And if he didn’t love me, if it was all a sham, then it means I’m stupid, and naïve and I can’t bear the shame I’ve brought on me and my family,” she whispered. “I’ve disappointed everyone and it hurts so much. If he didn’t love me, than I’m a stupid idiot who fell for a con and it was all for nothing.”
Now Matthew began to understand. He gathered her to him as if she were still six and held her while she cried.
“You haven’t shamed this family, Tiffany,” he said soothingly. “We all make mistakes. We’re just trying to understand how this happened. You’re only naïve in the matters of the heart, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of, especially at your age. This man was a world class con artist, and he knew what he was doing. You were his target and he knew what to say and do you to manipulate you. You’re not the suspicious type, my darling girl, you trust too easily. And this man played on that. You and those other girls. He knew what he was doing, Tiffany, and that might not make you feel better now, but one day you’ll come to realize this was not your fault,” he said gently. “And I will always love you, no matter what you do. You couldn’t bring shame to me if you tried. This family will always stand behind you, you know that.”
“Did you really send him away?” she whispered.
He nodded.
“I expect you’ll be angry with me for a while over that, but I hope someday you’ll see that I will do whatever it takes to protect my family, without hesitation or remorse.”
Tiffany nodded, as she wiped her eyes.
“You may never understand how much you to mean to me,” he continued gently, “but family comes first. And I will always be there for you.”
Tiffany didn’t know what to say as she realized she would likely never see Tony again.
***
She tried not to think about their time together as the days slipped by. It made her skin crawl now, to know she had given her heart and virginity to such a vile poacher. Honey and Luke had softened greatly in their attitude towards her, wanting only to help their daughter heal.
Tiffany Grace Duke was sure of one thing. It was going to be a damn long time before she gave herself to another man.
Meet the cast in full & see the family tree!
Author’s Notes
- A huge yee-haa to the fabulous Donna, for editing this!
- Tiffany's got a long road ahead of her but she'll be be okay. She's a tougher girl than most realize.
- Word Count, 3,726
| 
