The first time Elizabeth Webber saw him, she was nineteen and vacationing in Spain with her parents. The only child of wealthy jet-set parents, she’d spent most of her childhood traveling Europe, Asia and South America.
But she’d never seen anyone as handsome and charming as Jason Morgan. He was the twenty-one-year-old son of some of her parents’ friends. He grew up the same way she did–traveling from place to place.
She met him at a party in her parents’ penthouse suite of their hotel. She was dressed to the nines–looking far more mature and sophisticated than her nineteen years. Standing near the bar and serving–that was her job at these things.
He came up to her, smoothly asked for a dry martini. She served him with a graceful smile.
“I’ve never seen you at one of these before,” he remarked.
“I’m with my parents,” Elizabeth replied. “I’m on summer break from Cambridge University.”
“Which ones belong to you?”
“Cheri and Chris Webber–they’re over by the piano player,” Elizabeth gestured. “What about you?”
“I’m on break from Yale,” he told her. “And mine are the ones next to your parents–Heather and Chad Morgan.”
They’d bonded over their similar childhoods and exchanged stories about all the different places they’d been. He’d convinced her to abandon the bar and join him out on the terrace.
“So what are you studying at Cambridge?” he asked, sipping his second martini of the night.
“English Literature,” Elizabeth replied. She laughed. “I’m really only getting my degree because my parents insisted. I’d rather just continue living like they have–from place to place, you know?”
“Is that what you plan on doing after graduation?”
She nodded. “If I can, I’m going to graduate this year–early. I really want to travel without my parents. They’re always monitoring the places I go.”
“I feel the same way. I’m graduating this year from Yale and after that, I get my trust fund.”
She smiled and tilted her head to the side. “I guess we’ve got quite a lot in common.”
He’d kissed her for the first time that night. As night slid into dawn, he slid his hand over the nape of her neck and tugged her close to him. He was intoxicating–his smell, his taste, his touch–she wanted to drown in him.
She was in Spain for two weeks and even though his parents were leaving the next day, he stayed behind to be with her. They spent every moment of those two weeks together and by the time it was over, she knew he was the one.
But at the end of the summer, he went to Connecticut and she went to England. They wrote and called each other–she flew to see him over Thanksgiving and he came to England for Christmas.
It was over Christmas that she realized he was just as serious about them as she was. He rented the biggest suite in the most lavish hotel in London for the week he was there. She pretty much moved in with him during that time and she’d been floored when he mentioned his preference for that.
“This feels right,” he told her, wrapping his arms around her waist as they stood out on the large terrace. “I like going to sleep holding you and waking up with you.”
She smiled. “It doesn’t bother you that we haven’t slept together yet?”
“No, not really,” Jason replied. He kissed her neck. “When you’re ready, and it’s right it’ll happen. We have the rest of our lives.”
“We do?” she asked a little surprised. She twisted to look at him.
“Yeah.” He smiled at her–the little tender half-smile that never failed to make her melt. “I love you.”
She turned his arms and slid her fingers through his hair. “I love you, too,” she whispered.
They’d married the day after she graduated from Cambridge. He went to work at his father’s investment firm, taking a job that allowed him to travel extensively. And for the first two years, it was perfect. They were in love and doing exactly what they wanted when they wanted.
They’d been staying in San Francisco the cold winter during their second year of marriage. She’d been feeling kind of ill and she’d suspected she might be pregnant for almost a month before she finally bought the test.
And when she’d seen the positive result, a cold and clammy fear gripped her heart. Jason liked their life as it was. Would he welcome a baby? A baby that would throw their entire lives into whack–disrupt their every routine and change them–who they were, what they did…would he want that?
As soon as he’d come in from a meeting, she’d thrown herself into his arms, burying her face in his neck. Alarmed, he held her tightly, smoothing her hair down. “Baby?”
“I’m pregnant,” she reported, her voice muffled.
He drew away then, forcing him to look at her. Her eyes were wide with fear and she was shaking. “Pregnant?” he repeated.
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“Pregnant.”
“Yeah.”
He grinned then and twirled her in a circle before setting her on her feet and kissing her with more passion and desire than ever before. He broke it off abruptly and fell to his knees to raise her shirt over her stomach and kiss it gently. The action brought tears to her eyes and they slid down her cheeks soundlessly.
He got back to his feet and kissed her again, brushing the tears from her skin. “This is incredible,” he breathed. “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world.”
“You’re happy?” Elizabeth asked, genuinely surprised. “Really, truly happy?”
“Aren’t you?” he asked, suddenly paling. “Elizabeth–“
“Oh, God, I am happy,” she assured him, pressing a kiss to his lips. “Wildly ecstatically happy. I just…didn’t know if you would be.”
“I’m thrilled,” he replied. He kissed her again, his hands covering her abdomen. “We’re having a baby,” he whispered against her lips. She laughed and threw her arms around his neck and he twirled her again.
Her pregnancy had been relatively normal until the seventh month when she’d been diagnosed with hypertension and restricted to bed rest. Jason had promptly bought a large penthouse apartment in the town they were in at that moment–Port Charles, New York–and he told her in no uncertain terms that they weren’t moving until the baby was born.
Olivia Webber Morgan had come into the world eight weeks later and the moment Elizabeth held her tiny precious daughter, she’d fallen head over heels for her and decided that she would have the life Elizabeth hadn’t.
Jason was just as smitten with her. Within days, the nursery at the penthouse was overflowing with stuffed animals and all kinds of toys that Olivia wouldn’t be able to play with for years. Touched by her husband’s bottomless love for their daughter, Elizabeth decided it was a good time to tell him her decision.
“I want us to spend more time in one place,” she told him one night while breast feeding the baby. “I want Olivia to have the home I didn’t.”
“Whatever you want, baby,” Jason promised, kissing her forehead.
“I’d like to buy a house here in Port Charles,” Elizabeth continued. “And you can still travel but right now I want to be home with her.”
“I completely understand.”
She’d thought he did. She’d really believed it. But he didn’t. He expected her to do the same thing his mother and her mother had done. Spend time with Olivia for a few months and then put her in the care of well-trained nannies while they continued their former life. When Olivia was old enough and on vacation from whatever boarding school she was attending, she’d join them.
But Elizabeth didn’t want that. She wanted to raise her daughter herself–to be present when she took her first step, said her first word. She wanted to take her to her first day of kindergarten. She wanted Olivia to have a normal childhood.
And once Jason realized that Elizabeth intended on staying in Port Charles permanently…that’s when the trouble began.
“We always go to Paris in the spring,” he argued.
“Olivia’s not old enough to travel,” Elizabeth replied. She finished changing the baby and set her back in her crib. She smiled at the cherubic face. “Maybe I’ll go next year.”
He frowned. “We can just hire someone. I don’t know why we’re putting it off. We’re going to need to do it before the summer season anyway.”
Elizabeth sighed and pushed him out of the nursery before closing the door softly. “We’re not hiring anyone. I’m her mother.”
“I understand that, honey, but–“
“And I’m not going anywhere this summer. She might start talking and I don’t want to miss that.”
Jason slid his hands in his pockets and peered at her closely. “What are you saying Elizabeth?”
She bit her lip and looked down at the ground. “I’m not going to travel anymore–not like we did before.”
“Baby…that’s how we met,” Jason protested. “That’s all we know together.” He slid her hair through his fingers and smiled at her. “We’re good at that.”
She shook her head. “And now we’re parents and I want to be good at that.”
“Elizabeth, your whole life can’t revolve around Olivia,” Jason argued.
“Why not?” she challenged. “Other people do it. They spend their days carting their children from place to place. And they’re happy doing it.”
“Yeah, normal people. We’re not like them.”
“I hated not knowing my parents until I was old enough to join them on summer vacations. When I was four, I thought my nanny was my mother.” She shook her head. “Olivia needs this time with us. To learn our voices and become attached–to realize that we’re her parents. This is the time when bonds are formed. I can’t abandon her.”
“You’re not abandoning her–“
“I’m not going, Jason. And that’s final.”
She’d thought it would be okay. That eventually, he’d understand and he’d even appreciate the love she had for their daughter. She didn’t even begrudge him his own trips. She knew he loved to travel–he went to the posh places that people in their set was expected to go but he also went other places. He’d been thrilled to go to Hong Kong and Cairo. He’d visited Russia and Argentina, Kenya and Israel. He lived for those kinds of trips and she’d always understood. When she’d gotten sun poisoning in Egypt so he could visit the pyramids and when she’d gotten pneumonia visiting Siberia…she’d just accepted it as part of loving him.
He went about his own schedule–their usual one. He’d come in for some weekends but most of the time she rarely saw him and then the day came when she opened up a newspaper from France and she’d seen a picture of him attending some stupid party with a busty blonde on his arm.
Her heart had shattered and she wasn’t sure that it had ever recovered. While she was at home raising their daughter and setting roots down in the community for their daughter to thrive on…he was off in France, substituting a blonde for her.
When he’d come home from that particular trip, she’d given him both the newspaper and a copy of divorce papers. She loved him but she couldn’t–wouldn’t–deal with infidelity. He’d fought her–insisted that they’d just posed for the picture together. He loved her, he said, but he couldn’t understand why she didn’t love him anymore.
The thought that she didn’t love him was absurd–just because she wouldn’t put their daughter in the care of nannies and be like their parents–she loved him with everything inside her. She’d screamed that at him but he only shook his head. If she loved him, she’d compromise. And if he loved her, he would understand why she couldn’t.
And in the end, it’d been left at that. After days of arguing and getting nowhere, he’d thrown his hands up and signed the papers. He’d moved out the same day.
The actual divorce proceedings had been simple. She asked for nothing and wanted nothing. He’d argued for joint custody and it’d been awarded. Olivia would spend summers and various vacations with him while spending the bulk of her time in Port Charles with Elizabeth.
Jason had insisted on child support and signed an agreement to pay both support and alimony. After the divorce had been granted, he’d taken off for Europe.
And Elizabeth, shattered, had thrown her life into Olivia. After a while, her entire world revolved around the angelic little girl. Anything that didn’t have to do with her Elizabeth didn’t allow herself to think about it. When Jason remarried two years later to a woman named Elise Jacoby, she’d allowed herself one night to cry and scream before going on with her life.
The times Olivia was staying with Jason, Elizabeth would numbly move through her life, attending charity functions and doing various fundraisers. She never dated–never even thought about another man. Jason had been it for her and she’d always known that.
The spring that Olivia turned five years old marked the fourth year of their divorce. By this time, Olivia had spent half her life traveling on yachts and planes while Elizabeth served on the PTA, the Knights of Columbus and joined the country club.
For the first time since their divorce, Jason brought Olivia home personally instead of sending her with a driver or something. The young girl had been ecstatic–practically forcing her father inside the home to see her bedroom.
It was the first time Jason had seen the house since moving out four years earlier and the first time he’d seen Elizabeth since their last divorce hearing three and a half years ago.
The changes between the vivacious and carefree girl she’d been and the mature and demure woman she was now stunned him. She wore her long brown hair straight, her makeup was natural, her sundresses and evening gowns exchanged for a pair of blue jeans and a tank top.
“Elizabeth,” Jason said, nodding at her.
“Daddy’s gonna see my room!” Olivia announced gleefully. She tugged on her father’s hand. “Come on Daddy!”
Elizabeth barely had time to greet her daughter after not seeing her for two months before she’d dragged Jason up to the second floor. A little hurt and thrown by seeing Jason after so long, she followed them.
“This is my bathroom,” Olivia directed, “and that’s Mommy’s room–”
Jason glanced inside Elizabeth’s open bedroom door and saw that it looked exactly as it had the last time he’d been home–down to the comforter and sheets. Before he could see anymore than that Olivia was dragging him to the large and open room at the end of the hall.
“This isn’t the room we had the nursery in,” Jason thought out loud as he took in the room that had once served as his wife’s art studio.
“She liked this room the best,” Elizabeth said softly from behind him. He turned. “My studio is downstairs in the sunroom.”
“Look, Daddy,” Olivia gushed, holding up a picture frame. “That’s you and Mommy and me!”
He took it from her, drinking in the photograph that his mother had taken the day he’d brought Elizabeth and Olivia home from the hospital. His arm was around her shoulders, holding her to him tightly while she cradled their daughter. “I remember the day this was taken.”
“Mommy says it was the day I came home,” Olivia said, excitedly. Her face fell. “It’s the only picture I have of us.”
Elizabeth came forward. “What did you do this summer?” she asked, setting Olivia’s princess pink suitcase on her bed.
“Daddy and Elise took me to see the big clock in E-gland,” Olivia said, hopping onto the bed. “It was so cool, Mommy. Have you ever seen it?”
“Your mother went to school in England,” Jason reported, trying to divert Elizabeth’s attention from the mention of Elise. Elizabeth had never met his second wife and he preferred it that way.
“Wow, that’s so cool. I wish I went to school in E-gland,” Olivia chirped.
Elizabeth smiled. “Well, maybe you can go to college like I did. But if you went to actual school, you couldn’t see Maja or Lily.”
Olivia frowned. “Yeah, because I’d be in school all year and then summers with Daddy. I wouldn’t be able to play in the playground or go to Kelly’s with Em and Lily.” She scowled. “I wouldn’t get to see you either.”
“Who’s Maja, Lily and Em?” Jason asked curiously.
“Maja Spencer and Lily Cassadine,” Elizabeth replied. “They’re Olivia’s best friends from kindergarten this year.” She looked at him pointedly. “She loves her school.”
“Yeah, Daddy, I was in a play this year and Mommy says I can take ballet lessons with Maja this year.” She frowned. “You didn’t come to the play.”
Jason sighed and tousled his daughter’s dark hair. “I didn’t know or I would have been in the front row.”
Elizabeth snorted. “Perhaps you should check with your secretary since I left a message about it three times,” she muttered.
“Will you come see me in a ballet recital this year?” Olivia asked hopefully.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Jason swore. He checked his watch and sighed. “I gotta go, Princess. I don’t want to miss my flight.”
Olivia crossed her arms stubbornly. “I want you to,” she pouted. “Because then you could stay here and we could be family again.”
Elizabeth froze in the middle of the packing, her back to her ex-husband and daughter. Oh, God. They’d tried to make life as normal for Olivia as possible but when she saw people like Emily and Nikolas Cassadine or Lucky and Jessica Spencer…she had to know that her parents living on opposite ends of the earth wasn’t normal.
“We are a family,” Jason said, kneeling in front of her. He rested his hands on her scabby knees and smiled at her. “You, me, your mother and Elise. We’re a family.”
Elizabeth gripped the dresser tightly at the mention of his new wife. Elise Jacoby-Morgan was not part of her family. Not now. Not ever. She didn’t even have to meet the woman to know she despised her.
“Nobody else I know has two mommies,” Olivia sniffled.
A sharp pain lanced through Elizabeth’s heart at the very idea that Elise was Olivia’s mother. This is what she’d wanted to avoid all those years ago when she refused to hire a nanny.
“You don’t have two mommies,” Jason corrected. “Elise is not your mother. She’s just my wife. Elizabeth is your mother and no one else, baby.”
“Then why don’t we live together like a real family?” Olivia asked, her big blue eyes welling up with tears. “Nobody else I know has an Elise.”
Elizabeth shut the last dresser door and sat down next to her daughter. “Sometimes adults don’t get along enough to live together,” she said softly, wrapping an arm around Olivia. The little girl burrowed into her mother’s side. “That doesn’t mean they don’t love each other or you. It’s just that they’re better off apart.”
“Maja’s parents fight and they still live together.”
“We’re not Maja’s parents,” Jason told her softly. “”And everyone has different fights.”
“Then you should find a way to work it out,” Olivia remarked stubbornly. She pouted. “If I have to work it out with old meanie Kristina Davis then you should do it too.”
“It’s not the same thing as when Kristina threw sand in your hair,” Elizabeth replied. She kissed her on top of the head. “Say goodbye to Daddy so he doesn’t miss his flight.”
Olivia pulled away from Elizabeth and threw herself into Jason’s arms. “Don’t go, Daddy, please!” she cried, burrowing her face into his neck. “I’ll be really really good and Mommy will be, too. Just stay.”
Elizabeth stood and left the room abruptly. She couldn’t do this anymore–couldn’t sit there and answer her daughter’s questions about why she and Jason weren’t together anymore because truthfully Elizabeth wasn’t even sure anymore. God, she’d loved him. She still did. She didn’t know how he could have married someone else when she couldn’t imagine being anyone else’s wife.
She busied herself in the living room downstairs working on another fundraiser for the PTA. After a few moments, she heard Jason clearing his throat in the doorway.
“She’s asleep,” he told her quietly. “Cried herself there.”
Elizabeth exhaled slowly. “I’ll take care of it,” she told him. She hesitated. “Thank you for what you said about her not having two mothers.”
He shrugged. “You might not think I was listening back when you explained all the reasons why you didn’t want to hire a nanny, but I was. I had the same childhood you did, Elizabeth. And it didn’t hurt either one of us. So why would you think it’d hurt Olivia?”
Her eyes burned with tears. “You mean any worse than we’re hurting her now?” she asked in a pained voice. She pressed a hand to her forehead and turned away. “Just go, Jason. I don’t feel like having the same argument again. It’s over.”
“Sometimes I think I would have been better off making my own martini that first night,” he told her.
Stung, she turned to him, the tears sliding down her cheeks. “What?”
“If I’d just avoided talking to you, then I wouldn’t have to watch my daughter cry and beg me to stay every time I leave.”
“You wouldn’t have your daughter,” Elizabeth said coldly. “And don’t you dare make this all my fault. I’m not the one who broke my marriage vows.”
“God, Elizabeth, how many times do we have to go over this?” he demanded. “I just posed for a damn picture with her. I don’t even remember her name.”
She snorted. “Yeah. Whatever.”
“I never touched her. You were the only woman I wanted–even if you were being incredibly unreasonable,” he spat.
“It was unreasonable to want to raise my own child? To want to have a home?” she asked, stunned. “That’s unreasonable?”
“You wouldn’t bend–not even a little,” he retorted. “You wouldn’t leave her a weekend to go away with me. It was always Olivia with you. It’s like the second she was born, your first thought was about her. You stopped caring what I wanted–”
“You stopped caring first,” Elizabeth interrupted. “You were the one who would go on trips for weeks at a time. Half the time you never called, and when you did, you wouldn’t even ask about her.”
“I didn’t need to have a house in some hick town to have a home,” Jason replied, irritated. “You were my home. I never needed some stupid pile of bricks to make me feel secure.”
“You bought this house,” Elizabeth accused. “You decided we were going to stay in Port Charles.”
“I bought a penthouse until she was born. You wanted this house and I bought it because I thought it would be temporary,” Jason retorted.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Elizabeth cried. She whirled and pushed her way out of the living room and into the kitchen where she leaned against the wall. Oh, God, she still loved him. How was that possible? After all they’d done to each other, why were they still going in the same circles?
She heard a soft knock. “Elizabeth, I really do have to go. Tell Olivia that I love her.”
“Okay.”
“And Elizabeth?”
She closed her eyes. She’d always loved the way he said her name. His voice always dropped an octave and sometimes two after they made love. “What?” she asked painfully.
“I…I never wanted to hurt you. You know that right?”
“I never wanted to hurt you either,” she whispered.
“Goodbye.”
She heard his footsteps walking across the living room and then the door opened and then closed. She sank to the floor and started to cry.
