by L. D. Davis
“Oh, I hear a ‘but’ coming,” she snorted. “Let me guess. You want out of our agreement? You’ve fallen in love with some poor, clueless woman?”
That shook me a little bit. Was that why I was calling it off? Could I say that I was…in love? Was it more than just being respectful to Emmy? Was it more?
I chose to ebb around that instead of answering Viv directly.
“Whatever my reasons are, they are my own,” I said quietly.
“That’s it, isn’t it? You know I can smell a lie—even one of omission—even through the phone line. It’s part of what makes me good at what I do and why I didn’t hang around in a marriage with a philandering husband. Luke Kessler,” she sighed, but I could almost hear her smiling. “You soft hearted fool. I had no idea you were such a pussy for love.”
There was that word again. Love. I didn’t know how to respond because I wasn’t really sure myself where my mind and heart was. She continued talking, not requiring a response.
“Very well then,” Viv said. “For the record, I did enjoy your unusually large appendage. You were well worth the time. I’ll see you in court next month. If you delay for anything less than death, I will walk into your office myself and kick your ass. Take this time to prepare to lose.”
I laughed. “Don’t count on it, Deluca.”
Chapter Eleven
“Shit!” I cried out when Emmy woke me up and told me the time. I scrambled off of the couch, saying “I can’t be late!”
She smacked my arm as I passed by her. “Don’t curse in front of Lucas, dumbass!”
I wanted to argue that she just did that very thing. How could shit be any worse than dumbass? But I didn’t have time to argue. I had a very big day in court, up against Vivian Deluca of all people, and I could. Not. Be. Late.
I rushed into the master bath and started the shower. I was so frantic, I started to step into the shower wearing my boxers and t-shirt. I struggled out of the clothing and climbed into the shower without checking the temperature. I let out a string of curse words as water hotter than Hades hit my skin. I adjusted the temperature and grabbed the body wash Emmy buys for me. Just when I started to wash, the curtain pulled back slightly and a hand appeared in front of me holding a toothbrush with the toothpaste already on it. I grabbed the toothbrush and began the almost impossible task of washing myself with one hand while brushing my teeth.
I got out of the shower in record time and rushed into the bedroom with a towel around my waist, and once again my clothes were laid out on the bed. Emmy knew it was a big day in court and chose my best suit, charcoal gray and a blue shirt the same shade as my bright blue eyes. I dressed quickly only to discover I didn’t have a tie, but Em breezed in with my most impressive tie, also blue but with gray stripes. I expected her to just hand it to me, but she surprised me when she flipped my collar up and expertly and quickly began tying the tie.
“I packed up your briefcase, too,” she said as she worked.
“Thank you,” I breathed. I had stayed up late into the night going over everything and fell asleep with the papers scattered across the coffee table. I didn’t have to worry that Em put the paperwork in wrong or disorganized, because she always seemed to know just what to do and how to do it.
She smoothed the tie down my chest. “Get your shoes on and I’ll meet you at the front door,” she said and walked out of the room.
I put my shoes on quickly and raced out of the room. Emmy managed to hold Lucas, a paper bag, my briefcase, keys, and phone. I was so very grateful for her. From the day she moved in with Lucas, regardless of how I treated her, Emmy always took care of me. I’ve been the shifty one, but despite her hardships and the black cloud that seemed to linger even when she was doing well, she was like a rock.
I thanked her as I gathered my brown bag breakfast, my briefcase, phone, and keys from her. I kissed Lucas goodbye as I did every morning. Even though I already thanked Emmy, it wasn’t enough. My words would never be enough to show my appreciation or to even describe the feelings that were steadily growing for her. I gave her the best I could give her at the time and kissed her cheek before I walked out the door.
***
I beat the skirt off of Vivian Deluca after five days of battle. She was so damn angry and it only made me grin more. I like beating Vivian. She’s a true shark and sometimes it’s nice being the bigger badder shark-eating shark. I spoke to my clients for a few minutes, promising to follow up with them in a few days before they left. Vivian’s clients had gone as well, leaving only the two of us alone in the room.
“Congratulations,” Vivian said, as she closed up her briefcase.
“You don’t mean that,” I said, unable to hide my self-satisfied grin.
“I do not say things I do not mean, Mr. Kessler.”
I held the swinging door open for her and she breezed through it.
“If you wouldn’t have ended our arrangement, I would have fucked you until my anger abated,” she said conversationally.
“I’m sure that would have been…interesting,” I said.
“Oh, I would have brought you to your knees,” she promised.
“I guess we’ll never know,” I said, opening the door for her.
“I suppose not. My office will be in touch.”
She stalked off without another word, making people scatter out of her way with just her overbearing presence.
What a woman. Just not the woman for me.
I stopped to chat with the security guard for a moment, asking about his wife and kid. I was feeling very upbeat as I practically skipped down the steps of the courthouse. My morning had started out a little crazy, but Emmy steered me straight and everything perked up from there. Even though we were in court all damn day and I battled Vivian as if she was some medieval monster—and I did not come out unscathed—I had a phenomenal day. Nothing was going to bring me down.
Maybe I would just stop back at the office for only a few minutes and head home a little early. Maybe I’d call Emmy and tell her to get Lucas ready and take them out to dinner. We had gone out only a couple of times since we started communicating again, and it was always with other family members. This time we could go out just the three of us, as our own family.
I liked the sound of that. It made my smile widen.
Nothing was going to bring me down.
Except the sight of Claire standing outside of my office, with a nice, round, couldn’t-miss-it-from-the-moon pregnant belly.
Chapter Twelve
“I heard someone had a big win today!” Emmy said when I walked through the door at home.
I was down. Claire dragged my high spirits down to earth and kicked them through the mud, but Emmy looked so delighted, I shoved away any thoughts of Claire as best I could. I forced myself to smile as I kissed her cheek for the second time that day.
“I made you a celebratory dinner,” she smiled.
Her smile penetrated my skin and spread throughout my body. Though Em has been offering up smiles more often lately, it was rare to see one that derived from within her soul.
I picked Lucas up in the living room and followed Emmy into the kitchen. I could smell the garlic smashed potatoes and the green beans that probably simmered with bacon and onions for a good while. She pulled steaks out of the broiler a moment after I walked in.
“I heard that Deluca woman is demonic,” Emmy said, casting a glance at me. “I’m glad you beat her.”
I wasn’t about to volunteer up any further information about Vivian.
“I’m glad, too,” I said.
She turned around and looked closely at me. I turned my eyes to Lucas and asked him about his day and attempted one of our insanely cute, but manly conversations, but Emmy put the kibosh on that.
“What’s wrong?” she asked with a hand on her hip. “Why aren’t you happy about your big win?”
I looked at her with feigned surprise. “I am happy,” I countered.
“Something is bothering you.”<
br />
She was one to talk about something bothering someone. She who has nightmares and keeps quiet about her apparently violent past.
“I’m tired. It was a rough battle,” I said, trying to smile casually.
Her eyes flitted over me and then she gave a half shrug. “Okay. Well, I hope your dinner makes up for the ‘rough battle.’”
“It will—it does,” I said meaningfully. “I’m going to go change.”
“Okay,” she said, looking at me with veiled apprehension.
I set Lucas down. The moment his feet hit the floor he was off and running. I eased past Emmy and went into the bedroom. I changed in slow motion, sometimes stopping with my hands frozen on my shirt as I unbuttoned it as my conversation with Claire bounced around unwanted in my head. I said no one could bring me down and I had been wrong. Claire brought me down. To my knees.
“You’re pregnant,” were the first words I blurted out to her.
“I think I know that now,” she answered bitterly.
“You said…but you…you said…” I sputtered as I stared at her round belly.
“Do you want to have this conversation out here on the sidewalk or can we go inside?” She didn’t wait for me to answer her. She marched over to the door to the firm and went inside. I lingered on the sidewalk for a few seconds before following her inside.
The staff and my attorneys tried not to stare as I walked by, following Claire who had made a hot beeline to my office, but I could feel their eyes on me anyway. Everyone knew Emmy. Most everyone loved Emmy, and those that didn’t love her still respected her. Everyone also knew that we weren’t a couple, but no matter how you look at it, it still looked like a betrayal. I was bitterly thankful that Emmy had gone down to part time and only came into the office a couple of days a week and today was one of her days off.
I stepped inside my office and closed the door behind me before taking a seat behind my desk. Claire sat across from me, looking at everything but me.
“You said you weren’t pregnant,” I said, and for the first time since I ran into her on the sidewalk I was feeling some anger towards her.
“I said I got my period,” she said, looking at something off to her left.
“You lied to me.”
“I didn’t lie.”
“You said something happened that didn’t.”
“It happened. I did get my period.”
“You’re pregnant, Claire!”
“Thank you for again stating the obvious,” she muttered.
“Will you fucking look at me!” I roared so loudly that she jumped in her seat. I had no doubts that I was heard throughout the office.
Claire slowly dragged her eyes to mine.
I spoke with clipped words. “Explain to me. Why. You are sitting in my office. With a fetus. Growing inside of you.”
She visibly shivered at my tone and flinched at the word fetus.
“It wasn’t a normal period,” she said just above a whisper. “It was extremely light and only lasted a couple of days. I was stressed out after the accident and just assumed it was because of stress.”
“It took you five months to tell me,” I growled. “Five months! Five and a half months!”
“At least it is before the baby is born,” she said tightly.
“Don’t do that,” I pointed at her. “Don’t you even think about bringing her into this. Don’t compare what you are doing to what Emmy did.”
“I couldn’t even begin to compare, because what she did is so much worse!” Claire rebutted.
“You can’t compare because you’re not her!” I snapped. “You will never be her. So, if you think this little scheme showing up months later with a baby growing in your belly is going to somehow draw us closer, you are pathetically wrong.”
She sat there staring at me with her mouth slightly open. Tears pooled in her eyes but didn’t spill out. She could cry all day, it wasn’t going to make me sympathetic. I know she didn’t break the condom—at least I hoped she didn’t sabotage the condom—and I had an equal part in making the baby—if it was indeed mine—but waiting to tell me was bullshit. It seemed very shady that she would wait to tell me. Claire and I had known each other since grade school and clearly we did not know each other well at all. I would never think that she would deceive me like this and she must have not had known that I would react so negatively.
“I guess the two of you are back together,” she said with bitterness as she wiped away the tears that had escaped.
“No,” I answered, looking at her with disdain. “We are not, but we are…doing well as a family.”
“You love her?” she asked weakly and looked at me with an expression that hoped I would say no.
I had to make sure she understood that no matter what happened with that baby growing inside of her that there would never be anything between us again. She just completely obliterated any chance of us ever being friends again. Up until I saw her pregnant belly, I still cared about her. But now I didn’t care at all. I lost any and all positive feelings for Claire. She had no qualms doing to me what Emmy did to me, knowing how hurt I had been then. She was willing to hurt me all over again for her own gain. Unforgivable.
“I never stopped loving her,” I said in a loud, clear voice as I glared at her. “I will always love Emmy.”
She looked down for a moment and silently wiped away more tears. After a moment she took a very deep, shaky breath, reached into her purse and pulled out a folded piece of paper. She looked at me with belligerence as she passed me the paper.
“I need your DNA,” she said.
“You seriously just served me for paternity testing?” I growled. “I guess this means that you fucked around with other people while we were together.”
“Oh give me a break,” she snapped, rolling her eyes. “We weren’t ‘together.’ You made it very clear that we weren’t. Don’t look at me like that and speak to me like that. You and I were not in a committed relationship, so I saw other people.”
“I don’t really give a shit that you saw other people,” I grinded out as I leaned towards her. “I really don’t. What I care about is that you were obviously fucking other people without protection, putting me at risk, and anyone else I have been with.”
Her eyes widened. “You dumped me because you didn’t have time but slept with other people?” she asked incredulously.
“That isn’t any of your business.”
She took another deep breath. “Look. I saw other people but I only slept with one of those people, and he’s clean—I’m clean. Therefore, you are clean.”
“I’ll wait to find that out for myself from my own physician,” I said stiffly. I tossed the legal demand for paternity testing on the desk. “I’ll be there as requested.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Now get out of my office,” I said with a quiet, simmering anger.
She looked at me uneasily before getting to her feet. She opened her mouth to speak, but the expression on my face shut her down. Without another word she walked out of my office.
It wasn’t until I found out that Claire was pregnant that I realized my true, deep feelings for Emmy. I didn’t really know what I wanted from her until then. If the baby was mine, how would Emmy react? Would she take Lucas and move out? Would it send her back into her shell? Or worse yet, would she take it as a reason to move on herself and start seeing someone else? I didn’t want any of that, but I especially didn’t want to see her with another guy. I didn’t want to see her with anyone but me, but I couldn’t even begin to push forward until I knew whose baby Claire was carrying.
I finally finished changing my clothes and joined Em and Lucas at the dining room table. She was buzzing about, preparing my plate to serve me my dinner as she always did. She rambled on about her day with Lucas and their outing with Lorraine and her kids. This was becoming more commonplace and I didn’t want to lose it. Claire could make me lose this. So I hung on to every word she said. Watched her m
outh as she spoke and smiled and watched her interact with Lucas. This was only a small fraction of what I could have with her later. Until I got the paternity results back, I was going to hold on to every damn second I could get.
Chapter Thirteen
Emmy was having another nightmare.
I was sitting up in the living room, staring at some infomercial on the muted television. I couldn’t sleep because I was so damn worried about the paternity testing. I would take care of any child that is my own, but I didn’t want to resent my own child if I lost Emmy because of it. I was contemplating how I could still be a father to Claire’s kid and keep Emmy and Lucas with me when I heard outright sobbing from the bedroom. I jumped up and rushed into the bedroom.
“Em?” I said softly as I approached the bed.
When she didn’t respond but continued sobbing, I knew she was still asleep. I sat down on the edge of the bed and gently shook her. She lashed out suddenly, landing a punch right on my jaw. It stung, but that’s not why I stopped touching her. Clearly, she thought it was part of her attack. Hesitantly, I reached out and smoothed her hair out of her face. She flinched but she didn’t freak out again. I laid down beside her and continued to run my hand over her hair.
“Em, I’ll never let him hurt you again,” I whispered though I knew she probably couldn’t hear me, or if she did, she probably wouldn’t remember.
“You’re going to be okay,” I said. “I will always take care of you and Lucas. I won’t let anyone hurt you again. You’re safe with me, Em. Always.”
The sobbing had faded, though she still shuddered every few seconds, and a few tears still managed to push through the corners of her eyes. I continued to smooth her hair and murmur my vows until her breathing evened out and the nightmare passed. I stayed there with her for a long time. I knew I couldn’t be there when she woke up; so after a long time, I lightly pressed a lingering kiss on her forehead before forcing myself back into the living room.