by Ali Parker
“You think you can come to my home and accuse me of this? You’ll see in the end—”
“You’re right. I will. Because like you said, you’re not pregnant. So, six months from now, you’re still going to look like this and Max will still have a clear conscience because he didn’t do anything wrong.”
“I’m not talking about Max,” she growled. “I’m talking about you, you meddlesome bitch.”
“Someone had to get to the bottom of your bullshit.”
Sienna laughed. “Oh please.”
Her dismissive attitude pissed me off more than her insults and weaseling.
She wasn’t taking this seriously. She’d dragged Max through the mud since she dropped a bomb on him. She didn’t give a damn about how he was feeling. She didn’t care that he felt like the future he’d always seen for himself had vanished overnight. It didn’t bother her that he’d lost sleep trying to figure out how to be the father to her child.
But I cared. I cared enough to hit her where it hurt most.
I leaned forward and smiled at her. “You aren’t going to see a penny more of his money. Read my lips. Not a penny.”
“We’ll see what Max says when he finds out his psycho friend came to my home to harass me,” Sienna said stiffly.
“You’re grasping at straws.”
The people around the pool had grown more intensely curious about the heated exchange. Nobody bothered trying to look busy anymore. The man grilling hotdogs had all but given up on them, and they were almost certainly turning to charcoal that very second. Mothers had gathered their children away from us on the other side of the pool. A man on one of the balconies of the second level came out of his apartment with a buddy to lean on the railing and look down while they simultaneously cracked open beers.
They wanted a show.
I wasn’t all that interested in entertaining Sienna’s neighbors. All I was interested in was making sure she knew where she stood—in Max’s past.
“You don’t deserve a man like Max,” I said, straightening to my full height and folding my arms across my chest. “And you should have known better than to try to manipulate him into staying with you. He was in turmoil while you were spending his money at the spa. I suggest you take some time to think about your actions because apparently nobody in your life has had the nerve to tell you point blank that you’re a bad person.”
Sienna rolled her eyes. “Give me a break.”
“Like you gave Max a break?”
Sienna tore her sunglasses away from her face and waved them at me. “You can have him then!” she shrieked. “That’s why you’re really here, isn’t it? You want him all to yourself?”
Well, yeah.
Sienna rolled her eyes. “Pathetic. What do you think you have to offer that I don’t?”
“I don’t know, a soul? I would never lie to him.”
“Does he know you’re here now?”
Oops. “He’ll know once I go back home and tell him that you aren’t pregnant,” I said.
Sienna snickered. “So, you didn’t tell him? Of course not. Otherwise, he never would have let you come all the way out here to fight his battles. Do you think he’ll appreciate the meddling? Max hates meddling.”
He might have hated it when Sienna meddled because she couldn’t be trusted, but what I was doing wasn’t really meddling, was it?
I grimaced.
Yes it is.
Maybe I should have asked him first. Maybe I should have suggested he and I both come down here together and finally find out the truth for ourselves before he let Sienna take up any more space in his thoughts.
Should have’s serve no purpose, I reminded myself. I was already here. I’d made the decisions. I’d be damned if I let Sienna try to manipulate me simply because she was the one losing ground.
“I don’t care if he’s angry with me,” I decided. “I did what I had to in order to protect him from a sneaky woman like you. I didn’t do it for his gratitude or anything else for that matter. I did it for my own peace of mind.”
Sienna tossed her sunglasses down on her pool chair. “Peace of mind, huh?”
I held my ground as she stepped in close.
Suddenly, she reached up, planted both hands on my chest just below my shoulders, and shoved me. Hard.
I teetered back a couple of steps.
Sienna barked with laughter and rolled her shoulders like we were preparing for a fight in a cage.
I was the new contender and the new fighter to the ring. Sienna was the seasoned pro with a bad attitude and easily marketable face. The crowd probably fixed her as the winner before the fight even started. I couldn’t blame them for that.
She had broader shoulders and a more solid build. My ankles and wrists were dainty where hers were more substantial. She was fuller where I wasn’t, and chances were, my business ensemble did nothing to make me look intimidating. If people around the pool were placing bets, I’d wager Sienna was their top pick.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Sienna seethed. “I have enough problems without bitches like you sticking their nose in my business.”
“Maybe if you weren’t a manipulative liar I wouldn’t have had reason to stick my nose in your business.”
Sienna clenched her fists at her sides, screwed her eyes closed, and let out a furious wail of a sound that reminded me of a noise that might come out of a frustrated toddler in a grocery store line after his mother told him “no, you can’t have that chocolate bar because we have dozens of the same one at home.”
My eyes widened in surprise. She was batshit crazy.
A little voice whispered in my head that coming down here alone might not have been the best idea I’d had. She’d beaten Max’s car to a pulp with a baseball bat, and that car hadn’t talked back to her or ruined her relationship with the man she wanted to charge her lifestyle to. She had to be even angrier with me in this moment than she ever was with Max, or his car for that matter.
What kind of damage might she do to the human she blamed for blowing up her life?
I was tempted to back away but I hardened my resolve. These were things I should have considered before I showed up here. Now I was committed and I refused to walk—or run—away because she was showing signs of insanity. Her whole body shook as the scream died on her lips. Her eyes darkened and she dropped her chin to glare at me from beneath her platinum-blonde brows.
“Fuck you,” she spat before dropping her head and charging at me like a Playboy Bunny bull.
I hesitated only for a second. My brain stalled in my head and flashed back to the last time a girl tried to fight me in a cafeteria line in elementary school. I’d been ahead of her in line and ordered the last chicken wrap, and she hadn’t been all that happy about it. She grabbed my hair and tried to steal the wrap, but a teacher got involved and spared me any further pain. The girl was suspended.
There were no teachers to intervene here. Nobody was coming to my rescue and the only person to blame for putting me in this situation was me.
I did the only thing I had time to do and dodged to my right. Sienna went careening past me.
She saw me pass her out of the corner of her eye. Her twisted, snarled expression softened into one of confusion right before she stepped off the ledge of the pool and pitched forward, arms flailing, eyes widening, body twisting as if she could grab the air to pull her back up onto the pool deck.
She hit the water with a slap and everyone gathered around the pool laughed.
I lifted my chin and tugged at the hem of my blouse. I glared at her when she popped up out of the water, sputtering and coughing. The plunge seemed to have dulled her fury because she had no sharp remarks to make as I turned my back on her and marched away.
I only got halfway down the length of the pool before I drew up short.
There, standing at the opposite end of the pool, was Max and his sister Holly.
My heart started to race.
Oh God, he’s going to hate
me.
Chapter 20
Max
Janie stared down at her feet as my sister and I approached. She had her hands clasped behind her back. Strands of dark hair had fallen loose from a messy ponytail on the back of her head and hung in front of her eyes. A strand twitched when it caught in her eyelashes and she glanced up at me. She quickly averted her gaze back down to her feet.
Holly giggled as she hop-skipped along beside me. “Did you see that, Max?”
“I saw it.”
Sienna was currently gripping the edge of the pool and trying to hoist herself up out of the water. She could have gone down to the end of the pool and used the ladder, but she’d always been more stubborn than necessary. She wiped a hand under her eyes in an attempt to get rid of her smudged makeup, but it only made things worse.
Everyone gathered in the courtyard and around the pool deck were watching Janie, but as soon as I drew up in front of her and became part of the drama, their attention consumed Holly and me too.
“What is this about?” I asked.
Janie bit her bottom lip. “I couldn’t stand by and do nothing. I needed answers faster than you. So, I… I came here and got them for myself.”
Holly giggled and clamped a hand over her mouth when I shot her a dark look over my shoulder.
She winced. “Sorry, but Sienna still can’t get out of the pool.”
I sighed and looked over my shoulder. Finally, one of the men stepped forward and offered her his hand. Sienna took it and he hauled her up out of the pool, where she sat on the edge wringing out her hair and glaring daggers at us.
Janie leaned sideways to peer past me at my ex.
“What answers did you need that you couldn’t come to me for?” I asked Janie.
Her attention shot back to me. “Answers only Sienna could give me.”
“I’m going to need you to give me more than that.”
Janie nodded, understanding that her answers were veiled and she wasn’t giving me the whole truth. I wasn’t mad. At least, I didn’t think I was. I was confused that she hadn’t thought to ask me to come with her. I was surprised even. But angry?
Not really.
Janie clasped her hands in front of herself. “I’m sorry I came here behind your back, Max. But I don’t regret it. I got to the bottom of things and now we can both move forward without sparing her,” she shot an accusing look at Sienna, “another thought. She’s not pregnant, Max. There never was a baby. She made the whole thing up to have access to your money and to potentially get you back.”
“I’m sorry?” I breathed.
Janie reached out and took my hand. “There is no baby, Max.”
Her words echoed in my brain. No baby.
Suddenly, I felt lightheaded. My heart skipped several beats in my chest before launching into an excited rhythm of relief.
“Say something,” Janie whispered.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“I’ll say something then,” Holly said, stepping up beside me. “Halle-fucking-lujah.”
Janie grinned at my sister but didn’t say anything. Her smile faded away as she peered up into my face. “It was all a ploy, Max. Sienna was lying and I couldn’t hang around and wait as she kept stringing you along. I needed to get to the bottom of things before she pulled you in deeper. It was all a ruse, nothing more. You can wash your hands of this.”
I wanted nothing more than to believe that was true, but my head hurt, and all of this was so confusing. Why did I feel relieved but simultaneously disappointed?
Janie squeezed my hand. “Let’s get out of here, yeah?”
I nodded.
Holly spun on her heel and led the way down the length of the pool. Sienna, still perched on the edge, glared up at us as we passed. My sister stuck her tongue out at her and pressed one hand in the shape of an L to her forehead.
Sienna rolled her eyes.
Holly, more than a little delighted by this turn of events, started skipping the rest of the way to her car, where she waited for Janie and me to catch up.
I got in the backseat and Janie followed. We buckled up while Holly got behind the wheel and started the ignition. My sister twisted around in her seat to look at us. “Janie, this might have been the most badass thing you’ve ever done. You went to war for my brother with an unstable valley girl. That’s the kind of thing my sister-in-law would do.”
Janie turned neon pink.
I put a hand on her knee and she leaned into me, wrapping her arms around mine, and rested her cheek on my shoulder.
Holly pulled out when the coast was clear and the engine hummed around us.
Nobody said anything for some time. My thoughts were a jumbled mess and both Janie and my sister seemed to sense that I needed time to process.
I’d spent these past few weeks doing everything in my power to wrap my head around what my new future looked like. I’d accepted the part about becoming a father. Hell, I’d even sort of started to look forward to it. I’d always wanted to be a dad, but as my career began to dominate most of my life and the women I fell in love with slipped through my fingers time after time, that dream had gotten a little smaller until I eventually put it in the rearview mirror and resigned myself to the fact that I might never get the chance to be a father.
Sienna’s lie had restored some of that hope.
No, I didn’t want her to be the mother of my child, but I’d come around to the idea that somehow we would make it work.
Fatherhood had been just around the corner five minutes ago. Now it was nothing but a far-off dream once more.
“Are you okay?” Janie whispered, lifting her cheek from my shoulder.
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
She didn’t seem convinced. She shifted closer. “I would understand if some part of you is disappointed.”
“You would?”
Janie nodded. “This is complicated. I know it was hurting you but I would also get it if…” She trailed off and shrugged.
“I’m not disappointed.”
“You’re not?” she asked hopefully.
“No,” I said firmly. “I’m relieved.”
She chewed the inside of her cheek. “You seem disappointed.”
“I’m digesting,” I told her. “I spent a lot of time wondering if a child was in the future for me and wondering if I even wanted that. This drama with Sienna has showed me that I do want it, but not with her. With someone else.”
Janie’s cheeks turned an even brighter shade of pink. “Really?”
I reached up, cupped her cheek, and ran my thumb along her cheekbone. “Really.”
Janie leaned forward and kissed me.
The kiss lifted some of the weight that sat on my chest after learning there was no baby. It served no purpose for Janie to think I was disappointed. Like Holly had said, Janie had gone to war for me, and without her intervening, there was no telling how much longer I would have gone on believing Sienna’s lies. She’d freed me from that. My disappointment would be a slap in the face to Janie.
Besides, I could work through it. Especially since I had Janie in my corner now, or rather, just in the office beside mine at work.
Disappointment would pass. I could replace it with something else. New intentions.
Intentions like how I planned to move forward with the woman I loved and had loved for quite some time now.
Janie clung to the front of my shirt as the kiss deepened. I could smell her shampoo, coconut and something citrus, and her lips tasted like grapefruit.
Holly cleared her throat in the front seat.
Janie and I broke apart.
My sister chuckled as we came to a red light. “Don’t stop on my account. I’ve been waiting for this reunion for almost a year. It’s about damn time you two pulled your heads out of your asses and just went for it.”
Janie giggled and wiped at her eyes. I hadn’t noticed that she was crying.
I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her c
lose. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” she whispered.
“Just kiss her again, Max,” Holly said. “I’ll keep my eyes on the road this time.”
I pressed a finger under Janie’s chin and lifted her face to mine. Her eyes, glassy and wet from the tears, slid back and forth between mine, and neither of us moved for a second. I stared into those perfect eyes of hers and lifted a thumb to trace her lower lip. She closed her eyes. A tear escaped and ran down her cheek. I wiped it away before leaning in for another sweet kiss that, like the first, made the pain of losing the idea of a baby melt away.
Chapter 21
Janie
Max slid his hands into his pants pockets and leaned against the wall in the elevator. We stood side by side about six inches apart, and I mimicked his posture by tucking my hands into the pockets of my high-waisted A-line skirt. It was too hot outside today for any constricting business skirts or long pants. I couldn’t imagine how Max endured the heat in his three-piece suit, but it really didn’t seem to bother him.
He cast a glance in my direction. “You’re unusually quiet.”
It was our first time arriving at the office together. Ever since my encounter at the pool with Sienna on Saturday, we’d been inseparable. I’d spent the night at his place on Saturday and again last night, and a lazy morning in his bed this morning meant I didn’t have time to go home and get a change of clothes.
Another reason why I was wearing the flowing skirt today.
“I’m tired is all,” I said. “Someone didn’t let me get much sleep last night.”
Max rested his head against the elevator wall as we closed in on our floor. “As I remember it, you were the one who wouldn’t get off of me.”
He wasn’t wrong.
His lap had been my seat all night long. My inner thighs hurt. My hips hurt. My pussy hurt.
But not enough for me not to want to do it again when we got home from work later today.
I shot him a wry grin as the elevator door opened with a soft chime and unveiled our office. We stepped off, nearly shoulder to shoulder, and walked into the office.