by Mia Caldwell
“I don’t even know how to block a call. And I got no messages. Willa told me she couldn’t get any response from you at all. I got no response to my messages.”
“Your messages?”
“Dozens of emails. I didn’t have your cell number. I emailed Tina Peters to get it, and never got a response. I asked Willa to… Well, it seems that anything I sent in that direction went into the abyss. But I sent you emails, some wanting to know where you were, and some about business ideas, and nothing. Dead, cold silence.”
“Why would your assistant work so hard to keep us from communicating?”
“Jealousy? I’m not certain. Somehow you, our relationship, must have made her feel threatened. But why didn’t Tina Peters reply or pass along my proposals?”
“Another kind of jealousy. The bitch was trying to steal my clients and ruin my business reputation. She started a rumor that I had a drug problem.”
Julio nodded. “The big one—that you were in rehab under your sister’s name.”
“My sister did go through rehab, actually.”
“Giving the rumor a veneer of truth if anyone checked,” Julio pointed out.
“Exactly.”
They both sat there, lost in thoughts, wrapping the whole truth around the piles of beliefs and assumptions that had been driving them for so many months. Finally, Lissa spoke, and looked at Julio in his eyes, watching hard for his reaction. “So you think we’ve both been played, both of us victims?”
He held her gaze. “I’m finding it hard to believe in simultaneous attacks of jealous subordinates, but I don’t know how else to explain things.”
Lissa found her hand moving across the table towards his. Julio’s fingertips grazed hers, and for a moment their fingers spoke quietly to each other. Lissa pulled her hand away and placed it safely on her lap. There was a quiver in her voice when she spoke. “What do we do? Can we move on?”
Julio’s eyes became clouded for a moment and then he closed them. Lissa saw him suck in a deep breath as if was searching in his lungs for what to say. She feared that he’d come up with some way of telling her that he was sorry he knocked her up, that he’d gladly send her some money for child support, but other than that and maybe borrowing her brain power for the Milan project, he hoped she didn’t have any grand expectations about him sticking around or being a part of her and the boys’ lives. Her chest tightened as he continued to think. When he opened his eyes again, they’d gone soft, relieved, as if a great weight had been taken off his chest. “Do you have photos of my boys?”
Lissa couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face. “Of course I do!” she said enthusiastically as she bent down to pull up her purse and hide the tears of unexpected joy. “I’ve got a phone full of them.”
~ ~ ~
Julio tried to tamp down the myriad of feelings coursing through him as she showed him the pictures of his three boys. For the first time, the news that he was a father truly hit him. Pride and love for these creatures that were merely pixels on a cell-phone screen mixed with anger over what they’d lost. He hadn’t been wrong about what they’d meant to each other. He’d been wrong in thinking that she’d lost interest in him. But it wasn’t his fault. He’d been conned. They’d both been conned. Anger grew inside him, even as something hard in his heart melted with each new look at the three lives he’d unwittingly created. He wanted to get to the bottom of the hows and whys, but unraveling what the con was could wait.
He dragged his eyes away from the phone long enough to see Lissa. She was the same woman he’d fallen so hard for in Switzerland, yet even more beautiful. He hadn’t made a mistake. His heart raced. He felt a sudden urge to pull her into his arms and never let her go.
A waiter came over. “Are you ready to order?”
Lissa suddenly sat up straight, her face lit up with an almost childlike glee. “Julio, are you really hungry, or would you rather come to my apartment and meet your sons?”
A flash of happiness rushed through him. He looked at the waiter. “I apologize for the inconvenience, but we’ve lost our appetites.” He handed the man some twenty-dollar bills without counting them. He wanted the waiter to be happy too. “Let’s go.”
# # #
Lissa’s sister was at the apartment, glaring at Julio, so his thoughts of a passionate reunion and heart-to-heart with Lissa didn’t occur. Seeing the boys, however, was a moment he wouldn’t forget.
He’d become reticent on the cab drive over, and the two had stopped discussing the situation. He’d left soon after, and had to stop at a hot-dog stand for dinner by himself. He’d promised Lissa to call her in the morning, and had made sure to get her cell-phone number and learn how to unblock her calls.
As he brooded in his hotel room, waiting for his mind to calm down so he could go to bed, he thought about the big picture. None of it made sense. He could tell that Lissa was as perplexed as he was. What should have evolved into a promising relationship, or been allowed to take its natural course, had been artificially stunted, with each of them believing they’d been used and discarded by the other. How could they have even imagined that Willa and Tina would have both played such a game?
After lying on his bed with his eyes open, Julio got dressed and went downstairs to the hotel bar. He wanted to drink, to nurse his wounds. How did you establish the truth of things? Was Lissa telling the truth? It seemed likely. What if she had sent him messages and entreaties? What if they’d been intercepted? He knew he had sent messages and Willa had assured him she’d sent the flowers and gifts. And of course Willa had been responsible for the business messages, the suggestions they work together. And it was Willa who assured him that Lissa had been stubbornly silent.
And it was Willa who had been furious when he took Lissa’s call and accepted a dinner meeting. Of course he’d hurt her feelings, both by letting her know that she didn’t mean anything to him romantically and by defying her and having dinner with Lissa. But she’d seemed apologetic at the end. So what was going on? Had she been panicked that he’d find out what she’d been up to? And now Willa wasn’t answering her phone. That was a first.
But back then, at the start, why would Willa have cared if he had an affair with Lissa? Had she been in love with him? He didn’t think so. He didn’t think she was now, either.
The entire situation was too impossibly convoluted to be an accident. He had to assume that someone had been making a big effort to keep them from communicating. But who?
Tom Acker wouldn’t want him to work with Lissa. He was smart enough to see that they would make a formidable team. But the interference in his romance had started well before the Milan proposal came up. Until then, he wouldn’t have had any interest in what Julio was up to. He’d know about Lissa, he might even know her, but so what? No, the conspiracy, or whatever it was, had to do with him falling in love. He hadn’t had any trouble with getting in contact with anyone else. Only Lissa. Only the woman he’d fallen in love with.
That suggested a personal motive.
Which brought him back to Willa.
Willa had been a fantastic assistant, and supportive. Unless that was a mask, and she had been hiding something from him, or something had changed.
He caught a glimpse of an elegant woman in a black silk sheath dress moving to the bar stool next to him. She was a tall, lithe black woman, and for a moment he thought, hoped, that Lissa had returned. He wanted to talk to her. He wanted more than that, but talking would be a start.
A closer look at his new neighbor let him see his mistake. This woman was also pretty, and in her twenties, but not Lissa. She wore a gold ring through one nostril and an intriguing necklace of large reddish-orange beads. “Amber,” she said, smiling. He realized he’d been staring. “It’s African.”
“It’s beautiful.”
She turned to give him a better look at the necklace and her slender hips, firm breasts. “I’m glad you like it.”
“Fossilized tree resin,” he said. “Electru
m, to the Romans.”
“Really?”
“Yes, the myth says that when the son of the sun God was killed, his mourning sisters became poplar trees and their tears became electrum—amber.”
“That’s sad,” she said.
“And you don’t believe a word of it.”
She shook her head. “You did say it was a myth.”
“But you don’t even believe that.”
“I’ll admit it’s a better conversation opener than asking my sign.”
“And you’d rather think I have a line like that for every type of jewelry a beautiful woman might wear?”
“That would show initiative.”
“I suppose.”
Her smile was inviting, and part of him wanted to continue this conversation that was clearly nothing more than flirting talk. She aroused him, but at the same time made him ache for Lissa. Lissa’s presence was in the room, and powerful. A mad affair would clear his head. Trying to do that with this woman, however, would complicate his thoughts.
“I’m afraid I have to leave. I have early meetings tomorrow.”
She pouted. “We were getting along so well. I hoped you’d buy me a drink.”
“Do you like irony?”
She smiled. “Another myth?”
“Sometimes something is the opposite of what it seems.”
“Sarcasm?”
“It can be. In this case, I just had dinner with a beautiful woman who looks much like you.”
“And you two didn’t hit it off.”
“We hit it off too well.”
“How can that be?”
“Sometimes good things can be too strong. Anyway, it isn’t going well.”
“And here I am.”
“Yes. The irony is…under other circumstances, it might be fun, you and I. At some other time and place. Right now I’d be seeing you, entirely unfairly, as a consolation prize.”
“Fairness might be overrated.”
“And you are a temptress.”
She frowned. “Obviously not a very good one.”
“If you really wanted a drink, I’d be delighted to buy you one before I leave.”
She frowned. “Don’t try to be gallant. It’s not in vogue. And the drink was not what I wanted.”
“Then I’ll leave you.” She started to speak, and suddenly something dawned on him, an insight. This woman looked so much like Lissa, and was here in the hotel bar after he’d had dinner with her. He smiled at the woman. “Tell Willa you tried.”
She started to protest, then as he stood, she stood and faced him, her hands on her hips, her shoulders back. “You sure you want to pass on this?”
He nodded. The woman sat down and rested her elbows on the bar and toyed with her amber around her neck. “That must be one hell of a woman you got.”
“She is.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Carrying her second cup of coffee, Lissa got to her desk early. She let out a sigh, then switched on her computer. She’d tossed and turned that night. Julio had seemed so delighted to hold the babies. His joy seemed real. Everything she saw in him over dinner and at her apartment fit perfectly with her memories of the man she knew in Switzerland. Joan had been put off at first, and had kept her distance.
But the boys had seemed happy to see him, gurgling with delight when he bounced them gently and lovingly in his arms.
But then he’d announced that he needed to leave.
“What about dinner?”
“Raincheck,” he’d said. Then he added, “I need to confront Willa. I need to know why she made it seem like I didn’t want to communicate with you.”
“I have my IT person checking what went on in my office,” she told him. “We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
When she saw him to the door, letting him leave without even a kiss, it left her in a strange agony.
She hoped they could find out what had happened together. But his abrupt departure left her both hungry and wondering if he was making his side of the story up. Maybe he was just one of those men who told women what they wanted to hear when they were in front of him. Maybe he couldn’t wait to leave her apartment so he could get on a plane and get as far away as he could.
She’d been unable to sleep, and when the babies woke in the night, she was the one who went to feed them, change their diapers. She felt a comfort in being able to do such basic things and see a screaming child, who could cry like the world was about to end, transform into a contented baby, sleeping peacefully. It made her feel like she had some control. Even if the baby wouldn’t settle down quickly, knowing that holding him to her breast and letting her son feel her warmth, hear her beating heart comfort him, was good.
The outside world was more complicated than that, which made it both interesting and frustrating, just like wanting her babies to get to know their father and recognizing that she wasn’t sure who he really was anymore.
Despite being exhausted, Lissa turned on her laptop and with a mug of warm milk checked her email. The outside auditor she’d hired had sent her a report. She was relieved. Whatever else Tina had done, at least she hadn’t screwed with the accounts. She’d stolen clients and dealt her business some heavy damage, but at least she hadn’t embezzled funds. Tina wasn’t that stupid.
~ ~ ~
The next day at the office, Abby walked into Lissa’s office, smiling mischievously as she plopped down on the small couch. She had a few sheets of paper in her hand, and sat there like she expected Lissa to join her in the sitting area of her office.
Lissa hadn’t been able to focus on her work, so she got up from her desk and sat down across from her new project manager and started to lean towards the coffee table, trying to see what was on the papers. “What’s up?”
Abby pulled the papers to her chest, away from Lissa’s prying eyes. “Some very, very interesting stuff.”
“Are you going to tell me?”
“This is the email from the tech guys. Did you know our servers were hit with a virus?”
Alarm shot through Lissa. “We’ve been hacked?”
She paid a lot of money for system security. Getting hacked and having vital confidential client information leaked could ruin her reputation and her business.
“Yes. Well, not exactly. Like I said, our servers were hit with a virus, but not a typical virus—a very unique one, according to this report. Let me read it to you.”
Lissa was starting to get annoyed. What the hell was Abby playing at?
“I’ve never seen a virus like this one. All it did, it appears, was search all systems for evidence of specific words, and when found, intercepted—”
“Intercepted which specific words? I’m confused.”
Abby continued, “In most cases, this involved intercepting all incoming emails and outgoing emails. Once intercepted, these files would be sent immediately to the trash.”
“What words?”
At this point, Abby smiled broadly. “Julio Torres.”
“What? Are you saying any email I sent to him would have been instantly trashed?”
“Exactly, and anything incoming from him—same result.”
“But, who, why, what the hell?” Lissa sank into her chair. She knew now for certain that he’d been telling her the truth. Why would someone bother to block his communications if he hadn’t tried to communicate with her? “But who did this?”
“They linked the initial attack file via access obtained using Tina’s password. My guess is that she probably hired a programmer to write the virus. You want me to set up a meeting with the IT guy? Maybe he can explain it better.”
A lump grew in Lissa’s stomach. She got up from the chair and walked to her bookcase. She faced her books, but she wasn’t seeing any of them. All she could see was the hurt look on Julio’s face when she accused him of cutting her off. Then she remembered the agony she felt when she’d believed it. She felt like a victim of a crime—hell, she had been. Her whole pregnancy, the birth—he’d been
left out of it because she’d thought he’d wanted no part of it. But now she knew that he’d never had a chance to make that call.
She suddenly felt very sad. Tears welled in her eyes.
“Honey,” Abby said as she came up from behind her.
Lissa was crying now, her shoulders bouncing up and down as the sobs of both anger and relief poured from her.
“What’s wrong? I thought you’d be delighted.”
“I am,” she said as the wave of crying faded. She pulled herself together. “I’m actually very relieved. Julio didn’t know about the boys. He told me that last night, and I wanted to believe him, but part of me was afraid to believe him, afraid that he might just be telling me what I wanted to hear. Now, I’m crushed with relief, but also with guilt that I hadn’t trusted him.”
“Honey, give yourself a break. I’m sure he’ll understand.” Abby patted Lissa’s back and waited as her boss moved back to her desk, sat down, and idly adjusted papers on her desk as she tried to regain her composure. Finally, Abby spoke. “What do you do now?”
Lissa shook her head, almost imperceptibly. “I’m not sure. Not sure at all.”
# # #
“When will you drop your bombshell?” Willa lay on the bed, rubbing her sore wrists. Tom hadn’t been kidding about expecting her to do whatever made him happy. The games he enjoyed took their toll, and her ass burned from the spanking he’d given her. Spanking seemed to turn him on. She wondered what other crap he had in store for her. Well, he’d come through on giving her the job title. It was official. She had given Julio notice and officially started the new job in two weeks. In the meantime, Tom was enjoying himself.
“I’ll have to let her know soon. Very soon. There’s no point in giving her a chance to give him the benefit of any of her ideas. Even a legal action can’t undo any thoughts she shares with him. I just didn’t want to give her too much warning.”
“So, your lawyers will visit her?”
“I do like the idea of breaking the news myself. I want to see her face when she learns she’s…” he held up the rope. “Not as tight as you were, but tight enough.”