by Helen Cooper
She sighed and decided to find a coffee shop to go and relax in, maybe being around a hustle of people would stop her from feeling alone. Just as she was about to go into a Starbucks, she had an idea. Something was still puzzling her and she hailed down a cab to take her to the local library.
"Do you have newspaper archives?" She smiled at the lady behind the counter as she walked into the library. "And if so, how far back do they go? And which newspapers do you have? Big and small? And newspapers from other cities?"
The lady looked at her with a bored expression. "No ma’am. We just have book circulations here."
Sophie felt her stomach drop and the excitement seeped out of her.
"Why don't you go and try NYU's or Columbia's library? Though you may need a student id or guest pass to get in."
"Of course, of course. Thank you." Sophie felt like slapping herself across the forehead. Of course, she should go to the library at school. She couldn't believe that she hadn't thought of it herself. It seemed that she was experiencing pregnancy brain already. "I'll go to Butler," she spoke aloud to herself unable to stop the excitement racing through her. She wanted to know Maxwell's big secret. It just didn't make sense, if he loved Alexis so much what had he done that was so bad that he wouldn't allow himself to be with her? She figured if he had been arrested, there might be a newspaper clipping about it somewhere. He was a Van Harkel, the only son of a billionaire. People cared about what happened to the rich and famous, it would likely be in magazines and newspapers galore. She laughed almost giddy at the thoughts running through her mind, she was positive that she was going to find out a lot more information.
Her phone rang as she was about to walk into the library and she took it out and paused. It was Maxwell. She wasn't sure why he was calling her. He never called her, not even to communicate about the job. He had had an office secretary call and to give her all the details. She chewed on her lips as she watched the phone ring. Did he want to tell her to give up the baby? Maybe Alexis was willing to still be with him if the baby was no longer in the picture. She cringed at the thought of having to have an abortion, she clutched her stomach knowing that there was no way she would abort her child. She wondered if he would try to convince her to give the baby up for adoption? Maybe he'd find a family somewhere in the Midwest, maybe even someone in Iowa close to her aunt and uncle. And he would offer to be the child's benefactor, so he could make sure the child was financially taken care of without having to actually be in the child's life. She would never let that happen either. There was nothing he could offer her that would make her give up her baby. No amount of money, not thousands or millions. She wouldn't even do it for a billion dollars. She sighed as the phone started ringing again, he was insistent that he wanted to talk to her. She answered the phone nervously. "Hello?"
"Sophie? Where are you?" Maxwell growled into the phone and Sophie relaxed. Whatever he was calling about was not related to the baby. She knew that his voice would have been super sweet if he had wanted to try to persuade her to get rid of his baby.
"I'm at Columbia." She sighed having to tell him her whereabouts.
"What?" His voice held disbelief and confusion. "I thought you decided that you weren't going to go to school this semester."
"I had," she mumbled.
"You can't just bail out on me now. You are my assistant and you have a duty to me and the position." He sounded angry. "We need to talk, Sophie."
"I don't owe you anything." Her voice was loud and annoyed. "I have to go now."
"Don't you hang up that phone, Sophie.” His voice was bossy and obstinate and Sophie grinned and promptly pressed the end button before powering off her phone. She walked into the library, flashed her student id and then took the elevator to the fourth floor.
As she was about to walk into the newspaper archive room, she realized that she didn't actually know what Maxwell had called her about because they had gotten into a stupid argument before he could even bring it up. She sighed and told herself that no news was good news and she was probably better off not knowing.
“I want to look up some newspaper articles from about five years ago, please.” She spoke to the librarian and tried to contain her excitement. This could be it: she may finally find out what had happened all of those years ago that had turned Maxwell from the welcoming, friendly man to the cold, austere, bipolar man that she would never understand.
“Go to that computer there,” the lady pointed to a computer in the corner. “You can choose the search terms and the years you want to search through. Every article that mentions the search terms will pop up. Write down the numbers attached to the articles and we can find the microfiche and you can look it up.”
“Sounds good, thanks.” Sophie walked over to the computer quickly, typed in Maxwell Van Harkel and selected the years 1992-2012. Over 28,000 corresponding articles popped up on the screen and she sighed. This was going to take a lot longer than she thought. As she was about to enter a new search term and narrow the years, she saw an article titled, “Billionaire Maxwell Van Harkel to Wed Socialite Alexis Gold” and she clicked on it with her heart in her hands.
This was a completely new story now. She looked at the date of the article and saw that it was from three years before. She couldn’t remember Ella ever telling her that Max was engaged. That was something that she would have remembered. She perused the article quickly and there was no more information in it, other than their names and the names of their parents. It was more of a PR announcement. She quickly searched for Maxwell Van Harkel and Alexis Gold in the search engine, distracted from her original search. This time only 150 articles popped up and they all seemed to be related to the engagement, though none of them mentioned the end of the engagement.
She sighed and knew that that was something she would have to figure out later and looked over the article titles one more time to see if there was anything that she had missed. And then she saw it, “Mitch Gold Not So Happy to Welcome Maxwell Van Harkel to the Family.” Suddenly she was alert. Mitch Gold. The name sounded familiar, he was obviously someone related to Alexis but she wasn’t sure whom. She didn’t think that she had met any other members from the Gold family. She clicked on the article and gasped. There was a photo of Mitch Gold and Alexis Gold cutting the ribbon at some event. She studied his face and cringed. There on the screen staring back at her with a huge grin was Mitch, the guy Maxwell had gotten into a fight with at the Pub on her first night in Winterside. The guy that she had been dancing with that had gotten a little too hands-on for her liking.
She bit her lip and tried to think back to that night. They hadn’t acted like they had known each other, she hadn’t seen recognition in their eyes but she had been so drunk she wouldn’t even have noticed. She thought back to the blood on Max’s face and wondered if the fight they had that evening was about a lot more than some dirty dancing. She looked at her watch and sighed. The library was going to be closed soon and she didn’t have time to dillydally. She decided to try to find out more information from Ella about Mitch when she got back to town. She wanted to find out more about Max’s past now and she needed to focus on that.
She spent the next thirty minutes furtively looking at newspaper articles but none of them mentioned anything about his being in jail. The librarian gave everyone a five-minute warning and Sophie started packing up her things. She was about to shut down the computer when she saw a headline that made her heart stop. “Does Maxwell Van Harkel Have an Anger Problem?” She clicked on the headline that belonged to a small newspaper from Upstate New York and perused it quickly. The article stated that Max had beaten up a guy so badly that he had to be hospitalized due to the severity of his trauma. It also stated that Maxwell had been sent abroad to evade jail time and that he should have been sent to a mental institute instead. Sophie frowned unsure of what to think. At the bottom of the article, there was a link to another article. She clicked on it quickly and saw a retraction stating that the author of the previo
us article no longer worked for the paper and had written the article in error. Maxwell Van Harkel had travelled abroad to learn the family business and he had no mental issues.
Sophie quickly went back to the original article and wrote down the author’s name. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do with the information but something inside of her told her to write it down. She grit her teeth wondering what she was getting herself into, Max’s world was starting to seem darker and darker and she didn’t know whether she wanted to be a part of it now that she was going to have a baby.
She walked out of the library caught up in her thoughts. She loved Maxwell but she didn’t think she really liked him. He had treated her horribly and she didn’t think this was a healthy state of mind for her or her baby.
Chapter 11
Sophie arrived home feeling hungry. She hadn't eaten dinner, she'd been too depressed but now she was feeling ravenous. She walked into the empty apartment and sighed: she missed Ella and wished that she were back home already. She walked into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water before picking up some takeout leaflets and walking to the living room to check them out. Her mind felt numb from all the information she had read at the library and she just wanted to veg out and forget about everything for the evening.
Her heart froze as she walked in the living room for there, sitting on the couch in the dark, was Maxwell. He was sitting back casually but his eyes were on her like a hawk. He looked angry and she stood still wondering what he was doing there.
"It was nice of you to call me back." His voice was low and full of venom as he stood up and walked towards her. The streetlights shining through the windows illuminated his body, though his face still looked dark and thunderous.
"Oh sorry." She smiled at him weakly and reached into her bag to grab her cellphone. "It was off." She powered it back on and six voicemails and text messages came through from Maxwell.
"You hung up on me." He was standing in front of her now, so close that she could feel his body heat radiating onto her skin.
"I had to get off of the phone." She looked up at his face and made eye contact with him. "I figured we could talk later."
"Did you now?" He grabbed her hand and took the leaflets out of it. "You're hungry?"
"Yes." That's why I have the leaflets in my hand, she thought to herself.
"You didn't eat?"
"Not yet."
"That's not good, Sophie." He sounded angry again. "You need to eat."
"What?" She was confused as to why he was so upset that she hadn't eaten as of yet.
"You are eating for two now. You and my child."
"Your child?" She looked at him in resentment. "Since when did you start caring about the baby?"
He looked at her with incredulity on his face. "I will always care about my child. No matter how much the mother lies or tries to manipulate me."
Sophie looked at him in shock. "How dare you call me a liar?"
"Well, aren't you?" He looked down at her, his tone sardonic and she turned away. His eyes once again captivated her. He seemed to have this uncanny ability to look directly into her soul.
"No." She walked to the couch and sat down, needing to distance herself from this man who made her feel too many emotions at once. "How did you get in?" She changed the subject.
"I have a key." He walked over to the couch and sat next to her. "I do own the apartment."
"I thought Van Harkel Corp. owned it," she tried to sound as snarky as possible.
"Actually no," he smiled at her. "I own the apartment personally."
"Oh." Sophie wondered why he bought an apartment he didn't live in. She knew he wasn't making enough from her rent to make it worth it as an investment property.
"I wanted to talk to you today, Sophie but you didn't give me a chance."
"How was dinner with Alexis?" She looked at him hungrily, taking in his smart appearance. He was wearing a navy blue Polo pullover over a white shirt with grey trousers. She could still smell his cologne and she had an overwhelming urge to push her face into his chest and breathe him in.
"It was fine,” he answered curtly. "What do you want to eat?"
"I'll decide when you leave." She reached for the remote and turned on the TV.
"I'm not leaving tonight." He turned towards her and moved closer. "In fact, not only am I not leaving, I also have plans for us."
"Plans?" She looked at him suspiciously. "You want to talk all night?"
"No. The plans I have don't include talking."
"What about Alexis?" She looked at him incredulously.
He frowned at her. "She doesn't matter right now."
"But you went to dinner with her."
"And?"
"Why didn't you spend the night with her?"
He laughed and looked away. "She’s not who I wanted in my bed tonight."
Sophie swallowed, dismayed at how happy that made her feel but the happy feeling was fleeting. What really did his comment mean? Only that he wanted to have his cake and eat it too. Maybe he would go to Alexis's bed tomorrow. Maybe he only wanted her because she had ignored his phone call.
"I don't want you in my bed tonight," she lied.
"I don't care what you want," he chuckled and came closer towards her. She moved down the couch until there was nowhere left to go. She sat there looking up at him and sighed as she felt his lips crush down on hers. They tasted salty and she found her tongue darting out of her mouth to lick his lips. He groaned and caught her tongue in his mouth and sucked on it slowly. She felt herself melting against him. She couldn’t resist him. He was her drug and she was too doped up to care about the consequences. She felt his hand reach up to her breast and his fingers ran around her nipples before he cupped them.
“Seems like they are getting bigger already.” He grinned at her as he pulled back to pull up her t-shirt.
“What?” She stared at him, mesmerized by the change in his face when he smiled.
“Your pregnancy breasts are divine.”
“I don’t think I’ve been pregnant long enough to have pregnancy breasts.” She blushed. She already had big boobs; she wasn’t sure how she would feel if they grew even bigger.
“I can already tell the difference.” He leaned towards her as he unclasped her bra and bent his head to suck on her nipples. She moaned as he nibbled on them and then pushed him away. “What is it, Sophie?” He looked at her with concern.
“I don’t want to do this.” She crossed her arms. “You don’t even think it’s your baby.” She turned away from him and felt a tear fall from her eye. “I want you to leave.”
“Sophie, there is something I need to tell you.” His voice was gruff and full of self-condemnation.
“What?” She kept her back to him. She didn’t want to look at his face. She knew it would only make her weaker.
“I know that it’s my baby.”
“What?” She turned around and looked at him. “How?”
He sighed and this time he looked away. “I didn’t want to believe it, you know. I couldn’t believe it.” He shook his head. “I knew when we made love that you were a virgin, Sophie.”
“Oh.” She blinked, feeling embarrassed.
“I’m sorry that I took your virginity.” He clasped her hands and drew them away from her breasts.
“It’s ok.” She paused. She wanted to tell him that she was glad it was him. That she didn’t want to sleep with anyone else, ever. That she loved him and the feel of him. But she kept quiet.
“No. No. It’s not.” He sighed. “I should have known better. Been better.”
“Wait a second.” She stared at him puzzled. “Why did you think I was on the pill?”
“I took your word for it, Sophie.” He looked at her seriously. “Many women go on the pill to help them regulate their menstrual cycle.”
“Oh.” She looked down feeling ashamed.
“I didn’t think you would lie to me.”
“I’m sorry.”
She blinked up at him, letting her hair cover her face.
“Show me.” He dropped her hands and sat back on the couch. His eyes teased her and beckoned her at the same time and she felt a wave of desire hit her. In that moment, there was no one but the two of them in the world. No one else mattered. Nothing else mattered. And Sophie was going to take advantage of the situation. She walked over to the stereo in the corner of the room and turned it on. She had been listening to some jazz the evening before and the smooth notes filled the room. She walked back to him slowly, heart beating and breasts bouncing but she would not let herself be nervous or embarrassed. She pulled her skirt off so that she was standing there in just a thong. She got on the couch, straddled him, and started unbuttoning his shirt.