by Wild, Nikki
But now, staring at her account balance, a coil of dread knotted in her stomach as she wondered just how long she could keep it up.
It didn’t make any sense. She’d cashed out her trust fund when she’d turned eighteen and put almost all the money therein toward college-related expenses. Sure, she’d stashed a bit in savings, and some of it she’d used to buy clothes and a few nice dinners, and the rest had gone into renting an apartment with her boyfriend, Jude Wilkinson. Her parents had absolutely hated him in high school, which was why she couldn’t rely on them to finance her education—once she’d made it clear she was moving out to be with him, they’d cut her off.
Or, more accurately, her mother had. Her stepfather had been much more sympathetic to her situation and less explosive in his disappointment. That was why they still spoke at least once a week while she and her mother remained largely estranged.
Nicole was beginning to regret that now, mostly because she had a terrible feeling about the discrepancy in her account. Something seemed very, very wrong.
She ducked out of line and quickly headed across campus to her car parked in the student lot. She hopped in and fastened her seatbelt, cold sweat beading on her palms as she shifted into reverse and backed out of the tight space. She didn’t want to think about the countless possibilities just yet, not when she couldn’t do a damn thing about them, and she certainly didn’t want to entertain the sneaking suspicion she had about what had really happened to all the money.
A single word rose to the surface of her thoughts anyway: Jude.
They’d been having some troubles lately. She supposed that was putting it mildly, but she couldn’t admit to herself just how frequent and intense their fighting had become. It wasn’t always like that between them, but in recent months, Jude’s attitude and lack of ambition had really begun to grate on her, and Nicole wasn’t the kind of girl who could sit there silently while she was being wronged.
She tried to be sympathetic. She tried to give him time to figure out what, exactly, he wanted to do with his life. But after three years of waiting for him to figure himself out—and in the meantime, having to endure his self-pitying horseshit and disregard for their mutual finances—Nicole was just about at the end of her rope.
I should’ve never given him access to that account, she thought, her heart racing as she made her way to the bank only a few streets down. That was so stupid. Christ, what was I thinking?
The answer, of course, was that she wasn’t thinking. She’d acted out of love, out of desperation to make things between her and Jude work. After all, the alternative would be to admit that her mother was right and coming crawling back with her tail between her legs, and frankly, she wasn’t sure she could handle that.
But could she handle being bankrupt? Was that was her stupid pride had wrought?
She pulled hastily into the bank’s parking lot, almost missing the turn in her doom and gloom reverie, and rushed through the doors into the quiet lobby. It was so silent she was sure that everyone could hear her heart hammering in her chest, and she felt lightheaded as she approached the teller, her hands trembling.
“Can I help you?” the older woman said, her straw-colored hair pulled into a tight bun at her nape. She regarded Nicole coolly, and she swore she almost saw a small sneer forming at the corner of the woman’s thin, pale lips. Maybe she shouldn’t have rushed past the line without being called for, even if there had been no one standing in front of her to object.
“I-I don’t know,” she stammered, shakily pulling her ID from her wallet and thrusting it under the glass. “I’m Nicole Perkins. Account number four-two-seven-three-three. I think there’s some kind of problem…”
The teller—whose name, as indicated by the tag on her blouse, was Margery—eyed Nicole a moment before inputting her data into the computer. She moved through a few screens before one of her ashen eyebrows raised.
“Twenty dollars and seventy-eight cents,” she intoned, much to Nicole’s dismay. “My, that’s a low balance.”
“I know,” she answered, chewing the dead skin off her lower lip. She’d been hoping that there was some kind of system error, some other reason why so much of her money was missing, but judging by the nearly vacant lobby and the calm indifference with which Margery was treating her, that was not the case.
Margery was silent until Nicole spoke again. “When was the last withdrawal made?” she asked her.
“This morning,” the teller answered. “Around nine thirteen, by Jude…”
“Wilkinson,” Nicole said breathlessly. She closed her eyes. “I know.”
Jude had waited for her to leave that morning before going to the bank and withdrawing almost all of her available cash. The row they’d had the night before had been unusually heated, but never in a million years had she considered that he’d do something like this to her in retribution.
What would she find when she returned to the apartment? Would he even be there? Or would she walk through the door to find all his things missing—and possibly some of hers—and their home trashed in his vindictive wake?
“Son of a bitch,” she murmured, tears welling in her eyes. She turned her attention back to the teller. “Can you, um, put a hold on the account? His name, only. I still want access to it, if that’s possible.”
“You wish to remove his name from the account?”
“Yes,” Nicole told her. “This… wasn’t an authorized withdrawal.”
Margery sniffed. “Well, if his name was on the account, then it most certainly was authorized by you at one point, Miss Perkins,” she said. “It’s not the bank’s fault.”
Nicole clenched her fists. Her whole world was spiraling out of control. She was in no mood for some bank teller trying to cover her own ass right now.
“Whatever,” she snapped. “Just make sure Mr. Wilkinson’s name is taken off the account.” Hot, angry tears were beginning to slip down her face, leaving long, iridescent streaks across her fair, freckled skin. “I have to go.”
She turned away from the snooty bitch manning the counter and wiped her eyes on her sleeve, leaving dark streaks of mascara on her sweater. Great. Just great. And now she couldn’t even afford dry cleaning.
She crossed over the threshold to the outside world again and fished her cell phone out of her purse. She tried calling Jude, hoping she could somehow change his mind, but his phone number had already been disconnected. He must have been planning this for a long time, she realized. If he’d only left because of what they’d said to one another last night, she doubted it would have been this well executed. Jude didn’t do well on the fly. This had to have been a long time coming. He’d just gone to great lengths to ensure she was blindsided by it.
But could she really say she hadn’t known, hadn’t at least sensed that what they had was coming to a bitter, messy end? Could Nicole truly claim that she’d had not even the tiniest, most infinitesimal inkling that she and Jude were as good as over?
Maybe, she admitted, the single thought drawing another painful fracture across her heart. Maybe I did. But not like this.
She sighed, her breath quavering as she scrolled through her contacts, searching for salvation. She didn’t have a lot of friends at the university—Jude’s shitty behavior always made sure of that—and the ones she’d had back home had probably forgotten about her by now. She knew from Facebook that most of them had moved out of state looking for opportunities elsewhere. Lots of them were film students or actors, which took them either to New York City, LA, or Atlanta.
She felt another wave of despair hit her. It was all she could do to keep from sinking to her knees.
Where the hell do I go now?
She didn’t want to go back to the apartment, that was for sure. She didn’t want to know what Jude had done to it, if he’d made a point to destroy any material evidence of their lives together as fully as he’d destroyed any emotional connection between them. With a little over twenty dollars to her name, she didn’t want
to think about losing their security deposit or having to pay damages on whatever he’d chosen to demolish when he’d left. Sure, there was a chance that everything was fine, but at the moment, she didn’t have it in her to go and find out.
Besides, there were too many memories there, most of them bad. If she had to deal with one more bastion of negativity today, she was sure she would crumble entirely.
She slunk to her car and leaned back the driver’s seat, sighing as she took a moment to collect her thoughts. Her head was spinning. Her options seemed painfully limited. And above all else, she could hear her mother’s cold voice ringing in her ears: I told you so…
“Fuck you,” she muttered out loud, though she wasn’t sure if it was meant for her mother or Jude. The tears were coming again, blurring her vision until everything beyond her windshield was a smear, an Impressionist’s representation of the dismal outlook she had for her future.
“Daddy,” she murmured, sitting up and once again wiping her eyes, though far more carefully this time. Her stepfather could fix this—she knew it. Her mother had told her when she left to never bother returning again, but she was sure that Thomas could find some way to change that. He might have been soft-spoken compared to her mom, but he was shrewd, cunning, and present when it mattered. He could figure something out to fix all of this. He had to.
Nicole bit her lip, choosing his number from her contacts list. It was near the top by the list of her recent calls. She supposed she did speak to her stepfather a lot, maybe more than other girls would, but Thomas had to fill the void her mother had left, and relying on him was the only thing that made her feel like she had any parents at all.
She waited as the phone rang, hoping he would pick up. She needed to hear his voice. She needed him to tell her it was all going to be okay.
A small surge of elation jolted through her when she heard his voice on the other end of the line. “Hello?”
“Daddy,” she began, “it’s Nicole.”
He chuckled softly. His voice was warm and smooth like honeyed silk. “I know that, sweetheart. I saw it on the caller ID.” Then he paused, as if sensing the nature of her call. “Is everything all right?”
Nicole shook her head. “No. Not really.” She drew in a deep, shuddering breath. “God, not at all. Jude, he… he left me.” Shame burned in her cheeks as she added: “And he took all my money with him.”
Her stepfather didn’t say anything right away, and Nicole felt compelled to continue. “I’m so sorry, Daddy,” she whispered, closing her eyes tight to stem the tide of tears threatening to overwhelm her once again. “I know it was stupid to give him access to the account, but at the time, it seemed like a good idea, and…”
“It’s not your fault,” he said abruptly, shattering the illusion of blame she’d wrapped herself in. “There’s nothing wrong with trusting someone you love. The only thing that’s wrong about that is that Jude betrayed that trust.” He was quiet for a moment, as if contemplating the matter, before he said: “Do you need me to wire you some money?”
Nicole sucked her lip hard. “Will Mom let you?”
She could almost hear Thomas smirk. To anyone who didn’t know him, it looked like he let his wife run the show, but the reality was that Thomas always had everything under control. Even when she’d cut Nicole off, he’d found ways of padding her funds here and there, usually with regular gifts that sometimes didn’t even fall on actual holidays.
“Leave your mother to me,” he told her. “I can take care of her. Now, tell me what you need, and I’ll make it happen.”
She knew money was no object. Her stepfather was literally a billionaire, a real estate mogul. Not the “fix and flip” home-buyer, Thomas was the kind of man who owned skyscrapers in Manhattan. He’d always ensured Nicole and her mother had never wanted for anything. Still, she remembered the hard times they’d had when she was growing up, and she felt weird asking for too much all at once. Gifts were one thing, but begging was another.
She sighed, running a hand through her auburn hair. “Um… I dunno, exactly,” she admitted, trying to think through the fog gathering in her mind. “He cleaned me out. I had about sixty-thousand in there. And then there’s the apartment…” She groaned, covering her eyes and shielding them from the oppressive sun. “I have no idea what kind of state it’s in, Daddy, and honestly, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to go back there—ever.”
“If you don’t, you’ll need money to cover breaking your lease, money for a new place, and money to replace all your things,” her stepfather mused. His buttery voice slipped inside her, quelling the anxiety rattling her bones. She was so thankful he’d picked up when she’d called him. He always knew what to do. “You’ll need… probably a hundred thousand, maybe more, yes?”
Nicole winced. Now that he’d put a number to it, it seemed like so much, more than she felt comfortable asking him for. “I-I mean… that’s a lot, but… Yes. If I wanted to recover everything Jude took, I’d need about that much to do it. I don’t expect this for free,” she added quickly, the words practically spilling out of her mouth. “I don’t expect a handout. I know you and Mom never liked him, and I didn’t listen to your warnings. I could work for it, provide some kind of service to earn that money, or maybe…”
She trailed off, realizing how stupid she sounded. What could she possibly offer her stepfather to justify taking a hundred thousand dollars from him?
But Thomas was quick to reply. “Actually, there might be something. But I can’t talk about it here. Come home, Nicole. I’ll sort things out with your mother.”
Nicole blinked. Those were words she’d never thought she’d hear. “Are you sure…?”
“Trust me,” her stepfather told her, “I’ll get it all figured out. You just come on home, sweetheart. Let Daddy take care of you.”
Nicole blushed all the way up to her ears as she ended the call. For some reason, her stepfather’s words had struck a chord in her—one that was a little darker than she would have liked. He was the only man who’d ever really been there for her in her life, and some part of her responded to that not only with gratitude, but something bordering on attraction, desire.
She shook her head, laughing. That was insane. It was just some errant, inappropriate thought formed by the delirious magnitude of her grief. She didn’t think that way about her stepfather. That would have been wrong.
But her protestations didn’t explain the wetness in her panties as she put her car into drive, nor the way her heart had skipped a beat when he had called himself “Daddy.”
A few hours later, Nicole was sitting in her stepfather’s study, her eyes wide as she stared at him across his desk.
“You… you want me to do what?” she whispered to him.
Thomas smiled. He was a very handsome man with a strong, square jaw, champagne-colored eyes, and hair as dark as the mahogany desk that separated them. Little flecks of gray had begun to streak away from his temples, but even so, it only made him look more distinguished, especially with the five o’clock shadow he was now sporting. Nicole didn’t remember him wearing his facial hair like that back when she was living at home, and part of her thanked God for that. It would have been strange finding Thomas any sexier than he already was.
“You don’t have to say ‘yes,’ ” he assured her, his Cheshire grin only serving to make her more anxious, and yet soothe her all at once. “It was a just a thought. Given your circumstances, it seemed like the perfect way to pull our family back together.”
Nicole leaned back in the tufted leather seat, mulling it over. Out of all the things she’d anticipated her stepfather asking her to do in exchange for the hundred thousand dollars she needed to get her life back on track, acting as a surrogate hadn’t been one of them.
Especially when the child inside of her would be his and her mother’s baby.
“I’m just… surprised,” she said, peering up at him through her thick lashes. “It’s not what I expected to hear.”
>
Her stepfather laughed, his pearly white teeth flashing in the light from the chandelier above them. “I bet!” he said. “But you offered, remember?”
Nicole nodded slowly. “I guess. But how will this affect school? And, I mean, my body…”
She looked down at her taut little tummy. She’d always been in good shape, even without trying, the kind of girl who could scarf down an entire pizza without gaining a single pound. She was the envy of all the girls on campus. Would carrying a baby change that?
She looked into her stepfather’s eyes. He smiled warmly at her, leaning across his desk, his muscles straining through his prim, button-down shirt.
“I’ll take care of everything,” he assured her. “Your mother has wanted a baby for some time now, but given our age differences, conceiving has been… difficult. We’ve talked about surrogacy before, but finding someone we trust has also proved a challenge.” His eyes roamed over her body in a way that made her face flush. “You’d be the perfect fit, Nicole. You’re young. You’re fertile. I’m sure the fertilized eggs would take without any problems. All you’d have to do is put up with a few months of swollen feet and a beach ball for a belly, after which time, all your troubles go away.