Played

by Tasha Fawkes

  Scott

  Nearly a week had passed since I had ended things with Megan. A long, miserable, confusing week. I couldn't believe how indecisive I’d been with my personal life. Business was one thing—I never wavered. I made a decision and stuck to it. But my personal life… what a mess I’d made of things. One thing I did know for sure was that I was growing increasingly gloomy and depressed at the thought of never seeing Megan again, never touching her, never loving her again. The near future seemed bleak without her in it. But a lifetime?

  No doubt about it, when the time had come for me to decide, and to take a leap and told myself to follow my heart and not my obligations, I had caved. What was wrong with me? In the back of my mind though, I knew. I knew the reason for my hesitance. Quite plainly, I didn’t have the courage to face up to my dad. I was hesitant to lose my inheritance. Hesitant to lose what I felt was a part of me; my life and my lifestyle.

  So along with everything else, I felt shame; ashamed of myself and disappointed. Not only had I let myself down, but I'd let Megan down too. After telling her how much she meant to me, after telling her that somehow, we would make it work, I had hurt her. Again.

  I shook my head. I had accused Kristin of being indecisive. I was a hypocrite. What about me? Who was I really hurting? I grunted. I had let myself believe that in forcing myself to go through with this phony marriage to Kristin that I wouldn’t be like my father. Now, I realized that was nothing but an excuse. The truth—and the burden of that truth—was on me. It had nothing to do with my father. It was just a way of allowing myself to avoid my truest fear. Fear of striking out on my own. Fear of failure. That I wasn’t good enough. Not only to meet my own expectations, but Megan’s.

  If I lost my inheritance, what would I have to offer Megan? I wanted to give her everything, but if I had gone against my father's wishes, I would end up with nothing. Nothing for myself, nothing for Megan—nothing. That reality didn't make me feel any better. Not one iota. I couldn't even bring myself to talk to Craig about it. I could just see him now, shaking his head in disappointment.

  I sighed, staring wordlessly down at the papers covering my desk in my office. Lost. A lot of good all my money did me right now. I had all the material wealth that a person could ever want or desire, but I didn't have the one thing that I realized now was most important. Love. Contentment. Happiness.

  I was a world-class jerk.

  Megan had appeared in my life out of the blue. Instead of cherishing her, I had let her go. I had let the one person who had ever seemed to understand and care for me slip through my fingers.

  I wished I could take it back, that phone call, but I couldn't. The damage had been done. I'd made a choice, and I doubted that she would ever forgive me. Not that I expected her to, nor would I ask. I wasn't even sure if I would ever forgive myself.

  I sighed, my head pounding, everything around me seeming so insignificant. Despite my attempt to bury myself in work over the past few days, I couldn't stop thinking of Megan. I had deliberately avoided Kristin over the past few days, trying to gain hold of my emotional equilibrium. I knew that if I saw Kristin while I was so… so depressed, and I confronted her about physically attacking Megan the other day, I would lose my temper. Not that I'd ever strike her. Never. But her slapping Megan, that couldn't be undone either. What a horrible, fucked-up mess. And once again, I had no one but myself to blame. I groaned, stared at the pen clasped in my fingers, and, in a fit of pique, threw it across the room. It hit the window with a loud clunk and fell to the floor behind a low-slung wood filing cabinet. I stared out the window, my thoughts bemused, my mind spinning with regrets.

  It was so quiet in my office that I heard the clock on the wall slowly ticking away the seconds. Each tick taunted me. I had always thought myself a confident, self-assured man, but at this moment I felt like a wimp. I would just have to live with the truth about myself for the rest of my life. That I was trying to take responsibility for sleeping with Kristin, for impregnating her, didn’t matter. The truth was, I had been acting like a push-over for months. With my dad, for years. My God, I was twenty-five-years-old! Why did I allow myself…

  I sighed. There was nothing to do about any of it now, and as impossible as it seemed at the moment, I needed to forget about Megan. I had to focus on the future. Within two weeks I’d be getting married. Some months after that, I’d be a father. Resigning myself to making some kind of life with Kristin. I sighed, slid open my top desk drawer, retrieved another pen, and ordered myself to get back to work.

  My phone broke the silence with a subdued ring. I answered it. "Yes?"

  "A Craig Bresson here to see you, sir."

  I frowned, more than a bit startled. Craig rarely came to my office. “Of course, let him in," I said. It had to be important. I tossed the pen down onto the blotter and looked up as my office door opened and Craig entered, closing the door softly behind him. Without a word, he approached my desk and sat down in one of the chairs before it.

  "Craig, what’s—"

  "What the hell is going on, Scott?"

  Though he spoke softly, his voice was low, his tone angry. I stared at him, confused. "What are you—"

  "I'm hearing gossip, and on top of that, Kristin called me this morning—"

  "What? Why—"

  Craig lifted a hand. "Is it true? You're having an affair with Kristin's wedding planner? The one you told me that I couldn't hit on?" Craig shook his head. "That delightful little thing on the boat? Was that your brilliant idea?"

  I groaned and tried to explain, but Craig was having none of it.

  "You're a jerk, you know that, Scott?" Again, he shook his head, brows lowered. "Is money is so important to you that you'd agree to marry Kristin… that you'd literally allow yourself to be blackmailed into marrying her…?" Another disappointed head shake. "Tell me what the hell is going on, and I mean all of it."

  And so, with a sigh, I did. I repeated much of what he already knew, about my sleeping with Kristin, getting her pregnant, my father and his threats, but only now did I tell him the truth about Megan. How we had been such good friends, such a good couple, back in high school. I told him about her suddenly dropping out of that private school, her father's suicide, and then everything that had happened since Megan knocked on my office door, applying for the job we posted on Craigslist for a personal assistant for Kristin.

  Craig stared at me for several wordless moments after I finished. The way he was looking at me… to be quite honest, I barely restrained myself from squirming. I thought I'd head him off at the pass. "Yes, I’m a jerk, Craig. And I’ll admit to something else too. I'm head over heels in love with Megan, but I’ve blown it. But—"

  "But you're going to go ahead with this ridiculous marriage with Kristin?" Craig interrupted with a scowl. "Have you even questioned paternity?"

  "She told me that she hadn't slept with anyone besides me—"

  "And you believed her?" he asked, his voice rising in octave. "So you don't know the child's paternity, not for sure?"

  I frowned. "I thought I already told you, Craig, that I was advised that it would be best to wait until after the child is born, for safety's sake—"

  He slashed his hand at the air. "That doesn't mean you have to marry her! God, Scott! You're ruining your life! And besides, what good would it do to be a father for any child in a loveless marriage? Don’t you remember your life growing up? Can you imagine the tension? The animosity brewing just beneath the surface? What kind of a thing is that to do to a child?" Again, he shook his head. "We've been friends a long time, so I think I've earned the right to speak my mind. And right now, all I can say is that you’re one selfish son of a bitch."

  I stared at my friend, knowing deep inside that everything he said about me was true. I felt exhausted, emotionally pummeled, and mentally drained. "What else can I do?" It sounded lame, even as I said it.

  "If you don't know the answer to that question, Scott, then I guess I just don't know you at all."<
br />
  With that, Craig rose from his chair and left the office, closing the door softly behind him. I stared at it for several minutes, my thoughts reeling. What could I do? What indeed.

  Eighteen

  Megan

  I tried to move on, tried to shove my emotions down, pretend it didn't matter, but I couldn't quite manage it. The tension at home between my mother and I was palpable, unfortunate, and more than sad. But my stubborn pride kept me from… I wasn’t sure how I felt. While she had been right about Scott, I still didn't believe that she had any right, not any right at all, to contact Kristin behind my back. Especially after I had told her what a bitch Kristin could be, not just out of any feelings on my part as a jealous person, but because of the way she treated people—and Scott. It wasn’t just me, either, but the way she treated staff at Scott's house, the caterers, florists, and wedding planners that we had both come into contact with before I had been abruptly fired.

  Kristin wasn’t a nice person. Period. Although I supposed she must have some redeeming qualities. Didn't everyone? If she did, she kept them well hidden. And Scott. I couldn't believe that he had chosen to live a lie with Kristin, who I knew he didn't love, rather than break away from her and live an open, honest, and genuine life. With me. I couldn't believe it.

  Could I blame him for choosing money over me? It wasn't quite that simple, and I knew it. I had struggled paycheck to paycheck since my father died. So had Mom. But was it really so bad? We'd never been homeless, never gone hungry. Sure, we cut corners sometimes, and there were times when we ate spaghetti three or four nights in a row, but it could've been a lot worse. Did we worry constantly about paying the bills? Of course. But at the same time, we'd always had each other. Our love and support had carried each of us through some pretty hard times, and until recently, I had taken comfort in that.

  I had taken comfort in the fact that as long as I was loved and I had the capability of loving, that my mom and I could get through anything. Hadn't we already been through the worst? And yet…

  And yet.

  In spite of the fact that I had been fired, physically accosted by a pregnant woman no less, and called abhorrent names by said pregnant woman, I didn't look at the experience as a total loss. In just a short time I had gained so much; in that short amount of time that I worked with Kristin and the Holbrook Corporation, I had been reconnected to someone who meant more to me than anyone else in the world, besides my mother, of course. I had experienced a resurgence of affection and love for Scott, and no matter how badly it turned out, I didn't regret it. Did I miss working for Kristin? Hell no. But did I miss Scott? I did.

  During those brief interludes we’d had, however, I recalled the strain of keeping our knowledge of each other hidden, everything kept hush-hush, nobody could know. Regardless of how I felt about him, I knew I couldn't live like that. Yes, we had agreed that somehow, we could make it work, but I thought I was merely fooling myself and ignoring the inevitable. I couldn't have become his mistress. And I couldn't have accepted him stepping behind Kristin's back to see me.

  I knew there was some reason that we had reconnected, that we had found each other after all these years, that we discovered that our feelings for each other were not merely childhood crushes. So even though I knew I couldn't be with him, that he had made his choice again, the way he was going about it felt so very wrong. His father was literally blackmailing him, and Scott was accepting it. That made me incredibly angry, not just for myself, but for Scott.

  He deserved better than that, dammit!

  What if—

  "I'm leaving for work, Megan!"

  I abruptly rose from the chair by the window, where I had been attempting to read a food magazine, when I heard my mom's voice coming down the hallway. I knew that I needed to talk to her. We needed to somehow find a way to mend this rift that had opened between us. I needed her to know that while I didn't approve of her methods, I did understand her concern for me. I didn't want this silence, this awkward tiptoeing around each other to grow worse. We were all we had for each other. We had to support each other. We both had to work together and contribute toward our expenses.

  I rushed to my bedroom door and opened it. "Mom—"

  I heard the front door shut firmly. By the time I got to the living room and looked out the window, I saw her climbing into the car, quickly starting it, and backing out. I stared at it until her car disappeared down the street, disappointment and sadness once again blooming in my heart. Wasn't it enough that I had lost Scott? I couldn't even talk about this loss to Mom because she hadn’t approved of it in the first place. Plus, there was my annoyance with her for even considering talking to Kristin. Lots of confused feelings and emotions.

  I sighed, turned, and looked around the apartment. Was our life really so bad? Our furniture had mainly been picked up piece by piece from secondhand stores, but the TV was new. It was a comfortable apartment and our work schedules prevented us from spending too many hours every day with each other, but we made do. Did I want more? Of course. I still had a good portion of the payment that Scott had given me, and with that, I probably might… possibly, though a slim chance… be able to get a small business loan to open up a bistro. But if I used it, that would pretty much leave our bank account empty again, and I rather liked having a cushion there, just in case of an emergency.

  Shit. I would just have to keep working, finding odd jobs, trying to tuck a little money here and there into the bank. Someday, I knew that I would achieve my goals. Sure, I could achieve them so much faster if I had managed to complete my term of employment with Kristin, but there was no use crying over spilt milk. Water under the bridge. How many trite and clichéd phrases could I come up with to…

  Worthless waste of energy. But one thing I realized as I stood there, staring around at the not so ritzy but comfortable and secure life that my mom and I had built together, was that an injustice has been done. I suppose I deserved Kristin's wrath. I had slept with her fiancé. That was on me, and I would deal with my own sense of regret for allowing it to happen.

  But what stuck in my craw, really stuck in my craw, was the way Scott's father was treating his son. Mike Holbrook, whether indirectly or directly, had destroyed my life once. I had survived that. But I'd be damned if I could ignore the fact that he was destroying his son's life. The injustice… I might not have any right to intercede on Scott's behalf, and he probably didn't want me to. But I had to do something, didn't I? At the very least, I could confront the bastard about my father’s death. And then I suddenly realized that my mom had acted much the same for my sake. She had taken drastic measures to make sure that I didn't step over the line, didn't accept a life that was unjust, or that would relegate me eventually to nothing but misery. Not to mention the fact that I had even considered becoming ‘the other woman’.

  That's what love and devotion really was about, wasn't it? That moment I knew what I needed to do. Scott might not appreciate it any more than I had appreciated my mother butting in, but he didn't have to know, did he? A plan began to form in my head. My instincts were that the baby Kristin was carrying wasn’t Scott’s, but of course I didn't have any proof of that. I appreciated that Scott was holding off on a paternity test until the baby was born, but by then it would be too late. Would he go through with the marriage only to divorce a short time later if the child proved not to be his? I didn't think so, because I knew, that deep down, Scott was afraid of turning into his father. He was trying to do the right thing by the child. But if that child ultimately was determined not to be his, Scott shouldn’t have to share custody, or support, or anything else. That was the baby’s father’s job.

  I knew that Kristin would refuse to see me, and she certainly would never admit that the baby wasn’t Scott’s, but I knew someone who would and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I also knew what I had to do. I needed to get a confession from the man himself. Mike Holbrook. The man who had destroyed my family and my life, and was in the process of doing t
he same with Scott. He might feel he was doing the best thing for Scott, but settling him with a woman like Kristin… no, I couldn't let it happen, at least not without trying.

  I didn't expect Scott to come crawling back into my arms nor did I want him to. He had made a choice, and I wasn't it. Nevertheless, I loved Scott, and justified or not, this was one thing that I could do that might, just might, help set him free.

  Two days later, I stood in front of the Holbrook building. I knew Scott wasn't there. I'd been watching from a diner down the street and he'd left, briefcase in hand, for an appointment in San Juan Capistrano, about a forty-five-minute drive from this location. I knew that because I was the one who’d requested the visit. I hadn't talked with Scott of course, but his secretary. I had done a good job of disguising my voice—just in case—by placing a sock over the speaker on my phone. I’d spoken softly, sometimes so softly that the secretary had to ask me to repeat myself.

  I felt guilty for sending Scott off on a wild goose chase, but there was no other way. I couldn't take the chance of him seeing me in the building, nor approaching or leaving Mike Holbrook's office. Was I doing the right thing, or was I only going to make things worse? I didn't think so, because I didn't believe that Mike Holbrook would dare tell Scott of my visit. What would I do with any information I got—much less a confession? I wasn’t sure yet.

  I stood, my heart pounding, looking up at the glass and steel structure, telling myself that I could turn around and walk away. I should have, but I didn't. I carried a leather shoulder satchel with me today, with a large front pocket. Inside was my iPhone. I knew exactly what I was going to do. My appointment was scheduled in fifteen minutes. I would take the elevator upstairs, tell the secretary that I had an appointment with Mister Holbrook, which I did, under a false name of course, and then I’d sit down and wait, pretending to check text messages. As soon as I was told I could go in to Holbrook’s office, I would pretend to finish my message and then slide the phone into the front pocket of my purse. No one would know that every moment of my upcoming conversation with the man was being recorded.