by Claire Adams
I scowled at her and spun towards the door to my car, the file still clutched in my fingers. “Fine, whatever. Thanks for the heads-up. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go home. And like I said, this had better be the last time that I see you around me. I mean it this time; one more unannounced visit and I'll make sure everyone knows what a crazy fucking bitch you are.”
“Fine,” Renée snapped as I slammed my door shut.
I shook my head as I drove toward home, glancing over, now and again, at the manila folder on the passenger's seat. I needed to get rid of the thing as soon as I could. And I needed to get rid of the thing without Lexi seeing it.
I could only imagine what she would start to think if she thought that I didn't trust her. If she thought that I'd gotten a paternity test without her knowing. She'd be upset just knowing that I'd seen Renée, probably, and I didn't want to upset her.
Things had been going really well lately. We were comfortable. We were sleeping together every night, even though we didn't always have sex, and I liked waking up with her just as much as I'd known I would. And beyond that, there were all of our family outings. I liked those too. I didn't know how much of that would go away if Lexi thought I didn't trust her, but I had a feeling she wouldn't be in a relationship with a guy she thought didn't trust her.
And even though we still had yet to have that conversation, I was starting to think of what we had as a relationship, more and more so every day. A serious relationship, even.
I drummed my fingers on the edge of the steering wheel, feeling agitated.
The thing was, I tended to have pretty accurate instincts for people. It came with growing up in a business empire, I was sure. When Lexi had shown up on my doorstep, I hadn't thought for a second that she was lying to me about Emma's paternity. Especially not since the little girl looked so much like a young Katherine. But now, with that file sitting there on my seat, I started to wonder if maybe we should get the DNA test done. Just to have absolute reassurance.
What would happen if it turned out Emma's father was really some other guy, and he one day came along and wanted to take her away from me? He'd have every right to do so if the DNA was a match, I had a feeling. Despite all of my millions, the comfortable family life that I'd managed to cobble together could come crashing down in an instant.
I wondered if maybe I should confront Lexi. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a good idea. Come to think of it, I didn't know why I hadn't had a background check run on her already. I knew that she was having difficulty getting hired, and I had to assume that there was something in her history that made her unemployable. Sure, she had said that Albright was blackballing her to everyone else in the industry, but what if that wasn't the case? What if she had a criminal conviction for fraud?
Hell, that could have been the whole reason why Albright had fired her in the first place, if that arrest history had only suddenly been made known to them.
I didn't want to go behind Lexi's back, though. I could hire a private investigator of my own and have all the information I could ever have wanted on her in a day's time. But that felt sneaky, and I felt like I owed it to Lexi to do this face to face. But I was going to need to ask her.
I took a deep breath to calm myself and pulled into a parking lot down the street from my mansion. If I was going to confront Lexi, I might as well do it with Renée's documents in hand. And if I was going to do that, I would need to know exactly what was there in that file.
I began to leaf through the file, heedless of how late it was growing.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Lexi
I stood up and went to the front door as I heard Andrew enter. Emma had gone to sleep a little while ago, and it had taken me three stories to get her to close her eyes. She'd been distraught at the fact that her Daddy wasn't there to tuck her in. Andrew had been good about being there lately, and it had been nearly a month since the last time he'd missed bedtime.
“Hey,” I said, coming into the front hall and leaning up on my toes to kiss him, even as he was still taking his jacket off. “Did your meetings run late? I know you said you were going to be running late this evening, but I didn't expect you to be quite this late.”
Andrew grunted in response, and I frowned. Maybe something had gone wrong in one of his meetings? But I couldn't think of what. He'd just been telling me yesterday, as he prepared his notes for his meetings today, that everything was going amazingly for this quarter and that he was so proud of his team.
But maybe there had been some new problem that day, something to do with shipping lines or warehouses, and he was just caught up in that. It wouldn't be the first time that he was unable to draw his mind away from a work problem.
“Emma's already in bed,” I told him slowly, wondering if maybe thoughts of our daughter could draw him out of his funk. “She was pretty sad that Daddy wasn't here to tuck her in.”
Andrew scowled. “I'm not always going to be here to tuck her in; you know that,” he said. “I run a very important business. You shouldn't set her expectations so high.”
I blinked, wondering if what he really meant was that I shouldn't set my expectations so high. I bit my lower lip, feeling wounded. “There's still some dinner leftovers,” I told him. “Do you want me to fix you a plate?”
“Would you quit that?” Andrew snapped.
“Quit what?” I asked, holding my breath as I waited for his answer.
“Quit acting so domestic. We aren't a couple.”
I stared at him, feeling tears pool in my eyes. I blinked them rapidly away. “Of course not,” I said, wondering what I had done wrong. “Sorry, I'll just head up to bed, I guess.” I paused. “Should I sleep in my own room?”
“I don't really want to cuddle tonight, no,” Andrew said. He really sounded distracted; his mind was clearly elsewhere.
“Okay,” I said, feeling something inside of me shatter at his words.
Sure, it was just one night away from one another. It would be nice to stretch out in my own bed and not have to worry that I was stealing too much of the blankets or that I was too far over on his side of the bed.
But even though I wanted to believe that this was only one night apart, something had clearly happened, and I had zero idea what it was. If I didn’t know what the problem was, I couldn’t begin to figure out how to fix it. Maybe he'd just grown tired of me.
I started towards the stairs, trying not to trip over my feet, feeling the tears already starting to spill over.
“Lexi, wait,” Andrew said, catching my wrist and pulling me back towards him. He ran a hand back through his hair. “We need to talk.”
“Did something bad happen at work?” I asked, hoping that would explain this scary outburst of his. Maybe that would be the end of it, and we could go back to some semblance of normal.
But if anything, Andrew just looked more agitated. “People are always trying to take advantage of me in my business,” he said. “Whether because they think that I'm young and inexperienced or because they're just blindly after my money, they think they can just walk all over me.” He paused and then said, weighing the words significantly, “But people try to take advantage of me in my personal life, too.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, starting to feel a little scared.
I knew that I was taking advantage of him, but I had thought that this was okay. He'd asked for us to stay for a few months while he and I figured out our relationship, after all. And he'd set up Emma's room so that it was perfect for a little girl. Anyway, if he didn't want us there, I thought he was going to help us move out. He knew that I didn't have any money. I still didn't have a job.
Andrew grabbed a manila folder off the table by the door and thrust it towards me, wordlessly watching as I opened it up.
It was a DNA test.
I gaped at it and then turned my eyes towards Andrew, wondering when he'd decided to get the paternity test done after all, and why he hadn't told me about it
. Did he think that I would have minded? I totally understood if he felt like he had to get one done. After all, I was asking a lot, asking him to take us in like this, and I knew that someone in his position, with his billions, needed to worry about girls trying to take advantage of him.
The words on the paper swirled in front of me, making it difficult to read them. But I didn't need to read them. Andrew told me all that I needed to know about them a moment later.
“As you'll notice, that DNA test shows conclusively that I am not Emma's father,” Andrew said, his voice dark and dangerous. “Now what I want to know is, were you actually trying to con me, or did you really not know that she is someone else's child?”
I stared down at the results, feeling bile rise in the back of my throat. But the results made no sense. Emma was his daughter. There was no way that she could be anyone else's daughter. The timing didn't make sense, and anyway, I'd seen pictures of Katherine when she was a kid. There were a couple of them around Andrew's house. The two girls could have been twins.
But even beyond that, the timing of it all. I had already told him I wasn't the kind of person to sleep around. Misty could vouch for me, too. She'd known who the father was as soon as I'd told her I was pregnant, without trying to count the months or anything. Emma had to be his child. It was physically impossible for her to be someone else's.
“Andrew, I don't know who you got this from, but it's not true,” I said, wishing my voice sounded stronger, that I spoke with a little more conviction. But it was hard just getting the words out. I occurred to me that I wasn't breathing right, and that I felt faint.
“You don't think those documents look legitimate?” Andrew asked, a sneer on his face. “With the signatures and the legal stamps and everything else? You think that I've just made this all up? If I wanted you out of my life, all I had to do was tell you to get out. I could pay you to get out, rather than paying no-doubt extraordinary amounts of money to get someone to fabricate a legal document for me.”
It did look official. That was true. But the words on the paper baffled me. “There must have been some sort of mix-up. Maybe they accidentally used the wrong sample. Those things can happen, can't they? And it’s not like you took Emma to the lab for someone to collect her DNA. Whatever sample you used, it might have been compromised.” A desperate note had crept into my voice, but I didn't care how I sounded at that moment. I just needed him to realize the truth.
Surely, he wouldn't just kick us out, would he? Me maybe, but not Emma, right? Where would we go? Emma was already asleep for the night. How would I explain to her that the room that she'd been calling her own for weeks now was no longer hers? That we were no longer living there and that she was never again going to see the man who she'd been calling Daddy?
Then, something else from the documents caught my eye. “Hang on,” I said, shaking my head. “Andrew, even if the DNA test is true, even if Emma isn't your daughter, I've never been arrested for fraud. I swear on that one. I've never even gotten a speeding ticket!”
Andrew narrowed his eyes at me. “If you're not telling the truth,” he said warningly, leaving the threat hanging between us.
I burst into tears. This was all too much for me. “Is this some sort of test?” I wailed. “Andrew, I swear to you, I swear to you, I've never been arrested. You don't have to believe me about Emma, but don't kick us out, please. Not tonight. Not when Emma's already in bed. Please.”
Andrew looked pale and unhappy, but his mouth set into a firm line. “I'm not going to kick you out,” he said slowly. “But I am going to go stay at a hotel for a few days. I know that none of this is Emma's fault, whatever it is that you've done in the past. And I want to believe you. I want to believe that she's mine and that I can trust you. But I just don't know what to believe anymore.”
“Where did you even get this from?” I asked, shaking the documents. “I just don't understand.”
“That's private,” Andrew said, shaking his head. He moved past me towards the stairs. “I'm going to pack a bag. Please don't call me while I'm gone.”
“Don't leave,” I begged, reaching for him. “Please. I'm sure we can talk this through. I'm sure we can figure it out. Just tell me where you got this information from, please. I swear it isn't true. Emma's your daughter. You know that. You have to feel that. Please.”
I sobbed uncontrollably. I was shaking. But Andrew was cold and distant. He brushed away my reaching hands. It was just like he'd been the morning after that first night. He wanted nothing more to do with me. What I didn't understand is how we had gotten to this point. I had thought that things were going so well between us. And now, this.
“Please Andrew,” I whispered. “Please, I love you. I love you so much. I'd never do anything to hurt you. I'd never lie to you. I swear it isn't true. Don't go, please. This test is wrong.”
I had never meant to say those words in this situation. I had meant to save them for some perfect moment, some special time. They'd been on the tip of my tongue for a month now, ever since the Fourth of July, but I'd held back, kept myself from saying them, because I wanted to make sure that we were both ready to hear those words spoken out loud.
Now, here I was, wailing them in the front hall, hurling them at Andrew's back as though they were some magic spell to bring back his affection for me.
But even those words, “I love you,” were clearly not going to be enough to sway Andrew, not when he was like this. Instead, he barely even blinked. He stomped over to the stairs and disappeared. I collapsed to the floor like a marionette whose strings have been cut, sobbing desperately.
The one saving grace was that Emma wasn't awake to witness this. But I knew, with a sickening feeling in my gut, that in spite of all appearances over the past few months, my luck had never changed from bad to good after all.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Andrew
I knew I was scaring people at the office the following morning, but I didn't care. I'd had a sleepless night, alone in a hotel bed, and I'd come into the office early, angrily throwing myself into my work and trying to forget about the mess at home.
From everything that Lexi had said the previous night, from how upset she'd been, I wanted to believe that she was telling the truth. But I also knew that if she was conning me, she would likely be a skilled actress.
I didn't know what to believe. And I didn't want to think about it anymore.
My secretary poked her head into my office, looking pale and terrified. I scowled at her. “I have my 'do not disturb' on for a reason,” I snarled. “Get out!”
“Sir, it's your sister,” the woman said, barely audible. “She told me to interrupt you, whatever you were doing. Said it was an emergency.”
I felt my blood run cold at the thought of anything having happened to Katherine. She was the only person who I could ever trust, the only person who had proved time and time again that my love for her wasn't unfounded. I hurriedly clicked off the “do not disturb” on my phone and nodded to my secretary to patch the call through.
When I picked it up, I felt stupid for even thinking that something might have happened to Katherine. No, she was just as all right as ever, but she was angry. It was the first time I thought I'd ever heard her truly angry about something, despite all the times that I'd missed our brunches or forgotten to call her when I'd said that I would.
“Andrew Patrick Goldwright!” she snapped. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself! I know that you have no manners, and I know that you're a misogynistic asshole, but seriously? I never thought that you would be this much of a dick. An absolute dick. What the fuck is your problem? Where the hell do you get off?”
I pulled the receiver away from my ear and stared at it, wondering if this was really my sweet, good-natured sister on the other end of the line. I'd hardly heard her cuss before, let alone cuss like this.
She continued to rant for another minute or so, and I just sat there listening, letting her work it out of her system. It was a tact
ic that I usually employed with other businessmen when they called irate about some product not being delivered or some other failure in our system. But when it was upset businessmen that I was working with, rants like this tended to bore me. When it was Katherine ranting like this, and ranting at me, I started to get agitated.
“Are you going to tell me what you're so upset about?” I asked when she finally wrapped up what she was saying. I tried to keep my tone mild, but I didn't quite manage to. Instead, I sounded almost embarrassed, and I didn't even know what I had supposedly done wrong. It was something big, though, from the sounds of it.
“I can't believe you,” Katherine said. She sounded disgusted still, but much more like her usual self. “Do you even realize how badly you've upset Lexi?”
I felt a pang of guilt, but I tried to remind myself that none of this was my fault. I had all the evidence. Katherine just didn't know the full story.
I tried to laugh it off. “That's actually a pretty smart move, her coming to you for her next play,” I said, as though I were nonchalantly discussing a chess game rather than the object of my romantic affections, who had turned out to be a con. “I guess she thinks that if she can get you on her side, this whole thing will blow over.”
“I don't know what the hell you're talking about, but you're wrong, whatever it is,” Katherine said succinctly. “I came over to your place to surprise Lexi and Emma with tickets to a show for the afternoon. I found Lexi distraught and packing her bags while Emma sat in the kitchen with Janice. When I asked what was going on, Lexi told me that you wanted them to leave and that you didn't believe that Emma was your daughter. I thought we'd been over that already.”
“Renée cornered me after work yesterday,” I told Katherine.
Katherine groaned. “Don't tell me you've decided to get back together with that bimbo? So you've sent Lexi packing? Do you have no conscience? You've just spent the past few months cozying up to Lexi, and now you're done with her, just like that?”