by E V Darcy
‘Because, Daniel,’ she said slowly as she turned around to face him proper. ‘You’re my ex-husband… Right? That means you have no rights when it comes to me.’
‘Paige,’ he began, holding out his hands towards her. She closed her eyes and took a breath. She knew that gesture; she wasn’t going to like whatever he had to say. ‘Paige, darling, look at me.’
‘I’m not your darling!’ she snarled as her eyes popped open and met his. ‘You made that perfectly clear when you started screwing Rachel behind my back.’
‘Paige, please,’ he pleaded, taking a step towards her. She reared back, bumping into the bed and knocking herself off her feet. ‘Give me another chance. When I heard what had happened… I was beside myself with worry. I couldn’t go through with signing the papers—’
‘What!’ she shouted. There was no way she’d heard him correctly. She was not still married to this cheating son of a bitch! ‘You did— didn’t sign them? Why the hell not?’
‘Because the moment I realised you might be dead, I saw what a stupid mistake I’d made, how much I still loved you and wanted you as my wife. If there was a chance you’d be alive, I wanted to give us another go.’
‘You’re mad!’ she declared, pushing him away and standing back on her own two feet—she wouldn’t be cowed by him. ‘Why the hell would I agree to give you another chance? You were shagging our friend behind my back—’
‘What the hell is shagging?’
‘—for eight months, all because I wouldn’t give you some time! Who fucks someone just to get their wife to notice them? Who the hell then leaves the evidence for their wife to find, just to get her attention? Sad, pathetic men who are clearly so fucking dull they can’t keep the attention of their wives in the first place!’
Oh, that felt good! Oh, so good! When they’d first separated she’d shut down, hadn’t argued, merely ignored him. She’d packed his things the next day when he was at work, leaving them outside their apartment door for him to collect that evening on his return—oh, that hadn’t been pretty. She’d never retaliated. Instead, she’d got Deanna to sort out divorce papers quickly, didn’t protest anything he asked for; she’d just wanted him out of her life… But maybe this was what she’d needed, to scream and shout and rage at him, and tell him exactly why she had ignored him for so long.
‘You, Daniel, are boring. You have no interests. You only want sex from a woman, and you only want to discuss what money you have with your so-called-friends in order to see who has the biggest dick. Well, newsflash, it’s not you!’ She smirked as she mentally compared Daniel’s to Casey’s—there was no contest. The star had filled her up better than anyone else she’d ever had the pleasure of knowing.
‘In fact,’ she pushed on, watching and enjoying his face turning red, and seeing how his breathing was becoming deep and laboured, his hands curling into fists. ‘I had bigger just days ago—when I was humping Casey McManaman like a bitch in heat.’
‘Who?’ he asked, voice low and gruff.
‘Him,’ she told her husband, pointing to the quiet TV set that was playing an episode of Destiny. The Network had been playing the series almost nonstop since she and Casey were found alive, apparently in celebration. Paige wondered if it was more to stop the draw of Luc being seen as a terrorist. Casey was smirking at a woman in a bar as his demon persona looked for the guest star of the week.
‘The TV-star I was trapped with. I was hot for it,’ she said stepping closer to her husband. ‘Desperate for him. He had me howling, whining, and begging for it. That man knows how to get a woman off. Knows what buttons to press. You just fumble about half-heartedly, hoping you hit something. The amount of times I had to go take a shower after we had sex just to get myself off—hell, I can’t tell you, I lost count after our first year of marriage.
‘The reason I didn’t have time for you, Daniel’—she should just leave it there, she knew she should, his face was turning purple and there was spittle forming in the corner of his mouth, but she was too far into her tirade—‘is because I didn’t want time with you. I focused on my career to get away from you. You’re shit in—’
He stepped towards her, just as a nurse opened the door with a cheerful call of, ‘Mrs. Turner?’
‘Hamilton!’ she shouted, glaring at the man looming over her. She refused to back away from him; if he wanted to have a go at her, he could do it while she stared at him defiantly.
‘Oh! Who’s this?’ the nurse asked.
‘Her husband,’ Daniel said, turning away from her and taking in a deep breath.
‘Ex-husband.’
‘I told you I didn’t sign.’
‘But you will.’
‘Paige, please—’
‘I’m not giving you another chance, Daniel. We are over. Through.’
The nurse’s head snapped left and right as if watching a tennis match as the two of them argued. ‘Mr. Turner,’ she interjected as the two glared at one another. ‘I need to fix Miss Hamilton’s IV line. It seems to have come out.’
Paige looked down at her hand and the thing that should be connected up to her drip… Why was it out?
‘Go ahead,’ he told her with a wave of his hand as he stepped towards the bottom of the bed to allow the nurse to work.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to leave,’ she said as she stepped between the pair of them, ensuring that he’d have to get through her to access her patient.
‘What? But…’ His gaze shifted between the two women who both stared at him, one with a burning anger, the other with feigned polite indifference.
‘This isn’t over, Paige,’ he said as he turned and left the room.
‘Sign the damn papers!’ she shouted after him. ‘I’m not taking you back; I will get out of this marriage one way or another!’
The slam of the door made her smirk.
Casey smiled at the nurse and tossed her a wink before he turned and sauntered down the corridor—back the way he’d come. It turned out Paige had only been a few doors down from him! Ellie, Marc’s weekend romance, had been moved right between them the day they’d arrive, otherwise they’d have been next door to one another.
Small frickin’ world.
He hummed as he walked, swinging the belt of his open robe in one hand, pulling his IV line with the other. His chest was bare and his black silk pyjama bottoms hung low on his hips making all the women he walked past stare down at his taunt stomach and hip bones. He might be forty-three, but he had a body most younger men would kill for.
And it was one that Paige couldn’t stop touching. God, her hands had loved roaming over him, exploring him like he was a work of art. His cock twitched at the thought of her fingers brushing his skin again, fresh and clean, ready to be made filthy once more.
He quickened his step.
‘Excuse me,’ a male voice interrupted his musings. Casey stopped and blinked at the man he’d been walking towards. ‘Are you Casey McManaman?’
‘Yes,’ he smiled brightly at the man. It wasn’t often he got a male fan and was always pleased to meet one. He held out his hand and the other man took it, shaking it firmly.
‘Daniel.’ The man smiled at Casey as he unexpectedly tightened his grip on the star’s hand, making him wince and pull back. ‘Daniel Turner.’
He frowned at the name, he had heard that somewhere—
His eyes snapped back to the man’s.
‘Paige’s husband,’ the man provided, although the look in his eye suggested he knew he hadn’t needed to.
‘You mean ex…’ he said, carefully. Paige had said they were getting a divorce.
‘Ex?’ Daniel blinked at Casey in confusion, as if he had no idea what the star was on about. ‘No, we’re still married,’ the man added, holding up his left hand and displaying the wedding ring. ‘I just wanted to thank you for looking after her while in such an awful situation. If it wasn’t for you I doubt she’d be here at all.’
‘Of course,’ Casey said. So, they weren�
��t getting a divorce? Had Paige lied to him? All that no bullshit rule and she’d been pulling the wool over his eyes the entire time? No, no that wasn’t right, he shook his head clear of the thoughts. She was the most honest person he’d ever met. She’d been an open book to him, revealing everything he’d wanted to know.
‘I was actually about to go and see her,’ he told Daniel. Perhaps, if he confronted her—
‘Oh, she’s just fallen asleep,’ Daniel said with an apologetic grimace. ‘She’s still not really up to visitors, really weak still. I tell you, I can’t wait to get her home,’ Daniel continued blithely, ignoring Casey’s confusion. The nurse had said she was doing well, that he could pop in for a few minutes—although he’d been planning on being much longer than that…
‘It’s been such a horrible time… All the waiting, not knowing, and then, of course, hearing she was okay—’
‘Sorry,’ Casey interrupted him. ‘I’m not feeling too well, I need to go and…’ He gestured vaguely towards the hospital rooms.
‘Oh! Sorry, sure. Again, thank you. Please if there’s anything I can ever do…’
‘Yes, thank you,’ Casey said absently as he moved towards his room without really seeing it. He glanced at Paige’s door, just two from his, a frown scrunching up his forehead. He turned back to where Daniel had been—the man still stood there and offered him a cheerful little wave, which Casey returned with a strained grimace of a smile.
He opened his room door and stepped inside.
‘There you are!’ Marc greeted him, startling Casey from his tumbling thoughts; he wasn’t sure what to think and had no idea how he felt. Everything inside him was a jumbled mess, yet completely numbing at the same time. He watched Marc’s mouth move as he said something, but Casey heard nothing.
He must be in shock, he decided, at finding out he’d been so thoroughly had by a woman.
Again.
10
Six weeks later.
‘Please tell me you’re joking.’ Paige took her eyes away from the box to glance up at Deanna to see if she was joking.
‘How many times this week have you been in this position?’ her friend said as she pulled another box from the drug store bag. Paige glanced back down at the box in her own hands, but the movement made her stomach roll again and she knew that at any moment she was going to—
Paige heaved what little she had left in her stomach into the toilet bowl she was already hugging when Deanna returned from her little errand. She’d also been hugging it before her friend had left, and every morning for the last week.
She heard Deanna tut at her as her stomach continued to turn itself inside out.
After the last of the disgusting soup of bile and whatever that was—when had she last had carrot?—hit the water, she flushed the concoction away and rested her forehead against the cool porcelain of the toilet. She took in a shaky breath as she stared at the fluffy mat around its base, desperately willing her insides to stay put.
‘I think it’s this bathroom making me sick,’ she mumbled as she wrinkled her nose at the almost neon-green mat. ‘You have horrible taste in colour pallets.’
‘Hey, you wanna leave? Be my guest, I’m not forcing you to stay.’ Deanna sat on the rim of the bathtub as she read the back of the packet she held.
‘Liar,’ Paige protested as she gingerly sat up again. ‘You dragged me here the moment my plane touched down.’ Deanna smirked at the comment but didn’t look up. ‘Do you really think I could be…?’ Paige didn’t want to say the word. ‘But I’m on the pill.’
‘Sweetie, let’s look at the facts.’ Deanna held up her pinky finger ‘One, you were trapped for five days with Casey without access to your pill. Two’—her ring finger popped up—‘you had unprotected sex with him multiple times—lucky bitch. And three, you then spent another week in the hospital, again without taking your pill.’ Her middle finger joined the other two. ‘I’d say that yes, you could definitely be pregnant. In fact, I bet you this apartment that you are.’
Well, shit.
When Deanna was sure of something, she was never wrong. It was why she was such a successful lawyer; she picked only the winning cases. Well, except for that one time she went up against Trent Dryer, and that had only been on a mere technicality—but they didn’t talk about that. It was also one of the reasons Paige felt so secure in their friendship. If Deanna liked you, you were a good person and worthy of someone’s time.
‘Fine, I’ll pee on the stick,’ Paige said with a huff as she stood up on wobbly legs.
‘I got two different brands, just to make sure.’
‘God, you’re so anal!’
‘Well, if you were, you wouldn’t be in this mess.’
‘That’s disgusting.’ Paige shook her head at her friend.
‘That’s your hard limit?’
‘That, and friends watching me pee on sticks. Get out.’
Deanna held up her hands in surrender, still clutching the box. ‘Fine, I’ll go…’ She stood up, before casually strolling past Paige towards the bathroom door.
Paige dropped her head with a sigh and a roll of her eyes at her friend’s antics. ‘Fine, gimme the damned second test.’
‘Good girl.’ Deanna smiled triumphantly as she turned around, slapping the box into Paige’s hand. ‘I’ll wait in the lounge. Pee and bring the tests with you straight away; don’t wait for the answer on your own.’
‘Yes, mom.’
‘Hey!’ Deanna said sharply before a wicked grin spread across her features. ‘You’re the mom.’
Paige hoped she wasn’t.
Except—she was.
Paige stared down at the pee-stick in her hand and blinked. She was going to be a mom. A mother. A freaking parent! Maybe the test was wrong and the one Deanna had would say—
‘Mazel tov,’ Deanna said as she peered at the pregnancy wand she was holding.
Ah, crap.
Paige fell back into the couch cushions as she tried to get her head around the fact she was going to have a baby. Ah, hell, she was too old to have a baby. Weren’t there health complications or something, the older you got?
‘I wish my mom and dad were still here,’ she said quietly. Deanna reached over and patted her knee. With no brothers or sisters, Deanna had been the one there for Paige when her parents had died fifteen years earlier.
Paige’s hand crept over her abdomen and gently squeezed where she pictured the little fertilised egg to be. Oh God, she didn’t even know if it was an egg or a baby by now. Seven weeks. She would be seven weeks pregnant, give or take a day…
She grabbed her new phone off the coffee table—she had no idea where her last one had ended up—and did a quick Google search.
‘Ew!’ she said with a grimace as she saw the image it gave her of what the… thing was like living inside her. ‘It looks like an alien! It has a freaking tail!’ Deanna leaned over to take a peek.
‘Size of a blueberry?’ Deanna said, reading what she could as Paige flipped through the scary images. ‘That’s not that big.’ The two glanced down at Paige’s belly. She’d lost a lot of weight in the five days she’d been trapped and still hadn’t returned back to what she’d weighed before that weekend.
‘Do you think it’s okay?’ Paige asked with a frown as she randomly poked her belly. ‘I wasn’t exactly in the best of places when it was conceived.’
‘Well you stabbing it like that isn’t going to help!’ Deanna said, knocking her hand away. ‘But wasn’t that only the sperm meeting the egg? Doesn’t it then have to travel to your womb and… Oh God, it’s been a while since I studied sex-ed for this kinda thing.’
Paige laughed at her friend’s comment. They really were the worst pair to discuss this kind of thing; they were two dedicated career women. Paige had given up on having kids and Deanna had never wanted them.
‘We need to book you an appointment at your OB/GYN. You’ve got a good one right?’
‘No, he practises out the back of a va
n, every second Tuesday of the month behind the Seven-Eleven.’ Her sarcastic comment came without thinking—a peril of being around her best friend. A cushion appeared from nowhere and smacked her in the face.
‘Oi! Pregnant woman here!’
‘You’re still a bitch.’
‘You wouldn’t have me any other way,’ she said, as she snatched the cushion from Deanna’s grasp and shoved it up her top. Crap, that was what she was going to look like when the little alien-blueberry grew. Her stomach sank as she realised it would probably look bigger, given how small she was in general.
‘How the hell am I supposed to get something that big out of my vagina?’ She looked towards her friend for the answer.
‘Umm…’ Deanna swallowed as she looked at the cushion-baby. ‘Women have been doing it for millennia, it can’t be that bad.’ Paige blinked at her friend’s words.
‘Are you fucking serious?’ she shouted, pulling the cushion from under her now stretched-out top. ‘If it’s so easy, you have one!’
‘Ew, no. I’m not going to ruin my life.’
Paige buried her head into the cushion and screamed.
11
‘No, no, I’m fine,’ Casey said to Marc as he tossed his keys on the console table in his hallway. He caught his reflection in the mirror above it and frowned. His face was far paler than he’d realised. He hadn’t been out much the last few weeks while he’d been organising the collection of Tanya’s remains and her service in Arizona. He’d only just got back from the funeral that afternoon.
On top of that, The Powers That Be at The Network had transferred his contract to some new show—they really wanted to make use of his current popularity. With Luc gone, and a possible terrorist—yeah right!—Casey’s rescue story was their one bright light in the shit storm surrounding the convention weekend.
‘No, honestly, it was a nice service,’ he said, loosening his tie and popping the top button. He went to turn away from the mirror but stopped when his discarded keys caught his eye. Tanya had always been telling him off for just leaving them on there. ‘I’m sure Tanya would have given her approval,’ he told his friend as he picked his keys back up and put them in the drawer, before walking further into his beach house, kicking off his shoes as he went.