by E V Darcy
‘For fuck’s sake, Marc, spit it out.’
Marc sighed, before putting his chilled glass down on a coaster. He turned to face Casey, his own bright blue eyes deadly serious. ‘I want you think really carefully about what I’m about to say, and not immediately blow up and deny everything. I want you to at least consider my thoughts on this—’
‘Bloody hell, Marc, just get to it.’
‘How far along is Paige?’
Casey frowned before reminding his friend, ‘She told you the other night—twenty weeks.’
‘And how long ago where you trapped?’
Casey frowned at the question. ‘Five months ago.’
‘Otherwise known as…’
‘Marc get to the fucking point!’ he growled.
‘Casey, twenty weeks ago, you were rescued from the ruins. Have you not considered…’ His friend moved his hand in a motion that Casey assumed was to get him to connect the dots, but Casey just shook his head, lost. Finally, Marc sighed and simply spelt it out. ‘Casey, look at the facts. You told me you two were at it like rabbits under there. Paige is twenty weeks pregnant, and you were rescued twenty weeks ago. Tell me you haven’t at least thought that the baby is yours!’
‘What!’ Casey exclaimed, haphazardly putting his untouched glass down next to Marc’s, neither of them concerned by the amber liquid spilling over the edge as it missed the coaster and tilted precariously. ‘You can’t be—’
‘Serious? Of course, I am! Do the math, Case, it’s so fucking simple, I could get Tyler to do it and come to the same conclusion!’
‘But, her ex—’
‘Her ex told you they were together. Her ex who was probably lying to you to get back at the woman who had just told him to fuck off after he wanted to get back together.’
‘How the hell do you know all this?’ he demanded, standing up. He had to walk to think, to consider what Marc was trying to get him to see. It wasn’t possible, the baby couldn’t be his.
‘Are you— You were sat right next to her on The Emma Janney show when she explained this!’
Casey shook his head. No, Paige had said that he’d—
Fuck.
She’d even reiterated that to him after the show. It was her explaining to him the situation that had made him ask her out. But then she’d said she was pregnant. She’d just wanted to nab him instead of Daniel.
‘You told me,’ Marc continued, his voice softer as he watched his pacing friend. ‘You said you guys had a lot of unprotected sex. That night you two spent together after the interview—did you wear something then?’
Casey blinked at the question. No. No he hadn’t. His one rule was always that he didn’t tap it unless he wrapped it, but he’d never suited up his cock with Paige. They hadn’t been in a position to do so with several hundred tons of concrete above them. Hell, he’d thought they were going to die. It hadn’t really crossed his mind that she could—
‘It could still be her husband’s.’ His voice was a whisper as he finally realised it could be his kid. ‘She could have still gone back to him.’ He grabbed his drink and knocked it back in one gulp; it stopped the uneasy roll within his stomach at the idea of Paige shagging that prick, riding Daniel the way she’d ridden him. He imagined her screaming that man’s name…
‘Really?’ Marc asked, getting back up to take the glass from his friend’s shaking hand. ‘Do you honestly think that? Even if she went back to him after you, do you really think she’d try and cuckold you? You? When it would be so easy to do paternity tests and stuff?’
He frowned. He had told her there’d been cases in the past, and that each and every one had been investigated and shown that he was not the father—
But then she hadn’t actually said the baby was his. She’d never said who the father was, full stop. He’d stopped her, that morning, from saying anything beyond I’m pregnant. He hadn’t let her try to pin someone else’s kid on him… But what if she hadn’t been about to say that? What if she was going to be honest?
What if honesty meant this kid was his?
‘Case, you need to know for sure, otherwise you’ll always be wondering. And’—Marc took a breath as if he didn’t want to say his next words—‘you need the closure. If she doesn’t want to be with you, you need to hear it from her. But’—Marc paused until Casey finally looked at him again—‘that wasn’t what I saw the other night.
‘Look,’ Marc’s voice softened as he reached up and clapped his friend on the shoulder. ‘If you don’t at least ask her if the kid is yours, you’ll always wonder—’
‘Well, I will now,’ he huffed, pushing Marc away from him. ‘Now that you’ve put the fucking thought there.’
‘Casey, you’re the only one who doesn’t think the kid’s yours. Everyone just assumes it is!’
‘Everyone? Like who?’
‘Me, Ellie, Robson, BB, Sophie… Fucking Nick called me up delighted when he saw Paige was pregnant—the bastard finally got nailed, were his exact words. It wasn’t until Ellie asked Paige the other night how far along she was that I was positive it was your kid.’
Casey sat on one of the chairs, rubbing his face as he considered Marc’s words. Why had everyone else seen it but he hadn’t?
Because he’d been in a similar situation before.
Fuck, Rabhya had screwed him up good.
But what if that was his little one growing inside Paige? What if, twenty-five years after having his heart broken, and a child snatched from him, he was getting a second chance?
The thoughts ran over and over in his head.
Marc was right. He had to know.
The house was filled with silence.
Casey gazed out of his well-insulated windows towards the angry ocean as waves silently crashed over one another, a torrent of foamy white rage in an everlasting battle against one another. And just like how he felt right now, there would be no winner. Each wave, no matter how high it reached, no matter how much force and power it achieved to smash down on the one before it, to beat at the sandy shore or smash against the cliff edges, would peter out to nothing. It would reach the beach as a tiny crescent of surf that merely dampened the golden sand with a small wash.
He sighed and rubbed his eyes with one hand.
Hell, Casey didn’t recall a single moment of the drive back to the clinic from Marc’s house. A fucking police force could have been chasing after him, fighter jets trying to get a missile lock on him, or a zombie apocalypse could have kicked off, and he’d have been none the wiser. He imagined it was probably what teleportation felt like, disorientating; one minute you were at point A, and without knowing how it happened, you were suddenly at point B.
It wasn’t until he’d pulled into the pick-up point at the clinic’s entrance and spied Paige, arms wrapped around herself trying to stop the wind from climbing up her coat, that he’d woken out of his stupor. She looked so alone, so fragile with her head bent, hair whipping about her as she shivered in the brewing storm about to hit. She probably wasn’t even sure if he was going to come back for her after the way he’d driven off like a bat out of hell, but she had still waited for him. Had hoped he’d return for her…
He wondered how long she’d have stayed there before giving up on him.
Neither said a word to one another in the car. The ride back was the complete opposite of his previous journey. He’d been hyper-aware of everything, of every move Paige made, every breath she took. He’d been on edge the whole time, waiting for her to say something, anything, yet she never had. She’d sat in silence, staring out of the window the whole time. She’d probably been waiting for him to say something, but he couldn’t find the words either.
Ironic really, seeing as he’d been told umpteen times in his life that he was going to be a father. He’d never before had a problem asking the questions that needed to be asked, but this time… this time it was different. This time, he had to question if he wanted to prove the kid wasn’t his. Did he want to be the father
of Paige’s child?
Fuck.
He let his head drop back on the couch as he took a sip of his drink. He wished he could just down the whole bottle, but Mack had specifically warned him off getting hammered.
If the baby was his, what the hell did he do with it? He had no clue how to be a parent, how children… worked? They drank milk for a while—from the breast, lucky little bastards—and then they ate some mushy stuff. But how did you know when to change them on to that? Oh hell, you had to change them too. The little wonders shit everywhere all the freaking time.
He ran his hand down his face at the thought of nappies overflowing in his bins, bottles all over the kitchen, toys across the floor.
No, he wasn’t ready to be a parent. He’d have to get a fucking family-sized car!
No. Fucking. Way.
The jingle of Bert’s collar broke the oppressive quiet that had followed them into the house. Paige had instantly retreated to the bedroom he’d insisted she take the other day when she arrived. It was his biggest guest suite, situated at the front of the house, and he knew she had to have that room the moment he’d seen the delight in her eyes at the blooms hanging from its balcony.
Bert stopped in the doorway to the large living space and—
Was the little shit glaring at him?
Casey patted the couch, knowing he’d have to help the ageing dog up, but Bert ignored him and headed straight to his sheepskin-lined bed in front of the fireplace. Casey raised his brows at that. His dog only chose the bed when he was annoyed at his master. What the fuck was up with him?
Casey put his drink down on the side table and stood up.
Screw this.
He had to get out, get some space away from everyone and decide what he was going to do—or more to the point, how he was going to approach the situation.
It was probably a stupid thing to do, to go for a drive when a storm was approaching, but he needed the freedom to think, to focus, to be in a frame of mind that could accept if Paige told him he was the father—
A sound from the top of the stairs made him pause as he reached for his keys. He strained to hear it properly, but it sounded like muffled thumping. What the hell was she doing? It was fast and repetitive, and his curiosity got the better of him.
He stepped up the stairs and peered towards Paige’s room. The door was ajar and up here he realised the noise was more of a whump-whump-whump than a thump.
He knocked on the door and the noise immediately stopped.
‘Yes?’ Paige said as she opened the door wider.
‘Is everything okay?’ he asked as he tried to surreptitiously peer inside. He clearly didn’t do a very good job as she pulled the door closer, blocking him from looking at anything other than her. ‘I thought I heard something.’
‘You probably did,’ she said, with a haughty sniff. ‘I’m watching something.’
‘Whatcha watching?’
‘For fuck’s— Casey what do you want?’ she finally demanded, hand on hip. ‘You refused to say anything to me on the way home, you didn’t reply to my text to say I was done. I didn’t even know if you were going to turn up or not! I was getting ready to call a cab when you rolled up.’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—’ he tried, but she continued.
‘You didn’t even say goodbye when you dropped me off. You ran off with your tail between your legs—did I do something wrong? Have I upset you in anyway? No bullshit.’
It was those two words. Their simple rule that broke the dam.
‘Is the baby mine?’
He heard her inhale, watched the colour drain from her face and saw her green eyes grow wide with surprise.
‘I just… I did the maths, Paige, either you bonked Daniel that day in the hospital—’
‘I did not!’
‘—or the kid’s mine. Unless you were screwing your ex before we met.’
‘Fuck you,’ she sneered. ‘How dare you. How fucking dare you accuse me of lying when I’ve been a freaking open book to you!’
‘An open book? You still haven’t said if the kid’s mine! You’ve not told anyone who the father is—’
‘I have!’
‘Deanna doesn’t count—’
‘I told Marc!’ She slapped her hand over her mouth at the words.
‘What?’ his voice dropped. Marc knew? Marc fucking knew and he’d acted like he was merely suspicious? That fucker! He’d made Casey wonder, made him agonise over whether or not the kid was his, and whether he could trust Paige, when the bastard knew all along that the child growing in Paige was his flesh and blood. His son or daughter. He was going to drive back over there and kick the shit out of him—security squad be damned! The way he was feeling he’d take them all on. He was also certain Julian would love to have a bash at them as well.
He made to head back downstairs. ‘I’ll fucking kill him—’
‘Casey don’t,’ Paige said, opening the door wide and stepping to him. She reached out as he stopped, her hand on his arm, gently turning him back around to face her. ‘I’m glad you know. Regardless of how you found out—’
‘You should have told me.’
‘I tried,’ she said. ‘Hell, I thought you knew but didn’t want to acknowledge it. I thought you’d understood that when I’d told you I was pregnant that it was yours. It was only during the Behind the Scenes shoot that I realised you didn’t!’
‘Wait, you thought I knew, but I didn’t… Fucking hell!’ He spun away from her, running his hands through his hair. Is that what she thought of him? That he’d leave her to have his kid alone. Without help? Without support? Had he really come off as such a heartless bastard?
And if Paige, who knew him better than most people—the real him, not the one he let people see—felt that way, who the hell else thought he’d be capable of being such a bastard?
He ran his hand down his face as he took in a deep breath. Okay, he could fix this. He could put all of this right.
He turned back to face her. ‘I’m sorry you thought that of me. I’m also sorry I didn’t give you a chance to explain to me that day, I thought… I thought that perhaps you… that maybe…’
Fuck; how the hell did he say that he’d thought she was a slut who would pass off another man child’s as his?
‘That I was like Rabhya?’
Okay, she said it for him. And didn’t that make him feel like shit?
‘I’m not her, Casey. I thought you knew that. I thought that after the time we spent together, that you trusted me, that you knew that I wouldn’t hurt you.’ She shook her head. She wasn’t crying, there were no tears in her eyes, but they were filled with disappointment, hurt, and sadness.
What a way to kick a man when he was down!
‘I think… I think I’m going to go home,’ Paige said, quietly.
‘What? No!’ he protested, reaching out to stop her walking away. ‘Paige, you don’t need to do that.’
‘Yes, I do,’ she said firmly. ‘I need to get my head together. Too much has happened too quickly, and I can’t believe you’d think— No, I can’t do this right now.’ She stepped back into the bedroom, leaving the door open. She grabbed the bag that Julian had collected for her days ago—it wasn’t even open. Had she been waiting for him to kick her out?
‘I’m going to call a cab—’
‘I’ll drive you.’
‘No.’ She shook her head, and he knew there’d be no changing her mind on the matter.
‘Then I’ll get Julian to drive you. Please,’ he added when he saw she was about to refuse that too. ‘There’s a storm coming and I want to know you got back safely.’
She considered it for a moment, before finally nodding. ‘Okay.’
‘I’ll take your bag down and get Julian to come over to the house if you need to get anything else.’ She seemed to consider something for a moment before finally nodding again.
He took the bag downstairs and rang for his bodyguard. When the man was on his way over
from the garage loft—that Julian had turned into a security room—he heard Paige padding downstairs. He frowned when he saw nothing in her hand, but didn’t say anything.
Bert choose that moment to waddle down the corridor.
‘Bye, boy,’ she said quietly as she bent down to give him a scratch behind his ear. The dog whined and Casey wanted to join in. He didn’t want her to go, he didn’t want her out of his house. He wanted her and his child here, where he knew they’d be safe and warm and taken care of.
‘Paige—’ he began, but was cut off by Julian’s knock before the giant opened the door.
‘Bye, Casey,’ she said softly, stepping past him. He watched her step into the rain, and hurry to the waiting car while Julian collected her bag.
‘Check the place,’ Casey said to his guard. ‘I want to ensure Tristan isn’t about.’ Julian nodded before closing the door behind him.
23
As Casey stepped into the sound stage of the Legacy lot, he took off his sunglasses and gazed around at the cast and crew. He frowned when he failed to spot Tristan and his little gang of hangers-on. Usually, you couldn’t miss the buggers, no matter how hard you tried. They’d be congregated somewhere, laughing and joking, egging each other on in their childish tales.
He really wished they’d hire some decent guest stars, rather than the failed wannabe bunch that had appeared so far. He’d tried to get Marc to come on the show, just once, but he’d point-blank refused. Even Robson had said no, but at least he’d been apologetic about it.
‘Hey, Benji,’ Casey called to one of the assistants he preferred. The young guy stayed as far away from Tristan and his group as possible. ‘Where are the cheerleaders today?’
‘Oh, the captain fell from grace early last week, after Paige did her big reveal.’ The young man tapped his tablet to check something. ‘You’re wanted on the office set, they’re running through blocking with the director. I warn you, though, Tristan is not in the best of moods. Apparently’—the man leaned forward as he dropped his voice—‘the reason for the unexpected break was because after he dragged Paige off somewhere, he came back with a bruised cheek.’