Stripped Bare

by Heidi McLaughlin

“When I call you, you will answer, Macey.” The threat is there and she knows that I’m not playing around. I want answers and the mall is the last place I’m going to get them.

  I start to walk away when she calls my name, halting me in my tracks. Turning to look at her, she’s poised and dare I say, proud.

  “The answer is no.” She turns and walks in the other direction, leaving me confused and dumbfounded. I know what I saw when I looked into Morgan’s eyes. They’re the perfect combination of Macey’s and mine, complemented by a mixture of our dark hair colors. The crooked smile that Morgan gave me is the same smile my mother used to bestow upon me every day when I came home from school. If this isn’t my child, then Macey sure has dumb luck getting knocked up by my doppelganger.

  I speed toward home, eager to ask my father if he knows about Morgan. Yes, the man is cold, calculating and would hide what he surely would call an indiscretion from me. He doesn’t know about my night with Macey, not that I would’ve told him, but I suspect Macey would’ve tried to contact me and she’d have had to go through my parents to do so. One look at her back then would’ve told them that she’s not from our neighborhood or well-off enough to attend private school. One look and they would’ve shut the door in her face, telling her they don’t give handouts, everything has to be earned.

  Pulling into the circular driveway, there are lights on in various rooms telling me he’s awake. Not that it would matter; I’m still going in as if I own the place. Rude and presumptuous, I know, but it was my house long before the wicked step-monster moved in.

  I knock quickly before trying the door. It’s open and I take that as my invitation. The foyer is still as grand as I remember with a sprawling staircase and massive chandelier hanging overhead. The television echoes from the den and I call out, letting my dad know that I’m here.

  The television is muted and I call out again as I move toward the den. There I find my dad with the remote in his hand and his wife curled up on the sofa with a book in her lap. Despite their wide age difference, she’s starting to look as old as him and I can’t help but laugh. I thought the whole point of marrying someone much younger was to make you feel younger, not make them seem older. As soon as she recognizes me, her glasses are off and she adjusts her shirt, pushing her tits up into her face, trying to get my attention. Too bad I don’t fucking care.

  My dad comes over to give me a hug. I have to admit it feels good to have a warm reception, even if the last time I was here I vowed to never come back. “Finn, what are you doing here?”

  Wow, that seems to be the question of the day.

  “I had some time, so I thought I’d stop by and visit.”

  “Well, welcome home, son,” the wife says, much to my displeasure. She stands and hugs me, and I play along because I’m not here to fight or make waves. Except she holds on a bit longer than appropriate and makes sure to graze my groin in the process. I get it now. Daddy is getting too old and the Viagra takes too long to kick in so you want to fuck your stepson. Too bad your stepson would cut off his dick before going anywhere near you.

  “Right,” I say, pushing her away.

  “Let me go make up your bed,” she says, leaving my dad and me alone. He watches her walk out of the room, but my eyes stay focused on him.

  “So how are you?” I ask, sitting down on the couch. He follows and sighs.

  “Tired.”

  “I can attest to that. You should come to Vegas, play some golf and enjoy life there.” I laugh when I realize that I want to add, “and leave the whore at home.”

  “Yeah, we’d probably like that.”

  There was no “we” in the invite, but whatever. Maybe he’ll bring her and she’ll fuck her masseuse.

  “How long are you here?”

  “Not long,” I tell him. “I have a few people to see about an investment and then I’m going back.”

  “Investment?”

  “My next club. I’m looking for an investor so I don’t have to roll capital. It’s easier and builds relationships. It’s very much a ‘you do me, I do you’ type of business.”

  “Interesting concept.”

  I shrug. “It’ll be the last time, I think. Three clubs in the same city is a bit much. I need to expand, broaden my enterprise.”

  He laughs, but it’s the truth. I’m a self-made millionaire, pushing myself to be a billionaire by the age of thirty. I can’t do that by sitting idly by and watching opportunities go by.

  “Why are you really here?”

  I hate that he can see right through me. “I want my inheritance early,” I tell him. “You can give it to me through an investment or hand it over, but I don’t want to wait until I’m thirty-five to collect. I need it now.”

  “Are you in trouble?”

  “I’m in a situation. There’s a woman—”

  “She’s pregnant?”

  “Fuck no,” I say. “She wants to get married and I don’t even like her. On paper we’d be a Vegas power couple, but I can’t stand her. The problem is, her father is my primary investor and she’s threatening me. I can secure others, but I’m out of time. Construction is under way and people’s livelihoods depend on work. I don’t want them losing their jobs because I fucked the wrong bitch one time in college.”

  My father and I may not see eye to eye on his marriage, and it may have driven me away, but that doesn’t mean I won’t lay it out on the line for him. No sugarcoating anything, especially considering the fact that I want the money my mother left me. Sure, I’d love to keep it where it is, accruing interest, but if I can use it to make sure my project is complete, so be it.

  “I’ll call my accountant tomorrow.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it. Will you be leaving after you get the money?”

  His question catches me off guard and I can’t tell if he wants me to stay or not. “Not sure, why?”

  “Because, Finn, I want you to go. You can spend the night here, but tomorrow I need you to leave.” This time he makes eye contact with me and I know he’s serious.

  “Okay.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want you here, it’s because I saw the way my wife looked at you, the way she licked her lips and pushed her tits up trying to entice you. If you stay, she’ll fumble into your bed, walk around naked forgetting that you’re here or tell me she accidently fell on your dick, and I don’t need that in my life right now.”

  His words catch me off guard and I sit there with my mouth hanging open as he starts to leave the room.

  “Oh, and there’s a letter for you on your desk. It’s from your mother. I found it about a year ago going through some of her things.”

  He leaves me with that tidbit of information, making me wonder why he never sent it to me. I hightail my ass upstairs, praying the step-whore is out of my room. My luck she’s probably flicking her clit while staring at the pictures I have in there.

  Opening my door, I’m immediately thrown back into high school. My bed is in the same location, my walls are decorated the same and my trophies still sit on the shelf.

  “Fucking creepy,” I mutter as I walk in and shut the door. I check the closet for good measure to make sure the tramp isn’t hiding in there.

  Right on my desk is a faded envelope bearing my name in my mother’s handwriting. I pick it up carefully, afraid everything will break due to the age of the paper. I open it and pull the simple notecard out. Her handwriting is legible, but faded.

  Finn,

  A young woman by the name of Macey came by and gave me this, asking me to send it to you at school. I couldn’t. I’m sorry. You’re destined for greatness and this is the last thing you need. Please forgive me.

  Inside the envelope is a black-and-white picture, showing me a black-and-white blob. The word Sonogram is barely visible in white and letters that make up Macey’s name are in the right-hand corner.

  This is Morgan’s sonogram, I’m sure of it. My mother knew and never told me. The question is, doe
s my dad know? If he does…if he let my daughter grow up miles from him with nothing, I will kill him. He won’t have to worry about his wife putting the moves on his son because he won’t be alive long enough to know if she succeeds or not.

  I pull out my phone and send a picture of the sonogram to Macey with the words: We need to talk…now.

  Chapter 21

  Macey

  The light knock on my door startles me. It’s late and no one knows where we live. I keep the television on and peek down the hall to see if Morgan is coming out of her room before padding my way over to the door. Thank God for carpet—even if it’s run-down and threadbare, it still muffles the sound of my feet.

  Covering my mouth to hide the audible gasp, I look through the peephole again to make sure I’m not seeing things. Finn stands there with his head down, focusing on something that I can’t see. I slump against the door and will him away. I don’t want to talk to him and I certainly don’t want to see him.

  It’s been two days since Finn came to town and rattled my foundation. Running into him at the mall was happenstance. I didn’t expect him to recognize any of his features in Morgan, but as soon as he saw her, he saw the same things I see on a daily basis: her eyes, hair and crazy smile are the best of the both of us.

  When I saw the confusion in his eyes, I did what I’ve done best my whole life—I avoided him. I refused to look at him, keeping my gaze on Morgan. I knew the minute he asked the burning question I’d crumple into a heap if I were looking at him.

  It was only after I answered him that I knew my mistake, and he wasn’t going to let me forget it. Hours after we ran into him, for the first time since he gave it to me, the phone started to chime with alerts. I had been letting Morgan play with it, but knew he’d use it to reach out to me that night. I have yet to answer him, wondering how he knows where we live.

  “Macey, open up.”

  I freeze, wishing my walls weren’t paper thin. He knocks again, causing me to jump.

  “Look, I know you’re in there. The television is on and I smell your perfume through the door.”

  Bastard.

  Working the dead bolt and chain, I open the door, wishing immediately that I hadn’t. Finn is everything and more, standing there with his sexed-up hair, devilishly handsome looks and bedroom fuck-me eyes, and he’s taking me all in. I don’t miss the very hard swallow he performs when he reaches my eyes.

  “Can I come in?”

  I shake my head, not wanting him in my personal space. This apartment is the one thing I have that is mine, granted he paid for it, but it’s still mine. I don’t want him here, interrupting our lives, blowing in and out like a windstorm. Morgan and I don’t need or want this kind of life. We’re happy being the two of us.

  “Macey, we need to talk.”

  “We have nothing to say to each other. I know I owe you another day. I can meet you tomorrow.”

  He shakes his head. “This isn’t about that and you know it.”

  Maybe if I close my eyes and wish real hard, I’ll be transported back to the Hoover Dam where Finn is standing behind me, with his body pressed to mine and asking me what I wished for. I’d tell him then, if it would mean he’s not standing here now.

  “Please, you owe me this, Macey. I’ve been patient and tried to give you time, but you’re ignoring me. You haven’t been at work and you’re leaving me with very few choices here. I’m not leaving until we talk. We can do this outside so your neighbors can hear, or inside where it’s only us.”

  “We can’t have sex.”

  He chuckles and runs his hand through his hair before smiling at me. “Macey, sex seems to be something we do very well together, yet I agree with you. Tonight, we are going to sit on your couch and talk.”

  I step away from the door and let him in. My apartment embarrasses me, considering what he grew up in and where he lives now. This place is old, run-down and not in the best neighborhoods, but better than where we used to live.

  Finn looks around before he settles on the wall of photos that I put up of Morgan. I don’t have a lot of baby pictures, but the ones I do have are hanging as our wall décor.

  “I want to hear the words out of your mouth, Macey.”

  I bite my lower lip and wring my hands. Earlier in life, I’d thought about how many ways I’d tell him that he had a daughter or that I was pregnant, but now that he’s standing here and knows that he does, I can’t seem to make my mouth open and my tongue move.

  Instead, I sit down on the couch and turn the volume up a bit higher so Morgan doesn’t hear us. When he sits down on the couch, he’s at the other end, putting enough space between us that I feel like I’m a leper.

  “Please don’t take her from me.”

  “Is that why you think I’m here?”

  I shrug, not knowing much of anything lately.

  “I’m going to lose my patience very quickly, Macey. Tell me what I want to know.”

  I look down at my hands and my worn-out pajamas as tears well in my eyes. “Morgan is your daughter,” I tell him, my voice breaking by the time I get to the end. The sob that takes over is gut wrenching, yet so welcome. I’ve been holding on to this secret for years, unable to tell anyone for fear he or his father would take her away from me.

  If I expect him to hold me, tell me that everything is going to be okay, I’m sorely mistaken. The distance between us is even wider and when I hear him growl and bang on something, I know he’s not even near me.

  “Why? Why did you keep her from me?”

  “It’s not what you think, Finn.”

  “No? Tell me what I think then, Macey, because I’m having a very hard time here trying to wrap this in a nice little bow before I go back to Vegas. You led me to believe that Morgan was your boyfriend or worse, your pimp, when you knew the entire time that she’s my kid. You came into my club dressed like a damn whore and lost so much fucking money…money that I have no doubt was meant to feed her and then you…”

  “I what? Huh, Finn? I what?” Now I’m standing and facing him. I don’t care what I look like or how he feels. He called me a whore despite the fact that when I referred to myself as one, he told me I wasn’t.

  “You let me buy you for a week.”

  “You’re right, I did, and do you know why? Because of her.” I point behind me in the direction of her bedroom. “Because she needs a damn life that is worth living and not like the one I had. So yeah, I let you pay me instead of telling you because I couldn’t say the words. I couldn’t look you in the eyes after you saw me like that, defeated and being thrown out of your casino, and tell you that the night you made my dreams come true, the night I thought I had finally found my Prince Charming, you knocked me up. I couldn’t look you in the eyes and not remember the stupid girl I was back then for believing that the pull-out method would fucking work. You were…” I step away from him and wipe angrily at my face, smearing my makeup everywhere.

  “I was what, Macey? Go ahead and finish.”

  “It’s not worth it,” I say, shaking my head.

  “It’s not, or I’m not?”

  His question is a double-edged sword and something I’m not willing to answer.

  “You hid her from me.”

  “I tried to tell your mother. I went to your house.” I swallow hard, remembering the day that I finally knocked on the door. For weeks I had taken the bus over there, standing out in front, waiting. I never had the courage to knock until the day I felt Morgan kick. I had no one to share the feelings with and foolishly thought his mother would care.

  “My mom was sick,” he says. “Dying of cancer. It had spread everywhere like wildfire.”

  “I remember. I gave her the sonogram and asked her to call you; she mentioned me wanting their money. She stood there staring at me before closing the door. When I didn’t hear from you, or her, I figured I was on my own.”

  “I didn’t know, Macey,” he whispers into my hair as his arms wrap around me.

  “What wou
ld you have done if you had known?”

  He steps back and shakes his head. “I don’t know. I was a rotten fuck back then, not that I’m much better now, but you and I, we’re different.”

  “Are we?”

  “Yes, we are.”

  Moving back to the couch, I sit and pull my legs up to my chest. When he sits, he’s next to me with his hand snaked between my legs. There’s nothing sexual about this, but caring. I want to mold into his side and dream of an alternate reality where we could’ve been a family.

  “I’m going to take care of her.”

  Her lingers in my mind. He’s going to take care of Morgan, not me. Not that I deserve anything from him, but damn if I don’t want it all, even the life he’s not willing to give me.

  “You don’t have to. She’s okay here.” I say here because I don’t want him to think she’s moving to Vegas, even though it would be good for us.

  “No child of mine is going to live like this.”

  I push him away, offended by his words. “This,” I say, spreading my arms out wide, “is our home. I work hard to put food on the table and make sure she’s taken care of. I know waiting tables is beneath you, Finn, but I’m going back to school. I’m going to make something of myself. I’m going to be someone that she can be proud of.”

  “And I’ll help you.”

  Shaking my head, I tell him, “No. We don’t want your money.”

  “This is my money,” he roars as he stands up. “All of this? I paid for it. Don’t you wonder how I know where you live? Imagine my horror when I found out my daughter grew up in a fucking crack house, or that her mother has worked as a goddamn stripper for ten years to put food on the table. Don’t fucking mess with me on this shit, Macey. I have the money and you know damn well I’m going to use it to take care of her.”

  I can’t stomach the sight of him and hightail it to my bedroom, slamming the door behind me. This is easier than asking him to leave because I know he won’t. Deep down I know he won’t leave without Morgan. He’s going to take her away from me and there isn’t anything I can do about it.