by Paige North
I like Kase and his dark, brooding ways, his commanding ego, and his moodiness. I liked knowing that he was hard to please but that I possessed the ability. These guys would probably come at the drop of a hat. I could see them salivating at my naked body. Kase’s eyes would flash but he wouldn’t salivate. He wasn’t a horny dog. He was a man—all man.
And for a very short time, he was mine.
When I finally arrive back at the apartment, it’s nearly nine o’clock. I’m so exhausted, I could go to sleep right now and stay in bed for two days. There’s an envelope slipped under the door. Seeing it’s from Le Nanny, I open it and pull out a check for twenty thousand dollars. A “bonus,” it says on the letter. From my former employer, Kase Hardwin, for “the great work and extra effort” I put in.
I don’t know what to think. By extra effort, does he mean all that sex? All those things?
Or, he could genuinely mean all the work I did for Liam and want me to be taken care of for a few months. In which case, while I appreciate the gesture, I don’t need it. I don’t need Kase’s money, and I sure as shit don’t need his charity. Like I told him, I had a job lined up before working for him, and now I’m back on track. The sooner I can wipe him from my memory, the better.
I’m about to tear up the check when my mother calls. “Hi, honey. How was your first day?”
“Fine, I guess.”
“Did you hear the news?”
“No, what news?” When my mother talks about news, she thinks everyone should know what she read about. Even feel-good stories about little kids giving up their allowance money to buy kids with cancer gifts constitutes news in her eyes.
“A woman, a caretaker, a home nurse I think, received a billionaire’s inheritance. Can you believe it? Google it, Alana.”
I roll my eyes. Of course, a story about a servicewoman being gifted a bunch of money from her zillionaire employer would make my mom’s radar. “Okay, I’ll Google it. What else?”
“What else?” She scoffs. “That’s pretty big. It’s the same as winning the PowerBall. She received his entire estate or something to that effect. Could you imagine the Hollands leaving us their entire property and money while we worked for them? Why doesn’t stuff like that ever happen to us? Right, George?”
In the background, I hear my father grumphing. I know how he feels. I wish my mother would change the subject too.
“That’s great, Mom. I prefer to earn it the old-fashioned way,” I say.
“Prostitution?” My mother snorts.
“What? Mom. I mean working for it.”
“Honey, ‘the old-fashioned way’ refers to prostitution. I sure hope you haven’t taken any money for sex.”
My father grumphs again and tells my mom to knock it off.
“Are you kidding me? I’m talking about working my ass off. I may not seem it right now, but you’re talking to a future banking executive right here.”
“Oh, honey, I know. I’m just kidding.”
She may be kidding, and maybe this is a sore spot, but sometimes I wonder what Kase and I were all about. Did I think there was more between us, but clearly, he only wanted extra services? The after-hours, nighttime kind? If that’s the case, then prostitution wouldn’t be too far a description from the truth.
Everything becomes clearer after a while. Hindsight is 20/20, as they say.
Great, I couldn’t possibly feel any worse right now.
After the enlightening phone call from my mom, I Google it, because…why not. Because the story is fresh, there are many articles from one hour old to one day old. I click on the most reputable source of them all and open the article. That’s when I see her—the black nurse who came to Kase’s house that day wheeling the old man, Kase’s father-in-law, Bert Roper. But he was so rude when he talked about the dynamics between employers and their hired help.
The article goes on to mention that the old billionaire was also part of a highly-publicized custody battle between Kase Hardwin and Raymond Silas, and there’s a link to their story awarding Silas with custody. The courts didn’t care that Kase had texts and emails proving Raymond to be a deadbeat dad for the first half a year of Liam’s life. In the end, because he came back and the paternity tests all came back as positive, they awarded him custody anyway.
A photo of Kase leaving the courthouse makes me stop everything and sigh.
Even if I never speak to him again, I will always feel sorry for him for losing Liam. I saw it with my own eyes—he loved that boy. He loved him like he was his own son, and that’s harder to do than being a biological dad and you have no choice. Adoptive parents, like stepparents, too, they have a choice. And they choose love.
Why, then, couldn’t he choose love for me?
Taking Kase’s check, I do a mobile deposit, but instead of putting it into my own checking, I put it in my parents’ linked with mine. Maybe they’ll never win the PowerBall, and maybe the Hollands would never give them their inheritance, but their daughter might earn a bonus for working hard, and I might be able to give back to them. Because at least I have my parents.
It’s the least I can do for everything they’ve ever given me.
Picking up the phone, my finger hovers above Kase’s name. I want to thank him for the bonus, but the real reason I want to call him—I miss him. I’m looking for any excuse to talk to him, but I can’t do it. He’s not the man of my dreams. I could’ve sworn he was. The sooner I forget him, the happier I’ll be.
Putting the phone back down, I let out a long sigh, enter the kitchen, and pull out leftover takeout instead.
Kase
It’s the longest train ride of my life.
Downtown to the Financial District, but that’s not why it feels so long. It’s because I’m heading to see Raymond Silas at BestBank, the company he’s currently heading. After two weeks at home with a lot to think about, I finally got tired of the ghosts of those I love, some dead, some still alive, haunting me day and night. I finally got tired of working my ass off to arrive at nothing.
“Sir? You’ll need to sign in.” The receptionist’s finger is on the trigger, ready to call down security if I don’t cooperate.
But that’s not me, so I turn towards the pretty young woman behind the glossy black counter. “I’m here to see Raymond Silas, please.”
“Raymond Silas doesn’t take unsolicited calls. You’ll have to make an appointment.” Her green eyes glance away a moment then return to me with a wince. “Are you Kase Hardwin?”
“Yes, why? Is there a Wanted poster with my face back there somewhere?”
“Actually…”
“Just tell him I’m coming up. Trust me, he’ll want to see me.”
“Mr. Hardwin? You can’t go up…”
I enter the elevator right as a security officer heads my way. I’m already here and I won’t be making a fucking appointment. I don’t negotiate with fucking terrorists who steal what they want when they feel like it. The elevator doors close. “See you on the thirtieth floor, boys.” I flash a smile.
For the first time in months, maybe even years, I feel like myself again. Business was always my forte. Relationships, not so much. But I can learn how to be better. And the people I love have taught me a lot about that.
When the elevator doors slide open, there’s already three people waiting for me in suits. Behind them about twenty paces is the scumbag I’m looking for. “What, you can’t do your own talking, so you have to send people my way?”
“What do you want, Hardwin?”
“We’ll talk behind closed doors.”
“We’ll talk here. Whatever you have to say, you can say it right here.”
“Fine, have it your way—I have a present for you.”
Raymond stares at me with those beady little blue eyes of his. I fucking hate that I can see Liam in them, but I tell myself that’s just genetics. The kid has his mother’s everything else and with the right upbringing, he’ll never have to end up like this asswipe. Raymond waves
the people away. “Come to my office.”
“I knew you could be persuaded.” I smile, walking past the guards and office personnel. “Hey, how’re you doing? Nice tie.” Following the sewer smell down the hall, I enter the rat’s lair and have a seat, putting my feet up on his desk.
“Can you…get your feet down, please? This is an office building.”
“I’ll put my feet wherever I goddamn well please, Silas. After you took everything that mattered to me, my feet should be the least of your worries.”
“Don’t make me call security back to remove you.”
“If they remove me, you’ll never get your present, and then how will you be able to afford your new house in Fiji?”
“What new house in Fiji?”
“The one we all want you to fucking move to, because we can’t stand being around you anymore. You can get there with your new super yacht, too. While wearing your Speedo made of gold.”
“What’s this about, Hardwin?” Raymond shouts, pounding the desk.
“Ooo, temper, temper.” I wag my finger at him. “Good thing Evie dodged that bullet.”
“Too bad she didn’t dodge the one that killed her.”
“Fuck you, asshole.” I slam my feet on the floor, as Raymond picks up the phone to call security. I open my briefcase and take out papers. Deeds, titles, Articles of Incorporation, everything to do with Albert C. Roper’s business, Newfound Ad Agency. “This…” I push the papers his way. “Is why I’m here.”
“What is this?”
“Oh, you can’t read. I forgot.” I pull the papers back and read them for him. “It’s the company, Silas. Bert’s fucking company. I know how much you want it, so much that you just had to come crawling out of your ant pile to claim paternity. If you don’t want it, that’s fine…”
“Stop.”
“What?”
“Why are you doing this?” His side-eyeing and hem-hawing makes him look a bit like an indecisive blind turtle. “Why would you give it to me?”
“I’m not giving it to you so much as making an exchange.”
“An exchange for what? Oh, wait…” He reclines back in his leather seat and picks up a pen to chew on. “You think I’m going exchange the kid for it.”
“The kid? His fucking name is Liam, asshole. And yes.” I lean forward. “We both know you don’t care about him. We both know you only claimed paternity so you could win favor with the old man, but once word got around that he’d be handing off the business to me after Evie died, you changed your tune. And then, when he shanghaied you by leaving you out of the will…” I laugh and shake my head, leaning back in my seat. “Oh, man, it’s too much.”
“How much is it worth?”
“What?” I crane my ear closer.
“How much is it worth?” he shouts.
Aww, he’s annoyed by my tactics, like I fucking care. “Twenty-five billion,” I tell him. I turn and reach into my bag for another set of papers—adoption. Reaching farther into my bag, I pull out my best pen and hand it to him. “Sign right there…on the X.”
“You think it’s that easy,” Raymond growls, staring at me then back at the papers.
I sigh. And sigh again. “I get it, I get it…you have to act like you care so I can never tell the story of how easily this went down. Dude, come on. I read like fifty-five of your texts to Evie, all of them in escalating tones of anger about how much you were not ready to be a father and never would be. I even had them in court with me as evidence ready to show, but apparently, nothing mattered after you guys showed the genes were yours.”
“I want an appraisal.”
“Oh, you don’t believe me? It’s probably worth even more than twenty-five billion, but I didn’t think you’d be that picky.”
“You’re keeping some of it for yourself. I want the whole thing. I’m the one that brought that company to where it is. I’m the one who worked day and night with Evie to make it what it is. Then you come along and take it all…”
“I didn’t take shit. You ran off because you couldn’t handle a woman who loved you—” Now, I’m the one shouting, but I have to stop. And think. Because I’m the biggest fucking hypocrite on this earth. He ran off, because why? He couldn’t handle a woman who loved him?
My heart pounds. It’s all so clear now.
“I want an appraisal and whatever it comes out to, the whole thing is mine,” Raymond says. “And I still get visitation rights to see the kid.”
“Nah, fuck you. I’m not getting into a parental agreement with you. I’m offering you a shit ton of money. All I want is my child.” I stand and cross my arms. If I don’t control myself, I’ll end up fighting this dude and then I will end up down at the precinct and never see my child again. “I raised Liam. I watched him grow inside his mother’s belly. I sang to him. At night, right before she went to sleep, he’d get the hiccups inside of her, and I’d have to rub her on the left side, right under this rib here to get him to stop. Since he was born, I’ve taken care of him. I come home early from work just to spend time with him. He’s probably cried every night since you’ve had him. That’s because he’s wondering where I am, where his nanny is, and why we haven’t brought him his milk with his little blue bunny yet. What’s his favorite vegetable?”
“What?”
“What’s his favorite vegetable?”
“I don’t know. I just got him.”
“That’s right. You don’t know because you don’t care. It’s baby carrots, motherfucker. Not the organic shit, because he doesn’t like it. He likes it straight from the Gerber jar.” A crazy laugh escapes me, because only Alana and I know that. “Like his nanny used to give him.”
Alana’s face illuminates in my mind. Suddenly, I can’t see anything but her. The food stains on her shirt, the apron full of smashed, wet Cheerios, her blonde ponytail swishing around as she swung Liam in circles.
Fuck.
I miss my family.
“I won’t keep any of it. It’s all yours. Just give me full custody, visitation granted only upon request and individual appointment. No schedule.” Not like he’ll ever take advantage of it. This is nothing but a pissing match, a power struggle, but I just don’t see how he could ever think this is unfair. “Don’t be a bitch, Raymond. Take the money.”
Raymond looks at the papers again. “Are these mine to keep?”
I nod. “Have your lawyer look over them. Call me in and we’ll do this in mediation. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. But first, I need your signature. Good faith that you’ll go through with the adoption process.” I point at the X and hand him the pen. “If you loved Evie and you love Liam at all, let him go home.”
With another look at me and a huge sigh, he takes the pen.
It’s a hot May day when the doorbell rings. Everything in the house is perfect. His crib is perfect, his play room is perfect, little blue bunny is back in his rocking chair, I’m fully stocked with baby carrots and some nice new beets I want him to try. I can only hope that he still recognizes me, that six weeks hasn’t been too long for his brain to erase the memory of me and Alana.
Heading to the door, I can’t wait to see him. I’ve never quite burst with joy before, but now I know how it feels. Jumping down the last three steps, I skid all the way to the door, just as it rings again. I open the door, but it’s not Liam. It’s Nettie.
“Hey!” I’m happy to see her, but uh…why is she here?
“Can I come in?”
“Of course, how’ve you been, Ms. Bowman?”
“Doing just fine, Kase. I wanted to bring by a little present since I know he’s coming home soon, and I happened to be at the toy store. I know his grandfather would’ve wanted me to get it for him.” She pulls a gift bag out of her shopping bag and hands it to me.
“Thank you so much.” Reaching into the bag, I pull out a big T-Rex that’s about as tall as Liam himself. “Wow, check this out!”
“I know you used to call Mr. Roper an old dinosaur.”
“Oh—”
“No, no…it’s okay. He knew it. We used to have a good laugh over it. Told me that one day, I’d have to have him stuffed and put on display at the Natural Museum.” She giggles, and for the first time ever, I see Nettie Bowman’s natural smile. I see the woman she is, not the house nurse.
“It’s awesome. Thank you so much,” I say, giving her a hug. “He’s coming home today, you know. Should be here any minute. Would you like to come in for some coffee and wait for him?”
“Oh, no, no. I have to get going.” She steps back to the door and adjusts her hat. “Will that nice young woman be coming back to care for him as well?”
“Alana? Oh. No.” My lips press into a thin line. “Not sure where she is anymore, actually.”
“Can’t be too hard to find her, Kase.” She winks at me. And in that wink, I get it. All of it. I may not have a position at Newfound anymore, I may not have a billion-dollar company to my name, but I have all I need. I only had to lose it all to realize what that was.
A knock on the open door pulls my attention away from Nettie, and there stands a woman—the same case worker who took my boy away, Ms. Hernandez—holding the most precious gift I’ve ever been given. Raymond couldn’t even deliver Liam himself. Idiot.
This is it.
Will he remember me? Will he draw away shyly, recoil into the woman’s arms? Nettie studies the goofy smile on my face. Ms. Hernandez coos into Liam’s ear. Please, please, let him remember his home—his real home. Liam’s big blue eyes look around, up at the chandelier, down the hallway, and up the stairs, taking it all in.
He looks bigger, older in just the short time he’s been gone.
“Hi, Daddy,” the woman says on his behalf, and I just about lose it.
“Hi, baby.” When I see she’s going to set him on the ground, I crouch and open my arms. Everything I ever wanted, right here in this little package. The only thing missing now is Alana. And like Nettie inferred with her sly wink, it’s time to go get her and make this family complete.