by Eden Finley
“Just a sec,” I called out.
He opened the door anyway, and I wasn’t quick enough to hide the pregnancy test.
Standing in his hotshot lawyer suit and tie, he seemed more intimidating than the man I was engaged to.
I wasn’t ready for my world to implode, but there was nothing I could do about that now.
“You’ve been in here a while. I just wanted to check on—” His gaze fell to the pee stick in my hand. “You’re … why … pregnancy test?” His voice cracked.
“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” I blurted. Tears streamed down my cheeks, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get them to stop.
Paul didn’t understand what I was saying though. He approached and wrapped his arms around me. “I know, honey. This isn’t your fault. Clearly something went wrong with the condom we used.”
No, that’s not what I meant. I couldn’t bring words to my mouth. My throat was tight, my mouth dry.
“Uh …” I had no words.
He shook his head, as if he was in disbelief. “Talk about fate, huh. This wasn’t exactly the plan. I didn’t think I’d become a dad again at forty-three. But I think it’s great.” His entire face lit up, and the genuine tone to his voice stabbed at me.
There was no way I could keep this a secret. A mistake affair was bad enough to keep quiet about. This … I couldn’t. “There’s something—”
“We need to set a date for the wedding. We’ll do it ASAP.”
“No, wait—”
He was in go mode. “There’s a lawyer in my office whose wife’s an event planner. She’ll do everything. We’ll have to register as soon as possible. You have to get the license thirty-one days before the actual wedding date. I’ll sort that. We could do it in five or six weeks.”
“That’s really soon.”
He either didn’t hear me or ignored me. “There’s too much for you to organise on your own. You’ll need the help. I’ll get Karen to do it all so you don’t have to worry about a thing. Maybe we could announce it at Cody’s birthday party in a few weeks. Everyone will be there.”
God, Cody’s birthday party. I totally spaced. I’d set the date and sent the invitations, but I hadn’t done any proper preparation. I still had to call my ex-husband to switch weekends so we could have Cody’s birthday party here on our weekend with him.
“I’ll go get on it now. I can’t wait to tell Danny and Paige.”
“You can’t.” I finally found my voice. “It’s too soon to announce it. Anything could happen. I’ve … I’ve miscarried before, while I was married to Cole.”
“It’ll be fine, love. I promise.” With a kiss on the cheek—that left no linger affect like Spencer’s—he left me sobbing on the side of the bathtub.
How do I get out of this?
***
I let the next few days pass in a blur. Every time I came up with a solution, my brain would come up with a reason it wouldn’t work and convinced me to keep my mouth shut and pretend everything was hunky-dory.
My emotions ranged from thinking I was the worst person in the world to trying to justify what I was doing. Things like this happened in TV all the time. I could live the real-life Bold and the Beautiful. Then I’d flip back to convincing myself I had to find a way out.
Instead of ripping off the proverbial Band-Aid, I forced it all to the back of my mind and focused on something that wasn’t as daunting. My eight-year-old’s birthday party.
Cole took a while to answer his phone, and when he finally did, he was breathless. “What’s up? Why are you calling so late?”
“How old are you? It’s nine PM,” I said with a laugh. “I’m calling about Cody’s birthday party. I wanted to have it here, but it falls on a weekend you have him.”
“Uh-huh,” he grunted.
“Uh, so yeah, can you take Cody for two weekends in a row, and then I’ll have him for two? I don’t think your apartment is big enough for a birthday party.”
“O … kay.”
“Thanks.”
“No problem,” he panted.
“Are you okay?”
“Fuck!”
“What?”
“Nothing. I just … uh … stubbed my damn toe. And yeah, that’s fine. I’ll take Cody the next two weekends. Gotta go, bye.”
A scuffling noise filled the receiver, and I pulled my phone away, but it was still connected, so I put it back to my ear. I wasn’t sure why I did it, but I wish I hadn’t.
“Holy shit, I’m gonna come.”
Eww, I was listening to my ex-husband and some girl go at it? He couldn’t have paused to friggin’ talk? Or better yet, not answered the phone? I would’ve called back tomorrow.
I went to disconnect—
“Paige, I’m warning you.”
Paige?
As in … Paul’s daughter?
How many people were named Paige? Could it be someone else?
Paul’s daughter was only twenty-one years old for fuck’s sake.
Was this the universe’s way of punishing me for cheating on Paul?
Whoever named morning sickness morning sickness was full of crap. Queasiness wracked my stomach, and before I knew it, I was hugging porcelain and vomiting into the toilet bowl.
I had to put a stop to it. Their relationship, not the vomiting … although not vomiting would’ve been a bonus.
***
There were always three sides to every story. Theirs, yours, and the truth.
In every version of my life, I’d become the villain of all three.
Perhaps it was the way I was raised. Perhaps I was a bitch to my core.
All I knew was, since sleeping with Spencer, I became a person I despised.
I wasn’t a cheater.
I wasn’t a liar.
I wasn’t a cold-hearted bitch.
Yet, in the span of a few weeks, I became all three.
I proved this when I turned up on Cole’s doorstep at six AM the next day.
The whole morning was a fuzzy haze.
I remembered banging on the door. Hunter letting me in. Walking in on Cole and Paige in a half-dressed state.
The miniscule piece of hope I was holding onto that it was a different Paige than my soon-to-be stepdaughter was dashed.
“What the fuck, Cole? How could you do this to me?” I yelled.
He took a few steps back. “To you? I’ve done nothing to you.”
“Fucking Paul’s daughter has nothing to do with me? Really?” I took out my phone and replayed our phone call.
When I took out the domestic violence order against Cole years ago, the police suggested I download an app that recorded all my phone calls.
There was no way Cole could try to tell me I heard wrong.
Cole let out a loud breath. “We’re not just screwing around. We’re together.”
Together. With my stepdaughter. Paul’s daughter.
I lost it. And the sad part was, I knew my anger was displaced, but I couldn’t stop the verbal vomit as it flew out my mouth.
Not only was it vindictive, but it was harsh.
Words like “If you don’t end it, you won’t be able to see Cody again” were thrown out there. Cole signed over his parental rights when we split because of what he did to me. He didn’t want Cody around that. But when he sobered up, he wanted visitation, and I gave it to him. I had the power to take Cody away from him, and I dangled that over their heads to get my way. Something I had no right to do.
Things like raging alcoholic, he caused my miscarriage when he attacked me, and he’s not a good person were also yelled.
And when Cole told me “I feel so much more for Paige than I ever did for you,” the anger that should’ve been directed at myself was projected onto the man I blamed my crappy life for. But this time, he didn’t deserve it.
I was fighting to keep a hold of something I didn’t even want. And for what? To cover up an affair I had while engaged to a man I had doubts about marrying.
I took everything o
ut on them when I should’ve been confessing my own sins.
That didn’t stop me from trying to justify my actions as I told Paige she would be better off without him.
True or not, it wasn’t my place.
If I could’ve taken it all back, I would have.
But by this point, I was so far in the hole I couldn’t see the light anymore. There was no light.
I was drowning, and I wasn’t strong enough to fight it. Instead, I pushed everyone else down so I could remain afloat. The problem with that was, I knew I’d run out of people to lean on eventually, effectively drowning us all.
3
SPENCER
“Fuuuuck.” I came on a shudder but sadly into my own hand. The fist wrapped around my cock was nowhere near as delicate or soft as the hand I was imagining.
I was never one for self-loathing and guilt after rubbing one out, but that was before I went and fucked everything up by sleeping with my best friend’s ex-wife—who also happened to be engaged to someone else.
No matter how many times those thoughts ran through my head, I couldn’t believe them myself. How did I become that guy?
Sleeping with Reece made me a douchebag, but that wasn’t why I hated myself in that moment. The guilt came from the simple fact that the whole time I was jerking off, I was remembering what it was like to be with Reece.
I could still hear how she whimpered under my touch; the sound was burned into my memory. Another image I couldn’t shake was gripping her hips and slamming into her over and over again as she begged me to go harder. Faster.
When she came, she tightened around me and bit down on my lip so hard it almost drew blood.
Fuck, now I’m hard again.
I had to get Reece out of my head. She had sex with me because she had cold feet over her wedding. It was a slip. A mishap.
“Yo, boss.” The knock on my office door made me jump. When I looked down at my lap, the guilt returned.
Luckily I’d thought to lock the door before jerking off, but I really had to quit the habit of going at it at work. I was supposed to be responsible and a leader and shit.
After a quick clean-up job, I let my assistant into my office. “I told you not to call me boss like a billion times. Stop it or you’re fired.”
Trevor had been my assistant for a couple of months, but he’d quickly become an asset to the company. Before him, I was doing a lot of it on my own, and it got to a point where I was wondering why I was doing so many long hours to complete such mundane tasks. Now, the guy who could’ve been Bruno Mars’s doppelgänger did all that stuff for me. When I met him, I asked him to break out into a rendition of “Locked out of Heaven” to convince me he wasn’t Bruno. Alas, my ears hated me for forcing him to sing because he sucked, but I figured someone who was willing to sing—badly—in an interview was someone I should hire.
Trevor grinned. “I refuse to call you Spence like you insist. So it’s either boss or Mr. Crowley.”
“Mr. Crowley makes me sound old. You’re like three years younger than me, asshole.” I probably should’ve worked on my people skills, but Trevor gave as good as he took.
“Why was your door locked? Jerking off at the office again? Do you need me to call an escort service or something to take care of your needs?”
“What’s up, Trevor?”
“The guys in design need you to sign off on a new update. It’s supposedly more user friendly, and we’re at beta testing stage.”
“I’ll need to play with it before I sign off on it, and it’s Friday afternoon. Tell everyone to go home, and we’ll get to it on Monday.”
“On it, boss.”
“Stop calling me that before everyone else starts doing it too.”
“But you are their boss.”
“All I did was design the software. Everything else was a group effort.”
I never in a million years thought my start-up company would go anywhere, let alone have three different departments and twenty staff.
I designed my software program back when I was at uni, and I got funds to start the company three years ago. It was me and two other guys I’d hired. Now, it was so much bigger than that.
When I found out how much revenue my data program had earned this past year, I almost fell off my chair. With my investors already paid off, that profit was solely mine.
The reason Crow Tech Data was doing well was because we gained government contracts for hospitals and sold the program privately to medical clinics around the country.
Before my design, medical staff had to manually input data into one program, and then data managers had to manually transfer it all into another. It often created errors and improper filing, causing a responsibility of care problem. My mother spent her whole adulthood as a RN and constantly complained about that side of the job.
My software made everything mainstream and foolproof. One program that did it all. Seriously, a monkey could use it, but that didn’t stop complaints coming in from dumbasses who found it complicated. I wasn’t sure I wanted to live in a world where healthcare staff—who were meant to save my life—were more technologically challenged than my mother.
We were trying to iron everything out, while also taking the company to the next level. We were working on other programs tailor-made to each industry. Any office in the world could use my program.
And it was all mine.
I still wasn’t used to it. So much so, I hadn’t told my friends about its success. Blair was the only one who kinda knew, and that was because the office we worked out of was right near his apartment. He’d seen the space because he dropped by to check it out not long after he moved into his place a few months ago.
The rest of our weird little clique knew I ran a start-up, but they didn’t know the extent of the business or the fact this past year I hit a seven-figure income.
Technically, I was a millionaire. Not that I had millions sitting in the bank, but my net worth made me a millionaire. Multi-millionaire, actually. That was weird to think. Or say aloud. Perhaps I hadn’t told anyone else—apart from my family—because I was worried it’d all fold. Start-ups were known for doing great one week and then failing the next.
Also, how was I supposed to tell my friends that? “Hey, guys, guess what? I earn more than all of you combined now.” It’d feel like I was bragging or being condescending, and I wasn’t that guy.
No, I was the guy who slept with engaged women.
Fuck.
“You going to come out for drinks tonight, boss?” Trevor asked. “Oh, wait, it’s Friday. You have your high school buddy gathering at the pub.”
“I swear you guys go out on a Friday night so you get out of having me there.” I didn’t want them to see me as their boss. I didn’t want to be anyone’s boss. I barely felt responsible for myself, let alone the livelihoods of twenty or so people.
When I thought of it that way, it scared the shit out of me. If this place went under, all of them would lose their jobs and source of income. That was way too much responsibility for me. I tried not to think about it.
“We could organise something for tomorrow night,” Trevor said. “I’ll tell everyone you ordered them to come.”
“Gee, now I get a pity hangout? No thanks.”
“I’m joking. I’m sure everyone would love to go drinking with you … you’re paying, right?”
I laughed. “I’ll shout everyone a round. Singular. Text me the details. Right now I’m gonna go home and take a nap before I head out tonight.”
“Jerking off is always tiresome.”
I cocked my head to the side. Maybe I should’ve been embarrassed, but there was no way Trevor could know he was right. “You feel comfortable enough to say that to your boss, but you can’t find it in yourself to call me Spence?”
He shrugged. “It’s weird, isn’t it?”
“Completely weird.”
“I’ll try harder, boss. I mean, Spence.” He cringed on the name.
“Is there som
ething wrong with my name?”
“You just don’t look like a Spence. I grew up with this kid who was named Spence. He was a ginger and scrawny. You’ve got this nerdy blond hotness thing going on.” His eyes widened in shock. “And now I called my very straight boss hot. Sorry. Inappropriate.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “It’s okay. I’m not going to freak out that my very gay assistant thinks I’m hot. I’ll take it as a compliment. One of my best friends is bi. I’m cool.”
“You do realise saying it like that is one step away from being a racist who says ‘My neighbours are black. I’m cool.’”
I winced. “Sorry. We went through something similar when Blair came out. There was a misunderstanding, and he thought we were unsupportive. I wanted you to know upfront that I was cool with it. Nip it in the bud before you think I’m uncomfortable if you say shit like that. I honestly don’t care. If we had an HR department, they probably would, but I don’t.”
“Good to know.” When he went to walk away, he turned at the last second. “Wait … Blair is bi? That brown-haired Adonis who came to visit that one time?”
“Want an introduction?”
Trevor hesitated. “Ah, I doubt I’d be his type.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, what kind of guy does he usually go for?”
“Umm, to be honest, I don’t know.”
Trevor laughed. “Ah, so he doesn’t think you’re completely fine with it if you’ve never met a guy he’s dated. I bet he’s introduced you to girlfriends though, right?”
“Uh … umm …”
“Bring him tomorrow night.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t listening anymore. I was more focused on why I hadn’t met any guys Blair had dated. How had I not realised that before? “You should go home,” I said to Trevor. “It’s what I’m gonna do.”
“You know it’s only two PM, right?”
“And?”
“Just pointing out you pay everyone until five no matter what.”
“Unless they’re going to make me a cool mil in the next three hours, they can go home. The same work’s going to be there on Monday morning.”
“Best boss ever,” Trevor singsonged out the door.
Maybe I should’ve gone out with my staff instead of to Friday pub night. I didn’t know if I could handle seeing Reece. The next week after we slept together, she turned up with her fiancé.