by Ava Storm
I gripped her hips, controlling her rhythm. I didn’t want to come too soon.
She squeezed her thighs together and arched her back, pushing her breasts to my face. With one hand, I pulled the top of her dress down low enough that I could take a nipple into my mouth. She moaned as I drew on the tender flesh and bucked against me. Before I could prepare myself for it, she was spasming around me and calling out my name.
I exploded into her, her eager body milking me for every drop. She collapsed forward into my arms, her head on my shoulder as our breathing began to return to normal. I wanted to sit like that with her forever, but I could feel the car beginning to slow and knew that we were at our destination. I helped Paige off of me and stuffed my cock back in my pants as she righted her dress. With one last look at each other, we were off.
The charity dinner always followed the same format. You got there in time to mingle and make small talk. Then you went to your table to eat. The speeches started when dessert was served. This year they had a popular comedian emceeing the event. Kai rolled his eyes, but the rest of us laughed our asses off.
“See, it’s funny because…” Griffin kept explaining to Kai, which Paige found just as funny as the jokes.
After the comedian and the speakers left the stage, a band set up and people began moving to the dance floor. With the tables half abandoned, those who didn’t want to dance began switching around to talk to new people. While Paige was in the bathroom, I spotted Stan Martin a few tables over and went to say hello.
“Ford,” he said, his old face wrinkling in a wide smile. “How have you been?”
“Great. I wanted to thank you for sending Miss Collins my way.” I pulled out an empty chair beside him and sat down. I’d always liked Stan. He’d invested in Blip when we were first starting out, and he’d been like a mentor in our early years.
He looked surprised. “Did that work out after all? I thought there was a mix up.”
“No, it’s worked out very well.” I scanned the room to see if Paige had returned. “She’s here tonight, actually.”
We talked business for a few minutes. Stan had retired from the board, but he was still a shareholder. Then he switched back into mentor mode and told me I needed to buy a villa in Anguilla. “You’ve made the money,” he said, pounding the table with his fist. “Now it’s time to enjoy it. Don’t make the same mistakes I did.”
“Don’t you have a wife and three kids?” I asked.
“No,” he said severely. “I’ve had three wives and one kid. You know why? Because I worked too hard.”
“A villa in Anguilla. Okay. I’ll have Miss Collins look into that on Monday.” I spotted Paige across the room and raised my hand to signal her over. “There she is now.”
Stan frowned, his bushy eyebrows crawling across his forehead to meet each other. “Where?”
“Right there, in the black dress.” Paige was only twenty feet away now, and the only person heading right for our table. Stan’s eyes landed on her, skipped past her.
“I don’t see her.”
My blood went cold.
29
Paige
When I came back from the bathroom, something had changed. I could see it on Ford’s face when he stood up abruptly from the table he’d moved to.
“Is everything okay?” I asked him when he walked forward to meet me. I could see the man he’d been speaking to watching us curiously.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” he asked, his face remote.
“You just got up really quickly, and you look—” I examined his face, “like Kai.” Ford was a dark contrast to Kai’s mahogany hair and light eyes, but now they shared the exact same wintry expression.
Without responding, he took hold of my arm in a grip that was too tight to be comfortable. “Something’s come up. I’ve called the car to take you home.”
A tiny kernel of fear popped in my gut. I wanted to twist away from him and demand he tell me what happened, but suddenly I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. His face was so different. He’d never looked more like a stranger, even on that first night in the bar.
He led me past our table, not even pausing to say goodbye to the others. Kai raised one eyebrow when he saw Ford’s face, and his gaze moved impassively to mine as if looking for an explanation. I looked back helplessly. I don’t know either.
The car was already waiting on the curb when we exited the venue. Ford opened the door for me and made an impatient gesture.
“Aren’t you coming with me?” I asked, my voice shrinking as I looked up at him. The answer was clearly no. I’d never seen him like this. “Ford,” I tried again. “What happened?”
“Get in the car, Paige. I’ll call you later.”
I didn’t know what else to do. This was not the place or time to argue, and he clearly wasn’t going to tell me anything right then anyway, so I got in the car. He slammed the door shut after me, rapped on the roof, and turned away without a second glance.
Confusion and misery swirled in my chest as I watched him disappear back into the Grand Ballroom. What had happened in the ten minutes I’d been gone?
Amanda looked surprised when I walked in alone. “Where’s Prince Charming?”
I shrugged miserably. “The clock struck midnight.”
Amanda shot a glance at the time. “It’s just after eleven.”
“Metaphorically speaking.” I kicked my heels off and went back to my bedroom. I twisted, trying to get to the zipper of the dress. I’d thought Ford would be here tonight to do this. I’d been sure of it. What the hell had happened?
Amanda asked the same question tentatively from the doorway.
“I don’t know.” I gave up on the zipper and crawled into bed. “He just changed.”
“Do you think he found out?”
“I don’t know,” I snapped. I pulled the covers up over my head and curled down into as tight a ball as the dress would allow.
When I woke up in the morning, Nickelodeon was playing in the living room and someone was closing the oven in the kitchen. The scent of warm bread and cinnamon reached my nose. My first thought was Ford. I crawled out of bed, hitched the long skirt up, and went hopefully down the hallway.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Amanda said cautiously. She was on the couch with Madelyn. Shelly was coming out of the kitchen with a plate of cinnamon buns. Neither laughed when they saw me in bed head and a designer gown, and that made me want to cry.
Of course it wasn’t Ford, I berated myself. He doesn’t even have a key.
Shelly set the cinnamon buns down on the coffee table and came over. “He’s a jerk.”
“I know.” I swallowed hard, determined not to let the tears come.
“Dadada,” Madelyn offered.
“No dadada,” we all said in unison.
She looked at us, open mouthed, and then burst into laughter. “Dadada!”
I looked at the ceiling. Tears brimmed up, blurring my vision, burning at my lower lids.
“I’ll take her to the park,” Amanda said quickly. She put on Madelyn’s shoes and grabbed a cinnamon bun in a napkin.
“What do you need?” Shelly asked me. “A friend or space?”
“A shower,” I sniffed. “Can you unzip me?”
Shelly yanked the tiny zipper down to the small of my back as if the dress were to blame. “Wear sweatpants when you get out,” she said. “They’re scientifically proven to make you feel better.”
She and Amanda took Madelyn to the park while I went into my room, picked out a pair of sweatpants, and then spent twenty minutes staring at my phone screen. I’d been so sure he’d call. Should I call him?
I threw the phone behind my pillows before I could and dragged myself into the bathroom. The shower did me some good. It cleared away the haze I’d been in since Ford had changed so abruptly and allowed me to reexamine the situation. I could think of only two possibilities that would make him act like that. One, he’d found out he was Madelyn’s biological father. Two, he
found out I wasn’t the woman he thought he had hired. There was no one at the dinner who could have possibly known the first, so it had to be the second.
I took a deep, fortifying breath. I needed to stop saying I don’t know when Amanda and Shelly asked me what happened. I did know, and I’d brought it on myself. But maybe it was fixable. I’d go to him tomorrow and explain. Apologize.
He would forgive me.
He had to.
I got into the office before anyone the next morning. My heart dropped when I stepped off the elevator and he wasn’t there, leaning against Mrs. Winthrop’s desk, but I wasn’t surprised. It was only seven am. For the first time, Madelyn was the first check-in at daycare.
I paced the office nervously, trying to figure out what to do, where to be. I was too jittery to stand by Mrs. Winthrop’s desk. Too anxious to sit down at mine. Finally, I made him a cup of coffee and went into his office to wait. I felt better with his office door closed behind me, wrapped up in his space. It made me feel closer to him.
I set the cup of coffee on his desk and ran my fingers over his chair. I’d never paid attention to what he kept on it. What I saw made me sad. It was purely functional. Not a single picture or memento. Just two monitors, an ergonomic keyboard, and his stack of folders. A thick, stapled packet was lying in his chair. I frowned and picked it up. Ford liked everything neat and organized. I flipped it open to see which folder I should put it in and froze.
There was a handwritten note on the inside.
Ford—
Here is the information you requested re: Paige Alexis Stafford. This is the only name she has had.
—GLW
Numbly, I flipped to the next page. Then the next. It was me. It was my life. It was my college transcripts. My driving record. A list of every address I’d ever lived at. It even had hospital records. I felt sick as I turned the next page to see a copy of Madelyn’s birth certificate. The date that showed she was eighteen months old, not sixteen. The blank spaces where the information about the father was meant to be.
Suddenly, a horrible thought occurred to me. I flipped through the rest of the packet until I found it. The DNA test I’d taken to show Alex he wasn’t the father.
The Combined Paternity Index: 0.
The Probability of Paternity: 0%.
I closed my eyes.
“Paige.” Ford’s voice cracked through the room like a whip. “What are you doing in here?”
The numbers still swimming in front of my eyes, I looked up at him. “You had me investigated.” My voice came out strange. Flat.
Ford shut the door behind him and strode over. “Of course I had you investigated, Miss Collins.
“I was coming to explain.”
He crossed his arms. “Go ahead. I hope this little dossier doesn’t contradict whatever story you were planning.”
I stared at him wordlessly. All of my explanations and apologies had gone up in smoke.
“It does, doesn’t it?” He laughed bitterly. “You’re a good liar, but you’re not a quick one. Georgia would have had this turned around on me by now.”
I wasn’t going to be able to fix this. The thought was as clear and sharp as the Chicago wind. It cut right through me, cold and clean. It severed something. Suddenly, all I wanted was to be away from him. Away from this whole place. Out of this damn city.
“Goodbye, Ford,” I said quietly.
“Oh don’t quit now,” he said mockingly. “If you get me to fire you, at least you can collect unemployment. Something to tide you over before the inevitable sexual harassment suit. Don’t worry—we’ll settle.”
“I don’t want your money.” I tried to move past him, but he blocked my way.
“Where are you going?”
I didn’t know. Home—wherever that was. It wasn’t here though. Not anymore. I just had the overwhelming need to get to Madelyn and put as much space between us and Ford as I could.
“What’s in that anyway?” He reached for the file, but I jerked it out of his reach.
“It’s mine,” I snapped, finally coming back to life. “And you had no right.”
Before he could reach for it again, I pushed past him and ran out of the office, nearly knocking down Mrs. Winthrop as she came off the elevator.
“Paige!” She said, startled. “Are you—?”
I lurched onto the elevator and jabbed the button to close the doors. When I looked up to make sure Ford wasn’t coming after me, I saw him standing in the doorway of his office.
“I still have the electronic copy,” he called after me. “You’re not getting away with anything.”
The door closed before I could respond. I stared at myself in the shiny, grey reflection. My eyes were wild, but my mouth was a thin, determined line. I just had to get to Madelyn, and then I would be getting away with everything.
And I’d never come back.
30
Ford
I met Griffin, Jameson, and Kai in the conference room at the top of the building. The one we saved for our biggest deals. Our biggest secrets. Our biggest fuck ups.
When they’d all sat down at the table, I tossed the freshly reprinted copies of Paige’s file down in the center.
“Paige Stafford is a liar,” I said point blank. “We need to find out why.”
Jameson looked interested. “Corporate espionage?”
“Yeah, our competition is really curious about what our travel budget looks like,” Griffin said to him sarcastically. He looked at me with an expression as close to sympathy as he was capable of feeling and didn’t say what he was thinking, which I was sure was something along the lines of what a fucking sucker.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But she interviewed pretending to be a woman Stan Martin recommended.” I’d gone back and looked at Ms. Collins’ resume. If I’d paid closer attention before, I’d have seen that Paige couldn’t possibly have graduated with a business administration degree in 2003. I’d have also seen that her first name was Julia.
Kai’s face went hard as flint. He took the copies and slid them across the table to Griffin and Jameson, then pulled one toward himself. “Have you read this?” He asked me.
I shook my head, my mouth flattening. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to. I didn’t want to know. “Just tell me what needs to be done, and I’ll do it,” I said, and I walked away to stare out across the city. If I let myself, I could have directed my eyes toward her apartment, maybe even seen a sliver of it through the forest of buildings. I didn’t though. And I didn’t look toward the beach or the park or any of the places that I’d been with her and Madelyn.
The thought of Madelyn twisted the knife more deeply into my chest. Paige had fooled me so thoroughly that for a while there, I hadn’t recognized myself. In her warped mirror, I’d seen someone who could be a partner in something other than Blip. Maybe even someone who could be a stepfather. With my back safely turned to the others, my face twisted into a bitter, self-deprecating sneer. She must have laughed at how easy it was. How hard I fell for her.
It was easy to turn those feelings into hate.
It was much, much harder to deal with my feelings for Madelyn.
“She had to retake calculus,” Jameson read from the table.
“Everyone has to retake calculus,” Griffin said. “That doesn’t make her a spy.”
Suddenly, Kai was at my shoulder. Silently, he handed me one of the pages.
I took it and found myself staring down at a photocopy of Madelyn’s birth certificate.
“Look at the date,” Kai said quietly. “Do the math.”
December fourth.
I frowned. That would make Madelyn almost nineteen months old now. Two months ago, Paige had told me she was fifteen months old. If she’d been born in December that meant she was conceived in…
Kai was watching me when I finally got it. “Fuck.” My eyes skimmed over the rest of the document. There was Paige’s information, but the father’s information was blank.
“What happened?” Griffin asked from the table. “Who is she?”
Jameson, who had just gotten to the page with Madelyn’s information, said, “Jesus Christ.”
“What?” Griffin demanded. “Somebody fucking tell me.”
Jameson slid the birth certificate in front of him.
Griffin read it. “Didn’t we already know she had a kid?”
“Did you fail basic math?” Jameson demanded. “Look at the date.”
Griffin gave a long, low whistle. “A Christmas baby, huh. That means it was a late March conception. Congratulations, buddy.” He looked up at me. “So what exactly does this mean?”
“It means she’s been lying to me this whole time,” I growled. “First she tried to hide Madelyn from me, and then she had me playing babysitter to my own kid.”
“Admittedly, she’s a liar,” Griffin acknowledged. He leaned back in the conference chair and stretched out his long legs in front of him. Griff’s version of The Thinker pose. All that was missing was a cigar. He cracked his knuckles instead. “But for what purpose?”
Kai and I looked at each other. Kai’s expression was as impenetrable as always, and he didn’t give me any clues as to what he might be thinking. He didn’t even say I told you so, which I wouldn’t have begrudged him under the circumstances. “I don’t have a fucking clue,” I admitted. “I don’t see the endgame.”
And I always saw the endgame. It was my job to see the endgame. Even with Georgia, eventually, after the smoke had cleared. But with Paige, I was as off balance as the day she walked into my office.
“Maybe she wanted you to be attached before she hit you up for money,” Griffin offered.
“To what end?” Kai asked. “If she can prove this is Ford’s kid, she’s going to get a fortune whether he’s attached or not. The question I have is why didn’t she tell him immediately?”
“Maybe she passed it off as her husband’s,” I said, turning it over in my mind. She’d gotten back together with him so quickly after our night together. Maybe she hadn’t even known it wasn’t his. But then, why would she leave his name off the birth certificate?
