by Claire Adams
Andrew
I couldn't help whistling as I headed out to my car that evening. We were on track to pull in record profits that quarter at Orinoco, and I'd had a couple afternoon meetings that day which had gone exceedingly well. Couple that with a few great days off the previous weekend, where Lexi and I had taken Emma camping for the first time, and I was really starting to realize how great my life was.
That was, until I got close to my car, one of the last ones in the parking lot that evening because I did have to work late some nights, and saw someone lurking there waiting for me.
I immediately pulled out my phone, planning to call security. It could just be one of my coworkers wanting to discuss one last detail before we headed home for the day, but I doubted it. It could also be someone having trouble with their car and needing help getting home for the night. But I doubted they'd be waiting here for me if that were the case. They'd be more likely to wait by the exit to the building.
Whoever it was, they were there waiting for me specifically. And I feared it meant they might try to mug me, or even kidnap me and ransom me.
Or worse, that they've kidnapped Emma and Lexi and are looking for you to pay to find out where they were, I thought.
I forced myself to walk forward with measured steps, knowing that if I showed how worried I was, things could escalate quickly. But I breathed out noisily when I realized who was really there, lurking in the shadows next to my car. I should have known. Fucking Renée.
“You psycho bitch,” I swore. “You've gone too far this time. What the fuck are you doing? Stalking me?”
“Of course not,” Renée said, tossing her hair casually back over her shoulder. She stepped closer to me. “Anyway, it's good to see you, too.” She sounded sarcastic, as though she really expected there should be any reason for me to welcome her presence here.
“Get away from my car,” I spat. “I'm going home.”
“You should take a look at what I've got first,” Renée said, waving around a file folder.
“I don't give a shit,” I told her, incensed. “Whatever it is that you think you've got there, you can shove it up your ass. Stay the fuck away from me and my family. And if I see you near my company again, I'll have no choice but to call the police and get a restraining order.”
I didn't really want to do that. The paperwork would be messy, and I knew that the tabloids would be all over it. Renée came from a wealthy family, and I respected her father quite a bit. I knew that he wouldn't want to see his daughter's reputation ruined. But it was getting to the point where she was leaving me no choice.
“Just read it, would you?” Renée snarled, shoving the folder against my chest so that I had no choice but to accept it.
I rolled my eyes and flipped it open, making a big show of glancing through it.
“I had a private investigator do a little digging,” Renée told me. “Of course, it was hard to find someone willing to bend a few minor laws and do what I required, but once I found the guy, it was almost too easy. You're being conned.”
“Oh, am I?” I asked, deciding just to humor her so that I could finally go home and get some peace and quiet.
“The private investigator was able to get some hairs to do a little DNA testing,” she said. “And I, of course, had plenty of samples of your hair on the clothes that you left at my place.”
I stared at her, wondering where she was going with this. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was even later than I'd told Lexi that it would be. I was rapidly getting impatient.
“She set you up,” Renée said triumphantly. “You aren't the father of that brat. The bitch is just trying to extort money out of you, and you're playing right along with it! This isn't the first time, either. At least once in the past, she's been arrested for fraud. Not in the state of Washington, of course, but my private investigator was able to find out everything about her.”
I sighed and pressed my fingertips to my temples. “I don't believe a word that you're saying,” I told her. “Especially since a simple DNA test would, in fact, prove if Lexi was conning me or not, and she knows very well that I have all the resources to have one ordered and expedited. She wouldn't have been stupid enough to try it.”
“That's all part of her scheme, though,” she crowed. “You didn't actually get the DNA test done, did you? She tells you that you could, and you assume that she would only say that if the brat truly was yours. But then you never actually go through with the paternity test, and you never find out that she's conning you.” She shook her head. “To be honest, I didn't realize what a scam she was running until you made that comment about how I was just mad that her skills were better than mine and that she'd been able to trick her way into your life. If you hadn't said that, I might never have uncovered all of that evidence.”
“This is hardly evidence,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Sure, you got some guy to pull together what you claimed was Emma's hair and my hair. And I’d like to know how the fuck you got it. For all I know, you're the one trying to con me.”
“Don't be ridiculous,” Renée said, and for a moment, I wondered if she actually believed the words coming out of her mouth. Especially when she continued. “I know that you and I are over. You made that quite clear the last time I saw you, when I came to your office. I understand that. But I still care about you. We were friends first, remember? Before we started dating.” She ignored my concern over the validity of the hair sample. It wouldn’t be too hard to get, but it was disturbing nevertheless.
“What we were can hardly qualify as friends,” I said acidly.
“Whatever you want to call it then,” Renée said, rolling her eyes. “We ran in the same circles. We grew up together. We had a relationship long before we were dating. I don't want to see you get conned, especially not by some girl from the wrong side of the tracks. You always were too nice to people.”
I couldn't help laughing at that one. “That's the first time I've ever been called that,” I said. I shook my head. “Renée, we're never getting back together. I don't care if you think you can be nice to me or remind me of what we used to have. Whatever game you think you're playing, just stop. And take this stupid folder back. I'm not going to carry around the evidence of your lunacy.”
“For the last time, Andrew, it's not lunacy,” Renée said, her mood starting to swing back in the other direction. She put her hands on her hips, refusing to take the folder. “Look, I'd go to the police myself, but you're the only one who can really testify to her fraud. But you need to go to the police.”
I scowled at her and spun towards the door to my car, the file still clutched in my fingers. “Fine, whatever. Thanks for the heads-up. Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go home. And like I said, this had better be the last time that I see you around me. I mean it this time; one more unannounced visit and I'll make sure everyone knows what a crazy fucking bitch you are.”
“Fine,” Renée snapped as I slammed my door shut.
I shook my head as I drove toward home, glancing over, now and again, at the manila folder on the passenger's seat. I needed to get rid of the thing as soon as I could. And I needed to get rid of the thing without Lexi seeing it.
I could only imagine what she would start to think if she thought that I didn't trust her. If she thought that I'd gotten a paternity test without her knowing. She'd be upset just knowing that I'd seen Renée, probably, and I didn't want to upset her.
Things had been going really well lately. We were comfortable. We were sleeping together every night, even though we didn't always have sex, and I liked waking up with her just as much as I'd known I would. And beyond that, there were all of our family outings. I liked those too. I didn't know how much of that would go away if Lexi thought I didn't trust her, but I had a feeling she wouldn't be in a relationship with a guy she thought didn't trust her.
And even though we still had yet to have that conversation, I was starting to think of what we had as a relationship, more and more so every day. A serious relatio
nship, even.
I drummed my fingers on the edge of the steering wheel, feeling agitated.
The thing was, I tended to have pretty accurate instincts for people. It came with growing up in a business empire, I was sure. When Lexi had shown up on my doorstep, I hadn't thought for a second that she was lying to me about Emma's paternity. Especially not since the little girl looked so much like a young Katherine. But now, with that file sitting there on my seat, I started to wonder if maybe we should get the DNA test done. Just to have absolute reassurance.
What would happen if it turned out Emma's father was really some other guy, and he one day came along and wanted to take her away from me? He'd have every right to do so if the DNA was a match, I had a feeling. Despite all of my millions, the comfortable family life that I'd managed to cobble together could come crashing down in an instant.
I wondered if maybe I should confront Lexi. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a good idea. Come to think of it, I didn't know why I hadn't had a background check run on her already. I knew that she was having difficulty getting hired, and I had to assume that there was something in her history that made her unemployable. Sure, she had said that Albright was blackballing her to everyone else in the industry, but what if that wasn't the case? What if she had a criminal conviction for fraud?
Hell, that could have been the whole reason why Albright had fired her in the first place, if that arrest history had only suddenly been made known to them.
I didn't want to go behind Lexi's back, though. I could hire a private investigator of my own and have all the information I could ever have wanted on her in a day's time. But that felt sneaky, and I felt like I owed it to Lexi to do this face to face. But I was going to need to ask her.
I took a deep breath to calm myself and pulled into a parking lot down the street from my mansion. If I was going to confront Lexi, I might as well do it with Renée's documents in hand. And if I was going to do that, I would need to know exactly what was there in that file.
I began to leaf through the file, heedless of how late it was growing.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Lexi
I stood up and went to the front door as I heard Andrew enter. Emma had gone to sleep a little while ago, and it had taken me three stories to get her to close her eyes. She'd been distraught at the fact that her Daddy wasn't there to tuck her in. Andrew had been good about being there lately, and it had been nearly a month since the last time he'd missed bedtime.
“Hey,” I said, coming into the front hall and leaning up on my toes to kiss him, even as he was still taking his jacket off. “Did your meetings run late? I know you said you were going to be running late this evening, but I didn't expect you to be quite this late.”
Andrew grunted in response, and I frowned. Maybe something had gone wrong in one of his meetings? But I couldn't think of what. He'd just been telling me yesterday, as he prepared his notes for his meetings today, that everything was going amazingly for this quarter and that he was so proud of his team.
But maybe there had been some new problem that day, something to do with shipping lines or warehouses, and he was just caught up in that. It wouldn't be the first time that he was unable to draw his mind away from a work problem.
“Emma's already in bed,” I told him slowly, wondering if maybe thoughts of our daughter could draw him out of his funk. “She was pretty sad that Daddy wasn't here to tuck her in.”
Andrew scowled. “I'm not always going to be here to tuck her in; you know that,” he said. “I run a very important business. You shouldn't set her expectations so high.”
I blinked, wondering if what he really meant was that I shouldn't set my expectations so high. I bit my lower lip, feeling wounded. “There's still some dinner leftovers,” I told him. “Do you want me to fix you a plate?”
“Would you quit that?” Andrew snapped.
“Quit what?” I asked, holding my breath as I waited for his answer.
“Quit acting so domestic. We aren't a couple.”
I stared at him, feeling tears pool in my eyes. I blinked them rapidly away. “Of course not,” I said, wondering what I had done wrong. “Sorry, I'll just head up to bed, I guess.” I paused. “Should I sleep in my own room?”
“I don't really want to cuddle tonight, no,” Andrew said. He really sounded distracted; his mind was clearly elsewhere.
“Okay,” I said, feeling something inside of me shatter at his words.
Sure, it was just one night away from one another. It would be nice to stretch out in my own bed and not have to worry that I was stealing too much of the blankets or that I was too far over on his side of the bed.
But even though I wanted to believe that this was only one night apart, something had clearly happened, and I had zero idea what it was. If I didn’t know what the problem was, I couldn’t begin to figure out how to fix it. Maybe he'd just grown tired of me.
I started towards the stairs, trying not to trip over my feet, feeling the tears already starting to spill over.
“Lexi, wait,” Andrew said, catching my wrist and pulling me back towards him. He ran a hand back through his hair. “We need to talk.”
“Did something bad happen at work?” I asked, hoping that would explain this scary outburst of his. Maybe that would be the end of it, and we could go back to some semblance of normal.
But if anything, Andrew just looked more agitated. “People are always trying to take advantage of me in my business,” he said. “Whether because they think that I'm young and inexperienced or because they're just blindly after my money, they think they can just walk all over me.” He paused and then said, weighing the words significantly, “But people try to take advantage of me in my personal life, too.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, starting to feel a little scared.
I knew that I was taking advantage of him, but I had thought that this was okay. He'd asked for us to stay for a few months while he and I figured out our relationship, after all. And he'd set up Emma's room so that it was perfect for a little girl. Anyway, if he didn't want us there, I thought he was going to help us move out. He knew that I didn't have any money. I still didn't have a job.
Andrew grabbed a manila folder off the table by the door and thrust it towards me, wordlessly watching as I opened it up.
It was a DNA test.
I gaped at it and then turned my eyes towards Andrew, wondering when he'd decided to get the paternity test done after all, and why he hadn't told me about it. Did he think that I would have minded? I totally understood if he felt like he had to get one done. After all, I was asking a lot, asking him to take us in like this, and I knew that someone in his position, with his billions, needed to worry about girls trying to take advantage of him.
The words on the paper swirled in front of me, making it difficult to read them. But I didn't need to read them. Andrew told me all that I needed to know about them a moment later.
“As you'll notice, that DNA test shows conclusively that I am not Emma's father,” Andrew said, his voice dark and dangerous. “Now what I want to know is, were you actually trying to con me, or did you really not know that she is someone else's child?”
I stared down at the results, feeling bile rise in the back of my throat. But the results made no sense. Emma was his daughter. There was no way that she could be anyone else's daughter. The timing didn't make sense, and anyway, I'd seen pictures of Katherine when she was a kid. There were a couple of them around Andrew's house. The two girls could have been twins.
But even beyond that, the timing of it all. I had already told him I wasn't the kind of person to sleep around. Misty could vouch for me, too. She'd known who the father was as soon as I'd told her I was pregnant, without trying to count the months or anything. Emma had to be his child. It was physically impossible for her to be someone else's.
“Andrew, I don't know who you got this from, but it's not true,” I said, wishing my voice sounded stronger
, that I spoke with a little more conviction. But it was hard just getting the words out. I occurred to me that I wasn't breathing right, and that I felt faint.
“You don't think those documents look legitimate?” Andrew asked, a sneer on his face. “With the signatures and the legal stamps and everything else? You think that I've just made this all up? If I wanted you out of my life, all I had to do was tell you to get out. I could pay you to get out, rather than paying no-doubt extraordinary amounts of money to get someone to fabricate a legal document for me.”
It did look official. That was true. But the words on the paper baffled me. “There must have been some sort of mix-up. Maybe they accidentally used the wrong sample. Those things can happen, can't they? And it’s not like you took Emma to the lab for someone to collect her DNA. Whatever sample you used, it might have been compromised.” A desperate note had crept into my voice, but I didn't care how I sounded at that moment. I just needed him to realize the truth.
Surely, he wouldn't just kick us out, would he? Me maybe, but not Emma, right? Where would we go? Emma was already asleep for the night. How would I explain to her that the room that she'd been calling her own for weeks now was no longer hers? That we were no longer living there and that she was never again going to see the man who she'd been calling Daddy?
Then, something else from the documents caught my eye. “Hang on,” I said, shaking my head. “Andrew, even if the DNA test is true, even if Emma isn't your daughter, I've never been arrested for fraud. I swear on that one. I've never even gotten a speeding ticket!”
Andrew narrowed his eyes at me. “If you're not telling the truth,” he said warningly, leaving the threat hanging between us.
I burst into tears. This was all too much for me. “Is this some sort of test?” I wailed. “Andrew, I swear to you, I swear to you, I've never been arrested. You don't have to believe me about Emma, but don't kick us out, please. Not tonight. Not when Emma's already in bed. Please.”
Andrew looked pale and unhappy, but his mouth set into a firm line. “I'm not going to kick you out,” he said slowly. “But I am going to go stay at a hotel for a few days. I know that none of this is Emma's fault, whatever it is that you've done in the past. And I want to believe you. I want to believe that she's mine and that I can trust you. But I just don't know what to believe anymore.”
