by Lara Swann
So maybe I’m a little pissed off at the moment.
Enough that I’m daydreaming about trading in a few of the 0s sitting in my bank account for the kind of agile business I used to run - and an escape from the itchy feeling that being in the spotlight has given me.
I give Barkley another look.
“We’ll be done arguing about it when these media stories stop following me.”
“Heh.” Barkley shakes his head again. “You should be enjoying the attention while it lasts - all those exclusive invites to high-end clubs, girls falling all over you…fuck, I know I would.”
“You can do the damned interviews, then.” I grind out.
“I would, Alistair, you know I would. But I’m afraid I’m one wife and a full head of hair away from being the newest ultra-desirable bachelor around.” He gives a short laugh, utterly unaffected by that negative comparison.
He’s right about that, too.
Barkley is only five years older than me, but with his thin receding hairline, small round glasses and the middle-aged paunch he’s developed after our recent successes…most would put us more than a decade apart.
It took a while to convince him that the age difference didn’t make him the more senior partner, and I spent a couple of years fighting for the respect we now share, but since those initial challenges our partnership has been…advantageous, at least, if not always entirely easy.
“I mean it, Barkley. I’m not comfortable that the company’s value seems to be tied to me personally at the moment, instead of any of the fundamental—”
“Okay, okay.” He finally relents, holding his hands up in a dramatic gesture. “We’ll drop the personal interviews. Just business. Satisfied?”
I grunt an acknowledgment. He knows as well as I do that it’s too late for it to be that simple.
“The interest will disappear eventually, Alistair.” He adds, as if he can tell exactly what I’m thinking. He probably can - he’s good at that, and I’m not exactly trying to hide it. “People will get bored and move on. We’ll be another 5-minute news story…”
“That’s the only reason I ever agreed to be profiled on that show.” I say, with a quick shake of my head. “Let’s just hope the share price sticks around after the interest dies.”
I head to the door without giving Barkley a chance to respond, bringing our impromptu meeting to an end.
I’ve made my point, and since I’ve got the agreement I was after - plus just a little of the venting I needed - there’s no reason to stick around and debate it further. Barkley just nods as I head out the door and start walking briskly back to my own office.
I’m being a bastard about it, but I don’t care.
Barkley and I are accustomed to dealing with bastards - and being one when we need to - so I’ve got no remorse about pushing some of my bad mood onto him. Especially since he caused this fucking irritating situation with that damned insistence about the media.
Exclusive invites to the best events in town…girls chasing you…celebrities on your doorstep…
How the fuck has he known me so long, and still got no fucking clue how much I hate all that?
Maybe he’s right about the money, but I can’t shake the unease that’s followed me ever since I became the literal figurehead of the company.
It should be a good thing. If anything, I should be able to use my newfound spotlight to maneuver my plans into a better position than Barkley’s.
But every instinct says this has been a bad idea, and I’ve never ignored my gut before.
Or maybe you’re just tired.
I stop for a moment, seriously considering that as I run a hand over my face and let myself feel some of the exhaustion that’s been following me ever since the company went public.
I lean against the glass fronting of our large, executive meeting room and sigh - it’s empty at the moment, but I still get a glimmer of pride at seeing the richly decorated, powerful room that I’ve been working for years to achieve.
Maybe you need a vacation.
It’s a stupid thought. I can’t remember the last time I had a vacation - which means I’ve clearly never needed one before. Even the idea I might want one is surprising.
This whole thing must be getting to me more than I’d thought. I’ve definitely felt off my game all day - not as sharp as I should be, with little things distracting me.
There were even a couple of moments that had my mind playing tricks on me again, making me think I’d seen…her.
Leah Jackson.
And that hasn’t happened in a long time.
Sure, there used to be a time that I’d look for her in a crowd, or think I’d seen her in a dimly lit bar…some fucked up part of me hoping that even months later, we might run into each other somewhere. That we’d get a fateful chance to reconnect, and…maybe things would be different.
Of course, I’ve never believed in fate. I make my own luck, and relying on anything else is a fool’s game.
So, surprisingly enough, it never happened.
And I never made it happen, either.
I could have. It would’ve been so easy - as simple as stopping by her college, or even now - after years - a few calls and I could find her and appear on her doorstep the same day. There’s a part of me that still thinks that way - that maybe I should just do that.
But then everything she’d said about me would be true.
It was true. That’s the real reason she’s the one who stuck with you. She was the only one to ever call you on your shit - and then she left.
It took me a long time to realize that she’d taken something with her when she did that.
I spent the first few months angry at the thought that she’d treated me that way. That she’d had the audacity to leave me.
Dealing with it through night after night of fucking sexy girls and convincing myself that I didn’t care - that Leah was just another in a long line of stupid girls who didn’t mean anything. Worse than the rest, even, because no one else would’ve been dumb enough to give up what I was offering.
And by the time I realized maybe she’d been right about me…it was far too late to force myself into her life again.
But it’s been years. There’s no reason for me to be imagining her walking past my local coffee shop, or crossing the road outside my office…I stopped thinking that way a long time ago.
I’m over her now.
She was just a lesson I needed to learn, so that if I get that close to someone again…maybe I’ll do better.
Which means that if I’m thinking about her again, something is seriously fucked up with me.
I shake it off, push aside the weariness that I don’t usually let myself feel, and walk back towards my office. I’ve got better things to do than get caught in the endless traps my mind seems to want to lay for me where Leah is concerned.
“Anything?” I ask the temp girl sitting at the desk outside my office.
I’ve forgotten her name, but it doesn’t really matter - she’ll be gone soon anyway.
And I can’t wait for Meredith to get back.
This girl has no idea what counts as important - and if I’m honest, I simply don’t like a complete stranger being this close to my work.
“No, sir.” She gives me a slow smile as she shakes her head, looking up at me.
I barely stick around for it, nodding and walking past into my office. I wasn’t expecting there to be anything needing my attention today, but that doesn’t mean I’m not constantly getting calls at the moment anyway.
I stop the moment the door closes behind me, seeing a cleaning woman with her back turned to me at one of my filing cabinets.
What the fuck?!
I glance back towards my secretary, wondering why she didn’t mention anything.
No one is allowed in here while I’m working. They clean it at night, after all my files are safely locked away.
“How the hell did you—”
The woman turns around,
and it takes a moment - one long moment - before my words dry up and I’m just left staring.
She looks different from how I remember her - a little older, of course, but more than that…a hint of seriousness that wasn’t there before. I can see the beginning of lines in her face now, ones that she hasn’t even tried to conceal with make-up, and there’s a maturity to her that I probably wouldn’t have recognized or appreciated five years ago.
Her hair curls around her shoulders in the natural waves I always preferred, instead of the styling she used to play with - is that for me, or does she prefer it that way too now? - and her still-gorgeous body is covered by a modest sweater and jeans that give a better impression of warmth than sexy, but have a far-too-real effect on me anyway.
It’s those differences that break through my disbelief - that make me think she might really be here.
Leah. In my office. After five years.
The determined set of her shoulders hasn’t changed, though, or the resolve in her expression.
“Alistair.”
My name comes out as a breath, as if she’s somehow as surprised to see me here - in my own office - as I am to walk in on her. Her lips part just a little as she says it, glistening with moisture that makes me think about tasting her again, even if that should be the last thing on my mind.
Then she seems to shake herself, and that brief flash of vulnerability disappears.
“Don’t kick me out!” She throws up her hands in a placating gesture. “Just…just give me a few minutes, okay? There’s something I need to tell you.”
Somehow, the thought of throwing her out hadn’t even crossed my mind. The moment she mentions it, though…there’s a perverse part of me that wants to.
The only woman to ever break my heart, and she thinks she can just walk into my office years later?
I ignore that childish impulse and slowly move into the room, reluctantly maintaining the distance between us as I rest against the back of a sofa and look over at where she’s standing near my desk. I grip the top of the sofa with my hands, needing the restraint to stop myself from walking straight to her - just to feel her in my arms again.
“Okay.” I finally say, and I can hear how cold and unaffected I sound.
It’s the opposite of how I feel - my heart racing and my mind spinning faster than I can follow right now - but it’s an easy defense, and the only thing keeping me calm enough to have whatever conversation this is.
I’ve got too many conflicting needs threatening to boil over within me - wanting to touch and kiss her, to say that I’m sorry for everything I got wrong before, to yell at her for leaving me, to tell her I don’t care anymore, to tell her I do.
Fuck.
I thought I was over her.
I stopped looking for this moment years ago. And now…fuck, I can’t even remember what I’d planned to do with it.
Leah is quiet for a long moment, like she’s expecting me to say something else, and I cross one leg over the other in the silence between us, hooking my foot behind my ankle. It’s a relaxed posture, intended to make me seem far more casual than I actually feel, but it also emphasizes my crotch - and I catch the way Leah’s eyes flick down in response.
That’s enough to send a heat of my own through me, and I can’t help the smile that plays at my mouth as I watch her. I raise an eyebrow and enjoy the way her cheeks flush just a little, as she obviously tries to pull herself back.
She still feels something, then.
I try to ignore that thought. I really doubt that’s what this is about. And after everything…surely it’s too late for me to even want to go there.
“Well?” I finally prompt. “What is it then, that could wait five years but not a moment longer?”
It might not be something I’m proud of, but watching her become flustered is soothing my own nerves a whole lot.
“Yes, right. Okay, so…” Leah takes a deep breath to steady herself, and then looks directly at me - and any calm I’d felt disappears completely. I can tell just by the way she’s holding herself that this is…something big. “There’s something I never told you, and I’m sorry about that, I…it was wrong of me, and I’m sorry.”
My body tightens up as she speaks, every nerve singing with unease as Leah shifts restlessly and takes another breath. The last time I saw her so uncertain was…when she was breaking up with me.
“There’s no good way to say this, Alistair, so I’m just going to come right out with it. After I left you…months after…I found out I was pregnant. There was…no one else.”
I stop breathing.
“I had the child, Alistair.”
Leah’s voice has become very quiet, and I can see the tears appearing at the corner of her eyes.
I stare at her. I know I’m staring, but I can’t stop.
I can’t think of anything to say.
Can’t speak even if I could.
A child?! I can’t have…it’s not…
It’s so completely impossible that it doesn’t seem real.
“A girl. My…your daughter. She’s four.”
I feel like she’s saying things, her mouth is moving, but…nothing that’s coming out makes sense. I can’t understand it. Foreign. Impossible. I can’t even think.
It takes a long time before it feels like the reality of it slowly starts seeping into me, and I take a deep, shuddering breath, running my hand over my face and trying - somehow - to absorb this.
To understand what she’s saying. To have the slightest idea what it means.
All these years…a little girl?
Oh fuck.
I’m not even sure what it is that comes over me next, but the wave of emotion there catches me completely off guard.
It feels like the ground has opened up beneath me, and everything I’ve ever known…has just disappeared.
I’m not equipped to deal with any of it, so I do the only thing I’ve ever done when I’m completely unable to process something…I push it away, and lock down whatever I’m feeling for later.
“Why…now?”
It’s the first thing I can say, the first thing the thinking part of me wants to know.
I can’t bear to ask all the other questions, not yet.
Leah takes a shuddering breath of her own, but she continues to look at me. She’s obviously distraught, but she doesn’t hide. She never has.
“I don’t know…maybe it got too much, being alone with that secret. I…I thought I could do it all alone. And I can, if I need to. But there are some things…she deserves more than I can give her. It hurts like hell to say it, but…it’s true. She starts school soon and…where we live, it’s just, it…it’s not good, Alistair. I couldn’t stop thinking about whether there was a better chance and—”
“So you don’t tell me I have a child - a little girl - for four years - you don’t give me a choice about being in her life at all…until you need money?”
It’s a cheap shot and I can sense the derision in my words, but anger feels like the easiest emotion right now, and I can’t stop it from seeping into my words. The idea that I have a daughter…that I’ve missed out on four years of her life because Leah never told me, and now…fuck.
The message behind what she’s saying cuts deep.
You’re not good enough to be her Daddy, but I’ll come to you for cash.
Leah doesn’t flinch from it, though. That was always the thing about her - she might get upset when we argued, but it was impossible to use anything against her…the moment you tried, that insecurity disappeared and she’d stick up for herself with a stubbornness that I couldn’t help begrudgingly admiring.
I regret knowing that quite so well, and all the reasons I do, but back then exploiting others’ weaknesses was my easy path to success. And I never quite managed to stop it spilling over into my personal life.
“I didn’t tell you because if I had, you would’ve taken over, Alistair - everything. My life, hers…I didn’t want that for us. I didn’t wan
t her to grow up with you constantly looking over her shoulder, with all the expectations and demands that came with being a part of your life.” Leah is breathing heavily now, staring at me intently, and I can feel our eyes blazing at each other.
Hearing her saying that…again…hurts more than I want to admit, the old wound she left when she walked out the first time stinging in my chest. It shouldn’t do, I should be long past that, but…it does anyway.
‘You’re not the kind of man I want in my life.’
Or, apparently, in her daughter’s.
I told myself it’d be different, if she ever came back.
Good fucking job you’re doing of that, huh?
But I can’t help myself - this is too much for me to try and just quietly accept.
The moment she mentioned a kid, showing her I’m different…that idea disappeared completely.
“And that was if you’d even wanted anything to do with us - which, based on what you were doing at the time, I didn’t think was likely.” Leah adds, muttering it.
I know what she’s talking about. I can remember what was plastered over the papers back then. But I can’t believe she’s using it against me.
“You’d just fucking walked out. I did what any guy would - what the hell did you expect?! …but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t have…you never asked.” I say, anger and frustration breaking through my attempt at remaining calm.
“I know.” Whatever frustrations of her own she might have about that time, she doesn’t try to defend what she did. “And I’m sorry, Alistair. I should have told you, and however it went…we could’ve worked something out. But…I’m telling you now. I’m asking now.”
I shake my head in one harsh gesture. “You think you can just turn up in my office, five years later, and…and what? What are you even expecting from me?”
I don’t know why I’m challenging her. Why I’m making this so difficult. I want to ask about my kid - I don’t even know her name - but it all feels too raw and painful, and completely overwhelming.
It’s so hard to think that she never told me.
“I’m not expecting anything from you, Alistair. I just came…for an answer. So I could finally know what your response would be. I couldn’t face living with that question anymore - would things be different, if you knew? Have I been denying Maddie…something better?” She gives me a long, searching look as I wrestle with a fresh set of emotions at hearing my daughter’s name - Maddie - and the idea of her growing up without a Dad. “And…I think you’ve made that clear, Alistair. I’m glad…I’m glad I told you anyway. She deserves to know I tried.”
