by Claire Adams
Despite the fact that that peace and quiet gave me far too much time to think some more.
It was almost a relief when my phone rang. Almost a relief, until I saw that it was Renée who was calling. I steeled my nerves and answered the thing, reasoning that it was better to answer her call now and get it out of the way than to wait and call her back once I was at home, where Lexi might overhear me.
“Hey babe,” Renée said as I answered the phone. “I assume you made it back all right?”
“Right on schedule,” I said, feeling a tightness forming around my eyes.
“You've been so quiet lately,” Renée said, and I could practically hear her pout. “You only called me once the whole week that you were gone. I've been lonely.”
“I've been busy,” I said with a small sigh. “You know how important this trip was for me. Plus, remember how I said, if this trip went well and we expanded to London, you and I might get to take a trip there sometime in the near future?”
“I remember,” Renée said. “But I still missed you.”
“I missed you, too,” I told her, even though I wasn't entirely sure that was true.
I'd spent the whole week running from one meeting to another, and whenever I'd had the scantest moment to even breathe or to inhale some food, I'd been thinking about what to do with Lexi and Emma. I'd even gone so far as to make a couple calls to make sure that Emma would have a place in a great daycare for the summer.
But I wasn't about to tell Renée any of that. Better that I lie and let her think that I'd spent all my free time thinking about her.
“Did you bring me back something from London?” she asked, and I rolled my eyes. She was predictable. Bring her a nice gift and she never stayed sulky for very long.
“I did bring you a little something, as a matter of fact,” I told her. “Or rather, I bought you something and I had it shipped to you. You should receive it in a couple days.”
To be honest, it had slipped my mind to bring her anything. I probably wouldn't have had the time to find something for her, even if I had remembered to. But I could order something online and have it rush delivered to her. Or even better, I could have my secretary order something online and have it rush delivered to her. It made no difference to me.
“When do I get to see you?” Renée asked, her voice going sultry.
I sighed. “I'm not so sure about that,” I told her.
“How about I come over tonight, and we have some fun?” she suggested. “That would give you the afternoon to have a little nap, take a shower, and get yourself all ready for me.”
I grimaced. I could only imagine the scene we would have if she showed up at my house that night and found Lexi and Emma there. “As tempting as that offer is, I'm really exhausted,” I told her. It wasn't a lie.
“You're working too hard again,” Renée said, and that pouty note was back in her voice. I barely bit back a groan of frustration.
“Unless I wanted to stay in Europe for twice as long as I did, yes, I needed to cram in a bunch of meetings with a bunch of different people, on a bunch of different topics. I couldn't help that. And then after those meetings, I went to dinner with some of the guys from their offices. I had to build rapport to make sure that this expansion goes as smoothly as we want it to. But it's not just because of work. I'm also jetlagged. It's only two in the afternoon here, but according to my body, it's already ten p.m. And I'm only going to get more tired as the day wears on.”
“You can make time to go to dinner with the guys at work after you've been in meetings with them for the whole day, but you can't make any time to see me?” Renée asked, her tone acidic. “I'm not even asking you to go out to dinner with me. I know I couldn't get you to agree to leave the house tonight. But you could at least let me come over.”
“Renée,” I said, feeling even more exhausted the longer this conversation went on.
“I wouldn't make you do the work,” she promised. “I'll give you a blowjob to get you started, and then before you come, I'll—”
“Renée, stop,” I interrupted. As hot as she was and as much as I enjoyed blowjobs, my dick barely stirred at the thought of it. I was just too stressed out about the Emma situation, and I really was worn out. “I don't want to see you tonight.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. “You never want to see me anymore. I can hardly even get you to talk to me anymore.”
“I've just been busy,” I sighed. “That's what happens when you run a large company, especially when that large company is hoping to expand its offices.”
She still didn't respond, and I cast around in my head for something that I could say to placate her. I had already told her I was having something shipped to her from London. I should have saved that for later in the conversation.
“Why don't I take you out to dinner later this week?” I finally settled on. “We'll have a nice, romantic evening, just the two of us. And then we'll go back home, and I'll take my time getting you off. Tease you nice and slow, just like I know you like.”
“That sounds nice,” Renée finally said grudgingly. “Are you sure you can free up time in your busy, busy schedule for that, though?”
“I'll make time,” I promised. “Let me call around tomorrow and see where I can get us a table, and then I'll let you know.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Just give me a couple days to decompress, hand over all the information to the guys at the office so that they can further the project along, and get some sleep. You know the sex will be better if I'm not half-dead with exhaustion at the time.”
“Just don't work yourself too hard over the next few days, then,” Renée said with a sigh.
“I won't,” I promised, even though I wasn't sure I'd be able to keep that promise. “I'll save up all my energy for you.”
Renée giggled. “You're going to need it. I've been thinking of some different things that we could do.”
“Oh, have you?” I asked, wearily amused by the mischievous note in her voice.
“I missed you,” she said simply in response.
“Well, I'll see you soon enough,” I promised.
“Good.”
We said our goodbyes and hung up the phone. I stared morosely down at the phone in my hands as we continued to make our way through the traffic and back to my house. I had a headache already, and I hadn't even made it home yet.
I didn't know what the state of things would be at home, once I got back. I had told Janice to only call me in case of emergency. Since she hadn't called, I assumed that everything had been fine. But I wondered whether Lexi had managed to find a job. I wondered how Emma was settling in. I wondered if they had brought all their things over from Lexi's friend's place.
Part of me hoped that she hadn't moved her things over yet. I was going to need to figure out what to do with her, and quickly.
I couldn't keep putting Renée off like that. She was jealous by nature, and I could only imagine the types of suspicion she must be feeling at the moment. She had to assume that my interest was waning. The last thing I wanted was for her to find out about Lexi and Emma on her own, but there was no way I was going to tell her about them either.
Best to just make the problem go away and kick it under the rug.
It wasn't as though I was in love with Renée. I knew I should be. She was beautiful and intelligent, although she tried to hide it, and driven to succeed. I liked all those things in a woman. Our sex was great as well. And she loved me. I knew that had to count for something.
But the longer I stayed with her, the more I realized that something was missing. She didn't excite me in the ways that I needed her to. If she were in Lexi's position, if we'd had a one-night stand and then gone three years without seeing one another, I doubted I would have remembered her name or what the sex was like.
That said, my relationship with Renée was the longest relationship that I'd ever managed to have. I had to figure that if I was going to fall in lov
e with anyone, it was going to be Renée. I was just still waiting for that to happen.
My thoughts strayed again to my dad. They'd been doing that a lot lately, ever since Emma had come into my life. I wondered if my dad had ever loved my mother. Had he ever loved me or Katherine? Did he love the bimbo that he'd run away to the Bahamas with?
Maybe I was just as cold and emotionless as he was. Maybe I was never going to be able to feel love for someone, not Lexi, not Renée, not Emma.
It wouldn't be so surprising.
I swallowed hard as we pulled up in front of my house, already steeling myself for what was waiting inside. But the one bright patch in this whole thing was the thought of Emma's face when she saw the stuffed animal sloth that I had brought back for her. I couldn't help but smile, thinking of that.
I got out of the car, grabbing my bag and heading up towards the front door.
Chapter Fifteen
Lexi
Janice decided to take Emma to the park for the morning, so I unexpectedly had some time to myself. I had thought about going with them to the park, but Janice had practically shooed me off, telling me to go enjoy myself for a couple hours and stop worrying so much.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd had a few hours to myself. It had been a long time since I'd been able to afford a babysitter, and even when we'd been staying with Misty, it had mostly been Misty, Emma, and I doing things together, or else it had been Misty watching Emma while I did specific tasks like job interviews.
Trying to figure out what to do with myself that morning was difficult. I started out like I always did, checking my email to see if there was anything promising on the job front. Andrew had been out of town all week, but I had still been trying hard to get a job. I applied to positions high and low, just hoping to hear something back from one of them.
Andrew wasn't around to check up on me and make sure that—how did he put it?—his investment was following what had been set out in the original contract? But despite Misty's insistence that Andrew wouldn't kick me out as soon as possible, I still wanted to have a head start and hopefully be back on my feet again by the time he did decide to get rid of us.
Unfortunately, I had yet to find anyone who was even interested in interviewing me. I didn't know what I was doing wrong. Maybe it was something with my résumé, other than the fact that there was a giant gap from about three and a half years ago up to now.
Or maybe something was wrong with the job market itself. It seemed like no matter what I tried to do, I was passed over. Retail jobs seemed to think I was overqualified. Office jobs seemed to think I was under-qualified. I couldn't win.
I trashed rejection email after generic rejection email, wondering when the string of them would end.
I'd been comfortable since moving into Andrew's place. I still wanted to find a job, but I could feel myself being lured into complacency at the same time. It would be so easy to get used to this. I refused to let myself relax, though. This was a temporary situation, and I had to take advantage of it while I could. Like it or not, I’d be moving soon.
It was difficult to keep applying for jobs when I didn't know where I was going to be living come next week. Now that Andrew was back from his business trip, I could only assume he would make good on his promise to move Emma and me out of there, posthaste.
Maybe I shouldn't apply to anything else before Andrew and I had a long talk about what the future was going to hold for Emma and me. The last thing I wanted was to get my hopes up over a job that I'd been selected to interview for, only to find out that I was still going to be staying out here with Andrew, and thus, would have no way to commute to the job that I was hired to do.
Speaking of Andrew, he had returned home from his trip the night before, but he'd done a good job of avoiding me since. He hadn’t even said hello to me, although he'd evidently said hello to Emma. She had proudly come to show me the new stuffed animal that Mr. Goldwright had brought all the way from England for her.
I wanted to be angry with him, but I couldn't help smiling as I saw Emma's excitement and the way she clung to her new toy. I just wondered why it had to be a sloth, of all things. I was sure there was some sort of story behind it, but if there was, he hadn't told Emma. The thing was cute, anyway.
I only wished things were a little less awkward between Andrew and me. He had avoided me the previous night, and he had gotten up early that morning to go to work, so he didn’t see me, presumably. I was afraid things were going to continue to be awkward between us for as long as Emma and I lived in his house. Maybe for as long as we lived.
I hated the thought of that. I wanted to get along with him, for Emma's sake. Or at least to be civil with one another, like two adults who could be in the same room together.
I frowned, trying to think what my options were. Andrew and I were going to need to have a talk about the future soon, and I wanted to go into it knowing what I was asking for.
Maybe if I just asked him for a small amount of child support money, just enough to scrape by and make sure that Emma had a roof overhead, then it would resolve things quickly and painlessly. Surely with the amount of money Andrew had in the bank, he could spare a few hundred dollars a month. It wouldn't be the best situation for either of us, and I'd definitely still need to find a job, but at least it would give us something for the months when I couldn't find any work.
If nothing else, I could afford to buy food and new clothes for Emma, even if it meant we were still crashing in Misty's spare room.
The doorbell rang. I considered leaving it since it wasn't my house and Janice wasn't there. But then again, it was probably just a package. If it just needed a signature, I would feel bad not answering it, knowing that if it weren't for me and Emma, Janice would be there, and she would be able to sign for the package.
I pulled open the door and stared at the woman standing on the front porch. She definitely wasn't a delivery man.
Instead, she was blonde, tanned, and gorgeous. She had her long hair pulled back into a ponytail, and she wore athletic clothing, like she was about to go for a run or had just come from the gym. She looked every bit like an advertisement for a fitness club, too, with perfect lean muscles and no body fat to speak of.
She raised an eyebrow at me and folded her arms across her chest. Her manicured fingernails tapped against the opposite arm. “Who exactly are you?” she asked.
“My name's Lexi,” I told her, wondering just who exactly she was.
Whoever she was, she pushed past me and into the house, acting as though she owned the place. I started to protest, but before I could finish the words, Janice showed up with Emma. Emma immediately moved behind me, suddenly shy. I felt bad when I realized how many strangers she'd been forced to meet in the past month, all because I'd bounced us around so many times.
I patted her head and watched the scene in front of me unfold.
“Renée, I didn't know you were coming over,” Janice said mildly to the woman.
Renée. That's Andrew's girlfriend. I took a closer look at the woman, trying to picture her with Andrew. Then, I blushed, realizing that in my head, I was sizing up my competition. But she wasn't my competition, not really. I might have Andrew's daughter, but she had Andrew's heart, evidently. He was firm in the fact that she was his girlfriend, and there would be no one else.
I swallowed hard and tuned back into what she and Janice were saying.
“I didn't tell Andrew I was coming,” Renée said breezily. From the haughty tone of her voice, I could tell she thought it was beneath her to have to explain her actions to a maid. But she continued. “I thought I'd pop over and surprise him. He needs to forget about work every once in a while. He's been so tired lately. I thought I could get him to stay in bed for a little while longer today.”
“Unfortunately, you're too late for that,” Janice said brusquely. “Andrew was awake early this morning. No doubt because of the jetlag, and he headed into the office hours ago. You'll need to come back late
r if you want to see him. But I suggest informing him of your visit first so that this doesn't happen again.”
“Hmm,” Renée said, but she didn't really appear to be listening to Janice. Instead, her eyes were still fixed on me, although they darted every now and then towards Emma before coming back up to my face. “Who is this?” she suddenly barked out, directing the question at Janice.
“That's Lexi,” Janice said, and although I couldn't hear it in her voice, I could detect a hint of nervousness in the woman's eyes. I wondered what reason she had for being nervous. Whatever it was, I was glad Renée couldn't see it, since her eyes were still trained on me.
“So I've heard,” Renée said, rolling her heavily made-up eyes. “What I want to know is who Lexi is in relation to Andrew. Why is she here? And who's the brat who's with her?”
“You’re a brat,” Emma said under her breath. She stuck her thumb in her mouth defiantly and began to suck at it.
At that moment, I hated Renée. What would Andrew have to say if he heard his girlfriend talking that way about his daughter? He would probably just laugh it off or else not care at all.
Janice's mouth thinned into a tight line. “Lexi is my niece,” she lied. “Andrew has been kind enough to let them come stay with him for a few days. Family troubles, you know.”
“Family troubles,” Renée repeated flatly, still eyeing me as though I might slip up and reveal who I really was.
Not that she could know that we were lying. For all she knew, Janice had told her the truth, and I was Janice's niece. I squared my shoulders, trying to project an air of confidence.
Finally, Renée shook her head and headed back towards the door, pushing me out of the way for a second time, muttering something under her breath about domestics as she went.
“Renée?” Janice asked sweetly before the woman could leave.
“What?” Renée ground out.
“Did you want me to give Andrew a message? Let him know that you stopped by?”
