by Quinn, Taryn
I stared down at Lily. Fuck, how had I let that slip my mind?
Oh, that’s right. Spending the day with Hannah and Lily. Sleeping with Hannah. Finding out she was pregnant. Getting drunk. Sleeping with her again.
All of that was enough to make anyone forget, I’d say.
And Lily was still crying.
“I’ll pick up some Orajel for you tonight, honey. Or Hannah will.”
Lily’s tears slowed and she blinked at me.
“Hannah?” I tried again, just to see her reaction.
She burped.
Close enough to a smile.
I smiled at her, about to rise to transfer her back to her crib, when she burped again and spit up on my shirt.
Glancing down, I sighed. It wasn’t as much spit up as usual, which made sense since she hadn’t eaten recently. Maybe this was related to teething?
Who the hell knows?
Why wasn’t there a comprehensive handbook for being a father? I didn’t mean one of those that glossed over the basics. I wanted one that dealt with every possibility in detail and with pictures.
Unless the pictures would scar me for life.
I picked her up and set her back in her bed, speaking soothingly to her all the while. Then I took off my suit coat and undid the buttons on my shirt before removing it and stepping into the hall. I was just tugging my undershirt up from behind my head—she’d soaked me clear through both—when Hannah’s door opened down the hall. She stepped out just as I yanked it off the rest of the way.
I gripped my shirts in my fist, taking in the sight of her in the top from yesterday that barely skimmed her thighs. Her hair was wild around her shoulders and her eyes were sleepy and soft, rousing me in unspeakable ways. Especially when her gaze dropped to my bare chest and lingered there before she looked up again and licked her lips.
“Must you do that?” I said under my breath.
Without giving her time to answer, I turned to head into the master suite with its connecting bathroom.
She followed.
“Do what exactly? Breathe your air? Exist on your planet? Complicate your tidy little world?”
“That’s a good one.” I tossed the soiled shirts in the hamper and grabbed a handful of tissue to wipe my chest with soapy water.
“Why are you naked?”
“I’m not naked. I have trousers on.” Ones that were becoming more uncomfortable by the second.
Did her voice always sound that seductively low in the morning?
“Lily?” she guessed.
“Yes. I think she’s teething. Can you get her some Orajel today? If you’re able to,” I added in an attempt to be conciliatory.
It was the least I could do since I wasn’t so much as glancing her way. A smart man knew when he was outmatched.
“Sure. I can do that if you tell me what you meant in the hall.” While she spoke, she pulled down a hand towel and passed it to me. Apparently, she wasn’t impressed with my tissue clean-up job.
Considering the tissue was hanging off my fingers in sopping clumps, I couldn’t fault her logic.
I dumped it in the trash and dried off my chest with the towel instead. “Pardon?”
“Don’t ‘pardon’ me, Asher Wainwright. Tell me what you were referring to.”
I opened the drawer under the counter and withdrew the spare pair of glasses I kept in there for mornings such as this one. I slipped them on and turned toward her, frowning at her sound of distress. “What?”
“Nothing.” She fled, calling out a response over her shoulder. “I’ll get the Orajel.”
“Hannah—”
She shut the bedroom door just as I reached it. This woman was going to be the death of me.
Even so, I couldn’t deny how knowing she was taking care of Lily helped to ease the relentless knot in my chest. The new one in my groin, however, wasn’t as easily placated.
A few minutes later, I was dressed in a new shirt and undershirt and on my way out the door with my jacket and briefcase. More calls came in as I drove to the trade show location, but I ignored them.
My head was full of Hannah.
Always Hannah.
Was she taking a shower now? No, she’d mentioned taking one before bed. That explained why her hair had seemed a little damp in that stolen glance I’d taken of her before her casual move had nearly killed me.
As soon as I arrived at the trade show venue, I pulled into a space and grabbed my phone. But not to return the work calls that had come in.
Nope, I had more pressing business.
You wanted to know what I was referring to? Your mouth. How it drives me crazy when you lick your lips. Yet you do it all. The. Damn. Time.
I didn’t know if she’d reply. It was probably better if she didn’t due to the long day of work I had ahead of me. But I sat there waiting like a chump just the same.
When her text came through a moment later, I swallowed deeply before reading it.
Yeah, well, I’d feel bad except glasses. GLASSES.
I frowned as I flipped down the car mirror to look at myself. They were standard specs. What did she mean?
Do you have a glasses fetish or something?
Her response was a row of flesh-toned middle finger emojis.
I was grinning when I headed inside. Maybe this day wouldn’t be so tiresome to get through after all.
When I emerged late that afternoon after a full slate of meetings and panels and a long, tedious business lunch, I was exhausted. Add in a couple of hours manning the newspaper’s “information booth” and dealing with questions from prospective advertisers, and fried was my middle name. It wasn’t that long ago I’d become energized at talking with colleagues and strategizing. Now I just felt like none of the tired old ways of handling increased competition from social media could possibly make up for our losses.
The whispers were growing that the newspaper business was a dying breed, especially in print. Forget whispers. They were growing closer to a roar.
And here we were, still arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Offering sales on advertising and slashing revenue when the whole medium itself was on a downward spiral.
I’d just reached my car when my phone went off again. It seemed as if people had been contacting me all day. I stuck it in the holder and accepted call.
“Wainwright.”
“Asher, it’s Daly. I just wanted to say I think it’s a brilliant idea. I never thought you’d do it, man, but if now’s the time, then just go for it. What are you tackling next?”
I blinked. Daly was a sort of friend, the kind you made through work and treated congenially when you saw them then never thought of them otherwise. I knew I was tired, but I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying.
“Next?”
“Don’t be coy with me. The word was all over the place today. Vincent’s certainly stepping up, isn’t he? I have to say, it’s a bold move to drop the weekly and turn your focus to a monthly newsmagazine with more in depth pieces on local business and agriculture. Pairing it with an online version is—”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Silence fell across the line. “Oh.” He coughed. “You really don’t know what I’m talking about?”
The vise around my vocal cords was barely allowing me to speak. At the same time, my shoulders felt suspiciously light. I was defensive, of course. This was my company. My baby—until I’d begun to understand the difference between a child made of figures and facts and a very live breathing one with a heartbeat and gummy smiles.
“No, I don’t. But obviously, I’m missing some vital details about my company. Thanks for the heads up.”
“Wainwright, wait.”
I didn’t wait. I ended that call and immediately FaceTimed Vincent, who answered from the conference room he was still in at the trade show venue. “Asher? What’s up?”
In the old days—just a few months ago—he’d called me “Boss”. I’d waved it off, since I had alway
s considered us to be friends. We’d been working together for years. Maybe that was my problem. I hadn’t exerted enough of an iron rule in the office. How often did I even see Jason? Not often, and he was Wainwright’s CFO. Oh, he showed up to weekly meetings, but otherwise, good luck catching him at his desk.
I hadn’t pressured him. Nor did I ride Vincent’s ass for coming and going pretty much as he pleased as well, including weeklong trips to Saint Tropez on a damn near whim. They did their jobs and the company had been doing well—better than well—so I’d had no complaints.
Now I was scrambling to keep a foothold in a social media world that no longer had much room for a weekly print paper, and Vincent was using his free time to figure out how to steal my grandfather’s legacy out from underneath me.
“Hello? You FaceTimed me—weird, by the way, but I’m rolling with it—and now you’re not saying anything?”
“I wanted to see your eyes when I ask you if you’re trying to take over my company.”
Vincent didn’t blink. “No. But maybe I should be.”
“Excuse me?”
“Let’s be real, Asher. Your mind hasn’t been fully involved in the business since—well, you know quite well since when.”
“Oh, is that so?”
“You know it’s so, man. I’m not trying to make it harder on you, but in this climate, there’s no room for distractions. Your life has been one giant one for the better part of six months. It certainly doesn’t seem like that will be changing either.”
Vincent could say that again. He didn’t even know about the latest thing that had rocked my world. No one did, except Hannah and I.
Unless she’d told someone, and if so, they were probably judging me right now too.
“What would you have me do? Ignore my responsibilities at home so I can work here twenty-four seven? You haven’t seen me jetting off to Saint Tropez recently.”
“No, but perhaps you should. The reason I needed that vacation is because I’ve been busting my ass securing funding despite our shortfalls and trying to convince our advertisers and business partners that we still have something to offer them. Why don’t you ask Jason what he’s been doing night after night when you’ve had to run home to deal with feedings? He’s been crunching numbers, trying to balance books that can’t be balanced.” He eased a hip on the conference table he was standing next to. Files and papers were scattered over it in all directions. “Our business model doesn’t work any longer, Asher. It just does not.”
“The commercial printing side is still quite liquid.” Even I could hear the defensiveness in my tone.
“Yes, it is, but the weekly paper is dragging it down. We need to cut that ball and chain loose before it sinks the entire operation.”
“That’s not your call to make.”
“No, you’re right. Your name is the one on the building, right?” His mouth twisted into the remnant of a smile. “I’m just the street kid who worked his way up and won’t stop until your company makes it through to the other side. So, no, I’m not trying to stage a hostile takeover. More like I have some ideas of what could be. I still have the passion you used to have, Boss.”
I wanted to argue with him. How dare he question my passion when he was spreading rumors or whatever the hell he was doing about my company?
Except what if he was right? I hadn’t enjoyed work for a while. I couldn’t say exactly how long. It had become something to handle. To conquer. I wanted to be able to look back and say I’d brought the business through its roughest period. I’d righted the damn ship, against all odds.
Then I could be certain my grandfather would be proud of me.
Right now? He would not. I wasn’t doing a good enough job for the business, and I certainly wasn’t nailing my personal life. I had two children now—for all intents and purposes—and their mother didn’t think much of me at the moment. Not that I entirely faulted her there.
Wait, she was our baby’s mother. Not theirs. I was paying her for a service. We weren’t some happy little family. How could we be, when all it seemed we knew how to do was hurt each other?
“I didn’t spread rumors all over town,” Vincent continued, as if he didn’t realize the barrage of thoughts he’d caused. “I just talked to Daly. My mistake. I thought he was trustworthy.”
“No one is trustworthy,” I said before clicking off. Then I just stared at the phone in my hand.
Vincent and I were supposed to do the overnight trip together in a couple of days. That gave me enough time to ready a response—either to take his suggestions under advisement, truly hear them out and give them a chance, or to cut my losses.
And let my right hand man go.
Eighteen
I found a double-padded play mat for our little Houdini. I left it just outside my office. Maybe we can put it together when I get back. Lily is determined to give me gray hair, I’m sure of it. I swear, I checked on the video app nine times last night.
I left money for groceries and whatever else you need since it’s shopping day. You have my numbers if you need anything while I’m out of town.
Maybe a cooking lesson when I get back tomorrow. You can show me how you make vegetables actually taste delicious.
Asher
I propped my chin on my hand and read our little community notebook again. He’d been so damn distracted the last few days. Gruff and almost curt, but here, on paper, we worked so well. I got to see some of the real Asher I remembered from our first night together.
Sometimes they were bullet points about some parenting article he read, sometimes it was a funny thing Lily did during the night.
I flipped back a few pages and smoothed my hand down his neat, slashy handwriting that was a mix of block letters and cursive. Here, there was the softness I remembered.
Dangerous thoughts, girl.
I wasn’t even sure which Asher was the real one. We just didn’t know each other enough. Obviously, we had done well enough that we’d made a human, but other than that, not so much.
Not to mention the fan of actual hundred-dollar bills he’d left me.
Plural.
Like he’d leave for his mistress.
Okay, not mistress. There would need to be sex still going on for that to be a factor, but still. It seemed a little excessive for the three of us for food for a week. It wasn’t as if I cooked with truffle oil, for God’s sake. And didn’t he know me? I was the original budget girl. I could make a dollar stretch.
Well, ten dollars. Hello inflation.
Then again, my salary was enough to buy groceries and rent a house. Weekly.
I hadn’t even wanted to discuss money with him because of the pregnancy, but I had to be able to take Lily to any doctor’s appointments that came up.
I barely read the agreement we’d finally signed, salary included. Everything was just so damn overwhelming. Cooking was easier to deal with.
I pulled over my iPad and flicked through the series of recipes I’d been putting together. So far, I’d come up with twenty-seven recipes for the winter season for my new company. In fact, I had four slow cookers simmering as well as two brand new Instant Pots I’d bought with my first paycheck.
I’d put extra money on each of my sisters’ food accounts at college and I still had a tidy stack of money sitting in my bank. More money than I’d seen in a damn long time. I should feel a little guilty for how much, but seeing how much he flashed around for groceries…
Well, the guilt thing was definitely not a factor anymore.
I was in the middle of updating my website for Hannah’s Helping Hand Boxes when a text popped up on my screen.
“Finally, an adult conversation,” I muttered aloud.
I was doing that a lot lately.
I quickly replied to my best friend’s text and rushed to the front of the house to meet her. Lily was down for her mid-morning nap and I was in hardcore work mode during the two hours she slept. Especially since Asher’s note was very accurate. Lily was
definitely a Houdini these days.
Speaking of Houdini, I checked my phone app for the crib monitor just before I got to the front door. The little girl was still in angel form—aka sleeping. Though that wouldn’t last for very much longer. I did a quick check through the peephole on the front door—couldn’t be too careful—and swung it open.
“Hi.” I rushed toward my bestie and gathered her into a fierce hug.
“Hey. Did someone die?” She patted my back weakly.
A quick prick of tears hit me sideways at the familiar vanilla and orange blossom scent of my best friend in all the world. “No. It’s just been a damn long couple of weeks.” I got a hold of myself and stepped back. “Wow, you look great.” I tipped my head. “Did you cut your hair?”
Gabby—Gabriela Ramos, to be exact—pushed her way into the house and unfurled her miles long scarf from her neck. I was pretty sure she’d made it. If it was an Instagram fad, my bestie usually tried it. Knitting had been all the craze last year and I had two scarves to show for it in my closet.
“I did. Thank you for noticing.” She spun around in the foyer before dumping her overnight bag and coat on the little bench. “This is quite the gig, girl.”
“I know. Asher is insanely rich, obviously.” I hung up her coat and gave her the wiggle fingers to pass over her scarf.
“Asher, huh?”
Hmm. I suppose most nannies would go with Mr. Wainwright. Oops.
Gabby peeked down the hallway that ended in the huge formal dining room we never used. Her huge brown eyes were a little shell-shocked. I knew how she felt. The house was very luxe, but somehow not cold. “Well, those Wainwrights sure knew how to embed themselves into Central New York. I’m pretty sure they singlehandedly covered the cost of the rebuild on the gazebo in the park in Syracuse after that big storm took out the roof.”
