by Chloe Lane
The memory of Matthew leaving earlier comes back to me in pieces as I try to figure out where I am.
His apartment. Sunday. Noon.
There's a text on my phone from Robin inviting me to watch TV with her if I'm not “busy.” Lots of winking emojis involved.
I'll take her up on it.
She's having a good enough day to enjoy a few shows, and we order takeout Chinese and laugh the afternoon away. I feel good, but a little groggy, which is why I don't notice that Matthew hasn't called or texted until almost ten at night.
That's weird.
He usually stops by the apartment or at least sends a quick message when he gets back from a meeting. When he gets back from anywhere, really.
I send him a quick text.
Is everything okay? How did your meeting go?
I can't think of any reason why he wouldn't have texted, but a sharp spike of worry envelopes my chest. What if something happened to him and nobody thought to call me? It's not like I'm listed as his emergency contact—at least, I don't think I am. I should ask him about that, too.
It takes him a full five minutes to respond.
The words that pop up on the screen fill the pit of my gut with dread.
I think you should come up to talk, if you're not too tired.
I summon all my courage and raise my hand to knock on Matthew's door. I don't want to do this. My stomach is turning, again and again, and my mouth is dry with anxiety.
Matthew pulls the door open, and the instant I see his face, I know it's bad.
Very bad.
I step inside his apartment and he closes the door behind me. My body starts to react—normally, when there's a closed door between us and the world, I'm about to get several orgasms. Matthew is about to play my pussy like a violin, and I'm about to love the hell out of it.
Not this time.
“How do you know Peter Cunningham?”
I've barely moved inside the apartment, and it dawns on me that I might not ever go inside again. Matthew's face is set in a hard line. I feel like I'm falling, and not in a fun, pleasant way. I try to get a grip on the situation, but I can't. I can only answer the question.
“He's my ex-boyfriend.” The words feel ugly in my mouth. I don't want to be saying them, but I have to.
“I had an interesting meeting with him today.”
I feel like screaming. Peter managed to meet with a representative from every single one of the media outlets I tried to get a job at, and it was all to punish me for something he thought I did.
“You should know that things didn't end well between us.”
Matthew narrows his eyes. I can tell he's trying hard not to leap to judgement, but Peter is a believable guy. If he wasn't, I'd have a job by now, and not just as Matthew's secretary.
“I gathered that. But it seemed to me—” Matthew crosses his arms over his chest. “It seemed to me that what happened was outside of your breakup.”
My throat goes tight. “What did he tell you?”
His jaw tightens. “That you've pulled this scam before.”
“What scam?” I'm on the defensive, my cheeks burning, and I don't know why the word scam has hit me so hard, but it has.
“The scam where you use a pregnancy—or fake pregnancy—to get something from a man.” Matthew looks disgusted. He's not able to hide it anymore. “I don't think I have to tell you what happened between you and Peter. You should know that already.”
“That's not what happened.”
“What did happen?” Matthew's face becomes darker by the second. “God, Skye...the shit he said was pretty spot-on. Did you offer to have his baby? Did you offer to have his baby in exchange for a passing grade in college?”
“No!”
“Then why was he under the impression that you did?”
“Because—” I could cry. I could absolutely cry. “I didn't have a fake pregnancy. I got pregnant. But it wasn't because I wanted to have his baby. I just wanted to—” I shake my head. It's impossible to explain it now. Peter Cunningham was the TA for the final class of my college career, a capstone class that ended in an investigative report that I had to file in order to graduate. When a source took it upon himself to kiss me, Peter pounced. He was somehow in the right place at the right time to see me, and he accused me of sleeping my way to a better story.
I was terrified. I needed the course to graduate, and so when he pressured me into sleeping with him, I did...
“I just wanted to graduate from college. With Robin the way she is—”
“Don't use her as an excuse.”
“I'm not, but Matthew, I was desperate. I needed to get a job, and it was the only way he would pass the class. He had a lot of sway over the professor, and I couldn't take the chance.”
His hands tighten into fists. “So what happened?” He's practically beside himself. “Is there some other child out there because of another deal that you made?”
“No,” I say, my heart breaking into a thousand pieces. “No. I lost the pregnancy. Early on. It simply wasn’t a viable pregnancy.”
Chapter 20
Matthew
I want to believe her, but something in my chest is brooding so dark and so ugly that I can’t bring myself to forgive Skye. To let her off the hook. Something about this just seems wrong. Peter Cunningham knew too much about her for it to be a random coincidence. He knew all the secret thing about Skye. Like the birthmark on her inner thigh.
And I’m filled with a sick rage that Skye did this on purpose. She offered to have my baby just to get herself out of a bad situation. She played me for a fool, and I took her up on the offer. I fell for it.
It's ridiculous to be angry at her for that. That's exactly what I did, after all. I didn’t want her love. I just wanted her body. I made her a deal that would benefit me. It wasn’t about making her happy. It wasn’t about keeping her safe. It was about getting what I wanted for Hunter Housing.
Yet I'm still torn in two because...
...because I want it to be something more. I wanted there to be something above and beyond the intense physical chemistry between us in the office, the way she drew me in with her eyes, her lips, her voice moaning my name...
But it isn't.
I just have the nasty sensation that Peter Cunningham is right.
There’s no way I’m ever going to be comfortable with her again.
Above all, it’s one thing to do this with one man. But two men? How many others has Skye propositioned like this? How many other babies has she offered to carry? The thought of her with another man’s baby in her belly makes me sick, sicker than anything else.
It’s not rational, my anger toward her. It’s just not. But I can’t control the madness raging inside me. It’s not rational that shrapnel from an IED sliced through my stomach, leaving me with hours of surgery and months of painful therapy and recovery. It’s not rational that whenever I see a backpack on the side of the road, my body goes into overdrive, thinking it might be another bomb.
I can feel the protective walls going up around my chest. It’s like doors slamming shut that were once opened, and I don’t know if I’ll ever want to open them again. Not after this.
“Tell me you didn’t do all that on purpose.”
“Lose a baby?” Skye gasps. It’s so cruel that I wish I could take back the words, but I’ve already said them. They’re already out in the open.
“Lose a baby, seduce a man into having a baby with you…”
“No. I didn’t do that. It wasn’t like that, Matthew.”
I hear what she’s saying, but it doesn’t register, it doesn’t make any dent in the growing doubt that’s blooming like an evil flower in the garden of my gut.
“What was it like, then?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Skye says, her voice breaking. “I didn’t have a choice. He held the rest of my life in his hands. The professor listened to everything he said, and failed people if he gave a negative opinion. And
it wasn’t like he didn’t like my writing style. He witnessed it when a source came on to me, and he thought I was…” She swallows hard, like she knows what she says next will be damning. “He thought I was using sex to get information from that person for my final report.”
I look into her green eyes. She could use that body of hers to get anything she wants, God knows. And who would refuse her?
“At least you’re not lying to me about that,” I say, because I can’t think of anything else to say. I’m too busy seething. My heart is running for cover. All this started out as a joke, a deal, and now it’s none of those things, and I can’t square it away in my mind.
Skye looks devastated. “At least?”
I run a hand through my hair. “I’m tired.” I spit the words at her like a challenge, and I watch them land in the center of her raw, open heart.
“Are you dismissing me?”
“Yes.” I say it before I can do what I really want to do, which is to take her into my arms and hold her. And then take her to bed. And then fuck her until we’ve both forgotten all this madness.
Skye’s mouth drops open. “Is this—is this what you really—”
“Go, Skye.”
All of me is on red alert, and I can’t slow down enough to figure out what the fuck I should really be doing. Skye is dangerous. I’ve known that from the moment she walked into my office. I’ve known all along that I should never have touched her. But now that I have, things are spiraling out of control.
I have to get her away from me before things boil over.
A sheen of tears comes to her eyes, but Skye presses her lips together, trying to keep her chin from quivering.
She fails, and it wrenches my heart.
But then she straightens her back and heads for the door, never once looking back.
When the door closes behind her, it’s the loudest sound I’ve ever heard.
I go numbly into the kitchen, fumbling above the fridge for a bottle of whiskey I stowed up there months ago. I pour it into the heaviest glass I own. It burns going down, but nothing burns more than the slash across my pounding heart.
What have I done?
What am I going to do?
I sit down in the living room and drink the rest of the amber liquid in one gulp, my resolve tightening even as my heart shatters, exploding in on itself like a grenade.
This is what I get for taking a risk.
It’s not the time for risks. Not anymore. I have to protect my child—even if it’s from its own mother. An image flashes into my mind at the thought—a little baby girl with Skye’s dark hair.
Fuck.
I drop the glass to the floor, and it shatters on the hardwood with a muted crack.
There’s no going back now. I have to go forward. I have to do what’s best for this baby.
That starts with getting some distance from Skye.
Chapter 21
Skye
“Ms. Dawson?”
The loud voice breaks into my thoughts, which aren’t really thoughts at all. They’re more like muffled screams floundering helplessly under the weight of endless waves, a thousand feet below sea level. I can’t make out much of anything at the moment, but when I hear my name, I whip my head around like I’ve been slapped.
It’s no one. No one that I care to see, anyway. It’s the man who is always sitting at the desk in the main lobby of the Hunter Housing building. He’s almost always here, and I almost never stop to see him. Except today. Today he’s looking right at me, his eyebrows curved together in an almost distorted-like grimace, a pained expression on his face.
Jesus. What now?
I make my way over to the main reception desk and squint at his name tag. “What is it…Stuart?”
“I was supposed to—” He swallows. This is so damn awkward it hurts. “I was supposed to let you know that you’ve been…uh… reassigned.”
“Reassigned?” The word is meaningless for several long heartbeats, and then it’s not. “Reassigned where?”
Stuart, old buddy, old invisible pal, glances down at a sheet of paper on his desk. “It looks like you’ll be working in the PR department from now on.”
“Public relations?”
“Yes, the PR department.”
I can’t bring myself to care if he thinks I don’t know what PR stands for. Right now, I don’t know what anything stands for. All I know is that I’m exhausted. I’ve been up most of the night, every night, since Matthew kicked me unceremoniously out of his apartment two weeks ago.
Two. Weeks. Ago.
Time has been crawling by since then. The days are a nightmare, and then I can’t sleep, though my body is practically numb with fatigue. That, at least, I can attribute to the pregnancy. Maybe the sudden fits of crying, too, but then I also just got dumped.
Getting dumped by Matthew should have been impossible, since we weren’t dating in the first place. Only it had started to seem like we were something. Like we were about to take a big leap together—though what could be bigger than getting pregnant and having a child together? And that’s one connection I can never end with him. He’s the father of my child. The child that’s growing in my belly right now, day by day. I already had to buy new pants. It’s only a matter of time before I need the ones with actual elastic.
I shouldn’t be surprised that this is happening. Matthew hasn’t been in the office since he asked me to leave his apartment. He sent out an all-staff email reminding us of a planned trip—planned by whom, I don’t know since I was his administrative assistant and planned all of his trips, meetings, luncheons, you name it—to look at new properties. All day, every day, I’ve been at my desk, waiting for him to walk through the door.
“Okay,” I say, finally, staring across at Stuart like I’ve never seen him before in my life. “The PR department.”
“Yes.”
This could go on forever. This could be the beginning of the rest of my life. I have to think of something else to say. Anything, really.
“What…floor?”
Stuart gives me a look that’s filled with so much pity I almost bow my head and stare at my shoes. “The second floor.” Matthew’s office is on the third floor, along with my office space—my former office space—and the senior staff member offices. The lobby, along with a couple of meeting rooms, takes up the first floor. There are no other floors. I should have known where the PR department was already, given my job.
“Right. Of course.” I turn to go.
“Ms. Dawson?”
I spin back around again, and it feels like I’m in slow motion. “Yeah?”
“Your badge.”
Jesus. I unclip the badge pinned to the pocket of my blazer. It’s a special badge, embedded with a chip that lets me lock and unlock the outer door to Matthew’s office. There are only a couple of us with this badge. An ache rises in my throat. I guess I won’t be needing it anymore.
I move to drop it onto the desk in front of me, but my hand won’t let go of it.
Oh, God. My heart has to be dying—that’s what this feels like. And I’m so mortified that my face could burn through the badge, the desk, straight to the floor, straight through the earth, until it melts into the hot core at the center.
Stuart looks at me while trying to pretend he’s not looking. It doesn’t convince me. I don’t convince me.
I can’t drop the badge.
I clear my throat, trying to dispel some of the ache, but it doesn’t work. Tears come to my eyes one after the other, and I try blinking them away. Do not cry in front of Stuart. Don’t do it.
Finally, the silence stretches on so long that I can’t handle it any longer. I have to end this, but I can’t do it on my own. I’ve always been doing everything on my own. For months now, I’ve been keeping Robin and me afloat. I got us into this new apartment. I got her signed up for the insurance plan so she can visit a doctor—her second appointment is tomorrow, and I’m hoping for good news.
I just can’t l
et go of this stupid badge.
“I’m sorry. I just—” I try once more to drop it and fail. All I have to do is open my hand, but I can’t do it. Releasing my grip doesn’t seem to be an option. “I’m having a little trouble—”
Stuart calmly assesses the situation, and then, with a gentleness that brings more tears to my eyes, disengages the badge from my hand and slips it into a drawer. It’s out of sight before I have time to finish the world’s worst sentence.
“Floor two,” I say brightly, but it just sounds like I’m going to cry.
That’s because I am.
I whirl around, heading straight for the stairwell. It’s deserted—thank God—because I have to clap both hands over my mouth to stifle my sobs.
Why didn’t Matthew believe me? The thought is a relentless drumbeat in my head. Why didn’t he believe me? Why? Why? Why?
Chapter 22
Matthew
It’s dark in the dream, but I know exactly where I am. I’m with my team in a dusty town in Afghanistan.
Every single nerve in my body is tense, every muscle in my body ready to react, but these are the last moments of silence before we burst in through the door and take this house by storm.
The intel that came in today indicates there’s a terrorist holed up inside, and not just a run-of-the-mill member of al-Qaeda. It’s a high-ranking leader, passing through the area for one night only.
Three. Two. One…and go.
We move as a cohesive unit because we are one. We’ve trained together for years, been in Afghanistan for six months, and spend our days and nights together. Nobody questions the fact that it’s Davis who will kick down the door and throw the first flashbang. Why would we question it? Before I have time to think, we’re through the front door and creating chaos for everyone inside.
My stomach lurches, though I don’t show it, because the first thing I see is a woman cowering in the corner of the main room. Her face is a mask of terror and she has her arms wrapped around someone—a little girl—who is howling, her thin voice rising above the noise. I shout out the name of the terrorist we’re tracking into their faces but they don’t react. Tears are streaming down the woman’s face, but she’s not sobbing. They’re just falling, falling, falling.
