Her Secret

by Bloom, Penelope

  Lilith met his glare for a few seconds, then smirked. “Sarcasm is a good start. You get a point for the sarcasm,” her smile faded. “But you lose two points for sassing me.”

  Peter sat back in his chair with his arms crossed and an unimpressed expression on his face.

  “Well,” I said. “It’s great you two get along so well. I actually needed to find Bruce and ask him something, though. So…”

  Lilith made the I’ll be watching you gesture to Peter, and somehow seemed to add “bitch” to the end, even though I wasn’t sure how that seemed so clear from a simple hand gesture.

  Peter seemed happy to get up and come with me to look for Bruce. We found him and his wife, Natasha on the second floor. They looked like they were in the middle of a hushed but intense argument.

  “I hope we’re not interrupting,” Peter said.

  “You are,” Bruce said plainly.

  “It’s fine. He was losing the debate, anyway,” Natasha said. Not for the first time, I silently marveled at what a gorgeous couple they made.

  Bruce laughed dismissively. “Oh? Then let’s see what they think. Tell me, this line isn’t straight, is it?” He knelt down and ran his finger along the bottom edge of the dark wood paneling along the wall. “It’s got to be off by at least two or three degrees.”

  Natasha shot me a pained look that made me smirk.

  “It looks even to me,” I said.

  Bruce stood, glared, and turned to Peter. “Well?” he asked.

  “Believe it or not,” Peter said. “We had something a little more important to talk about.”

  Bruce’s expression darkened, and I mentally crossed my fingers that he’d be able to help us with our little scheme.

  20

  Peter

  I looked down at the red, white, and gold tennis racquet I’d purchased two months ago with Violet. I was sitting on the mid-court bench beside a pair of courts on the East Side of the city. Violet was going to meet me for our first session since the debacle at the indoor courts in Annapolis. She’d just had her medical boot taken off yesterday, and she was excited to test out her ankle.

  For the first time in a long time, it felt like I was able to be in the present moment. I wasn’t fixated on some distant, far-off goal like writing forty books before I retired. I was able to look around, enjoy the trees and the sound of a squirrel rustling in the leaves for a nut. I was happy, as strange as that was to admit.

  I heard footsteps approaching the gate to the courts and turned, expecting to see Violet. She was there, but so was a little girl with black, curly hair and big, bright eyes.

  I stood and took a few steps toward them. “Hey,” I said a little breathlessly. The last time we’d talked about the idea of me meeting Zoey, I hadn’t thought Violet was anywhere near being ready, so my brain was still trying to connect the dots and figure out what had changed. “Zoey?” I asked.

  The little girl scooted behind Violet’s legs so that only one of her eyes was visible as she peeked out at me.

  I didn’t really have much experience with kids. On a whim, I tried getting down to one knee, but not getting any closer. Maybe little kids were like dogs. They wanted the chance to come to you and would spook if you tried to rush at them. “I’m Peter.”

  “Peter Rabbit?” Zoey asked.

  I looked up to Violet for help, but she looked like her thoughts were elsewhere. I suddenly felt like I was being evaluated, and I decided I’d better get my shit together and make this little girl like me, no matter what it took.

  “Yeah. Sure. Peter Rabbit,” I said.

  She inched out from behind Violet and put her hands on her small hips, scrutinizing me with obvious skepticism. “You don’t look like a bunny hop.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “No. Of course not. Bunnies aren’t allowed to play tennis, so I have to pretend if I want to play.”

  Some of the skepticism faded. She took another step closer until she was almost within arm’s reach. “If you’re a bunny hop, show me how big you can jump.”

  I braced myself for the embarrassment I knew was coming. There was no avoiding it. I was on trial here, and Violet was watching. Besides, if I was honest with myself, I had to admit there was a certain charm to the little squirt. I didn’t want to disappoint her. More than that, I wanted to see if I could make her laugh, even if it was at my own expense.

  Still crouched, I suddenly launched myself as high into the air as I could. I landed back in a crouched position and wiggled my eyebrows at her. “See? I’m totally a bunny hop.”

  Her expression was blank for about half a second before she laughed with delight and clapped her hands. “Do it again!”

  The look on Violet’s face told me I was doing okay so far, so I gave the little curly-haired overlord what she wanted and hopped again. And again. By the time she was done making me hop, my legs were burning and my face was sweating. Violet had dropped the poker face and joined in with Zoey to laugh at me, which I didn’t find myself minding. For those few, ridiculous moments, I thought I got a taste of what it would be like to be part of their family. A deep, hungry longing rose up in me at that thought. I needed to stay focused on the here and now, though, because if I screwed today up, I had a feeling I wouldn’t be a potential candidate for step-dad anymore.

  Jesus. I almost laughed out loud at myself as we headed over to my tennis bag to get a can of balls. I knew my feelings for Violet were basically a snowball rolling downhill, gathering size and momentum at an exponential rate, but step-dad fantasies? That surprised even me. Yet no matter which way I rotated the idea or changed perspective, I found that I really did want it. I wanted to be part of Violet and Zoey’s family. I wanted them to be mine.

  I realized then that Violet was holding two racquets. One was a little pink kid’s racquet with hearts on it—the same one we’d seen at the tennis shop on our trip.

  “Did you go back to the tennis shop?” I asked, pointing at the racquet.

  “Yep. But I skipped the hiking part.”

  “You know they sell the same racquets in pretty much every tennis shop, right?” I asked with a grin.

  “I know. But it was important to me that it be from that shop. I kind of feel like that place has some special significance. After all, that was around when you started to have a crush on me.”

  I laughed. “Actually—”

  “You crushed mommy?” Zoey asked. “Bad bunny hop.”

  I winced. I wasn’t sure if Violet was ready for me to talk to Zoey about exactly who I was to her mom, so I felt like I couldn’t try to explain.

  Zoey giggled and slapped her knee with her palm in an exaggerated way, like she’d watched someone do it and was trying to replicate it from memory. “I’m just joking on you.”

  “You got me,” I said with a chuckle. “That was a good one.”

  Zoey took her racquet from Violet and went out to the court to do a relatively adorable routine of warm-ups, including a move I was pretty sure senior citizens had patented where she planted her feet wide, put her hands on her hips, and rotated them in an exaggerated circle.

  I lowered my voice, making sure Zoey couldn’t overhear. “How did I do?”

  “You did great,” she said. Violet bit her lip and picked at a sticker on her racquet. “I’m sorry. I did a lot of thinking last night. I know how hard it was for you to trust me after I hid the truth about Zoey. And after Kristen, it had to be even harder to trust someone again. But you did it. For me. You didn’t make me beg. You just forgave me like it was nothing. And then here I was thinking holding Zoey back from you was okay just because I’d been hurt by Dawson in the past.” She shook her head. “I feel like a complete ass. And honestly, I never thought for a second that you’d abandon her. Us,” she added with a small smile. “I just felt like I was doing the right thing.”

  I took her chin and tilted her head up so I could kiss her. I wished I could kiss her regret away, but I knew it wouldn’t be that easy. “Don’t apologize,” I said as
I pulled back.

  “Ew!” Zoey yelled. “That’s yucky.”

  We both grinned.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I think I blew your cover.”

  “No cover needed. I already told Zoey I liked you. A lot.”

  “Good. And she’s adorable, by the way.”

  “You’re really not mad?”

  “No. Not even a little. I also finished it today.”

  “What?” Violet actually punched my shoulder hard enough to sting.

  I leaned back, smirking. “Yeah. I wrote the last chapter a few days ago. I just finished re-reading the whole thing. I think it’s good.”

  “So we’re really doing this?” she asked.

  “Damn right we are. I already scheduled a meeting with my legal team for this Friday.”

  “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I dreamed up the perfect cherry on top for our little plan. But it’s going to require going to visit the she-devil in person.”

  “I’m in. But first, I’ve got to go show Zoey some real stretches. She looks like she’s warming up for a geriatric swim.”

  Violet slapped my arm. “Hey, now. I got those from a reputable source on YouTube.”

  “Did your source have gray hair?”

  Violet’s expression soured.

  I laughed. “Case in point.”

  21

  Violet

  Kristen lived in a fancy building on the East side of the city. Since Liam and Lilith lived on this side of town as well, I made arrangements to have Zoey hang out at their place while Peter and I made our house call to Kristen’s place.

  Peter contacted her ahead of time and gave her a properly tantalizing hint about what was coming, which meant we had no problem getting buzzed up to her floor.

  Even though it was four in the afternoon, she was dressed in a silky Japanese-style kimono printed with cherry blossoms when she greeted us at the door. Her apartment was an expanse of polished white. I found it slightly ironic that the devil herself would choose to live in a blinding white home, but I suspected Kristen’s view of herself was entirely separate from reality.

  “You brought your little project, I see,” Kristen said to Peter.

  “I brought my girlfriend,” he corrected firmly. “And I brought this. He held up a USB stick for her to see.

  From the hunger in her eyes, I could see that our plan was going to work.

  “I’m glad you had the sense to run this by me,” she said, gesturing over her shoulder to follow us inside. She led us through a vast entry area to a side room where she had a small office set up—an office that looked like it had never been used.

  She sat down and took the USB from Peter before clicking it into her laptop.

  “Let me just make sure it works before I send you on your way. I’m very busy, of course, so you’ll need to give me a few weeks to look over this for you.”

  “Of course,” Peter said. “Now, I realize my book is technically written in the same world as yours,” he said, even managing not to clench his teeth when he said “yours,” which was impressive. “But I hope you’ll see that it’s unique enough to avoid stepping on your creative toes.”

  I cringed a little. I thought he’d gone too far and too obvious with the flattery, but from the satisfied look on Kristen’s face, she was eating up every word. She really was an idiot.

  “We’ll see, won’t we?” she asked.

  “Yeah, well, you still have my email. Right? Just let me know when you’re finished reading it over. I haven’t shown anyone yet, so I hope I can trust that you’ll make sure you don’t share this with any bloggers or anything.”

  That hungry look was back in Kristen’s eyes. “Of course.” She tapped a few keys, clicked the touchpad, and then smiled. “There it is.” She stood up and started physically ushering us out. Somehow, I suspected it would be hours before she was done reading his book, not weeks.

  “Thanks for this,” Peter said.

  “Mhm,” Kristen said distractedly. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Kristen surpassed even our expectations of her stupidity and gullibility. It was only two hours after we left her apartment before her official Twitter sent out the message, "Exciting news! The wait is over. Book two is coming!!!"

  We’d spent the past few days making sure Peter had an absolutely iron-clad claim over the book. We’d filed every kind of copyright and taken every possible precaution to make sure there was no way in hell she could legally try to steal this one. Kristen had beaten Peter once, but it wasn’t because she was smart. She had a single move in her mental playbook, and that move was to call her lawyer and tell him what she wanted to happen. Fortunately for us, her lawyer was about as intelligent as her, because he tried to file a copyright for the book in Kristen’s name before he even checked to see if one existed.

  Over the course of one week, Peter and I had front-row seats to the complete and utter collapse of Kristen Woods. We’d put together a plan with Peter’s legal team based on how we thought Kristen would react, and she had reacted so predictably that everything had happened exactly how we expected.

  The first stage of her collapse was the tweet. Given the national success of “her” first book, the tweet immediately went viral. It even earned a mention on a national news talk show the following morning, which added more fuel to the excitement. After that, the entire country was watching what happened next.

  Peter made his official announcement that he was transitioning to writing thrillers. Bruce Chamberson let me use all the resources of Galleon Enterprises, the biggest marketing firm in the country, to quietly push the story to every news outlet. By the time I was done, the story was the scandalous darling of every station and it became an hourly talking point.

  Everything played out like an episode of a TV drama. One of the most famous authors in the country, Kristen Woods, had tried to make a copyright claim against Peter Barnidge, one of the most famous non-fiction writers in the country. It was a case of two cultural giants going toe to toe. For a while, Peter took some heat. A lot of Kristen’s fans assumed Peter was the one trying to inexplicably claim her second book as his own.

  That was when Peter’s legal team launched the case trying to refute the legality of the contract Peter had been misled into signing two years ago, along with all the supporting evidence he had to back up the fact. The case was the final domino, and public opinion took such a sudden and forceful turn toward Peter’s corner that Kristen was dropped by her publishing company and agent within a day, both of which put out announcements denouncing her actions and promising they had plans to right the wrongs she’d done.

  I met Peter inside a bookstore near his apartment. Zoey was tugging on my arm and leading me around to the place where they stocked bookmarks to see if there were any new ones available. With my salary, I could afford to get her real toys now, but I was taking it slow. Besides, I thought there was nothing that would replace her love of bookmarks at this point, anyway. Now I could afford to buy them for her instead of making her scrounge for them, which was awesome enough.

  We followed Peter over to the thriller section and found a copy of his first book, What’s Buried There. An employee was kneeling down in front of them with a box of fresh copies, which she was using to replace the ones on the shelf. I grabbed one of the copies on the shelf and saw “Kristen Woods” printed on the bottom.

  “Here,” the woman said, handing me a copy from the box. “You don’t want that one. Not anymore.”

  I looked at the one she’d handed me and saw “Peter Barnidge” printed across the bottom. An unexpected wave of emotion rolled through me until I thought I might actually tear up, even though I’d never been the crying type. We had known copies with Kristen’s name were being pulled across the country, but seeing it was something else.

  It wasn’t just the book. It felt like I was watching a part of Peter get put back where it belonged.

  Peter took a copy in his own hands and looked down at it.

  I couldn’t rea
d his expression, so I nudged him. “We did it. You can smile.”

  Peter frowned. “I’m not thrilled with the font they used. The “P” kind of looks like a “G”.

  I stared in disbelief, but he laughed before I could hit him.

  “I’m kidding.” His smile faded as he ran his fingertips over the space where his name was printed. “This is more than I could’ve hoped for. And I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  Peter looked like he was about to kiss me when the employee finally took a real look at him. She stood up, eyes wide. “You’re Peter Barnidge!”

  “No,” Zoey said defiantly. “He’s Peter Rabbit.”

  I'd have to break the news to her someday that Peter wasn't really a rabbit in disguise, but for now, I enjoyed when she made him jump around too much to tell her.

  I heard a commotion near the entrance of the book store, and without looking, I suspected I already knew what the cause was. Against my better judgment, I’d told Grammy we would be here. She’d found me at Lilith’s place a few days ago and threatened to take her teeth out and “gum” me, which she promised would be sensual, painful, and terrifying all at the same time. The only way she would relent was if I said I’d give her a time and place to get a copy of What’s Buried There signed by Peter. She specifically wanted one with Kristen’s name on it that Peter crossed out in red and wrote his own in on the front cover. Apparently, the whole scandal had truly “tickled” her, and she was determined to get the memento.

  She came in with a bag of books in her hand and a small dog on a leash, which I guessed was the cause of the commotion. An employee was trailing after her while trying to explain that dogs weren’t allowed inside.

  “Honey,” Grammy snapped over her shoulder as she came down the aisle toward us. “I’m getting paid to watch this dog, and I’m not letting him out of my sight. Thank you very much.”