Love So Dark: Billionaire Romance Duet

by Stasia Black

  When Don sits down, David’s lawyer is up once again on his feet, like he’s spring-loaded and was just waiting for the opportunity to be unleashed. “Would a model parent frequently stay out all night and leave her child in someone else’s care? Wouldn’t a model parent provide a stable environment instead of moving,” he looks down to reference a paper on the table, “five times in two and a half years or rely on a family member to raise her child more than she herself does?”

  Goddammit. The private detective. I knew from everything we looked through over the weekend that David had hired one. It was bad enough when I saw that he was having me followed in the first place—at least he was two months ago, in March and April when I worked at the bar before I got my new job. Christ, is he still at it?

  My fingernails bite into my palms my hands are clenched so hard. Don puts a hand on my forearm. He must sense how taut my entire body has gone. Shit. I better not be showing how pissed I am on my face. I try to adopt a serene expression. Zen. I am a goddamned tree with roots growing deep in the ground and the sun on my face—

  “As you’ll see in exhibit twenty-six, Calliope Cruise did not come home fourteen nights during the period of March 1st to April 30th of this year. That means 22% of the time, Calliope Cruise is not at home with her little boy. That’s roughly one-fourth. Can you imagine?” The lawyer shakes his head as if he can’t believe it. “For one-fourth of her child’s life, her sister’s at home with her baby while she’s out God knows where doing God knows what. And that was when she had full custody! You see why my client believes the child’s welfare would be better served if he had care full time.”

  The feet of my chair squeak on the tile as I jolt backwards. Motherfu—

  Don’t!

  I clench my jaw and stop myself just in time. In my head, I’m on my feet. I’m shouting curses at that bastard lawyer. How can they just let these fuckers get up there and spew this toxic crap? For them to spin the numbers this way…

  Though isn’t it the same way Shannon looked at those nights. Slut. Whore. The words left unsaid but alluded to a thousand ways. Stupid, stupid not to think they’d push this angle of me as an immoral woman and horrible mom. I just thought the facts were so obvious: I was a woman and it was a bad part of town. Walking home alone equaled too much danger to risk.

  I take a deep breath and keep my ass planted firmly on the hardwood chair. No giving them what they want. I clasp my hands daintily in front of me. Charlie. Remember Charlie.

  Don’s gaze locks on me, like he’s sure any second I’m gonna lose it. He didn’t grab or try to stop me this time. Maybe he recognized it as a lost cause. If I was going to blow, nothing was going to stop me. But I manage to keep my shit together. I think of Charlie’s toothy smile in the morning when he climbs up on my bed and pulls on my nose until I wake up. His echoing giggles when I blow raspberries on his tummy after I change his diaper. The twang of his voice when he tries to say r’s and they come out more as w’s. Twuck. Twy. Wun.

  I take a deep breath and nod to Don. If the vein in my forehead is pulsing at maximum capacity, well, we’ll just hope the judge is sitting too far away to notice.

  As soon as David’s lawyer sits down, Don’s on his feet. “Your honor, my client slept in her workplace those nights because she couldn’t get a ride home. It’s not a good part of town and she was afraid for her safety on public transit. For Mr. Newsom to accuse her of lewd behavior when she was simply a woman fearing for her safety is completely outrageous.”

  David’s lawyer raises his eyebrows. “Can Mr. Maury produce her employer’s testimony as to where she slept those nights?”

  My heart sinks. Goddammit. No, of course not. Because I never told him since I didn’t think he’d like it. I doubt arguing that I lied to my boss about staying over would help my case much.

  “You will direct your comments to the court,” the judge says, eyebrows heavy with disapproval as he stares down David’s attorney. Not that attorney Douchey McDouche looks repentant. He got in his pot shot after all.

  “Judge, has my colleague produced any exhibits with testimony that my client was partying or doing anything else of which she has been unjustly accused?” Don argues back. I nod. Yeah, way to go, Don. I feel like high-fiving him or kissing his cheeks. This is what money for a real lawyer gets you.

  “It’s a big city,” David’s lawyer says. “There are any number of places Miss Cruise may have gone.”

  “Which means you have no evidence that she went anywhere at all.”

  “What’s important here is where she wasn’t. At home with her son.”

  “Only because she couldn’t be without risking her own safety. But she left him with a caregiver who is extremely qualified. At no point was the child neglected or in any danger.”

  “Enough,” the judge says loudly. “I’ll remind both of you that all comments are to be directed to the court. If you can’t remember that, I have no problem throwing you out of my court room for contempt. Next.”

  Yikes. I look at Don worriedly, but he gives me a small confident nod. He must have only risked pissing off the judge if he thought it was an important argument not to lose. I nod back. Okay. I think we might have won that point? Especially when Don goes on to point out I don’t have that bar job anymore anyway. I work normal, respectable hours.

  Even if my work is far from respectable. Oh my God, if I’m still being followed, what if they caught any of it on film…? For a second I’m so paralyzed I can’t breathe, but then realization hits. If they had that one incident from Bryce fingering me at the restaurant on video, they’d have opened with it. And Bryce hasn’t had me out in public since then.

  Dammit. I bite my top lip and my hands wring together under the table.

  I’m only twenty-two but I suddenly feel way too old for this shit. I just don’t have the energy for it. How did I not see how much I was risking by working for Bryce? If David’s lawyers had any inkling of what was really going on at my so-called respectable job… I’ve been such a fool. I’ve let my past patterns and insecurities dictate my life for way too long. How has it taken me this long to recognize it?

  I feel sick to my stomach. Quickly, I open the water bottle in front of me and take a deep swig. The lawyers work through another couple less contentious exhibits and then we break for lunch.

  I stand up for the break and when I do, a serious-faced woman with over-sized glasses in a shoddy pantsuit stands beside the bailiff.

  “Callie, this is Rita Hawthorne,” Don says. “She’ll escort you to the restroom and collect your sample.”

  Oh goody. The pee test. I nod at the woman, feeling awkward, because do you shake your pee tester’s hand? That just seems wrong somehow. Luckily, she must agree because she just gives me a tight smile, then turns and heads out of the courtroom. Right. I follow.

  When we get there, the lady bailiff waits outside. Again unsure of protocol, I hold the door open for Rita and she gives an awkward nod as she heads inside. Once we’re both standing in front of the large mirror with bright fluorescents overhead, she rustles through her bag and pulls out a cup for me to pee into. Then she follows me into the stall.

  Yeah. That’s really a thing. They watch you while you pee.

  I’m just lucky Don kept me supplied with water bottles throughout the morning. Any other time I’d be too pee shy, but I’ve had to go like a mother for the past hour and a half.

  Rita makes a production of putting on plastic gloves before she takes the cup from me and puts the official sticker seal on it. She signs it before we leave the bathroom. She’s real CSI about the whole thing, extra vigilant. That’s only good for me, though. This way David and the Shrew can’t claim I tampered with it or question the results when they come back clean.

  David’s such an idiot to even try and claim I’m into drugs. Does he really think I kept up with that crap? I hated the way it made me feel the two times he pressured me into doing it with him. Out of control and vulnerable, like anyone cou
ld do anything to me and I couldn’t stop them… Ugh, I shudder even remembering it. No, it’s nothing I would ever do again by choice. He must have just been banking on the accusation itself making me look bad.

  To take away my baby. The thought of possibly losing Charlie—it makes me want to turn back for the toilet and throw up whatever little is in my stomach. David is evil. Evil. There’s no other word for what he’s trying to do. The mix of fury and queasiness makes me lightheaded on my feet.

  Or hell, maybe it’s because I haven’t eaten anything today. I lean on the wall outside the bathroom, take a deep breath and grab an energy bar out of my bag. I force myself to take several bites even though it’s the last thing I feel like doing. My stomach rebels but I keep it down. I can’t risk passing out because I haven’t eaten anything today.

  When I walk back to the courtroom, I’m more determined than ever to stay calm, cool, and collected. Those bastards aren’t taking my son and if they’re trying to provoke a reaction from me by one of these exhibits they bring up, they’re going to be sorely disappointed.

  I keep to my internal promise and don’t react to anything that comes up in the afternoon. Not even the staged video in the bathroom at the gala. Of course, Don objected that it shouldn’t be allowed into the record after it was shown, but the judge had already seen it by that point. The judge acknowledged Don’s objection and said he would take the video ‘for what it was worth,’ whatever that means.

  I didn’t let my serene expression crack once. I didn’t turn my head to look at David or his wife. I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. And, well, if I even glanced at them, I worried the façade would crack, and I might leap over our lawyers to scratch David’s eyeballs out. So there was that.

  Best to pretend they didn’t exist. I focused on the notepad in front of me, at first taking notes as the lawyers got into a war of words, technical jargon edition. I tried to follow along, but it was all ‘within the context of the statutory obligation to avoid disclosure of information’ this and ‘consistent with the provisions of Section 3020(a)’ that. Yeah, I stopped taking notes after just a few of those mind-numbing phrases.

  Instead, I drew blocks. I drew the sand castles Charlie and I made at the beach when we went in mid-June. It was too cold to get in the water more than getting our ankles wet, but we spent the afternoon playing in the sand. Since it was so early in the season, the beach was mostly empty. It was a perfect day. We played until the sun started setting. I doodled the sun going down in the horizon behind the sand castles. I’m not much of an artist, but my pen starts to put little waves in the ocean below the horizon.

  Charlie. Charlie. My Charlie. Everything’s going to be all right. Mama’s going to make it all right.

  I repeat it over and over in my head until, without really thinking about it, I think I’m praying. I don’t really know what I think about the Great Beyond, but I’m praying. Please make everything turn out all right. Please let me keep my Charlie. Let this turn out right. Please.

  Then, around three-fifty it all starts wrapping up. Both attorneys have worked through all their material. My heart starts to fire on all pistons.

  This is it.

  What everything’s been leading up to. The part where the judge makes the decision. My stomach’s queasier than ever. Damn it. Maybe the chocolate chip energy bar during lunch was a bad idea after all.

  I stare at the judge across the room from us. Which way is he leaning? He’s just sitting there, shuffling papers. Do those creases in his forehead mean he’s disgruntled about something? Like he believes the other lawyer’s crap about me being a bad mom?

  His expression looks severe, but then, wasn’t it that way this morning when we began? I can’t tell if it’s changed throughout the day.

  I squint my eyes and try to look closer. Was that an eye twitch? What the hell does that mean? Was it a get-this-worthless-mother-out-of-my-courtroom eye spasm or an I-can’t-believe-this-deadbeat-dad-has-the-gall-to-try-this-crap twitch?

  Don taps me on the shoulder and gives me a subtle shake of his head. That’s when I realize I’m leaned half over the table staring at the judge. Crap. That’s all I need. What if he’s about to make a decision in my favor and then he looks over and I seem like a coked-out freak, all but crawling up on the table?

  I pull back and try to make my body loose. Calm. Competent. Mature. This is no big deal. Just the future of my very existence and whether or not they’re going to rip my soul out of my body by taking my son away.

  Right. Not the most helpful thoughts if I’m trying to calm down.

  Just when I think I’ve managed my shit, the judge starts speaking and I jump in my seat like a live wire was just jolted through my body.

  He pauses mid-sentence and stares at me a moment before clearing his throat and continuing, “As I was saying, all evidence and affidavits will be taken into consideration in the case of Kinnock verses Cruise. A court-order decision will be sent to you via certified mail within thirty days and will be effective upon the date noted. In general, that will be the first date of the following month. Court dismissed.”

  With that, the judge stands up and walks out of the room.

  I turn to Don, open-mouthed.

  “What just happened?” I hiss when I finally manage to find my voice. “I thought he was supposed to make the ruling.” I wave impotently toward the bench-like desk the judge was just sitting behind. “Today. That was the point. We come here with all the—” I continue waving my hands. Dammit, now I can’t think of the word, when they’ve been saying it all day. I sputter for a second and then remember “—the affidavits and exhibits and then he’s supposed to make up his mind!”

  Don holds up his hands, “I’m sorry. This often happens. I should have warned you. It’s only sometimes that the judge rules on the same day.” He cracks his knuckles. He shakes his head and puts a hand on my arm. “I’m sorry. But this will all turn out okay. We have a solid case,” he assures. “They have no reason to deny you joint custody of your son. Nothing presented today is going to change that.”

  I close my eyes and take in a deep breath of air. Can I hold on to believing that for a whole month?

  Yes, goddammit, yes I can. Whoops. I wince. Sorry God. No more taking your name in vain. I’m turning over a new leaf.

  And I won’t let that bastard David or his horrible wife get in my head. I open my eyes just in time to see the Shrew in question walking by with David, as ever, at her heels. She has her chin up, like she’s too precious to even smell the air down here with us regular mortals. Just thinking about the fact that these two get to be in my son’s life at all makes me want to hit something.

  Instead, I ball my hand into a fist and turn away from them as I get out of my own chair. “I’m going to go home now,” I say over my shoulder to Don. “Thanks for everything you did today.”

  “My pleasure. And please, don’t worry. Your son isn’t going anywhere.”

  I nod and then stride for the door, making sure I’m leaving from the opposite exit as David and the Shrew.

  That night, I get home and make a beeline for Charlie. I snuggle my baby boy extra tight in my arms as I rock him to sleep.

  Sixteen

  “What will it take for you to say yes to come work for me?” Jackson asks on Friday over noodles at a Thai place that’s smack between the CubeThink offices and Gentry Tech. It’s five-fifteen and I hurried here right after work finished.

  All week Jackson’s texted asking to see me, but I’ve been spending every spare minute I can with Charlie.

  I’m only four days into my thirty-day wait and already it’s been absolutely torturous. A stupid voice inside me keeps repeating that the judge said he’d notify us within thirty days… which means that really, it could come any day. It doesn’t have to take the full thirty. And that thought has been driving me batshit.

  I’m not the only one. On my eleventh call to Shannon today to see if a letter had come from the courthouse yet, she fina
lly lost her temper with me. She told me she’d call if anything changed and that I was making her even more nervous than she already was. So in my quest to chill the hell out, I decided to accept Jackson’s invitation for an early dinner. We’ve been texting back and forth all week. I had mixed feelings about meeting up ever since my conversation with Shannon at the zoo, but now, seeing him again… it just feels so natural. So easy. Even if he does keep harping on the same subject.

  I shake my head at him and smile. “Why is it so important to you that I come work for you? Is it some power trip? Wanting to know where I am at all times? ‘Cause that’s kinda creepy, buddy.” I’m only half joking. I’ve looked through the employment package he sent over and while it’s tempting, I’m trying to be smart for once. I feel like I need to choose either one or the other—a relationship with Jackson or a job at his company.

  Then I bite my lip. Not that the situation at Gentry Tech will continue to be copacetic if I’m going to try to balance having a relationship with Jackson. Bryce still hasn’t made any more moves this week. I don’t imagine he will while he assumes I’ve got CubeThink’s business on the hook.

  But once he finds out I don’t?

  Jackson reaches over the table and takes my hand. “Calliope.” My attention shoots back to him, especially with all the tenderness that’s in his voice even when he just says my name. “I don’t want to control you.” His eyes darken and he tilts his head, “Well, not outside the bedroom at least.”

  A spike of heat shoots down my body at the admission, but he’s already moving on.

  “I want you working at CubeThink because I think you’ll be an asset to the company.” Then his mouth flattens. “I know you want complete honesty though, so yes, there is an alternative agenda in asking you to work for me. That doesn’t mean I don’t think you don’t deserve the position. At the same time, what you make of the job is all up to you. There won’t be any special favors or advancement because of your relationship or lack of one to me. I’m serious about disclosing our relationship to HR. There won’t be any favoritism. You’ll succeed or fail on your own merits.”