A Baby For Christmas

by Layla Valentine

  It was worth hoping, anyway.

  “Thanks, Kevin,” I said as I left the break room and headed toward Richie’s office.

  The door had been propped open a bit, and I stepped inside. The space was empty and quiet, the chair from where Richie had been scolding me now empty. But the computer monitor was illuminated, and on the screen I caught sight of the word “CooperWare” in big letters.

  I knew it was nosy to look at someone else’s computer when they weren’t around, but I couldn’t help it. I inched closer to the screen and saw that, sure enough, it was the homepage for Colton’s company.

  There was something different about the logo, however. Instead of the simple, bold design of before, there’d been a slight change to the font, along with the addition of something small in the bottom-right corner.

  I squinted and got closer, a gasp sounding from my lips when I realized what the little extra something was.

  It was a Pegasus. And not just any Pegasus—it was the Pegasus that I’d designed, the one I’d accidentally left at Colton’s office back before the holiday break.

  I couldn’t believe it. I had to talk to Colton.

  After pulling my phone out of my pocket, I dialed up his number and listened to the ring. Before the call could connect, however, a voice spoke from behind me.

  “Hey.”

  I spun around on my heels, feeling like I’d been caught with my hand in the cookie jar. I canceled the call on my phone and shoved it back into my pocket.

  Richie stood at the entrance to his office, a soft expression on his face. He slowly walked around me and took a seat at his desk. As soon as he sat down, I pointed an angry, accusing finger at the logo on the screen.

  “That…that’s mine!” I said.

  “Yeah, I know,” said Richie. “I remember seeing you work on it during your lunch break.”

  “And now it’s the freaking logo for Colton’s company?”

  Richie furrowed his brow and looked away for a moment. The anger that had overtaken him before was gone. He was calm and collected.

  “How did he get it?” he asked. “Did you ever show it to him?”

  “Just once,” I said. “It was back when we did the presentation. Remember how I left my stuff in his office? When I got there he’d been going through it, and this was on the screen when I came in.”

  “And this is just something you’ve been working on, right?” asked Richie. “Not something that you’ve officially published and has your name on it?”

  “Nope,” I said, my blood boiling.

  Richie let out a snort. “He probably saw it, knew that you didn’t have any real legal claim for it, and took it for himself. Figures.”

  “What do you mean ‘figures’?” I asked. At that moment I wanted nothing more than to throttle Colton. I couldn’t believe he’d betrayed me in such a way. I’d been played, and I felt like a damn fool.

  “Figures that a man like him would see something he wanted and just take it. I told you, that’s how men like Colton are. They think they don’t have to play by the rules. They don’t care about legalities or even niceties if they don’t have to. And why would they? Money can get them out of whatever trouble they run into.”

  Richie’s words only stoked my anger.

  “I’ll sue him,” I said. “I’ll take him to court and teach him a lesson about stealing. He thinks he can get away with whatever he wants—I’ll freaking show him.”

  Richie only shook his head sadly. “You could do that, sure,” he said. “And I’d be happy to use Liminal resources to help you take him to court.”

  “You’d do that?” I asked, touched that he would actually do that for me.

  Richie raised his hand as if warning me not to get too far ahead of myself. “You could do that. But let me tell you exactly what would happen. We’d work with our lawyers and put together a case. I’m sure we could find some proof that the design was yours, and that he used it without your permission. We’d let Colton know what we were doing, and give him a chance to make things right.

  “But he wouldn’t,” Richie continued. “He’d get on the phone and assemble whatever lawyers he’s got on retainer—probably some of the top legal talent in the country—and together they’d figure out the best way to screw you without paying a penny. And he’d have all the money of CooperWare behind him. We could put together a rock-solid case, and all it would take would be for Colton to tie us up in litigation until we didn’t have the money to fight it. Then we’d be forced to drop the case, and that’d be that.”

  “What?” I asked. “That’s not fair! It’s my design, and they’d have to side with me once they saw that, right?”

  “Matters like right and wrong don’t come into play, Shayla. All that matters is money. And Colton’s got plenty of it. You’d be in court for the next year, the only result being we’d be eating into the company’s war chest until we had nothing left. Trust me. Like I said, I know how men like him work.”

  I dropped into the chair across from Richie’s desk, totally defeated.

  To my astonishment, Richie chuckled to himself.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “Nothing’s funny,” he said. “I just can’t think of a better way for you to really get to know the man you’re ready to go into business with. He might’ve told you whatever you wanted to hear, but this”—he tapped the logo on the screen—“this is who he really is. And you’re lucky enough to find this out before you’ve signed on any dotted lines.”

  Right at that moment, my phone rang in my pocket. I took it out and looked at the screen.

  It was Colton.

  Chapter 16

  Shayla

  “Hey!” came the chipper voice on the other end. “What’s up? How was the rest of your holiday break?”

  I couldn’t believe it. He’d pulled what he’d pulled, and now he was going to act like nothing had even happened.

  “Hey,” I said coldly.

  My eyes flicked over to Richie, and he seemed to understand who was on the other end. He gestured for me to go ahead and take the call.

  “I saw you called,” Colton said, “but I was on the other line.”

  “Yeah,” I said in that same icy tone.

  “So, uh, does this mean you’ve had a chance to think about my offer?”

  I wanted to scream, I wanted to yell. But more than that, I needed to give him one chance to prove himself, to see if he’d actually known what he was doing when he used my logo.

  “I just checked your website,” I said. “You have my Pegasus in your logo.”

  “That’s right,” he said, a tinge of surprise to his voice.

  “So, you admit that it’s my design that you’re using, right?”

  “Of course it is,” he said, still sounding confused.

  “Then here’s my answer,” I said, the anger in my voice taking on a razor’s edge. “There’s not a chance in hell that I’m taking your offer. Not a chance in hell that I’m working with you. And if you even think about calling me again, I’ll sue you for everything you’re worth. Got it?”

  “What?” he asked. “What are you talking about? Shayla, I—”

  “Not another word. Goodbye.”

  I hit “end” and that was that. Hot tears formed in my eyes as I jammed the phone back into my pocket.

  “I’m sorry you had to do that, Shayla,” said Richie, rising from his desk and stepping over to my side. “That had to be hard.”

  I shook my head, quickly wiping the tears away before Richie had a chance to see them. He placed his hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  “I feel so stupid,” I said. “I can’t believe that I got carried away by him and his damn…sales pitch.”

  “It’s a shame,” said Richie. “Men like Colton play by their own rules. People like you and me, people with consciences, we actually take issue with the idea of lying to people, of gaining their trust just to use it. But guys like Colton…they’re different.
They’re missing something that the rest of us have. It’s strange. But I’ve seen it time and time again.”

  He took his hand from my shoulder and sat on the edge of the desk. “Let me guess,” he said. “He acted like he had no idea what you were talking about.”

  “Yep,” I said, nodding. “Totally played dumb.”

  Richie scoffed. “No surprise there. If you would’ve let him go on he would’ve tried to hook you again, make you think that this was all some big misunderstanding. You did the right thing by hanging up. The more time you would’ve given him to talk, the more he would’ve roped you up in some lie. You ever heard of gaslighting?”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s the idea of someone lying to you and tricking you, then making you feel like any suspicions are just signs of you having an overactive imagination or something. Make you feel like you’re the crazy one while they go on lying their asses off. It’s what guys like Colton do best.”

  I shook my head in disgust. “I feel so stupid,” I repeated. “I thought I was better than this.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Richie. “You’re going to be moving up in the world, and like it or not, the higher up you go, the more guys like Colton you’re going to find. It’s for the better that you learn the lesson now.”

  I was still too shocked to speak. Then a thought occurred to me: I’d just quit my job here at Liminal. I was totally screwed.

  “Well,” I said, my voice weak. “I’ll start getting everything ready for being done working here in two weeks. I’ll make sure the rest of the staff can pick up where I left off.”

  “Are you kidding?” asked Richie. “You’re still quitting?”

  “I did give you my two weeks’ notice,” I said. “No taking that back.”

  “You gave me your notice because some prick lied to you about some pie-in-the-sky job offer. You got tricked, and that’s not your fault. No way I’m going to kick you out on the street.”

  “Are you serious?” I asked. “You’re going to just forget what I said?”

  “You were going to quit, and you were a total professional about it. If anything, it only served to underline why you’re such an asset around here.”

  “Wow, Richie,” I said. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say a thing. Things are looking to be pretty slow around the office, and most of the work is just me calling clients. Why don’t you take the rest of the day off and get some rest? This whole thing probably has you thrown for a loop.”

  “No,” I said. “Thank you, but I don’t want to dwell on it. I’d rather get back to work if it’s all the same. You know, keep my mind occupied.”

  Richie nodded, a small smile curving his mouth. “Atta girl,” he said. “Go on and get back to it, then.”

  Richie spread his arms wide and pulled me in for a hug. “It’s gonna be okay, kid.”

  After a quick squeeze, we let each other go. I thanked Richie one last time and stepped out of his office.

  On the way back to my desk, a thought occurred to me. Maybe I should’ve heard Colton out. Maybe there had been some kind of misunderstanding that he could easily explain. Or maybe, as Richie said, he’d have simply spun me more lies.

  Either way, there was nothing to do about it now.

  It was time to put it all behind me and get back to work.

  Chapter 17

  Shayla

  The remainder of January went by in a dreary blur. Almost as if the revelation of Colton’s true nature was responsible, a sheet of dark gray clouds moved in over the city and refused to budge. Each day was more dismal than the last, it seemed, and my mood was undoubtedly affected.

  I wondered if Colton’s Christmas joy had something to do with it. Typically, winters were just one long cold streak, nothing too dismal, but nothing too joyful either. But Colton had changed all that. He’d brought me up into the highs of the holidays, and now I felt like I was left in the depressing comedown.

  I woke up on Tuesday morning and threw open my curtains, hoping against hope—and in spite of what I’d seen the forecast to be—that the weather would be cheery and sunny. But, of course, it wasn’t. The sky was the same muddy, featureless gray, and the clouds were so thick that it almost seemed more like evening than morning.

  Everything about the weather made me want to crawl back into bed and hibernate until the weather was finally above freezing. But the fact that work was finally starting to pick up was one of many reasons why this wasn’t exactly a realistic option.

  I stepped into the bathroom and turned the shower on, the small space filling with hot steam almost instantly. Realizing that I was almost out of shampoo, I looked in the cupboard for a new bottle.

  I found it behind the bottle of pain meds I always kept on hand for the first few days of my period. Then, something occurred to me.

  I hadn’t had my period in a really, really long time.

  After throwing a towel around my body, I stepped out of the bathroom and into the bedroom, quickly picking up my phone and opening up the tracking app I used. A quick scroll through the calendar revealed that, just like I’d thought, I was late.

  Very late.

  Worryingly late.

  The thought was enough to send a shiver through me. But as I stepped into the shower, I told myself that I’d been late before, that this was nothing to be worried about.

  As soon as the water hit my skin, however, a rush of anxiety ran through me. I needed to know if I was pregnant, and I needed to know right away.

  After hurrying through my wash, I got dressed as quickly as I could and fired off a text to Richie, telling him an elaborate lie about how I didn’t quite plug in my phone last night—so the battery died while I was sleeping—so I’m going to be late so sorry, etc.

  Richie fired back with a quick response letting me know that it wasn’t a problem. Ever since the incident with Colton, Richie seemed to be going out of his way to be kind and accommodating to me. While I appreciated the sentiment, I was beginning to feel like he was handling me with kid gloves.

  Once I was done setting the groundwork with my lie, I threw on some clothes and hurried down to the drugstore on the corner. I picked the first pregnancy test I laid eyes on and rushed back to the apartment, where I near-ripped the test out of the box. My eyes flew across the instructions. Pee on the stick and wait—I could do that.

  I stepped into the bathroom and did the deed, and the three minutes that passed while I waited for the results were some of the longest in my life.

  As I waited, my mind raced with possibilities of what my life was going to look like if I was actually pregnant. Not only would I be a single mother, but I’d also be the single mother of a baby whose father was a man I swore I’d never talk to again. It all seemed like too much to handle.

  The timer went off on my phone, and I all but dove toward the test, snatching it off the bathroom counter and holding it close to my face.

  Two stripes.

  Two stripes meant pregnant.

  I was pregnant. I was going to be a mother.

  I sat on the toilet with the lid down for a long while, staring off into space, the test dangling from my fingers.

  I was going to be a mother.

  The words hung in my mind, playing over and over again. I probably would’ve sat there all day with that blank expression on my face had Richie not texted me, asking how soon I’d be arriving. I snapped back to reality, sending him a quick text telling him that I was on my way.

  I threw on my work clothes and rushed out the door, still in a state of shock. Once I arrived at work, I hurried to my desk, strategically walking through the office so as not to have to talk to anyone. I did my best to focus on my assignments, but the events of the morning wouldn’t leave my mind.

  “There she is!” called out a voice from behind me. I didn’t need to turn to know that it was Richie.

  I opened my mouth to speak, but no sounds came out as I mouthed the words.

&n
bsp; “What was that?” asked Richie, cocking his head to listen more closely.

  “Um, I said ‘sorry I was so late today.’” Even as I spoke, my words sounded far away and strange.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Richie said. “Just wanted to make sure everything’s good with you. Everything is okay, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “No worries.” I made sure to leave out some minor details, like how I was pregnant with the child of a man I’d told never to speak to me again.

  “Good,” he said. “We’re having a little powwow in a bit, and I wanted to see if you’d be up to sit in.”

  I didn’t feel up for it. Not even a little. All I felt up for was crawling into my bed and trying to pretend like none of this was happening.

  “Sure,” I said. “No problem.”

  “Awesome,” he said, giving the top of my cubicle a rap with his hand. “We’ll be in the conference room in ten. See you there.”

  Being in a meeting with the entire staff was the last thing I wanted, but I knew I had to keep up appearances if I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. After tooling around a little more with my work, using all my focus to make the little adjustments to the design without screwing it up, the time for the meeting arrived as quick as I could blink.

  The rest of the staff was already in the conference room when I arrived, all of their eyes latching onto me. It was almost as if they all knew that I was pregnant, all of them hoping to catch me in my lie. I dismissed this as silly and slid into an open chair.

  “Awesome, everyone’s here,” said Richie, taking his place at the front of the room. “I just wanted to call a meeting so we could touch base on what projects we’re all busy with, and how those are coming along. I don’t want to take up too much of you-all’s time, so let’s get right into it. Lauren—you want to start?”

  “Sure,” said Lauren, the cute, blond intern from Columbia who was seated next to me.

  We went around the room in counter-clockwise order, which meant I’d be the last one talking. The staff spoke one by one, and by the time it was my turn to talk, I was so out of it that it took Richie a couple of times to get my attention.