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Chapter Ten
She openedthe green file one more time and looked at the name that popped out at her as if she had to see it again to remember it. Emily Dean, so close to her own Emmaline that it shocked her upon hearing it.
When her Emma had been born, she was waffling between Grace and Abigail and was waiting to see the baby to decide. But upon seeing the little red baby with her black hair and her already deep blue eyes, the name Emmaline had popped into her head. And since she was very emotional and had no one to say no to it, she had went with it.
Even after all these years, Sera still loved her first baby’s name and wouldn’t change it for anything. And now her name so closely mirrored her grandma’s, and Sera was feeling the guilt over it more and more.
Should she have told him about the girls? But what would she say? How do you tell a man you have known and had hundreds of conversations with that he fathered your child in college? That you knew she was his the moment he started working for the company you both work at. And do you also share that though he had no memory of it, he had had sex at the office at least once? That he had cheated on his wife years before he thought he had? And that she had proof that all the tests he had taken were incorrect? Violet was her proof.
Violet, her little artist. For years she had assumed the art had come as a side effect of being around Agatha all the time. Agatha was the artist. Now Sera knew that her baby had gotten the art gene from Harrison’s mom. Sera was raising another wild and crazy artist.
After an hour of searching for Emily Dean on the internet, Sera came up empty. As far as she could find, the woman was not on the internet with her work or with social media, so she had no idea what her kid’s grandma looked like as her first interview of the day started.
By 5 p.m., she had conflicting reports from people who work with Harrison. On one hand, he was hard-working, and nobody ever saw anything untoward happen. On the other, he bragged about his out-of-office conquests to those he deemed friends, but none said he ever talked about in-office romances, if there were any to talk about.
But tomorrow, she was talking to Kylie Nash, and she was the one who would know what really happened. Or she would lie to her, and Sera wouldn’t put it past her to lie.
It seemed Kylie kept to herself and hadn’t made any friends at work. It had either been a lonely three months, or her friends had quickly abandoned her when she left. Either way, she had to find out the truth, and soon.
But tonight, she wasn’t staying late—she was going home to see her kids. They had been on her mind all day, and she just wanted to hug them and know that they were real. Some days were like that lately, as if Harrison not knowing about them made them less real to her, which was crazy; they were a part of her every day.
“Lost in thought again, Seraphina?” Harrison asked from the door.
Snapping herself from her thoughts, she looked at him. He was a good looking as always. It wasn’t his day that had been spent discussing someone else’s sex life in detail. Too much detail. That was her.
“Sorry, yes. Just thinking about life.”
“Don’t go so deep, Seraphina,” he said with a grin.
“Can you possibly call me Sera?” She hated her given name, and he was the only person who used it … except her girls when they were teasing her or mad at her… or both.
“I can try, but it won’t be easy,” Harrison replied, leaning against the door jam.
“Just try, please, or I’ll call you Harry.” She turned to clean off her desk for the day. It was after five now.
“Nobody calls me Harry, ever.” His smile was gone.
“Diddo, Harry.” She locked her file cabinet as she said it.
“Okay, I’ll try harder tomorrow.” He stood up straight. “Walk you out?”
His words took her by surprise—what was he trying to do? Was he trying to influence her investigation? He had never spent so much time with her.
“Sure, I guess,” she said and walked with him to the elevator, where they waited with half a dozen others.
At ground level, he walked with her as she headed to the parking lot where her car was. She never parked in the underground parking, ever, preferring to pay more to park in a lot down the street.
“Do you always park out here?” he asked in surprise.
“Yes, I just like to go outside at the end of the day,” she lied. No way was she telling him her true reason.
“Some days aren’t nice,” he said of the snowy cold winters they got.
“Some days are. Here I am.” She pointed to the red, late-model Jeep she drove. Yes, she could afford a new one, but this one was still running, so she kept it.
“A classic jeep? I didn’t see that from you.”
“And what should I be driving?”
