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She threw her hands up in the air and walked passed me down the hallway to the kitchen. I trailed behind her, enjoying the view of her ass for the first time tonight. It was fine, like the rest of her. Sadly, I couldn’t find a damn fault in her, both inside and out. I had to work on that if I was going to survive the next two days.
“The food’s here?” She spun around toward me after seeing our dinner placed at the table. I’d set it up for us and had wanted to ask her to join me, which led me to finding her in my bedroom. Truth was, I hated eating alone and craved her being with me more than the dinner itself.
“I was coming to let you know.” The rest of the story was implied.
“Before I delete, or you delete Esmé’s photos, will you at least let me tell you what I was doing?”
“If you agree to eat with me?”
“Okay, but I can’t keep up with your mood shifts.”
Neither could I.
“Would you care for some wine?”
“Remember, I’m on duty. Water is fine.”
I set out a glass of sparkling water for her. After going to my office to stew in silence, I’d screwed the lid back on my scotch. I didn’t want to risk doing or saying something to Maggie I may regret. The more my brain was soaked with alcohol, the lower my inhibitions got—and they were already at basement levels with her.
We started eating our dinner, or more like I ate and she moved her food around on the plate. She also avoided looking at me. It was tormenting and almost worse than eating alone.
“My mother…” she began without looking up from her plate, “always wanted a big family. A yard crawling with children and toys scattered all over the grass was her dream. By the age of thirty-eight, she’d never married.”
She raised her face, but avoided eye contact with me, keeping me from seeing her true feelings. She never hid those in her green gaze. They were like an open book to her soul.
“She found a clinic in Atlanta and picked a suitable candidate for a father. It’s funny, the man she chose was an MIT graduate, and I can’t survive without a calculator.”
Finally, our eyes met. Hers were less bright than usual. I fought back a smile, ensuring she didn’t see a crack in my armor.
“So, I was it for her. But her arms always ached for more, so I took the photos of Esmé for her.” She scooted her phone across the long wooden table. I was at one end, she the other. “Go ahead.”
I picked up her phone and brought up her photos, clicking on the last few with Esmé in them. She was like a sleeping cherub. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, contemplating how I was going to reply to Maggie. True to form, she had been vulnerable and let me see inside her world.
I mistakenly believed she was no different than Meredith, the girlfriend from hell, and had planned to use my weaknesses against me—profit from the photos, leaving me even more broken than before. In accusing her, I didn’t protect myself. Instead, I wounded her. I was a fucking bastard.
“Keep the photos. I confused you with someone else.”
“The one who did a number on you?” She circled back to our Peaches and Herb conversation. I didn’t want to go there, especially since she wasn’t a random woman I’d never see again. She would be the first woman I hadn’t paid for sex to spend the night at my house. I’d grown tired of trying to sugarcoat the reality of those relationships.
My phone rang, and I glanced at the screen. It was my attorney. He had a list of items to sort through for me today. I hoped he’d made some progress.
“Sloan. Just a minute,” I answered, then tapped mute on my screen and rose from my chair. Maggie followed my moves, likely expecting me to walk away, but I didn’t.
“I need to take this call. Sleep in my room with the kid.”
“Thank you, Mr. Shaw,” she replied as I walked away. I’d never hated my last name more than today.
After I shut the door to my office and sat behind my desk, I unmuted the call.
“What do you have for me?” I leaned back in my chair, willing the sweat on my brow to evaporate.
“Coco’s real name is Erin Russell. Her stage name is Erin Raye. She boarded an Air France flight to Paris out of JFK at nine thirty tonight. She’s in the air and will arrive in three hours.”
“What can we do once she lands?”
“I’m talking with our international office in Lyons. At this point, we haven’t involved the authorities here in New York, so I believe our options are limited. Civil suits versus anything criminal. Unless you want to file a report with the NYPD.”
