Page 48 of The Count
“Look at you. You’re 40 years old and pining. You are pining over that asshole. Why?”
The word hadn’t spread about who Will—Eddy—really was. And I wasn’t out there trying to circulate my part of the truth. He’d disappeared as quickly as he showed up and the streets were back to normal. But normal grated on my skin now.
“It’s not something I can explain, Taylor.”
He threw himself into the chair in front of my desk eyeing me through the dim desk lamp light. “I’m not an idiot. I can take whatever you need to say. And you of all people know I can keep a secret.”
“It’s not that I don’t trust you…”
“But…. you aren’t telling me because you don’t trust me.”
I sighed, I’d forgotten how difficult Taylor could be when he wanted. Yet another reason why we would have never worked out. I decided not to answer him. I crossed my hands over my belly and leaned back on the chair.
He wasn’t taking no for an answer. “What if I said I knew where to find your asshole Count? Would you tell me then?”
The paper on my desk basically told me where he was staying. Taylor always had better and more accurate details. Not that I planned to go see him, anyway.
Unfortunately, he also knew me too well for my own good—and sanity. “Tell me what you know.”
He shook his head. “No. You tell me what you know first.”
I stared at some point over his shoulder so I wouldn’t have to see my face as I said it. Despite my reluctance to tell him about everything. It was more out of personal preservation than lack of trust. “When I was 18 I fell in love, got pregnant, and decided to take care of my baby above everything else. I sent everyone I love to prison and gave the baby up for adoption.”
Too afraid to meet his eyes I slid my gaze further to the right. “Things out of my control happened next and the only man I ever loved ended up being stuck in prison for twenty years.”
He interrupted. “You don’t seem the type.”
I forced my gaze to his. Nothing there but Taylor’s usual hostility. “The type for what? To be a mother?”
Something in his face softened. “No. To fall in love.”
A hot tear slid down my face and I jerked my chin away hiding the right side of my face no so he wouldn’t see. Never display weakness. A tenant I lived and died by. Eddy had stripped away the best of my armor with his kisses, his soft words, his touch. Damn him.
“Anyway,” I said, and wiped the errant tear away. “It wasn’t good for him and then he gets out and decides to seek revenge on all of us who wronged him.”
“Mother fucker!” Taylor shouted and surged to his feet.
I rolled my eyes. “Sit down. You aren’t going to touch him.”
He didn’t do it immediately. “You are in love with the man who got out of prison, held you captive, forced you to do his dirty work, gets you shot at, and then throws you out once he learns you had his child. A real winner there.”
It was my turn for an outburst, but my voice was even and cold when I could think around the rage choking me. “Sit the fuck down and shut up. You know nothing about what it was like between us, then or what it was like now. So don’t stand there high and mighty like you are innocent of criminal activity. No one here is innocent.”
We sat in heavy silence and then he leaned in the chair and fished a piece of paper from his pocket. I didn’t move when he slapped it on the desk and walked out of the room.
It wasn’t until the sound of the outer door slamming wafted into my office did I snag the paper and uncrumple it. The paper held Taylor’s chicken scratch writing in blue ink. An address a few blocks away from my office building.
Damn him. Damn him. Damn him. Nothing would be able to keep me away, even my own guilt.
I gathered my jacket, slipped my shoes on, and grabbed my bag from my desk. The outer offices were all empty, as was the street. After the takeover, and then reversion, no one really had the heart for turf politics. Things just drifted back to the status quo where it could. But I didn’t want it anymore.
I walked to the address and stood outside. It was another high rise and I’d bet good money his home sat right at the top. He did love a good view, always had. I opened the door and a beefy doorman narrowed his eyes as I came closer.
“I’m here to see a friend.”
He didn’t ask who, or my name, nothing. Simply said, “top floor, Ms. Mondego. Go on up.”
In another life, this might have been a trap. In another life, maybe it was.
