“Oh.” He ran his hands over his face. “This is— I don’t know what to say.”
He was a good-looking guy, a fact that was emphasized by the fitted red XSport Fitness T-shirt and black athletic pants that showed off his toned physique. In light of the circumstances, the cynical divorce lawyer in Victoria assumed it was highly possible that Nicole Dixon was one of many women Peter Sutter had picked up at a bar over the last several years.
Which was why she was surprised by what he said next.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about that night with Nicole. I feel horrible that I left like that. I had no idea she was pregnant.” He paused. “Is she, um, sure the baby is mine?”
“Yes. But we’ll do a paternity test to confirm that before my client and I file a petition for child support.”
“Child support.” He took another deep breath. “My wife . . . Well, you were there, you know that she’s pregnant. I don’t know how to tell her about this.” He looked shell-shocked. “Melanie doesn’t know anything about Nicole.”
“Yes, I gathered that,” Victoria said dryly.
He cocked his head. “Wait—you think I cheated on her. No. Noooo, no. See, when I slept with Nicole, Melanie and I were on a break.”
Victoria nearly did a facepalm. It was like she was at home, watching a Friends rerun.
We were on a break!
“Your relationship with your wife is none of my business, Mr. Sutter. I’m here solely to represent the interests of Ms. Dixon and her child.”
“But Melanie and I really were on a break,” he said earnestly, as if it was important she believe him. “We’d been together for around three years, and we’d started talking about getting engaged. So, one day, I went out shopping for rings and, I don’t know, I started thinking about forever and how marriage means spending the rest of your life with just one person. And I guess I just . . . panicked.”
Victoria kept her face impassive, but she was hardly impressed with the story thus far. A man panicking over the idea of sleeping with one woman for the rest of his life.
How original.
Peter held up a hand. “I know; I’m not proud of that. I’m just trying to explain. Anyway, when I told Melanie I had doubts, she basically kicked my ass to the curb. We’d been broken up for about three weeks, and it just . . . wasn’t the way I thought it was going to be. I missed her. A lot. I was moping around, and my friends said I needed to get out and give being single a shot. So they dragged me out to the bar, and that’s when I met Nicole. If I remember right, it was her birthday that night.”
Victoria was a little surprised he remembered that. “That’s right.”
“I remember buying her a shot, and then she bought me a shot, and things just went from there. She was great. A lot of fun to talk to. We ended up back at her place and, well . . . I guess you know what happened next.” He paused, his expression turning more serious. “I think we both passed out, and when I woke up and saw that I was lying in bed next to a woman, it just felt . . . wrong. I knew the only woman that I should be lying next to was Melanie. And it hit me that I had lost the best thing that had ever happened to me, and . . . I got choked up about that. I didn’t want Nicole to wake up and see me crying and think I was some freak or that she’d done something wrong, so I just got the hell out of there.” He looked Victoria directly in the eyes. “But I know that was stupid. And if I see Nicole, I plan to tell her how sorry I am about that.”
Well.
She supposed that wasn’t the worst explanation she’d ever heard.
Still, the cynic in her had some lingering questions. “You could’ve gone back to Nicole’s place the next day to apologize.”
“Actually, the next day, I went straight to Melanie’s place to beg her to give me a second chance. She said she didn’t want to be with a guy who had doubts, so to show her how committed I was about us, I sat on her front doorstep every night after work until she agreed to talk to me.”
Okay, she’d bite. “How many nights did it take you?”
“Fourteen,” he said.
“Fourteen?” Victoria smiled slightly at that. “Good for her.”
“After that, everything happened fast. Melanie and I got back together and we decided we didn’t want to drag things out planning a big, fancy wedding. So we flew to Santa Barbara, where her parents live, and had a small ceremony with just family and close friends. That was nine months ago.” He rested his arms on the table. “As for why I never circled back to Nicole, I guess at first it was because I was so focused on getting Melanie back. Then after that, I don’t know . . . It seemed a little weird, the idea of suddenly showing up on Nicole’s doorstep. What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, remember me? Sorry I skipped out on you a month ago. And by the way—I’m getting married!’”
“At least she would’ve had the chance to tell you she was pregnant,” Victoria said.
“Well, I didn’t know that was even a possibility. I thought we used a condom. But we were pretty drunk, so . . .” With a sheepish blush, he cleared his throat. “Anyway. What happens now?”
“To start, I’ll give you the address of a lab you can go to for the paternity test.”
He nodded. “And then you’ll call me with the results?”
“That won’t be necessary. The lab will mail out two copies of the results, one to you directly and one to either Nicole or myself.”
Peter shook his head emphatically. “No way. They can’t send anything to my home or to work. I can’t risk that Melanie would find out that way. We agreed we didn’t want to know what happened while we were apart, that it didn’t matter,” he explained. “But now she’s pregnant. And she’s so excited about that. How am supposed to tell her that I might already have a kid with someone else—with a woman she never knew about?” He gestured at Victoria. “I mean, how would you react if you found that out about your husband?”
“Mr. Sutter, it’s really n—”
“I know, I know, it’s none of your business.” He shook his head, looking despondent. “I just don’t want to hurt her.”
Something inside Victoria softened. Yes, she thought Peter could’ve handled the situation with Nicole better—hell, the guy could’ve at least left a note before hightailing it out of her apartment. But now, at least, he appeared genuinely interested in doing the right thing.
She reached inside her purse, pulled out the business card she’d prepared, and slid it across the table. “If you like, we can tell the lab to send the results only to me. That’ll give you a few days to figure out how to explain everything to your wife. My recommendation? Go with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.”
He half-smiled, and took the card. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”
That settled, Victoria grabbed her purse and stood up. “I wrote the address of the lab on the back of my business card.”
“Wait,” Peter said. “You didn’t tell me. The baby . . . is it a boy or a girl?”
Victoria paused, the cynical divorce lawyer in her not having expected that question.
Normally, I see families as they’re falling apart. I’ve never had the chance to bring one together before.
“It’s a girl,” she said.
“A girl.” His eyes turned momentarily misty, and then he cleared his throat. “Right. I’ll wait for your call, then.”
* * *
VICTORIA HAILED A cab and called Nicole during the ride back to her office.
“You caught me just in time—I’m about to leave for an audition,” Nicole said. “Did you talk to him? How did it go?”
Victoria filled Nicole in on her conversation with Peter Sutter. “He says he plans to voluntarily take the paternity test, but let’s not hold our breath,” she said while paying the cabdriver. “It’s easy for people to say they want to do the right thing. Actually doing it is a whole other matter.” It had just begun to rain, so she climbed out of the taxi and dashed into her building.
“Do you think
he’s going to tell his wife?” Nicole asked.
“He made it sound that way. But I figure he’ll wait until he has actual proof that he’s Zoe’s father before having that conversation.”
Nicole exhaled. “Right.”
They wrapped up the call just before Victoria stepped into the elevator. As she pushed the button for her floor, she felt cautiously optimistic about this development in the case. Over the course of the last several weeks, she’d prepared herself for the worst with Peter Sutter. But maybe Nicole and Zoe actually were going to catch a break in this. Maybe Peter would want to be a part of his daughter’s life, beyond just his financial obligations.
Unfortunately, she got to revel in that optimism for all of about thirty seconds.
As soon as she stepped into her office, Will handed her a stack of messages. Then one of her associates knocked on her door to discuss a client who’d spontaneously decided, mid-divorce, to spend over a hundred thousand dollars redecorating her home, and now had been hit—not surprisingly—with an emergency motion that accused her of depleting marital assets.
After addressing that mini-crisis, she spent the next few hours on the phone, going from call to call and putting out fires. Or, in some cases, starting a few fires herself.
In other words, it was a typical Monday afternoon.
But at five o’clock, after finishing an hour-long conference call, she did something that was atypical—for her, at least.
Will’s mouth fell open when he walked into her office with yet more message slips and saw her packing up her briefcase. “Are you leaving? You haven’t left the office at five since . . .” He cocked his head, coming up empty. “See? There is no end to that sentence.”
“There’s an errand I need to run.” Changing the subject, she took the message slips from him. “Anything noteworthy?”
“Mr. Dixon called. This is becoming a regular thing. Perhaps I should add him to your speed dial?” Will grinned when she shot him a glare. “Oh, spare me the look—so I’m having fun here. I like him. And so do you, even if you won’t admit it. I see the smile on your face after you talk to him.”
She said nothing as she picked up her briefcase, refusing to be drawn into this conversation.
“Don’t forget your umbrella, Ms. Slade,” he said cheekily.
Oops—right. She grabbed her umbrella and gave him a slight smile. Cheeky or not, the man was a lifesaver. “Good night, Will.”
She headed down the hallway and made her way to the elevator bank. After pushing the down button, Will’s comment about Ford echoed in her head.
I like him. And so do you, even if you won’t admit it.
There’d been a moment on Saturday night, as she’d been lying on the bed next to Ford, when things had felt different between them. Good different.
Scary different.
At the time, she’d covered up her thoughts by asking about the stupid brownies, assuming it was just a fleeting, post-sex thing. But here she was two days later, and the little butterflies she felt in her stomach every time she thought about him still hadn’t gone away.
And that was even scarier.
When the elevator reached the ground floor, she forced herself not to think about Ford and concentrate instead on the task at hand—a task that already had her anxious enough.
Tonight, she was taking on the subway during rush hour.
As she cut across the building lobby, she took her earbuds out of her briefcase and plugged them into her phone. She scrolled through her playlist until she found the song she wanted, and felt charged as she stepped outside into the rain and the music began to play.
This girl is on fire.
Damn skippy.
And tonight, this girl was going to kick the ass of her teeny, tiny panic-attack problem.
Twenty-six
FORD STOOD UNDER the red glass overhang of the Thompson Center, trying to stay dry from the rain.
He’d just finished interviewing the director of the Department of Children and Family Services for his story on parents who’d abused or neglected their children while supposedly under the agency’s supervision. The interview had run longer than he’d expected—the director had been surprisingly willing to talk—and since it was already five o’clock he decided to scrap his plan to return to the Trib office and call it a day instead.
He checked his cell phone, hoping to have a message from Victoria.
No luck.
He was very eager to hear how her meeting with Sutter had gone, so he decided to try to catch her at work. The rain began to fall steadily as he walked the three blocks, so while waiting for a red light to change, he wrestled his umbrella out of his messenger bag.
Just then, he spotted Victoria as she stepped out of the revolving doors of her building. She opened her umbrella and began walking in the opposite direction.
He called her name, but she didn’t turn, his voice undoubtedly drowned out by the cacophony of street noise as cars, taxis, and buses whooshed between them on the rain-slick street. It took a good minute for the light to change, so by the time he crossed the street he’d lost sight of her on the crowded sidewalk that was a sea of umbrellas.
Walking quickly and weaving through other pedestrians, he saw her cross the street ahead of him, and realized with an ironic smile that she’d led him right back to the Thompson Center. Seeing her head in the direction of the underground subway station, he hurried to make the light.
“Victoria!” he called, closing the gap.
She still didn’t look back as she headed down the stairs to the station.
Not far behind her now, he pushed through the turnstile and made his way to the underground platform, which was even more crowded than usual because of the rain. While closing his umbrella, he spotted Victoria on the far end of the platform, her back to him as she waited for the train.
He made his way over and tapped her on the shoulder. She jumped and turned around, and only then did he see that she had earbuds in that were covered by her long hair.
“Ms. Slade. Fancy meeting you here,” he said.
“Ford.” She stared at him in surprise, before ducking her head to take out her earbuds.
But the strangest thing was, before she looked away, he could’ve sworn he saw a flicker of something else in her eyes.
Something that looked oddly like panic.
* * *
HE COULDN’T BE here.
Victoria, who’d been calm just moments ago, felt a rush of anxiety as she stashed the earbuds in the outside pocket of her briefcase, next to the umbrella. One of the reasons she’d been comfortable taking on the challenge of riding the subway during rush hour was that she’d had an exit strategy planned in the event anything had gone awry. She’d reassured herself, the same way she had during her exercise class and the time she’d gotten nervous on the elevator, that if she felt faint or panicky, she could always just get off the train and take a cab the rest of the way home.
But Ford being here changed everything. Obviously, he would know something was wrong if she suddenly decided to get off before their stop. And since she didn’t want him, of all people, to know about her panic attacks, that meant one thing.
She was trapped.
Her heart began to pound, so she took a deep breath. From the diaphragm. Just like the good doctor had taught her.
Ford cocked his head. “Are you okay?”
Shit. He already was looking at her funny and they hadn’t even gotten on the train yet.
This did not make her feel any less panicked.
Come on, Slade, pull it together. You can do this.
She forced a smile. “Sure. I’m just surprised to see you here. What are the odds, right?” At the sound of an approaching train, she swallowed hard, but maintained her nonchalant façade.
“No kidding. I just finished an interview at the Thompson Center, walked to your office and saw you leave, and basically did a loop right back here,” Ford said before the train rushed into the statio
n and drowned him out.
Victoria nodded, her attention diverted as the train came to a stop and the doors opened. She thought about bailing; she could say that she forgot something in her office, but Ford would probably offer to go with her anyway. But more important, she didn’t want to run from this. She didn’t want to be the person who couldn’t get on a train if she had an audience. She wanted to be herself again, the unflappable, panic-free woman she’d been before the break-in had messed up everything. Because her life had been good before—and a hell of a lot less complicated when it didn’t include therapy, and a pesky psychologist with pesky questions, and a summer rental with a sexy, charming next-door neighbor who made her feel things she didn’t want to feel.
So if she wanted her old life back, if she wanted to get back to that person she’d been before, it started right here. Right now.
She was getting on that damn train.
That decided, she took another deep breath and stepped forward.
Trying not to be obvious about it, she let a few people pass in front of her and Ford, so that the two of them wouldn’t be stuck at the back of the car. They ended up about a third of the way down the aisle, not too far from the door.
She only had to make it four measly stops, she reminded herself. Less than a fifteen-minute train ride.
“You’re killing me with the suspense here,” Ford said.
Victoria blinked. “I’m sorry?”
“Your meeting with Sutter,” he said as the doors closed. “How did it go?”
She shifted her weight as the train began to move, drawing on the trick she’d learned during the Sutters’ open house, when she’d begun to feel light-headed in the closet. If she focused on something other than her fear, her body would stop responding as if she were in a fight-or-flight situation.
Hopefully.
“It went well.” She proceeded to tell Ford about her meeting with Sutter, and the distraction helped. Although she remained hyperaware of her surroundings—primarily the fact that she was in a crowded train car underground—she was able to keep up her end of the conversation.
“He could’ve concocted that entire story in the two hours before you met him at the coffee shop,” Ford said, looking skeptical.