Page 10 of Protected By Him

Her words were like a knife through my chest. I grabbed her hand and pulled her around to face me. “Wait, what do you mean ‘it doesn’t mean anything’? That didn’t mean anything to you?”

“Leo, we’re friends, and we’ve both been under a lot stress. I just finished a challenging week at work, and you just wrapped up a huge case. We got carried away, it happens.” She sounded so, so, what's the word…nonchalant about it. Yes, nonchalant. Surely that wasn't all she thought this was.

Could Laura really not see what she meant to me? Or was it thatIdidn’t mean anything to her as more than a friend? I hadn’t meant for the night to turn out this way. I’d thought we’d have a drink or two and catch up, then go our separate ways. But holding her hand at the bar and hearing her joke that I was like a brother to her, I’d reached the end of my restraint. Laura wasn’t a wide-eyed, twenty-year-old anymore, and I was no longer that floundering new father without a clue what he was doing.

No. I’d waited too long to have Laura in my arms to leave without her knowingexactlywhat she meant to me.

“You’re not just a friend to me, Laura. What happened tonight happened because I wanted it to. We both did.”

Laura’s eyes snapped to mine, and she stared at me intensely. I stepped closer to her and cupped her face in both my hands. “More than anything, I want to pick up where we left off and show you exactly what tonight was about, but I have to go.”

“I-I don’t understand. Leo, we’ve known each other forever, why now? What’s changed?” Laura’s voice was trembling, and her gorgeous green eyes were wide with confusion and fear.

“I know you’re confused, and I wish I could stay so we could talk about this.” Just then, my phone rang again, and I let out a growl of frustration.

“You have to go to Ella,” Laura said. “She always gets scared when she’s sick, she’s probably crying for you,” Laura said, placing her hands on my wrist to pull mine from her face. She took a step back away from me, but didn’t let go.

“I hate to leave you like this.” My phone rang again. “Dammit,” I snapped through clenched teeth.

Laura dropped my wrists and put a hand on my chest. “Go, Leo. Your daughter needs you; this can wait. We’ll talk when Ella is feeling better.”

I surged forward to kiss Laura’s mouth again, then backed away before things got out of hand. “This isn’t over, Laura. Wewilltalk about this. We have to; you mean too much for me to leave you thinking this didn’t mean anything.”

Laura nodded but didn’t say a word. My phone rang for a third time, and I pulled it from my pocket, but didn’t answer right away.

“I’ll call you once Ella’s feeling better,” I told Laura. Then, after one last, longing look at the woman who’d been at the center of every one of my fantasies for the past four years, I left, answering my phone as I pulled the door closed behind me.

***

I walked into my parents’ house about a half hour later. My mom was curled up on the sofa with Ella cradled in her arms; both of them fast asleep. I sat on the chair next to the sofa and watched the steady rise and fall of my daughter’s back as she slept. Even from here, I could hear the rattle in her breathing that suggested a cold.

As I watched my daughter, I thought about the past four years and how things could have turned out differently if her mother and I had made better choices. I could never bring myself to regret meeting Samantha. If I hadn’t hooked up with her at that party the night of my law school graduation, Ella wouldn’t be here now. Granted, I had never intended to have a child with Samantha. I’d been drunk and celebrating. She was supposed to have been a one-night stand.

That didn’t ease the guilt I felt at not having chosen a better woman to be my daughter’s mother, though. If anything, the knowledge of my own irresponsibility made it worse. I’d tried to do the right thing when Samantha had called me that summer to tell me she was pregnant. I’d proposed to her, tried to make us a family. I could only thank God that Ella was born before we’d married, and Samantha had quickly realized motherhood was not for her. She’d stuck it out for two months before signing over her parental rights and taking off for parts unknown. I hadn’t heard from her since.

My mother stirred and blinked open sleepy eyes. She smiled when she saw me. I moved to take Ella from her, so she could get up, but she shook her head and waved me off.

“I don’t want to risk waking her. She finally fell asleep when the Tylenol kicked in and her fever went down. She’ll be due for another dose soon, and you can take over then,” she whispered before closing her eyes once more.

I nodded, even though I knew she wasn’t looking at me. Settling back against the recliner, I considered texting Laura but thought better of it. As much as I hated leaving things unresolved between us, what I had to tell her needed to be said in person. I sighed and closed my eyes, determined to get what sleep I could before my daughter woke up and needed me.

Chapter Six

Laura

Ispentthenextcouple of days covertly asking questions about Mr. Harvey while trying not to think about Leo. I hadn’t heard from him since that night in my apartment, and I could only assume that he’d regretted what had happened, or Ella was still sick. I didn’t particularly like either scenario, so I tried my best not to dwell on it.

I found myself listening even more closely to office gossip in the hopes that I could glean something from it.

But no one had said anything worthwhile. I wasn't sure if any of my coworkers, other than Emily, were even aware that Mr. Harvey was in the midst of a divorce.

Jon had sent me a list of the businesses where Mr. Harvey had used the company credit card. I’d looked into several of them online, but there was surprisingly little. Two of the companies were internet-based jewelry shops, but both seemed to be having issues with their sites because I couldn’t get them to load. The third business was the fashion boutique that Jon had asked Emily about, but they didn’t have a website, and the only address listed was a P.O. Box.

I tried to talk myself out of pursuing the case, but I found that I kept coming back to it. I looked into any special projects that Mr. Harvey might be involved with and asked around about any secret stories he might be working on. As CEO, Mr. Harvey rarely got involved with the day-to-day of investigative journalism, but he was known to assist on stories occasionally. He’d gotten his own start as an investigative journalist and seemed to enjoy reliving his glory days as a reporter.

No one knew of a new series that Mr. Harvey might have taken a personal interest in, and the few people I’d asked about the three mystery companies on the credit card statement had never heard of them either.

So, I decided to take a different approach and go back to the money. I emailed Jon and asked him to send me the last six months of Mr. Harvey’s expense reports and the statements for his company credit card. I lied and told him that I had taken the discrepancies to Mr. Harvey himself as a favor to Jon since I still had no other stories of my own to pursue. I claimed it was Mr. Harvey asking for these records, concerned that he’d made other, similar mistakes. I was nearly sick to my stomach as I did so, but I had a strong feeling that the answer lay in those statements.

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