Page 42 of Sinful Fantasy

So now I wrestle with the to and fro. The back and forth. I battle with Mia’s sweetly innocent questions.

Where’s Mommy?

Why didn’t she come home to sleep?

Why’s she always so tired?

Why’s she mean sometimes?

My job is to protect my daughter, and up to this point, doing so meant letting her believe that her mother is perfect. But eventually, Mia’s naïve belief will run out. That façade will grow thin, and my words will become less protection, and more straight-out lie.

And I’ll be damned if Jada’s inability to mother correctly gets to damage my ability to father the way Mia deserves.

Shaking my head, and loathing the sickly feeling that constantly sits in my belly, I push through the front door of my apartment building and force a smile for the sweet teen girl who sometimes babysits my daughter when I can’t be here, and the nanny needs a day off.

Fuck knows, it’s safer to trust a mature child, than to trust an immature Jada these days.

“Hey there, Mr. Fletcher.” Deena sorts her mail and grins up at me as I pass. “You look kinda beat.”

I cough out a laugh and stride up the stairs. “I’m feeling kinda beat, kid. You being good?”

“Always,” she sniggers. “Got an A on my last English test. I’m probably gonna be a writer someday.”

“Attagirl. I’ll buy your debut novel. And I expect it to be signed, okay?”

I keep moving up the stairs, losing sight of the girl, but I hear her giggle. Her shy dismissal.

“I mean it,” I call back. “I want an autograph, and an acknowledgment that I knew you before you were famous.”

“Okay, Mr. Fletcher.”

Her nervous laugh trails off as I climb from the first floor to the second. Then the third. The street noise from outside turns fainter the higher I go, giving way to more domestic sounds, but as I approach my floor, the drone of television sets changes to something else.

Something darker.

Shouting comes from inside my apartment. Not just one voice, but two—three, as Mia joins in.

Frustrated and panicked in one, I rush to my door and shove it wide open to find Jada closest to me, her body in fight stance: her legs spread wide for balance, and her hands raised. But where I expect fists, I find dresses. Dancer bodysuits.

“She’s my daughter!” Jada snarls. “Mine!”

“She’smycharge,” Penny counters.

My elderly nanny holds onto Mia, who squirms and fights to be let loose. But the older woman’s angry expression turns relieved when our eyes meet, and she registers that her backup has arrived.

“Mr. Fletcher.” She releases Mia, who dashes my way and climbs my leg until I swing her onto my hip. “Might I suggest you take Ms. Mia out to dinner?” Penny juts her chin high in the air, her nose pointing away from my ex-wife. “I heard the bar is serving up something tasty tonight.”

“Miss Penny and Mommy are shouting at each other,” Mia sniffles.

“Miss Penny’s a nasty wretch who should be locked up,” Jada bites out. “Not raising my child like some spinster bitch who missed her chance to have a daughter of her own.”

“Hey!” I turn on Jada, my own fists balled and adrenaline pumping.

A few years ago, if she’d said something like that, I’d think that the nanny had hurt my child and should be tossed into the ocean for her crimes. I would have set the world on fire based on Jada’s word alone.

But she’s no longerthatJada; the trustworthy kind, whose word is law.

And I’m no longer the lovestruck Charlie Fletcher who can afford to take her words as truth.

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