“Mama! Mama, are you sick?” Pearl’s voice rises to a wail.
“I’m okay,” I gasp, forcing myself to drag a deep breath down and stand up straight. “I’m okay, sweetheart.”
I reach out my arms, and Pearl dives into them. She clings to my neck, nearly choking me out, while I murmur to her, over and over, “It’s okay. Everything is okay.”
“When can we see Daddy?”
Oh, thank goodness. By some miracle, that scene went over her head. She was so groggy from her nap in the car, Tiller and I were blocking her view, and Schmidt turned her away quickly enough. We got lucky.
I’m trying to think of an answer when Winnie saves the day.
Tiller is holding her carrier by the straps, and she’s dangling with her chubby legs stiff as boards. She toots. It’sa soft sound, but the elevator is small. Her face cracks into a dopey smile. In moments, the stink of baby poop fills the elevator.
Pearl picks her head up from my boobs and scolds, “Oh, Winnie, no!”
Tiller stares at the elevator doors, and stone-faced, he lifts the carrier so it’s as far from himself as he can get it.
I can’t laugh.
This isn’t funny.
If I laugh, I’ll cry.
If I cry, I’ll lose it, and I don’t lose it anymore. I’m better now. I’m a new person.
When I left Baltimore at eighteen, Mrs. Flowers, my social worker, said I had a fresh slate, and I’ve kept itpristine. I came all the way to New York City, worked nights as a cleaner while I got my GED, and then got a job as an aide at a fancy daycare on the Upper East Side. I met Adrian Maddox on the sidewalk outside of my work. We fell in love, six months later he asked me to marry him, and now we have two beautiful children. This is a fairy tale.
The nightmares are behind me.
I’m lucky now, blessed and grateful. I hold Pearl tight as my brain churns up the things I tell myself when I feel insecure and terrified that I’ll inevitably lose everything again. I should be angry. Devastated. I know that, but I’m slow to process traumatic events and useless in a bad situation and always have been.
The elevator doors whoosh open, and Schmidt says, “Mrs. Maddox, this way please.”
I stumble after him down a thick-carpeted hall. Schmidt swipes a keycard at the first room we reach and holds the door open. When I go to walk in, he grabs my arm. “Let Tiller go first, ma’am.”
I forgot. It took me so long to internalize the securityprocedures, but eventually I did, and now I’m forgetting them because nothing is forever, and this was never real. How could it be? Adrian Maddox and me?
It’s stupid to be heartbroken. I was delusional. This could never have been real, and I knew it, too, didn’t I? Deep down?
Tiller passes Winnie to his partner and enters the room with his jacket flap pushed behind his side holster, calling “clear” a minute later. Schmidt gestures for me to enter. It’s a corporate suite, not nearly as well-appointed as Adrian’s personal apartment above, but still nicer than many hotels I’ve stayed in, and I’ve stayed in the best in the world since I’ve been with Adrian.
Tiller is standing at the end of a hallway, holding a door open. “You can change the baby in here, ma’am,” he says.
“Thank you,” I say and try to put Pearl down so she can walk, but she’s clinging to me like an octopus. I should’ve never brought her into the city so late at night. I should’ve hit the close door button on that elevator immediately. My brain is glitching. This is not good.
“I’ll follow with the baby,” Schmidt says.
We traipse down to the room together. Tiller lays Winnie down on the bed, Schmidt drops the leather satchel that acts as a diaper bag on a bureau, and both bodyguards beat feet, closing the door behind them.
I’m not allowed to carry a diaper bag for security reasons. In an emergency, I have to be able to run, and diaper bags could give the bad guys a strap to grab. That’s the same reason I’m not allowed to wear crossbody purses. I can only carry clutches.
Adrian was kidnapped for ransom when he was a kid. They held him for a few days, and he escaped basically unhurt, but it made an impression on him.
He’s always taken my safety seriously, from our very firstofficial date when his people snuck me into the back of Vitale’s to have dinner in a private room. He said being with him painted a target on my back. I thought it was so romantic that he worried about me.
Did Adrian sneak Delaney into the apartment? We’re in Maddox Tower. You have to swipe in or check in at reception, but she works here. She has a badge. Did he walk in with her? Do people know what they’ve been doing?
How long has he been fucking her?
