Chapter 15 I’ve Got You
I’VE GOT YOU
PAIGE
My phone rang at midnight.
I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling and unable to sleep. The gala kept replaying in my mind. Jack’s face when he saw us, the photographers capturing Derek carrying me down the stairs, the weight of his arms around me feeling perfect for something that was supposed to be fake.
The phone rang again, and my stomach dropped seeing Jack’s caller ID.
I should ignore it and let it go to voicemail, but a small part of me needed to hear what he had to say.
I grabbed my robe and padded quietly to the living room, not wanting to wake Lily.
“Jack—”
“You’re fucking him, aren’t you?” He said, his voice slurring, and I knew he was drunk. “How long, Paige? How long have you been whoring yourself to my friend?”
His words hit like a physical blow.
“You’re drunk. We’re not doing this—”
“Answer the damn question!”
“I’m not sleeping with Derek. We are just friends, and now we have—”
“Bullshit! You moved in with him, Paige. And now you’re all over the internet, looking at him like… like—” His voice cracked, and I heard him take a deep breath. “I-I saw the photos. Everyone saw them. You’re making a fool of me.”
“I’m making a fool of you?” I scoffed. “You’re the one who brought your mistress! You stood there with Olivia, my friend, and you have the audacity to call me a whore?”
A light turned on down the hall. Derek was in sweatpants and a t-shirt, his hair disheveled, with concern written all over his face. I shook my head at him, trying to wave him away, but he sat beside me, turning on the speaker.
“She means nothing,” Jack snapped. “It was a fucking mistake, and you know it. But y-you’re parading around with Peterson like some kind of—”
“Don’t,” I said, my voice trembling. “Don’t you dare—”
“I’ll take Lily,” he said calmly, his words making me freeze. “In the custody battle. I’ll take her, Paige. No judge will give a child to a mother who moved in with another man immediately after separating. Who brought her daughter into a sick revenge scheme—”
Derek took the phone from me. His jaw was tight when he calmly said, “You need to stop.”
“Fuck you, man,” Jack said, his laugh slurring. “Y-you swooped in the second things got hard. Some friend you are.”
“Things ‘got hard’?” Derek’s voice dropped lower. “You cheated on your wife while she was raising your infant daughter alone. You don’t get to play victim here, Jack.”
“I made one mistake! One! And she—”
“You made a choice. You invited another woman into your bed while your family slept down the hall. That wasn’t a mistake. That was your stupid decision to destroy your marriage.”
“So you’re just going to take her? Take everything I—” Jack said, and I heard the sound of glass breaking in the background. “I’ll take Lily. I swear to God I’ll take her. No judge will—”
“I’m recording this,” Derek interrupted him, his voice firm but his hand warm on my hand, squeezing it.
“Every threat you just made. Every time you called Paige a whore. Every word about taking Lily. You want to play this game, Jack? I’ll bury you in court.
I’ll make sure every judge in this city knows exactly who you are. ”
There was nothing but heavy breathing from the other side.
“Call Paige again,” Derek continued, “and I’ll add harassment to the list of things we discuss with your divorce attorney.”
He hung up and blocked his number. Then he set the phone down on the coffee table and turned to me.
I was shaking.
Lily. My daughter.
My body trembled, and I couldn’t seem to stop, couldn’t seem to breathe properly, couldn’t—
“Paige,” Derek said, warm hands cupping my face. “Breathe. He can’t hurt you. I won’t let him hurt you.”
“He’s going to take her,” I gasped, my vision turning blurry. “He’s going to take Lily. He said… the judge will—”
“No,” he said. “No judge will give custody to a man who cheated on his wife and then threatened her over the phone. We have it recorded, Paige. He just handed us ammunition.”
“But he’s right,” I said, my voice wavering. “I moved in with you so fast, and we’re pretending to date, and when the truth comes out—”
“The truth won’t come out,” he whispered, his thumbs brushing away tears I hadn’t realized were falling. “Even if it did, you left an unsafe situation. You protected your daughter. No court will fault you for that.”
Something inside me cracked. Not because of Jack’s words, but because hearing him say those things, hearing the bitterness in his voice where sweetness used to be made it real.
My marriage was over. Truly, completely over.
There was no going back. Years of my life, gone. The future I had imagined, growing old with Jack, raising Lily together, building a family… all of it was broken.
A wet sob escaped from my throat. Then another, and suddenly I was crying for the first time in days. Not quite tears, but ugly sobs that shook my body.
Derek pulled me against his chest, his arms wrapping around me tight. “It’s okay,” he murmured into my hair. “Let it out. I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.”
I cried into his shirt, my fingers clutching the fabric. I cried for my failed marriage, for the man I thought Jack was, for the life I lost. I cried for being so stupid, so blind, and so desperate to believe in something that was already dead.
Derek didn’t try to stop me or tell me it would be okay. He just held me, one hand stroking my hair, and the other rubbing my back.
I don’t know how long we sat there. Long enough for my sobs to quiet into hiccupping breaths. Long enough for my tears to soak through his shirt. Long enough for me to feel the exhaustion creeping in.
Then I heard it. Lily’s cry from down the hall.
“I’ll get her,” Derek said, even though I was already trying to stand.
“No, it’s okay. I shou—”
“Paige,” he said, his hand on my shoulder keeping me seated. “Let me.”
He disappeared down the hall before I could argue. I heard the guest room door open, heard Lily’s cries intensify for a moment and then soften as Derek spoke in low, soothing tones.
After a moment, I followed him and stood in the doorway watching my daughter and my boss.
Derek had Lily against his shoulder, one hand supporting her head, the other rubbing gentle circles on her back. He was swaying slightly, a rocking motion that worked magic on fussy babies.
And he was singing.
He was so off-key, it would have been funny if it weren’t so sweet. I recognized the melody, something from a Disney movie. He didn’t know all the words, humming through the parts he forgot, but Lily didn’t seem to mind.
She was already settling, her cries fading and her little fist clutching Derek’s shirt the same way mine had minutes ago.
“That’s it,” Derek whispered, still swaying. “That’s my girl. Back to sleep. Nothing to worry about. Uncle Derek’s got you.”
Uncle Derek.
It made my chest ache.
Jack had never done that. I could count on one hand the number of times he got up with her in the middle of the night.
He always had an excuse—work early in the morning, exhausted from a long day, she wanted me anyway.
I told myself it was fine, that new dads struggled with bonding and hoped it would get better.
But watching Derek—someone who had no obligation to my daughter, who was doing it out of pure kindness—I realized how low I had set the bar.
Lily’s eyes were drooping, her body relaxing in Derek’s arms. He kept singing anyway, kept swaying, kept being exactly what she needed without being asked.
My childhood friend, my boss, my fake boyfriend, was showing me what I deserved. What Lily deserved. Not grand gestures or expensive gifts, but presence, consistency, and someone who showed up when things got hard instead of running away.
Derek looked up and saw me in the doorway. “Sorry about the singing,” he whispered with a sheepish smile. In the shadow of moonlight, with his ruffled bed-hair, he looked boyish and handsome, reminding me of our early days. “I know I’m terrible, but she doesn’t seem to care.”
“You’re perfect,” I said, and meant it.
His smile widened, and he carefully lowered Lily back into her crib, tucking the blue crochet blanket around her. She sighed in her sleep, completely at peace, and Derek stood there for a moment watching her, his expression soft in a way I had never seen before.
No, wait. I had. When I had given birth to Lily and I was hazy with epidural. I remembered the way he looked at me and my daughter.
When he turned back to me, I was standing in the doorway and trying to process what I was feeling.
“You okay?” he asked.
No, I wasn’t okay. I was falling for him—had already fallen, and was just now realizing how much.
“Yeah,” I lied. “Thank you. For everything. The phone call, holding me, taking care of Lily. You didn’t have to—”
“I wanted to,” he said, moving closer, and in the dim light of the hallway, his eyes looked impossibly blue. “Paige, you don’t have to thank me for basic human decency. For caring about you and Lily.”
“Most people wouldn’t—”
“I’m not most people. I’m your childhood friend.” His hand came up to cup my face, thumb brushing across my cheek. “And you deserve so much more than what Jack gave you. You know that, right?”
I couldn’t speak. I stood there as Derek looked at me like I was something precious, something worth protecting, something worth—
“Get some sleep,” he said softly, dropping his hand. “Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
I nodded, pulling away from him.
This wasn’t real. I needed to remember that.