Chapter 26
MOLLY
The ideal moment to tell Joshua about Autumn passes, and I let it.
Because what choice do I have? I should have told him earlier, but I also let that opportunity slip through my fingers like sand, and now it’s too late.
There’s no way to go back, no way to fix it.
If I tell him now, it will change everything, and I can’t risk that.
I want him. Oh my God, how I want him. I want more than a night tangled up in sheets and stolen moments behind office doors. I don’t care that we work together. I don’t care about the rules I swore I’d follow. But I do care about Autumn. And that’s why I can never be with Joshua.
Because I don’t know what Joshua would do if he knew about her.
And that uncertainty, that unknown, is enough to keep my mouth shut.
Because if I tell him, and he reacts the wrong way and tells me he wants nothing to do with her, or if he only stays because he feels like he has to, and then ends up resenting us both, I will never forgive him.
And worse, I will never forgive myself for leaving us open to that kind of heartache.
I know all of this, and I know I’m doing the right thing, but it’s so hard to stick to my so-called rules, especially like this – post coital, naked, and cuddled into Joshua, the smell of our sex still tangy in the air. I have to move, or I’m going to end up blurting out something I will regret.
I force myself to stand up and Joshua groans beside me.
“What’s wrong?” he says as I begin to gather up my clothes.
“Nothing,” I say. “I just need to go to the bathroom.”
“Wait,” Joshua says as I go towards the door.
I turn back to see what he wants, hoping he’s not going to try and convince me to have sex with him again, because resisting him is only going to get harder each time I have to say no.
“Get dressed in here,” he says. I go to object, but he shakes his head. “I’m not being weird. Please don’t tell anyone else, but there is CCTV out there. You’ll be on camera naked.”
“Wait what? There are cameras in the bathroom?” I say, shocked and disgusted by his admission.
“God no,” he says quickly. “They are in the communal areas such as hallways, stairwells, the elevator and the lobby. They aren’t in break rooms, offices and obviously not in bathrooms. I meant you would be on camera walking down the hallway.
Technically, there’s only me with access to the footage, but that’s just here.
I’m sure people at the firm that manage the cameras’ storage space and whatnot can look at it. I just thought you should know.”
“Ok, thank you,” I say. “And sorry for assuming you had the bathrooms monitored.”
I move back into the office a bit and start to get dressed.
Joshua makes no secret of the fact he is watching me.
I should feel self-conscious, but somehow, I don’t.
Maybe it’s because it’s nothing he hasn’t seen before.
Maybe it’s because he’s still naked. Or maybe it’s because I feel so comfortable and natural with him in this moment that I don’t need to be embarrassed.
“What’s with the secret cameras then?” I say when I’m halfway dressed.
“It was my father who had them installed. There had been a few thefts reported from various employees, personal items from their purses or desk drawers. My father wanted to catch the thief without invading people’s privacy so he had the cameras installed in public areas and it showed who was going into offices they shouldn’t be in, and he found the thief,” he tells me.
“I’m not sure why he kept it from his employees after that, but I didn’t want to come in and tell them about it straight away, because who would believe this wasn’t just the new boss spying on them.
And of course, by the time I had settled in enough to hope they wouldn’t think so little of me, the moment to come clean had passed. ”
I know all about that and so I nod my head.
“Makes sense,” I say. “Clever of your father, and I like that he cared enough about his employees’ personal stuff to actually go to those lengths.”
I’m fully dressed now, and I head for the office door again.
I go and use the bathroom and come back.
It’s strange how quiet the office is, almost spooky, and although I don’t for a second think there are any ghosts here, I can’t help but quicken my pace on the way back to the office.
I was going to stop at my desk to brush my hair, but instead, I just grab my purse and keep walking. Paranoid? Me? Never.
I go in and find Joshua has put his pants and shoes back on, and I assume his boxer shorts.
He has his shirt on, the sleeves rolled up and the top button open, the shirt untucked.
I can see his tie peeking out of his jacket pocket where it hangs on the coat hooks inside of the door.
I’m aware that he looks casual but put together and I look like I’ve been dragged around by my hair for five minutes.
I sit down in the same place I was sitting beside Joshua, although now at a respectable distance from him.
I dig in my purse for my hairbrush and find it and pull it through my hair.
I feel better once I have my mane tamed a bit, when I put my hairbrush back into my purse, my hand touches something made of foil, and I remember I haven’t taken my birth control pill.
What a day to forget that. As much as I love Autumn and I wouldn’t be without her, I don’t want a repeat of the last time I spent a night with Joshua, and I stand up again.
“I need some water,” I say.
“Sit down. I’ll get it,” Joshua says.
I sit back down and wait for him to leave the office to go to the kitchen, but instead he goes over to the drinks’ cabinet. Inside is a small fridge and from there, he gets a bottle of Evian and comes back and hands it to me.
“Thanks,” I say.
I uncap the water and have a long drink and then I put it down on the coffee table, the bottle still open, while I get my birth control pill out. Joshua sees me popping the pill out of its foil.
“Are you ok?” he says.
“Yeah. It’s my birth control,” I say.
“Wow. You’re right on top of that. We’ve barely finishing and you’re taking your birth control,” he says.
I can’t read his expression when he says it. I don’t know if he’s joking around, or if he’s relieved that I’m being so careful, or if he’s a bit pissed off that I’m taking it.
“I usually take it before bed, and I just remembered it,” I say.
I hope his reply will make his earlier comment clearer, but he doesn’t get a chance to reply because his cell phone rings, and he looks at the screen.
“It’s the super,” he says and then he takes the call. He says yes a few times, and then thank you, and then we’ll be right down. “Our knight in shining armor is here.”
Joshua pushes himself up off the couch and straightens his shirt. I get up too and pick my purse up while Joshua puts his jacket on. We leave his office and stop by my desk so I can grab my own jacket.
I hope he doesn’t notice how my hands shake as I put my jacket on.
My heart feels too full, too heavy, like I’m carrying the weight of everything I haven’t said.
I know if we leave here tonight without me telling Joshua about Autumn that I probably never will.
And I realize that I’m ok with that. Or at least as ok with it as I can be.
“Let’s go,” I say with a smile, and we head to the elevators.
We ride down and as the doors ping open, I see a man pacing back and forth across the lobby floor. The sound of his footsteps echo loudly across the mostly empty space, the sound followed by a jingle sound coming from the large bunch of keys he’s holding in one hand.
The building superintendent barely looks at us as he swings the door open, muttering something about faulty locks. Joshua and I both thank him as we pass him, and he mutters a you’re welcome before closing and locking the front door and disappearing back into the night without another word
“Friendly guy,” Joshua comments with a grin.
“We did get him out of bed in the middle of the night and have him come down here,” I remind him, although I can’t help but smile too.
Joshua and I step into the night, heading for the parking lot.
The crisp night air bites at my skin, and I inhale deeply, trying to ground myself.
I wait for regret to hit me over what we’ve just done, but it doesn’t.
What does hit me is the need for more. I ignore that little voice and I tell myself what we did was a good way to get him out of my system and that’s the end of anything between us.
I don’t think I believe it even as I’m thinking it, but I tried.
"Where are you headed?" Joshua asks, turning to me as we reach my car.
"Home," I lie. "I’ll see you tomorrow."
He studies me for a beat, as if he can sense the falsehood in my words, but then he nods.
"Enjoy the rest of your night," he says.
“I’m pretty sure it will just be me crashing,” I say.
Another lie. I get into my car before I can see Joshua’s expression to see if he has picked up on my lie once more.
In hindsight, I don’t’ know why I didn’t just say I was going to my mom’s.
I was afraid that he would ask me why the hell I was visiting my mom at four am, which is a reasonable enough question which is why I lied.
I guess it’s funny that I feel ashamed of myself for lying to him when it’s such a small, insignificant lie that makes no difference to anything in the big scheme of things, yet I have convinced myself that it’s ok to hide Joshua’s daughter from him. Yeah, I’m weird like that. Sue me.
The drive to my mom’s is quiet, the city lights blurring past me, my fingers tightening around the steering wheel with every mile. By the time I pull into her driveway, my chest is tight with a mix of exhaustion and an emotion I can’t name and don’t want to explore too deeply.
The house is dark except for the faint glow of the porch light, and when I slip inside, I move as silently as I can, my feet carrying me upstairs, avoiding the fifth stair that creaks, and then to the small room at the end of the hall.
Autumn sleeps curled up in her little bed, one tiny hand fisted around the edge of her blanket, her face peaceful in the dim, silvery light of the moon that shines through her curtains.
My heart clenches at the sight of her, a fresh wave of love crashing over me so forcefully that it nearly knocks the air from my lungs.
She is everything to me, my whole world in this tiny package. She is the reason I breathe, the reason I keep going. And no matter how much I want Joshua, no matter how much I ache for him, I will always put her first.
I drop to my knees beside her bed, brushing a loose curl from her forehead.
"Hey, baby girl," I whisper, even though she’s fast asleep. "Mommy’s here."
She stirs slightly, sighing in her sleep, and I let my fingers linger, tracing the curve of her cheek.
Would Joshua see her and know? Would he look at her and see himself reflected back? Or would he only see obligation, responsibility and a life he never asked for, never wanted?
I can’t do that to her. I won’t.
I press a kiss to her forehead, letting my lips linger there for a moment before pulling back.
"I love you, sweetheart. So, so much."
And in its simplest terms, that’s why I can never tell him about her.