Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
PAIGE
My body is boneless, cocooned in the warmth of Trevor’s body, his hands reverent on my belly. Tears well up, but I shove them away, biting my lip and curling more snugly against my husband. Husband.
“We should get up before we sleep through the night,” my husband’s sleepy voice mumbles against my hair.
“Mmm.” It’s the best I can do.
He chuckles, the vibrations echoing through our connection. “Do you mind if I take a quick shower here? Change into some of my clothes?”
I groan and sit up, pulling away from him. “You’re no fun.”
He smirks, but I watch him flex his fingers from where they were wrapped around me. “I don’t really feel the need to stake my claim and wear your scent where only my son or sister would be witness.”
“Fair point.” I shake my head, wrinkling my nose.
With a groan, he sits up and slides to the end of the bed. When he stands, instead of taking his clothes off, he walks toward the bathroom. “Whoa, wait, what are you doing?”
Trevor points to the bathroom. “Showering?”
“Clothed?”
He opens his mouth, then snaps it shut. Then a slow, knowing grin fills his stupidly handsome face.
“Do you want me to strip for you, wife?” His pants are still undone, so when he slides his thumbs into the waist of his jeans, they slide down his hips.
He hooks his thumbs into his underwear next, but pauses, raising his brow at me. “Well?”
“Just … get ready for your shower.” I throw a pillow at him, but miss by a mile. Instead of dodging, he laughs and pulls off his shirt. Damn, that body. I bite my lip, and he groans.
“Don’t look at me like that, Paige.” He turns away and walks toward the bathroom. It’s when he’s at the door that he finally slips off his final article of clothing, baring his plump ass before disappearing behind the door.
“Tease.”
I need to pee.
I hop up to follow him into the bathroom, but something stops me.
Uncertainty about lines. Is this too fast?
I end up using the hallway bathroom, putting my robe on, and changing into a pair of sleeping shorts.
Trevor comes out in low-slung gray sweatpants and nothing else, and I know he knows what he’s doing.
Once I finish, I pop back into the kitchen and pick up where we left off when I sliced my finger earlier tonight.
“I need to tell you something.” He sidles in beside me at the sink but then scoots me to the drying position. “Hey.” He nods to my hand, which still has the Band-Aid. “Oh, yeah.”
“What do you need to tell me?”
“That you were amazing this week with Becky and Carter, and their whole sordid situation.”
“I didn’t really do—”
“Stoppit. You absolutely did. You were a protector. You guided a close friend of ours through an incredibly difficult and stressful situation with calm confidence, and that steadiness rubbed off on her.” He avoids looking at me.
“She has major anxiety issues, and you pulled her through it without condescension or belittlement.”
He grunts. I smack him with the drying towel. “Hey.”
“Trevor, you were incredible. You helped in a way I doubt Becky or Carter will ever forget.”
He’s silent while he washes the pan. “It was what you asked me to do. I told you I would help. I helped.”
“You did not help just because I told you to.”
He shrugs and hands me the clean pan. “I absolutely did. I would have helped, yes. But the effort was for you, Paige. It was not about them.”
“You’re talking like you’re not a good person.” I dry it, put it away, and watch him again.
“I’m not a good person.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You’ve done incredible things for multiple people over the years.”
He sighs over the last dish. “Who do you think made me this way?” He hands it to me, and I dry it.
“What do you mean?” I put it away and grab a rag to wipe down the counters. He starts on the sink.
“I mean, who do you think made me give a shit about anyone beyond myself? My parents?”
“Well, no, but this has always been who you are.”
He laughs, shaking his head. “No, baby, it absolutely has not.” He rinses off the sink, then turns to me.
“You are the person who made me this way. I was selfish, self-centered.” I’m shaking my head, but he keeps going.
“You are the reason I could see beyond myself. Your generous heart had to rub off on me, at least a little.”
I walk up to him and press my hand against his chest. “You don’t think you’d have done this—”
“If I didn’t have you? Absolutely not.”
I chew on my bottom lip and contemplate him. “I’ve never thought you were selfish. Not until everything.”
He lifts one shoulder and drops it. “I tried to be better for you. Ever since I saw the light you carried around with you, I knew I had to try and match you if I could ever hope to keep you.”
“You know, Trevor.” I tap him over his heart. “When you’re good for a decade, there’s a chance that you actually are good.” A sound on the stairs makes me take a step back from him, and his face falls before a different smile lights up his face.
I turn around to see Jacob rubbing sleep from his eyes. He’s beaming at his father. “Dad, are you staying?”
Trevor looks at me for confirmation, and when I nod, he responds, “Yeah, kid. I’m staying.”
“Paige? Are you listening to me?” A hand is waving in front of my face. I blink my eyes to see that Becky is looking at me in expectation.
“Oh, umm …”
She laughs. “You look happier. Are you feeling okay? Can we finally talk about that obvious lump under your shirt?”
I nod, biting my lip to keep from laughing or smiling too widely. “Yes. I’m pregnant. With twins.”
“Oh my God!” Becky leaps up into the air and jumps in place. When she stops, she gestures to me, so I jump up with her and lean into her hug. “That is so exciting. And crazy!”
“It’s very exciting and very crazy.”
She leans back, her hazel eyes searching my face. “There’s more you’re not telling me.”
We settle back into the seats, and I fiddle with my cup. “You have to leave for school in thirty minutes. I’m not sure we have time.”
Bethany comes over in her new little apron with her name on a tag. She hands Becky another drink. “Here’s to our hometown hero.”
Becky turns bright red and starts sputtering when she accepts the cup. Bethany and I make eye contact and burst out laughing. “What? What’s so funny?”
I wipe under my eyes. “I bought that for you and t-told Beth to-to bring it here and say it. You reacted exactly how I expected.”
She glares at Bethany, who slides in next to me. “You do deserve the accolades, just so you know.” Bethany sips from her drink and scrunches her nose. “That is a failed experiment.”
“What’s in it?”
“I wanted to make it taste like s’mores. It just tastes like the toasted marshmallow.” I grab it from her and take a sip.
“Oh, God, that’s so good.”
“But not a s’more.”
“Okay, let’s get back on topic.” Becky folds her hands in front of her and leans forward. “I would like to invite everyone over to my place to make a hey, thanks for having my back dinner, and I would love some help. I’m not—”
“Let me host at my house, and you can help me prep!” I interrupt Becky. My dear, lovely friend can’t reheat a piece of pizza without burning something.
Her shoulders sag. “Thank God. I want to do this so badly, but I have an idea for a dessert and nothing else.”
“Oh, what’s the dessert?”
“Well, there are those berries in my yard. Maybe you can come over and help me pick them? Then I’ll come first thing Friday once school is out, and we can get started? I could even leave early since my final hour is planning.”
I nod along. “That sounds perfect, actually.” I pull out my phone to take some notes. “Who all do you want to invite?”
“You, Trevor. Bethany, please come too. Sonya, Vicky, Billy, and Carter. Obviously, Jacob is welcome!”
I nod my head. “We will easily fit in the dining room if I put in the extra leaves.”
“Yay! Okay, I’m so glad. Okay, now I have twenty-five minutes. What has been happening with you?” Bethany squirms next to me, and I shift uncomfortably as well. Becky gapes. “It’s really that bad?”
I slowly nod my head. “Well, it all started about ten years ago, but let’s start with Krista.”
“If Becky comes at you with a knife, I apologize.” I stand outside Trevor’s office, formerly Billy’s office, and lean against the frame.
“Great. I figured that was coming. It’s fine, though. She’s been too nice to me lately because of the lawyer stuff. I need to be knocked down a peg.”
“Yeah, he does.”
“Shut up, Carter!” Trevor shouts.
I snicker. “You love it here, don’t you?”
He scoots back from his desk and stalks up to me, pulling me into the room and shutting the door behind me. My heart leaps into my throat, and my body instantly reacts to his touch, but then he releases me. “They don’t need to know how much I prefer it here.” He grumbles, then pulls me to a chair.
“Are these new?”
“Hmm? Oh, yeah. One of the first things I did.”
“Replace the chairs?”
He grunts. “Trust me.”
“Okay … Can you tell me when everything becomes official?”
He sits in the seat across from me, to my extreme disappointment. “First, they need to take Dick down.”
“That’s what she said.”
He snorts. “Maybe you’ve been spending too much time here.”
I shake my head. “Definitely not. Can you explain it to me? What’s supposed to happen this week?”
“Sure. Let’s see …” He leans back in his seat and looks me over. “Do you know what kickbacks are?”
I nod, then shake my head. “I think it’s where a person or a business gets incentives—I think that’s what they’re called—for referring someone to something?”
“Exactly, or basically. So my father made some deals years and years ago with a handful of individuals, some far shadier than others. He’s made millions in kickbacks over the last few decades. He started before I was born.”
I gasp, then hum. “That actually doesn’t surprise me. What are these companies?”
“They’re random and change semi-annually.
A consultant here, an investment firm there.
I think a car dealership even worked with him.
” I trace a shape on top of the clean desk as I consider his words.
“I found it all out when Dick put me on the fast track to becoming VP. All I could see was the way out.”
I tilt my head to the side. “So you started to … do what exactly?”
“I got a hold of my buddy from the main branch and talked to him about doing a sting operation.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t tell Krista.” I manage not to flinch at her name and mentally pat myself on the back.
“Well, it was originally not meant to touch her. She was supposed to be clean in this whole situation.”
Surprised, I sit up. “Wait, so she’s not clean?”
He shakes his head. “As far as I know, she got involved when she got involved with Bobby. I’m not sure of the details, though, because it quickly evolved into something far more complicated when my buddy came over undercover.”
I bounce in my seat. “So when this all goes down?”
“She will also be answering to charges of conspiracy and fraud at the very least.”
“And your buddy found out—”
“That whatever has been happening at the bank goes far beyond the banking negligence I anticipated.”
“So, you’re a whistleblower.” Why do I love that so much?
He nods. “I am.”
“That’s kind of hot.” He jerks up his head to look at me, then smirks.
“Yeah?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
Bang Bang Bang “Stop flirting with your wife and get back to work!”
“When does this all go down?” I stand up and round the desk to give him a kiss on the cheek.
“Asher will call the night before so I can be there.”
“And we’ll call Joseph to serve our case?”
He stands with me and pulls me into a hug, inhaling my hair. “Yes, and we can be done with them all.” I melt into him when the door flies open.
“Sorry, Suit Boss, I have an issue with a payment.”
“I’m not your boss,” Trevor grumbles, releasing me.
“I’ll see you at home.” I boop his nose, then turn to leave. “Bye, Patrick. Tell your wife thank you for the pie for me. It was amazing.”
“Will do, sugar.” His scraggly face is friendly when I squeeze his arm.
I ignore Trevor’s growl and Patrick’s snicker as I walk out the door.