Spin
With two hours left before his performance, Ashe stood next to Riley outside the Caldwell brownstone. She’d begged him to go to the theater and prepare but he wasn’t about to leave her to face Paige and Clint alone. He held her hand, waiting for her to ring the doorbell, but Riley remained frozen on the top step. Ashe waited. He wasn’t going to ring the doorbell when it was up to Riley to do so; if she preferred to turn around and walk away, he’d stand by her decision.
The last time she’d been here was over six months previously, when she’d confronted Clint and he’d told her the truth about her nephews.
Their parentage and Collette’s theft were matters that must be put behind them, left in the past where they belonged; the only thing that mattered now was to band together and start fighting back. They had to work on a strategy to deal with Collette if Paige and Gareth’s affair came to light.
“Everything will be all right,” said Ashe as he squeezed her hand. “I’ll be right here with you.”
She took a deep breath and gave him a sheepish smile. “I know I gave you a hard time about missing a performance because of this, but I’m glad you’re here. Are you sure you’ll have enough time?”
“I do, so don’t worry about me.”
“If you say so. Well, this is it,” she said, taking a deep breath and ringing the doorbell.
Paige opened the door, and for a few moments the sisters faced each other silently. It was as if time stood still for the women, the weight of their estrangement slowly lifting with each passing second. Ashe felt as if he wasn’t even there, nor Clint, who stood a few feet behind Paige. Tears welled in Paige’s eyes.
“Riley,” said Paige, her voice breaking as she brought her hands together in front of her face. “You’re really here. When Clint told me you were on your way, I wondered if you’d change your mind. I’m so glad you didn’t.”
Paige could be hard, thought Ashe, the result of years of being raised by a hard man like Sid Eames; despite her faults, however, there was no doubt that Paige loved her baby sister.
Riley let go of Ashe’s hand and took a step forward, closing the distance between them as she embraced Paige tightly. Both sisters sobbed at the door while Ashe and Clint looked on.
There was a time when Ashe had thought that Riley shouldn’t give in to her kind heart and forgive her sister, but he had since seen the sadness in Riley’s eyes which hadn’t been there when he’d first met her, when she and Paige used to talk every day, argue and make up again. Paige had been Riley’s best friend when all her other friends had abandoned her, either because she’d done drugs or because she’d stopped. No matter what happened, Paige had always been there.
Paige stepped back and looked at Ashe, her mascara smudged by tears. “Where are my manners?” she murmured. “Please come in.”
As soon as the door closed the sisters hugged again. Ashe offered his hand to Clint, wishing him a good evening and hoping the family had had an uneventful flight from the Hamptons.
“We did, thanks. If you’re wondering why it’s all quiet around the house, the boys are three doors down at Lauren and Frank’s, friends who have twin girls. They’re having a tea party, which I’m sure will quickly become a Lego party if the boys have their way. They should be home in an hour or so,” said Clint. “Why don’t we go into the living room for a bit while the girls catch up? Would you like a Scotch?”
“That would be wonderful, thanks,” Ashe said.
“Sometimes I think they have their own secret language that we men will never be able to decipher,” remarked Clint as he headed toward the living room.
“Not that I’d want to,” replied Ashe, grinning. As he followed Clint into the living room, he noticed that Clint appeared tired, with dark circles under his eyes. He wondered if work was taking its toll on him, although business reports for Clint’s real estate development companies were always positive, the shares maintaining their value. After all, real estate in Manhattan seldom went down.
“Thank you for the audio file, by the way,” said Clint. “There’s no doubt I’m her big fish, and I’m sure she’s already got everything she needs to use against me. If it weren’t for me she’d still be among Hollywood’s top managers, making a lot more money than the eighty grand she took from me. I’m sure that’s peanuts compared to her commissions from your projects alone.”
Clint poured them both a glass of Scotch, straight for Clint and on the rocks for Ashe.
“What do you plan to do?” asked Ashe. In the foyer, Paige and Riley were talking and crying, even giggling now and then. It was such an intimate moment that Ashe felt intrusive even watching them from a distance.
“Spin it, of course,” Clint replied. “I anticipated something of this sort. Collette going after me isn’t really surprising, and if it wasn’t her it would be someone else.”
“Spin what, exactly?”
“The truth about Gareth and Paige,” Clint replied. Ashe frowned, remembering how Gareth had received a phone call shortly after they’d left the hotel following their confrontation with Collette. He’d hesitated to take the call at first, looking at his phone display in dismay. After a quick conversation in hushed tones, Gareth had said he must go to the hotel to speak with Isobel and her father.
Gareth had looked as if the wind had been knocked out of him, but Ashe had been too pumped up from his confrontation with Collette to do anything but give his friend a quick hug.
“You called Gareth, didn’t you?” said Ashe. “Just after I sent you the file.”
“The last thing I want is for Paige’s affair to be plastered all over the gossip columns or alluded to in blind items, because we adults can weather all that, but what about my children?” said Clint, glancing toward Paige. “I set up the groundwork ahead of time, in case something like this happened.”
“Like Collette?”
Clint nodded. “One day my boys will start asking questions. They’ll want to know their father’s health background. They’ll ask if his family has a history of high blood pressure, heart disease or cancer, for instance. What answers will they get then?”
“The truth,” said Ashe.
“Exactly,” replied Clint, smiling ruefully. “This time the truth will already be out there and there’ll be no guesswork; no blind items alluding to indiscretions between adults, mistakes made because they’d had one too many glasses of wine.”
“What will happen to Collette?”
“She’ll never work a day in Hollywood ever again, unless it’s managing some has-been reality star, which I don’t think she could ever bring herself to do,” replied Clint. “In spite of her, my sons won’t be ashamed about the manner in which they came into the world.”
“How so?”
“It will all be in a lifestyle feature in the Times tomorrow,” said Clint. “Keep an eye out for it.”
Ashe gave Clint a quizzical look. “What’s the article about?”
“Five years ago, Paige and I were finding it difficult to have children, since my sperm levels weren’t quite up to par after treatment for prostate cancer; so we considered sperm donation and possibly a surrogate,” explained Clint. “Then we found our answer within the family, through Paige’s sister’s then-boyfriend, Gareth Roman, who agreed to be our sperm donor. Because of him, we now have three lovely boys.”
Ashe glanced at Riley, who was giggling at something Paige had said. “Does Riley know about this article?”
“She’ll hear it tonight from her sister, just as you’ve learned about it from me. That’s what this get-together is about, besides being the long-overdue reunion; it’s not ideal, but it’s a start,” said Clint. Ashe looked again at Riley and Paige, their heads locked together in conversation in the hall. He wished he could go over and make sure she was all right, but she turned to look at him just then and smiled tentatively.
Ashe took a deep breath, accepting that he couldn’t fight all her battles for her. But from the way she was handling herself with Paige, he knew she would be all right. She would survive this.
“I wish Riley would have been better prepared for this before tonight,” he said, turning his attention back to Clint.
“With Collette going after me, what preparation could I have given her?” asked Clint. “This may seem selfish to you, Ashe, but I’m doing it before Collette or anyone else destroys the lives of three innocent children. They’re not even five-years-old. What do you think would happen if Collette spun a story she heard from someone who knows the truth? Even if she had no proof, would that matter to Paige’s friends or our sons’ friends and their parents? How do you think other children and their parents would treat them? Do you think my money would protect them then?”
Ashe shook his head silently. What could he say that hadn’t already been said?
“Come to think of it, it all boils down to reputation, doesn’t it, Ashe? Even for children,” said Clint, chuckling drily. “When this all started, it was your reputation at stake but I knew you would be fine; you have an excellent team guarding your reputation. It’s why word about Catriona never got out then. But now that you’re in demand, your image will not be affected at the slightest. In fact, being a Dominant will only make you more interesting. Not even that BDSM script being shopped around can touch you. Catriona, on the other hand, I’m not so sure, but it doesn’t seem to hurt her prospects at all.”
“The script was all Collette’s doing,” said Ashe.
“Then it’s dead in the water. It would have been a real draw if it had been Catriona’s story. Imagine learning that certain members of Parliament like having their dick and balls in a vice! I’m sure you know your share of people, Ashe, if both of you were involved in that scene.”
“If I did, I would not say anything, not for any price.”
“That’s what I thought.”
They watched Paige and Riley talking, though this time Riley followed Paige into the kitchen to see some new kitchen tile Paige had had installed. “Did you know that Riley was barely out of her teens when I started seeing Paige? Everywhere I would take Paige to impress her—Paris, Milan, the Bahamas—Riley came too. Taking her sister along was Paige’s condition if I wanted to go on seeing her. After all, Riley’s her only family.”
“What about Sid?” asked Ashe. “He’s family, too.”
“He was family. Even then, all he really did was ask for money,” said Clint. “The sums increased when he figured that Paige had hit the big-time by marrying an old fart like me.”
“What do you mean, he was?” asked Ashe. “Has Paige disowned her father?”
Clint nodded. “A few weeks ago, right after the article about Riley’s arrest and the sealed records—recycled news from three years ago when she was represented by Lloyd, Herrick and Waterston. As if kids never get into trouble! I knew Sid had a beef with Kyle Lloyd, but I never figured out why.”
“He could be her real father although only a DNA test will confirm that.”
“So I heard,” Clint said.
“He’s been having coffee at the Library every day for the past three years.”
“We all do what we can, Ashe. There are fathers who have to love their daughters from a distance, and fathers like me; I may not be related to my boys by blood, but that doesn’t make me any less their father,” Clint said, taking another sip of his Scotch before setting his glass on the bar. “And that’s why I’m not about to let that bitch destroy my family.”
“Hence tomorrow’s article,” murmured Ashe.
“It’s part of a series about surrogate parents, egg and sperm donation and all that kind of thing,” Clint said. “Parents who can’t have children naturally and same-sex couples having children through surrogates, extreme cases like making arrangements between friends: we were a perfect fit, with Gareth volunteering to be the sperm donor for the triplets.”
“He didn’t really have much choice, did he?”
Clint shook his head. “None of us does, not if we want to protect the boys.”
“The article will name him. That’s why he looked shell-shocked earlier.”
“It’s a good spin, isn’t it? That way the boys don’t get hurt, although I can’t guarantee how Gareth will fare with Isobel when she finds out,” said Clint.
“He’ll survive,” Ashe said ruefully, remembering Isobel and her temper. As long as Gareth stayed out of her way for a few weeks, their relationship would probably survive.
Then there was Riley.
“There’s no other choice, Ashe,” continued Clint, as if reading his mind. “If Collette gets her way, she will destroy us all; so whatever I do or don’t do, someone gets hurt. I hope that Paige and I can make it up to her someday.”
“Thank you for letting me know. I need to leave soon. The play must go on,” said Ashe as he shook Clint’s hand, feeling a touch of sadness as Paige and Riley emerged from the kitchen.
As the two sisters approached, Ashe was struck by Riley’s wide smile and the sparkle in her blue eyes. Gone was the woman of that morning, crying against his chest after learning that she was the product of an affair. Riley’s face was happier than Ashe had seen it since her estrangement from her sister six months previously and their visit to Catriona’s club.
As Riley bounded toward him the world felt much brighter to Ashe, the promise of a future together growing stronger with each step she took. He saw that the mistakes he’d made were part of his fallibility as a man: a man deeply in love.