Chapter 20
Thomas
I looked at my bank account in the morning and found an obscene amount of money. I’d just gotten the biggest fucking paycheck I’d ever made in my life. I knew working with Bridget Meyers would be lucrative, but this was more than I’d ever imagined. The amount of money that dropped into my account would keep Lacey and me on track for two solid months, so I decided to keep Lacey home from school to celebrate.
“Daddy, where are we going?” she asked.
“We’re going to spend the day together. That all right?”
“Yeah!” she said. “Can we get ice cream?”
“Of course. You want a new dress?”
“Yay! New dress and ice cream!”
“New dress and ice cream, it is,” I said.
We slipped into a dress store, and Lacey wanted to try on every dress she saw. Green ones, pink ones, and blue ones with sparkles. The smile on her face crinkled her eyes so much, I didn’t think she could see out of them. The happiness in my daughter’s eyes was enough to make me consider keeping my job. If I could spoil her like this every week with the money Bridget was paying me, I’d happily deal with this dumbass secret she was keeping.
Granted, I wasn’t happy that she willingly came around my daughter without my knowing who she was. I’d essentially brought someone around my daughter who wasn’t who she said she was, and I didn’t even get a heads up before I made the decision to bring her around.
And I didn’t like that.
“Daddy, do you like these shoes?”
Lacey wore a green and yellow dress she had settled on, with matching shoes she found rummaging in the back. She looked like an absolute dream, and for a split second, I saw a full-grown woman standing in front of me. I felt my eyes water while she gave me a twirl, and I snatched a little purse off the rack and handed it to her.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“I think it’s perfect,” she said.
“Ready for some ice cream?”
“Yeah!”
I ripped the tags off the clothes and took them to the counter. I figured she would want to wear her new ensemble to get ice cream, which meant I was in for a dry-cleaning trip later on. But it didn’t matter to me. Anything to make my daughter happy was worth a bit of extra effort.
“You know what kind of ice cream you want?” I asked.
“Chocolate and strawberry,” she said. “With gummy bears and sprinkles.”
“That’s a lot of sugar for one little girl. You sure you want all that?”
“I’m not little, and of course!”
“You are, too, little,” I said. “You’ll always be my little girl to me.”
We pulled into the parking lot, and Lacey practically fell out of the van trying to get inside. The entire time, she bounced with excitement while I made her a massive cup of ice cream. She kept pointing at new items and new flavors, and by the time we were done, her ice cream was filled with blue raspberry and watermelon with gummy bears and an oreo.
“Now, if you can’t finish it all, we can take it home, all right?” I asked.
“All right,” she said, her mouth full of ice cream.
“Did you enjoy today?” I asked.
“Yeah. But I think Bridget would’ve liked it, too.”
I stopped eating and looked at my daughter. Had she said what I thought she said?
“What was that, honey?” I asked.
“Is Bridget your girlfriend? Because if she is, she would’ve liked today.”
“No, she’s not my girlfriend,” I said. “She’s my boss.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, I really like Bridget. Is she gonna come back over soon?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You like her, right?”
Her big doe eyes looked up at me, and all I could do was sympathize with her. The truth was, I did like Bridget. Or Kimberly. Or whatever her name was. If Bridget really was the same woman with just a different name, then it meant I really liked her. But she lied to me about who she was. She had fundamentally lied to me about who she was and what she enjoyed and how she lived her life.
Was it possible I had been wrong?
“Please let her come over soon. Okay, Daddy? Promise?”
I looked back over to my daughter, whose eyes were begging me for her new friend. A young, attractive woman that had come into my life that had swept my daughter off her feet.
“I promise,” I said.
Because the truth was, I did like her. And the job was good for both myself and my daughter financially. Bridget was a great person to be around and a hell of a woman in bed. Couldn’t that just be enough for now?
I needed to talk to her.
“Lacey. How would you feel about Nannie watching you tonight?”
“Yeah! Movies and popcorn!”
I got my mom on the phone and explained the situation. I told her I had an important conversation with my boss tonight and that I needed the time off to address some issues before Monday. She completely understood and told me to drop Lacey off around eight, which was perfect because I could pick us up some late dinner, and we could talk over something we both felt comfortable doing.
Eating.
“I’ll be back in the morning to get you, all right?” I asked.
“Are you going to see Bridget?” she asked.
“I am. I gotta talk with her for a little bit before work on Monday. Is that all right?”
“Could you give her a hug for me?”
“Of course.”
My daughter flung her arms around my neck and held me tightly. I knew she was giving me a hug to pass on to Bridget, and tears welled in my eyes when I felt just how tightly she was hanging on. This woman had definitely made an impression on my daughter, and I knew I couldn’t rob her of that if I had a chance to work through things with her.
The rest, we could figure out later.
When I got into my car and started down the road, I felt my phone vibrate at my hip. I pulled into a place that had wonderful salads in the hopes that food would lighten the conversation I was about to have with my boss-slash-whatever the hell this was. I was about to ignore the phone call until my gut told me to pick it up, but as soon as I heard crying on the other end, I pulled out of the drive through lane and started down the road.
“Bridget, where are you?” I asked.
“At-at the club. M-M-Mr. Jeffries, I know you don’t—”
“The club where you and Rachel were at when I went with you?” I asked.
“Yes.”
I whipped my car around in the middle of the road and stepped on the gas. I left food behind in the rearview mirror of my car while I tried to get Bridget to calm down long enough to tell me what was going on, but every single bad scenario kept flooding my mind. She had been raped, she had been taken, someone had cornered her in the bathroom, or maybe there was a gunman at the club.
“Bridget. Take a few deep breaths. I’m on my way. What’s going on?”
I heard banging on a door in the background and felt my heart leap into my throat. Bridget’s crying got louder and more hysterical as I whipped myself onto the highway. I was still ten minutes out from the damn club downtown, and then there was the matter of parking and getting in.
I’d never leave this girl alone again so long as I was working for her.
“What is happening?” I asked.
“I… I came out to... to clear my head,” she said. “And someone... a guy… he, um…”
The banging happened again, and Bridget yelped, and I wondered where the fuck the bouncer was. Wasn’t he paid to take care of this kind of shit?
“I’m being stalked, Mr. Jeffries,” she choked out.
“Stay on the phone with me, Bridget. I’m almost there.”
She kept crying into the phone while I kept running red lights. I barreled down the road as the club came into view. The bouncer was standing at the door, gawking at all the beautiful women in line without a care in the world as to what the hell was going on in the club he was protecting.
I’d deal with that fucker later. Right now, I had to get to Bridget.
I had to make sure she was all right.
“I’m coming in,” I told her. “Do you hear me? Stay put.”
I hung up the phone and pulled up to the curb. The bouncer spotted me and gave me a nasty look before he asked me where the hell I had been.
“I saw her walk in without you, and I almost didn’t let her in,” he said.
“I’ll deal with you later.”
The man looked confused and that was all the more reason to rip his fucking job from him. A club was only as safe as the bouncer in charge of it, and obviously, this one was no longer safe if he had no idea what the hell was going on with a high-profile celebrity within it. I shoved people out of my way as I worked toward the bathrooms, thinking that was the only place she could possibly be with all the sounds I heard on the phone.
“Bridget?” I roared. “Bridget!”
Just then, I saw someone scurry from within the women’s bathroom. I didn’t get a good look at their face before they dipped into the crowd and made their way for the back exit. Part of me wanted to go after them. I wanted to dent their face in with my fist before throwing their body into the bouncer and ruining both of their lives.
But the sobbing I could hear, even from the water fountain outside the bathroom, ripped me from my raging trance.