Quid Pro Quo
The next day Ashe found himself standing in front of the Caldwell brownstone, having taking two hours off from rehearsals. He felt he really shouldn’t be there, but he’d promised Riley that he’d speak to Paige and see if she knew anything about the man who had done the drawings. Of course, he could have asked Paige first if there was any truth in their father’s admission, but it was too late to think of that now.
He rang the doorbell and waited, looking up and down the street to see if there were any photographers. There weren’t, of course, since Catriona wasn’t there to orchestrate it as she had done the previous night. He was certain that she had been responsible, though the fan who first posted a photo hadn’t helped either.
The door opened and Paige Eames-Caldwell stood there, pausing for a few moments before inviting him in. The Caldwells were among the play’s private investors, a fact Ashe had known when he’d agreed to take over the lead role after the original actor had broken his leg on location.
The boys were spending the day with Riley, and Ashe was struck by the quiet of the brownstone without them running about. She usually met them for story time at the library or accompanied them to the museum once a week; today, she was taking them to the Intrepid Museum. Ashe was glad that, even though the sisters were estranged, Paige didn’t curtail Riley’s time with her nephews.
“Clint is at his office uptown. He says hello, by the way, and would have loved to see you today,” said Paige. At thirty-four, she was eleven years older than Riley, but with her long blonde hair and blue eyes, they’d be like identical twins if not for the difference in height. Paige stood almost six feet tall while Riley was a petite five feet four inches, the top of her head barely reaching Ashe’s shoulder.
“I’ll see him on opening night,” replied Ashe. “I came here today to speak with you.”
“I have a few questions for you as well. What would you like to talk about? Is Riley okay with you being here?”
“Of course,” said Ashe, accepting a glass of water from Paige and shaking his head when she pointed toward the bar.
“Well, what’s going on? How is my baby sister doing? You two seem to be in the news a lot lately,” remarked Paige as they sat down in the living room. Though a former model, Paige was now a lifestyle blogger and, according to Forbes, her brand was worth millions. She used to post pictures of her children but after falling out with Riley she had stopped, choosing to focus her attention on the products she promoted instead.
“Riley’s doing very well. Don’t forget, you can’t believe everything you read in the papers.”
“What can I do for you? You told me over the phone that it was important.”
“It is. Your father told me something two weeks ago and I would like some confirmation,” Ashe began. Paige’s smile disappeared from her face, replaced by a look of confusion.
“My father? Why did you see him? Was Riley with you?”
“I went to inquire about a little book your mother had made for her. No, I went alone.”
“What happened? Did you find it?”
“Your father gave it to me after I’d paid him a visit and asked about it. He said it had been on his business premises all this time,” replied Ashe.
She stared at him incredulously. “Really? Is it in good condition?”
“Yes, it is,” said Ashe. He retrieved the picture book from his backpack and handed it to Paige. She placed it on her lap, looking silently at the drawing that graced the front and their mother’s handwriting in different colors. Though her fingers traced the words, she didn’t open the book.
“You’re a good man for seeking this out. I thought it had been lost in the fire,” she said, smiling wistfully.
“I want to know about the man who did the drawings. Do you know anything about him?” He didn’t want to waste time in courtesies, and he was grateful that Paige seemed to feel the same way.
“What makes you think someone else did the drawings? I thought my mother drew these.”
“She wrote the rhymes, yes, but the drawings aren’t hers,” Ashe told her. “Riley said that someone else did them, but she doesn’t know who he is. She has vague memories of him, always wearing a suit; he reminded her of Cary Grant. Do you know to whom she’s referring? There aren’t that many men who can achieve that Cary Grant look.”
“In our business, you dress up a man in a tailored suit and suddenly he’s Cary Grant with all the attitude; even you,” she replied. “Unfortunately, I don’t know who it was.”
“Your father told me something about Riley that day,” Ashe said as Paige handed him the book, which he slipped into his backpack. “He told me that she’s not his daughter.”
“Excuse me? Was he drunk?” Paige said, laughing. When Ashe didn’t answer, she grew serious. “And you believe him?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
She paused, frowning. “I hope to God you didn’t tell her.”
“Why not?” Ashe said. “Why are you so intent on keeping things from her? Riley’s not a child; if that’s how you see her, you need to let her grow up.”
“By telling her a lie like that so soon after she found out the truth about her nephews?”
“Your affair, you mean? I know the timing is terrible, but why would your father lie about such a thing?”
She stared at him. “You told her.”
“I did, yes.”
Paige got up from the couch and stood by the window, her arms folded in front of her. “I can’t believe you told her that. She must have been devastated.”
“Would you have preferred me to wait five years, Paige, the way you did before telling her the truth about what happened between you and Gareth? All that time running her life as if she was the only one who’d ever made a mistake?” Ashe stood up and walked toward her. “Why do you always shut her away from reality?”
“Just like you keep your past from her?” said Paige coldly. “I’m not the only one in this room who keeps the truth from her, Ashe. In your case, it’s out in the open now, thanks to blind items and leaked quotes here and there. I expected a few skeletons in your closet; it’s only to be expected. A few ex-girlfriends, maybe even a boyfriend—but BDSM? You being a Dominant, into floggers, cuffs and all that? You should see the stuff they’re writing about this British Prince Charming. They’re so juicy they couldn’t possibly be true.”
“Don’t believe everything you read on the internet, Paige.”
“Why don’t we make a deal? I’ll tell you what I know about the man who did the drawings in that book, and you tell me what the hell is going on between you and Catriona,” suggested Paige. “Did you know they’re now saying that Riley is your plaything, your slave?”
“Like I said, Paige, don’t believe everything you read. They do sell ad space, don’t they?”
“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” she murmured.
After a pause, Ashe forced himself to relax. He was here to get answers, and he shouldn’t have expected to get them without difficulty. He hadn’t come here to argue. “Very well. Ladies first: what do you know about the man who drew Riley’s book?”
“I’ll need to start the story with my mother. No matter what I tell you, I don’t want you to think ill of her; okay?” said Paige. Ashe nodded; as far as he was concerned, Millie Eames walked on water. “She was originally from the Lower East Side and she met my dad at a flea market. Her parents weren’t thrilled, of course. He was a kid from the wrong side of the tracks and she was supposed to marry someone she had grown up with. She became pregnant with me a few months later and they disowned her. She and Dad moved to Jackson Heights, where his father owned a car repair shop; the same shop he runs, or tries to run when he’s not too busy drinking himself to death.”
As he listened to Paige, he watched her pour herself two fingers of Scotch and take a sip. She grimaced as the alcohol hit her throat, and rested the shot glass on the counter.
“When I was ten, they split up and Mom and I moved into a studio flat in the city. By that time I was already modeling and being in the city made it convenient for me to go to my shoots after class. That’s when I met her parents, my maternal grandparents. Since they’d disowned her they’d never bothered to send as much as a card, not even for me. When they found out that she had left him, though, suddenly they were there, pushing her to divorce him.”
“Why did they separate?”
“He hit her one night, maybe more than once; I don’t remember,” Paige replied. “He’d started drinking after his father died and he’d inherited the shop. Looking back, I don’t think that running the shop was what he really wanted. He was good with cars and he liked repairing them, but having to invoice and collect and do everything else drove him nuts. Mom threatened to leave him for good if he didn’t straighten up, and so we left the house and moved into the city.”
“For how long?”
Paige shrugged. “Almost a year. She wanted him to finish his stint with AA.”
Ashe almost laughed out loud. Sid was in dire need of another stint in rehab. “An apartment in the city would have been expensive. Did your father pay for that?”
“No. Mom’s family did, as long as she agreed to file for divorce; she never did divorce him, though.”
“Is that how she met the man who made the drawings?” he asked. “Did your mother meet him during the separation?”
Paige bit her bottom lip and gazed out the window without answering.
“Is that why your father said what he did? He’s right then, isn’t he? Riley was conceived during that period.”
“How should I know?” Paige snapped. “All I know is that after Dad completed his stint with AA, Mom and I moved back in and life went back to normal. Mom became pregnant and had Riley prematurely.”
“Are you sure she was premature, or was that a convenient story?”
She glared at him. “I was ten, Ashe. All I cared about then was school and modeling, and after Riley was born, babysitting; all of a sudden I had a real, live doll to play with.” She took a deep breath in and out. “Why are you so intent on finding out who did the drawings? The only person who should be asking these questions is Riley, not you.”
“Because I love her, and I’d move mountains for her,” Ashe replied. “I need to know why your father said what he said to me, that Riley’s not his; and from what you’ve told me so far, I believe he was telling the truth.”
“What if he was? Does it change anything about her?” Paige countered. “You should have never told her what Dad said. It wasn’t your place to do so.”
“Oh, really? And when were you planning on telling her what you’ve just told me? Five years from now?”
“If Catriona hadn’t shown up in your life again, when were you planning on telling Riley about her and the life you used to lead together?” When Ashe didn’t answer, she nodded. “Just as I thought. Come to think of it, if it’s true that you and Catriona were together for five years, how come you never married? Are you going to do the same thing with Riley?”
“That is none of your business, Paige.”
She took a step toward him, her face inches from his own. “We have a saying here, Ashe: why buy the cow when you can get the milk free?”
“If I were you, Paige, I’d take a step back now before someone misconstrues this moment,” Ashe said coldly, his eyes boring into hers.
She studied his face for a few moments before moving back, folding her arms in front of her. Then she laughed softly. “I can’t believe it.”
“What?”
“All those things I heard about you and Catriona are true,” she whispered. “What happened to the Prince Charming my sister fell in love with?”
“He’s still around. Paige, just because you married someone for the wrong reasons, no matter how noble, doesn’t mean everyone else follows suit. I commend you; I really do, but don’t assume things you don’t know.” He looked at the framed picture of Paige and Riley sitting on the grass with the triplets, broad smiles on their faces. “You have no idea what happened between me and Catriona.”
“I don’t care what happened between you and that woman. What I do care about is my sister getting dragged into your mess, so you need to clean it up before it gets any worse. Until that happens, finding Riley’s real father should be the least of your worries.”
Ashe didn’t speak right away but watched her, a small smile on his lips. “Did I say I was looking for her real father? I came here to ask you about the drawings. Is the artist her real father? Is that what you’re hiding?”
“You’ve got bigger problems with Catriona than wasting your time trying to figure out who made those drawings. What if she targets Riley next? Concentrating on you obviously isn’t working.”
“Why are you so worried about that, Paige? Riley is fine.”
“Because stress pushes her to do things, such as take drugs,” replied Paige; this time Ashe recognized the fear on her face. “She was addicted to heroin for eight months, Ashe; maybe more. She went through thousands of dollars in less than a year. Now that I think about it, not a trace of Clint’s money remained because she blew it all on drugs. You weren’t there, Ashe, when she fooled everyone into thinking she was clean when all that time she was nothing but a junkie. You weren’t there when she’d miss work and tell everyone she was sick. She lied her way through until the day I found her on the floor with a needle stuck in her arm. You weren’t there.”
The last words were spoken in a hoarse whisper, and Ashe could feel her pain. Paige was right; he hadn’t been there. Was his trust in Riley misplaced? She’d been clean for three years, though; that had to count for something.
“Then, of course, she had to fall in love with a fucking actor, of all people!” Paige added angrily. “Someone too obsessed with himself to really be there for her. All it takes is one too many stresses to send her back to the way she was, Ashe; just one. Where will you be then? On stage? On location?”
Ashe knew he needed to walk away, that engaging Paige in a battle of words was a fruitless exercise, but her words got to him. He saw her point, and her fear, but he also saw something else: guilt.
“Has this become your way of redeeming yourself, Paige, after you betrayed her and then ran her life for years because she overdosed over the same boy you’d had an affair with? Is this your way of trying to make it up to her?”
He took a step toward her, watching her face go through a myriad expressions. He’d been acting so long that he could tell one emotion from another just by looking at a person’s eyes, the subtle movement of an eyelid or contraction of the pupils.
“Why can’t you be happy for once that she’s found someone who believes in her, who loves her just the way she is?”
“I love her too. Do you think everything I do is because of Gareth?” Paige asked, her voice trembling. “I promised our mother that I’d take care of her and do everything I could to keep her safe. I almost failed that day when she overdosed, and I promised myself I wouldn’t fail again.”
“So you suffocated her? Is that it?” said Ashe, shaking his head. “No matter how you feel, you need to let her grow up, Paige. She needs to do things by herself and make her own decisions. Did you know that’s how we met? She was on her way to see Gareth, against your wishes, and changed her mind at the last minute before running into me in the elevator.”
Ashe saw Paige frown as he continued. “I’ll find out who drew those pictures in Riley’s book, with or without your help. If it turns out that your father was wrong, well and good. If he was right, then I’ll be there for Riley when she finds out the truth. You’re right, of course; she should have told someone how much she was suffering when Gareth left her instead of using drugs to numb the pain. She’s far from naive or helpless, though, no matter how much you try to keep her that way. Don’t you realize, Paige, that if you suffocate something for long enough, it dies?”
A black car stopping in front of the brownstone caught their attention, and Ashe knew his time was up. He had other appointments to keep before returning to the theater, which meant there was no time to learn what Paige knew about the man who’d drawn the pictures. Would she have told him anything more?
“It’s always a pleasure to see you, Paige,” he said, taking his backpack from the sofa. “Please give my warm regards to Clint and the boys.”