Monica walked slowly up and stood in front of Nate’s office, raised her hand to knock, but did not do it.
She had told herself to forget this man, put him out of her thoughts for good. Even considering the abuse and mistreatment she had suffered from him, she made out okay—the millions of dollars she now had, her stores.
But there was the evil thing he’d just done, taking Daphanie’s baby. For Monica, it wasn’t really even about Daphanie. She could give less than a damn about that woman after she tried stealing Nate from her. It was about Nate’s doing something so god-awful as swindling the woman out of her child, then simply thinking nothing more of how he had just ruined her life, as he had done so many times with Monica. The trend had to stop.
Monica prepared herself again to knock when the door opened up in front of her. Nate stood behind it.
“My receptionist called and said you were coming back. I was going to find out what was taking you so long,” Nate said, like they were good friends, like he had never cheated her, cheated on her, and left her for not being able to give him a child.
Monica walked past Nate and stood in the center of his office, shaking her head. “It just doesn’t stop with you.”
“What are you talking about, Monica?” Nate said, closing the door.
“You were fucking her, were going to marry her, left me for her—didn’t that mean you cared the slightest bit?”
“Not you too,” Nate said, walking across his office to his liquor bar. He poured himself a quick drink. “Want one?” he said, looking back at Monica.
“No.”
Nate took a sip from his glass. “She came by here like there was something I could do, even had some pompous, arrogant attorney asking questions. And now you? Like I told both of them, I can’t get the child back. What’s done is done.”
“Then undo it, Nate,” Monica said, angry. “I know she lied to you, she deceived you, but it’s nothing more than you’ve done a thousand times to a thousand other people.”
“It’s different,” Nate said, turning his back on Monica, walking toward the sofa at the other end of his office.
Monica hurried behind him, grabbed him by the arm, spun him. “How?”
“If she hadn’t told me she was having my baby, I would have never left you, okay?” Nate said.
Monica was stopped by the sincerity and regret she heard in Nate’s admission—so much that it took her a moment to say, “She didn’t make you leave me. The decision was yours. It’s over now. Now you have to make right what you did wrong. You took her child, and you have to find a way to give him back.”
“I can’t.”
“You can, Nate. I know you. You found a way to take him, you can find a way to get him back.”
“Fine,” Nate said, downing the last of the drink. He set the glass down on his desk. “Come back to me, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Again Monica was forced into silence, but only for a second. “You disgust me. You could possibly reunite this baby with his mother, but only if you get what you want out of the deal.”
“I know it hasn’t always seemed like it, but I still love you, Monica,” Nate said, taking her hand.
Monica snatched her hand away from Nate’s grasp, as if he had assaulted her. “Don’t ever say that to me again, and don’t you ever touch me.”
“Nathaniel misses you. You can come back,” Nate said. “I promised myself I would not ask you, but if you wanted to come back, I’d let you.”
It was becoming all too much for her, the nerve of him, his resistance to undoing possibly the worst thing he’d ever done, and then his trying to make a deal to win her back in the same breath. “Will you talk to Trevor about the baby, see what you can do?” Monica said, ignoring Nate’s request.
“I already told you, if you come back, I’ll do everything I can to get Daphanie’s son back to her.”
Monica narrowed her eyes on Nate, wanting nothing more than to spit in his face. She suppressed that urge and said, “Then Daphanie will never get her child back.”