"If you had the budget allowances for that, you wouldn't have made all those buyouts and layoffs." She shakes her head. "No, you'll just have to endure me living in a place fit for my budget."
"You'll give me an ulcer."
"And you're exaggerating." She rests her head on my chest, her cheek warm. I reach down and pull her more squarely along my own body, skin against skin, her leg between mine.
"Cold?" I ask.
She shakes her head. "You grew up in Queens. Surely you didn't have a perfectly maintained loft apartment then."
"No," I say, smoothing my hand down her back. Her skin is like velvet. "But we didn't have rats and there was most certainly a lock on our door. It's a good neighborhood. You just happened to find the worst room."
"Such bragging," she says. "Did your dad live with you then?"
My hand falters on her back, stutters, before I resume the slow, rhythmic sweeps. "Are you treating me like one of your interview subjects? Getting the ball rolling and all that?"
She smiles against my skin. "Is it working?"
It's been a week since my birthday, since the text I didn't answer. He hasn't tried contacting me again. "Maybe," I admit. "I haven't spoken about that part of my life in a very long time."
"You and your mom don't talk about it?"
"No," I say. "We both tried to forget he existed, honestly. After we learned about all the lies."
"With his other family?"
"And his profession ," I say, the word sarcastic. "He had been embezzling, evading taxes, funneling money offshore. There was no one he wouldn't manipulate to get what he wanted. Of course, when I was a kid, I thought he was the coolest. Travelling for work two or three weeks out of the month, with his briefcase."
Audrey makes a soft, humming sound. "Was he a good dad?"
"When he was home, yeah," I say reluctantly. "We played Monopoly a lot. That was his favorite game, ironically enough. He shared the apartment with my mother, and the weeks he was home, it was like Christmas. She'd make all of his favorite dishes and I'd get to stay up late to watch TV with him." The idiocy of it makes me shake my head. "Now we know he was putting us up in a flat far away so his real family wouldn't notice."
"I can't imagine," she whispers.
"I couldn't either, when I realized. The worst part is that he hadn't married my mother legally. His real wife was his only legal wife."
"But he… pretended?"
"Yeah. He got a buddy to perform the ceremony, and not an ordained one. Mom didn't know until the cops showed up, after he'd been arrested." I snort. "Turns out it was a pretty good thing, too. Their assets were separate. One of his worst deeds turned out to be one of the best."
"Do you have… I mean, did he have other kids?"
"So you have-"
"I don't think of them like that," I say. Then I take a deep breath and force my voice to soften. "I can't, really. Maybe one day. But not yet. Besides, I don't even know if they're aware of my mother and me."
"Do you know their names?"
It takes me a long time to answer. "Yes. I had a PI find out all of that a few years ago. It's on a file in my computer, but I've only opened it once."
Two girls and one boy. Women, now, really, and a man. One older than me and two younger. In the family Christmas card the PI had dug up, they're all sitting in front of a beautiful Christmas tree. Five stockings hang over the fireplace with all their names on. Including my father's.
No wonder he so often had to work holidays, too. He spent it with them.
"What did he go to prison for?"
"Tax evasion and fraud. I'm sure there's more they couldn't get him for, but apparently they'd been on his tail for some time. He got a fifteen-year sentence and only served ten for good behavior." I shake my head. "He's a charmer, kid. Could sell snake oil to anyone."
She's quiet, and I wonder if she hears the same thing I do. She's called me a charmer plenty of times too. Suddenly I hate that part of myself. The one that mimics what I'd seen my father do plenty of times, with waitresses and cab drivers and our landlord. The smile I use that's not mine.
But that's not what she asks. "Do you miss him?"
"No," I say immediately.
Her hand smooths over my chest. "Carter…"
"I don't. Not after what he did. To me, sure, but mostly to my mother. He's a… villain. A compulsive liar. Wouldn't surprise me if he's a psychopath or a sociopath, clinically speaking."
"Would you want to tell him all of this?"
I shake my head. "Don't tell me I should meet him just to get this off my chest."
"Let me guess. Your mom already told you the same?"
She's too intuitive. "Yes," I admit. "But I'm not going to. He's out of my life and that's where he belongs."
My tone is final, because if there's one place he certainly doesn't belong, it's in bed with Audrey. I wrap my hand around her waist and flip us over. She gasps, but it quickly turns to laughter as I bury my hand against her neck.
"Okay," she says breathlessly. "I guess that conversation's over."
I kiss down her collarbone, her chest, to the soft rounds of her breasts. They're just the right size for my hands, fitting into my palm like they're made for each other. "Yes," I say, and bend to her nipple. It rises rosy and pink beneath my tongue. "Come with me to a dinner this Friday."
"Where would we-oh. Jesus." Her voice turns shaky as I add my teeth to her nipple. She's sensitive here, I've learned, and it happens to be one of my favorite spots. "Where would we go?"
I let my fingers take over the teasing. "It's with my business partners and their girlfriends. Or spouses, really."
"Business partners? Like… the other members of your venture capitalist firm?"
I grin at her. "Yeah, in Acture Capital. And you're not allowed to interview anyone on the record."
She smiles back at me. "Not what I was thinking. But… what would you introduce me as?"
"My girlfriend," I say.
Her breath catches, and this time it has nothing to do with my hands or lips. "Oh," she says. "I'd like that."
I raise an eyebrow. "Good. Because if you really insisted, I could introduce you as the junior reporter from the newspaper we co-own, but I think that could be awkward."
She laughs, fond exasperation in her eyes. "No, I don't want to be introduced that way."