Chapter 292

Megan

Opening the door to my home, I let all three of them in. Ella had run in as soon as I opened the door, mostly to show Courtney the cake she had gotten. They both have a sweet tooth and will most likely share it tonight.

“Take a seat. I’ll just get you all a drink,” I say to them and notice them looking around. I walk into the kitchen. Yasmin is already filling a tray with glasses and a jug of iced tea she’d made earlier.

“Why are they here?” Yasmin asks.

“Why do you think? Logan called them,” I tell her.

“You’re very calm about it,” she states.

“I’m going to rip him a new arsehole when I see him,” I say, and she laughs. I smile and pick up the tray to walk into the living room. Courtney looks at me as I place the tray on the table. “Ella, go give the cake to Yasmin to put in the fridge,”

“Can I have it now?” she asks.

“No, you can have it after dinner. Can you go do your homework, please?”

“Ok, can I read Narnia instead?” she asks. I nod and watch her walk off down the hall to her room. It’s then Max comes out. He sniffs the police officer, who is still standing. Ella calls him, and he runs back to her.

“How old is Ella?” Sophia asks.

“Four, she’s small for her age,” I say.

“And smart,” Rachel adds.

“Why are you here?” I ask.

“We got a phone call. This is just a welfare check,” Sophia tells me.

“Yeah, and I know how welfare checks go,” I sigh and look at Courtney. I know she’s quiet for my sake. “My ex called you,”

“He is just worried about the welfare of his daughter,” Sophia softly tells me.

“A daughter he hasn’t met yet,” Courtney says.

“Because you won’t let him,” Rachel says.

“He only found about her two days ago,” I say. They both frown at me. “He left me when I was pregnant with her. He knew I was pregnant; he’s a recovering addict. He left to go to England, and he told me he would come back, he never did. He got engaged and moved on with his life,”

“He says you’re a prostitute,” the officer says.

“Yeah, I’m not. He found out I work at Masked Goddess. He has accused me of sex work multiple times. He thinks I pay for this place through that. We pay for this place together,” I say, gesturing towards Courtney and Yasmin.

“We all put our trust funds into paying for this place. We wanted somewhere that was safe for Ella and us. We have a little left to pay off on the mortgage. We make enough money at Masked Goddess to live. We don’t need to sell ourselves,” Yasmin says.

I notice Sophia is writing everything down as we talk. They’ll probably make a report and then give the information to Logan. They rarely work this fast. He either exaggerated a lot or has paid someone to get this processed quickly.

“In our report, it is said that you leave your daughter when you are working, that there are multiple men that leave this apartment regularly. How do you explain that?” Rachel asks.

“I have a very healthy sex life,” Courtney states with a smile. “But I don’t bring many of them back here, only when Ella is staying at Melanie’s or her grandfather’s,” she says, and I notice her eyeing the policeman. She loves a man in uniform.

“He probably told you that men leave here all the time because he came to see me on Sunday night, and a guy I’m seeing was leaving. This is all down to jealousy,” I state.

“But he’s engaged,” Rachel says.

“Doesn’t mean he can’t get jealous,” Yasmin says.

“What about the fact you leave your daughter alone when working?” she asks.

“I don’t. We all have different shifts so there's always one of us here,” I say and pull out my phone to pull up our work schedule. “The pink is mine, the yellow is Courtney’s, and the green is Yasmin’s,” I tell her as I show her the schedule. “Ella is never alone,”

“Can I talk to Ella?” Sophia asks. I nod and look at Yasmin.

“Go with her,” I tell Yasmin and turn to Rachel and the officer. “Some people may not think my work is acceptable when I’ve got a child, but I get to take my daughter to school and pick her up, it pays for my schooling and her food, clothes and home, if I worked another job, I wouldn’t be able to study and pay off my debts. At the moment in my life, my job is perfect for myself and my daughter,” I explain.

“We’re not judging your job,” Rachel says.

“Would you have believed his accusation of sex work if I was a librarians assistant?” I ask. She’s silent. “It doesn’t matter. Your judgement is expected, not right but expected,”

“How come she’s home early from school?” Rachel asks, changing the subject.

“She isn’t in kindergarten. She’s in the 1st grade. Her school have asked me if I have thought about her being moved into 3rd grade next year rather than grade two. She’s becoming bored in her classes, causing her to act out. They don’t think they’re teaching her anything new right now. I asked if I could take her home after the meeting,” Courtney looks at me as I say it. “They gave me some other options too, but I’ll need to look at my finances for them,”

“What are you saying?” Rachel asks.

“My daughter is brilliant. They think I should send her for testing,” I say

For the next half hour, they ask me things about Ella’s day-to-day activities, who she stayed with on Saturday night, how she performs in school, and if she has friends. Sophia had asked Ella questions about me, and from what Yasmin told me, Ella had answered her questions with questions of her own. Yasmin had also said that Ella had gotten annoyed because Sophia had spoken to her like she was stupid, Ella’s words not Yasmin’s. I think I’m going to have to explain to my daughter that her appearance is deceiving. That she looks younger than she is, and often people aren’t going to expect her to be as smart as she is. Is it wrong that I secretly enjoy people squirming over the fact a four-year-old has outwitted them?

When the women and officer left, I’d searched on Google where Logan’s offices are. I’m livid that he’s done this. Does he not realise that this creates a file? All it takes is another phone call, and things could escalate so very quickly. What’s worse is this isn’t how I thought things would go. I honestly thought that when we’d meet each other again, it would go very differently.

Yasmin and I are parked outside the office building that Logan owns. There is so much information online about him. He even had a fan page. That’s how I know he’s still in his office. There are some creepy people out there. I guess he’s become somewhat of a celebrity since growing his family business.

I’d gotten changed before we left. Courtney had suggested it as there’s probably a lot of security in the place, and often they stop anyone who doesn’t look like they work there. So I changed into a dark green pencil skirt dress with an asymmetric neckline and wide straps. Yasmin had gotten changed too so that if needed, she could distract the security guards.