That One Time by Aja Foxx

Chapter Fourteen

~ Frank ~

 

I lifted my head off the back of the couch when I heard the elevator stop on my floor. Instead of looking to see who it was, I reached for my bottle of scotch and refilled my glass. It was probably Martino or one of the hotel staff or something.

I wish it was someone to bring me a bigger bottle of scotch. I doubted the one I had was big enough for me to drown my sorrows in. I doubted there was enough scotch in the entire world, but I was certainly going to keep drinking it until I forgot the hurt on Henry's face and the knowledge that I had a little girl out there that I knew nothing about, or that I had no one to blame for that except myself.

"Frank."

I dropped the glass and turned. "Henry."

He lifted an eyebrow. "You might want to get that before it stains the carpet."

I glanced back and then grimaced as I realized scotch was spreading across the floor, staining the carpet. I quickly grabbed the glass and set it on the table before getting up and going into the bathroom for a towel.

When I came back, Henry was still standing there. I dropped the towel onto the carpet and then stepped on it to soak up the liquid. After a moment, I picked up the towel and tossed it on the coffee table and then glanced at Henry.

"Why are you here?" I never that I'd ever see him again.

"I thought maybe we could talk."

"Okay." I was a little hesitant because I simply could not figure out what we had to talk about. "Would you...uh...like a drink?"

"No, I'm good, thank you." Henry gestured to one of the chairs across from the couch. "Do you mind if I sit down?"

"No, of course, please."

Henry walked over to the chair and sat down. I sat on the couch across from him and then waited to find out why he was here.

"Okay, look, I'm just going to come out and say it. You are Eva's father and—"

"You named her Eva?"

Henry nodded. "Your grandmother was the only one who never said a bad word to me." He huffed. "She certainly never called me a well-used whore like your brother did."

I grimaced. "Sorry."

Henry waved his hand at me. "Rehashing things is not why I am here."

"Why exactly are you here?"

"Because of Eva. She has the right to get to know you. I don't want to deprive her of that."

I scooted forward on my seat, my heart starting to pound. "You'll let me see her?"

"Yes, but there has to be rules, boundaries that you'll have to agree not to cross."

"Name them." I couldn't think of anything I wouldn't do for my chance to get to know my daughter. "I'll agree to anything."

"One, you have to promise to never try to take her from me."

"Agreed."

"I know how your mind works, so I'm willing to stipulate that you can never take her from me unless you, and no less than three outside experts agreed upon by the courts, state that I am in some way harming our daughter. The same would be true for you. If three experts agreed upon by the courts deem you unsafe, your parental rights can be limited or terminated."

That was reasonable and surprisingly insightful.

"What else?" I asked.

"Two, all visitation with your family will be supervised by me or a third party. After experiencing how your family can turn on someone, and being the victim of that myself, I don't feel they are adequately qualified to care for Eva. I also have reason to believe they would try and turn her against me to get what they want."

"What about your family?"

Henry snorted. "There ain't no way in hell Eva will ever even meet my family. And if she's with you and they show up, I expect you to grab her and run."

I chuckled. "Agreed."

"Three, you may set up a reasonable college fund for her, but no gifts over fifty dollars except during holidays, and even those have to be within reason. I want Eva to grow to love you for you, and not for what you can buy her."

I swallowed tightly before answering. "Agreed."

"The same goes for your family. No trying to buy Eva's affections. She is a sweet, wonderful child who just needs to be loved. She doesn't need the next craze on TV or the crown jewels. Get her a teddy bear and spend time with her. That's what is important to her."

"Agreed."

"Four, no badmouthing each other in front of Eva. I have never once said anything bad about you in front of her and I expect the same from you and your family. Especially your family."

"Does she know anything about me?"

"She knows you exist, but she doesn't know what you look like. I didn't have any pictures of you."

"What did you tell her about why I'm not in her life?"

"When she asked why we were no longer together, I told her that sometimes parents have arguments that they can't work out and they have to go into time out for awhile and that we were both in time out from each other." Henry shrugged. "She's four. Time out is a concept she understands."

"Anything else?"

"If an issue comes up, we have to talk about it. Not Martino or your parents, but us. You and me. We have to communicate or this can all go to shit in an instant. That means you have to unblock my phone number so I can call you if I need to, and I can't be barred from coming to see you. I'll always call first, but I need to be able to see you if there's an issue."

"I unblocked your phone number five years ago when I started trying to find you, but you had changed your phone number."

"You tried to find me?"

I nodded. "After you returned everything I had given you and I learned about the restraining order, I thought we needed to talk. I went by your apartment, but you had already moved out the week before, so I went to your work and your school. You were already gone. I hired a private investigator to try and find you, but I guess I never thought you'd move all the way across the country to get away from me."

"I wasn't trying to get away from you, Frank. After I got out of jail, I gave up trying to contact you. I had nowhere to go and Ryan had offered me a way out before I went to jail, so I took it. It was a chance to get on my feet, but we had to move to Seattle."

I clenched my jaw. "Ryan, huh?"

Henry's eyes rolled. "You have got to get over this obsession you have with Ryan. I did not sleep with him."

"Then why did you move in with him?"

"Technically, Ryan and I both moved in with his grandmother, who passed away four years ago, leaving Ryan the house we live in. And, like I told you before, we were both carrying at the time and we were both on our own."

"What happened to the father of Ryan's kid?"

Henry shrugged. "One night stand."

I slumped back into the couch and dropped my head back to stare up at the ceiling. I was pretty agreeable to everything Henry had laid out. It all sounded reasonable. I just wondered how it would all work with us living on different sides of the country.

"What are you thinking, Frank?"

Henry's voice sounded closer, and I realized it was when I turned my head. He was standing beside the couch.

"I'm just trying to figure out how this will work with both of us living on different sides of the country."

Henry shrugged again as he sat down next to me. "I haven't gotten that part figured out yet. I can work anywhere, but our lives are here."

"I can visit anywhere, but my work and life is on the East Coast."

"I hear Nebraska is nice."

I chuckled. "It's flat."

"Eva doesn't start school for another year. Why don't we play it by ear until then and then we can revisit this."

"Okay."

"I know I'm asking a lot under the circumstances, but until she is a little older, I want to be with her when she visits you. I'm not saying I have to be with you every hour of every day, but I want to be there to tuck her in at night and—"

"No, that's fine. I wouldn't expect anything less. You are her father and I wouldn't take that away from you."

Henry's eyes were a little misty when he said, "Thank you, Frank."

I grabbed Henry's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Thank you for letting me be a part of Eva's life. I know you didn't have to."

"Like I said, I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing it for Eva. You are her father and she has the right to get to know you. I don't want her to have to wait until she's eighteen for that to happen. You need to be a part of her life now, so she has those memories growing up."

Henry's honesty and words made something deep inside of me crack open. "Can you wait here for a moment? I have something I want to show you."

Henry frowned, looking confused. "Sure."

I got up and walked into my bedroom. I grabbed the file out of my luggage, the same one I'd asked Martino to bring with him when he flew out. After finding Henry, I had wanted to have it on hand for when I confronted him. Now, I think I needed him to help me explain it all.

Things were not adding up.

Henry's actions were not those of a gold digger. At every turn, he was telling me that he didn't want my money. He could have been pretending to be nice, but a scammer usually couldn't stick it out for five years.

I could be wrong, but I didn't think I was.

I carried the file back into the living room and took my seat again. I set the file on the coffee table before glancing at Henry. "I am not bringing these out to cause issues, but you asked to see what evidence I had." I patted the top of the file. "This is it. Do you want to see it?"

Henry licked his lips as he stared down at the file. "I'm not sure."

"Why not?"

"It feels like we just kind of settled things. I'm afraid whatever is in there might bring it all back up again."

"Would it help to know I'm starting to doubt what is in here?"

Henry's eyes snapped to mine. "Why now?"

"Because things aren't adding up. If you were the gold digger you're supposed to be, why aren't you trying to get money out of me? I'd expect child support at the very least."

"I don't want your money!" Henry stated vehemently.

"I know that. I'm just stating my reasons for starting to doubt the evidence."

Henry huffed. "Fine, let me see what you have."

I pulled out the cell phone first. Luckily, I had charged it as soon as Martino had brought it and the file to me. I had wanted to make sure I could show Henry the text messages. I turned it on and then brought up the message app before scrolling through to the damning messages.

I handed the phone to Henry.

"What am I looking at here?"

I pointed.

"Okay." Henry frowned as he read the message. He scrolled to the message above that and then the one below it. "Oh, okay, this one here? Ryan was helping me track down a gift for you. He finally found it in a little market in China town."

"What gift?"

"A jade letter opener."

"I don't remember any jade letter opener."

"That's because I never gave it to you. We broke up before I could. I still have it if you want it. It's at home in my dresser."

Strangely enough, I did.

"Okay, what about this one?" I scrolled through to the next text message. "Explain this one?"

Henry squinted at the message. "Not sure, but I think Ryan and I were studying that night."

"And he needed clothes for that?"

"He needed pajamas for that because no one sleeps naked in my apartment unless they are in my bed, and he was not."

Oh.

"This one?"

Henry squinted again, and then his face flushed. "I dented the BMW."

I glanced at the message. "Why would you be scared to tell me you dented the BMW?"

"Because, you bought it for me and it was so expensive. It must have cost thousands of dollars to fix it."

"I never actually got that dent fixed."

Henrys eyebrows lifted. "You sold it with a dent?"

Now, my face was flushing. "I never sold it. It's still in the garage back home."

I quickly scrolled through until I came to the one where I thought Ryan was telling Henry he needed to tell me about hem being in love. "What about this one?"

Henry shuddered. "This one I remember very well."

My eyebrows snapped together as I frowned. "Why?"

"Stewart was following me. It was after Martino and he filed for divorce and he moved out. At first, I just thought maybe he had a friend in the area or something, but he kept showing up wherever I was. He never said anything to me, but I know he was watching me. It was kind of creepy. I even think he might have broken into my apartment."

I frowned. "Why?"

Henry shook his head. "It's nothing I can put my finger on, but it felt as if someone had been in my apartment. Things had been moved around and were in places I don't remember putting them. Stuff like that." He shrugged. "It was nothing I could prove, so I didn't say anything."

"Stewart is the one who brought me all of this."

"I'm not surprised."

"Why not?"

"He was pretty upset that he didn't get your grandfather's ring. I've met people like him before. They'll do almost anything to get what they want, and he wanted that ring."

I held up my hand. "You mean this ring?"

"You didn't give him the ring." It didn't sound like a question, but there was a hint of amazement in Henry's voice.

"No, but I did give him five million dollars for all of this." And I was regretting that hasty decision now.

Henry's jaw dropped.

I set the cell phone down and reached for the pictures. I hesitated to give them to Henry, not because I didn't want him to see them, but because I was starting to get the distinct impression that I was a blithering idiot.

"These were what I paid for."