Chapter 18

Piper was ready for the weekend. Even though she’d spent nearly all week out of the office, she needed to sleep in and nurse her nauseated body in the comfort of her own bed.

But it was Friday, so all that self-care time would have to wait.

She’d taken to getting up an hour earlier than she needed to in an attempt to get the discomfort out of her system before she had to see other people face to face. It seemed to have worked the day before, until the cologne incident.

Not eating anything substantial helped.

Not moving fast helped.

Crackers helped.

She had a call in to her doctor to see if there was anything she could do to make this better. Anything other than time off work.

Alex was in the office before Piper arrived.

Piper approached the office door with a soft knock. “Good morning.”

Alex was all smiles. “Good morning. Welcome back.”

“How did Dee do without me?”

“She did okay. She won’t be taking your position anytime soon, but we managed. I think it helped that I’m learning the ropes around here.”

“I have no doubt that you and your brother are going to be fine.”

Alex paused and folded her hands together on the desk. “Chase told me how hard you worked on our . . . special project. How instrumental you’ve been.”

“I’m the assistant, it’s what I do.”

She shook her head. “No. You’ve gone above and beyond.”

“If there is something you need me to do on that subject, it’s probably best that I do that away from here,” Piper suggested, doing what she could to imply the missing brother without saying anything aloud.

“I couldn’t agree more.”

“If you can give me a few minutes, I’ll come back in, and we can go over the schedule?”

“Perfect.”

Twenty minutes and several splashes of cold water on the back of her neck later, Piper sat across from Alex, going over the agenda for the day and the following week.

“We need to leave Tuesday and Wednesday free.”

Piper put a slash on those days on a duplicate calendar. “For both of you?”

“Yes. Jack Morrison agreed to meet with us . . . in Texas.”

“That was quick. Didn’t Chase just mention him yesterday?”

“Yeah, Chase called him last night. Morrison is clearing his schedule for us.”

Piper typed in a note. “I’ll call his secretary and collaborate.”

“We’ll need plane tickets, too.”

Piper giggled. “Oh, you two. You’re just like your brother.”

“What?”

They really didn’t have a clue what they had access to. “I’ll call the secretary and get a timeline and then notify our pilot and have the plane ready to take you both to Texas. Do you have a preference for which hotel you want to stay in?”

Alex’s wide-eyed stare was comical. “Uhm . . .”

Piper switched screens on her computer and pulled up Morrison’s headquarters in Houston, then flipped screens again . . . “There is a Grand Stone Resort and Conference Center and a Stone Residence Inn in the city. The Grand is a personal property, the Residence Inn is franchised. I’ll book the Grand for you.” Piper typed in a note on her to-do list. “I believe this hotel has two penthouse suites and four presidential ones. Will you and Chase want to share a penthouse, or require both? On the off chance they’re booked, how big of a problem is it to take a presidential suite?”

Alex blinked several times. “I’m sorry, it’s taking my brain a little time to catch up to your words. No, we don’t need two penthouse suites.”

“Okay. I’ll let them know you’re coming. And hire a car to get you around.”

“We can rent a car,” Alex suggested.

Piper stopped typing and looked up. “Let’s try it the fancy way. If you guys don’t like it, I’ll contact rent-a-dent and hook you up the next time. Sound good?”

“I guess.”

Piper went back to her computer. “Trust me, you can afford it, I saw the safe. Not that it matters, this is a business trip and a company expense. I assume the presidential suite is an acceptable alternative.”

“More than acceptable.”

Life was so much easier working for Alex and Chase. Their father had always demanded the best room, to the point of booting paying customers from time to time.

“Can I make a suggestion?” Piper asked.

“There’s more?” Alex asked with a short laugh.

“It might be a good idea to meet with the on-site management team while you’re there. Take the opportunity to connect faces to names. There doesn’t have to be any earth-shattering conversation. It’s good for morale.”

“I don’t see why that won’t work.”

Piper typed another note. “And do you have a list of names of people you want to grant access to? I don’t think we’ve done that yet.”

“Access to rooms?”

“Yes. Free of charge. Any more than two nights and we get a call, and that’s only in place to accommodate weekends when we’re not in the office.”

“We do that?” Alex asked.

“You do that with the hotels that aren’t franchised. We do have some deals with franchised establishments, but those are reserved for the executives and board members and require a reservation.”

Alex scratched her head. “The only name I can think of right now is our mother. Vivian Stone.”

“Consider it done. I’ll pull up your father’s list, and you can determine who stays and who goes.”

“We really have a private plane?” Alex asked.

Piper leaned back, tickled at how refreshing it was to see the excitement on Alex’s face at the thought. “I’ve never seen it, but I’m told it’s nice.”

“That’s crazy.”

“In a perfect world, the pilots like a twelve- to twenty-four-hour notice. There are FAA rules about how many hours they can fly in a twenty-four-hour period. They’ve gotten off the ground within two hours of a call, but they don’t like it. Planning ahead is best.”

The door to the office opened, and Chase waltzed in.

“Am I interrupting?”

Piper’s heart skipped with the sight of him. His suit fit perfectly on his broad shoulders; his smile was full on his lips. And his eyes lit up when they looked at her.

“No,” Piper choked out.

“Did you know we had a plane?”

Piper turned back to Alex and let loose a laugh.

“I’ve been told.”

Alex’s shoulders folded in. “This doesn’t suck so much after all.”

She tried to sleep in.

Made sure the blinds were all the way closed before she lay down the night before, double-checked that the doggie door was unlatched so that Kit could make his way outside without her needing to get up and let him out . . . she’d done everything.

Twice, her bladder woke her up.

Then someone in the neighborhood thought it was the Fourth of July and let off a series of fireworks sometime close to midnight.

And if that wasn’t enough, her phone jolted her awake just after six in the morning, making her miserable night’s sleep one for the record books.

Piper dragged her phone to her ear. “Hello?”

“Oh, Piper . . . are you still in bed?”

It was her mother.

“It’s six in the morning, Mom.”

“But it’s Friday. Aren’t you working?”

Piper rolled over and ran a hand over her head. “It’s Saturday.” Her mother did this Saturday call at least once every three months. Every time thinking it was a Friday when it wasn’t. Piper blamed it on retirement. Her mother had stopped working at fifty-five. Third graders were too energetic for her to keep up with, and she wanted to spend more time in the garden.

“No, it’s . . . oh, honey, I’m so sorry. I’ll call you back later.”

“No. I’m up now.” Considering how much tossing and turning she’d done all evening, there was no use in thinking any productive sleep was going to manifest now.

“It’s so good to hear your voice. I haven’t talked to you in a while.”

Piper pushed up in bed and rested against the headboard. “I’ve been busy. Sorry.”

“I’ll bet. How is everyone at work? It must be awful with Mr. Stone’s death.”

Her parents had learned of Stone’s death but knew nothing of how she’d been fired. Losing her job was a failure her parents would use against her living so far away for years to come, so Piper had kept it from them.

“He wasn’t that nice of a man, Mom. People aren’t as broken up as you’d think.”

“Don’t talk ill of the dead, Piper. That’s bad—”

“Karma? I didn’t think you believed in that.”

“Taste,” her mother corrected. “Bad taste.”

“Death doesn’t change how people lived their life.”

Piper knew a lecture with Bible basics would ensue if she continued down the “my boss was a dick” path. “But I’ll keep it to myself.”

“Good. Now, how are you?”

Piper opened her mouth to reply, but her mother kept going.

“Are you dating anyone? When are you coming home?”

It was too early for this.

She swung her feet off the bed. Kit, who’d been at her side on the bed, lumbered off the other side and stretched with an audible sigh.

“I’m busy. Stone’s adult children have taken over and have me running. No, I’m not dating anyone, and I don’t know.”

“You have to balance work with a personal life, honey.”

“I do. Kit and I go for walks. I’m getting ready to plant my garden.”

“It’s too early for that.”

“Not in California, it isn’t.”

“I guess that’s true. It was thirty-eight degrees here this morning. They say it might even snow next week.”

Her mother talked about the weather; her next-door neighbor, who happened to be her best friend; and her sister Kathy. “Can you believe it will be a year that Kathy and Phil have been dating? I bet they’re engaged before the summer.”

“I’m happy for them.”

“Phil’s a good man. He goes to our church, you know.”

The kettle she’d put on the stove started to boil. “You’ve told me.” Going to church was the bar for the definition of a “good man” for both her parents.

“When was the last time you went to church?”

“I was home for Christmas.”

“That’s a shame. You could find a good man—”

“Mom, I’m not looking.” Piper glanced down at her still-flat stomach and cringed. “I’m happy single.” Which was partially true. More so when she wasn’t pregnant.

“No one is happily single forever.”

“I never said forever. But for now, I’m good. How is Dad?” Piper changed the subject.

“Cranky. Two more years before he can retire with his full pension, and it can’t come soon enough.”

The topic moved off Piper’s dating status and heathen lifestyle of not going to church and on to more gossip-worthy conversation. Thirty minutes later, her mother promised to never wake her early on a Saturday again, a promise Piper knew would be broken in four to six weeks, and they said their goodbyes.

Piper sat over a cup of herbal tea at her kitchen table.

Kit had gone outside and back in twice and was now curled up at her feet.

In that quiet moment, she realized she was hungry. But more importantly, she wasn’t nauseated.

The nurse at the doctor’s office had left a message the day before, giving her some ideas on how to combat the morning sickness and encouraging her to read the material she’d been given at the office that contained more suggestions. Material that Piper had shoved in a drawer in her bathroom and ignored.

Stepping over her dog, Piper retrieved the bag filled with information and returned to her kitchen.

She tossed aside the advertisements and coupons for prenatal vitamins and baby formula and opened a small pocket calendar that had each month spelled out with what was happening inside her uterus. Cutesy pictures of happy mothers-to-be filled the pages between the months with little blurbs of how they were feeling. Words like “upset belly” and “slight nausea” were used to describe morning sickness. Ginger tea and crackers, popsicles to stay hydrated. And the default, “Call your doctor if it persists.” Warned baby mama on every page.

Piper flipped through the calendar to try and determine when she wasn’t going to be able to hide her condition any longer. With all the variables explained, Piper figured she had a couple of months and might be able to limp that along for a third if she changed her wardrobe.

And then what?

The questions would come.

Who’s the daddy?

That would be the first question she’d ask if one of her single coworkers announced she was pregnant. No boyfriend, no husband . . . then the judgment.

Piper liked to think of herself as a strong, confident woman who could care less what others thought, but she knew the whispering would get to her.

“Is it a boy or a girl?”

“I don’t know. Don’t care, I’m giving it up for adoption.”

How would that judgment flow?

What did that say about her? It was one thing if she’d planned to be a surrogate for a couple, another to admit a night of bad decisions.

And the one question she knew would come was the one she had the hardest time with.

“Does the father know?”

Seeing the paternity testing paperwork found in Aaron Stone’s safe hit her hard once she’d left the estate.

The woman he’d had an affair with had to prove he was the father. There was no way he was going to take responsibility without it. And even then, all he did was throw money. Even after his death, he threw money.

Piper was ninety-five percent sure her baby daddy didn’t have money to throw. Happy hour drinks aside, they didn’t even make it to his place since he had roommates, and Piper never brought anyone to hers.

Not that she wanted his money. This wasn’t going to be a Maximillian Smith.

Then she heard the questions in her head she’d have to lie to answer. “Does the father know? Did you try to find him and tell him? Did you give him the option to keep the baby?”

Could she even go through the adoption process without the daddy’s consent?

Now her mind was buzzing as worry started to worm its way into her brain.

Piper moved from the kitchen to her living room, opened her laptop, and googled.

It didn’t take long to find her answer.

“Shit!”