“I cannot believe this has happened. Not know that Alexis has come back into my life.” He sighed and looked at her angrily. “Do you know what you have done?”
Sophie nodded her head overwhelmed by the guilt in her heart. She was costing the man she loved the love of his life. “I’m sorry but I’m keeping the baby.” She bit her lip and rubbed her stomach.
He looked at her and all of a sudden his features softened. He got up and picked up her clothes and walked over to her. He lifted her off of the couch and redressed her. She looked into his eyes and saw an emotion she had never seen before reflected there.
“I told you I was a wolf Sophie.” He sighed. “I just don’t think you listened.”
“What are we going to do?” She looked at him fearfully.
“We’re going to make sure you don’t get eaten.” He frowned at her and walked back to his desk. “We’re going to make sure that nature doesn’t have its way.”
Chapter 10
Sophie decided to go to the movies after work to think. They always made her feel calmer, even horror movies. She thought that it was because the best memories she had of her parents were related to movies. She could remember watching 'Mary Poppins' and dancing around singing A Spoonful of Sugar with her dad. He would throw her up into the air and then sneak her a candy behind her mother’s back. She would nibble at the candy and suck it slowly, savoring the sweetness in her mouth as she continued to watch the movie. She had developed a love of pigeons from the movie and whenever she walked around Times Square, she would always try to take some bird seeds so that she could feed the birds. It was something that she was sure her father would do with her if he were still alive. As Sophie studied the movie listings she sighed, there was nothing that she wanted to sit through, nothing that would take her mind off Maxwell and his dinner with Alexis.
She knew that this was going to be a long lonely night for her. She'd had some hope when she had gone into the office that morning that she had a chance. But as soon as she had seen Alexis she had known. The love of Maxwell's life was back and she wasn't going to be taking his rejection so easily. No matter what he had to say. Sophie felt a twinge of guilt in her heart, didn't loving someone mean letting them go? Maybe she had ruined Maxwell's life by getting pregnant. Maybe his one chance at happiness was forever gone because she had lied. She didn't blame him for being upset—he had asked and she had lied. She was a bad person, an evil person. She didn't deserve happiness. Not after what she had done. But she knew she didn't regret it, she would always have a piece of Maxwell now. It didn’t matter if he never wanted to see her again she would still have the baby. And she knew deep in her heart that Maxwell wouldn't desert his own baby. He wasn't made like that. No, he would take care of his baby, even if he didn't want to see her. She was confident of that.
She sighed and decided to find a coffee shop to go and relax in, maybe being around a hustle of people would stop her from feeling alone. Just as she was about to go into a Starbucks, she had an idea. Something was still puzzling her and she hailed down a cab to take her to the local library.
"Do you have newspaper archives?" She smiled at the lady behind the counter as she walked into the library. "And if so, how far back do they go? And which newspapers do you have? Big and small? And newspapers from other cities?"
The lady looked at her with a bored expression. "No ma’am. We just have book circulations here."
Sophie felt her stomach drop and the excitement seeped out of her.
"Why don't you go and try NYU's or Columbia's library? Though you may need a student id or guest pass to get in."
"Of course, of course. Thank you." Sophie felt like slapping herself across the forehead. Of course, she should go to the library at school. She couldn't believe that she hadn't thought of it herself. It seemed that she was experiencing pregnancy brain already. "I'll go to Butler," she spoke aloud to herself unable to stop the excitement racing through her. She wanted to know Maxwell's big secret. It just didn't make sense, if he loved Alexis so much what had he done that was so bad that he wouldn't allow himself to be with her? She figured if he had been arrested, there might be a newspaper clipping about it somewhere. He was a Van Harkel, the only son of a billionaire. People cared about what happened to the rich and famous, it would likely be in magazines and newspapers galore. She laughed almost giddy at the thoughts running through her mind, she was positive that she was going to find out a lot more information.
Her phone rang as she was about to walk into the library and she took it out and paused. It was Maxwell. She wasn't sure why he was calling her. He never called her, not even to communicate about the job. He had had an office secretary call and to give her all the details. She chewed on her lips as she watched the phone ring. Did he want to tell her to give up the baby? Maybe Alexis was willing to still be with him if the baby was no longer in the picture. She cringed at the thought of having to have an abortion, she clutched her stomach knowing that there was no way she would abort her child. She wondered if he would try to convince her to give the baby up for adoption? Maybe he'd find a family somewhere in the Midwest, maybe even someone in Iowa close to her aunt and uncle. And he would offer to be the child's benefactor, so he could make sure the child was financially taken care of without having to actually be in the child's life. She would never let that happen either. There was nothing he could offer her that would make her give up her baby. No amount of money, not thousands or millions. She wouldn't even do it for a billion dollars. She sighed as the phone started ringing again, he was insistent that he wanted to talk to her. She answered the phone nervously. "Hello?"
"Sophie? Where are you?" Maxwell growled into the phone and Sophie relaxed. Whatever he was calling about was not related to the baby. She knew that his voice would have been super sweet if he had wanted to try to persuade her to get rid of his baby.
"I'm at Columbia." She sighed having to tell him her whereabouts.
"What?" His voice held disbelief and confusion. "I thought you decided that you weren't going to go to school this semester."
"I had," she mumbled.
"You can't just bail out on me now. You are my assistant and you have a duty to me and the position." He sounded angry. "We need to talk, Sophie."
"I don't owe you anything." Her voice was loud and annoyed. "I have to go now."
"Don't you hang up that phone, Sophie.” His voice was bossy and obstinate and Sophie grinned and promptly pressed the end button before powering off her phone. She walked into the library, flashed her student id and then took the elevator to the fourth floor.
As she was about to walk into the newspaper archive room, she realized that she didn't actually know what Maxwell had called her about because they had gotten into a stupid argument before he could even bring it up. She sighed and told herself that no news was good news and she was probably better off not knowing.
“I want to look up some newspaper articles from about five years ago, please.” She spoke to the librarian and tried to contain her excitement. This could be it: she may finally find out what had happened all of those years ago that had turned Maxwell from the welcoming, friendly man to the cold, austere, bipolar man that she would never understand.
“Go to that computer there,” the lady pointed to a computer in the corner. “You can choose the search terms and the years you want to search through. Every article that mentions the search terms will pop up. Write down the numbers attached to the articles and we can find the microfiche and you can look it up.”
“Sounds good, thanks.” Sophie walked over to the computer quickly, typed in Maxwell Van Harkel and selected the years 1992-2012. Over 28,000 corresponding articles popped up on the screen and she sighed. This was going to take a lot longer than she thought. As she was about to enter a new search term and narrow the years, she saw an article titled, “Billionaire Maxwell Van Harkel to Wed Socialite Alexis Gold” and she clicked on it with her heart in her hands.
This was a completely new story now. She looked at the date of the article and saw that it was from three years before. She couldn’t remember Ella ever telling her that Max was engaged. That was something that she would have remembered. She perused the article quickly and there was no more information in it, other than their names and the names of their parents. It was more of a PR announcement. She quickly searched for Maxwell Van Harkel and Alexis Gold in the search engine, distracted from her original search. This time only 150 articles popped up and they all seemed to be related to the engagement, though none of them mentioned the end of the engagement.