He turned to face her. “Don’t you want to be rich, Lucia?” he demanded. “To buy clothes, cars, jewelry? Don’t you wish to spend time with your daughter and buy her everything her heart desires?”
She stared at him, heart pounding in her chest. “Are you crazy? Of course I do! But strangers don’t just fall out of the sky and offer money. I’m trying to figure out your angle!”
“No angle. I’m offering a lifetime of wealth and luxury for you and your daughter. And the chance to repay the man who abandoned you both.”
“But there’s a catch,” she said.
“What makes you so sure?”
“There’s always a catch.”
“Perhaps.” He looked at her. “Does it matter?”
The elevator doors opened, and he strode out. Feeling as if she were Alice who’d just fallen through the looking glass, Lucy followed him down the maroon carpet of the hallway. The wainscoted walls were yellow-gold, illuminated by glistening chandeliers at every corner. He stopped at a door.
Mrs. Plotzky opened to his knock. Her hair was in curlers and she was wearing a luxurious white robe and cushy hotel slippers. The television was blaring softly behind her in the elegant living room. She beamed at sight of Lucy.
“Oh my dear! Such a wonderful day! I’m so happy for you. When Prince Maximo’s bodyguards explained he was taking you both to Italy, I—”
“Where’s Chloe?” Lucy bit out, angry that her babysitter had been so gullible.
Taken aback, the elderly woman pointed to a door inside the suite. Mrs. Plotzky sat back down on the gold sofa with her knitting while Lucy went to the adjacent door.
She stood in the doorway of the darkened bedroom, listening to her daughter’s deep, even breathing. When Lucy’s eyes had adjusted, she saw a small lump in the center of the enormous bed surrounded by pillows. Her baby. The light from the doorway scattered across Chloe’s plump cheeks. The baby was clutching her tattered purple hippo to her chest.
Lucy crept closer. She stroked Chloe’s hair, tenderly tucking the blankets beneath her chubby legs. The linens made her pause. They were soft against Lucy’s fingers. Luxurious and white, not stained and threadbare from a thousand washings at the quarter Laundromat.
Slowly she looked around the palatial bedroom. From the windows overlooking Lake Michigan, to the plush, pristine carpet, the room had every luxury and comfort.
Not like their tiny apartment, where the windows rattled every time the El train went by. Where Chloe’s crib was crammed against Lucy’s bed, which was jammed up against the kitchen counter. Where it was cold all winter, no matter how high Lucy turned up the thermostat. Where spiders and mice kept turning up, no matter how hard or often Lucy cleaned in the middle of the night.
Chloe turned over in her sleep, stretching in the luxurious bed with a contented sigh. Lucy’s heart went to her throat.
Her baby deserved a life like this.
Don’t you want to be rich? she heard Maximo’s voice say. Don’t you wish to spend time with your daughter and buy her everything her heart desires?
Stroking Chloe’s soft downy hair, Lucy saw the worn-out elbows of her baby’s pajamas, and her throat started to hurt.
Alex had told her he loved her. He’d proposed marriage. He’d begged Lucy to have his baby. He’d refused to use a condom, laughing at her fears, seducing her, reassuring her. Older than her, with a high-status job, he’d promised to give them both security and comfort and love—forever.
Against her better judgment, she’d let herself love him. Let herself believe.
Then she’d come home on Christmas Eve last year.
Heavily pregnant, weighed down with grocery bags of fresh cranberries and canned pumpkin, she’d been singing “Deck the Halls” when she pushed open the door with her hip. She’d found her apartment empty and dark. All his clothes were gone. His toothbrush. His briefcase. His computer. Even the three-carat engagement ring she’d left lovingly in the velvet box on her dresser, because it no longer fit her pregnancy-bloated finger.
Everything. Gone.
A year later, and Lucy still couldn’t hear “Deck the Halls” on the radio without feeling sick.
He’d left her, but that didn’t matter. What did matter was that he’d left his own child to starve. He’d even tried to deny Chloe was his.
Lucy would never forgive him for that.
Just as she would never forgive herself for trusting his easy charm. She could still hear his whisper sometimes at night. “I love ya, Luce. I’ll always take care of you.”
Liar, she thought, then looked down at her daughter. Alex had lost more than he would ever know.