Surprise Delivery(88)

He holds up his briefcase and gives me a toothy grin. “Let me in and we’ll talk about it.”

Reluctantly and against my better judgment, I step aside and let him into my home. Henry walks down the hall and then into the living room, his head turning this way and that as he takes everything in. I know what he’s doing – he’s judging the way I live compared the way he lives.

As he scrutinizes the apartment, I’m just grateful I cleaned the place up. Not that it’s ever dirty – Bri and I are both a little obsessive about keeping the place clean – but I can guarantee that compared to his place, my apartment looks like a junkyard.

And as I stand there while he snoops around, I realize that comparison extends to ourselves as well. Henry is dressed in an obviously expensive and well-tailored suit. He’s tall, but more on the lean side. He certainly doesn’t have the shape of his brother and doesn’t fill out a suit quite as well as Duncan does. But it doesn’t change the fact that he’s wearing some-impeccably tailored designer clothing.

As for me? I’m in the sweatpants I was wearing last night with a long-sleeved t-shirt that’s about three sizes too big for me and large, fuzzy slippers. I’m not wearing make-up and my hair is up in a messy bun. I’m pretty much a train wreck at the moment.

Henry takes a seat at the table in the dining room and sets his briefcase on the table in front of him. He unlocks the case but doesn’t open it. Instead, he turns to me, a predatory smirk on his face. He motions to the seat across from him, obviously wanting me to sit down, so I remain standing and cross my arms over my chest defensively.

“So, you have a – nice – home,” he begins.

I shrug. “I’m sure it’s not quite up to the standards you’re used to, but it works well enough for us.”

He nods. “So, after our little meeting out on the street the other day, I did some digging into you and your background, and –”

“You did what?” I hiss. “Who in the fuck do you think you are?”

“One, nice language with a child in the house,” he sneers.

“Screw you, you judgmental bastard.”

He smirks. “And two, who I am is a concerned brother.”

“Concerned brother? Concerned about what?”

Henry sighs and looks at me with something like pity in his face, which only increases my desire to smash his head in with a blunt object.

“My brother has always been the black sheep of the family,” he says. “Instead of finance, he rebelled and went into medicine. He could never be counted on to uphold the Clyburne family name in the right way. He tends to follow his heart, more than his brains or his sense of duty.”

“Sense of duty? What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that Duncan has a duty to uphold the family name – and believe me, I’m trying to put this delicately – in the right way.”

I shake my head, my anger clouding my mind and not letting me think straight. As I process Henry’s words, the meaning of his words starts to become clear to me – which only leads to yet another spike in my anger.

“So, in your estimation, being with me is somehow tarnishing your family’s name?” I ask.

Henry gives me a slight shrug. “Not to put too fine a point on things.”

I feel my eyes widen and my mouth fall open in disbelief. I cannot believe the balls on this guy.

“You have got some nerve,” I say. “To come into my home and insult me –”

“I mean no disrespect, Alexis,” he interrupts. “I’m merely pointing out that my family exists in a different social and economic sphere than yours and due to that, we have a certain image to uphold. I’m not saying it’s your fault, or that you’ve done anything wrong –”

“You know what? You can go fuck yourself, Henry,” I sneer. “You need to get out of my apartment.”

He purses his lips and sighs. “There really is no need for hostility, Alexis.”

“The hell there isn’t.”

“Please, can you sit down?” he asks. “There are important matters we need to discuss.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” I tell him. “You need to get out of my apartment. Now.”

Henry looks down for a moment, his jaw clenched, his hands balled into fists atop his briefcase – he’s trying to control his anger. When he looks up at me again, I can see that he’s in control of himself, but there is an unsettling coldness in his eyes.

“If I walk out that door right now, I’ll be heading straight over to see Duncan,” he warns. “And if that happens, he’s going to find out that your daughter is his.”

My mouth falls open and my stomach falls straight into my shoes. A feeling of shock and disbelief mixed with a healthy dose of fear rolls through me and I feel like my legs give out.

“I would much rather not do that,” Henry says. “There is no reason this meeting can’t, at the very least, be civil.”

“W – what do you want?” I stammer, my voice barely more than a whisper.

“Well, to begin with, I’d like you to sit down and discuss the situation with me.”

My body seems to be moving of its own volition as I cross the room and sit on the edge of the seat across from him. How did he find out? Nobody knows who Aurora’s father is. I didn’t even put Duncan’s name on the birth certificate. There’s a small part of me hoping that he’s just fishing – that he doesn’t actually know.