I look up in surprise when Pippy announces that Akshay Singh is at the reception desk, requesting a meeting. What could he possibly want? Considering who he is, I can’t just turn him away. I have a feeling he’d just try to seek out my wife if I did that, and though she’s been acting strong, I know that learning her father isn’t her biological father turned her world upside down.
“Send him up.”
Raya and her parents seem to have opted to ignore Akshay’s existence altogether, pretending nothing changed between them, but I know he’s been on my wife’s mind. She’s looked him up several times, and I know she asked Pippy to find his phone number, not wanting to ask her mother for it. She may not be ready to face him now, but I don’t think she’s ruled it out entirely.
“Lexington,” he says, smiling. “It’s so good to see you.”
He looks around my office, a familiar kind of eagerness in his eyes, and my heart sinks. I know that look. It’s been a while since I last saw it, since neither Raya nor her parents possess even an ounce of greed or entitlement, despite the fact that there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for them. Akshay smiles as he sits down in one of the two the chairs on the other end of my desk, and I raise a brow.
“What brings you here today?”
He crosses his arms and leans back in his seat, his smile melting away. “That’s an awfully cold way to speak to your father-in-law,” he says, sounding displeased, like he actually thinks he has the right to reprimand me. Not even Bob would ever speak to me that way, and he’s the only father figure in my life that would ever get away with it.
I smile politely. “I’d never be impolite to my father-in-law,” I tell him, which makes him perk up a little. “You, on the other hand, I’ll speak to however I please. What do you want?”
“Very well,” he says, before reaching inside his jacket and handing me a stack of papers along with a couple of photos of Raya and me, taken in the hospital. “What I want is for you to pay me.”
This motherfucker. “Yeah, I don’t fucking think so,” I tell him, deep rage simmering underneath the surface. He’s fucking insane if he thinks I’ll ever let him hurt my wife. I’ll make him disappear before I’ll ever let him do anything that’ll upset her.
He grins and tips his head toward the papers on my desk. “Take a look at what happens if you don’t.” He extends his arms over his armrest, looking entirely too fucking relaxed for a man I’m about to fuck up.
I raise a brow when I read the pre-written statement about his daughter’s secret wedding, and how I joined her at the hospital to support her and her sick grandmother, offering them a private facility. The press would eat that shit up. They’ve been on the hunt for my wife, and they’d pay a fortune for this.
“You may not have raised her, but she’s still your daughter,” I tell him, in disbelief. If Raya found out her biological father would so much as dream of harming her, it would break her heart. I can’t let that happen. She’s already been through too much recently, and fuck, I’ve personally put her through so much, too. I’m not sure how much more she can take.
“I personally don’t care if you leak this news. I’ve wanted the world to know that Raya is my wife for far longer than you can imagine, but she isn’t ready. This could jeopardize her reputation, and it’ll raise questions about her education and her internship. This would hurt her.”
Akshay looks away and sighs. “I know,” he says, hesitating. “Look, Bob paid me a handsome sum every month, just to stay away from Raya. He was so scared the truth about her parentage would ruin the perfect life he’d built with my wife and child, until a few weeks ago, when the payments suddenly stopped. He’s refusing to pay now that Raya knows that he isn’t her biological father. He thinks nothing can hurt her now. We both know better, don’t we?”
The monthly payments of $10,000 that I found in Bob’s background check. Years and years’ worth of it. That’s where it went. The one suspicious thing I found in his records was an attempt to protect Raya. Guilt crashes through me as I realize my suspicions were always misplaced.
I run a hand through my hair as I compute the different options available to me. I truly could just make him disappear. I know my brother Dion can make it happen for me, and even if I didn’t want to ask him, there’s always Xavier. He’d do it in a heartbeat, no questions asked. It’d cost me a favor, and I certainly don’t want to owe a Kingston anything, but it’d be worth it.
“How much?” I ask instead, my voice soft. I need time to think about the best way to handle him, and I have more than enough money to pay him off while I decide what to do with him. Though I’d happily do it, I’m not sure I could look my wife in the eye if I harmed her biological father, no matter how much he deserves it. If I do it, I have to do it with her knowledge and consent. If I kept a secret this big from her, it could destroy us. I can’t risk that.
“Ten grand a month. I won’t ask you for more than Bob used to pay me, though you can easily afford it.”
I nod and grab my cheque book, my thoughts whirling. Though the feed is highly encrypted and accessible only to me, my office is constantly under surveillance. If need be, I can pull up the footage of today. I just don’t quite know how to use it without harming my wife or her family.
“Don’t.”
My head snaps up at the sound of Raya’s voice, and I stare at her wide-eyed when she pushes the door open. I never even noticed it was left ajar. How much did she hear? The last couple of weeks have left her battered and bruised, and I don’t want to add to her pain. She pretends to be unaffected, but I’ve noticed how much harder it’s become to make her smile since she found out about her father, how much quieter she is these days.
Raya walks into my office, her gaze ice cold. I rise to my feet and take her hand the moment she’s within reach, my heart racing. I’ve never seen her look like that. My wife is always smiling, always sunny, and the fact that this asshole made her look so unlike herself is fucking unforgivable.
“Take your articles to the press,” she says, letting go of my hand to wrap her arm around me instead. “See what happens if you do.”
“You think I won’t?” Akshay says. “If there’s anything you should’ve learnt from Bob, it’s not to gamble when you can’t afford to lose, Raya.”
She smiles humorlessly, and a chill runs down my spine, even as satisfaction rushes through me. She isn’t cowering in front of him, doesn’t struggle to face him, like I’d worried she would. “There’s something my sisters-in-law often remind me of, you know? Something that I finally fully understood the meaning of not too long ago.”
I raise a brow, instantly surmising that she’s referring to Sierra’s bachelorette party. What the fuck even happened that night, anyway? None of them will tell me a thing about it, but the girls didn’t come home all weekend, and Silas refuses to hand over the details I know he has, supposedly because his wife would kill him if he did. I never used to understand the power Alanna holds over Silas, until now.
“I’m a Windsor, Akshay,” Raya says, and a thrill runs down my spine. I’ve often reminded her that she’s my wife, but this is the first time I’ve heard her referring to herself this way. “I’m not someone you can touch without incurring the wrath of a dozen people you can’t afford to offend, least of all my husband. Truthfully, though, I’d love to see you try.” She grins then. “Try it, Akshay. Take those articles of yours to the press. Let’s see which of my family members gets to you first.”
